CHAPTER XIX
A RAP IN THE EARLY MORNING AWAKENS ME AND I START IN A GLASS COACH UPONTHE ODDEST OF JOURNEYS
It was the last, for many months, I was to see of my countrywoman.Before the crow of the cock next morning I was on the unending roads,trundling in a noisy vehicle through pitch darkness, my companionsnoring stertorous at my side, his huge head falling every now and thenupon my shoulder, myself peering to catch some revelation of what mannerof country-side we went through as the light from the swinging lanthornlit up briefly passing banks of frosted hedge or sleeping hamlets onwhose pave the hoofs of our horses hammered as they had been the verywar-steeds of Bellona.
But how came I there? How but by my master's whim, that made himanticipate his departure by three days and drag me from my bedincontinent to set out upon his trip over Europe.
I had been sleeping soundly, dreaming I heard the hopper of the millof Driepps at home banging to make Jock Alexander's fortune, when Iawakened, or rather half-wakened, to discover that 'twas no hopper but anieve at my door, rapping with a vigour to waken the dead.
"Come out! Sir Secretary, come out! or I shall pull thy domicile aboutthine ears," cried the voice of Father Hamilton.
He stood at the door when I opened, wrapped over the chin in a mufflerof multitudinous folds, and covered by a roquelaure.
"_Pax!_" he cried, thrusting a purple face into the room, "and on withthy boots like a good lad. We must be off and over the dunes before thebell of St. Eloi knocks another nail in the coffin of time."
"What!" I said, dumbfoundered, "are we to start on our journey to-day?"
"Even so, my sluggardly Scot; faith! before the day even, for the daywill be in a deuce of a hurry an' it catch up on us before we reachPont-Opoise. Sop a crust in a jug of wine--I've had no better _petitdejeuner_ myself--put a clean cravat and a pair of hose in thy sack,and in all emulate the judicious flea that wastes no time in idlerumination, but transacts its affairs in a succession of leaps."
"And no time to say good-bye to anyone?" I asked, struggling into mytoilet.
"La! la! la! the flea never takes a _conge_ that I've heard on, MasterPunctilio. Not so much as a kiss o' the hand for you; I have had news,and 'tis now or never."
Twenty minutes later, Thurot's landlord (for Thurot himself was fromhome) lit me to the courtyard, and the priest bundled me and my sackinto the bowels of an enormous chariot waiting there.
The clocks began to strike the hour of five; before the last stroke hadceased to shiver the darkness we were thundering along the sea frontand my master was already composed to sleep in his corner, withoutvouchsafing me a sentence of explanation for so hurried a departure.Be sure my heart was sore! I felt the blackest of ingrates to be thusspeeding without a sign of farewell from a place where I had met with somuch of friendship.
Out at the window of the coach I gazed, to see nothing but the cavernousnight on one side, on the other, lit by the lanthorn, the flashing pastof houses all shuttered and asleep.
It was dry and pleasant weather, with a sting of frost in the air, andthe propinquity of the sea manifest not in its plangent voice alone butin the odour of it that at that hour dominated the natural smells of thefaubourgs. Only one glimpse I had of fellow creatures; as we passed thefort, the flare of flambeaux showed an enormous body of soldiersworking upon the walls of Risebank; it but added to the poignance of mymelancholy to reflect that here were my country's enemies unsleeping,and I made a sharp mental contrast of this most dauntening spectaclewith a picture of the house of Hazel Den dreaming among its trees, andonly crying lambs perhaps upon the moor to indicate that any lifewas there. Melancholy! oh, it was eerie beyond expression for me thatmorning! Outside, the driver talked to his horses and to some one withhim on the boot; it must have been cheerier for him than for me as I satin that sombre and close interior, jolted by my neighbour, and unable torefrain from rehabilitating all the past. Especially did I think of mydark home-coming with a silent father on the day I left the college togo back to the Mearns. And by a natural correlation, that was boundto lead to all that followed--even to the event for which I was now somiserably remote from my people.
