The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II. G. P. R. James

the Turks in former days.

      On the first point, how I was to join the army, many difficulties existed. The short peace which had been granted to the Protestants had now been some months at an end, and the third war of religion had already began. The principal forces of the Huguenots were assembled in the neighbourhood of La Rochelle, and a considerable distance remained to be traversed before I could hope to fall in with the army.

      While I was considering all these things, the eastern sky became somewhat brighter, and the faint pink of the morning air afforded sufficient light to see all the objects distinctly. I had taken my way towards Bordeaux, as the first great town where I could hope to obtain any information, and had walked on rapidly, while the boy, carrying on his shoulder the valise with which I had charged him, trudged on in perfect silence by my side, without making the slightest inquiry as to the end or object of my journey, or where he himself was going.

      I had chosen him, indeed, from the rest of the servants, when I was permitted to select two of them to attend upon me, principally because he had always shown both respect and attachment towards me, but scarcely less because there was a degree of similarity between his fate and my own; his father having been killed at the battle of St. Denis, and he left an orphan to the care of strangers. He was now a stout, active youth of about nineteen, somewhat variable it his mood, occasionally loquacious, but more frequently quite the reverse; replying with a sharp, quick word, observing keenly all that passed, and having much shrewd sense under a somewhat dull and boorish exterior. On the present occasion, however, his taciturnity had been even more marked than usual. When I had roused him, at first he had looked at me with some wonder, but he had not said a word since, doing exactly as I bade him in profound silence.

      At the distance of about two miles from the chateau of Blancford, we reached the first village, which boasted such a thing as an auberge; and there I had proposed to make the lad put down the valise, and, getting some one else to carry it forward with me, to give him some small pieces of money as a parting gift, and send him back. On entering the village, however, we found that no one was up; and, though there was written over the door of the inn, "Were lodge travellers on foot. A dinner six sous. A bed eight sous. Come in and try!" the closed door belied the hospitable invitation, and I was somewhat puzzled how to proceed.

      "I suppose I must wait till they get up, Andriot," I said. "So you can put down the valise and return to the castle. I shall find somebody up presently to carry it on to Bordeaux for me."

      "I can carry it on, sir," he said; "they'll be an hour before they're up, and I don't see why you should get an inn-boy while you've your own man."

      "Alas! my good Andriot," I said, "you can be my own man no longer. I am too poor a gentleman to afford attendance upon me, and you had better go back at once, lest any review of the servants should be made at the chateau, and the baron should be angry at your absence."

      "The baron may be angry once," said the lad, "but he'll not be angry any more than once with me, at least; for we all saw and heard enough last night to make me very glad when I found you were going. No, no, sir, I have been your servant for two years, and not the baron's, and the chateau of Blancford is no more a home for me if you are not there."

      "But think a while, my good Andriot," I replied; "it is utterly impossible for me either to pay you any wages or to support you. I go forth with scarcely the means of supporting myself till I reach the army. I seek fortune there as a common soldier, and may not even obtain, for aught I know, the means of gaining bread for myself with my own sword. Me, therefore, you cannot accompany; and you must remember how many chances there are in these troublous times against your obtaining any situation at all comparable to that which you may still hold in the chateau of Blancford."

      "I have thought of all that you say, sir," he replied, "as we came along; for it is always right to think well what one is about, after one has taken a resolution. I took mine an hour or two ago. When you first roused me I was half asleep, and didn't understand what you meant. But then again, as soon as both my eyes were open, I understood the whole, for I had thought to myself, when I went to bed, that, if what the baroness' groom had said about the baron and you was true, you would not stay in the castle much after daylight; so I made up my mind in a moment, as soon as I found that you were going. As to wages, I owe you three weeks' service, for you paid me a month in advance last Monday; then, as for food, I have taken care to have all the money that you ever gave me in my pocket to the last sous; then, besides that, I have got three crowns of the sun, and two livres Tournois, which were brought me by Sampson the squire from my poor father when he was killed at St. Denis. So you see, sir, I have plenty to keep me for a year; and as for the rest, if you are going to seek your fortune, I do not see why I should not go and seek mine with you."

      "Well, then, Andriot," I replied, with a smile which I could not refrain at his using arguments for following me which were so like the reasons that existed in my own bosom for my own conduct, "if such be your resolution, take up the valise and let us go on. What you do is your voluntary act, and, at any time that you think fit to leave me, you shall do so; so pray Heaven send you soon a wealthier master, and one that can reward you for your fidelity."

      "I hope to Heaven it may be so, sir," replied the youth; "and I don't suppose you'll be long before you have some piece of good luck. Fortune gets tired of troubling a man that cares little about her; and I have heard old Jansen, the Jew merchant, say that luck changes at five-and-twenty, at fifty, and at seventy-five, if a man but lives so long."

      Thus saying, he once more lifted the valise; and I then perceived, for the first time, that he had strapped on it a little packet of his own goods and chattels, which showed that his resolution had, as he said, been taken before he quitted the chateau.

      On approaching the gates of Bordeaux, it became necessary to determine to what inn we should go. My meager finances did not permit of my lodging for even a day at any of the expensive auberges of the Gascon capitol; and I bethought me that Andriot, born and brought up in that neighbourhood, was much more likely to be acquainted with the inferior inns than myself. I therefore consulted him upon the subject, and he replied at once,

      "Oh! sir, go to the little inn kept by Jacques de Cannes, called the Soleil Levant, at the end of the Rue de Minimes. It is a poor place, but you will have plenty of Protestant news there, and you will get a good dinner for a small sum. In the evening, when you have settled all, we can go on to Carbon Blanc, or, perhaps, to Cubzac."

      "We could not have a more auspicious name," I replied, "than the rising sun, Andriot; and see where the sun is indeed rising, and with as bright an aspect as one could desire."

      Andriot instantly pulled off his cap towards the east with as much apparent reverence as ever did Persian to the rising orb of day. "Send us good luck, monseigneur," he said, addressing the sun; and then, with a gay laugh, full of careless hope and light-hearted cheerfulness, he followed my steps, and in a quarter of an hour we were in the town of Bordeaux.

      The doors of the Soleil Levant were by this time wide open, and it was evident, by the joyous welcome given to Andriot, that it was not the first time that he had set his foot within those walls. I had just time to tell him that it might be prudent, for the time being, not to mention my name, when we were surrounded by half a dozen of his old friends and companions, who led us both into the little hall, where breakfast was in active preparation for those guests who had passed the night at the house. Only one of these, however, had as yet appeared, and he was seated at that one of the two tables the room contained which was nearest to the window that looked into the street. He was so placed, however, in the corner of the hall, that he could see the passengers who went by without being remarked himself; and though I had passed the windows but a moment before, I had not perceived that there was anybody in the room.

      According to the hint that I had given to Andriot, he merely informed Jacques de Cannes that I was a gentleman adventurer seeking my fortune as a soldier, with whom he had taken service, being sick of his late employ in the chateau de Blancford. This was said after I had taken a step or two forward towards the table, and just loud enough for me to hear. The worthy aubergiste answered in the same tone, demanding, with an expressive nod, "He is one of our people, of course?"

      "I should not be with him," replied the lad,