by Joan Aiken
“It is a mob,” she soon reported.
“As usual,” commented her father, who was lying on his bed. “Pray, dearest—”
“Men in red caps shouting, ‘Down with the foreign spy!’”
“You do not think it is us they are after?” he said uneasily. “Are they coming this way?”
“No—no—they have got hold of somebody, but I cannot see who it is. Yes, they are bringing him this way. They are all dancing and yelling—it is like savages, indeed!” Juliana said, shivering. “They are shouting, ‘To be the Tree, to the Liberty Tree! Hang him up!’”
“Poor devil!” said her father with a shudder. “But there is nothing we can do.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Juliana in a tone of horror next minute. “It is the man who was so kind to you in the diligence, when you were sick! Oh, poor fellow, how terrible! How can they be such monsters?”
“Which man?”
“Why, our fellow traveler in the coach from Rennes—the Dane or German, or whatever he was, who gave you the cordial and was so kind and helpful when I was in despair because you seemed so ill I feared you were dying. Oh, how can they? I believe they do mean to hang him!”
“Well, that is very terrible,” said her father, “but I fear there is nothing in the world we can do to hinder them.”
Juliana thought otherwise.
“Well, I am going to try,” she asserted, and without wasting a moment she ran from the room, despite her father’s anguished shout of “Juliana! For God’s sake! Come back! You can do no good, and will only place yourself in terrible danger!”
Running into the street, Juliana saw that the mob had dragged the unfortunate victim of their disapproval some distance along, to a small place, where grew a plane tree which, for the time being, had been garlanded with knots of dirty red ribbon and christened the Liberty Tree. Toward this the wretched man was being dragged by his red-capped assailants.
“Spy! Agent of foreign tyrants! Hang him up!”
The man, who had struggled until he was exhausted, was looking half stunned, and as much dazed as alarmed by the sudden fate that had overtaken him. He was a tall, thickset individual, plainly but handsomely dressed in a suit of very fine gray cloth, with large square cuffs and large flaps to his pockets, and a very high white stock which had come untied in the struggle. His hat had been knocked off—so had his wig—revealing untidy brown hair, kept short in a Corinthian cut. A noose had been slung round his neck, and the manifest intention of the crowd was to haul him up and hang him from a branch of the tree, when Juliana ran across the cobbled place.
“Citizens!” she panted. “You should not be doing this!”
Luckily her French, due to a childhood in Geneva, was perfect, but it seemed to have little effect on the crowd.
“Mind your own business!” grunted one of the three men principally in charge of the operation, but another explained, “Yes, we should, Citizeness! The man is a spy.”
“He is not a spy—he is a doctor! And a very good doctor! He gave some medicine to my father that cured him of a terribly severe spasm. And my father is an important professor of Revolutionary History. Think if he had died, what the world would have lost. But this man saved him! Think what you are doing, Citizens! France cannot afford to lose a good doctor! Think of all the poor sick, suffering people!”
Juliana had raised her voice to its fullest extent in this impassioned appeal, and her words penetrated to the outer fringe of the crowd, which had come along mainly out of curiosity. She heard some encouraging cries of agreement.
“Ah, that is true! We can’t afford to waste a doctor. There are plenty of sick people in this town!” “Let him cure my Henri, who has had the suppuration on his leg for so long.” “My daughter’s quinsy!” “My father’s backache!” “Do not hang the doctor!” they all began to roar.
“Are you a doctor?” demanded a man who carried an enormous smith’s hammer.
The victim’s eyes met those of Juliana for a moment, and a curious spasm passed across his countenance; then he said firmly, “Certainly I am a doctor! If you have any sick people who need healing, I shall be happy to look after them. Just find me a room that will do as a surgery, and provide me with the materials I shall ask for.”
This suggestion proved so popular with the crowd that in five minutes the man was accommodated with a small parlor of the same inn where Juliana and her father were lodged. A large queue of persons instantly lined up, demanding attention, but before he would even listen to their symptoms, the gray-suited man demanded supplies of various medicaments, such as rhubarb, borage, wine, brandy, oil, egg white, orris root, antimony, cat’s urine, wood ash, and oak leaves. Some of these were not available, but others were supplied as circumstances permitted. He also asked for the services of “the young lady in brown” as a nurse and helper.
