SIR ISUMBRAS AT THE FORD
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
IN COLLABORATION WITH
G. W. TAYLOR
CHANTEMERLE
THE VISION SPLENDID
SIR ISUMBRAS AT THE FORD
BY D. K. BROSTER
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1918
TO
BARBARA AND HER SON PHILIP
"And als he wente by a woodë schawe,
Thare mette he with a lytille knave
Came rynnande him agayne--
'Gramercy, faire Syr Isumbras,
Have pitie on us in this case,
And lifte us uppe for Marie's grace!'
N'as never childe so fayne.
Theretoe of a mayden he was ware,
That over floude ne mighte not fare,
Sir Ysumbras stoopède him thare
And uppe ahent hem twayne."
_METRICAL ROMANCE OF SIR YSUMBRAS._
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
THE ROAD TO FRANCE
I. ANNE-HILARION GETS OUT OF BED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
II. AND IS PUT BACK AGAIN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
III. PURCHASE OF A GOLDFISH, AND OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS. . . 19
IV. VISIT TO TWO FAIRY GODMOTHERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
V. THOMAS THE RHYMER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
VI. "A LITTLE BOY LOST". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
VII. THE CHEVALIER DE LA VIREVILLE MEETS "MONSIEUR AUGUSTIN". 54
BOOK TWO
THE ROAD TO ENGLAND
VIII. SOME RESULTS OF LISTENING TO POETRY. . . . . . . . . . . 69
IX. THE _TROIS FRÈRES_ OF CAEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
X. HAPPENINGS IN A POSTCHAISE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
XI. "FIFTY FATHOMS DEEP" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
XII. INTRODUCING GRAIN D'ORGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
XIII. FAR IN THE FOREST. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
XIV. CÆSAREA THE GREEN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
XV. CAVENDISH SQUARE ONCE MORE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
XVI. THE AGENT DE LA CORRESPONDANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
XVII. STRANGE CONDUCT OF THE AGENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
XVIII. EQUALLY STRANGE CONDUCT OF "MONSIEUR AUGUSTIN" . . . . . 168
XIX. LA PORTE DU MANOIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
XX. SEA-HOLLY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
XXI. HOW ANNE-HILARION FED THE DUCKS. . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
BOOK THREE
THE ROAD THAT FEW RETURNED ON
XXII. "TO NOROWAY, TO NOROWAY" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
XXIII. DISPLEASURE OF "MONSIEUR AUGUSTIN" . . . . . . . . . . . 226
XXIV. CREEPING FATE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
XXV. HISTORY OF A SCAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
XXVI. STE. BARBE--AND AFTERWARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
XXVII. LA VIREVILLE BREAKS HIS SWORD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
XXVIII. MR. TOLLEMACHE AS AN ARCHANGEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
XXIX. VÆ VICTIS! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
XXX. ATROPOS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
XXXI. THE PAYING OF THE SCORE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
XXXII. DEAD LEAVES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
XXXIII. THE MAN SHE WOULD HAVE MARRIED . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
XXXIV. MONSEIGNEUR'S GUEST. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
XXXV. MR. TOLLEMACHE AS A LINGUIST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
XXXVI. ANNE-HILARION MAKES A PLAN, AND THE BISHOP A REVELATION. 345
XXXVII. THE CHILD UNLOCKS THE DOOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
BOOK FOUR
THE OLDEST ROAD OF ALL
XXXVIII. FLOWER OF THE GORSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
XXXIX. FLOWER OF THE FOAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
BOOK ONE
THE ROAD TO FRANCE
"But, Thomas, ye sall haud your tongue,
Whatever ye may hear or see;
For speak ye word in Elflyn-land,
Ye'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie."
_THOMAS THE RHYMER._
CHAPTER I
ANNE-HILARION GETS OUT OF BED
(1)
"And well ye ken, Maister Anne, ye should hae been asleep lang syne!"
said Elspeth severely.
Master Anne--M. le Comte Anne-Hilarion de Flavigny--gave a little sigh
from the bed. "I _have_ tried . . . if you would say 'Noroway,'
perhaps? . . . Say 'Noroway-over-the-foam,' Elspeth, je vous en prie!"
"Dinna be using ony of yer French havers tae me, wean!" exclaimed the
elderly woman thus addressed, still more threateningly. "Aweel
then. . . . Ye're no' for 'True Thomas' the nicht?"
The silky brown head on the pillow was shaken. "No, please. I like
well enough the Queen of Elfland, but best of all 'Noroway-over-the-foam'
and the shoes with cork heels."
Elspeth Saunders grunted, for there was something highly congenial to
her Calvinistic soul in that verse of 'Thomas the Rhymer' which deals
with the Path of Wickedness--'Yon braid, braid road that lies across
the lily leven,' and she was accustomed to render it with unction.
