CHAPTER XXIX
WHEREIN MARTIN-GUERRE IS A BUNGLER
Gabriel had acquired sufficiently accurate information about the suburbs of St. Quentin to avoid going astray in a region where he was an utter stranger. Under cover of nightfall he and Martin-Guerre left the town by the least carefully guarded postern without hindrance. Wrapped in long dark cloaks, they glided into the moat-like shadows, and thence by the breach in the wall into the fields.
But they were not beyond the greatest danger. Small bodies of the enemy patrolled the suburbs day and night; encampments were scattered here and there about the besieged town, and any encounter might be fatal to our peasant-soldiers. The least risk that they ran was to be delayed a day; that is to say, to make the projected expedition entirely useless.
And so when after a half-hour of travelling they arrived at a cross-roads, Gabriel stopped and seemed to reflect. Martin-Guerre also stopped, but he did not reflect. That task he ordinarily left to his master. Martin-Guerre was a brave and loyal squire, but he had no desire or ability to be anything more than the hand; Gabriel was the head.
"Martin," Gabriel began, after a moment's thought, "here are two roads, both of which lead to the forest of Angimont, where Baron de Vaulpergues is waiting for us. If we keep together, Martin, we may be taken together; while if we separate, we have a double chance of carrying out our plans and of finding Madame de Castro. Let us each take a different road. Do you take this one; it is the longest, but the safest, according to Monsieur l'Amiral. You will, however, have to go near the Walloon encampment, where Monsieur de Montmorency is probably a prisoner. You must avoid it by making a detour, as we did last night. Use all your assurance and self-possession. If you fall in with any troops, you must pass yourself off for a peasant of Angimont, and say that you have been carrying provisions to the Spanish camp at St. Quentin, and were delayed on your return. Do your best to imitate the Picardy patois, which will not be very difficult with foreigners. But, above all things, err rather on the side of audacity than timidity. Assume an air of confidence, for if you hesitate, you are lost."
"Oh, be quite easy, Monseigneur," said Martin-Guerre, with a very self-satisfied mien. "I am not so simple as I seem, and I will give a good account of myself."
"Well said, Martin. I will take this other road; it is shorter, but more dangerous, for it is the main highway from Paris, which is watched more carefully than all the others. I shall run across more than one hostile party, I fear, and I shall have to drown myself in the ditches, or flay myself in the thickets, more than once; and when all is said and done, it is very possible that I may not accomplish my purpose. But no matter, Martin! Wait for me just half an hour; if I do not join you in that time, let Monsieur de Vaulpergues set out without delay. It will then be about midnight, and the danger will not be so great as in the evening. Nevertheless, Martin, advise him from me to adopt every possible precaution. You know what is to be done,—to divide his company into three detachments, and approach the town as quietly as possible from three opposite directions. It is too much to hope that all three detachments should succeed in getting into the place; but the failure of one may very well be the salvation of the others. But it's all the same! It is quite possible that we shall meet no more, my good Martin; but we must think only of the welfare of the country. Your hand! And may God keep you!"
"Oh, I pray only for you, Monseigneur!" rejoined Martin. "If He will only preserve you, He may do what He pleases with me; for I am good for nothing except to worship you and serve you. So I hope to have some fine sport with these infernal Spaniards to-night."
"I like to see you in this frame of mind, Martin. Well, adieu! Good luck to you, and keep cool, above all things!"
"Good luck, Monseigneur, and don't be too rash!"
The master and squire then separated. Everything went well at first with Martin; and although it was scarcely possible for him to lose his way, he nevertheless showed considerable skill in avoiding some suspicious-looking armed men from whom the darkness hid him. But as he drew near the Walloon encampment, the sentinels became much more numerous.
At the fork of two roads, Martin-Guerre suddenly found himself between two parties of soldiers, one on foot, and the other mounted; and a sharp Qui vive? told the unlucky squire that he was discovered.
"Well," said he, "now the time has come to show the impudence which my master recommended to me so forcibly."
