by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XIV
IN DUNKERQUE--A LADY SPEAKS TO ME IN SCOTS AND A FAT PRIEST SEEMS TOHAVE SOMETHING ON HIS MIND
Two days after, the _Roi Rouge_ came to Dunkerque; Horn the seaman wenthome to Scotland in a vessel out of Leith with a letter in his pocketfor my people at Hazel Den, and I did my best for the next fortnight toforget by day the remorse that was my nightmare. To this Captain Thurotand Lord Clancarty, without guessing 'twas a homicide they favoured,zealously helped me.
And then Dunkerque at the moment was sparkling with attractions.Something was in its air to distract every waking hour, the pulseof drums, the sound of trumpets calling along the shores, troopsmanoeuvring, elation apparent in every countenance. I was Thurot's guestin a lodging over a _boulangerie_ upon the sea front, and at daybreak Iwould look out from the little window to see regiments of horse and footgo by on their way to an enormous camp beside the old fort of Risebank.Later in the morning I would see the soldiers toiling at the grandsluice for deepening the harbour or repairing the basin, or on the dunesnear Graveline manoeuvring under the command of the Prince de Soubiseand Count St. Germain. All day the paving thundered with the roll oftumbrels, with the noise of plunging horse; all night the front ofthe _boulangerie_ was clamorous with carriages bearing cannon, timber,fascines, gabions, and other military stores.
Thurot, with his ship in harbour, became a man of the town, with ruffledneck- and wrist-bands, the most extravagant of waistcoats, hats lacedwith point d'Espagne, and up and down Dunkerque he went with a restlessfoot as if the conduct of the world depended on him. He sent an oldperson, a reduced gentleman, to me to teach me French that I labouredwith as if my life depended on it from a desire to be as soon aspossible out of his reverence, for, to come to the point and be donewith it, he was my benefactor to the depth of my purse.
Sometimes Lord Clancarty asked me out to a _dejeuner_. He moved in asociety where I met many fellow countrymen--Captain Foley, of Rooth'sregiment; Lord Roscommon and his brother young Dillon; Lochgarry,Lieutenant-Colonel of Ogilvie's Corps, among others, and by-and-byI became known favourably in what, if it was not actually the selectsociety of Dunkerque, was so at least in the eyes of a very ignorantyoung gentleman from the moors of Mearns.
It was so strange a thing as to be almost incredible, but my UncleAndy's shoes seemed to have some magic quality that brought them forever on tracks they had taken before, and if my cast of countenance didnot proclaim me a Greig wherever I went, the shoes did so. They were apassport to the favour of folks the most divergent in social state--toa poor Swiss who kept the door and attended on the table at Clancarty's(my uncle, it appeared, had once saved his life), and to Soubisehimself, who counted my uncle the bravest man and the best mimic he hadever met, and on that consideration alone pledged his influence to findme a post.
You may be sure I did not wear such tell-tale shoes too often. I beganto have a freit about them as he had to whom they first belonged, and tofancy them somehow bound up with my fortune.
I put them on only when curiosity prompted me to test what newacquaintances they might make me, and one day I remember I donned themfor a party of blades at Lord Clancarty's, the very day indeed uponwhich the poor Swiss, weeping, told me what he owed to the old roguewith the scarred brow now lying dead in the divots of home.
There was a new addition to the company that afternoon--a priest whopassed with the name of Father Hamilton, though, as I learned later, hewas formerly Vliegh, a Fleming, born at Ostend, and had been educatedpartly at the College Major of Louvain and partly in London. He wasor had been parish priest of Dixmunde near Ostend, and his mostdecent memory of my uncle, whom he, too, knew, was a challenge to adrinking-bout in which the thin man of Meams had been several bottlesmore thirsty than the fat priest of Dixmunde.
He was corpulent beyond belief, with a dewlap like an ox; great limbs,a Gargantuan appetite, and a laugh like thunder that at its loudestcreated such convulsions of his being as compelled him to unbutton theneck of his _soutane_, else he had died of a seizure.
