The Long Night | Page 4

and cut short the word. But it had been heard,
"Pastors?" a raucous voice cried. "Passers and Flinchers is what I call

them!" And a stout heavy man, whose small pointed grey beard did but
emphasise the coarse virility of the face above it, appeared on the
threshold, glaring at the four. "Pastors?" he repeated defiantly. "Passers
and Flinchers, I say!"
"In Heaven's name, Messer Grio!" the landlord protested, hovering at
his shoulder, "these are strangers----"
"Strangers? Ay, and flinchers, they too!" the intruder retorted, heedless
of the remonstrance. And he lurched into the room, a bulky, reeling
figure in stained green and tarnished lace. "Four flinchers! But I'll make
them drink a cup with me or I'll prick their hides! Do you think we shed
blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!"
"Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands.
"You will be my ruin!"
"No fear!"
"But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay a hand
on his shoulder. "I do fear." Behind the man in green his boon-fellows,
flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring half curious, half in
alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealed to them. "For
Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shall lose my
living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen," he turned
to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet house in general,
but----"
"Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with the
gentleman if he wishes it!"
"You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those
who grow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he
swished out a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ça! Ça! Now let
me see any man refuse his liquor!"
The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken was
soonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space of

time with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine,"
he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And
Messer Grio here has served the State, so that some little
indulgence----"
"What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accent
new and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let them
drink, or be pricked!"
The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and,
perhaps, though they shrugged their shoulders, were as willing as they
looked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass
which was presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed
it from him.
"'Tis good wine," the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, young
sir, and----"
"I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered.
Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You----"
"I drink not on compulsion," the young man repeated, and this time he
spoke clearly and firmly. "Had the gentleman asked me courteously to
drink with him, that were another matter. But----"
"Sho!" the vintner muttered, nudging him in pure kindness. "Drink,
man, and a fico for his courtesy so the wine be old! When the drink is
in, the sense is out, and," lowering his voice, "he'll let you blood to a
certainty, if you will not humour him."
But the grinning faces in the doorway hardened the student in his
resolution. "I drink not on compulsion," he repeated stubbornly. And he
rose from his seat.
"You drink not?" Grio exclaimed. "You drink not? Then by the
living----"

"For Heaven's sake!" the landlord cried, and threw himself between
them. "Messer Grio! Gentlemen!"
But the bully, drunk and wilful, twitched him aside. "Under compulsion,
eh!" he sneered. "You drink not under compulsion, don't you, my lad?
Let me tell you," he continued with ferocity, "you will drink when I
please, and where I please, and as often as I please, and as much as I
please, you meal-worm! You half-weaned puppy! Take that glass,
d'you hear, and say after me, Devil take----"
"Messer Grio!" cried the horrified landlord.
"Devil take"--for a moment a hiccough gave him pause--"all flinchers!
Take the glass, young man. That is well! I see you will come to it! Now
say after me, Devil take----"
"That!" the student retorted, and flung the wine in the bully's face.
The landlord shrieked; the other guests rose hurriedly from their seats,
and got aside. Fortunately the wine blinded the man for a moment, and
he recoiled, spitting curses and darting his sword hither and thither in
impotent rage. By the time he had cleared his eyes the youth had got to
his bundle, and, freeing his blade, placed himself in a posture of
defence. His face was pale, but with the pallor of excitement