From the Memoirs of a Minister of France Part 8

"The Mayor of Bott.i.tort and the Mayors of Gol and St. Just," the servant repeated as if he noticed nothing amiss.

"That is a lie!" the new comer replied, with a snort of triumph, "and an impudent one. But you have got the wrong sow by the ear this time."

"Why, man," a third voice, somewhat nasal and rustical, struck in, "don't you know the Mayor of Bott.i.tort?"

"I should," my Breton answered bluntly, and making, as we guessed, a stand before them. "For I am his servant, and he is this moment at his meat."

"The Mayor of Bott.i.tort?"

"Yes."

"M. Grabot?"

"Yes."

"And you are his servant?"

"I have thought so for some time," the Breton answered contemptuously.

The Mayor fairly roared in his indignation. "You--his servant! The Mayor of Bott.i.tort's?" he cried in a voice of thunder. "I'll tell you what you are; you are a liar!--a liar, man, that is what you are! Why, you fool, I am the Mayor of Bott.i.tort myself. Now, do you see how you have wasted yourself? Out of my way! Jehan, follow me in. I shall look into this. There is some knavery here, but if Simon Grabot cannot get to the bottom of it the Mayor of Bott.i.tort will. Follow me, I say.

My servant indeed? Come, come!"

And, still grumbling, he flung open the door, which the Breton had left ajar, and stalked in upon us, fuming and blowing out his cheeks for all the world like a bantam c.o.c.k with its feathers erect. He was a short, pursy man; with a short nose, a wide face, and small eyes. But had he been Caesar and Alexander rolled into one, he could not have crossed the threshold with a more tremendous a.s.sumption of dignity. Once inside, he stood and glared at us, somewhat taken aback, I think, for the moment by our numbers; but recovering himself almost immediately, he strutted towards us, and, without uncovering or saluting us, he asked in a deep voice who was responsible for the man outside.

"I am," the graver mountebank answered, looking at the stranger with a sober air of surprise. "He is my servant."

"Ah!" the Mayor exclaimed, with a withering glance. "And who, may I ask, are you?"

"You may ask, certainly," the player answered drily. "But until you take off your hat I shall not answer."

The Mayor gasped at this rebuff, and turned, if it were possible, a shade redder; but he uncovered.

"Now I do not mind telling you," Pierre continued, with a mild dignity admirably a.s.sumed, "that I am Simon Grabot, and have the honour to be Mayor of Bott.i.tort."

"You!"

"Yes, monsieur, I; though perhaps unworthy."

I looked to see an explosion, but the Mayor was too far gone. "Why, you swindling impostor," he said, with something that was almost admiration in his tone. "You are the very prince of cheats! The king of cozeners! But for all that, let me tell you, you have chosen the wrong ROLE this time. For I--I, sir, am the Mayor of Bott.i.tort, the very man whose name you have taken!"

Pierre stared at him in composed silence, which his comrade was the first to break. "Is he mad?" he said in a low voice.

The grave man shook his head.

The Mayor heard and saw; and getting no other answer, began to tremble between pa.s.sion and a natural, though ill-defined, misgiving, which the silent gaze of so large a party--for we all looked at him compa.s.sionately--was well calculated to produce. "Mad?" he cried.

"No, but some one is, Sir," he continued, turning to La Font with a gesture in which appeal and impatience were curiously blended, "Do you know this man?"

"M. Grabot? Certainly," he answered, without blus.h.i.+ng. "And have these ten years."

"And you say that he is M. Grabot?" the poor Mayor retorted, his jaw falling ludicrously.

"Certainly. Who should he be?"

The Mayor looked round him, sudden beads of sweat on his brow. "MON DIEU!" he cried. "You are all in it. Here, you, do you know this person?"

La Trape, to whom he addressed himself, shrugged his shoulders. "I should," he said. "The Mayor is pretty well known about here."

"The Mayor?"

"Ay."

"But I am the Mayor--I," Grabot answered eagerly, tapping himself on the breast in the most absurd manner. "Don't you know me, my friend?"

"I never saw you before, to my knowledge," the rascal answered contemptuously; "and I know this country pretty well. I should think that you have been crossing St. Brieuc's brook, and forgotten to say your--"

"Hus.h.!.+" the stout player interposed with some sharpness. "Let him alone. LE BON DIEU knows that such a thing may happen to the best of us."

The Mayor clapped his hand to his head. "Sir," he said almost humbly, addressing the last speaker, "I seem to know your voice. Your name, if you please?"

"Fraca.s.se," he answered pleasantly. "I am Mayor of Gol."

"You--Fraca.s.se, Mayor of Gol?" Grabot exclaimed between rage and terror. "But Fraca.s.se is a tall man. I know him as well as I know my brother."