“You have gone halfway to saving my life, mademoiselle,” he muttered as the crowd chattered and jostled in the passageway outside the door. “Now do me the kindness to finish your task and help save the other half.”
“How do you mean, monsieur?”
“Help me devise some remedies for these ignorant peasants!”
“But—are you not, then—?”
“Hush! I am no more a doctor than that piebald horse across the street. But with your intelligent assistance and a little credulity from our friends outside, I hope that we may brush through.”
The next hour was one of the most terrifying and yet exhilarating that Juliana had ever lived through.
“What are your symptoms, Citizen?” she would inquire as each grimy, limping, hopeful figure came through the door. “Sore throat—difficulty in swallowing—pains in the knee—bad memory—trouble in passing water—”
Then she would hold a solemn discussion with the gray-coated man—he told her in a low voice and what she had now identified as a Dutch accent that his name was Frederick Welcker.
“Sore throat—hmm, hmm—white of egg with rosemary beaten into it—take that now, and suck the juice of three lemons at four-hourly intervals. Pound up a kilo of horseradish with olive oil, and apply half internally, half externally. A little cognac will not come amiss. Next?
“Toothache? Chew a dozen cloves, madame, and drink a liter of cognac.
“A bad toe? Wash it with vinegar, mademoiselle, and wrap a hank of cobwebs round it.”
Combining scraps of such treatments as she could remember having received herself in her rare illnesses with some of old Signora Fontini’s nostrums, remedies she had culled from The Vindication of King Charles I, and various ingenious but not always practicable suggestions provided by Herr Welcker, Juliana was able to supply each patient with something that at least, for the time being, sent him away hopeful and satisfied.
“Now what happens?” she asked breathlessly as the last sufferer (a boy with severely broken chilblains) hobbled away smelling of the goose grease that had been applied to his afflicted members.
“Now, mademoiselle, I have a moment’s breathing space. And, with the French mob, that is often sufficient. They are fickle and changeable; in a couple of hours they will have forgotten me and discovered some other victim,” replied Herr Welcker, washing off the goose grease in a finger bowl and fastidiously settling his white wristbands and stock.
“But what if the sick people are not all cured by tomorrow? They will come back and accuse us of being impostors,” pointed out Juliana, who was beginning to suffer from reaction, and to feel that her actions had been overimpulsive and probably very foolish indeed. What had she got herself into? Her despondency was increased when her father burst hastily into the room, exclaiming, “Juliana! There you are! I have been half over the village, searching for you—I was at my wits’ end with terror! Never—never do such a thing again! Rash—hasty—shatterbrained—”
“I am sorry, Papa! I am truly sorry!” Juliana was very ne
ar to tears, but Herr Welcker intervened promptly.
“I regret, sir, but I must beg to disagree with you! Your daughter’s cool and well-thought intercession indubitably saved my life—for which I cannot help but be heartily grateful—and was, furthermore, the most consummate piece of quick thinking and shrewd acting that it has been my good fortune to witness! Thanks to her, I am now in a fair way to get back to England, instead of hanging from a withered bough on that dismal scrawny growth they are pleased to call the Liberty Tree.”
“England?” said Juliana in surprise. “I thought you were a Hollander, sir?”
“So I am, but England is my country of residence.”
Charles Elphinstone brightened a little at these words.
“If you are bound for England, sir—as we are, likewise—perhaps you can give me information as to what ships are sailing from St.-Malo?”
Herr Welcker looked at him with a wry grin.
“Ships from St.-Malo? You are hoping for a ship? I fear, sir, your hopes are due to be dashed. No ships are sailing at present. Those wretched devils of Frogs have closed the port.”
“Then—” gasped Juliana’s father. “My god! We are trapped! Fixed in France! Heaven help us, what can we do?”
