Part 46 (1/2)
Presently he returned and conducted them to a decent stable, where they saw their beasts bestowed and well provided with bedding and forage for the night. Then the old cripple, more than ever bent upon his stick, but nevertheless chuckling to himself all the way, preceded them into the house.
”Ah, she is clever,” he muttered; ”she thinks her demon tells her everything. But even La Meffraye will not know where I have hidden that beautiful gold.”
So he sn.i.g.g.e.red senilely to himself between his fits of coughing.
It was a low, wide room of strange aspect into which the old man conducted his guests. The floor was of hard-beaten earth, but cleanly kept and firm to the feet. The fireplace, with a hearth round it of built stone, was placed in the midst, and from the rafters depended many chains and hooks. A wooden settle ran half round the hearthstone on the side farthest from the draught of the door. The weary three sat down and stretched their limbs. The fire had burnt low, and Sholto, reaching to a f.a.ggot heap by the side wall, began to toss on boughs of green birch in handfuls, till the lovely white flame arose and the sap spat and hissed in explosive puffs.
_”Birk when 'tis green Makes a fire for a king!”_
Malise hummed the old Scots lines, and the cripple coming in at that moment raised a shrill bark of protest.
”My good wood, my fuel that cost me so many sore backs--be careful, young sir. f.a.ggots of birch are dear in this country of Machecoul. My lord is of those who give nothing for naught.”
”Oh, we shall surely pay for what we use,” cried careless James; ”let us eat, and warm our toes, and therewith have somewhat less of thy prating, old dotard. It can be shrewdly cold in this westerly country of yours.”
”Pay,” cried the old man, holding up his clawed hands; ”do you mean _more_ pay--more besides the beautiful gold angel? Here--”
He ran out and presently returned with armful after armful of f.a.ggots, while his guests laughed to find his mood so changed.
”Here,” he cried, running to and fro like a fretful hen, ”take it all, and when that is done, this also, and this. Nay, I will stay up all night to carry more from the forest of Machecoul.”
”And you who were so afraid to open to three honest men, would you venture to bring f.a.ggots by night from yon dark wood?”
”Nay,” said the old man, cunningly, ”I meant not from the forest, but from my neighbours' woodpiles. Yet for lovely gold I would even venture to go thither--that is, if I had my image of the Blessed Mother about my neck and the moon shone very bright.”
”Now haste thee with the barley brew,” said Lord James, ”for my stomach is as deep as a well and as empty as the purse of a younger son.”
The strange cripple emitted another bird-like cachinnation, resembling the sound which is made by the wooden cogwheels wherewithal boys fright the crows from the cornfields when the August sun is yellowing the land.
”Poor old Caesar Martin can show you something better than that,” he cried, as he hirpled out (for so Malise described it afterwards) and presently returned dragging a great iron pot with a strength which seemed incredible in so ramshackle a body.
”Ha! ha!” he said, ”here is fragrant stew; smell it. Is it not good?
In ten minutes it will be so hot and toothsome that you will scarce have patience to wait till it be decently cool in the platters. This is not common Angevin stew, but Bas Breton--which is a far better thing.”
Malise rose, and, relieving the old man, with one finger swung the pot to a crook that hung over the cheerful blaze of the birchwood.
The old cripple Caesar Martin now mounted on a stool and stirred the mess with a long stick, at the end of which was a steel fork of two p.r.o.ngs. And as he stirred he talked:
”G.o.d bless you, say I, brave gentlemen and good pilgrims. Surely it was a wind n.o.ble and fortunate that blew you hither to taste my broth.
There be fine pigeons here, fat and young. There be leverets juicy and tender as a maid untried. There--what think you of that?” (he held each ingredient up on a p.r.o.ng as he spoke). ”And here be larks, partridge stuffed with sage, ripe chestnuts from La Valery, and whisper it not to any of the marshal's men, a fawn from the park of a month old, dressed like a kid so that none may know.”
”I suppose that so much providing is for your four sons?” said Sholto.
The cripple laughed again his feeble, fleering laugh.
”I have no sons, honest sir,” he said; ”it was but a weakling's policy to tell you so, lest there should have been evil in your hearts. But I have a wife and that is enough. You may have heard of her. She is called La Meffraye.”
As he spoke his face took on an access of white terror, even as it had done when he looked out of the window.
”La Meffraye is she well named,” he repeated the appellation with a harsh croak as of a night-hawk screaming. ”G.o.d forfend that she should come home to-night and find you here!”