Runcorn

“ King Henry is turning Catholic, so that a man may follow him without offence to God. He is a good fellow and a first-rate general. He's just out there, at St. Denis. There's your place, M. Étienne."
"Not to-day, Vigo."
"Yes, M. Étienne, to-day. Be advised, monsieur," Vigo said with his steady persistence. "There is nothing to gain by staying here to drink up the sea. Mayenne will no more give your lady to you now than he would give her to Félix. And you can no more carry her off than could Félix. Mayenne will have you killed and flung into the Seine, as easy as eat breakfast." ”

“ You cannot sail her in such a night as this!”
“I will adventure!” said Ronsard. “If, as you say, it was the King, I will save him if he can be saved! Once a King’s life was nothing to me; now it is something! The tide veers round these Islands, and the vessel on which they have placed the body of Lotys, can scarcely drift away from the circle till morning, unless the waves are too strong for it—”
“They are too strong!” cried the coral-fisher; “Ronsard, believe me! There is no rain to soften or abate the wind—and the sea grows greater with every breath of the rising gale!” ”

“ He did the talking, explained to the grandees in the king's hall our names and errand. One of them led us up the stairs and knocked at a closed door.
"Enter!"
It was Henry's own voice. I pinched monsieur's hand to tell him. Our guide opened the door a crack.
"M. de Mar, Sire, and his servant."
"Good, La Force. Let them enter."
M. La Force fairly pushed us over the sill, so abashed were we, and shut the door upon us.
The king was alone. But before this simple gentleman in the rusty black, M. Étienne caught his breath as he had not done before a court in full pomp. ”

“ And yet Martin, if not dead, was like to die. He was in duress as a Leaguer spy, to await King Henry's will. All who entered this house lay under a curse. We should none of us pass out again, save to our tombs.
We entered the well-remembered little passage, the well-remembered court, where shards of glass still strewed the pavement. Some one—the gendarmes, I fancy, when they took away Pontou—had put a heavy padlock on the door Lucas and Grammont left swinging.
"We go in by your postern, Félix," my master said. "M. Lucas, I confess I prefer that you go first." ”

“ Rangsley set one of his lanthorns on the window and twisted the top. He sent beams of yellow light shooting out to seawards. His hands quivered, and he was mumbling to himself under the influence of ungovernable excitement. His stakes were very large, and all depended on the flicker of those lanthorns out towards the men on the luggers that were hidden in the black expanse of the sea. Then he waited, and against the light of the window I could see him mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his coat; my heart began to beat softly and insistently—out of sympathy. ”

“ I don't want a dead son. I blame you not for the failure; not another man of us all would have come so near success."
"Dolt! I should have known he could not deal honestly," M. Étienne cried. "I should have known he would trick me. But I did not think to doubt the crest. I should have opened it there in the inn, but it was Lemaître's sealed packet. However, Peyrot sat down to my dinner: I can be back before he has finished his three kinds of wine."
"Stop, Étienne," Monsieur commanded. "I forbid you. You are gray with fatigue. Vigo shall go." ”

“ But instantly he was close on her again.
"But you must! you will, you must! Ah, Lorance, my father is won over. He bids me win you. He has sworn to welcome you; when he sees you he will be your slave."
"But my cousin Mayenne is not won over."
"Devil fly away with your cousin Mayenne!" M. Étienne retorted with a vehemence that made me shudder, lest the walls have ears. ”

“ We will slip out of the gates together—leave Paris and all its plots and murders, and at St. Denis keep our honeymoon."
"Monsieur," she said slowly, "I am told that my cousin Mayenne offered a month ago to give me to you for your name on the roster of the League. Is that true?"
"It is true. But you cannot think, Lorance, it was for any lack of love for you. I swear to you—"
"Nay, you need not. I have it by heart that you love me."
"Lorance!"
"But when you could not take me with honour you would not take me. Your house stands against us; you would not desert your house. ”

“ We hurried along now without precaution, knowing that the floor which had supported Mayenne would support us. The consequence was that we stumbled abruptly against a step, and fell with a force like to break our kneecaps. I picked myself up at once, and ran headlong up the stairs, to hit my crown on the ceiling and reel back on M. Étienne, sweeping him off his feet, so that we rolled in a struggling heap on the stones of the passage. And for the minute the place was no longer dark; I saw more lightning than even flashed in the Rue Coupejarrets. ”

