The Red Cockade

"I fear that they expect too much," I answered guardedly.

He laughed; a horse-laugh full of scorn. "They think that the millennium has come," he said. "And in a month they will find their barns burned and their throats cut."

"I hope not," I said.

"Oh, I hope not," he answered cynically. "I hope not, of course. But even so Vive la Nation! Vive la Revolution!"

"What? If that be its fruit?" I asked.

"Ay, why not?" he answered, his gloomy eyes fixed on me. "It is every one for himself, and what has the old rule done for me that I should fear to try the new? Left me to starve on an old rock and a dovecot; sheltered by bare stones, and eating out of a black pot! While women and bankers, scented fops and lazy priests prick it before the King! And why? Because I remain, sir, what half the nation once were."

"A Protestant?" I hazarded.

"Yes, Monsieur. And a poor noble," he answered bitterly. "The Baron de Géol, at your service."

I gave him my name in return.

"You wear the tricolour," he said; "yet you think me extreme? I answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a wife-"

"On the contrary, M. le Baron."

"Then a mother, a sister?"

"No," I said, smiling. "I have neither. I am quite alone."

"At least with a home," he persisted, "means, friends, employment, or the chance of employment?"

"Yes," I said, "that is so."

"Whereas I-I," he answered, growing guttural in his excitement, "have none of these things. I cannot enter the army-I am a Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State-I am a Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge-I am a Protestant! The King's schools are closed to me-I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at Court-I am a Protestant! I-in the eyes of the law I do not exist! I-I, Monsieur," he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid of dignity, "whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at Coutras-I do not exist!"

"But now?" I said, startled by his tone of passion.

"Ay, now," he answered grimly, "it is going to be different. Now, it is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the clock back again. That is why I am on the road."

"You are going to Milhau?"

"I live near Milhau," he answered. "And I have been from home. But I am not going home now. I am going farther-to Nîmes."

"To Nîmes?" I said in surprise.

"Yes," he said. And he looked at me askance and a trifle grimly, and did not say any more. By this time it was growing dark; the valley of the Tarn, along which our road lay, though fertile and pleasant to the eye in summer, wore at this season, and in the half-light, a savage and rugged aspect. Mountains towered on either side; and sometimes, where the road drew near the river, the rushing of the water as it swirled and eddied among the rocks below us, added its note of melancholy to the scene. I shivered. The uncertainty of my quest, the uncertainty of everything, the gloom of my companion, pressed upon me. I was glad when he roused himself from his brooding, and pointed to the lights of Milhau glimmering here and there on a little plain, where the mountains recede from the river.

"You are doubtless going to the inn?" he said, as we entered the outskirts. I assented. "Then we part here," he continued. "To-morrow, if you are going to Nîmes- But you may prefer to travel alone."

"Far from it," I said.

"Well, I shall be leaving the east gate-about eight o'clock," he answered grudgingly. "Good-night, Monsieur."

I bade him good-night, and leaving him there, rode into the town: passing through narrow, mean streets, and under dark archways and hanging lanterns, that swung and creaked in the wind, and did everything but light the squalid obscurity. Though night had fallen, people were moving briskly to and fro, or standing at their doors; the place, after the solitude through which I had ridden, had the air of a city; and presently I became aware that a little crowd was following my horse. Before I reached the inn, which stood in a dimly-lit square, the crowd had grown into a great one, and was beginning to press upon me; some who marched nearest to me staring up inquisitively into my face, while others, farther off, called to their neighbours, or to dim forms seen at basement windows, that it was he!

I found this somewhat alarming. Still they did not molest me; but when I halted they halted too, and I was forced to dismount almost in their arms. "Is this the inn?" I said to those nearest tome; striving to appear at my ease.

"Yes! yes!" they cried with one voice, "that is the inn!"

"My horse-"

"We will take the horse! Enter! Enter!"

I had little choice, they flocked so closely round me; and, affecting carelessness, I complied, thinking that they would not follow, and that inside I should learn the meaning of their conduct. But the moment my back was turned they pressed in after me and beside me, and, almost sweeping me off my feet, urged me along the narrow passage of the house, whether I would or no. I tried to turn and remonstrate; but the foremost drowned my words in loud cries for "M. Flandre! M. Flandre!"

Fortunately the person addressed was not far off. A door towards which I was being urged opened, and he appeared. He proved to be an immensely stout man, with a face to match his body; and he gazed at us for a moment, astounded by the invasion. Then he asked angrily what was the matter. "Ventre de Ciel!" he cried. "Is this my house or yours, rascals? Who is this?"

"The Capuchin! The Capuchin!" cried a dozen voices.

"Ho! ho!" he answered, before I could speak. "Bring a light."

Two or three bare-armed women whom the noise had brought to the door of the kitchen fetched candles, and raising them above their heads gazed at me curiously. "Ho! ho!" he said again. "The Capuchin is it? So you have got him."

"Do I look like one?" I cried angrily, thrusting back those who pressed on me most closely. "Nom de Dieu! Is this the way you receive guests, Monsieur? Or is the town gone mad?"

"You are not the Capuchin monk?" he said, somewhat taken aback, I could see, by my boldness.

"Have I not said that I am not? Do monks in your country travel in boots and spurs?" I retorted.

"Then your papers!" he answered curtly. "Your papers! I would have you to know," he continued, puffing out his cheeks, "that I am Mayor here as well as host, and I keep the jail as well as the inn. Your papers, Monsieur, if you prefer the one to the other."

"Before your friends here?" I said contemptuously.

"They are good citizens," he answered.

I had some fear, now I had come to the pinch, that the commission I carried might fail to produce all the effects with which I had credited it. But I had no choice, and ultimately nothing to dread; and after a momentary hesitation I produced it. Fortunately it was drawn in complimentary terms and gave the Mayor, I know not how, the idea that I was actually bound at the moment on an errand of state. When he had read it, therefore, he broke into a hundred apologies, craved leave to salute me, and announced to the listening crowd that they had made a mistake.

It struck me at the time as strange, that they, the crowd, were not at all embarrassed by their error. On the contrary, they hastened to congratulate me on my acquittal, and even patted me on the shoulder in their good humour; some went to see that my horse was brought in, or to give orders on my behalf, and the rest presently dispersed, leaving me fain to believe that they would have hung me to the nearest lanterne with the same stolid complaisance.

When only two or three remained, I asked the Mayor for whom they had taken me.

"A disguised monk, M. le Vicomte," he said. "A very dangerous fellow, who is known to be travelling with two ladies-all to Nîmes; and orders have been sent from a high quarter to arrest him."

"But I am alone!" I protested. "I have no ladies with me."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Just so, M. le Vicomte," he answered. "But we have got the two ladies. They were arrested this morning, while attempting to pass through the town in a carriage. We know, therefore, that he is now alone."

"Oh," I said. "So now you only want him? And what is the charge against him?" I continued, remembering with a languid stirring of the pulses that a Capuchin monk had visited Father Benôit before his departure. It seemed to be strange that I should come upon the traces of another here.

"He is charged," M. Flandre answered pompously, "with high treason against the nation, Monsieur. He has been seen here, there, and everywhere, at Montpellier, and Cette, and Albi, and as far away as Auch; and always preaching war and superstition, and corrupting the people."

"And the ladies?" I said smiling. "Have they too been corrupting-"