Once or twice his reverence woke, to thrust his head out at the windowand ask where we were. Wherever we were when he did so, *twas certainnever to be far enough for his fancy, and he condemned the driver fora snail until the whip cracked wickedly and the horses laboured morestrenuously than ever, so that our vehicle swung upon its springs tillit might well seem we were upon a ship at sea.
For me he had but the one comment--"I wonder what's for _dejeuner._" Hesaid it each time solemnly as it were his matins, and then slid into hisswinish sleep again.
The night seemed interminable, but by-and-by the day broke. I watchedit with eagerness as it gradually paled the east, and broke up the blackbulk of the surrounding land into fields, orchards, gardens, woods. Andthe birds awoke--God bless the little birds!--they woke, and startedtwittering and singing in the haze, surely the sweetest, the leastsinless of created things, the tiny angels of the woods, from whom,walking in summer fields in the mornings of my age as of my youth, Ihave borrowed hope and cheer.
Father Hamilton wakened too, and heard the birds; indeed, they filledthe ear of the dawn with melodies. A smile singularly pleasant came uponhis countenance as he listened.
"_Pardieu!_" said he, "how they go on! Has't the woodland soul, _SieurCroque-mort_? Likely enough not; I never knew another but myself andthine uncle that had it, and 'tis the mischief that words will notexplain the same. 'Tis a gift of the fairies"--here he crossed himselfdevoutly and mumbled a Romish incantation--"that, having thesaid woodland spirit--in its nature a Pagan thing perchance, but_n'importe!_--thou hast in the song of the tiny beings choiring theresomething to make the inward tremor that others find in a fiddle anda glass of wine. No! no! not that, 'tis a million times more precious;'tis--'tis the pang of the devotee, 'tis the ultimate thrill of things.Myself, I could expire upon the ecstasy of the thrush, or climb toheaven upon the lark's May rapture. And there they go! the loves! andthey have the same ditty I heard from them first in Louvain. There arebut three clean things in this world, my lad of Scotland--a bird, aflower, and a child's laughter. I have been confessor long enoughto know all else is filth. But what's the luck in waiting for us atAzincourt? and what's the _pot-au-feu_ to-day?"
He listened a little longer to the birds, and fell asleep smiling, hisfat face for once not amiss, and I was left again alone as it were toreceive the day.
We had long left the dunes and the side of the sea, though sometimes onpuffs of wind I heard its distant rumour. Now the land was wooded withthe apple tree; we rose high on the side of a glen, full of a rollingfog that streamed off as the day grew. A tolerable land enough; perhapsmore lush than my own, with scarce a rood uncultivated, and dottedfar and wide by the strangest farm steadings and pendicles, but suchsteadings and pendicles as these eyes never before beheld, with enormouseaves of thatch reaching almost to the ground, and ridiculous windows ofno shape; with the yokings of the cattle, the boynes, stoups, carts, andploughs about the places altogether different from our own. We passedtroops marching, peasants slouching with baskets of poultry to markettowns, now and then a horseman, now and then a caleche. And there werenumerous hamlets, and at least two middling-sized towns, and finallywe came, at the hour of eleven, upon the place appointed for our_dejeuner_. It was a small inn on the banks of the only rivulet I hadseen in all the journey. I forget its name, but I remember there wasa patch of heather on the side of it, and that I wished ardently theseason had been autumn that I might have looked upon the purple bells.
"Tis a long lane that has no tavern," said his reverence, and oozedout of his side of the coach with groanings. The innkeeper ran forth,louted, and kissed his hand.
"_Jour, m'sieu jour!_" said Father Hamilton hurriedly. "And now, whathave you here that is worth while?"
