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 Brazenhead the Great 11.50 
 
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 BRAZENHEAD THE GREAT
 
 BRAZENHEAD 
 THE GREAT 
 
 BY 
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK : : : : 1911
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published April, 1911
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 PR 
 
 73 
 ' 
 
 SING, Lady, that sangest erst of Tyrant and Par- 
 thenopex, of Blanchardyn and Aymon's mighty four, 
 sing, I say, the seventh son of a seventh son, born 
 by wonder in the seventh month; for in the deeds 
 of such men, Lady, thou takest thy delight. Sing 
 greatly upon thine epic lyre how he hammered 
 sconces, hacked and slew; how he bathed in blood 
 like ducks in a puddle; how he drank and swore in 
 many tongues; how Popes and Prelates, Counts and 
 Cardinals, Dukes and dicers tumbled at the wag of 
 his finger. Then in milder measure, Love's roseate 
 thumb being thy muting-piece, sing of Love himself; 
 for love, Lady, as thou knowest, is, as it were, the 
 bath of heroes, sweet solace after toil. In the begin- 
 ning but the Lady is weary of this, and so am I. 
 
 Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and 
 some have greatness thrust upon them, we know. 
 To which I may add upon the account of the pro- 
 digious man whom it is my task to present to the 
 gallantly inclined, that some thrust greatness upon 
 themselves. The propositions are not mutually ex- 
 clusive, and there are those who hold that the last
 
 VI INVOCATION 
 
 is the most fruitful category of all. 'Tis there, say 
 they, that you had best look for the hero of our day. 
 All's one, I believe, to the three Sisters who sand- 
 blindly spin our destinies in some remote fastness 
 of the Caucasus. 
 
 Born (however unduly) in a great Age, living, so 
 far as I can learn, to an age of his own of almost 
 patriarchal limits, living every hour of that terrific 
 span, and dying at last in a manner, at a hand, upon 
 a sword-point, which I venture to say have never 
 been matched by any champion of sacred or profane 
 writ, Salomon Brazenhead has thrice-earned his 
 sobriquet of The Great. No doubt he gave it to 
 himself, the world being as much his oyster as the 
 oyster of anybody else upon it. And no doubt he 
 had the warrant of reason. I have adopted the style, 
 and am confident of the approval of my reader, 
 candid or otherwise. Captain Brazenhead to give 
 him that one of his many titles of honour by which 
 he is best known was born greatly, lived greatly, 
 loved greatly, and died greatly. He was great in 
 height, great in girth, great in hair, great in nose, 
 great in thirst, great in heart: here are enough 
 greats to fill the University of Oxford. Let them 
 suffice to excuse my title-page. 
 
 The reader has here, I must allow, but certain 
 detached Cantos of an Epic which, in full and at 
 length (so far as I know), might stretch from this 
 hour to the crack of Doom. What is thus presented
 
 INVOCATION vii 
 
 falls short, again, of the requirements of Aristotle, 
 having no beginning and no middle; but it has an 
 end, and a surprising end, and Aristotelians must be 
 content with that. I have been diligent in research; 
 there are few of the Archives of Europe into which I 
 have not peered. My reward has been four consider- 
 able fragments of a huge original and one of those, 
 here presented under the title of The Captain of 
 Kent, has been printed already. But I have not 
 scrupled to reproduce it for the sake of coherence 
 such coherence, that is, as may be attained unto by a 
 rhapsodist who has to begin in the so-called middle 
 of his theme. Assistance, however, has come to 
 me from an unexpected source too late in time 
 and too scanty in substance for its incorporation into 
 the body of my work. The profound Pilsenbierius, 
 in his thesis for the doctor's degree of his Univer- 
 sity, states in these words the result of his enquiry 
 into the early history of my hero. He says, "After 
 a prolonged study of the sources, preserved at the 
 Public Record Office and Guildhall Library in 
 London, I am clearly of opinion that the mythus of 
 the Seventh-Born is not to be supported, but is, in 
 fact, an accretion of later and less vigorous, more 
 literary ages. Probably solar in its origin for the 
 name of Brazenhead not inaptly describes the Sun, 
 burning centre of our system, and the seventh-born 
 must almost certainly indicate the Sun of the Seventh 
 Day, or Saturday, the Sabbath of the Jews (cf. the
 
 viii INVOCATION 
 
 praenomen Salomon, invariably used by the hero, 
 who is thus connected with Judas Maccabaeus and 
 other Hebrew Captains of antiquity, and therefore 
 with Joshua who made the Sun to stand still) it can 
 nevertheless be to an historic fact and passage quite 
 fearlessly ascribed. For it is my duty to assert in 
 this place and thesis that the unusual birth of Salomon 
 Brazenhead (still to call him so) can be accounted 
 for by another hypothesis, which documents support. 
 In the records of the Halimote Court of the City of 
 London, obligingly put at my disposal by the ever 
 courteous and no less learned Librarian, there is 
 preserved an entry, under date the 7th July, 1377, 
 to the effect that Maid (or Maud) Brassinhand was 
 convicted before the Mayor and Aldermen as a 
 common scold, and pleaded her condition. She was 
 nevertheless adjudged to be ducked in the pond on 
 Moorfields incontinently. Quod eratfactum. Here 
 then is very suggestive evidence, which does not need 
 the invocation of supernal powers to make all plain. 
 All that is wanting to it indeed is evidence that 
 Maid Brassinhand was the mother of six children, 
 and that Salomon Brazenhead was her seventh: but 
 these are small matters in comparison with miracles." 
 The evidence is curious, but not, so far, of poetical 
 quality, and accordingly I have not composed it into 
 a book of my Epic. I love facts as much as any man 
 born, but as a poet I know when to use them and 
 when to leave them out. Herr Doctor Pilsenbierius
 
 INVOCATION ix 
 
 evidently does not. But I shall hope to publish be- 
 fore I die a translation of his thesis, of which the 
 above-cited passage may be taken as a fair sample. 
 
 I am not without hopes that even at this late day 
 I shall recover further staves of this remarkable and 
 hitherto unknown Epos by diligent and continued 
 enquiry. In the Free Library of Aleppo, whither I 
 hope soon to travel, I have heard of a manuscript 
 which must contain a portion of at least one: to wit 
 the "Narrative of Bekr' ibn Salas concerning a re- 
 cent voyage with the Brazen Soldier of Ancona in 
 the year of the Hegira 826." I connect this, by in- 
 tuition, with Captain Brazenhead's journey to the 
 East, following upon an alleged interview with the 
 Pope which took place, I understand, at Ancona. 
 He had another, we know, at Avignon; but that 
 must have been earlier.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I. THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD PROVED HIMSELF TO 
 
 BE TWICE AS OLD AS HE LOOKED . . 3 
 
 H. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD USED THE KING'S 
 
 WRIT . 8 
 
 m. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD HAILED THE DUKE 
 
 OF MILAN 15 
 
 IV. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD EXEMPLIFIED HIS 
 
 MAXIMS ... . . . . l8 
 
 V. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD DEALT WITH A BUR- 
 
 GUNDIAN IN A TUNNEL .... 24 
 
 VI. DESPERATE DOINGS WITH A BISCAYAN . . 32 
 
 VII. DOUBLE BATTLE ....... 40 
 
 VHI. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD, AGAINST HIS BETTER 
 
 JUDGMENT, SPARED THE EGYPTIAN . . 45 
 
 IX. HOW AND WHERE CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD, FALLING 
 
 INTO DISGRACE, READ HIS "DE REMEDIO" $2 
 
 X. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD SLEW THREE HUN- 
 DRED ANABAPTISTS WITH THE THIGH-BONE 
 OF A PHILOSOPHER 60 
 
 xi
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 i 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XI. HOW, AND FOR WHAT EXQUISITE REASONS, CAP- 
 TAIN BRAZENHEAD ABDICATED THE THRONE 
 OF MILAN 72 
 
 BOOK II. THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 I. THE STAG AT BORDEAUX . . . . 8 1 
 
 H. VI ET ARMIS ..... . .92 
 
 m. HUE AND CRY AFTER SIMON * ... 103 
 
 IV. CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD REVEALS HIMSELF . . Ill 
 
 V. THE CITY ACCURSED 126 
 
 VI. THE GREAT LEVY ...... 139 
 
 Vn. THE YOUNG MAN BAREFOOT . . . .150 
 
 VHI. BRAZENHEAD LOQ 1 62 
 
 LX. THE GREAT RECOVERY 167 
 
 BOOK III. THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 I. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD WON A RECRUIT . 177 
 H. WILES OF CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD . . .191 
 
 HI. HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD WAS HIMSELF RE- 
 CRUITED 195 
 
 IV. HOW PERCIVAL PROSPERED AND THE CAPTAIN 
 
 FELT JUSTIFIED 2IO 
 
 V. HOW PERCIVAL WAS BOLD AND THE CAPTAIN BOLD 219
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 VI. HOW PERCIVAL ROSE WHERE CAPTAIN BRAZEN- 
 HEAD FELL . . . . . . 227 
 
 VH. INCrDIT IN SCYLLAM, CUPIENS VITARE CHARYBDIM 243 
 
 VHI. HOW PERCIVAL GOT MORE THAN HE DESERVED, 
 THE SHEPMAN LESS, AND CAPTAIN BRAZEN- 
 HEAD HELD OCCASION BY THE TAIL . . 253 
 
 BOOK IV. THE LAST ADVENTURE . 269
 
 BOOK 7 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN
 
 BOOK I 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD PROVED HIMSELF TO BE 
 TWICE AS OLD AS HE LOOKED 
 
 THAT many times repeated asseveration of Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead's, that he had formed one of the 
 suite of Duke Lionel when that prince went out to 
 Lombardy to marry Visconti's daughter, and that, in 
 consequence, the poet Chaucer "little Smugface," 
 as he was pleased to call him was his fellow-traveller 
 and bosom friend, bore at the first blush the stamp 
 of truth. It was always supported by vigorous rem- 
 iniscence; the older he grew, the more positive he 
 was of it. Like the Apostle, confronted by tales of 
 the sort, we might partly believe it. It would make 
 him out to have been one hundred and five years 
 old at the time of his death, or necessitate his hav- 
 ing been born into this world with thirty-seven years 
 
 3
 
 4 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 already to his score. Here is a problem for the his- 
 torian which we may prudently leave him. 
 
 I think it was his manner of telling the tale which 
 gave confidence to those who had watched his rapt 
 gaze into the embers of the hearth, who had observed 
 his easy length of leg, and hands clasped behind his 
 head, and the pleasant gloss which recollection might 
 well have laid upon his sombre and seldom-smiling 
 lips. "It all comes back to me," he would say, "by 
 my head, and so it does! Little Smugface! Little 
 scrivening Geoffrey, and his age-long tales of Troy 
 town! Blithely he strung stave to stave and we, 
 a gay company of drones, clustered about the honey 
 of his tongue; and my lord's grace pounding before 
 us on his black courser! He would rehearse of Dido, 
 the lily queen, of the piled faggots, of the flame. Ha ! 
 and she in the midst, as white as an egg! It welled 
 out of him like treacle from a broken crock; and 
 my lord's grace, with ears set back, lost not a sylla- 
 bub of it. Long days, brave days ah, how they 
 rise and beckon me!" It really sounds very plausi- 
 ble. 
 
 All this as it may be, what is beyond cavil is that 
 I find him at Pa via in the year 1402, a fine figure 
 of a man, scarred, crimson, shining in the face, his 
 hair cropped in the Burgundian mode, moustachios 
 to the ears, holding this kind of discourse to a lank 
 and cavernous warrior, three times his own apparent 
 age, who had proposed, I gather, before a tavern full 
 of drinkers, to eat him raw. He stood astraddle, 
 one arm crooked, his hand on his hip. He looked
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 5 
 
 at his rival's boots; but his words must have winged 
 directly to his heart. "Who eat me chokes, for I 
 am like that succulent that conceals, d'ye see, his 
 spines in youthful bloom. You think you have to 
 do with a stripling: not you, pranking boy, not you. 
 I am a seamed and notch-fingered soldier, who 
 belched Greek fire while you were in your swaddling- 
 clout. I was old in iniquity ere they weaned you. 
 Or do you vie with me in perils, by cock, do you so ? 
 Five times left for dead; trampled six times out by 
 the rear-guard of the host I had led to victory; cru- 
 cified, stoned, extenuated, cut into strips; in prisons 
 frequent, in deaths not divided what make you of 
 it? And you to tell me that your green guts can 
 pouch old Leather-tripes, for so they dub me who 
 dare ? Foh, you are a bladder, I see!" 
 
 He bit his thumb, and did that with his fingers to 
 his nose whose import is sinister. I believe no man 
 can bear it and live on. The irons came swingeing 
 out, the room cleared; all the frequenters of the tav- 
 ern sat on the tables, while the tapsters strewed saw- 
 dust on the floor. They had need. There was a 
 ding-dong passage of arms of one hundred and thirty 
 seconds, which was ample time for Captain Brazen- 
 head to run his foe through the weazand, wipe his 
 blade in his armpit, finish his drink, and say: "There 
 lies long Italy." All this in one hundred and thirty 
 seconds. Five minutes more remained to the fallen 
 brave, and were not too much for what he had to 
 do namely, cough blood, say the Ave Maria, and 
 bequeath a pair of horns to the tapster, Gregory.
 
 6 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 Captain Brazenhead's reputation was established 
 in Pavia, his age what he pleased. Admirers crowded 
 about him, to pledge and be pledged in cups. He 
 was asked his name, and said that it was Testadirame 
 very neat, for the spur of the moment: his trade, 
 and pointed to his extended foe. It was replied to 
 him by a brother of St. Francis, who squinted, that 
 then Greek and Greek had met and engaged, seeing 
 that the dead man in life had been Lisciassangue 
 Lisciassangue the exorbitant, assassin to the Duke 
 of Milan, and one of a Mystery of Three. 
 
 At this critical moment in his career Captain 
 Brazenhead paused in the act to drink, and look- 
 ing down over the edge of his flagon, thoughtfully 
 stirred the dead with his toe. 
 
 "His sword is a good one," said he, "and I take 
 it, as right is. What he may have in poke I bestow 
 in alms upon the poor drinkers of Pavia. But as to 
 his trade, or mystery, I must hear more of that." 
 One glance at the religious commentator shrivelled 
 him. " Speak ! " he commanded him. " Speak, thou 
 flea-pasture, or I split thee!" 
 
 Ah, but they spoke. They all spoke at once. They 
 all clambered the tables again and leaned over each 
 other to speak. Straining out their arms, see-sawing 
 in air, they spoke with hands and eyes and voices. 
 Captain Brazenhead, a sword to the good, listened 
 and learned. To the ready reckoner he was, the 
 accounts were soon cast up. If there were in Milan 
 twenty-nine churches, thirty convents of religion, and 
 seven-and-thirty jails all full ; if there were no penalty
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 7 
 
 in the code but that of death ; and if it were true that 
 the Duke, feeling the cares of his lands, the needs 
 of his subjects, and his own advancing years, had 
 relaxed his personal activities, and now did his jus- 
 tice by deputy then it was most certain that the 
 Mystery of Three could not afford to lose the services 
 of Lisciassangue : no, nor Duke Galeazzo neither. 
 His Grace's condition was indeed deplorable, robbed 
 of one-third of his assassins. "I see the aged mon- 
 arch," mused Captain Brazenhead, overheard by a 
 sympathetic throng, "maimed, as you might say, 
 of his right hand. I see his prisons full to brim- 
 point, his lieutenants at work night and day to keep 
 abreast of the flood. But alas for the Duke of 
 Milan! they have lost a friend, maybe; he has lost a 
 member. Gentlemen!" he cried this aloud with a 
 surprising gallantry. "Gentlemen, you must pity 
 him, since you have hearts; but I must help him or 
 be untrue to this good arm. Now, then, the next 
 man that offers to drink with me shall not have nay." 
 Reasoning of this sort enkindled his wits. He 
 could not restore to the Duke his Lisciassangue ; the 
 dead was most dead ; but so far as might be he would 
 repair his fault. If, in so doing, he opened a ca- 
 reer for himself, shall he be blamed for the added 
 glow which the thought lent to his blood ? Not by 
 any generous man. "There lies long Italy," he had 
 said, and the words flashed up again, and revealed 
 him a nation at his feet. To Milan, to Milan 
 and "there lies long Italy in the cup of my hand," 
 says he.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD USED THE KING'S WRIT 
 
 BLITHE was the morn and blithe the adventurer 
 when, rising in his stirrups, Captain Brazenhead, like 
 Chanticlere the valiant, saluted the sun. Red in the 
 mist, it lit the road to Milan; red in the mist that 
 city showed, admirably strong, remarkable to any 
 soldier's eye. He saw double walls, towers innumer- 
 able, many gates of port and antiport, the bulk of a 
 square castle, belfries of churches, and outside the 
 ditch, in a broad meadow, a tented camp, with silk 
 pavilions for the captains, and men-at-arms in black 
 and white liveries executing manoeuvres at the double. 
 "This Milan," said Captain Brazenhead, "lacks only 
 water to flood the marshes to be as impregnable as 
 Jericho of old more so, indeed, since Jericho, I do 
 remember, was taken by a man of God. He, it 
 appears, by taking a walk round about it in the cool 
 of the day, could level those proud walls, as with 
 a breath you have down your house of cards. But 
 those are tactics of despair. I would only use them 
 when all else had failed me." 
 
 A young woman in a striped petticoat and ker- 
 chiefed head, who rode sideways upon an ass and 
 nursed a baby, was upon the road before him, and 
 gave a tender note to the warlike scene. The avenue 
 
 8
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 9 
 
 of budding trees framed her in like a picture, dappled 
 her with light and shade. "Venus rideth to assuage 
 Mars his fury," said he, "and a pretty turn to the 
 head she hath." He quickened his pace, overtook 
 and accosted her. 
 
 "Damsel, by your leave," he said, "we under- 
 take this adventure in company. Why, cheerly 
 then, and cry 'Tickle my chin.'" She looked at him 
 askance out of her dove's eyes, but his gaiety was 
 not to be denied. 
 
 But "Sir," said she, "I know not how that may fall 
 out." He stooped toward her. 
 
 "I know a couple will never fall out while the sun 
 shineth on Milan," he admonished her. 
 
 "I, too, sir," she replied, "for I am a married 
 woman." 
 
 "It is very evident," said the Captain, with genial 
 warmth. "In that fine little girl " 
 
 She bit her lip. " It is a boy, sir. I had supposed 
 you better instructed. But you and I must not be 
 seen together at the gate." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead turned his gaze most earnestly 
 upon her. "Listen now," he said. "There's Fate 
 in this our meeting. One star leans to another in 
 conjunction. We do what we do under the swaying 
 of the spheres. So sure as your name is " 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, all in a flame, "who told you 
 that my name was Liperata?" 
 
 The soldier smiled. "Why, you, my dear. But 
 I am in Fortune's way. I have a net, and have en- 
 meshed thee, fair partridge. Contend no more, fold
 
 10 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 thy beating wings. We go through the gate together; 
 afterward we must see our way. Thou art my pass- 
 port, Liperata, and I defend thy reputation with my 
 last breath." She had no answer ready, so they 
 ambled on together. Her confusion became her. It 
 was to remain with him a balmy memory like a re- 
 membered fragrance in sultry weather. 
 
 What amiable intentions he may have had in her 
 regard, however, did not avail him to pass the entry 
 of Milan. The posted sentinels, seeing a fine man 
 in leather, with two swords, bestriding a horse three 
 of whose legs, at least, were ready for war, ran nimbly 
 in and called out the guard. Monna Liperata, free 
 of the gates, dug heels into her donkey's ribs and 
 jogged into the city, glancing back but once as she 
 turned the street corner. Captain Brazenhead, how- 
 ever, confronted a double row of halberdiers. 
 
 He was vexed. "How now?" he cried. "Am I 
 hosts of Midian? Caesar with his legions? Am I 
 Tamerlane at the door? or what the devil?" 
 
 They told him that no man could pass the gates 
 of the city without lawful warrant. That was in- 
 exorable. "What is, is," said Captain Brazenhead, 
 "and what must be, shall be. Et in saecula saecu- 
 lorum, Amen. You wish for my warrant, masters?" 
 He drew from his breast a strip of parchment, folded, 
 sealed, and bound with a green cord. "Take," he 
 said, "and read it who can." 
 
 Now, they could not; but they examined the seal, 
 which was a broad one, with the arms of England 
 and France upon it.
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN n 
 
 "Read you, rather," they said; so Captain Brazen- 
 head recited the exordium, being no more able to read 
 Latin (nor, indeed, any written tongue) than his au- 
 ditors. 
 
 "Henricus del gratia Rex Angliae et Franciae et 
 dominus Hiberniae dilecto etfideli suo T. de Compton 
 Vicecomiti Middlesexiae salutem" He read no more, 
 because he knew no more, but crushing up the 
 parchment in his fist, looked sublimely down upon 
 the gaping soldiery, and his words extended to the 
 curious merchants who stood at the doors of their 
 little shops watching the game. 
 
 "You see very well how it is, men of Lombardy," 
 he proclaimed. "The King of England and France 
 and Lord of Ireland sends this affectionate greeting 
 to his cousin Milan. What, ye sour-chops, ye will 
 not understand ? Hearken , then , yet again ! " As they 
 wondered amongst themselves, he reopened the scroll 
 and smacked it with his fist. "Henricus del gratia, 
 hey ? How's that for my King Harry ? And Vice- 
 comili, hey? Is't not your Visconti written fair? 
 And will you, hirelings," he added, with a searching 
 change of tone, "will you thrust up your dirty hands 
 between the kissing lips of kings?" 
 
 They said that they would not, and saw in the smile 
 that stole over the hero's face a strong resemblance 
 to the gleaming of the morning sun upon the scarred 
 brow of an Alp. "Then lead on, peeping Tom," 
 were the bold words. " My business here is to greet 
 King from King." 
 
 A strong escort conducted him through the narrow
 
 12 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 ways of the city and presented him to the Captain 
 of the Castle. His writ was taken over, turned about, 
 and (since nothing could be made of it) carried away 
 to yet more learned officers. Captain Brazenhead, 
 meanwhile, sat quite at his ease, in the gate-house 
 quarters, affably conversing with all and sundry. 
 His cause may have been good ; his nerve was better. 
 
 After a period of suspense, which may have lasted 
 an hour, or may have lasted three, two clerics entered 
 the gate-house and saluted him with great respect. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead stood up. "How now, my 
 reverends?" 
 
 One of them said: "Your Excellency's credentials 
 have been examined by our master, the Great Cham- 
 berlain, to whose mind certain little difficulties have 
 presented themselves, which can only be dispersed 
 by your Excellency's self." 
 
 "Like enough," said Captain Brazenhead, and 
 closed one of his eyes. "But I'll warrant you that 
 I disperse 'em." 
 
 But the spokesman, an elderly brother of St. 
 Dominic's order of religion, was now examining the 
 writ. "It is clear," said he, "that the King your 
 master directs this letter to a kinsman of our Duke, 
 though in what degree of consanguinity the Lord T. 
 de Compton Visconti may be to his Grace we are 
 unable to determine." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead ejaculated " Cousin," but the 
 Dominican did not seem to hear him. 
 
 "We see further," he pursued, poring over the 
 parchment, "that this Lord Visconti is to have the
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 13 
 
 body of one Salomone, to answer to his lord the king 
 why with force and arms he brake the close of one 
 Jak a-Style, and took therefrom certain of the goods 
 of the said Jak to wit, five hens and one cock of 
 the value of one shilling. So far we agree, my 
 brother, I think?" He looked at his colleague, who 
 nodded gravely ; and then both of them looked at his 
 Excellency. 
 
 "By my faith, gentleman," said Captain Brazen- 
 head, after a pause for breath, "you know more 
 about this than I do. But I will tell you the plain 
 truth. I was in my castle of Baynard's in Middlesex 
 on a day, my hounds at my feet, arms laid aside; 
 taking my ease, picking my teeth with a dagger 
 when the lieutenant of this same Visconti came 
 pressing in. He must by all means see me, saith he ; 
 cannot be denied. He serves me with this what 
 do I say? he tenders me this script, saying, 'Testa- 
 dirame, look to it.' A nod or a wink! What care 
 I ? Enough for you that I understand him. I take 
 horse and arms incontinent, and off as it were 
 from Visconti of Middlesex to the head of his house 
 here in Milan; but in reality, doubt it not, from 
 King to King. Of your cocks and hens, or cocks 
 and bulls, of Jak a-Style's poultry-yard, I know noth- 
 ing. But I take it that a king can put as many 
 things into his letters as he pleases. Gossip of the 
 day! Or, it may well be, sand in the eyes of your 
 Worships, who (let me tell you) are not to know 
 everything. No, no. But I would have you know 
 this much at least, my reverend brothers, that I have
 
 14 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 no sort of business with your Honors, and much 
 with him you serve. My business with him is both 
 heavy and light; it is bitter-sweet; but for his ear 
 alone. Yours with me is to take me to his ear. 
 Advise among yourselves now what you will do next. 
 For my part, I sit here well enough, though I should 
 have said, mind you, that it was the dinner hour. 
 In my own country it is long past it, but of your 
 customs here in Milan, in this great house of a 
 generous prince, I cannot speak at present." 
 
 "All this," said the Dominican, "shall be faith- 
 fully reported to the Duke our master." So said, 
 he vanished with his pied brother.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD HAILED THE DUKE OF 
 
 MILAN 
 
 IT must have been in the late afternoon when 
 Captain Brazenhead (who, in the meantime, had 
 dined) received the desired summons from the mouth 
 of a handsome page. Following this resplendent 
 youth, whose scarlet thighs, whose trim green jerkin 
 and cloud of yellow hair lost nothing by earnest 
 scrutiny, he had to admit that he had not understood 
 rulers of states to be so hard to come by. But the 
 Tyrant of Milan, he believed, could be no ordinary 
 monarch. He counted the corridors with doors at 
 both ends of each, in every door a grille, through 
 which he was very conscious of inspection before 
 the bolts were drawn. He commented upon this. 
 "Your Duke Galeass is as coy as a winkle in his 
 shell he suggested;" to which the iridescent young 
 man had no more reply than a lively look at the walls 
 about him, and a finger to his lip. Handed on then 
 to a gentleman-at-arms, he was admitted to an ante- 
 room, where he was divested of his two swords, the 
 hanger at his belt, and of another which was found in 
 his trunks. He was then blindfolded and led about 
 and about until, the bandage removed, he found him- 
 
 15
 
 16 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 self standing before the narrow door of a vaulted pas- 
 sage, confronted by two halberdiers in black and a 
 priest with a crucifix. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead wished these gentlemen a 
 good-day, and made a fine attempt to whistle the air 
 of "In the meadow so green;" but the remark was 
 received in silence and the gallantry quenched by 
 the priest, who, holding up his crucifix, administered 
 an oath to the visitor of so dreadful a character that 
 my pen, very properly, refuses to set it down. In 
 effect, it bound him down in fearful penalties, both 
 temporal and eternal, if he ventured anything against 
 the Duke's person "As if," he said, looking blandly 
 round, " as if I should hurt the little man ! I, Brazen- 
 head, to whom the sparrows in the corn are play- 
 mates!" Adding, however, that hard words would 
 never break his bones, he cheerfully took oath, and 
 kissed the crucifix. Then the priest knocked three 
 times at the door. It opened just wide enough to 
 admit a man edgewise; Captain Brazenhead stood 
 up in a dark and long apartment, lit at the further end 
 by swinging lamps. There in that wavering light 
 sat the Duke of Milan in his elbow-chair and furred 
 gown, with his hands stretched out over a charcoal 
 fire, and showed a quick-eyed, white, and beardless 
 face, lively with fear, turned back to watch the visi- 
 tor. It was to be seen that he was a hunchback, to 
 be guessed that he wore chain-mail. He had three 
 guards by the wall, two by the door. With one hand 
 he now grasped his chair; with the other plucking 
 at his throat, he recoiled and waited. It was very
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 17 
 
 quiet in the room so very quiet that you could hear 
 the Duke's breath, fetched short and quickly. 
 
 Like a rush of south-west wind making havoc in 
 a cloister, the superb figure of Captain Brazenhead 
 with his six feet two inches, his cloak thrown back, 
 his buoyant moustachios and eagle nose seemed to 
 fill the presence-chamber. Inspired to utterance, 
 strung taut as he was by the occasion, he broke 
 upon the silence of that church-yard vault with the 
 crash and shatter of a trumpet 
 
 "Hail, Ironsides!" he proclaimed, and the hal- 
 berdiers backed to the walls. He said no less and 
 added no more nor need he.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD EXEMPLIFIED HIS 
 MAXIMS 
 
 Now it was plain that the apostrophe pleased. 
 The Duke relaxed his hold upon the chair, left his 
 throat alone, and, shivering, returned his hands to 
 the fire. Looking into that, he asked in a dry voice 
 
 "Who are you that call me by my name?" 
 
 "Testadirame," was the answer, which he medi- 
 tated, poring into the fire. 
 
 "Your business, Testadirame?" 
 
 He seemed already to be tired of all this, but he 
 had an answer which quickened him. 
 
 "Death," said Captain Brazenhead, "is my busi- 
 ness." 
 
 Many and many a maxim of rhetoric as this hero 
 exemplified in his career through the courts and 
 camps of Europe, it may be said with confidence that 
 he never brought more apposite illustration to that 
 one which teaches: "If you would be listened to 
 at length, be heard first in brief. Strike," says this 
 profound guide to persuasion, "strike hard and 
 sharply." So struck Brazenhead here, and saw the 
 Tyrant pale and flicker like a blown candle-flame at 
 the dreadful word. His contorted face, his eyes as 
 he turned them upon the speaker, were those of a 
 
 18
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 19 
 
 trapped hare. He mouthed rather than voiced his 
 cry: "Ha, treason!" and his guards shot forward 
 between his person and the other's. But Captain 
 Brazenhead folded his arms and, nodding his head 
 with certain emphasis, was oracular again. One 
 could not be more oracular. 
 "Who touches me dies the death I profess. Listen." 
 And Duke Galeazzo listened and his guards gaped. 
 "I ask no more of Providence than a foot inside the 
 door " another favorite saying of his. Having got 
 that beyond question, he never faltered in the flood 
 of his discourse, which, like a river fed by a thousand 
 rills, sucking substance as it runs from mountain 
 and morass, rolled free and irresistible towards its 
 goal. If the matter of his allocution was extraordi- 
 nary as it was its manner made it reasonable and 
 indeed inevitable. You might as well have headed 
 up the Danube as Captain Brazenhead when once 
 he was under way. The tongues of men and of 
 angels seemed in pawn to him who, without pause 
 or stay, spoke headlong, with a fierce and white-hot 
 fluidity indescribable by me, for the space of an hour 
 and a quarter. His subject ranged from metaphys- 
 ics to manslaughter; he borrowed freely and im- 
 partially, now from the Seraphic Doctor, now from 
 Hermes, the Thrice-Mage. These, the sages and 
 captains of antiquity, Plato and Holophernes, Quin- 
 tus Fabius and Michael Scot, Roger Bacon, the 
 Witch of Endor, and other ladies and gentlemen, as 
 it were, dissolved in hot oil, came swirling down the 
 tide. Not the sciences only, but the Virtues, Justice,
 
 20 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 Fortitude, and Mercy, with exemplars of each, en- 
 gaged his tongue. He did not forget the clemency 
 of Scipio, the Spartan boy, Mutius Scaevola, Susanna 
 before the Elders. He became particular, dwelt in- 
 timately upon the infirmities of kings. He knew how 
 many lovers had Semiramis, what ravages the fire 
 made in the breast of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, 
 what proved a stumbling-block to Caesar, how Charle- 
 magne doted, the luxuries of most of the Persian 
 kings he rehearsed them all, brought them all to a 
 fermenting head, and, if I may say so, slicing off 
 that head, laid it on the point of his tongue at the 
 feet of Milan. His whirling oratory, his flights of 
 frenzied search into the history of men and move- 
 ments of which he knew little or nothing, his elan, 
 his endurance, and his mendacity were but one 
 concentrated tribute to the little changeling by the 
 fire. ' 
 
 To say that this monarch was dazed is to state a 
 mere fact, to infer that he was flattered is to argue 
 a high probability. That he was relieved when 
 Captain Brazenhead stopped at last with a vigorous 
 clearing of the throat and a " That's the truth, by 
 Cock, take it as you will!" of that there is no 
 shadow of doubt. He was so greatly relieved that 
 he had at first no word to say; and when he did speak, 
 it was not to inquire concerning the message of 
 Visconti of Middlesex or King Henry's greetings, 
 but to ask in a voice which was the pale reflection 
 of his mood: "What wouldst thou of me, soldier?" 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, who had thought that he
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 21 
 
 had made himself plain, was for once embarrassed. 
 "Why, sir," said he, "there was a fellow in your 
 service called Lisciassangue and a paltry rogue ' 
 
 The Tyrant started, echoed him: "There was? 
 Aye," he said grimly, "and there is." 
 
 "There is not, my lord duke," said the Captain, 
 "and that's a fact; for he is done and done with. 
 He lies his length, so much dead meat, in a tavern of 
 Pavia. Now you may have him by the pound." 
 
 The Duke started and turned. " You have him " 
 he began to say. 
 
 "Aye, my lord, aye!" he was told, "you may have 
 him avoirdupois. I saw him so myself no later than 
 yesternight. And here stand I, Testadirame, friend 
 of Visconti of Middlesex, late of Burgundy, Scourge 
 of the Alps, offering you myself in his room. 'Tis 
 for that I am come, from Visconti of Middlesex 
 to him of Milan I, Testadirame, bosom's mate of 
 Death." 
 
 Visconti paused, staring, as if fascinated, at the 
 bosom's mate of Death. 
 
 "Do you dare to pretend," he said, "that you can 
 stand where Lisciassangue stood ? Are you so bold ?' ' 
 
 Captain Brazenhead replied: "But I am." 
 
 "But he slew his thousands, man," said Visconti. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead replied: "But I slew him" 
 
 Now, the fact is that the Duke of Milan, caring 
 nothing for Lisciassangue, cared greatly for death. 
 His own was of painful and constant interest, but 
 that of any other man was his passion. Therefore,
 
 22 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 when Captain Brazenhead, by that dazzling ad- 
 mission, spoke, for the first time that day, the 
 truth, Visconti's eyes began to glitter, and there 
 came a sound of "Ah!" from him, as of breath 
 drawn in slowly. He was watched with minute 
 attention. 
 
 And there was to be discerned in his voice a note 
 of decision. "Tell me," he said, "how you killed 
 that man; prove to me that you did it, and I ap- 
 point you to his place." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead smiled. "These things are 
 easy to me," he replied. "The proof is in the ante- 
 chamber, where I have left his sword along with 
 mine which did the business. As for the manner 
 of his death, that is a small affair. Had he been a 
 greater man, I had been more curious in dealing. 
 I am a carver and gilder when the hire is good or 
 the stuff worthy. But this knave! He angered me, 
 and I drew upon him; he blundered, and I played. 
 I was fanciful, d'ye see? I took slices off him here 
 and there till he gleamed before me in stripes of red 
 and white. He was like a dressed radish before I 
 had done with him, or a manikin cut out of a car- 
 rot, or a slipped beet-root. Aye, aye, and there he 
 lies at your money by the pound." 
 
 The Duke, gloating over the fire, felt the first 
 warmth of that day in his fevered bones. "Bring 
 me," he desired "the man's sword, that I may look 
 on it and believe." They fetched it, and he ran 
 his finger up the furrowed blade. "I gave two hun- 
 dred sequins for it in Ferrara," he said musingly.
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 23 
 
 "We call it Jezebel." He held it out. "Take, 
 wield, Testadirame. Jezebel is yours." 
 
 This is the manner of Captain Brazenhead's 
 appointment to be Third Murderer to the Duke of 
 Milan.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD DEALT WITH A BUR- 
 GUNDIAN IN A TUNNEL 
 
 A FOOT inside the door, indeed! And here was 
 Captain Brazenhead with his whole fine body within 
 already. Comfortable quarters and free table, a 
 livery all of red, with a mask for business purposes, 
 flattering attentions from laqueys of all sorts, part- 
 nership with two such ruffians, Camus and Gelso- 
 mino, as never, even in his experience, had tainted 
 the air before what could a soldier of fortune want 
 with more? It is the misfortune of such gentlemen, 
 when their imaginations are ardent and habit san- 
 guine, that they can be seduced more easily by a 
 phrase than by all the sensible temptations of Saint 
 Antony the Abbot. If the kindling of noble rage 
 by a neat allocution can ever be called a misfortune, 
 so it was with Captain Brazenhead that when his 
 prospects seemed most fair he told himself that all 
 was still to do. "There lies long Italy," that too 
 happy phrase, was what moved his discontent. To 
 be Third Murderer to the Duke of Milan was to be 
 something; but long Italy did not lie murdered, as 
 yet. 
 
 His colleagues Camus, who beneath a beetling 
 Roman brow had the thin and bitter lips and hoarse 
 
 24
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 25 
 
 voice of a fed Caesar, and Gelsomino, easily mistaken 
 for a Tartar with the toothache, with red rims to his 
 eyes and a sour mouth shockingly awry made plain 
 to him his duties from the outset. He was to kill 
 daintily, and report every night to the Duke, his 
 master, the means and the manner of his killing. 
 Imagination was to go to it ; it was not enough to kill. 
 He must be an artist, he must compose his murders, 
 give them a lyrical pitch. The Prince, now that his 
 fear had taken hold of him, was no longer able to 
 witness the sport he loved; but his enthusiasm for 
 it burned clear and bright, and the fever now in his 
 blood gave a zest to his understanding such as his 
 eyes had never lent it. He was, clearly, a virtuoso; 
 he collected murders as other men bronzes. Captain 
 Brazenhead, therefore, was to excel; it was little use 
 to offer such a master anything but the best of its 
 kind. "Kill," said Camus, "but be eloquent above 
 all. Be a poet, brother." And Gelsomino added: 
 "Aye! Braid your periods with blood; let your 
 stresses be gashes, your casuras rents. Rhyme your 
 passados, balance your refrains, now on this side, 
 now on that. Stab in your Ha's! and Ugh's! and 
 spare not your God-ha'-mercies! for by such com- 
 ments you enhance a poorer recital than you need 
 conceive. For the rest you have a free hand, and a 
 choice of implements in the armoury. I never, 
 myself, saw a prettier set of tools, though by my 
 grandsire's account the great Lord Eccelino had twice 
 the number. But we have a blade with a double 
 crook in it, a narrow steel, sinuous, like a watersnake.
 
 26 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 I recommend it. We call it The Horseleech's 
 Daughter a happy name, I think. Come now, col- 
 league, will you open the ball? There is a fellow 
 in the Tunnel bursting ripe. Will you take him for 
 a beginning?" 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, sitting stiffly by the wall, 
 nursed his leg in silence. His mood was short, his 
 method precise. "Is he but one, then? Do you 
 pit me to one man?" He frowned. "His offence?" 
 was his next question, and he was told, deer-stealing 
 in the Duke's park of Marignano. It shocked him 
 out of his dignity. "What!" he cried. "Am I to 
 embellish a man out of the world for a collop of 
 venison? Let the hangman deal with him; let him 
 dance in the air or you will ask me next to whip 
 dogs." 
 
 Gelsomino said: "As you will. 'Tis pity you 
 fly off so fast, for this is a great fellow of his hands. 
 Not that he will look amiss on the gallows, by any 
 means, for the bulk of him is bound to tell. But 
 there he lies, for you or the tree; 'tis for you to 
 say." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead's eyes had begun to glitter. 
 "'Tis a big bulk, you tell me, and a man of his 
 hands? Bones in him? Thews to him? I'll see the 
 man I may make something of him. What's his 
 lodging? The Tunnel, d'ye call it ? Let me see him, 
 then." 
 
 "It will be torchlight work," said Camus; "chancy, 
 merry work." 
 
 "It shall be merrier than you guess for," said
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 27 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, "for I'll have at him in the 
 dark." 
 
 But he took a torch with him when he went masked 
 to his work. By its shuddering light he saw his man 
 at the far end of the dripping vault his steady eyes, 
 his mouth firmly set, his square jaw; a broad-shoul- 
 dered, high-coloured young man. 
 
 Next he surveyed the theatre of his operations, 
 truly named the Tunnel, since it was nothing else. 
 "Light bad, a tricky floor, little play for the arm. 
 We must thread with the point, I see." He fixed 
 the torch into a ring in the wall, took off his cloak, 
 rolled up his sleeve, cleared his throat, and said: 
 "Now, brother." 
 
 With lowered head, but indomitable eyes, the 
 victim awaited his death-stroke. It came not; the 
 tense moment was sharply broken by a cry from the 
 Executioner. "By the Mass, the man's tied up!" 
 He dropped his sword, and advancing took a file 
 from his belt, and severed the manacles which held 
 the prisoner fast to the walls. Having resumed his 
 blade and first position, he adjured him cheerfully. 
 "Now, then " But the other's head remained 
 bowed, and he kept to his knees. 
 
 "Little man," said Captain Brazenhead, "I am 
 waiting. Lift up your head and play the soldier." 
 
 The prisoner replied: "I conceive that I play that 
 best by suffering what I cannot avoid." Never- 
 theless he raised his head. "You intend to murder 
 me," he continued. "I have commended my soul
 
 28 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 to Goa, and bow my body to necessity, not to 
 you." 
 
 "Bow not at all, by Cock!" said Captain Brazen- 
 head: "but jump up, minion, and play with me. 
 What! we are only young once, so who says die?" 
 He held out two swords. "Here is a choice of irons, 
 take which you will. This one is of Pistoja, and is 
 the longer! but Ferrara tried this other seven times 
 in the fire. The choice is yours." 
 
 "What is this?" the prisoner stammered. And 
 then he panted like a dog. 
 
 "Battle, my son," said Captain Brazenhead; 
 "bloody, beauteous battle. No one is by; we have 
 a fair field. You know the ground and are the young- 
 er man; but maybe I am in better fettle. I see 
 that you have courage, and tell you fairly that I 
 have some. To it, gamester, and the best throw 
 wins." 
 
 The prisoner sobbed, then laughed aloud. "Oh, 
 wonder!" he cried deliriously; "I had thought you 
 my executioner." 
 
 "So I am," said Captain Brazenhead; "make no 
 mistake." 
 
 "And yet you offer me " 
 
 "Why," said the Captain, "am I not to have my 
 pleasure as well as you? Do you take me for a 
 poulterer or a cat's-meat man?" 
 
 The prisoner threw up his arms. " Oh," says he, 
 "here is one cast in a great mould." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead accepted the compliment. 
 "I am a pretty fighter, I do believe," he owned.
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 29 
 
 "Will you have at me in the dark? A word, and I 
 beat out the torch." 
 
 The prisoner had taken over a sword, and was 
 making cuts in the air. He cried: "Ha!" and 
 stamped. Up went his left hand as he lunged for- 
 ward with gaiety. "A touch!" he cried. "Have 
 at you, soldier!" 
 
 "What of the light?" he was asked severely, and 
 answered: "Leave it, leave it. 'Tis a pleasure to 
 see your face." 
 
 "Gallantly said, butcher boy," returned Captain 
 Brazenhead, and threw himself into position. " One, 
 two; one, two; engage!" And they closed. 
 
 To it they went, as merry as could be, thrusting, 
 foining, slicing. The deer-stealer was very limber, 
 and had a lightning eye. Captain Brazenhead 
 touched him once on the upper arm, but himself 
 received no hurt. When the younger man cried 
 " Truce ! " his executioner was not sorry to oblige him. 
 
 With all the intentions in the world to do justice 
 to the last extremity upon the malefactor before him, 
 Captain Brazenhead could not forbear to admire so 
 stout a fighter. And generosity being the essence of 
 him, he must needs praise where he admired. Each 
 leaning on his sword, the hero spake: "Comrade, 
 I see that thou art a have-at-you kind of a dog-fox. 
 Thou hast learned thy trade in a good school of 
 fence." 
 
 "The best," said the prisoner, deep-breathing. 
 
 "Thou hast served Burgundy!" This was one
 
 30 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 of the Captain's flashes of inspiration, and it sped 
 like an arrow to the mark. 
 
 Reverberation thrilled from the prisoner, as memo- 
 ries kindled in his eyes. "Ah, and so I have," he 
 said, "and with brave fellows. The days were too 
 long, or the nights too short, for the game we loved. 
 I know not which was the matter." 
 
 "'Tis little matter either way," mused aloud his 
 executioner, who in turn was deeply stirred. " Many 
 found them the same." He looked darkling at the 
 other darkling and shrewdly. "Knewest thou the 
 Fish ? The Thumb-marked Fish in Besancon ? And 
 Long-eared Noll, the drawer there?" The prisoner 
 raised an eyebrow and smiled awry. "Eh, if I knew 
 them! Hark to this drinker!" 
 
 But the Captain leaned intensely forward, his 
 voice down to a whisper. "Say and Joconde?" 
 
 The prisoner kept his eyes fixed upon his foe. 
 "She and I," said he carefully, "were old enemies. 
 She beat me at last." 
 
 "Aye!" cried the Captain, on fire, "aye! and so she 
 would. A many went down." 
 
 "Among them was I," the prisoner confessed; 
 "but there was one, a tall man, who never failed." 
 
 "Ha!" said Brazenhead, hoarsely. "What, a 
 hollow man, a drinker?" 
 
 "He could drink against twelve." 
 
 "And was ready with his blade?" 
 
 "He was ready." 
 
 "Hairy? A deep and curious swearer? Could 
 notch a shaft to purpose?"
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 31 
 
 "My arm," said the prisoner, "was the cross- 
 bow; but that man had a long arm." 
 
 The Captain was trembling. "His name, his 
 name, Burgundian?" 
 
 The answer came slowly. "They called the man 
 T&e-cTaircrin, with reason. I loved him, as you 
 might love the Pope of Rome that is, with reverence, 
 from afar." 
 
 His hearer gulped down his emotion. "Thy name, 
 then, is ?" 
 
 "Bernart," he said, "is my name of the Church. 
 But they called me Tranche-coupe for short." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead lightly plucked off his mask, 
 and held his arms out wide. "To my bosom, child! 
 to my breast! I am thy dear gossip Brazenhead!" 
 There followed an affecting scene. . . . 
 
 "I carved my name upon him," was the substance 
 of the Third Murderer's report to his master and lord. 
 "I carved my name out upon him, and he died of 
 the dot on the i. So perish all thine enemies, Milan !" 
 But it is nevertheless the fact that Bernart Tranche- 
 coupe lay snug on straw in a cellar, awaiting the 
 orders of his executioner and friend. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead has been blamed for this 
 clemency, but not by me. He had intended to do 
 his work when his blood was properly warmed by 
 battle, and but for his memories would have done it. 
 I think it was the name and hardy shadow of Joconde 
 that saved the Burgundian.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 DESPERATE DOINGS WITH A BISCAYAN 
 
 WHEN he was told off for the duty of strangling 
 three ruffians who lay chained in the Well of Santa 
 Chiara, Captain Brazenhead hesitated, but only for 
 a moment. It appears that, for once, he doubted of 
 his prowess. " 'Tis true, I once hanged a running 
 dog, when I was a lad," he allowed; "but since then 
 the sword hath been my arm; and sometimes the 
 long-bow, sometimes the long-bow. Yet tell me over 
 their names and conditions, that I may consider 
 them." 
 
 The three prisoners, they told him, were Lo Spa- 
 gna, Squarcialupo, and a nameless young man, an 
 Egyptian. Lo Spagna was a one-armed man of 
 surpassing strength and infamous conversation, con- 
 sorting with Hussites and Waldensians, suspected 
 of a plot to take off the Duke in the Sacrament. 
 Squarcialupo was old in sin. He had been in the 
 galleys at Lerici, and having torn up a bench with his 
 teeth, had used it as a club and freed himself. Re- 
 taken at Bergamo, he had been offered his freedom 
 upon condition that he would eat one of his fellows 
 on the chain, and had shortly refused. "A very con- 
 tumacious villain," was Captain Brazenhead's com-
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 33 
 
 ment; "but too good for the cord. Well, and who 
 is your third?" 
 
 Nothing was known about the Egyptian, save that 
 he had a ragged ear, and was branded on the shoulder 
 with a galloping horse. "Why," says the Captain, 
 "and how else would you brand an Egyptian? But 
 continue." This Egyptian, they said, was in the 
 Well, on the information of the Augustinian Order, 
 for atheism. At this the Captain's eyes showed a 
 dangerous light. "What! he denies God! If he 
 does so, he strangles; but I'll never believe it of any 
 but the Jews." 
 
 There seemed no room for doubt, however. The 
 proof was that when he was put before an image of the 
 Holy Virgin, he addressed it in an unknown tongue, 
 which was exactly what a man would do when he 
 intended to deny her divine attributes. 
 
 The Captain shook his head. "It looks black 
 against him, and so it does. I take a whipcord in 
 my poke for this renegade. He shall say the Ave 
 backwards before he chokes." 
 
 One whipcord, then, three sacks, and three swords 
 besides his own, formed his equipment for the execu- 
 tion of the Law's decree. " There may be nothing in 
 it, after all," he considered, "and I'll not spoil sport 
 until I am obliged." It will be seen that he again 
 intended to temper justice with hard knocks. 
 
 To the Pozzo Santa Chiara he strode in his awful 
 array, and was lowered into it by a bucket on a 
 windlass. Now, the Well was literally that, thirty 
 feet deep and fifteen across. In the midst was a
 
 34 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 brick pier, to the which the three condemned ruffians 
 were fettered, two by the leg and one by the neck. 
 The rains might rot and the sun shrivel them, for all 
 was open to the sky. 
 
 The dreadful apparition of a man, whiskered, 
 gigantic, masked, clothed in blood-red, with four 
 swords under his arm, three sacks over his shoulder, 
 and the end of a whipcord hanging from his trunks, 
 produced its unfailing effect. The chained wretches 
 backed the length of their tether, and squatting on 
 their hams, blinked and gibbered at their doom. 
 The Egyptian, clasping his brown knees in his hands, 
 buried his face between them and appeared to be 
 praying to the devil. 
 
 Nothing in the executioner's first words extenuated 
 their despair. 
 
 "Friends of misery," he said, "you bond-servants 
 of concupiscence, an offended God and the Law's 
 sacred nature alike demand your righteous extermi- 
 nation. They demand it of me, Testadirame, and 
 it is not likely that I shall fail them. Prepare then 
 to account for the uttermost farthing of your debts, 
 and see me notch the tallies, by Cock." The 
 Egyptian did not move nor cease his prayers; 
 Squarcialupo sniffed through one nostril, while he 
 held the other firmly against his knee. "Stand up, 
 Lo Spagna," the Captain roared, "stand up, you 
 left-handed devil, and meet Testadirame, drinker 
 of blood." 
 
 The little, black-bearded, snub-nosed man, bent 
 nearly double amidships, shuffled to his feet, and
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 35 
 
 saluted the dreadful swordsman. He, erect and dis- 
 cerning, assorted him at once. 
 
 " There is this to be said of thee, Lo Spagna, that 
 if thou hast lost an arm, thou canst spare it better 
 than most. That which thou hast is too long by 
 cubits. What, Barbary, canst thou scratch a flea? 
 Canst thou pitch a cocoanut? Ha, tree-topster, 
 show thy tail, then." 
 
 At this shocking mirth Lo Spagna mouthed un- 
 easily, and uneasily rubbed his knee. Captain Braz- 
 enhead shook his sword at him. "Say the Credo, 
 thou toe-fingered mock man, say the Credo, or I lop 
 thee into fire- wood lengths, for the doubter I believe 
 thee." By a pardonable confusion he had supposed 
 him the atheist of the party, and was greatly sur- 
 prised. "Credo in unum deum omnipotentem" the 
 fellow quavered forth, and finished without a throw- 
 back. By force of habit his yokemates quired Amen. 
 
 So far the wretch had cleared himself. "This is 
 indifferent well," admitted his executioner, and bent 
 frowning brows upon Lo Spagna, considering how 
 he should most surely convict him of sin. "Now 
 listen to me," said he, sure of his man. "Thou hast 
 crossed the Bidassoa." 
 
 Accusation of an unheard-of crime caused the 
 little man to dance up and down, like a bear asking 
 for supper. He protested vehemently. "Never, my 
 lord, by all my hopes! I would not do it I should 
 shame to do it oh, that I should live to be accused 
 of such a deed. I am an old Christian, my lord, a 
 very old Christian, and the only cross I know is that
 
 36 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 of salvation." He began to chant: "O Crux! O 
 Crux spes unical O lignum vita, stirps Davidius! O 
 scBcula scBculoruml" And looking keenly up: "You 
 see that I have my clergy." 
 
 But the Captain spurned him. "I see that thou 
 art a very vile Biscayan, clergyman or none. Yet for 
 the sake of a little person, known to me in Bilboa, 
 when I was there in '89, thou shalt fight with me for 
 thy deplorable life. I had believed thee an atheist, 
 upon my soul, and had a cord for thy wry neck. 
 'Tis better for thee to be a one-armed ape of Spain 
 than so outrageous a fellow. Hold thee still now, 
 while I loose thy fetter." 
 
 The little man was loosed, and slowly, pleasur- 
 ably, straightened himself. 
 
 "By stretching," said the Captain, "thou mightest 
 reach my nipple yet. Horrid food for thee there, 
 Biscayan. Take now what blade thou wilt. This 
 of Ferrara is the longest; have thou that. Stay a 
 little. Tie me up my right arm with this cord, 
 wherewith I shall shortly strangle the atheist when 
 I have found him. Tie me close, dog. Dost thou 
 think that I would crow over a Biscayan the less?" 
 Deftly Lo Spagna bound him up, and they began 
 their bout. The other pair, squatting by the pillar, 
 watched and wondered, and hoped greatly. 
 
