Previous - Next

the note of it, and that's a thing accomplished. Monsieur Rigaud,
as I expected yesterday, the President will look for the pleasure
of your society at an hour after mid-day, to-day.'


'To try me, eh?' said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in
mouth.

'You have said it. To try you.'

'There is no news for me?' asked John Baptist, who had begun,
contentedly, to munch his bread.

The jailer shrugged his shoulders.

'Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?'

'What do I know!' cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern
quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his
fingers, as if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. 'My
friend, how is it possible for me to tell how long you are to lie
here? What do I know, John Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life!
There are prisoners here sometimes, who are not in such a devil of
a hurry to be tried.'
He seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark;
but Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with
quite so quick an appetite as before.

'Adieu, my birds!' said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty
child in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss.

'Adieu, my birds!' the pretty child repeated.

Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he
walked away with her, singing her the song of the child's game:

'Who passes by this road so late?
Compagnon de la Majolaine!
Who passes by this road so late?
Always gay!'

that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate,
and in good time and tune, though a little hoarsely:

'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Compagnon de la Majolaine!
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Always gay!'

which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the
prison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear
the song out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight.
Then the child's head disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head
disappeared, but the little voice prolonged the strain until the
door clashed.

Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way
before the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for
imprisonment, and seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his
foot that he had better resume his own darker place. The little
man sat down again upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one
who was thoroughly accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks
of coarse bread before himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began
contentedly to work his way through them as if to clear them off
were a sort of game.

Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at
the veal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make
his mouth water; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of
the president and tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as
clean as he could, and to wipe them on his vine leaves.

Previous - Next