Under the Red Robe | Page 9

lamp escaped me. I
watched the men's looks and gestures at least as sharply as they
watched mine; and all the time I was racking my wits for some mode of
disarming their suspicions, or failing that, of learning something more
of the position, which far exceeded in difficulty and danger anything
that I had expected. The whole valley, it would seem, was on the
look-out to protect my man!

I had purposely brought with me from Auch a couple of bottles of
choice Armagnac; and these had been carried into the house with my
saddle bags. I took one out now and opened it and carelessly offered a
dram of the spirit to the landlord. He took it. As he drank it, I saw his
face flush; he handed back the cup reluctantly, and on that hint I
offered him another, The strong spirit was already beginning to work,
and he accepted, and in a few minutes began to talk more freely and
with less of the constraint which had before marked us all. Still, his
tongue ran chiefly on questions--he would know this, he would learn
that; but even this was a welcome change. I told him openly whence I
had come, by what road, how long I had stayed in Auch, and where;
and so far I satisfied his curiosity. Only, when I came to the subject of
my visit to Cocheforet I kept a mysterious silence, hinting darkly at
business in Spain and friends across the border, and this and that; in
this way giving the peasants to understand, if they pleased, that I was in
the same interest as their exiled master.
They took the bait, winked at one another, and began to look at me in a
more friendly way--the landlord foremost. But when I had led them so
far, I dared go no farther, lest I should commit myself and be found out.
I stopped, therefore, and, harking back to general subjects, chanced to
compare my province with theirs. The landlord, now become almost
talkative, was not slow to take up this challenge; and it presently led to
my acquiring a curious piece of knowledge. He was boasting of his
great snow mountains, the forests that propped them, the bears that
roamed in them, the izards that loved the ice, and the boars that fed on
the oak mast.
'Well,' I said, quite by chance, 'we have not these things, it is true. But
we have things in the north you have not. We have tens of thousands of
good horses--not such ponies as you breed here. At the horse fair at
Fecamp my sorrel would be lost in the crowd. Here in the south you
will not meet his match in a long day's journey.'
'Do not make too sure of that,' the man replied, his eyes bright with
triumph and the dram. 'What would you say if I showed you a better--in
my own stable?'

I saw that his words sent a kind of thrill through his other hearers, and
that such of them as understood for two or three of them talked their
PATOIS only--looked at him angrily; and in a twinkling I began to
comprehend. But I affected dullness, and laughed in scorn.
'Seeing is believing,' I said. 'I doubt if you knows good horse when you
see one, my friend.'
'Oh, don't I?' he said, winking. 'Indeed!'
'I doubt it,' I answered stubbornly.
'Then come with me, and I will show you one,' he retorted, discretion
giving way to vain-glory. His wife and the others, I saw, looked at him
dumbfounded; but, without paying any heed to them, he rose, took up a
lanthorn, and, assuming an air of peculiar wisdom, opened the door.
'Come with me,' he continued. 'I don't know a good horse when I see
one, don't I? I know a better than yours, at anyrate!'
I should not have been surprised if the other men had interfered; but I
suppose he was a leader among them, they did not, and in a moment we
were outside. Three paces through the darkness took us to the stable, an
offset at the back of the inn. My man twirled the pin, and, leading the
way in, raised his lanthorn. A horse whinnied softly, and turned its
bright, mild eyes on us--a baldfaced chestnut, with white hairs in its tail
and one white stocking.
'There!' my guide exclaimed, waving the lanthorn to and fro boastfully,
that I might see its points. 'What do you say to that? Is that an
undersized pony?'
'No,' I answered, purposely stinting my praise. 'It is pretty fair--for this
country.'
'Or any country,' he answered wrathfully. 'Or any country, I say--I don't
care where it is! And I have reason to know! Why, man,