Lord Montagu's Page: An Historical Romance
Page 14
CHAPTER XII.
As much consideration and caution were necessary in proceeding after thesun was set, as a young man requires on his first outset in a court. Thedarkness was as profound, there were as many unseen dangers, pitfalls,ponds, and swamps around; and, though the stars were all out andshining, no queenly moon was in the sky to light one on the long way.Night after night she was now rising at a later hour; and the beamswhich had cheered the course of the two young travellers on their sailfrom Rochelle would not be renewed ere their resting-place for the nightwas reached. At length, about eight o'clock, on looking from theportiere of the coach, Edward thought he saw either a little mound or aheavy pile of building before him, and in about ten minutes the horses'feet clattered over the stone pavement of a court. The leader of theescort had gone on before; and now, as Master Ned and his fair companionalighted, they found the good soldier standing under a heavy stoneportal, conversing with a man in a monk's gown.
"It looks like a prison," said Lucette, as she gazed up by the light ofa lantern.
She spoke in a low voice; but her words caught the ear of the monk, whoreplied, "This is the Abbey of Moreilles, young gentleman. I will takeyou first to the strangers' parlor, and then will show you round thebuilding, if you like; for your escort tells me you propose to go on bydaybreak, and you should not miss the opportunity of seeing so famous anedifice."
Lucette replied that she was very tired, and should prefer to lie downto rest; but Edward caught eagerly at the proposal, from severalmotives. First, he was anxious to keep Lucette as far as possible fromthe monk's eye, and was even afraid that her sweet voice might betrayher; and then he had his reasons for observing accurately every part ofthe building.
"Well, well, I will take you round in a minute or two," replied themonk; "but I must first see that some of the cells are ready, for thisgood gentleman tells me that you two young people are very devout, andwould like best to sleep in cells where saints have lived and died inthe odor of sanctity. Here, here is the parlor. Let me light a lamp.Most of the brethren have retired, for it has been very hot thisevening. What changes of weather, good lack! Yesterday was as cold asNoel, and to-night it is as warm as St. John's."
While he spoke, he lighted a small lamp, with shaking hands, and thenleft the three in the parlor together, going himself to prepare thecells.
"Now listen, young people," said the soldier, as soon as the monk wasgone, speaking quick, but low: "keep ready and wakeful, and at threeo'clock it shall go hard but you shall find a boat, with a man in it,upon the canal at the back of the abbey. Go with that man wherever herows you."
"But how shall I find the boat, or the canal either?" asked Edward."Remember, I have never been here before."
"As we go round the building," replied the other, "I will show you thedoor which is always left open for the drones who sleep in this wing ofthe abbey to find their way to the church at matins. I will pinch yourarm as we pass it. God wot! if they did not leave it open, their winkingeyes would lead them into the canal. That old fellow must make haste, orwe shall have my comrades with us; and it were better not till MasterPage has gone to his cell. You had better give them plenty of drink,young gentleman, that they may stupefy themselves to-night and sleepheavily to-morrow morning. I have got two miles on foot to go to see afriend, but will be back in an hour or two. Ply them well while I amgone; but, mind you, keep your own head clear."
"But shall I find any liquor here?" asked Edward, in some surprise.
The soldier nodded his head, and pointed to a number of stains upon thetable, saying, "I have had more than one roaring bout in this very room.Those stains were not made with water. Every thing can be had for moneyin a _mouster_."
"But I had better give you what I promised before the monk comes back,"said Edward,--the word _money_ awakening many other ideas.
"Let me see how much you have got," said the man: "you will need somefor your two selves; and, besides, there is that long thin fellow with ared face,--that servant of yours. Do not let him drink. Let us see."
Edward took out his purse of doeskin, which now contained aboutseventeen hundred livres in gold. What between the purchase of thehorses, and various expenses at the inns, the rest was all spent, thoughit was better furnished when he left Rochelle; and there was more inhis bags, probably lost forever.
