A HOUSE OF STRIFE.
The house of the Huguenot merchant was a tall, narrow building standing
at the corner of the Rue St. Martin and the Rue de Biron. It was four
stories in height, grim and grave like its owner, with high peaked roof,
long diamond-paned windows, a frame-work of black wood, with gray
plaster filling the interstices, and five stone steps which led up to
the narrow and sombre door. The upper story was but a warehouse in
which the trader kept his stock, but the second and third were furnished
with balconies edged with stout wooden balustrades. As the uncle and
the nephew sprang out of the caleche, they found themselves upon the
outskirts of a dense crowd of people, who were swaying and tossing with
excitement, their chins all thrown forwards and their gaze directed
upwards. Following their eyes, the young officer saw a sight which left
him standing bereft of every sensation save amazement.
From the upper balcony there was hanging head downwards a man clad in
the bright blue coat and white breeches of one of the king's dragoons.
His hat and wig had dropped off, and his close-cropped head swung slowly
backwards and forwards a good fifty feet above the pavement. His face
was turned towards the street, and was of a deadly whiteness, while his
eyes were screwed up as though he dared not open them upon the horror
which faced them. His voice, however, resounded over the whole place
until the air was filled with his screams for mercy.
Above him, at the corner of the balcony, there stood a young man who
leaned with a bent back over the balustrades, and who held the dangling
dragoon by either ankle. His face, however, was not directed towards
his victim, but was half turned over his shoulder to confront a group of
soldiers who were clustering at the long, open window which led out into
the balcony. His head, as he glanced at them, was poised with a proud
air of defiance, while they surged and oscillated in the opening,
uncertain whether to rush on or to retire.
Suddenly the crowd gave a groan of excitement. The young man had
released his grip upon one of the ankles, and the dragoon hung now by
one only, his other leg flapping helplessly in the air. He grabbed
aimlessly with his hands at the wall and the wood-work behind him, still
yelling at the pitch of his lungs.
"Pull me up, son of the devil, pull me up!" he screamed. "Would you
murder me, then? Help, good people, help!"
"Do you want to come up, captain?" said the strong clear voice of the
young man above him, speaking excellent French, but in an accent which
fell strangely upon the ears of the crowd beneath.
"Yes, sacred name of God, yes!"
"Order off your men, then."
"Away, you dolts, you imbeciles! Do you wish to see me dashed to
pieces? Away, I say! Off with you!"
"That is better," said the youth, when the soldiers had vanished from
the window. He gave a tug at the dragoon's leg as he spoke, which
jerked him up so far that he could twist round and catch hold of the
lower edge of the balcony. "How do you find yourself now?" he asked.
"Hold me, for heaven's sake, hold me!"
"I have you quite secure."
"Then pull me up!"
"Not so fast, captain. You can talk very well where you are."
"Let me up, sir, let me up!"
"All in good time. I fear that it is inconvenient to you to talk with
your heels in the air."
"Ah, you would murder me!"
"On the contrary, I am going to pull you up."
"Heaven bless you!"
"But only on conditions."
"Oh, they are granted! I am slipping!"
"You will leave this house--you and your men. You will not trouble this
old man or this young girl any further. Do you promise?"
"Oh yes; we shall go."
"Word of honour?"
"Certainly. Only pull me up!"
"Not so fast. It may be easier to talk to you like this. I do not know
how the laws are over here. Maybe this sort of thing is not permitted.
You will promise me that I shall have no trouble over the matter."
"None, none. Only pull me up!"
"Very good. Come along!"
He dragged at the dragoon's leg while the other gripped his way up the
balustrade until, amid a buzz of congratulation from the crowd, he
tumbled all in a heap over the rail on to the balcony, where he lay for
a few moments as he had fallen. Then staggering to his feet, without a
glance at his opponent, he rushed, with a bellow of rage, through the
open window.
While this little drama had been enacted overhead, the young guardsman
had shaken off his first stupor of amazement, and had pushed his way
through the crowd with such vigour that he and his companion had nearly
reached the bottom of the steps. The uniform of the king's guard was in
itself a passport anywhere, and the face of old Catinat was so well
known in the district that everyone drew back to clear a path for him
towards his house. The door was flung open for them, and an old servant
stood wringing his hands in the dark passage.
"Oh, master! Oh, master!" he cried.
