A Set of Rogues

by Frank Barrett

  CHAPTER VII.

  _Of our journey through France to a very horrid pass in the Pyraneans._

  Skipping over many unimportant particulars of our leaving Edmonton, ofour finding Don Sanchez at the Turk in Gracious Street, of our goingthence (the next day) to Gravesend, of our preparation there for voyage,I come now to our embarking, the 10th March, in the Rose, for Bordeauxin France. Nor shall I dwell long on that journey, neither, which wasexceedingly long and painful, by reason of our nearing the equinoctials,which dashed us from our course to that degree that it was the 26thbefore we reached our port and cast anchor in still water. And all thosedays we were prostrated with sickness, and especially Jack Dawson,because of his full habit, so that he declared he would rather ridea-horseback to the end of the earth than go another mile on sea.

  We stayed in Bordeaux, which is a noble town, but dirty, four days torefresh ourselves, and here the Don lodged us in a fine inn and fed uson the best; and also he made us buy new clothes and linen (which wesadly needed after the pickle we had lain in a fortnight) and cast awayour old; but no more than was necessary, saying 'twould be better tofurnish ourselves with fresh linen as we needed it, than carry baggage,etc. "And let all you buy be good goods," says he, "for in this countrya man is valued at what he seems, and the innkeepers do go in such fearof their seigneurs that they will charge him less for entertainment thanif he were a mean fellow who could ill afford to pay."

  So not to displease him we dressed ourselves in the French fashion, morerichly than ever we had been clad in our lives, and especially Moll didprofit by this occasion to furnish herself like any duchess; so thatDawson and I drew lots to decide which of us should present the bill toDon Sanchez, thinking he would certainly take exception to ourextravagance; but he did not so much as raise his eyebrows at the total,but paid it without ever a glance at the items. Nay, when Moll presentsherself in her new equipment, he makes her a low reverence and pays hera most handsome compliment, but in his serious humour and without asmile. He himself wore a new suit all of black, not so fine as ours, butvery noble and becoming, by reason of his easy, graceful manner and hismajestic, high carriage.

  On the last day of March we set forth for Toulouse. At our starting DonSanchez bade Moll ride by his side, and so we, not being bid, fellbehind; and, feeling awkward in our new clothes, we might very well havebeen taken for their servants, or a pair of ill-bred friends at thebest, for our Moll carried herself not a whit less magnificent than theDon, to the admiration of all who looked at her.

  To see these grand airs of hers charmed Jack Dawson.

  "You see, Kit," whispers he, "what an apt scholar the minx is, and whatan obedient, dutiful, good girl. One word from me is as good as sixmonths' schooling, for all this comes of that lecture I gave her thelast night we were at Edmonton."

  I would not deny him the satisfaction of this belief, but I felt prettysure that had she been riding betwixt us in her old gown, instead ofbeside the Don as his daughter, all her father's preaching would nothave stayed her from behaving herself like an orange wench.

  We journey by easy stages ten days through Toulouse, on the road toPerpignan, and being favoured with remarkably fine weather, a blue sky,and a bright sun above us, and at every turn something strange orbeautiful to admire, no pleasure jaunt in the world could have been moredelightful. At every inn (which here they call hotels) we found goodbeds, good food, excellent wine, and were treated like princes, so thatDawson and I would gladly have given up our promise of a fortune to havelived in this manner to the end of our days. But Don Sanchez professedto hold all on this side of the Pyrenese Mountains in great contempt,saying these hotels were as nothing to the Spanish posadas, that thepeople here would rob you if they dared, whereas, on t'other side, not aSpaniard would take so much as the hair of your horse's tail, though hewere at the last extremity, that the food was not fit for aught but aFrenchman, and so forth. And our Moll, catching this humour, did alsoturn up her nose at everything she was offered, and would send away abottle of wine from the table because 'twas not ripe enough, though buta few weeks before she had been drinking penny ale with a relish, andthat as sour as verjuice. And, indeed, she did carry it mighty high andartificial, wherever respect and humility were to be commanded. But itwas pretty to see how she would unbend and become her natural self whereher heart was touched by some tender sentiment. How she would empty herpockets to give to any one with a piteous tale, how she would get fromher horse to pluck wild-flowers by the roadside, and how, one day,overtaking a poor woman carrying a child painfully on her back, she musthave the little one up on her lap and carry it till we reached thehamlet where the woman lived, etc. On the fifteenth day we stayed at St.Denys, and going thence the next morning, had travelled but a couple ofhours when we were caught in a violent storm of hailstones as big aspeas, that was swept with incredible force by a wind rushing through adeep ravine in the mountains, so that 'twas as much as we could makeheadway through it and gain a village which lay but a little distancefrom us. And here we were forced to stay all day by another storm ofrain, that followed the hail and continued till nightfall. Many othersbesides ourselves were compelled to seek refuge at our inn, and amongstthem a company of Spanish muleteers, for it seems we were come to a passleading through the mountains into Spain. These were the first Spaniardswe had yet seen (save the Don), and for all we had heard to theircredit, we could not admire them greatly, being a low-browed,coarse-featured, ragged crew, and more picturesque than cleanly, besidesstinking intolerably of garlic. By nightfall there was more company thanthe inn could accommodate; nevertheless, in respect to our quality, wewere given the best rooms in the house to ourselves.

