A Tatter of Scarlet Part 36

Matteo le Gaucher snarled at them, denying that the coins were good, or, if good, that they had been won (as they a.s.serted) by merely carrying a sick man up a hill.

Not for such service did men give gold Napoleons. They lied, Carlo, Beppo, Lorenzo, and the oaf from San Ghomigniano of the Seven Towers.

They all lied, and Matteo, who was certainly in most evil humour that day, tried to knock up the hand in which the Tuscan was jingling them.

He of the City of the Seven Towers felled Matteo, who would never have forgiven him, if the bone-splintering blow of the mattock in the hand of Arcadius had not come to fill the hater with the hope of a greater vengeance.

Nevertheless the thought of the rich man who dwelt on the slopes of Mont St. Andre, with sacks of golden Napoleons on either side of every room, kept haunting him. Matteo could neither eat nor sleep till he had seen.

So he took a half-holiday without asking permission (the beginning of his quarrel with the huge Arcadius) and, stealing a skiff from a neighbouring landing, scrambled up the steep face of Mont St. Andre.

Fortune willed that he should meet the junior _lyceens_ out for a walk, two and two, with only a weak _pion_ to restrain them. Naturally Matteo was mocked and mobbed. Matteo drew a knife, and grinned like a wild cat, but recognised his error in time, accepted the situation, and with the hate of h.e.l.l in his heart, began to show the juniors knife tricks--how to let it fall always with the point down, how to send it whizzing like a gleam of light deep into the heart of a tree, which might just as well have been the heart of a man.

At last he got clear of them, smiling and bowing, till the sober-coated little rascals were lost to sight on the high path. Then he brandished his knife in fury, and vowed that if he could he would cut the throat of every wretched imp among them.

But at the sound of voices he subdued his anger, and, humbly asking his way from this pa.s.ser-by and that other, he at last made his way to Gobelet. He knocked long for admission at the porter's lodge, but the porteress seeing such a calumny on G.o.d's handiwork outside, and scenting appeals for charity, eyed him disfavourably through the little cross-barred spy-window and let him knock.

A little farther down the road, he was quite as unsuccessful at the tower port of the Garden Cottage, over which the Tessiers had been wont to sleep.

There was no one in the house at all, yet Matteo le Gaucher quickly running to the top of the bank opposite, imagined he saw faces mocking him at every window.

It chanced that for his sins (whatever they may have been) my father was at that moment coming leisurely down the hill, his hands behind his back. He had been up to call upon his friend Renard before his siesta, and they two had argued over-long as to the purport of the fourteenth chapter of the Koran.

Suddenly full in his path he found Matteo grovelling before him, his hands and knees covered with blood, foam from his lips, and to all appearance in a state of extreme exhaustion. Now my father, Gordon Cawdor, was a man of very simple and direct mind, so far as the actions of those about him went. He believed that what he saw was the reality.

Indeed, so transparent was his honesty that men took fright at it, counting it as the last achievement of duplicity, so that on an average he was as seldom deceived as any other man in the country.

Now he cried out for help, and after one or two shouts Saunders McKie and Hugh Deventer came through the gate and took up the seeming epileptic.

Saunders was wholly sceptical and when ordered by his master to wash the froth from the sufferer's mouth prospected with such good will for soap within that Matteo, had he dared, would gladly have bitten the finger off. He was compelled to swallow what might have served him another time.

"Dowse him wi' a bucket o' water, and let him gang his ways. I like not the look o' the speldron. He is like the Brownie that my Uncle Jock yince saw on the Lang Hill o' Lowden--a fearsome taed it was, juist like this Eytalian."

"Hold your peace, Saunders," commented my father. "You, he, and I are as G.o.d made us, and little that matters. What is written of us in the Book, _that_ alone shall praise or condemn us!"