However, she sat down, took up her knitting, and began:
"'The king sat in Dunfermline toun
Drinking the blude-red wine,'"
and the little Franco-Scottish boy in the curtained bed closed his eyes,
that he might seem to be composing himself to slumber. In reality he
was seeing the pictures which are set in that most vivid of all
ballads--Sir Patrick Spens receiving the King's letter as he walked
on the seashore, the sailor telling of the new moon with the old in
her arms (a phenomenon never quite clear to the Comte de Flavigny),
the storm and shipwreck, and the ladies with their fans, the maidens
with their golden combs, waiting for those who would never come back
again.
"'And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet,'"
finished Elspeth. The knitting needles proceeded a little with their
tale, then they too stopped.
"Losh! the bairn's asleep already!" thought Mrs. Saunders, looking
over her spectacles. She tiptoed from the room.
Yet although Anne-Hilarion's long lashes lay quietly on his cheeks he
was not by any means asleep, and under those dark curtains he watched,
not without a certain drowsiness, the gigantic shadow of his attendant
vanish from the wall. The night-light shed a very faint gleam on the
vast mahogany wardrobe, whose polished doors reflected darkly much
that passed without, and suggested, to a lively imagination, all kinds
of secret happenings within. It also illumined Anne's minute garments,
neatly folded on a chair, his high-waisted blue kerseymere pantaloons
on the top of the pile, and the small coat, into which Elspeth had
been sewing a fresh ruffle, over the back. This much of his apartment
could Anne see between the chintz curtains, figured with many a
long-tailed tropic bird, which hung tent-like from the short pole
fixed in the wall above his pillow. But he could not see Mme. d'Aulnoy's
fairy-tales, in their original French, which were lying face downwards
on the floor not very far away (and which he would be scolded for
having left about, when they were found to-morrow); nor the figure of
Notre Dame de Pontmain, in her star-decked robe of blue and her long
black veil, holding in her hands not her Son but a crucifix--the
figure which M. l'Abbé, being of Laval, her country, had given to the
little boy. For this image had a knack of disappearing entirely when
Anne's father the Marquis was away, since, as may readily be supposed,
it found no favour in the eyes of Mrs. Saunders, and was an even more
violent irritant than all 'the bairn's Popish exercises,' to which she
would so much have liked to put an end. That she might see as little
as possible of the heathen idol she had banished it, with its bracket,
to an obscure corner of the room, over the discarded high nursery-chair
in which Anne, at six years old, no longer took his meals. The fact of
the image's being in the room at all just now showed that the Marquis
was at home . . . for to him, as to his small son, in this April of
the year 1795, the solid Cavendish Square house was home, though it
belonged to neither of them. Anne-Hilarion, for his part, could
remember no other.
(2)
The unusual presence of a statue of the Virgin, and of Mme. d'Aulnoy's
_Contes de fées_ on the second floor this London house, was, naturally,
but a consequence of that same series of events which had brought
thither their small owner. Seven years before, the only daughter of
James Elphinstone of Glenauchtie, a retired official of high standing
in the service of John Company, had lost her heart to a young Frenchman,
the Marquis René de Flavigny, whom she had met on a visit to Paris.
Although the necessary separation from his daughter was very bitter
to him, Mr. Elphinstone could find no real objection to the match,
and so the Scotch girl and the Frenchman were married, lived happily
on de Flavigny's estate in the Nivernais, and were joined there in
due time by a son.
But Anne-Hilarion had not chosen well the date of his entry into this
world. On the very July day that René and Janet de Flavigny and all
their tenants were celebrating the admirable prowess displayed by M.
le Comte in attaining, without accident or illness--without flying back
to heaven, as his nurse had it--the age of one year, the people of Paris
also were keeping a festival, the first anniversary of the day when the
bloody head of the governor of the Bastille had swung along the streets
at the end of a pike. Before that summer was out the Marquis de
Flavigny, urged by his father-in-law, had decided to place his wife and
child in safety, and so, bidding the most reluctant of good-byes to the
tourelles and the swans which had witnessed their two short years of
happiness, they left France for England. Perhaps they would have
fared no worse had they remained there. For Janet de Flavigny caught
on the journey a chill from which she never recovered, and died, after
a few months, leaving to her little son not even a memory, and to
these two men who had passionately loved her a remembrance only too
poignant.
