Part 26 (1/2)

”I would follow you,” said John Bulmer, ”though h.e.l.l yawned between us.

I employ the particular expression as customary in all these cases of romantic infatuation.”

”Yet I,” the Friar observed, ”would, to the contrary, advise removal from Poictesme as soon as may be possible. For I warn you that if you return to Bellegarde, Monsieur de Soyecourt will have you hanged.”

”Reverend sir,” John Bulmer replied, ”do you actually believe this consideration would be to me of any moment?”

The Friar inspected his countenance. By and by the Friar said: ”I emphatically do not. And to think that at the beginning of our acquaintances.h.i.+p I took you for a sensible person!” Afterward the Friar mounted his mule and left them.

Then silently John Bulmer a.s.sisted his wife to the back of one of the horses, and they turned eastward into the Forest of Acaire. Mr. Bulmer's countenance was politely interested, and he chatted pleasantly of the forenoon's adventure. Claire told him something of her earlier memories of Cazaio. So the two returned to Bellegarde. Then Claire led the way toward the western facade, where her apartments were, and they came to a postern-door, very narrow and with a grating.

”Help me down,” the girl said. Immediately this was done; Claire remained quite still. Her cheeks were smouldering and her left hand was lying inert in John Bulmer's broader palm.

”Wait here,” she said, ”and let me go in first. Someone may be on watch.

There is perhaps danger--”

”My dear,” said John Bulmer, ”I perfectly comprehend you are about to enter that postern, and close it in my face, and afterward hold discourse with me through that little wicket. I a.s.sent, because I love you so profoundly that I am capable not merely of tearing the world asunder like paper at your command, but even of leaving you if you bid me do so.”

”Your suspicions,” she replied, ”are prematurely marital. I am trying to protect you, and you are the first to accuse me of underhand dealing! I will prove to you how unjust are your notions.” She entered the postern, closed and bolted it, and appeared at the wicket.

”The Friar was intelligent,” said Claire de Puysange, ”and beyond doubt the most sensible thing you can do is to get out of Poictesme as soon as possible. You have been serviceable to me, and for that I thank you: but the master of Bellegarde has the right of the low, the middle, and the high justice, and if my husband show his face at Bellegarde he will infallibly be hanged. If you claim me in England, Ormskirk will have you knifed in some dark alleyway, just as, you tell me, he disposed of Monsieur Traquair and Captain Dungelt. I am sorry, because I like you, even though you are fat.”

”You bid me leave you?” said John Bulmer. He was comfortably seated upon the turf.

”For your own good,” said she, ”I advise you to.” And she closed the wicket.

”The acceptance of advice,” said John Bulmer, ”is luckily optional. I shall therefore go down into the village, purchase a lute, have supper, and I shall be here at sunrise to greet you with an aubade, according to the ancient custom of Poictesme.”

The wicket remained closed.

VI

”I will go to Marly, inform Gaston of the entire matter, and then my wife is mine. I have tricked her neatly.

”I will do nothing of the sort. Gaston, can give me the woman's body only.

I shall accordingly buy me a lute.”

VII

Achille Cazaio on the Taunenfels did not sleep that night....

The two essays [Footnote: The twenty-first chapter of Du Maillot's _Hommes Ill.u.s.tres_; and the fifth of d'Avranches's _Ancetres de la Revolution_.

Lowe has an excellent digest of this data.] dealing with the man have scarcely touched his capabilities. His exploits in and about Paris and his Gascon doings, while important enough in the outcome, are but the gesticulations of a puppet: the historian's real concern is with the hands that manoeuvered above Cazaio; and whether or no Achille Cazaio organized the riots in Toulouse and Guienne and Bearn is a question with which, at this late day, there can be little profitable commerce.

One recommends this Cazaio rather to the spinners of romance: with his morality--a trifle buccaneerish on occasion--once discreetly palliated, history affords few heroes more instantly taking to the fancy....One casts a hankering eye toward this Cazaio's rumored parentage, his hopeless and life-long adoration of Claire de Puysange, his dealings with d'Argenson and King Louis le Bien-Aime, the obscure and mischievous imbroglios in Spain, and finally his aggrandizement and his flame-lit death, as du Maillot, say, records these happenings: and one finds therein the outline of an impelling hero, and laments that our traffic must be with a stolid and less livelily tinted Bulmer. And with a sigh one pa.s.ses on toward the labor prearranged....

To-night Cazaio's desires were astir, and consciousness of his own power was tempting him. He had never troubled Poictesme much: the Taunenfels were accessible on that side, and so long as he confined his depredations to the frontier, the Duc de Puysange merely shrugged and rendered his annual tribute; it was not a great sum, and the Duke preferred to pay it rather than forsake his international squabbles to quash a purely parochial nuisance like a bandit, who was, too, a kinsman....