  About eight o'clock, as we were about to sit down to supper, ourinnkeeper's wife comes in to tell us that a Spanish grandee is below,who has been travelling for hours in the storm, and then she asked veryhumbly if our excellencies will permit her to lay him a bed in our roomwhen we have done with it, as she can bestow him nowhere else (themuleteers filling her house to the very cock loft), and has not theheart to send him on to St. Denys in this pitiless driving rain. To thisDon Sanchez replies, that a Spanish gentleman is welcome to all we canoffer him, and therewith sends down a mighty civil message, begging hiscompany at our table.

  Moll has just time to whip on a piece of finery, and we to put on ourbest manners, when the landlady returns, followed by a stout, robustSpaniard, in an old coat several times too small for him, whom sheintroduced as Senor Don Lopez de Calvados.

  Don Lopez makes us a reverence, and then, with his shoulders up to hisears and like gestures, gives us an harangue at some length, but thisbeing in Spanish, is as heathen Greek to our ears. However, Don Sanchezexplains that our visitor is excusing his appearance as being forced tochange his wet clothes for what the innkeeper can lend him, and so we,grinning to express our amiability, all sit down to table and setto--Moll with her most finicking, delicate airs and graces, and Dawsonand I silent as frogs, with understanding nothing of the Dons'conversation. This, we learn from Don Sanchez after supper, has turnedchiefly on the best means of crossing into Spain, from which it appearsthere are two passes through the mountains, both leading to the sametown, but one more circuitous than the other. Don Lopez has come by thelatter, because the former is used by the muleteers, who are not alwaysthe most pleasant companions one can have in a dangerous road; and forthis reason he recommends us to take his way, especially as we have ayoung lady with us, which will be the more practicable, as the sameguides who conducted him will be only too glad to serve us on theirreturn the next morning. To this proposition we very readily agree, andsupper being ended, Don Sanchez sends for the guides, two hardymountaineers, who very readily agree to take us this way the nextmorning, if the weather permits. And so we all, wishing Don Lopez agood-night, to our several chambers.

  I was awoke in the middle of the night, as it seemed to me, by a greatcommotion below of Spanish shouting and roaring with much jingling ofbells; and looking out of window I perceived lan
terns hanging here andthere in the courtyard, and the muleteers packing their goods to depart,with a fine clear sky full of stars overhead. And scarce had I turnedinto my warm bed again, thanking God I was no muleteer, when in comesthe Don with a candle, to say the guide will have us moving at once ifwe would reach Ravellos (our Spanish town) before night. So I toDawson's chamber, and he to Moll's, and in a little while we allshivering down to the great kitchen, where is never a muleteer left, butonly a great stench of garlic, to eat a mess of soup, very hot andcomforting. And after that out into the dark (there being as yet but afaint flush of green and primrose colour over towards the east), wherefour fresh mules (which Don Sanchez overnight had bargained to exchangeagainst our horses, as being the only kind of cattle fit for thisservice) are waiting for us with other two mules, belonging to ourguides, all very curiously trapped out with a network of wool and littlejingling bells. Then when Don Sanchez had solemnly debated whether weshould not awake Don Lopez to say farewell, and we had persuaded himthat it would be kinder to let him sleep on, we mounted into our high,fantastic saddles, and set out towards the mountains, our guidesleading, and we following close upon their heels as our mules could get,but by no guidance of ours, though we held the reins, for thesecreatures are very sagacious and so pertinacious and opiniastre that Ibelieve though you pulled their heads off they would yet go their ownway.