His friends at Lord Clancarty's played upon him a little joke wherein Itook an unconscious part. It seemed they had told him Mr. Andrew Greigwas not really dead, but back in France and possessed of an elixir ofyouth which could make the ancient and furrowed hills themselves looklike yesterday's creations.
"What! M. Andrew!" he had cried. "An elixir of grease were more in thefellow's line; I have never seen a man's viands give so scurvy a returnfor the attention he paid them. 'Tis a pole--this M. Andrew--but what ahead--what a head!"
"Oh! but 'tis true of the elixir," they protested; "and he looks thirtyyears younger; here he comes!"
It was then that I stepped in with the servant bawling my name, and thepriest surged to his feet with his face all quivering.
"What! M. Andrew!" he cried; "fattened and five-and-twenty. Holy Mother!It is, then, that miracles are possible? I shall have a hogshead,master, of thine infernal essence and drink away this paunch, and skipanon like to the goats of--of-"
And then his friends burst into peals of laughter as much at mybewilderment as at his credulity, and he saw that it was all apleasantry.
"Mon Dieu!" he said, sighing like a November forest. "There was nevermore pestilent gleek played upon a wretched man. Oh! oh! oh! I had anangelic dream for that moment of your entrance, for I saw me again astripling--a stripling--and the girl's name was--never mind. God resther! she is under grass in Louvain."
All the rest of the day--at Clancarty's, at the Cafe de la Poste, in ourwalk along the dunes where cannon were being fired at marks well out atsea, this obese cleric scarcely let his eyes off me. He seemed to envyand admire, and then again he would appear to muse upon my countenance,debating with himself as one who stands at a shop window pondering apurchase that may be on the verge of his means.
Captain Thurot observed his interest, and took an occasion to whisper tome.
"Have a care, M. Greig," said he playfully; "this priest schemessomething; that's ever the worst of your Jesuits, and you may swear 'tisnot your eternal salvation."
'Twas that afternoon we went all together to the curious lodging in theRue de la Boucherie. I remember as it had been yesterday how sunnywas the weather, and how odd it seemed to me that there should be acountry-woman of my own there.
She was not, as it seems to me now, lovely, though where her featuresfailed of perfection it would beat me to disclose, but there wassomething inexpressibly fascinating in her--in the mild, kind, meltingeyes, and the faint sad innuendo of her smile. She sat at a spinetplaying, and for the sake of this poor exile, sang some of the songs weare acquainted with at home. Upon my word, the performance touched meto the core! I felt sick for home: my mother's state, the girl atKirkillstane, the dead lad on the moor, sounds of Earn Water, clouds andheather on the hill of Ballageich--those mingled matters swept throughmy thoughts as I sat with these blithe gentlemen, hearkening to a simpleDoric tune, and my eyes filled irrestrainably with tears.
Miss Walkinshaw--for so her name was--saw what effect her music hadproduced; reddened, ceased her playing, took me to the window while theothers discussed French poetry, and bade me tell her, as we looked outupon the street, all about myself and of my home. She was, perhaps, tenyears my senior, and I ran on like a child.
"The Mearns!" said she. "Oh dear, oh dear! And you come frae the Meams!"She dropped into her Scots that showed her heart was true, and told meshe had often had her May milk in my native parish.
"And you maybe know," said she, flushing, "the toun of Glasgow, and thehouse of Walkinshaw, my--my father, there?"
I knew the house very well, but no more of it than that it existed.
It was in her eyes the tears were now, talking of her native place, butshe quickly changed the topic ere I could learn much about her, andshe guessed--with a smile coming through her tears, like a sun throughmist--that I must have been in love and wandered in its fever, to be sofar from home at my age.
"There was a girl," I said, my face hot, my
heart rapping at therecollection, and someway she knew all about Isobel Fortune in fiveminutes, while the others in the room debated on so trivial a thing asthe songs of the troubadours.
"Isobel Fortune!" she said (and I never thought the name so beautifulas it sounded on her lips, where it lingered like a sweet); "IsobelFortune; why, it's an omen, Master Greig, and it must be a good fortune.I am wae for the poor lassie that her big foolish lad"--she smiled withbewitching sympathy at me under long lashes--"should be so far away fraeher side. You must go back as quick as you can; but stay now, is it trueyou love her still?"
