Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  It was done in a moment. Instinctively I caught the burden: but the impetus with which he had passed it to me, sent me reeling to the right, and the lane being narrow, I fell against the wall before I could steady myself. As luck would have it, that which should have destroyed me, was my salvation; I struck the wall where a door broke it, the door, lightly latched, flew open under the impact, I fell inwards. I alighted, in darkness, on my hands and knees, heard the stifled yelp of a dog, and in a second, though I could see nothing, I was up and had the door closed behind me.

  Then I listened. Panting and breathless, I heard the hunt go raving through the lane, and the noise die in the distance; until only the beating of my heart broke the close silence of the darkness in which I stood. When this had lasted a minute or two, I began to peer and wonder where I was; and remembering the dog I had heard, I moved stealthily to find the latch, and escape. As I did so, the bundle, to which through all I had clung — instinctively, for I had not thought of it — moved in my arms.

  I almost dropped it; then I held it from me with a swift movement of repulsion. It stirred again, it was warm. In a moment the truth flashed upon me. It was a child!

  Burning hot as I had been before, the sweat rose on me at the thought. For I saw again the man’s face of terror, and I guessed that he had stolen the child, and I feared the worst. He had mistaken the rabble hooting at my heels for the avengers of blood, and had been only too thankful to rid himself of the damning fact, and escape.

  And now I had it, and had as much, or more, to fear. For an instant the impulse to lay the parcel down, and glide out, and so be clear of it, was strong upon me. And that I think is what the ordinary clerk, being no hero, nor bred like a soldier to risk his life, would have done. But for one thing, I was desperate. I knew not, after this, whither to go or where to save myself. For another thing my clerk’s wits were already busy, showing me how with luck I might use the occasion and avoid the risk; how with luck I might discover the parents and without suffering for the theft, restore the child. Beyond that I saw an opening vista of pardon, employment and reward.

  Suddenly, the dog whined again, close to me; and that decided me. I had found the latch by this time, and warily I drew the door open. In a moment I was in the lane, looking up and down. I saw nothing to alarm me; darkness had completely fallen, no one was moving, the neighbourhood seemed to be of the quietest. I made up my mind to take the bold course: to return at all hazards to the Rue St. Honoré, seek my father-in-law at the gates of the Palais Royal — where he had the night turn — and throw the child and myself on his protection.

  Without doubt it was the wisest course I could adopt. In those days the streets of Paris, even in the district of the Louvre and Palais Royal, were ill-lighted; a network of lanes and dark courts encroached on the most fashionable parts, and favoured secret access to them, and I foresaw no great difficulty, short of the moment when I must appear in the lighted lodge and exhibit my rags. But my evil star was still above the horizon. I had scarcely reached the end of the lane; I was still hesitating there, uncertain which way to turn for the shortest course, when a babel of voices broke on my ear, lights swept round a distant corner, and I found myself threatened by a new danger. I did not wait to consider. These people, with their torches and weapons, might have naught to do with me. But my nerves were shaken, the streets of Paris were full of terrors, every corner had a gallows for me — and I turned and, fleeing back the way I had come, I made a hurried effort to find the house which had sheltered me before. Failing, in one or two trials, and seeing that the lights were steadily coming on that way, and that in a moment I must be discovered, I sprang across the way, and dived into the side-lane by which the child-stealer had vanished.

  I had not taken ten steps before some object, unseen in the darkness, tripped me up, and I fell headlong on the stones. In the fall my burden rolled from my arms; instantly it was snatched up by a dark figure, which rose as by magic beside me, and was gone into the gloom almost as quickly. I got up gasping and limping, and flung a curse after the man; but the lights already shone on the mouth of the lane in which I stood, and I had no time to lose if I would not be detected. I set off running down the passage, turned to the left at the end, and along a second lane, thence passed into another and a wider road; nor did I stop until I had left all signs and sounds of pursuit far behind me.

