Henry of Guise: The States of Blois. G. P. R. James

the young count had entered the hall and commenced his supper before there was a sign of their approach.

      The first thing that gave him any intimation of their coming was the sound of voices speaking sharp and angrily in the Italian language; and he thought he heard amongst them the tones of the boy uttering a few, but indignant, words of remonstrance.

      Rising from the table at which he sat, the young count approached the window, and found that he was right in supposing the party of musicians had arrived. The boy was standing in the midst, and the woman, as well as the two men, were bending over him, talking to him earnestly, with vehement grimaces on the countenance of each, while the clenched fist of the elder man shaken unceasingly, though not raised even so high as his own girdle, showed that some threats were being used to the boy, in order, apparently, to drive him to something, to do which he was unwilling. Although the window was on a level with their heads, the count could not distinguish what they said, for they were now speaking low, though still eagerly. They raised their voices, indeed, almost to a scream, when they uttered some wild Italian exclamation, but it was meaningless without the context. At length, however, to the surprise of Charles of Montsoreau, the boy seemed moved by a sudden fit of rage; and lifting the hand which held his pipe, he dashed the instrument of music upon the ground, shivering it to atoms, and exclaiming, "Never! never! I will neither sing nor play a note!"

      At that instant the elder man struck him a blow on the side of the head, which knocked him at once down upon the road; and Charles of Montsoreau opening the window, leaped out, and interfered, while several of his attendants followed him from the supper room.

      The faces of the Italians fell when they saw him; and there was a sort of confused and guilty look about them, which might well have made any one of a suspicious nature believe that they had been planning no very good schemes, when the obstinacy of the boy had obstructed them.

      "You treat this youth ill," said Charles of Montsoreau, frowning upon the man who had struck him. "Are you his father?"

      "No, the blessed Virgin be thanked!" exclaimed the Italian; "his name is Carlo Ignatius Morone, though we call him Ignati. No, obstinate little brute! he is no child of mine! I bought him of his mother to sing and dance for us. A bad bargain I made of it too, for he does not gain his own bread with his whims. His mother was a courtezan of Genoa."

      "She was not my mother!" cried the boy in an indignant tone. "My mother was dead long before that. But whatever she was, Paulina Morone was always kind to me; and she would never have sold me to you, if I had not asked her, when she had no bread to eat herself, and had given me the last crust she had to give."

      "This is a sad history," said Charles of Montsoreau; "and as you say the boy does not gain his own bread, you will, doubtless, be glad enough to sell him to me, my good friend."

      The man hesitated. "I don't know that exactly," he said, "noble lord. The boy can sing well, if he likes it, as you know; and he can play well both upon the pipe and the lute when he likes it and is not obstinate; and he is as active as a Basque, and can dance better than any one I ever saw. Would you like to see him dance, my lord? I'll make him dance fast enough. That I can always do with a good stout stick, though sing he won't unless he likes it."

      "I wonder not at it," replied the count. "But you shall not make him dance for me. What I wish to know is, will you sell him to me? You said you had made a bad bargain, and that he did not gain his own bread, much less repay you."

      "Not here in the provinces, sir," replied the man. "But I am sure if I took him to Paris, I could make a good sum by showing him to the lords and ladies there. However, I will sell him, if I can make something by him, sooner than be burdened with him any more."

      "What do you demand?" said Charles of Montsoreau. "If you are moderate, perhaps I may give it to you, for I like to hear the boy sing."

      "I will have," said the man, "I will have at least a hundred and fifty crowns of gold, crowns of the sun, sir, remember, or I'll not part with the boy."

      "That is three times as much as you gave to the Morone," cried the boy--"you know it is."

      "Ay, little villain," answered the man; "but have I not brought you from Italy since, and fed you for more than a year?"

      "And spent a fortune in cudgels too upon him," said the woman.

      Charles of Montsoreau gave her a glance of contempt, and then turned his look towards the boy, whose eyes were full of tears. The sum that was asked for him was, in fact, considerable, each gold crown being in that day worth sixty sous, and the value of money itself, as compared with produce, being about five times that which it is at present. But the young nobleman, unaccustomed to traffic in human flesh, that most odious and horrible of all the rites of Mammon, looked upon the sum to be given as a mere trifle when compared with the boy's deliverance from the hands into which he had fallen.

      "You shall have the money," he said.--"Gondrin, bid Martin bring me the leathern bag which he carries, and I will pay the sum immediately."

      The first sensation of the Italian was joy, at having over-reached the young French nobleman, the second was equally natural to the people, and the class to which he belonged, sorrow at not having contrived to over-reach him to a greater extent. The money, however, being produced, and the sum paid, the boy demanded and received from the younger man, who carried a pack upon his shoulders, some little articles of property belonging, he said, to himself.

      "The boy is now yours, my Lord," said the Italian, looking wistfully at the closing mouth of the bag; "but surely your Lordship will give me another crown for the bargain's sake."

      "I will tell you what I will give you," replied Charles of Montsoreau:--"if you and your base companions do not take yourselves out of the place as fast as your legs can carry you, I will order my horsemen to flog you for a mile along the road with their stirrup leathers."

      The man put his hand, with a meaning look, to the gilded hilt of his dagger; but, in an instant, one buffet from the hand of Charles of Montsoreau replied to the mute sign, by laying him prostrate on the ground. A loud laugh echoed from the inn door at this conclusion of the scene; and starting on his feet again, the Italian and his companions hurried away as fast as possible, the elder one only pausing for a moment, at about a hundred yards' distance, to shake his clenched fist at the young nobleman, with a meaning look.

      "Come, my boy," said the Count, "come and get thee some supper. Thou shalt be better treated at least with me than with them."

      The boy caught his hand, and kissed it a thousand times, and the young nobleman led him towards the house, asking him as they went, "What was it they wished you to do when I came out to stop them from maltreating you?"

      "To sing and play to you, and engage all your thoughts," replied the boy, "while they stole the jewel out of your hat, and put a piece of glass in its place."

      CHAPTER IX.

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      The sweetest of all balms to a hurt mind is the doing a good action; and with that for his consolation, Charles of Montsoreau retired to rest, and, though he slept not well, certainly, he obtained more repose than he had expected. On the following morning, he found--that which we so often find--that things done for kindly and benevolent purposes bear with them sources of recompense to ourselves which we never calculated upon. The unfortunate boy whom he had delivered from the hands of his persecutors on the preceding day, afforded the young count a subject of interest and occupation, that withdrew his thoughts from more painful themes, and gave him a degree of relief, which, though merely temporary, was in itself a blessing.

      The boy stood by his side while he took his breakfast, and looked so full of joy, that Charles of Montsoreau could not help congratulating himself upon what he had done, though he was not sufficiently ignorant of the world to suppose that, for the sum of a hundred and fifty crowns, he had bought himself a treasure of high qualities, such as the best education can hardly bestow upon the best disposition.

      He had