"Such doings, such infamy! They will murder him!"
"Whom, then?"
"This brave monsieur from America. Oh, my God, hark to them now!"
As he spoke, a clatter and shouting which had burst out again upstairs
ended suddenly in a tremendous crash, with volleys of oaths and a
prolonged bumping and smashing, which shook the old house to its
foundations. The soldier and the Huguenot rushed swiftly up the first
flight of stairs, and were about to ascend the second one, from the head
of which the uproar seemed to proceed, when a great eight-day clock came
hurtling down, springing four steps at a time, and ending with a leap
across the landing and a crash against the wall, which left it a
shattered heap of metal wheels and wooden splinters. An instant
afterwards four men, so locked together that they formed but one rolling
bundle, came thudding down amid a _debris_ of splintered stair-rails,
and writhed and struggled upon the landing, staggering up, falling down,
and all breathing together like the wind in a chimney. So twisted and
twined were they that it was hard to pick one from the other, save that
the innermost was clad in black Flemish cloth, while the three who clung
to him were soldiers of the king. Yet so strong and vigorous was the
man whom they tried to hold that as often as he could find his feet he
dragged them after him from end to end of the passage, as a boar might
pull the curs which had fastened on to his haunches. An officer, who
had rushed down at the heels of the brawlers, thrust his hands in to
catch the civilian by the throat, but he whipped them back again with an
oath as the man's strong white teeth met in his left thumb. Clapping
the wound to his mouth, he flashed out his sword and was about to drive
it through the body of his unarmed opponent, when De Catinat sprang
forward and caught him by the wrist.
"You villain, Dalbert!" he cried.
The sudden appearance of one of the king's own bodyguard had a magic
effect upon the brawlers. Dalbert sprang back, with his thumb still in
his mouth, and his sword drooping, scowling darkly at the new-comer.
His long sallow face was distorted with anger, and his small black eyes
blazed with passion and with the hell-fire light of unsatisfied
vengeance. His troopers had released their victim, and stood panting in
a line, while the young man leaned against the wall, brushing the dust
from his black coat, and looking from his rescuer to his antagonists.
"I had a little account to settle with you before, Dalbert," said
De Catinat, unsheathing his rapier.
"I am on the king's errand," snarled the other.
"No doubt. On guard, sir!"
"I am here on duty, I tell you!"
"Very good. Your sword, sir!"
"I have no quarrel with you."
"No?" De Catinat stepped forward and struck him across the face with his
open hand. "It seems to me that you have one now," said he.
"Hell and furies!" screamed the captain. "To your arms, men! _Hola_,
there, from above! Cut down this fellow, and seize your prisoner!
_Hola_! In the king's name!"
At his call a dozen more troopers came hurrying down the stairs, while
the three upon the landing advanced upon their former antagonist.
He slipped by them, however, and caught out of the old merchant's hand
the thick oak stick which he carried.
"I am with you, sir," said he, taking his place beside the guardsman.
"Call off your canaille, and fight me like a gentleman," cried
De Catinat.
"A gentleman! Hark to the bourgeois Huguenot, whose family peddles
cloth!"
"You coward! I will write liar on you with my sword-point!"
He sprang forward, and sent in a thrust which might have found its way
to Dalbert's heart had the heavy sabre of a dragoon not descended from
the side and shorn his more delicate weapon short off close to the hilt.
With a shout of triumph, his enemy sprang furiously upon him with his
rapier shortened, but was met by a sharp blow from the cudgel of the
young stranger which sent his weapon tinkling on to the ground. A
trooper, however, on the stair had pulled out a pistol, and clapping it
within a foot of the guardsman's head, was about to settle the combat,
once and forever, when a little old gentleman, who had quietly ascended
from the street, and who had been looking on with an amused and
interested smile at this fiery sequence of events, took a sudden step
forward, and ordered all parties to drop their weapons with a voice so
decided, so stern, and so full of authority, that the sabre points all
clinked down together upon the parquet flooring as though it were a part
of their daily drill.