  The place in which I came to a stand at last — too weak to run any farther — was a piece of waste land, in the northern suburbs of the city. High up on the left I could discern a light or two, piercing the gloom of the sky; and I knew they shone from the wind-mills of Montmartre. In every other direction lay darkness; desolation swept by the night wind; silence broken only by the dismal howling of far-off watch-dogs. I might have been ten miles from Paris: even as I was a thousand miles from the man who had risen so happily that morning.

  For very misery I sobbed aloud. I did not know exactly where I was; nor had I known, had I the strength to return. Excitement had carried me far, but suddenly I felt the weakness of exhaustion, and sick and aching I craved only a hole in which to lie down and die. Fortunately at this moment I met the wind, and caught the scent of new-mown hay: stumbling forward a few steps with such strength as remained, I made out a low building looming through the night. I staggered to it; I discovered that it was a shed; and entering with my hands extended, I felt the hay under my feet. With a sob of thankfulness I took two steps forward and sank down; but instead of the soft couch I expected, I fell on the angular body of a man, who with a savage curse rose and flung me off.

  This at another time would have scared me to death; but I was so far gone in wretchedness that I felt no fear and little surprise. I rolled away without a word, and curling myself up at a distance of a few feet from my fellow-lodger, fell in a minute fast asleep.

  When I awoke, daylight, though the sun was not up, was beginning to creep into the shed. I turned, every bone in my body ached: the weals of the stirrup-leathers smarted and burned. I remembered yesterday’s doings, and groaned. Presently the hay beside me rustled, and over the shoulder of the mass against which I lay I made out the face of a man, peering curiously at me. I had not yet broken with every habit of suspicion, nor could in a moment recollect that I had nothing but rags to lose; and I gazed back spellbound. In silence which neither broke by so much as a movement we waited gazing into one another’s eyes; while the light in the low-roofed hovel grew and grew, and minute by minute brought out more clearly the other’s features.

  At length I knew him, and almost at the same moment he recognized me; uttering an oath of rage, he rose up as if to spring at my throat. But either because I did not recoil — being too deep-set in the hay to move — or for some other reason, he only shook his claw-like fingers at me, and held off. “Where is it, you dog?” he cried, finding his voice with an effort. “Speak, or I will have your throat slit. Speak; do you hear? What have you done with it?”

  He was the man who had passed the child to me! I watched him heedfully, and after a moment’s hesitation I told him that it had been taken from me, and I told him when and where.

  “And you don’t know the man who took it?” he screamed.

  “Not from Adam,” I said. “It was dark.”

  In his disappointment and rage, at receiving the answer, I thought again that he would fall upon me: but he only choked and swore, and then stood scowling, the picture of despair. Until, some new thought pricking him, he threw up his arms and cried out afresh. “Oh, mon dieu, what a fool I was!” he moaned. “What a craven I was! I had a fortune in my hands, and, fool that I was, I threw it away!”

  I thought bitterly of my own case — I was not much afraid of him now, for I began to think that I understood him. “So had I, yesterday morning,” I said, “a fortune. You are in no worse case than others.”

  “Yesterday morning!” he exclaimed. “No, last night. Then, if you like, you had. But yesterday morning? Fortune and you, scarecrow? Go hang yourself.”
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br />   He looked gloomily at me for a moment with his arms crossed on his chest, and his face darkly set. Then “Who are you?” he asked.

  I told him. When he learned that the rabble that had alarmed him, had in fact been pursuing me — so that his fright had been groundless — he broke into fresh execrations: and these so violent that I began to feel a sort of contempt for him, and even plucked up spirit to tell him that look as disdainfully as he might at me, he seemed to be in no better case.

  He looked at me askance at that. “Ay, as it turns out,” he said grimly. “In worse case, if you please. But see the difference, idiot. You are a poor fool beaten from pillar to post; at all men’s mercy, and naught to get by it; while I played for a great stake. I have lost, it is true! I have lost!” he continued, his voice rising almost to a yell, “and we are both in the gutter. But if I had won — if I had won, man — —”

  He did not finish the sentence but flung himself down on his face in the hay, and bit and tore it in his passion. A moment I viewed him with contempt, and thought him a poor creature for a villain. Then the skirt of his coat, curling over as he grovelled and writhed, disclosed something that turned my thoughts into another channel. Crushed under his leather girdle was a little cape, or a garment of that kind, of velvet so lustrous that it shone in the dark place where I saw it, as the eyes shine in a toad. Nor it only: before he rolled over and hid it again, I espied embroidered on one corner of the velvet a stiff gold crown!