He tottered to a chair and sank on it, looking haggardly at the other two occupants of the small room. But Herr Welcker, strangely enough, did not seem too dispirited.
“Well, I’ll tell you!” he said. “Damme if I haven’t got a soft spot for you two, after the young lady stood up for me with such spunk. Pluck to the backbone you are, my dear. I’ll take you both with me—though,” he added puzzlingly, “it will mean throwing out some of the Gobelins, half a dozen of the Limoges, and most of the wallpaper too, I shouldn’t wonder. Devilish bulky stuff!”
“Sir? I don’t understand you.”
“Walls have ears,” said Herr Welcker. “Let us all take a stroll out of the town. And if you have any luggage that can be carried in a handbag, fetch it along. The rest will have to remain here.”
“What?” gasped Mr. Elphinstone. “Leave my books? My Horace—my Livy—my Montefiume’s Apologia—Dieudonné’s History of the Persian Empire in fourteen volumes? Leave them behind?”
Herr Welcker shrugged.
“Stay with them if you please,” he said. “Otherwise it’s bring what you can carry. I daresay the innkeeper will look after your things faithfully enough if you leave a few francs in a paper on top—you can come back for the books when the war’s over! Who wants a lot of plaguey books? The Frogs don’t, for sure. Unlettered, to a man… Well, are you coming, or not?”
Anguished, Mr. Elphinstone hesitated, then sighed and said, “Well, Juliana, my dear, if you will carry my own Vindication, I daresay I could make shift to bring along a few of my most treasured volumes. We shall just have to leave our clothes behind. I collect, sir, that you have at your disposal an air balloon?”
“You collect rightly,” said Herr Welcker.
Three
By good fortune, the evening was a foggy one. Juliana, though apprehensive as to the effect of the moist, chill air on her father’s delicate frame, could not but be grateful for the cloudy dimness as the three foreigners made their way, silently, and taking pains to avoid notice, toward the edge of the village. Herr Welcker walked a hundred yards ahead, not too fast, and Juliana and her father followed in a strolling, loitering manner, gazing about them at the cottages and the cabbage gardens and the wide bay of St.-Malo, as if their only intention were to view the scene and to enjoy the evening air. Luckily there were few people abroad in the street; most of the village population, it seemed, had repaired to the Liberty Tree to dance around it, drink cheap red wine, and sing revolutionary songs. The fugitives’ exit from the village was achieved without mishap—due, partly, to the prudence of Herr Welcker, who led them away from the main road and onto a small muddy, brambly path which ran off between the vegetable plots and then up a wooded slope, the steepness of which made Mr. Elphinstone pause, after a while, and gasp for breath, his hand to his side.
“Papa? Are you in pain?” exclaimed Juliana in an anguished whisper. “Here—let me carry your bundle. Pray try not to cough!”
“It is nothing, child—it will pass.” And in a moment he continued on his way. Coming up with Herr Welcker at last, they found themselves in what seemed a large, saddle-shaped meadow at the top of the hill. They discovered him in low-voiced conversation with another man, a black-cloaked individual with a hood pulled low over his face. Juliana noticed also a cart, a tethered horse, and a complicated arrangement of guy ropes, dimly visible in the haze, wavering upward into obscurity.
“Deuce take it, there’s very little wind,” Herr Welcker was muttering discontentedly. “You do not think, Gavroche, that the plaguey machine will deposit us in mid-Channel? Or merely carry us up the coast to Normandy?”
“Have no fear, monsieur. There is a good southeast wind behind this fog—your craft will bear you to England swiftly enough. Only, make haste to embark! Your cargo is all packed in, and there is no time to be lost—at any minute a shift in the mist might render us visible to some native of the locality or fisherman in the bay.”
“I have brought two more passengers,” said Herr Welcker. “We shall have to remove some of the goods.”