"Lord's sake, Maister Cawdor," said Saunders, who always wilted before my father in his moments of spiritual reproof, "I was sayin' and thinkin' no different. The Book and What is Written Therein! That's the rub, an' no to be spoken o' lichtly. And after a' the craitur's a craitur, though I will say----"

"Say nothing, Saunders, till you have given the unfortunate to eat and drink. Then when he is recovered I shall speak with him a moment."

"Weel, Maister Cawdor, let your speech be silver, and no gowden."

"You mean, Saunders?"

"I juist mean that the buckie has a gallow's look aboot him, and if ye are so ill-advised and--aye, I will say it--sae wicked as to gie him gold, we shall a' hae our throats cutt.i.t in our beds yin o' thae nichts!"

Whereupon my father reproved his old servant for narrow-mindedness and evil thinking, but Saunders held his own.

"Narrow-mindedness here and ill-thinkin' there," he said, "blessed are they that think no evil, I ken, and that blessing ye are sure o', Maister Cawdor. But ye pay me a wage to keep watch and ward for ye over all evil-doers, and may I never taste porridge mair if this lad doesna smell the reek o' the deil's peats a mile away."

Saunders prevailed in the matter of the gold, and it was only a five-franc piece that Matteo carried away from the gate of Gobelet. Hugh Deventer and Alida came out to see off the man who had caused such a disturbance in the peace of the quiet villa. Matteo gazed at Alida with the look of a wild beast before whose cage pa.s.ses a fine-skinned plump gazelle.

He was full to the lips with rage, bitterness, and all uncharitableness.

Gobelet he had seen, but owing to the machinations of that enemy of mankind, Saunders, only the great paved kitchen in which the menservants and maidservants pa.s.sed to and fro, all gazing at him with inquisitive and contemptuous eyes. Ah, if only he could make them smart for that, those full-fed minions whose broken meats had been set down to him, Matteo of Arqua. Not but that these were good, yes, and the wine was excellent. It might be worth while, when he should decide to turn honest, to find some such place, perhaps as porter or lodge-keeper against his old age.

So after ringing the piece of a hundred sous on a stone, Matteo gave himself to meditation as he descended to his boat. The house was rich.

There were many servants, and access to the money-bags along the wall would be impossible to him.

But there were others who would think but little of the task. If only he were at Arqua, he knew of as pretty a gang as ever donned masks--honest, too, in their way, men who would not cheat the indicator of good business out of his lawful share.

But here Matteo le Gaucher must think things over. It was vain for him to give away a valuable secret without some guarantee of gain. So Matteo crept back and took to his bed, where he turned the matter over and turned it over, till he began to despair of ever finding a way of bettering his condition without having to work. The touch of the five-franc piece in his pocket, gained by a little dissimulation, had disgusted him with the culture of cauliflower and early potato.

Next morning he scamped his work, fell athwart the bluff bows of Arcadius, and so found himself with a broken bone and a wounded wrist in the hospital of La Grace at Aramon.

Here he fell in the way of ex-notary's clerk Chanot, whose practice in his uncle's office soon wormed Matteo's whole confidence from him--that is, save on one point which he kept obstinately to himself.

It had long been a question with the Committee of Public Safety where Keller had disappeared to. It was not believed that he had remained long in the Chateau. A boat had been seen in mid-stream--the sound of voices heard by watchers on the bridge. He might have been less seriously wounded than they supposed, and at Arles, Aix, or even Ma.r.s.eilles he might be seeking help from old-fas.h.i.+oned revolutionaries like himself.

The Committee of Public Safety had for some time abandoned all pretence of government. The little red newspaper had stopped. The shops were put under weekly contributions in return for permission to open their doors.

No maids or wives came any more to the Aramon markets, and though provisions continued to arrive, they were brought in by farmers who came in bands and well armed.

The "government" sat no more in the seats of the mighty, but lounged and swung their legs from the tables, openly and shamelessly discussing the next _coup a faire_, houses to dismantle, or rich men to hold to ransom or doom to death. They smoked and deliberated, an oath at every word.

