The Long Night Read online

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  THE LONG NIGHT

  BYSTANLEY WEYMAN

  AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC.

  _SECOND IMPRESSION_

  LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON AND BOMBAY 1903

  WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN.

  The House of the Wolf. The New Rector. The Story of Francis Cludde. A Gentleman of France. The Man in Black. Under the Red Robe. My Lady Rotha. The Red Cockade. Shrewsbury. Sophia. The Castle Inn. From the Memoirs of a Minister of France. Count Hannibal. In Kings' Byways. The Long Night.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. A Student of Theology 1 II. The House on the Ramparts 16 III. The Quintessential Stone 31 IV. Caesar Basterga 45 V. The Elixir Vitae 59 VI. To Take or Leave 74 VII. A Second Tissot 88 VIII. On the Threshold 102 IX. Melusina 116 X. Auctio Fit: Venit Vita 129 XI. By This or That 143 XII. The Cup and the Lip 157 XIII. A Mystery Solved 172 XIV. "And Only One Dose in all the World!" 185 XV. On the Bridge 200 XVI. A Glove and What Came of It 215 XVII. The _Remedium_ 227 XVIII. The Bargain Struck 242 XIX. The Departure of the Rats 257 XX. In the Darkened Room 271 XXI. The _Remedium_ 285 XXII. Two Nails in the Wall 301 XXIII. In Two Characters 318 XXIV. Armes! Armes! 335 XXV. Basterga at Argos 350 XXVI. The Dawn 365

  CHAPTER I.

  A STUDENT OF THEOLOGY.

  They were about to shut the Porte St. Gervais, the north gate of Geneva.The sergeant of the gate had given his men the word to close; but at thelast moment, shading his eyes from the low light of the sun, he happenedto look along the dusty road which led to the Pays de Gex, and he badethe men wait. Afar off a traveller could be seen hurrying two donkeystowards the gate, with now a blow on this side, and now on that, and nowa shrill cry. The sergeant knew him for Jehan Brosse, the bandy-leggedtailor of the passage off the Corraterie, a sound burgher and a good manwhom it were a shame to exclude. Jehan had gone out that morning tofetch his grapes from Moeens; and the sergeant had pity on him.

  He waited, therefore; and presently he was sorry that he had waited.Behind Jehan, a long way behind him, appeared a second wayfarer; a youngman covered with dust who approached rapidly on long legs, a bundlejumping and bumping at his shoulders as he ran. The favour of the gatewas not for such as he--a stranger; and the sergeant anxious to bar, yetunwilling to shut out Jehan, watched his progress with disgust. As hefeared, too, it turned out. Young legs caught up old ones: the strangerovertook Jehan, overtook the donkeys. A moment, and he passed under thearch abreast of them, a broad smile of acknowledgment on his heatedface. He appeared to think that the gate had been kept open out ofkindness to him.

  And to be grateful. The war with Savoy--Italian Savoy which, like anoctopus, wreathed clutching arms about the free city of Geneva--had cometo an end some months before. But a State so small that the frontier ofits inveterate enemy lies but two short leagues from its gates, has needof watch and ward, and curfews and the like, so that he was fortunatewho found the gates of Geneva open after sunset in that year, 1602; andthe stranger seemed to know this.

  As the great doors clanged together and two of the watch wound up thecreaking drawbridge, he turned to the sergeant, the smile still on hisface. "I feared that you would shut me out!" he panted, still holdinghis sides. "I would not have given much for my chance of a bed a minuteago."

  The sergeant answered only by a grunt.

  "If this good fellow had not been in front----"

  This time the sergeant cut him short with an imperious gesture, and theyoung man seeing that the guard also had fallen stiffly into rank,turned to the tailor. He was overflowing with good nature: he must speakto some one. "If you had not been in front," he began, "I----"

  But the tailor also cut him short--frowning and laying his finger to hislip and pointing mysteriously to the ground. The stranger stooped tolook more closely, but saw nothing: and it was only when the othersdropped on their knees that he understood the hint and hastened tofollow the example. The soldiers bent their heads while the sergeantrecited a prayer for the safety of the city. He did this reverently,while the evening light--which fell grey between walls and sobered thosewho had that moment left the open sky and the open country--cast itssolemn mantle about the party.

  Such was the pious usage observed in that age at the opening and theclosing of the gates of Geneva: nor had it yet sunk to a form. Thenearness of the frontier and the shadow of those clutching arms, everextended to smother the free State, gave a reality to the faith of thosewho opened and shut, and with arms in their hands looked back on tenyears of constant warfare. Many a night during those ten years hadGeneva gazed from her watch-towers on burning farms and smoulderinghomesteads; many a day seen the smoke of Chablais hamlets float a darktrail across her lake. What wonder if, when none knew what a night mightbring forth, and the fury of Antwerp was still a new tale in men's ears,the Genevese held Providence higher and His workings more near than menare prone to hold them in happier times?

