THE SPROUTING OF CABBAGE JOCK
Cabbage Jock was immensely broad at the shoulders. He stooped slightly,
so that his long arms fell below his knees when he stood erect. His
mouth was slightly open, but so large in itself that a banana could
easily have been inserted sideways without touching the wicks. There was
a look of droll simplicity on the lad's face (he was apparently about
twenty) which reminded one of the pictures of Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire, or
the Brownie of Scottish fireside tales.
Yet for one so simple he had answered with strange readiness. There was
a quick flash of the eye as he took in the two men before him.
"What may you be?" demanded the Professor of Eloquence.
"A he-goat upon the mountains, comely in the going!" said the lout, in
very good French. The learned man of the Sorbonne noted at once that he
quoted (and mixed) words of the Genevan Version common among the
Huguenots.
"He speaks French, this good lad?" he asked, turning to Claire.
"Yes, when it pleases him, which is not always--though indeed he always
obeys me. Is it not so, Jock?"
"My name is not Jock! Nowise--as you well do know. I am called Blastus
of the Zamzummims! Against all Armenians, Hussites, Papishers,
Anabaptists, Leaguers, and followers of the high, the low, and the
middle way, I lift up my heel. I am a bird of fair plumage on the
mountains of Zepher. I fly--I mount--I soar----"
"Go and find four horses," said his mistress; "two of them good and
strong, one Spanish jennet for me, one Flanders mare for yourself and
the saddle-bags."
The Bird of Fair Plumage scratched his long reddish locks in a sort of
comic perplexity.
"Am I to steal them or pay for them?" he said.
"Pay, of course," said his mistress, scandalised.
"That will leave our purse very light--the purse that was your father's.
It were easier these days, and also more just to spoil the Egyptians.
The lion-like man of Moab, which is the Duke of Guise, walketh about
like the devil roaring (as sayeth Peter), and because of the barricades
there are many good horses tied by their bridles at the gates of the
city--masterless, all of them."
"Pay for them, do you hear?" said Claire; "do not stand arguing with
your master's daughter. I thought you had learned that long ago."
Blastus of the Zamzummims went out grumbling to himself.
"At least she said nothing about cheating--or clipped money, or bad
money--or money from the Pope's mint. I will buy, and I will pay for
all. Yes--yes--but----"
It was obvious that Jock of the Cabbage's hope of spoiling Egypt had not
been properly rooted out of his mind even by his mistress's commands.
A strange soul dwelt in this Jock of the Cabbage. He was the son of a
reputable Scottish refugee at Geneva, from whom he had sucked in, as a
frog does the autumn rains, the strongest and purest Calvinistic
doctrine. He had, however, early perceived that his ludicrous personal
appearance prevented him from obtaining eminence as a preacher.
He had therefore chosen another way of being useful.
John Stirling had deliberately made himself Cabbage Jock--which is to
say, "Jean-aux-Choux," and by that name was famous alike in the camps of
Henri of Navarre, and in making sport for the "mignons" of the King of
France. But it was not known to many alive that a mind clear and
logical, a heart full of the highest determinations, were hidden away
under the fool's motley and the tattered cloak of the gangrel man.
Only to Francis Agnew had the Fool talked equally and with unbound
heart. Even Claire did not guess what lay beneath this folly of
misapplied texts and mirth-provoking preachments. There can be no better
mask for real fanaticism than the pretence of it. And whereas Francis
Agnew had been a gentleman and a diplomat always, his henchman, Jock the
Fool, was a fanatic of the purest strain, adding thereto a sense of
humour and probably a strain of real madness as well.
"Come up hither, Jean-aux-Choux!" cried the lads on the barricades.
"Turn a somersault for us, Cabbage Jock!" shouted a fellow-countryman,
on his way to preferment in the Scots Guard, who in the meanwhile was
filling up his time by fighting manfully against the King's troops.
"Lick the tip of your nose, Jock!" roared yet a third; "waggle your
ears! Ah, well done! Now jest for us, and we will give you a good
drink--Macon of the fourth year--as much as you can take down at a
draught. This Guisarding is dry work."
The streets were full of excited men, cheering for Holy Faith and the
Duke of Guise. They cried that they were going to kill the King, and
make that most Catholic Prince, the Head of the League, King in his
stead.
The Protestants in Paris had fled or hidden. There were great fears of a
second St. Bartholomew. But those who remembered the first, said that if
that had been intended, there would be a deal less noise and a deal more
private whetting of daggers and sword-blades.
Once the Professor of Eloquence left them for a moment in order to run
upstairs to tell his housekeeper and her husband that they were to hold
his house against all authority save that of the King, and not yield too
soon even to that. He might be away some time, he said.
The Abbe John, whose housekeeping was of a desultory sort--consisting
chiefly in going to see his uncle, the Cardinal d'Albret, when he was in
need of money or of the ghostly counsel of a prince of the Church--made
no preparations for flight, save to feel in his breeches pocket to make
sure that he had his gold safely there.
"My creditors can wait, or importune my uncle, who will have them thrown
in the Seine for their pains," said the young student of the Sorbonne
easily; "and as for my dear gossips, they will easily enough console
themselves. Women are like cats. As often as they fall, they fall upon
their feet!"
It was a strange Paris which they passed through that day--these four.
The Professor of Eloquence went first, wearing the great green cloak of
his learned faculty, with its official golden collar and cuffs of dark
fur.
That day Paris was not only making the history of the present, but was
unconsciously prophesying the future--her own future. Whenever, after
that, the executive grew weak and the people strong, up came the
paving-stones, and down in a heap went the barrels, _charettes_,
scaffoldings, street-doors. It was not only the Day of the Barricades,
but the first day of many barricades. Indeed, Paris learned the lesson
of power so well, that it became her settled conviction that what she
did to-day France would homologate to-morrow. It was only the victory of
the "rurals" in the late May of 1871 which taught Paris her due place,
as indeed the capital of France, but not France itself.
Dr. Anatole's cloak was certainly a protection to them as they went.
Caps were doffed as to one of the Sixteen--that great council of nine
from each of the sixteen districts of Paris, whose power over the people
made the real Catholic League.
Dr. Anatole explained matters to Claire as they went.
"They have long wanted a figure-head, these shop-keepers and
booth-hucksters," he said bitterly. "The Cardinal leads them cunningly,
and between guile and noise they have so intoxicated Guise that he will
put his head in the noose, jump off, and hang himself. This King Henry
of Valois is a contemptible dog enough, as all the world knows. But he
is a dog which bites without barking, and that is a dangerous breed. If
I were Guise, instead of promenading Paris between the Queen-Mother's
chamber and the King's palace of the Louvre, I would get me to my castle
of Soissons with all speed, and there arm and drill all the
gentlemen-varlets and varlet-gentlemen that ever came out of Lorraine.
There would I wait, with twenty eyes looking out every way across the
meadows, and a hundred at least in the direction of Paris. I would have
cannons primed and matches burning. I would lay in provisions to serve
a year in case of siege. That is what I should do, were I Duke of Guise
and Henry of Valois' enemy!"
At the Orleans gate Jean-aux-Choux, in waiting with the horses (bought,
stolen, or strayed), heard the conclusion of the Professor's exposition.
"Let Wolf Guise eat Wolf Valois, or Wolf Valois dine off Wolf Guise--so
much the better for the Sheep of the Fold," he commented freely, as
became his cap-and-bells, which in these days had more liberty of
prophecy than the wisdom of the wisest.