When Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino,
plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San
Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after
long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood,
and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering
ribbons, and merrily they cried together:
“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the
larger growth—patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment!
For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ
in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of
evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’
dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff
of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children—there is time for
all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood
ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and
see the ships—so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind
in the rigging—and all for a paltry quarter-real!”
Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest,
among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared
to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned
their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino
had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the
mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that
they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic
perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a
couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San
Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by
treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two
thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San
Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come
of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in
the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a
large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening
to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly
as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection
in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in
San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to
approach the peep-show.
The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with
travel.
“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like
adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”
It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held
himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to
show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact,
was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft
olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow
handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches,
down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron,
for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a
high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and
merriment were his bright assets.
Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.
“Sweet and inexhaustible! I could feed all day on thy love. Yet, I
think, for my stomach’s sake, I would rather be less gifted than the
mouse. What is the use to be able to smell meat through glass when the
window is shut?”
“Wait! There are other ways to the larder than by the door. In the
meanwhile, we will go on. There are two ends to San Lorenzo, the upper
and lower: we will try the lower. North and south sit with their backs
to one another, like peevish sisters. What the one snubs the other may
favour.”
He swung the box by its strap to his shoulder, closed the tripod, and,
using it for a staff, trudged on dustily with his comrade. Half way
down the village, a man for the first time accosted them. He was
young, vehement, authoritative—the segundo jefe, or sub-prefect of
San Lorenzo.
“Wait!” he said, halting the pair. “I know you, Caron. You should be
de Charogne—a French carrion-crow. What do you here, spying for your
masters?”
“Señor,” said the showman, “you are mistaken. I am of your people.”
“Since when? I know you, I say.”
“Many know me, caballero, in these parts, and nothing against me but
my nationality. Now that is changed.”
“Since when? I repeat it.”
“Since the Emperor tore my brother from his plough in Rousillon to
serve his colours, and our father was left to die of starvation. We
are but now on our way back from closing the old man’s eyes, and at
the foot of the hills we recovered our chattels, which we had hid
there, on our journey north, for security. I speak of myself and my
little comrade, Pepino, who is truly of this province, señor, having
been born in Gerona, where he made stockings.”
The sub-prefect looked at Pepino attentively, for the first time, and
his dark eyes kindled.
“And wore them, by the same token,” he murmured.
He swept off his hat, mockingly courteous.
“Buenos dias, señora!” he said.
Caron jumped.
“Ah, mercy, caballero!” he cried. “Can you, indeed, distinguish so
easily? Do not give us away.”
“Tell me all about it,” said the sub-prefect. “Truly this is no time
for masquerading in San Lorenzo.”
“But it was the most obvious of precautions to begin with,” pleaded
Caron. “Over the mountains is not safety for a woman; and since——”
“And since, you are in San Lorenzo,” said the other.
“It is true, señor. Pepa shall re-sex herself to-night. Yet it is
only a few hours since we found our expedient justified.”
“How was that?”
“Why, in the hills, on our way back, we came plump upon a French
picket, and——”
He leapt, to the sudden start and curse the other gave.
“What have I said, señor?”
“Dolt, traitor!” thundered the sub-prefect. “French! and so near! and
this is the first you speak of it! I understand—they come from
Perpignan—they are Reille’s advance guard, and they march to relieve
Figueras. O! to hold me here with thy cursed ape’s chatter, while——”
He sprang away, shouting as he went, “To arms! to arms! Who’ll follow
me to strike a blow for Spain! The French are in our vineyards!” The
whole village turned and followed him as he ran.
Caron, in great depression, led Pepino into a place of shade and
privacy.
“I am an ass, little one,” he said. “You shall ride _me_ for the
future. And _this_ is home!”
She threw her arms about his neck, with a tired spring of tears.
“But I am a woman again, dear praise to Mary!” she cried, “and can
love you once more in my own way.”
