initial commit of ebook 6224HEADmain

5 files changed, 3236 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/6224.txt b/6224.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..816b99e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/6224.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3220 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Seats Of The Mighty, by G. Parker, v1
+#51 in our series by Gilbert Parker
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: The Seats Of The Mighty, Volume 1.
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: August, 2004  [EBook #6224]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 4, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEATS OF THE MIGHTY, PARKER, V1 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Andrew Sly.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY
+
+BEING THE MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROBERT MORAY,
+SOMETIME AN OFFICER IN THE VIRGINIA REGIMENT,
+AND AFTERWARDS OF AMHERST'S REGIMENT
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+To the Memory of Madge Henley.
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+Volume 1.
+          Introduction to the Imperial Edition
+          Prefatory note to First Edition
+      I   An escort to the citadel
+     II   The master of the King's magazine
+    III   The wager and the sword
+     IV   The rat in the trap
+      V   The device of the dormouse
+     VI   Moray tells the story of his life
+
+Volume 2.
+    VII   "Quoth little Garaine"
+   VIII   As vain as Absalom
+     IX   A little concerning the Chevalier de la Darante
+      X   An officer of marines
+     XI   The coming of Doltaire
+    XII   "The point envenomed too!"
+   XIII   A little boast
+
+Volume 3.
+    XIV   Argand Cournal
+     XV   In the chamber of torture
+    XVI   Be saint or imp
+   XVII   Through the bars of the cage
+  XVIII   The steep path of conquest
+    XIX   A Danseuse and the Bastile
+
+Volume 4.
+     XX   Upon the ramparts
+    XXI   La Jongleuse
+   XXII   The lord of Kamaraska
+  XXIII   With Wolfe at Montmorenci
+   XXIV   The sacred countersign
+
+Volume 5.
+    XXV   In the cathedral
+   XXVI   The secret of the tapestry
+  XXVII   A side-wind of revenge
+ XXVIII   "To cheat the Devil yet"
+   XXIX   "Master Devil" Doltaire
+    XXX   "Where all the lovers can hide"
+          Appendix--Excerpt from 'The Scot in New France'
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE IMPERIAL EDITION
+
+It was in the winter of 1892, when on a visit to French Canada, that I
+made up my mind I would write the volume which the public knows as 'The
+Seats of the Mighty,' but I did not begin the composition until early in
+1894. It was finished by the beginning of February, 1895, and began to
+appear in 'The Atlantic Monthly' in March of that year. It was not my
+first attempt at historical fiction, because I had written 'The Trail of
+the Sword' in the year 1893, but it was the first effort on an ambitious
+scale, and the writing of it was attended with as much searching of
+heart as enthusiasm. I had long been saturated by the early history of
+French Canada, as perhaps 'The Trail of the Sword' bore witness, and
+particularly of the period of the Conquest, and I longed for a subject
+which would, in effect, compel me to write; for I have strong views
+upon this business of compulsion in the mind of the writer. Unless a
+thing has seized a man, has obsessed him, and he feels that it excludes
+all other temptations to his talent or his genius, his book will
+not convince. Before all else he must himself be overpowered by the
+insistence of his subject, then intoxicated with his idea, and, being
+still possessed, become master of his material while remaining the
+slave of his subject. I believe that every book which has taken hold of
+the public has represented a kind of self-hypnotism on the part of the
+writer. I am further convinced that the book which absorbs the author,
+which possesses him as he writes it, has the effect of isolating him into
+an atmosphere which is not sleep, and which is not absolute wakefulness,
+but a place between the two, where the working world is indistinct and
+the mind is swept along a flood submerging the self-conscious but not
+drowning into unconsciousness.
+
+Such, at any rate, is my own experience. I am convinced that the books
+of mine which have had so many friends as this book, 'The Seats of the
+Mighty', has had in the English-speaking world were written in just such
+conditions of temperamental isolation or absorption. First the subject,
+which must of itself have driving power, then the main character, which
+becomes a law working out its own destiny; and the subject in my own work
+has always been translatable into a phrase. Nearly every one of my books
+has always been reducible to its title.
+
+For years I had wished to write an historical novel of the conquest
+of Canada or the settlement of the United Empire loyalists and the
+subsequent War of 1812, but the central idea and the central character
+had not come to me; and without both and the driving power of a big idea
+and of a big character, a book did not seem to me possible. The human
+thing with the grip of real life was necessary. At last, as pointed out
+in the prefatory note of the first edition, published in the spring of
+1896 by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., of New York, and Messrs. Methuen &
+Co., of London, I ran across a tiny little volume in the library of Mr.
+George M. Fairchild, Jr., of Quebec, called the Memoirs of Major Robert
+Stobo. It was published by John S. Davidson, of Market Street,
+Pittsburgh, with an introduction by an editor who signed himself
+"N. B.C."
+
+The Memoirs proper contained about seventeen thousand words, the
+remaining three thousand words being made up of abstracts and appendices
+collected by the editor. The narrative was written in a very ornate and
+grandiloquent style, but the hero of the memoirs was so evidently a man
+of remarkable character, enterprise and adventure, that I saw in the
+few scattered bones of the story which he unfolded the skeleton of an
+ample historical romance. There was necessary to offset this buoyant and
+courageous Scotsman, adventurous and experienced, a character of the race
+which captured him and held him in leash till just before the taking of
+Quebec. I therefore found in the character of Doltaire--which was the
+character of Voltaire spelled with a big D--purely a creature of the
+imagination, one who, as the son of a peasant woman and Louis XV, should
+be an effective offset to Major Stobo. There was no hint of Doltaire
+in the Memoirs. There could not be, nor of the plot on which the story
+was based, because it was all imagination. Likewise, there was no
+mention of Alixe Duvarney in the Memoirs, nor of Bigot or Madame Cournal
+and all the others. They too, when not characters of the imagination,
+were lifted out of the history of the time; but the first germ of the
+story came from 'The Memoirs of Robert Stobo', and when 'The Seats of
+the Mighty' was first published in 'The Atlantic Monthly' the subtitle
+contained these words: "Being the Memoirs of Captain Robert Stobo,
+sometime an officer in the Virginia Regiment, and afterwards of
+Amherst's Regiment."
+
+When the book was published, however, I changed the name of Robert Stobo
+to Robert Moray, because I felt I had no right to saddle Robert Stobo's
+name with all the incidents and experiences and strange enterprises
+which the novel contained. I did not know then that perhaps it might be
+considered an honour by Robert Stobo's descendants to have his name
+retained. I could not foresee the extraordinary popularity of 'The
+Seats of the Mighty', but with what I thought was a sense of honour I
+eliminated his name and changed it to Robert Moray. 'The Seats of the
+Mighty' goes on, I am happy to say, with an ever-increasing number of
+friends. It has a position perhaps not wholly deserved, but it has
+crystallised some elements in the life of the continent of America,
+the history of France and England, and of the British Empire which may
+serve here and there to inspire the love of things done for the sake
+of a nation rather than for the welfare of an individual.
+
+I began this introduction by saying that the book was started in the
+summer of 1894. That was at a little place called Mablethorpe in
+Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. For several months I worked
+in absolute seclusion in that out-of-the-way spot which had not then
+become a Mecca for trippers, and on the wonderful sands, stretching for
+miles upon miles coastwise and here and there as much as a mile out to
+the sea, I tried to live over again the days of Wolfe and Montcalm.
+Appropriately enough the book was begun in a hotel at Mablethorpe called
+"The Book in Hand." The name was got, I believe, from the fact that, in
+a far-off day, a ship was wrecked upon the coast at Mablethorpe, and the
+only person saved was the captain, who came ashore with a Bible in his
+hands. During the writing now and again a friend would come to me from
+London or elsewhere, and there would be a day off, full of literary
+tattle, but immediately my friends were gone I was lost again in the
+atmosphere of the middle of the eighteenth century.
+
+I stayed at Mablethorpe until the late autumn, and then I went to
+Harrogate, exchanging the sea for the moors, and there, still living the
+open-air life, I remained for several months until I had finished the
+book. The writing of it knew no interruption and was happily set. It
+was a thing apart, and not a single untoward invasion of other interests
+affected its course.
+
+The title of the book was for long a trouble to me. Months went by
+before I could find what I wanted. Scores of titles occurred to me,
+but each was rejected. At last, one day when I was being visited by Mr.
+Grant Richards, since then a London publisher, but at that time a writer,
+who had come to interview me for 'Great Thoughts', I told him of my
+difficulties regarding the title. I was saying that I felt the title
+should be, as it were, the kernel of a book. I said: "You see, it is a
+struggle of one simple girl against principalities and powers; it is the
+final conquest of the good over the great. In other words, the book will
+be an illustration of the text, 'He has put down the mighty from their
+seats, and has exalted the humble and meek.'" Then, like a flash, the
+title came 'The Seats of the Mighty'.
+
+Since the phrase has gone into the language and was from the very
+first a popular title, it seems strange that the literary director
+of the American firm that published the book should take strong
+exception to it on the ground that it was grandiloquent. I like to
+think that I was firm, and that I declined to change the title.
+
+I need say no more save that the book was dramatised by myself, and
+produced, first at Washington by Herbert (now Sir Herbert) Beerbohm
+Tree in the winter of 1897 and 1898, and in the spring of 1898 it
+opened his new theatre in London.
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST EDITION
+
+This tale would never have been written had it not been for the
+kindness of my distinguished friend Dr. John George Bourinot,
+C.M.G., of Ottawa, whose studies in parliamentary procedure, the
+English and Canadian Constitutions, and the history and development
+of Canada have been of singular benefit to the Dominion and to the
+Empire. Through Dr. Bourinot's good offices I came to know Mr.
+James Lemoine, of Quebec, the gifted antiquarian, and President of
+the Royal Society of Canada. Mr. Lemoine placed in my hands certain
+historical facts suggestive of romance. Subsequently, Mr. George
+M. Fairchild, Jr., of Cap Rouge, Quebec, whose library contains a
+valuable collection of antique Canadian books, maps, and prints,
+gave me generous assistance and counsel, allowing me "the run"
+of all his charts, prints, histories, and memoirs. Many of these
+prints, and a rare and authentic map of Wolfe's operations against
+Quebec are now reproduced in this novel, and may be considered
+accurate illustrations of places, people, and events. By the
+insertion of these faithful historical elements it is hoped to
+give more vividness to the atmosphere of the time, and to
+strengthen the verisimilitude of a piece of fiction which is
+not, I believe, out of harmony with fact.
+
+Gilbert Parker
+
+
+
+PRELUDE
+
+
+To Sir Edward Seaforth, Bart., of Sangley Hope in Derbyshire, and
+Seaforth House in Hanover Square.
+
+Dear Ned: You will have them written, or I shall be pestered to my
+grave! Is that the voice of a friend of so long standing? And yet
+it seems but yesterday since we had good hours in Virginia together,
+or met among the ruins of Quebec. My memoirs--these only will
+content you? And to flatter or cajole me, you tell me Mr. Pitt still
+urges on the matter. In truth, when he touched first upon this, I
+thought it but the courtesy of a great and generous man. But indeed
+I am proud that he is curious to know more of my long captivity at
+Quebec, of Monsieur Doltaire and all his dealings with me, and the
+motions he made to serve La Pompadour on one hand, and, on the
+other, to win from me that most perfect of ladies, Mademoiselle
+Alixe Duvarney.
+
+Our bright conquest of Quebec is now heroic memory, and honour and
+fame and reward have been parcelled out. So I shall but briefly, in
+these memoirs (ay, they shall be written, and with a good heart),
+travel the trail of history, or discourse upon campaigns and sieges,
+diplomacies and treaties. I shall keep close to my own story; for
+that, it would seem, yourself and the illustrious minister of the
+King most wish to hear. Yet you will find figuring in it great men
+like our flaming hero General Wolfe, and also General Montcalm, who,
+I shall ever keep on saying, might have held Quebec against us, had
+he not been balked by the vain Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil;
+together with such notorious men as the Intendant Bigot, civil
+governor of New France, and such noble gentlemen as the Seigneur
+Duvarney, father of Alixe.
+
+I shall never view again the citadel on those tall heights where
+I was detained so barbarously, nor the gracious Manor House at
+Beauport, sacred to me because of her who dwelt therein--how long
+ago, how long! Of all the pictures that flash before my mind when
+I think on those times, one is most with me: that of the fine
+guest-room in the Manor House, where I see moving the benign maid
+whose life and deeds alone can make this story worth telling. And
+with one scene therein, and it the most momentous in all my days,
+I shall begin my tale.
+
+I beg you convey to Mr. Pitt my most obedient compliments,
+and say that I take his polite wish as my command.
+
+With every token of my regard, I am, dear Ned, affectionately
+your friend,
+
+Robert Moray
+
+
+
+I
+
+AN ESCORT TO THE CITADEL
+
+
+When Monsieur Doltaire entered the salon, and, dropping lazily
+into a chair beside Madame Duvarney and her daughter, drawled out,
+"England's Braddock--fool and general--has gone to heaven, Captain
+Moray, and your papers send you there also," I did not shift a jot,
+but looked over at him gravely--for, God knows, I was startled--and
+I said,
+
+"The General is dead?"
+
+I did not dare to ask, Is he defeated? though from Doltaire's
+look I was sure it was so, and a sickness crept through me, for
+at the moment that seemed the end of our cause. But I made as if
+I had not heard his words about my papers.
+
+"Dead as a last years courtier, shifted from the scene," he
+replied; "and having little now to do, we'll go play with the rat
+in our trap."
+
+I would not have dared look towards Alixe, standing beside her
+mother then, for the song in my blood was pitched too high, were it
+not that a little sound broke from her. At that, I glanced, and saw
+that her face was still and quiet, but her eyes were shining, and
+her whole body seemed listening. I dared not give my glance meaning,
+though I wished to do so. She had served me much, had been a good
+friend to me, since I was brought a hostage to Quebec from Fort
+Necessity. There, at that little post on the Ohio, France threw
+down the gauntlet, and gave us the great Seven Years War. And though
+it may be thought I speak rashly, the lever to spring that trouble
+had been within my grasp. Had France sat still while Austria and
+Prussia quarreled, that long fighting had never been. The game of
+war had lain with the Grande Marquise--or La Pompadour, as she was
+called--and later it may be seen how I, unwillingly, moved her to
+set it going.
+
+Answering Monsieur Doltaire, I said stoutly, "I am sure he made
+a good fight; he had gallant men."
+
+"Truly gallant," he returned--"your own Virginians among others"
+(I bowed); "but he was a blunderer, as were you also, monsieur, or
+you had not sent him plans of our forts and letters of such candour.
+They have gone to France, my captain."
+
+Madame Duvarney seemed to stiffen in her chair, for what did
+this mean but that I was a spy? and the young lady behind them now
+put her handkerchief to her mouth as if to stop a word. To make
+light of the charges against myself was the only thing, and yet I
+had little heart to do so. There was that between Monsieur Doltaire
+and myself--a matter I shall come to by-and-bye--which well might
+make me apprehensive.
+
+"My sketch and my gossip with my friends," said I, "can have
+little interest in France."
+
+"My faith, the Grande Marquise will find a relish for them," he
+said pointedly at me. He, the natural son of King Louis, had played
+the part between La Pompadour and myself in the grave matter of
+which I spoke. "She loves deciding knotty points of morality," he
+added.
+
+"She has had chance and will enough," said I boldly, "but what
+point of morality is here?"
+
+"The most vital--to you," he rejoined, flicking his handkerchief a
+little, and drawling so that I could have stopped his mouth with my
+hand. "Shall a hostage on parole make sketches of a fort and send
+them to his friends, who in turn pass them on to a foolish general?"
+
+"When one party to an Article of War brutally breaks his sworn
+promise, shall the other be held to his?" I asked quietly.
+
+I was glad that, at this moment, the Seigneur Duvarney entered,
+for I could feel the air now growing colder about Madame his wife.
+He, at least, was a good friend; but as I glanced at him, I saw his
+face was troubled and his manner distant. He looked at Monsieur
+Doltaire a moment steadily, stooped to his wife's hand, and then
+offered me his own without a word; which done, he went to where
+his daughter stood. She kissed him, and, as she did so, whispered
+something in his ear, to which he nodded assent. I knew afterwards
+that she had asked him to keep me to dinner with them.
+
+Presently turning to Monsieur Doltaire, he said inquiringly,
+"You have a squad of men outside my house, Doltaire?"