  Whether the stranger's reverent bearing during the prayer gained thesergeant's favour, or the sword tied to his bundle and the bulgingcorners of squat books which stuffed out the cloak gave a new notion ofhis condition, it is certain that the officer eyed him more kindly whenall rose from their knees. "You can pass in now, young sir," he saidnodding. "But another time remember, if you please, the earlier here thewarmer welcome!"

  "I will bear it in mind," the young traveller answered, smiling."Perhaps you can tell me where I can get a night's lodging?"

  "You come to study, perhaps?" The sergeant puffed himself out as hespoke, for the fame of Geneva's college and its great professor,Theodore Beza, was a source of glory to all within the city walls.Learning, too, was a thing in high repute in that day. The learnedtongues still lived and were passports opening all countries toscholars. The names of Erasmus and Scaliger were still in the mouths ofmen.

  "Yes," the youth answered, "and I have the name of a lodging in which Ihope to place myself. But for to-night it is late, and an inn were moreconvenient."

  "Go then to the 'Bible and Hand,'" the sergeant answered. "It is adecent house, as are all in Geneva. If you think to find here aroistering, drinking, swearing tavern, such as you'd find in Dijon----"

  "I come to study, not to drink," the young man answered eagerly.

  "Well, the 'Bible and Hand,' then! It will answer your purpose well.Cross the bridge and go straight on. It is in the Bourg du Four."

  The youth thanked him with a pleased air, and turning his back on thegate proceeded briskly towards the heart of the city. Though it was notSunday the inhabitants were pouring out from the evening preaching asplentifully as if it had been the first day of the week; and as hescanned their grave and thoughtful faces--faces not seldom touched withsternness or the scars of war--as he passed between the gabledsteep-roofed houses and marked their order and cleanliness, as he sawabove him and above them the two great towers of the cathedral, he felta youthful fervour and an enthusiasm not to be comprehended in our age.

  To many of us the name and memory of Geneva stand for anything butf
reedom. But to the Huguenot of that generation and day, the name ofGeneva stood for freedom; for a fighting aggressive freedom, a fullfreedom in the State, a sober measured freedom in the Church. The citywas the outpost, southwards, of the Reformed religion and the Reformedlearning; it sowed its ministers over half Europe, and where they went,they spread abroad not only its doctrines but its praise and its honour.If, even to the men of that day there appeared at times a something toostiff in its attitude, a something too near the Papal in its decrees,they knew with what foes and against what odds it fought, and how littleconsistent with the ferocity of that struggle were the compromises oflife or the courtesies of the lists.

  At any rate, in some such colours as these, framed in such a halo,Claude Mercier saw the Free City as he walked its narrow streets thatevening, seeking the "Bible and Hand". In some such colours had hisfather, bred under Calvin to the ministry, depicted it: and the youngman, half French, half Vaudois, sought nothing better, set nothinghigher, than to form a part of its life, and eventually to contribute toits fame. Good intentions and honest hopes tumbled over one another inhis brain as he walked. The ardour of a new life, to be begun this day,possessed him. He saw all things through the pure atmosphere of his ownhappy nature: and if it remained to him to discover how Geneva wouldstand the test of a closer intimacy, at this moment, the youth took thecity to his heart with no jot of misgiving. To follow in the steps ofTheodore Beza, a Frenchman like himself and gently bred, to devotehimself, in these surroundings to the Bible and the Sword, and find inthem salvation for himself and help for others--this seemed an endsimple and sufficing: the end too, which all men in Geneva appeared tohim to be pursuing that summer evening.

  By-and-by a grave citizen, a psalm-book in his hand, directed him to theinn in the Bourg du Four; a tall house turning the carved ends of twosteep gables to the street. On either side of the porch a long lowcasement suggested the comfort that was to be found within; nor was thepledge unfulfilled. In a trice the student found himself seated at ashining table before a simple meal and a flagon of cool white wine witha sprig of green floating on the surface. His companions were twomerchants of Lyons, a vintner of Dijon, and a taciturn, soberly cladprofessor. The four elders talked gravely of the late war, of theprevalence of drunkenness in Zurich, of a sad case of witchcraft atBasle, and of the state of trade in Lausanne and the Pays de Vaud; whilethe student, listening with respect, contrasted the quietude of thishouse, looking on the grey evening street, with the bustle and chatterand buffoonery of the inns at which he had lain on his way fromChatillon. He was in a mood to appraise at the highest all about him,from the demure maid who served them to the cloaked burghers who fromtime to time passed the window wrapped in meditation. From a house hardby the sound of the evening psalms came to his ears. There are moods andplaces in which to be good seems of the easiest; to err, a thingwell-nigh impossible.