This befell in 1808, when the ferment which Napoleon had started in
Spain was already in fine working. The French garrison in
Figueras—one of those strongholds which he had occupied at first from
the friendliest motives, and afterwards refused to evacuate—being
small and hard beset by a numerous body of somatenes from the
mountains, had burned the town, and afterwards retired into the
neighbouring fort of San Fernando, where they lay awaiting succour
with anxious trepidation. And they had reason for their concern, since
a little might decide their fate—short shrift, and the knife or
gallows, not to speak of the more probable eventuality of torture. For
those were the days of savage reprisals; and of the two forces the
Spaniards were the less nice in matters of humanity. They killed by
the Mass, and had the Juntas and Inquisition to exonerate them.
But Figueras was an important point, strategically; for which reason
the Emperor—who generally in questions of political economy held
lives cheaper than salt—had despatched an express to General Reille,
who commanded the reserves at Perpignan, on the north side of the
mountains, ordering him to proceed by forced marches to the relief of
the garrison, as a step preliminary to the assault and capture of
Gerona. And it was an advance body of this force which Luc and his
companion had encountered bivouacking in the hills.
It was not a considerable body as the two gauged it, for Colonel de
Regnac’s troops—raw Tuscan recruits, and possessed with a panic
terror of the enemy—were showing a very laggard spirit in the
venture, and no emulation whatever of their officers’ eagerness to
encounter. In fact, Colonel de Regnac, with his regimental staff, some
twenty all told, and few beside, had run ahead of his column by the
measure of a mile or two, and was sitting down to rest and curse,
below his breath, in a hollow of the hills, when the two captured
vagabonds were brought before him.
There had been no light but the starlight, no voice but the
downpouring of a mountain stream until the sentry had leaped upon
them. Chatter and fire were alike prohibited things in those rocky
ante-rooms of hate and treachery.
“Who are you?” had demanded the Colonel of Caron.
“A son of France, monsieur.”
“Whither do you go?”
“To attend the deathbed of my old father in Rousillon,” had answered
Luc, lying readily.
The Colonel had arisen, and scanned his imperturbable face keenly.
“His name?”
Luc had told him truthfully—also his father’s circumstances and
misfortunes.
The officer had grunted: “Well, he pays the toll to glory. Whence,
then, do you come?”
“From Figueras.”
“Ha! They have news of us there?”
“On the contrary, monsieur; your coming will surprise them greatly.”
“It is well; let it be well. Go in peace.”
A little later the sentry, confiding to one who was relieving him, was
overheard to say: “Ventre de biche! I would have made sure first that
those two rascals went _up_ the hill!”
He was brought before the Colonel.
“My son, what did you say?”
The sentry, scenting promotion for his perspicacity, repeated his
remark, adding that, if he were right in his suspicions of the
vagabonds’ _descent towards San Lorenzo_, there would be trouble on
the morrow.
He was soundly welted with a strap for his foresight, and thereafter
degraded—to his intense astonishment, for a private was not supposed
to volunteer counsel. But his prediction was so far vindicated that,
in the course of the following morning, a well-aimed shot, succeeded
by a very fusillade, vicious but harmless, from the encompassing
rocks, laid low a member of the staff, and sent the rest scattering
for shelter. They were, at the time, going leisurely to enable the
main body to come up with them; but this stroke of treachery acted
upon men and officers like a goad. Re-forming, they deployed under
cover, and charged the guerrillas’ position—only to find it
abandoned. Pursuit was useless in that welter of ridges; they buckled
to, and doubled down the last slopes of the mountain into San Lorenzo.
“_If_ I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel
sweetly.
And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very
gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.
It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted,
depopulated.
Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching
under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly,
and nodded.
He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow
more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight.
He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were
small and infamous—great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a
moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and
Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his
enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways
his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.
“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”
Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino
crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.
“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.
A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.
“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself
spitting fire.”
“It is symbolical of Jove,” said Caron.
“Foul imps attend him!”
“They are his Mercuries.”