And struck with an almost providentially bright idea, he began to sing at the top of his voice, and very opportunely, the following ballad of the siege of Metz:—
"Le vendredi de la Toussaint,
Est arrivé la Germanie
À la belle croix de Messain
Pour faire grande boucherie."[5]
"Hola! qui va la?" cried a harsh voice with an accent and pronunciation almost unintelligible, but which we will not undertake to describe lest we become unintelligible ourselves.
"A peasant from Angimont," replied Martin-Guerre, in a no less nondescript patois.
And he kept on his way and his song with increasing vigor and spirit,—
"Se campant au haut des vignes
Le duc d'Albe et sa compagnie,
À Saint-Arnou, près nos fossés,
C'était pour faire l'entreprise
De reconnaître nos fossés—"[6]
"Ho, there! Will you hold your noise and stop, wretched peasant, with your cursed song?" shouted the same harsh voice.
Martin-Guerre reflected that these importunate fellows who hailed him were ten against one; that, thanks to their horses, they could overtake him with ease, and that he might do an immense amount of harm by running away. So he stopped short. After all, he was not altogether disappointed at having an opportunity to display his self-possession and his cleverness. His master, who seemed sometimes to doubt the existence of those qualities in him, would have no excuse for it henceforth, if he should succeed in extricating himself with address from such a perilous position.
At first he assumed an air of most perfect self-confidence.
"By Saint Quentin the martyr!" he muttered, approaching his captors, "this is a fine business for you, keeping a poor belated peasant away from his wife and little ones at Angimont. Come, tell me, pray, what you want of me."
He meant to say this in Picardy patois; but he really said it in the dialect of Auvergne with the accent of a Provençal.
The man who had hailed him had a similar intention of replying in French, but the best he could do was Walloon with a German accent.
"What do we want of you? To question you and search you, night-prowler; for how do we know that there isn't a spy hidden under your peasant's smock?"
"Go on, then; question me and search me," was Martin-Guerre's response, accompanied with a hoarse and most unnatural laugh.
"We will take you to camp with us."
"To camp!" exclaimed Martin. "Oh, well, that's all right. I will speak to the general. Ah, you choose to arrest an unfortunate peasant on his way back from carrying supplies to your comrades down yonder at St. Quentin! May I be damned if I ever do it again! I will let your whole army die of hunger first. I was going to Angimont after more supplies; but you stop me on the way. Ah, you don't know me yet. I'll be even with you for this! 'Saint Quentin, tête de kien,' says the Picardy proverb. Take me for a spy indeed! I propose to complain to your chief. Let us go to your camp!"
"Mordieu! What gibberish!" retorted the commander of the scouting party. "I am the chief, my friend; and it is with me that you will have to reckon when we can see you plainly, if you please. Do you suppose we are going to rouse the generals for a blackguard like you?"
"Yes, I do; and it is to the generals that I propose to be taken!" cried Martin-Guerre, volubly. "I have something to say to the generals and the marshals. I propose to say to them that a man who is supplying you and your people with food is not to be arrested thus without once crying, 'Look out!' I have done nothing wrong. I am an honest inhabitant of Angimont. I mean to demand an indemnity for my trouble; and you shall be hung for yours, you wretches!"
"Comrade, he seems sure of his ground, do you know!" said one of the soldiers to his chief.
"Yes," replied the other; "and I would let him go if it didn't seem to me every little while that I recognize his figure and his voice. Come forward; everything will be explained in camp."
Martin-Guerre, placed between two of the horsemen for safe-keeping, never ceased to swear and grumble during the whole journey. As he entered the tent to which they escorted him in the first place, he swore and grumbled still more.
"So this is the way you treat your allies, is it? Oh, well, just wait till we furnish any more oats for your horses, or meal for you! I give you up. As soon as you have recognized me and let me go, I will go back to Angimont, and not leave the place again; or better still, I will leave it, and enter a complaint against you to Monseigneur Philibert Emmanuel in person, the first thing to-morrow morning. He is not the man to allow such an affront to be put upon me."
At this moment the ensign who was in command of the party held a torch to Martin-Guerre's face. He fell back three steps in wonder and horror.
"By the devil!" he cried, "I was not mistaken. It is he, the miserable villain! Don't you recognize him now, you fellows?"
