The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane - Alain René le Sage (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

where we were to stop on the road. We

alighted at an inn in the out skirts of the town, a quiet

convenient place, with a landlord who never troubled himself

about other people’s concerns. We were ushered into a private

room, and got our supper snugly: but just as the cloth was taken

away in comes our carrier in a furious passion: — Death and the

devil! I have been robbed. Here had I a hundred pistoles in my

purse! But I will have them back again. I am going for a

magistrate; and those gentry will not take a joke upon such

serious subjects. You will all be put to the rack, unless you

confess, and give back the money. The fellow played his part very

naturally, and burst out of the room, leaving us in a terrible

fright.

 

We had none of us the least suspicion of the trick, and being all

strangers, were afraid of one another. I looked askance at the

little chorister, and he, perhaps, had no better opinion of me.

Besides, we were all a pack of greenhorns, and were quite

unacquainted with the routine of business on these occasions. We

were fools enough to believe that the torture would be the very

first stage of our examination. With this dread upon our spirits,

we all made for the door. Some effected their escape into the

street, others into the garden: but the whole party preferred the

discretion of running away to the valour of standing their

ground. The young tradesman of Astorga had as great an objection

to bone-twisting as the rest of us: so he did as Eneas, and many

another good husband has done before him; — ran away and left

his wife behind. At that critical moment the muleteer, as I was

told afterwards, who had not half so much sense of decency as his

own mules, delighted at the success of his stratagem, began

moving his motives to the citizen’s wife: but this Lucrece of the

Asturias, borrowing the chastity of a saint from the ugliness of

the devil who tempted her, defended her sweet person tooth and

nail; and showed she was in earnest about it by the noise she

made. The patrol, who happened to be passing by the inn at the

time, and knew that the neighbourhood required a little looking

after, took the liberty of just asking the cause of the

disturbance. The landlord, who was trying if he could not sing in

the kitchen louder than she could scream in the parlour, and

swore he heard no music but his own, was at last obliged to

introduce the myrmidons of the police to the distressed lady,

just in time to rescue her from the necessity of a surrender at

discretion. The head officer, a coarse fellow, without an atom of

feeling for the tender passion, no sooner saw the game that was

playing, than he gave the amorous muleteer five or six blows with

the butt end of his halberd, representing to him the indecency of

his conduct in terms quite as offensive to modesty as the naughty

propensity which had called forth his virtuous indignation.

Neither did he stop here; but laid hold of the culprit, and

carried plaintiff and defendant before the magistrate. The

former, with her charms all heightened by the discomposure of her

dress, went eagerly to try their effect in obtaining justice for

the outrage they had sustained. His Worship heard at least one

party; and after solemn deliberation pronounced the offence to be

of a most heinous nature. He ordered him to be stripped, and to

receive a competent number of lashes in his presence. The

conclusion of the sentence was, that if the Endymion of our

Asturian Diana was not forthcoming the next day, a couple of

guards should escort the disconsolate goddess to the town of

Astorga, at the expense of this mule-driving Acteon.

 

For my part, being probably more terrified than the rest of the

party, I got into the fields, scampering over hedge and ditch,

through enclosures and across commons, till I found myself hard

by a forest. I was just going for concealment to ensconce myself

in the very heart of the thicket, when two men on horseback rode

across me, crying, Who goes there? As my alarm prevented me from

giving them an immediate answer, they came to close quarters, and

holding each of them a pistol to my throat, required me to give

an account of myself; who I was, whence I came, what business I

had in that forest, and above all, not to tell a lie about it.

Their rough interrogatives were, according to my notion, little

better than the rack with which our friend the muleteer had

offered to treat us. I represented myself however as a young man

on my way from Oviedo to Salamanca; told the story of our late

fright, and faithfully attributed my running away in such a hurry

to the dread of a worse exercise under the torture. They burst

into an immoderate fit of laughter at my simplicity; and one of

them said: Take heart, my little friend; come along with us, and

do not be afraid; we will put you in a place where the devil

shall not find you. At these words, he took me up behind him, and

we darted into the forest.

 

I did not know what to think of this odd meeting; yet on the

whole I could not well be worse off than before. If these gentry,

thought I to myself, had been thieves, they would have robbed,

and perhaps murdered me. Depend on it, they are a couple of good

honest country gentlemen in this neighbourhood, who, seeing me

frightened, have taken compassion on me, and mean to carry me

home with them and make me comfortable. But these visions did not

last long. After turning and winding backward and forward in deep

silence, we found ourselves at the foot of a hill, where we

dismounted. This is our abode, said one of these sequestered

gentlemen. I looked about in all directions, but the deuce a bit

of either house or cottage: not a vestige of human habitation!