 The Biscayan, if such he was, proved himself a 
 marvel of his age and nation. Such agility, lightning 
 advance and retreat, thrust and parry, had scarcely 
 been seen since Bernardo del Carpio engaged the 
 dwarf Malimart. He would run in, drive and duck ;
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 37 
 
 then turn and fly like the wind. Such were his tac- 
 tics. Twice Captain Brazenhead, thinking to have 
 him, chased him round the limits of the well. But 
 Lo Spagna ran so fast that he caught his enemy up. 
 Pursuer became pursued; the unchivalrous might 
 have said it was the greater man who ran, the justiciar 
 who fled from justice ; but we know that it could not 
 be so. Pursuing who might, they ran like grey- 
 hounds: then to it again, one, two, one, two, until for 
 a third time the Biscayan, stooping, ran in and de- 
 livered his point. Turning immediately, he ran, his 
 fate after him. Captain Brazenhead chased Lo 
 Spagna, Lo Spagna sped faster and chased Captain 
 Brazenhead. Then suddenly, as they slipped round 
 like beetles in a cask, the Egyptian edged out a foot 
 and brought the Captain down. Was this treason? 
 I fear it. Lo Spagna buffeted into him and flew 
 over his head, his length on the floor. Immediately 
 Captain Brazenhead arose, set his foot on the other's 
 chest, and nicked the point of his sword into his 
 throat. " I dig thou diest is a good verb, and an 
 active verb. Phew! Bilboan, thou art a monarch 
 of the chase. Say thy prayers now, say thy prayers, 
 for I must kill a man this day and why not thee? 
 But that none shall say that I deal unfairly by a fine 
 little rogue, have at thee left-handed. Now beware." 
 
 The Biscayan writhed under the sword's point. 
 "One word,one word, noble enemy," he faintly urged. 
 
 "Say on, dead man." It had been fine to have 
 watched the Egyptian just then the pondering, 
 sphinx-like face he had.
 
 38 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 "That little person of my people known to your 
 Excellency had she a red poll?" Thus far the 
 Biscayan. The Captain's eyes grew dreamy. 
 
 " It was something reddish. There was a tang. I 
 know that I called her Judas when I was merry, and 
 Foxy when she crossed me." 
 
 " And her eyes, noble sir ? Her pair eyes ? " 
 
 "They were not what you would call a pair," said 
 the Captain. "But one was well enough, inclining 
 to the yellow. With that she could make pretty 
 work, I assure you." 
 
 "And so she could," the Bilboan said, "and I 
 should know it, for she was my aunt." 
 
 Starting, Captain Brazenhead somewhat recoiled, 
 and in so doing plucked his sword out of Lo Spagna's 
 neck with the kind of noise you make when you draw 
 a cork. A spasm of pain contracted the prisoner's 
 features; but in his eyes hope shone bright. 
 
 As for Captain Brazenhead, he knew that he must 
 once more have mercy. " Cock's body, and is the 
 world so paltry small?" The sword's point dropped 
 nerveless to the ground. "I spare thee, Bilboan, for 
 thy aunt's merry sake. Thou mayst bless her name 
 in thy prayers." 
 
 " She was a fine woman," said the little man, sitting 
 up and closing the wound in his neck. " May she go 
 with God!" 
 
 " She was a knowing one," replied Brazenhead. He 
 turned to his business. "Into the sack with thee, 
 Barbary, and lie quiet until I have done with those 
 pampered rogues." Here the Egyptian wetted his lips.
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 39 
 
 "Sir," said the Biscayan, "I will help you there, 
 if I may, for my aunt's sake." 
 
 "By Cock, and you shall!" the hero cried. "A 
 main! a main! Three arms to four! Stand up, you 
 drolls." 
 
 He turned short upon the chained men, who were 
 already on their feet, a murderous couple: the one, a 
 square-headed, heavy man of past middle life, with 
 hanging chops and not a hair upon him; the other, 
 the Egyptian, hatchet-faced, lithe, and walnut-brown, 
 with restless eyes which could never meet yours, and 
 tight lips never soothed by smiling. The bigger was 
 enormously strong. His muscles rippled as he moved, 
 like incoming waves. The younger was all wire and 
 brain: no ruth was in either, nor law, nor quarter. 
 Captain Brazenhead sized them up and down when 
 he had set them free. 
 
 "Now, my bravoes," he said, "we shall have 
 sport. You know my way, and if ever I saw rufflers, 
 ambushmen behind a hedge, or outlaws in a clump of 
 scrub, then do I know your way also." He flung two 
 swords with a generous gesture at their feet, then bal- 
 anced his own. "Take your fancy, little men, and 
 get to work. There's light enough for the game we 
 play, and a rare game it shall be." The Bilboan 
 lined up with him, and he set on with a shout.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DOUBLE BATTLE 
 
 IT was rare, very rare: a game for the heroes in the 
 trenches about Ilium, when Diomede fought waist- 
 deep in dead men, and yellow-haired Menelaus 
 ranged disconsolate the walls, crying upon the false 
 thief Paris to show himself. From the hush of prep- 
 aration to Captain Brazenhead's cry of onset was 
 but a moment of long breath; and then immediately 
 the ring was alive with whirling blades, and steel 
 clanged on steel like church bells of an Easter morn- 
 ing. Brazenhead raged like a plunging horse. He 
 seemed everywhere at once wallowing in his work, 
 snorting, shaking his head. Like a strong swimmer 
 newly in the water, rejoicing to feel the tide, so did he 
 breast the waves of battle. Ever on the look-out for 
 advantage, the Egyptian writhed in and out, or 
 darted like an eel, now this side, now that ; and the 
 Bilboan, bending at the knees, ran in where he could 
 and cut left-handed at the heavy Italian. That livid 
 giant was sore beset, and by his breathing betrayed 
 himself. So long as he kept his wind he did well 
 as when he laid open Captain Brazenhead's forearm 
 with a smashing blow, and cut down the Bilboan as if 
 he had been a hemlock. But alas for him! even as 
 
 40
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 41 
 
 he roared his triumph Brazenhead set upon him, and 
 mowing at the tendons of his knees, missed his aim 
 indeed, but split open one of his calves horizontally 
 and laid him his length. When one of that party 
 the Egyptian, I believe cried a halt, Squarcialupo 
 could not rise above one knee, and then his wounded 
 calf could be seen, notched like a leg of mutton. All 
 the champions were hurt; the Egyptian had lost his 
 ragged ear, and might have been seen shaking the 
 blood out of his head before the fighting stopped. 
 Two fingers the less was the brave Biscayan. Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead might well swing his forearm; but 
 Squarcialupo was down and could fight no more. 
 The conqueror all duty to his Prince cast to the 
 wind felt magnanimous, little disposed to insist upon 
 his right. 
 
 " Bleed on your sacks, bleed on your sacks, you 
 rogues!" he cried upon his victims, "or how shall I 
 carry you through Milan for dead?" Grinning at 
 his ruse, they obeyed him. The Captain sat upon the 
 ground and surveyed them. 
 
 "Squarcialupo, my old son," he said, "let us take 
 up your business. You broke from your oar, they 
 tell me, and I'll not blame you for it. I would have 
 done the same. But what kind of a fool am I, think 
 you, to be lagged again?" 
 
 "Captain," said the Italian hoarsely, looking with 
 intense interest at the fountain in his leg, " it was done 
 by <:raft. I am something of a drinker, you must 
 know. Now, as I lay in the sun, sleeping off my 
 draught, the Duke's archers came upon me and
 
 42 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 knew me again; and I awoke to find myself in this 
 hole." 
 
 "Knew thee again, sayst thou?" Brazenhead 
 picked him up. " Explain me that saying, I'll 
 trouble thee." 
 
 "I am a Pisan, noble Captain," said Squarcialupo, 
 "and followed the fleet, making war upon the Geno- 
 ese; and when I was rifling a corpse as it might be 
 you or me it turned out to be no corpse at all, but a 
 quicker man than I was. So they chained me to a 
 bench in the galleys, and there I sweated for six years 
 less one. Therefore, sir " 
 
 "Therefore! Therefore! No therefore at all, 
 thou paltry fellow," the Captain roared, sternly 
 frowning. "What have thy beastly habits to do 
 with my question? 'Twas Genoa chained thee to 
 a bench and Genoa was wise. But if they knew 
 thee again in Milan, they had known thee of old. " 
 
 "Why, yes, sir," the heavy Italian replied; "long 
 ago, when I took the old Duke Barnaby's pay for the 
 war in Piedmont " 
 
 "Bleed on your sack!" the Captain interrupted 
 him. "Bleed on your sack! See what a quag you 
 make out here!" 
 
 "And valiantly I should have served him but for 
 an evil acquaintance I made. For in his service there 
 was a spearman, a most rascally knave, if not the 
 devil in person, who beguiled me with hopes of high 
 renown combined with comfort. Sir, he was the 
 plausiblest, God-bless-you kind of a man that ever 
 you saw and you will have seen many "
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 43 
 
 Captain Brazenhead's face was a study at this time. 
 Profound meditation, humour, judgment, acquaint- 
 ance with villainy, benevolence: all knowledge could 
 be read there. He covered his mouth with his hand, 
 his hand with his nose, and his eyes twinkled as if to 
 say: "Proceed, son." 
 
 "And says this sly one to me over the camp-fire: 
 'Hark ye, jail-bird' for he had a pleasant name 
 for everybody 'knowst thou aught of a convoy that 
 comes this way?' 'A convoy?' says I. 'What 
 convoy?' Just like that I said it, civil-spoken; and 
 says he: 'Treasure; hire for the troops;' and lays his 
 finger along his nose, as you might do." 
 
 It so happened that Captain Brazenhead was 
 doing exactly that, and no less. The coincidence 
 startled him; he dropped his hand and began to 
 hum an air. 
 
 The Italian resumed: "'And what of that?' says 
 myself. 'We have our share, I suppose?' Says he 
 darkly, 'look to it that we do.' To be brief with you, 
 sir, he did beguile me into a dark venture me and a 
 company of eight Christians that with horses and 
 arms we went up the sea-road some six leagues by 
 night, and there lay hid in a little wood, and stood by 
 our arms all night, and heard him tell tales this 
 wily, hairy man. And in the gray of dawn came the 
 convoy down the sea-road, a round dozen of men-at- 
 arms, with the treasure on mules' backs; and at the 
 word of command: 'Leap, ye thousand devils!' out 
 we did leap, and put those men to the sword ; and the 
 muleteers fled, believing that hairy man's word that
 
 44 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 we were a thousand though we were but eight 
 Christians and one devil." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead cheered the speaker: "O 
 brave! It was bravely done, my brother!" 
 
 "Not so brave as you might suppose," said the 
 Italian, with grief thickening his voice. "When we 
 came to share the plunder, what think you fell to me 
 out of all that booty untold? Three sols Tournois, 
 as I'm a hoping soul and if I had remained snug in 
 camp I had had fifty. But, said that deceiver, I was 
 the best-nourished man he had ever set eyes on, and 
 therefore " 
 
 "'Therefore* will be thy ruin, Demetrio," said 
 Captain Brazenhead. "I gave you four, which is 
 enough for any man not a leader of a company. But 
 now, look you, I spare your life for the sake of our old 
 friendship. You shall go alive into that sack, and 
 drink my health this night in a flagon or two of right 
 liquor you, man, who, but for my clemency, might 
 have been paddling upon red-hot bricks, mingling 
 fires for your new prince, Beelzebub. Think of it, 
 Demetrio, and rejoice greatly and there's for you 
 and your three sols Tournois. For I'll go into the 
 fire myself for it that I gave you the four." 
 
 Sedately, with a very stiff leg, the large Italian 
 crawled into his sack, and lay hidden there beside the 
 Biscayan, who was by this time asleep.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD, AGAINST HIS BETTER 
 JUDGMENT, SPARED THE EGYPTIAN 
 
 THE Egyptian, who had been lying his length upon 
 the sack, destined, as he hoped, to receive him alive, 
 and who had lost nothing of the conversations be- 
 tween his fellow-prisoners and their great opponent, 
 now arose to his feet and came wheedling to Captain 
 Brazenhead. 
 
 "You shall spare me also, noble Captain, if you 
 please, to be a credit to you yet." 
 
 "That," said Captain Brazenhead, "will you never 
 be." 
 
 The Egyptian sighed. "Who knows?" he 
 quired. "Sir, if you will but listen to my tale 
 
 The Captain frowned upon him. " Fair and softly 
 with your tale," he said. "Why should I listen to 
 thee, rascal, since thou must die?" 
 
 "Die, Captain! Oh, Captain!" The Egyptian 
 shivered. 
 
 "Aye," said Brazenhead, "die is the word." He 
 was irritated with the man. "Cock's wounds!" he 
 cried out, "am I Executioner to the Duke of Milan, 
 and execute no man ? Is it to be said of me : ' Testa- 
 dirame is an unprofitable servant'? Never in life! 
 Dog, thou diest!" 
 
 45
 
 46 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 The Egyptian shook like a straw in the wind. 
 "But, sir, having spared the life of a Spanish rene- 
 gado " he began to plead. 
 
 "Pooh!" says the Captain. "I played with his 
 aunt." 
 
 "Alas!" said the Egyptian, "alas! that I am an 
 orphan! But so it is that when I left Lutterworth 
 in fair, green England " Here he paused and 
 scanned the stern man's face to see if Lutterworth 
 were to help him. It was not; he had touched no 
 chord. Captain Brazenhead's features were marble. 
 
 "Proceed, Egyptian," he said; "I listen. When 
 thou leftest Lutterworth " 
 
 "When I left Lutterworth, and went to seek my 
 fortune in London, I lived happily enough with a 
 brave company gathered in Houndsditch, in the fields 
 there, about the 'Old Cat' tavern does your honour 
 not remember Catherine Kate Wryneck, called also 
 1 Drink to me only'?" 
 
 Captain Brazenhead spoke as one in a dream. "I 
 do not," he said. "Get on!" 
 
 The Egyptian, most uneasy, shifted his ground. 
 "Alack the day, noble Captain, in the which I left 
 that proud city and went down with a horse to sell 
 to Bristol " 
 
 Captain Brazenhead started, snorted, and pounced 
 upon him. 
 
 1 ' That horse thou stolest , vile thief ! He is branded 
 on thy shoulder; thou art a dead man. A flea-bitten 
 white gelding that screwed the off-hind foot 
 
 "Oh, sir, oh, sir ! " cried the Egyptian, falling on his
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 47 
 
 knees. "That horse was never yours!" His case 
 was parlous; you may touch the chords too often, it 
 seems. But no! 
 
 "By Cock, and it was not," said the Captain, "but 
 I knew the horse. The man that owned it or called 
 himself the owner " 
 
 "Aye, sir," said the young man, with gleaming 
 eyes "aye, sir, right, sir so he called himself; but 
 he lied, sir." 
 
 "I'll warrant that he did," said Brazenhead; "for 
 he was not called Glossy Tom for nothing. Well, 
 then " Hesitation marked for the first time his 
 incisive lineaments and dissipated the lightning of 
 his eyes. The Egyptian considered his case settled. 
 "Since I prove to be of the number of your friends, 
 dear sir," he ventured but too hastily. The Cap- 
 tain recoiled. 
 
 1 ' A friend , thou ! " He towered over the man. ' ' I 
 fancied the horse, 'tis true, and thou wast before- 
 hand with me. Pooh! I had but to stretch out 
 mine hand. And now I remember that thou art a 
 horrible knave. Didst thou not address Our Lady 
 in an unknown tongue full of blasphemy ? Horse or 
 no horse, I tell thee that thou diest." 
 
 Trembling, looking all ways for help, muttering 
 with his pale lips, the wretched Egyptian faltered: 
 "It was the tongue I know best, noble Captain. . I 
 am a very pious Christian, better than some who have 
 their Latin. I spoke in the Roman to her Ladyship 
 and she heard me. I prove that, sir, I prove that ! " 
 His eyes gleamed; you could see the whites of them.
 
 48 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 "The proof that she heard me," he said, "is that 
 you are here, her lieutenant in this wicked place 
 yourself an Englishman " 
 
 "By the Mass," replied the Captain, "all this may 
 be very true, and yet be woundily inconvenient." 
 He held his chin, and this time the young man be- 
 lieved himself snatched out of the pit. He came for- 
 ward obsequiously, bending at the knees. Captain 
 Brazenhead roared at him to hold off. 
 
 "I forswear my nation!" he cried, "I become 
 Lombard! I will embrace Jewry before I let thee 
 go!" 
 
 But it was too late. The Egyptian now held him 
 by the knee. "Captain," prayed he, "noble Cap- 
 tain, you will never break a man who got the better 
 of you in a horse-deal." 
 
 "Who says that I will not?" And yet he was 
 touched. If he could spare Squarcialupo of whom 
 he had made a fool, how not this oily rogue who had 
 made a fool of him ? And it was not to be denied the 
 fellow had fought for his skin. Captain Brazenhead 
 had it not in him to take life in the cool of his bile. 
 He was so made that he, who would cut a man's 
 liver out of him in fair fighting, came afterwards to 
 love his enemy if he had so much as scratched him. 
 He knew that this was a weakness. "Look you," he 
 was wont to say to his opponent, "If you would save 
 yourself from me, wound me where you can. I con- 
 sider you carrion at this speaking, but he who draws 
 my blood wears armour of proof for me. Now, then, 
 have at you, soldier!"
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 49 
 
 Meditating his own nature and deploring it, mut- 
 tering to himself: "Maybe I do wrong I do grudge 
 this fellow his mercy upon my soul I do grudge it 
 him," Captain Brazenhead remained intensely in 
 thought for many minutes, his head sunk upon his 
 breast, his arms folded. At last, as if suddenly 
 awaking out of sleep, he threw his chin up and 
 stamped with his foot. "Into your sack, you black- 
 livered hound ! May Hell forgive me the wrong I do 
 him this day, and count it not against me when mine 
 cometh!" It was a sight to see how the Egyptian 
 slipped in like a terrier into kennel when the whip 
 is whistling. 
 
 There, then, for good or evil, in their sanguine 
 wrappings, lay the three ransomed men; there over 
 them, like a meditative god, stood Captain Brazen- 
 head, with a hand to grasp his chin, and one finger 
 of it to rake in his moustachios. He set a foot upon 
 the round of a sack; deeply, profoundly, he thought 
 upon mercy, justice, judgment, the weighing of souls 
 and such-like themes; and here, if you will have it, 
 is a summary of his reflections. 
 
 "Now have I here ensacked four indifferent ras- 
 cals bound straitly to my person by cords of steel. 
 They worship me as the author of their being, as in 
 a sense I am. No doubt they would follow me all 
 over the world ; a body-guard the like of which the 
 Duke of Milan might pray for night and day and 
 with him all long Italy." His eye flashed fire. 
 "Long Italy! Long Italy! By their means I make 
 good the soothsay that I heard in the tavern of Pa via
 
 50 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 when, with my foot upon Lisciassangue's remains, 
 I vaunted, There lies long Italy. 
 
 " It was true, by Cock, for all that, when I spake, I 
 spake as in a glass darkly. Aye, darkly, but it was 
 true. For see me now ! To each of my four scoun- 
 drels there will adhere like ticks to a sheep's back 
 lesser scoundrels, to each one ten at least. That 
 gives me four-and-forty desperate men; and with 
 forty men you may take a gate-house and hold it, 
 by Cock's body! Nay, you may get, by shock, a 
 town, as my lord John Swynford got Coulanges in 
 Brittany on a foggy night of Martinmas, and became 
 viscount thereof, and sweated meat out of the bur- 
 gesses, and honey out of their wives, and levied toll 
 upon all and sundry faring that way into France, 
 and took to wife Melisette, daughter of Simon de 
 Fotz, and got a son, who is Viscount of Coulanges 
 to this day. Viscount of Coulanges Viscount of 
 Pavia! Put it so that I catch Pavia unawares and 
 become its viscount what then? A royal begin- 
 ning: we begin with Pavia. . . . 
 
 "Every male of Pavia, of proper age and fully 
 membered, following my banner, we lay siege to 
 Milan. The sooner the better; for that old dog-fox 
 Sforza is warring in Umbria, and I could not cope 
 with Sforza until I have all my Pavians matched and 
 in full bearing say, for twelve years at the least. 
 Nay, Brazenhead, nay, Testadirame, my ancient, 
 strike thy metal while 'tis hot. . . . 
 
 "Milan falls Milan falls! And there's the thigh 
 of Italy under my thigh!
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 51 
 
 "Now Rome, the city old, lies about the knee of 
 Italy is, as you may say, the knee-cap; and Venice 
 is the hamstring. Let me work it out, let me 
 work it out. You cut the hamstring, and the knee 
 gives, and the leg drops. Venice gives me Rome; 
 Naples is the toe. Cut the hamstring; the knee is 
 nerveless; then gangrene assails the toe, and it fritters 
 and falls off. But with Milan to add to Pavia, who 
 is to keep me from Venice? Pooh! I lead a host. 
 To-morrow, therefore, to the shock of Pavia!" 
 
 He swept the mist of glory from his eyes; he lifted 
 his head and bellowed for his men those dread 
 apparitors who hover in Milan, who sit about the 
 jails like vultures patient on their trees about a battle- 
 field, awaiting the summons to their obscene task. 
 
 One by one the crimson heaps were lifted out of 
 the Well of Santa Chiara ; lastly Captain Brazenhead 
 himself set his foot into the grappling-hook and swung 
 aloft. The tumbril-cart was loaded with its sodden 
 load; the Executioner sat down upon the pile and 
 ordered the disposal of his dead. In a disused her- 
 mitage in the burial-ground of Sant' Eustorgio, he 
 chose to hide his three recruits, and to add to them 
 Tranche-coupe, the stout Burgundian. Means were 
 found to victual the garrison, which, sworn to secrecy 
 and commended to the gods of war and good luck, 
 their leader then left going, as his duty was, to make 
 his report to the Duke.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOW AND WHERE CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD, FALLING 
 INTO DISGRACE, READ HIS "DE REMEDIO" 
 
 " TYRANT of Milan" thus ran his Third Murder- 
 er's report "one wretch I seized by the ankles, as 
 if he had been a three-legged stool, and whirling him 
 over my head a few times, with him attacked those 
 other two. As a flail I brought him thwacking down; 
 as wheat from the chaff on the floor fled brain from 
 husk. The time was not long before they lay before 
 me like the must of trodden grapes; while as for him 
 I wielded, he was as whip-thongs in my hand 
 strips of hide wherewith to trounce a truant, but no 
 weapon for a man. Anon came my varlets to sweep 
 up with a besom, and now your well of Santa Chiara 
 is so sweet you could stable there your store pig." 
 
 Visconti, burning and shivering by turns in his 
 fever, hugged his furs about him and spread out his 
 thin hands to the sun. He may have listened, but 
 he did not heed; he may have been gratified, but he 
 did not seem to be. Captain Brazenhead's inven- 
 tion, for lack of nourishment, wilted and faltered out. 
 His eloquence, for that turn, was not ready at call 
 or it may be that his patron had heard it all before. 
 When the best is said, the variations you can play 
 
 53
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 53 
 
 upon the death of a man are very few, at least in 
 Europe. They say that the Chinese have contrived 
 better, or perhaps they have greater vitality to work 
 upon. However that may be, Captain Brazenhead 
 stopped and there followed a painful pause. 
 
 Presently Visconti croaked out his doom. "You 
 have done very ill on your own showing. To dis- 
 pose of three men by knocking their heads together 
 what is this but insensate butchery? Get you to 
 the knacker's, hire yourself out in the shambles, but 
 serve me no more. Yet stay," he added, seeing that 
 Brazenhead was preparing to obey him with suspi- 
 cious alacrity, "I may have use for you yet. You are 
 confined to quarters until my next orders, and you 
 are disarmed." 
 
 Then and there the halberdiers deprived him of 
 his weapons ; he was led to the door and turned loose 
 into the corridors of the castle, a disgraced man. I 
 must observe upon this that it is not given to the most 
 generous to foresee the full scope of their magnanim- 
 ity; or it may well be that our Brazenhead's circle 
 of acquaintance was too wide or his instincts too 
 warm to make him a tolerable murderer. For if 
 every murderer were to fight with the man he pro- 
 posed to slay, the work would never be done; and 
 if you are to add to a zest for combat a tenderness 
 toward the nephews of ladies with whom you may 
 have conversed, or are inclined to spare them who 
 may have bested you as well as those whom you 
 have bested, you narrow the field of your operations 
 too severely. It is likely you will murder none.
 
 54 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 Add the difficulty of explaining how you have slain 
 persons who are alive at the moment of explanation, 
 and you put a tax upon your invention which may 
 easily make you bankrupt. 
 
 It was vexatious in every way humiliating to his 
 finer feelings and embarrassing to his political 
 schemes. He had his garrison in Sant' Eustorgio to 
 provide for; he had fixed the day for the shock of 
 Pavia ; and here he was, deprived of arms and con- 
 fined to the precincts of the court, while his friends 
 starved in a disused hermitage and Pavia remained 
 inviolate. This was trouble enough, but the hurt 
 to his pride, his professional pride, was worse. To 
 Camus and Gelsomino, his colleagues, was allotted 
 the notable adventure of putting three hundred Ana- 
 baptists to the sword. Not only so, but on the day 
 fixed the Duke himself would attend the shambles in 
 state. Milan would hold high festival; and so it 
 did. Fortified by proof armour and a ring with 
 prussic acid in the jewel of it, Duke Galeazzo set 
 out. His duchess, his daughter, his great officers, 
 suitably accompanied, took horse in the great court, 
 and rode down to the piazza. Captain Brazenhead 
 saw them go from where he sat in an obscure corner 
 of the buttery, and bit his nails to the quick. Occa- 
 sionally he sipped a mug of small beer, very occasion- 
 ally he tried to carry his misfortune with grace by 
 humming an air. But he never got beyond the first 
 bar. He had been thus pitifully engaged for more 
 than a week, and was very glum.
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 55 
 
 A thin stream of persons of both sexes was main- 
 tained throughout the day, to and from the buttery. 
 
 Mendicant friars came to fill their sleeves with 
 broken victuals, widows and orphans, half-pay 
 soldiers, murderers out of work, and other unfortu- 
 nates, received their daily sustenance from the over- 
 flowings of the kitchens. But for them the Castle had 
 been like a house of the dead, for the whole Castle 
 world was gone to see the slaying of the Anabaptists. 
 Captain Brazenhead watched them now darkly from 
 his corner, chewing a bitter cud and reading a soured 
 judgment upon every comer. 
 
 Upon a rosy-gilled Franciscan he mused: "Aye, 
 thou scratching dog, filch the substance of the poor 
 and score the crime against thy god of Assisi. Him 
 thou professest to serve; in his wounded side thou 
 hopest to hide, as thou sayest. And yet, I tell thee, 
 that little beggar-man had not been cold two-and- 
 fifty weeks before thou and thy likes were like fed 
 stallions. Get thee hence, thou cheek of brawn, 
 and vex not the sight of the honest." And with 
 some such scathing words he was ready for every 
 religious who came to get much for little. 
 
 By and by there came in a pretty young woman in 
 a striped petticoat, leading by the hand a short- 
 smocked child. She approached the buttery-hatch 
 modestly, and not perceiving Captain Brazenhead in 
 his corner, stumbled against him, and would have 
 fallen had she not sat down upon his knee. The 
 moment she perceived her error she begged his 
 pardon.
 
 56 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 Confusion once more became her; she was tinged 
 like a flower. Captain Brazenhead, for all his de- 
 jection, knew her at once. 
 
 "Ah, gentle Liperata," said he, "you may well 
 be ashamed of the seat you chose. A time there was 
 when these war-wasted knees would have become 
 you better. No doubt you remember how we jour- 
 neyed together the way of Milan and with what 
 hopes, odd's face! and what promise! But then 
 Fortune smiled upon me, though you did not." 
 
 "Sir," said the young woman, "at that time I 
 should never have sat upon your knee, for then I was 
 a wife. Now, alas 1" 
 
 "How now?" cried the Captain. "Has thy 
 husband forsaken so lovely a partner? Bring me 
 face to face with him, and I will embrace him." 
 
 The lady began to cry; she snatched up her child 
 and clasped it to her bosom. 
 
 "Behold an orphan! Behold the widow of a 
 murdered man!" she wailed. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead was awake and vibrating with 
 fire. 
 
 "Who is the murdered man? Confront me with 
 his killer, and thou shalt have two murdered men," 
 he cried. "I have a sword not yet rusty, and by this 
 hand " 
 
 He had forgotten that he was weaponless, and was 
 to have good reason anon to remember it. 
 
 "Sir," said Liperata, "I will tell you my tale if you 
 will be pleased to hear it. I was but yesterday the 
 wife of a gentleman of position and talent, who had
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 57 
 
 a Court appointment which brought him honour, 
 respect, and a handsome emolument. His name 
 was Camus " 
 
 " Camus ! " the Captain whispered hoarsely. " Ca- 
 mus! My colleague! Oh, Fate, thou avenger of 
 wrong! Proceed, fair widow, I conjure thee." 
 
 "My husband," said Liperata, "had been en- 
 trusted with a responsible task which he must fulfil 
 this very day " 
 
 "Aye," said the Captain, "and so he must. Three 
 hundred Anabaptists await him. But now what 
 may not come of this?" 
 
 "He felt the burden laid upon him as one which 
 called for all his powers of head, heart, and sinew," 
 she continued, "and devoted the whole of yesterday 
 to the exercise of these parts of his. He spent the 
 forenoon in the reading of theology; Saint Thomas 
 Aquinas equipped him here. His heart was in my 
 care. I think I may say, without affectation, that I 
 lavished upon it all the arts which a good and dutiful 
 wife has at her command. At least, he praised me, 
 and assured me that I had not worked in vain." 
 
 "I warrant that you did not, lady," said Captain 
 Brazenhead warmly, and she thanked him with 
 gentleness. 
 
 "In the evening of that unhappy yesterday my 
 husband set out for the exercise of his muscular 
 system. With our child upon one arm, and my hand 
 upon the other, he took a walk about the streets of 
 the city, conversing cheerfully with his acquaintances, 
 visiting the shrines of certain saints who had always
 
 58 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 been propitious. All went well until we passed 
 through the deserted cemetery of Sant' Eustorgio. 
 But in that unhallowed spot " 
 
 The Captain's eyes seemed starting from his head. 
 
 "Which of them did it ?" he said, and his voice was 
 like the sea-sound in a shell. "Not Tranche-coupe ? 
 Not Squarcialupo ? Not a long-armed man?" 
 
 "A dusky youth, lithe as a snake," said she, 
 "sprang upon him from behind a grave, and crying: 
 'Here's for thee, Braggart of England!' stabbed him 
 in the neck. He could not have chosen a more fatal 
 spot. It was the heel of my dear Achilles my noble, 
 diligent Achillas, of whom I am the poor Briseis of 
 his arms. For my husband, whose profession ex- 
 posed him to constant danger, wore chain-mail upon 
 his person, which unhappily ended at the shoulders. 
 Need I say more ? He sank, bathed in his own bright 
 blood, and as I wrung my hands and cried upon 
 my Camus by name, the villain slipped among the 
 tombs and disappeared into the city. I am bereft 
 of his love, and he, by failing of his tryst to-day, has 
 died dishonoured. If my tears have earned your pity, 
 sir, I am glad, for indeed I need the pity of the humane. 
 Now, with no prospect before me but a life of beggary 
 and want, I am come here for alms, that I may 
 school myself at once for the bitter end of my days." 
 
 She covered her face with her hands, but Captain 
 Brazenhead was moved to the very centre of his being. 
 
 "But not so, by Cock's wounds, not so," he said, 
 and laid a well-chopped finger along his nose. ' ' What 
 if I can amend your griefs, my bird of the bough ?
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 59 
 
 What of bearded men, old in warfare? What of 
 the ties of gratitude ? Bands of steel ? No more " 
 And here he clasped the melting fair to his breast, 
 while all the hangers about the buttery marvelled and 
 many wept. "Come you with me, lady, come you 
 out along with me. 'Twas to-morrow for Pa via, 
 pity is, but now it must be later. Now I am Persia 
 and thou art my Andromedary. Now we summon 
 the legionaries for chivalry, and off we go, my chuck !" 
 With no more words, but with husbanded breath 
 and an arm crooked for her hand, he led her away 
 to the cemetery of Sant' Eustorgio.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD SLEW THREE HUNDRED 
 
 ANABAPTISTS WITH THE THIGH-BONE 
 
 OF A PHILOSOPHER 
 
 THE tombs of Sant' Eustorgio stood or leaned at all 
 angles, and stared like the bleached and derelict bones 
 of a host long dead. Disconsolate kites, buzzards, 
 ravens, and other reprobate birds flapped heavily 
 above or, perching on cross or pinnacle, voiced after 
 their fashion their discontent with the world as it was. 
 The crazy Hie Jacets of the tombs coincided with 
 these harsh-throated heralds of despair, and set Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead to stalk briskly about, himself like 
 a long-necked bird of bad omen, if haply he might 
 discover but one of his bond-slaves. Clinging to his 
 arm was the now terrified Liperata, upon whose 
 skirts dragged the child of skin Camus. 
 
 "I pin my faith to the Bilboan," said Brazenhead, 
 "for he alone is fitted by his nature to inhabit so 
 beastly a spot. His arm reaches to his knee-cap; 
 he is, you may say, three-legged. No hyena could 
 be more at home in a graveyard than this fellow, who 
 is, moreover, endeared to me by many ties. He owes 
 me for his life, I owe him for his aunt. Certainly I 
 pin my faith to him." 
 
 60
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 61 
 
 And he was justified. Far within the shade of an 
 empty vault they came upon a crouched figure. His 
 head was not visible, so deeply was it sunk between 
 his knees. But by his arm by the absence of one, 
 and the presence of one he could be recognised for 
 the Bilboan. 
 
 "Ho, Barbary, awake!" cried BraZenhead, and 
 stirred him with a thigh-bone which he happened to 
 have in his hand. It was no ordinary thigh-bone, 
 though its present possessor knew nothing of that. 
 Being deprived of his sword, and missing the use of 
 it, he had picked it up on his way through the ceme- 
 tery. It had belonged to the philosopher Gnatho of 
 Samothrace, who had devoted his life to demonstrat- 
 ing the indestructibility of matter, and had perished 
 at the stake in the great days of Saint Ambrose, to 
 whom matter was so little that he considered the 
 punishment a light one. It was a curious circum- 
 stance that Captain Brazenhead was to be the instru- 
 ment of Gnatho' s vindication if indeed those modern 
 disciples of the sage are not nearer the mark when 
 they affirm that he himself was his own instrument, 
 and Captain Brazenhead the unconscious agent of 
 his purpose. 
 
 But at the smart touch of the relic the Bilboan 
 came leaping from the tomb and humbled himself at 
 the feet of his lord. His uncouth mops and mows 
 touched Captain Brazenhead in a quick spot. 
 
 "My faithful vassal," said he tenderly, "how is it 
 with thee, man? Art thou alone faithful to thy 
 Brazenhead? Is gratitude, then, so dear? Are
 
 62 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 memories so short? Where is Squarcialupo, that 
 prick-eared Roman?" 
 
 "Gone, master, gone," said the Bilboan. "A 
 gamester came this way and did beguile him." 
 
 The Captain was shocked. "How now? So 
 sturdy a knave!" 
 
 "He promised him good wages," said the other. 
 "Five sols Tournois per diem. I cried shame upon 
 him, saying: 'Trust to our lord's honour'; but he 
 said your rate had been but three." 
 
 "It was four!" cried the Captain. "I pass you 
 my word it was four!" 
 
 The Bilboan shrugged in despair. "Even so, said 
 Squarcialupo, five was above your figure; and he 
 went the day after you had brought him here." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead had expected as much. "He 
 was a gallows knave, when all's said. But I hoped 
 better things of Tranche-coupe. Now what of that 
 Burgundian?" 
 
 "There came a funeral to this place," said the 
 Bilboan, "on Saint Milo's day. They buried a cer- 
 tain notary, a warm man, but not near so warm as 
 that heathen is, whose thigh-bone your Honour now 
 wears at your side, if all they tell me of his teaching 
 is but half true. Now, to commit our notary to earth 
 came a widow of his and ten children, if not more. 
 Quite a company! Their lamentable cries did so 
 move Tranche-coupe our friend that he brooded upon 
 them day and night. The affair got into his mind 
 and wrought upon the young man's brain; so pres- 
 ently, moved by pity, he borrowed a suit of clothes
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 63 
 
 from the gravedigger, and is but this morning gone to 
 pay court to the relict of the notary. If he succeed, 
 as I think he will from what he tells me, he will be 
 fourth husband to a lady of substance and merit. 
 I cannot blame him neither; for a widow, d'ye see, 
 has experience in the comforting of mankind, and 
 that counts for much with a young man of Tranche- 
 coupe's years. No, no, I cannot blame him." 
 
 "Nor I," said Captain Brazenhead, constricting 
 the muscles of his arm and looking benignantly down 
 upon Liperata. "No, nor I, by Cock. But I am 
 vexed," he added, "and something put about for I 
 had reckoned upon his cross-bow arm for an adven- 
 ture of Pavia before long. There shun me two men 
 by whom I had hoped to win a score. Tush! And 
 the Egyptian " 
 
 "Master," said the Bilboan darkly, "come we 
 now to the Egyptian, against whom I would have 
 warned you before had I seen you here or known how 
 to come at you. That dark-skinned rogue, that 
 snake-tongue, who got the better of your Honour 
 once in a horse-deal, has now done you the scurviest 
 turn of all. For not content with the slaughter of 
 Signior Camus, your colleague, he has dressed him- 
 self out in his livery, and with the murdered man's 
 visor to cover his own false face, is engaged at this 
 hour in slaughtering three hundred Anabaptists in the 
 presence of the Duke's grace of Milan, and his con- 
 sort, and his daughter, and all his court." 
 
 At this intelligence Captain Brazenhead smote 
 himself upon his forehead and said "It was very
 
 64 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 well." Those who knew him would have read the 
 oracle for a bad sign, because he really meant it. 
 Its deep-mouthed tones rang the passing-bell for the 
 Egyptian. 
 
 "Come," said Captain Brazenhead sternly to the 
 Bilboan. "I shall need thee. Come." So saying, 
 he led the way back to the Castle of Milan. 
 
 Walking through a desert city into a desert strong- 
 hold, it came upon him as a providence of super- 
 natural powers that all lay so snug "at the mercy 
 of any man of his hands." A sombre cheer illumined 
 his burnt face; he put his arm round the waist of 
 Liperata and pressed her to his heart. With the 
 other arm free, he flourished the thigh-bone of Gnatho 
 the Philosopher. "All may yet be done; all may 
 fall out still for the best. By the Sacred Places of 
 Jerusalem, I see my way! Forward!" 
 
 It was very much the hero, it was de son naturel, to 
 overlook the exiguity of his little force. True, the 
 great Sforza was far away. That right hand of 
 Milan, with the flower of the Lombard host, was 
 warring in Umbria, it was believed, engaged just now 
 in the leaguer of Perugia. Even so, it needs a mind 
 cast in a paladin's mould to compass the sack of 
 Milan with a one-armed man, a young widow, and an 
 unbreeched boy for attacking party. But Captain 
 Brazenhead would never perish of dry-rot in the 
 brain. If great schemes, great enthusiasms had been 
 all, he might have realised that grandiose conception 
 of Castruccio's, who, having Lucca under his hand, 
 saw his way to the tyranny of all Italy.
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 65 
 
 More sanguine than Castruccio himself, the swell- 
 ing thought held him in thrall as he led his band into 
 the Hall of Audience, which was in the shape of a 
 basilica of three aisles. These aisles were marked 
 by columns of the Doric order, gray and serried. 
 In the apse of the noble chamber, upon its degrees, 
 stood the Throne of Milan empty. To stride for- 
 ward, mount the steps, seat himself in that chair of 
 State, place Liperata upon his left hand, made but 
 short work for a man whose brain was on fire. He 
 bade the child group himself by a column; and then, 
 in the clear voice of a man who has a vision, com- 
 manded the Bilboan to proclaim him Duke of Milan. 
 We may call that burning your ships or we may call 
 it high treason or both. The question is, had Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead, or had he not, the quick sprite 
 Destiny by the tail? Now, Captain Brazenhead 
 thought that he had. 
 
 "Salomon, by the grace of God, Duke of Milan, 
 Marquess of Pavia, Lord of Monza, Como, Bergamo, 
 and Brescia, Tyrant of Verona, Piacenza and the 
 Borrommean Isles" was called by the herald and ac- 
 claimed by the populace that is the orphan child; 
 and a reign, the shortest but most eventful in the 
 annals of the Lombard State, was peacefully ushered 
 in. Not trumpets pealed its opening, nor the clash 
 of lifted swords, nor pikes tossing like reeds in a 
 wind. The piping of an unbreeched child for his 
 mother was all the acclamation, and the fevered agi- 
 tation of his legs, as he pattered up and down the 
 pavement, all the commotion of a scene which needed
 
 66 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 perhaps but a little more bustle to have been memo- 
 rable by Corio and the other court historians of the 
 houses of Visconti and Sforza, who, as things were, 
 and for reasons of their own, passed it over. 
 
 I have no such reasons, and am proud to be the 
 humble means of restoring a stirring page to the vol- 
 ume of Lombard story. It would be my wish to en- 
 large upon the events of the twenty-five minutes fol- 
 lowing the proclamation (and its reception by the 
 populace) which I have just related, and I am sure it 
 would be the reader's; but materials are wanting. 
 Ccetera desunt, as the chroniclers say. I believe that 
 a Civil List was established, provision made for 
 the Duchess-elect Liperata, and the tax on beer, 
 spruce, cider, perry, wine, mead, and all fermented 
 liquors, abolished. The marriage-laws were stand- 
 ardised, I gather: but for such high matters space 
 fails me. 
 
 Now, the issuing of these important and far-reach- 
 ing reforms took up the better part of five-and-twenty 
 minutes; and immediately after, just as the new 
 Duke, feeling the vein leap within him, was about 
 to deliver an apologue upon Equity, a confused 
 murmuring afar off, the noise of a great tumult 
 without the house, made itself heard. It was for all 
 the world like the sound of a mighty flood, gathered 
 in the mountains, and sweeping its way irresistible 
 over the plain. All heard it, some shook; the Duke 
 paused in the act to speak. His mouth was open, 
 his eyes were fixed; but no rhapsody came forth. 
 Quite otherwise.
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 67 
 
 "Did I name Equity?" he said, "Here cometh 
 our other little affair. Equity's bane this will be a 
 more ancient practice. Haste thee, Bilboan, and 
 draw thy blade." This was all very well; but the 
 Bilboan, no better than his master, had no blade. 
 
 Duke Brazenhead saw his penury and was not long 
 amending it. With his trusty bone in hand he attacked 
 the throne where his duchess yet sat, and was not 
 long in knocking off a fluted column of marble and 
 mosaic, of the kind known as opus alexandrinum. 
 It was of the length of a man's forearm, as sharp at 
 the angles as if it had just left the mason's yard. 
 "Arm thee, friend," he said, "with this emblem 
 until thou hast a better for thy prowess." Descend- 
 ing then into the hall, he caught up the child, and 
 returned and set him upon his mother's knee. "Stay 
 you there, mother and son," he bade them. "I 
 fight for hearth and home this day." Accompanied 
 by the Bilboan, he took the middle aisle of the basilica 
 and stood there, a superb figure of a man, masked, 
 hairy, bristling, his scarlet cloak thrown over his left 
 arm, and in his restless right hand the avenging limb 
 of Gnatho of Samothrace. The Bilboan, true to his 
 nature, crouched, peering forward. He bent himself 
 at the knees, as an athlete does at the starting-point 
 but so far that he could easily scratch his ankle 
 with his forefinger; and he did so more than once. 
 
 The uproar in their hearing, who waited, neared, 
 swelled, and became a din a riot of broken clamour. 
 You could hear now and again the name of the late 
 Duke thrown up: "Visconti! Visconti!" you heard;
 
 68 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 but that cry was drowned in outland curses, and 
 names unknown to Italy held the air. Sooner than 
 was convenient, the noise of countless running feet 
 blotted out all others. It became evident that a host 
 was at hand. 
 
 "It is the Anabaptists," said the Bilboan, scratch- 
 ing his foot. 
 
 "Aye," said his master. " They drive back Milan. 
 Now we have it in the nose. Be thou ready." 
 
 The doors were pushed open wide; a few scared 
 servants, varlets and maids of the pantry and kitchen, 
 came first old tirewomen, old bedeswomen, a priest, 
 and a limping page whose ankle was bound up 
 running helter-skelter for protection. Regardless, in 
 their terror, of the stern figures in mid-hall, they 
 pelted by them, and gaining the dais, crouched at 
 the knees of the mother and child on the throne. 
 There was no marvel in their mistake. They saw a 
 miracle and felt it, when Monna Liperata, heavenly 
 mildness beaming from her eyes, put out her hand 
 and laid it upon the head of the nearest. The heart 
 of Duke Brazenhead leaped in his body, and warm 
 tears flooded his eyes as he witnessed this fair sight. 
 "As God liveth, I have that for which to fight this 
 day." 
 
 Close upon these stragglers, however, came the 
 halberdiers of the Visconti, a mere handful of striped 
 men backing into the hall, disputing the passage 
 with them who pursued. In their midst, white and 
 slavering at the lips, tottered he who but that morn- 
 ing had been Lord and Tyrant of Milan ; beside him
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 69 
 
 his duchess walked, a goddess, though she was too 
 portly to be fair; and with her came Bianca, her only 
 daughter, matre pulchrafilia pulchrior. Royally these 
 two advanced up the hall; and behind them, blocking 
 up the great entry, was a thicket of pikes, staves, 
 scythes, and bills, the snatched-up weapons of the 
 wholly frantic and partially naked persons of the 
 Anabaptists. The battling of this shaggy host at the 
 doors, where without order or judgment all tried to 
 enter at once, gave a moment's respite to the pursuers. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead to call him still by his famil- 
 iar name had pity upon the fallen, deposed and ab- 
 ject prince, and more than pity high admiration, in- 
 deed for the persons of the two noble ladies of his 
 household. "Open ranks!" he bade the Bilboan; 
 "open ranks, messmate, and let in this jerking wretch. 
 He was a king this morning," he added pitifully, "and 
 shall sleep in a bed for aught I care." The Bilboan 
 dutifully stood aside, and the hunchback, blind with 
 panic, crawled on all fours up the degrees of his 
 ancient throne, and seeing there a fair woman seated 
 with a golden-headed child on her lap, stumbled 
 forward with a cry to her feet, clutched at her knees, 
 and buried his face in her striped petticoat. There, 
 throughout the carnage to ensue, he stayed. 
 
 But Captain Brazenhead bowed courtly to the 
 duchess and her daughter. " Ladies," he said, 
 " suffer a soldier, and trust in the clemency of a prince. 
 By your leave, noble ladies, by your leave." So said, 
 he turned to face the throne with them, and taking a 
 hand of each, escorted them with high-stepping gal-
 
 70 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 lantry up the steps of it. "Be seated, ladies, beside 
 my family, and be sure that for you, no less than for 
 them, I shall play the man this day." The ladies, 
 who may be pardoned for not knowing, nor caring, 
 what all this might be about, sat beside Liperata on 
 the throne, and saw Captain Brazenhead swoop into 
 the fray, like a sea-eagle into a school of mackerel in 
 a shallow. He had poised on the edge of the dais but 
 for a minute. That had sufficed him to see how mat- 
 ters stood. Visconti's guards were ranged before 
 him ; the Bilboan still crouched in mid-hall. Opposite 
 to him raged and bayed the furious host. With a 
 voice like the blast of a trumpet he had signalled for 
 the contest . * ' Salt and water en avantl " he had cried . 
 "The Anabaptists are at ye, ye hounds! Rally for 
 the Faith!" That bone which erstwhile had stood 
 up stiffly for the indestructibility of matter whistled 
 above his head. "You that love order and good 
 baptism, follow me." The Guard rallied and formed 
 a wedge. Led by such a prince, they clove the 
 Anabaptists' ranks, and men dropped like cornstalks 
 heavy in the ear to left and right. 
 
 Such battle he had never yet dreamed of even he, 
 to whom long odds were as a draught of wine as this, 
 wherein he, the Bilboan, and ten of Visconti's body- 
 guard faced three hundred fanatics stung by terror 
 into frenzy. Hot-eyed, half-naked, giant men they 
 were Bulgarians, Croats, and Serbs red in the 
 beard and flat in the bone, hairy-chested, crying un- 
 couth shibboleths of their own, outraged in every 
 sense, and bent upon outrage. They howled, wept,
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 71 
 
 gnashed their teeth; they thrust and smote, clubbed 
 at their oppressors; but to little purpose. Cut into 
 halves by the wedge of the Lombards, hampered by 
 the pillars of the hall, they impeded each other. In 
 sheaves they fell, or backing in panic at each onrush 
 of the foe they trampled and tumbled over one upon 
 the other. Like the uneasy gleams of the sun upon 
 broken water, here and there glided a red figure urging 
 them to effort. 
 
 Where, then, was the Egyptian, if not there? 
 Whose was that evil- whispering spirit, if not his? 
 Captain Brazenhead, roaring in the press as he 
 mowed, cried upon him: "Come out, thou horse- 
 coper, thou black thief of Lutterworth! Come out 
 and meet me." But there was no response, save 
 some glancing of the red figure, and no means of 
 getting at that save through the massed Anabaptists 
 about the door. But that caitiff's hours were num- 
 bered, and his tale is nearly told. Marked down at 
 last by his incensed adversary, where he stood egging 
 on his dupes to their hopeless task, he was from that 
 moment a doomed man. For Captain Brazenhead, 
 seizing a dead Anabaptist by neck and ankles, lifted 
 him up on high and hurled him with all his force at 
 the Egyptian. The two heads, that of the dead 
 and that of the living, met in horrid shock. That 
 of the Anabaptist stood the strain, but the Egyptian's 
 was split open, as when a man with his finger and 
 fist smashes a walnut. The rogue went down, and 
 was trampled out of recognition by the feet of his 
 flying friends.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HOW, AND FOR WHAT EXQUISITE REASONS, CAPTAIN 
 BRAZENHEAD ABDICATED THE THRONE OF MILAN 
 
 FOLDING his ragged doublet about his bleeding 
 breast, Captain Brazenhead turned his face toward 
 the dais, where Liperata sat chaste and still, like some 
 fair-haired Madonna of the North. Not upon her 
 only must he look, but he must frown upon the hud- 
 dled figure of Duke Visconti, and consider what was 
 to be done with him and his. Great and weighty 
 thoughts contended within him as he stood, deep- 
 breathing and deep-pondering, there. At his feet, 
 very contentedly, sat the Bilboan, dabbing his wounds 
 with a rag. Such of Visconti's body-guard as re- 
 mained alive waited upon his words. 
 
 He was master; he ruled in Milan. At a word 
 from him the writhen little tyrant would be extin- 
 guished, and that which he had greatly dreamed 
 would come to pass. Power of life and limb over men, 
 cities, armies, was at his word ; more than all these, 
 as hinting at these and more, the waiting eyes of 
 citizens, the waiting steps of legions, the held breath 
 of neighbouring states stood attendant upon his 
 motions. To a man of great ideas and imagination 
 winged, the temptation to say that one word, Death, 
 was not, you would say, to have been resisted. 
 
 72
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 73 
 
 Death to Visconti! and all Lombardy fell crumbling 
 at his feet. 
 
 And yet not only did he not say it, but he knew that 
 he could not. And why? Because he was so made 
 that he could not take life in cold blood. That was 
 one reason. This pitiful, blood-gluttonous, writhen 
 man whom to kill were to honour above his deserts 
 must then go free. He might be chained, caged, 
 hidden away within walls; but he could not be slain, 
 because Brazenhead, with everything to gain, could 
 not be angry with him. He could deplore him, de- 
 spise him, spurn, spit upon him, but treat him as hate- 
 worthy he could not for all Milan and its subject 
 cities. 
 
 Assume Visconti chained and put away, what was 
 to hinder him then ? "By my soul," said he to him- 
 self, "when I am Duke of Milan, I must wive; for I 
 must get me a dynasty, d'ye see?" He eyed Vis- 
 conti's tall daughter as he spoke, and could not deny 
 her merits. "Thou and I, fair dame! O propitious 
 Lucina!" And then he looked at Liperata, where 
 she chastely sat, a mild young goddess. By her side 
 Bianca Visconti showed the termagant, revealed the 
 shrew; yes, but in every feature, in every mould, in 
 carriage, gesture, and regard, there shone a duchess, 
 the mother of dukes to come. 
 
 At this crisis in the affairs of Milan, Bianca, Lipe- 
 rata, and the subduer of them all the Bilboan 
 limped up to his master, plucked him by the sleeve, 
 and, as the hero stooped to him, whispered hoarsely 
 in his ear. The hushed auditory could make little of
 
 74 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 the message, which was in the Spanish tongue; but 
 at one word, out of many, two persons started. These 
 were Bianca Visconti and he who proposed to raise 
 her to a throne. At that one word their looks en- 
 countered. Some say the word was Sforza. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, at any rate, paused ; for once 
 in his life he showed timidity. "She is nothing to 
 me beside that mouse on the throne. A man must 
 be snug, d'ye see? Give me my comforts, and I'll 
 cry you quittance of your strapping ladies. See me 
 at my ease, having well supped, slippers on my feet, 
 plying the toothpick; what do I need then, ha? 
 Why, a dove-eyed, ministering, kiss-me-quick lass to 
 sit on my knee and work the whisk to keep the flies 
 away, what time I sleep off my drink. 'Tis so, by 
 Cock ; for men are so made that they carry a maid's 
 heart by storm and waste the world until they have it ; 
 and after that they look to have done with the matter. 
 All must be solace afterwards ; and the woman wooed 
 before wedlock must thereafter woo until the end of 
 days. Men are so made, there's no denying, and I 
 more than most. 
 
