The Grey Cloak - Harold MacGrath (smallest ebook reader .txt) 📗

but the common assembly-room was invariably chosen by all those who were not accompanied by ladies. The huge fireplace, with high-backed benches jutting out from each side of it, the quaint, heavy bowlegged tables and chairs, the liberality of lights, the continuous coming and going of the brilliantly uniformed officers stationed at Fort Louis, the silks and satins of the nobles, the soberer woolens of the burghers and seamen, all combined to give the room a peculiar charm and color. Thus, with the golden pistole of Spain, the louis and crown and livre of France, and the stray Holland and English coins, Maître le Borgne began quickly to gorge his treasure-chests; and no one begrudged him, unless it was Maître Olivet of the Pomme de Pin.


Outside the storm continued. The windows and casements shuddered spasmodically, and the festive horn and cherubs creaked dismally on the rusted hinges. The early watch passed by, banging their staffs on the cobbles and doubtless cursing their unfortunate calling. Two of them carried lanterns which swung in harmony to the tread of feet, causing long, weird, shadowy legs to race back and forth across the sea-walls. The muffled stroke of a bell sounded frequently, coming presumably from the episcopal palace, since the historic bell in the Hôtel de Ville was permitted no longer to ring.

Inside the tavern it was warm enough. Maître le Borgne, a short, portly man with a high benevolent crown, as bald as the eggs he turned into omelets, stood somewhat back from the roaring chimney, one hand under his ample apron-belt, the other polishing his shining dome. He was perplexed. Neither the noise of the storm nor the frequent clatter of a dish as it fell to the floor disturbed him. A potboy, rushing past with his arms full of tankards, bumped into the landlord; but not even this aroused him. His gaze wandered from the right-hand bench to the left-hand bench, and back again, from the nut-brown military countenance of Captain Zachary du Puys, soldier of fortune, to the sea-withered countenance of Joseph Bouchard, master of the good ship Saint Laurent, which lay in the harbor.

"A savage!" said the host.

The soldier lowered his pipe and laughed. "Put your fears aside, good landlord. You are bald; it will be your salvation."

"Still," said the mariner, his mouth serious but his eyes smiling, "still, that bald crown may be a great temptation to the hatchet. The scalping-knife or the hatchet, one or the other, it is all the same."

"Eye of the bull! does he carry his hatchet?" gasped the host, cherishing with renewed tenderness the subject of their jests. "And an Iroquois, too, the most terrible of them all, they say. What shall I do to protect my guests?"

Du Puys and Bouchard laughed boisterously, for the host's face, on which was a mixture of fear and doubt, was as comical as a gargoyle.

"Why not lure him into the cellar and lock him there?" suggested Bouchard.

"But my wines?"

"True. He would drink them. He would also eat your finest sausages. And, once good and drunk, he would burn down the inn about your ears." Bouchard shook his head.

"Our Lady!"

"Or give him a bed," suggested Du Pays.

"What! a bed?"

"Surely, since he must sleep like other human beings."

"With an eye open," supplemented Bouchard. "I would not trust an Iroquois, saving he was dead and buried in consecrated ground." And he wagged his head as if to express his inability to pronounce in words his suspicions and distrust.

"And his yell will congeal the blood in thy veins," said Du Puys; "for beside him the Turk doth but whisper. I know; I have seen and fought them both."

Maître le Borgne began to perspire. "I am lost! But you, Messieurs, you will defend yourselves?"

"To the death!" both tormentors cried; then burst into laughter.

This laughter did not reassure Maître le Borgne, who had seen Huguenots and Catholics laughing and dying in the streets.

"Ho, Maître, but you are a droll fellow!" Bouchard exclaimed. "This Indian is accompanied by Fathers Chaumonot and Jacques. It is not impossible that they have relieved La Chaudière Noire of his tomahawk and scalping-knife. And besides, this is France; even a Turk is harmless here. Monsieur the Black Kettle speaks French and is a devout Catholic."

"A Catholic?" incredulously.

"Aye, pious and abstemious," with a sly glance at the innkeeper, who was known to love his wines in proportion to his praise of them.

"The patience of these Jesuits!" the host murmured, breathing a long sigh, such as one does from whose shoulders a weight has been suddenly lifted. "Ah, Messieurs, but your joke frightened me cruelly. And they call him the Black Kettle? But perhaps they will stay at the episcopal palace, that is, if the host from Dieppe arrives to-night. And who taught him French?"

"Father Chaumonot, who knows his Indian as a Turk knows his Koran."

"And does his Majesty intend to make Frenchmen of these savages?"

"They are already Frenchmen," was the answer. "There remains only to teach them how to speak and pray like Frenchmen."

"And he will be quiet and docile?" ventured the inn-keeper, who still entertained some doubts.