Her death forced both their lives into fresh channels. Mr. Elphinstone
left Scotland and settled in London, where, to distract himself from
his grief, he began to write those long-planned memoirs of his Indian
career which, after more than four years, still absorbed him. As for
the Marquis de Flavigny, having once emigrated, he could not now
return to France even had he wished it. He therefore threw himself
heart and soul into the schemes of French Royalism, at first for the
rescue of the Royal Family from their quasi-imprisonment in their
own palace, and--now that King and Queen alike were done to death,
their children captives and a Republic in being--into all the hopes
that centred round the stubborn loyalists of Brittany, Maine, and
Vendée, round du Boisguy or Stofflet or Charette. And though the
rightful little King might be close prisoner in the Temple, his
uncles--the Comte de Provence (Regent in name of France) and the
Comte d'Artois--were still at large, as exiles, in Europe, and it
was to one or other of these princes that Royalist émigrés looked,
and under their ægis that they plotted and fought. Not many of them,
impoverished as they were by the Revolution, had the good fortune
to possess, like René de Flavigny, a British father-in-law who put
money and house at his son-in-law's disposal, welcomed his friends,
and strove to bear his absences on Royalist business with equanimity.
The fact was that the young Frenchman had become very dear to Mr.
Elphinstone, not only for Janet's sake but also for his own. He had
liked de Flavigny from the first moment that he met him; it was only
during the shock of finding that Janet wished to marry him that his
feelings had temporarily cooled. Indeed, René de Flavigny's character
and disposition were not ill summed up in the word 'lovable.' He
had little of the traditional French gaiety--and still less after
his wife's death--just as Mr. Elphinstone had little of the traditional
Scotch dourness. And the old man knew how happy his daughter was with
him. Afterwards, their common bereavement drew the two more than ever
together. Mr. Elphinstone discovered in his son-in-law tastes and
sympathies more akin to his own than he had imagined, and sometimes,
though he would not have had him settle down, at thirty-two, into a
bookworm like himself, he regretted the political activities in which
the Marquis was immersed, for he knew him to be of too fine a temper
to take pleasure in the plottings and intrigues which almost of
necessity accompany the attempts to reinstate a dispossessed dynasty.
And while not, perhaps, taking those plottings over-seriously, he
realised that his son-in-law's tact and ability made him a very useful
person to his own party and a person proportionately obnoxious to the
other. The game he was engaged in playing against the French Republic
was not without danger; that adversary across the Channel was known to
have hidden agents in England, and if these had the opportunity as
well as the orders, it was not scruples that would hold them back from
actual violence. Still, that was a contingency sufficiently remote,
although the thought of it sometimes caused Mr. Elphinstone to feel,
during his son-in-law's absences, a certain uneasiness for his safety
as well as regret at the loss of his society.
(3)
Anne-Hilarion was quite aware, in a general way, of his father's
occupations. In fact, as he lay now in his bed, looking through the
curtains at the wardrobe doors, he was meditating on the important
meeting which Papa was having with his friends this very evening in
the dining-room. He did not know exactly what they were discussing,
but from something which Papa had said in his hearing he believed
that there was some question of going over to France--in ships, of
course, since there was sea (he did not know how much) between
England and that country. And because his mind was full of Sir
Patrick Spens and his shipwreck, this undertaking seemed to him
terribly dangerous, and he much wished that Papa were not thinking
of it.
"To Noroway, to Noroway,
To Noroway o'er the faem,"
the words lilted in his head like the rocking of a boat. They would
be going over the foam to that land which he did not remember:
"Half owre, half owre, to Aberdour,
'Tis fifty fathoms deep. . . ."
Anne had no idea what fifty fathoms might mean, but it sounded
terrifying. Suppose Papa were to be drowned like that--suppose he
too were obliged to stuff 'silken cloth' into the hole of the ship
to keep out the water which would not be kept out! . . .
Anne-Hilarion sat up suddenly in bed and threw back the clothes.
A very strong impulse, and by no means a righteous, was upon him,
but he was ridden by an agonising fear, and there was nothing for
it save to go down and ascertain the truth. He slipped out of bed
and pattered on to the landing.
The stairs were steep, there was little light upon the road, the
balusters looked like rows of brown, square-faced soldiers. Not now,
however, was there room for thoughts of Barbe Bleue, that French
ogre, who was possibly hanging the last but one of his wives at that
moment in the linen-press, nor of the terrible Kelpie of the Flow,
which might that evening have left its Scottish loch and be looking
in, with its horse face, at the staircase window. No, the chief
terror was really Elspeth, who would certainly snatch him swiftly
back to bed, not comprehending (nor he either, for that matter) how
it was she who had started him on the path of this fear. So he went
down as quickly as one foot at a time permitted, knowing that
Grandpapa would be safe and busy in his study, and that Baptiste,
his father's old body-servant, was, if met, more likely to forward
him in his journey than to hinder him. He would, in fact, have been
rather glad to encounter that elderly slave of his as he made his
solitary way down to the dining-room, past the descending row of
antlers and dirks and lairds of Glenauchtie in their wigs and tartan.