Читать книгу A Joyous Adventure - Baroness Orczy - Страница 4

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This interview had occurred in May in the year 1800. A few months later half a dozen were gathered round a deal table in the low whitewashed room of the Cabaret du Pélican, a lonely house which stands at the extreme end of the village street of Soulanges. They were eating bread and cheese and drinking cider. The room gave on a side door of the cabaret. It was bare, save for the table, a rickety bench or two and an old-fashioned clock up on the wall. In the corner nearest the door a number of muskets, staves and scythes were propped up. On the table a couple of tallow candles guttered in their pewter sconces.

It was past ten o’clock of a squally evening in October. Outside the wind howled dismally; heavy storm-clouds swept across the sky and occasional gusts of rain beat against the window-panes.

From time to time for the past hour there had come a knock at the outside door. In answer to the challenge: “Qui va là?” from within, the reply had invariably been: “Le Gros”—the Fat One; whereupon the door creaked on its hinges and another man, clad like the others in the roughest of clothes, slipped into the room. In most cases the new-comer carried a gun or scythe, which he deposited in the corner with the others.

“It is for to-night, then?” he would then ask before joining his comrades at food and drink.

“Yes—to-night!” was the unvarying reply.

The hours sped by leaden-footed. The old-fashioned clock up on the rough whitewashed wall ticked away the minutes with exasperating solemnity.

Toward midnight some thirty men were assembled round the table. The jugs of cider were empty. Bread and cheese had vanished from the board.

“We may as well start,” said one man, who appeared to be in authority over the others. He was a rough-looking fellow with a huge black beard that entirely hid the lower part of his face, and his dark tousled hair fell in masses over his brow. He wore a wide leather belt into which he had tucked a pair of pistols. “What arms have we?” he asked.

Two of the men counted over the guns and scythes.

“Thirty-eight,” they said.

“How many guns?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Take those,” the black-bearded man commanded. “Leave the scythes. We’ll pick up guns in plenty. Remember, now—this is life and death for us all! Guns we must have and men, or we are doomed—the lot of us. Hey, la mère Gaillard!” he went on, and rapped with his fist on the table.

The door of an inner room was pushed open and a stout, slatternly-looking woman thrust her head in.

“Eh bien, eh bien? Was it thou calling, Cottereau? What is it now?”

“More cider,” Cottereau commanded, “and quickly! We are going.”

The woman disappeared, muttering something about time, bed and midnight. A moment or two later she returned, carrying two large jugs which she set on the table.

“That’s the last,” she said curtly. “We’ve no more.”

The men filled their mugs and they and the woman together drank to the success of the expedition.

Cottereau then gave the order: “En avant!”

Twenty-five men armed themselves with guns or muskets; four others, after fingering the scythes with some hesitation, finally decided to leave them as their leader had commanded and thrust their hands in their pockets. They all made for the door—all, that is, except one man, who sat silent and skulking on the rickety bench.

“It’s nothing but madness,” he murmured sullenly. “I’m not going.”

The others paused and turned to look at the speaker. They gazed on him with a kind of dull astonishment, their eyes somewhat blurred through the potency of Mother Gaillard’s home-brewed cider. Cottereau merely shrugged.

“Come, Gilbert—don’t be a fool!” he said curtly, and himself made for the door.

But Gilbert did not move. The woman, busily collecting débris of food off the table, muttered with a sneer:

“Drink and eat—drink and eat! That’s all some of them are good for! And they know just enough to turn spy and traitor. Thou, too, art a fool, Cottereau...!”

“That’s enough, Mère Gaillard,” Cottereau broke in roughly. “We are not afraid of traitors. We’ll march in a close column, and if one or other plays the traitor or the coward—”

He broke off abruptly, closing his lips beneath his scrubby beard with a snap. With a significant gesture he half drew one of the pistols out of his belt. Nothing more was said. One of the men had pulled open the door; gusts of wind blew into the room. For the moment the rain had ceased and a fitful moon peered at intervals through the storm-clouds that still swept across the sky. One by one the men, silent and furtive, straggled out, those who carried a gun taking the lead. The others followed until Cottereau, the woman and Gilbert were left alone in the room. For a moment or two Gilbert kept up his attitude of obstinacy. He even tried to throw a defiant glance at his comrade. But the latter still had his hand on the pistol and, as if in answer to the other’s defiance, he once more drew the murderous weapon partly out of his belt.

“You had best follow the others, Gilbert,” he said quietly.

Gilbert, without another word, slunk out of the door. The woman watched him with a sneer on her face and a contemptuous shrug.

Cottereau then followed, after which the woman bolted the door, picked up the pewter candlesticks and went within, leaving the room in darkness.