+
+Doltaire nodded in a languid way, and answered, "An escort--for
+Captain Moray--to the citadel."
+
+I knew now, as he had said, that I was in the trap; that he had
+begun the long sport which came near to giving me the white
+shroud of death, as it turned white the hair upon my head ere
+I was thirty-two. Do I not know, the indignities, the miseries
+I suffered, I owed mostly to him, and that at the last he
+nearly robbed England of her greatest pride, the taking of New
+France?--For chance sometimes lets humble men like me balance
+the scales of fate; and I was humble enough in rank, if in
+spirit always something above my place.
+
+I was standing as he spoke these words, and I turned to him and
+said, "Monsieur, I am at your service."
+
+"I have sometimes wished," he said instantly, and with a courteous
+if ironical gesture, "that you were in my service--that is, the King's."
+
+I bowed as to a compliment, for I would not see the insolence,
+and I retorted, "Would I could offer you a company in my Virginia
+regiment!"
+
+"Delightful! delightful!" he rejoined. "I should make as good a
+Briton as you a Frenchman, every whit."
+
+I suppose he would have kept leading to such silly play, had I
+not turned to Madame Duvarney and said, "I am most sorry that
+this mishap falls here; but it is not of my doing, and in colder
+comfort, Madame, I shall recall the good hours spent in your
+home."
+
+I think I said it with a general courtesy, yet, feeling the eyes
+of the young lady on me, perhaps a little extra warmth came into
+my voice, and worked upon Madame, or it may be she was glad of my
+removal from contact with her daughter; but kindness showed in her
+face, and she replied gently, "I am sure it is only for a few days
+till we see you again."
+
+Yet I think in her heart she knew my life was perilled: those
+were rough and hasty times, when the axe or the rope was the surest
+way to deal with troubles. Three years before, at Fort Necessity, I
+had handed my sword to my lieutenant, bidding him make healthy use
+of it, and, travelling to Quebec on parole, had come in and out of
+this house with great freedom. Yet since Alixe had grown towards
+womanhood there had been strong change in Madame's manner.
+
+"The days, however few, will be too long until I tax your
+courtesy again," I said. "I bid you adieu, Madame."
+
+"Nay, not so," spoke up my host; "not one step: dinner is nearly
+served, and you must both dine with us. Nay, but I insist," he
+added, as he saw me shake my head. "Monsieur Doltaire will grant
+you this courtesy, and me the great kindness. Eh, Doltaire?"
+
+Doltaire rose, glancing from Madame to her daughter. Madame was
+smiling, as if begging his consent; for, profligate though he was,
+his position, and more than all, his personal distinction, made him
+a welcome guest at most homes in Quebec. Alixe met his look without
+a yes or no in her eyes--so young, yet having such control and
+wisdom, as I have had reason beyond all men to know. Something,
+however, in the temper of the scene had filled her with a kind of
+glow, which added to her beauty and gave her dignity. The spirit of
+her look caught the admiration of this expatriated courtier, and I
+knew that a deeper cause than all our past conflicts--and they were
+great--would now, or soon, set him fatally against me.
+
+"I shall be happy to wait Captain Moray's pleasure," he said
+presently, "and to serve my own by sitting at your table. I was
+to have dined with the Intendant this afternoon, but a messenger
+shall tell him duty stays me.... If you will excuse me!" he added,
+going to the door to find a man of his company. He looked back
+for an instant, as if it struck him I might seek escape, for he
+believed in no man's truth; but he only said, "I may fetch my men
+to your kitchen, Duvarney? 'Tis raw outside."
+
+"Surely. I shall see they have some comfort," was the reply.
+
+Doltaire then left the room, and Duvarney came to me. "This is a
+bad business, Moray," he said sadly. "There is some mistake, is
+there not?"
+
+I looked him fair in the face. "There is a mistake," I answered.
+"I am no spy, and I do not fear that I shall lose my life, my
+honour, or my friends by offensive acts of mine."
+
+"I believe you," he responded, "as I have believed since you came,
+though there has been gabble of your doings. I do not forget you
+bought my life back from those wild Mohawks five years ago. You
+have my hand in trouble or out of it."
+
+Upon my soul, I could have fallen on his neck, for the blow to
+our cause and the shadow on my own fate oppressed me for the
+moment.
+
+At this point the ladies left the room to make some little
+toilette before dinner, and as they passed me the sleeve of Alixe's
+dress touched my arm. I caught her fingers for an instant, and to
+this day I can feel that warm, rich current of life coursing from
+finger-tips to heart. She did not look at me at all, but passed on
+after her mother. Never till that moment had there been any open
+show of heart between us. When I first came to Quebec (I own it to
+my shame) I was inclined to use her youthful friendship for private
+and patriotic ends; but that soon passed, and then I wished her
+companionship for true love of her. Also, I had been held back
+because when I first knew her she seemed but a child. Yet how
+quickly and how wisely did she grow out of her childhood! She had a
+playful wit, and her talents were far beyond her years. It amazed
+me often to hear her sum up a thing in some pregnant sentence
+which, when you came to think, was the one word to be said. She had
+such a deep look out of her blue eyes that you scarcely glanced
+from them to see the warm sweet colour of her face, the fair broad
+forehead, the brown hair, the delicate richness of her lips, which
+ever were full of humour and of seriousness--both running together,
+as you may see a laughing brook steal into the quiet of a
+river.
+
+Duvarney and I were thus alone for a moment, and he straightway
+dropped a hand upon my shoulder. "Let me advise you," he said,
+"be friendly with Doltaire. He has great influence at the Court
+and elsewhere. He can make your bed hard or soft at the citadel."
+
+I smiled at him, and replied, "I shall sleep no less sound because
+of Monsieur Doltaire."
+
+"You are bitter in your trouble," said he.
+
+I made haste to answer, "No, no, my own troubles do not weigh so
+heavy--but our General's death!"
+
+"You are a patriot, my friend," he added warmly. "I could well
+have been content with our success against your English army
+without this deep danger to your person."
+
+I put out my hand to him, but I did not speak, for just then
+Doltaire entered. He was smiling at something in his thought.
+
+"The fortunes are with the Intendant always," said he. "When
+things are at their worst, and the King's storehouse, the dear
+La Friponne, is to be ripped by our rebel peasants like a sawdust
+doll, here comes this gay news of our success on the Ohio; and in
+that Braddock's death the whining beggars will forget their empty
+bellies, and bless where they meant to curse. What fools, to be
+sure! They had better loot La Friponne. Lord, how we love fighting,
+we French! And 'tis so much easier to dance, or drink, or love."
+He stretched out his shapely legs as he sat musing.
+
+Duvarney shrugged a shoulder, smiling. "But you, Doltaire--there's
+no man out of France that fights more."
+
+He lifted an eyebrow. "One must be in the fashion; besides, it
+does need some skill to fight. The others--to dance, drink, love:
+blind men's games!" He smiled cynically into the distance.
+
+I have never known a man who interested me so much--never one so
+original, so varied, and so uncommon in his nature. I marvelled at
+the pith and depth of his observations; for though I agreed not with
+him once in ten times, I loved his great reflective cleverness and
+his fine penetration--singular gifts in a man of action. But action
+to him was a playtime; he had that irresponsibility of the Court
+from which he came, its scornful endurance of defeat or misery,
+its flippant look upon the world, its scoundrel view of women. Then
+he and Duvarney talked, and I sat thinking. Perhaps the passion
+of a cause grows in you as you suffer for it, and I had suffered,
+and suffered most by a bitter inaction. Governor Dinwiddie, Mr.
+Washington (alas that, as I write the fragment chapters of my life,
+among the hills where Montrose my ancestor fought, George leads
+the colonists against the realm of England!), and the rest were
+suffering, but they were fighting too. Brought to their knees, they
+could rise again to battle; and I thought then, How more glorious to
+be with my gentlemen in blue from Virginia, holding back death from
+the General, and at last falling myself, than to spend good years a
+hostage at Quebec, knowing that Canada was for our taking, yet doing
+nothing to advance the hour!
+
+In the thick of these thoughts I was not conscious of what the
+two were saying, but at last I caught Madame Cournal's name; by
+which I guessed Monsieur Doltaire was talking of her amours, of
+which the chief and final was with Bigot the Intendant, to whom
+the King had given all civil government, all power over commerce
+and finance in the country. The rivalry between the Governor and
+the Intendant was keen and vital at this time, though it changed
+later, as I will show. At her name I looked up and caught Monsieur
+Doltaire's eye.
+
+He read my thoughts. "You have had blithe hours here, monsieur,"
+he said--"you know the way to probe us; but of all the ladies who
+could be most useful to you, you left out the greatest. There you
+erred. I say it as a friend, not as an officer, there you erred.
+From Madame Cournal to Bigot, from Bigot to Vaudreuil the Governor,
+from the Governor to France. But now--"
+
+He paused, for Madame Duvarney and her daughter had come, and we
+all rose.
+
+The ladies had heard enough to know Doltaire's meaning. "But
+now--Captain Moray dines with us," said Madame Duvarney quietly
+and meaningly.
+
+"Yet I dine with Madame Cournal," rejoined Doltaire, smiling.
+
+"One may use more option with enemies and prisoners," she said
+keenly, and the shot ought to have struck home. In so small a place
+it was not easy to draw lines close and fine, and it was in the
+power of the Intendant, backed by his confederates, to ruin almost
+any family in the province if he chose; and that he chose at times
+I knew well, as did my hostess. Yet she was a woman of courage and
+nobility of thought, and I knew well where her daughter got her
+good flavor of mind.
+
+I could see something devilish in the smile at Doltaire's lip's,
+but his look was wandering between Alixe and me, and he replied
+urbanely, "I have ambition yet--to connive at captivity"; and
+then he looked full and meaningly at her.
+
+I can see her now, her hand on the high back of a great oak chair,
+the lace of her white sleeve falling away, and her soft arm showing,
+her eyes on his without wavering. They did not drop, nor turn aside;
+they held straight on, calm, strong--and understanding. By that look
+I saw she read him; she, who had seen so little of the world, felt
+what he was, and met his invading interest firmly, yet sadly; for I
+knew long after that a smother was at her heart then, foreshadowings
+of dangers that would try her as few women are tried. Thank God that
+good women are born with greater souls for trial than men; that,
+given once an anchor for their hearts, they hold until the cables
+break.
+
+When we were about to enter the dining-room, I saw, to my joy,
+Madame incline towards Doltaire, and I knew that Alixe was for
+myself--though her mother wished it little, I am sure. As she took
+my arm, her finger-tips plunged softly into the velvet of my sleeve,
+giving me a thrill of courage. I felt my spirits rise, and I set
+myself to carry things off gaily, to have this last hour with her
+clear of gloom, for it seemed easy to think that we should meet no
+more.
+
+As we passed into the dining-room, I said, as I had said the
+first time I went to dinner in her father's house, "Shall we be
+flippant, or grave?"
+
+I guessed that it would touch her. She raised her eyes to mine
+and answered, "We are grave; let us seem flippant."
+
+In those days I had a store of spirits. I was seldom dismayed,
+for life had been such a rough-and-tumble game that I held to
+cheerfulness and humour as a hillsman to his broadsword, knowing it
+the greatest of weapons with a foe, and the very stone and mortar
+of friendship. So we were gay, touching lightly on events around us,
+laughing at gossip of the doorways (I in my poor French), casting
+small stones at whatever drew our notice, not forgetting a throw or
+two at Chateau Bigot, the Intendant's country house at Charlesbourg,
+five miles away, where base plots were hatched, reputations soiled,
+and all clean things dishonoured. But Alixe, the sweetest soul
+France ever gave the world, could not know all I knew; guessing
+only at heavy carousals, cards, song, and raillery, with far-off
+hints of feet lighter than fit in cavalry boots dancing among the
+glasses on the table. I was never before so charmed with her swift
+intelligence, for I never had great nimbleness of thought, nor
+power to make nice play with the tongue.
+
+"You have been three years with us," suddenly said her father,
+passing me the wine. "How time has flown! How much has happened!"
+
+"Madame Cournal's husband has made three million francs," said
+Doltaire, with dry irony and truth.
+
+Duvarney shrugged a shoulder, stiffened; for, oblique as the
+suggestion was, he did not care to have his daughter hear it.
+
+"And Vaudreuil has sent bees buzzing to Versailles about Bigot
+and Company," added the impish satirist.
+
+Madame Duvarney responded with a look of interest, and the
+Seigneur's eyes steadied to his plate. All at once by that I saw
+the Seigneur had known of the Governor's action, and maybe had
+counseled with him, siding against Bigot. If that were so--as it
+proved to be--he was in a nest of scorpions; for who among them
+would spare him: Marin, Cournal, Rigaud, the Intendant himself?
+Such as he were thwarted right and left in this career of knavery
+and public evils.
+
+"And our people have turned beggars; poor and starved, they beg at
+the door of the King's storehouse--it is well called La Friponne,"
+said Madame Duvarney, with some heat; for she was ever liberal to
+the poor, and she had seen manor after manor robbed, and peasant
+farmers made to sell their corn for a song, to be sold to them again
+at famine prices by La Friponne. Even now Quebec was full of pilgrim
+poor begging against the hard winter, and execrating their spoilers.
+
+Doltaire was too fond of digging at the heart of things not to
+admit she spoke truth.
+
+  "La Pompadour et La Friponne!
+  Qu'est que cela, mon petit homme?"
+  "Les deux terribles, ma chere mignonne,
+        Mais, c'est cela--
+  La Pompadour et La Friponne!"
+
+He said this with cool drollery and point, in the patois of the
+native, so that he set us all laughing, in spite of our mutual
+apprehensions.
+
+Then he continued, "And the King has sent a chorus to the play, with
+eyes for the preposterous make-believe, and more, no purse to fill."
+
+We all knew he meant himself, and we knew also that so far as
+money went he spoke true; that though hand-in-glove with Bigot, he
+was poor, save for what he made at the gaming-table and got from
+France. There was the thing that might have clinched me to him, had
+matters been other than they were; for all my life I have loathed
+the sordid soul, and I would rather, in these my ripe years, eat
+with a highwayman who takes his life in his hands than with the
+civilian who robs his king and the king's poor, and has no better
+trick than false accounts, nor better friend than the pettifogging
+knave. Doltaire had no burning love for France, and little faith in
+anything; for he was of those Versailles water-flies who recked not
+if the world blackened to cinders when their lights went out. As
+will be seen by-and-bye, he had come here to seek me, and to serve
+the Grande Marquise.
+
+More speech like this followed, and amid it all, with the flower of
+the world beside me at this table, I remembered my mother's words
+before I bade her good-bye and set sail from Glasgow for Virginia.
+
+"Keep it in mind, Robert," she said, "that an honest love is the
+thing to hold you honest with yourself. 'Tis to be lived for, and
+fought for, and died for. Ay, be honest in your loves. Be true."
+
+And there I took an oath, my hand clenched beneath the table, that
+Alixe should be my wife if better days came; when I was done with
+citadel and trial and captivity, if that might be.
+
+The evening was well forward when Doltaire, rising from his seat
+in the drawing-room, bowed to me, and said, "If it pleases you,
+monsieur?"
+
+I rose also, and prepared to go. There was little talk, yet we
+all kept up a play of cheerfulness. When I came to take the
+Seigneur's hand, Doltaire was a distance off, talking to Madame.
+"Moray," said the Seigneur quickly and quietly, "trials portend
+for both of us." He nodded towards Doltaire.
+
+"But we shall come safe through," said I.
+
+"Be of good courage, and adieu," he answered, as Doltaire turned
+towards us.
+
+My last words were to Alixe. The great moment of my life was come.
+If I could but say one thing to her out of earshot, I would stake
+all on the hazard. She was standing beside a cabinet, very still, a
+strange glow in her eyes, a new, fine firmness at the lips. I felt
+I dared not look as I would; I feared there was no chance now to
+speak what I would. But I came slowly up the room with her mother.
+As we did so, Doltaire exclaimed and started to the window, and the
+Seigneur and Madame followed. A red light was showing on the panes.
+
+I caught Alixe's eye, and held it, coming quickly to her. All backs
+were on us. I took her hand and pressed it to my lips suddenly. She
+gave a little gasp, and I saw her bosom heave.
+
+"I am going from prison to prison," said I, "and I leave a loved
+jailer behind."
+
+She understood. "Your jailer goes also," she answered, with a
+sad smile.
+
+"I love you! I love you!" I urged.
