Kitabı oku: «Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune», sayfa 3

‘In mine only; I took it from the ground the same moment that you dropped it, and then came here to place it in M. Boivin’s hands.’

‘Who has taken care of it since that time?’ continued Robespierre, with a slow and sneering accentuation on every word.

‘The pocket-book has never left my possession since it quitted yours,’ was my reply.

‘Just so,’ broke in Boivin, now slowly recovering from his terror. ‘Of its contents I know nothing; nor have I sought to know anything.’

Robespierre looked at me as if to corroborate this statement, and I nodded my head in acquiescence.

‘Who is your father, boy?’

‘I have none – he was guillotined.’

‘His name?’

‘Tiernay.’

‘Ah, I remember; he was called l’Irlandais.’

‘The same.’

‘A famous Royalist was that same Tiernay, and, doubtless, contrived to leave a heritage of his opinions to his son.’

‘He left me nothing – I have neither house, nor home, nor even bread to eat.’

‘But you have a head to plan, and a heart to feel, youngster; and it is better that fellows like you should not want a dinner. Boivin, look to it that he is taken care of. In a few days I will relieve you of the charge. You will remain here, boy; there are worse resting-places, I promise you. There are men who call themselves teachers of the people, who would ask no better life than free quarters on Boivin.’ And so saying, he hurriedly withdrew, leaving me face to face with my host.

‘So then, youngster,’ said Boivin, as he scratched his ear thoughtfully, ‘I have gained a pensioner! Parbleu! if life were not an uncertain thing in these times, there’s no saying how long we might not be blessed with your amiable company.’

‘You shall not be burthened heavily, citizen,’ said I: ‘let me have my dinner – I have not eaten since yesterday morning, and I will go my ways peacefully.’

‘Which means straight to Robespierre’s dwelling, to tell him that I have turned you out of doors – eh, sirrah?’

‘You mistake me much,’ said I; ‘this would be sorry gratitude for eaten bread. I meant what I said – that I will not be an unwelcome guest, even though the alternative be, as it is, something very nigh starvation.’

Boivin did not seem clearly to comprehend the meaning of what I said; or perhaps my whole conduct and bearing puzzled him, for he made no reply for several seconds. At last, with a kind of sigh, he said – ‘Well, well, it cannot be helped; it must be even as he wished, though the odds are, he ‘ll never think more about him. Come, lad, you shall have your dinner.’

I followed him through a narrow, unlighted passage, which opened into a room, where, at a long table, were seated a number of men and boys at dinner. Some were dressed as cooks; others wore a kind of grey blouse, with a badge upon the arm, bearing the name ‘Boivin’ in large letters, and were, as I afterwards learned, the messengers employed to carry refreshments into the prison, and who, by virtue of this sign, were freely admitted within the gates.

Taking my place at the board, I proceeded to eat with a voracity that only a long fast could have excused; and thus took but little heed of my companions, whose solecisms in table etiquette might otherwise have amused me.

‘Art a Marmiton, thou?’ asked an elderly man in a cook’s cap, as he stared fixedly at me for some seconds.

‘No,’ said I, helping myself and eating away as before.

‘Thou canst never be a commissionaire, friend, with an appetite like that,’ cried another; ‘I wouldn’t trust thee to carry a casserole to the fire.’

‘Nor shall I be,’ said I coolly.

‘What trade, then, has the good fortune to possess your shining abilities.’

‘A trade that thrives well just now, friend – pass me the flask.’

‘Indeed, and what may it be?’

‘Can you not guess, citizen,’ said I, ‘if I tell you that it was never more in vogue; and, if there be some who will not follow it, they’ll wear their heads just as safely by holding their peace?’

‘Parbleu! thou hast puzzled me,’ said the chief cook; ‘and if thou be’st not a coffin-maker – ’ A roar of merriment cut short his speech, in which I myself could not but join heartily.

‘That is, I know,’ said I, ‘a thriving business; but mine is even better; and, not to mystify you longer, I ‘ll just tell you what I am; which is, simply, a friend of the Citizen Robespierre.’

