第62章 HOW ELLIOT LOST HER JACKANAPES(3)

Elliot was silent enough,and sat telling her beads,in the beginning of our journey down the water-way,that is the smoothest and the easiest voyaging for a sick man.She was in the stern of the boat,her fingers,when her beads were told,trailing in the smooth water,that was green with the shade of leaves.But her father stood by me,asking many questions concerning the siege,and gaping at the half-mended arch of the bridge,where through we sailed,and at the blackened walls of Les Tourelles,and all the ruin that war had wrought.But now masons and carpenters were very busy rebuilding all,and the air was full of the tinkling of trowels and hammers.Presently we passed the place where I had drawn Brother Thomas from the water;but thereof I said no word,for indeed my dreams were haunted by his hooded face,like that of the snake which,as travellers tell,wears a hood in Prester John's country,and is the most venomous of beasts serpentine.So concerning Brother Thomas I held my peace,and the barque,swinging round a corner of the bank,soon brought us into a country with no sign of war on it,and here the poplar-trees had not been felled for planks to make bulwarks,but whispered by the riverside.

The wide stream carried many a boat,and shone with sails,white,and crimson,and brown;the boat-men sang,or hailed each other from afar.There was much traffic,stores being carried from Blois to the army.Some mile or twain above Beaugency we were forced to land,and,I being borne in a litter,we took a cross-path away from the stream,joining it again two miles below Beaugency,because the English held that town,though not for long.The sun had set,yet left all his gold shining on the water when we entered Blois,and there rested at a hostel for the night.Next day--one of the goodliest of my life,so soft and clear and warm it was,yet with a cool wind on the water--we voyaged to Tours;and now Elliot was glad enough,making all manner of mirth.

Her desire,she said,was to meet a friend that she had left at their house in Tours,one that she had known as long as she knew me,my friend he was too,yet I had never spoken of him,or asked how he did.Now I,being wrapped up wholly in her,and in my joy to see her kind again,and so beautiful,had no memory of any such friend,wherefore she mocked me,and rebuked me for a hard heart and ungrateful."This friend of mine,"she said,"was the first that made us known each to other.Yea,but for him,the birds might have pecked out your eyne,and the ants eaten your bones bare,yet"--with a sudden anger,and tears in her eyes at the words she spoke--"you have clean forgotten him!""Ah,you mean the jackanapes.And how is the little champion?""Like the lads of Wamfray,aye for ill,and never for good,"said my master;but she frowned on him,and said -"Now you ask,because I forced you on it;but,sir,I take it very ill that you have so short a memory for a friend.Now,tell me,in all the time since you left us at Chinon,how often have you thought of him?""Nigh as often as I thought of you,"I answered."For when you came into my mind (and that was every minute),as in a picture,thither too came your playfellow,climbing and chattering,and holding out his little bowl for a comfit.""Nay,then you thought of me seldom,or you would have asked how he does."Here she turned her face from me,half in mock anger.But,just as it is with children,so it was with Elliot,for indeed my dear was ever much of a child,wherefore her memory is now to me so tender.

And as children make pretence to be in this humour or that for sport,and will affect to be frighted till they really fear and weep,so Elliot scarce knew how deep her own humour went,and whether she was acting like a player in a Mystery,or was in good earnest.And if she knew not rightly what her humour was,far less could I know,so that she was ever a puzzle to me,and kept me in a hundred pretty doubts and dreads every day.Alas!how sorely,through all these years,have I longed to hear her rebuke me in mirth,and put me adread,and laugh at me again I for she was,as it were,wife and child to me,at once,and I a child with her,and as happy as a child.

Thus,nothing would now jump with her humour but to be speaking of her jackanapes,and how he would come louting and leaping to welcome her,and forsake her old kinswoman,who had followed with them to Tours.And she had much to report concerning his new tricks:how he would leap over a rod for the Dauphin or the Maid,but not if adjured in the name of the English King,or the Duke of Burgundy.

Also,if you held him,he would make pretence to bite any that you called Englishman or false Frenchman.Moreover,he had now been taught to fetch and carry,and would climb into Elliot's window,from the garden,and bring her little basket of silks,or whatsoever she desired,or carry it thither,as he was commanded.

"And he wrung the cat's neck,"quoth my master;but Elliot bade him hold his peace.

In such sport the hours passed,till we were safely come to Tours,and so to their house in a street running off the great place,where the cathedral stands.It was a goodly dwelling,with fair carved-work on the beams,and in the doorway stood the old Scots kinswoman,smiling wide and toothless,to welcome us.Elliot kissed her quickly,and she fondled Elliot,and held a hand out over her shoulder to greet me.

"But where is my jackanapes,that should have been here to salute his mistress?"Elliot cried.