+
+She was very pale. "Oh, Robert!" she whispered timidly; and then,
+"I will be brave, I will help you, and I will not forget. God
+guard you."
+
+That was all, for Doltaire turned to me then and said, "They've
+made of La Friponne a torch to light you to the citadel, monsieur."
+
+A moment afterwards we were outside in the keen October air, a
+squad of soldiers attending, our faces towards the citadel heights.
+I looked back, doffing my cap. The Seigneur and Madame stood at
+the door, but my eyes were for a window where stood Alixe. The
+reflection of the far-off fire bathed the glass, and her face had
+a glow, the eyes shining through, intent and most serious. Yet how
+brave she was, for she lifted her handkerchief, shook it a little,
+and smiled.
+
+As though the salute were meant for him, Doltaire bowed twice
+impressively, and then we stepped forward, the great fire over
+against the Heights lighting us and hurrying us on.
+
+We scarcely spoke as we went, though Doltaire hummed now and then
+the air La Pompadour et La Friponne. As we came nearer I said,
+"Are you sure it is La Friponne, monsieur?"
+
+"It is not," he said, pointing. "See!"
+
+The sky was full of shaking sparks, and a smell of burning grain
+came down the wind.
+
+"One of the granaries, then," I added, "not La Friponne itself?"
+
+To this he nodded assent, and we pushed on.
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE MASTER OF THE KING'S MAGAZINE
+
+
+"What fools," said Doltaire presently, "to burn the bread and oven
+too! If only they were less honest in a world of rogues, poor moles!"
+
+Coming nearer, we saw that La Friponne itself was safe, but one
+warehouse was doomed and another threatened. The streets were full
+of people, and thousands of excited peasants, laborers, and sailors
+were shouting, "Down with the palace! Down with Bigot!"
+
+We came upon the scene at the most critical moment. None of the
+Governors soldiers were in sight, but up the Heights we could hear
+the steady tramp of General Montcalm's infantry as they came on.
+Where were Bigot's men? There was a handful--one company--drawn up
+before La Friponne, idly leaning on their muskets, seeing the great
+granary burn, and watching La Friponne threatened by the mad crowd
+and the fire. There was not a soldier before the Intendant's
+palace, not a light in any window.
+
+"What is this weird trick of Bigot's?" said Doltaire, musing.
+
+The Governor, we knew, had been out of the city that day. But
+where was Bigot? At a word from Doltaire we pushed forward towards
+the palace, the soldiers keeping me in their midst. We were not
+a hundred feet from the great steps when two gates at the right
+suddenly swung open, and a carriage rolled out swiftly and dashed
+down into the crowd. I recognized the coachman first--Bigot's,
+an old one-eyed soldier of surpassing nerve, and devoted to his
+master. The crowd parted right and left. Suddenly the carriage
+stopped, and Bigot stood up, folding his arms, and glancing round
+with a disdainful smile without speaking a word. He carried a paper
+in one hand.
+
+Here were at least two thousand armed and unarmed peasants, sick
+with misery and oppression, in the presence of their undefended
+tyrant. One shot, one blow of a stone, one stroke of a knife--to
+the end of a shameless pillage. But no hand was raised to do the
+deed. The roar of voices subsided--he waited for it--and silence
+was broken only by the crackle of the burning building, the tramp
+of Montcalm's soldiers in Mountain Street, and the tolling of the
+cathedral bell. I thought it strange that almost as Bigot came out
+the wild clanging gave place to a cheerful peal.
+
+After standing for a moment, looking round him, his eye resting on
+Doltaire and myself (we were but a little distance from him), Bigot
+said in a loud voice: "What do you want with me? Do you think I may
+be moved by threats? Do you punish me by burning your own food,
+which, when the English are at our doors, is your only hope? Fools!
+How easily could I turn my cannon and my men upon you! You think to
+frighten me. Who do you think I am?--a Bostonnais or an Englishman?
+You--revolutionists! T'sh! You are wild dogs without a leader. You
+want one that you can trust; you want no coward, but one who fears
+you not at your wildest. Well, I will be your leader. I do not fear
+you, and I do not love you, for how have you deserved my love? By
+ingratitude and aspersion? Who has the King's favour? Francois Bigot.
+Who has the ear of the Grande Marquise? Francois Bigot. Who stands
+firm while others tremble lest their power pass to-morrow? Francois
+Bigot. Who else dare invite revolution, this danger"--his hand
+sweeping to the flames--"who but Francois Bigot?" He paused for a
+moment, and looking up to the leader of Montcalm's soldiers on the
+Heights, waved him back; then he continued:
+
+"And to-day, when I am ready to give you great news, you play the
+mad dog's game; you destroy what I had meant to give you in our hour
+of danger, when those English came. I made you suffer a little, that
+you might live then. Only to-day, because of our great and glorious
+victory--"
+
+He paused again. The peal of bells became louder. Far up on the
+Heights we heard the calling of bugles and the beating of drums;
+and now I saw the whole large plan, the deep dramatic scheme. He
+had withheld the news of the victory that he might announce it when
+it would most turn to his own glory. Perhaps he had not counted on
+the burning of the warehouse, but this would tell now in his favour.
+He was not a large man, but he drew himself up with dignity, and
+continued in a contemptuous tone:
+
+"Because of our splendid victory, I designed to tell you all my
+plans, and, pitying your trouble, divide among you at the smallest
+price, that all might pay, the corn which now goes to feed the
+stars."
+
+At that moment some one from the Heights above called out shrilly,
+"What lie is in that paper, Francois Bigot?"
+
+I looked up, as did the crowd. A woman stood upon a point of the
+great rock, a red robe hanging on her, her hair free over her
+shoulders, her finger pointing at the Intendant. Bigot only glanced
+up, then smoothed out the paper.
+
+He said to the people in a clear but less steady voice, for I could
+see that the woman had disturbed him, "Go pray to be forgiven for
+your insolence and folly. His most Christian Majesty is triumphant
+upon the Ohio. The English have been killed in thousands, and their
+General with them. Do you not hear the joy-bells in the Church of
+Our Lady of the Victories? and more--listen!"
+
+There burst from the Heights on the other side a cannon shot, and
+then another and another. There was a great commotion, and many ran
+to Bigot's carriage, reached in to touch his hand, and called down
+blessings on him.
+
+"See that you save the other granaries," he urged, adding, with a
+sneer, "and forget not to bless La Friponne in your prayers!"
+
+It was a clever piece of acting. Presently from the Heights
+above came the woman's voice again, so piercing that the crowd
+turned to her.
+
+"Francois Bigot is a liar and a traitor!" she cried. "Beware of
+Francois Bigot! God has cast him out."
+
+A dark look came upon Bigot's face; but presently he turned, and
+gave a sign to some one near the palace. The doors of the courtyard
+flew open, and out came squad after squad of soldiers. In a moment,
+they, with the people, were busy carrying water to pour upon the
+side of the endangered warehouse. Fortunately the wind was with
+them, else it and the palace also would have been burned that night.
+
+The Intendant still stood in his carriage watching and listening to
+the cheers of the people. At last he beckoned to Doltaire and to
+me. We both went over.
+
+"Doltaire, we looked for you at dinner," he said. "Was Captain
+Moray"--nodding towards me--"lost among the petticoats? He knows
+the trick of cup and saucer. Between the sip and click he sucked
+in secrets from our garrison--a spy where had been a soldier, as
+we thought. You once wore a sword, Captain Moray--eh?"
+
+"If the Governor would grant me leave, I would not only wear,
+but use one, your excellency knows well where," said I.
+
+"Large speaking, Captain Moray. They do that in Virginia, I am
+told."
+
+"In Gascony there's quiet, your excellency."
+
+Doltaire laughed outright, for it was said that Bigot, in his
+coltish days, had a shrewish Gascon wife, whom he took leave to
+send to heaven before her time. I saw the Intendant's mouth twitch
+angrily.
+
+"Come," he said, "you have a tongue; we'll see if you have a
+stomach. You've languished with the girls; you shall have your
+chance to drink with Francois Bigot. Now, if you dare, when
+we have drunk to the first cockcrow, should you be still on your
+feet, you'll fight some one among us, first giving ample cause."
+
+"I hope, your excellency," I replied, with a touch of vanity, "I
+have still some stomach and a wrist. I will drink to cockcrow, if
+you will. And if my sword prove the stronger, what?"
+
+"There's the point," he said. "Your Englishman loves not fighting
+for fighting's sake, Doltaire; he must have bonbons for it. Well,
+see: if your sword and stomach prove the stronger, you shall go your
+ways to where you will. Voila!"
+
+If I could but have seen a bare portion of the craftiness of this
+pair of devils artisans! They both had ends to serve in working ill
+to me, and neither was content that I should be shut away in the
+citadel, and no more. There was a deeper game playing. I give them
+their due: the trap was skillful, and in those times, with great
+things at stake, strategy took the place of open fighting here and
+there. For Bigot I was to be a weapon against another; for Doltaire,
+against myself.
+
+What a gull they must have thought me! I might have known that,
+with my lost papers on the way to France, they must hold me tight
+here till I had been tried, nor permit me to escape. But I was sick
+of doing nothing, thinking with horror on a long winter in the
+citadel, and I caught at the least straw of freedom.
+
+"Captain Moray will like to spend a couple of hours at his lodgings
+before he joins us at the palace," the Intendant said, and with a
+nod to me he turned to his coachman. The horses wheeled, and in a
+moment the great doors opened, and he had passed inside to applause,
+though here and there among the crowd was heard a hiss, for the
+Scarlet Woman had made an impression. The Intendant's men essayed to
+trace these noises, but found no one. Looking again to the Heights,
+I saw that the woman had gone. Doltaire noted my glance and the
+inquiry in my face, and he said:
+
+"Some bad fighting hours with the Intendant at Chateau Bigot, and
+then a fever, bringing a kind of madness: so the story creeps about,
+as told by Bigot's enemies."
+
+Just at this point I felt a man hustle me as he passed. One of the
+soldiers made a thrust at him, and he turned round. I caught his
+eye, and it flashed something to me. It was Voban the barber, who
+had shaved me every day for months when I first came, while my arm
+was stiff from a wound got fighting the French on the Ohio. It was
+quite a year since I had met him, and I was struck by the change in
+his face. It had grown much older; its roundness was gone. We had
+had many a talk together; he helping me with French, I listening
+to the tales of his early life in France, and to the later tale
+of a humble love, and of the home which he was fitting up for his
+Mathilde, a peasant girl of much beauty, I was told, but whom I had
+never seen. I remembered at that moment, as he stood in the crowd
+looking at me, the piles of linen which he had bought at Ste. Anne
+de Beaupre, and the silver pitcher which his grandfather had got
+from the Duc de Valois for an act of merit. Many a time we had
+discussed the pitcher and the deed, and fingered the linen, now
+talking in French, now in English; for in France, years before, he
+had been a valet to an English officer at King Louis's court. But my
+surprise had been great when I learned that this English gentleman
+was no other than the best friend I ever had, next to my parents and
+my grandfather. Voban was bound to Sir John Godric by as strong ties
+of affection as I. What was more, by a secret letter I had sent to
+George Washington, who was then as good a Briton as myself, I had
+been able to have my barber's young brother, a prisoner of war,
+set free.
+
+I felt that he had something to say to me. But he turned away
+and disappeared among the crowd. I might have had some clue if I
+had known that he had been crouched behind the Intendant's carriage
+while I was being bidden to the supper. I did not guess then that
+there was anything between him and the Scarlet Woman who railed at
+Bigot.
+
+In a little while I was at my lodgings, soldiers posted at my door
+and one in my room. Doltaire gone to his own quarters promising
+to call for me within two hours. There was little for me to do but
+to put in a bag the fewest necessaries, to roll up my heavy cloak,
+to stow safely my pipes and two goodly packets of tobacco, which
+were to be my chiefest solace for many a long day, and to write some
+letters--one to Governor Dinwiddie, one to George Washington, and
+one to my partner in Virginia, telling them my fresh misfortunes,
+and begging them to send me money, which, however useless in my
+captivity, would be important in my fight for life and freedom.
+I did not write intimately of my state, for I was not sure my
+letters would ever pass outside Quebec. There were only two men I
+could trust to do the thing. One was a fellow-countryman, Clark,
+a ship-carpenter, who, to save his neck and to spare his wife and
+child, had turned Catholic, but who hated all Frenchmen barbarously
+at heart, remembering two of his bairns butchered before his eyes.
+The other was Voban. I knew that though Voban might not act, he
+would not betray me. But how to reach either of them? It was clear
+that I must bide my chances.
+
+One other letter I wrote, brief but vital, in which I begged the
+sweetest girl in the world not to have uneasiness because of me;
+that I trusted to my star and to my innocence to convince my
+judges; and begging her, if she could, to send me a line at the
+citadel. I told her I knew well how hard it would be, for her
+mother and her father would not now look upon my love with favour.
+But I trusted all to time and Providence.
+
+I sealed my letters, put them in my pocket, and sat down to smoke
+and think while I waited for Doltaire. To the soldier on duty,
+whom I did not notice at first, I now offered a pipe and a glass
+of wine, which he accepted rather gruffly, but enjoyed, if I might
+judge by his devotion to them.
+
+By-and-bye, without any relevancy at all, he said abruptly, "If a
+little sooner she had come--aho!"
+
+For a moment I could not think what he meant; but soon I saw.
+
+"The palace would have been burnt if the girl in scarlet had come
+sooner--eh?" I asked. "She would have urged the people on?"
+
+"And Bigot burnt, too, maybe," he answered.
+
+"Fire and death--eh?"
+
+I offered him another pipeful of tobacco. He looked doubtful,
+but accepted.
+
+"Aho! And that Voban, he would have had his hand in," he growled.
+
+I began to get more light.
+
+"She was shut up at Chateau Bigot--hand of iron and lock of
+steel--who knows the rest! But Voban was for always," he added
+presently.
+
+The thing was clear. The Scarlet Woman was Mathilde. So here was the
+end of Voban's little romance--of the fine linen from Ste. Anne de
+Beaupre and the silver pitcher for the wedding wine. I saw, or felt,
+that in Voban I might find now a confederate, if I put my hard case
+on Bigot's shoulders.
+
+"I can't see why she stayed with Bigot," I said tentatively.
+
+"Break the dog's leg, it can't go hunting bones--mais, non! Holy,
+how stupid are you English!"
+
+"Why doesn't the Intendant lock her up now? She's dangerous to
+him. You remember what she said?"
+
+"Tonnerre, you shall see to-morrow," he answered; "now all the sheep
+go bleating with the bell. Bigot--Bigot--Bigot--there is nothing
+but Bigot! But, pish! Vaudreuil the Governor is the great man, and
+Montcalm, aho! son of Mahomet! You shall see. Now they dance to
+Bigot's whistling; he will lock her safe enough to-morrow, 'less
+some one steps in to help her. Before to-night she never spoke of
+him before the world--but a poor daft thing, going about all sad
+and wild. She missed her chance to-night--aho!"
+
+"Why are you not with Montcalm's soldiers?" I asked. "You like
+him better."
+
+"I was with him, but my time was out, and I left him for Bigot.
+Pish! I left him for Bigot, for the militia!" He raised his thumb
+to his nose, and spread out his fingers. Again light dawned on me.
+He was still with the Governor in all fact, though soldiering for
+Bigot--a sort of watch upon the Intendant.
+
+I saw my chance. If I could but induce this fellow to fetch me
+Voban! There was yet an hour before I was to go to the intendance.
+
+I called up what looks of candour were possible to me, and told
+him bluntly that I wished Voban to bear a letter for me to the
+Seigneur Duvarney's. At that he cocked his ear and shook his bushy
+head, fiercely stroking his mustaches.
+
+I knew that I should stake something if I said it was a letter for
+Mademoiselle Duvarney, but I knew also that if he was still the
+Governor's man in Bigot's pay he would understand the Seigneur's
+relations with the Governor. And a woman in the case with a
+soldier--that would count for something. So I said it was for her.
+Besides, I had no other resource but to make a friend among my
+enemies, if I could, while yet there was a chance.
+
+It was like a load lifted from me when I saw his mouth and eyes open
+wide in a big soundless laugh, which came to an end with a voiceless
+aho! I gave him another tumbler of wine. Before he took it, he made
+a wide mouth at me again, and slapped his leg. After drinking, he
+said, "Poom--what good? They're going to hang you for a spy."
+
+"That rope's not ready yet," I answered. "I'll tie a pretty knot
+in another string first, I trust."
