Part 48

Still he did not move to do my bidding, but continued to rub his bald head and stare at me as if I fascinated him. "Well, I am--I mean--I think we are full," he stammered at last, with his eyes like saucers.

I replied, with some impatience, that he had just said that he had a room; adding, that if I was not in it and comfortably settled before five minutes were up I would know the reason. I thought that this would settle the matter, whatever maggot had got into the man's head; and, in a way, it did so, for he begged my pardon hastily, and made way for me to enter, calling, at the same time, to a lad who was standing by, to attend to the horses. But when we were inside the door, instead of showing me through the kitchen to my room, he muttered something, and hurried away; leaving me to wonder what was amiss with him, and why the loungers outside, who had listened with all their ears to our conversation, had come in after us as far as they dared, and were regarding us with an odd mixture of suspicion and amusement.

The landlord remained long away, and seemed, from sounds that came to my ears, to be talking with someone in a distant room. At length, however, he returned, bearing a candle and followed by a serving-man. I asked him roughly why he had been so long, and began to rate him; but he took the words out of my mouth by his humility, and going before me through the kitchen--where his wife and two or three maids who were about the fire stopped to look at us, with the basting spoons in their hands--he opened a door which led again into the outer air.

"It is across the yard," he said apologetically, as he went before, and opening a second door, stood aside for us to enter. "But it is a good room, and, if you please, a fire shall be lighted. The shutters are closed," he continued, as we passed him, Maignan and La Trape carrying my baggage, "but they shall be opened. Hallo! Pierre! Pierre, there! Open these shut--"

On the word his voice rose--and broke; and in a moment the door, through which we had all passed unsuspecting, fell to with a crash behind us. Before we could move we heard the bars drop across it. A little before, La Trape had taken a candle from someone's hand to light me the better; and therefore we were not in darkness. But the light this gave only served to impress on us what the falling bars and the rising sound of voices outside had already told us--that we were outwitted! We were prisoners.

The room in which we stood, looking foolishly at one another, was a great barn-like chamber, with small windows high in the unplaistered walls. A long board set on trestles, and two or three stools placed round it--on the occasion, perhaps, of some recent festivity--had for a moment deceived us, and played the landlord's game.

In the first shock of the discovery, hearing the bars drop home, we stood gaping, and wondering what it meant. Then Maignan, with an oath, sprang to the door and tried it--fruitlessly.

I joined him more at my leisure, and raising my voice, asked angrily what this folly meant. "Open the door there! Do you hear, landlord?" I cried.

No one moved, though Maignan continued to rattle the door furiously.

"Do you hear?" I repeated, between anger and amazement at the fix in which we had placed ourselves. "Open!"

But, although the murmur of voices outside the door grew louder, no one answered, and I had time to take in the full absurdity of the position; to measure the height; of the windows with my eye and plumb the dark shadows under the rafters, where the feebler rays of our candle lost themselves; to appreciate, in a word, the extent of our predicament. Maignan was furious, La Trape vicious, while my own equanimity scarcely supported me against the thought that we should probably be where we were until the arrival of my people, whom I had directed my wife to send to Le Mesnil at noon next day. Their coming would free us, indeed, but at the cost of ridicule and laughter. Never was man worse placed.

Wincing at the thought, I bade Maignan be silent; and, drumming on the door myself, I called for the landlord. Someone who had been giving directions in a tone of great, consequence ceased speaking, and came close to the door. After listening a moment, he struck it with his hand.

"Silence, rogues!" he cried. "Do you hear? Silence there, unless you want your ears nailed to the post."

"Fool!" I answered. "Open the door instantly! Are you all mad here, that you shut up the King's servants in this way?"

"The King's servants!" he cried, jeering at us. "Where are they?"

"Here!" I answered, swallowing my rage as well as I might. "I am M. Gringuet's deputy, and if you do not this instant--"

"M. Gringuet's deputy! Ho! ho!" he said. "Why, you fool, M. Gringuet's deputy arrived two hours before you. You must get up a little earlier another time. They are poor tricksters who are too late for the fair. And now be silent, and it may save you a stripe or two to-morrow."

There are situations in which even the greatest find it hard to maintain their dignity, and this was one. I looked at Maignan and La Trape, and they at me, and by the light of the lanthorn which the latter held I saw that they were smiling, doubtless at the dilemma in which we had innocently placed ourselves. But I found nothing to laugh at in the position; since the people outside might at any moment leave us where we were to fast until morning; and, after a moment's reflection, I called out to know who the speaker on the other side was.

"I am M. de Fonvelle," he answered.

"Well, M. de Fonvelle," I replied, "I advise you to have a care what you do. I am M. Gringuet's deputy. The other man is an impostor."

He laughed.

"He has no papers," I cried.

"Oh, yes, he has!" he answered, mocking me. "M. Curtin has seen them, my fine fellow, and he is not one to pay money without warrant."

At this several laughed, and a quavering voice chimed in with "Oh, yes, he has papers! I have seen them. Still, in a case--"

"There!" M. Fonvelle cried, drowning the other's words. "Now are you satisfied--you in there?"

But M. Curtin had not done. "He has papers," he piped again in his thin voice.

"Still, M. de Fonvelle, it is well to be cautious, and--"

"Tut, tut! it is all right."