 "But Madam Bianca there lo, you! where is my 
 ease ? Where would she hide my slippers ? Would 
 she flick away flies? Not so; but 'My lord, I pray 
 you fan my face against this heat.' 'My lord, I 
 would have you sing me lullaby.' 'Carry you the 
 child, my lord, while my women tie my hair.' ' Get 
 up, my lord, get up, and snuff the candle; I vow 'tis 
 your turn.' Why, a pest upon it, how should a man 
 find force to lead armies afield, or preside in council-
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 75 
 
 chambers, or beard the envoys of foreign princes, if 
 his rest is to be broken, his pride humbled, his cour- 
 age frittered off him like cheese off a grater? Yet 
 thus, and not otherwise, must that man suffer who has 
 Madame Bianca to wife. Yet it comports not with 
 my honour to lead any less a lady to the throne of 
 Milan. Zounds, but I'll none of your thrones, then, 
 at such a price. And yet withal and yet oho, 
 Madame Bianca, I see thee the mother of the dukes 
 my sons! 
 
 "A proof, a proof!" he cried. "I'll put all to the 
 proof. Mark you me, Bilboan, how I go a- wooing 
 in my own fashion." Followed by the eyes of his 
 crouching ally, still busy with his sores, he trod im- 
 petuously forward to the dais. 
 
 There from below he accosted Bianca Visconti, 
 daughter of dukes. 
 
 "Lady, I am Master of Milan, and like you well 
 enough. Come now, shall we make a match of it? 
 Will you be a soldier's wife?" 
 
 The lady's eyes shone steely blue. The lady's 
 cheeks flushed high. 
 
 "Yes, sir. That is my fixed intention," she said. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead set his right foot upon the 
 second degree of the dais. 
 
 "Well and good, then, mistress," said he. "Gird 
 me on that forepiece with your belt. It was torn in 
 the fray, and you would not have your husband go 
 barefoot." 
 
 Madame Bianca recoiled as if a hornet had stung 
 her.
 
 76 THE DUKE OF MILAN 
 
 "Hound!" said she, "do you dare?" 
 
 But Liperata slipped from the throne and ran and 
 knelt by the great foot. She took her kerchief from 
 her fair hair and bound the torn forepiece closely to 
 the instep with that. Captain Brazenhead stooped 
 and lifted her in his arms. High in the air she swung, 
 like a feather caught in a tree. 
 
 "Behold, behold the wife of a soldier!" cried her 
 taker. Mounting then the throne, he stirred the 
 Duke with his bound foot. 
 
 "Ho, there, Milan," he said, "take heart, if thou 
 canst find it. Thy foes are all dead or fled, and as 
 for thy throne, I renounce it with a flick of the fin- 
 ger, as I assumed it with the same. Fortune send 
 thy state bolder tyrants than thee. As for you, mis- 
 tress," and he turned his face to Madame Bianca, 
 " if you will be a soldier's wife, disdain not to serve 
 him who bleeds. For I care not who the man may 
 be, with him it will never be ' Leave to love thee is my 
 hire. 1 So, fare you heartily well, mistress, and the 
 soldier, your husband. As for me, I am suited here." 
 
 So said, he handed Liperata from the dais, and put 
 the child upon his shoulder. Whistling to the Bil- 
 boan, he strode leisurely down the hall over the 
 writhen bodies of the dead and dying, and was seen 
 no more in Milan for that time. 
 
 Curiously enough, Sforza entered the city next day 
 at the head of his victorious army, and shortly after- 
 ward married Visconti's daughter. His regrets at 
 not meeting Captain Brazenhead must have been 
 many and bitter. What were Captain Brazenhead's
 
 THE DUKE OF MILAN 77 
 
 feelings we have no means of knowing ; but I under- 
 stand that he heard of the entry from a lodging he had 
 in Cremona where, under the name of Damoetas, a 
 shepherd, he was then dwelling with the fair Liperata. 
 From these subsequent events, I assume, the curious 
 legend must have arisen that among the many Span- 
 ish words whispered in his ear by the Bilboan, while 
 all Milan lay humble at his feet, was the Italian word 
 Sforza.
 
 BOOK II 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS
 
 BOOK II 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STAG AT BORDEAUX 
 
 IN the month of May, the singing month, and year 
 1428, Captain Brazenhead, "late of Burgundy, for- 
 merly of Milan," or, as he chose to describe himself 
 just then, Captain Salomon, Franc Routier, having 
 seen to the bringing up of the pink Bonne Esperance 
 to a buoy in the swirling river Gironde, having sworn 
 in three languages at the master and his mariners, 
 who knew but two apiece, and having forced the tears 
 into his eyes more than once by the violent twist he 
 had given his moustachios, said finally, "It is well," 
 and had himself pulled ashore into the King of Eng- 
 land's good town of Bordeaux. The hour was early, 
 marking tha silver pause of time ere the sun first 
 kindles vane and turret, and scandal can once more 
 be talked by the classically inclined of Aurora and 
 old Tithonus. Save for a few tousled and sprawling 
 malefactors, a stevedore or two, a musing sailor, a 
 sentry, and a friar minor raking over garbage, Cap- 
 tain Salomon headed for a city of dead men; and 
 
 81
 
 82 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 yet, as he sat facing towers and battlements, stately 
 astern, he were a spectacle for Bordeaux to wonder at, 
 had not Bordeaux been so deeply abed. Arrayed in 
 a blood-coloured cloak, his sword upon his knee, one 
 keen eye of him, the bony and red ridge of his nose 
 and the ends of his moustachios only to be seen all 
 the rest steel bonnet and blood he might have been 
 a duke regnant homing to his faithful duchy, an 
 admiral of Venice returning with the spoils of East- 
 ern warfare. To some few eyes, anxious and watch- 
 ful on the quay, he did appear as a portent. And yet 
 it is the fact that there was not a rascal there, pur- 
 posing to help himself by helping this impending ar- 
 rival, who had less idea of how he was going to do it 
 than Captain Salomon himself had of what he was 
 going to do when he landed. He surveyed the tide, 
 he marked the shipping. There, fast moored and 
 empty now, lay the galleons which had of late brought 
 men and treasure crowding to the war; and he swore 
 to himself as his boat brought up against the stairs, 
 "If fate must have it that I fight in this good land of 
 France, let it be for France that I draw my sword. 
 England, England!" he cried, "thou who hast for- 
 sworn me, be thou of me forsworn!" No matter 
 now what was his grief against our country and his, 
 though the tale be fruitful. He strikes thus, at the 
 outset, a tragic note, which the experienced will mark 
 and record. 
 
 Boarding the quay briskly, he set off as one whose 
 errand is cut and dried. This was due, not to an er- 
 rand, for he had none, but to a maxim of his which
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 83 
 
 said, Do, if yon would think. And another also 
 said, Seem to be busy if you would be so. He re- 
 jected all offers of guidance, with a wave of the hand 
 and a snorting "Si je connois Bordeaux ha, Dieu!" 
 which were decisive; and he was merciless to the 
 friendly salutes of such ladies as he encountered: 
 " Beauty avoid, here is a tempered blade." If he 
 knew not where to find what he sought, and it is 
 probable that he did not, seeing that he had never in 
 his life set foot in Bordeaux before, he knew how to 
 place himself within an ace of it. He struck boldly 
 up the Rue de la Ferroniere, and, Providence direct- 
 ing, the very first person he jostled cried an acquaint- 
 ance. "Comrade, all hail! What, little drinker, 
 is it thou?" It was pretty to see how he embraced 
 the man. "Save thee, old companion, 'tis never 
 thou!" Both cheeks were kissed, back and breast 
 were patted, both shoulders were held and their 
 owner swayed to and fro like a loosened post ; and all 
 this without the remotest notion in Captain Salomon's 
 head how the devil this old friend might be called. 
 "That botch on the chops I know, and do believe 
 that I gave him the broken jaw it signifies. That 
 drooping eyelid, that nick in it is it possible I 
 sliced him there? Very possible, by Cock." He 
 knew the man, he knew the man, but could not give 
 him a name. What of that ? The man invited him 
 to drink a cup at The Stag ; then the man was honest 
 and, "If I take to him," thought Captain Brazen- 
 head, "as kindly as I take to this his proposal, I'll 
 have the name out of him before we come to 'Host,
 
 84 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 another of your best.' ' Without more said, he 
 crooked his arm to accommodate the man of the 
 drooping eyelid. 
 
 Tongues ruled high and easy in the kitchen of The 
 Stag. The mistress of the house sent the turnspit 
 out to play, lest he would become wise before the 
 time ; for the reminiscences of these two eminent men 
 spared neither age nor sex. As for the maids, one of 
 them set foot over the threshold with the morning's 
 bread, and was in the room for just so long as it 
 takes to put a batch in the oven. She entered re- 
 ligion in the afternoon of the same day in the Ursu- 
 line Convent, and broke the heart of the scrivener's 
 apprentice who loved her. But she said that it must 
 be so, for that she had never known until that mo- 
 ment what men were or women could be. This is 
 very much of a piece with Captain Brazenhead's re- 
 port of himself, that when, upon his return from the 
 Lombardy wars, he made his confession in the 
 Church of Allhallows at Barking, the priest who 
 shrove him died in the night, howling like a wolf. 
 And yet the conversation which furnishes me with 
 this anecdote was but so -much opening music: it was 
 not until the sun was reddening the roofs of Bordeaux 
 and, reflecting from a window, struck into the filmy 
 eye and drooping eyelid of Captain Salomon's friend 
 that any serious effort was made by my hero to come 
 to what you might call terms with the man. 
 
 But then he hinted the man hinted at proper 
 business, men's business of iron and hard knocks, 
 which had called him to Bordeaux and out of the
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 85 
 
 snuggest quarters that ever soldier had; to traverse 
 France from end to end, to slink by the mountains of 
 Navarre, and enter Guienne under cover of night, 
 lest he might be caught by the French and taken out 
 of his lawful quarrel to enter into one with which he 
 had no concern. By "lawful quarrel" he was easily 
 understood to mean that for which he was paid. 
 Burgundy and England were his friends, he said, and 
 France was the enemy, since France had designs pre- 
 cisely where he had. Burgundy he had approached; 
 he had been to Dijon, thence to Besancon, and there 
 had seen the Duke's Chancellor. Burgundy said 
 him not nay; Burgundy would advise. And now 
 he was at Bordeaux with messages for the Regent 
 of England and the Earl of Salisbury, but the one 
 was in Paris and the other before Orleans and 
 meantime he had met "his friend here." 
 
 It was now apparent to our listener that his mysteri- 
 ous acquaintance was as completely ignorant of his 
 name as he himself was of the speaker's. Being a 
 good judge of physiognomy, he could not doubt that 
 an excellent villainy was afoot; of which, however, 
 he must know more before he committed himself. 
 He was careful in his approach, therefore, not dis- 
 guising for a moment the truth that he was for hire, 
 but affecting a squeamishness which he was far from 
 feeling as to what manner of service he would take. 
 He dandled his foot, he looked about, clacked his 
 tongue over the wine. "A cold vintage this Borde- 
 lais, ha? Not a wine that stays by you, ha? No, 
 no, old marksman, give me the rich vats of Volnay!
 
 86 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 Or Hermitage seven years in cellar. You are right, 
 you are right, chevalier; Burgundy is the friend of 
 honest men. Hey, the golden slopes, the dark-blue 
 water, the cradling women of Beaujolais! Ever 
 lovely to me! Well, if your quarrel is just, it is 
 enough for you. It should be, to have led you so far. 
 But for me, companion, for me I play the great 
 game. I have played it too long, and, I say it, too 
 stoutly to relish another. Your cattle-lifting, your 
 taking of toll from merchants and pedlars, your petti- 
 coat-work, your piracy, your fly-by-night, password, 
 privy-post work no, no! I set princes on their 
 thrones, I link duchy to duchy; by me kings reign, 
 and queens' dowries are made fatter. Why, game- 
 ster, you should know me better! Where is your 
 border warfare, then?" 
 
 It is to be judged that Captain Salomon was boast- 
 ing. So he was, but with design. He wished to 
 provoke the truth out of his friend, and he did pro- 
 voke some of it. Very earnestly regarding him out 
 of his unhindered eye, that friend put a hand on his 
 knee. "A duchy is concerned in my errand," he 
 said, "and a county also. The most nobly made 
 lady in Provence is touched upon her honour, and a 
 most reverend prelate offended. I recruit you, 
 chieftain; chivalry calls you and this token, which 
 is earnest of more." He drew out of his breast a 
 purse; out of that he chose two rose nobles. With 
 one he chinked for the score, and paid it, the other 
 he handed to his friend, who bit it and was satisfied. 
 Both gentlemen rose ; the man of money put his hand
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 87 
 
 upon the shoulder of the man of wiles. "We need 
 you, my lord," he said, "we need your sword-arm; 
 come with us. I depart within a few days having 
 done my errand. I was bidden levy a troop and I 
 have levied you! A troop! I have in you an army 
 for the field. Make this your quarters, free lodging 
 and entertainment is yours. You will hear of me 
 when you will at all hours. Till our next meeting- 
 remember Jack Pym." 
 
 Pym! If he remembered Jack Pym! The Cap- 
 tain slapped a peck of dust out of his thigh as he en- 
 tirely failed to remember him. He raked into the 
 drabbest deeps of his memory, explored a history 
 which had been more happily forgotten t and ex- 
 pended an ingenuity which had been better employed. 
 He did not remember Jack Pym ; of that he was clear, 
 and clear he was also that he did not like him. "A 
 very paltry, sententious dog, this Pym," he con- 
 sidered, "with an eyelid like a guttering candle. I 
 fancy the man as little as I fancy a boiled fish, and I 
 doubt his business here. Yet he has money" he 
 looked at a fine coin in his hand which men give not 
 to men for nothing "and while he has money it 
 might be well" he pocketed the coin "to see 
 much more of Pym." 
 
 He stood, considering Pym and his capacities, in 
 the doorway of The Stag, looking out upon the Rue 
 de la Ferronniere; and see how things fall out for 
 heroes and rogues alike! A girl was before him, 
 trundling a mop, a girl in a green stuff petticoat and 
 bodice of pink. She was comely, with dusty gold
 
 88 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 hair and gray eyes; and either her shape, which was 
 very pleasant, on the side of plumpness, or a demure 
 yet provocative look which she had, arrested his 
 attention. It arrested the progress of his thoughts, 
 for he stopped them, withdrew them from Pym, 
 stroked his chin, took a turn up the street, stopped 
 and again stroked his chin, returned upon his steps, 
 cleared his throat, flicked upward his moustachios, 
 looked at the flawless blue of the sky, and all of a 
 sudden burst into melody of the most ear-piercing 
 kind melody which awoke the echoes of Bordeaux, 
 set all the donkeys braying, and the guards running 
 about to find the disturber of the king's peace. 
 
 ' O dear my love, my Pericles,' 
 
 Thus soft Aspasia she did sigh, 
 
 ' If so you play in companies, 
 
 'How would you do when none were by?' 
 
 ' Come, chuck,' quod he, ' come out and try* 
 
 You should chorus the last line; but none chorused 
 it in Bordeaux. As for the girl who had evoked it, 
 she stood finger in mouth, elbow to mop, wondering 
 upon the fine florid singer. 
 
 While she wondered he was gone but not far. 
 He had crossed the street and entered a narrow alley, 
 the Tournant Bercy, at the end of which a patch of 
 fine colour the flower market had caught his eye. 
 Before she had had time to twirl her mop a dozen 
 times he was back, crossing the Rue de la Ferronniere 
 on tip-toe, a propitiating smile upon his face, one 
 hand extended forward, in that hand a flower; one
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 89 
 
 backward, and in that the folds of his blood-coloured 
 cloak. In another moment he was at close quarters ; 
 the flower, a clove carnation, was under her chin, its 
 stalk in her clasp. 
 
 "For the fairest," said Captain Brazenhead, and 
 looked at her out of one eye. The other was closed. 
 
 "Oh, sir," she said and the stalk of the flower 
 went into her mouth, and thence the flower itself 
 dangled, while the conversation, if such it can be 
 called, became fluent and intimate. 
 
 She told him, in reply to questions, that her name 
 was Nicole la-Grace-de-Dieu, and that she came 
 from Nogent-le-Rotrou in the Orleanais, or as good 
 as in it in it, that is, when the French were in fettle, 
 and out again when the English came up. She was 
 one of the maids in the kitchen of The Stag, hired by 
 the year for one hundred sols and a new gown at 
 Lady Day. She was affectionately disposed toward 
 Simon Muschamp, who was one of the singing-men 
 in the church of Saint-Michel-le-Grand, and a great 
 musician. He had promised to marry her when her 
 year was up, and she believed that he would keep 
 his word. She liked flowers as much as other girls 
 did, but of course she had to be careful and she 
 was his humble servant. 
 
 "It is otherwise, far otherwise, beautiful Nicole," 
 said Captain Brazenhead. "Listen now to me." 
 Whereupon he told her as many surprising things 
 about himself as he could remember or invent upon 
 the spur of the moment. As for instance, he said 
 that he was the seventh child of a seventh child,
 
 90 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 perilously born in the seventh month; that previously 
 to his birth, his mother, a distant relative of the Sophy, 
 had dreamed of basilisks at play in a flowery mead 
 a thing which had never happened to her before any 
 of his six brothers saw the light ; that he had been bred 
 to arms from his youth up and had done feats on 
 horseback and afoot which he hesitated to relate 
 because of her youth and inexperience. He did, 
 however, give her to understand that ladies had sighed 
 for him, not always in vain; that perfumed gloves, 
 for instance, had been wont to fall at his feet as he 
 walked the streets of- nights, particularly in Italy, 
 which he knew well. Ladders, too, of silk, and of 
 remarkable lightness and pliancy, had unfolded 
 themselves from leafy balconies and invited him 
 to romantic adventure more times than he could 
 afford to remember. He had twice been to Avignon 
 and saluted the Pope; once as vassal to lord, once 
 "but then he had affronted me, I own" as man 
 to man. The Court was no more strange to him 
 than camp or bower. "Sir John Falstaff was my 
 friend. I shared Harry with him, our late king, 
 whom God assoil. The king that now is royal 
 imp of Windsor how many times he hath jogged 
 upon this knee I care not to say; more times than 
 thou art years old, maiden, belike." He clapped 
 his hand to his heart, and opened his second eye 
 upon the girl. "Battered, indifferent wicked, hardy, 
 deep in craft and counsel, unwearied in adventure 
 what I have been is all one. What I may be is 
 before you, lady. Fortune calls; I see the white
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 91 
 
 road of honour winding like a ribbon among the stony 
 rocks. I go, I go, Fortune; for so it is decreed of 
 all the Brazenheads. But I should be a recreant 
 to the blood I boast did I either of two things turn 
 my back upon peril or my eyes away from a beau- 
 teous maid. I have touched you, I see!" He had, 
 it is true. Nicole wore a becoming blush and suf- 
 fered an unquiet breast. "Ha!" he cried, "and a 
 singing mouse seeks you to be his. Oh, bleater of 
 anthems, beware of the soldier!" A little more of 
 such eloquence was enough. With a promise from 
 Nicole that she would wait upon him at supper, 
 "if her mistress would permit her," Captain Brazen- 
 head went blithely on his errands, if errands he had, 
 in this good town of Bordeaux.
 
 VI ET ARMIS 
 
 SIMON MUSCHAMP, the singing-man of Saint- 
 Michel-le-Grand, proved to be a ruse youth of a pale 
 and narrow cast of features, who said little, twiddled 
 his thumbs, and watched that irritating and endless 
 procession of them with moody satisfaction. He 
 was a native of Brabant, out of place at Bordeaux, 
 very much in the Captain's way when he chose to 
 make an inconvenient appearance at the supper- 
 table, at which the fair Nicole had been invited to 
 wait, and he had not. He drank the Captain's wine, 
 and, so to put it, did not allow the Captain to do more 
 than hold his to the light. He was thus the cause of 
 considerable constraint; for the lady was very pru- 
 dent; and though prudence carried up to a point in 
 affairs of gallantry is piquant, carried beyond it, it's 
 the deuce. The Captain spectacle of a good man 
 struggling with calamity did his best to bear off 
 the thing with a high hand. He called Nicole his 
 charmer and a rose of Sharon, kissed her hand a 
 dozen times; he was affable to Simon, asked for a 
 specimen of his music, inquired into his affairs and 
 promised to use his interest; hoped that he kept his 
 health, and that his aged mother kept hers; was 
 shocked to find that she was no more, and so on. 
 
 92
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 93 
 
 Nevertheless, he found that Simon had a cold and 
 critical eye frequently upon him and always with 
 disapproval, and a way of turning down the corners 
 of his mouth, when the tale took a higher flight 
 than usual, which tended to shut Nicole's rosy lips 
 wonderfully open before to a kind of judicial prim-* 
 ness, and, in short, "took the brine" out of our man 
 like a flood of cold water. Brine was a very necessary 
 concomitant in the Brazenhead mixture. "I'm a 
 savoury ham, and that's a fact," he was accustomed 
 to say, "but you might as well eat an egg without 
 salt as souse the devil out before you enjoy me." 
 A narrow rivalry irked him; he was by no means 
 jealous, would have shared such favours as might be 
 allotted and welcome ; but he was not to be scared off 
 by a singing-man, and when he reflected that in a 
 day or so's time, Pym might claim him for the road, 
 and Simon be left in serene possession, he felt prickles 
 at the back of his neck, which meant that his hair 
 in those parts was standing up, and was a bad sign. 
 Ke had found out in the course of an adventurous 
 life that it was a mistake to deny yourself what was 
 to be had for trouble, and was not long in coming 
 at a short way of dealing with Simon. He intended 
 him no bodily hurt at the moment, but was firmly of 
 opinion that, for the sake of his own dignity, if Nicole 
 was not to be his, neither might she be Simon's. 
 "That upon which Brazenhead casts a favouring eye 
 must be Brazenhead's or God's. If so be that I must 
 take the road along with my friend, warlike Pym, 
 Simon must take it with me, and Nicole the veil. I am
 
 94 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 sorry for the girl, who struck my fancy, but she will 
 not be the first to be scorched in my flame ah, and 
 shrivelled, the pretty moth! Alack that it should be 
 so! But Cupid is a cruel god, as all poets know, 
 whose way is over splintered rocks. And where is 
 the lover that is not a poet? Not here" he struck 
 his chest "no, not here, by Cock." 
 
 Meditating these necessities, which, or some of 
 which, are common to our nature, his surprise was 
 high when Simon Muschamp waited upon him on a 
 morning, and in the course of private conversation 
 opened to him similar proposals. Simon was em- 
 powered to offer his friend if he might say so, and 
 the Captain said that he might for the moment a 
 share in an adventure of peril to which he himself 
 was bound; and he did so, he said, in the sure per- 
 suasion that Captain Brazenhead was one of those 
 untiring champions of honour who would sooner re- 
 fuse the sacrament than the chance of death in the 
 open. When he had added that death was one 
 alternative and life on a competence the other, he 
 believed that all was said. 
 
 Captain Salomon, who had listened open-mouthed 
 to this extraordinary preface, exclaimed here that 
 all was by no means said. "As thus," he went on, 
 "where are we for, little man?" 
 
 "With horse and arms, dear sir," replied Simon, 
 "into Provence." 
 
 "And what do we do with our horses and arms in 
 Provence?" 
 
 "We assist, under God, a lady of nobility and easy
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 95 
 
 fortune in those parts the Lady Roesia des Baux, 
 who is ward of the Bishop of Agde." 
 
 * ' We go to Agde ! We go to the south ! And what 
 is the grief of the Lady Roesia, and what the grief 
 of his lordship the bishop?" 
 
 "That," said Simon, "I am not yet allowed to tell 
 you ; but I may add that we go in armed strength into 
 the duchy of Savoy." Captain Brazenhead was 
 confounded nay, he was shocked. This singing- 
 man would go armed into Savoy, levying war! His 
 narrow eyes would peer into the fleshless orbs of 
 Death: into the bitten eyes of dead and ruined 
 men! into the scared eyes of dead women! This 
 throstle-pipe would leave "Jesu, dulcis memoria," 
 and try a trumpet-stave of "Ha, Saint Denis!" or 
 "Ha, Montjoie!" 
 
 He was stern with the singing-man. "Look you, 
 Simon, I doubt your tale, and your mountains of 
 Savoy. Pale weed, I have seen the Alps; white 
 death there, Simon, and ice in the marrow of stouter 
 men than thou! No, no. To the quire with thee, 
 boy. Prick songs, or souls, Simon, and leave the 
 pricking of spears to thy betters!" His moustachios 
 aspired toward heaven, his eyebrows bent to meet 
 them on the way. "And so much for thee, Simon," 
 said Captain Brazenhead, thinking so, indeed; but 
 the singing-man gently persisted. 
 
 "My tale is none the less true, sir. Soon we must 
 depart." 
 
 The Captain threw up his head. 
 
 "And where do we go so soon?"
 
 90 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 "We go to Agde, sir, to the castle of the Lord 
 Bishop." 
 
 "Your authority?" He snapped his words. 
 
 "My authority, sir, is a gentleman-at-arms." 
 
 "Let me see this gentleman." 
 
 "You shall, sir," said Simon, and went out, and re- 
 turned with Pym Pym of the drooping eyelid. 
 Captain Brazenhead was again confounded, and for 
 the time capitulated. There was nothing more to be 
 said. He was Pym's, and Simon was Pym's, and 
 Nicole might take the veil as soon as she must. Thus 
 the high gods, wielding the world, wielded him and 
 his along with it; but what had confounded a not 
 easily confounded soldier was that Simon Muschamp 
 had settled with Pym on his own account that very 
 thing which was to have been settled for him. This 
 sort of strategy was outside experience, and should 
 have given a hint of the quire-man's quality. 
 
 Now, so free was Pym of his rose nobles, so efficient 
 were his preparations, that in a few days' time a re- 
 spectable troop had been collected, mounted, armed, 
 licked into discipline of a kind, and was declared by 
 Captain Brazenhead to be ready for the field. By 
 "discipline" he meant that they would none of them 
 run away so long as you were looking at them no 
 more. And " respectable " is, or may be, an adjective 
 of number, and is so used here. In no other sense 
 could it be applied to the force about to march to the 
 assistance of the Bishop of Agde. "You have here, 
 my Pym," the Captain had said frankly, "a score of 
 the sorriest scoundrels in this broken realm of France.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 97 
 
 You have a coin-clipper, two Jews, three Andalusian 
 half-castes, an unfrocked priest, and two men con- 
 demned to the hulks for robbing children on their 
 way to church. If that pock-marked fellow on the 
 bay is not a deserter from the English, then I don't 
 know a horse from a mule; and as for your Gascons, 
 let widows weep. They will talk themselves off this 
 earth in four-and-twenty hours. Then your Sim6n. 
 What do you make of Simon and his narrow face? 
 Modesty! Too circumspect for me, and too careful of 
 the way we are going. I have a thought that he 
 knows it backwards and intends to test his knowledge. 
 Several things incline me to think that Simon and I 
 are to try a fall of wits together." 
 
 This was upon the road, some few leagues from 
 Bordeaux, whence they had departed at the dawn of 
 a fine summer's day, watched by the fair Nicole 
 la Grace-de-Dieu. She, the cause of much that was 
 to come, had stood upon the wall as they denied 
 through the landward gate. In her mouth the clove 
 carnation of her wooing was twisting upon its stalk. 
 And "Farewell, thou bright disaster!" Captain 
 Brazenhead had cried her; for he udged that much 
 her due and his duty, and had waved his hand. She 
 had kissed hers for answer, but whether to the Cap- 
 tain or to Simon Muschamp nobody can say. It is 
 certain that Simon scowled. 
 
 It would seem that the pretty figure she made up 
 there "like a wilding flower" on the wall, with the 
 sun on her face and hair, persisted and gave thoughts ; 
 for the Captain led the conversation to women and
 
 98 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 fond lovers more than once, and while he did not 
 himself refer to Nicole, he was careful that others 
 should. All he ever said about her was in answer to 
 some eulogy of Pym's. "She had a taking shape 
 that's all I know," was his commentary, and a fit of 
 profound meditation the result of that. But it was 
 from the moment when she kissed her hand, and 
 Simon scowled, that the Captain began to keep the 
 young man in his eye, and he soon saw that the 
 youth's proceedings were not such as a man makes 
 who has a week's journey in front of him. Nor were 
 they those of a man who is out for a known stage of 
 leagues, and sure of a night's rest for himself and his 
 beast. Simon spared his horse, travelled light, and 
 was careful of landmarks. He paused at the tops of 
 hills, inquired into the names of villages, and refused 
 entirely to accompany Captain Brazenhead in the 
 pursuit of certain mallards with a goshawk. All 
 these circumspect arrangements of the narrow-faced 
 clerk did his rival mark and ponder. 
 
 But other serious matters claimed a part of his 
 attention. Mr. Pym, free of Bordeaux, opened the 
 whole of his commission, which, however little it is 
 part of mine, I must summarise for the reader's con- 
 venience. 
 
 If the Lady Roesia des Baux were a person of con- 
 sequence, as, being heiress of a seigniory and last of 
 a long, wicked, and very noble line, she could hardly 
 fail to be, she was, said Pym, rendered doubly con- 
 sequential by the fact of her betrothal to a certain 
 prince, no other than the Count Philibert of Savoy,
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 99 
 
 and trebly so, in his eyes, by her tutelage under the 
 famous Bishop Martin of Agde, in whose service Pym 
 was proud to acknowledge himself and proud to have 
 enlisted his momentous friend. Such a lady, then, 
 was the Lady Roesia, who, waiting at her ripe age of 
 sixteen years and a half until it should please Count 
 Philibert to marry her, was stolen out of her rocky 
 demesne by the Red Count of Picpus and taken a 
 prisoner God knows whither, to the scandal of all 
 Christendom, the contempt of Holy Church, and the 
 vexation of everybody in the world except Count 
 Philibert. Now, he, said Pym, being a man of 
 forty years old, and passably vicious 
 
 An interruption from Captain Brazenhead shows 
 his knowledge of the world, of men, and of manners. 
 "No, no, Pym," he said, with lifted hand, "you are 
 wrong. I know the Prince; I met him in Milan be- 
 fore this century was begun. His vices are perfectly 
 agreeable to his degree. He is of a reigning house, 
 brother to a sovereign ah, to a monarch ! What in 
 you might be deplorable, my poor Pym, or in me 
 noteworthy, in Count Philibert, I assure you, is 
 hardly remarkable." Pym was annoyed, and sawed 
 the air to show that he was. "The thing is of no 
 moment," continued his friend, "but yet " 
 
 "Of moment or not," cried Pym, "it is woundily 
 inconvenient to condone a man's vices when I am 
 about to tell you of his lady's perfections." 
 
 "That is so," said Captain Brazenhead. "Ad- 
 vance, my Pym." 
 
 The deed of dread was done, the young lady neatly,
 
 ioo THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 expeditiously, and immitigably ravished, said Pym; 
 and the Red Count of Picpus was suspected of it. 
 If Madame Roesia was not in his stronghold of Pic- 
 pus in Savoy, then many persons were liars, and some 
 were fools. A priest, an old priest of Beaucaire, 
 who served the Red Count for chaplain, had her tale 
 in confession, had broken the faith he owed his mas- 
 ter, and given himself the trouble to come down to 
 Agde to warn the Bishop thereof. Now we were at 
 the point. The Bishop, a warlike prelate, was about 
 to levy war upon Picpus. Pym, then serving him in 
 an honourable capacity, was sent first to Burgundy, 
 then to the English. From Burgundy he had had 
 promises, from the English curses ; but from the Eng- 
 lish, nevertheless (he rubbed his hands), he had got 
 a jewel of price, when he got Captain Salomon 
 Brazenhead, sometimes called The Great. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, as he listened carefully to 
 this tale, was not so sure that Pym had got him, as 
 Pym seemed to be. There was much to be weighed 
 in the adventure; and what interested him mostly in 
 it, that to which he found his mind recurring again 
 and again, was what was the present state of Les 
 Baux itself, that fair seigniory, one of the noblest in 
 Provence? Sat Picpus there in possession? He 
 could hardly suppose so. Had he yet, as no doubt 
 he intended, married Roesia? If he had not if he 
 had not The red blood rose singing up from Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead's heart, and made his head spin 
 round. So soon as he was recovered from his vertigo 
 he interrogated Pym.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 101 
 
 "This is a fine tale you tell me here," he said. "I 
 should be hard shifted to better it. And so we are 
 for Les Baux?" 
 
 "No, no," says Pym, "we go to Agde." 
 
 "Peste! But we take the road of Marseille, I 
 suppose?" 
 
 "We do not," says Pym; "we take the road of Per- 
 pignan. Thence we ship. If you, an Englishman, 
 are in a hurry for heaven, you will enter the French 
 king's country as soon as you can. In that case your 
 road lies yonder. I am in no such hurry. I go to 
 Orthez, thence to Pau in Beam, and thence by the 
 mountains, which are any man's land, into the coun- 
 try of the Count of Foix. Thence I ship for Agde." 
 
 "Doubtless you are right," said Captain Brazen- 
 head; "but now tell me this. From Agde we go, I 
 suppose, to Picpus? Or are we perhaps too late? 
 Is it possible that Picpus has possessed himself of the 
 Lady Roesia I mean by marriage ? Or, again ' * 
 
 "You ask too many questions," said Pym testily. 
 "From Agde we by no means go to Picpus, but to 
 Coneo in Savoy, to the Count Philibert. Do you 
 think that lords, bishops, and princes in alliance levy 
 war like little pirates, so that the first declaration of 
 hostilities you have is the slitting of your windpipe ? 
 If the Lord Bishop of Agde has been ten years learn- 
 ing of the tale, may he not be as many months right- 
 ing of the wrong, in a nobleman's manner ? Friend, 
 you know better." 
 
 "Maybe that I do," said Brazenhead calmly; "yet 
 there is much to be said for the more ancient plan."
 
 102 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 "When the Count and the Bishop have joined 
 forces, a summons of outlawry will be sent to Picpus 
 with heralds and a papal nuncio. Protocols will be 
 exchanged, ambassadors accredited; there will be a 
 conference ' ' 
 
 "In the meantime the Count of Picpus will have a 
 Countess of Picpus, and the seigniory of Les Baux, 
 and, I should say, a young Count of Picpus in arms 
 ready to be weaned." 
 
 "You judge by the staple of ordinary Christians," 
 said Pym, "but not so are princes to be measured. 
 The Count of Picpus has gone to Rome to sue for a 
 divorce from the Lady Blandemire, his wife. It is 
 very seldom that a gentleman of his degree can be 
 wedded at a moment's notice. He has had three 
 wives already." 
 
 "The proper man! Has he so, indeed?" says 
 Brazenhead; and asked no more questions. Indeed, 
 he fell into a fit of musing which lasted him until the 
 halt for dinner was sounded upon the horn. 
 
 But for all this and that, he never failed to keep 
 one eye upon the dubious proceedings of Simon 
 Muschamp, the pale singing-man, whose narrow 
 face seemed too anxious for the steel sallet which 
 adorned it.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HUE AND CRY AFTER SIMON 
 
 THAT desolate country of salt marsh, swamp, and 
 cranes, which begins soon after you leave Bordeaux, 
 delighted Captain Brazenhead when he had shaken 
 off the effects of the tale he had heard. It afforded 
 him abundant opportunities for the flying of his gos- 
 hawk, in which he was aided by such of his com- 
 panions as he found to his taste. Simon Muschamp 
 would never have been one of these, but, had he been, 
 he would have declined the sport. That circumspect 
 young man was ever at the tail of the company, walk- 
 ing his horse and spying at the set of the country, 
 until within a league or two of the monastery of 
 Belin-les-Fosses, when its tall belfry could be seen 
 reddening to the western sun. Then indeed he 
 pricked forward to the van and was observed to be 
 in close and intimate conversation with Pym "Old 
 Tallow-Eye," as Captain Brazenhead called him in 
 allusion to his infirmity. 
 
 The upshot of this dangerous commerce with the 
 narrow-faced man was as painful to Pym as it was 
 expected by his friend. The monks had been hos- 
 pitable, the supper abundant, the wine beyond re- 
 proach. Captain Brazenhead, having seen to the 
 
 103
 
 104 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 bedding of his horse, was about to consider his own; 
 in fact, he was as good as asleep, when he was 
 aroused by a most dreadful howling, as of a hound 
 with uplifted head pouring forth his complaint to the 
 full moon. Even this would not have hurt the Cap- 
 tain: "damn the dog" would have settled him off 
 again, but there was more. His blanket was plucked 
 off him, his shoulder was gripped as by claws of steel. 
 "Lady of Graces!" he cried, and sat up. There, by 
 the light of the swinging lantern, he saw Pym before 
 him, Pym with his gray locks flying wild, Pym with 
 his unhampered eye astare, and his other under its 
 sheath glimmering whitely. 
 
 "Help me! They rob! Pillage! To the thief! 
 To the thief!" 
 
 These were Pym's words, roared blankly into the 
 vague, and his actions suited them. He seemed not 
 to know what he was doing with his arms. Captain 
 Brazenhead rose up and girt on his sword. 
 
 "Simon Muschamp?" he asked, and needed no 
 answer. "Then I have him," said he, and went 
 down the ladder. 
 
 As he was saddling, Pym told him all. Simon had 
 been absent from supper, but so good had been the 
 cheer that no one had observed it. "You are wrong, 
 man. I noticed it," said Brazenhead, and then asked, 
 "He has your treasure?" 
 
 "He has it all." 
 
 "Why did you entrust him with it, my friend?" 
 Pym hung his head. 
 
 "I will tell you the whole of my infatuation, Cap-
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 105 
 
 tain," said he, full of shame. "That close rogue led 
 me to believe that you had designs upon it." 
 
 "Damn him, and he was right," said the Captain 
 to himself. 
 
 "And that it would be safe only with him, since you 
 knew him for a declared enemy, and would never 
 touch him." 
 
 "And there," said the Captain, "Simon was 
 wrong. Touch him! I'll eat him." 
 
 The convent bell sounded. "Matins," said Bra- 
 zenhead, "an hour past midnight," he opened the 
 stable-door, " and three hours' moon to come. Pym !' ' 
 he said, "your hand. Expect me at Perpignan. I 
 know my road." Pym was in tears. 
 
 " God will reward you, noble Salomon." 
 
 "That is my confident expectation," said the Cap- 
 tain. "All turns out for the best. Farewell." He 
 rode out of the monastery gates and took the road to 
 Bordeaux. His horse, pricking up his ears, was well 
 content that it should be so. He went through the 
 sand at a light and easy canter which was a delight 
 to his rider. Captain Brazenhead began to sing. 
 
 No need to trace his steps, nor listen to his music. 
 He entered Bordeaux one of the first, and joyfully 
 hailed the warder of the gate as an old acquaintance. 
 Hardly a soul was in the streets, hardly a chimney 
 smoked; the watchmen sat in their boxes sunk asleep, 
 and the lanterns, still alight, swung garishly upon 
 their chains. He went at walking-pace down the Rue 
 de la Ferronniere; no signs of life there. He turned 
 into the stable yard, dismounted there, and going
 
 io6 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 to pick the lock of the stable with the point of his 
 sword, found that job already done for him. "Oho! 
 run aground, Simon!" said he; and it was so. In 
 the stable, all in a much of lather and sweat, stood a 
 roan horse. "Now by Cock and his father," said the 
 Captain, "there's a sorry knave to be trusted with a 
 horse. O Simon, Simon, if thou art not soon even 
 as this good beast, may it go hard with me at the 
 Last Day." He was careful to rub down his own 
 animal : he even went the length of covering Simon's 
 with a blanket before he thought of his coming happi- 
 ness. These things done, he went into the house, 
 his boots in his hand. 
 
 All outer windows were shuttered, but within a 
 light directed him toward the kitchen. That light 
 shone, as he knew very well, through a window which 
 opened upon a passage. It was used as a buttery 
 hatch in the daytime. Standing in the passage in the 
 dark suited the Captain very well; for he could see 
 and not be seen. He put down his boots, crept up 
 to the window, peered cautiously round the corner, 
 being careful that the candle should throw no shadow 
 of him on the wall, and saw what he saw. 
 
 Simon sat at ease by the table, the remains of a 
 meal before him; leg-bones of chickens, a knuckle of 
 ham, chewed artichoke, crumbs of cheese, an onion, 
 and a crust of bread. A jug stood there, a glass half 
 full. By his side was a leather bag, tied with a lace. 
 His sword was off, his doublet unfastened, his feet 
 were on a stool, he leaned against the wall and 
 picked his teeth. His countenance expressed com-
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 107 
 
 placency and indifference to suffering; a smile hovered 
 over his lips, his eyebrows lifted up and down. 
 When he was not engaged with his toothpick, he 
 whistled, and when he did not whistle he fell again to 
 his excavations. Before him in a drooping attitude 
 stood, or rather hung, Nicole the fair Nicole la 
 Grace-de-Dieu her face between her hands, and by 
 the sudden motions of her shoulders it was to be seen 
 that she was crying. All else about her betrayed a 
 hasty summons from her bed; her slippers were on 
 bare feet, or partly on, her hair was stuck up with one 
 hairpin, her petticoat was awry, her bodice a shift. 
 But the Captain had no eyes for such things ; the sight 
 of a girl in tears sent the blood to his head. Before 
 he knew what he was about, he had swung open the 
 window with a blow of his fist, vaulted through the 
 opening, and clasped Nicole in his arms. The maid 
 shrieked, and Simon backed awfully to the wall. 
 
 "Ha, dog and dog's son," said Captain Brazen- 
 head, "if that wall could speak it would cry out 
 against thee. But there is no need for testimony 
 when Brazenhead is at hand. Fellow, prepare for 
 thy last hour on earth." 
 
 He kissed Nicole's wet cheek, and set her down. 
 Sword in hand, he advanced to the miserable Simon. 
 "Sir, sir," said that wretch, "let us reason together." 
 And the Captain paused. He could reason as well 
 as any man; but was this a time? 
 
 His sword was shaking in his hand as if he were 
 meditating where he might best strike; but, as a 
 truth, he was meditating no such matter. He was
 
 108 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 reflecting that Simon might be useful to him, and 
 could not in any case be left in Bordeaux alive. 
 
 The question then was, was it wise to maim a man 
 whom you must take with you on an expedition of 
 length and delicacy? Would it encourage Simon to 
 be loyal and discreet? On the other hand, Simon 
 had behaved to Nicole as no man could be allowed to 
 behave unscathed. Simon must therefore be chas- 
 tised, but not, he thought, wounded with the sword. 
 He returned the weapon to its sheath, and asked 
 Nicole to get him some stout cords. When she was 
 gone he addressed his expectant victim as follows: 
 
 "Thou seest, singing-mouse, how dangerous it is 
 to meddle in matters too high for thee. Happier 
 hadst thou been quavering Pange lingua in thy 
 tuneful minor than riding afield with Free Routiers 
 and Companions of the Road. Yet since to be very 
 plain with thee, Simon thou didst bring back my 
 body to the place where I had left my heart, and 
 spare me, moreover, the irksomeness of that burden 
 of which it had been all along my intention to relieve 
 Old Tallow-Eye, I am content to pardon what thou 
 didst design as a buffet at me. Not for those things 
 am I about to chasten thee, Simon, but for that thou 
 didst without the fear of God before thine eyes deal 
 ungentlemanly with the fair Nicole, disturbing her 
 slumbers, causing her to array her beauteous person 
 negligently and slatternly, causing her to serve thy 
 trifling meals, and to stand she a courted maid of 
 degree while thou, singing-man, didst sit dallying 
 with thy pronged fork at thy false teeth; ah, proh
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 109 
 
 pudorl and causing her to weep upon my account 
 with thy dastard's news of my death at thy ridiculous 
 hands the which last is a very abominable fact, 
 and will enrol thy name in the company of Elymas 
 the sorcerer, and of Judas Iscariot, that most false 
 treasurer, unless I sift thee as wheat, Simon, unless 
 I throughly purge thy floor, unless I scorch and 
 frizzle and fry the vice out of thee." Nicole entering 
 here with his needs, he thanked her and sent her 
 away, lest, as he said, more shame were laid upon 
 the man's shoulders than the man's shoulders could 
 bear. She went, and Captain Brazenhead very 
 heartily belaboured Simon for near a quarter of an 
 hour, tanning his hide and dusting his jacket at one 
 and the same time. That done, he trussed him like 
 a turkey his hands behind his back, his knees and 
 ankles together; he gagged him with a napkin and 
 bound him up in a table-cloth; he hoisted him on 
 his shoulder and carried him up into the loft, where 
 he laid him away upon a shelf as if he had been so 
 much kitchen stuff put by until winter a side of 
 pork or a half sheep salted. "Move, Simon, my 
 son," he said, "and thou fallest, and thy neck must 
 break. Move not, and thou mayest sleep at ease. 
 At nightfall I will come for thee, and thou shalt 
 take the road again this time in a gentleman's ser- 
 vice." Returning to the house, he put the bag of 
 rose nobles inside his doublet and buttoned it up. 
 It bulged at his side like a serious wen, and was not 
 comfortable, but, as he said, there were ways of 
 easing that which would be used soon enough. It
 
 no THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 was a far cry, he knew, from Bordeaux to Les Baux, 
 and that was where his fancy led him. 
 
 Meantime, he sought the chambers of the house, 
 and, finding one empty, lay upon the bed, and slept 
 like any patriarch of Ephesus.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD REVEALS HIMSELF 
 
 ENORMOUSLY refreshed by his slumbers, Captain 
 Brazenhead awoke feeling the need of a draught, 
 and roared until he got it. He arose as a giant 
 renewed with wine, dipped his head in cold water 
 and combed his hair back with his fingers, gave a 
 flick to his moustachios, put on his boots, sword-belt 
 and sword, and was ready for what he had to do. 
 
 His cloak upon his arm, his steel bonnet on his 
 head, he descended the stair and inquired for Madame 
 Cornichon. She was landlady of The Stag, stout 
 and well-favoured; she received him with smiles, 
 for his account had been liberally discharged by the 
 lavish Pym. 
 
 "Madame," said he and his French was ex- 
 tremely polished " I must beg the favour of a short 
 but intimate conversation with you." 
 
 "As short, sir, as you please," said Madame 
 Cornichon, "and as intimate as I please. On those 
 terms your favour is granted. Be seated, sir." Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead had set a chair for the lady, handed 
 her to it, seated himself, and laid his hand lightly 
 upon his heart. 
 
 After an effective pause, "Madame," he said, 
 "I am not what I appear."
 
 112 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 "Nobody is," said Madame Cornichon, who had 
 had a great deal of experience. 
 
 "And nobody less so than I," said the Captain, 
 undismayed. "For reasons of family, for reasons 
 of politics, I appear to you as a warring Englishman. 
 You expected me to join a company to start for 
 Orleans and I surprised you by not going. Be 
 not deceived, madame. I am not an Englishman, 
 though the English are my friends. My master, 
 however, is the Duke of Burgundy, and my mission 
 is done. I am about to depart for my lands." 
 
 " For your lands, sir ! " cried the lady. " God bless 
 me, have you lands?" 
 
 "Madame, a many, fair and wide in the east, 
 madame. Reasons, as I say, of family and state- 
 craft urge me to conceal my degree; but reasons of 
 heart, madame, not to be denied, insist upon full 
 and open confession. Madame, I am the Count of 
 Picpus." 
 
 Nobody could have been more interested than 
 Madame Cornichon in this dramatic avowal. No- 
 body could have been more touched by its frankness 
 and evident sincerity. The revelation was sudden; 
 but there's no doubt that the name of Picpus had 
 struck the Captain's fancy. 
 
 "You have in your service, madame," he pur- 
 sued, "a young person of taking appearance and 
 considerable charm of manner. I admit that she 
 has pleased me. I consider that she would look 
 well in the chambers of my Castle of Picpus. It is 
 not often that I am deceived in anybody ; I am some-
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 113 
 
 what notorious for my rapidity of judgment. I say 
 that this young person has attracted my attention, 
 and I ask you whether the matter cannot be arranged 
 between us according to the bent of my humour. I 
 have here, madame," and he relieved his doublet 
 of its gigantic burden "I have here wherewith to 
 offer you any equivalent in reason for the incon- 
 venience my wayward fancies may put you to." He 
 untied the sack: "Madame, how much shall we say 
 for the cancelling of the hiring agreement of Nicole 
 la Grace-de-Dieu ?" He had a handful of rose nobles 
 weighing in his hand; and Madame Cornichon, 
 whatever suspicion she may have had before, had 
 nothing now but enthusiasm for her distinguished 
 guest. 
 
 . "Monsieur le Comte," said she, "as I am a very 
 honest woman, although I keep an inn, I shall take 
 the liberty of informing you that one of those pieces 
 would pay the wages of Nicole for five years, and 
 that half of one would more than pay her value for 
 life in my eyes." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead replied somewhat stiffly, 
 "Your humour, madame, does not jump with mine. 
 I set no bounds to the value of the damsel. But we 
 noblemen are not to be denied. I could not, upon 
 my honour, assess the value of the young person at 
 less than this sack of nobles, but I must not gainsay 
 you. You are mistress here, and your word is law. 
 Allow me to offer you" whereupon he gently pressed 
 a couple of his fine coins into her hand. "At nightfall 
 I set out for my lands," he said, "and will take the
 
 II 4 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 young person with me. If it would not be troubling 
 you excessively, I should be obliged if you would in- 
 form her of her changed fortunes. Madame, I salute 
 you the Count of Picpus, who fears nothing but dis- 
 honour, salutes you." Captain Brazenhead kissed the 
 hand of Madame Cornichon and bowed himself out. 
 In so doing he left behind him the most astounded 
 landlady in the distracted realm of France. 
 
 Leaving Captain Brazenhead for the moment to 
 look after himself, as I think I may, there is no doubt 
 that his proposals, as translated by Madame Corni- 
 chon, with regard to Nicole made a great stir in the 
 kitchen of The Stag. When Madame Cornichon, 
 aproned and bare-armed to the elbows, came in to 
 prepare the eleven o'clock ordinary, and found her 
 bevy of maids, cooks, and scullions eating their dinner, 
 her first act was to go to Nicole and take her by the 
 chin. 
 
 "Madame de Picpus," said she, "I congratulate 
 you with all my heart." Then she kissed the girl, to 
 the astonishment of the table, and added, " Monsieur 
 le Comte has been generous lavish indeed. You 
 are a fortunate girl and a joy to your parents and 
 I lose a treasure! But I have never stood in a girl's 
 way yet, and never will." 
 
 The maids nudged each other, the varlets bolted 
 their food or choked within their cups of horn; but 
 Nicole crimsoned to the roots of her hair. Madame 
 Cornichon, happy in the bolt she had let fall in her 
 little domestic pool, watching, as it were, the ever- 
 widening rings it made, smiled benevolently upon
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 115 
 
 the glowing maid and patted her cheek. "Yes, my 
 children," she said, "we have indeed entertained an 
 angel unadvised; but in such a city as Bordeaux, and 
 in such an inn as The Stag, all kinds of company may 
 be expected quality as well as canaille. I do but 
 state the fact, however. This child, whom I hired 
 six months come Pentecost in the fair of Beaugency 
 for a hundred sols a year and a new stuff gown at 
 Lady Day, leaves us this night as Countess of Picpus, 
 and rides to her lands with the Count her husband. 
 My lamb," and she caressed Nicole, "this board is 
 not for the likes of you any more. Go and clean 
 yourself and come into the counting-house. No 
 doubt his Excellency the Count will inform you of his 
 intentions." Nicole, without a word to say, rose from 
 the table and retired. Madame Cornichon sent for 
 a flagon of Leoville and gave the toast of the Count 
 and Countess of Picpus. It was received with accla- 
 mation. All the maids of The Stag received firm 
 proposals in the course of the afternoon. 
 
 But it was Captain Brazenhead's turn to be aston- 
 ished when, upon returning from his affairs, he learned 
 from Madame Cornichon of the interpretation she 
 had put upon his declaration. For one moment his 
 resource failed him for that pulsing moment when 
 Madame Cornichon said slyly, "Curb your im- 
 patience, monseigneur. The bride arrays herself." 
 
 He bayed upon her his fine form bent itself at 
 the hips, as a boy's for leap-frog; but his head, stiffen- 
 ing, refused to bend. His eyes, terribly fixed upon 
 the lady, were like speckled opals, to each a black
 
 n6 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 point ; his mouth was open, his tongue flapped heavily 
 like the tail of a fish out of water. "PlaU-il?"he 
 made a great effort. 
 
 " Madame de Picpus va venir" said Madame 
 Oornichon; and the Captain said, "Ha!" and swal- 
 lowed hard. Then, raising himself to his natural 
 height, he folded his arms and uttered the sublime 
 words, "It is well; you have done well, madame." 
 
 This heroism braced him ; he was able to converse 
 on indifferent topics with Madame Cornichon; he 
 was able to compose his mind. When, in due course, 
 the fair Nicole came timidly into the room, arrayed in 
 her gown of contract, the new stuff gown which she 
 had received at Lady Day, and a variety of silver 
 ornaments in her hair, he was able to salute her as a 
 duchess; to kiss the tips of her fingers, hand her to a 
 chair, and turn his mind to the arrangements proper 
 to be made for a future Countess of Picpus. These 
 necessitated another visit to the town, another formal 
 leave-taking, which was duly performed. 
 