+
+"Damned if you haven't spirit!" said he. "That Seigneur Duvarney,
+I know him; and I know his son the ensign--whung, what saltpetre
+is he! And the ma'm'selle--excellent, excellent; and a face, such
+a face, and a seat like leeches in the saddle. And you a British
+officer mewed up to kick your heels till gallows day! So droll,
+my dear!"
+
+"But will you fetch Voban?" I asked.
+
+"To trim your hair against the supper to-night--eh, like that?"
+
+As he spoke he puffed out his red cheeks with wide boylike eyes,
+burst his lips in another soundless laugh, and laid a finger beside
+his nose. His marvellous innocence of look and his peasant openness
+hid, I saw, great shrewdness and intelligence--an admirable man for
+Vaudreuil's purpose, as admirable for mine. I knew well that if I
+had tried to bribe him he would have scouted me, or if I had made a
+motion for escape he would have shot me off-hand. But a lady--that
+appealed to him; and that she was the Seigneur Duvarney's daughter
+did the rest.
+
+"Yes, yes," said I, "one must be well appointed in soul and body
+when one sups with his Excellency and Monsieur Doltaire."
+
+"Limed inside and chalked outside," he retorted gleefully. "But
+M'sieu' Doltaire needs no lime, for he has no soul. No, by Sainte
+Helois! The good God didn't make him. The devil laughed, and that
+laugh grew into M'sieu' Doltaire. But brave!--no kicking pulse is
+in his body."
+
+"You will send for Voban--now?" I asked softly.
+
+He was leaning against the door as he spoke. He reached and put
+the tumbler on a shelf, then turned and opened the door, his face
+all altered to a grimness.
+
+"Attend here, Labrouk!" he called; and on the soldier coming, he
+blurted out in scorn, "Here's this English captain can't go to
+supper without Voban's shears to snip him. Go fetch him, for I'd
+rather hear a calf in a barn-yard than this whing-whanging for
+'M'sieu' Voban!'"
+
+He mocked my accent in the last two words, so that the soldier
+grinned, and at once started away. Then he shut the door, and
+turned to me again, and said more seriously, "How long have we
+before Monsieur comes?"--meaning Doltaire.
+
+"At least an hour," said I.
+
+"Good," he rejoined, and then he smoked while I sat thinking.
+
+It was near an hour before we heard footsteps outside; then came
+a knock, and Voban was shown in.
+
+"Quick, m'sieu'," he said. "M'sieu' is almost at our heels."
+
+"This letter," said I, "to Mademoiselle Duvarney," and I handed
+four: hers, and those to Governor Dinwiddie, to Mr. Washington,
+and to my partner.
+
+He quickly put them in his coat, nodding. The soldier--I have
+not yet mentioned his name--Gabord, did not know that more than one
+passed into Voban's hands.
+
+"Off with your coat, m'sieu'," said Voban, whipping out his shears,
+tossing his cap aside, and rolling down his apron. "M'sieu' is here."
+
+I had off my coat, was in a chair in a twinkling, and he was
+clipping softly at me as Doltaire's hand turned the handle of the
+door.
+
+"Beware--to-night!" Voban whispered.
+
+"Come to me in the prison," said I. "Remember your brother!"
+
+His lips twitched. "M'sieu', I will if I can." This he said in
+my ear as Doltaire entered and came forward.
+
+"Upon my life!" Doltaire broke out. "These English gallants! They go
+to prison curled and musked by Voban. VOBAN--a name from the court
+of the King, and it garnishes a barber. Who called you, Voban?"
+
+"My mother, with the cure's help, m'sieu'."
+
+Doltaire paused, with a pinch of snuff at his nose, and replied
+lazily, "I did not say 'Who called you VOBAN?' Voban, but
+who called you here, Voban?"
+
+I spoke up testily then of purpose: "What would you have, monsieur?
+The citadel has better butchers than barbers. I sent for him."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and came over to Voban. "Turn round,
+my Voban," he said. "Voban--and such a figure! a knee, a back
+like that!"
+
+Then, while my heart stood still, he put forth a finger and
+touched the barber on the chest. If he should touch the letters! I
+was ready to seize them--but would that save them? Twice, thrice,
+the finger prodded Voban's breast, as if to add an emphasis to his
+words. "In Quebec you are misplaced, Monsieur le Voban. Once a wasp
+got into a honeycomb and died."
+
+I knew he was hinting at the barber's resentment of the poor
+Mathilde's fate. Something strange and devilish leapt into the
+man's eyes, and he broke out bitterly,
+
+"A honey-bee got into a nest of wasps--and died."
+
+I thought of the Scarlet Woman on the hill.
+
+Voban looked for a moment as if he might do some wild thing. His
+spirit, his devilry, pleased Doltaire, and he laughed. "Who would
+have thought our Voban had such wit? The trade of barber is
+double-edged. Razors should be in fashion at Versailles."
+
+Then he sat down, while Voban made a pretty show of touching off
+my person. A few minutes passed so, in which the pealing of bells,
+the shouting of the people, the beating of drums, and the calling
+of bugles came to us clearly.
+
+A half hour afterwards, on our way to the Intendant's palace, we
+heard the Benedictus chanted in the Church of the Recollets as
+we passed--hundreds kneeling outside, and responding to the chant
+sung within:
+
+"That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hands
+of all that hate us."
+
+At the corner of a building which we passed, a little away from
+the crowd, I saw a solitary cloaked figure. The words of the chant,
+following us, I could hear distinctly:
+
+"That we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies,
+might serve Him without fear."
+
+And then, from the shadowed corner came in a high, melancholy
+voice the words:
+
+"To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow
+of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace."
+
+Looking closer, I saw it was Mathilde.
+
+Doltaire smiled as I turned and begged a moment's time to speak
+to her.
+
+"To pray with the lost angel and sup with the Intendant, all in
+one night--a liberal taste, monsieur; but who shall stay the good
+Samaritan!"
+
+They stood a little distance away, and I went over to her and
+said, "Mademoiselle--Mathilde, do you not know me?"
+
+Her abstracted eye fired up, as there ran to her brain some
+little sprite out of the House of Memory and told her who I
+was.
+
+"There were two lovers in the world," she said: "the Mother of
+God forgot them, and the devil came. I am the Scarlet Woman," she
+went on; "I made this red robe from the curtains of Hell--"
+
+Poor soul! My own trouble seemed then as a speck among the stars
+to hers. I took her hand and held it, saying again, "Do you not
+know me? Think, Mathilde!"
+
+I was not sure that she had ever seen me, to know me, but I thought
+it possible; for, as a hostage, I had been much noticed in Quebec,
+and Voban had, no doubt, pointed me out to her. Light leapt from
+her black eye, and then she said, putting her finger on her lips,
+"Tell all the lovers to hide. I have seen a hundred Francois Bigots."
+
+I looked at her, saying nothing--I knew not what to say. Presently
+her eye steadied to mine, and her intellect rallied. "You are a
+prisoner, too," she said; "but they will not kill you: they will
+keep you till the ring of fire grows in your head, and then you
+will make your scarlet robe, and go out, but you will never find
+It--never. God hid first, and then It hides.... It hides, that
+which you lost--It hides, and you can not find It again. You go
+hunting, hunting, but you can not find It."
+
+My heart was pinched with pain. I understood her. She did not
+know her lover now at all. If Alixe and her mother at the Manor
+could but care for her, I thought. But alas! what could I do?
+It were useless to ask her to go to the Manor; she would not
+understand.
+
+Perhaps there come to the disordered mind flashes of insight,
+illuminations and divinations, greater than are given to the sane,
+for she suddenly said in a whisper, touching me with a nervous
+finger, "I will go and tell her where to hide. They shall not find
+her. I know the woodpath to the Manor. Hush! she shall own all I
+have--except the scarlet robe. She showed me where the May-apples
+grew. Go,"--she pushed me gently away--"go to your prison, and pray
+to God. But you can not kill Francois Bigot, he is a devil." Then she
+thrust into my hands a little wooden cross, which she took from many
+others at her girdle. "If you wear that, the ring of fire will not
+grow," she said. "I will go by the woodpath, and give her one, too.
+She shall live with me: I will spread the cedar branches and stir
+the fire. She shall be safe. Hush! Go, go softly, for their wicked
+eyes are everywhere, the were-wolves!"
+
+She put her fingers on my lips for an instant, and then, turning,
+stole softly away towards the St. Charles River.
+
+Doltaire's mockery brought me back to myself.
+
+"So much for the beads of the addled; now for the bowls of sinful
+man," said he.
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE WAGER AND THE SWORD
+
+
+As I entered the Intendant's palace with Doltaire I had a singular
+feeling of elation. My spirits rose unaccountably, and I felt as
+though it were a fete night, and the day's duty over, the hour of
+play was come. I must needs have felt ashamed of it then, and now,
+were I not sure it was some unbidden operation of the senses. Maybe
+a merciful Spirit sees how, left alone, we should have stumbled and
+lost ourselves in our own gloom, and so gives us a new temper fitted
+to our needs. I remember that at the great door I turned back and
+smiled upon the ruined granary, and sniffed the air laden with the
+scent of burnt corn--the peoples bread; that I saw old men and women
+who could not be moved by news of victory, shaking with cold, even
+beside this vast furnace, and peevishly babbling of their hunger,
+and I did not say, "Poor souls!" that for a time the power to feel
+my own misfortunes seemed gone, and a hard, light indifference came
+on me.
+
+For it is true I came into the great dining-hall, and looked upon
+the long loaded table, with its hundred candles, its flagons and
+pitchers of wine, and on the faces of so many idle, careless
+gentlemen bid to a carouse, with a manner, I believe, as reckless
+and jaunty as their own. And I kept it up, though I saw it was not
+what they had looked for. I did not at once know who was there, but
+presently, at a distance from me, I saw the face of Juste Duvarney,
+the brother of my sweet Alixe, a man of but twenty or so, who had a
+name for wildness, for no badness that I ever heard of, and for a
+fiery temper. He was in the service of the Governor, an ensign. He
+had been little at home since I had come to Quebec, having been
+employed up to the past year in the service of the Governor of
+Montreal. We bowed, but he made no motion to come to me, and the
+Intendant engaged me almost at once in gossip of the town; suddenly,
+however, diverging upon some questions of public tactics and civic
+government. He much surprised me, for though I knew him brave and
+able, I had never thought of him save as the adroit politician and
+servant of the King, the tyrant and the libertine. I might have
+known by that very scene a few hours before that he had a wide, deep
+knowledge of human nature, and despised it; unlike Doltaire, who had
+a keener mind, was more refined even in wickedness, and, knowing the
+world, laughed at it more than he despised it, which was the sign of
+the greater mind. And indeed, in spite of all the causes I had to
+hate Doltaire, it is but just to say he had by nature all the great
+gifts--misused and disordered as they were. He was the product of
+his age; having no real moral sense, living life wantonly, making
+his own law of right or wrong. As a lad, I was taught to think the
+evil person carried evil in his face, repelling the healthy mind.
+But long ago I found that this was error. I had no reason to admire
+Doltaire, and yet to this hour his handsome face, with its shadows
+and shifting lights, haunts me, charms me. The thought came to me
+as I talked with the Intendant, and I looked round the room. Some
+present were of coarse calibre--bushranging sons of seigneurs and
+petty nobles, dashing and profane, and something barbarous; but
+most had gifts of person and speech, and all seemed capable.
+
+My spirits continued high. I sprang alertly to meet wit and gossip,
+my mind ran nimbly here and there, I filled the role of honoured
+guest. But when came the table and wine, a change befell me. From
+the first drop I drank, my spirits suffered a decline. On one side
+the Intendant rallied me, on the other Doltaire. I ate on, drank
+on; but while smiling by the force of will, I grew graver little by
+little. Yet it was a gravity which had no apparent motive, for I
+was not thinking of my troubles, not even of the night's stake and
+the possible end of it all; simply a sort of gray colour of the mind,
+a stillness in the nerves, a general seriousness of the senses.
+I drank, and the wine did not affect me, as voices got loud and
+louder, and glasses rang, and spurs rattled on shuffling heels, and
+a scabbard clanged on a chair. I seemed to feel and know it all in
+some far-off way, but I was not touched by the spirit of it, was
+not a part of it. I watched the reddened cheeks and loose scorching
+mouths around me with a sort of distant curiosity, and the ribald
+jests flung right and left struck me not at all acutely. It was
+as if I were reading a Book of Bacchus. I drank on evenly, not
+doggedly, and answered jest for jest without a hot breath of
+drunkenness. I looked several times at Juste Duvarney, who sat not
+far away, on the other side of the table, behind a grand piece
+of silver filled with October roses. He was drinking hard, and
+Doltaire, sitting beside him, kept him at it. At last the silver
+piece was shifted, and he and I could see each other fairly. Now
+and then Doltaire spoke across to me, but somehow no word passed
+between Duvarney and myself.
+
+Suddenly, as if by magic--I know it was preconcerted--the talk
+turned on the events of the evening and on the defeat of the
+British. Then, too, as strangely I began to be myself again, amid
+a sense of my position grew upon me. I had been withdrawn from
+all real feeling and living for hours, but I believe that same
+suspension was my salvation. For with every man present deeply gone
+in liquor round me--every man save Doltaire--I was sane and steady,
+and settling into a state of great alertness, determined on escape,
+if that could be, and bent on turning every chance to serve my
+purposes.
+
+Now and again I caught my own name mentioned with a sneer, then with
+remarks of surprise, then with insolent laughter. I saw it all.
+Before dinner some of the revellers had been told of the new charge
+against me, and, by instruction, had kept it till the inflammable
+moment. Then, when the why and wherefore of my being at this supper
+were in the hazard, the stake, as a wicked jest of Bigot's, was
+mentioned. I could see the flame grow inch by inch, fed by the
+Intendant and Doltaire, whose hateful final move I was yet to see.
+For one instant I had a sort of fear, for I was sure they meant I
+should not leave the room alive; but anon I felt a river of fiery
+anger flow through me, rousing me, making me loathe the faces of
+them all. Yet not all, for in one pale face, with dark, brilliant
+eyes, I saw the looks of my flower of the world: the colour of her
+hair in his, the clearness of the brow, the poise of the head--how
+handsome he was!--the light, springing step, like a deer on the sod
+of June. I call to mind when I first saw him. He was sitting in a
+window of the Manor, just after he had come from Montreal, playing a
+violin which had once belonged to De Casson, the famous priest whose
+athletic power and sweet spirit endeared him to New France. His
+fresh cheek was bent to the brown, delicate wood, and he was playing
+to his sister the air of the undying chanson, "Je vais mourir pour
+ma belle reine." I loved the look of his face, like that of a young
+Apollo, open, sweet, and bold, all his body having the epic strength
+of life. I wished that I might have him near me as a comrade, for
+out of my hard experience I could teach him much, and out of his
+youth he could soften my blunt nature, by comradeship making
+flexuous the hard and ungenial.
+
+I went on talking to the Intendant, while some of the guests
+rose and scattered about the rooms, at tables, to play picquet,
+the jesting on our cause and the scorn of myself abating not at
+all. I would not have it thought that anything was openly coarse or
+brutal; it was all by innuendo, and brow-lifting, and maddening,
+allusive phrases such as it is thought fit for gentlefolk to use
+instead of open charge. There was insult in a smile, contempt
+in the turn of a shoulder, challenge in the flicking of a
+handkerchief. With great pleasure I could have wrung their noses
+one by one, and afterwards have met them tossing sword-points in
+the same order. I wonder now that I did not tell them so, for I was
+ever hasty; but my brain was clear that night, and I held myself
+in proper check, letting each move come from my enemies. There was
+no reason why I should have been at this wild feast at all, I a
+prisoner, accused falsely of being a spy, save because of some
+plot by which I was to have fresh suffering and some one else be
+benefited--though how that could be I could not guess at first.
+
+But soon I understood everything. Presently I heard a young
+gentleman say to Duvarney over my shoulder:
+
+"Eating comfits and holding yarn--that was his doing at your
+manor when Doltaire came hunting him."
+
+"He has dined at your table, Lancy," broke out Duvarney hotly.
+
+"But never with our ladies," was the biting answer.
+
+"Should prisoners make conditions?" was the sharp, insolent retort.
+
+The insult was conspicuous, and trouble might have followed, but
+that Doltaire came between them, shifting the attack.
