The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion, Page 6

  CHAPTER V.

  THE SPROUTING OF CABBAGE JOCK

  Cabbage Jock was immensely broad at the shoulders. He stooped slightly,so that his long arms fell below his knees when he stood erect. Hismouth was slightly open, but so large in itself that a banana couldeasily have been inserted sideways without touching the wicks. There wasa look of droll simplicity on the lad's face (he was apparently abouttwenty) which reminded one of the pictures of Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire, orthe Brownie of Scottish fireside tales.

  Yet for one so simple he had answered with strange readiness. There wasa quick flash of the eye as he took in the two men before him.

  "What may you be?" demanded the Professor of Eloquence.

  "A he-goat upon the mountains, comely in the going!" said the lout, invery good French. The learned man of the Sorbonne noted at once that hequoted (and mixed) words of the Genevan Version common among theHuguenots.

  "He speaks French, this good lad?" he asked, turning to Claire.

  "Yes, when it pleases him, which is not always--though indeed he alwaysobeys me. Is it not so, Jock?"

  "My name is not Jock! Nowise--as you well do know. I am called Blastusof the Zamzummims! Against all Armenians, Hussites, Papishers,Anabaptists, Leaguers, and followers of the high, the low, and themiddle way, I lift up my heel. I am a bird of fair plumage on themountains of Zepher. I fly--I mount--I soar----"

  "Go and find four horses," said his mistress; "two of them good andstrong, one Spanish jennet for me, one Flanders mare for yourself andthe saddle-bags."

  The Bird of Fair Plumage scratched his long reddish locks in a sort ofcomic perplexity.

  "Am I to steal them or pay for them?" he said.

  "Pay, of course," said his mistress, scandalised.

  "That will leave our purse very light--the purse that was your father's.It were easier these days, and also more just to spoil the Egyptians.The lion-like man of Moab, which is the Duke of Guise, walketh aboutlike the devil roaring (as sayeth Peter), and because of the barricadesthere are many good horses tied by their bridles at the gates of thecity--masterless, all of them."

  "Pay for them, do you hear?" said Claire; "do not stand arguing withyour master's daughter. I thought you had learned that long ago."

  Blastus of the Zamzummims went out grumbling to himself.

  "At least she said nothing about cheating--or clipped money, or badmoney--or money from the Pope's mint. I will buy, and I will pay forall. Yes--yes--but----"

  It was obvious that Jock of the Cabbage's hope of spoiling Egypt had notbeen properly rooted out of his mind even by his mistress's commands.

  A strange soul dwelt in this Jock of the Cabbage. He was the son of areputable Scottish refugee at Geneva, from whom he had sucked in, as afrog does the autumn rains, the strongest and purest Calvinisticdoctrine. He had, however, early perceived that his ludicrous personalappearance prevented him from obtaining eminence as a preacher.

  He had therefore chosen another way of being useful.

  John Stirling had deliberately made himself Cabbage Jock--which is tosay, "Jean-aux-Choux," and by that name was famous alike in the camps ofHenri of Navarre, and in making sport for the "mignons" of the King ofFrance. But it was not known to many alive that a mind clear andlogical, a heart full of the highest determinations, were hidden awayunder the fool's motley and the tattered cloak of the gangrel man.

  Only to Francis Agnew had the Fool talked equally and with unboundheart. Even Claire did not guess what lay beneath this folly ofmisapplied texts and mirth-provoking preachments. There can be no bettermask for real fanaticism than the pretence of it. And whereas FrancisAgnew had been a gentleman and a diplomat always, his henchman, Jock theFool, was a fanatic of the purest strain, adding thereto a sense ofhumour and probably a strain of real madness as well.

  "Come up hither, Jean-aux-Choux!" cried the lads on the barricades."Turn a somersault for us, Cabbage Jock!" shouted a fellow-countryman,on his way to preferment in the Scots Guard, who in the meanwhile wasfilling up his time by fighting manfully against the King's troops.

  "Lick the tip of your nose, Jock!" roared yet a third; "waggle yourears! Ah, well done! Now jest for us, and we will give you a gooddrink--Macon of the fourth year--as much as you can take down at adraught. This Guisarding is dry work."

  The streets were full of excited men, cheering for Holy Faith and theDuke of Guise. They cried that they were going to kill the King, andmake that most Catholic Prince, the Head of the League, King in hisstead.

  The Protestants in Paris had fled or hidden. There were great fears of asecond St. Bartholomew. But those who remembered the first, said that ifthat had been intended, there would be a deal less noise and a deal moreprivate whetting of daggers and sword-blades.

  Once the Professor of Eloquence left them for a moment in order to runupstairs to tell his housekeeper and her husband that they were to holdhis house against all authority save that of the King, and not yield toosoon even to that. He might be away some time, he said.

  The Abbe John, whose housekeeping was of a desultory sort--consistingchiefly in going to see his uncle, the Cardinal d'Albret, when he was inneed of money or of the ghostly counsel of a prince of the Church--madeno preparations for flight, save to feel in his breeches pocket to makesure that he had his gold safely there.

  "My creditors can wait, or importune my uncle, who will have them thrownin the Seine for their pains," said the young student of the Sorbonneeasily; "and as for my dear gossips, they will easily enough consolethemselves. Women are like cats. As often as they fall, they fall upontheir feet!"

  It was a strange Paris which they passed through that day--these four.The Professor of Eloquence went first, wearing the great green cloak ofhis learned faculty, with its official golden collar and cuffs of darkfur.

  That day Paris was not only making the history of the present, but wasunconsciously prophesying the future--her own future. Whenever, afterthat, the executive grew weak and the people strong, up came thepaving-stones, and down in a heap went the barrels, _charettes_,scaffoldings, street-doors. It was not only the Day of the Barricades,but the first day of many barricades. Indeed, Paris learned the lessonof power so well, that it became her settled conviction that what shedid to-day France would homologate to-morrow. It was only the victory ofthe "rurals" in the late May of 1871 which taught Paris her due place,as indeed the capital of France, but not France itself.

  Dr. Anatole's cloak was certainly a protection to them as they went.Caps were doffed as to one of the Sixteen--that great council of ninefrom each of the sixteen districts of Paris, whose power over the peoplemade the real Catholic League.

  Dr. Anatole explained matters to Claire as they went.

  "They have long wanted a figure-head, these shop-keepers andbooth-hucksters," he said bitterly. "The Cardinal leads them cunningly,and between guile and noise they have so intoxicated Guise that he willput his head in the noose, jump off, and hang himself. This King Henryof Valois is a contemptible dog enough, as all the world knows. But heis a dog which bites without barking, and that is a dangerous breed. IfI were Guise, instead of promenading Paris between the Queen-Mother'schamber and the King's palace of the Louvre, I would get me to my castleof Soissons with all speed, and there arm and drill all thegentlemen-varlets and varlet-gentlemen that ever came out of Lorraine.There would I wait, with twenty eyes looking out every way across themeadows, and a hundred at least in the direction of Paris. I would havecannons primed and matches burning. I would lay in provisions to servea year in case of siege. That is what I should do, were I Duke of Guiseand Henry of Valois' enemy!"

  At the Orleans gate Jean-aux-Choux, in waiting with the horses (bought,stolen, or strayed), heard the conclusion of the Professor's exposition.

  "Let Wolf Guise eat Wolf Valois, or Wolf Valois dine off Wolf Guise--somuch the better for the Sheep of the Fold," he commented freely, asbecame his cap-and-bells, which in these days had more liberty ofprophecy than the wisdom of the wisest.