The pseudo-Fraca.s.se smiled, but did not contradict him.

The Mayor wiped the moisture from his brow. He had all the characteristics of an obstinate man; but if there is one thing which I have found in a long career more true than another, it is that no one can resist the statements of his fellows. So much, I verily believe, is this the case, that if ten men maintain black to be white, the eleventh will presently be brought into their opinion. Besides, the Mayor had a currish side. He looked piteously from one to another of us, his cheeks seemed to grow in a moment pale and flabby, and he was on the point of whimpering, when at the last moment he bethought him of his servant, and turned to him in a spurt of sudden thankfulness.

"Why, Jehan, man, I had forgotten you," he said. "Are these men mad, or am I?"

But Jehan, a simple rustic, was in a state of ludicrous bewilderment.

"Dol, master, I don't know," he stuttered, rubbing his head.

"But I am myself," the Mayor cried, in a most ridiculous tone of remonstrance.

"Dol, and I don't know," the man whimpered. "I do believe that there is a change in you. I never saw you look the like before. And I never said any PATER either. Holy saints!" the poor fool continued piteously, "I wish I were at home. And there, for all I know, my wife has got another man."

He began to blubber at this; which to us was the most ludicrous thought, so that it was all we could do to restrain our laughter. But the Mayor saw things in another light. Shaken by our steady persistence in our story, and astounded by our want of respect, the defection of his follower utterly cowed him. After staring wildly about him for a moment, he fairly turned tail, and sat down on an old box by the door, where with his hands on his knees, he looked out before him with such an expression of chap-fallen bewilderment as nearly discovered our plot by throwing us into fits of laughter.

Still he was not persuaded; for, from time to time, he roused himself, and lifting his head cast suspicious glances at our party. But the two strollers, who were now in their element, played their parts with so much craft and delicacy, and with such an infinity of humour besides, that everything he overheard plunged him deeper in the slough. They knew something of local affairs, and called one another Mayor very naturally; and mentioning their wives, let drop other sc.r.a.ps of information that, catching his ear, made the wretched man every now and then sit up as if a wasp had stung him. One story in particular which the false Mayor told--and which, it appeared, was to the knowledge of all the country round the real Mayor's stock anecdote--had an absurd effect upon him. He straightened himself, listened as if his life depended upon it, and when he heard the well-known ending, uttered, doubtless, in something of his old tone, he collapsed into himself like a man who had no longer faith in anything.

Presently, however, an effort of common-sense would again disperse the fog. He would raise his head, his eye grow bright, something of his old pugnacity would come back to him. He would appear--this more than once--to be on the point of rising to challenge us. But these occasions were as skilfully met as they were easily detected; and as the rogues had invariably some stroke in reserve that in a twinkling flung him back into his old state of dazed bewilderment, while it well-nigh killed us with stifled mirth, they only gave ever new point to the jest.

This, to be brief, was carried on until I retired; and probably the two strollers would have kept it up longer if the ludicrous doubt whether he was himself, which they had lodged in the Mayor's mind, had not at last spurred him to action. An hour before midnight, feeling it rankle intolerably, I suppose, he sprang up on a sudden, dragged the door open, darted out with the air of a madman, and in a moment was lost in the darkness of the moor.

When I rose in the morning, therefore, I found him gone, the strollers looking glum, and the good-wife and her girl between tears and reproaches. I could not but feel, on my part, that I had somewhat stooped in the night's diversion; but before I had time to reflect much on that an unexpected trait in the strollers' conduct reconciled me to this odd experience. They proposed to leave when I did; but a little before the start they came to me, and set before me very ingenuously that the woman of the house might suffer through our jest; if I would help her therefore, they would subscribe two crowns so that she might have a substantial sum to offer on account of her debt. As I took this to be the greater part of their capital, and judged for other reasons that the offer was genuine, I received it in the best part, and found their good-nature no less pleasant than their foolery. I handed over three crowns for our share, and on that we parted; they set out with their bundles strapped to their backs, and I waited somewhat impatiently for La Trape and the Breton to bring round the horses.

Before these appeared, however, La Font, who was at the door, cried out that the two players were coming hack; and going to the window I saw with astonishment a whole troop, some mounted and some on foot, hurrying down the hill after them. For a moment I felt some alarm, supposing it to be a scheme of Epernon's to seize my person; and I cursed the imprudence which had led me to expose myself in this solitary place. But a second glance showing me that the Mayor of Bott.i.tort was among the foremost, I repented almost as seriously of the unlucky trifling that had landed me in this foolish plight.

I even debated whether I should mount and, if it were possible, get clear before they arrived; but the rueful faces of the two players as they appeared breathless in the doorway, and the liking I had taken for the rascals, decided me to stand my ground "What is it?" I said.