+
+"Prisoners, my dear Duvarney," said he, "are most delicate and
+exacting; they must be fed on wine and milk. It is an easy life, and
+hearts grow soft for them. As thus-- Indeed, it is most sad: so young
+and gallant; in speech, too, so confiding! And if we babble all our
+doings to him, think you he takes it seriously? No, no--so gay and
+thoughtless, there is a thoroughfare from ear to ear, and all's lost
+on the other side. Poor simple gentleman, he is a claimant on our
+courtesy, a knight without a sword, a guest without the power to
+leave us--he shall make conditions, he shall have his caprice. La,
+la! my dear Duvarney and my Lancy!"
+
+He spoke in a clear, provoking tone, putting a hand upon the
+shoulder of each young gentleman as he talked, his eyes wandering
+over me idly, and beyond me. I saw that he was now sharpening the
+sickle to his office. His next words made this more plain to me:
+
+"And if a lady gives a farewell sign to one she favours for the
+moment, shall not the prisoner take it as his own?" (I knew he was
+recalling Alixe's farewell gesture to me at the manor.) "Who shall
+gainsay our peacock? Shall the guinea cock? The golden crumb was
+thrown to the guinea cock, but that's no matter. The peacock
+clatters of the crumb." At that he spoke an instant in Duvarney's
+ear. I saw the lad's face flush, and he looked at me angrily.
+
+Then I knew his object: to provoke a quarrel between this young
+gentleman and myself, which might lead to evil ends; and the
+Intendant's share in the conspiracy was to revenge himself upon
+the Seigneur for his close friendship with the Governor. If Juste
+Duvarney were killed in the duel which they foresaw, so far as
+Doltaire was concerned I was out of the counting in the young lady's
+sight. In any case my life was of no account, for I was sure my
+death was already determined on. Yet it seemed strange that Doltaire
+should wish me dead, for he had reasons for keeping me alive, as
+shall be seen.
+
+Juste Duvarney liked me once, I knew, but still he had the
+Frenchman's temper, and had always to argue down his bias against my
+race, and to cherish a good heart towards me; for he was young, and
+most sensitive to the opinions of his comrades. I can not express
+what misery possessed me when I saw him leave Doltaire, and, coming
+to me where I stood alone, say--
+
+"What secrets found you at our seigneury, monsieur?"
+
+I understood the taunt--as though I were the common interrogation
+mark, the abuser of hospitality, the abominable Paul Pry. But I held
+my wits together.
+
+"Monsieur," said I, "I found the secret of all good life: a noble
+kindness to the unfortunate."
+
+There was a general laugh, led by Doltaire, a concerted influence on
+the young gentleman. I cursed myself that I had been snared to this
+trap.
+
+"The insolent," responded Duvarney, "not the unfortunate."
+
+"Insolence is no crime, at least," I rejoined quietly, "else this
+room were a penitentiary."
+
+There was a moment's pause, and presently, as I kept my eye on
+him, he raised his handkerchief and flicked me across the face with
+it, saying, "Then this will be a virtue, and you may have more such
+virtues as often as you will."
+
+In spite of will, my blood pounded in my veins, and a devilish
+anger took hold of me. To be struck across the face by a beardless
+Frenchman, scarce past his teens!--it shook me more than now I care
+to own. I felt my cheek burn, my teeth clinched, and I know a kind
+of snarl came from me; but again, all in a moment, I caught a turn
+of his head, a motion of the hand, which brought back Alixe to me.
+Anger died away, and I saw only a youth flushed with wine, stung by
+suggestions, with that foolish pride the youngster feels--and he was
+the youngest of them all--in being as good a man as the best, and
+as daring as the worst. I felt how useless it would be to try the
+straightening of matters there, though had we two been alone a dozen
+words would have been enough. But to try was my duty, and I tried
+with all my might; almost, for Alixe's sake, with all my heart.
+
+"Do not trouble to illustrate your meaning," said I patiently.
+"Your phrases are clear and to the point."
+
+"You bolt from my words," he retorted, "like a shy mare on the
+curb; you take insult like a donkey on a well-wheel. What fly will
+the English fish rise to? Now it no more plays to my hook than an
+August chub."
+
+I could not help but admire his spirit and the sharpness of his
+speech, though it drew me into a deeper quandary. It was clear that
+he would not be tempered to friendliness; for, as is often so, when
+men have said things fiercely, their eloquence feeds their passion
+and convinces them of holiness in their cause. Calmly, but with a
+heavy heart, I answered:
+
+"I wish not to find offense in your words, my friend, for in some
+good days gone you and I had good acquaintance, and I can not forget
+that the last hours of a light imprisonment before I entered on a
+dark one were spent in the home of your father--of the brave
+Seigneur whose life I once saved."
+
+I am sure I should not have mentioned this in any other
+situation--it seemed as if I were throwing myself on his mercy;
+but yet I felt it was the only thing to do--that I must bridge
+this affair, if at cost of some reputation.
+
+It was not to be. Here Doltaire, seeing that my words had indeed
+affected my opponent, said: "A double retreat! He swore to give a
+challenge to-night, and he cries off like a sheep from a porcupine;
+his courage is so slack, he dares not move a step to his liberty.
+It was a bet, a hazard. He was to drink glass for glass with any
+and all of us, and fight sword for sword with any of us who gave
+him cause. Having drunk his courage to death, he'd now browse at
+the feet of those who give him chance to win his stake."
+
+His words came slowly and bitingly, yet with an air of damnable
+nonchalance. I looked round me. Every man present was full-sprung
+with wine; and a distance away, a gentleman on either side of him,
+stood the Intendant, smiling detestably, a keen, houndlike look
+shooting out of his small round eyes.
+
+I had had enough; I could bear no more. To be baited like a bear
+by these Frenchmen--it was aloes in my teeth! I was not sorry then
+that these words of Juste Duvarney's gave me no chance of escape
+from fighting; though I would it had been any other man in the room
+than he. It was on my tongue to say that if some gentleman would
+take up his quarrel I should be glad to drive mine home, though
+for reasons I cared not myself to fight Duvarney. But I did not,
+for I knew that to carry that point farther might rouse a general
+thought of Alixe, and I had no wish to make matters hard for her.
+Everything in its own good time, and when I should be free! So,
+without more ado, I said to him:
+
+"Monsieur, the quarrel was of your choosing, not mine. There was no
+need for strife between us, and you have more to lose than I: more
+friends, more years of life, more hopes. I have avoided your bait,
+as you call it, for your sake, not mine own. Now I take it, and you,
+monsieur, show us what sort of fisherman you are."
+
+All was arranged in a moment. As we turned to pass from the room
+to the courtyard, I noted that Bigot was gone. When we came
+outside, it was just one, as I could tell by a clock striking in a
+chamber near. It was cold, and some of the company shivered as we
+stepped upon the white, frosty stones. The late October air bit the
+cheek, though now and then a warm, pungent current passed across
+the courtyard--the breath from the people's burnt corn. Even yet
+upon the sky was the reflection of the fire, and distant sounds of
+singing, shouting, and carousal came to us from the Lower Town.
+
+We stepped to a corner of the yard and took off our coats; swords
+were handed us--both excellent, for we had had our choice of many.
+It was partial moonlight, but there were flitting clouds. That we
+should have light, however, pine torches had been brought, and
+these were stuck in the wall. My back was to the outer wall of the
+courtyard, and I saw the Intendant at a window of the palace looking
+down at us. Doltaire stood a little apart from the other gentlemen
+in the courtyard, yet where he could see Duvarney and myself at
+advantage.
+
+Before we engaged, I looked intently into my opponent's face, and
+measured him carefully with my eye, that I might have his height
+and figure explicit and exact; for I know how moonlight and fire
+distort, how the eye may be deceived. I looked for every button; for
+the spot in his lean, healthy body where I could disable him, spit
+him, and yet not kill him--for this was the thing furthest from my
+wishes, God knows. Now the deadly character of the event seemed to
+impress him, for he was pale, and the liquor he had drunk had given
+him dark hollows round the eyes, and a gray shining sweat was on his
+cheek. But his eyes themselves were fiery and keen and there was
+reckless daring in every turn of his body.
+
+I was not long in finding his quality, for he came at me violently
+from the start, and I had chance to know his strength and weakness
+also. His hand was quick, his sight clear and sure, his knowledge
+to a certain point most definite and practical, his mastery of the
+sword delightful; but he had little imagination, he did not divine,
+he was merely a brilliant performer, he did not conceive. I saw that
+if I put him on the defensive I should have him at advantage, for he
+had not that art of the true swordsman, the prescient quality which
+foretells the opponents action and stands prepared. There I had him
+at fatal advantage--could, I felt, give him last reward of insult
+at my pleasure. Yet a lust of fighting got into me, and it was
+difficult to hold myself in check at all, nor was it easy to meet
+his breathless and adroit advances.
+
+Then, too, remarks from the bystanders worked me up to a deep sort
+of anger, and I could feel Doltaire looking at me with that still,
+cold face of his, an ironical smile at his lips. Now and then, too,
+a ribald jest came from some young roisterer near, and the fact
+that I stood alone among sneering enemies wound me up to a point
+where pride was more active than aught else. I began to press him a
+little, and I pricked him once. Then a singular feeling possessed
+me. I would bring this to an end when I had counted ten; I would
+strike home when I said "ten."
+
+So I began, and I was not aware then that I was counting aloud.
+"One--two--three!" It was weird to the onlookers, for the yard grew
+still, and you could hear nothing but maybe a shifting foot or a
+hard breathing. "Four--five--six!" There was a tenseness in the air,
+and Juste Duvarney, as if he felt a menace in the words, seemed to
+lose all sense of wariness, and came at me lunging, lunging with
+great swiftness and heat. I was incensed now, and he must take what
+fortune might send; one can not guide one's sword to do the least
+harm fighting as did we.
+
+I had lost blood, and the game could go on no longer. "Eight!" I
+pressed him sharply now. "Nine!" I was preparing for the trick
+which would end the matter, when I slipped on the frosty stones,
+now glazed with our tramping back and forth, and, trying to recover
+myself, left my side open to his sword. It came home, though I
+partly diverted it. I was forced to my knees, but there, mad,
+unpardonable youth, he made another furious lunge at me. I threw
+myself back, deftly avoided the lunge, and he came plump on my
+upstretched sword, gave a long gasp, and sank down.
+
+At that moment the doors of the courtyard opened, and men stepped
+inside, one coming quickly forward before the rest. It was the
+Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. He spoke, but what he said I
+knew not, for the stark upturned face of Juste Duvarney was there
+before me, there was a great buzzing in my ears, and I fell back
+into darkness.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE RAT IN THE TRAP
+
+
+When I waked I was alone. At first nothing was clear to me; my brain
+was dancing in my head, my sight was obscured, my body painful, my
+senses were blunted. I was in darkness, yet through an open door
+there showed a light, which, from the smell and flickering, I knew
+to be a torch. This, creeping into my senses, helped me to remember
+that the last thing I saw in the Intendant's courtyard was a burning
+torch, which suddenly multiplied to dancing hundreds and then went
+out. I now stretched forth a hand, and it touched a stone wall; I
+moved, and felt straw under me. Then I fixed my eyes steadily on
+the open door and the shaking light, and presently it all came to
+me: the events of the night, and that I was now in a cell of the
+citadel. Stirring, I found that the wound in my body had been bound
+and cared for. A loosely tied scarf round my arm showed that some
+one had lately left me, and would return to finish the bandaging. I
+raised myself with difficulty, and saw a basin of water, a sponge,
+bits of cloth, and a pocket-knife. Stupid and dazed though I was,
+the instinct of self-preservation lived, and I picked up the knife
+and hid it in my coat. I did it, I believe, mechanically, for a
+hundred things were going through my mind at the time.
+
+All at once there rushed in on me the thought of Juste Duvarney as
+I saw him last--how long ago was it?--his white face turned to the
+sky, his arms stretched out, his body dabbled in blood. I groaned
+aloud. Fool, fool! to be trapped by these lying French! To be
+tricked into playing their shameless games for them, to have a
+broken body, to have killed the brother of the mistress of my heart,
+and so cut myself off from her and ruined my life for nothing--for
+worse than nothing! I had swaggered, boasted, had taken a challenge
+for a bout and a quarrel like any hanger-on of a tavern.
+
+Suddenly I heard footsteps and voices outside; then one voice,
+louder than the other, saying, "He hasn't stirred a peg--lies like
+a log!" It was Gabord.
+
+Doltaire's voice replied, "You will not need a surgeon--no?" His
+tone, as it seemed to me, was less careless than usual.
+
+Gabord answered, "I know the trick of it all--what can a surgeon do?
+This brandy will fetch him to his intellects. And by-and-bye crack'll
+go his spine--aho!"
+
+You have heard a lion growling on a bone. That is how Gabord's voice
+sounded to me then--a brutal rawness; but it came to my mind also
+that this was the man who had brought Voban to do me service!
+
+"Come, come, Gabord, crack your jaws less, and see you fetch him on
+his feet again," said Doltaire. "From the seats of the mighty they
+have said that he must live--to die another day; and see to it, or
+the mighty folk will say that you must die to live another day--in a
+better world, my Gabord."
+
+There was a moment in which the only sound was that of tearing
+linen, and I could see the shadows of the two upon the stone wall of
+the corridor wavering to the light of the torch; then the shadows
+shifted entirely, and their footsteps came on towards my door. I
+was lying on my back as when I came to, and, therefore, probably as
+Gabord had left me, and I determined to appear still in a faint.
+Through nearly closed eyelids however I saw Gabord enter. Doltaire
+stood in the doorway watching as the soldier knelt and lifted my arm
+to take off the bloody scarf. His manner was imperturbable as ever.
+Even then I wondered what his thoughts were, what pungent phrase
+he was suiting to the time and to me. I do not know to this day
+which more interested him--that very pungency of phrase, or the
+critical events which inspired his reflections. He had no sense of
+responsibility; his mind loved talent, skill, and cleverness, and
+though it was scathing of all usual ethics, for the crude, honest
+life of the poor it had sympathy. I remember remarks of his in the
+market-place a year before, as he and I watched the peasant in his
+sabots and the good-wife in her homespun cloth.
+
+"These are they," said he, "who will save the earth one day, for
+they are like it, kin to it. When they are born they lie close to
+it, and when they die they fall no height to reach their graves. The
+rest--the world--are like ourselves in dreams: we do not walk; we
+think we fly, over houses, over trees, over mountains; and then one
+blessed instant the spring breaks, or the dream gets twisted, and we
+go falling, falling, in a sickening fear, and, waking up, we find we
+are and have been on the earth all the while, and yet can make no
+claim on it, and have no kin with it, and no right to ask anything
+of it--quelle vie--quelle vie!"
+
+Sick as I was, I thought of that as he stood there, looking in at
+me; and though I knew I ought to hate him, I admired him in spite
+of all.
+
+Presently he said to Gabord, "You'll come to me at noon to-morrow,
+and see you bring good news. He breathes?"
+
+Gabord put a hand on my chest and at my neck, and said at once,
+"Breath for balloons--aho!"
+
+Doltaire threw his cloak over his shoulder and walked away, his
+footsteps sounding loud in the passages. Gabord began humming to
+himself as he tied the bandages, and then he reached down for the
+knife to cut the flying strings. I could see this out of a little
+corner of my eye. When he did not find it, he settled back on his
+haunches and looked at me. I could feel his lips puffing out, and
+I was ready for the "Poom!" that came from him. Then I could feel
+him stooping over me, and his hot strong breath in my face. I was
+so near to unconsciousness at that moment by a sudden anxiety that
+perhaps my feigning had the look of reality. In any case, he thought
+me unconscious and fancied that he had taken the knife away with
+him; for he tucked in the strings of the bandage. Then, lifting
+my head, he held the flask to my lips; for which I was most
+grateful--I was dizzy and miserably faint.
+
+I think I came to with rather more alacrity than was wise, but he
+was deceived, and his first words were, "Ho, ho! the devil's
+knocking; who's for home, angels?"
+
+It was his way to put all things allusively, using strange figures
+and metaphors. Yet, when one was used to him and to them, their
+potency seemed greater than polished speech and ordinary phrase.
+
+He offered me more brandy, and then, without preface, I asked him the
+one question which sank back on my heart like a load of ice even as I
+sent it forth. "Is he alive?" I inquired. "Is Monsieur Juste Duvarney
+alive?"
+
+With exasperating coolness he winked an eye, to connect the event
+with what he knew of the letter I had sent to Alixe, and, cocking
+his head, he blew out his lips with a soundless laugh, and said:
+
+"To whisk the brother off to heaven is to say good-bye to sister
+and pack yourself to Father Peter."