The innkeeper respectfully intimated that the church ofSaint-Jean-en-Greve was generally conside
red worth notice. Itsvestments, relics, and windows were of merit, and the view from thetower--
"_Mort de ma vie!_" cried the priest angrily, "do I look like atraveller who trots up belfrys in strange villages at the hour of_dejeuner?_ A plague on Saint-Jean-en-Greve! I said nothing at all ofchurches; I spoke of _dejeuner_, my good fellow. What's for _dejeuner?_"
The innkeeper recounted a series of dishes. Father Hamilton hummed andhawed, reflected, condemned, approved, all with an eagerness beyonddescription. And when the meal was being dished up, he went franticallyto the kitchen and lifted pot-lids, and swung a salad for himself, andconfounding the ordinary wine for the vilest piquette ordered a specialvariety from the cellar. It was a spectacle of gourmandise not withoutits humour; I was so vastly engaged in watching him that I scarceglanced at the men who had travelled on the outside of the coach sincemorning.
What was my amazement when I did so to see that the servant or valet (ashe turned out to be) was no other than the Swiss, Bernard, who had beenin the service of Miss Walkinshaw no later than yesterday morning!
I commented on the fact to Father Hamilton when we sat down to eat.
"Why, yes!" he said, gobbling at his vivers with a voracity I learnednot to wonder at later when I knew him more. "The same man. A good man,too, or I'm a Turk. I've envied Miss Walkinshaw this lusty, trusty,secret rogue for a good twelvemonth, and just on the eve of my leavingDunkerque, by a very providence, the fellow gets drunk and finds himselfdismissed. He came to me with a flush and a hiccough last night to aska recommendation, and overlooking the peccadillo that is not of a natureconfined to servants, Master Greig, let me tell thee, I gave him a placein my _entourage_. Madame will not like it, but no matter! she'll havetime to forget it ere I see her again."
I felt a mild satisfaction to have the Swiss with us just because I hadheard him called "Bernard" so often by his late employer.
We rested for some hours after _dejeuner_, seated under a tree by thebrink of the rivulet, and in the good humour of a man satisfied innature the priest condescended to let me into some of his plans.
We were bound for Paris in the first place. "Zounds!" he cried, "I amall impatience to clap eyes again on Lutetia, the sweet rogue, andeat decent bread and behold a noble gown and hear a right cadenza.And though thou hast lost thy Lyrnessides--la! la! la! I have theethere!--thou canst console thyself with the Haemonian lyre. Paris! oh,lad, I'd give all to have thy years and a winter or two in it. Still, weshall make shift--oh, yes! I warrant thee we shall make shift. We shallbe there, at my closest reckoning, on the second day of Holy Week, andmy health being so poorly we shall not wait to commence _de faire lesPaques_ an hour after. What's in a _soutane_, anyhow, that it should bepermitted to mortify an honest priest's oesophagus?"
I sighed in spite of myself, for he had made me think of our throwing ofEaster eggs on the green at Hazel Den.
"What!" he cried. "Does my frugal Scot fancy we have not enoughtrinkgeld for enjoyment. Why, look here!--and here!--and here!"
He thrust his hand into his bosom and drew forth numerous rouleaux--somany that I thought his corpulence might well be a plethora of coin.
"There!" said he, squeezing a rouleau till it burst and spreading outthe gold upon the table before him. "Am I a poor parish priest or a veryCroesus?"
Then he scooped in the coins with his fat hands and returned all to hisbosom. "_Allons!_" he said shortly; we were on the road again!
That night we put up at the Bon Accueil in a town whose name escapes myrecollection.
He had gone to bed; through the wall from his chamber came the noiseof his sleep, while I was at the writing of my first letter to MissWalkinshaw, making the same as free and almost affectionate as I hadbeen her lover, for as I know it now, I was but seeking in her for theface of the love of the first woman and the last my heart was given to.
I had scarcely concluded when the Swiss came knocking softly to my door,and handed me a letter from the very woman whose name was still in wetink upon my folded page. I tore it open eagerly, to find a score ofpleasant remembrances. She had learned the night before that the priestwas to set out in the morning: "I have kept my word," she went on. "Yourbest friend is Bernard, so I let you have him, and let us exchange ourbillets through him. It will be the most Discreet method. And I am, withevery consideration, Ye Ken Wha."