Clash of Arms. John Bloundelle-Burton

       CHAPTER IV.

      "WHAT HAVE I STUMBLED ON?"

      "Now," said Andrew, standing a few paces off the other two, "let us see a little skilful fence," and, his own rapier in hand, though with the point resting on the stones of the court, he looked on as a maître d'escrime might gaze upon two pupils practising with the foils.

      "Gently, gently," he said quietly to the young fellow who was lunging furiously at his adversary, "you will lose your breath else." And, still with what seemed to that adversary, as he fought wildly, infernal calm, he added, "thrust a little lower, otherwise you may break your sword against his breast-bone. Thus you will find a better entrance. Pass through him easier. So, so. That's better"; and he stepped back and, looking on still with an easy approval, watched the encounter.

      But there was no heart left in the ruffian now; moreover, he knew he was doomed, and he uttered, therefore, a piercing shriek for mercy to which his opponent, his blood well up, answered with another angry lunge.

      "Well, then," exclaimed Andrew, "make an end of it. The people above are opening their windows--the watch will be here next--prick him and have done with it. Take him in the shoulder, he is not worth killing. Good! that's it. A pretty thrust."

      The lad had followed his instructions perfectly, and, beating down the other's guard, had driven his point two inches into the fellow's right deltoid, which he received with a yell, his blade clattering on to the stones as it dropped from his wounded arm.

      "Well done," said Andrew, "now come along." And, picking up first the rich laced beaver, which had fallen off the young fellow's head in the encounter, he took him by the arm and led him out into the Rue Richelieu.

      "A little breathless, eh?" he asked, as he heard the boy's lungs working heavily. "A little blown! No matter, you fought a good fight--though they might have beaten you in the end. I see," he added, "you know something of the science."

      "Yes," the other answered, while--they being now some distance from the place where he had been attacked--he leant against the wall to recover his breath. "Yes, I know something of it. And I could have done better had I not drunk that last accursed bottle. But I was athirst, as, indeed, I am now."

      "Well. Well. Come into the nearest tavern and we will have another--now is the time when a cup will do you good. Yet, arrange yourself first, you are a little dishevelled, and your hat is dirty."

      "Nay," said the other with a laugh, "no more taverns for me to-night. But I live hard by, was taking a short way home when those fellows set on me; come with me. There is some good wine at our house."

      "Humph!" said Andrew, "the night is late--hark! there is St. Roch striking midnight now--too late for wassailing! And--you do not know me--yet you ask me to your house!"

      "Not know you! St. Denis! I do, though. I know enough to see what you are. First, an Englishman--good as you have the French your accent tells that. I wonder," he interjected, "if you are going to join Turenne? There are hundreds of your countrymen with him. Then next----"

      "Ay, next?" asked Andrew, not heeding the remark about Turenne. He was going to join Turenne, or, at least, proceed to where his army was, but he had seen the boy's eyes open when the name of one was mentioned who was already with the great marshal, and, at present, he held his peace. "What next?"

      "Next, you are un brave homme. You saved my life--certainly saved me from getting a bad wound--and prevented those vagabonds from pillaging me; they saw this, I suppose," and he touched lightly with his fingers a thick gold chain round his neck to which a medallion hung, "and wanted it. And, if you had desired, you could have slain all three of us," he continued, with another laugh that so touched Andrew's sense of humour that, scarce knowing why, he laughed too. Then the boy added, "Come, come! I must know more of you. You are a soldier, anyone can see that; well, so am I. Come, I say."

      "So you are a soldier, eh?" Andrew said, taken with a liking for the young fellow and his frank open manner, and walking unresistingly now by his side towards the house he was leading him to. "A soldier. A young one, though you understand swordplay, or will later, as well as many an older man."

      "We are all soldiers in our family," his companion replied. Then he looked proudly at the great form beside him, and said, "I have made two campaigns, though I am but seventeen."

      "Ay," replied Andrew, "no doubt. You French gentlemen go to the wars early, I know. I have served with many such; younger, too, than you. There was, now, at Choczim--so!" he broke off as the lad halted at a great wooden door that doubtless opened into a large courtyard, "is this your house?"

      "It is," the other answered, kicking meanwhile against the lower part of the huge door, as though, thereby, to summon someone from within. "The fiend take old Pierre, he is again asleep." And he kicked once more and hammered with his fist. Then, at Andrew's thoughtful suggestion that the noise might wake his father or his lady mother, he replied:

      "Never fear! My lady mother, as you politely term her, sleeps at the back looking over the garden, and my lady sisters above, while as for my father--God rest his soul!--he has been dead these twelve years. Ciel! Must I beat down the door!"

      Even though it had been possible for him to do so, there was now, however, no necessity, since it opened a few feet at this moment, and an elderly man peering out, and seeing who was there, instantly pulled it further back to admit the young man and his companion. An elderly man who shook his head a little--perhaps from oncoming age or, maybe, from disapprobation of such hours--but who still stood aside very respectfully. Yet, from a corner of his eye, he shot a glance up at the big frame of the man who accompanied his master.

      "Pierre, you sleep atrociously," that master replied. "Every night I have to hammer and bang in the same way. However, in with you and fetch a good bottle of the Muscadel from the cellar. Quick, hurry, I say. We are athirst." Then, turning to Andrew, said, "Come, sir, I am on the rez-de-chaussée. It suits my habits best, my mother says. We shall not have far to go."

      Following his new friend, Andrew glanced at the paved stone courtyard across which they went, the old man, Pierre, preceding them with a flambeau which he took from a socket by his lodge door and ignited. Whereby the visitor saw that he was in the house of some great family, great, possibly by rank, and undoubtedly so by wealth. The old pieces of armour hanging on the courtyard walls, burgonets, coats of mail, gambesons, scaled or of chain, lances, and swords--all symmetrically arranged--seemed to prove the former, while, as they reached the door giving entrance to the house itself, the flickering light of the torch confirmed the fact that this was no home of a mushroom family of large means, or of a rich merchant, since it shone upon a great gilt coronet above the door, and, above that, upon armorial bearings which none but nobles could possess.

      Pierre, changing the flambeau for a huge wax taper, led the way down a narrow passage giving off the hall, and, throwing open a polished chestnut door over which some arras hung, ushered them into a large, comfortably furnished apartment, though, like all the entresols of the period, low-roofed. Then, after lighting