+
+"For God's sake, tell me, is the boy dead?" I asked, my voice
+cracking in my throat.
+
+"He's not mounted for the journey yet," he answered, with a shrug,
+"but the Beast is at the door."
+
+I plied my man with questions, and learned that they had carried
+Juste into the palace for dead, but found life in him, and
+straightway used all means to save him. A surgeon came, his father
+and mother were sent for, and when Doltaire had left there was
+hope that he would live.
+
+I learned also that Voban had carried word to the Governor of the
+deed to be done that night; had for a long time failed to get
+admittance to him, but was at last permitted to tell his story;
+and Vaudreuil had gone to Bigot's palace to have me hurried to
+the citadel, and had come just too late.
+
+After answering my first few questions, Gabord say nothing more,
+and presently he took the torch from the wall and with a gruff
+good-night prepared to go. When I asked that a light be left, he
+shook his head, said he had no orders. Whereupon he left me, the
+heavy door clanging to, the bolts were shot, and I was alone in
+darkness with my wounds and misery. My cloak had been put into the
+cell beside my couch, and this I now drew over me, and I lay and
+thought upon my condition and my prospects, which, as may be seen,
+were not cheering. I did not suffer great pain from my wounds--only
+a stiffness that troubled me not at all if I lay still. After an
+hour or so passed--for it is hard to keep count of time when one's
+thoughts are the only timekeeper--I fell asleep.
+
+I know not how long I slept, but I awoke refreshed. I stretched
+forth my uninjured arm, moving it about. In spite of will a sort of
+hopelessness went through me, for I could feel long blades of corn
+grown up about my couch, an unnatural meadow, springing from the
+earth floor of my dungeon. I drew the blades between my fingers,
+feeling towards them as if they were things of life out of place
+like myself. I wondered what colour they were. Surely, said I
+to myself, they can not be green, but rather a yellowish white,
+bloodless, having only fibre, the heart all pinched to death. Last
+night I had not noted them, yet now, looking back, I saw, as in
+a picture, Gabord the soldier feeling among them for the knife
+that I had taken. So may we see things, and yet not be conscious
+of them at the time, waking to their knowledge afterwards. So may
+we for years look upon a face without understanding, and then,
+suddenly, one day it comes flashing out, and we read its hidden
+story like a book.
+
+I put my hand out farther, then brought it back near to my couch,
+feeling towards its foot mechanically, and now I touched an earthen
+pan. A small board lay across its top, and moving my fingers along
+it I found a piece of bread. Then I felt the jar, and knew it was
+filled with water. Sitting back, I thought hard for a moment. Of
+this I was sure: the pan and bread were not there when I went to
+sleep, for this was the spot where my eyes fell naturally while I
+lay in bed looking towards Doltaire; and I should have remembered
+it now, even if I had not noted it then. My jailer had brought
+these while I slept. But it was still dark. I waked again as though
+out of sleep, startled: I was in a dungeon that had no window!
+
+Here I was, packed away in a farthest corner of the citadel, in a
+deep hole that maybe had not been used for years, to be, no doubt,
+denied all contact with the outer world--I was going to say FRIENDS,
+but whom could I name among them save that dear soul who, by last
+night's madness, should her brother be dead, was forever made dumb
+and blind to me? Whom had I but her and Voban!--and Voban was yet to
+be proved. The Seigneur Duvarney had paid all debts he may have owed
+me, and he now might, because of the injury to his son, leave me to
+my fate. On Gabord the soldier I could not count at all.
+
+There I was, as Doltaire had said, like a rat in a trap. But I would
+not let panic seize me. So I sat and ate the stale but sweet bread,
+took a long drink of the good water from the earthen jar, and then,
+stretching myself out, drew my cloak up to my chin, and settled
+myself for sleep again. And that I might keep up a kind delusion
+that I was not quite alone in the bowels of the earth, I reached out
+my hand and affectionately drew the blades of corn between my
+fingers.
+
+Presently I drew my chin down to my shoulder, and let myself drift
+out of painful consciousness almost as easily as a sort of woman can
+call up tears at will. When I waked again, it was without a start
+or moving, without confusion, and I was bitterly hungry. Beside my
+couch, with his hands on his hips and his feet thrust out, stood
+Gabord, looking down at me in a quizzical and unsatisfied way. A
+torch was burning near him.
+
+"Wake up, my dickey-bird," said he in his rough, mocking voice, "and
+we'll snuggle you into the pot. You've been long hiding; come out of
+the bush--aho!"
+
+I drew myself up painfully. "What is the hour?" I asked, and
+meanwhile I looked for the earthen jar and the bread.
+
+"Hour since when?" said he.
+
+"Since it was twelve o'clock last night," I answered.
+
+"Fourteen hours since THEN," said he.
+
+The emphasis arrested my attention. "I mean," I added, "since the
+fighting in the courtyard."
+
+"Thirty-six hours and more since then, m'sieu' the dormouse," was
+his reply.
+
+I had slept a day and a half since the doors of this cell closed on
+me. It was Friday then; now it was Sunday afternoon. Gabord had
+come to me three times, and seeing how sound asleep I was had not
+disturbed me, but had brought bread and water--my prescribed diet.
+
+He stood there, his feet buried in the blanched corn--I could see
+the long yellowish-white blades--the torch throwing shadows about
+him, his back against the wall. I looked carefully round my dungeon.
+There was no a sign of a window; I was to live in darkness. Yet if
+I were but allowed candles, or a lantern, or a torch, some books,
+paper, pencil, and tobacco, and the knowledge that I had not killed
+Juste Duvarney, I could abide the worst with some sort of calmness.
+How much might have happened, must have happened, in all these hours
+of sleep! My letter to Alixe should have been delivered long ere
+this; my trial, no doubt, had been decided on. What had Voban done?
+Had he any word for me? Dear Lord! here was a mass of questions
+tumbling one upon the other in my head, while my heart thumped
+behind my waistcoat like a rubber ball to a prize-fighter's fist.
+Misfortunes may be so great and many that one may find grim humour
+and grotesqueness in their impossible conjunction and multiplicity.
+I remembered at that moment a friend of mine in Virginia, the
+most unfortunate man I ever knew. Death, desertion, money losses,
+political defeat, flood, came one upon the other all in two years,
+and coupled with this was loss of health. One day he said to me:
+
+"Robert, I have a perforated lung, my liver is a swelling sponge,
+eating crowds my waistband like a balloon, I have a swimming in
+my head and a sinking at my heart, and I can not say litany for
+happy release from these for my knees creak with rheumatism. The
+devil has done his worst, Robert, for these are his--plague and
+pestilence, being final, are the will of God--and, upon my soul,
+it is an absurd comedy of ills!" At that he had a fit of coughing,
+and I gave him a glass of spirits, which eased him.
+
+"That's better," said I cheerily to him.
+
+"It's robbing Peter to pay Paul," he answered; "for I owed it to my
+head to put the quid refert there, and here it's gone to my lungs to
+hurry up my breathing. Did you ever think, Robert," he added, "that
+this breathing of ours is a labor, and that we have to work every
+second to keep ourselves alive? We have to pump air in and out like
+a blacksmith's boy." He said it so drolly, though he was deadly ill,
+that I laughed for half an hour at the stretch, wiping away my tears
+as I did it; for his pale gray face looked so sorry, with its quaint
+smile and that odd, dry voice of his.
+
+As I sat there in my dungeon, with Gabord cocking his head and his
+eyes rolling, that scene flashed on me, and I laughed freely--so
+much so that Gabord sulkily puffed out his lips, and flamed like
+bunting on a coast-guard's hut. The more he scowled and spluttered,
+the more I laughed, till my wounded side hurt me and my arm had
+twinges. But my mood changed suddenly, and I politely begged his
+pardon, telling him frankly then and there what had made me laugh,
+and how I had come to think of it. The flame passed out of his
+cheeks, the revolving fire of his eyes dimmed, his lips broke into
+a soundless laugh, and then, in his big voice, he said:
+
+"You've got your knees to pray on yet, and crack my bones, but
+you'll have need to con your penitentials if tattle in the town
+be true."
+
+"Before you tell of that," said I, "how is young Monsieur Duvarney?
+Is--is he alive?" I added, as I saw his face look lower.
+
+"The Beast was at door again last night, wild to be off, and foot of
+young Seigneur was in the stirrup, when along comes sister with drug
+got from an Indian squaw who nursed her when a child. She gives it
+him, and he drinks; they carry him back, sleeping, and Beast must
+stand there tugging at the leathers yet."
+
+"His sister--it was his sister," said I, "that brought him back to
+life?"
+
+"Like that--aho! They said she must not come, but she will have her
+way. Straight she goes to the palace at night, no one knowing
+but--guess who? You can't--but no!"
+
+A light broke in on me. "With the Scarlet Woman--with Mathilde,"
+I said, hoping in my heart that it was so, for somehow I felt even
+then that she, poor vagrant, would play a part in the history of
+Alixe's life and mine.
+
+"At the first shot," he said. "'Twas the crimson one, as quiet as
+a baby chick, not hanging to ma'm'selle's skirts, but watching and
+whispering a little now and then--and she there in Bigot's palace,
+and he not knowing it! And maids do not tell him, for they knew the
+poor wench in better days--aho!"
+
+I got up with effort and pain, and made to grasp his hand in
+gratitude, but he drew back, putting his arms behind him.
+
+"No, no," said he, "I am your jailer. They've put you here to break
+your high spirits, and I'm to help the breaking."
+
+"But I thank you just the same," I answered him; "and I promise to
+give you as little trouble as may be while you are my jailer--which,
+with all my heart, I hope may be as long as I'm a prisoner."
+
+He waved out his hands to the dungeon walls, and lifted his shoulders
+as if to say that I might as well be docile, for the prison was safe
+enough. "Poom!" said he, as if in genial disdain of my suggestion.
+
+I smiled, and then, after putting my hands on the walls here and
+there to see if they were, as they seemed, quite dry, I drew back to
+my couch and sat down. Presently I stooped to tip the earthen jar
+of water to my lips, for I could not lift it with one hand, but my
+humane jailer took it from me and held it to my mouth. When I had
+drunk, "Do you know," asked I as calmly as I could, "if our barber
+gave the letter to Mademoiselle?"
+
+"M'sieu', you've travelled far to reach that question," said he,
+jangling his keys as if he enjoyed it. "And if he had--?"
+
+I caught at his vague suggestion, and my heart leaped.
+
+"A reply," said I, "a message or a letter," though I had not dared
+to let myself even think of that.
+
+He whipped a tiny packet from his coat. "'Tis a sparrow's pecking--no
+great matter here, eh?"--he weighed it up and down on his fingers--"a
+little piping wren's par pitie."
+
+I reached out for it. "I should read it," said he. "There must be
+no more of this. But new orders came AFTER I'd got her dainty a
+m'sieu'! Yes, I must read it," said he--"but maybe not at first," he
+added, "not at first, if you'll give word of honour not to tear it."
+
+"On my sacred honour," said I, reaching out still.
+
+He looked it all over again provokingly, and then lifted it to his
+nose, for it had a delicate perfume. Then he gave a little grunt of
+wonder and pleasure, and handed it over.
+
+I broke the seal, and my eyes ran swiftly through the lines, traced
+in a firm, delicate hand. I could see through it all the fine, sound
+nature, by its healthy simplicity mastering anxiety, care, and fear.
+
+
+"Robert," she wrote, "by God's help my brother will live, to repent
+with you, I trust, of Friday night's ill work. He was near gone, yet
+we have held him back from that rough-rider, Death.
+
+"You will thank God, will you not, that my brother did not die?
+Indeed, I feel you have. I do not blame you; I know--I need not tell
+you how--the heart of the affair; and even my mother can see through
+the wretched thing. My father says little, and he has not spoken
+harshly; for which I gave thanksgiving this morning in the chapel
+of the Ursulines. Yet you are in a dungeon, covered with wounds of
+my brother's making, both of you victims of others' villainy, and
+you are yet to bear worse things, for they are to try you for your
+life. But never shall I believe that they will find you guilty of
+dishonour. I have watched you these three years; I do not, nor ever
+will, doubt you, dear friend of my heart.
+
+"You would not believe it, Robert, and you may think it fanciful,
+but as I got up from my prayers at the chapel I looked towards a
+window, and it being a little open, for it is a sunny day, there sat
+a bird on the sill, a little brown bird that peeped and nodded. I
+was so won by it that I came softly over to it. It did not fly away,
+but hopped a little here and there. I stretched out my hand gently
+on the stone, and putting its head now this side, now that, at last
+it tripped into it, and chirped most sweetly. After I had kissed it
+I placed it back on the window-sill, that it might fly away again.
+Yet no, it would not go, but stayed there, tipping its gold-brown
+head at me as though it would invite me to guess why it came. Again
+I reached out my hand, and once more it tripped into it. I stood
+wondering and holding it to my bosom, when I heard a voice behind me
+say, 'The bird would be with thee, my child. God hath many signs.' I
+turned and saw the good Mere St. George looking at me, she of whom
+I was always afraid, so distant is she. I did not speak, but only
+looked at her, and she nodded kindly at me and passed on.
+
+"And, Robert, as I write to you here in the Intendant's palace (what
+a great wonderful place it is! I fear I do not hate it and its
+luxury as I ought!), the bird is beside me in a cage upon the table,
+with a little window open, so that it may come out if it will. My
+brother lies in the bed asleep; I can touch him if I but put out my
+hand, and I am alone save for one person. You sent two messengers:
+can you not guess the one that will be with me? Poor Mathilde, she
+sits and gazes at me till I almost fall weeping. But she seldom
+speaks, she is so quiet--as if she knew that she must keep a secret.
+For, Robert, though I know you did not tell her, she knows--she
+knows that you love me, and she has given me a little wooden cross
+which she said will make us happy.
+
+"My mother did not drive her away, as I half feared she would, and
+at last she said that I might house her with one of our peasants.
+Meanwhile she is with me here. She is not so mad but that she has
+wisdom too, and she shall have my care and friendship.
+
+"I bid thee to God's care, Robert. I need not tell thee to be not
+dismayed. Thou hast two jails, and one wherein I lock thee safe is
+warm and full of light. If the hours drag by, think of all thou
+wouldst do if thou wert free to go to thine own country--yet alas
+that thought!--and of what thou wouldst say if thou couldst speak
+to thy ALIXE.
+
+"Postscript.--I trust that they have cared for thy wounds, and that
+thou hast light and food and wine. Voban hath promised to discover
+this for me. The soldier Gabord, at the citadel, he hath a good
+heart. Though thou canst expect no help from him, yet he will not be
+rougher than his orders. He did me a good service once, and he likes
+me, and I him. And so fare thee well, Robert. I will not languish;
+I will act, and not be weary. Dost thou really love me?"
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE DEVICE OF THE DORMOUSE
+
+
+When I had read the letter, I handed it up to Gabord without a
+word. A show of trust in him was the only thing, for he had enough
+knowledge of our secret to ruin us, if he chose. He took the letter,
+turned it over, looking at it curiously, and at last, with a shrug
+of the shoulders, passed it back.
+
+"'Tis a long tune on a dot of a fiddle," said he, for indeed
+the letter was but a small affair in bulk. "I'd need two
+pairs of eyes and telescope! Is it all Heart-o'-my-heart, and
+Come-trip-in-dewy-grass--aho? Or is there knave at window to
+bear m'sieu' away?"
+
+I took the letter from him. "Listen," said I, "to what the lady says
+of you." And then I read him that part of her postscript which had
+to do with himself.
+
+He put his head on one side like a great wise magpie, and "H'm--ha!"
+said he whimsically, "aho! Gabord the soldier, Gabord, thou hast a
+good heart--and the birds fed the beast with plums and froth of
+comfits till he died, and on his sugar tombstone they carved the
+words, 'Gabord had a good heart.'"
+
+"It was spoken out of a true spirit," said I petulantly, for I could
+not bear from a common soldier even a tone of disparagement, though
+I saw the exact meaning of his words. So I added, "You shall read
+the whole letter, or I will read it to you and you shall judge. On
+the honour of a gentleman, I will read all of it!"
+
+"Poom!" said he, "English fire-eater! corn-cracker! Show me the
+'good heart' sentence, for I'd see how it is written--how GABORD
+looks with a woman's whimsies round it."