The blow told with full force; and I saw, in the terrified looks that were interchanged around the table, that my sojourn amongst them, whether destined to be of short or long duration, would not be disturbed by further liberties. It was truly a reign of terror that same period! The great agent of everything was the vague and shadowy dread of some terrible vengeance, against which precautions were all in vain. Men met each other with secret misgivings, and parted with the same dreadful distrust. The ties of kindred were all broken; brotherly affection died out. Existence was become like the struggle for life upon some shipwrecked raft, where each sought safety by his neighbour’s doom! At such a time – with such terrible teachings – children became men in all the sterner features of character; cruelty is a lesson so easily learned.

As for myself, energetic and ambitious by nature, the ascendency my first assumption of power suggested was too grateful a passion to be relinquished. The name – whose spell was like a talisman, because now the secret engine by which I determined to work out my fortune – Robespierre had become to my imagination like the slave of Aladdin’s lamp; and to conjure him up was to be all-powerful Even to Boivin himself this influence extended; and it was easy to perceive that he regarded the whole narrative of the pocket-book as a mere fable, invented to obtain a position as a spy over his household.

I was not unwilling to encourage the belief – it added to my importance, by increasing the fear I inspired; and thus I walked indolently about, giving myself those airs of mouchard that I deemed most fitting, and taking a mischievous delight in the terror I was inspiring.

The indolence of my life, however, soon wearied me, and I began to long for some occupation, or some pursuit. Teeming with excitement as the world was – every day, every hour, brimful of events – it was impossible to sit calmly on the shore, and watch the great, foaming current of human passions, without longing to be in the stream. Had I been a man at that time, I should have become a furious orator of the Mountain – an impassioned leader of the people. The impulse to stand foremost – to take a bold and prominent position – would have carried me to any lengths. I had caught up enough of the horrid fanaticism of the time to think that there was something grand and heroic in contempt for human suffering; that a man rose proudly above all the weakness of his nature, when, in the pursuit of some great object, he stifled within his breast every throb of affection – every sentiment of kindness and mercy. Such were the teachings rife at the time – such the first lessons that boyhood learned; and oh! what a terrible hour had that been for humanity if the generation then born had grown up to manhood unchastened and unconverted!

But to return to my daily life. As I perceived that a week had now elapsed, and the Citizen Robespierre had not revisited the ‘restaurant,’ nor taken any interest in my fate or fortunes, I began to fear lest Boivin should master his terror regarding me, and take heart to put me out of doors – an event which, in my present incertitude, would have been sorely inconvenient. I resolved, therefore, to practise a petty deception on my host, to sustain the influence of terror over him. This was, to absent myself every day at a certain hour, under the pretence of visiting my patron; letting fall, from time to time, certain indications to show in what part of the city I had been, and occasionally, as if in an unguarded moment, condescending to relate some piece of popular gossip. None ventured to inquire the source of my information – not one dared to impugn its veracity. Whatever their misgivings in secret, to myself they displayed the most credulous faith. Nor was their trust so much misplaced, for I had, in reality, become a perfect chronicle of all that went forward in Paris – never missing a debate in the Convention, where my retentive memory could carry away almost verbally all that I heard – ever present at every public fête or procession, whether the occasions were some insulting desecration of their former faith, or some tasteless mockery of heathen ceremonial.

My powers of mimicry, too, enabled me to imitate all the famous characters of the period; and in my assumed inviolability, I used to exhibit the uncouth gestures and spluttering utterance of Marat – the wild and terrible ravings of Danton – and even the reedy treble of my own patron Robespierre, as he screamed denunciations against the enemies of the people. It is true these exhibitions of mine were only given in secret to certain parties, who, by a kind of instinct, I felt could be trusted.

Such was my life, as one day, returning from the Convention, I beheld a man affixing to a wall a great placard, to which the passing crowd seemed to pay deep attention. It was a decree of the Committee of Public Safety, containing the names of above seven hundred Royalists, who were condemned to death, and who were to be executed in three tournées, on three successive days.