"Upon my word, gentlemen, upon my word!" said he, looking sternly from
one to the other. He was a very small, dapper man, as thin as a
herring, with projecting teeth and a huge drooping many-curled wig,
which cut off the line of his skinny neck and the slope of his narrow
shoulders. His dress was a long overcoat of mouse-coloured velvet
slashed with gold, beneath which were high leather boots, which, with
his little gold-laced, three-cornered hat, gave a military tinge to his
appearance. In his gait and bearing he had a dainty strut and backward
cock of the head, which, taken with his sharp black eyes, his high thin
features, and his assured manner, would impress a stranger with the
feeling that this was a man of power. And, indeed, in France or out of
it there were few to whom this man's name was not familiar, for in all
France the only figure which loomed up as large as that of the king was
this very little gentleman who stood now, with gold snuff-box in one
hand, and deep-laced handkerchief in the other, upon the landing of the
Huguenot's house. For who was there who did not know the last of the
great French nobles, the bravest of French captains, the beloved Conde,
victor of Recroy and hero of the Fronde? At the sight of his pinched,
sallow face the dragoons and their leader had stood staring, while De
Catinat raised the stump of his sword in a salute.
"Heh, heh!" cried the old soldier, peering at him.
"You were with me on the Rhine--heh? I know your face, captain.
But the household was with Turenne."
"I was in the regiment of Picardy, your Highness. De Catinat is my
name."
"Yes, yes. But you, sir, who the devil are you?"
"Captain Dalbert, your Highness, of the Languedoc Blue Dragoons."
"Heh! I was passing in my carriage, and I saw you standing on your head
in the air. The young man let you up on conditions, as I understood."
"He swore he would go from the house," cried the young stranger.
"Yet when I had let him up, he set his men upon me, and we all came
downstairs together."
"My faith, you seem to have left little behind you," said Conde,
smiling, as he glanced at the litter which was strewed all over the
floor. "And so you broke your parole, Captain Dalbert?"
"I could not hold treaty with a Huguenot and an enemy of the king," said
the dragoon sulkily.
"You could hold treaty, it appears, but not keep it. And why did you
let him go, sir, when you had him at such a vantage?"
"I believed his promise."
"You must be of a trusting nature."
"I have been used to deal with Indians."
"Heh! And you think an Indian's word is better than that of an officer
in the king's dragoons?"
"I did not think so an hour ago."
"Hem!" Conde took a large pinch of snuff, and brushed the wandering
grains from his velvet coat with his handkerchief of point.
"You are very strong, monsieur," said he, glancing keenly at the broad
shoulders and arching chest of the young stranger. "You are from
Canada, I presume?"
"I have been there, sir. But I am from New York."
Conde shook his head. "An island?"
"No, sir; a town."
"In what province?"
"The province of New York."
"The chief town, then?"
"Nay; Albany is the chief town."
"And how came you to speak French?"
"My mother was of French blood."
"And how long have you been in Paris?"
"A day."
"Heh! And you already begin to throw your mother's country-folk out of
windows!"
"He was annoying a young maid, sir, and I asked him to stop, whereon he
whipped out his sword, and would have slain me had I not closed with
him, upon which he called upon his fellows to aid him. To keep them
off, I swore that I would drop him over if they moved a step. Yet when
I let him go, they set upon me again, and I know not what the end might
have been had this gentleman not stood my friend."
"Hem! You did very well. You are young, but you have resource."
"I was reared in the woods, sir."
"If there are many of your kidney, you may give my friend De Frontenac
some work ere he found this empire of which he talks. But how is this,
Captain Dalbert? What have you to say?"
"The king's orders, your Highness."
"Heh! Did he order you to molest the girl? I have never yet heard that
his Majesty erred by being too _harsh_ with a woman." He gave a little
dry chuckle in his throat, and took another pinch of snuff.
"The orders are, your Highness, to use every means which may drive these
people into the true Church."
"On my word, you look a very fine apostle and a pretty champion for a
holy cause," said Conde, glancing sardonically out of his twinkling
black eyes at the brutal face of the dragoon. "Take your men out of
this, sir, and never venture to set your foot again across this
threshold."
"But the king's command, your Highness."
"I will tell the king when I see him that I left soldiers and that I
find brigands. Not a word, sir! Away! You take your shame with you,
and you leave your honour behind." He had turned in an instant from the
sneering, strutting old beau to the fierce soldier with set face and eye
of fire. Dalbert shrank back from his baleful gaze, and muttering an
order to his men, they filed off down the stair with clattering feet and
clank of sabres.