"That is not enough to give me a thousand livres," said the man; "butthe three horses are worth something. That one you ride is a good one,and so is the young lady's,--the page's, I mean. Give me five hundred,and write me a promise of the horses in payment of the rest of the sumsI have advanced,--the horses to be given up to me when you get to theend of your journey, which will be here, I suppose, but which they willunderstand as Nantes. That will give me a right to claim them."
Now, it is quite possible that one, if not more, of my sagacious readerswill be inclined to think that I have been drawing an inconsistentcharacter. It is very true the soldier was a right generous and akind-hearted fellow. He liked to do a good turn. He liked especially tohelp two young lovers,--by-the-way, he had been crossed in love himself,though his history would be too long to tell here,--and yet he was notunwilling to take money out of their pockets when they had littleenough, and to secure their horses for his own advantage. It was veryinconsistent,--very inconsistent indeed. But I have now lived atolerable number of years in the world, and all my life I have beenlooking for consistent men, and have not found more than six at theutmost. The fact is, man is a bundle,--a bundle of very contraryqualities,--to say nothing of the mere absolute opposition of body andsoul in the mass. There are packages of good feelings and packages ofbad feelings; rolls of wit and rolls of dullness; papers full of senseand papers full of nonsense; a lump of generosity here and a lump ofselfishness there; and all tied up so tightly together that in a dampand foggy world they sooner or later mould and mildew each other. Thus,if I hear of a great man doing a little action, or a wise man committinga foolish one, instead of crying out, "How inconsistent!" I say, "It isvery natural." Now, if it be very natural everywhere, it is still morenatural in France; for, having inhabited that beautiful country andlived amongst her gallant and intellectual people a great part of mylife, I have come to the conclusion that the most varied creature uponthe face of the earth _per se_--in himself, in his own nature andcomposition--is a Frenchman.
While the soldier has been making all his arrangements with Master Ned,and while we have been discussing the knotty point of his inconsistency,&c., the old monk, with the lantern in his hand, has been getting readytwo cells at the farther end of the long corridor, and the troopers andPierrot, together with the driver of the coach, have been taking care ofthe horses. But the monk, having the least to do,--for the furniture ofa cell is not usually superabundant, nor its bed difficult tomake,--returns first, and conducts Lucette to her sleeping-place,without the slightest idea that she is any thing but a very pretty boy;for his eyes are not very clear, and the lantern dimmer than his eyes,and the lamp upon the table duller than the lantern. Edward Langdaleaccompanied them to see her cell. It was next to his own,--a pleasantproximity; and, telling her he would presently bring her somerefreshment, he left her. As he walked slowly back with the monk, hecame upon the subject of some stronger liquor than water,--at which theold man looked shocked; but, upon Edward alluding to the stains upon thetable, and bestowing a donation,--entirely for the abbey,--the ferocityof his temperance abated, and he ran to the refectory-man, or some othercompetent officer, with whom he shared his gains, and informed him whata generous young gentleman they had got under their roof. The supper didnot suffer in consequence; but, while it was preparing, Edward and thesoldier accompanied the old man through church and cloisters, passagesand corridors. Neither gained much knowledge of architecture, or of theparticular Abbey of Moreilles. I would advise no one who wishes tocriticize that of Westminster to go there at night with nothing but abad tallow candle in a dirty lantern; and, though I have it upon goodauthority that before the conflagration Morei
lles was decorated with themost beautiful flamboyant arches, mouldings hardly surpassed inrichness, and, moreover, twenty-six cluster-columns of prodigiousheight, each with an exquisite capital totally different from all theothers, Edward saw nothing but dark vaults, masses of stone, and a door.But that door was all he wanted to see; and as he passed it the soldiergave him a good hard pressure on the arm. It was, luckily, within aboutten paces of Lucette's cell.
However, on reaching the strangers' parlor, the little party found thetroopers and Pierrot and the driver, and three more monks, and, what wasmore to the purpose, a table laid with several large pies and a quantityof barley-bread. The means of potation had not yet appeared, but tarriednot long; and a meal ensued which I need not further describe than bysaying that the pies comprised rabbits and wild ducks; and none of theunlearned can imagine what an excellent thing a wild-duck pie can bemade by the mere process of skinning the ducks.