  The professor was the first to rise and retire; on which the twomerchants drew up their seats to the table with an air of relief. Thevintner looked after the retreating figure. "Of Lausanne, I shouldjudge?" he said, with a jerk of the elbow.

  "Probably," one of the others answered.

  "Is he not of Geneva, then?" our student asked. He had listened withinterest to the professor's talk and between whiles had wondered if itwould be his lot to sit under him.

  "No, or he would not be here!" one of the merchants replied, shrugginghis shoulders.

  "Why not, sir?"

  "Why not?" The merchant fixed the questioner with eyes of surprise."Don't you know, young man, that those who live in Geneva may notfrequent Geneva taverns?"

  "Indeed?" Mercier answered, somewhat startled. "Is that so?"

  "It is very much so," the other returned with something of a sneer.

  "And they do not!" quoth the vintner with a faint smile.

  "Well, professors do not!" the merchant answered with a grimace. "I saynothing of others. Let the Venerable Company of Pastors see to it. It istheir business."

  At this point the host brought in lights. After closing the shutters hewas in the act of retiring when a door near at hand--on the farther sideof the passage if the sound could be trusted--flew open with a clatter.Its opening let out a burst of laughter, nor was that the worst: alas,above the laughter rang an oath--the ribald word of some one who hadcaught his foot in the step.

  The landlord uttered an exclamation and went out hurriedly, closing thedoor behind him. A moment and his voice could be heard, scolding andpersuading in the passage.

  "Umph!" the vintner muttered, looking from one to the other with ahumorous eye. "It seems to me that the Venerable Company of Pastors havenot yet expelled the old Adam."

  Open flew the door and cut short the word. But it had been heard,"Pastors?" a raucous voice cried. "Passers and Flinchers is what I callthem!" And a stout heavy man, whose small pointed grey beard did butemphasise the coarse virility of the face above it, appeared on thethreshold, glaring at the four. "Pastors?" he repeated defiantly."Passers and Flinchers, I say!"

  "In Heaven's name, Messer Grio!" the landlord protested, hovering at hisshoulder, "these are strangers----"

  "Strangers? Ay, and flinchers, they too!" the intruder retorted,heedless of the remonstrance. And he lurched into the room, a bulky,reeling figure in stained green and tarnished lace. "Four flinchers! ButI'll make them drink a cup with me or I'll prick their hides! Do youthink we shed blood for you and are to be stinted of our liquor!"

  "Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" the landlord cried, wringing his hands. "Youwill be my ruin!"

  "No fear!"

  "But I do fear!" the host retorted sharply, going so far as to lay ahand on his shoulder. "I do fear." Behind the man in green hisboon-fellows, flushed with drink, had gathered, and were staring halfcurious, half in alarm into the room. The landlord turned and appealedto them. "For Heaven's sake get him away quietly!" he muttered. "I shalllose my living if this be known. And you will suffer too! Gentlemen," heturned to the party at the table, "this is a quiet house, a quiet housein general, but----"

  "Tut-tut!" said the vintner good-naturedly. "We'll drink a cup with thegentleman if he wishes it!"

  "You'll drink or be pricked!" quoth Messer Grio; he was one of those whogrow offensive in their cups. And while his friends laughed, he swishedout a sword of huge length, and flourished it. "Ca! Ca! Now let me seeany man refuse his liquor!"

  The landlord groaned, but thinking apparently that soonest broken wassoonest mended, he vanished, to return in a marvellously short space oftime with four tall glasses and a flask of Neuchatel. "'Tis good wine,"he muttered anxiously. "Good wine, gentlemen, I warrant you. And MesserGrio here has served the State, so that some little indulgence----"

  "What art muttering?" cried the bully, who spoke French with an accentnew and strange in the student's ears. "Let be! Let be, I say! Let themdrink, or be pricked!"

  The merchants and the vintner took their glasses without demur: and,perhaps, though they shrugged their shoulders, were as willing as theylooked. The young man hesitated, took with a curling lip the glass whichwas presented to him, and then, a blush rising to his eyes, pushed itfrom him.

  "'Tis good wine," the landlord repeated. "And no charge. Drink, youngsir, and----"

  "I drink not on compulsion!" the student answered.