For sometime back the mob had not been gratified with a spectacle of this nature. In the ribald language of the day, the ‘holy guillotine had grown thirsty from long drought’; and they read the announcement with greedy eyes, commenting as they went upon those whose names were familiar to them. There were many of noble birth among the proscribed, but by far the greater number were priests, the whole sum of whose offending seemed written in the simple and touching words, ancien curé, of such a parish! It was strange to mark the bitterness of invective with which the people loaded these poor and innocent men, as though they were the source of all their misfortunes. The lazy indolence with which they reproached them seemed ten times more offensive in their eyes than the lives of ease and affluence led by the nobility. The fact was, they could not forgive men of their own rank and condition what they pardoned in the well born and the noble! an inconsistency that has characterised democracy in other situations beside this.

As I ran my eyes down the list of those confined in the Temple, I came to a name which smote my heart with a pang of ingratitude as well as sorrow – the ‘Père Michel Delannois, soi disant curé de St. Blois’ – my poor friend and protector was there among the doomed! If, up to that moment, I had made no effort to see him, I must own the reason lay in my own selfish feeling of shame – the dread that he should mark the change that had taken place in me, a change that I felt extended to all about me, and showed itself in my manner as it influenced my every action. It was not alone that I lost the obedient air and quiet submissiveness of the child, but I had assumed the very extravagance of that democratic insolence which was the mode among the leading characters of the time.

How should I present myself before him, the very impersonation of all the vices against which he used to warn me – how exhibit the utter failure of all his teachings and his hopes? What would this be but to embitter his reflections needlessly. Such were the specious reasons with which I fed my self-love, and satisfied my conscience; but now, as I read his name in that terrible catalogue, their plausibility served me no longer, and at last I forgot myself to remember only him.

‘I will see him at once,’ thought I, ‘whatever it may cost me – I will stay beside him for his last few hours of life; and when he carries with him from this world many an evil memory of shame and treachery, ingratitude from me shall not increase the burthen.’ And with this resolve I turned my steps homeward.

CHAPTER III. THE ‘TEMPLE’

At the time of which I write, there was but one motive principle throughout France – ‘Terror.’ By the agency of terror and the threat of denunciation was everything carried on, not only in the public departments of the state, but in all the common occurrences of everyday life. Fathers used it towards their children – children towards their parents; mothers coerced their daughters – daughters, in turn, braved the authority of their mothers. The tribunal of public opinion, open to all, scattered its decrees with a reckless cruelty – denying to-day what it had decreed but yesterday, and at last obliterating every trace of ‘right’ or ‘principle’ in a people who now only lived for the passing hour, and who had no faith in the future, even of this world.

Among the very children at play, this horrible doctrine had gained a footing: the tyrant urchin, whose ingenuity enabled him to terrorise, became the master of his playfellows. I was not slow in acquiring the popular education of the period, and soon learned that fear was a ‘Bank’ on which one might draw at will. Already the domineering habit had given to my air and manner all the insolence of seeming power, and, while a mere boy in years, I was a man in all the easy assumption of a certain importance.

It was with a bold and resolute air I entered the restaurant, and calling Boivin aside, said —

‘I have business in the Temple this morning, Boivin; see to it that I shall not be denied admittance.’

‘I am not governor of the gaol,’ grunted Boivin sulkily, ‘nor have I the privilege to pass any one.’

‘But your boys have the entrée; the “rats” (so were they called) are free to pass in and out.’

‘Ay, and I’m responsible for the young rascals, too, and for anything that may be laid to their charge.’

‘And you shall extend this same protection to me, Master Boivin, for one day, at least – nay, my good friend, there’s no use in sulking about it. A certain friend of ours, whose name I need not speak aloud, is little in the habit of being denied anything; are you prepared for the consequence of disobeying his orders?’

‘Let me see that they are his orders,’ said he sturdily – ‘who tells me that such is his will?’

‘I do,’ was my brief reply, as, with a look of consummate effrontery, I drew myself up and stared him insolently in the face.

‘Suppose, then, that I have my doubts on the matter – suppose – ’

‘I will suppose all you wish, Boivin,’ said I interrupting, ‘and even something more; for I will suppose myself returning to the quarter whence I have just come, and within one hour – ay, within one hour, Boivin – bringing back with me a written order, not to pass me into the Temple, but to receive the body of the Citizen Jean Baptiste Boivin, and be accountable for the same to the Committee of Public Safety.’

He trembled from head to foot as I said these words, and in his shaking cheeks and fallen jaw I saw that my spell was working.