Men who had worked at the Small Arms Factory were now few, though there were still several who had dug the foundations of the big-gun annex--a professional bully or two from the city, deprived by the war of his hareem and his means of livelihood, one or two well-educated youths, _lycee_-bred even, who had "turned out badly," a few clever apprentice workmen from the town, locksmiths and plumbers chiefly, who appreciated idleness and a share in the profits of their skill in opening locks more than the lash of the patron's tongue and the long day's toil from six to six, year in and year out.

But all were less martial and more cautious now. They did not think any more of attacking the strong, entrenched position behind which Dennis Deventer and Jack Jaikes kept watch and ward, night and day.

They had courage--no man could truthfully say that they lacked that.

They had given their proofs. But they knew that the men within the Works were growing stronger. There were rumours that Dennis Deventer had only to hold up his hand and that he would have all the men he wanted within the Chateau walls.

The men who had fought the troops, cleared the town, and set up the "Tatter of Scarlet," the "Old Reds of the Midi," were no longer with the rabble who used the black flag as an excuse for plunder and ma.s.sacre.

The original Commune of Aramon (like that of Paris) had always been meticulously careful as to the rights of private property. No Communalist in Paris enriched himself one sou, at a time when the wealth of all the banks and shops lay within the push of a gun-b.u.t.t or the explosion of a dynamite cartridge.

The men of the Old Commune had come to Dennis, Pere Felix at their head, as Nicodemus came to Another long ago, secretly by night. Their chief prayer had been to be allowed, though late, to take part in the defence.

Pere Felix appealed to Dennis not to discourage these willing hearts.

They were all approved Republicans and would fight for their opinion if necessary, but they were no robbers nor murderers--nor would they have any dealings with such.

But Dennis had enough men and desired no more. He had kept his own bounds and let any attack him at their peril. Still, there was much they could do. They could send him word of any new scheme of devilry. A written word wrapped about a stone and tossed over the wall at a convenient corner, where a watch was kept, would be sufficient. Or, if proper notice were given, they could come, as to-night, to the Orchard port. But this only upon matters of serious import which could not be put off.

Moreover, since Pere Felix had all the country of Vaucluse open to him, he could collect provisions from Orange to the Durance. For anything fresh and portable good prices would be given. Yes, they could be delivered at the Orchard gate. Three times a week, on such nights as Pere Felix would appoint, he would have a guard put there to receive and transport. Jack Jaikes would settle the bills. They all knew Jack Jaikes.

The men looked from one to the other and smiled. Yes, they all knew Monsieur Jack. There was never a man nor a boy in all the Ateliers but knew Monsieur Jack. He had a way with him. He asked for what he wanted, did Monsieur Jack. And he could do more with his bare hands and booted feet when it came to a melee (what Jack Jaikes would have called a sc.r.a.p) than half a dozen ordinary men armed to the teeth. Oh yes, a well-known figure in the Works, Monsieur Jack. In fact, quite a favourite!

And they winked at one another, being quite aware that, without the quiver of an eyelash, Dennis Deventer was winking too.

Matteo lay on his couch in the Hopital de Grace nursing his arm. The wound had healed and they were treating the bone by friction now--reducing and suppling it, but causing Matteo a good deal of incidental pain, which the hospital doctors in their careless way took very much as a matter of course. If Matteo had had the long Arqua knife which had been taken away from him, the two _internes_ might have been surprised by a sudden revelation of the sentiments of the patient under treatment.

Matteo had privileges, however. The house surgeons only tortured him once a day, and generally about four Chanot came to bring him a screw of tobacco, a little brandy, and the news of the town, adroitly seasoned to suit Matteo's taste in publicity.

"Ah, my good Matteo," he would say, as he came in with that nonchalant ease in his gait and that devilish glitter in his eye which made Matteo at once envy and adore him. "Matteo of the left hand, how goes the other to-day? Have you had dreams of the beautiful lady you saw--or imagined you saw--at the house on the hill?"