  Messer Grio stared. "What?" he roared. "You----"

  "I drink not on compulsion," the young man repeated, and this time hespoke clearly and firmly. "Had the gentleman asked me courteously todrink with him, that were another matter. But----"

  "Sho!" the vintner muttered, nudging him in pure kindness. "Drink, man,and a fico for his courtesy so the wine be old! When the drink is in,the sense is out, and," lowering his voice, "he'll let you blood to acertainty, if you will not humour him."

  But the grinning faces in the doorway hardened the student in hisresolution. "I drink not on compulsion," he repeated stubbornly. And herose from his seat.

  "You drink not?" Grio exclaimed. "You drink not? Then by th
e living----"

  "For Heaven's sake!" the landlord cried, and threw himself between them."Messer Grio! Gentlemen!"

  But the bully, drunk and wilful, twitched him aside. "Under compulsion,eh!" he sneered. "You drink not under compulsion, don't you, my lad? Letme tell you," he continued with ferocity, "you will drink when I please,and where I please, and as often as I please, and as much as I please,you meal-worm! You half-weaned puppy! Take that glass, d'you hear, andsay after me, Devil take----"

  "Messer Grio!" cried the horrified landlord.

  "Devil take"--for a moment a hiccough gave him pause--"all flinchers!Take the glass, young man. That is well! I see you will come to it! Nowsay after me, Devil take----"

  "That!" the student retorted, and flung the wine in the bully's face.

  The landlord shrieked; the other guests rose hurriedly from their seats,and got aside. Fortunately the wine blinded the man for a moment, and herecoiled, spitting curses and darting his sword hither and thither inimpotent rage. By the time he had cleared his eyes the youth had got tohis bundle, and, freeing his blade, placed himself in a posture ofdefence. His face was pale, but with the pallor of excitement ratherthan of fear; and the firm set of his mouth and the smouldering fire inhis eyes as he confronted the drunken bravo, no less than the manner inwhich he handled his weapon, showed him as ready to pursue as he hadbeen hardy to undertake the quarrel.

  He gave proof of forethought, too. "Witness all, he drew first!" hecried; and his glance quitting Grio for the briefest instant sought tomeet the merchants' eyes. "I am on my defence. I call all here towitness that he has thrust this quarrel upon me!"

  The landlord wrung his hands. "Oh dear! oh dear!" he cried. "In Heaven'sname, gentlemen, put up! put up! Stop them! Will no one stop them!" Andin despair, seeing no one move to arrest them, he made as if he wouldstand between them.

  But the bully flourished his blade about his ears, and with a cry thegoodman saved himself "Out, skinker!" Grio cried grimly. "And you, sayyour prayers, puppy. Before you are five minutes older I will spit youlike a partridge though I cross the frontier for it. You have basted mewith wine! I will baste you after another fashion! On guard! On guard,and----"

  "_What is this?_"

  The voice stayed Grio's tongue and checked his foot in the very instantof assault. The student, watching his blade and awaiting the attack, wassurprised to see his point waver and drop. Was it a trick, he wondered?A stratagem? No, for a silence fell on the room, while those who heldthe floor hastened to efface themselves against the wall, as if they atany rate had nothing to do with the fracas. And next moment Grioshrugged his shoulders, and with a half-stifled curse stood back.

  "What is this?"

  The same question in the same tone. This time the student saw whosevoice it was had stayed Grio's arm. Within the door a pace in front oftwo or three attendants, who had displaced the roisterers on thethreshold, appeared a spare dry-looking man of middle height, wearinghis hat, and displaying a gold chain of office across the breast of hisblack velvet cloak. In age about sixty, he had nothing that at a firstglance seemed to call for a second: his small pinched features, and thedownward curl of the lip, which his moustache and clipped beard failedto hide, indicated a nature peevish and severe rather than powerful. Onnearer observation the restless eyes, keen and piercing, assertedthemselves and redeemed the face from insignificance. When, as on thisoccasion, their glances were supported by the terrors of the State, itwas not difficult to understand why Messer Blondel, the Syndic, thoughno great man to look upon, had both weight with the masses, and a holdnot to be denied over his colleagues in the Council.

  No one took on himself to answer the question he had put, and in a voicethin and querulous, but with a lurking venom in its tone, "What isthis?" the great man repeated, looking from one to another. "Are we inGeneva, or in Venice? Under the skirts of the scarlet woman, or wherethe magistrates bear not the sword in vain? Good Mr. Landlord, arethese your professions? Your bailmen should sleep ill to-night, for theyare likely to answer roundly for this! And whom have we sparking ithere? Brawling and swearing and turning into a profligate's tavern aplace that should be for the sober entertainment of travellers? Whomhave we here--eh! Let me see them! Ah!"

