THE OUTCAST'S LUCK.
But in his long journey to Paris he had often to regret this abode
which he had cursed. Sore, wearied, famished--for he had lost his
coin--he fell in the dusty highway, but with clenched fists and eyes
glaring with rage.
"Out of the way, there!" yelled a hoarse voice, amid cracking of a whip.
He did not hear, for his senses left him. He remained before the hoofs
of the horses, drawing a postchaise up a side road between Vauclere and
Thieblemont, which he had not perceived.
A scream pealed from inside the carriage, which the horses were
whirling along like a feather on the gale. The postboy made a
superhuman effort and managed to keep his horses from trampling on the
boy, though one of the leaders gave him a kick.
"Good God!" screamed a woman again; "you have crushed the unhappy
child."
The lady traveler got out, and the postillion alighted to lift
Gilbert's body from under the wheel.
"What luck!" said the man; "dashed if he be hurted--only swooned."
"With fright, I suppose."
"I'll drag him to the roadside, and let us go on, since your ladyship
is in hot haste."
"I cannot possibly leave this poor boy in such a plight. So young, poor
little thing! It is some truant scholar undertaking a journey beyond
his powers. How pale he is--he will die. No, no! I will not abandon
him. Put him inside, on the front seat."
The postboy obeyed the lady, who had already got in the berlin, as were
called such carriages. Gilbert was put on a good cushion with his back
supported by the padded sides.
"Away you go again," said the lady. "Ten minutes lost, for which you
must make up, while I will pay you the more."
When Gilbert came to his senses he found himself in the coach, swept
along by three posthorses. He was not a little surprised, too, to be
almost in the lap of a young woman who attentively studied him.
She was not more than twenty-five. She had cheeks scorched by the
southern sun, with a turn-up nose and gray eyes. A clear character of
cunning and circumspection was given to her open and jovial countenance
by the little mouth of delicate and fanciful design. Her arms, the
finest in the world, were molded in violet velvet sleeves adorned with
gilt buttons. Nearly the whole vehicle was filled up by the wavy folds
of her large flower-patterned gray silk dress.
As the countenance was smiling and expressed interest, Gilbert stared
for fear he was in a dream.
"Well, are you better, my little man?" asked she.
"Where am I?" counter-queried Gilbert, who had learned this phrase from
novels, where alone it is used.
"In safety, my dear little fellow," replied the lady in a southern
accent. "A while ago you ran great risk of being smashed under my
carriage wheels. What happened you, to drop on the highroad right in
the middle?"
"I swooned from having walked some eighteen leagues since four
yesterday afternoon, or, rather, run."
"Whither are you bound?"
"To Versailles, lady. I come from Taverney, a castle between
Pierrefitte and Bar-le-Duc."
"Did you not give yourself time to eat?"
"I had neither the time nor the means, for I lost a bit of money, and I
soon ate the crusts I carried."
"Poor boy! but you might have asked for more bread."
"I am too proud, lady," said Gilbert, smiling loftily.
"Pride is all very well, but not when it lets one die of hunger."
"Death before disgrace!"
"Hello! where did you learn such talk?"
"Not at home, for I am an orphan. My name is Gilbert, and no more."
"Some by-blow of a country squire," thought the woman. "You are very
young to roam the highway," she continued.
"I was not roaming," said the youth, who thought the truth would
recommend him to a woman. "I was following a carriage."
"With your lady love in it? Dear me! there is a romance in your
adventure?"
Gilbert was not enough his own master not to redden.
"What was the carriage, my little Cato?"
"One of the dauphiness' retinue."
"What, is she ahead of us?" exclaimed the woman. "Are they not making a
fuss over her along the route?"
"They wanted to, but she pressed on after having talked of staying for
rest at Taverney Castle, for a letter came from Versailles, they said,
and she was off in three-quarters of an hour."
"A letter?"
"Brought by the Governor of Strasburg."
"Lord Stainville? Duke Choiseul's brother? The mischief! Whip on,
postillion! faster, faster!"
The whip snapped and Gilbert felt the vehicle jump with more velocity.
"We may outstrip her if she stops for breakfast, or at night,"
meditated the woman. "Postillion, which is the next town of any
account?"
"Vitry."
"Where do we change horses?"
"Vauclere."
"Go on; but tell me if you see a string of carriages on the main road.
Poor child!" she continued, seeing how pale Gilbert was; "it is my
fault for making him chatter when he is dying of hunger and thirst."
To make up for the lost time, she took out a traveling flask with a
silver cap as stopper, into which she poured a cordial.
"Drink that and eat a cake," she said, "until you can have a
substantial breakfast in an hour or two. Now, as you are a whit
refreshed, tell me, if you have any trust in me, what interest you have
in following the carriage belonging to the dauphiness' train?"
He related his story with much clearness.
"Cheer up," she said. "I congratulate you. But you must know that one
cannot live on courage at Versailles or Paris."
"But one can by toil."
"That's so. But you have not the hands of a craftsman or laborer."
"I will work with my head."
"Yes, you appear rather knowing."
"I know I am ignorant," said Gilbert, recalling Socrates.
"You will make a good doctor, then, since a doctor is one who
administers drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he
knows less. In ten years I promise you my custom."