+
+I traced the words with my fingers, holding the letter near the
+torch. "'Yet he will not be rougher than his orders,'" said he after
+me, and "'He did me a good service once.'"
+
+"Comfits," he continued; "well, thou shalt have comfits, too," and
+he fished from his pocket a parcel. It was my tobacco and my pipe.
+
+Truly, my state might have been vastly worse. Little more was said
+between Gabord and myself, but he refused bluntly to carry message
+or letter to anybody, and bade me not to vex him with petitions.
+But he left me the torch and a flint and steel, so I had light
+for a space, and I had my blessed tobacco and pipe. When the doors
+clanged shut and the bolts were shot, I lay back on my couch.
+
+I was not all unhappy. Thank God, they had not put chains on me, as
+Governor Dinwiddie had done with a French prisoner at Williamsburg,
+for whom I had vainly sought to be exchanged two years before,
+though he was my equal in all ways and importance. Doltaire was the
+cause of that, as you shall know. Well, there was one more item to
+add to his indebtedness. My face flushed and my fingers tingled at
+thought of him, and so I resolutely turned my meditations elsewhere,
+and again in a little while I seemed to think of nothing, but lay
+and bathed in the silence, and indulged my eyes with the good red
+light of the torch, inhaling its pitchy scent. I was conscious, yet
+for a time I had no thought: I was like something half animal, half
+vegetable, which feeds, yet has no mouth, nor sees, nor hears, nor
+has sense, but only lives. I seemed hung in space, as one feels when
+going from sleep to waking--a long lane of half-numb life, before
+the open road of full consciousness is reached.
+
+At last I was aroused by the sudden cracking of a knot in the torch.
+I saw that it would last but a few hours more. I determined to put
+it out, for I might be allowed no more light, and even a few minutes
+of this torch every day would be a great boon. So I took it from its
+place, and was about to quench it in the moist earth at the foot of
+the wall, when I remembered my tobacco and my pipe. Can you think
+how joyfully I packed full the good brown bowl, delicately filling
+in every little corner, and at last held it to the flame, and saw
+it light? That first long whiff was like the indrawn breath of
+the cold, starved hunter, when, stepping into his house, he sees
+food, fire, and wife on his hearthstone. Presently I put out the
+torchlight, and then went back to my couch and sat down, the bowl
+shining like a star before me.
+
+There and then a purpose came to me--something which would keep
+my brain from wandering, my nerves from fretting and wearing, for
+a time at least. I determined to write to my dear Alixe the true
+history of my life, even to the point--and after--of this thing
+which now was bringing me to so ill a pass. But I was in darkness, I
+had no paper, pens, nor ink. After a deal of thinking I came at last
+to the solution. I would compose the story, and learn it by heart,
+sentence by sentence, as I so composed it.
+
+So there and then I began to run back over the years of my life,
+even to my first remembrances, that I might see it from first to
+last in a sort of whole and with a kind of measurement. But when I
+began to dwell upon my childhood, one little thing gave birth to
+another swiftly, as you may see one flicker in the heaven multiply
+and break upon the mystery of the dark, filling the night with
+clusters of stars. As I thought, I kept drawing spears of the
+dungeon corn between my fingers softly (they had come to be like
+comrades to me), and presently there flashed upon me the very first
+memory of my life. It had never come to me before, and I knew now
+that it was the beginning of conscious knowledge: for we can never
+know till we can remember. When a child remembers what it sees or
+feels, it has begun life.
+
+I put that recollection into the letter which I wrote Alixe, and it
+shall be set down forthwith and in little space, though it took me
+so very many days and weeks to think it out, to give each word a
+fixed place, so that it should go from my mind no more. Every phrase
+of that story as I told it is as fixed as stone in my memory. Yet it
+must not be thought I can give it all here. I shall set down only a
+few things, but you shall find in them the spirit of the whole. I
+will come at once to the body of the letter.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MORAY TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE
+
+
+"...I would have you know of what I am and whence I came, though I
+have given you glimpses in the past. That done, I will make plain
+why I am charged with this that puts my life in danger, which would
+make you blush that you ever knew me if it were true. And I will
+show you first a picture as it runs before me, sitting here, the
+corn of my dungeon garden twining in my fingers:--
+
+"A multiplying width of green grass spotted with white flowers, an
+upland where sheep browsed on a carpet of purple and gold and green,
+a tall rock on a hill where birds perched and fluttered, a blue
+sky arching over all. There, sprawling in a garden, a child pulled
+at long blades of grass, as he watched the birds flitting about
+the rocks, and heard a low voice coming down the wind. Here in my
+dungeon I can hear the voice as I have not heard it since that day
+in the year 1730--that voice stilled so long ago. The air and the
+words come floating down (for the words I knew years afterwards):
+
+  'Did ye see the white cloud in the glint o' the sun?
+    That's the brow and the eye o' my bairnie.
+  Did ye ken the red bloom at the bend o' the crag?
+    That's the rose in the cheek o' my bairnie.
+  Did ye hear the gay lilt o' the lark by the burn?
+    That's the voice of my bairnie, my dearie.
+  Did ye smell the wild scent in the green o' the wood?
+    That's the breath o' my ain, o' my bairnie.
+  Sae I'll gang awa' hame, to the shine o' the fire,
+    To the cot where I lie wi' my bairnie.'
+
+"These words came crooning over the grass of that little garden at
+Balmore which was by my mother's home. There I was born one day in
+June, though I was reared in the busy streets of Glasgow, where my
+father was a prosperous merchant and famous for his parts and
+honesty.
+
+"I see myself, a little child of no great strength, for I was,
+indeed, the only one of my family who lived past infancy, and
+my mother feared she should never bring me up. She, too, is in
+that picture, tall, delicate, kind yet firm of face, but with a
+strong brow, under which shone grave gray eyes, and a manner so
+distinguished that none might dispute her kinship to the renowned
+Montrose, who was lifted so high in dying, though his gallows was
+but thirty feet, that all the world has seen him there. There was
+one other in that picture, standing near my mother, and looking at
+me, who often used to speak of our great ancestor--my grandfather,
+John Mitchell, the Gentleman of Balmore, as he was called, out of
+regard for his ancestry and his rare merits.
+
+"I have him well in mind: his black silk breeches and white
+stockings and gold seals, and two eyes that twinkled with great
+humour when, as he stooped over me, I ran my head between his calves
+and held him tight. I recall how my mother said, 'I doubt that I
+shall ever bring him up,' and how he replied (the words seem to
+come through great distances to me), 'He'll live to be Montrose the
+second, rascal laddie! Four seasons at the breast? Tut, tut! what
+o' that? 'Tis but his foolery, his scampishness! Nae, nae! his
+epitaph's no for writing till you and I are tucked i' the sod,
+my Jeanie. Then, like Montrose's, it will be--
+
+  'Tull Edinburrow they led him thair,
+    And on a gallows hong;
+  They hong him high abone the rest,
+    He was so trim a boy.'
+
+"I can hear his laugh this minute, as he gave an accent to the words
+by stirring me with his stick, and I caught the gold head of it and
+carried it off, trailing it through the garden, till I heard my
+mother calling, and then forced her to give me chase, as I pushed
+open a little gate and posted away into that wide world of green,
+coming quickly to the river, where I paused and stood at bay. I can
+see my mother's anxious face now, as she caught me to her arms; and
+yet I know she had a kind of pride, too, when my grandfather said,
+on our return, 'The rascal's at it early. Next time he'll ford the
+stream and skirl at ye, Jeanie, from yonder bank.'
+
+"This is the first of my life that I remember. It may seem strange
+to you that I thus suddenly recall not only it, but the words then
+spoken too. It is strange to me, also. But here it comes to me all
+on a sudden in this silence, as if another self of me were speaking
+from far places. At first all is in patches and confused, and then
+it folds out--if not clearly, still so I can understand--and the
+words I repeat come as if filtered through many brains to mine. I
+do not say that it is true--it may be dreams; and yet, as I say, it
+is firmly in my mind.
+
+"The next that I remember was climbing upon a chair to reach for my
+grandfather's musket, which hung across the chimney. I got at last
+upon the mantelshelf, and my hands were on the weapon, when the
+door opened, and my grandfather and my father entered. I was so
+busy I did not hear them till I was caught by the legs and swung
+to a shoulder, where I sat kicking. 'You see his tastes, William,'
+said my grandfather to my father; 'he's white o' face and slim o'
+body, but he'll no carry on your hopes.' And more he said to the
+point, though what it was I knew not. But I think it to have been
+suggestion (I heard him say it later) that I would bring Glasgow up
+to London by the sword (good doting soul!) as my father brought it
+by manufactures, gaining honour thereby.
+
+"However that may be, I would not rest till my grandfather had put
+the musket into my arms. I could scarcely lift it, but from the
+first it had a charm for me, and now and then, in spite of my
+mother's protests, I was let to handle it, to learn its parts, to
+burnish it, and by-and-bye--I could not have been more than six
+years old--to rest it on a rock and fire it off. It kicked my
+shoulder roughly in firing, but I know I did not wink as I pulled
+the trigger. Then I got a wild hunger to fire it at all times; so
+much so, indeed, that powder and shot were locked up, and the musket
+was put away in my grandfather's chest. But now and again it was
+taken out, and I made war upon the unresisting hillside, to the
+dismay of our neighbours in Balmore. Feeding the fever in my veins,
+my grandfather taught me soldiers' exercises and the handling of
+arms: to my dear mother's sorrow, for she ever fancied me as leading
+a merchant's quiet life like my father's, hugging the hearthstone,
+and finding joy in small civic duties, while she and my dear father
+sat peacefully watching me in their decline of years.
+
+"I have told you of that river which flowed near my father's house.
+At this time most of my hours were spent by it in good weather, for
+at last my mother came to trust me alone there, having found her
+alert fears of little use. But she would very often come with me and
+watch me as I played there. I loved to fancy myself a miller, and my
+little mill-wheel, made by my own hands, did duty here and there on
+the stream, and many drives of logs did I, in fancy, saw into piles
+of lumber, and loads of flour sent away to the City of Desire. Then,
+again, I made bridges, and drove mimic armies across them; and if
+they were enemies, craftily let them partly cross, to tumble them in
+at the moment when part of the forces were on one side of the stream
+and part on the other, and at the mercy of my men.
+
+"My grandfather taught me how to build forts and breastworks, and
+I lay in ambush for the beadle, who was my good friend, for my
+grandfather, and for half a dozen other village folk, who took no
+offense at my sport, but made believe to be bitterly afraid when I
+surrounded them and drove them, shackled, to my fort by the river.
+Little by little the fort grew, until it was a goodly pile; for
+now and then a village youth helped me, or again an old man, whose
+heart, maybe, rejoiced to play at being child again with me. Years
+after, whenever I went back to Balmore, there stood the fort, for
+no one ever meddled with it, nor tore it down.
+
+"And I will tell you one reason why this was, and you will think it
+strange that it should have played such a part in the history of
+the village, as in my own life. You must know that people living in
+secluded places are mostly superstitious. Well, when my fort was
+built to such proportions that a small ladder must be used to fix
+new mud and mortar in place upon it, something happened.
+
+"Once a year there came to Balmore--and he had done so for a
+generation--one of those beings called The Men, who are given to
+prayer, fasting, and prophesying, who preach the word of warning
+ever, calling even the ministers of the Lord sharply to account.
+One day this Man came past my fort, folk with him, looking for
+preaching or prophesy from him. Suddenly turning he came inside my
+fort, and, standing upon the ladder against the wall, spoke to them
+fervently. His last words became a legend in Balmore, and spread
+even to Glasgow and beyond.
+
+"'Hear me!' cried he. 'As I stand looking at ye from this wall,
+calling on ye in your natural bodies to take refuge in the Fort of
+God, the Angel of Death is looking ower the battlements of heaven,
+choosing ye out, the sheep frae the goats; calling the one to
+burning flames, and the other into peaceable habitations. I hear the
+voice now,' cried he, 'and some soul among us goeth forth. Flee ye
+to the Fort of Refuge.' I can see him now, his pale face shining,
+his eyes burning, his beard blowing in the wind, his grizzled hair
+shaking on his forehead. I had stood within the fort watching him.
+At last he turned, and, seeing me intent, stooped, caught me by the
+arms, and lifted me upon the wall. 'See you,' said he, 'yesterday's
+babe a warrior to-day. Have done, have done, ye quarrelsome hearts.
+Ye that build forts here shall lie in darksome prisons; there is no
+fort but the Fort of God. The call comes frae the white ramparts.
+Hush!' he added solemnly, raising a finger. 'One of us goeth hence
+this day; are ye ready to walk i' the fearsome valley?'
+
+"I have heard my mother speak these words over often, and they were,
+as I said, like an old song in Balmore and Glasgow. He set me down,
+and then walked away, waving the frightened people back; and there
+was none of them that slept that night.
+
+"Now comes the stranger thing. In the morning The Man was found
+dead in my little fort, at the foot of the wall. Henceforth the
+spot was sacred, and I am sure it stands there as when last I saw
+it twelve years ago, but worn away by rains and winds.
+
+"Again and again my mother said over to me his words, 'Ye that build
+forts here shall lie in darksome prisons'; for always she had fear
+of the soldier's life, and she was moved by signs and dreams.
+
+"But this is how the thing came to shape my life:
+
+"About a year after The Man died, there came to my grandfather's
+house, my mother and I being present, a gentleman, by name Sir
+John Godric, and he would have my mother tell the whole story of
+The Man. That being done, he said that The Man was his brother, who
+had been bad and wild in youth, a soldier; but repenting had gone
+as far the other way, giving up place and property, and cutting off
+from all his kin.
+
+"This gentleman took much notice of me and said that he should
+be glad to see more of me. And so he did, for in the years that
+followed he would visit at our home in Glasgow when I was at
+school, or at Balmore until my grandfather died.
+
+"My father liked Sir John greatly, and they grew exceedingly
+friendly, walking forth in the streets of Glasgow, Sir John's
+hand upon my father's arm. One day they came to the school in High
+Street, where I learned Latin and other accomplishments, together
+with fencing from an excellent master, Sergeant Dowie of the One
+Hundredth Foot. They found me with my regiment at drill; for I
+had got full thirty of my school-fellows under arms, and spent
+all leisure hours in mustering, marching, and drum-beating, and
+practising all manner of discipline and evolution which I had been
+taught by my grandfather and Sergeant Dowie.
+
+"Those were the days soon after which came Dettingen and Fontenoy
+and Charles Edward the Pretender, and the ardour of arms ran high.
+Sir John was a follower of the Stuarts, and this was the one point
+at which he and my father paused in their good friendship. When
+Sir John saw me with my thirty lads marching in fine order, all
+fired with the little sport of battle--for to me it was all real,
+and our sham fights often saw broken heads and bruised shoulders--he
+stamped his cane upon the ground, and said in a big voice, 'Well
+done! well done! For that you shall have a hundred pounds next
+birthday, and as fine a suit of scarlet as you please, and a sword
+from London too.'
+
+"Then he came to me and caught me by both shoulders. 'But alack,
+alack! there needs some blood and flesh here, Robert Moray,' said
+he. 'You have more heart than muscle.'
+
+"This was true. I had ever been more eager than my strength--thank
+God, that day is gone!--and sometimes, after Latin and the drill of
+my Lightfoots, as I called them, I could have cried for weakness
+and weariness, had I been a girl and not a proud lad. And Sir John
+kept his word, liking me better from that day forth, and coming
+now and again to see me at the school,--though he was much abroad
+in France--giving many a pound to my Lightfoots, who were no worse
+soldiers for that. His eye ran us over sharply, and his head nodded,
+as we marched past him; and once I heard him say, 'If they had had
+but ten years each on their heads, my Prince!'
+
+"About this time my father died--that is, when I was fourteen years
+old. Sir John became one of the executors with my mother, and
+at my wish, a year afterwards, I was sent to the university, where
+at least fifteen of my Lightfoots went also; and there I formed a
+new battalion of them, though we were watched at first, and even
+held in suspicion, because of the known friendship of Sir John for
+me; and he himself had twice been under arrest for his friendship
+to the Stuart cause. That he helped Prince Charles was clear: his
+estates were mortgaged to the hilt.
+
+"He died suddenly on that day of January when Culloden was fought,
+before he knew of the defeat of the Prince. I was with him at the
+last. After some most serious business, which I shall come to
+by-and-bye, 'Robert,' said he, 'I wish thou hadst been with my
+Prince. When thou becomest a soldier, fight where thou hast heart to
+fight; but if thou hast conscience for it, let it be with a Stuart.