 If it would be hard to account for Captain Brazen- 
 head's prevarication to use no harsher term during 
 his first interview with Madame Cornichon, so mo- 
 mentous to himself, it would be still harder to explain 
 his behaviour in the light of the second. Perhaps a 
 desire to excel, very creditable to any man, may 
 have been his monitor; perhaps a prevision of the 
 course of events, perhaps a feeling that not otherwise 
 than by rigorous lying could he carry off at one and 
 the same time his personal dignity and a kitchen- 
 maid from The Stag who had caught his fancy and
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 117 
 
 inflamed his passions. To do the Captain justice, 
 I propose a compromise. A man is, in a sense, what 
 he desires to be: if Captain Brazenhead therefore 
 aspired to a County in Savoy, in imagination, in all 
 that ennobles a man and sets him above the brutes, 
 he was indeed a Count. The title, Count of Picpus, 
 so trippingly did it come, had captivated him from the 
 first moment he heard it; no dream of his hot mid- 
 night youth could have flattered him with a fairer 
 future than such a degree. Count of Picpus! Oh, 
 it should go hard with him if such were not his style 
 within the year. And he had a plan : he saw his way : 
 he did but advance by a few mad months the astound- 
 ing, the overwhelming, the reeling fact. And then 
 came the thought of Nicole, that charming girl, so 
 bashful and yet so circumspect. Here I think we 
 may put a finger upon the point where magnanimity 
 became a source of weakness, and imagination, like 
 an over-fertilised plant, wasted in profusion of leaf- 
 age what might have produced fruit-bearing flowers. 
 His intentions toward Nicole were up to this point 
 vague if generous. His Castle of Picpus: she would 
 look well there. He saw her already there, trundling 
 a mop, a carnation between her teeth charming, 
 charming Nicole ! Better this by far than the life of 
 religion to which he had so nearly resigned her. So 
 far and no further had his fancy carried her when he 
 opened his mind to Madame Cornichon. 
 
 But Madame Cornichon was made of different 
 fibre, or you may be sure she had never thriven at The 
 Stag. Imagination with her was strictly limited to
 
 Ii8 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 the scope of the cash-box. She had as little zest for 
 long scores as for long-bows. To her mind this 
 bristling, ardent Count of Picpus, with his sackfuls 
 of minted money and tales of dukes and lordships, 
 was a romantic figure just so far as his sacks and his 
 duchies would take him; otherwise he was plainly a 
 fool. In nothing was he so plainly a fool as in his 
 proposals toward Nicole and his extravagant pay- 
 ment for the forfeiture of her hiring. What the 
 exact nature of these proposals might be she did not 
 inquire or care, but it suited her humour to give them 
 an ironic magnificence. It gratified her to go into her 
 own kitchen and pluck out a little nobody by the hand 
 and announce her to her gaping mates as a Countess 
 of Picpus. It gratified her also to impart to her 
 astounding guest the droll turn she had given to his 
 arrangements. This sort of thing tickled Madame 
 Cornichon. She indulged her contempt for the lower 
 orders, and was able to put a man who gave himself 
 airs into a ridiculous position his proper place, in fact. 
 
 But she had reckoned without her Captain, or 
 rather she had reckoned with only half of him. And 
 if she made that half of him ridiculous which she 
 understood, that other half of him which she could 
 never understand made her in turn ridiculous. For 
 that other half of him took her seriously and was in 
 five minutes as complacent as could be over the new 
 aspect of affairs. 
 
 Countess of Picpus ! Thus in a flash the Captain's 
 heart tutored his head. Oh, shy, recondite and 
 humble beauty! Oh, peering hedge-flower! What
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 119 
 
 a Countess of Picpus he had won ! There is no man 
 of heart and head who does not picture with a beating 
 pulse the day when he may lift such an one out of 
 the dust, and say, "Behold, my dove, my fair one, 
 what a crown for thy quiet brow is provided by the 
 largess of my love!" I say that this was a noble 
 aspiration of Captain Brazenhead's, which only lacked 
 performance to make all earnest lovers ashamed to 
 put their professions beside it ; and I say also that it 
 is hard to reproach a soldier with his lack of a title 
 of honour before the very existence of that dignity has 
 been for twenty-four hours within his knowledge. 
 Certainly Captain Brazenhead would have laid the 
 Picpus circlet at the feet of Nicole had he had it. 
 As he had it not, the next best thing which he could 
 do he did I mean, when he hailed her by the name 
 which he now entirely intended her to bear. 
 
 A tailor with three apprentices, from the Rue 
 Saint-Remy, was occupied with the person of the 
 new Madame de Picpus from noon until five; a 
 riding-dress of crimson velvet of Genoa figured with 
 pomegranates and coronets was the result and a 
 charming result. A peaked headdress, with a silk 
 veil about the turned-back brim, for the dust and heat 
 of travel, added dignity to charm ; scarlet riding-boots 
 of soft leather, gauntlets of chamois skin but so 
 much for the outward necessaries of a lady of con- 
 dition; and of the others, invisible but very proper, be 
 sure that the rose nobles of the Bishop of Agde did 
 not spare them. At a quarter before six Captain 
 Brazenhead entered the counting-house of Madame
 
 120 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 Cornichon and, jewelled cap in hand, bowed before 
 his bride. In a stately manner, forgetful neither of 
 the emotions of a lover nor of the dignity of rank, he 
 knelt to kiss her hand. Madame Cornichon was by 
 this time in tears. She was herself a personable 
 woman, a widow of but a few months' standing; it 
 is possible, therefore, that her tears were not of pure 
 happiness; it is possible that envy was the drop of 
 venom which gave them a sting. Here was a splen- 
 did man on his knees to a slip of a girl and for God 
 knew what reason, since there was nothing in her. 
 However that may be, she was a good soul and vowed 
 their Excellencies should have cause to remember 
 their last hour at The Stag of Bordeaux. Excusing 
 herself, she hastened to the kitchen, and soon, while 
 Captain Brazenhead was kissing Madame de Picpus, 
 a fine capon was turning on the spit, and two scullions 
 basting it with lard. 
 
 The Captain did not conceal his extreme satis- 
 faction with the turn of events. With Madame de 
 Picpus on his knee he explained to her how fortunate 
 was the hour in which he had first seen her trundling 
 her mop. " But for thee, my heart's heart, I had been 
 trailing through the swamps of Guienne in the hire 
 of a Bishop of Agde; but for thee, I had been at the 
 mercy of a man with but one serviceable eye ; but for 
 thee there had been no County of Picpus, no treasury, 
 without which titles of honour are but an itch. In 
 fine, my sovereign, from thy lap have I picked up all 
 my worldly store, and it shall go hard with me but I 
 return it sevenfold in thy bosom."
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 121 
 
 Nicole thanked him becomingly. "Sir," said she, 
 "I will engage to be an obedient wife to your lord- 
 ship. I am but a poor girl " 
 
 "Zounds!" cried the Captain, "not at all. You 
 are a very lovely person, and need but a thing or two, 
 which you shall presently have, to be the Countess 
 in fact which you are already in expectation." 
 
 "And what things do I need, sir?" asked Nicole. 
 The Captain stretched out his hand and took a flower 
 from a glass. "To my eye," he said, "you need a 
 flower in your mouth. Not that your lips are not 
 already a flower, but that the obstacle may provoke 
 me." 
 
 Laughingly she took the stalk between her teeth. 
 "We cannot live on kisses, sir," she said. 
 
 "We can try, however," said the Captain, and tried. 
 
 I think that Captain Brazenhead, suffering from a 
 defect which is common to all great men, had under- 
 rated his charming companion. Because she was 
 pretty, he thought she was a toy; because she was 
 scared, he thought she was unformed; because she 
 was kind, he thought that he. should have the forming 
 of her. The reality was to be made plain to him. 
 
 "What are you going to do with me now, sir?" 
 asked Nicole, when the Captain had demonstrated 
 his point about kisses. It will now be seen that she 
 was a girl of some force of character, for when he had 
 replied gaily that he was about to make her his 
 Countess, she asked him if he was a Count. Now, 
 nobody had ever asked him that before, and for a 
 moment it sobered him.
 
 122 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 "By the Face, and I am not, my dear, and that's a 
 fact," said he. Nicole pondered this avowal with 
 hanging head. She did not move from her seat upon 
 his knee, but she plucked the carnation to pieces 
 while she thought. 
 
 "Then how am I a Countess?" was the upshot 
 of her meditation. The Captain stroked his mous- 
 tachios. 
 
 "In this way, as I take it, my dear. I am a man 
 of decision and speed, as you have found out hey?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Nicole, "so much I have found 
 out." 
 
 "Counts are as plenty," he continued, "as herrings 
 in the blue water and where I go there are Counties 
 to be had." 
 
 "And where do you go, sir?" 
 
 "I go to my to Picpus." 
 
 "Oh, sir, that is far!" 
 
 "It is in Dauphine, I believe," said the Captain, 
 "or thereabouts. I know the road." 
 
 "And in Picpus you will be Count of Picpus?" 
 
 "Not at all, my dear," said Captain Brazenhead. 
 ' ' In Picpus I shall secure the Lady Roesia des-Baux, 
 whom one Picpus stole as a guileless infant, and shall 
 restore her to her inheritance. By that means I 
 earn her undying gratitude, and the pardon of her 
 kinsman the Bishop of Agde for a temporary in- 
 convenience I may have caused him. In the very 
 act of so doing I possess myself of the Seigniory of 
 Picpus; for the robber and assassin who now holds 
 it, you must understand, is gone to Rome to seek
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 123 
 
 a divorce from his wife, the Lady Blandemire. 
 Therefore " 
 
 "Therefore," said Nicole, "one of two things must 
 occur. Either you marry the Lady Roesia instead 
 of her present possessor in which case I am not 
 Countess of Picpus, or you slay the Count of Picpus 
 on his return to his castle in which case you are 
 hanged." 
 
 "Pest!" said the Captain," all this is very possible." 
 
 "I have a proposal to make," said Nicole, "which 
 is that you do not go to Picpus at all, but leave the 
 Lady Roesia where she is, and the Count of Picpus 
 in Rome." 
 
 "And where do you propose to go, my love?" 
 said he. 
 
 "I propose to go to Les-Baux, which is nearer, 
 and has more amenity. I don't love mountain coun- 
 tries. I am not used to them, and they give me the 
 spleen." 
 
 "Les-Baux," said the Captain, "is good, and a 
 fair inheritance. But it is in ruin, and all the in- 
 habitants put to the sword by the false Picpus." 
 
 "So much the better," replied Nicole. "You and 
 I will repeople it," and she blushed faintly. 
 
 "I see my way so far," said the Captain; "I 
 certainly see my way. But the Count the false 
 Picpus, as I have well called him " 
 
 "You tell me that he is unknown in Provence?" 
 
 " Save in name, and by a reputation which is both 
 redoubted and deplorable, I believe he is." 
 
 "Then you have answered your own objection,"
 
 124 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 said Nicole. "He remains the false Picpus, and you 
 the true Picpus. Am I clear?" 
 
 " Clear as the sky of Provence, clear as the Rhone 
 flood. But the Lady Roesia ?" 
 
 "I am your Lady Roesia," said Nicole, and kissed 
 Captain Brazenhead. You need not ask with what 
 rapture she was pressed to his bosom, nor whether her 
 kisses were returned. He swore by the Nine Worthies 
 of Christendom that no Count of Picpus his ancestor 
 had ever won a more dainty bride. He blessed Bal- 
 thasar, King of Armenia and Cologne, that from 
 his loins had sprung so notable a Des-Baux last, 
 loveliest, and most subtle of her race. He reminded 
 her of the war-cry of her family, in case she should 
 have forgotten it. " A u hasard, Balthazar! ' ' he cried, 
 and waved his sword over their heads: and he 
 swore by Saints Dominus, Tecum, and Nobis Pec- 
 catoribus that not one hour should elapse before he 
 was heading for the violated domain of his injured, 
 innocent, and ravished lady. 
 
 Considerably more than an hour did elapse, how- 
 ever, for there was a supper with Madame Cornichon, 
 which was gay, and a ceremony to follow it, which 
 was protracted. Indeed, the sun was dimpling 
 Garonne with points and cressets of light when the 
 horses were brought out and Madame de Picpus lifted 
 gallantly to the saddle by her spouse. Even then a 
 chance word from Madame Cornichon in the midst 
 of her farewell reminded Captain Brazenhead that 
 a duty remained undone. 
 
 "Au bonheur, monsieur el dame" cried the good
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 125 
 
 woman for the fifteenth time, "but it vexes me that 
 you should leave without a lackey." Then Captain 
 Brazenhead struck his thigh. 
 
 "I have one, by Cock and had forgot him. Go 
 one of you and fetch me my rascal." And he named 
 the shelf where Simon Muscjiamp would be found. 
 
 And so he was, and there is no need to ask whether 
 he swore to be a loyal servitor to Monsieur and 
 Madame de Picpus. If thirteen hours' vigil, trussed 
 on a shelf, do not inspire a man with a devoted at- 
 tachment to his master to say nothing of a drubbing, 
 robbery of a sack of rose nobles, robbery of a mis- 
 tress then, where, we may ask with Captain Brazen- 
 head, where, in this world may an honest servant be 
 found? Simon Muschamp's own ideas on this and 
 other subjects will be learned very slowly. I will 
 only warn the reader that he, too, had a soul of his 
 own; which is probably the case with every man born 
 of woman, though the romancers, historians, and 
 politicians of the world, for reasons best known to 
 themselves, are apt to overlook it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CITY ACCURSED 
 
 IN after years Captain Brazenhead could never 
 hear the name of Raymond, be told that the day was 
 the sixteenth of May, or be reminded of the city of 
 Toulouse without an affection of the muscles of the 
 face painful to witness. A series of twitchings, like 
 those incessant flickering sheets of light which the 
 Italians call Saint Elmo's fire, played upon him 
 without mercy. He looked like a palsied man. His 
 lips shot open and showed his teeth chattering to- 
 gether; his eyelids glimmered over eyes all white; his 
 ears seemed endowed with a life of their own, and his 
 moustachios bristled of themselves. The reason of 
 this malady, fortunately transient, has now to be 
 related. In the city of Toulouse, on May 16, 1428, 
 under the governance of Sieur Raymond de Breteuil, 
 chief Consul of the place, Captain Brazenhead suffered 
 defeat, deprivation of goods, wounding of his mem- 
 bers, and rigorous confinement to gaol. Let these 
 things be related in order. 
 
 If we are to consider as defects in his character 
 that he too readily believed persons to be what he 
 wished them to be, and too readily supposed cir- 
 cumstances to be remediable by exertion, our judg- 
 
 126
 
 THE COUNTESS OP PICPUS 
 
 127 
 
 ment upon him will be lenient, for these are noble 
 defects. His was that generous nature which gives 
 as lightly as it takes; it made him an ardent friend as 
 well as a gallant enemy; it caused him to forgive as 
 readily as to pursue; and while his head was exceed- 
 ingly fertile in shifts and delighted altogether in plots 
 against the law, human and divine, it was not within 
 his power to refrain his heart from exulting in their 
 remarkable subtlety, nor from inviting approbation 
 of them from those whose fitness to approve was 
 sometimes peculiar. 
 
 Some of these qualities of the Captain's have 
 already been exhibited. It may be said that he had 
 been precipitate in his alliance with the fair Nicole, 
 peremptory in his dealings with Simon Muschamp; 
 that he had been predatory, indeed. He had pos- 
 sessed himself of a heart to which Simon had had a 
 claim, of treasure which Simon had secured for him- 
 self, of a County of Picpus: lastly, he had laid hands 
 upon the person of Simon, had drubbed it, trussed it, 
 put it on a shelf. Pass all these things: to the victor 
 the spoils he would have been the first to admit it. 
 But then his nobility that greatness of soul which 
 must needs be generous with what it has not, sooner 
 than ungenerous entered into a plot against him. 
 He was reproached by Madame Cornichon or felt 
 it a reproach that he was a Count who took r a lady 
 into his lands, not as his Countess. He could not 
 bear that ; he made her his Countess. He was made 
 next to feel very keenly the perilous tenure of the 
 coronet which Nicole had been asked to wear, and
 
 128 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 agreed, too readily perhaps, to the remedy which 
 proposed. In other words, to ensure her a County 
 which he did not possess he agreed to her assumption 
 of a name to which she had no claim. Had this been 
 all it had been enough ; but there was more. Madame 
 Cornichon had regretted the absence of a servant. 
 Could a Count bear that his lady should so travel 
 through France unattended? He felt that keenly; it 
 stung. Remembering Simon Muschamp, with whom 
 he might well have been content to cry quits, remem- 
 bering greatly, he forgave him, and set him up as a 
 servant. He did unwisely; he started a new score on 
 the slate, which he had to pay. 
 
 Following the course of the Garonne toward its 
 fountainhead, all went well with Captain Brazenhead 
 until he left English territory at Maimande and 
 entered the tormented soil of France. Here, as he 
 told Nicole, it was necessary to go tender-foot, to 
 avoid cities, to lie close by day, to work in the dark. 
 Nicole agreed to these reasonable precautions very 
 cheerfully; she was a charming companion, full of 
 resource, complaisant, and not easily daunted. Part- 
 ly upon her advice, partly because, it will be remem- 
 bered, he admired the name, he used his title of Count 
 of Picpus whenever it was absolutely necessary to 
 declare himself It may have helped him here and 
 there, or it may not; it certainly gave him a great 
 deal of pleasure, and he may have indulged a par- 
 donable vanity in respect to it more than was prudent. 
 Simon Muschamp, the Loyal Servitor, as he was 
 pleased to call himself, used it on every occasion.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 129 
 
 There was no inn at which they baited, no smithy, 
 no toll-gate, no ferry, no monastery in which they 
 spent the night, and no tavern in which the Captain 
 delighted to tell his tales, where full warning had 
 not been given beforehand of his Excellency's wealth, 
 prowess, rank and ancestry. The consequence of 
 this was that the fame of Monsieur de Picpus went 
 before and spread about him, and that when he 
 arrived in any village the inhabitants stood to receive 
 him with their caps held out. Into these he did not 
 fail to drop coins of silver. He endowed marriage- 
 able maidens, he gave honest youths their indentures. 
 In or near Montauban it is said that he touched for 
 the evil, but I think this must be an exaggeration, 
 although it is certainly a fact that a member of the 
 house of Picpus had once been anti-pope for a, week. 
 Another consequence was that Simon was pretty 
 soon able to leave the renown of M. de Picpus to 
 take care of itself another that the sack of rose nobles 
 became less and less inconvenient to carry. 
 
 Nevertheless, all went passably well until, in an 
 evil hour, Captain Brazenhead fell in with Nicole's 
 whim and consented to diverge from his safer road 
 which had been across the watershed from Villemar 
 into the valley of the Tarn in order that she might 
 make her offering at the famous shrine of Saint 
 Sernin in the city of Toulouse. He should have 
 known better, and he did. The men of Languedoc 
 were his detestation and derision at once. He con- 
 sidered that they talked too much and too loud; he 
 considered them vainglorious and liars; and he could
 
 130 
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 not deny that they were as handy with the sword, or 
 nearly so, as they said they were. Toulouse, again, 
 was perilously near Perpignan, where Pym should 
 be awaiting him and his treasure Pym of the 
 drooping eyelid, with the Bishop of Agde on his 
 mind. All this the Captain urged upon his Nicole's 
 attention, but so delicately that it is just possible 
 she missed his apprehensions. He did not say, "My 
 life, let us avoid Toulouse as we should the devil. If 
 I am known in Toulouse I may be taken : if you are 
 known there, you may be put to the Bridewell or 
 whatsoever plague of a name they give that sort of 
 place in this country." This he did not say, but 
 instead, taking her rosy face between his hands, 
 smiling upon her in that easy way a man well fed 
 is wont to take "Why, chuck," said he, "hast thou 
 a thanksgiving to make on my account? Hath 
 Heaven been so kind ? Hast thou a man at thy feet 
 who can deny thee nothing, and must thou needs 
 boast of that to Our Lady? Store it up, child, in 
 thy pretty head until we reach the good town of Albi. 
 There is a rare church there, I know, for once when 
 I served Burgundy I helped to sack it and this 
 cicatrice, look you" he bared his right arm, and 
 there, deep forested in hair, showed the white scar 
 "came from a dint with his crosier which the Abbot 
 of Saint-Symphorien gave me. In Albi minster 
 shalt thou give God thanks for stout Salomon, thy 
 lord, pretty sweeting but not in Toulouse, as thou 
 lovest him." Nicole pouted and withdrew her face 
 from his hands. The Loyal Servitor intruded.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 131 
 
 "Your pardon, sir," he said, "if I make bold to 
 speak." 
 
 "It is granted, Simon." 
 
 "Then, sir, I say that madame is right, and your 
 Excellency in error." 
 
 "How so, by the Face?" 
 
 "Thus, sir. In Albi you are nearer to your mark, 
 but further from your power of hitting it. From 
 Toulouse if you retire to reach it you can spring 
 further." 
 
 The Captain said, "I take you ; I am obliged to you 
 enough said," which was his invariable habit when 
 something was put to him which he did not under- 
 stand. He had no more objection to offer, and 
 Nicole once more put her face between his hands. 
 They rode into Toulouse by nightfall the next day. 
 That was the i5th of May. 
 
 The offering which Nicole designed for Saint 
 Sernin's shrine was a handsome candle of ten pounds' 
 weight. It was very necessary that it should be 
 carried for her to the church, and indeed, as Simon 
 pointed out, that some warning should be given to 
 the Canons of the Church of the approaching bounty. 
 Space would be required for such a candle; the shrine 
 might be locked, the guardian away. Now, for a 
 lady of the condition of Madame de Picpus to pre- 
 sent herself with a ten-pound candle and be kept 
 waiting was not to be thought of. What did his 
 Excellency advise ? His Excellency, who was sleepy 
 and had been too early roused, was short about the 
 candle.
 
 I 3 2 
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 "Waiting? Will they keep thy mistress waiting? 
 There will be ears to be slit if they do, the southern 
 swine. Go you, Simon, and tell Messieurs les 
 Chanoines that Madame de Picpus is inclined to 
 salute Monsieur Saint Sernin, who, if he is the gentle- 
 man I take him for, will be too much honoured by the 
 compliment. Go you, in the devil's name, and leave 
 me to my repose." 
 
 "I will go, sir," said Simon, and went. At a later 
 hour Monsieur de Picpus accompanied madame to 
 the church of Saint Sernin, which, with the Golden 
 Violet of poets, is the chief glory of the city of Tou- 
 louse. I must be more exact. He accompanied 
 Nicole to the door of the church, but excused himself 
 from further attendance. 
 
 He had always had churches in suspicion, chiefly 
 because for fighting purposes they cramp a man 
 with their doors which lead to other doors, and their 
 cloisters, where you may chase about like a rat in a 
 cage and never get nearer your man, or further from 
 him, as your case may urgently need. Outside he 
 would admire with all the world, and there was no 
 better judge than he of the scope of a great nave, the 
 buttressing of chapels, the poise of a cupola, or the 
 right proportions of flanking towers. Inside, he 
 would not go if he could help it. "They talk Latin 
 in there; they talk to themselves. It may be mis- 
 chief they are devising; who knows? Once I was 
 carried to church, and they put salt on my tongue 
 and scared me damnably, as I hear by report. Other 
 times I have been, and once more I purpose to go;
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 133 
 
 but then I shall be carried thither, and in a manner 
 careless what tongue they choose for their conver- 
 sations." He was very stout upon this matter, and 
 the fair Nicole, whose hope it certainly was to get 
 him to church before long, had to give way. He 
 held aside the curtain for her and bowed her in, and 
 that done he walked up and down the square, ex- 
 panding his chest and spreading his cloak to the early 
 morning sun. There was much business doing there : 
 the market was at its height and the chattering as 
 shrill as that of pies in a pear-tree. Captain Brazen- 
 head admired and was admired. The fine eyes he 
 made, the fine figure he was his crimson cloak, his 
 gold ornaments, his long sword, and his thigh-boots! 
 If he caused hearts to flutter and eyes to fall there's 
 no wonder, for his affability was extraordinary, and 
 Tolosan beauty is famous all the world over. But 
 his eye was very much upon the young men, whose 
 fine bearing pleased him while he disapproved their 
 clamouring. "With some of these striplings I could 
 do very well," he considered. "They would look 
 well in the Picpus livery, the Picpus bannerol flutter- 
 ing from their spears. A forced march, a series 
 of them, a night surprise, the barbican snatched 
 the seneschal on his knees with the key on a cushion : 
 I see it all. And these dark-skinned young heroes 
 for my feudatories, crying, 'A Picpus! A Picpus!' 
 The thought warms me. I must make a levy: it was 
 good that I came hither, it seems. Bless the pious 
 thought of Nicole my Countess that is to be!" 
 These and other imaginations occupied him very
 
 134 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 pleasantly for an hour and a half. He carried them 
 with him to the Tavern of the Burning Bush, where 
 they lost nothing by the application of strong waters 
 to their fire. It was toward the hour of noon when 
 he went again to the church and sat himself upon the 
 steps of the parvise, to wait for Nicole, and to con- 
 tinue his meditations. It is certain also, and not 
 surprising, that he slept; for his nights had been 
 broken of late, and he had much need of repose. 
 
 When he awoke it was as nearly as possible three 
 o'clock, an hour when nobody in Toulouse with a 
 door to his house is outside that door. Captain 
 Brazenhead sat up with a jerk of the head, snorted, 
 sneezed twice, and was awake. The position of the 
 sun warned him that much time had been consumed, 
 the state of his feelings that no food had been. 
 Where the mischief was Madame de Picpus ? Where 
 the Loyal Servitor, one of whose first duties surely 
 was to see that his master was filled ? Before him, 
 as he wandered, the Place Saint-Sernin stretched 
 out, vast and arid plain of white pavement quivering 
 with radiant heat ; behind him towered up the figured 
 side of the church, silent, shrouded, immense, tenant- 
 ed only in its topmost flight by pigeons. The mys- 
 tery of all this emptiness, the irresponsiveness of the 
 mountainous masonry, the shade in which he had 
 slept so long, struck a chill upon him. He shivered; 
 a premonition came to him stealthily like the wind of 
 an approaching storm. Upon his feet the next mo- 
 ment , he tried the doors ; they were locked . He strode 
 the length and breadth, the returning length of the
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 135 
 
 church; all doors were locked. He was puzzled, he 
 was uneasy, he was extremely hungry. Was it possi- 
 ble that Madame de Picpus had returned to the inn ? 
 
 Was it possible, O Heaven, that ? Before he 
 
 had achieved the terrible thought that possessed him 
 he stopped, fell a-trembling, stooped and picked up 
 something from the pavement. It was a flower: a 
 clove carnation with a bitten stalk. Here, then, was 
 the message of disaster the one piteous cry for 
 help which Nicole had been able to voice. This 
 indeed smote him like a stroke of the sun through 
 the shoulder-blades. He had no doubts now: he 
 was ashy-pale when he looked up. "Now," he 
 said, "I know the worst. My glory has faded, the 
 chill grows. It is the hour of sunset." He made the 
 sign of the Cross as he invoked the Saints of his inner- 
 most reverence. "Cosmas and Damian, you physi- 
 cians of the soul, Martin of Tours, thou princely 
 giver, Salomon my namesake, and you, ye Eleven 
 Thousand Virgins, my countrywomen and my pat- 
 terns as well, aid me in this hour and watch over me 
 well. It is the hour of sunset, say you? Amen, 
 says Brazenhead, but this sun shall go down in 
 blood." He threw about him his cloak of imperial 
 dye, put his hand upon the hilt of his sword, and 
 strode over the Place Saint-Sernin. 
 
 Tall houses stood about, fronting the church, silent 
 all and shuttered against the sun. A narrow arched 
 entry, cut out of two such, was the road he elected to 
 go. It led into a cave of dark and gloomy aspect, a 
 lane between high, black, and unfeatured walls, whose
 
 136 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 rare windows were barred with iron and doors studded 
 with the same. It bore the unhappy designation of 
 the Rue des Yeux Crevs; but it led him directly 
 to his inn, and he did not notice its name. Roland 
 at the closing in of the Dolorous Pass could not have 
 been more indifferent than he to presages of evil. 
 Was not evil already there ? 
 
 A man in a peaked cap stepped out of a doorway, 
 a sworded man in a black cloak, a man of sinister 
 aspect, with a bristling beard, hooked nose, and a 
 pair of high, arched eyebrows, one higher than the 
 other. 
 
 "Give you fair afternoon, sir," said he, with what 
 Brazenhead felt to be ironic intention. He took it 
 up as it was meant. 
 
 "It is a very foul afternoon," said he shortly, 
 "and you shall give me nothing." The man stopped, 
 drawing back his head and presenting a shoulder. 
 
 "Do you bandy words, swordsman? Are you for 
 a play?" 
 
 "By Cock, and I bandy what you please," says the 
 Captain. "I have heavy thoughts, and a heavy 
 hand at a play." 
 
 Then his man came toward him, peaking his head 
 like a running bird. "You are uncivil, sir, look 
 you," says he, "and that may not be with a gentle- 
 man of Toulouse." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead threw open his cloak. "I 
 have yet to learn that I am," he said. 
 
 "Touchtl" cried the man, and whistled on his 
 fingers. Immediately the entry seemed to swarm
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 137 
 
 with men, who came from all sides and in all manners, 
 like conspirators from a wood in a tragedy. Two let 
 themselves down from an upper window, one came 
 running up from the archway behind him, two more 
 from the angle, others from doorways in recesses. 
 All were armed, and all in a hurry; and even as they 
 came on, the first arrival had drawn his blade and 
 was pressing our Captain. This was an ambush, 
 it was clear, and promised to go hard with its victim. 
 He did all that a man could, encompassed by so 
 cloudy a host. Planting himself against the wall, 
 his cloak about his left arm for a shield, his sword 
 whisking now here, now there, it was a truly terrific 
 defence. And as he fought he sang gaily to him- 
 self, his troubles forgot. Or he talked, "Bristles, 
 beware, thou fightest Brazenhead! Ah, that was 
 shrewdly encountered, boy of Shrewsbury! 
 
 The maid looked up, the maid looked down, 
 With never a word to say a. 
 
 Why, scullion, if thou wilt have it, have it and hold " 
 and here to a creeping ruffian, who had come on all 
 fours behind to hamstring him with a bill, he gave 
 his death-blow between the shoulders and withdrew 
 the sword in the nick of time to parry a lunge from his 
 first opponent and to flesh him deeply in the groin. 
 He disarmed yet another; but when two came at 
 him together, and a third, clambering from the pro- 
 jecting grating of a window, cut at his head with a 
 halberd, his attention was distracted, and a wound 
 in the forearm maddened him. Coolness deserted
 
 138 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 him ; for a moment or two he saw all the passage one 
 burning red; then, like the tortured bull in the ring, 
 he went blindly to his destruction, leapt upon his 
 coupled foes, grappled and fell with them. There 
 was a crowded moment of snorting, tussling, and 
 stabbing on the ground, and for one man at least it 
 was his last. But he who had stood in the window 
 jumped from his advantage into the mlee, and, 
 alighting in the small of the Captain's back, knocked 
 him, as he said, "all ways at once"; others came to 
 help ... all was over. Captain Brazenhead in 
 chains, was hailed to the donjon, and there for the 
 present he must remain.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GREAT LEVY 
 
 THE window, to call it so, of the prison in which 
 our Captain lay for three weeks looked upon the 
 elegant belfry of Saint Godoi, church of that pious 
 hero who was first a slave, then a Christian, then an 
 archbishop, and then all three at once, until martyr- 
 dom was added as a perfect distinction from all other 
 slaves, Christians, and archbishops; and upon this 
 belfry in the early day of his incarceration a couple 
 of pigeons had set up their nest, and used to delight 
 him with their innocent demonstrations of affection. 
 Occasionally they harrowed his feelings, for he could 
 not but remember, "Thus, ah, God, I might have 
 kissed the neck of the lovely Madame de Picpus!" 
 or "Thus, in my courtly fashion, I might have 
 swelled before my Countess, thus bowed and curvetted 
 before her, and thus aha!" A spasm of baffled 
 hope would interrupt him here, and turn him to other 
 relaxations of his hard leisure such as the taming 
 of a mouse, study of the architecture of Saint Godoi's 
 belfry, or attacks upon the virtue of the gaoler's 
 daughter, a personable Tolosan who brought him 
 bread and water twice a day. But she gave him to 
 understand that she could not abide a hairy man, 
 
 139
 
 I 4 o THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 since her affections were unalterably set upon a canon 
 of the cathedral. He had no notion of the state of 
 her feelings, she said; but that made no difference. 
 Where the treasure is there will the heart be, and sh? 
 had rather listen to his blackbird notes in choir and 
 think with unencumbered mind upon his smooth 
 person than be the promised bride of Cyrus, King 
 of Persia, or two Roman Emperors. So piteous a 
 tale of true love unrequited touched Captain Brazen- 
 head's heart, and he took a vow of celibacy, and kept 
 
 it until he was released from prison, when but I 
 
 anticipate. 
 
 Severe scrutiny was cast upon him when two of 
 the Consuls of Toulouse, with scribes and men-at- 
 arms, visited his cell, but no direct accusation was 
 brought against him, and there was no talk of a trial. 
 High crimes and misdemeanours were hinted at. It 
 was said that he had refused to enter a church; and 
 men had been burned for less than that. He had 
 attacked six citizens and wounded four of them; he 
 had publicly cursed the city of Toulouse. All this 
 the paucity of such charges was very encouraging, 
 and disposed Captain Brazenhead to be eloquent. 
 It was plain that they knew nothing of Pym, of the 
 Bishop of Agde and his necessities; it was plain, in 
 short, that one could do no harm and might do much 
 good by copious lying. "When you are in a strait," 
 the Captain was fond of saying, "it is far better to 
 be eloquent than terse. For if you tell your adver- 
 sary many things, mixing the true with the false, he 
 is certain to believe you a liar and to doubt most of
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 141 
 
 what you tell him. If among the many things he 
 disbelieves the truth is not included, then you are a 
 bungler, and deserve what you get." Captain 
 Brazenhead was therefore eloquent. If the Consuls 
 had been Moses and Aaron, and Captain Brazenhead 
 a rock in Canaan if their charges against him had 
 been the staff with which they struck him, and his 
 speech the miraculous result then all that can be 
 said is, the children of Israel had been drowned. 
 He soused them with periods; they cast up their 
 hands from his words like foundering men. One 
 scribe wore his pen down to the feathers and the other 
 drank the ink, as if he would write with his fingers. 
 The last phrase actually written down was, "Oh, 
 perverse and malignant generation of the latter days 
 of the once inclyte and hierophantic city of Toulouse, 
 where I, descended from the Emperors of Byzantium, 
 like another Prometheus, give fire to men and perish 
 
 at the entrails " and the reason why the sentence 
 
 was never finished was that the Consuls were running 
 about the room calling for help, and that the scribe 
 who had drunk the ink was ill. Among other facts 
 insisted upon by Captain Brazenhead three stand out 
 as particularly significant: (i) That he was seventh 
 child of a seventh child, born in the seventh month; 
 (2) that he was Count of Picpus in Savoy ; and (3) that 
 for two cocks of the eye he would have the life of 
 every man in the room with a bootjack. The first 
 and third of these propositions they could not, for 
 obvious reasons, dispute; but the second contained 
 highly contentious matter, and would certainly have
 
 142 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 been doubted had there been time. It was not until 
 the prisoner's torrent had ceased to flow and the Con- 
 suls had bowed themselves out and collected their wits 
 at the foot of the stairs that they remembered the 
 only thing they had found opportunity to say in de- 
 parting, which was that he should hear further from 
 them. And their difficulties were to decide whether 
 he should hear from them, whether he would, and 
 whether if he should or would, he would have any- 
 thing left to reply. These grave questions were still 
 in debate when events took the very surprising turn 
 which it is now my duty to relate. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, after sleeping off the fatigues 
 of so much language, observed and was delighted to 
 observe from his window the next morning that the 
 pigeons were about to harvest their amorous hus- 
 bandry; that, in other words, they were about to be- 
 come parents. A nest was in making, simple in con- 
 struction, but of entire efficacy. The hen bird, with 
 head nestled into crop, and no feet to be seen, couched 
 fluffily within a coign of the masonry ; by her side her 
 mate stood erect, a straw in his beak. The nest was 
 thus symbolised, and all was well; but whether two 
 eggs were laid instead of one and he was stimulated 
 to new efforts, or whether he dropped the straw and 
 had to seek another, I know not. The facts are that 
 he presently flew down, was absent for some little 
 time, and that when he returned he bore in his beak 
 the stalk and, upheld by that, the drooping head of a 
 clove carnation. Captain Brazenhead, in his nar- 
 row cell, gave a great cry, and then stood very still,
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 143 
 
 while his heart beat like the hopper of a mill, and a 
 tear furrowed each war-worn cheek and fertilised the 
 roots of each moustachio. "Lo, now, I know that 
 my star rides clear of clouds, high in heaven. Venus, 
 goddess of the heart, I thank thee! Netted Mars, 
 receive the praises of thy doting imp!" He sat with 
 folded arms upon his bed, awaiting his release; and 
 the gaoler's daughter might ogle him till midnight in 
 vain. 
 
 It is to be believed that the Captain, meditating 
 profoundly upon Destiny, never shifted his posture 
 all night; the fact is that he was found bolt upright 
 upon his bed when the gaoler's daughter came into 
 his cell at six o'clock in the morning with a jug of 
 sour wine and a crust of stale bread. His mouse, 
 which had been taught punctuality at meals, was 
 upon the forefinger of his left hand, in a posture in- 
 dicative of suspense and supplication. Suspense 
 was also indicated by the Captain's posture, but not 
 supplication by any means. 
 
 "A fair day to you, sir," said the damsel. 
 
 "You make all days fair, lady," he replied; "yet 
 I tell you that this day is the fairest that ever I saw." 
 She looked very wise. 
 
 "You little know what's astir in our town, that's 
 very plain," said she, "or you would not prophesy at 
 random. Fair indeed! The tale runs that you 
 are to be burned to-day as a scandalous liver; and 
 however I trusted myself in your company, after 
 hearing such a character to you, I shall never under- 
 stand. Why, you might take advantage of me at any
 
 144 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 moment and no doubt but you will if I do not for- 
 tify myself with all my virtue." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead listened to this provocative 
 speech with attention; but most of his attention 
 seemed directed to his mouse. 
 
 "You mustn't tell me," he said presently, "that 
 omens are nothing, because I know better. I re- 
 member very well dreaming once upon a time that a 
 man walked down a green meadow with a flaming 
 brand in his hand, and wherever he dropped fire 
 snakes followed after him. 'This is the day! This 
 is the day! This is the day!' he called out, thus, 
 three times: and I awoke and went about my busi- 
 ness ; and that day Jack Pounce drove me in the guts 
 with the handle of a broom, and I slew him or as 
 good as slew him. So now you may see, my dear." 
 
 The gaoler's daughter looked serious. "Alas!" 
 she said, "I see that I am nothing to you, sir." 
 
 "That's my belief," said Captain Brazenhead, 
 feeding his mouse with breadcrumbs. 
 
 Nothing occurred to justify the prisoner's con- 
 fidence until a quarter before eleven in the forenoon 
 of that day; but then he was justified. Steps re- 
 sounded up the stairs, the steps of many, steel-shod ; 
 his door was struck three times. "This is the day," 
 said Captain Brazenhead in a shocked whisper; and 
 then, clearing his throat, he cried them in. Bolts, 
 locks, and bars creaked his release. Two Consuls, 
 a herald, and a stranger in steel stood in the 
 entry. The Consuls bowed, the herald stepped 
 forward.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 145 
 
 "Count of Picpus " he opened; Captain Bra- 
 
 zenhead stood up and folded his arms over an inflated 
 chest. 
 
 "He is before you." 
 
 "From the puissant and excellent lord the Vis- 
 count of Turenne these letters," and handed out a 
 sealed writ. 
 
 Now Captain Brazenhead could not read, had 
 never been able to master that branch of science. 
 He waved his hand twice before his face. 
 
 "Let me hear your letters," he said, refolded his 
 arms, and frowned upon the herald, who read: 
 
 "Count of Picpus, I direct you by the faith and 
 allegiance which you owe me as a vassal, to repair 
 instantly to the domain of Les-Baux in the County 
 of Provence, there to resume possession in my name 
 and title of the castle and good town, denying all 
 access thereto to the Lady Roesia Des-Baux, until 
 such time as I shall appear before it and demand an 
 account of you. And for so doing let this be your 
 sufficient warrant, as witness my hand. 
 
 " LE VlCOMTE DE TlTRENNE." 
 
 This ended, folded, and put into Captain Brazen- 
 head's hands, the two Consuls bowed to him and to 
 each other; and Captain Brazenhead said, "It is 
 well. I am ready. Lead on." 
 
 He knew the Viscount of Turenne excellently by 
 reputation, as all Aquitaine knew him too well. 
 Flail of Provence he was called, and relished the
 
 146 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 title. A greater man than the King of Aragon, as 
 good a man as the King of France, south of the Loire, 
 and not much inferior to the Duke of Burgundy him- 
 self, he was yet a simple land pirate, but the most 
 famous ever known in Gaul. Captain Brazenhead 
 had not suspected his finger to be in the sauce when 
 Pym revealed what he chose ; there was no doubt that 
 a different tinge was cast over the Bishop's affair by 
 the fact ; and there was no doubt that Captain Brazen- 
 head, expanding in the full sun at the door of his 
 prison, felt himself uplifted. "And where," he said 
 to the obsequious herald, "is my good friend the Vis- 
 count to be found? Where are his knees, between 
 which these two hands have so often been folded? 
 Where is his ringed right hand, which these lips have 
 so properly kissed that in the old days he was more 
 than once suspected of a chilblain?" 
 
 It was explained to him that the Viscount was by 
 no means in these parts, but believed to be at Macon, 
 where he had a castle and held his court. Details 
 had been left to his lordship of Picpus, who would 
 find a sufficient force in the garrison, and an escort 
 in this city of Toulouse. Captain Brazenhead 
 rubbed his chin. 
 
 "More than escort is needful to a man of my 
 quality, herald much more than escort. Over- 
 powered by some fifty villains of this place, I was 
 robbed, ravished, undone. For three weeks I have 
 lived upon rye bread and stale water. I require to 
 dine, to be clothed, armed, sworded, harnessed, 
 accoutred, put in fettle, taught my value in the world.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 147 
 
 You will find me an apt pupil, quick, retentive, avid 
 of learning. Begin, then, begin. I require good 
 money, and much of it." 
 
 The herald was chapfallen. "Alas, dear sir, that 
 is the one article which is lacking in the equipment I 
 am able to offer to your lordship. Money! Ah, that 
 is a branch of learning somewhat neglected in our 
 country. We are paid, or pay ourselves, in kind. 
 We call it levying a contribution " 
 
 "It matters not what you call it, one snap of the 
 fingers," said Captain Brazenhead. "The point is 
 whether you get what you levy." 
 
 "Sir, we mostly do," said the herald, "though our 
 company is called the Tard-venus" 
 
 "Late-come is often best served," said the Captain. 
 "Prove me your words. Levy me a larded capon 
 stuffed with black beans in half an hour from now. 
 Levy me a quart of red wine, a manchet of bread, 
 and some garlic, and I shall believe you." 
 
 "You shall be gratified, my lord," said the herald. 
 "At The Pheasant in half an hour." 
 
 "I shall be there," said the Count of Picpus, 
 spreading himself in the sun. 
 
 He levied the services of a barber, and needed 
 them, for his beard was prodigious. In the barber's 
 shop he found a young gallant with a sword three 
 sizes too big for him, and with the aid of a razor or 
 two he levied that. The young man made a great 
 outcry, and was for summoning the town guard, so 
 there was nothing for it but to levy the young man. 
 Captain Brazenhead bound him to the service of the
 
 148 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 Flail of Provence by the promise of a duchy and a 
 pension, and the threat of instant chastisement upon 
 a sensitive part, and that in the Place Saint-Sym- 
 phorien at ten o'clock in the morning, if he refused. 
 An oath was delivered and received, which, as it is 
 rather blasphemous, though terrible, I omit. 
 
 Then Captain Brazenhead dined at The Pheasant 
 so sumptuously and well that he made one of the 
 greatest levies of his life. I mean when he appeared 
 before the Consuls of Toulouse in full conclave and 
 levied ten thousand crowns as indemnity for the 
 affront put upon the person of the Viscount Turenne's 
 old ally Salomon de Picpus, Count of Picpus in 
 Dauphin^. He did this single-handed, save for the 
 assistance of his herald, who had been instructed to 
 blow three blasts on his trumpet whenever he saw his 
 master pause for a word. The long sword levied 
 from the young man in the barber's shop was of great 
 assistance; it looked at its best naked; but the great- 
 est ally he had was his profound experience of men. 
 Upon this he drew, or, rather, built until he himself 
 was astonished at the edifice he reared, and steadied 
 himself with a "Gently does it go not too far, 
 Brazenhead, my ancient." The caution was timely. 
 To pluck the Emperor of the East by the beard, to 
 kiss his daughter under an apple-tree, to humiliate 
 profoundly his eldest son, these are pleasant and cred- 
 itable facts; but when it comes to excommunicating 
 the Pope in his own basilica, or twisting the Duke of 
 Burgundy round your finger, or cutting the Consuls 
 of Toulouse in pieces in each other's presence, dif-
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 149 
 
 ficulties arise which can only be solved one way: 
 that is, by performing the prodigies you boast of. 
 
 But, after all, the money is the great thing; and 
 Captain Brazenhead got that, had it brought in, in 
 leather sacks, from the treasury, counted in his pres- 
 ence and bestowed at his headquarters, before the 
 sun went down upon his wrath. With some of the 
 ransom he gave a great feast to the civic authorities, 
 with other some he made the fountains of the city 
 run white wine and red, and lighted a bonfire in 
 the Field of Arms. He bought a banner with his 
 blazon, he repaired his wardrobe and provided a 
 horse, and then upon a certain day in June he set 
 forth for his affair at the head of an escort of five-and- 
 thirty scoundrels, all young, all greedy, and all liars.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN BAREFOOT 
 
 THE greatest liar then in France, if not in all Chris- 
 tendom, was, no doubt, Captain Brazenhead; but he 
 had occasion to distrust his distinction when he fell 
 in with Tristan Paulet. 
 
 The manner of his meeting and the matter of his 
 discourse were alike romantic and extraordinary; and 
 romance was a particular foible of our Captain's. 
 There are some whose roving eye is only to be arrested 
 by distortion, and he was one. If a lady should be 
 partially undressed when she ought to be dressed, 
 clean when she might have been dirty, dirty when 
 cleanliness were the proper; if a young man dis- 
 tracted should refuse to trim his nails, hair, or be- 
 haviour, should decide to wear no stockings or three 
 hats; if on a lonely heath he should come upon a 
 damsel wounded in the side, or see two lovers with 
 bleeding lips kissing in the snow Captain Brazen- 
 head's heart beat high, and he was the utter servant 
 of any such person or pair of persons before they had 
 time or need to invoke his chivalry. There were 
 many like him, and have been many since. If sin 
 were not a distortion, vice would not be so exceed- 
 ingly romantic, and folks would sin no more. Broad- 
 
 150
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 151 
 
 ly speaking, every sinner is a poet but I have no 
 wish to enter upon a discussion. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead led his devoted band, as his 
 ardent imagination drew him instantly to believe it, 
 by devious ways to the east, since he wished, very 
 reasonably, to avoid Agde and the country round 
 about it. He even went so far north as Albi, by the 
 valley of the Tarn, continued north-east to Saint- 
 Affrique, crossed the stony hills thereabouts, reached 
 Le Vigan, and thence had the full intention of de- 
 scending into the plain by Quissac, of fording the 
 Vidourle at Sommieres, and of reaching Aries with- 
 out adventuring the hospitalities of Nimes: but at a 
 little town called Ganges he varied his plans, for there 
 he met the Young Man Barefoot. 
 
 He had tempered in his course justice or, let me 
 say, hunger with mercy, had put no man to the 
 sword, had spared the fatherless and widows, and 
 had levied his needs only from the exorbitantly well- 
 to-do. He had threatened to hang the Abbot of 
 Saint-Beauzely, but, as he said himself, there's pre- 
 cisely a rope's difference between doing and promis- 
 ing; and the Abbot, who was homing from a round 
 of his granges, could well afford it. It was the dis- 
 covery that he could have afforded very much more 
 which annoyed Captain Brazenhead or the Count 
 of Picpus, as he must now be called and caused him 
 to be truculent in his first dealings with the Young 
 Man Barefoot, when he saw him in a leafy gorge, 
 sitting upon a rock with his bare feet in a pool, his 
 bare head crowned with a chaplet of faded roses,
 
 152 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 a lute on his knee and a wallet by his side, which the 
 Count erroneously supposed to hold money. 
 
 The young man, who was of pleasing shape and 
 feature elegant, fair, and perfectly beardless like a 
 true son of the country had not the slightest concern 
 who overheard him at his elegiacs, or who might see 
 his disordered dress. It was sufficient for him that 
 his doings were a solace; and that ought, he would 
 have said, to be sufficient for all but the idle imperti- 
 nent. He was singing at the top of his voice some 
 bitter-sweet lai of Provence ; every now and again he 
 paused and plucked a chord out of his rote, and the 
 consonance thus evoked seemed to inspire him; for 
 almost at once he began another stanza evidently 
 not meditated before, and never faltered either in the 
 rhymes, which were complicated, or in the diction, 
 which was florid ; but rounded off his stave with what 
 seemed to his fancy a perfect line: 
 
 Ah, God, I part from Roesia! 
 
 struck another chord, and began anew to chase for 
 rhymes. When the hunt was fairly up, trust him 
 to find them. This saved his life. 
 
 The Count of Picpus had halted his men at the 
 head of the gorge, and himself had taken in hand the 
 dealing with this singular young man. Soft-footed, 
 very like a cat, he had crept among the rocks and 
 bushwood about which the water tumbled and swirled, 
 until now, hidden in cistus bushes, his drawn sword 
 shuddering in his hand, he was immediately behind 
 his intended victim. He had been contraried by
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 153 
 
 learning of the deceit of the Abbot of Saint-Beauzely, 
 whereby he had taken silver when he might have had 
 gold, and was determined that blood must flow. 
 "He shall finish the verse," he said to himself, "and 
 then he shall be cleft to the navel, by Cock." All 
 unconscious, an innocent and male Scheherazade, 
 the young man plucked another chord, and opened a 
 new vista of rhymes in oesia. " Proud king of 
 Babylon," said our hero, "is it possible that he is 
 again working toward his parting with Roesia? 
 He'll never do it." But he did, and the Captain 
 waited for him. Once more and yet once more he 
 sprang into the saddle and gave the rein to his 
 Pegasus ; once more and yet once more he parted per- 
 fectly from Roesia. At the end of the third bout his 
 meditating slayer could not restrain himself, but 
 cast aside his sword, uttering a great cry, and throw- 
 ing himself beside the astonished young man, em- 
 braced him warmly and went so far as to kiss him. 
 
 The singer gently released himself. "You flatter 
 me, sir, I fancy," he said, "but I must beg you in 
 consequence of a vow I have made to let me alone 
 with my misery." 
 
 "And what is your vow, what is your misery, O 
 wonder of our age ?" cried the Count of Picpus with a 
 grim but friendly hand on his shoulder. "I tell you, 
 gentleman, I have travelled far and heard good 
 poetry. I have been in Italy; and if I never heard 
 Dan Petrarch, I have wept at his grave. Singers I 
 have heard at Avignon, by no means proper men, but 
 the sweeter-piped for that, and singers in Byzantium
 
 154 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 large-eyed and full-throated women, all at the 
 disposition of the Emperor of those parts. They 
 rhymed, or they did not, as suited their fancy, and 
 nobody cared ; but never, since Christ was king, was 
 there rhyming like yours. Will you tell me, for ex- 
 ample I am myself a poet, thinking it not robbery 
 of my countship how many rhymes you conceive 
 there to be to Roesia? . . . Ha! Roseia!" 
 
 A surprising change came over his lordship's face, 
 which was as if the sun, though shining still, had 
 suddenly turned cruel-cold. All was now hard that 
 had been temperately genial; all was accentuated 
 which had been merely a pleasant mottling. Deep 
 furrows revealed themselves between his eyebrows, 
 deep scars on either side of his moustachios, which 
 climbed and tossed up their tendrils beyond them like 
 bryony over a crevice in the rocks. His eyes grew 
 very light, and the pupils of them focussed down to 
 pin-points of intense black. Roesia ! A grim sur- 
 mise. He spoke in a whisper. 
 
 "Is it possible is it then possible that your be- 
 rhymed Roesia is the Lady Roesia Des-Baux, upon 
 whose affairs I ... ?" 
 
 The young man coloured, but stiffened neverthe- 
 less at the neck. 
 
 "It is not only possible, it is certainly the case," 
 he said. "But why do you ask?" 
 
 "I always ask a man for the facts before I slay 
 him," said the Count of Picpus, and bared his right 
 arm to the elbow. The young man regarded his feet 
 in the water.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 155 
 
 "It would be far more to my purpose if you were to 
 cut off my feet instead of my head which I presume 
 is your usual practice," he said. "Of what good 
 are feet to me when every function of theirs is to take 
 me further from Roesia ? Whereas with my head I 
 could sigh, weep, make verses, divert myself and 
 as it seems my persecutors, and do no harm to any- 
 body. But upon the general principle I should wish 
 to know how you can conceive an enmity for a man 
 who is leaving a lady? Had I been meeting her I 
 could have understood it." 
 