“Monsieur! Have you taken leave of your senses? After all the trouble you took to collect—”
“Hush! It cannot be helped. Without the aid of these two, I should not be here at all. Quick, let us see what can be most easily displaced. The Petitot snuffboxes, for a start—he doesn’t care for those above half—the smaller Buhl cabinet—some of the Gobelins—not the Sèvres—”
Arguing, the two men disappeared up a rope ladder into the gloom, leaving Juliana and her father below with the horse, which dropped its head and cropped in a dispirited manner at the poor pasturage, while the mooring ropes creaked and strained.
“Very good—I think that will do—”
Welcker was out of sight above, but he was evidently passing canvas-wrapped bundles to the other man, who, dangling on the ladder, received them from him; Juliana, running forward, called softly, “Pass them down to me, monsieur! I will catch them!”
“Mind yourself, mademoiselle! They are heavy. Above all, do not let them fall—though, what does it matter? Oh, the Limoges!” he exclaimed in anguish.
“When I think of the pains that Monsieur went to in order to acquire those—”
“Quiet, Gavroche!” A shift in the mist revealed Herr Welcker’s round pink face looking authoritatively over the side of what looked like a very large laundry basket or vegetable farmer’s hamper, floating above them in the haze. “Good, that will do! Tell the young lady and the gentleman that they may come up, and to make haste—I think I hear voices in the distance.”
Juliana obliged her father to go first up the ladder, although he was most unwilling. The exertion of climbing up was almost too much for his strength, and the process took many precious minutes, while he clung to the ropes with shaking hands, gasping and coughing. Fortunately Herr Welcker, although so plump, appeared to possess a powerful frame; leaning over the side, at some risk to himself, he more or less hoisted the unfortunate Mr. Elphinstone bodily into the basket, assisted by the man Gavroche, who pushed from below. Then the bundles of books were passed up.
“Now you, mademoiselle—make haste! The voices are coming closer!”
Impelled by fright, Juliana tucked up her skirts and managed the undignified ascent as speedily as she could. Behind her she heard the vague shouts become closer and more menacing.
“Yonder! Ah, look yonder! It is the strangers—it is the spies! A bas les scélérats! A la lanterne! Quick, quick—they are attempting to escape!”
Careless of decorum, Juliana tumbled over the side into the basket. Louder than the voices of the mob, as she did so, came three sharp twangs from below.
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br /> “Good, Gavroche has cut the mooring ropes,” remarked Herr Welcker, looking over the side.
“But what will happen to him? Is he not coming with us?” gasped Juliana.
“No. He will outdistance them easily enough—he has the horse, which was once the best of poor Chateaumacenay’s stud—none of these ragamuffins has any beast that can possibly overtake him… Capital, he is away,” he added calmly, and Juliana heard the rattle of hoofs across the turf. “Pity about the Limoges—never mind! But for you, miss, I should be dead as mutton by now, and I value my neck above a parcel of Limoges. Ah, there they come!”
Juliana by now had scrambled herself upright in the narrow, packed space available, and, looking over, she saw many dim figures with lanterns, and waving weapons, directly below where they themselves hung suspended. White faces gaped upward.
“’Send they have no muskets,” Herr Welcker muttered uneasily. “One bullet through the envelope, and we should be laughing on the other side of our faces… Aha, though, Gavroche was right: here comes the breeze.”
The basket that contained them tipped, swayed, and bore off in a northerly direction. Yells of baffled fury burst from the fog-shrouded group down below. Pikes and reaping hooks were shaken; a few stones whistled past and one or two fell in the basket.
Juliana’s father let out a sharp cry as he was struck by a stone on the temple.
“Oh, dear Papa, are you injured? Here, let me see? Shut your eyes—I will bathe it—I have my vinaigrette in my pocket.” Crouching by him, she ministered to him as best she could, wiping the wound with her handkerchief. It proved to be only a graze. There was remarkably little space for them all in the basket, which, perhaps four feet in diameter, contained, as well as themselves, a great number of canvas-wrapped packages of every shape and size.
“Pray observe particular care not to step on the ones marked with red chalk,” Herr Welcker admonished his passengers. “They contain the breakables—the Lim—ah no, we have left that behind!—the Sèvres, the crystal lusters for His Highness’s chandeliers, the Duc de Cévennes’s Ming—”