‘And now, I ask for the last time, do you consent or not?’

‘How is it to be done?’ cried he, in a voice of downright wretchedness. ‘You are not “inscribed” at the secretaries’ office as one of the “rats.”’

‘I should hope not,’ said I, cutting him short; ‘but I may take the place of one for an hour or so. Tristan is about my own size; his blouse and badge will just suit me.’

‘Ay, leave me to a fine of a thousand francs, if you should be found out,’ muttered Boivin, ‘not to speak of a worse mayhap.’

‘Exactly so – far worse in case of your refusing; but there sounds the bell for mustering the prisoners – it is now too late.’

‘Not so – not so,’ cried Boivin, eagerly, as he saw me prepared to leave the house. ‘You shall go in Tristan’s place. Send him here, that he may tell you everything about the “service,” and give you his blouse and badge.’

I was not slow in availing myself of the permission, nor was Tristan sorry to find a substitute. He was a dull, depressed-looking boy, not over communicative as to his functions, merely telling me that I was to follow the others – that I came fourth in the line – to answer when my name was called ‘Tristan,’ and to put the money I received in my leathern pocket, without uttering a word, lest the gaolers should notice it.

To accoutre myself in the white cotton nightcap and the blouse of the craft was the work of a few seconds; and then, with a great knife in my girdle, and a capacious pocket slung at my side, I looked every inch a ‘Marmiton.’

In the kitchen the bustle had already begun, and half-a-dozen cooks, with as many under-cooks, were dealing out ‘portions’ with all the speed of a well-practised performance. Nothing short of great habit could have prevented the confusion degenerating into downright anarchy. The ‘service’ was, indeed, effected with a wonderful rapidity; and certain phrases, uttered with speed, showed how it progressed. ‘Maigre des Curés,’ – ‘finished.’ ‘Bouillon for the “expectants,’” – ‘ready here.’ ‘Canards aux olives des condamnées,’ – ‘all served.’ ‘Red partridges for the reprieved at the upper table,’ – ‘despatched.’ Such were the quick demands, and no less quick replies, that rung out, amidst the crash of plates, knives, and glasses, and the incessant movement of feet, until, at last, we were all marshalled in a long line, and, preceded by a drum, set out for the prison.

As we drew near, the heavy gates opened to receive, and closed behind us with a loud bang that I could not help feeling must have smote heavily on many a heart that had passed there. We were now in a large courtyard, where several doors led off, each guarded by a sentinel, whose ragged clothes and rusty accoutrements proclaimed a true soldier of the Republic. One of the large hurdles used for carrying the prisoners to the Place stood in one corner, and two or three workmen were busied in repairing it for the coming occasion.

So much I had time to observe, as we passed along; and now we entered a dimly lighted corridor of great extent; passing down which, we emerged into a second cour, traversed by a species of canal or river, over which a bridge led. In the middle of this was a strongly barred iron gate, guarded by two sentries. As we arrived here, our names were called aloud by a species of turnkey; and at the call ‘Tristan,’ I advanced, and, removing the covers from the different dishes, submitted them for inspection to an old, savage-looking fellow, who, with a long steel fork, pricked the pieces of meat, as though anything could have been concealed within them. Meanwhile, another fellow examined my cotton cap and pocket, and passed his hands along my arms and body. The whole did not last more than a few minutes, and the word ‘forward’ was given to pass on. The gloom of the place – the silence, only broken by the heavy bang of an iron-barred door, or the clank of chains, the sad thoughts of the many who trod these corridors on their way to death – depressed me greatly, and equally unprepared me for what was to come; for as we drew near the great hall, the busy hum of voices, the sound of laughter, and the noises of a large assembly in full converse, suddenly burst upon the ear; and as the wide doors were thrown open, I beheld above a hundred people, who, either gathered in single groups, or walking up and down in parties, seemed all in the fullest enjoyment of social intercourse.

A great table, with here and there a large flagon of water, or a huge loaf of the coarse bread used by the peasantry, ran from end to end of the chamber. A few had already taken their places at this, but some were satisfied with laying a cap or a kerchief on the bench opposite their accustomed seat; while others again had retired into windows and corners, as if to escape the general gaze, and partake of their humble meal in solitude.