 "You may have undone her," said the Count, bit- 
 ing his moustachios. 
 
 "That," said the young poet in reply, "would have 
 been against the rules of my profession, and very un- 
 becoming in me, who have been a retainer in her 
 guardian's castle. I doubt, too, whether she But 
 a truce to such considerations. Have I not told you 
 that we have parted?" 
 
 "And I," said Captain Brazenhead, "am here to 
 tell you that you are about to part for ever by means 
 of this blade." 
 
 "Our love," said the young man, "was madness, 
 brief and glorious as it was mad. We met, looked 
 long at each other, we trembled and were mute in 
 each other's presence ; we were alone by chance, we 
 drew together, we touched, we fell a-kissing. And 
 then the floodgates of the tongue were loosed, and all 
 heaven might have wondered at the praises we had 
 for one another. They were praises such as in those 
 courts are reserved for the Highest; yet they were
 
 156 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 all too weak to satisfy us. I became as one upon 
 whose lips has lit the live coal spoken of by the 
 Prophet. Never was such poetry as mine for the 
 most glorious, regal, young lady that ever touched this 
 earth with her foot, pausing upon her flight to the 
 skies and liked it not, and sighed and soared up- 
 ward. This continued for I know not how long can 
 a man cipher when he is in love, and beloved? Out 
 upon your calculations! We met before dawn, in the 
 breathless noons, after dark our hearts could not 
 beat apart we lay, I suppose, panting for mere 
 breath until we were together. I forbear to tell you 
 of our bliss " 
 
 "Not in the least," said his intending slayer. 
 "You have a pleasant touch upon pleasant things. 
 I, too, have been in bliss," and here he sighed and bit 
 his nails. 
 
 "We became overbold our need was so imperi- 
 ous that we could not help ourselves. We were sum- 
 moned before the court of the Green Wood upon an 
 indictment for Excessive Comfort in Gallantry. It 
 was said that since the greatest glory of the lover is 
 to suffer for his lady I was clearly a defaulter, seeing 
 I suffered nothing, but was as happy as a king or 
 a shepherd. I defended myself I think strenu- 
 ously and well; but the court's mind was made up, 
 and I was not allowed to finish. I was cast in dam- 
 ages: I was to serve another lady for three years, 
 while my adored Roesia was to choose another lover. 
 I was contumacious, I refused to bow to the court's 
 ruling. And so I was banished with all the formali-
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 157 
 
 ties usual in such cases. Suffer! I have suffered 
 now as damned men suffer. Heat, cold, a gnawed 
 liver, a broken heart, a brain on fire oh, soldier, and 
 you propose to slay me ! Why, do you not know that 
 by such an act you would waft me into Paradise? 
 For say that you soused me in hell's deeps, by so 
 doing you would be ridding me of the ineffable tor- 
 tures in which I writhe now." You would have said 
 that the speakers had changed places had you seen 
 them. The young man was in command, the poet 
 led the talk. The man of blood wondered at him, 
 his sword lifeless in his hand. 
 
 Having conquered his emotion by apparently swal- 
 lowing it, the broken lover proceeded. 
 
 "The laws of Provence," he said, "vague and in- 
 determinate as they are in most of the regards of life, 
 are extremely precise upon all that concerns the 
 tenderer relations of the sexes. Here, I may say, 
 the law has been digested. There is no act or mo- 
 tion, overt or implied, from a sigh at eventime to a 
 kiss, from a clasp of the hand to a clipping of the 
 loved body, for which due provision has not been 
 made. You may imagine, therefore, that such a 
 tremendous doom as that of ours was executed to the 
 utmost punctilio. I was to go to the University of 
 Toulouse to study jurisprudence; and she the 
 lovely Roesia must accompany me a full half of the 
 way. Those more fortunate lovers who remained in 
 the court of good King Ren for our tragedy had 
 been enacted there, on the orchard-terraces, under 
 the shaded colonnades of Aix-en-Provence were to
 
 I S 8 THE COUNTESS OP FICPUS 
 
 be our escort. Our brows were bound with myrtle, 
 and our necks linked poor prisoners! with chains 
 of anemones; we were set in the midst of the bevy 
 upon white mules caparisoned in red; and whenever 
 one of us leaned aside to kiss the other one of the 
 company sang a lai. Owing to this laudable custom 
 it fell out that between Aix and Beaucaire, where we 
 were torn apart, each member of the company had 
 sung some five times." 
 
 "And was the company a large one?" the Captain 
 asked him. 
 
 "It was large," said the young man; "nearly a 
 hundred pairs of lovers must have been there." 
 
 "Then," said Captain Brazenhead, after a rapid 
 calculation on his fingers, "you kissed Dame Roesia 
 a thousand times." 
 
 "That is exactly true, sir," he replied. "I should 
 have kissed her more freely, if there had been time; 
 but the intervals were fully occupied." 
 
 " Mort-de-Dieu ! by listening to the lais ?" 
 
 "No, sir; for you can listen to poetry and kiss at 
 the same time. They were occupied by her kissing 
 of me." 
 
 "I admire!" said the Captain. "I had thought 
 myself a good blade. But you are my equal. Con- 
 tinue." 
 
 "Alas, sir," said the young man, with tears gather- 
 ing fast in his eyes, "what am I to tell you now? 
 Hard by Beaucaire, where the final separation must 
 take place a ceremony which promised to be of the 
 most heart-piercing you can conceive of our gay
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 159 
 
 company of lovers was confronted by the bristling 
 menace of war. A troop of grim ruffians going, as 
 it seemed, to the fair of Nimes, but as apt at murder 
 as at tumbling called us a halt. They were numer- 
 ous, but so were we: they were desperate for plunder, 
 armed with bills, scythes, sickles, clubs, and other 
 tools of sharp death while our arms, to call them 
 so, were lutes and viols. One, the ringleader, sat 
 squarely upon a horse and called us to halt. I should 
 add that a woman of the horde, one of many drabs 
 with them, but the comeliest, though unshod and 
 wounded dreadfully in the feet, led a bear, which, 
 prodded with a staff, set up a dismal roaring, and 
 added no little to our dismay." 
 
 "Your dismay," said the Captain, "is paltry to me. 
 Proceed with the material parts of your tale." 
 
 "Our dismay," rejoined the youth, "was most ma- 
 terial to us; but, however, our names and conditions 
 were required of us and when it was reported to the 
 chief of these cut-throats that the Lady Roesia Des- 
 Baux was of our party and easily the chief of it 
 (for all that a king's daughter was there one of her 
 honourable women, in the Psalmist's phrase) bills 
 were levelled, bows drawn taut, slaughter whistled 
 down the wind; half the virgins and all the poets of 
 Provence had been dismembered or worse, had not 
 my lovely Roesia oh, Mother of God, the pious act! 
 delivered herself as a hostage to the chief of these 
 pirates. I saw her turn her mule to face with his 
 great horse; I saw him lay hand upon the rein. I 
 cried, I raised my hands to Heaven, I fell in a swoon.
 
 i6o THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 More I know not, save that if I do not weep tears of 
 blood it is because the well of my blood is frozen hard, 
 and I suffer from a congestion." 
 
 "And who, by Cock, was this pirate who dared lay 
 hands upon the Lady Roesia Des-Baux, with whom 
 only I have to deal?" 
 
 "He was an unwashed vagabond, I assure you, for 
 all that he averred himself to be the Count of Pic- 
 pus," said his young friend. 
 
 The Captain's eyes protruded like a rabbit's. 
 
 "Hein? The Count of Pic ?" 
 
 pus," said the young man. "A pale and 
 circumspect nobleman if indeed a nobleman 
 narrow-faced, with straight hair, tawdry in accoutre- 
 ments, on a tall though meagre Flemish stallion. 
 A baton in his right hand, a notched sword without 
 scabbard at his thigh. He wore a spur, and by his 
 side there walked that fair woman I told you of, who 
 led the bear, and was unshod. She had a red flower 
 in her mouth. A buxom woman, with a shape 
 
 "Ha!" cried Captain Brazenhead, with a sound 
 like the shock of water on a cliff. "Ha!" and his 
 lower jaw fell sideways, and his head seemed to fall 
 after it. He remained staring and mumbling for a 
 space of time; and then stared upward, as if he 
 would rend the blue veil of heaven. "A narrow- 
 faced, pale, lank-haired rogue a-horseback, on a 
 Flemish horse! Beside him a fair woman with a 
 taking shape, ha ! Oh, damned villain ! Oh, traitor! 
 And she to walk, and lead a bear, and he to ride a 
 red flower in her mouth, ha! Madame de Picpus,
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 161 
 
 Nicole la Grace-de-Dieu, by God's son! And Simon 
 the singing-man, by Cock and his father!" He was 
 livid in the face, his eyes all white. He shut his 
 mouth with a snap, and swallowed a meat-fly. Then, 
 after a moment of very natural if bitter reflection, 
 he lifted his hand, pointed his fore-finger, and fixed 
 the Young Man Barefoot with his humid eyes, while 
 he thus addressed him.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BRAZENHEAD LOQ 
 
 "I AM the true Count of Picpus, descended from 
 a hundred kings, that deeply- wronged man who 
 addresses thee now, boy, and swears to thee by the 
 souls of the Count and Countess my father and 
 mother, and by those of all the kings my ancestors, 
 that by no means blood alone can avenge the offences 
 put upon me by a shaveling out of the choir. Him 
 I have nurtured as at a breast, and taught the art of 
 war; him I have dressed and undressed, admitted to 
 my familiarity and secret designs; I have saved him 
 from divers dangers as, when he was like to be a 
 thief, I have chastened him and removed temptation 
 from his eyes; and when I found him strapped and 
 gagged on a shelf, whose but these hands untied him, 
 set him upon a horse and made him body-servant to 
 the proudest pair in France ? And now, O listening 
 Heaven, that he should steal away both name and 
 mate!" He lifted his hands. "O Countess! O 
 Nicole la Grace- de-Dieu! Partner of my throne, 
 sweet my bedfellow, loveliest, tenderest, wisest of the 
 fair daughters of France, where and whose art thou ? 
 Out of what garden-ground hast thou thy emblem? 
 Who put it, blushing for pride, between thy lips? 
 
 162
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 163 
 
 What is thy condition poor barefoot lamb, that 
 shouldst ride, spurning, over the necks of such as this 
 Muschamp? Heart of mine, hath he undone thee? 
 Gray villain, bleak-faced fox, thou shalt smart for 
 this! Ah, maw-worm, ah, louse upon the Muse's 
 locks " 
 
 "I gather, sir, from your distress," said the young 
 man, "that some pirate has debauched your lady." 
 
 " That is the truth of it," said the Captain. " What 
 next?" Once checked in his eloquence, he was 
 usually attentive. 
 
 "Why, sir," said the young man, "I am reminded 
 of an Italian saw which it may comfort you to re- 
 hearse. It says: 
 
 Bocca baciata non perde ventura; 
 Anzi rinnuova come fa la luna." 
 
 "I know it," said the Captain, "and thank you 
 for it. It says that there's kissing yet in a kissed 
 mouth and goes 'further and deeper. By Cock, and 
 I agree with the Italian ; but the devil is, how I am 
 to put that to the proof." 
 
 "We must find your lady, my lord." 
 
 "Assuredly. And yours, dear sir. They are now 
 together." 
 
 "Ah," said the young man, "my case is worse than 
 yours, as you can see." 
 
 "I'll be shortly damned if I can," quoth the Count 
 of Picpus. 
 
 "You have reminiscences, you have experi- 
 ences "
 
 164 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 "We all have," said the Count. 
 
 "Mine," replied this friend, "are not worth talking 
 of. What! A kiss or two in the dark, or behind 
 a hedgerow! A touch of the hand under a cloak! 
 Pooh, my lord look at yours, rather." 
 
 The Count dreamed, and as he dreamed his chest 
 swelled, and he swept his moustachios upward, 
 making fierce attacks upon their strength. "She 
 had a taking shape," he said tenderly; "I saw it in a 
 moment, as she handled the mop. She was bound 
 to be mine." He ruminated for a little, then started 
 to his feet and glared up and down the ravine. 
 "Come!" he said, "let us find our wives." 
 
 "Our wives, my lord!" cried the young man. 
 
 "You shall have your Roesia, I tell you," said the 
 Count of Picpus. "Your news of this day is worth 
 a hundred Roesias. Besides, she is mine to give 
 you, as I will tell you upon the road. Come, shall I 
 sing you a song? I, too, am a poet, not unremark- 
 able in a host." 
 
 As he sat there easily on the rock, roaring his piece, 
 he made a fine figure in the sun a figure from which 
 the golden head and slim shape of the Young Man 
 Barefoot, couched at his feet, by no means detracted. 
 His head was erect, one elbow crooked so that the 
 hand might grasp at his hip ; with the other extended 
 he see-sawed the air to the cadences he uttered. 
 A keen light shone in his eyes, and his strong face 
 glowed and shone. He was not ridiculous because 
 he was uplifted and furiously in earnest. He was 
 triumphantly lover and poet, the wings of his spirit
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 165 
 
 brushed the sublime. And thus he sang or bel- 
 lowed : 
 
 " Ye nymphs and swains of Venus' grove, 
 Ye vagabonds of Love! 
 Oh, may the myrtle and the may, 
 The spurge, the laurel, rose and bay 
 Your right ascendance prove!" 
 
 The young man's feats with rhymes in oesia undid 
 the Captain, who plunged on thus: 
 
 "Oh, Love above! 
 Oh, Death beneath! 
 Oh, balmy Dove! 
 Oh, poisonous breath! 
 By song to prove 
 The matter of 
 My heart's ." 
 
 "Accursed Death, thou hast undone me!" he said, 
 and bit his nails. 
 
 There had been enough of this sort to cause the 
 listener considerable disturbance so much so that 
 the singer perceived it, and said with some abrupt- 
 ness: 
 
 "That is the poet I am. You may take it or leave 
 it." 
 
 "Sir," said the Young Man, after a pause, "you 
 put me to some embarrassment. If I take it I play 
 traitor to my art; if I leave it I break my parole." 
 
 Captain the Count of Picpus said that he hoped 
 not.
 
 , 
 166 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 "But you do, sir, you do indeed," replied Tristan 
 Paulet. "Your poetry if I must speak plainly 
 seems to me of extreme badness. Indeed, I don't 
 suppose that there can be in the whole world a worse 
 poet than yourself unless it be in Aix, where I had 
 to endure many ignoble rivalries." 
 
 "I fancy that you are near the mark, my young 
 gentleman," said his lordship. "I cannot myself 
 believe that there is a worse. And mind you, that's 
 a distinction. There is nothing mean for me. I am 
 for ever in extremis the best if I can; if not, then 
 the worst. But let us be going; if I am a bad poet 
 I am a worse enemy, as the Singing-Man shall find. 
 Oh, dog and dog's son my wife and my county 
 chained to his wrist and he as happy as the fleas 
 in your bed!" His moustachios bristled like teasels* 
 heads. He rose and blew a blast upon his horn 
 which caused blood to flow at the ears of the Young 
 Man Barefoot. 
 
 "My rascaille will hear and obey, you will find," 
 said he. "They know that signal." The Young 
 Man surmised that they would know it in Paris.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE GREAT RECOVERY 
 
 THE Captain-Count moved his men onward in 
 open order, in the direction which he supposed the 
 traitor Simon to have taken, which must needs be 
 due south; for plunder being his sole object, it fol- 
 lowed as the night the day that he was going to sell 
 the Lady Roesia to the Bishop of Agde if he could, 
 or to the Viscount of Turenne if he could not. But 
 he judged that he would first try the Bishop, being a 
 singing-man, used to dealing with prelates. 
 
 And he had judged well. They had not crossed 
 two ridges of hills before upon the third he spied a 
 caravan, and gave a great shout, and spurred for- 
 ward. Here his better feelings prevailed over his 
 better judgment for that shout was heard, and had 
 immediate effect upon the decamping army. They 
 were seen to halt upon their hill; they were seen to 
 be in confusion ; Simon himself was seen standing up 
 in his stirrups, haranguing his fellow-thieves. And 
 women harrowing sight! were there: one, sitting, 
 nourished a baby two lay prone and slept, one's 
 head upon the other's shoulder. And with tears of 
 blood the Captain saw one sit apart beside a bear, 
 
 167
 
 i68 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 and lean her fair head upon his tousled pelt, as if 
 with weariness fordone. 
 
 "Oh, Saints on your golden thrones!" he groaned. 
 "Send me there quickly with a sword of flame." 
 
 Soon there was a hasty resolution taken upon that 
 distant hill, due, no doubt, to the advance of the 
 rescuers. The horde of thieves scattered like smoke 
 among the cistus and box bushes. Scarcely a trace 
 was left behind. Yet Tristan declared that he saw 
 something white fluttering there by a slender tree 
 fluttering up there like a rag blown by the wind. 
 
 He saw truly and well. A woman was bound, 
 with her back to a tree: a young woman, a slim young 
 woman, a beautiful, slim, young woman her head 
 drooping to her bosom, her face hidden by shrouds 
 of dark hair. 
 
 Tristan, crying "Roesia! my Roesia!" slipped from 
 the Captain's pillion and ran up the hill, shouting at 
 random as he went, "Roesia! I come. Heart of 
 mine, I am here. I, Tristan, thy lover, am here!" 
 She looked up, she bent her head sideways to see him. 
 In a moment more his arms were about her, his lips 
 had found hers, and were well advanced in their 
 second thousand by the time the Captain-Count of 
 Picpus could see what he was about. 
 
 He was touched, while he could not approve. 
 " Pretty, pretty but the act of a fool. He will break 
 her arms off at the wrists." Dismounting, he went 
 forward, drawing a long knife and stepping up gin- 
 gerly, tiptoe like a trespasser "By your leave, 
 gentles," says he, and cut the cords. The lovers fell
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 169 
 
 into each other's arms; the soldiery admired, but his 
 lordship turned his back upon a happiness too great 
 for him to contemplate. 
 
 He called his troop to attention. "Sirs," he said, 
 "I have a deed of vengeance to perform, and shall 
 perform it alone. I require of you upon your faith 
 and fealty to remain here guarding that kissing 
 couple. My intentions in their regard are benevolent 
 and just but they must await my personal needs. 
 They are innocently and happily engaged. Let no 
 man pry upon their pleasures, but face about, the 
 Company face due north, you peering scoundrels, 
 and the man who looks round him shall be even as 
 Lot's lady was when I return, for by Cock I'll carve 
 a pillow out of him with this blade, which hot tears 
 shall salt! Eyes front! About! Turn!" They 
 turned as on pivots, and the Captain, leaping to the 
 saddle, careered across the hill-top. 
 
 Like a setting-dog he hunted across and across, 
 descending gradually toward the valley, where a 
 river scurried among rocks to join the Rhone. He 
 found lurking scoundrels without number hot- 
 eyed, peering, scared scoundrels but found not 
 Simon. Women also, bedraggled and loose-shifted 
 but not the lovely Nicole. And so at last he came 
 down to the mouth of the river, and there he might 
 easily have missed him, for the rocks were piled, and 
 densely covered with scrub. 
 
 But a resolute pair of gray eyes saw what a keen 
 pair of pink ears had heard, and Nicole la Grace-de- 
 Dieu in the nick of time struck the brown bear with
 
 170 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 her staff as she crouched beside her sharp-set tyrant. 
 The bear, as fire had taught him, set up his watery 
 roar, and Captain Brazenhead, with a "Ha, Dieu!" 
 which caused Simon's heart to stand still, turned his 
 horse and spurred straight as a die to the covering 
 rock. He was on his feet in a moment; he saw his 
 prey, and the wind whistled shrill through his teeth 
 as he drew it. 
 
 "Oh, Simon, Simon," was all he could say. "Oh, 
 Simon, Simon! what a meeting have we here!" He 
 advanced lightly, like a gallant meeting his partner 
 in the dance, and plucked up the screaming man by 
 the ears of his head. Nicole, meantime, blushing 
 very charmingly, did her best with the rags upon her 
 to meet her true love's gaze. 
 
 But he would not look at her yet. He was con- 
 cerned with the wretch whom he held. 
 
 He stopped his squealing by a simple means. He 
 stuffed his mouth with thistles which he tore from 
 between the rocks. Then he meditated profoundly, 
 holding Simon with one hand, while with the other 
 he clasped his chin. Never a word spake he, never 
 a glance gave he to the fair woman; he thought as 
 never before and presently proceeded to action. 
 His prize was too good for haste. Yes, yes he would 
 save up Simon. 
 
 With the bear's chain he firmly bound his victim, 
 face to the tail, upon the beast's broad back. Simon's 
 feet were fettered under the bear's belly, Simon's 
 hands were bound behind his own back. Then 
 Captain Brazenhead, kneeling on one knee, raised
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 171 
 
 the stained hand of Madame de Picpus to his lips and 
 respectfully kissed it. 
 
 "Madame my consort," he said, "your tribulations 
 are over. A horse stands here for your ladyship, 
 when your ladyship will be pleased to make use of it." 
 
 Nicole, with one shamefaced glance at her tattered 
 petticoat and wounded feet, rose. Her lord lifted 
 her to the saddle, and, leading the bear by one hand 
 and the horse by the other, took the way up the moun- 
 tain. 
 
 Amazement sat upon the proud face of the young 
 Lady Roesia, confusion upon that of her happy lover, 
 when the Captain-Count presented all the company 
 to his lady the Countess. He did it with a superb 
 ease which is his highest praise. " Permit me, Ma- 
 dame Roesia, to make two noble ladies acquainted. 
 To Madame de Picpus, my consort, I present the 
 young Lady Roesia Des-Baux, descended from one 
 of the holy kings of Cologne the most remarkable 
 of them." Madame Roesia lifted her head, Ma- 
 dame Nicole hung hers, but the Captain-Count flicked 
 up his moustachios in quick succession till they 
 soared above his eyebrows like poplars on a river- 
 bank. 
 
 To the young man Tristan, still barefoot, he used 
 a somewhat severer tone. "Colleague," said he, 
 "fellow journeyman upon the Parnassian uplands, 
 your services to me have been many and great, but 
 the honour of my consort demands full measure from 
 you. And whereas in giving me news of her radiant 
 appearance in a horde of hedge-thieves in which
 
 172 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 
 
 company she, being the fairest of women, must needs 
 have gleamed like a diamond in a midden you did, 
 without the fear of God, speak of her in common with 
 all the women of that crew as 'drab' a thing most 
 hateful to me and lacerating to her honour I now 
 require you, bareheaded, to approach her ladyship 
 and kiss her glorious knee, asking pardon upon your 
 own pair for so detestable a fact. Come now, 
 brother, play the man without ceasing to be poet." 
 
 A convulsive movement of the fair Nicole's be- 
 trayed her anxiety to cover her bruised knee before 
 the ceremony might be done. But the alacrity of the 
 young man prevented her. He kissed her uncovered 
 knee, and upon his own implored her pardon, so 
 justly, eloquently, and well that Captain Salomon em- 
 braced him warmly and vowed they should com- 
 mingle blood before the sun set that day. And no 
 doubt they did. 
 
 He then announced his settled intentions for the 
 future. "Madame," he said to Dame Roesia Des- 
 Baux, "I shall not conceal from your ladyship that 
 my intentions with regard to yourself have varied 
 from time to time. If I spare my blushes by not 
 telling you of them, it is only, believe me, because 
 they are now irrevocably fixed in your service. It 
 is my t intention to take you to your seigniory of Les- 
 Baux, and it is my intention to hold your castle and 
 town in your behalf; but it is not my intention to allow 
 entry to the Viscount of Turenne, my late patron, nor 
 to the reverend Bishop of Agde, my former patron 
 for reasons which it would not become me to discuss.
 
 THE COUNTESS OF PICPUS 173 
 
 I hold your good town for you, lady, upon two condi- 
 tions. The first is that you lead to the altar this 
 gifted young man, by whose aid I have recovered my 
 wife and my enemy; and the second is that my lovely 
 consort be made the mistress of your robes, and chief 
 woman about your person." 
 
 These things being agreed to, the Count of Picpus 
 sounded the advance; and when late that evening 
 they halted in an abbey called Saint-Raimbaud-des- 
 Mortadelles, and our hero held his fair Nicole in his 
 arms, he proved to his own satisfaction and to mine 
 that Boccaccio was perfectly right. 
 
 Of the ultimate fate of Simon and the brown bear; 
 of Pym, and his eye, and his Bishop of Agde; of the 
 three Counts of Picpus and the unheard-of contest 
 between them; and lastly of Lambert Paradol, of 
 Castel Jaloux in Gascony, the only man to whom 
 Captain Brazenhead ever bent the knee, the tale 
 would be long, even if I knew all of it.
 
 BOOK III 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 1 
 
 1 This Saga has already been published in a volume entitled " Fond 
 Adventures," but is reproduced here for the convenience of the student, 
 and by agreement with Messrs. Harper and Brothers. 
 
 I7S
 
 PILGRIMAGE to Canterbury and Saint Thomas of 
 Canterbury, which is in some a piety, in some a 
 courteous act, for some salvation, for some a frolic, 
 in others may very well be the covering of statecraft, 
 of policy, of deep design. So it was with Captain 
 Brazenhead in the month of May and year of our 
 Lord God fourteen hundred and fifty. With him, 
 "late of Burgundy, formerly of Milan" a lean man 
 of six feet two inches, of inordinate thirst, of two 
 scars on his face, a notched fore-finger, a majestic 
 nose, of a long sword, two daggers, and a stolen 
 horse, of experience in divers kinds of villainy, yet of 
 simple tastes with this free routier, I allow, pil- 
 grimage was certainly a cloak of dissembling, while 
 none the less a congenial and (as he would have been 
 the first to admit) wholesome exercise. If he had 
 served too long in Italy not to love conspiracy, he had 
 not been to Compostella and Jerusalem for nothing. 
 Indeed, he had skirted in his time too close to the 
 rocks of Death not to respect those who (for honour- 
 able reasons) had cast themselves upon them. There- 
 fore he was by no means without devotion in seeking 
 the Head of Thomas and the Golden Shrine, for all 
 
 177
 
 178 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 that he had business, and high business, on the road. 
 For firstly, in this reign of King Henry the Sixth, he 
 was a Duke of York's man, a White Rose man. 
 Secondly, he was one of those who had sworn to have 
 Jack Nape's head on a charger. 1 Lastly he was 
 bosom-friend of another Jack, whom he hoped to meet 
 in Kent; I mean Jack Mend-all. Jack Cade, Jack 
 Mortimer call him as you will that promising 
 young man, who promised himself a kingdom and 
 Englishmen a charter, who actually fought a battle 
 on Blackheath, held London Bridge against the 
 Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens, and hanged Lord 
 Say upon one of his own trees. From this practical 
 statesman our Captain had received a roving com- 
 mission to be his Vox Clamantis: he was to trumpet 
 revolution along the Pilgrims' Way. This road was 
 the most travelled in the realm; it led all men into 
 Kent Captain Cade's country; it could be safely 
 used: with cockleshells and staves enough it could 
 screen an army. Pilgrim only by the way, therefore, 
 was Captain Brazenhead, sometime of Milan, late 
 of Burgundy, now Deputy-Constable of all England 
 under Letters Patent of the Captain of Kent. 
 
 I have spoken of his leanness, of his inches, of his 
 thirst. It must be added of him that he was plenti- 
 fully forested with hair, which drooped like ivy from 
 the pent of his brows, leaped fiercely up from his lip 
 to meet the falling tide; gave him a forked beard; 
 crept upward from his chest to the light at his 
 
 'Jack Nape was Delapole, Duke of Suffolk, the best-hated man of 
 his day, and no worse served than he deserved.
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 179 
 
 throat ; had invaded his very ears, and made his nos- 
 trils good cover for dormice in the winter. I might 
 sing of this, or of his eloquent eyes : I prefer a paean 
 on his nose. Captain Brazenhead had a nose but 
 an heroic nose, a trumpet, an ensign built on imperial 
 lines; broad-rooted, full of gristle, ridged with sharp 
 bone, abounding in callus, tapering exquisitely to a 
 point, very flexible and quick. With this weapon of 
 offence or defiance he could sneer you from man- 
 hood's portly presence to a line of shame, with it 
 comb his moustachios. When he was deferential it 
 kissed his lip ; combative, it cocked his hat. It was a 
 nose one could pet with some pretence; scratched, it 
 was set on fire, you could see it smouldering in the 
 dusk. Into the vexed debate, whether great noses 
 are invariable with great men, I shall not enter. 
 Captain Brazenhead was great, and he had a great 
 nose ; let this instance go to swell the argument. This 
 fine, tall, hairy man rode directly to Winchester from 
 Southampton, his port of debarkation, entered the 
 city by the West Gate, and stabled his horse at the 
 George, which was then the principal inn. This 
 done, he sent the ostler for a gallon of beer, and in his 
 absence inspected with great care all the animals 
 tethered in the yard. It was his intention to make 
 sure of a good one for the morrow, seeing that his 
 own if a spavined makeshift levied from an East- 
 leigh smithy can so be called did not please him at 
 all. He chose a handsome round-barrelled roan, 
 rising not more than seven, and did not trouble to 
 change the furniture further than to add his pack to
 
 i8o THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 those already on the saddle. He was then quite 
 ready to drink his liquor turn and turn about with 
 the ostler and two Grey Friars whom he found in a 
 sunny corner for the Captain was a large-hearted 
 man. He captivated whatever company he hap- 
 pened to be in; this was his weakness, and he knew 
 it. So now, with scarcely a word said, he persuaded 
 those two friars that they had not seen what they had 
 watched with some interest a few minutes before: 
 he convinced the ostler that the horse he now saw 
 and admired was the very horse he had despised 
 when he came stiffly into the yard. Admirable man ! 
 he set his steel bonnet at a rake over one eye, chewed 
 a straw, and cocked his sword-point to the angle of a 
 wren's tail. These things nicely adjusted, his mind 
 at ease, full of the adventurous sense of strange airs 
 and hidden surprises waiting for him behind strange 
 walls, he walked abroad into Chepe, intending to 
 pay his devotions to the Shrine of Saint Swithin, that 
 (by these means) a good ending might follow so good 
 a beginning; for, as he had said more than once, hon- 
 our is due to a dead gentleman from living gentlemen. 
 "If I go," he would protest, "into such an one's good 
 town and bend not my knee in his audience-chamber, 
 I shame my nobility by flouting his. So it is pre- 
 cisely when I visit a cathedral city, whereover is set 
 enshrined some ancient deceased man of God. That 
 worthy wears a crown in heaven which it becomes 
 me to acknowledge whiles I am yet upon the earth. 
 And so I do, by Cock!" 
 With these and other like reflections he passed
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 181 
 
 by the Pilgrims' Gate, where the meaner sort of 
 worshippers pitiful, broken * knaves, ambushmen, 
 sheep-stealers, old battered soldiers, witches, torn 
 wives, and drabs stand at the shining bars, their 
 hands thrust in toward the Golden Feretory, and 
 whine their petitions to the good saint's dust; and 
 entered by the west door, with much ceremony of 
 bowing and dropping to the knee, and a very courtly 
 sharing of his finger-load of holy water with a bur- 
 gess's wife, who was quite as handsome as one of her 
 condition had need to be. Within the church he 
 paused to look about him, but not to admire the 
 shrine, the fine painting, the gold work and lamp 
 work with which it abounded. He knew churches 
 well enough; business was business, that of Master 
 Mortimer crying business, that of Captain Brazen- 
 head fisherman's business. Rather, he cast a shrewd 
 eye at the haunters of the nave, passing over the 
 women, the apprentices, all the friars. He saw three 
 or four likely blades playing with a dice-box in a cor- 
 ner, and gained one of them by a lucky throw. He 
 picked up a Breton pedlar at his prayers, also a ship- 
 man from Goole, who had been twice hanged for 
 piracy and twice cut down alive "Three's the num- 
 ber for you, Lucky Tom," he told him by way of en- 
 couragement. In the Chapel of the Sepulchre he 
 found an old friend, Stephen Blackbush, of Alder- 
 mary-Church,now in hiding for coin-clipping, claimed 
 him, insisted on having him, and got his way. All 
 this was very well indeed, yet the Captain sighed for 
 more. "I have here so much mass," he told himself,
 
 182 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 "so much brawn; now Mortimer needs brain. This 
 rascaille would as lieve be under the bed as in it any 
 day, and not one of it worth a pinch of salt to the 
 pudding we have in the pot. Give me a stripling of 
 wit, kind Heaven, to outbalance all this dead meat." 
 Scanning the company as he turned over these reflec- 
 tions and framed these prayers, he came plump upon 
 the very thing came, saw, conquered, as you are to 
 learn. 
 
 This was a slim, tall, gracefully made youth, very 
 pretty, who in a pale oval face had a pair of hot, small 
 greenish eyes, a long nose, a little mouth like a rose- 
 bud, and a sharp chin dimpled; who wore his brown 
 hair smooth and cropped short, and had the shape 
 and tender look of the God's self of love, as you or I 
 might have seen the boy. This young man, whose 
 name was Percival Perceforest, was a scholar in his 
 way, well versed in the books of Ovid, the De Remedio, 
 and other like works; knowing a great part of the 
 Romaunt de la Rose by rote, and also the Songs of 
 Horace. These he was accustomed to cite colloqui- 
 ally, as a priest his psalter. He would speak of the 
 Vitas hinnuleo, the Integer vita, or the Solvitur, where 
 the clerk would have his In Exitu Israel or Notus in 
 Judcea. Not that he had not these also pat upon the 
 tongue: afterward it came out that, bred for the 
 Church, he was actually in minor orders. Now, with 
 all these advantages of person and training, it is a 
 very strange thing that he should have been found 
 by Captain Brazenhead leaning against a pillar of 
 the nave, crying upon the cuff of his jacket. Yet
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 183 
 
 it was so. Round about him stood unwholesome, 
 too-ready sympathisers, women of the town, har- 
 pies; hardfavoured, straddling, boldbrowed hussies, 
 whose gain is our loss. A short-faced, plainish man 
 stood there too, respectably dressed, who tried to cope, 
 but failed to cope, with two things at once. To the 
 women he was heard to say, " Begone, shameless bag- 
 gages, tempt not the afflicted"; which made them 
 laugh and hit each other in their mirth. The weeper 
 he urged with a " God help thee, youth, and expound 
 thy misfortunes to me, if thou canst not!" But the 
 name of God caused the young man to blubber the 
 more. Captain Brazenhead took a shorter way. 
 He smartly touched his man on the shoulder, calling 
 him his bawcock, his nip and frizzle, his eye and his 
 minion ; at the women he flung up his hands with a 
 rush, as one starts a greyhound. "Off, detriments!" 
 he cried tremendously; and they slunk or swaggered 
 away with very injurious but muttered expressions 
 to the effect that they were not going to do for such an 
 old piece what they actually were doing as they 
 spoke. "Now, good Master Burgess," said the 
 Captain to the respectable man (whom he had placed 
 at once), "and now young Niobus," to the lad, "we 
 will accommodate these waterworks, if it suit you. 
 Follow me." He laid a hacked finger to his nose, 
 and scowled upon the couple with so much hopeful 
 mystery, such commanding confidence, such an air 
 of give-and-take-and-be-damned, that follow him they 
 did; the merchant as one who says "Well, well, 
 since your humour is so," and the other with sub-
 
 184 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 dued sniffs. But the merchant, as having a solid 
 foundation upon this earth, trampled stoutly, with 
 a smack of the shoes upon the pavement, while Perci- 
 val Perceforest went a-tiptoe. It is proper to add 
 that this latter was dressed in a tight jerkin of green 
 velvet, rather soiled, frayed at the edges, wanting a 
 button or two at the bosom; that he wore scarlet 
 stockings, darned in places and not darned mother 
 places; that his shoes were down at heel, the feather 
 in his red cap broken-backed ; that he looked rumpled 
 but innocent, unfortunate rather than debauched, as 
 if he had slept out for a night or two which was pre- 
 cisely the fact. 
 
 The Captain, deep in the delights of mystery, con- 
 ducted his initiates to the stone ledge which ran along 
 the new chantry of Bishop Wykeham. Here he sat 
 down, and courteously invited the merchant to a 
 place at his right hand. This being declined with a 
 "Sir, I thank you," "Two feet for ever!" said the 
 Captain heartily, and nodded Percival Perceforest 
 to the place at his left hand. Percival meekly took it. 
 "Pretty lamb!" said this fatherly Captain, and put a 
 hand on his shoulder. 
 
 Undoubtedly Captain Brazenhead had a notable 
 manner; endearment and command coincided in his 
 tones; he seemed to be pursuing his own generous 
 way when really he was hunting yours. He suc- 
 ceeded with Percival to the point of marvel. 
 
 "Name, my suckling?" he asks, and is answered, 
 "Percival Perceforest, sir." 
 
 " Could not be better, indeed. Your age, Percival ? "
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 185 
 
 "Of nineteen years, sir." The Captain smacked 
 his leg. 
 
 "I knew it; I was certain of it!" he cried with 
 delight, then sobered for a moment to ask: 
 
 "Now have you, Percival, in all your nineteen 
 years of travail in this old round, ever let so much 
 water from your eyes as on this day?" 
 
 "No, no, indeed, sir. There has been no such 
 occasion," says Percival, and breaks out sobbing like 
 a drawpipe. The Captain thumped him on the 
 back. "No more o' this. Back to your kennel, 
 tears! Down, ramping waters, waste my cheeks no 
 
 more! Madness of moons " Percival thought 
 
 it right to explain. He looked up with all the proper 
 pride of grief in his hot eyes. 
 
 "Sir," he said, "I would have you understand, if 
 you please, that I am the most wretched young man 
 in all England." 
 
 "Stuff!" says the merchant testily; "windy talk!" 
 
 "By Cock, not at all," broke in the Captain, "but 
 sound and biting truth, as I can tell. I know some- 
 thing of wretchedness, let me assure you, Scrivener" 
 the merchant started "ah, and of English wretch- 
 edness too, since I myself have seen the top of a 
 handsome nobleman lying two yards away from his 
 trunk, and his pious lady pondering which morsel 
 she should first embrace a pitiful sight, I hope. 
 And in Lombardy, you must know, they sow the 
 fields with men's head-pieces, and thereby breed 
 dragons, as Cadman also did in the tillage and com- 
 mon fields about Thebes. Sir, sir, this lad is in an
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 agony, if I have ever known agony. Now, I will lay 
 a thousand marks to your ink-bottle that I can place 
 a finger on the nut of his grief." The Captain spoke 
 so heatedly that Percival was minded to soothe him. 
 
 "It is too deep-rooted, dear sir," he said. 
 
 "I prick deep," replied the Captain, and raised a 
 finger. "Now mark me, boy. You, in the first 
 delicious flush of manly love, have been torn from 
 your bosom's queen." 
 
 "Oh, sir!" says Percival, gasping. 
 
 "And she is of high degree." 
 
 "Oh, sir!" 
 
 "And she is here in this city of Winton and you 
 have tramped in her steps and slept under hedges, 
 and in the skirts of brakes, and seen her and by 
 her been seen and yet you cannot get at her hey?" 
 
 "Oh, sir!" cried Percival, showing the whites of 
 his eyes, "oh, sir, what magic do you use?" The 
 Captain held out his hand for the other to kiss. 
 
 "My magic is the magic of that glowing old puddle 
 of blood, my heart," says this triumphant man. 
 "What difficulty had I? What does youth cry for? 
 Why, youth again. But you tell me much more than 
 such a, 6, c. Your jacket" (he fingered the sleeve) 
 "was good Genoa velvet once; and is not green her 
 livery? The sun hath printed the badge in your 
 cap and defies your busy fingers: do you bear arms 
 in your own right ? " He snapped his fingers. " You 
 have played with your master's daughter, page-boy." 
 Percival hung his head. 
 
 The Captain reassured him. "Oh, you have not
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 187 
 
 gone too far. The velvet tells me another tale, my 
 friend. The pile lies down along this line, and this 
 line, and this line" he drew his finger down Per- 
 cival's back. "I think your master's staff has been 
 at work here, therefore it was no case for the hemp- 
 collar. And he sent you packing, I see. The white 
 dust of Wilts cries from those shoes; and here, as I 
 live by bread, is some Hampshire hay to tell me 
 where your bed was made last night." He pulled a 
 long stalk from PercivaPs trunks and tasted it. 
 "Whitchurch hay?" he asked. 
 
 Percival replied, "No, sir, Sombourn." 
 
 "Ah," says the Captain, "I knew it was grown on 
 the western side of the shire. My palate is out of 
 order. Where does your master live, then?" 
 
 "At Bemerton, sir, in Wilts." 
 
 "I know the place." He considered it, gently rub- 
 bing his nose. "Good pasture lands about Avon. 
 My Lord Moleyns owns the fee; but yours was not 
 his badge. Would it be no ? Never old Touchett 
 Angry Touchett, as we called him in the old days." 
 
 "Sir Simon Touchett is his name, sir," says Perci- 
 val. The Captain snapped his fingers and looked 
 blandly at the merchant. 
 
 "Do I prick deep, scrivener? Now then, to it once 
 more. Angry Touchett hath a pretty daughter, hey ? " 
 
 "He hath four," says Percival. The merchant 
 sniggered, and the Captain tapped his teeth, then 
 jumped up with a snort, pulling Percival after him. 
 "Boy," he cried, venturing his all on the main, "you 
 love the second daughter of Angry Touchett."
 
 i88 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 He deserved to win. Percival opened his mouth, 
 words failing him. The merchant said "Tush!" 
 and walked away; and Captain Brazenhead clasped 
 the youth in his arms. You may be quite easy in 
 your mind as to whether or no the whole story was 
 poured out unreservedly. 
 
 True it was, according to his own tale, that Per- 
 cival Perceforest, foot-page to Sir Simon Touchett, 
 Knight, had loved his master's second daughter, 
 Mistress Mawdleyn. Certain familiarities growing 
 unawares, and growing dearer by use ; certain inno- 
 cent natural testimonies given and received; certain 
 pledges scrupulously observed, were followed by 
 certain unmistakable tokens. It was all very inno- 
 cent and passably foolish a boy-and-girl, kiss-in-the- 
 dark, dream o' nights affair; but Angry Touchett had 
 beaten his daughter and trounced his page. He had 
 packed the girl off to her aunt, the Prioress of 
 Ambresbury, and Percival to the devil, whom he con- 
 ceived to be his natural father. Poor Percival, de- 
 plorably in earnest over his love-making, had skulked 
 about the shaws and osier-brakes of Bemerton, 
 trudged to Ambresbury over the downs, and learned 
 the news there all as much to the detriment of his 
 spirits as of his trim adornment. The news being 
 that the Prioress would take her niece on pilgrimage 
 to Canterbury, Percival, too, felt the call of Saint 
 Thomas: he followed, taking the hospitalities that 
 offered on the road. He saw the entry of Mawdleyn 
 into Winchester with the Ambresbury retinue; saw 
 her lodged in the stately Abbey of Hyde beyond the
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 189 
 
 North Gate. He had seen and been seen, and this 
 mutual grief had been too many for him. He had 
 opened the brimming sluices of his heart; he was 
 tired, sick, longing, footsore, heartsore, desperate, 
 young. Tears had done him good, but the Captain 
 did him more. 
 
 When he had the whole story out, "Now," said this 
 intrepid man, "you and I, Percival, are in the fair way 
 of a classic friendship, as I see very well. What! 
 We have mingled tears" this was true; "confidences 
 have passed" they had, but all one way; "we have 
 looked each into the heart of the other! You shall be 
 Patrocle to a new Achilles, Harmonium to Aristo- 
 geiton. Or let me stand for Theseus, Duke of 
 Athens, you shall be that nobleman, whose name is on 
 the tip of my tongue, who was followed by his loving 
 attentions to the gates of Hell Town. Now, just as 
 Achilles was kindled by the sparks beaten from the 
 heart of Patrocle, whom he tenderly loved, so shall I 
 most reasonably be by you, my Perceforest. If 
 Theseus went to Hell after that other gentleman, I 
 will go to Bemerton if needs be. But needs will not. 
 Needs call otherwhere. What do you say to a likely 
 manor in Kent, with the title of* Lord of Parliament, 
 cousin and councillor to a great king? You have a 
 kingly name, for was not a Perceforest king of all 
 England ? Everybody knows it. You may carve out 
 these rewards and have your little Mawdleyn under 
 your arm all the while. Come. I see a part of the 
 way, but I am plaguily athirst with all this tongue- 
 work. Come, boy, let us drink. Leave the rest
 
 ioo THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 to me: counsel comes on the flood. But let us by 
 no means omit our respects to the respectable Saint 
 Swithin, lord of this place, though dead as a mutton- 
 bone. Come, my gamebird, bend the knee with me."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WILES OF CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD 
 
 THEY bent the knee together, the man of blood and 
 the weeper, then rose up and went out of the great 
 church. As they journeyed, the Captain was good 
 enough to expound his philosophy of saints and 
 ladies, whom he classed together as amiable emol- 
 lients of our frail age, as so much ointment, necessary 
 to us in early manhood, better, however, taken early, 
 and always in moderation. Nearing the inn he be- 
 came full of thought, and his face took on so porten- 
 tous a cast of brooding melancholy that Percival 
 dared not break in upon it. The Captain, as the 
 result showed, had been thinking partly of beer, for 
 he drank deeply and at once of this fount of solace, 
 with both hands at the flagon. Percival sipped his 
 beer delicately, without wetting more than the red of 
 his lips; his little finger pointed to the sky as he lifted 
 his jug. This was not lost upon the Captain, who 
 said to himself, "It is easy to see that you are higher 
 born than you suppose, my lambkin; so much the 
 better for Jack." But when he had again drunk 
 copiously, thrown down the flagon for dogs to sniff 
 at, and wrung out his beard, moustachios, and eye- 
 brows, regardless of his birth he slapped his young 
 
 191
 
 I 9 2 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 friend on the thigh, saying, "I have it, gamepoult, 
 I have it." 
 
 "What have you, sir?" asks Percival. The Cap- 
 tain replied, "There is but one thing to have in the 
 world, since you and I are one. I have your Mawd- 
 leyn like bird in net." He shut his two hands to- 
 gether to shape a cage ; one of his thumbs was stuck 
 up for the inmate. "She is in there, I tell you," he 
 averred. "Do you see her?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," says Percival. 
 
 "You are a good lad," replied the Captain; "and 
 I'll tell you this for certain-sure; you too shall be 
 there, billing on the same perch, in three shakes of a 
 leg, if you follow me. Is this to your liking?" Per- 
 cival seized his friend's hand. 
 
 "Oh, I will follow you to the world's end, dear 
 sir!" he cried with fervour; and the Captain, "You 
 shall follow me no farther than Kent at this present. 
 Now listen, and answer me. This Prioress of Am- 
 bresbury, what favour hath she ? Is she a big lady, 
 or a little mincing, can-I-venture kind of a lady ? Is 
 she of fine presence or mean ? In a word, doth she 
 favour your tun or your broomstick?" 
 
 "She is a fine woman, sir," replied Percival, "with 
 a most notable shape." 
 
 "Aha!" says the Captain, "I feel a Turk. Now 
 then, what sort of a train hath she ? Many or few ?" 
 
 "Sir, she is accompanied, as her due is, by two 
 stirrup-boys, half a score men-at-arms, an esquire 
 of the body, a seneschal, a confessor, and five tire- 
 women, to say nothing of Sister Guiscarda, who hath
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 193 
 
 no teeth to speak of, or of Sister Petronilla, who loves 
 me a little out of pity." The Captain, musing, made 
 a note of Sister Petronilla. 
 
 "Very sufficient indeed for an honourable gentle- 
 woman," he said, "and very pleasing to God, I am 
 sure. Now, if I twisted the neck of one of those stir- 
 rup-jacks, and put you into his place and breeches, 
 who is the worse?" Percival glowed in his skin. 
 "No one would be the worse, sir," says he, "save per- 
 chance the boy whose neck you should be pleased to 
 wring; and, oh, sir, many, many would be the better!" 
 
 "Let be then," said the Captain; "I will arrange 
 it for you." Percival sighed. 
 
 "How shall I thank you, my noble benefactor?" 
 he said earnestly. The Captain put hands on his 
 shoulders. 
 
 "You shall thank me by your deeds, my lad. I 
 know a youth of parts when I see him a pale face 
 that knows the look of letters, a thin hand that can 
 curl about a penholder. You are exactly what I 
 need. Don't suppose that you are not to work for 
 your bliss. Not at all. You shall do a pretty work 
 in the world before you are a moon older. Now I am 
 for the Abbey of Hyde. Have you any commands 
 for me? A billet for the round eyes of Mawdleyn 
 Touchett ? A love-lock ? Ah, you are shorn like a 
 Burgundian, I see." 
 
 "Sir," says Percival, "I will write if I may." 
 
 "Write, write," his friend urged him. "I am 
 glad you have the knack of that. Presently you shall 
 be writing for the realm T'
 
 I 9 4 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 Percival, using his knee for desk, wrote in the inn- 
 yard: 
 
 My pretty lamb, these words shall kiss thine eyes, 
 letting thee know that I am near at hand, withal cry- 
 ing to be nearer. And so I shall be anon, as I am 
 assured by the noblest friend ever young man had. 
 Start not, colour not, be surprised at nothing thou 
 shalt see or hear to-morrow. O my lovely love, my 
 rose, my dear, kiss this paper where my heart is 
 spilt. From thy true love, 
 
 POOR PERCIVAL. 
 
 To my sweet Mistress Mawdleyn Touchett, by a 
 very trusty hand. 
 
 "Read it over to me, boy," said Captain Brazen- 
 head. This Percival did, with some confusion of 
 face. 
 
 "By the bones of Saint Jezebel," said his friend, 
 "that is the prettiest letter but three I have ever read 
 of ah, or caused to be written. Soon enough, that 
 gate, you shall wriggle where that will go. Now help 
 me out with my horse and stuff. I lodge at Hyde this 
 night ; and do you lie snug in the Strangers' Hall, my 
 dear, and stay there till I send for you."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD WAS HIMSELF RECRUITED 
 
 THE deeds of Captain Brazenhead from this point 
 became swift and ruthless; they demand epic treat- 
 ment wholly beyond my present means, and would 
 be omitted, with a bare mention of the fact accom- 
 plished, were it not for one beautiful flaw in them, 
 very characteristic of the man, which (although he 
 had no notion of it then) entirely spoiled his own real 
 design, to Percival Percef crest's incalculable benefit. 
 Let me, therefore, say that the Captain rode (upon 
 his stolen horse) into the stables of the Abbot of 
 Hyde, and told a lay-brother whom he found there 
 that he was to be a guest for that night. Dismounted, 
 he stalked into the stables to see the animals. There 
 was a fat cream-coloured Galician horse there, with 
 a headstall of red leather. He risked his all upon 
 that. 
 
 "What!" he cried out, "is my gossip the Lady of 
 Ambresbury abroad? Is that possible?" 
 
 "Her ladyship is here for one night, indeed, sir," 
 says lay-brother Eupeptus. The Captain faced him, 
 with terrible eyes. 
 
 "And does she know, thinkest thou, bare-poll, that 
 her dear Cambases is herded with common sumpter- 
 
 195
 
 196 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 beasts ? By my head I will never believe it. Where 
 are her people ? Where are her two stirrup-boys, her 
 half a score men-at-arms, her esquire of the body, 
 her seneschal, her confessor, her five tirewomen, to say 
 nothing of Sister Guiscarda, who has no teeth, or of 
 Sister Petronilla, who loves me a little out of pity? 
 Lord of battles, brother, answer me quick!" 
 