  He paused rather suddenly, as his eyes met Grio's: and a little of hisdignity fell from him with the pause. His manner underwent a subtlechange from the judicial to the paternal. When he resumed, he wagged hishead tolerantly, and a modicum of sorrow mingled with his anger. "Ah,Messer Grio! Messer Grio!" he said, "it is you, is it? For shame! Forshame! This is sad, this is lamentable! Some indulgence, it is true"--hecoughed--"may be due after late events, and to certain who have bornepart in them. But this goes too far! Too far by a long way!"

  "It was not I began it!" the bully muttered sullenly, a mixture ofbravado and apology in his bearing. He sheathed his blade, and thrustthe long scabbard behind him. "He threw a glass of wine in my face,Syndic--that is the truth. Is an old soldier who has shed blood forGeneva to swallow that, and give God thanks?"

  The Syndic turned to the student, and licked his lips, his features morepinched than usual. "Are these your manners?" he said. "If so, they arenot the manners of Geneva! Your name, young man, and your dwellingplace?"

  "My name is Claude Mercier, last from Chatillon in Burgundy," the youngman answered firmly. "For the rest, I did no otherwise than you, sir,must have done in my case!"

  The magistrate snorted. "I!"

  "Being treated as I was!" the young man protested. "He would have medrink whether I would or no! And in terms no man of honour could bear."

  "Honour?" the Syndic retorted, and on the word exploded in great wrath."Honour, say you? Then I know who is in fault. When men of your racetalk of honour 'tis easy to saddle the horse. I will teach you that weknow naught of honour in Geneva, but only of service! And naught ofpunctilios but much of modest behaviour! It is such hot blood as yoursthat is at the root of brawlings and disorders and such-like, to thescandal of the community: and to cool it I will commit you to the townjail until to-morrow! Convey him thither," he continued, turning sharplyto his followers, "and see him safely bestowed in the stocks. To-morrowI will hear if he be penitent, and perhaps, if he be in a coolertemper----"

  But the young man, aghast at this sudden disgrace, could be silent nolonger. "But, sir," he broke in passionately, "I had no choice. It wasno quarrel of my beginning. I did but refuse to drink, and when he----"

  "Silence, sirrah!" the Syndic cried, and cut him short. "You will dowell to be quiet!" And he was turning to bid his people bear theirprisoner out without more ado when one of the merchants ventured to putin a word.

  "May I say," he interposed timidly, "that until this happened, MesserBlondel, the young man's conduct was all that could be desired?"

  "Are you of his company?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then best keep out of it!" the magistrate retorted sharply.

  "And you," to his followers, "did you hear me? Away with him!"

  But as the men advanced to execute the order, the young man steppedforward. "One moment!" he said. "A moment only, sir. I caught the nameof Blondel. Am I speaking to Messer Philibert Blondel?"

  The Syndic nodded ungraciously. "Yes," he said, "I am he. What of it?"

  "Only this, that I have a letter for him," the student answered, gropingwith trembling fingers in his pouch. "From my uncle, the Sieur deBeauvais of Nocle, by Dijon."

  "The Sieur de Beauvais?"

  "Yes."

  "He is your uncle?"

  "Yes."

  "So! Well, I remember now," Blondel continued, nodding. "His name wasMercier. Certainly, it was. Well, give me the letter." His tone wasstill harsh, but it was not the same; and when he had broken the sealand read the letter--with a look half contemptuous, half uneasy--hisbrow cleared a little. "It were well young people knew better whatbecame them," he cried, peevishly shrugging his shoulders. "It wouldsave us all a great deal. However, for this time as you are a strangerand well credited,
I find, you may go. But let it be a lesson to you, doyou hear? Let it be a lesson to you, young man. Geneva," pompously, "isno place for brawling, and if you come hither for that, you will quicklyfind yourself behind bars. See that you go to a fit lodging to-morrow,and do you, Mr. Landlord, have a care that he leaves you."

  The young man's heart was full, but he had the wisdom to keep his temperand to say no more. The Syndic on his part was glad, on second thoughts,to be free of the matter. He was turning to go when it seemed to strikehim that he owed something more to the bearer of the letter. He turnedback. "Yes," he said, "I had forgotten. This week I am busy. But nextweek, on some convenient day, come to me, young sir, and I may be ableto give you a word of advice. In the forenoon will be best. Untilthen--see to your behaviour!"

  The young man bowed and waited, standing where he was, until the bustleattending the Syndic's departure had quite died away. Then he turned."Now, Messer Grio," he said briskly, "for my part I am ready."

  But Messer Grio had slipped away some minutes before.