“ They leaped in over the table like a freshet over a dam. I darted to the window. M. Étienne was in the garret, helping hold the ladder for me. I flung myself upon it all too eagerly. Like a lath it snapped.
XXXI "The very pattern of a king."
he next world appeared to be strangely like this. I found myself lying on a straw bed in a little low attic, my head resting comfortably on some one's shoulder, while some one else poured wine down my gullet. Presently I discovered that Maître Jacques's was the ministering hand, M. Étienne's the shoulder. After all, this was not heaven, but still Paris. ”

“ There is a plot. I learned it and came straight to you, though I was under oath not to betray them."
"Then, in Heaven's name, Félix," burst out Vigo, "which side are you on?"
Monsieur began to laugh.
"That is what I should like to know. For, by St. Quentin, I can make nothing of it."
"Monsieur," insisted Lucas, "whatever he was once, I believe him a trickster now."
Monsieur bent his keen eyes on me.
"No; he is plainly in earnest. Therefore with patience I look to get some sense out of this snarl of a story. Something is there we have not yet fathomed." ”

“ That is what a king is for—to ease his subjects' burdens."
She could not speak; she made him her obeisance with a look out of the depths of her soul.
"Then are you my subject, mademoiselle?" he demanded slyly.
She shook the tears from her lashes, and found her voice and her smile to answer his:
"Sire, I was a true Ligueuse this morning. But I came here half Navarraise, and now I swear I am wholly one."
"Now, that is good hearing!" the king cried. "Such a recruit from Mayenne! Also is it heartening to discover that my conversion is not the only sudden one in the world. ”

“ Peyrot's roving eye condescended to meet his visitor's.
"Say on," he permitted lazily.
"I offer twenty pistoles for a packet, seal unbroken, taken at dawn from the person of M. de St. Quentin's squire."
"Now you are talking sensibly," the scamp said, as if M. Étienne had been the shuffler. "That is a fair offer and demands a fair answer. Moreover, such zeal as you display deserves success. I will look about a bit this morning among my friends and see if I can get wind of your packet. I will meet you at dinner-time at the inn of the Bonne Femme."
"Dinner-time is far hence. ”

“ Crane, "I'll get Mahjigeezigoqua to wash the dishes and make the beds, and I'll go, too. I don't care if I do get rheumatism—I haven't been fishing [253] for years. And that young woman loves to do things for us."
"No wonder," said Jean, "after all you did for Rosa Marie last winter."
"Put on your very oldest shoes," ordered Mr. Black. "You're to wade the river—Dave says it's shallow all the way down, except in a few spots where we can follow a trail along the bank. He's cutting poles for everybody." ”

“ We'll divert ourselves pouring pitch out of the windows on Mayenne's ruffians."
"No, M. Étienne, it can't be done. If M. le Duc were here and gave the command to receive her, that would be one thing. No one would obey with a readier heart than I. Mordieu, monsieur, I have no objection to succouring a damsel in distress; I have been in the business before now."
"Then why not now? Death of my life, Vigo! ”

“ Both were now radiant in a sky-blue self-colour that transported one to the tropics, and certainly looked better than I thought it would when I had the trouble of procuring it.
In the bedroom the blue was only broken by some simple white furniture, by a row of books over the bed, and by groups of the little eleven in which Ronnie already had a place, and photographs of his father at one or two stages of his great career. I was still exploring when an eager summons brought me to the bedside.
"Let's play cricket!" cried Ronnie—"do you mind? With a pack of cards—my own invention! ”

“ I began, "the spy in the house is named Martin."
"Ah!" cried Monsieur. "So it is Louis Martin. How he knew—But go on. The others—"
"I lay the night in the Rue Coupejarrets, not far from the St. Denis gate," I said, still beating about the bush, "at the sign of the Amour de Dieu. Opposite is a closed house, shuttered with iron from garret to cellar. You can enter from a court behind. It is here that they plot."
"WITH A CRY MONSIEUR SPRANG TOWARD ME."
Monsieur's brows drew together, as if he were trying to recall something half remembered, half forgotten. ”