  It was with difficulty that I repressed a cry. Cold, damp, aching, I felt the heat run through me like wine. A crown! A little purple cape! And taken beyond doubt from the infant he had stolen last night! Then last night — last night I had carried the King! I had carried the King of France in my arms.

  I no longer found it hard to understand the man’s terror of yesterday; or his grief and despair of this morning. He had indeed played for a great stake; he had risked torture and the wheel; death in its most horrible form. And that for which he had risked so much he had lost! — lost!

  I looked at him with new eyes, and a sort of wonder: and had scarcely time to compose my face, when, the paroxysm of his fury spent, he rose, and looking at me askance, to see how I took his actions, he asked me sullenly whither I was going.

  “To Monseigneur’s,” I said cunningly: had I answered, “To the Palais Royal,” he would have suspected me.

  “To the Bishop’s?”

  “Where else?”

  “To be beaten again?” he sneered.

  I said nothing to that, but asked him whither he was going.

  “God knows,” he said. “God knows!”

  But when I went out, he accompanied me; and we slunk silently, like the pair of night-birds we were, through lanes and alleys until we were fairly in town again. By that time the sun was up and the market people were beginning to enter the city. Here and there eyes took curious note of my disorder: and thinking of the company I was in, I trembled, and wondered that the alarm was not abroad and the bells proclaiming us from every tower. I was more than content, therefore, when my companion at the back of the Temple halted before a small door in a blind wall. Over against it stood another small door in the opposite wall.

  “Do you stay here?” I said.

  He swore churlishly. “What is that to you?” he said, looking up and down. “Go your way, idiot.”

  I was glad to affect a like ill-humour, shrugged my shoulders, and lounged on without looking back. But my brain was on fire. The King! The four-year-old King! What was I to do? To whom to go with my knowledge? And then — even then, while I paused hesitating, I heard steps running behind me, and I turned to find him at my elbow. His face was pale, but his eyes burned with eagerness, and his whole demeanour was changed.

  “Stay!” he cried panting; and then seizing me peremptorily by the breast of my shirt, “the man who tripped you up, fellow — you did not see him?”

  “It was dark,” I answered curtly. “I told you I did not know him from Adam.”

  “But had he—” he gasped, “you heard him run away — was he lame?”

  I could not repress an exclamation. “Par dieu!” I said. “Yes, I had forgotten that. I think he was. I remember I heard his foot go cluck — clack, cluck — clack as he ran.”

  His face became burning red, and he staggered. If ever man was near dying from blood in his head, it was that man at that moment! But after a while he drew a long breath, and got the better of it, nodded to me, and turned away. I marked, however — for I stood a moment, watching — that he did not go back to the door at which I had left him: but after looking round once and espying me standing, he took a lane on the right and disappeared.

  But I knew or thought that I knew all now; and the moment he was out of sight, I set off towards the Palais Royal like a hound let loose, heeding neither those against whom I bumped in the straiter ways, nor the danger I ran of recognition, nor the miserable aspect I wore in my rags. I forgot all, save my news, even my own wretchedness; and never halted or stayed to take breath until I crept panting into the doorway of the lodge at the Palais, and met my father-in-law’s look of disgust and astonishment.

  He was just off the night turn, and met me on the threshold. I saw beyond him the grinning faces of the under-porters. But I had that to tell which still upheld me. I threw up my hands.

  “I know where they are!” I cried breathlessly. “I can take you to them!”

  He gazed at me, dumb for the moment with surprise and rage; and doubtless a less reputable son-in-law than I appeared, it would have been hard to find in all Paris. Then his passion found vent. “Pig!” he cried. “Jackal! Gutter-bird! Begone! I have heard about you! Begone! or I will have you flayed!”

