The bedrooms were upstairs, dungeons with not a scrap of furniture except the bed, and a male servant settled inexorably who should sleep with whom.Neither money nor prayers would get a man a bed to himself here; custom forbade it sternly.You might as well have asked to monopolize a see-saw.They assigned to Gerard a man with a great black beard.He was an honest fellow enough, but not perfect; he would not go to bed, and would sit on the edge of it telling the wretched Gerard by force, and at length, the events of the day, and alternately laughing and crying at the same circumstances, which were not in the smallest degree pathetic or humorous, but only dead trivial.At last Gerard put his fingers in his ears, and lying down in his clothes, for the sheets were too dirty for him to undress, contrived to sleep.But in an hour or two he awoke cold, and found that his drunken companion had got all the feather bed; so mighty is instinct.They lay between two beds; the lower one hard and made of straw, the upper soft and filled with feathers light as down.Gerard pulled at it, but the experienced drunkard held it fast mechanically.Gerard tried to twitch it away by surprise, but instinct was too many for him.On this he got out of bed, and kneeling down on his bedfellow's unguarded side, easily whipped the prize away and rolled with it under the bed, and there lay on one edge of it, and curled the rest round his shoulders.Before he slept he often heard something grumbling and growling above him, which was some little satisfaction.Thus instinct was outwitted, and victorious Reason lay chuckling on feathers, and not quite choked with dust.
At peep of day Gerard rose, flung the feather bed upon his snoring companion, and went in search of milk and air.
A cheerful voice hailed him in French: "What ho! you are up with the sun, comrade.""He rises betimes that lies in a dog's lair," answered Gerard crossly.
"Courage, l'ami! le diable est mort," was the instant reply.The soldier then told him his name was Denys, and he was passing from Flushing in Zealand to the Duke's French dominions; a change the more agreeable to him, as he should revisit his native place, and a host of pretty girls who had wept at his departure, and should hear French spoken again."And who are you, and whither bound?""My name is Gerard, and I am going to Rome," said the more reserved Hollander, and in a way that invited no further confidences.
"All the better; we will go together as far as Burgundy.""That is not my road."
"All roads take to Rome."
"Ay, but the shortest road thither is my way.""Well, then, it is I who must go out of my way a step for the sake of good company, for thy face likes me, and thou speakest French, or nearly.""There go two words to that bargain," said Gerard coldly."I steer by proverbs, too.They do put old heads on young men's shoulders.
'Bon loup mauvais compagnon, dit le brebis;' and a soldier, they say, is near akin to a wolf.""They lie," said Denys; "besides, if he is, 'les loups ne se mangent pas entre eux.'""Aye but, sir soldier, I am not a wolf; and thou knowest, a bien petite occasion se saisit le loup du mouton.'""Let us drop wolves and sheep, being men; my meaning is, that a good soldier never pillages-a comrade.Come, young man, too much suspicion becomes not your years.They who travel should learn to read faces; methinks you might see lealty in mine sith I have seen it in yourn.Is it yon fat purse at your girdle you fear for?"(Gerard turned pale.) "Look hither!" and he undid his belt, and poured out of it a double handful of gold pieces, then returned them to their hiding-place."There is a hostage for you," said he;"carry you that, and let us be comrades," and handed him his belt, gold and all.
Gerard stared."If I am over prudent, you have not enow." But he flushed and looked pleased at the other's trust in him.
"Bah! I can read faces; and so must you, or you'll never take your four bones safe to Rome.""Soldier, you would find me a dull companion, for my heart is very heavy," said Gerard, yielding.
"I'll cheer you, mon gars."
"I think you would," said Gerard sweetly; "and sore need have I of a kindly voice in mine ear this day.""Oh! no soul is sad alongside me.I lift up their poor little hearts with my consigne: 'Courage, tout le monde, le diable est mort.' Ha! ha!""So be it, then," said Gerard."But take back your belt, for Icould never trust by halves.We will go together as far as Rhine, and God go with us both!""Amen!" said Denys.and lifted his cap."En avant!"The pair trudged manfully on, and Denys enlivened the weary way.
He chattered about battles and sieges, and things which were new to Gerard; and he was one of those who make little incidents wherever they go.He passed nobody without addressing them."They don't understand it, but it wakes them up," said he.But whenever they fell in with a monk or priest.he pulled a long face, and sought the reverend father's blessing, and fearlessly poured out on him floods of German words in such order as not to produce a single German sentence - He doffed his cap to every woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and with eagle eye discerned her best feature, and complimented her on it in his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie, down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness and despatch, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and set it upon a nest."The good-wife will say, 'Alack, here is Beelzebub ahatching of my eggs.'""No, you forget he is dead," objected Gerard.
"So he is, so he is.But she doesn't know that, not having the luck to be acquainted with me, who carry the good news from city to city, uplifting men's hearts."Such was Denys in time of peace.