The woman would get the feeling and the truth from a heart of stone; Ionly sighed for answer.
"Then you'll go back," said she briskly, "and it will be Earn-side againand trysts at Ballageich--oh! the name is like a bagpipe air to me!--andyou will be happy, and be married and settle down--and--and poor ClemieWalkinshaw will be friendless far away from her dear Scotland, but notforgetting you and your wife."
"I cannot go back there at all," I said, with a long face, bitterenough, you may be sure, at the knowledge I had thrown away all that shedepicted, and her countenance fell.
"What for no'?" she asked softly.
"Because I fought a duel with the man that Isobel preferred,and--and--killed him!"
She shuddered with a little sucking in of air at her teeth and drew upher shoulders as if chilled with cold.
"Ah, then," said she, "the best thing's to forget. Are you a Jacobite,Master Greig?"
She had set aside my love affair and taken to politics with no more thana sigh of sympathy, whether for the victim of my jealousy, or IsobelFortune, or for me, I could not say.
"I'm neither one thing nor another," said I. "My father is a staunchenough royalist, and so, I daresay, I would be too if I had not got agliff of bonnie Prince Charlie at the Tontine of Glasgow ten years ago."
"Ten years ago!" she repeated, staring abstracted out at the window."Ten years ago! So it was; I thought it was a lifetime since. And whatdid you think of him?"
Whatever my answer might have been it never got the air, for hereClancarty, who had had a message come to the door for him, joined us atthe window, and she turned to him with some phrase about the tramplingof troops that passed along the streets.
"Yes," he said, "the affair marches quickly. Have you heard that Englandhas declared war? And our counter declaration is already on its wayacross. _Pardieu!_ there shall be matters toward in a month or two andthe Fox will squeal. Braddock's affair in America has been the bestthing that has happened us in many years."
Thus he went on with singular elation that did not escape me, thoughmy wits were also occupied by some curious calculations as to whatdisturbed the minds of Hamilton and of the lady. I felt that I was inthe presence of some machinating influences probably at variance, forwhile Clancarty and Roscommon and Thurot were elate, the priest madeonly a pretence at it, and was looking all abstracted as if weightiermatters occupied his mind, his large fat hand, heavy-ringed, buttressinghis dewlap, and Miss Walkinshaw was stealing glances of inquiry athim--glances of inquiry and also of distrust. All this I saw in a mirrorover the mantelpiece of the room.
"Sure there's but one thing to regret in it," cried Clancarty suddenly,stopping and turning to me, "it must mean that we lose Monsieur desSouliers Rouges. _Peste!_ There is always something to worry one about awar!"
"_Comment?_" said Thurot.
"The deportment," answered his lordship. "Every English subject hasbeen ordered out of France. We are going to lose not only your company,Father Hamilton, because of your confounded hare-brained scheme forcovering all Europe in a glass coach, but our M. Greig must put theSleeve between him and those best qualified to estimate and esteem histhousand virtues of head and heart For a _louis_ or two I'd take shipwith him and fight on the other side. Gad! it would always be fightinganyway, and one would be by one's friend."
The priest's jaw fell as if my going was a blow to his inmostaffections; he turned his face rapidly into shadow; Miss Walkinshaw lostno movement of his; she was watching him as he had been a snake.
"Oh! but it is not necessary that we lose my compatriot so fast asthat," she said. "There are such things as permits, excepting Englishfriends of ours from deportment,--and--and--I fancy I could get one forMr. Greig."
In my heart I thanked her for her ready comprehension of my inability togo back to Britain with an easy mind; and I bowed my recognition of hergoodness.
She was paying no heed to my politeness; she had again an eye on thepriest, who was obviously cheered marvellously by the prospect.
And then we took a dish of tea with her, the lords and Thurot loudlycheerful, Hamilton ruminant and thundering alternately, Miss Walkinshawshowing a score of graces as hostess, myself stimulated to some unusualwarmth of spirit as I sat beside her, well-nigh fairly loving herbecause she was my country-woman and felt so fond about my nativeMearns.