 "Sir," replied the trembling brother, "I believe 
 they are in chapel at this hour; but the two lads are 
 out in the meads, I am sure, bird's-nesting. I saw 
 them go down this half-hour or more, and I'll swear 
 to their present occupation (once they be there) by 
 my lively hopes of heaven." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, with a great air, strode out 
 of the courtyard; but, instead of going into the Abbey, 
 he turned through a wicket-gate into the Abbot's 
 garden, skirted a yew hedge, found a hole in it, 
 wormed himself through, crossed a kitchen plot, a 
 herbary, a nuttery, climbed a wall by means of a fig- 
 tree, and dropped ten feet into the meads. Then 
 he took his way over the growing grass toward the 
 river, which he saw coiling between banks of bright 
 green, like a blue snake enlarging under the sun. 
 The evening was very fair, the sun behind the towers 
 of Wolvesey, the rooks circling about the Nun's Walk. 
 Larks soared and sang, a soft wind played over the 
 meadows. The Capiain particularly delighted in the 
 cowslips, which, springing everywhere about his feet, 
 appealed to his tenderest feelings, and caused him to 
 skip like a lamb unweaned, lest he should unhappily 
 tread on any nodding crown of them. "My fresh
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 197 
 
 beauties! My dairy-delights!" cried he, "I would 
 as soon trample my mother's grave as your wagging 
 golden heads!" Prancing thus, full of the soft mood 
 which opening adventure always brings to the truly 
 adventurous, carolling and talking secrets to the 
 flowers, he drew near the smooth-flowing, dimpled 
 waters of Itchen, deep and dark just here. Right 
 and left, up and down river he looked, first at the ris- 
 ing trout, next for bigger game. He clacked his 
 tongue in his cheek at what he made out. "I am 
 in luck's way this happy evening," he told himself, 
 "I have divided the enemy." This was the case. 
 To his left he saw a figure in dark clothes or (to be 
 exact) the lower half of a figure busy in a clump of 
 osiers ; to his right another, very delicately pink in the 
 declining sunlight, sitting on the bank of the river, 
 naked arms clasping naked knees, chin atop. "This 
 is my game," said the Captain to himself; "I leave 
 sedge-warblers to the other innocent. This one is a 
 bather. He shall have a long swim, by my immortal 
 part." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, on his belly, crept warily 
 up a drain; and it had assuredly gone ill with the 
 Prioress's stirrup-boy had his stalking enemy not 
 happened upon some early forget-me-nots growing 
 upon the north bank of his covert. This is one of 
 those star-directed chances which may change the 
 fates of empires. Seeing these flowers, "O patch 
 of heaven's blue ! O eyes of the deep hiding-place of 
 my God!" breathed the prone, delighted Captain 
 Brazenhead. "O colour of sacred hope, what bliss-
 
 198 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 ful fortune drew my sight to thine ?" He picked two 
 or three of the starry flowers and peered over the 
 drain, as he did so, at the unconscious youth, who, 
 with his knees clasped between his hands, still looked 
 at the water. Said the Captain in his thought, "My 
 lad, these azure blossoms have saved thy virgin life. 
 Thank the Maker of all flowers!" So said, he 
 sprang suddenly upon him from behind, as a man 
 will throw himself upon a great fish in a shallow. 
 The boy, smothered under fold upon fold of Captain, 
 could neither move nor cry out: one great knee was 
 over his mouth, another pressed the pit of his stom- 
 ach, his toes were pricked by a fierce beard. The 
 Captain at leisure reached over for his captive's shirt 
 and tore it into three long strips over his head. With 
 one of these he securely bound the prisoner's ankles; 
 turning him over, he next tied his hands behind his 
 back. Lastly he wound up his mouth with three or 
 four thicknesses of calico; then carried him off and 
 laid him snugly in the drain, which was very nearly 
 dry. He did not forget to choose a place for him 
 close to the patch of early forget-me-nots. "There, 
 my chicken," he said kindly, "your eyes shall be 
 gladdened by the sight of the innocent saviours of 
 your life. Look upon these little blue beauties, and 
 thank God night and morning for one of the fairest 
 sights His world can offer you." So said, he picked 
 up the discarded clothes and ran as fast as he could 
 toward the Abbey. 
 
 He broke through gates and doors, raced down 
 passages, crossed the Little Cloister, and jostled a
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 199 
 
 way for himself between the crowd of servants at the 
 lower end of the refectory. The monks were at sup- 
 per under the direction of the Prior, who sat at the 
 high table. The Lord Abbot, no doubt, was enter- 
 taining guests in his parlour; was therefore more re- 
 mote from approach. It would be necessary for the 
 Captain to roar if he wished (as he did wish) to be 
 heard in there; and yet his sense of fitness told him 
 that he should not bewail outrageously so slight a 
 misfortune as he had been able to procure. "The 
 noise I shall have to make," he had said to himself, 
 reasoning as he ran, "if I am to penetrate the walls 
 of the Abbot's parlour, would be extravagant for the 
 death of a prelate. Tush! and I am to waste it upon 
 a thin little boy not even drowned in truth. But 
 what else can I do to serve my friend Percef orest ? " 
 Even as he said the words, being within the doors 
 of the refectory, he began a wail which might well 
 wake the dead. Holding on high the limp testimony 
 of his news, he poured the whole of his magnificent 
 natural organ into gusts and volleys of woe toward 
 the rafters. Tuba mirum spar gens sonum! "Oh, 
 too much dole to be borne! Oh, misery of men! 
 Hapless, hapless Narcissus! Hylas, early cut off! 
 Out and alas! Mes tres chersfreres, look upon these 
 weeds!" It was as if the Seven Vials had been 
 loosed, as if the Archangel were sounding the Last 
 Trump, and all the unhappy dead voicing their 
 despair. "O lasso! Oime! O troppo, troppo do- 
 lore!" pursued the Captain, intoxicated with his 
 fancy, and breaking easily into the Italian. The
 
 200 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 monks and their guests were all on foot, the servants 
 ran about, the dogs came out from under the tables 
 and howled at the howling Captain; the Reverend 
 Prior whipped his napkin from his neck (lest he 
 should strangle) and swallowed a toast before the 
 time. A picture of tragic woe, the Captain stood 
 before him, exhibiting in one hand a pair of murrey 
 breeches and jerkin of leather, in the other a stout 
 shoe, two worsted stockings, and what remained of 
 a shirt. 
 
 "Look at these tokens, reverend father," says 
 the Captain, "and shudder with me." 
 
 "Who are you?" asks the Prior, blowing out his 
 lips. The Captain was ready for that. 
 
 "I am Mallecho, the Sorrowful Sprite, the Dark 
 Herald, Testadirame," he announced in bodeful 
 accents. 
 
 "And why under heaven do you show me your 
 old clothes?" the Prior asked him testily. The 
 Captain with sobs enlarged upon the question. 
 Would to God, he cried out, that they had been his! 
 Alas! they had covered a younger, more blossoming 
 body than his old skin could hold. The nymphs, 
 he went on to say, had the beauteous owner of these 
 weeds; Itchen's blue wave rolled over him, fishes 
 explored his armpits, eels and other serpents wreathed 
 his legs. "This man," said the Reverend Prior, "is 
 undoubtedly mad. Let the almoner be sent for, the 
 infirmarer, and the exerciser But at that 
 
 moment a monk, running in from a door in the panel, 
 knelt before the Prior, a messenger from the Lord
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 201 
 
 Abbot to know what this monstrous commotion could 
 be about. 
 
 It was wonderful to see the change in Captain 
 Brazenhead. The usher of woe no more, there 
 stood erect as keen a man of affairs as ever you saw 
 in your life. "Your pardon, my reverend brothers, 
 I had taken this good father for your Lord Abbot. 
 Conduct me, brother, to his Grace. Unless I 
 gravely mistake, I have sad news for his most cher- 
 ished guest." 
 
 "Do you mean ?" the Prior began to ask. 
 
 Captain Brazenhead laid a finger to his mouth. 
 
 "I do mean " he began to answer. 
 
 "Take him with you, Brother Harmonius," said 
 the Prior; so the Captain with his tokens was led 
 away to the Abbot's parlour. 
 
 In this very stately apartment of black oak and 
 silver sconces and a statue of the Blessed Virgin, he 
 saw all that he wanted. The Lord Abbot was there, 
 a shaggy-browed, portly man, enthroned. On his 
 right hand sat the Prioress of Ambresbury, majestic, 
 ox-eyed, slow-moving, with the remains of beauty 
 carefully husbanded; next to her a yellow old nun 
 with a few teeth; next to her again the undoubted 
 Mawdleyn Touchett of Percival Perceforest's han- 
 dling, a fine die-away girl, with a creamy skin, bounti- 
 ful shape by no means concealed in a dress of white 
 cloth, and a pair of brimming brown eyes which, his 
 experience told him, would go through a diaphragm 
 quicker than a knife through butter. Upon her far- 
 ther side was another nun, of mild, repining counte-
 
 202 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 nance, whose head mostly inclined to one side, and 
 who as she talked drew the breath inward. This 
 must be Sister Petronilla, who loved Percival a little. 
 Other guests there were, of whom this history has 
 nothing to report. Supper was over: the Abbot 
 dallied with a sop in wine, the Prioress with a silver 
 toothpick; Mawdleyn Touchett, who seemed in a 
 melting mood, rather tumbled and very tired, played 
 with her fingers in her lap. A couple of minstrels 
 half-kneeled on the floor, and strummed their strings 
 to deaf ears. Captain Brazenhead was a diversion, 
 a healthy gale in a close garden ; the singers stopped 
 of their own accord in the middle of an heroic couplet, 
 telling how 
 
 Sire Simone de Rochefort 
 N'i porta pas baniere a tort, 
 
 and Captain Brazenhead came lightly to the point. 
 
 "By your leave, my Lord Abbot," he said, then 
 turned nobly to the Prioress of Ambresbury. "Mad- 
 am, I bring this sorrowful testimony of the too early 
 demise of one of your servants. A young boy, mad- 
 am, whose privilege and hope it was to serve by 
 your foot, seeking the solace of the water, has found 
 eternal solace in the bosom of Our Lady (whom let 
 us bless forever!). I found these clothes by the 
 water, madam; the tender body I found not." 
 
 The Prioress removed the toothpick, as sh& said, 
 "I recognise the colour of my livery, sir, but do not 
 call to mind the wearer. It may be very true what 
 you tell me."
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 203 
 
 "It is most woundily true, madam," says the Cap- 
 tain, with a glimpse at Mawdleyn's brown eyes. 
 
 "I do not doubt you, sir," returned the Prioress; 
 "but I suppose I can find boys enough in Winchester. 
 Meantime, I am very much obliged to you for your 
 labours." 
 
 "Madam," says the Captain, "my labours, as you 
 are pleased to call what I protest to be delights, are 
 but begun, if (as I assume) your ladyship needs a 
 new stirrup-boy. I hope I know what is due from 
 a man of my degree to a lady of yours. We cheva- 
 liers, madam, are sworn to the succour of ladies; and 
 I should never dare look again into the face of my 
 friend the Duke of Milan (who dubbed me knight) if 
 I were false to that oath. Madam, I found the husk, 
 let me find a kernel; I found the poor weeds, let me 
 find the .sprouting bud." 
 
 "I confess that I do not altogether understand your 
 desires," said the Prioress, with some hesitation; 
 "but if the Duke's Grace of Milan " 
 
 "Yes, yes," put in the Abbot, "if the Duke's Grace 
 of Milan " 
 
 "Would to God, dear madam," cried the Captain, 
 with real feeling, "would to God, my Lord Abbot, I 
 could supply you with the kind of lads that flower in 
 my good friend's court ! Hey, the bloom, the glitter, 
 the Cupid's limbs of these dexterous youths! They 
 will tie you a shoe, pommel you a cushion, they will 
 trim you a wimple, swing you to a horse, dance, sing, 
 cap verses, tell tales like young gods at play of an 
 evening. I cannot, in this homely land, perform
 
 204 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 the impossible, alack! but I can get you a very hand- 
 some youngster of my own retinue, and warrant him 
 no lick-pot neither if that will serve your ladyship's 
 turn." 
 
 This was a delicate moment, if you please, for the 
 Captain. Directly he had offered, he knew that he 
 had offered too much and too soon ; but there was no 
 withdrawing. The Abbot spoke first, leaning back 
 in his chair; plainly he was weary of the thing. 
 "This appears to be a business for my sister of Am- 
 bresbury to consider more with her seneschal than 
 with her host. Yet the gentleman's pains merit some 
 courtesy at our hands. Sir," he said to the Captain, 
 "a cup of wine with you." 
 
 "My Lord," said Captain Brazenhead, "there 
 spoke a prelate." 
 
 The wine was brought; Captain Brazenhead drank 
 deep. After that he began to talk, and the minstrels' 
 office was at an end. He spoke first of his travels 
 in remote and marvellous parts of the world of the 
 desert between the Church of Saint Catherine and 
 Jerusalem; of the Dry Tree; and of how roses first 
 came into the world. The City of Calamye and its 
 lamentable law of marriage engaged him next; also 
 the evil custom of the Isle of Lamary, and concerning 
 the palace of the King of the Isles of Java. He told 
 of trees that bear meal, honey, wine, and venom; of 
 the herb Edelfla which is said to resemble a woman ; 
 of the realms of Tharse; of the Devil's head in the 
 Valley Perilous; and of pismires and their hills of 
 gold. By a transition as easy as it was abrupt, he
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 205 
 
 passed to Natural Science, in which he showed him- 
 self learned without pedantry. He spoke of the nine 
 eyes of the lamprey, and reasoned boldly for the 
 common opinion of the ostrich, which conceives that 
 it digesteth iron. This he said he had himself 
 proved, though he must be excused from telling them 
 how. I wish you could have heard him upon the 
 vexed question of whether hares are indeed her- 
 maphrodites; he was so adroit in handling, fertile 
 in parallels, discreet, subtle, provocative of thought. 
 And he carried his hearers with him. Not so, how- 
 ever, in the matter of mandrakes, to whom he denied 
 the virtue of shrieking when pulled by night. Of 
 this the Prioress of Ambresbury was positive; equally 
 constant was the Abbot of Hyde in the assertion that 
 they have thighs. The Captain laughed off his 
 obstinacy. 
 
 He spoke next of perils, painted in battle-pieces 
 with a broad brush as he went. He took his hearers 
 with him to sunny foreign courts, to Venice, to 
 Rimini, to Florence, back again to his dear Milan, 
 and to three hundred Anabaptists whom he con- 
 fessed to slaying there. They beheld him head a 
 sortie at the siege of Rhodes. When theBarbary 
 corsairs chained him naked to a galley they sat still, 
 crisping their hands, until he picked up with his toes 
 the half of a file; then while his escape was in the 
 framing, while the file (wetted with spittle) ground 
 through the hot, dense nights, ah, how they held their 
 breath ! He whirled them off with him into the Low 
 Countries, and bade them wait while he cut the
 
 2o6 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 dykes and flooded a whole country-side. He burned 
 the Pucelle of Orleans before their dilating eyes, and 
 owned with natural blushes that it was himself who 
 (for reasons then found good) so nearly broke the 
 marriage-treaty between King Harry's Grace and 
 the daughter of King Rene* of Anjou. In a word, 
 by these his accounts of wide experiences, of patient, 
 curious research, of gestes and feats of arms, rapidly 
 delivered, copiously illustrated, and exceedingly un- 
 true, he had his auditory between his finger and 
 thumb; and not even a little misadventure with 
 Mawdleyn midway of his oration could throw him 
 off his balance. The fact is, the Captain greatly ad- 
 mired this fine girl, and paid her the tribute of his 
 looks and speech a little more than he need, or was 
 prudent. This, while it escaped the Prioress, by no 
 means escaped the vigilance of the sour old nun who 
 sat at her left hand, and who deliberately brought up 
 the girl's blue riding-cloak from the back of her chair, 
 and pulled the hood over her head so as to cover her 
 eyes. Thus hooded like a hawk the poor child re- 
 mained; yet, while the Captain not so much as 
 paused in his discourse at the cruel act, he was careful 
 to see the gentler nun on the other side wince at it, and 
 (good husbandman!) made that serve his turn, as 
 you will discover. The end of all was that he won 
 over the Prioress of Ambresbury, who, on rising from 
 the table, begged his company for a further private 
 conversation. By this time she had been led to be- 
 lieve that Captain Brazenhead had nearly lost his 
 life in the effort to save her stirrup-boy's, that he had
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 207 
 
 provided interment at his own charges, and written 
 gentlemanly letters (enclosing a sum of money) to the 
 parents. Such are the effects of the art of suggestion 
 in rapid narrative. 
 
 At the going out, which was done with great cere- 
 mony of ushers, a chaplain and waiting-women, the 
 gentle nun fluttered near Captain Brazenhead, wish- 
 ful, but not daring, to speak. The Captain en- 
 couraged her with the sort of eye that takes you more 
 than half-way. 
 
 "Oh, sir," said this palpitating creature, "oh, sir, 
 forgive my sister Guiscarda. She hath our charge 
 greatly on her conscience." 
 
 "Dear madam," replied the Captain soothingly, 
 "say no more. She hath a fine heart, I am sure, and 
 a lofty, great soul." 
 
 "She is too severe," said the good nun. "Gentle- 
 ness may lead where harsh dealing may never, never 
 drive." Captain Brazenhead took her hand and 
 whispered over it. 
 
 "You share the qualities of the blessed angels, dear 
 madam," he said. " Be now an angel indeed, a pious 
 messenger. Hist! come close. You are a friend of 
 our fair prisoner. You are, I know it ; say no more." 
 
 The nun quailed to hear him. 
 
 "I love the dear child " 
 
 "You do! And she loves and she is loved and 
 she suffers we suffer they suffer ha!" 
 
 "Oh, sir " 
 
 "You have a red heart, madam. Quick, quick! 
 Take this writing 'tis for her, a balsam for a bruised
 
 208 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 little heart. Hearts go bleeding; staunch the wound. 
 Deliver it as you can, while I hold the old lady. I 
 dare no more. Oh, sacred bond between you and 
 me!" He thrust into Sister Petronilla's trembling 
 hand Percival Perceforest's love-letter. Before she 
 could protest or implore he was gone, had stepped 
 after the Prioress's people, and was in the thick of new 
 oratory. Here I cannot ask you to follow him, but 
 from what you know of his powers already displayed 
 you must judge the end of the adventure. He en- 
 listed Master Perceforest, in the name of his sister's 
 son, Piers Thrustwood (you mark the disguise), into 
 the place and breeches of the youth who lay gagged 
 and naked in a ditch in Winchester Meads, hard by 
 a clump of early forget-me-nots. By this time cor- 
 roborative testimony had been brought home by the 
 second stirrup-boy, the bird's-nester. 
 That night Mawdleyn Touchett wrote as follows: 
 
 O heart! S(ister) P(etronilla) delivered me your 
 paper after supper. Now it is, you know where, well 
 kissed. I would I had you there. They pulled my 
 hood over my face because your soldier looked at me. 
 I saw your face the better. / will not see you to- 
 morrow, as you bid me ; and yet, O shall I not see you ? 
 Good-night, good-night, good-night! 
 Your pledged 
 
 MAWDLEYN. 
 
 Outside this she dared to write, unable to resist the 
 look of the words, "to my bosom's lord, P. P. give
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 209 
 
 this, M. T., dardant desyr," and coaxed Sister Petro 
 nilla into delivering it to the Captain. 
 
 That same night Captain Brazenhead lay on his 
 back upon the Abbot's good flock ; Percival moaned 
 in his half-slumber and rolled about upon the beaten 
 floor of the Common Hall; and Sister Petronilla, 
 having Mawdleyn's happy cheek against her bosom, 
 tried to believe herself justified by faith, not works.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 V ' 
 
 HOW PERCIVAL PROSPERED AND THE CAPTAIN FELT 
 JUSTIFIED 
 
 "THE humble supplication of Lancelot Corbet, 
 Citizen and Scrivener of London, Richard Smith, 
 mariner, of the county of the town of Kingston-upon- 
 Hull, of Gundrith his wife, native of Norroway, and 
 of Giles Cruttenden of Mereworth, in the county of 
 Kent, yeoman," was presented in the morning early 
 to "the Reverend Mother, their Good Ladyship, the 
 Prioress of Ambresbury"; and was to the effect that 
 her orators, devoutly disposed by motions of their 
 spiritual parts in no wise to be mistaken, were bounden 
 upon the pilgrimage of Saint Thomas; but because 
 of the disturbed state of the road, owing to these un- 
 happy times of discord and the far purposes of 
 Almighty God (not to be discerned by men alone), 
 they went in peril of their lives and substance, "being 
 but poor folk unfriended of any." Their prayer was 
 that they might be allowed to join the retinue of the 
 Prioress, and be friends of her friends, foes of her 
 foes; whereby they could not doubt but that Saint 
 Thomas would be favourable to them, and the Prior- 
 ess profit by the added prayers of very grateful per- 
 sons. Also her petitioners, as in duty bound, would 
 ever pray. 
 
 210
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 211 
 
 The Prioress was inclined to admit these honest 
 people to her company; but Captain Brazenhead, 
 who enjoyed some authority with her, said, " Pass the 
 mariner and his (apparently) heathen wife, pass 
 Cruttenden into Kent ; but leave me to deal with Cor- 
 bet the scrivener, for I know him of old for a short- 
 faced, snarling rogue." It was true that Captain 
 Brazenhead knew him for his acquaintance of yester- 
 day in the Church of Saint Swithin. When, there- 
 fore, the short-faced man came thumping toward the 
 gates of Hyde, cloaked, strapped, and well-embaled, 
 the Captain met him with a short, "Ha, scrivener, 
 dismount. None enter here." 
 
 "By your leave, sir," says the scrivener. 
 
 "You have no leave of mine," said the Captain in 
 reply; "therefore, come down or I give you number 
 three." He touched his pommel. 
 
 When the scrivener, after multitudinous unstrap- 
 pings, was on firm ground, Captain Brazenhead put 
 on a very wise face and said : " A word will be enough 
 in your ear. We carry with us a person of conse- 
 quence. You love Y k." The Scrivener went 
 
 as white as the favoured rose. 
 
 "Who what how!" 
 
 "Precisely," replied the Captain, "you answer 
 yourself. Say no more: finger on lip; eyes on the 
 ground; ears wide pass in." The Scrivener went 
 slowly in. Captain Brazenhead, his luck still hold- 
 ing, had spoken wiselier than he knew. 
 
 At this point you may see, if you will, Percival 
 Perceforest demurely habited in the murrey jacket
 
 212 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 and breeches, the worsted stockings, greasy cap, and 
 shoes of the Prioress's stirrup-boy; you may guess 
 what glint lay behind Mawdleyn Touchett's dewy 
 eyes, with what clouded white and opening red she 
 flushed and paled as each moment of a wondrous 
 day brought up its alarms, to melt them suddenly in 
 rewards; how the heart of Sister Petronilla (thick in 
 the plot) played postman at her ribs; how greatly 
 Captain Brazenhead behaved, flourishing the party 
 forward out of Hants, how often his cap was in his 
 hand to the Prioress of Ambresbury, how often her 
 ear at his tongue's command. I cannot stay longer 
 in Winton or I would tell you myself. It shall suffice 
 to say that Percival pleased. The Prioress liked 
 handsome persons about her; Percival, whose nerves 
 made him vivid, looked very handsome in his meek- 
 ness, eagerness-on-the-leash, and high colours. They 
 had not gone very far before a chance outburst of his 
 in the French tongue he sang from a full heart and 
 quite unconsciously gave his mistress a hint that, 
 if the new lad was deficient in stable knowledge, he 
 had other lore. 
 
 This happened when they were no farther on their 
 way than the two miles of deep descent and gentle rise 
 which bring you to Headborne Worthy and its mirac- 
 ulous Rood, which the curious may still see, beaten, 
 dumb, blind, but portentous, in the sacristy of that 
 weathered shrine a maimed Titan guarded by 
 heroes. Sister Guiscarda had vowed a candle to this 
 image should she be delivered from the face-ache of 
 the previous day. She was delivered. Captain
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 213 
 
 Brazenhead judged it wise to put a prayer out to 
 usury. Mawdleyn, in this hey-day of her heart, 
 must needs praise the kindly Saints. But the Prior- 
 ess sat her saddle, and Percival, seeing his true love 
 depart, took such joy in her mere carriage of the head, 
 had such exuberant savour of the coming day, the 
 coming days, the coming week, which he should spend 
 in her fragrant company, that as he loitered dreaming 
 by the gate he forgot himself and began to sing: 
 
 Si cum j'oi la Rose aprochee, 
 Un poi la trovai engroissee, 
 Et vi qu'ele iere plus creiie 
 Que ge ne 1'avoie veiie. . . . 
 
 The Prioress pricked up her ears, but let Percival's 
 voice go wandering on; then she said, "Come hither, 
 Piers." Percival started, blushed, but obeyed. 
 
 "Dost thou know what thou singest there?" 
 
 "Yes, please you, my lady; I sang the Romaunt 
 de la Rose." 
 
 "Thou hast that piece?" 
 
 "I had all of it by heart upon a time, my lady; 
 but have lost the greater part." 
 
 "Begin, if you please," said the Prioress; so Per- 
 cival began: 
 
 Maintes gens dient quen songes . . . 
 and had got as far as: 
 
 Ou vintiesme an de mon age, 
 
 when the pilgrims came out of church, and a chance 
 shot from Mawdleyn's eyes threw him out. He
 
 214 " THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 helped his beloved to the saddle, he shored up Sister 
 Guiscarda on hers; but the Prioress did not budge. 
 When the confusion of horses was over, she asked her 
 stirrup-boy aloud, whether he could continue this or 
 any other lay? 
 
 "Madame, if it please you," said Percival, "I 
 know the Romaunt very well ; and I know the tale of 
 the Twelve Peers and Ganelon, and of Gallien le 
 Rhetor (which is very short), and also that of Le 
 Jouvencel, a didactic piece. Moreover, I know that 
 story of The Proud Lady in Amours, which they call 
 Blanchardyn, and also Isofere the Hardy, and The 
 Lays of Marie de France. There are songs in The 
 Ladies' Orchard which I can sing if you wish for them, 
 and another in the Italian tongue which begins 'In 
 the greenwood I found a shepherdess,' and certain 
 Triumphs of Petrarch, and very pleasant sonnets 
 which he wrote to the dear name and fame of Madame 
 Laura, his mistress any of these I can sing, which- 
 ever the company desire " 
 
 "Ah!" cried the Prioress, with a little gasp, "and 
 the airs of these divine inventions, Piers where gat 
 you these?' 
 
 "Madam," replied he, blushing a little, "some of 
 the airs were devised by me for the lute, some in plain- 
 song, and some in pricksong for three or four voices, 
 and some, not yet considered, I hope to achieve as 
 I go." 
 
 "I ask you now," said the Captain, with huge de- 
 light, "is this a prodigy I have procreated or not?" 
 It came natural to him to suppose himself the father
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 215 
 
 of such a boy; and, after all, a nephew is not far 
 removed. 
 
 The Prioress was observing the speaker with grav- 
 ity. Without taking note of Captain Brazenhead's 
 vaunt, she quietly bade him go on where he had left 
 off. The obedient lad once more put his hands be- 
 hind his back, threw up his chin, and rippled out his 
 French syllables about love, with his own love's heart 
 beating a little above his own, and her brown eyes 
 burning through the top of his head. She lent him 
 eloquence; he sang clear and loud: 
 
 Or veil eel songe rimaier 
 Por vos cuers plus fere esgaier 
 Qu'amors le me prie et commande. . . . 
 
 at which last words, if the Prioress had been wary, 
 she could not have failed to see deep call unto deep. 
 For Mawdleyn dropped her eyes, and Percival's 
 travelled as high as her chin, and stayed there. 
 Two others saw as much as they should, namely, 
 Captain Brazenhead, who thought it too good to last, 
 and Master Smith, the mariner, who studied Per- 
 cival's nose. 
 
 "Very pretty," said the Captain to himself, "but 
 full of jeopardy." He broke in to address the Prior- 
 ess. "Madam," he said, "the sun warns me that we 
 should proceed. Let us have my nephew's min- 
 strelsy on the way by all means; but let the ground- 
 bass be our horses' hoofs. We have a far road Jo 
 Alton town."
 
 216 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 "This swordsman is right, my lady," said Corbet 
 the Scrivener. "Let your ladyship's boy sing as he 
 walks by your ladyship's foot." 
 
 "I could have sworn by Saint John that there was 
 but one long nose in a pretty face in all this world," 
 the Shipman thought to himself. "And whom have 
 we here?" quoth he. The Prioress took up the 
 Scrivener. 
 
 "My boy shall walk by my foot no farther than 
 Alresford," she said with decision. "Young man," 
 she turned to Percival, "you are out of your station, 
 I can see. I will look to your advancement if I love 
 music." 
 
 "I thank your ladyship," says Percival; and Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead glossed that text with "Certainly, I 
 did my friend Jack a good turn when I won this 
 throstle-cock. 'Tis a little marvel of science." 
 
 Now, the Prioress would have had the Romaunt of 
 the Rose in its entirety, though it should have lasted 
 her (as it would) to her first view of the golden angel 
 on Bell Harry. But this was not to be. By the time 
 Percival had failed at the three-hundred-and-fiftieth 
 line, the company was feverish for something which 
 they might possibly understand. I have spoken 
 somewhat of the Shipman who travelled with them, 
 who came from Kingston-upon-Hull, called himself 
 Richard Smith, and thought he knew Percival's nose. 
 This was a bright-eyed, confident, chin-in-the-air 
 kind of fellow, a golden-bearded, apple-coloured man, 
 with a thin wife, very much (and too much) at his 
 devotion, who studied the singing-boy sideways the
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 217 
 
 whole time of his singing, watched his feet, his fine 
 long hands, his sharp little chin, his small mouth, his 
 hot little eyes, his fine long nose. He smacked his 
 forehead and talked to himself, he explored the sky, 
 the downs, the birds in the trees, but all to no pur- 
 pose. He could not put a name to his memories. 
 When Percival faltered, tried back, caught at a line 
 ahead and could not work up to it, this mariner broke 
 in with a laugh. 
 
 "Belay, there, shipmate, give over your lead," 
 quoth he ; "you cannot bottom it. And I, dear Lord, 
 have been in shoal water these three hours. By 
 Blackbeard and Whitebeard, you know a mort of 
 French words, and all of them different, it seemeth. 
 Now, I would like to know of you, where gat you all 
 those words? For you and I, little master, are not 
 strangers." 
 
 As Percival looked startled at him, "By my head 
 and heart, Shipman," said Captain Brazenhead, 
 "you have spoilt a pretty dream I was in. For to 
 hear those fair words took me back to the sack of 
 Orleans, where I lay lapped in plenty, and learned that 
 tongue out of as choice a mouth as your wife hath. 
 I have a mind to set my nephew another task. 
 What, Piers, what, gamebird, have at you in Tuscan 
 then!" 
 
 "Nay, sir," said the Prioress, "let Piers alone. He 
 has said enough for his turn." 
 
 "Is this young man your nephew, soldier?" asked 
 the Shipman. Captain Brazenhead twisted his 
 moustachios.
 
 2i8 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 "I would like to see the older man who denies it," 
 he said, with a glitter in his eye. 
 
 The Scrivener, who feared bloodshed more than 
 he feared Captain Brazenhead, intervened with a 
 hasty suggestion, that he supposed the friend of the 
 Duke of Milan might have as many nephews as he 
 chose. "Ah," said the Shipman darkly, "and nieces 
 like the Pope you would say!" The Captain 
 half drew his sword, but here the Prioress stayed him 
 with a look. A tale from the Scrivener held them 
 as far as their lodging at Alresford on the Hill.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HOW PERCIVAL WAS BOLD AND THE CAPTAIN BOLD 
 
 IN the morning very early Percival Perceforest 
 rose from his bed of straw in the stables, and busied 
 himself with the horses' provand, singing softly as 
 he worked, 
 
 Now, Winter, go away, 
 And hide thy white array, 
 Gratid Magdalena 
 
 while his bedfellow, the true stirrup-groom, gibed 
 as he lay. Yesterday and yesternight had wrought 
 wonders with the young man. He had a clear colour, 
 his eyes shone, courage tingled in his fists. So much 
 was this the state of his case that within a short half- 
 hour of his rising he was pommelling that other 
 groom, that other him again, as if all his future bliss 
 were staked upon it. Battle was cried and delivered 
 in the inn-yard, where Captain Brazenhead, his first 
 flagon on his knee, sunned himself and enjoyed the 
 game. Discretion was no part of that great man's 
 equipment, boldness was all. "Stick in your right, 
 Piers at him again! Now, now, now, land him on 
 the ear! Ah, foul blow! Swing round, boy paff! 
 now let drive " Such were his vociferous com- 
 ments on the scuffling youths. In less time than it 
 
 219
 
 220 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 has taken me to write this exordium Percival had a 
 black eye, his colleague a mouth full of red teeth, 
 many of which he was forced to discard. The air 
 was thick with eyes and alarms; Mawdleyn Touchett 
 strained in anguish from an upper window, provoca- 
 tively dishevelled; Sister Petronilla watched through 
 a chink in the shutter; the Prioress in awful majesty 
 descended to the yard, and required the truth. The 
 real stirrup-boy, whose name was Jenkin, said, "This 
 fellow called me a black liar"; snorting yet, Percival 
 added, "And that art thou, my man." The truth 
 being demanded, Captain Brazenhead struck in with 
 many a courtly bow. 
 
 "Dear reverend madam," he said, "now we may 
 well discern the truth of the vulgar saw, Blood will 
 out. I speak not of this knave's blood, which is a 
 very disgustful topic, not to be entered on so early in 
 the day; but rather of that secret fount of our life 
 which we call a man's Blood: meaning his strain 
 that essence, that quick ichor, that imparted jet, that 
 spring, that far-descended well, which wanders from 
 the Navel of the World down the Protuberance of 
 Time, searching for (but when to find?) the Sea of 
 Eternity. In truth, reverend madam, my nephew 
 is something lowly placed in your service. For look 
 now, had he been where Nature, that wise parent, 
 had designed, he had had a dagger in his girdle to 
 insinuate under that other's girdle ah, he had car- 
 ried a sword! Then there had been no rough-and- 
 tumble of fisticuffs, madam: no, but a slick-out and 
 a slick-in, and a dead knave to bury. I hope I make
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 221 
 
 my meaning plain. This lout angered my nephew 
 as he was loyally (O likeness to Apollo!) serving 
 Queen Admeta dear madam, forgive an old Latin- 
 ist, incorrigible dog. My nephew says, 'You lie, 
 knave!' meaning that what he dared to say of your 
 ladyship was far from the truth no less. My 
 nephew ups and smacks him on the chops; head 
 down, fists in the air, lick-pot comes on to his doom. 
 One, two one, two my nephew lands him in the 
 teeth: up again! down again! Sola! My nephew, 
 at the cost of an eye, madam, vindicates his own 
 lineage and his dear mistress's nobility; at the cost 
 of one eye, observe. I hope I explain myself, dear 
 reverend madam." Thus the Captain, while Per- 
 cival tried to temper his breath, and Jenkin tested 
 tooth after tooth. 
 
 The Prioress looked gravely from one to another 
 regardless alike of her niece at the upper window and 
 her household at the gate at the engaging candour 
 of Captain Brazenhead, whose explanatory hands 
 still showed her their palms, at Percival's flushed 
 cheeks and heaving chest, at Jenkin's preoccupation 
 with the ruin of his teeth. Mostly she looked at 
 Captain Brazenhead not because she liked him the 
 best; for Percival was handsome and master of the 
 Romaunt de la Rose, whereas the Captain was neither; 
 no, but because he was her chief justification for what 
 she was about to do. The Captain put his lineage 
 very high, assumed lightly certain privileges which 
 she held dear. If this personable, scholarly youth 
 were the Captain's nephew and who proposed to 
 deny it? then she was acting Admetus to Apollo
 
 222 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 indeed. Piers had played a gentleman's part with- 
 out a gentleman's weapons ; he had a soft voice, and 
 knew the Romaunt de la Rose. She must reward 
 Piers and she did. 
 
 "Piers," she said, "go into the house and have 
 your eye dressed. Sister Petronilla will see to it. 
 You say that you have acted rightly: I am sure I hope 
 so. I will talk to you presently. As for you, Jenkin, 
 I shall leave you to the care of Dan Costard" Dan 
 Costard was the Prioress's chaplain, a fine disciplina- 
 rian "but I hope that, before you see him, you will 
 clean yourself. Captain Brazenhead, I am very 
 much obliged to you for your timely interposition." 
 The Captain bowed. He held the lady in conversa- 
 tion for some half an hour, while Percival was having 
 his eye dressed not by Sister Petronilla. His own 
 lineage, and by implication Percival's, lent him 
 topics. It was exceedingly distinguished. Assur- 
 banipal, King of Syria, by his illicit union with 
 Mantagyra, daughter of the Prince of the Kurds, was 
 the root of his title. Those two valiant knights- 
 errant, Sir Partenopex of Blois and Sir Tyrant the 
 White, figured later on, about the time of King 
 Uther Pendragon (inextinguishable enemy of the 
 Brazenheads) ; and Duke Regnier of Genoa, one of 
 the twelve Peers of Charlemagne, was a collateral. 
 Magnificent as this pedigree was, the Captain 
 frankly admitted the irregularity of the tie which 
 bound the exalted pair from whom it sprang; but 
 attributed it to the loose state of manners prevailing 
 in their times, the darkness all over the moral state, 
 and the inexplicably tardy approach of the Christian
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 223 
 
 dispensation. "All this," said he, "I know as well 
 as your ladyship, and as heartily deplore it. But 
 who are we, to judge the practices of ancient kings ? 
 My ancestor of Syria, burthened with many lawful 
 wives (another deplorable custom of his age), was 
 hard pressed, what with his domestic and political 
 engagements. There may not have been a priest 
 handy in Kurdistan at the time he fell on loving 
 Madam Mantagyra it is probable that there was 
 not. And it would ill become me or my nephew 
 Thrustwood to impeach an union of hearts, of whose 
 passionate commingling we ourselves are the late, pale 
 flowers. With all this," he concluded, "I vex your 
 ladyship's good ears, that your ladyship may see how 
 ill-suited my nephew must be in a stable jacket, re- 
 duced to double his two fists into cudgels for lack of 
 a fine sword to grip. I make bold to add, Advance 
 my nephew, you do honour to the imperial seed of 
 Assurbanipal and the noble (if erring) Mantagyra!" 
 The Prioress, who appeared to be very much im- 
 pressed with this long recital, after thanking Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead, returned thoughtfully to the house, 
 but not in time to see the balm which Mawdleyn 
 Touchett was applying to the eye of the Syrian 
 imp. 
 
 In this simple manner Percival Perceforest was 
 advanced from stirrup-groom to secretary, although 
 he could lend no more testimony than a fine colour 
 to his kinsman's account of his ancestry. This, how- 
 ever, he lent liberally, with a modesty so becoming 
 that the Prioress gave him a chain of fine gold for his 
 neck. Alresford furnished forth a suit of brown
 
 224 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 velvet ; he now rode the horse which formerly he had 
 curried, and had the boy in his service with whose 
 teeth he had littered the yard. Thus the Fortunate 
 Gods seemed to favour him, or rather his fistic 
 ability. His place was now by the side of his mis- 
 tress, between her and Mawdleyn Touchett. 
 
 The day was still young when they left the town, 
 and had need to be, for they were to reach Waverley 
 that night, and hoped to pass the heat of noon at 
 Alton. Again, as they went, they began with min- 
 strelsy, which Percival (out of a full heart) could pour 
 in a flood. And now the lad was more daring than 
 he had been. "If it do not displease your lady- 
 ship," he said, "I shall sing you a ballad of my own 
 making, which is in honour of Saint Mary Magdalene 
 my patroness," he added with a thankful, tell-tale 
 sigh. Mawdleyn Touchett, knowing that song of 
 old, looked scared; Sister Petronilla turned up her 
 eyes; and Captain Brazenhead thought it prudent to 
 change the conversation. 
 
 "The conversion which I wrought by means of 
 that blissful Saint is very dear in my mind," he be- 
 gan. "The Bashaw Korouc, I remember, met me 
 
 in the rocky defiles above Ascalon " but the 
 
 Prioress said, "Sing, Piers, of Saint Mary Magda- 
 lene," so Percival thrust up his chin, and sang: 
 
 Now, Winter, go away, 
 And hide thy white array, 
 
 Gratid Magdalena! 
 Thy pelt is all too rude 
 To drape her melting mood 
 
 DomiruB Laus antcenal
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 225 
 
 Come, April, thou, with showers, 
 Bring daffodils, wind-flowers, 
 
 GratiA Magdalena; 
 Bring in the young lamb's bleat, 
 Soft rain, and gentle heat, 
 
 Domincs Laus amcen&l 
 
 Let me go clothed in wet, 
 Tears be my carcanet, 
 
 Gratid Magdalena; 
 Silver my extern part, 
 Deep red about my heart, 
 
 Domina Laus amceruzl 
 
 Lady of sweet unrest, 
 Should I not love her best, 
 
 Gratid Magdalena? 
 Unquiet go I, unkist, 
 Her starved rhapsodist, 
 
 Domina Laus Amcena! 
 
 "Thus women sing of women, but not men of 
 women," said Smith the mariner to his wife. "Here 
 we have for certain old Brazentop's mye" 
 
 "What hast thou to do with that since I am with 
 thee, sweetheart?" asked she. 
 
 " More than Saint's love went to the making of that 
 song, young gentleman," was the judgment of Dan 
 Costard, the bony old priest from Ambresbury. 
 
 "We needs must love as we are able, sir," Percival 
 replied. "And, for my part, I hope Saint Mary 
 Mawdleyn will heed my crying and give me good 
 comfort in the end." 
 
 "Comfort is the man's part in crying matters,"
 
 226 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 says the Shipman, "and comfort I have in my pocket 
 for thee." 
 
 "I want none of your comfort, I thank you, Master 
 Smith," Percival cried: to which the Shipman re- 
 torted that he had been glad enough of it once upon 
 a time. With a tale from Dan Costard, which has 
 been told in another place, the day wore to an end. 
 They came out of Hants into Surrey by the sandy 
 way of Farnham, and rested that night within sound 
 of the tumbling wiers of Wey, in the guest-chambers 
 of the Abbot of Waverley. Percival charmed them 
 to sleep by his sweet singing.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOW PERCIVAL ROSE WHERE CAPTAIN BRAZEN- 
 HEAD FELL 
 
 NEXT morning it might have seemed that Percival 
 had reached, and over-reached, his zenith of ascen- 
 sion. For the Prioress, rising too early for Mass and 
 walking abroad to meditate, found him with Mawd- 
 leyn Touchett in a singular situation. The girl, in 
 fact, was seated by a fish-pond with her feet bare and 
 still wet from the water, and Percival on his hands 
 and knees before her, ardently embracing and kissing 
 those same wet feet. "Oh, dearest feet!" he was 
 saying, and she, "Ah, foolish boy! ah, foolish boy!" 
 The Prioress coughed, not loudly ; the cuckoo, which 
 happened then to be calling over the meadows, ob- 
 scured the discreet sound. So Percival pursued his 
 amorous transports and Mawdleyn suffered the rapt- 
 ures afforded by such homage undisturbed. "Boy 
 and girl," mused the Prioress, "together in the spring 
 pastures; flowers all about them, flowers in their 
 faces, flowers making sweet their breath. Shall not 
 flower lean to flower? What harm do they do? 
 They have all life before them; mine is rounding its 
 course. Let life for me end on a mellow note. This 
 Piers is a gentle boy good blood, I feel assured, 
 
 227
 
 228 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 sings in him; he hath not a pipe so true for nothing. 
 And if my niece played the mischief with Perceforest, 
 Piers Thrustwood shall wash away the stain. Pretty 
 dears, I will not disturb them; but I will question 
 Captain Brazenhead a little further." 
 
 Questioned, the Captain (who had been picking 
 rose campions) lifted his shoulders to his ears, lowered 
 his brows, produced indefinitely his mouth to meet 
 them, spread his palms, then solemnly enfolded his 
 bosom. He gave the effect of an inverted arch, and 
 implied deference, noble humility, some philosophy, 
 and a friendly alliance of benevolent neutrality. 
 "Madam," he said, "may I not add, Reverend 
 Friend, these pretty plays of my enamoured nephew 
 and your lovely niece may end (why should I not 
 say it?) as they ought to end. If I applaud my 
 nephew's sagacity, may you not in turn approve this 
 tribute to your niece's beauty?" 
 
 "Why," said the Prioress, "there has been such 
 tribute paid before for instance, by one Perceforest, 
 my brother's page. Sincere enough, I have no 
 doubt ; but tribute is to be valued by the worth of the 
 tributary." 
 
 "Have at you there, dearest madam," returned 
 Captain Brazenhead warmly; "have at you there! 
 If we are considering worth, for example!" 
 
 "You refer, I suppose, to King Assurbanipal and 
 the fair Mantagyra?" said the Prioress. 
 
 "I did refer to their Majesties, I confess," replied 
 the Captain. The Prioress had no enthusiasm for 
 this exalted pair. "I fear," she said, "that the title
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 229 
 
 and estates have been alienated long since. Such 
 things would have appealed to my brother Sir Simon's 
 understanding before a fine descent. As for lineage, 
 indeed, the Touchetts do pretty well." 
 
 "Touchett! Touchett!" said the Captain, "dear, 
 dear, dear! Oh, Touchett is a good Norman house. 
 Your Rolf Touchett held up the Bastard at Pevensey, 
 I believe. Very fair! very fair! But the King of 
 Assyria, but the Peer of Charlemagne, Partenopex of 
 Blois, Palmerin, Tyrant the White!" 
 
 " Captain Brazenhead," said the Prioress with dig- 
 nity and point, "when you exalt your house at the 
 expense of my own, you compel me to ask myself 
 why the scion of Partenopex of Blois took the trouble 
 to abduct a stable-boy and hide him naked in a 
 ditch on Winchester Meads?" 
 
 "Thomas on the Pavement!" said the Captain to 
 himself. "What a still puddle it is!" Aloud he 
 said, "Rack and pincers, madam, could not force 
 me to tell you what that boy had done, or how far he 
 deserved what he got." This was perfectly true, 
 and the Prioress believed it. "I will not apply such 
 insistence," she said mildly, "for I agree with you 
 that it would fail." 
 
 "Ah, madam," said the Captain, taking her hand, 
 " you and I know the world." This pleased the Prior- 
 ess, who did not immediately perceive how little it 
 met her argument. "Madam," the Captain went 
 on rapidly, "if my dear blood is perhaps too dear to 
 my barren loins ; if in default of lawful issue of issue, 
 I should say (if I speak the whole truth) ; if mindful of
 
 230 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 my ancient race, if with a heart overfull, outvailing 
 head overtaxed ; if philogenous, if stirpiferous, puffed 
 with pedigree, prolific, wily, fertile in shifts, if one and 
 all these things I stand naked to the world, do you 
 wonder, dear and gentle lady, that I run to cloak 
 myself in You ? If by the hand, a shorn lamb, I lead 
 my pretty nephew; if I bid him curry your nags, 
 hold your stirrup, batter soft your cushion, sing to 
 you, tell you age-long romance, bear your napkin on 
 his arm, your livery on his King-begotten back if I 
 do this, why do I do this? Because I love the boy, 
 madam, and because " the Captain bared his 
 head, kneeling, "and because I love your ladyship! 
 Yes, madam," he went on bitterly, "the bloody, 
 crafty, notched, maimed old soldier is touched at last! 
 You will not misunderstand me, I know. I love 
 indeed; but as Plato, as the Seven Sages, as Ptolemy, 
 as Hermes the Threefold Mage, as the Abbot Am- 
 monius, as Simeon Stylites, as the Venerable Bede, 
 might love. Spiritually, that is inwardly, in the skyey 
 places, under the shadow of angel's feathers. Is it 
 madness to love so? Then Plato was mad, then 
 Venerable Bede was an ass. Is it wicked to love so ? 
 Then it is wicked to seek your shelter for my nephew's 
 nakedness. Is it hopeless? Then I am damned. 
 Are you angry? Then I hope I am damned. Are 
 you content? Then I sing Gloria Tibi, and. recall 
 memories of my good mother, at whose knee I learnt 
 to say, Amo te devote!" 
 
 The Captain, out of breath, but filled instead with 
 the soft wind of ecstasy, rapturously kissed the caught
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 231 
 
 hand of the Prioress. She, confused, had little to say. 
 Percival and Mawdleyn, who came upon her while 
 their mouths were still much too close together, had 
 still less to say. They parted as by a thunder-shock 
 and stood still, their heads hanging like tired roses. 
 "Children," said the Prioress, "where have you 
 been?" 
 
 "I walked in the meadows, if it please you, good 
 aunt," says Mawdelyn, "and Piers has dried my feet 
 for me." 
 
 "Do you understand this service then, Piers, as 
 well as that of minstrelsy?" asked his mistress. 
 
 Percival modestly replied that he had done his best 
 to understand it, and so should always do with every 
 office which might please her good ladyship. They 
 went back through the fields to hear Mass and break 
 their fast. The buttercups were so tall that they 
 brushed Mawdleyn's knees and dusted her with 
 gold a charming sight, which, as Captain Brazen- 
 head remarked, made Danae of the girl, and so of 
 Percival an object of contempt to all high-minded 
 men. "Perceforest, my young sprig," he improved 
 the occasion by saying, "the pace is too hot to last. 
 We cannot stay, you and T, at such a course. We 
 must break away, Percival, lest we be broken." 
 Percival was too flushed with adventure to heed him. 
 "My cup is full, sir, shall I not drink? For such a 
 morning as this I would contentedly be drubbed 
 every night by Sir Simon himself. Oh, her feet ! Oh, 
 her tender hands ! Oh , her heart ! " And so on, and 
 so on. All this filled his friend with disquiet.
 
 232 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 On their way by Crooksbury to Guildford and the 
 White Down, Captain Brazenhead drew from the 
 stores of his garnered experience that remarkable 
 tragic tale which decorates another page; but inter- 
 esting as it, and subsequent comments upon it, might 
 prove, great press of matter drives me forward to 
 Reigate. Fear of congestion, in like manner, com- 
 pels me to pass over the noble country through which 
 winds the Pilgrim's Way Compton and Littleton 
 Cross, Saint Catherine's Chapel on the side of a chalk 
 down, Shalford Meadows, and Shalford Ferry, 
 Guildford town, and the long grass road which draws 
 you up to Saint Martyr's Church and the wooded 
 ridge. You shall picture our company riding there 
 among the boughs, and guess what opportunities 
 for pilfer stolen looks, stolen touches, half-heard 
 sighs, whispers, vows: "Dearest feet! dearest feet!" 
 and "Ah, foolish boy!" there may have been; 
 what earnest talk also held the Captain to the side of 
 his Prioress, and how Master Smith's wife lived 
 silently upon the sight of her bluff husband's eyes. 
 Those galliard eyes were much intrigued by Percival's 
 long nose, out of whose shape the baffled Shipman 
 read mystery, a long-lost sweetheart masquerading 
 as a lad, Captain Brazenhead for a terrific rival, 
 himself for a flouted man. There is meat for a tale 
 here. But I am drawn instead to Reigate, a red town 
 on a hill, where you might have found a noble Priory 
 of Austin Canons, with great welcome for their Sis- 
 ter of Ambresbury; a large inn called The Chris- 
 topher, and a little beerhouse named The Holy Fish.
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 233 
 
 Thither, under the shades of evening, Captain 
 Brazenhead drew young Percival Perceforest, his 
 nephew by adoption, sadly against inclination and 
 nature. 
 
 " By Cock, my bird of the bough," said this warrior, 
 expostulant, "thou hast had thy fill of toying with thy 
 dear. Work of men is now on hand, battle- work, 
 hack-and-hew, blood and bones, a tragic dish. Am 
 to remind you that you are beholden to me ? Never 
 in this life, I hope." 
 
 "I shall never forget my duty to you, sir," said 
 Percival warmly, already ashamed of his back- 
 sliding. 
 
 "Why, that is as well," returned the Captain, "for 
 I assure you there will be every temptation. But, in 
 my opinion, you hold the iron and should strike be- 
 fore it cools. The Prioress, let me advise you, has dis- 
 covered (how, I know not) my innocent little device 
 at Winchester; and although I was able by my arts 
 to give her a check, she is a singling hound, of whom 
 God alone can predict (if He will) how soon she will 
 be nose-in-air again. Therefore, Percival, I say, 
 Time is. Cut the way of Holy Thomas, tuck your 
 sweetheart under your arm, take the road, ride with 
 me and ho! for war and dead men's shoe-leather. 
 How does this strike you?" 
 
 It seemed a delightful plan to the speaker, whose 
 surprise was extreme when Percival drew back. 
 "What, bawcock, art thou faint?" he cried, gener- 
 ously putting the best excuse foremost. But Percival 
 was not faint. He was, on the contrary, very red;
 
 234 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 his eyes were misty, his lips dry. He had to use his 
 tongue to them before he could avow the shameful 
 truth to his benefactor. 
 
 "Oh, sir," he faltered, after many a false start. 
 "Oh, sir, do not be angry; but I cannot deceive my 
 mistress much longer." 
 
 "Hey," cried the Captain, "why? does she smell 
 smoke, do you think?" 
 
 "No, no," Percival assured him; "but my con- 
 science " 
 
 "Lord of battles, boy!" the Captain roared, "don't 
 talk of conscience to me. We have our fortunes to 
 make!" , 
 
 "Let it be then," says Percival; "but I dare not 
 add robbery to my fibs." The Captain stopped in 
 mid-street, and raised his eyebrows as if he saw a 
 snake in the gutter. 
 
 "Robbery!" he said in a whisper, "why, what are 
 maidens for if not to be robbed?" 
 
 "Sir, sir, the Reverend Prioress would be robbed 
 if I took Mawdleyn away," says Percival. The Cap- 
 tain gaped at him. 
 
 "Well?" he said, "why not? Why are we here, 
 knights of the road ? Why is she here ? Why have 
 I told so many falsehoods, and why hath she be- 
 lieved them, hey?" 
 
 "I don't think she hath believed them, sir," says 
 Percival humbly. The Captain scratched his nose. 
 "Tush! I must be sadly out then," he said. "Do 
 you think it was Tyrant the White she stuck at?" 
 
 "Sir, I think rather it was Mantagyra the Kurdish
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 235 
 
 princess. But Partenopex of Blois seemed to me 
 rather a hard morsel." 
 
 "Blois is good enough," said the Captain; "it must 
 have been that rascally Tyrant. To tell you the 
 truth, I had hoped that Blois would edge me in the 
 other, a great favourite of mine especially with a 
 lady who could listen all day to the Romaunt of the 
 Rose. And now I remember that she seemed to know 
 something about my little contrivance at Winchester. 
 Well, well, I am vexed about this. But everything 
 conspires to further my counsel to you, Percival. 
 Cut and run, my twittering finch, cut and run." 
 
 "Sir," said Percival doggedly, "I will run whither- 
 soever you bid me run; but I shall leave Mawdleyn 
 behind." 
 
 "Then you tire of her?" asked the Captain. "I 
 am not surprised. The girl is too ripe for her age. 
 Thin ones pall not so soon." Percival' s little eyes 
 kindled. 
 
 "Captain," he says hotly, "I love my Mawdleyn 
 better than life or heaven ; but I will never tempt her 
 to wickedness." 
 
 "You will find that quite unnecessary," said the 
 Captain. Percival despaired, and changed the con- 
 versation by asking abruptly, What was the duty 
 about to be put upon him, which he was quite ready 
 to perform? 
 