“No more words!” said the Colonel. “String the rascal up!”
That was the common emergency exit in the then theatres of war. It had
taken the place of the “little window” through which former traitors
to their country had been invited to look.
Pepino leapt to his feet, with a sudden scream.
“No, no! He is Caron, the wit, the showman, dear to all hearts!”
Colonel Regnac’s great neck seemed to swell like a ruttish wolf’s. His
little eyes shot red with laughter. He had as keen a scent as the
sub-prefect for a woman.
“Good!” he said; “he shall make us a show.”
“Señor, for the love of God! He spoke the truth. His father is dead.”
“He will be in a dutiful haste to rejoin him.”
“Señor, be merciful! You are of a gallant race.”
“That is certain,” said de Regnac. “You, for your part, are acquitted,
my child. I take you personally under my protection.”
“Good-bye, comrade!” cried Caron sadly. “We have gone the long road
together, and I am the first to reach home. Follow me when you will. I
shall wait for you.”
“Fie!” said the Colonel. “That is no sentiment for a renegade. Heaven
is the goal of this innocence, whom I save from your corruption.”
They hung him from the branch of a chestnut tree, and lingered out his
poor dying spasms. Pepino, after one burst of agony, stood apathetic
until the scene was over. Then, with a shudder, correlative with the
last of the dangling body’s, she seemed to come awake.
“Well,” she said, “there goes a good fellow; but it is true he was a
renegade.”
The Colonel was delighted.
“They have always a spurious attraction,” he said, “to the sex that is
in sympathy with naughtiness in any form. But consider: false to one
is false to all, and this was a bad form of treachery—though,” he
added gallantly, “he certainly had his extreme temptation.”
“The French killed his father,” she said indifferently.
“The French,” he answered, “kill, of choice, with nothing but
kindness. You, though a Spaniard, my pet, shall have ample proof if
you will.”
“I am to come with you?”
“God’s name! There is to be no enforcement.”
“Well, you have left me little choice. Already here they had looked
upon us with suspicion, and, if I remained alone, would doubtless kill
me. I do not want to die—not yet. What must be must. The king is
dead, live the king!”
He was enchanted with her vivacity. He took her up before him on his
saddle, and chuckled listening to the feverish chatter with which she
seemed to beguile herself from memory.
“These jays have no yesterday,” he thought; and said aloud, “You are
not Pepino? Now tell me.”
“No, I am Pepa,” she said. “I am only a man in seeming. Alack! I think
a man would not forget so easily.”
“Some men,” he answered, and his hand tightened a little upon her.
“Trust me, that dead rogue is already forgathering with his succuba.”
By and by he asked her: “How far to Figueras?”
“Twelve miles from where we started,” she answered.
A thought struck him, and he smiled wickedly.
“You will always bear in mind,” he said, “that the moment I become
suspicious that you are directing us wide, or, worse, into a
guet-apens, I shall snap off your little head at the neck, and roll it
back to San Lorenzo.”
“Have no fear,” she said quietly; “we are in the straight road for the
town—or what used to be one.”
“And no shelter by the way? I run ahead of my rascals, as you see. We
must halt while they overtake us. Besides”—he leered horribly—“there
is the question of the night.”
“I know of no shelter,” she said, “but Our Lady of Refuge.”
“An opportune title, at least. What is it?”
“It is a hospital for the fallen—for such as the good Brotherhoods of
Madrid send for rest and restoration to the sanctuary of the quiet
pastures. The monks of Misericorde are the Brothers’ deputies
there—sad, holy men, who hide their faces from the world. The house
stands solitary on the plain; we shall see it in a little. They will
give you shelter, though you are their country’s enemies. They make no
distinctions.”
De Regnac pulled at his moustache, frowning, pondering.
“Where these monks forgather are fat kids and old Malaga—a tempting
alternative to the munching of cold biscuit under the stars.
But—_sacré chien!_ one may always take in more with the gravy than
ever fell from the spit. What, then!”