+I thought to leave thee a good moiety of my fortune, Robert, but
+little that's free is left for giving. Yet thou hast something
+from thy father, and down in Virginia, where my friend Dinwiddie is
+Governor, there's a plantation for thee, and a purse of gold, which
+was for me in case I should have cause to flee this troubled realm.
+But I need it not; I go for refuge to my Father's house. The little
+vineyard and the purse of gold are for thee, Robert. If thou
+thinkest well of it, leave this sick land for that new one. Build
+thyself a name in that great young country, wear thy sword honourably
+and bravely, use thy gifts in council and debate--for Dinwiddie will
+be thy friend--and think of me as one who would have been a father
+to thee if he could. Give thy good mother my loving farewells....
+Forget not to wear my sword--it has come from the first King Charles
+himself, Robert.'
+
+"After which he raised himself upon his elbow and said, 'Life--life,
+is it so hard to untie the knot?' Then a twinge of agony crossed
+over his face, and afterwards came a great clearing and peace, and
+he was gone.
+
+"King George's soldiers entered with a warrant for him even as he
+died, and the same moment dropped their hands upon my shoulder. I
+was kept in durance for many days, and was not even at the funeral
+of my benefactor; but through the efforts of the provost of the
+university and some good friends who could vouch for my loyal
+principles, I was released. But my pride had got a setback, and
+I listened with patience to my mother's prayers that I would not
+join the King's men. With the anger of a youth, I now blamed his
+Majesty for the acts of Sir John Godric's enemies. And though I
+was a good soldier of the King at heart, I would not serve him
+henceforth. We threshed matters back and forth, and presently it
+was thought I should sail to Virginia to take over my estate. My
+mother urged it, too, for she thought if I were weaned from my old
+comrades, military fame would no longer charm. So she urged me,
+and go I did, with a commission from some merchants of Glasgow, to
+give my visit to the colony more weight.
+
+"It was great pain to leave my mother, but she bore the parting
+bravely, and away I set in a good ship. Arrived in Virginia, I was
+treated with great courtesy in Williamsburg, and the Governor gave
+me welcome to his home for the sake of his old friend; and yet a
+little for my own, I think, for we were of one temper, though he
+was old and I young. We were both full of impulse and proud, and
+given to daring hard things, and my military spirit suited him.
+
+"In Virginia I spent a gay and busy year, and came off very well
+with the rough but gentlemanly cavaliers, who rode through the wide,
+sandy streets of the capital on excellent horses, or in English
+coaches, with a rusty sort of show and splendour, but always with
+great gallantry. The freedom of the life charmed me, and with
+rumours of war with the French there seemed enough to do, whether
+with the sword or in the House of Burgesses, where Governor
+Dinwiddie said his say with more force than complaisance. So taken
+was I with the life--my first excursion into the wide working
+world--that I delayed my going back to Glasgow, the more so that
+some matters touching my property called for action by the House
+of Burgesses, and I had to drive the affair to the end. Sir John
+had done better by me than he thought, and I thanked him over and
+over again for his good gifts.
+
+"Presently I got a letter from my father's old partner to say that
+my dear mother was ill. I got back to Glasgow only in time--but
+how glad I was of that!--to hear her last words. When my mother
+was gone I turned towards Virginia with longing, for I could not
+so soon go against her wishes and join the King's army on the
+Continent, and less desire had I to be a Glasgow merchant. Gentlemen
+merchants had better times in Virginia. So there was a winding-up
+of the estate, not greatly to my pleasure; for it was found that by
+unwise ventures my father's partner had perilled the whole, and lost
+part of the property. But as it was, I had a competence and several
+houses in Glasgow, and I set forth to Virginia with a goodly sum
+of money and a shipload of merchandise, which I should sell to
+merchants, if it chanced I should become a planter only. I was
+warmly welcomed by old friends and by the Governor and his family,
+and I soon set up an establishment of my own in Williamsburg,
+joining with a merchant there in business, while my land was worked
+by a neighbouring planter.
+
+"Those were hearty days, wherein I made little money, but had
+much pleasure in the giving and taking of civilities, in throwing
+my doors open to acquaintances, and with my young friend, Mr.
+Washington, laying the foundation for a Virginian army, by drill and
+yearly duty in camp, with occasional excursions against the Indians.
+I saw very well what the end of our troubles with the French would
+be, and I waited for the time when I should put to keen use the
+sword Sir John Godric had given me. Life beat high then, for I was
+in the first flush of manhood, and the spirit of a rich new land
+was waking in us all, while in our vanity we held to and cherished
+forms and customs that one would have thought to see left behind in
+London streets and drawing-rooms. These things, these functions in
+a small place, kept us a little vain and proud, but, I also hope it
+gave us some sense of civic duty.
+
+"And now I come to that which will, comrade of my heart, bring home
+to your understanding what lies behind the charges against me:
+
+"Trouble came between Canada and Virginia. Major Washington, one
+Captain Mackaye, and myself marched out to the Great Meadows, where
+at Fort Necessity we surrendered, after hard fighting, to a force
+three times our number. I, with one Captain Van Braam, became a
+hostage. Monsieur Coulon Villiers, the French commander, gave his
+bond that we should be delivered up when an officer and two cadets,
+who were prisoners with us, should be sent on. It was a choice
+between Mr. Mackaye of the Regulars and Mr. Washington, or Mr. Van
+Braam and myself. I thought of what would be best for the country;
+and besides, Monsieur Coulon Villiers pitched upon my name at
+once, and held to it. So I gave up my sword to Charles Bedford, my
+lieutenant, with more regret than I can tell, for it was sheathed
+in memories, charging him to keep it safe--that he would use it
+worthily I knew. And so, sorrowfully bidding my friends good-by,
+away we went upon the sorry trail of captivity, arriving in due time
+at Fort Du Quesne, at the junction of the Ohio and the Monongahela,
+where I was courteously treated. There I bettered my French and made
+the acquaintance of some ladies from Quebec city, who took pains to
+help me with their language.
+
+"Now, there was one lady to whom I talked with some freedom of my
+early life and of Sir John Godric. She was interested in all, but
+when I named Sir John she became at once much impressed, and I told
+her of his great attachment to Prince Charles. More than once she
+returned to the subject, begging me to tell her more; and so I
+did, still, however, saying nothing of certain papers Sir John
+had placed in my care. A few weeks after the first occasion of my
+speaking, there was a new arrival at the fort. It was--can you
+guess?--Monsieur Doltaire. The night after he came he visited me
+in my quarters, and after courteous passages, of which I need
+not speak, he suddenly said, 'You have the papers of Sir John
+Godric--those bearing on Prince Charles's invasion of England?'
+
+"I was stunned by the question, for I could not guess his drift or
+purpose, though presently it dawned upon me.--Among the papers were
+many letters from a great lady in France, a growing rival with La
+Pompadour in the counsels and favour of the King. She it was who had
+a secret passion for Prince Charles, and these letters to Sir John,
+who had been with the Pretender at Versailles, must prove her ruin
+if produced. I had promised Sir John most solemnly that no one
+should ever have them while I lived, except the great lady herself,
+and that I would give them to her some time, or destroy them. It
+was Doltaire's mission to get these letters, and he had projected
+a visit to Williamsburg to see me, having just arrived in Canada,
+after a search for me in Scotland, when word came from the lady
+gossip at Fort Du Quesne (with whom he had been on most familiar
+terms in Quebec) that I was there.
+
+"When I said I had the papers, he asked me lightly for 'those
+compromising letters,' remarking that a good price would be paid,
+and adding my liberty as a pleasant gift. I instantly refused, and
+told him I would not be the weapon of La Pompadour against her
+rival. With cool persistence he begged me to think again, for much
+depended on my answer.
+
+"'See, monsieur le capitaine,' said he, 'this little affair at Fort
+Necessity, at which you became a hostage, shall or shall not be a
+war between England and France as you shall dispose.' When I asked
+him how that was, he said, 'First, will you swear that you will not,
+to aid yourself, disclose what I tell you? You can see that matters
+will be where they were an hour ago in any case.'
+
+"I agreed, for I could act even if I might not speak. So I gave my
+word. Then he told me that if those letters were not put into his
+hands, La Pompadour would be enraged, and fretful and hesitating
+now, would join Austria against England, since in this provincial
+war was convenient cue for battle. If I gave the letters up, she
+would not stir, and the disputed territory between us should be by
+articles conceded by the French.
+
+"I thought much and long, during which he sat smoking and humming,
+and seeming to care little how my answer went. At last I turned
+on him, and told him I would not give up the letters, and if a war
+must hang on a whim of malice, then, by God's help, the rightness of
+our cause would be our strong weapon to bring France to her knees.
+
+"'That is your final answer?' asked he, rising, fingering his lace,
+and viewing himself in a looking-glass upon the wall.
+
+"'I will not change it now or ever,' answered I.
+
+"'Ever is a long time,' retorted he, as one might speak to a wilful
+child. 'You shall have time to think and space for reverie. For
+if you do not grant this trifle you shall no more see your dear
+Virginia; and when the time is ripe you shall go forth to a better
+land, as the Grande Marquise shall give you carriage.'
+
+"'The Articles of Capitulation!' I broke out protestingly.
+
+"He waved his fingers at me. 'Ah, that,' he rejoined--'that is a
+matter for conning. You are a hostage. Well, we need not take any
+wastrel or nobody the English offer in exchange for you. Indeed,
+why should we be content with less than a royal duke? For you are
+worth more to us just now than any prince we have; at least so
+says the Grande Marquise. Is your mind quite firm to refuse?' he
+added, nodding his head in a bored sort of way.
+
+"'Entirely,' said I. 'I will not part with those letters.'
+
+"'But think once again,' he urged; 'the gain of territory to
+Virginia, the peace between our countries!'
+
+"'Folly!' returned I. 'I know well you overstate the case. You turn
+a small intrigue into a game of nations. Yours is a schoolboy's
+tale, Monsieur Doltaire.'
+
+"'You are something of an ass,' he mused, and took a pinch of snuff.
+
+"'And you--you have no name,' retorted I.
+
+"I did not know, when I spoke, how this might strike home in two
+ways or I should not have said it. I had not meant, of course, that
+he was King Louis's illegitimate son.
+
+"'There is some truth in that,' he replied patiently, though a red
+spot flamed high on his cheeks. 'But some men need no christening
+for their distinction, and others win their names with proper
+weapons. I am not here to quarrel with you. I am acting in a large
+affair, not in a small intrigue; a century of fate may hang on this.
+Come with me,' he added. 'You doubt my power, maybe.'
+
+"He opened the door of the cell, and I followed him out, past the
+storehouse and the officers' apartments, to the drawbridge. Standing
+in the shadow by the gate, he took keys from his pocket. 'Here,'
+said he, 'are what will set you free. This fort is all mine: I act
+for France. Will you care to free yourself? You shall have escort
+to your own people. You see I am most serious,' he added, laughing
+lightly. 'It is not my way to sweat or worry. You and I hold war and
+peace in our hands. Which shall it be? In this trouble France or
+England will be mangled. It tires one to think of it when life can
+be so easy. Now, for the last time,' he urged, holding out the keys.
+'Your word of honour that the letters shall be mine--eh?'
+
+"'Never,' I concluded. 'England and France are in greater hands than
+yours or mine. The God of battles still stands beside the balances.'
+
+"He shrugged a shoulder. 'Oh well,' said he, 'that ends it. It will
+be interesting to watch the way of the God of battles. Meanwhile you
+travel to Quebec. Remember that however free you may appear you will
+have watchers, that when you seem safe you will be in most danger,
+that in the end we will have those letters or your life; that
+meanwhile the war will go on, that you shall have no share in it,
+and that the whole power of England will not be enough to set her
+hostage free. That is all there is to say, I think.... Will you have
+a glass of wine with me?' he added courteously, waving a hand
+towards the commander's quarters.
+
+"I assented, for why, thought I, should there be a personal quarrel
+between us? We talked on many things for an hour or more, and his
+I found the keenest mind that ever I have met. There was in him a
+dispassionateness, a breadth, which seemed most strange in a trifler
+of the Court, in an exquisite--for such he was. I sometimes think
+that his elegance and flippancy were deliberate, lest he should be
+taking himself or life too seriously. His intelligence charmed me,
+held me, and, later, as we travelled up to Quebec, I found my journey
+one long feast of interest. He was never dull, and his cynicism had
+an admirable grace and cordiality. A born intriguer, he still was
+above intrigue, justifying it on the basis that life was all sport.
+In logic a leveller, praising the moles, as he called them, the
+champion of the peasant, the apologist for the bourgeois--who
+always, he said, had civic virtues--he nevertheless held that what
+was was best, that it could not be altered, and that it was all
+interesting. 'I never repent,' he said to me one day. 'I have done
+after my nature, in the sway and impulse of our time, and as the
+King has said, After us the deluge. What a pity it is we shall see
+neither the flood nor the ark! And so, when all is done, we shall
+miss the most interesting thing of all: ourselves dead and the gap
+and ruin we leave behind us. By that, from my standpoint,' he would
+add, 'life is a failure as a spectacle.'
+
+"Talking in this fashion and in a hundred other ways, we came to
+Quebec. And you know in general what happened. I met your honoured
+father, whose life I had saved on the Ohio some years before, and
+he worked for my comfort in my bondage. You know how exchange after
+exchange was refused, and that for near three years I have been
+here, fretting my soul out, eager to be fighting in our cause,
+yet tied hand and foot, wasting time and losing heart, idle in an
+enemy's country. As Doltaire said, war was declared, but not till he
+had made here in Quebec last efforts to get those letters. I do not
+complain so bitterly of these lost years, since they have brought me
+the best gift of my life, your love and friendship; but my enemies
+here, commanded from France, have bided their time, till an accident
+has given them a cue to dispose of me without openly breaking the
+accepted law of nations. They could not decently hang a hostage, for
+whom they had signed articles; but they have got their chance, as
+they think, to try me for a spy.
+
+"Here is the case. When I found that they were determined and had
+ever determined to violate their articles, that they never intended
+to set me free, I felt absolved from my duty as an officer on
+parole, and I therefore secretly sent to Mr. Washington in Virginia
+a plan of Fort Du Quesne and one of Quebec. I knew that I was
+risking my life by so doing, but that did not deter me. By my
+promise to Doltaire, I could not tell of the matter between us, and
+whatever he has done in other ways, he has preserved my life; for it
+would have been easy to have me dropped off by a stray bullet, or
+to have accidentally drowned me in the St. Lawrence. I believe this
+matter of the letters to be between myself and him and Bigot--and
+perhaps not even Bigot, though he must know that La Pompadour has
+some peculiar reason for interesting herself in a poor captain of
+provincials. You now can see another motive for the duel which was
+brought about between your brother and myself.
+
+"My plans and letters were given by Mr. Washington to General
+Braddock, and the sequel you know: they have fallen into the hands
+of my enemies, copies have gone to France, and I am to be tried for
+my life. Preserving faith with my enemy Doltaire, I can not plead
+the real cause of my long detention; I can only urge that they had
+not kept to their articles, and that I, therefore, was free from the
+obligations of parole. I am sure they have no intention of giving
+me the benefit of any doubt. My real hope lies in escape and the
+intervention of England, though my country, alas! has not concerned
+herself about me, as if indeed she resented the non-delivery of
+those letters to Doltaire, since they were addressed to one she
+looked on as a traitor, and held by one whom she had unjustly put
+under suspicion.
+
+"So, dear Alixe, from that little fort on the banks of the river
+Kelvin have come these strange twistings of my life, and I can date
+this dismal fortune of a dungeon from that day The Man made his
+prophecy from the wall of my mud fort.
+
+"Whatever comes now, if you have this record, you will know the
+private history of my life.... I have told all, with unpractised
+tongue, but with a wish to be understood, and to set forth a story
+of which the letter should be as true as the spirit. Friend beyond
+all price to me, some day this tale will reach your hands, and I ask
+you to house it in your heart, and, whatever comes, let it be for my
+remembrance. God be with you, and farewell!"
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEATS OF THE MIGHTY, PARKER, V1 ***
+
+********** This file should be named 6224.txt or 6224.zip **********
+
+This eBook was produced by Andrew Sly.
+
+Send corrections to David Widger
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+https://gutenberg.org or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/6224.zip b/6224.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b31732e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/6224.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d517808
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #6224 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6224)