 "Why," says the Captain, "it is this. We are 
 about to visit an exalted friend of mine, here in this 
 town darkly disguised for the exact purpose of meet- 
 ing with me. He is a gentleman (at present) of
 
 236 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 greater hope than fortune, anil goes oh, hush!" he 
 sank his voice to a rushing whisper which could have 
 been heard across the street, "and goes ah, be 
 mum! by the name of CADE. Master John Cade, 
 Jack Cade, Jack Mend-all; so those who love him 
 call him. But, look you here, his name is Mortimer, 
 seed of the loins of King Edward the Third, twin- 
 apple on the stalk which holds King Edward the 
 Fourth " 
 
 "King Edward the oh, sir!" says Percival in a 
 tremble, "why, this is treason!" 
 
 "Treason it is," replied the Captain, chuckling; 
 "damnable treason, and misprision of treason; work 
 for Tower Hill, block-work, chopping- work, my 
 Ganymede." 
 
 "Is it this that you would have me do?" Percival 
 asks; and the Captain, taking his arm, says "It is! 
 It is!" 
 
 They stroll on in silence. Presently Percival asks 
 again, How he can serve Mr. Cade? The Captain 
 became very frank. 
 
 "Why," he said, "you must know that my friend 
 Mortimer (call him Cade, if you will), although of 
 extremely noble descent, is in this pass, that he can 
 neither read nor write. Other gentlemen of birth 
 and lineage are no better off. We write our names 
 in blood, ha! And here are our stiles, ha!" He 
 patted his hip. "Now Jack Mortimer," he went on, 
 "corresponds with the D e of B y, the D e of 
 Y k, my L d of M h, the K g of Fe" these 
 names he indicated in whispers "and hitherto hath
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 237 
 
 done his best to cope therewithal by help of an old 
 monk of Bury, a Psalter, and the Gesta Romanorum. 
 The result hath been that Jack's correspondence is in 
 a devil of a mess. Moreover, the monk is recently 
 dead of a surfeit. You, my lamb, having the Latin, 
 the French, the Burgundian, the Italian, on the tip 
 of your red tongue, you I had designed to be Jack 
 Mortimer's secretary, from the moment when I first 
 saw you, slim and tearful like Niobus the Great, in 
 Winton Minster. You say that you have deceived 
 the Prioress: me you could not deceive. I saw 
 tongues playing about your ingenuous front; every- 
 thing you have done since has but confirmed my 
 opinion. Now, I need not tell a youth of your parts 
 that I open out a golden road for you to travel. Jack 
 will go far. He is ready at all points. His men line 
 the roads; London stirs for him; Kent calls him King. 
 He will give thee a manor and a title, for thou shalt 
 be his right hand. Sir Percival Perceforest, knight; 
 Percival, Baron Perceforest; my lord Viscount 
 Perceforest; our trusty and well-beloved Cousin and 
 Councillor Percival, by the Grace of Jack, Earl 
 
 of Where the devil do you come from, my 
 
 dear?" 
 
 "From Gloucester, sir," says Percival. 
 
 "I perceive that you speak the truth, for you call 
 it Glorster. Then you shall be Earl of Gloucester, 
 when my good lord R d is P e of W s." Thus 
 comfortably, as the Captain mused aloud and poor 
 Percival found nothing to say, they reached the 
 shuttered green door which announced by a sign on
 
 238 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 a string that it was that of The Holy Fish. There 
 hung the fish, with a hole in the shoulder where St. 
 Peter's thumb had held it. 
 
 "I must disguise myself, boy," says the Captain. 
 "Mum's the word now; moonlight work begins. 
 You carry innocence all over your face, but I have 
 a plaguily fly-by-night appearance and must by all 
 means conceal it." 
 
 His method of disguise was admirably simple, for 
 he merely threw his riding-cloak over his head. 
 Thus he could neither see nor be seen, neither de- 
 ceive nor be deceived. This done, he made Percival 
 take his hand, saying, "Lead on, noble colleague." 
 Percival followed his nose into the doorway of The 
 Holy Fish. 
 
 A black-haired, stout, blotch-faced man sat in 
 dirty shirt and breeches at a tressel-board, eating 
 bacon from a skewer. A jack of beer was at his el- 
 bow, onions reposed in a basin of vinegar beside him ; 
 all about his feet lay letters, parchments, sealed writs 
 in a heap. 
 
 His companions were a miller in his cups and a 
 Carmelite. Percival stood modestly in the open 
 doorway, still holding by the hand the muffled, the 
 motionless Captain Brazenhead. The eater of bacon 
 frowned upon the pair. 
 
 "What do you want, knave?" then said Master 
 Cade, for this was he, "and who is your mawmet in a 
 shroud?" Captain Brazenhead threw off his dis- 
 guise with a flourish. " God help this realm, Jack, if 
 I deceive even thee!" he said with fervour. Master
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 239 
 
 Cade resumed his bacon; the Carmelite had never 
 stopped eating onions; the miller went to sleep. 
 
 Between bites the great revolutionary asked of his 
 friend, Who was this sprig of jessamy? The Cap- 
 tain introduced his dearest nephew-by-adoption. 
 "He hath a long nose," said Master Cade, "too long 
 for my taste. We are sworn foes of long noses in 
 Kent, as thou knowest. What are we to do with 
 him, Sol?" 
 
 "He was born under Sagittarius the Archer," says 
 the Captain, "and is therefore lucky. Start not at 
 his nose: I tell you he is a penman. I have trained 
 him for thy secretary, Jack!" 
 
 Master Cade said Humph! to this; but of Percival 
 he asked, "Where gat Sagittarius your father, you of 
 the body of your mother?" 
 
 "Sir," replied Percival, "I fancy that Captain 
 Brazenhead spoke tropically, by a figure. My 
 father's name is John Perceforest ; he is a clothier of 
 Gloucester." 
 
 " You said he was an archer, Sol," said Master Cade. 
 
 "I spoke exuberantly, as this lad says, and in the 
 tropics," the Captain admitted. "Leave his father 
 and his nose alone, Jack." 
 
 "Stop that cackle," cried Master Cade, who 
 seemed excited, "and let me get on with the boy. 
 Now, boy, I have the truth of thy father at last. Is 
 that nose of thine his or thy mother's?" 
 
 "My mother, sir, had a longish nose." 
 
 "Losh!" said Master Cade. "Now, who was 
 your mother?"
 
 240 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 "My mother is dead, sir." 
 
 "I asked you not what she is!" Master Cade was 
 very testy. "Plague! will you prevaricate with me? 
 I asked you who she was." 
 
 Percival answered, "She was very well descended, 
 sir, as I have been told. Her name before wedlock 
 was Jane Fiennes." 
 
 Master Cade grew livid. "Lord of Might! And 
 with a nose like that!" He paused to breathe; 
 presently asked, "And whence came your Jane 
 Fiennes?" 
 
 "She came from Kent, sir," says Percival. Cade 
 threw up his hands and brought them down with a 
 crash on the table. The miller rolled on to the floor, 
 and the Carmelite slipped out of the room. 
 
 "If I knew not his nose among a hundred! Jane 
 Fiennes's son, Jane Fiennes's son!" Master Cade 
 was much perturbed. "Do you know who you are, 
 young gentleman?" Thus he accosted Percival, 
 who answered, "An honest lad, sir, if it please you." 
 
 "Honest!" cried Master Cade, "honest! you are 
 better than that, I hope. King Melchior! I'll tell you 
 what you are. You are nephew of Lord Say, that's 
 what you are! Nephew and apparent heir, that's 
 what you are! And you hope yourself honest! 
 Why, sir, you may be a peer of this realm. No need 
 for honesty then, I hope. Honest, quoth he!" He 
 changed his tune abruptly, and turned to the com- 
 placent Captain Brazenhead. "Didst thou lay this 
 trap for me, old gallows?" asked his chief. 
 
 "I'll not deny it, Jack," said the Captain.
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 241 
 
 "It will serve my turn," says Cade, "or may do. 
 When we have cracked the old thief's skull at Seven- 
 oaks, we'll set up this slip of willow in his place, and 
 have a lord on our side. Do you smell? Are you 
 fly?" 
 
 The Captain smelt, and was very fly. "Let me 
 talk to my honoured young friend," he said, and drew 
 Percival apart. 
 
 "Now, Percival," he began, "it appears that you 
 are in a fair way. Your mother was Lord Say's sis- 
 ter, and none the worse in that her brother is an old 
 cut-throat, ill-beseeming dog. You are heir to the 
 wicked man your uncle. Now I propose to you an 
 honourable game, fitting to your name, degree, ex- 
 pectation, and parts. You shall stand in with the 
 noble Mortimer and me. We raise all Kent, attack 
 Sevenoaks, slay your uncle at leisure. You come 
 into title and estates, marry your little Touchett (if 
 she still content you), and reward us after your own 
 generous notions. Do you see your way clear? I 
 protest," cried the delighted Captain, embracing his 
 young friend warmly, "I protest that is as work- 
 manlike a little cabinet of villainy as I have ever com- 
 passed! What is more, it will be of real service to 
 you." 
 
 But Percival did not see his way to the murder of 
 his uncle, and told Captain Brazenhead as much with 
 tears of shame in his eyes. "Dear sir," he said, "I 
 know not what you will think of me ungratefulj 
 unworthy of your continual favours, I owe you all my 
 earthly happiness; but do not ask me to kill my
 
 242 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 mother's brother. I will die for you, or at your 
 hands, if you choose; but I cannot dabble in my own 
 blood. Slay me now, Captain Brazenhead, where I 
 kneel" and kneel he did "and let Percival die 
 blessing the hand that fells him." The Captain, 
 profoundly touched, raised him up and kissed him. 
 "Your sentiments, my Percival, do you honour," 
 he said, "though I deplore their effect upon my plans. 
 I must consider what will be best to do now, for I'll 
 be hanged if I know offhand." 
 
 Master Cade had a way of his own. " If the young 
 gentleman can't help us, Sol," says he, "we had bet- 
 ter help ourselves. We should put a winger into him 
 at once, I believe. He must never leave Reigate 
 alive." The Captain shook his head. "No, no, 
 my Trojan," he replied, "that is a short-sighted way 
 to work. You may trust Mr. Perceforest, I am sure." 
 He added in a low voice, "A friendly Lord Say will be 
 better than two dead ones, you fool; let the boy go." 
 Turning to Percival, he kissed him again, saying, 
 "Remember your old Brazenhead in after years; 
 for now I must bid you farewell. If I have served 
 you, I am glad. I love you, my boy, and shall pray 
 for you every day. Note this also. You shall do 
 wisely to force your pilgrims on their way with all 
 speed. Kent will be on fire within a week. At 
 Canterbury you shall see either myself or my ghost. 
 Farewell." 
 
 "Farewell, dear Sir," said Percival brokenly. 
 They parted affectionately, like father and son; Per- 
 N cival went out with tears in his eyes.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 INCIDIT IN SCYLLAM, CUPIENS VTTARE CHARYBDIM 
 
 THE Captain gone, not without comment and dis- 
 cussion, in which Percival's explanation played a 
 poor part, our young man found himself involved in a 
 new difficulty. Smith the Shipman located his long 
 nose. "Gloucester knew that nose of thine," he 
 declared, "as I do verily believe. But her name was 
 not Thrustwood no, nor nothing like Thrustwood." 
 Percival did not deny that he had been born in 
 Gloucester. "I would like to see thee deny it," said 
 the Shipman. "I would swear to thy long nose and 
 button mouth before the Lord Mayor of London. 
 And how comest thou," he asked reproachfully, 
 "how comest thou tramping after a wicked old toss- 
 pot mercenary on pretended pilgrimage, all in a 
 page's breeches ? Fie upon such unwholesome deal- 
 ing!" Percival grew very angry, as well he might; 
 whereupon the Shipman turned his gall to tenderness. 
 "Child, I loved thee once; pledges we exchanged, we 
 split a coin. I vowed I'd never forget thee, upon my 
 soul." "I vow that I have never seen you before, sir, 
 in all my life!" cried Percival hotly, "nor your good 
 mistress either!" "Jealousy," quoth the Shipman, 
 "jealousy is the mother of lies. What is my wife to 
 
 243
 
 244 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 thee or to me, who cry back old dead days?" But 
 here, happily, that same lady came out to show what 
 she was to her lord: "Tease not the boy, honey, tease 
 me!" Thus she wooed him, and left Percival to his 
 other anxieties. These were to get his people well 
 on the road before it was taken by the grim Captain 
 Cade, and to ponder how he could save his mistress's 
 skin, his own skin, and the skin of his exalted uncle. 
 
 By ten of the clock so successful was he the 
 whole train was in the Vale of Darent. They baited 
 at Otford under the shadow of the Archbishop's 
 house, whence, if Percival could have known it, he 
 might have seen the threatened turrets of Knole high 
 on the wooded hill of Sevenoaks. From that place 
 a very agreeable tale from the Prioress took them 
 peacefully to Wrotham, where they stayed out the 
 heat of the day. If Mawdleyn had to complain that 
 her lover was cold, she did him an injustice. He was 
 consumed with fear on her account . The country was 
 ominously quiet, with no pilgrim-booths in Wrotham 
 town, no folk in the inns, few houses that had not 
 shutters over the windows. They had halted at a 
 smithy a few miles out of the town: "You must limp 
 it on three feet, master," was the answer Percival 
 got. "There is not a scrap of iron short of Maid- 
 stone, I do believe." "What have you done with 
 your iron, master?" asks Percival. "Ah," says the 
 farrier, "that is telling." A bad answer: but worse 
 was to come. 
 
 After dinner, going by the well-worn lane that lies 
 snug under the bosom of the hill, they reached a little
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 245 
 
 place called Trottesclive, some three miles from 
 Wrotham. Here were an inn, a village-green, a 
 spreading sycamore with a sign-post, a, stocks, and a 
 pound. Here also was an armed assembly of peas- 
 ants, a priest at their head, marching the opposite 
 way, with ribald songs about Jack Nape and Harry 
 our King. Now Jack Nape was the name they chose 
 to give the Duke of Suffolk, and the scythes, bills, 
 falchions, glaives, and other weapons they flourished, 
 boded no good to Harry their King. There was 
 much confusion here : the men-at-arms of the Prioress 
 at once became none, by throwing down their pikes 
 and falling upon their knees. Half-a-dozen rascals 
 roared "Down with the fat minchin!" half-a-dozen 
 others snatched up the discarded pikes. Dan Cos- 
 tard showed his mettle. "We are Saint Thomas's 
 pilgrims, you rogues," cried he. "Touch us in 
 jeopardy of Saint Thomas;" and Percival, resenting 
 extremely their reference to the Prioress's condition 
 in this world, drew his dagger. 
 
 The Shipman leapt off his horse and caught the 
 poor young man round the waist. "Vex not thy 
 pretty hands with a man's tools, my fair chuck," he 
 said coaxingly. "What if thy disguise should un- 
 disguise thee?" 
 
 "Avoid me, by heaven, you red fool!" cries Per- 
 cival in a fury. "What have you to do with 
 me?" 
 
 "Love, my hidden treasure!" said Master Smith, 
 "love is my goad. I know what I know." Percival 
 flamed up.
 
 246 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 "Get you gone, look after your wife, master, and 
 don't talk your balderdash to me," he said with his 
 teeth together. The Shipman replied that tempest 
 suited a pretty lass better than a flat calm; so women 
 were not like the sea. Percival stared open-mouthed 
 at him. "What is your meaning?" he said aghast. 
 Master Smith might have told him, had he not been 
 recalled to his wife's side by her shrill complaining. 
 Once more, therefore, that thin woman set Percival 
 free. He turned to the fray; but this had been com- 
 posed by a colloquy between Dan Costard and the 
 priest, the leader of the rabble. 
 
 The peasants, it seemed, were marching to Seven- 
 oaks, to meet (it was obvious to Percival) Captain 
 Brazenhead and Captain Cade. The youth could not 
 see without emotion so many scythes turned to the 
 dismemberment of his uncle, my Lord Say. He felt 
 the call of blood as well as the admonitions of piety. 
 " Strange ! " he thought. " Yesterday I did not know 
 that his lordship was my uncle, and to-day I must 
 risk my life to save his. But it is so!" He there- 
 fore accosted the rebel priest in the gentlest manner 
 he could, inquiring whether he was leading his forces 
 against any person of consequence. "There is a 
 worthy man dwelling by Sevenoaks," he added, "my 
 uncle, whose estate, though it should fall to me by 
 the fact, I would not willingly have disturbed." The 
 priest, having looked him up and down, said, "Bless 
 your innocence, young man, we shall never hurt any 
 uncle of yours." Percival could afford to say, "I 
 wish I could believe it." " But," he went on, "I fear
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 247 
 
 the worst from what I know of Master Mortimer, 
 your friend." 
 
 "Ha!" says the priest, "so you know something." 
 Says Percival, "Yes, I do." The priest rubbed his 
 chin. 
 
 "And did he intend any mischief against your 
 uncle, young gentleman?" 
 
 "I do verily think so," says Percival. 
 
 "Then," said the other, "either you are not what 
 you appear, or Master Mortimer's net hath a small 
 mesh." The Shipman cut in again. 
 
 "If he is what he appears to you," he said strongly, 
 "then I am a nun." 
 
 "And if he is not what he appears to you and to 
 me," cried the Scrivener, very much excited, "then I 
 was neither deaf nor blind at Winchester, and do 
 know his name, and can shrewdly guess at that 
 of his uncle." 
 
 " My reverend," said Percival, who thought it safer 
 to take no notice of this interruption, "I may not tell 
 you my uncle's name, lest you should do a mischief 
 to those I serve here as faithfully as I can. Alack! 
 I have too many interests to serve, I think. But I 
 will ask you to take a message for me to a hidden 
 nobleman who passes under the name of B d" 
 (he sank his voice in uttering the word of power), 
 "Captain S n B d. Are you acquainted with 
 him?" the priest scratched his head. 
 
 " Is it a wondrous hairy man ? Hath he a forest on 
 his nose, hairs on his lip and chin, and fierce hairs 
 which push upwards on his throat like ivy on a stock ?
 
 248 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 Is it a loud talker, speaking of things which he knows 
 little about, and the loudlier speaking the less he 
 knoweth? Is he a kidnapper and a horse-stealer ? 
 And doth he affect the use of tongues?" 
 
 "In many things you have rightly drawn the man, 
 but in the accusation of various crimes I hope you 
 are wrong towards him," Percival replied with guilty 
 knowledge painting his ingenuous face. "At least I 
 suppose him to be the hairiest man in this realm. 
 Tell him from Piers, that if he loves yet the youth he 
 loved once, he will do nothing to hasten the inherit- 
 ance nor his own reward." The priest winked one 
 eye as he said, 
 
 " Your message is dark. But shall I not essay it ? " 
 
 "Hush, oh hush!" Percival whispered, finger on 
 lip; "you will undo me." 
 
 "Tush, my lord," quoth the priest, "all shall be 
 well." He left Percival in a cold sweat; and having 
 made him a profound reverence, drew off his people, 
 who went with songs and cheering for Jack Mend-all. 
 Percival resumed his escort with a heavy heart, and 
 in due time had all safe under the shadow of the 
 famous Rood of Boxley. He could not fail to observe 
 the added respect with which the Scrivener treated 
 him, and was minded to turn that honest man's skill 
 to his own advantage before it might be too late. 
 
 For although he knelt before the sacred and won- 
 der-working Image by the side of his tender Mawd- 
 leyn, yet the Image cast its spells in vain. He drew 
 no comfortable assurance out of the rolling eyes and 
 wagging head which made the vulgar admire; but
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 249 
 
 the place held an awe for him apart from all that; 
 and the conviction settled down with a weight of lead 
 in his heart that now or on the morrow he must un- 
 bosom himself to the Prioress of Ambresbury. And 
 was that to be the end of his fond adventure ? Was 
 he to be hounded out of the Prioress's livery as Sir 
 Simon had hounded him out of his? Sir Simon had 
 whipped him for pilfering; might not her Reverence 
 do as much for fibbing? Percival's was that girlish 
 nature that clings the faster for stripes : he knew that 
 the end was not to be then, for Mawdleyn was just 
 such another as he, and when girl's nature loves 
 girl's nature the bond will never be broke. Was 
 such a love as his to be strangled by a confessed fib ? 
 Could he abandon his dear, soft, loving maid because 
 his name was Perceforest and not Thrust wood ? He 
 saw Mawdleyn's long lashes brush her cheek, saw 
 her folded hands, her lovely meekness: he felt lifted 
 up. Ah, for her sake he had had thwackings on his 
 back, for her sake had lain in ditches o' nights, had 
 begged crusts at farmers' doors, had sung dishonest 
 songs to thieves and their drabs in tap-rooms at mid- 
 night. For her sake he had been Captain Brazen- 
 head's nephew, scion of the race of Assurbanipal and 
 Tyrant the White, he had hobnobbed with treason, 
 been misconceived by Smith the Mariner, loosened 
 one groom's teeth, indirectly drowned another, gained 
 a black eye and deceived a noble lady who was so 
 benevolent as to love him. " Sweet Madonna!" he 
 cried, "how I have deceived mankind! Sir Simon 
 Touchett thinks I am a common footboy, whereas I
 
 250 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 am heir to a lord; Captain Brazenhead thinks I am 
 a rebel, and Captain Cade thinks I am not; the Prior- 
 ess thinks me Piers Thrustwood; Mawdleyn must 
 think me a liar which I am; and Master Smith be- 
 lieves me a Glo'ster girl, discreditably attached to 
 (and forsaken by) Captain Brazenhead. Alone in 
 my world, the Scrivener knows me for Percival Perce- 
 forest, the heir of Lord Say; and I am bound to admit 
 that him too I should have deceived if I had thought 
 him worth the while. Is there nobody, then, to 
 whom I have not fibbed or wished to have fibbed? 
 Yes: I had forgotten Dan Costard. That good man 
 is under no misconception as to my real person, be- 
 cause he has never troubled his head about me. To 
 him I will impart my secret. If I am to receive the 
 Sacrament at Canterbury, I must confess to-morrow. 
 He shall shrive me." He concluded tearfully in 
 prayer, and so remained until the Prioress rose from 
 her knees and took Mawdleyn to bed. Full of 
 resolutions for the morrow, Percival also went to 
 bed. 
 
 But Captain Smith drew the Scrivener apart by the 
 parlour fire and said, "Tell me the name of that 
 young spitfire of the Prioress's." 
 
 "His name," said the Scrivener, "on his own con- 
 fession, mind you, is Perceforest." 
 
 The Shipman clapped a hand to his thigh with a 
 noise like a carter's whip. 
 
 "Perceforest!" he thundered. "Perceforest of 
 Gloucester! I remember the lass to a hair long- 
 nosed, thin, snuggling girl spoke softly and kept
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 251 
 
 her eyes cast down. She had a trick of biting her 
 finger I recall, very captivating to youth. Sometimes 
 it would be the corner of her apron better, as being 
 less fanciful. Why, man alive, she used to lean 
 against the door-post in Hare Lane by the hour to- 
 gether, and all the evening through, listening to my 
 protestations and tales of the sea and be at that 
 fingering game all the while! Sakes of me, if I re- 
 member that long-nosed wench or not. And her 
 name was Perceforest now, now, now, was it Moll 
 Perceforest? or Nance? It was Nance. It was 
 never Nance ? What did she say her name was, old 
 parchment?" 
 
 "I don't know what you are talking about, my 
 good friend," said the Scrivener, "and my name is 
 Corbet, descended from Madam Alys, Countess 
 Dowager of Salisbury." The Captain clawed the 
 Scrivener by the knee. 
 
 "Her name was Jenny," he shouted, "Jenny 
 Perceforest, christened Jane! Eh, by the Beacon of 
 our Faith, I'll remind her of that i' the morn ! Now," 
 he pondered, "how did old Brazenguts get hold of 
 such a good girl as that ? And why did she traipse 
 after him across all those shires in a pair of cloth 
 breeches? Is it pure devotion to Thomas? Is it 
 want of heart in the man? It is, by heaven! For 
 why? He has cut and run. Oh, I'll have it out o' 
 Jenny i' the morn." 
 
 "You shall do what you please," replied the 
 Scrivener, tired of all this, "but I shall go to bed." 
 
 "Put me on to a dexterous way," said Captain
 
 252 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 Smith earnestly; "give me my sailing orders, and I 
 steer dead into the heart of Jane." 
 
 "She, as you call him, will deny you point-blank, 
 as I take it," was the Scrivener's judgment. 
 
 "I'll wake her up with a parable," said Captain 
 Smith. "I'll tell her a tale to-morrow will open her 
 eyes." 
 
 "You had much better leave that to me," said the 
 Scrivener. "I know more tales of wonder and ro- 
 mance than you know creeks and bays of England." 
 
 "Then keep your tales of wonder and romance as 
 I keep the creeks and bays of England," said Captain 
 Smith; "and that is until I want 'em to run to. This 
 is my venture." 
 
 " It should also be your wife's venture, if she is the 
 fond woman I think her," the Scrivener observed, 
 with one eye more open than the other. 
 
 "My wife," replied Captain Smith, "knows her 
 duty, I believe; and if you come to that, where's the 
 harm of old acquaintance? Why, I knew Jenny 
 before my wife knew the Christian Dispensation. 
 My wife was a heathen Norse when I was playing 
 hunt-the-slipper wi' Jane. And if a man that hath 
 travelled the lumpy seas may not have a bit o' fun 
 wi' a long-nosed girl he hath known in " 
 
 The Scrivener had gone to bed.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HOW PERCIVAL GOT MORE THAN HE DESERVED, THE 
 
 SHIPMAN LESS, AND CAPTAIN BRAZENHEAD HELD 
 
 OCCASION BY THE TAIL 
 
 AFTER the conversation of the preceding night, the 
 Shipman became reproachful in his tone to Percival. 
 He disregarded the young man's protests that he was 
 not his own sister, that she was a mother of five at 
 Moreton-in-Marsh, and nearly twice his age. "If so 
 be, Jenny," he said, "that you are mother of five 
 lawful imps, the greater the shame of your cropped 
 head. To dance attendance upon an Italianate cut- 
 throat, an ambusher, a blood-pudding man, with 
 husband and babes crying at home fie, Jenny, fie! 
 But you and I, my girl, shall be friends yet. You 
 have not seen the last of Dick Smith." Percival 
 despaired ; but in point of fact his persecutor seemed 
 to give himself the lie, for he left the Prioress's party 
 at Charing and hastened on to Canterbury direct, 
 leaving his wife behind him. 
 
 They reached Harbledown by early afternoon, and 
 stayed there for a few hours, hard by the lazar-house 
 of Saint Nicholas. It was held improper to enter 
 Canterbury unshriven; there was hard work before 
 Dan Costard before any of them dared so much as 
 look for the gold Michael on Bell Harry's top. The 
 
 253
 
 254 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 lepers came clattering out, the good brothers who 
 served them took the horses, the Prioress with her 
 company went into the Chapel, to touch the relic and 
 prepare for confession. Percival's hour was come. 
 Captain Brazenhead was murdering his uncle, and 
 he was about to murder his own happiness. What a 
 position for a boy in love! 
 
 But it seems that not he alone had a weighty con- 
 science to discharge. Consider these facts in order. 
 
 I. The Prioress of Ambresbury confessed that 
 Captain Brazenhead loved her after the precepts of 
 Plato and the Venerable Bede;-also that she loved 
 Piers Thrustwood more as a son than the nephew he 
 was plainly desirous of becoming. 
 
 II. Master Smith's wife confessed that she had 
 spied upon her husband on many late occasions, but 
 especially on the previous night. She said that 
 Piers Thrustwood was, in reality, one Jenny Perce- 
 forest, who had run away with Captain Brazenhead 
 and been deserted by him ; and believed that her hus- 
 band was intending to renew an old acquaintance with 
 the young woman. She owned that she was not to be 
 trusted if he did. As she spoke mostly in sobs and 
 the Norwegian language, Dan Costard was occasion- 
 ally at a loss. 
 
 III. Mawdleyn Touchett confessed that she loved 
 Piers Thrustwood, who was not what he seemed. 
 
 IV. Sister Petronilla confessed that Captain Bra- 
 zenhead had made her a letter-bearer to Mawdleyn 
 Touchett. She did not know what the letter con- 
 tained except by hearsay. She had taken back an
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 255 
 
 answer. When the Prioress told her to apply cold 
 meat to Piers Thrustwood's eye, she gave over her 
 office to Mawdleyn Touchett. She did not know 
 what Mawdleyn Touchett applied, except that it was 
 not cold meat. 
 
 V. Percival Perceforest admitted that this was his 
 name, that he was and had been in love with Mawd- 
 leyn Touchett both before and after his beating; 
 that he was a deceiver of the Prioress, no nephew of 
 Captain Brazenhead, but nephew (on the other hand) 
 of my Lord Say 
 
 "What!" cried Dan Costard, stopping him at this 
 point, "you are not Piers Thrust wood?" 
 
 "No, father," says Percival. 
 
 "Then," says the priest, "the Prioress does not 
 love you as a son, rather than the nephew you are 
 plainly desirous of becoming." 
 
 "Alack, but I do desire it," Percival owned. 
 
 "Never mind that now," replied Dan Costard; 
 "one thing at a time. The Lady Prioress loves Piers 
 Thrustwood as a son; but if there is no such person 
 she can have no such love. Her absolution, there- 
 fore, is easy." 
 
 "Then she loves not me, father," said Percival 
 sorrowfully, "for I have just told you that I am not 
 Piers Thrustwood at all." 
 
 "But what do you say about Master Smith's wife," 
 the priest continued, "and her ugly tale about Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead?" 
 
 Percival felt this to be a comparatively easy matter. 
 "I say, my reverend, that my name is Perceforest,
 
 256 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 and own that I have a sister Jenny, but I deny that 
 I am she." 
 
 "You are sure?" asked Dan Costard. "Very 
 well, then. Smith's wife can be shriven. Now there 
 is Mistress Mawdleyn, loving Piers Thrust wood, who 
 is not what he seems. What have you to say?" , 
 
 "Oh, sir, oh, sir," Percival urged, with pleading 
 looks, "Mawdleyn loves me, and I love Mawdleyn. 
 And for that reason I was beaten by Sir Simon, and 
 came creeping back ; and for that reason I told fibs, 
 and for that reason I confess them. Further I say, 
 that if I cannot have her, I must die." 
 
 "Well," says Dan Costard, hand on chin, "and 
 why not? It will make everything simple, it seems 
 to me." 
 
 "But if I die, I cannot have Mawdleyn, good 
 father." 
 
 "Tush!" cried Father Costard, "we are beating 
 the air. Get your Lord Say to plead your cause." 
 
 "Alas, dear father, I fear the worst for him," says 
 Percival mournfully. 
 
 "Then you can plead your own cause, my boy," 
 replied the priest briskly; "for then you will be his 
 lordship. But I must insist upon your making a clean 
 breast of it to my lady; this you shall promise me 
 before I shrive you." 
 
 "Sir," said Percival, "it is in the making. I do 
 but wait to ask Master Corhet, the Scrivener, to in- 
 scribe it fair upon a sheepskin." 
 
 "Very good," said Dan Costard, and shrived him. 
 Percival spent the rest of his time dictating his lowly
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 257 
 
 confession to the Scrivener, but what with the inter- 
 ruption of his own remorseful tears and the emenda- 
 tions of that worthy man he had got no farther than 
 the words, "The humble cry of the heart of P ," 
 when the summons to the road came from the un- 
 conscious intended recipient. Percival was called to 
 do his squire's duty, and worse, he was bid to tell a 
 tale. This he did, as all the world may know if it 
 care, with direct application to his case, showing how 
 misadventure may be piled on misadventure, and 
 misconception on misconception, in affairs of the 
 heart, until (as in his tale) a young man named 
 Galeotto may wed a young man named Eugenio, 
 and Camilla (a young woman), a young woman, 
 Estella, all for the sake of love. It is not by any 
 means certain that this entirely met his own position, 
 as he no doubt intended that it should; what is be- 
 yond controversy is that it did point out the danger- 
 ous state of his relations with the Shipman, and very 
 much affected the Shipman's true wife. 
 
 So much was this the case that when the tale was 
 ended, which was after supper in the parlour of the 
 Prior of Christ-church, Mistress Gundrith had a fit 
 of coughing and weeping intermixed, and retired, as 
 she said, to bed. But it is now known that she did 
 not go thither. The intentions also of Percival 
 were widely different from his performances. His 
 resolution had been to charm the Prioress first by 
 his romancing and to melt her afterward by his tears. 
 He charmed her, it is true, but his tears fell on stony 
 ground. For 'they fell upon the bosom of Master
 
 258 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 Richard Smith, who, having thrown a handkerchief 
 over his head, had picked him up in the quadrangle 
 (where the lad had gone to compose his mind) , pelted 
 with him in the dark down Mercery Lane, and now 
 held him in the cellar of the little beerhouse, comfort- 
 ing him with flagons and protesting against all his 
 rage that they should be married in the morn and sail 
 with the first tide. It was then, and not till then, 
 that Percival found out what he owed to the great 
 Captain Brazenhead. For he but I anticipate. 
 
 At five o'clock in the morning there came a flying 
 messenger into Canterbury bearing letters for the 
 Prioress of Ambresbury's grace. These were from 
 her brother Sir Simon Touchett and thus conceived: 
 
 LOVING SISTER: After my hearty commendations, 
 these let you wite that you must by all means do 
 honour to one Master Perceforest who I believe is 
 with you. At the least I traced him as far as Winton, 
 which I know he left in your company. Fail me not 
 herein as you tender my welfare. And the Blessed 
 Trinity preserve you in His keeping, and give you 
 all your desires. From your brother, Si. Touchett, 
 Kt. Postcriptum. I pray you, Sister, be temperate 
 with my daughter Mawdleyn. And if the said Mr. 
 Perceforest will take her with a fair manor of forty 
 pound for dowry, let it be so o' God's name. I fear 
 I have no more to bestow, for times are hard, and the 
 crops very light this year, owing to the dry weather. 
 I pray God amend it. If the said Mr. Perceforest 
 shows signs of grudge against me for misadventure
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 259 
 
 and for what I must call shameful mishandling in 
 the past, tell him, I pray you, that I will meet him 
 hereafter on my old knees. Item, I will give two 
 manors of eighty pound clear with my daughter 
 Mawdleyn. I beseech God to grant you a fair re- 
 ward for your pilgrimage. Your man Costard will 
 marry my daughter to the said Mr. Perceforest. 
 Item, Item, I will give a fair thirty-pound land with 
 the said two manors. 
 
 S. T., KT. 
 
 A letter for the "right worshipful and his loving 
 friend Mr. Percival Perceforest" was enclosed; and 
 the Prioress, after reading this also, sent for Piers 
 Thrustwood. At this moment Mawdleyn's soft 
 cheek was against her own, and Mawdleyn's soft 
 heart discerned to be beating in fine disorder. 
 "Dear madam, dear aunt," said this melting beauty. 
 "I beseech you to be a good aunt to poor Mawdleyn. 
 All he did was for love." 
 
 "I think so indeed, child," said the Prioress; "and 
 no offence either, it seems. But I ask in vain, why 
 was the poor young man whipped for what he is now 
 to be coaxed back to with forty-pound lands?" 
 
 "He will need no coaxing, dear madam," Mawd- 
 leyn assured her. But it appeared that he would need 
 much coaxing. He could not be found. He was 
 not in his bed, he had not been in bed, had not been 
 seen since bed-time. Neither had the Shipman's 
 wife been to lied. "Is it possible," thought the 
 Prioress, "is it humanly possible that my brother
 
 260 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 knows more than I do ? Is it humanly possible that 
 Piers, or Percival, is running after Smith's wife?" 
 
 Far from that, Smith's wife was at this moment 
 running after Percival. Percival Perceforest in his 
 shirt, breeches, and one of his stockings was flying 
 for his life through the streets of Canterbury. Close 
 at his heels came Smith's wife, behind her a delighted 
 pack of citizens, crying, "Hold thief, hold! Take 
 the rogue alive! Rope, rope, rope!" and other like 
 words. How long the chase had held, I say not ; I 
 know that it could have held little longer. Percival's 
 breath was gone, his eyes were dim, his feet cut, his 
 shirt and breeches barely acquainted. Bricks, mud, 
 sticks, stones whizzed by his ears. "Peg him down! 
 Peg him down!" were ominous sounds of prepara- 
 tion. Percival set his back against a wall and pre- 
 pared to die hard. On came the mob; another 
 minute had been his last. As if rushing upon what 
 he could not avoid, Percival gave a sudden glad cry 
 and sprang out toward his enemies. But as he did 
 so, these parted from behind whether by express 
 command or intuitive sense, can never truly be 
 known. Percival ran through his late pursuers and 
 fell panting into the arms of a Cardinal who, properly 
 attended by his foot-page, was advancing down the 
 street. The amazed inhabitants saw this Prince of 
 the Church enfold and kiss a young man who was 
 believed to have murdered a sailor in Mercery Lane. 
 It need not be said that His Eminence, who was 
 inordinately hairy, and fierce in the eye, was Captain 
 Brazenhead in disguise.
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 261 
 
 His first care was to get rid of the ragtails who 
 threatened the peace. "Avoid, good people," was 
 his sublime assurance ; " he whom you seek is not here. 
 He is elsewhere." His air, his hair, his hat, his cas- 
 sock and tippet of flame-red, did their work. The 
 men of Canterbury doffed their bonnets to His 
 Eminence and suffered him to lead away their mur- 
 derer whither he would. Mistress Smith raised 
 shrill cries, but to no purpose. When she denounced 
 Percival, they referred her to the Cardinal. When 
 she scoffed at His Eminence, they referred her to the 
 devil, and so left her. His Eminence led his young 
 friend into the great church, and producing a bundle 
 from under his arm, said with great apparatus of 
 whispering and tapping of the nose, "Take this 
 token, Percival, of my travail for you." Percival 
 unfolded the head of my Lord Say: deeply shocked, 
 he gazed at it. 
 
 "Let me not raise false hopes in you, dear Per- 
 cival," said Captain Brazenhead. "Your late au- 
 gust kinsman was not beheaded, as this gift would 
 seem to imply, and as his rank surely warranted. 
 In fact, the ground of my quarrel with Captain Cade 
 (Mortimer as he foolishly calls himself) was this, 
 should my Lord Say be hanged or sworded? I 
 named the sword, but Jack would have the rope. I 
 exposed the infamy of this: Jack strung him up. We 
 quarrelled irrevocably. Jack led his men towards 
 London and certain ruin. May Jack go in peace! 
 I believe he is a fool, and know him to be without the 
 feelings of a gentleman. A ridiculous, yet fortunate,
 
 262 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 adventure brings me to your rescue. You remember 
 the Prioress's knave whom I laid in a drain on your 
 account ? This boy (and I speak to his credit) , filled 
 with revengeful feelings, followed me all the way, and 
 at Kemsing denounced me to a justice as his ravish- 
 er and the thief of his clothes. Unworthy, you say ? 
 Far from that, it is for that reason I have advanced 
 him. I was forced to disguise myself as you see. 
 But what a plight I find you in! Where is your 
 jacket? Where are your shoes? Where are your 
 points ? What have you been about ? No scandal, 
 I hope?" 
 
 "Scandal!" cried Percival, growing very red, "I 
 say it was scandalous; but I served him well for it." 
 
 "Meaning whom?" asked the Captain; and Per- 
 cival told him: "The Shipman Smith, who would 
 have it that I was my sister Jane, and carried me off 
 with a towel over my head." 
 
 "The man is a silly fool, as I always knew," said 
 Captain Brazenhead; "but it must have been simple 
 to satisfy him." 
 
 "Simple or not," says Percival, "I did it. For I 
 cut his face open with a grindstone." 
 
 "You did very well, bawcock, failing a foot and a 
 half of Toledo," cried the Captain. "By my faith, 
 I know not how a gentleman of your parts could 
 have done better. But we have more solemn busi- 
 ness on hand. You and I will go and declare our- 
 selves to the Lady Prioress. I fancy your affair 
 if you are still in mind for it will go better hence- 
 forward."
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 263 
 
 Percival grew suddenly grave. "Alas, dear sir," 
 he said, "but I was carried off from my mistress be- 
 fore I could confess to her the wicked truth." 
 
 "You will find the truth not half so wicked as you 
 suppose, my lord," said the Captain. "Come, I 
 will conduct your lordship." 
 
 "But, sir, consider the danger to yourself," Per- 
 cival faltered but, even so, sensibly changing aspect 
 as the new address warmed him. 
 
 "Myself, ha?" the Captain snorted. "I am suf- 
 ficiently protected by my disguise, I hope. I warrant 
 you there will be no trouble on that score. More- 
 over, that boy who denounced me so took my fancy 
 for the fact that I have engaged him as my foot-page. 
 Have no fear for me, but come, my dear lord, come." 
 
 The magnificent Cardinal Brazenhead, every inch 
 a prelate and a prince, took the arm of Percival, who 
 was far from looking what he actually was; and 
 caused the hall porter of the Priory to announce the 
 Lord Cardinal of Magnopolis and my Lord Say, 
 to wait upon the Prioress of Ambresbury. I should 
 fail to find words proper to express the surprise of the 
 venerable lady. But Captain Brazenhead by no 
 means failed. He was at once the courtier, the 
 Churchman, and the deferential lover (in Plato's 
 vein). The moment he was face to face with the 
 lady, he advanced toward her, took and kissed her 
 hand. His page in attendance held his tasselled hat 
 crimson on a black silk cushion. 
 
 "At last, dear lady," he said with a happy sigh, 
 "at last my tiresome disguises are over! I can greet
 
 264 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 
 
 your ladyship without fatigue and without embarrass- 
 ment." 
 
 "Oh, my lord! Oh, sir !" the Prioress began 
 but he put up a deprecating hand. 
 
 "Titles of ceremony between us!" he said with 
 gentle amazement. "Lady, you and I know too 
 much evil of the world to affect the world's cozening 
 caresses. We, if you take my meaning, have suf- 
 fered, and laboured, ah, and loved, too long on earth 
 to feel any solace out of things like these. But" 
 he went on, waving the shamefaced Percival into the 
 discussion "but with the young it is otherwise. An 
 eyass falcon, dear madam, may take pride in her 
 opening plumage, I suppose. Here, madam, is this 
 noble youth, whom you knew as Piers Thrustwood, 
 and I as my dearest nephew, Mr. Percival Perce- 
 forest, now (by the unhappy death of his kinsman) 
 my Lord Baron of Say: here, madam, is he for whose 
 advantage I adventured as a captain of men's bodies, 
 where men's souls, perchance, are more under my 
 care. His dear kinsman is unhappily slain by rebels; 
 and he (barely escaping with his own young golden 
 life) stands before you ashamed of the deceit 
 forced upon him, glorying in the stripes wherewith 
 your brother anointed his princely back, and burning 
 (if I may speak of such matters) for the tardy bliss he 
 has dared such hardships to win. My dear lord and 
 nephew" he turned to Percival "salute my friend 
 the Prioress of Ambresbury." The young Lord Say 
 knelt down before her. 
 
 "Oh, madam, believe me " he began to stam-
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF KENT 265 
 
 mer; but the Prioress raised him and gave him a kiss. 
 
 "My sweet lord, my dear Percival," she said, "you 
 shall believe that we love you very much. Come. 
 My charge awaits you." 
 
 She shook him by the hand and led him into her 
 chamber, where Mawdleyn Touchett was picking 
 her hem to pieces. 
 
 "Master," said the Cardinal's new page, "if my 
 mistress casts an eye on me she'll have me horsed for 
 bathing at Winton." 
 
 The Cardinal looked him over. "My lad," said 
 he, " the Prioress is my very good friend. Moreover, 
 you must have a rind like a porpoise to stand the May 
 frosts on your naked skin. I shall make something 
 of you yet. Go, boy, purvey me beer from the Rain- 
 bow. I do furiously thirst." 
 
 It is proper to add that the Prioress, Dan Costard, 
 Percival Lord Say, and Mistress Mawdleyn Touchett 
 paid their homage at the Shrine of St. Thomas; and 
 that Captain Brazenhead was appointed Steward of 
 the Manors of Westerham, Knockholt, and Froghole, 
 with a reversion of the Office of High Bailiff of the 
 Lordship of Sevenoaks. 
 
 History knows no more of Master Richard Smith, 
 Mariner of Kingston-upon-Hull, nor of Gundrith his 
 wife, native of Norway.
 
 BOOK IV 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE
 
 BOOK IV 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 IN his later years, having become a thought pursy 
 in habit, having allowed himself a full beard and 
 ceased to occupy his leisure in extracting the white 
 hairs from it, Captain Brazenhead was also grown 
 sententious. He was fond of dwelling not only upon 
 the comfort which he now enjoyed, but also upon the 
 services by which he had so well earned it. To en- 
 sure his own self-respect, I think, the more he was 
 aware of the one the more did he exalt the other. 
 And it may well be that he overshot his mark. To 
 hear him, as four nights a week he was heard by a 
 cowed company at The Man of Renown in Seven- 
 oaks, you would have thought him sheriff of a county 
 at the least, but the deeds whereby he became what 
 he was become could hardly, upon his showing, have 
 earned him less than the seigniory of Almain. He 
 might he ought to have been a Prince Palatine, 
 a Margrave, or a Cardinal- Archbishop; instead of 
 which he was steward, we know as a fact, of the 
 Manor of Knockholt a respectable post, but really 
 no more than that. "The dignity of my high office, 
 
 269
 
 270 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 the fealty I bear to our Lord the King, my headship 
 over men, my discretion over women (pretty fools!) " 
 these resounding exordiums related indeed to no 
 greater office. A man of generous conceit! So it 
 was, in truth, with his gear as it was with his rank. 
 "These ancient halls, this venerable cradle of my 
 race" exorbitantly described his decent lodging with 
 the widow Fych at Goose Green; "my broad acres, 
 that goodly demesne won by this arm in bloody 
 field" told you of his garden of shalotts, two perches 
 of land held by the widow as her dower, in the which 
 Captain Brazenhead in shirt and breeches might be 
 seen of fine mornings sweating like a porous pitcher. 
 But so it was with this great man that, if telling could 
 make a thing great, it became as great as he. 
 
 It is a fact that he was in easy circumstances and 
 had been so ever since, as the reader will remember, 
 the young Lord Say, in the first flush of his gratitude 
 to the most extraordinary man alive in England, had 
 bestowed upon him the stewardship aforesaid. This 
 office, one year with another, brought the Captain in 
 some fifty marks a year and a green goose at Michael- 
 mas. Then there were the pickings: at Christmas a 
 capon, common of pasture for his horse, estovers, 
 driftwood, drink at the Court Leet, drink at the 
 Court Baron, a mark here for a wedding, half a mark 
 there for the return of an heir. All hands agreed that 
 the Captain made himself snug, and would die rich, 
 if he did not go too far. That he did not so go was 
 not his fault; he went as far as he could, but not near 
 so far as he would. "God ha' mercy upon these
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 271 
 
 Kentish men," he used to say, "for I, his gerent, will 
 have none." That was after a bold attempt of his 
 to revive some of the more ancient droits de seigneur 
 under the pretence of a charter of Edward the Con- 
 fessor. The attempt had failed, partly because the 
 Captain had been too precipitate, partly because the 
 proposed subject, one Agnes Fillhungre, had smacked 
 his face. He had appealed urbi et orbi, but in vain. 
 Was not Merchela mulierum granted? Was it not 
 concordant with the laws of the realm, and the laws 
 of nature which say, Take what thou canst get? 
 Lord of light, was it not? "If, by Cock," he had 
 cried, "a lord of the land hath not the parts and pas- 
 sions proper to his grace, and if I, his familiar, his 
 counterpart, the twin-pea of him, the shadow of his 
 splendour in 'this lordship of Knockholt, have them 
 not, then am I of all men miserable, and no man at 
 all, but a Grand Turk's singing-boy and so shall 
 ye be, dogs and dogs' daughters!" 
 
 Thus he had cried to the matrons of Knockholt 
 on a hiring day, holding Agnes Fillhungre firmly by 
 the ear but his indignation was in vain; for not hav- 
 ing the fear of God, they set upon him with besoms, 
 and Agnes squealed like a young porker at ringing- 
 time. There had nearly been a riot among the 
 women, and the case was so that the champion of 
 ancient institutions was advised to retire. He had 
 consolations we know that it was so : there was 
 Kate Comfre, she was one; there was MairBythe- 
 hedge (that wheedler); there was Joan the Reiver. 
 And there were others there were others. But as
 
 272 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 time wore on, and his life wore with it a deeper rut 
 in this most arable world, his actions became more 
 orderly, and (by consequence) his recollections the 
 more inordinate. 
 
 As for them, I have before now provided you with 
 some of them, in a chastened form, as becomes an 
 historian who values the truth above all things in this 
 world, including his own talents and the prowess of 
 his hero. Captain Brazenhead's own views of truth 
 are well known; he held it in veneration. It had 
 always been so in his stormy youth, it was so now 
 when he sat in the ingle of the Man of Renown, toss- 
 ing one foot in the air, stroking his portly beard or 
 sharpening his teeth with a file a favourite trick of 
 his. "By this sword," he would cry to the auditors, 
 "by this sword wherewith I slew the Sophy of Persia, 
 I would let that man go free, cringed he here now, 
 spilt he here his triple crown and rope of balass rubies 
 at my foot, ah, but I would so, could I charge myself 
 before this company with paltering with the truth. 
 For mark you well what once I told the Holy Father 
 as he and I hobnobbed over our toasted cheese 
 and pippins in ale in the city of Antioch and year 
 of Christ's mercy fourteen hundred and fourteen. 
 'Gossip/ said I to that man, and drove a chapped 
 finger into his left pap, 'tell me the truth,' said I, 
 'and then but not otherwise we gamesters may cheat 
 the rope.' And he owned that I was in the right 
 and with contrition promised amendment of life, 
 properer conversation, and curtailment of strong 
 drink. And then he asked me his benefit of clergy,
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 273 
 
 which, seeing that he was old in years and grave-ripe 
 this dozen of them, I gave him, being then Castellan 
 of that coast, and Warden of the Marches over 
 against Samaria. So now, then, you see what man- 
 ner of man it is that invites your ear." They did. 
 
 But in accidentals, in such excursions as he was 
 pleased to make from the main thread of his narra- 
 tive, in what you may call the "Notes and Illustra- 
 tions" of his theme, I do think that he sometimes 
 strayed. I cannot identify seven ladies, each of 
 whom he may have called wife, still less seventeen. 
 Of his tall sons, whether they numbered seven, seven- 
 teen, seventy-seven, or none (for the accounts of 
 them vary), I have found no trace at all. I cannot 
 believe that all his daughters (if any) married sover- 
 eign princes; for though I have not searched the 
 parish registers of Europe, Asia Minor, the Duchy 
 of Muscovy, and the Barbary States, I go by prob- 
 abilities. I say bluntly, from what I know of Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead, that he was no Lear to let his ailing 
 reason fritter out his spleen. I ask the candid stu- 
 dent, would so potent a begetter have remained 
 steward of the Manor of Knockholt, had there been 
 but one Cordelia among those princesses who called 
 him sire? I cannot suppose it. And in any event 
 the point is immaterial, since his daughters (if any) 
 do not come into this narrative, though his wives 
 (fatal plural!), or some of them, most fatally do. 
 
 Exaggeration is natural to the teller of oft-told 
 tales. The number of his exploits increased with 
 his years. "Ten times left for dead; trampled
 
 274 TH E LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 twelve times out by the rearguard of the host I had 
 led to victory ... in prisons frequent, in deaths not 
 divisible . . . ' Thus his mortifications grew, as 
 the careful reader will remark, by some twice them- 
 selves every few years; and thus, I cannot but think, 
 swelled the number of his triumphant trophies of 
 chivalry. I give below a remarkable list, which 
 speaks for itself better than any brave words of mine 
 could do. And so it shall, when I have prepared the 
 student for a curious obliquity in it whereby the com- 
 piler was accustomed to add to the sum of heroic 
 deeds which he had performed, the number of the 
 extremely unheroic which he had refrained from 
 performing as if omission to achieve scandalous 
 feats were in itself a feat. Perhaps he is right; but 
 the list of his conquests, expressed in souls, shall now 
 be given: 
 
 "With this sword and quivering arm have I 
 Of men-at-arms, slain incontinent and with shock, 
 
 Sped 2,000 souls. 
 Of armies put to flight, by craft, strategy, or frontal 
 
 attack, Shamed 15,000 souls. 
 
 Of chief cities, starved, carried, ruined, havocked, 
 and put to the sword, 
 
 Slain at the least 360,000 souls. 
 
 Of Heathens, Anabaptists, Incendiaries, Atheists, 
 
 Jews, Rebels, Sheep-stealers, and Hedgerow men, 
 
 Cut in strips 321 souls. 
 
 Of inspired Maidens confronted in the light of day 
 and put to rebuke . . . . Discomfited i soul
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 275 
 
 Of Popes of Christendom taught the rudiments of 
 
 their affair, At the least, 2 souls. 
 
 Of Convents of religious unsacked through the fear 
 of God and arrival of the posse . Excused 10 souls. 
 Of Malefactors left alive, 
 
 If they have souls, then 5 souls. 
 Of Sepulchres rescued from the Infidel, 
 
 Say, i Sepulchre. 
 
 We reach, the reader sees, the astonishing total, 
 in men and sepulchres alone, and not counting walls, 
 towers, horses, ships, barbicans, cathedrals, bed- 
 chambers, and the like, of three hundred thirty-seven 
 thousand three hundred and thirty-nine souls and 
 one sepulchre. These figures speak for themselves; 
 and will be all the preface I require for the great, 
 unheard-of, and not to be paralleled occurrences 
 which I have now to relate. They are all the pref- 
 ace, I say, but they are an indispensable preface, 
 the minimum of preface with which I can accomplish 
 my serious task.
 
