by Neil Munro
CHAPTER XXXVI
FATHER HAMILTON IS THREATENED BY THE JESUITS AND WE ARE FORCED TO FLYAGAIN
The priest, poor man! aged a dozen years by his anxieties since I hadseen him last, was dubious of his senses when I entered where he lodged,and he wept like a bairn to see my face again.
"Scotland! Scotland! beshrew me, child, and I'd liefer have this thanten good dinners at Verray's!" cried he, and put his arms about myshoulders and buried his face in my waistcoat to hide his uncontrollabletears.
He was quartered upon a pilot of the Schelde and Hollands Deep, whoseonly child he made a shift to tutor in part payment of his costs, andthe very moment that we had come in upon him he was full of a matterthat had puzzled him for weeks before we came to Helvoetsluys. 'Twas athing that partly hurt his pride, though that may seem incredible, andpartly gave him pleasure, and 'twas merely that when he had at lastfound his concealment day and night in the pilot's house unendurable,and ventured a stroll or two upon the dunes in broad sunshine, no onepaid any attention to him. There were soldiers and sailors that musthave some suspicions of his identity, and he had himself read his ownstory and description in one of the gazettes, yet never a hand wasraised to capture him.
"_Ma foi!_ Paul," he cried to me in a perplexity. "I am the mostmarvellous priest unfrocked, invisible to the world as if I hadMambrino's helmet. Sure it cannot be that I am too stale quarry fortheir hunting! My _amour propre_ baulks at such conclusion. I thathave--heaven help me!--loaded pistols against the Lord's anointed, mightas well have gone shooting sparrows for all the infamy it has gained me.But yesterday I passed an officer of the peace that cried '_Bon jour_,father,' in villainous French with a smile so sly I could swear he knewmy history from the first breeching. I avow that my hair stirred undermy hat when he said it."
MacKellar stood by contemptuous of the priest's raptures over hisrestored secretary.
"Goodness be about us!" he said, "what a pity the brock should be hidingwhen there's nobody hunting him! The first squirt of the haggis isalways the hottest, as the other man said. If they were keen onyour track at the start of it--and it's myself has the doubt of thatsame--you may warrant they are slack on it now. It's Buhot himself wouldbe greatly put about if you went to the jail and put out your hands forthe manacles."
Father Hamilton looked bewildered.
"Expiscate, good Monsieur MacKellar," said he.
"Kilbride just means," said I, "that you are in the same case as myself,and that orders have gone out that no one is to trouble you."
He believed it, and still he was less cheerful than I looked for."Indeed, 'tis like enough," he sighed. "I have put my fat on a trap fora fortnight back to catch my captors and never a rat of them will comenear me, but pass with sniffing noses. And yet on my word I have littleto rejoice for. My friends have changed coats with my enemies becausethey swear I betrayed poor Fleuriau. I'd sooner die on the rack----"
"Oh, Father Hamilton!" I could not help crying, with remorse upon mycountenance. He must have read the story in a single glance at me, forhe stammered and took my hand.
"What! there too, Scotland!" he said. "I forswear the company ofinnocence after this. No matter, 'tis never again old Dixmunde parishfor poor Father Hamilton that loved his flock well enough and believedthe best of everybody and hated the confessional because it made theworld so wicked. My honey-bees will hum next summer among another'sflowers, and my darling blackbirds will be all starving in thispestilent winter weather. Paul, Paul, hear an old man's wisdom--befrugal in food, and raiment, and pleasure, and let thy ambitionsflutter, but never fly too high to come down at a whistle. But here amI, old Pater Dull, prating on foolish little affairs, and thou and ourhonest friend here new back from the sounding of the guns. Art a bravefighter, lad? I heard of thee in the grenadier company of d'Auvergne."
"We did the best part of our fighting with our shanks, as the other mansaid," cried Kilbride. "But Mr. Greig came by a clout that affected hismind and made him clean forget the number of his regiment, and that iswhat for the lowlands of Holland is a very pleasant country just now."
"Wounded!" cried the priest, disturbed at this intelligence. "Had Iknown on't I should have prayed for thy deliverance."
"I have little doubt he did that for himself," said Kilbride. "WhenI came on him after Rosbach he was behind a dyke, that is not a badalternative for prayer when the lead is in the air."
We made up our minds to remain for a while at Helvoet, but we had notdetermined what our next step should be, when in came the priest one daywith his face like clay and his limbs trembling.
"Ah, Paul!" he cried, and fell into a chair; "here's Nemesis, daughterof Nox, a scurvy Italian, and wears a monkish cowl. I fancied it weretoo good to be true that I should be free from further trials."
"Surely Buhot has not taken it into his head to move again," I cried."That would be very hirpling justice after so long an interval. And inany case they could scarcely hale you out of the Netherlands."
"No, lad, not Buhot," said he, perspiring with his apprehensions, "butthe Society. There's one Gordoletti, a pretended Lutheran that hailsfrom Jena, that has been agent between the Society and myself beforenow, and when I was out there he followed me upon the street with theeyes of a viper. I'll swear the fellow has a poignard and means theletting of blood. I know how 'twill be--a watch set upon this building,Gordoletti upon the steps some evening; a jostle, a thrust, and aspeeding shade. A right stout shade too! if spirits are in any relationof measure to the corporeal clay. Oh, lad, what do I say? my sinner'swit must be evincing in the front of doom itself."