"I shall try to deserve the honor, lady," replied Gilbert.
The horses were changed without their having overtaken the royal party,
which had stopped for the same and to breakfast at Vitry. The lady
offered bounteously for the distance between to be covered, but the
postillion dared not outstrip the princess--a crime for which he would
be sent to prison for life.
"If I might suggest," observed Gilbert, "you could cut ahead by a
by-road."
The vehicle therefore turned off to the right and came out on the main
road at Chalons. The princess had breakfasted at Vitry, but was so
tired that she was reposing, having ordered the horses to be ready to
start again at three or four P. M. This so delighted the lady traveler
that she paid the postboy lavishly and said to Gilbert:
"We shall have a feast at the next posting house."
But it was decreed that Gilbert should not dine there.
The change of horses was to be at Chaussee village. The most remarkable
object here was a man who stood in the mid-road, as if on duty there.
He looked along it and on a long-tailed barb which was hitched to a
window shutter and neighed fretfully for its master to come out of the
cottage.
At length the man knocked on the shutter, and called.
"I say, sir," he demanded of the man who showed his head at the window,
"if you want to sell that horse, here is the customer."
"Not for sale," replied the peasant, banging the shutter to.
This did not satisfy the stranger, who was a lusty man of forty, tall
and ruddy, with coarse hands in lace ruffles. He wore a laced cocked
hat crosswise, like soldiers who want to scare rustics.
"You are not polite," he said, hammering on the shutter. "If you do not
open, I shall smash in the blind."
The panel opened at this menace and the clown reappeared.
"Who does this Arab belong to?"
"A lady lodging here, who is very fond of it."
"Let me speak with her."
"Can't; she is sleeping."
"Ask her if she wants five hundred pistoles for the barb."
"That is a right royal price." And the rustic opened his eyes widely.
"Just, so; the king wants the creature."
"You are not the king."
"But I represent him, and he is in a hurry."
"I must not wake her."
"Then I shall!" and he swung up a cane with a gold head in his
herculean fist.
But he lowered it without hitting, for at the same instant he caught
sight of a carriage tearing up the slope behind three fagged horses.
The skilled eye of the would-be buyer recognized the vehicle, for he
rushed toward it with a speed the Arabian might have envied.
It was the post carriage of Gilbert's guardian angel, which the postboy
was enchanted to stop, on seeing the man wave him to do so, for he knew
the nags would never reach the post house.
"Chon, my dear Chon," said the stranger. "What joy that you turn up, at
last!"
"It is I, Jean," replied the lady to whom was given this odd name;
"what are you doing here?"
"A pretty question, by Jove! I was waiting for you."
The Hercules stepped on the folding-step, and kissed the lady through
the window. Suddenly he caught sight of Gilbert, and turned as black as
a dog from which is snatched a bone, from not knowing the terms between
the pair in the berlin.
"It is a most amusing little philosopher whom I picked up," returned
Chon, caring little whether she wounded the pet's feelings or not, "on
the road--but never mind him."
"Another matter indeed worries us. What about the old Countess of
Bearn?" asked Jean.
"I have done the job, and she will come. I said I was her lawyer's
daughter, Mademoiselle Flageot, and that, passing through Verdun, I
repeated from my father that her case was coming on. I added that she
must appear in person, whereupon she opened her gray eyes, took a pinch
of snuff, and saying Lawyer Flageot was the first of business men, she
gave orders for her departure."
"Splendid, Chon! I appoint you my ambassador extraordinary. Come and
have breakfast!"
"Only too glad, for this poor boy is dying of hunger. But we must make
haste, for the dauphiness is only three leagues off."
"Plague! that changes the tune. Go on to the posting house, with me
hanging on as I am."
In five minutes the coach was at the inn door, where Chon ordered
cutlets, fowl, wine and eggs, as they had to be off forthwith.
"Excuse me, lady, but it will have to be with your own horses, for all
mine are out. If you find one at the manger, I will eat it."
"You ought to have some, for the regulations require it. Let me tell
you," thundered Jean with a hectoring air, "I am not the man to jest."
"If I had fifty in the stable it would be the same as none, for they
are all held on the dauphiness' service."
"Fifty, and you would not let us have three?" said Jean; "I do not ask
for eight, to which number royal highnesses are entitled, but three."
"You shall not have one," returned the post master, springing in
between the stables and the obstinate gentleman.
"Blunderhead, do you know who I am?" cried the other, pale with rage.
"Viscount," interposed Chon, "in heaven's name, no disorder."
"You are right, my dear; no more words; only deeds." He turned to the
innkeeper, saying, "I shall shield you from responsibility by taking
three horses myself."
"It must not be done, I tell 'ee."
"Do not help him harness," said the posting house keeper to the grooms.
"Jean," said Chon, "don't get into a scrape. On an errand one must put
up with anything."
"Except delay," replied Viscount Jean with the utmost ease.
And he began taking down three sets of harness, which he threw on three
horses' backs.
"Mind, master," said the post master, as he followed Jean, leading the
horses out to the coach, "this is high treason."
"I am not stealing the royal horses but taking them on loan."
The innkeeper rushed at the reins but the strong man sent him spinning.
"Brother, oh, brother!" screamed Chon.
"Only her brother!" muttered Gilbert.