After a few mouthfuls, the leader of the guard rose and left the room,saying he must go and see his cousin, who, "as they all knew, lived hardby;" and the rest of the troopers set to serious work first upon somesour wine, and then upon some of that good or bad spirit which hascrowned the name of Nantes with a certain sort of immortality. PoorPierrot! it was a sore temptation for him, especially when his youngmaster was gone to carry some refreshment to _the page_; but he resistedduring the very short period of Edward's absence, and Master Ned's eyewas a strong corroborative of resolution after his return. The monkstasted, at first shyly, and then more boldly; and Edward drew from themthe important fact that there were very few brethren in the convent,some of them being absent on _quete_, some on leave. Moreover the abbey,he said, had never been very full, since the abbacy--as was so common inFrance--had been bestowed upon a well-known painter of Paris, a layman.
There was some deep drinking that night; but still Pierrot, though hecould have emptied the most capacious flagon there at an easy draught,maintained the combat against habit gloriously, till at length, just asthe leader of the party returned, at the end of two hours, the goodRochellois, finding himself weak with the labor of resistance, retired torest, after having received a hint from his master, which happily he wasin a state to profit by,--happily indeed for him. "The primrose path tothe everlasting bonfire" men have strewed in their imaginations with allsorts of sweet things; but, take my word for it, it is paved by_Example_,--that most slippery and dangerous of all asphalts. Luckilyfor him, the troopers did not care a fig whether he drank or not, andthus all he had to resist was the sight of outstretched arms and fullcups; but he had something better on the other side: he had the warningof rolling eyes, and hiccoughing throats, and maudlin faces, andembarrassed tongues, which he had never seen before when he was himselfsober enough to appreciate them fully. "Well, drunkenness," he thought,as he left the room, "is a very beastly thing, it is true."
The monks withdrew nearly at the same time; and I am well pleased to saythat, although they had shown during that night, amongst the pies andthe pottles, no narrow objection to either those carnal or thosespiritual things which some castes of Hindoos call the "creaturecomforts of life," not one of them had an uneven step or an unsteadyhead. Probably they drank seldom; for those who drink often deprivethemselves of the power of drinking at all,--soberly.
The coach-driver was soon under the table; and the troopers, though mostof them, when the last drop provided was emptied from the flask, couldmake their way by diagonals to the dormitory assigned to them, were in astate which promised no early rising on the following day; and Edwardand his friendly soldier parted about eleven o'clock, the latter merelysaying, "We shall have a heavy storm to-night. The clouds are rolling uplike distant mountains. But all the better for your purpose. Rememberthree!"
The consequences! Good God! How frightful a thing it is to considerwhat--under an overruling hand and will omnipotent--may be theconsequences of the smallest deed we do. The consequences immediate,proximate, future! How many lives, what an amount of misery, how muchdamnation, may depend upon a light word, an idle jest, a sportive trick!
Should such a consideration forbid us to act and do, to resolve and toperform? Far from it. Man is an active being, and his life is deeds.Each moment must have its thought or its action, or the whole is sleep;but the consideration of that strange thing, CONSEQUENCE,--thatoverruling of our deeds to ends that we see not,--should teach us so toframe thought, word, and act, that, be the consequences what they may,we may be able at the great end of all to say, boldly, "I did it in anhonest heart." God himself is responsible for the result if man actswith purity of intent.
Not one man in that small room who had that night "sinned as it werewith a cart-rope" ever saw the dawning of the morning; and it was aheavy thought to Edward Langdale for many a year after, "What share hadI in this?" For himself, he took the little lamp which had been left forhim, and sought the cell where his pallet lay. But he had no thought ofsleep. As he went along the corridor, with the rays just gleaming uponthe fretted stone-work, something like a flash reddened the dim panes ofthe painted windows, and some seconds afterward a distant roar washeard, as if of a heavy sea rolling along an extended shore. "It willthunder," he said to himself; but he thought of it no more; and, openingthe door of the cell, on the little table beneath the window appearedthe missal and the skull and cross-bones--the _memento mori_ of thecloister.