"If no one offers him an indignity. The Iroquois is a proud man. But I see Monsieur Nicot calling to you; Monsieur Nicot, whose ancestor, God bless him! introduced this weed into France;" and Du Puys refilled his pipe, applied an ember, took off his faded baldric and rapier, and reclined full length on the bench. Maître le Borgne hurried away to attend to the wants of Monsieur Nicot. Presently the soldier said: "Shall we sail to-morrow, Master Mariner?"

"As the weather wills." Bouchard bent toward the fire and with the aid of a pair of tongs drew forth the end of a broken spit, white with heat. This he plunged into a tankard of spiced port; and at once there arose a fragrant steam. He dropped the smoking metal to the floor, and drank deeply from the tankard. "Zachary, we shall see spring all glorious at Quebec, which is the most beautiful promontory in all the world. Upon its cliffs France will build her a new and mighty Paris. You will become a great captain, and I shall grow as rich as our host's cousin."

"Amen; and may the Holy Virgin speed us to the promised land." Du Puys blew above his head a winding cloud of smoke. "A brave race, these black cassocks; for they carry the Word into the jaws of death. Ad majorem Dei gloriam . There was Father Jogues. What privations, what tortures he endured! And an Iroquois sank a hatchet into his brain. I have seen the Spaniard at his worst, the Italian, the Turk, but for matchless cruelty the Iroquois has no rival. And this cunning Mazarin promises and promises us money and men, while those who reckon on his word struggle and die. Ah well, monseigneur has the gout; he will die of it."

"And this Marquis de Périgny; will not Father Chaumonot waste his time?" asked the mariner.

"Who can say? The marquis is a strange man. He is neither Catholic nor Huguenot; he fears neither God nor the devil. He laughs at death, since to him there is no hereafter. Yet withal, he is a man of justice and of many generous impulses. But woe to the man who crosses his path. His peasants are well fed and clothed warmly; his servants refuse to leave him. He was one of the gayest and wildest courtiers in Paris, a man who has killed twenty men in duels. There are two things that may be said in his favor; he is without hypocrisy, and is an honest and fearless enemy. Louis XIII was his friend, the Duc de Rohan his comrade. He has called Gaston of Orléans a coward to his face.

"He was one of those gallants who, when Richelieu passed an edict concerning the loose women of the city, placed one in the cardinal's chamber and accused him of breaking his own edict. Richelieu annulled the act, but he never forgave the marquis for telling the story to Madame de Montbazon, who in turn related it to the queen. The marquis threw his hat in the face of the Duc de Longueville when the latter accused him of receiving billets from madame. There was a duel. The duke carried a bad arm to Normandy, and the marquis dined a week with the governor of the Bastille. That was the marquis's last affair. It happened before the Fronde. Since then he has remained in seclusion, fortifying himself against old age. His hôtel is in the Rue des Augustines, near the former residence of Henri II.

"The marquis's son you have seen-drunk most of the time. Happy his mother, who died at his birth. 'Tis a pity, too, for the boy has a good heart and wrongs no one but himself. He has been sent home from court in disgrace, though what disgrace no one seems to know. Some piece of gallantry, no doubt, which ended in a duel. He and his father are at odds. They seldom speak. The Chevalier, having money, drinks and gambles. The Vicomte d'Halluys won a thousand livres from him last night in the private assembly."

"Wild blood," said Bouchard, draining his tankard. "France has too much of it. Wine and dicing and women: fine snares the devil sets with these. How have you recruited?"

"Tolerably well. Twenty gentlemen will sail with us; mostly improvident younger sons. But what's this turmoil between our comrade Nicot and Maître le Borgne?" sliding his booted legs to the floor and sitting upright.

Bouchard glanced over his shoulder. Nicot was waving his arms and pointing to his vis-à-vis at the table, while the innkeeper was shrugging and bowing and spreading his hands.

"He leaves the table," cried Nicot, "or I leave the inn."

"But, Monsieur, there is no other place," protested the maître; "and he has paid in advance."

"I tell you he smells abominably of horse."

"I, Monsieur?" mildly inquired the cause of the argument. He was a young man of twenty-three or four, with a countenance more ingenuous than handsome, expressive of that mobility which is inseparable from a nature buoyant and humorous.

"Thousand thunders, yes! Am I a gentleman, and a soldier, to sit with a reeking stable-boy?"

"If I smell of the horse," said the young man, calmly helping himself to a quarter of rabbit pie, "Monsieur smells strongly of the ass."

Whereupon a titter ran round the room. This did not serve to mollify the anger of the irascible Nicot, whose hand went to his sword.

"Softly, softly!" warned the youth, taking up the carving knife and jestingly testing the edge with his thumb-nail.

Some one laughed aloud.

"Monsieur Nicot, for pity's sake, remember where you are!" Maître le Borgne pressed back the soldier.

"Ah! it is Monsieur Nicot who has such a delicate nose?" said the youth banteringly. "Well, Monsieur Nicot, permit me to finish this excellent pie. I have