The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II. G. P. R. James
his eyes to me as I stood half way up the table. "He looks as if he knew something of arms, and I dare say will tell thee that to sell silk or linen, however little one may get, is better than fighting all day, watching all night, and having hard blows for one's only payment."
I laughed at his description of the soldier's life; and, as he addressed me first, replied at once, "I cannot think we are so badly off as that, my good sir. Every one knows his own taste; and, though certainly fortunes are rarely made by the sword, yet honour is gained, and glory, and frequently competence; and you must remember there is not a noble family in the land which does not owe its elevation to the sword."
"That was in other days, that was in other days," said the elder man. "But I am right, then, in thinking you a soldier, sir?"
I nodded my head, and was about to reply somewhat more fully, when Andriot entered the room and whispered a word or two in my ear, which made me rise and go out, while the landlord busily put down my cover, and prepared to give me supper.
The intelligence which the lad had brought me was simply that the man with the spear, whom we had passed on the road, had come into the inn-yard, and, finding him there, had asked him many questions concerning me. The good youth had been in one of his loquacious moods, and had given the interrogator more information than I thought right, telling him my name, and that I was a gentleman going to join the army. On this the other had immediately asked to speak with me, and I accordingly went out at once, in order to put my mind at ease with regard to the person in whose favour Andriot had shown himself so communicative.
I found him in the courtyard busy in unloading his beast, and examining the contents of the package he had thus carried behind him, which proved to be a considerable store of very miscellaneous pieces of armour, both offensive and defensive. The cuirass was at that moment on the top, and, from its condition, left little doubt that one of its possessors, at least, had seen some service like itself; for not only did sundry hacks and dents betray the fact of many a close encounter, but a large round hole appeared to have been perforated, either by bullet or lance, on the right-hand side, near the armhole; and the gap was now curiously stopped up by means of a piece of thick leather, attached by nails driven through the iron and clinched on the inside.
"Why, my good friend," I said, looking at the cuirass, and without taking any immediate notice of his message, "that piece of leather will never keep out anything."
"It will keep out anything I want it to keep out," replied the man, looking up at me with a laugh.
"And what is that?" I demanded; "What is it you want it to keep out?"
"The wind," he replied; "for when the wind gets in between cold iron and an empty stomach, a man gets melancholy, and has no appetite for dry blows. But I know what you mean; that sword, or bullet, or spear would go through it as easily as a skewer through a cock of the Indies; but there's not much chance of any other bullet finding out that place again; and if it did, no great matter, for it would meet with its fellow here, just lying between the ribs, under my armpit, and that would stop it from going any farther."
"That is looking upon the matter rationally," I replied; "but now, my good friend, what is it that you wanted with me?"
"Why, simply this, seigneur," he replied; "finding that you are a soldier going to join the army, and having heard of your name a great many years ago as a very brave and gallant gentleman--"
"You must mean my father," I said, interrupting him: "my name you most likely have never heard."
"Ay, I dare say it was your father, now look at you," he replied, "for you couldn't be much out of your swaddling-clothes at the time I talk of. However, I was going to propose, that you, being travelling alone, or nearly so, and I alone, or what's somewhat worse than alone, having nothing but a bad beast with me, which trots me five miles an hour, and thinks itself a miracle--I was going to propose, I say, that we should join company; for in these days we may fall in with friends and acquaintances by the way, where we shall find two right hands better than one. Besides, we may chance to fall in with some booty, and two dogs will always kill more game than twice one dog."
On the very face of the matter, the proposal was somewhat impudent; for at least my clothing, my horses, and, I trust, my appearance altogether, were those of a man of high birth; but when I came to look my companion over more attentively by the twilight, which did not improve his appearance, it struck me as more impudent still. He was a person of about forty-five years of age, lean, long-limbed, thin-flanked, broad in the shoulders, with as unprepossessing a countenance as it was possible to imagine, and nothing on earth to redeem it from a sort of assassin-like expression, except a merry but somewhat sarcastic glance, which occasionally came into his eyes, or, rather, into one of them, for it was the right eye only which had any movement; and I afterward found that the left was made of glass, though a very good imitation of the other.
What might have been the original shape of his nose I do not know; but a large cut across the bridge and down one cheek seemed to indicate that its conformation had been somewhat violently changed into its present Socratic turn upward.
His long gray hair, thin and ragged, his unwashed face, his untrimmed beard, all added to the sinister appearance of his countenance, and, in short, no one could look at him without doing him the same bitter injustice that I did him at that moment, and thinking him as murderous and rascally a person as it was possible to set one's eyes on. Besides all this, his garments were anything but that which one would have desired in a friend and companion; for his buff jerkin, besides the rusty stains which had been left upon it after having been worn under ill-cleaned armour, was soiled and dirty in various other ways, and in more than one place patched with a piece of gray cloth.
He stood my survey quite quietly; and, indeed, the discrepant gaze of his two eyes rendered it somewhat difficult to tell whether he was looking full in my face or across the inn-yard on the other side. After having remained for about half a minute silent, however, he brought both eyes into a straight line, demanding, in a significant tone. "Am not I an ugly dog?"
"Yes," I replied, "you are. But you have made a little mistake, my good friend; I am not seeking companions, but raising a troop to serve under my command."
"Then I am the very man you want," he replied; "for I have experience, and you have none, that's clear enough; and I do not much care what I do, whether it be as a leader or follower, so that I do something."
"I don't think you would do much credit to my new troop," I replied, "unless you troubled the brook a little oftener, and gave the barber a sous at least once a month."
"Oh, that is easily remedied," said the adventurer; "I have no sous to spare, but I have ten fingers, baiting one which was hacked off at the battle of St. Denis, which will do as well for me as any barber in Christendom; and then, again, though water is not plenty in this hot weather, yet it is to be had. As to my jerkin, too, a couple of ounces of chalk, and the worth of a denier of yellow ochre, will put that all to rights; so that, if you like to have me, I will turn out to-morrow morning as smart a trooper as you'd wish to see. I cannot get rid of my face though, so you must make the best of that."
"What religion are you of?" I asked, wishing to ascertain that point first before I divulged my own.
"I don't know," he replied. "What is yours?"
There was a sort of quaint oddity about the fellow which amused me, and, I confess, made me think better of him, though I know not why, and I demanded, without answering his question, "Who have you served under?"
"Two or three dozen," he answered; "but I have got my character written down for the benefit of those whom it may concern by a great many of my different friends, and I have not altered a word of their certificates, for it is useless for a man to try to change his nature, and it will come out sooner or later. Who will you have?" he continued; "here is Martigues on the one side, and Andelot on the other. Here is Puygaillard, and Lossac, and Stuart, and--"
"Stay, stay," I said; "That will do. Let me see Martigues on the one side, and Stuart on the other."
"You are a cute bird, after all," he said; "You wont be limed, I see, to show yourself a Protestant or a Catholic. However, here are the