I thought he simply havered, but found there was too real cause for hisdistress. That afternoon the monk walked up and down the street withoutletting his eyes lose a moment's sight of the entrance to the pilot'shouse where Father Hamilton abode. I could watch him all the betterbecause I shared a room with Kilbride on the same side of the street,and even to me there was something eerie in the sight of this longthin stooping figure in its monkish garment, slouching on the stonesor hanging over the parapet of the bridge, his eyes, lambent black anddarting, over his narrow chafts. Perhaps it was but fancy, yet I thoughtI saw in the side of his gown the unmistakable bulge of a dagger. Hepaced the street for hours or leaned over the parapet affecting aninterest in the barges, and all the time the priest sat fascinatedwithin, counting his sentence come.
"Oh, by my faith and it is not so bad as that," I protested on returningto find him in this piteous condition. "Surely there are two swords herethat at the worst of it can be depended on to protect you."
He shook his head dolefully. "It is no use, Paul," he cried. "Thepoignard or the phial--'tis all the same to them or Gordoletti, andhereafter I dare not touch a drop of wine or indulge in a meagre soup."
"But surely," I said, "there may be a mistake, and this Gordoletti mayhave nothing to do with you."
"The man wears a cowl--a monkish cowl--and that is enough for me. AJesuit out of his customary _soutane_ is like the devil in dancingshoes--be sure his lordship means mischief. Oh! Paul, I would I wereback in Bicetre and like to die there cleaner than on the banks of aDutch canal. I protest I hate to think of dying by a canal."
Still I was incredulous that harm was meant to him, and he proceededto tell me the Society of Jesus was upon the brink of dissolution, anddesperate accordingly. The discovery of Fleuriau's plot against thePrince had determined the authorities upon the demolition and extinctionof the Jesuits throughout the whole of the King's dominion. Their richesand effects and churches were to be seized to the profit and emolumentof the Crown; the reverend Fathers were to be banished furth of Francefor ever. Designs so formidable had to be conducted cautiously, and sofar the only evidence of a scheme against the Society was to be seenin the Court itself, where the number of priests of the order was beingrapidly diminished.
I thought no step of the civil power too harsh against the band of whomthe stalking man in the cowl outside was representative, and indeed thepriest at last half-inf
ected myself with his terrors. We sat well backfrom the window looking out upon the street till it was dusk. There wasnever a moment when the assassin (as I still must think him) was notthere, his interest solely in the house we sat in. And when it waswholly dark, and a single lamp of oil swinging on a cord across thethoroughfare lit the passage of the few pedestrians that went along thestreet, Gordoletti was still close beneath it, silent, meditating, andalert.
MacKellar came in from his coffee-house. We sat in darkness, exceptfor the flicker of a fire of peat. He must have thought the spectaclecurious.
"My goodness!" cried he, "candles must be unco dear in this shire whenthe pair of you cannot afford one between you to see each other yawning.I'm of a family myself that must be burning a dozen at a time and atboth ends to make matters cheery, for it's a gey glum world at the bestof it."
He stumbled over to the mantel-shelf where there was customarily acandle; found and lit it, and held it up to see if there was any visiblereason for our silence.
The priest's woebegone countenance set him into a shout of laughter. Hisamusement scarcely lessened when he heard of the ominous gentleman inthe cowl.
"Let me see!" he said, and speedily devised a plan to test the occasionof Father Hamilton's terrors. He arranged that he should dress himselfin the priest's garments, and as well as no inconsiderable differencein their bulk might let him, simulate the priest by lolling into thestreet.
"A brave plan verily," quo' the priest, "but am I a bowelless rogue tolet another have my own particular poignard? No, no, Messieurs, let mepay for my own _pots casses_ and run my own risks in my own _soutane_."
With that he rose to his feet and was bold enough to offer a trial thatwas attended by considerable hazard.
It was determined, however, that I should follow close upon the heelsof Kilbride in his disguise, prepared to help him in the case of tooserious a surprise.
The night was still. There were few people in the street, which was oneof several that led down to the quays. The sky had but a few wan stars.When MacKellar stepped forth in the priest's hat and cloak, he walkedslowly towards the harbour, ludicrously imitating the rolling gait ofhis reverence, while I stayed for a little in the shelter of thedoor. Gordoletti left his post upon the bridge and stealthily followedKilbride. I gave him some yards of law and followed Gordoletti.
Our footsteps sounded on the stones; 'twas all that broke the eveningstillness except the song of a roysterer who staggered upon the quays.The moment was fateful in its way and yet it ended farcically, for erehe had gained the foot of the street Kilbride turned and walked back tomeet the man that stalked him. We closed upon the Italian to find himbaffled and confused.
"Take that for your attentions!" cried Kilbride, and buffeted the fellowon the ear, a blow so secular and telling from a man in a frock thatGordoletti must have thought himself bewitched, for he gave a howland took to his heels. Kilbride attempted to stop him, but the cassockescaped his hands and his own unwonted costume made a chase hopeless. Asfor me, I was content to let matters remain as they were now that FatherHamilton's suspicions seemed too well founded.
It did not surprise me that on learning of our experience the priestshould determine on an immediate departure from Helvoetsluys. But wherehe was to go was more than he could readily decide. He proposed andrejected a score of places--Bordeaux, Flanders, the Hague, Katwykfarther up the coast, and many others--weighing the advantages of each,enumerating his acquaintances in each, discovering on further thoughtthat each and every one of them had some feature unfavourable to hisconcealment from the Jesuits.
"You would be as long tuning your pipes as another would be playing atune," said Kilbride at last. "There's one thing sure of it, that youcannot be going anywhere the now without Mr. Greig and myself, and whatails you at Dunkerque in which we have all of us acquaintances?"
A season ago the suggestion would have set my heart in flame; but nowit left me cold. Yet I backed up the proposal, for I reflected that(keeping away from the Rue de la Boucherie) we might there be among agood many friends. Nor was his reverence ill to influence in favour ofthe proposal.
The next morning saw us, then, upon a hoy that sailed for Calais and wasbargained to drop us at Dunkerque.