  “But I know where they are! I know where they have him!” I protested.

  His face underwent a startling change. He stepped forward with a nimbleness wonderful in one of his bulk, and he caught me by the collar. “What,” he said, “have you seen the dog?”

  “The dog?” I cried. “No, but I have seen the King! I have held him in my arms! I know where he is.”

  He released me suddenly, and fell back a pace, looking at me so oddly that I paused. “Say it again,” he said slowly. “You have held the — —”

  “The King! The King!” I cried impatiently. “In these arms. Last night! I know where they have him, or at least — where the robbers are.”

  His double chin fell, and his fat face lost colour. “Poor devil!” he said, staring at me like one fascinated. “They have took his senses from him.”

  “But—” I cried, advancing, “are you not going to do anything?”

  He waved me off, and retreating a step, crossed himself. “Jacques!” he said, speaking to one of the porters, but without taking his eyes off me, “move him off! Move him off; do you hear, man? He is not safe!”

  “But I tell you,” I cried fiercely, “they have stolen the King! They have stolen his Majesty, and I — have held him in my arms. And I know — —”

  “There, there, be calm,” he answered. “Be calm, my lad. They have stolen the Queen’s dog, that is true. But have it your own way if you like, only go. Go from here, and quickly, or it will be the worse for you; for here comes Monseigneur the Bishop to wait on her Majesty, and if he sees you, you will suffer worse things. There, make way, make way!” he continued, turning from me to the staring crowd that had assembled. “Way, for Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais! Make way!”

  As he spoke, the Bishop in his great coach turned heavily out of the Rue St. Honoré, and the crowd attending him eddied about the Palace entrance. I was hustled and swept out of the way, and fortunately escaping notice, found myself a few minutes later crouching in a lane that runs beside the church of St. Jacques. I was wolfing a crust of bread, which one of the men with whom I had often talked in the lodge had thrust into my hand. I ate it with tears: in all Paris, that day, was no more miserable outcast. What had become of my little wife I knew not; and I dared not show myself at the Bishop’s
to ask. My father-in-law, I feared, was hardened against me, and at the best thought me mad. I had no longer home or friend, and — this at the moment cut most sharply — the gorgeous hopes in which I had indulged a few moments before were as last year’s snow! The King was not lost!

  I crouched and shivered. In St. Antoine’s, at the mouth of the lane, a man was beating a drum preparatory to publishing a notice; and presently his voice caught my attention in the middle of my lamentations. I listened, at first idly, then with my mind. “Oyez! Oyez!” he cried. “Whereas some evil person, having no fear of God or of the law before his eyes, has impudently, feloniously, and treasonably stolen from the Palais Royal, a spaniel, the property of the Queen-Regent’s most excellent Majesty, this is to say, that any one — rumble — rumble — rumble” — here a passing coach drowned some sentences — after which I caught— “five hundred crowns, the same to be paid by Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais, President of the Council!”

  “And glad to pay it,” snarled a voice, quite close to me. I started and looked up. Two men were talking at a grated window above my head. I could not see their faces.

  “Yet it is a high price for a dog,” the other sneered.

  “But low for a queen. Yet it will buy her. And this is Richelieu’s France!”

  “Was!” the other said pithily. “Well, you know the proverb, my friend. ‘A living dog is better than a dead lion.’”

  “Ay,” his companion rejoined, “but I have a fancy that that dog’s name is spelt neither with an F for Flore — which was the whelp’s name, was it not? — nor a B for Beauvais; nor a C for Condé; but with an M — —”

  “For Mazarin!” the other answered sharply. “Yes, if he find the dog. But Beauvais is in possession.”

  “Rocroy, a hit that counted for Condé shook him; you may be sure of that.”

  “Still he is in possession.”

  “So is my shoe in possession of my foot,” was the keen reply. “And see — I take it off. Beauvais is tottering, I tell you; tottering. It wants but a shove, and he falls.”