The Firebrand
Page 6
CHAPTER VI
BROTHER HILARIO
At the great entrance gate they paused, uncertain which way to turn, forfrom the windows of the chapel a bright light shone forth upon the greywaste without, whitening alike the dark green creepers of the juniperand the pale yellow spears of the restless broom. But a chance encounterdecided the matter for them.
"Well, ah, my good sometime enemy," cried a shrill eager voice, "haveyou forgotten Etienne de Saint Pierre, and how we are to fight below thewindmill at Montmartre the first time you come to Paris?"
"Lord, it is the hare-brained Frenchman!" cried Rollo, yet with someglow of pleasure in his face. The very talk of fighting stirred him.
"Then there are a pair of you!" said John Mortimer, quietly, like a mandropping his fly into a pool on a clear evening.
"Eh, what's that?" angrily cried the Scot, but was diverted from furtherinquiry by the sight of a figure that darted forward out of the darknessof the wall.
A smallish slender man, dressed in a costume which would have recalledthe Barber of Seville, had it not been for the ecclesiastical robe thatsurmounted and as it were extinguished its silken gorgeousness. A greatcross of gold set with jewels swung at the young man's breast and wasupheld by links as large as those which sustain a lord mayor's badge ofoffice.
"Ah, I have renounced the world, my dear adversary," cried the new-comerenthusiastically, "as you will also. I am no longer Etienne de SaintPierre, but Brother Hilario, an unworthy novice of the Convent of theVirgin of Montblanch!"
"But, sir," cried Rollo Blair, "you cannot take up the religious lifewithout some small settlement with me. You are trysted to meet me withthe smallsword at the Buttes of Montmartre--you to fight for the honourof Senorita Concha of Sarria and I to make a hole in your skin for thesweet sake of little Peggy Ramsay, who broke my heart or ever I left thebonny woods o' Alyth to wander on this foreign shore!"
"Your claim I allow, my dear Sir Blair," cried the Frenchman, "but theeternal concerns of the soul come first, and I have beenwicked--wicked--so very wicked--or at least as wicked as my health(which is indifferent) would allow. But the holy Prior--the abbot--mineuncle, hath shown me the error of my ways!"
John Mortimer turned directly round till he faced the speaker.
"Odds bobs," he cried, "then after all there is a pair of them. _He isthis fellow's uncle too!_"
The Frenchman gazed at him amazed for a moment. Then he clapped his handfiercely on the place where his sword-hilt should have been, crying, "Iwould have you know, Monsieur, that the word of a Saint Pierre issacred. I carry in my veins the blood of kings!"
And he grappled fiercely for the missing sword-hilt, but his fingersencountering only the great jewelled cross of gold filigree work, heraised it to his lips with a sudden revulsion of feeling.
"Torrentes iniquitatis conturbaverunt me. Dolores inferni circumdederunt me."
He spoke these words solemnly, shaking his head as he did so.
"What! still harping on little Dolores?" cried Blair; "I thought littleConcha was your last--before Holy Church, I mean."
The little Frenchman was beneath the lamps and he looked up at the longlean Scot with a peculiarly sweet smile.
"Ah, you scoff," he said, "but you will learn--yes, you will learn. Myuncle, the Prior, will teach you. He will show you the Way, as he hasdone for me!"
"It may be so," retorted the Scot, darkly; "I only wish I could have achance at him. I think I could prove him all in the wrong abouttransubstantiation--that is, if I could keep my temper sufficientlylong.
"But," he added, "if it be a fair question to put to a novice and a holyman, how about the divine right of kings that you talked so much of onlya week ago, and especially what of Don Carlos, for whom you came tofight?"
"Ah, my good cousin Carlos, my dear cousin," cried Etienne Saint Pierre,waving his hands in the air vehemently, "his cause is as dear and sacredto this heart as ever. But now I will use in his behalf the sword of theSpirit instead of the carnal weapon I had meant to draw, in the cause ofthe Lord's anointed. I will _pray_ for the success of his arms nightand morning."
At this moment the colloquy at the abbey gate was broken up by asomewhat stout man, also in the garb of a novice, a long friar's robebeing girt uncomfortably tight about his waist. In his hand he held alantern.
"Monsieur--Brother Hilario, I mean--a thousand devils run away with methat ever I should speak such a shake-stick name to my master--the HolyPrior wishes to speak with you, and desires to know whether you wouldprefer a capon of Zaragoza or two Bordeaux pigeons in your _olla_to-night?"
"Come, that is more promising," cried the Scot; "we will gladly acceptof your invitation to dine with you and your uncle, and give him all thechance he wants to convert me to the religious life. We accept withpleasure--pleased, I am sure, to meet either the Saragossan capon or thetwo Bordeaux pigeons!"
"Invitation!" cried the astonished Brother Hilario. "Did I invite you?If so, I fear I took a liberty. I do not remember the circumstance."
"Do you doubt my word!" cried the Scot, with instant frowningtruculence. "I say the invitation was implied if not expressed, and bythe eyes of Peggy Ramsay, if you do not get us a couple of covers atyour uncle's table to-night, I will go straight to the Holy Prior andtell him all that I know of little Concha of Sarria, and your plot tocarry her off--a deal more, I opine, than you included in your lastconfession, most high-minded friar!"
"That was before my renunciation of the flesh," cried Saint Pierre,manifestly agitated.
The Scot felt his elbow touched.
"I was under her balcony with a letter last Friday, no further gone,sir," whispered the novice in the cord-begirt robe; "blessed angels helpme to get this nonsense out of his head, or it will be the death of us,and we will never night-hawk it on the Palais Royal again!"
"And on what pious principles do you explain the love-letter you sentlast Friday!" said Rollo, aloud. "What if I were to put it into thehands of your good uncle the Prior? If that were to happen, I warrantyou would never ride on one of the white abbey mules in the garb of thebrothers of Montblanch!"
The stout novice rubbed his hands behind his master's back, and grinnedfrom ear to ear. But the effect upon Saint Pierre was not quite whatRollo intended.
Instead of being astonished and quailing at his acuteness, the youngFrenchman suddenly fired up in the most carnal and unmonkish fashion.
"You have been making love to my little Concha yourself, you dirty Scotsrogue! I will have your life, monsieur! Guard yourself!"
"'_Your_ Concha'--do you say, Master Friar?" cried Blair; "and pray whogave you a right to have Conchas on your hands with the possessiveadjective before them? Is that permit included in your monkish articlesof association? Is adoration of pretty little Conchas set down in blackand red in your breviaries? Answer me that, sir!"
"No matter, monsieur," retorted the Frenchman; "I was a man before I wasa monk. Indeed, in the latter capacity I am not full-fledged yet. And Ihold you answerable if in anything you have offended against the ladyyou have named, or used arts to wile her heart from me!"
"I give you my word I never set eyes on the wench--but from what Ihear----"
"Stop there," cried the second novice; "be good enough to settle thatquestion later. For me, I must go back promptly with the answer aboutthe capon of Zaragoza and the two Bordeaux pigeons!"
The Scot looked at the Frenchman. The Frenchman looked at the Scot.
"As a compliment to the fair lady the Senorita Concha, say to my unclethe capon, Francois!" said the lover.
"And as a compliment to yourself, my dear Brother Hilario, say to hislordship _also_ the two Bordeaux pigeons!"
"_And_ the pigeons, Francois!" quoth the latest addition to thebrotherhood of Montblanch, with perfect seriousness.