 II 
 
 I m 
 
 WITH his patron and patroness, my Lord and Lady 
 Say, in their great castle of Knole, the relations of 
 Captain Brazenhead (through whom, he would oft- 
 time say "they were what they were") were not what 
 they had been in earlier days. It is not unnatural: 
 youth is prone to oblivion. My Lord Say, when he 
 stood as Percival Perceforest, a slim youth somewhat 
 quick to tears, had almost been in the patronage of 
 Captain Brazenhead. Finding him abandoned to 
 his grief in the nave of Winchester Minster, the great 
 soldier had idly picked him up for his occasion and 
 idly served him, when he had first served himself. Per- 
 cival, now Lord Say, forgot all that : Captain Brazen- 
 head, steward of one of his manors, did not. So 
 with her ladyship. Of her, then Mistress Mawdleyn 
 Touchett, he had been wont to speak as a "morsel", 
 or a "toothsome piece"; he had muttered, eyeing her, 
 "curds and cream"; he had called her a cuddling 
 girl. Boy and girl as he had seen them, he had 
 brought them together with a shrug, and left them 
 together with a chuckle. True, he had taken his 
 dues, his wages if you will: but look at it! "To the 
 Barony of Say conferred upon one P. Perceforest, a 
 weeper. . . . Per contra Stewardship of the Manor 
 
 276
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 277 
 
 of Knockholt." It looks ridiculous, so put. And 
 again: "To P. Perceforest, a slip of melancholy, 
 brought into the arms of her who ached, and there 
 left to make her a lady of the land, to say nothing of 
 the mother of peers. . . . Per contra Stewardship 
 of the Manor of Knockholt." Fie upon a penurious 
 world! Here was matter for a grudge. 
 
 But the world moved on with these young persons 
 as with him, their stinted benefactor, and if his exploits 
 loomed larger to Captain Brazenhead they waned the 
 smaller to his lordship. There had been a grudge 
 on one part, there was a coldness on the other. My 
 lord was become a courtier, my lady a mother. 
 My lord was often at Windsor, my lady was not. 
 My lord would tap his chin at dinner, leaning back in 
 his great chair, and begin his conversation, "As the 
 King's Grace said to me in the long gallery, 'Good 
 my lord . . . ' ", or "When the prince and I were 
 at supper, and fair Mistress Jane between us ..." 
 To which my lady never, by any chance, cared to lis- 
 ten, but thought the more diligently of her own little 
 affairs: of what Robin had whispered in the Arras 
 Chamber, and still more of what he would whisper 
 there, of what took place when she and Sir Harry 
 were at supper, and, again, of what might take place 
 when they would next be supping. My lord, in short, 
 was too often at Windsor, and my lady too seldom ; 
 by which it resulted that Captain Brazenhead fre- 
 quented the Castle and demesne of Knole, and my 
 lady found that she could not do without him. If a 
 gentleman cease to make love to his lady some other
 
 278 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 gentleman will almost certainly do it ; and if a gentle- 
 man cease to take notice of his benefactor, that bene- 
 factor will transfer his benefactions to a more grateful 
 client. The occasions of my Lady Say, therefore, 
 flattered Captain Brazenhead 's self-esteem, soothed 
 his pique, and encouraged his services where they 
 were desired. And he was of the greatest possible 
 service. 
 
 It had been Captain Brazenhead, and no less a 
 man, who had held the ladder to her casement while 
 Sir John Caunt was breathing vows against the glass. 
 "Up with you, Sir John, and play the man," had been 
 his exhortation and up went Sir John. It had been 
 he too who, when that famous poet, my Lord Clun, 
 in his own despair and her honour, had cast himself 
 down from a reasonably tall tree, saying, "Earth, 
 receive me! Mawdleyn hath broken my heart, break 
 thou in mercy the casket of it" it had been Captain 
 Brazenhead, I say, who had procured the trusses 
 of hay upon which he was to expire, saying, " Down 
 with thee, pretty boy, and suppose her to be there," 
 and he again who had brought to my lady, waiting in 
 the arbour, the joyful news of my lord's fluttering 
 breath, which would reassure her that he still lived. 
 And when it became very necessary to tell the too fer- 
 vid gentleman that he must hold off for a while, and 
 that the virtuous wife could not listen to what was 
 meant for the hearing of the tender friend, Captain 
 Brazenhead did that delicate office after his manner. 
 "By Cock and his father, my lord, I would give her 
 time. What said Joggin to the tinker's drab?"
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 279 
 
 What or what not he said, we shall never know; but 
 my Lord of dim removed himself for two months of 
 the summer, and went over sea; and my Lady took 
 a retreat with the Minoresses of Guildford, and all 
 was indifferent well. 
 
 Now this was the state of affairs upon the fatal 
 night of Lammas in the year 1477. Pray be so good 
 as to remark the date. Seventh child of a seventh 
 child, born out of time in the seventh month, he was 
 now in the year 1477. 
 
 He ought to have known, belike he did know that 
 Fate could hardly pass over such an occasion as this. 
 Whether he knew or not, he held his head high when 
 he received from the lips of Margaret Mallow the 
 summons to the grapple. Margaret Mallow, the full- 
 favoured, the sloe-eyed, the apple-cheeked, had come 
 to his lodging, and had up and spoke. The Captain, 
 high in wine and beef, had saluted her according to 
 his wont, and she had said, "Fie, Captain, for what 
 do you take me?" His answer had been and the 
 very stars in their courses, I think, had stayed them 
 to hear "I take you, Meg, for my comfort and 
 solace. By this warm heart that never yet called 
 maiden wife, hear me swear." Rash asseveration, 
 rash oath! 
 
 She heard him swear in such fashion that her heart 
 beat: and at that moment the church clock struck 
 seven, and a very bright star left its socket in the 
 vault and flew, burning red, right across the zenith, 
 and disappeared with a noise like an iron in water. 
 Captain Brazenhead started and looked all about,
 
 280 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 but did not take his arm from Meg Mallow's 
 middle. 
 
 "By Cock, am I called?" he said; "by Cock, am 
 I ? Fling forth, my fancy, and flout Fate," said he. 
 
 These are memorable words.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 UPON this same fateful night, all in the twittering 
 dark, stood Captain Brazenhead in what he did not 
 then know to be the very nick of Destiny. He had 
 thought it to be the trysting tree, a holm-oak of un- 
 known antiquity and high veneration ; really, it was 
 much more, being indeed what, in a figure, I have indi- 
 cated. There stood he muffled to the eyes in his red 
 cloak, with his sword acock behind him as stiff as a 
 pointer's tail, in one hand a dark lantern, in the other 
 his feathered cap there stood he, as many and many 
 a time he had stood before ; and over against him, near 
 enough to be provoking, yet far enough to be mystify- 
 ing, was the tremulous, hooded, and bescarfed form 
 of a lady as many and many a time had lady 
 been before. Now this lady was not the Meg Mal- 
 low of the previous chapter, although that buxom 
 and wholesome girl was within hearing distance, but 
 her mistress of life and member, my Lady Say, once 
 Mawdleyn Touchett the plump, the brown-eyed 
 plumper now and fuller in the eye. She indeed was 
 upon her fair knees before Captain Brazenhead, and 
 if her eyes were fuller it was because they were full 
 of tears. Tears welled freely from her fine eyes, be- 
 dabbled her cheeks, relaxed the guard of her lips, 
 
 281
 
 282 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 and gave her heart dangerous eloquence. To hear 
 her were to have an education in love but Captain 
 Brazenhead was an old prizeman there. Where she 
 was humid he was dry. 
 
 "O Salomon, O dearest friend!" 
 
 "Tut, my dumpling of pleasure," said he. 
 
 "O Salomon, but I am frightened for myself." 
 
 "The more pavid you, the fiercer my smart." 
 
 "But he will beat me, my friend!" 
 
 "Ay, as the cook whips batter to be the sweeter 
 fare." 
 
 She still implored from her knees, she still be- 
 sought. "Ah, do you not love poor Mawdleyn?" 
 
 The Captain's eyes were wide afield, and his hand 
 was now to his chin. Before his heart dangled the 
 dark lantern, swinging from his little finger. "Ay, 
 lady, I love, I love!" he muttered but he said no 
 more. The fact was that he knew very well where 
 Meg Mallow kept her distance, and exactly how 
 much import this conversation must have for her. 
 She must know she did know that he was a lover. 
 More than that she need not know. His hastily 
 formed shift was ingenious; but it did not serve. 
 
 The lady rose from her knees, and drew the scarf 
 over her bosom. "You speak strangely, Master 
 Brazenhead," she said. "I see that I have been de- 
 ceived in you " 
 
 "By Cock, as how?" he thrust in, but she con- 
 tinued: 
 
 " Fare you well. I shall pray for you, as Christians 
 do pray for their enemies. Myself and my sad for-
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 283 
 
 tunes must be served elsewhere." And now she 
 turned him her back. 
 
 Nothing stirred Captain Brazenhead so sharply as 
 to be told that anybody, anywhere, could serve a 
 suitor better than himself. It stung him like a wasp. 
 With a "ha!" which sounded like a snort caught in 
 the folds of a sneeze, he strode forward and took 
 her by the hand. To her averted head he gave the 
 shock of battle. "Tush, madam, tush!" cried he. 
 "By the Lord, I love you in a tantrum, and was 
 tempted to be sententious, as you see. I spake in 
 saws, I was pithy pith is in the very dregs of me. 
 Be lenitive to the old soldier, sweet madam, to the 
 battle-bruised old Snake of Milan late tyrant of that 
 city who for your favours would brave the death- 
 rattles and rigours of a thousand men. Ay! so 
 would he, though Golias stood there, and Fierabras 
 and Mahompelian, the thrice- victorious, with his leg 
 of brass. Hear me, madam, for I speak advisedly. 
 Greatly as I have dared, greatlier will I now. De- 
 plorably as I have loved O eyes of sloe! let your 
 rosy heart deplore me now. I tell you, madam, in 
 most dreadful calm, with this sword shall kings spill 
 purple at your feet if you have an inkling that way ; 
 but not unless. If that will meet your ladyship's 
 case, by Cock " 
 
 It would seem that it did. Mollified, she suffered 
 him to lift her caught hand to his lips. The lantern 
 dangled and flashed as the white hand was drawn 
 to what Captain Brazenhead called its home. The 
 ceremony performed "What seek you now of me,
 
 284 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 lady?" he asked. "Breathe it low oh, low! lest 
 the trees should hear you and fall upon us both in a 
 jealous pet. Such things are done under moon and 
 stars. Dan Ovid says so." 
 
 Lady Say regained her hand as she had already 
 her composure. " The tree is well rooted, I believe," 
 she said, "and has taken six hundred years to do it 
 in. It is probable that you will be spared to befriend 
 me. But do you love me indeed? For love will be 
 required of you." 
 
 "Love!" cried Captain Brazenhead, to whom the 
 vow was as the trumpet to a courser, as the Sohol to 
 a hawk a-wing and with a maiden attentive under a 
 neighbouring tree! "Love, by Mahomed! O lady 
 O lady !" He drew his sword and held it aloft. 
 The lantern swung like a clapper in the wind. 
 "By this sword, by this notch-fringed sword, as 
 brown with old blood as a kettle in a pond hear 
 me swear!" 
 
 This was not to the lady's purpose by any means. 
 "I had rather not hear you swear, my friend," she 
 said, "if for no better reason than that the vicinage 
 must needs hear you also, and for that secrecy is as 
 much in my business as haste. Let me not hear you 
 say anything, but rather see you do something, and 
 for our Lady's sake, hot-foot." 
 
 "My foot roasts, lady," said Captain Brazenhead. 
 "To your matter." 
 
 "My matter," said she, "is simple. The Lord of 
 Clun wears about his neck my forefinger ring. He 
 must wear it no longer than this day fortnight, for in
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 285 
 
 three weeks my lord returns to Knole, and if he 
 miss it from my finger he will beat me. Now you 
 know the ring." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead did know it. "The ring, the 
 ring! Often have I kissed it, as God liveth to give 
 rings. That ring was a plain hoop of gold wire 
 wherein a sard-stone of size whereon a figure of the 
 boy Amor, quite naked, entangled by the wings in a 
 net. And you gave it to the songster fie, lady!" 
 
 "I gave it hmi," said she, "out of pity. Upon the 
 day when he cast himself from this tree for my sake, 
 and was brought upon a hurdle to my chamber, upon 
 that fatal day did I give him the ring." 
 
 " Tush," said Captain Brazenhead. "And now " 
 
 "And now," she said, speaking vehemently and 
 with quickened breath, "and now I must have it 
 again though you saw him in two." 
 
 "That," said Captain Brazenhead darkly, "will 
 be the easy way. I shall devise a better." 
 
 "He did not take it as I had intended. He pre- 
 sumed upon it he did not know an honest lady, 
 whose heart might be touched, whose heart might be 
 conscious of hurt and neglect from a husband ten- 
 derly loved but who could never have supposed 
 no, never " 
 
 "A truce to your ladyship's suppositions," said 
 Captain Brazenhead. "To the matter. To the 
 matter. This ring he wears upon his person ? Good. 
 But his person where is that?" 
 
 "You will find it," she said confidently, "whereso- 
 ever it be."
 
 286 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 "That will I, though I cross the Libyan desert 
 upon my knees," he vowed. 
 
 "It will not be necessary, and the method will be 
 too slow. I can give you seven days to find Lord 
 Clun, seven days in which to regain my ring, and 
 seven for your return. I believe that he is in Na- 
 varre." 
 
 "In Navarre, lady?" 
 
 "In Navarre. His sister Ann, you must know, 
 married the Count of Picpus." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead fell back as if he had been 
 shot. The dark lantern clattered against his heart, 
 and went out. 
 
 "Picpus!" He breathed the word inward, not 
 outward, as is the usual practice in European coun- 
 tries. "Picpus! Am I once more to be involved 
 with a Picpus!" 
 
 "I have no reason to suppose so. The Count of 
 Picpus has a castle at Gavarnis, on the confines of 
 Navarre. There, I believe, you will find my Lord 
 Clun. My counsel to you is to have as little as may 
 be to do with the Count of Picpus." 
 
 The Captain stared and muttered; but luckily she 
 could not see him, and so impugn his courage. "As 
 little as may be to do with ay, lady, ay! Little were 
 much!" He added in an altered tone, "You must 
 know that afo etime there were many Counts of Pic- 
 pus." 
 
 But my Lady Say was tired. "I must not know 
 what I have no wish to know," she said. "The 
 point is immaterial. A score Counts of Picpus
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 287 
 
 should be nothing to my soldier of fortune." Lightly 
 she touched him on the arm. " Go then, and at once, 
 my soldier of Fortune, and know that I requite ser- 
 vices by kindness, ever. My woman Meg has 
 money and comfort for you. She should be near 
 by." 
 
 " By Cock, and she is, madam," said Captain Bra- 
 zenhead. 
 
 "That is well," said the lady of Knole. "Give 
 me your hand to the privy postern, and then you 
 may return for your furnitures at the hands of Meg." 
 
 "Trust me, lady," said Captain Brazenhead, and 
 handed her through the bracken.
 
 His interview with the sloe-eyed maid was brief, 
 but is material. 
 
 "The money," quoth she, "is safe upon my per- 
 son and my person you say is your own. There- 
 fore it may remain upon my person." 
 
 "Ay, lady, ay, but look you 
 
 "I look," said she, "to you and you, I know, to 
 me." 
 
 "By this sword " he began. 
 
 "Leave your sword, Captain," she said quickly. 
 "You may need it for Lord Clun. Now mark me. 
 I am a girl of character. Either you make me what 
 you vowed no maiden had ever been made by you 
 or the money remains where it is, and your sword 
 where it is. This you do at cockcrow mass or 
 
 1 ' But, Peg, consider ! Consider, my solace ! What ! 
 I wed you and fly your arms! Never, by the Kings 
 of Cologne!" 
 
 "We fly together, dear heart," she said mildly, 
 "or we fly not at all; but rather I return to my lady's 
 chamber and report your false vows of love to me, 
 and false vows of duty to her. And then " 
 
 Captain Brazenhead had one of those moments of 
 doubt which attack the strongest men. King David 
 had many, King Solomon had too many, Julius 
 
 288
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 289 
 
 Caesar had one, Alexander the Great a dozen. To 
 go back was impossible, to go forward against a 
 Count of Picpus "for I too," he gloomed within 
 himself, "I too have pretended to the circlet of Pic- 
 pus ah, and to a Countess of Picpus, by Cock!" 
 to go forward well, needs must be as the Fates will. 
 He threw up his head. His "Ha!" rang bravely, 
 like a challenge to the stars. "Come, my chuck! 
 Come, my pullet! Together we will fare, and to- 
 gether return with sheaves, my dear, of old Brazen- 
 head's sowing." 
 And he clasped her to his heart.
 
 I SHALL not recount the stages of a memorable 
 journey, made in the barque Bonne Esperance a 
 barque whose name alone gave memories from 
 Sandwich to Bordeaux, for they were stages for Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead of little ease, and for his lady also. 
 A brooding fit was upon the fine, sanguine man, which 
 glazed his eyes, palsied his tongue,upset his stomach, 
 and impaired his appetite. Golden sack turned sour 
 within him; small beer grew no smaller in his un- 
 touched glass. Love, which had never failed him, 
 did not fail him now; but he loved ruefully, as a man 
 desperate. He terrified his mistress at once by his 
 ardour and by his gloom. At a moment he would 
 cry, "With thee I can brave old White-Face, the chill 
 guest," at the next, "Avaunt, woman, thou knowest 
 not the horrid tale." She did not know it, and he 
 could not tell her; by consequence she pictured it 
 more horrid than any tale could be except the tale 
 which I have to tell. Strange names were often upon 
 his lips, uneasily moving there like wanderers by the 
 gates of cities aliens who dared neither out nor in. 
 "Picpus" was one of them. "Picpus! O word of 
 dread!" he would mutter; and then "Fie upon thee, 
 wench, for a light o' love Oh, Nicole, oh, straw- 
 haired quean!" He became sententious, with Meg 
 
 290
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 291 
 
 wondering upon his knee. "What said the Young 
 Man Barefoot what said he? 'Sir,' said he, or 
 rather, 'My lord' as was then, as you may say, the 
 due of my long sword and hairy arm, ' My lord, your 
 lordship shall travel the length and breadth of your 
 lordship's seigniory, and find no man more wretched 
 than this one.' ' What one, O barefoot young man ? ' 
 said I astonied; and he answered, 'He who, having 
 ventured all for his belly, now findeth his belly all he 
 hath to venture withal!' Great words in one so 
 young and so barefoot. But he was a poet, God be 
 good to him above a poet, good lack, and a lover." 
 And then he fell to his glooming again and his mutter- 
 ing of "Picpus! Picpus! O word of dread!" and 
 a mariner, brailing up the mainsail, paused in his toil 
 and hailed him as "Old Sallowguts" and had no re- 
 tort at all. It was not well with Captain Brazenhead 
 when such things could be. 
 
 Mistress Meg was a lass of spirit and resource, who 
 had not been principal bedchamber woman to a die- 
 away baroness for nothing. All that could be done 
 to stimulate a flagging hero with glancing eye, finger 
 in the mouth, sidelong look, or affectionate disposition 
 of the shoulder was done, and handsomely done. 
 But when they were done in vain, the spreta injuria 
 formce grew hot within her, kindled, and burst forth 
 in flame. She railed upon his grizzling beard, upon 
 his straining belt ; she reproached him for his figure, 
 upon his nose that drooped to his chin, upon his chin 
 that lapped upon his chest like idle waves in summer. 
 She called him pot-valiant, a chamber hero, a knight
 
 292 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 of the taproom, a tongue-fighter, a cock of the mid- 
 den. She doubted his prowess, doubted his honour, 
 doubted his love. "A many wenches and a many 
 hast thou cozened, old Frolicsome," cried she. 
 "Who is this straw-haired woman, this Nicole? 
 Who this Picpus? Who thy barefoot poet? Let 
 me tell thee, thou Scandal of Christians, that there 
 are better men than thou abroad; and give thee to 
 wite that thy Picpus may find a maid of Kent as kind 
 as thou, in thy abominations, thy freckled French 
 woman. Give me no kisses, thou stale pollution, or 
 I scream." 
 
 He gave her none, being deep in his dejection ; and 
 the spires and turrets of Bordeaux, the shining river, 
 the shipping, the drums ashore, the sea-birds afloat 
 spread their gallant invitations vainly before as dis- 
 united a pair as ever left England arm in arm and 
 viewed fair France back to back. 
 
 The bustle of the landing, the quarrels with the 
 customs, the putting to flight of wharf-men, mendi- 
 cants, limping veterans, and bold women restored a 
 kind of spirit to the hero of a hundred quay-side 
 tussles. "Avaunt, spawn of Mahomet! Out upon 
 ye, night-witches! Pickthanks, I spurn ye!" Such 
 were the bold words of Captain Brazenhead, as with 
 flashing eye and bristling nostrils he drove into the 
 press. But even so his ills overtook him, for scarce 
 was his last injurious term out of his mouth, when he 
 was struck flat by a memory. "Pickthanks, said I! 
 There was a Picpus, I do remember. Woe is me, 
 for Picpus lives yet!" His head sank once more, his
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 293 
 
 nose hid in his beard ; insensibly he led the way into 
 the town, insensibly to himself, but led nevertheless 
 by dogging Fate, his footsteps turned in the direction 
 of the Rue de la Ferronniere, and inevitably, as surely 
 as a blind man is pulled by his dog to the butcher's 
 shop, to the threshold of the tavern of The Stag. 
 Now this was an inn of memories. At the door, it is 
 true, Captain Brazenhead started, threw up his head, 
 and slapped his forehead a resounding crack. "Not 
 here, O seventh-born, not here! Ha! Nicole of the 
 gillyflower, not here!" But Meg Mallow, out of 
 patience with his tantrums, urged him forward with a 
 vigorous punch in the small of the back. It was 
 done with the knee. "In with thee, thou jelly-bag," 
 cried she injuriously, "and let an honest woman break 
 her fast." It need hardly be said that such things 
 had never happened to the hero before. Headlong 
 to his destiny, Captain Brazenhead plunged into The 
 Stag and scattered a cheerful company.
 
 VI 
 
 THERE were three capuchins sipping old ale; there 
 were, upon the knees of these worthies, three damsels 
 of mechanical smiles and very shrill laughter; there 
 was an old cheese-wife called Joyeuse ; there were two 
 apprentices who ought to have known better, and one 
 chantry-priest who did not. In the midst was a very 
 tall man masked, and leaning upon a naked sword, 
 who, the moment he saw the newcomers, fixed his 
 piercing eyes (one saw them like smouldering bea- 
 cons through the holes) upon Meg Mallow and never 
 took them off her for a single "instant. Whose was 
 this awful form ? Whose were these enkindled eyes ? 
 Who had a nose so long and bony, so bushed about 
 the nostrils with black hairs, so shining with heat 
 that you could have lit a slow match at it, and fired 
 a powder-magazine comfortably ? With such a nose 
 you would have no need of a street-lamp to fetch you 
 to your home. A pillar of fire by night! And by 
 day clouds about it, to veil up its majesty from hardy 
 eyes ! With such a nose what must the rest not be ? 
 But nothing was to be seen of the remaining features 
 saving the deep-recessed, burning, and steady-gazing 
 eyes. Captain Brazenhead for the first time in his 
 life of violence and crime and gallantry gaped, be- 
 reft of utterance, upon his own equal alas! upon his 
 
 294
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 295 
 
 more than equal. For who, under heaven's beam, 
 could this be but himself as he knew himself? 
 Cowed and dazzled, he saluted the company mechan- 
 ically, and received their salutations. The masked 
 magnifico acknowledged him with a mere jerk of the 
 head: all his interest was turned upon the sloe-eyed 
 Mistress Meg. 
 
 Never was so humble an entry of so splendid a per- 
 son. Captain Brazenhead, after a few moments of 
 effort which started the sweat in every gland, gave 
 over and leaned against the wall. Before the enquir- 
 ing serving-maid he was speechless: it was Meg 
 Mallow who ordered sheep's trotters in vinegar, black 
 bread and beer; and it was she who ate most of this 
 rare provand when it came. The company in the 
 inn, after raising of eyebrows and essays of the nose, 
 after a wink here, a clack of the tongue there, a 
 "H'm, a choice piece for so much ruin to hold," and 
 the like impertinence, resumed its varied occupation. 
 The tall masked figure only seemed still absorbed 
 in the new-comers, was still closely observant of the 
 damsel, and entirely unconscious of her cavalier; was 
 still inscrutably silent, with a kind of suspended pur- 
 pose in his meditations, rather dreadful to consider. 
 His air was the air of a hawk in the blue as, high above 
 a gorse-bespread common, he soars and waits to 
 the consternation of the finches who flutter and dart 
 in and out of their prickly cover. The figure is not 
 so exact as it might be; for in The Stag there was 
 neither flutter nor darting and there was only one 
 finch. Captain Brazenhead, thirteenth Champion of
 
 296 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 Christendom, hero of every shock of arms from 
 Constantinople to Cork, eagle among sparrows, sun 
 among stars, was now that finch. 
 
 Noise in the street, the clattering of horses and jin- 
 gling of brass on the flagstones; the flinging open of 
 doors, the inward sweep of men-at-arms; a sudden 
 flood of sound The Stag was choked with soldiers, 
 mostly drunk. There were cries to be distinguished 
 by a fine ear, cries of "En route, messieurs!" cries to 
 a leader, cries of devotion to a cause. The tall 
 masked man was the centre of the commotion, the one 
 fixed point in the flood of cross-purpose. He stood 
 calm and unwinking while about him surged a host. 
 He, it was to be seen, was the leader, to him their 
 devotion ; his was the cause, theirs the glory to fulfil. 
 Suddenly his sword flashed above their heads, and he 
 spoke. "En avantl" he roared, in such tones that 
 the pewter pots upon the comptoir rattled upon their 
 bases, and one large flagon split from rim to rim; 
 "En avant, by Cock!" and they all bundled out into 
 the street. The tavern emptied; none remained 
 within doors but three the great, poising unknown, 
 the crushed and bearded ex-hero, and the sloe-eyed 
 wench. With fearful precipitance the hawk pounced. 
 His eyes flaming like swords in the sun, he crossed 
 the floor. He towered over the travellers, with a 
 great gesture he flung the fold of his cloak over his 
 shoulder, and in that act swept from the table sheep's- 
 trotters, beer and black bread. He pointed to the 
 centre of the damsel's breast. " Follow me ! " he said 
 terribly; and she arose and followed him.
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 297 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, the colour of death, was left 
 sole occupant of the kitchen of The Stag. There he 
 sat, motionless, leaden, and vast, for how long the 
 Lord only knows. The trampling of horses and 
 jingling of harness had died down; already the voice 
 of the man who sold cat's-meat had gained the mas- 
 tery of the Rue de la Ferronniere. It was high noon, 
 but still the tavern was empty. Then Captain Bra- 
 zenhead, alone in his agony, lifted up his head. 
 Remote, unfriended, solitary, slow, he defied his af- 
 fairs. His fist smote the table; his voice made his 
 boast for him. "By Cock and his father, but I'm 
 not in the ditch yet. If I tear not the windpipe from 
 that throat of brass, never call me Brazenhead 
 again." It was proudly said, though nobody heard 
 it. He left the tavern, and stumbled blindly into 
 the street.
 
 VII 
 
 How Captain Brazenhead stole a horse need not 
 be recounted; but a horse he stole, and never a better, 
 and followed as hard as could be the road taken by 
 the veiled stranger and his cavalcade. It was the 
 southern road, as he vividly recalled, which in the 
 company of one Pym of the drooped eyelid he had 
 taken many years before, in those wild days when he 
 had put a clove carnation stalk between the bright 
 lips of Nicole La-Grace-de-Dieu, and had, of the sud- 
 denest, turned from his journey and pelted back to 
 Bordeaux, to wrest that fair maid from Simon Mus- 
 champ, to lay Simon fast bound upon the larder shelf, 
 to assume the name and dignity of Count of Picpus, 
 to make Nicole his Countess, and to follow the call 
 for help which sounded in his ears from far Provence 
 and Madame Roesia Des-Baux. Alack, those golden 
 days of vaunt and vagrancy no vagrant was he now, 
 with no vaunting at his need ! No, but a man over- 
 weary of his paunch who had been robbed of his mis- 
 tress, honour, and purse by some tall rascal, as like 
 what he himself had been as one pea is like his neigh- 
 bour in the pod. "That trickster stood up my very 
 self," he mused. "My inches, my trenchant way 
 with all and sundry, my great nose, my fire. Ha, 
 mort de Dieu!" And he faced the sun with his ques- 
 
 398
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 299 
 
 tion. "And who but Brazenhead is Brazenhead's 
 peer?" They say that somewhere, in some busy 
 coign of this earth, there lives and works the counter- 
 part of every mother's son. If this were now his 
 double brought up in dreadful rivalry? If he were 
 to come to the grapple with himself lock arms, 
 crook with the legs, engage with teeth and desperate 
 fingers, grunt breath for hot breath with himself? 
 Madness lay in the very thought ; he dare not picture 
 it. Nor dare he let slip in fear, even into the vestibule 
 of his heart, that, in such a battle, not he, as he stood 
 here, would prevail. "The knave hath my ancient 
 suppleness; his joints are greased with that grease I 
 had once. The knave hath my licking tongue that 
 smoothed down the words till they were slab as butter. 
 He hath my lightsome heart, my brain of fire. And 
 what have I, old Brazenhead the steward, but this 
 sagging paunch, these rheumy eyes, this long tooth, 
 and this gray beard? Alack, alack, the mighty fall 
 before the battle is cried." 
 
 These were no thoughts for a long journey, but he 
 could find no better. He rode through the melan- 
 choly wastes which men call Landes, for no better 
 reason belike than that they are three parts water, 
 careless of his charger's paces, careless of who saw 
 him or whom he saw, chewing the sour cud of his 
 thoughts, and mindful of the under-current of spheral 
 music which said, rhythmically, steadily, and with 
 muffled tones, "Brazenhead, Brazenhead, thou man 
 of deeds; Brazenhead, O Brazenhead, thine hour is 
 nigh." He climbed long stretches of scrubby heath,
 
 300 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 scarce broken by trees, descended slopes of the same 
 to marishes, salt pools, lagoons of reed and rush. 
 He picked, or his horse picked, an uneasy way in and 
 out of boulders, over pebble ridges, round about 
 desolate dunes, through the silent streets of villages 
 where pale children stalked on stilts, and scared 
 women crossed themselves to see the gloomy visitor. 
 Sometimes he had tidings of the company before him, 
 sometimes could gather none; but on he pushed, 
 nursing the wrath to come, and forward fared the 
 good stout horse, with his nose as often to the ground 
 as not. 
 
 His thoughts foraged in the future without zest; 
 they explored the past, but found no comfort there. 
 For no sooner did they find themselves in the golden 
 haze of happy memory, but like a blight borne swiftly 
 on a chill wind came his present case to blot out all 
 the sun and turn the warmth to dreariment. Feats 
 of arms, feats of Love encounters in both kinds 
 where he was always the flushed conqueror : of what 
 avail these stirring themes when now he knew himself 
 cast off by ladies, held cheap by his rivals? Rivals! 
 that he should have rivals! Had it come then to 
 that? But if Meg Mallow black-eyed slut could 
 pass him over, was she not ill-advised, mad per- 
 chance, bitten by worm or poisonous gnat ? Ah, to 
 think of Joconde that slip of myrtle and honey- 
 suckle, that willowy maid of Besancon, that sidelong 
 looker, finger-biter, that glancer of the threshold to 
 think of Joconde! There at least was happy mem- 
 ory, envisaging Besancon's narrow streets, river life,
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 301 
 
 and the hustle and brawl of the minster close when 
 the prentices were out and my Lord of Turenne's 
 men disputed the ground with them. And Bor- 
 deaux, Bordeaux, and droop-eyed Pym, and the fair 
 Nicole La-Grace-de-Dieu ply, Memory, ply, thou 
 hast a stout web before thee ! What maid of what 
 inn could withstand so mad a wooer ? Not, for sure, 
 Nicole La-Grace-de-Dieu. He won her with a gilly- 
 flower, but ravished her with a Countess's circlet. 
 "Be Madame de Picpus, and my bride!" he had said 
 and where lay Simon Muschamp, that singing- 
 mouse, the while? Strapped like a ham on the 
 larder shelf. O lovely, kind, glowing Nicole, not for 
 thee to refuse this blusterous wooer ! But now ah, 
 soft ! 'Twas Liperata's turn that meek and lovely, 
 soothfast one. For what a fate was she reserved, 
 widow of an assassin, but Duchess of Milan! He, 
 Brazenhead, had called her his partridge, and made 
 her his Duchess. Duchess of Milan, Liperata 
 Duchess of Milan, alma conjux of the mighty Duke 
 Salomon Testadirame, Duke of Milan! What dizzy 
 heights, what windy places for a little woman called a 
 man's partridge! Ply, Memory, ply this golden 
 thread in thy spreading woof, that the falling hero, 
 enwrapped in its amplitude, may watch thy bright 
 meander and take its comfort to his own! 
 
 With such provender did Captain Brazenhead, 
 sore beset upon his latest pilgrimage, feed his hungry 
 heart; and when, after a meal of the sort, he glanced 
 down at his sliding chest, and marked how very much 
 it was engulfed in his lower reaches, there was noth-
 
 302 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 ing for it but to begin again, and make another attack 
 upon his stored memory in which the Sultan of 
 Persia, two Popes of Rome and Avignon, the long- 
 armed Bilboan, and other heroes of antiquity and his 
 own day played parts not inferior to his own. And 
 so he memorised and glowed, and so he looked at his 
 paunch and felt acold. And all this took up a full 
 three weeks, which was all the time allowed by my 
 Lady Say to find the Lord of Clun, cut him in half, 
 recover the forefinger ring, and return with it to 
 Knole. But his own troubles had so far swallowed 
 up his patron's that if you had reminded him of her, 
 he would have turned upon you with the reply, 
 "There is no such lady as my Lady Say, and the Lord 
 of Clun hath no middle the which to sever at a 
 blow!"
 
 VIII 
 
 AT the end of the third week he had crossed the 
 frontier of Navarre, and was close up to the mountain 
 ramparts of its southern boundary. / 
 
 He had had tidings before ever he saw the snow- 
 clad peaks. My Lord of Picpus, he had been told, 
 with a gay company of minstrels, lovers, ladies, and 
 running dogs had gone into the mountains for his 
 pleasure. They were to hold a Court of Love, in 
 which the Count himself was to take the field against 
 all comers; a Court of Beauty in which a Golden 
 Plum was to be bestowed upon his lordship by the 
 chosen fair. Why, in God's name, upon his lord- 
 ship ? he had cried out, and had been answered, be- 
 cause his lordship was about to be victor in the lists. 
 To which the only answer Captain Brazenhead had 
 to hand was, "Oh, was he so?" And when to the 
 assurance that so he was, Captain Brazenhead with 
 an oath had replied, "Let this false Picpus look for 
 me," the answer of the blinking cleric, his informant, 
 had been, "His lordship will deal with you, sir, as 
 King Solomon with the Queen of Sheba in whom, 
 we read, after treatment, there was no more spirit at 
 all. It is clear, dear sir," the good man had added, 
 "that you know not the prowess, and have not had 
 report of the deeds of him we call Count of Picpus.
 
 304 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 He is the mightiest lover and swiftest smiter, I dare 
 say, of any now calling Christ his Redeemer. 'Tis 
 said that, as man to man, he once took the Pope by 
 the beard. 'Tis said that, armed with the thigh- 
 bone of a philosopher, he slew three hundred Ana- 
 baptists " Captain Brazenhead threw up his head 
 and howled like a dog. "Miserable priest, 'twas 
 myself who achieved all this and more!" he roared 
 at him. But the priest shook his head. "Not 
 likely," he said, "not likely. These are the deeds 
 of a younger man. That beard, that swelling 
 paunch " But Captain Brazenhead, too proud to 
 argue, too dreary to refute, left the clergyman, and 
 pushed on. 
 
 Omens gathered about him, thick as flies, and 
 dark. He saw an old crow on a rock-littered hillside 
 preening a ragged wing, and anon pausing to croak 
 his misfortune to the empty air. He saw a three- 
 legged fox a very bad sign. He saw a sheep on its 
 back, and ravens wheeling above him. He saw a 
 blind beggar lead another into a water-course. He 
 saw three wenches and a clown, which is too many, 
 and two gypsy women and a child, which is too few. 
 When he hailed them to tell them his good fortune, 
 they stared, looked at one another, and laughed. 
 Then said one, "Avaunt, thou old goat," and both 
 shrilled together. Heavy tidings all these, to a man 
 on edge with sensibility. 
 
 He entered a gloomy defile where a bridle-path was 
 cut out of the rock, and the crags closed in above 
 you almost to shut out the light of the sky. He ad-
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 305 
 
 dressed himself to God and pushed forward. There 
 seemed no way out so far as eye could pierce 
 the murk there was nothing to be seen but rock 
 answering to rock, and peak edging upon peak. If 
 the joyous company had passed this way, it must have 
 been in file, and it were strange that some hint of 
 their going had not been left upon bush or sharp- 
 toothed stone. But search the most anxious revealed 
 little or nothing. A scrap or two of paper with 
 music scored upon it; a word or two upon it, " O love, 
 alas!" or "Ah, breast of snowi To Captain Bra- 
 zenhead, who had never been a reader, these waifs 
 of story told nothing. A filament of silk, stained red 
 and green, told him more. He preserved it carefully; 
 and then a faded rosebud and then a glove. I 
 don't know what he had expected whether that the 
 company should have shed garment after garment, 
 kicked off their shoes, or hung portraits of themselves 
 upon the box and juniper bushes with which the 
 mountains were thick ; but he was disappointed with 
 his relics. "All goes amiss with me, good lack. 
 The time was when, stern-chasing like this, she 
 would have left me clear word that I was to follow. 
 A lock of her. lustrous hair, maybe, a tooth-pick that 
 was familiar, a nail-paring, or a scarf. But no! Old 
 Brazenhead, the mighty lover, hath loved his last. 
 Shame, shame on pretty women and to the plague 
 with them all, say I." But, even in so saying, he 
 knew that he lied. It was he who went to the plague- 
 pit, and they that shunned it. The conqueror was 
 conquered, the fryer of hearts now toasted himself
 
 306 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 upon the grid, and Meg Mallow basted him with 
 lard. 
 
 At the end of three days and nights the defile 
 opened suddenly upon an ample green valley bathed 
 in the full sun and canopied only by the peerless blue 
 of heaven. A fair river watered it ; on either side of 
 that were fresh meads, trees in yellow autumn leaf; 
 beyond them upland pastures climbed toward the 
 girdle of mountains. 
 
 There, finally, amid-scene he beheld silk pavilions, 
 flags, and gay company. Ladies were seated in a 
 half -ring upon the grass; minstrels in parti-colour 
 stood with lutes in their hands. Tall and command- 
 ing, in golden raiment with a blood-coloured cloak, 
 in beaver and pheasant's feather, with sword and 
 mask, surveyed the ladies, surveyed the dappled 
 meadow, the terrible stranger of Bordeaux, who called 
 himself Count of Picpus. Captain Brazenhead's 
 brain reeled. All this then was true. It was no 
 dream. There was such a man, and there below 
 him, awaiting, he was. The time was at hand when 
 two champions must prove each other. 
 
 Meantime the Lord of Clun, with unsawed middle, 
 and Lady Say's forefinger ring about his neck by a 
 chain, was in the good city of Paris with his friend the 
 Duke of Clarence.
 
 IX 
 
 ADDRESSED finally to the adventure, his horse 
 abandoned, Captain Brazenhead like some huge 
 bird of prey hopped down the rocks with arms ex- 
 tended, and cloak spread broad like flaggy wings. 
 At every perch he cawed defiance. "Have at thee, 
 thief!" "Dog! I dare thee!" "False Picpus, face 
 the true!" and other like challenges. For some time 
 the air received his cries and wafted them from peak 
 to peak of the mountains. Echo here tossed them 
 to echo yonder. The name of Picpus, the name of 
 dog reverberated, the one like hissing water where 
 it boils in some close inlet of the sea, the other, with 
 its assonants of hog, log, bog, and the like, flew round 
 the valley like the shots of a cannon. But the com- 
 pany below, being well out of range, heard neither, 
 and continued their amorous play. 
 
 Nevertheless Captain Brazenhead descended by 
 leaps and bounds, and, descending, hurled injury 
 after injury upon his unconscious rival. So by and 
 by one of the seated ladies looked brightly up, saw 
 him, and pointed him out. The minstrels stopped 
 the thrumming of their lutes; the grooms by the 
 horses were all attention, and the magnificent person, 
 the centre of their sports, himself veered about and, 
 leaning upon his long sword, watched the calamitous 
 
 37
 
 308 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 approach of his enemy. That, as it neared its term 
 which can only be said to have been the breast of the 
 awaiting swordsman, or the point of his blade was 
 heralded by the flight of innumerable small birds 
 finches, linnets, and what not scared from their 
 nests and fastnesses as by the imminence of some vast 
 monster of the air. These flickering songsters, as 
 they flew in a cloud over the heads of the gay com- 
 pany in the meadow, caused the scarves of the ladies 
 to stream in the wind, and made the milk-white pal- 
 freys snort as they inhaled the dust. Thus, as a 
 fresh gale presages the storm of thunder and rain 
 which is to wreak destruction on the land, these 
 feathered heralds prepared the little band for wreck 
 and ruin. 
 
 When Captain Brazenhead had reached the valley 
 bottom, and had no more than a hundred yards of 
 level going between him and the death he sought 
 to impart or receive, he cared not which he paused 
 to take the great breath of which he had need. Not 
 only was his person discomposed, but it was quite 
 impossible for him to compass any more terms of re- 
 proach, partly because he could not remember any 
 more in any of the five languages of which he was 
 master, and partly because he had neither voice nor 
 breath at his command. "Winded, by Cock!" was 
 all that he could now say, and the reproach of that 
 was aimed at himself. On their side, the three la- 
 dies with their single cavalier awaited him with inter- 
 est but in silence ; and the minstrels, their lutes slung 
 over their shoulders, folded their hands before them
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 309 
 
 and stood at what is called ease. The sun shone in 
 the clear pale sky, the trees in their golden dress of de- 
 parture swayed and ruffled in the breeze; the river 
 foamed and bickered as it surged among the rocks; 
 all that favoured span of earth was at peace, and 
 nothing in visible creation groaned and travailed but 
 man, and that man Captain Brazenhead, the hero 
 weary and far spent, who fetched up his breath as 
 the housewife water from a well by means of a crazy 
 windlass, with creakings and groanings terrible to 
 hear. 
 
 But fetch it up he did, in ample store for his pur- 
 pose; and then with drawn sword, and cloak thrown 
 over one shoulder, stalked greatly to the proof. 
 Nothing in his life became him like this dreadful test- 
 ing of it. I think that he knew what awaited him 
 there upon the enamelled sward ; for when he found 
 it his senses reeled no more. His calmness at the 
 shocking discovery was proof against shock. Not a 
 word can henceforth be uttered by moralist, theolo- 
 gian or doctor of law against this hero's essential 
 magnanimity. With calm eyes beneath his brows, 
 with those brows unruffled, with cheeks unpaled, he 
 stood confronting himself himself, and no other 
 and the ladies on the grass. Of these one was, 
 of course, Mistress Mallow of the household of 
 Knole, Mistress Mallow the buxom and sloe-eyed, 
 but dressed now in murrey-coloured velvet of Genoa, 
 and about her peaked head-dress a scarf of gold and 
 white gauze. And Mistress Mallow was perturbed 
 if her reprover was not. Words were on the tip of
 
 310 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 her pointed tongue; but she said nothing. The 
 other pair of ladies may be briefly described. One 
 was corn-haired, flushed, and gray-eyed. She had 
 a sharp chin and a fine figure. She confronted Cap- 
 tain Brazenhead with arms akimbo, bending forward 
 from her hips, as a maid of the house looks up at you 
 from her knees, or a maid of the laundry from her 
 board by the river. Her lips were very red, and upon 
 them, crimson upon scarlet, was a clove-carnation, 
 whose stalk her teeth held fast. Her gown was a 
 goodly green, and her scarf was blue. The third 
 lady was demure as a wimpled nun, and kept her 
 eyes upon her lap. If for a moment she might lift 
 them you would have discovered them unfathomable 
 brown. She was grave and attentive. It was clear 
 she saw but one thing at a time, and that thing, al- 
 ways, her duty. She was dressed in a rich brocade 
 of Genoa, of which the groundwork was orange- 
 tawny, and the figures worked in black and gold. 
 As for the squire of these noble persons, he was now 
 unveiled, and showed as a splendid figure of a man of, 
 it might be, some thirty-seven summers. Straight 
 six feet four, beaked like a very fine eagle, hairy to a 
 fault, with moustachios which swept upward to a 
 point midway between his eyes and the tips of his ears, 
 with hair gushing from his nostrils like water-spray 
 from the cracks in a hatch, with hair upon his fingers, 
 the backs of his hands, and as far as one could see 
 welling from some inexhaustible spring within the 
 recesses of his clothing, with eyes deep and glowing, 
 with the swiftness of tigers in every line of his limbs
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 311 
 
 this was the terrible guardian of the honour of three 
 ladies, with every one of whom Captain Brazenhead, 
 spent as he was, was about to claim intimate acquaint- 
 ance, dating, in some cases, from many years back. 
 
 But first he came to terms, as was fitting, with his 
 man. Plucking at his beard with one hand, shaking 
 his sword in the other "Thou purfled thing," said 
 Captain Brazenhead in deep tones of a bell, "thou 
 inflamed weed, who from some midden-heap hast 
 arisen " 
 
 But the younger hero cut the words out of his 
 mouth, and in a clear, smooth voice which wound 
 about the circumpendent slopes like a scarlet ribbon, 
 picked up the parable and turned it to his own ex- 
 alted purpose. 
 
 "Purfled am I, thou old deceiver, being full store 
 of high blood, descendant of kings, and king (or at 
 least Duke) by right of sword. And inflamed am I 
 likewise by great endeavour, even as thou mumblest 
 in thy toothless chaps, O thou graybeard, wagging 
 for penury. But weed, by Cock, am I none, and I 
 cast it back into thy throat as all the alms thou wilt 
 get from me, thou robber of infants and wheedler of 
 the simple." 
 
 Calm and unflinching, Captain Brazenhead re- 
 proved the man by a question. " Dost thou not know 
 me then, thou pale egg of evil ? Dost thou strike at 
 random, little snake ? Know me then to thy shame. 
 
 Late of Burgundy, formerly of Milan " But 
 
 the other flamed high. 
 
 "Late, thou! Formerly, thou! Ay, late indeed
 
 312 
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 ay, thou stultifier of youth. For know thou me, as 
 now of Burgundy, as now of Milan and pocket thy 
 stale reports." And then, to Captain Brazenhead's 
 entire dismay, he began this account of himself: 
 
 "When with this sword and sinewy arm, being 
 otherwise mother-naked, I slew the Sultan of Baby- 
 lon in his pride, and all the towers of his chief city 
 rocked to see it, so great was the concourse of the 
 people where wert thou, but qu easing over thy sea- 
 coal fire, stirring grouts in a pipkin ? And when, as 
 one man with another, sitting in familiar discourse 
 with the Holy Father, I flicked him lightly on the 
 cheek and bade him prove himself where wert thou, 
 but filling that great belly of thine with broken vict- 
 uals under the buttery hatch ? And when I plucked 
 Milan from his throne, and sat myself thereupon, and 
 did judgment to all and sundry, having put to rout 
 five thousand Anabaptists with a shankbone how 
 was it then with thee ? And of my fighting in the pit 
 with countless cut-throats and of my Cardinalate 
 and of my County of Picpus what sayest thou, old 
 foot-in-the-grave ? Am I, thinkest thou, such an one 
 as would stoop to lie to thee, having died the death 
 these half-hundred times? Foh, but thou art a 
 boaster, I believe. Twenty times left for dead; 
 trampled twelve times out " 
 
 But Captain Brazenhead here gave a great cry 
 so great that it amazed the speaker and for a moment 
 stayed him. The elder man bent down his crest, and 
 fought with his hands, as if to clear the thick air. 
 And when he lifted up his face again there was that
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 313 
 
 in it that compelled respect unto what he might do. 
 
 Slowly now he spoke, and all listened. "Either 
 thou art myself, or thou art nought. Now let me 
 put this question to the test. If thou art myself, be 
 sure that I slay thee; if thou art nought, be sure also. 
 But if thou art myself, in the act to slay thee, I perish, 
 and if thou art nought I slay myself. Hold thou 
 there till I require thee; hold thou there." 
 
 He summoned all his forces, lifted himself to his full 
 height, flicked up his moustachios, and smoothed 
 down his beard. His sword he flung to earth; but he 
 brushed down the ample folds of his cloak with his 
 hand before he flung the other end of it over his 
 shoulder. This done, hat in hand, he stalked cere- 
 moniously forward and stood proudly before the 
 flushed lady whose mouth still held the carnation. 
 
 "O Nicole," he said, "O my Countess of Picpus! 
 Has it come to this that thou passest me by?" 
 
 But she eyed him fiercely. "How sayest thou, 
 old rip?" cried she. "How should I be thy Count- 
 ess of Picpus, when I am this gentleman's? And 
 how should thou be Count of Picpus, when he is here, 
 the Count's self of Picpus, so proper a man? Get 
 thee away, old fellow, and nurse thy paunch." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead, of a leaden-gray colour in the 
 face, turned from that lady, and faced another, that 
 staider person who sat upon Madame de Picpus' 
 right hand. She did not lift her eyes to him, but kept 
 them carefully upon her lap. 
 
 "Dost thou remember, Liperata, the cemetery of 
 Sant' Eustorgio, and what befell thy Camus there?"
 
 314 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 "Thou wert," he continued in grave tones, "a 
 man's partridge once, O Liperata!" 
 
 "A true man's partridge still am I," she said. 
 
 "And who made thee Duchess of Milan, pardie?" 
 cried Captain Brazenhead very wildly. 
 
 She pointed to the stranger. "Behold the gentle- 
 man." 
 
 Captain Brazenhead threw up his arms. Words 
 failed him quite. Then finally he turned upon Mis- 
 tress Mallow where bold-eyed she sat. "As for 
 thee, kitchen- wench," said he, "I leave thee to thy 
 fate. Thou didst desert me for this weed. Get thy 
 good from his carcase, for carrion shall he be." 
 
 With a howl like that of a wounded wolf, he 
 turned the white of his eye to the women, and be- 
 fore one could be aware of the cheep of a bird he 
 was upon the tall man. He, in his turn, was all too 
 ready. 
 
 They engaged in silent and deadly grapple. 
 Locked, they swayed together, Captain Brazenhead's 
 teeth in the strange man's shoulder, the strange man's 
 in Captain Brazenhead's. Round and about they 
 whirled, entirely silent and entirely gripped. And 
 faster they went, and faster still, and at last so fast 
 that the place seemed the vortex of great winds, with 
 a swirling mass of red and yellow helpless in the cur- 
 rent. How long this may have endured I don't pre- 
 tend to say: but at last they sprang apart and stood 
 for a more deadly bout, gaping, panting, glaring at 
 each other.
 
 THE LAST ADVENTURE 315 
 
 A second time Captain Brazenhead howled, then 
 pounced upon his sword, and lifting it, rushed upon 
 the foe. He, no less prepared, engaged at once, and 
 at it they went like mad bulls, or belling stags in some 
 glade of the forest. Their fury was such that the 
 rules of Art were put aside ; without foining or guard- 
 ing they merely hacked at each other until each was 
 disguised in blood, and neither could see his foe 
 at all. Then, for a second time, they paused; and 
 presently Captain Brazenhead spoke. 
 
 "Thou art myself, I see," he said, "for I have 
 fought the length of this old world, but never with one 
 like thee. Now mark me well, that if I die, thou 
 must needs die* also; and be sure that if thou diest, 
 so die I. For never again shall old Brazenhead en- 
 counter such a foeman as thou art; and all fighting 
 shall be stale, by Cock, that cometh after this. Have 
 at thee, drinker, let us die thirsty while we can." 
 
 Nothing spoke his foeman, but leaned upon his 
 sword watchful of the enemy; and then for a third 
 and last time Captain Brazenhead threw up his chin 
 and howled long and tragically into the sky. Raising 
 then his sword arm, which shook like aspens in the 
 wind, and shielding his person with what remained 
 of his cloak, he stumbled forward heavily upon the 
 blade of the other man, and thrust his own blade 
 with all his might clean through his breastbone. 
 The stricken heroes, mortally wounded, stood, each 
 propped by the other, staring upon the work they 
 had done then swaying sideways, now this way, 
 now that, sideways fell, and lay in death.
 
 3 i 6 THE LAST ADVENTURE 
 
 The terrified ladies rose to their feet, and shrieking 
 ran from the spot. 
 
 Thus fell in the year of grace 1477 Salomon Brazen- 
 head the Great, seventh son of a seventh son, born 
 miraculously in the seventh month. 
 
 Never beaten in the field, but now in this last 
 struggle; never refused of woman but in favour of 
 himself as he had now been, none but his own youth, 
 it appears, could have slain him, nor any slain his 
 own youth but himself a conclusion metaphysical, 
 philosophic, religious, and exact, and as true as that 
 I, the historian, sit here to write. 
 
 FINIS
 
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