“ Ranald put his finger on the map, and said: "I struck the Bass River about here, and using that as a base, first explored the whole west side, for, I should say, about ten miles back from the river."
"Don't say! How'd you grub? Game mostly?" ”

“ When the wheels of being are twirling slowly to a close, when the animal in us is cowed into stupor, then the spirit craves passionately for succour; and let a man be never so lightsome, he stretches lame hands of faith and gropes, even though he seem to gather but dust and chaff.
Roar on roar, volley on volley, sweep on sweep of crying water—so the riot of the storm went on; the skipper waited helplessly like a dumb drudge, and a hand of ice seemed to clutch at Ferrier's heart.
He went down to see Withers and found him patient as before.
"She du seem to have got a lot of water in her, sir. ”

“ He flung from the canoe a fish-net, two dead muskrats, and, although it was out of season, a small saddle of venison. He spread the net on the sand to dry, threw the venison upon his shoulder, and climbed the bank.
Mr. Black, stepping from the sheltering bush, met him when he reached the top.
"Good-morning," said he.
The startled Indian almost dropped his burden.
"Goo'-morn'," he grunted, surlily.
"Why!" exclaimed Mr. Black, closely [61] scrutinizing the half-breed's not very prepossessing countenance, "I think I've met you before. You're Dave Gurneau, the man I bought this land from." ”

“ All the extraordinary fantastic things that Rankin had said to him became sober and real. And simultaneously the girl’s clinging fingers on his arm became like the touch of some poisonous, preying thing, snake-coil, or suckers of an octopus, or hooked wings of a vampire bat. Something within him still shook and trembled like a quicksand, but his conscious mind was quite clear and collected.
“Go away,” he said to the ape, and pointed into the garden, and it scampered off, still gleefully spurning and kicking the soft sandy path. Then he quietly turned to the girl. ”

“ On the racecourse I'm a gambler, I'm a blackleg (if you believe all you hear) ; but when the horses are passing the post and all the people are mad, I am quite quiet. I pray sir, to win; but I only pray because my children's faces are before me. Yes, sir, take away the drink and give me a chance of honest work and I might nearly be a good man."
The fellow's face grew almost youthful as he spouted, and I thought, "That little girl upstairs is very young. Her father is not an old man after all." Old he looks—battered, scared, frail; but he has a young heart. ”

“ Quentin. It's simple enough. I told you I recognized that worthy back there for one Bernet, who lodged at an inn I wot of over beyond the markets. Do we betake ourselves thither, we may easily fall in with some comrades of his bosom who have not the misfortune to be lying dead in a back lane, who will know something of your loss. Bernet's sort are no bigots; while they work for the League, they will lend a kindly ear to the chink of Kingsmen's florins."
"Ah," cried Monsieur, "then let us go." But M. Étienne laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. ”

“ The people in the Row took but little notice of this eccentric couple; for, after all, the friends did harm to nothing except the Squire's ground-game.
When the two men were growing grizzled with advancing years the coble which belonged to them had gone away from the fishing-ground one black night, before a strong north-easterly gale: she shot between the Great Farne Island and the Bird's Rock. The tide was going like a millrace, and the solemn roar of the vast stream made very terrible music in the dark. The men might have got into their own haven by an [Pg 31] easy passage, despite the gale. ”

“ There’s a familiar figure sitting on a fallen log and waiting for us when we climb over the fence and sneak up the hill behind the Turner house. Ronnie jumps up when he spies us, as tickled as a kid, who’s about to try something he’s never done before. ”

“ Runyon accepted all this jollying with calm indifference.
“The days of chivalry are over,” he sighed. “If a fellow tries to protect a maiden in distress, they think he wants to marry her.”
“Don’t you?” asked Patsy, in a sympathetic tone.
“Why, I hadn’t thought of it before; but it wouldn’t be a half-bad idea,” he confessed. “Ranch life is a bit lonely without women around to bother one.”
“You are all talking foolishly,” observed Beth, who was not romantic. “Mildred might object to washing Mr. Runyon’s dishes.”
“Why, yes; I believe she would,” said Mr. Runyon. ”