some kind of movement in the stables of an Inn, he called. A stable boy sallied out with a lantern, and Thibault, forgetting for the moment that he was a lord, said: “Friend, could you show me a light for a moment? You would be doing me a service.”
“And that’s what you go and call a chap out of bed for?”—answered the stable-boy rudely. “Well, you are a nice sort of young’un, you are!” and turning his back on Thibault he was just going to re-enter the stable, when Thibault, perceiving that he had gone on a wrong tack, now raised his voice, calling out:
“Look here, sirrah, bring your lantern here and give me a light, or I’ll lay my whip across your back!”
“Ah! pardon, my lord!” said the stable-boy. “I did not see who it was I was speaking to.” And he immediately stood on tip-toe holding the lantern up as Thibault directed him:
Thibault unfolded the letter and read:
“My dear Raoul,
“The goddess Venus has certainly taken us under her protection. A grand hunt of some kind is to take place to-morrow out in the direction of Thury; I know no particulars about it, all I do know is, that he is going away this evening. You, therefore, start at nine o’clock, so as to be here at half-past ten. Come in by the way you know; someone whom you know will be awaiting you, and will bring you, you know where. Last time you came, I don’t mean to upbraid you, but it did seem to me you stayed a long time in the corridors.
“Jane.”
“Devil take it!” muttered Thibault.
“I beg your pardon, my lord?” said the stable-boy.
“Nothing, you lout, except that I do not require you any longer and you can go.”
“A good journey to you, my lord!” said the stable-boy, bowing to the ground, and he went back to his stable.
“Devil take it!” repeated Thibault, “the letter gives me precious little information, except that we are under the protection of the Goddess Venus, that he goes away this evening, that the Comtesse de Mont-Gobert expects me at half-past ten, and that her Christian name is Jane. As for the rest, I am to go in by the way I know, I shall be awaited by someone I know, and taken where I know.” Thibault scratched his ear, which is what everybody does, in every country of the world, when plunged into awkward circumstances. He longed to go and wake up the Lord of Vauparfond’s spirit, which was just now sleeping in Thibault’s body on Thibault’s bed; but, apart from the loss of time which this would involve, it might also cause considerable inconvenience, for the Baron’s spirit, on seeing its own body so near to it, might be taken with the desire of re-entering it. This would give rise to a struggle in which Thibault could not well defend himself without doing serious harm to his own person; some other way out of the difficulty must therefore be found. He had heard a great deal about the wonderful sagacity of animals, and had himself, during his life in the country, had occasion more than once to admire their instinct, and he now determined to trust to that of his horse. Riding back into the main road, he turned the horse in the direction of Mont-Gobert, and let it have its head. The horse immediately started off at a gallop; it had evidently understood. Thibault troubled himself no further, it was now the horse’s affair to bring him safely to his destination. On reaching the corner of the park wall the animal stopped, not apparently because it was in doubt as to which road to take, but something seemed to make it uneasy, and it pricked its ears. At the same time, Thibault also fancied that he caught sight of two shadows; but they must have been only shadows, for although he stood up in his stirrups and looked all around him, he could see absolutely nothing. They were probably poachers he thought, who had reasons like himself for wishing to get inside the park. There being no longer anything to bar his passage, he had only, as before, to let the horse go its own way, and he accordingly did so. The horse followed the walls of the park at a quick trot, carefully choosing the soft edge of the road, and not uttering a single neigh; the intelligent animal seemed as if it knew that it must make no sound or at least as little sound as possible.
In this way, they went along the whole of one side of the park, and on reaching the corner, the horse turned as the wall turned, and stopped before a small breach in the same. “It’s through here, evidently,” said Thibault, “that we have to go.”
The horse answered by sniffing at the breach, and scraping the ground with its foot; Thibault gave the animal the rein, and it managed to climb up and through the breach, over the loose stones which rolled away beneath its hoof. Horse and rider were now within the park. One of the three difficulties had been successfully overcome: Thibault had got in by the way he knew; it now remained to find the person whom he knew, and he thought it wisest to leave this also to his horse. The horse went on for another five minutes, and then stopped at a short distance from the Castle, before the door of one of those little huts of rough logs and bark and clay, which are built up in parks, as painters introduce buildings into their landscapes, solely for the sake of ornament.
On hearing the horse’s hoofs, someone partly opened the door, and the horse stopped in front of it.
A pretty girl came out, and asked in a low voice, “Is it you, Monsieur Raoul?”
“Yes, my child, it is I,” answered Thibault, dismounting.
“Madame was terribly afraid that drunken fool of a Champagne might not have given you the letter.”
“She need not have been afraid; Champagne brought it me with the most exemplary punctuality.”
“Leave your horse then and come.”
“But who will look after it?”
“Why Cramoisi, of course, the man who always does.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure,” said Thibault, as if these details were familiar to him, “Cramoisi will look after it.”
“Come, come,” said the maid, “we must make haste or Madame will complain again that we loiter in the corridors.” And as she spoke these words, which recalled a phrase in the letter which had been written to Raoul, she laughed, and showed a row of pearly white teeth, and Thibault felt that he should like to loiter in the park, before waiting to get into the corridors.
Then the maid suddenly stood still a moment with her head bent, listening.
“What is it?” asked Thibault.
“I thought I heard the sound of a branch creaking under somebody’s foot.”
“Very likely,” said Thibault, “no doubt Cramoisi’s foot.”
“All the more reason that you should be careful what you do ... at all events out here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you not know that Cramoisi is the man I am engaged to?”
“Ah! to be sure! But when I am alone with you, my dear Rose, I always forget that.”
“I am called Rose now, am I! I never knew such a forgetful man as you are, Monsieur Raoul.”
“I call you Rose, my pretty one, because the rose is the queen of flowers, as you are the queen of waiting-maids.”
“In good truth, my Lord,” said the maid, “I have always found you a lively, witty gentleman, but you surpass yourself this evening.”
Thibault drew himself up, flattered by this remark—really a letter addressed to the Baron, but which it had fallen to the shoe-maker to unseal.
“Let us hope your mistress will think the same!” he said.
“As to that,” said the waiting maid, “any man can make one of these ladies of fashion think him the cleverest and wittiest in the world, simply by holding his tongue.”
“Thank you,” he said, “I will remember what you say.”
“Hush!” said the woman to Thibault, “there is Madame behind the dressing-room curtains; follow me now staidly.”
For