"Your Highness," said the old Huguenot, coming forward and throwing open
one of the doors which led from the landing, "you have indeed been a
saviour of Israel and a stumbling-block to the froward this day. Will
you not deign to rest under my roof, and even to take a cup of wine ere
you go onwards?"
Conde raised his thick eyebrows at the scriptural fashion of the
merchant's speech, but he bowed courteously to the invitation, and
entered the chamber, looking around him in surprise and admiration at
its magnificence. With its panelling of dark shining oak, its polished
floor, its stately marble chimney-piece, and its beautifully moulded
ceiling, it was indeed a room which might have graced a palace.
"My carriage waits below," said he, "and I must not delay longer. It is
not often that I leave my castle of Chantilly to come to Paris, and it
was a fortunate chance which made me pass in time to be of service to
honest men. When a house hangs out such a sign as an officer of
dragoons with his heels in the air, it is hard to drive past without a
question. But I fear that as long as you are a Huguenot, there will be
no peace for you in France, monsieur."
"The law is indeed heavy upon us."
"And will be heavier if what I hear from court is correct. I wonder
that you do not fly the country."
"My business and my duty lie here."
"Well, every man knows his own affairs best. Would it not be wise to
bend to the storm, heh?"
The Huguenot gave a gesture of horror.
"Well, well, I meant no harm. And where is this fair maid who has been
the cause of the broil?"
"Where is Adele, Pierre?" asked the merchant of the old servant, who had
carried in the silver tray with a squat flask and tinted Venetian
glasses.
"I locked her in my room, master."
"And where is she now?"
"I am here, father." The young girl sprang into the room, and threw her
arms round the old merchant's neck. "Oh, I trust these wicked men have
not hurt you, love!"
"No, no, dear child; none of us have been hurt, thanks to his Highness
the Prince of Conde here."
Adele raised her eyes, and quickly drooped them again before the keen
questioning gaze of the old soldier. "May God reward your Highness!"
she stammered. In her confusion the blood rushed to her face, which was
perfect in feature and expression. With her sweet delicate contour, her
large gray eyes, and the sweep of the lustrous hair, setting off with
its rich tint the little shell-like ears and the alabaster whiteness of
the neck and throat, even Conde, who had seen all the beauties of three
courts and of sixty years defile before him, stood staring in admiration
at the Huguenot maiden.
"Heh! On my word, mademoiselle, you make me wish that I could wipe forty
years from my account." He bowed, and sighed in the fashion that was in
vogue when Buckingham came to the wooing of Anne of Austria, and the
dynasty of cardinals was at its height.
"France could ill spare those forty years, your Highness."
"Heh, heh! So quick of tongue too? Your daughter has a courtly wit,
monsieur."
"God forbid, your Highness! She is as pure and good--"
"Nay, that is but a sorry compliment to the court. Surely,
mademoiselle, you would love to go out into the great world, to hear
sweet music, see all that is lovely, and wear all that is costly, rather
than look out ever upon the Rue St. Martin, and bide in this great dark
house until the roses wither upon your cheeks."
"Where my father is, I am happy at his side," said she, putting her two
hands upon his sleeve. "I ask nothing more than I have got."
"And I think it best that you go up to your room again," said the old
merchant shortly, for the prince, in spite of his age, bore an evil name
among women. He had come close to her as he spoke, and had even placed
one yellow hand upon her shrinking arm, while his little dark eyes
twinkled with an ominous light.
"Tut, tut!" said he, as she hastened to obey. "You need not fear for
your little dove. This hawk, at least, is far past the stoop, however
tempting the quarry. But indeed, I can see that she is as good as she
is fair, and one could not say more than that if she were from heaven
direct. My carriage waits, gentlemen, and I wish you all a very good
day!" He inclined his be-wigged head, and strutted off in his dainty,
dandified fashion. From the window De Catinat could see him slip into
the same gilded chariot which had stood in his way as he drove from
Versailles.
"By my faith," said he, turning to the young American, "we all owe
thanks to the prince, but it seems to me, sir, that we are your debtors
even more. You have risked your life for my cousin, and but for your
cudgel, Dalbert would have had his blade through me when he had me at a
vantage. Your hand, sir! These are things which a man cannot forget."
"Ay, you may well thank him, Amory," broke in the old Huguenot, who had
returned after escorting his illustrious guest to the carriage. "He has
been raised up as a champion for the afflicted, and as a helper for
those who are in need. An old man's blessing upon you, Amos Green, for
my own son could not have done for me more than you, a stranger."
