A GUID CONCEIT OF MYSELF LEADS ME FAR ASTRAY
Clancarty and Thurot were playing cards, so intent upon that recreation
that I was in the middle of the floor before they realised who it was
the servant had ushered in.
“_Mon Dieu! Monsieur Blanc-bec! Il n'y a pas de petit chez soi!_” cried
Thurot, dropping his hand, and they jumped to their feet to greet me.
“I'll be hanged if you want assurance, child,” said Clancarty, surveying
me from head to foot as if I were some curiosity. “Here's your exploits
ringing about the world, and not wholly to your credit, and you must
walk into the very place where they will find the smallest admiration.”
“Not meaning the lodging of Captain Thurot,” said I. “Whatever my
reputation may be with the world, I make bold to think he and you will
believe me better than I may seem at the first glance.”
“The first glance!” cried his lordship. “Gad, the first glance suggests
that Bicêtre agreed with our Scotsman. Sure, they must have fed you on
oatmeal. I'd give a hatful of louis d'or to see Father Hamilton, for
if he throve so marvellously in the flesh as his secretary he must look
like the side of St. Eloi. One obviously grows fat on regicide--fatter
than a few poor devils I know do upon devotion to princes.”
Thurot's face assured me that I was as welcome there as ever I had been.
He chid Clancarty for his badinage, and told me he was certain all along
that the first place I should make for after my flight from Bicêtre (of
which all the world knew) would be Dunkerque. “And a good thing too, M.
Greig,” said he.
“Not so good,” says I, “but what I must meet on your stair the very
man-”
“Stop!” he cried, and put his finger on his lip. “In these parts we know
only a certain M. Albany, who is, my faith! a good friend of your own if
you only knew it.”
“I scarcely see how that can be,” said I. “If any man has a cause to
dislike me it is his Roy--”
“M. Albany,” corrected Thurot.
“It is M. Albany, for whom, it seems, I was the decoy in a business that
makes me sick to think on. I would expect no more than that he had gone
out there to send the officers upon my heels, and for me to be sitting
here may be simple suicide.”
Clancarty laughed. “Tis the way of youth,” said he, “to attach far too
much importance to itself. Take our word for it, M. Greig, all France is
not scurrying round looking for the nephew of Andrew Greig. Faith, and
I wonder at you, my dear Thurot, that has an Occasion here--a veritable
Occasion--and never so much as says bottle. Stap me if I have a
friend come to me from a dungeon without wishing him joy in a glass of
burgundy!”
The burgundy was forthcoming, and his lordship made the most of it,
while Captain Thurot was at pains to assure me that my position was by
no means so bad as I considered it. In truth, he said, the police had
their own reasons for congratulating themselves on my going out of their
way. They knew very well, as M. Albany did, that I had been the catspaw
of the priest, who was himself no better than that same, and for that
reason as likely to escape further molestation as I was myself.
Thurot spoke with authority, and hinted that he had the word of M.
Albany himself for what he said. I scarcely knew which pleased me
best--that I should be free myself or that the priest should have a
certain security in his concealment.
I told them of Buhot, and how oddly he had shown his complacence to his
escaped prisoner in the tavern of the Duke of Burgundy's Head. At that
they laughed.
“Buhot!” cried his lordship. “My faith! Ned must have been tickled to
see his escaped prisoner in such a cosy _cachette_ as the Duke's Head,
where he and I, and Andy Greig--ay! and this same priest--tossed many
a glass, _Ciel!_ the affair runs like a play. All it wants to make this
the most delightful of farces is that you should have Father Hamilton
outside the door to come in at a whistle. Art sure the fat old man is
not in your waistcoat pocket? Anyhow, here's his good health....”
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