When Wilderness Was King | Page 9

table, one foot resting on the floor, the other dangling carelessly. Hardly more than a year my elder, he bore in his face the indelible marks of a life vastly different. His features were clear-cut, and undeniably handsome, with a curl of rare good-humor to his lips and an audacious sparkle within his dark eyes. His hat, cocked and ornamented in foreign fashion, lay beside him; and I could not help noting his long hair, carefully powdered and arranged with a nicety almost conspicuous, while his clothing was rich in both texture and coloring, and exhibited many traces of vanity in ribbon and ornament. Within his belt, fastened by a large metal clasp, he wore a pearl-handled pistol with long barrel; and a rapier, with richly jewelled hilt, dangled at his side. Altogether he made a fine figure of a man, and one of a sort I had never met before.
If he interested me, doubtless I was no less a study to him. I could see the astonishment in his eyes, after my first entrance, change to amusement as he gazed. Then he brought a white hand down, with a smart slap, upon the board beside him.
"By all the saints!" he exclaimed, "but I believe the black was right. 'Tis the face of a gentle, or I know naught of the breed, though the attire might fool the very elect. Yet, parbleu! if memory serves, 't is scarcely worse than what I wore in Spain."
He swung down upon his feet and faced me, extending one hand with all cordiality, while lips and eyes smiled pleasantly.
"Monsieur," he said, bowing low, and with a grace of movement quite new to me, "I bid you hearty welcome to whatsoever of good cheer this desert may have to offer, and present to you the companionship of Villiers de Croix. It may not seem much, yet I pledge you that kings have valued it ere now."
It was a form of introduction most unfamiliar to me, and seemed bristling with audacity and conceit; but I recognized the heartiness of his purpose, and hastened to make fit response.
"I meet you with much pleasure," I answered, accepting the proffered hand. "I am John Wayland."
The graceful recklessness of the fellow, so conspicuous in each word and action, strongly attracted me. I confess I liked him from his first utterance, although mentally, and perhaps morally as well, no two men of our age could possibly be more unlike.
"Wayland?" he mused, with a shrug, as if the sound of the word was unpleasant. "Wayland?--'t is a harsh name to my ears, yet I have heard it mentioned before in England as that of a great family. You are English, then?"
I shook my head emphatically; for the old wounds of controversy and battle were then being opened afresh, and the feeling of antagonism ran especially high along the border.
"I am of this country," I protested with earnestness, "and we call ourselves Americans."
He laughed easily, evidently no little amused at my retort, twisting his small mustache through his slender fingers as he eyed me.
"Ah! but that is all one to me; it is ever the blood and not the name that counts, my friend. Now I am French by many a generation, Gascon by birth, and bearing commission in the Guard of the Emperor; yet sooth, 't is the single accursed drop of Irish blood within my veins that brings me across the great seas and maroons me in this howling wilderness. But sit down, Monsieur. There will be both food and wine served presently, and I would speak with you more at ease."
As he spoke he flung himself upon a low settee, carelessly motioning me toward another.
"On my word," he said, eying me closely as I crossed over to the bench, "but you are a big fellow for your years, and 't is strength, not flabby flesh, or I know not how to judge. You would make a fine figure of a soldier, John Wayland. Napoleon perchance might offer you a marshal's baton, just to see you in the uniform. Parbleu! I have seen stranger things happen."
"You are now connected with the French army?" I questioned, wondering what could have brought him to this remote spot.
"Ay, a Captain of the Guard, yet an exile, banished from the court on account of my sins. Sacre! but there are others, Monsieur. I have but one fault, my friend,--grave enough, I admit, yet but one, upon my honor, and even that is largely caused by that drop of Irish blood. I love the ladies over-well, I sometimes fear; and once I dared to look too high for favor."
"And have you stopped here long?"
"Here--at Hawkins's, mean you? Ten days, as I live; would you believe I could ever have survived so grievous a siege?" and he