"Yes, indeed we do!" repeated each of the troops in turn, as he examined Martin-Guerre's features with a curiosity which in every case changed at once to rage.
"Ah, you do recognize me at last, then?" rejoined the poor squire, who began to be seriously alarmed. "You know who I am? Martin Cornouiller of Angimont. And you are going to release me, are you not!"
"We release you, you villain, you rake, you gallows-bird!" cried the ensign, with flaming eyes and threatening fists.
"Well, well, what the deuce is the matter, my friend?" said Martin. "Perhaps I am no longer Martin Cornouiller?"
"No, you are not Martin Cornouiller," replied the ensign; "and to unmask you and prove you a liar, here are ten men standing around you, who know you well. My friends, tell this impostor his name, to convict him of deceit and infernal falsehood."
"It's Arnauld du Thill! it's that scoundrel, Arnauld du Thill!" the ten voices shouted in chorus with terrifying unanimity.
"Arnauld du Thill! What do you mean?" asked Martin, turning pale.
"Oh, yes, deny yourself now, you villain!" cried the ensign. "But luckily here are ten witnesses to contradict you. Before them, notwithstanding your peasant's dress, have you the face to declare that I didn't take you prisoner at the battle of St. Laurent in attendance upon the constable?"
"No, no, I am Martin Cornouiller," stammered Martin, who was beginning to lose his head.
"You are Martin Cornouiller?" said the ensign, with a contemptuous laugh; "you are not that coward Arnauld du Thill, who promised me a ransom, whom I treated with every consideration, and who only last night made his escape, carrying with him not only the little money that I possessed, but my dearly-loved Gudule, the lovely vivandière? Villain! what have you done with Gudule?"
"What have you done with Gudule?" echoed his companions, in ominous chorus.
"What have I done with Gudule?" said Martin-Guerre, completely crushed. "How can I tell, miserable wretch that I am! Ah, well, do you really all recognize me? Are you perfectly sure that you are not mistaken? Can you swear that my name is—Arnauld du Thill; that this fine fellow took me prisoner at the battle of St. Laurent; and that I have treacherously carried off his Gudule? Can you swear to all this?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" cried the ten voices, vigorously. "Very well. I am not surprised," said Martin-Guerre, piteously (he was apt to wander a little, we remember, when this matter of his twofold existence was touched upon). "No, indeed, I am not surprised. I would have insisted until to-morrow that my name is Martin Cornouiller; but you know me as Arnauld du Thill. I was here yesterday, it seems; so I say no more. Expect no more resistance from me, for I submit. From the moment that this turns out to be so, my feet and hands are tied. I did not foresee this. It has been such a long time since my alibis ceased to trouble me. Come on! it's all right. Do with me as you will; carry me off; imprison me; strangle me; what you tell me of Gudule puts the finishing touch to my conviction that you are right. Yes, I recognize my own hand in that! But I am very glad to know that my name is Arnauld du Thill."
Poor Martin-Guerre thenceforth confessed everything that they chose, allowed himself to be overwhelmed with insults and reproaches, and offered his all to God by way of penance for the new offences that they charged him with. As he could not tell what had become of Gudule, they loaded him with chains, and subjected him to all varieties of ill-treatment, but without wearing out his angelic patience. All that he regretted was that he had not had time to fulfil his commission to Baron de Vaulpergues; but who could have imagined that new crimes would rise to confront him, and reduce to nothing his splendid schemes for exhibiting his address and presence of mind?
"One thing that consoles me, however," he reflected, in the damp corner where they had flung him down upon the ground, "is that perhaps Arnauld du Thill may enter St. Quentin triumphantly with a detachment of Vaulpergues's company. But no, no! that is a delusive hope too; and what I know of the blackguard would lead me rather to guess that the monster is at some inn on the road to Paris with the fair Gudule. Alas, alas! I can't help thinking that I could put more heart into my penance if I had at least some little knowledge of the sin."
"On Friday after All Saints
All Germany came down
With fire and sword and rapine
To sack our well-loved town."
"Encamped above the vineyards,
Bold Alva and his band
Came spying round St. Arnou,
Our trenches to—”