  Our road at first lay across a rising plain, very wild and scrubby, as Iimagine, by the frequent deviations of our beast, and then through aforest of cork oaks, which keep their leaves all the year through, andhere, by reason of the great shade, we went, not knowing whither, as ifblindfold, only we were conscious of being on rough, rising ground, bythe jolting of our mules and the clatter of their hoofs upon stones; butafter a wearisome, long spell of this business, the trees growing morescattered and a thin grey light creeping through, we could make out thatwe were all together, which was some comfort. From these oaks, we passedinto a wood of chestnuts, and still going up and up, but by suchdevious, unseen ways, that I think no man, stranger to these parts,could pick it out for himself in broad daylight, we came thence into agreat stretch of pine trees, with great rocks scattered amongst them, asif some mountain had been blown up and fallen in a huge shower offragments.

  And so, still for ever toiling and scambling upwards, we found ourselvesabout seven o'clock, as I should judge by the light beyond the trees andupon the side of the mountain, with the whole champaign laid out like acarpet under us on one side, prodigious slopes of rock on either hand,with only a shrub or a twisted fir here and there, and on the furtherside a horrid stark ravine with a cascade of water thundering down inits midst, and a peak rising beyond, covered with snow, which glitteredin the sunlight like a monstrous heap of white salt.

  After resting at this point half an hour to breathe our mules, theguides got into their saddles, and we did likewise, and so on againalong the side of the ravine, only not of a cluster as heretofore, butone behind the other in a long line, the mules falling into this orderof themselves as if they had travelled the path an hundred times; butthere was no means of going otherwise, the path being atrociously narrowand steep, and only fit for wild goats, there being no landrail, coping,or anything in the world to stay one from being hurled down a thousandfeet, and the mountain sides so inclined that 'twas a miracle the mulescould find foothold and keep their balance. From the bottom of theravine came a constant roar of falling water, though we could spy itonly now and then leaping down from one chasm to another; and more thanonce our guides would cry to us to stop (and that where our mules had tokeep shifting their feet to get a hold) while some huge boulder,loosened by the night's rain, flew down across our path in terrificbounds from the heights above, making the very mountain tremble with theshock. Not a word spoke we; nay, we had scarce courage at times to drawbreath, for two hours and more of this fearful passage, with noencouragement from our guides save that one of them did coolly take outa knife and peel an onion as though he had been on a level, broad road;and then, reaching a flat space, we came to a stand again before anascent that promised to be worse than that we had done. Here we gotdown, Moll clinging to our hands and looking around her with large,frighted eyes.

  "Shall we soon be there?" she asked.

  And the Don, putting this question in Spanish to the guides, theypointed upwards to a gap filled with snow, and answered that was thehighest point. This was some consolation, though we could not regard therugged way that lay betwixt us and that without quaking. Indeed, Ithought that even Don Sanchez, despite the calm, unmoved countenance heever kept, did look about him with a certain kind of uneasiness.However, taking example from our guides, we unloosed our saddle bags,and laid out our store of victuals with a hogskin of wine whichrekindled our spirits prodigiously.

  While we were at this repast, our guides, starting as if they had caughta sound (though we heard none save the horrid bursting of water), lookeddown, and one of them, clapping two dirty fingers in his mouth, made ashrill whistle. Then we, looking down, presently spied two mules farbelow on the path we had come, but at such a distance that we couldscarce make out whether they were mounted or not.

  "Who are they?" asks Don Sanchez, sternly, as I managed to understand.

  "Friends," replies one of the fellows, with a grin that seemed to layhis face in two halves.