The two men in the mean time raised a great wooden trap, covered

with earth and briars, to conceal the entrance of a long shelving

passage under-ground, to which from habits the poor beasts took

very kindly of their own accord. Their masters kept tight hold of

me, and let the trap down after them. Thus was the worthy nephew

of my uncle Perez caught, just for all the world as you would

catch a rat.

 

CH. IV. — Description of the subterraneous dwelling and its

contents.

 

I NOW knew into what company I had fallen; and I leave it to any

one to judge whether the discovery must not have rid me of my

former fear. A dread more mighty and more just now seized my

faculties. Money and life, all given up for lost! With the air of

a victim on his passage to the altar did I walk, more dead than

alive, between my two conductors, who finding that I trembled,

frightened me so much the more by telling me not to be afraid.

When we had gone two hundred paces, winding down a declivity all

the way, we got into a stable lighted by two large iron lamps

suspended from the vault above. There was a good store of straw,

and several casks of hay and corn with room enough for twenty

horses: but at that time there were only the two which came with

us. An old Negro, who seemed for his years in pretty good case,

was tying them to the rack where they were to feed.

 

We went out of the stable. By the melancholy light of some other

lamps, which only served to dress up horror in its native

colours, we arrived at a kitchen where an old harridan was

broiling some steaks on the coals, and getting supper ready. The

kitchen furniture was better than might be expected, and the

pantry provided in a very plentiful manner. The lady of the

larder’s picture is worth drawing. Considerably on the wrong side

of sixty! — In her youth her hair had been of a fiery red;

though she would have called it auburn. Time had indeed given it

the fairer tint of grey; but a lock of more youthful hue,

interspersed at intervals, produced all the variegated effect of

the admired autumnal shades. To say nothing of an olive

complexion, she had an enormous chin turning up, an immense nose

turning down, with a mouth in the middle, modestly retiring

inwards, to make room for its encroaching neighbours. Red eyes

are no beauty in any animal but a ferret; — hers were purple.

 

Here, dame Leonard, said one of the horsemen as he presented me

to this angelic imp of darkness, we have brought you a young lad.

Then looking round, and observing me to be miserably pale, Pluck

up your spirits, my friend; you shall come to no harm. We want a

scullion, and have met with you. You are a lucky dog! We had a

boy who died about a fortnight ago: you shall succeed to the

preferment. He was rather too delicate for his place. You seem a

good stout fellow, and may live a week or two longer. We find you

in bed and board, coal and candle; but as for daylight, you will

never see that again. Your leisure hours will pass off very

agreeably with Leonard, who is really a very good creature, and

tolerably tender-hearted; you will have all your little comforts

about you. I flatter myself you have not got among beggars. At

this moment the thief seized a flambeau; and as I feared, “with

zeal to destroy;” for he ordered me to follow him.

 

He took me into a cellar, where I saw a great number of bottles

and earthen pots full of excellent wine. He then made me cross

several rooms. In some were pieces of cloth piled up; in others,

stuffs and silks. As we passed through I could not help casting a

sheep’s eye at the gold and silver plate peeping out of the

different cupboards. After that, I followed him into a great hall

illuminated by three copper lustres, and serving as a gallery

between the other rooms. Here he put fresh questions to me;

asking my name; — why I left Oviedo; — and when I had

satisfied his curiosity: Well, Gil Blas, said he, since your only

motive for quitting your native place was to get into something

snug and eligible, to be sure you must have been born to good

luck, or you would not have fallen into our hands. I tell you

once for all, you will live here on the fat of the land, and may

souse over head and ears in ready money. Besides, you are in a

place of perfect safety. The officers of the holy brotherhood

might pass through the forest a hundred times without discovering

our subterraneous abode. The entrance is only known to myself and

my comrades. You may perhaps ask how it came to be contrived,

without being perceived by the inhabitants in the neighbourhood.

But you are to understand, my friend, that it was made long ago,

and is no work of ours. After the Moors had made themselves

masters of Granada, of Arragon, and nearly the whole of Spain,

the Christians, rather than submit to the tyranny of infidels,

betook themselves to flight, and lay concealed in this country,

in Biscay, and in the Asturias, whither the brave Don Pelagio had

withdrawn himself. They lived in a state of exile, on the

mountains, or in the woods, dispersed in little knots. Some took

up