Fortune

The large room was half full of a distinguished company. Many of the persons there assembled wore a handsome and imposing livery; others wore an equally handsome and imposing garb of peace. These gentlemen were engaged in playing at the cards and throwing the dice, and all were men whose air was lofty. Immediately we had come into their midst, the proprietor of the auberge—I can see him at this moment, a little round fellow with a great belly—came forward half nervously, half uncivilly, crying that we must withdraw at once, as the apartment was reserved for the gentlemen and the friends of the gentlemen of the King’s guard.

“Oho!” said Sir Richard Pendragon, in a voice that rose like a trumpet, “these honest Parley-voos will not look askance on the hereditary overlord of the Russ, his court chamberlain, and his second minister. Do you assure them, good Beer-barrel, with our compliments, that they will find us pleasant good fellows when we have dried our doublets; but for this present we are cold and fatigued and most infernally hungry.”

I know not whether the manner of this address, the matter of which was communicated to me at my own request by the Count of Nullepart, was an offence to the proud feelings of the gentlemen of the King’s Guard, but one and all turned glances upon us of the greatest amazement and austerity.

Sir Richard Pendragon, however, paid them not the slightest heed. Observing a vacant chair beside a small table, he flung himself into it, and ordered the keeper of the auberge, in the voice he was accustomed to use to persons of that condition, to bring us wine and victual.

“But, sir,” said the innkeeper—I am indebted to my worshipful friend the Count of Nullepart for all that follows—“you and your friends cannot remain in this apartment. As I have informed you already, it is only for the use of the gentlemen and the friends of the gentlemen of the King’s Guard.”

“Well, you French monkey,” said the English giant, rolling his eyes fearfully, “you may choose for yourself. Either you obey me this minute, or, as I am a Christian gentleman, I will cut off your ears.”

Swearing an oath that blenched the cheek of the innkeeper, and scowling with the ferocity that never failed to cow all of this kidney, Sir Richard Pendragon drew his sword with a flourish, made a magnificent pass at the air, and stuck it at one pace from him in the wooden floor.

I think I have never seen more amazement in the human countenance than this action excited in all who witnessed it. At first the onlookers seemed unwilling to believe their eyes. That any human being should enter their presence and thus bear himself was a thing they could not grasp. And then, when they came to realize that the Englishman regarded their presence no more than he did that of the innkeeper, a kind of pitying contempt came into their faces.

Nevertheless, some little time went by ere they addressed Sir Richard Pendragon. Conversing together in low tones, they appeared to wait upon the good pleasure of one among them. Then they called the landlord, who stood awaiting their commands, and gave him certain instructions.

Upon receipt of these the keeper of the auberge approached Sir Richard Pendragon, yet with a good deal of wariness, and said, “Monsieur, I am instructed by the gentlemen of the King’s Guard to inform you that, whoever you may be, your behaviour is intolerable. But as you and your companions are clearly of a foreign nation, they are loth to admonish you. Yet I am to inform you that if you do not immediately put up your sword and withdraw from this apartment, you will compel them to visit you according to your merit.”

Now, although the keeper of the auberge, having both right and might at his elbow, had spoken with a well-considered civility which is rare in his class, and the words that he had been instructed to use were those of an admirable moderation, which in the circumstances did honour to his patrons, they were not accepted by Sir Richard Pendragon in a spirit of forbearance.

“Do you presume to outface a Pendragon, you French dog?” he roared. “For a pint of sherris I would pull your neck.”

Speaking thus, the Englishman took up a cup half full of the wine that was near to him, and flung it full at the head of the innkeeper.

In spite, however, of this new affront to their ambassador, the gentlemen of the King’s Guard showed no disposition to hurry their measures. Again they conversed among themselves; and then a thin, tall man, with a visage exceeding melancholy, not, however, in the king’s livery, yet attired in a dress of sober richness, rose slowly from the table at which he had been playing at the cards. There was something of majesty in his movements, and as he approached the Count of Nullepart and myself with a cold air, his mien was worthy of a cardinal.

“I would speak with you, my friends,” he said in a deep and musical voice, yet the tone was such as he would have used to his lackeys.

The Count of Nullepart shook his head solemnly, as though he understood not a word, and said in a rude Spanish, “I have not your language, Señor Soldado.”

I had to make a similar confession, but, as I hope, in a purer idiom.

“Muy bien,” said this distinguished French gentleman, speaking in a very tolerable Spanish that put the Count of Nullepart’s to shame and compared not unfavourably with my own, “Very well, my friends, a word in your ears. Your conduct is worthy of the highest censure, but the gentlemen of the King’s Guard are not accustomed to turn their hands against the canaille. All the same, they pray you to have a care.”

Thus having spoken with a degree of insolent contempt that few could have equalled, this Frenchman, and I am sure among his own nation he must have taken rank as a great lord, turned his back upon us with a high degree of disdain, and proceeded to regard Sir Richard Pendragon. The English giant met him with a sleepy indifference. Thereupon the Frenchman lowered his gaze to an amused contempt, and withdrew Sir Richard Pendragon’s sword from the floor.

After examining this weapon with a care that was only half curious he gave his shoulders a shrug, after the foreign manner, and then presented it to the Englishman by the hilt, saying, “Put up your butter-cutter, Monsieur l’Epicier, and when you return into your peninsula give an additional alms to the Virgin that you find yourself with as whole a skin as that with which you went.”

Being addressed in this fashion, an odd change fell upon the Englishman. As in the affair in the inn at Madrid, a kind of sinister softness overtook him. Immediately he abated his voice into a modest and humble accent which was quite unlike his previous immoderation.

“I thank you, good Frenchman, for my poor tuck. It is an ancient arm, I might say an heirloom; yet once on a day it held the rank of a sword. At least, in that capacity was it given to an elderly forebear by Edward the Black Prince, who in his day did some pretty work among the French. And now, as you say, although it is an old thing, it still serves to cut butter.”

Thereupon, in the presence of the whole room, which had suspended its affairs entirely, Sir Richard Pendragon quietly laid the flat part of the sword against one side of the Frenchman’s cheek and then against the other.