But their young visitor appeared to be more embarrassed by their thanks
than by any of his preceding adventures. The blood flushed to his
weather-tanned, clear-cut face, as smooth as that of a boy, and yet
marked by a firmness of lip and a shrewdness in the keen blue eyes
which spoke of a strong and self-reliant nature.
"I have a mother and two sisters over the water," said he diffidently.
"And you honour women for their sake?"
"We always honour women over there. Perhaps it is that we have so few.
Over in these old countries you have not learned what it is to be
without them. I have been away up the lakes for furs, living for months
on end the life of a savage among the wigwams of the Sacs and the Foxes,
foul livers and foul talkers, ever squatting like toads around their
fires. Then when I have come back to Albany where my folk then dwelt,
and have heard my sisters play upon the spinet and sing, and my mother
talk to us of the France of her younger days and of her childhood, and
of all that they had suffered for what they thought was right, then I
have felt what a good woman is, and how, like the sunshine, she draws
out of one's soul all that is purest and best."
"Indeed, the ladies should be very much obliged to monsieur, who is as
eloquent as he is brave," said Adele Catinat, who, standing in the open
door, had listened to the latter part of his remarks.
He had forgotten himself for the instant, and had spoken freely and with
energy. At the sight of the girl, however, he coloured up again, and
cast down his eyes.
"Much of my life has been spent in the woods," said he, "and one speaks
so little there that one comes to forget how to do it. It was for this
that my father wished me to stay some time in France, for he would not
have me grow up a mere trapper and trader."
"And how long do you stop in Paris?" asked the guardsman.
"Until Ephraim Savage comes for me."
"And who is he?"
"The master of the _Golden Rod_."
"And that is your ship?"
"My father's ship. She has been to Bristol, is now at Rouen, and then
must go to Bristol again. When she comes back once more, Ephraim comes
to Paris for me, and it will be time for me to go."
"And how like you Paris?"
The young man smiled. "They told me ere I came that it was a very
lively place, and truly from the little that I have seen this morning, I
think that it is the liveliest place that I have seen."
"By my faith," said De Catinat, "you came down those stairs in a very
lively fashion, four of you together with a Dutch clock as an
_avant-courier_, and a whole train of wood-work at your heels. And you
have not seen the city yet?"
"Only as I journeyed through it yester-evening on my way to this house.
It is a wondrous place, but I was pent in for lack of air as I passed
through it. New York is a great city. There are said to be as many as
three thousand folk living there, and they say that they could send out
four hundred fighting-men, though I can scarce bring myself to believe
it. Yet from all parts of the city one may see something of God's
handiwork--the trees, the green of the grass, and the shine of the sun
upon the bay and the rivers. But here it is stone and wood, and wood
and stone, look where you will. In truth, you must be very hardy people
to keep your health in such a place."
"And to us it is you who seem so hardy, with your life in the forest and
on the river," cried the young girl. "And then the wonder that you can
find your path through those great wildernesses, where there is naught
to guide you."
"Well, there again! I marvel how you can find your way among these
thousands of houses. For myself, I trust that it will be a clear night
to-night."
"And why?"
"That I may see the stars."
"But you will find no change in them."
"That is it. If I can but see the stars, it will be easy for me to know
how to walk when I would find this house again. In the daytime I can
carry a knife and notch the door-posts as I pass, for it might be hard
to pick up one's trail again, with so many folk ever passing over it."
De Catinat burst out laughing again. "By my faith, you will find Paris
livelier than ever," said he, "if you blaze your way through on the
door-posts as you would on the trees of a forest. But perchance it
would be as well that you should have a guide at first; so, if you have
two horses ready in your stables, uncle, our friend and I might shortly
ride back to Versailles together, for I have a spell of guard again
before many hours are over. Then for some days he might bide with me
there, if he will share a soldier's quarters, and so see more than the
Rue St. Martin can offer. How would that suit you, Monsieur Green?"
"I should be right glad to come out with you, if we may leave all here
in safety."
"Oh, fear not for that," said the Huguenot. "The order of the Prince of
Conde will be as a shield and a buckler to us for many a day. I will
order Pierre to saddle the horses."
"And I must use the little time I have," said the guardsman, as he
turned away to where Adele waited for him in the window.