THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD
Words so reckless fairly shook the three men out of their anger.
For a moment they glared at me as if they had seen a ghost. Then the wine merchant clapped his hand on the table.
'That is enough,' he said, with a look at his companions. 'I think that there can be no mistake about that. As damnable treason as ever I heard whispered! I congratulate you, sir, on your boldness. As for you,' he continued, turning with an ugly sneer to the landlord, 'I shall know now the company you keep! I was not aware that my wine wet whistles to such a tune!'
But if he was startled, the innkeeper was furious, seeing his character thus taken away; and, being at no time a man of many words, he vented his rage exactly in the way I wished, raising in a twinkling such an uproar as can scarcely be conceived. With a roar like a bull's, he ran headlong at the table, and overturned it on the top of me. Fortunately the woman saved the lamp, and fled with it into a corner, whence she and the man from the Chateau watched the skirmish in silence; but the pewter cups and platters flew spinning across the floor, while the table pinned me to the ground among the ruins of my stool. Having me at this disadvantage--for at first I made no resistance the landlord began to belabour me with the first thing he snatched up, and when I tried to defend myself, cursed me with each blow for a treacherous rogue and a vagrant. Meanwhile the three merchants, delighted with the turn things had taken, skipped round us laughing, and now hounded him on, now bantered me with 'how is that for the Duke of Orleans?' and 'How now, traitor?'
When I thought that this had lasted long enough--or, to speak more plainly, when I could stand the innkeeper's drubbing no longer--I threw him off, and struggled to my feet; but still, though the blood was trickling down my face, I refrained from drawing my sword. I caught up instead a leg of the stool which lay handy, and, watching my opportunity, dealt the landlord a shrewd blow under the ear, which laid him out in a moment on the wreck of his own table.
'Now,' I cried, brandishing my new weapon, which fitted the hand to a nicety, 'come on! Come on! if you dare to strike a blow, you peddling, truckling, huckstering knaves! A fig for you and your shaveling Cardinal!'
The red-faced wine merchant drew his sword in a one-two.
'Why, you drunken fool,' he said wrathfully, 'put that stick down, or I will spit you like a lark!'
'Lark in your teeth!' I cried, staggering as if the wine were in my head. 'And cuckoo, too! Another word, and I--'
He made a couple of savage passes at me, but in a twinkling his sword flew across the room.
'VOILA!' I shouted, lurching forward, as if I had luck and not skill to thank for my victory. 'Now, the next! Come on, come on--you white-livered knaves!' And, pretending a drunken frenzy, I flung my weapon bodily amongst them, and seizing the nearest, began to wrestle with him.
In a moment they all threw themselves upon me, and, swearing copiously, bore me back to the door. The wine merchant cried breathlessly to the woman to open it, and in a twinkling they had me through it, and half-way across the road. The one thing I feared was a knife-thrust in the MELEE; but I had to run that risk, and the men were honest, and, thinking me drunk, indulgent.
In a trice I found myself on my back in the dirt, with my head humming; and heard the bars of the door fall noisily into their places.
I got up and went to the door, and, to play out my part, hammered on it frantically; crying out to them to let me in. But the three travellers only jeered at me, and the landlord, coming to the window, with his head bleeding, shook his fist at me, and cursed me for a mischief-maker.
Baffled in this, I retired to a log which lay in the road a few paces from the house, and sat down on it to await events. With torn clothes and bleeding face, hatless and covered with dirt, I was in little better case than my opponent. It was raining, too, and the dripping branches swayed over my head. The wind was in the south--the coldest quarter. I began to feel chilled and dispirited. If my scheme failed, I had forfeited roof and bed to no purpose, and placed future progress out of the question. It was a critical moment.
But at last that happened for which I had been looking. The door swung open a few inches, and a man came noiselessly out; it was quickly barred behind him. He stood a moment, waiting on the threshold and peering into the gloom; and seemed to expect to be attacked. Finding himself unmolested, however, and all quiet, he went off steadily down the street--towards the Chateau.
I let a couple of minutes go by, and then I followed. I had no difficulty in hitting on the track at the end of the street, but when I had once plunged into the wood, I found myself in darkness so intense that I soon strayed from the path, and fell over roots, and tore my clothes with thorns, and lost my temper twenty times before I found the path again. However, I gained the bridge at last, and thence caught sight of a light twinkling before me. To make for it across the meadow and terrace was an easy task; yet, when I had reached the door and had hammered upon it, I was so worn out, and in so sorry a plight that I sank down, and had little need to play a part, or pretend to be worse than I was.
For a long time no one answered. The dark house towering above me remained silent. I could hear, mingled with the throbbings of my heart, the steady croaking of the frogs in a pond near the stables; but no other sound. In a frenzy of impatience and disgust, I stood up again and hammered, kicking with my heels on the nail-studded door, and crying out desperately,--
'A MOI! A MOI!'
Then, or a moment later, I heard a remote door opened; footsteps as of more than one person drew near. I raised my voice and cried again,--'A MOI!'
'Who is there?' a voice asked.
'A gentleman in distress,' I answered piteously, moving my hands across the door. 'For God's sake open and let me in. I am hurt, and dying of cold.'