Whatever restrictions prison discipline might have exercised elsewhere, here the widest liberty seemed to prevail. The talk was loud, and even boisterous; the manner to the turnkeys exhibited nothing of fear: the whole assemblage presented rather the aspect of a gathering of riotous republicans than of a band of prisoners under sentence. And yet such were the greater number, and the terrible slip of paper attached to the back of each, with a date, told the day on which he was to die.

As I lingered to gaze on this strange gathering, I was admonished to move on, and now perceived that my companion had advanced to the end of the hall, by which a small flight of stone steps led out upon a terrace – at the end of which we entered another and not less spacious chamber, equally crowded and noisy. Here the company were of both sexes, and of every grade and condition of rank – from the highest noble of the former Court, to the humblest peasant of La Vendee. If the sounds of mirth and levity were less frequent, the buzz of conversation was, to the full, as loud as in the lower hall, where, from difference of condition in life, the scenes passing presented stranger and more curious contrasts. In one corner a group of peasants were gathered around a white-haired priest, who, in a low but earnest voice, was uttering his last exhortation to them; in another, some young and fashionably dressed men were exhibiting to a party of ladies the very airs and graces by which they would have adorned a saloon; here, was a party at piquet – there, a little group, arranging, for the last time, their household cares, and settling, with a few small coins, the account of mutual expenditure. Of the ladies, several were engaged at needlework – some little preparation for the morrow – the last demand that ever vanity was to make of them!

Although there was matter of curiosity in all around me, my eyes sought for hut one object, the curé of St. Blois. Twice or thrice, from the similarity of dress, I was deceived, and, at last, when I really did behold him, as he sat alone in a window, reading, I could scarcely satisfy myself of the reality, he was lividly pale, his eyes deep sunk, and surrounded with two dark circles, while along his worn cheek the tears had marked two channels of purple colour. What need of the guillotine there – the lamp of life was in its last flicker without it.

Our names were called, and the meats placed upon the table. Just as the head-turnkey was about to give the order to be seated, a loud commotion, and a terrible uproar in the court beneath, drew every one to the window. It was a hurdle which, emerging from an archway, broke down from overcrowding; and now the confusion of prisoners, gaolers, and sentries, with plunging horses and screaming sufferers, made a scene of the wildest uproar. Chained two by two, the prisoners were almost helpless, and in their efforts to escape injury made the most terrific struggle. Such were the instincts of life in those on the very road to death!

Resolving to profit by the moment of confusion, I hastened to the window, where alone, unmoved by the general commotion, sat the Père Michel. He lifted his glassy eyes as I came near, and in a low, mild voice said —

‘Thanks, my good boy, but I have no money to pay thee; nor does it matter much now – it is but another day.

I could have cried as I heard these sad words; but mastering emotions which would have lost time so precious, I drew close, and whispered —

‘Père Michel, it is I, your own Maurice.’

He started, and a deep flush suffused his cheek; and then stretching out his hand, he pushed back my cap, and parted the hair of my forehead, as if doubting the reality of what he saw; when with a weak voice he said —

‘No, no, thou art not my own Maurice. His eyes shone not with that worldly lustre – thine do; his brow was calm, and fair as children’s should be – thine is marked with manhood’s craft and subtlety; and yet, thou art like him.’

A low sob broke from me as I listened to his words, and the tears gushed forth, and rolled in torrents down my cheeks.

‘Yes,’ cried he, clasping me in his arms, ‘thou art my own dear boy. I know thee now; but how art thou here, and thus?’ and he touched my blouse as he spoke.

‘I came to see and to save you, père,’ said I. ‘Nay, do not try to discourage me, but rather give me all your aid. I saw her – I was with her in her last moments at the guillotine; she gave me a message for you, but this you shall never hear till we are without these walls.’

‘It cannot be, it cannot be,’ said he sorrowfully.

‘It can and shall be,’ said I resolutely. ‘I have merely assumed this dress for the occasion; I have friends, powerful and willing to protect me. Let us change robes – give me that “soutane,” and put on the blouse. When you leave this, hasten to the old garden of the chapel, and wait for my coming – I will join you there before night.’

‘It cannot be,’ replied he again.

‘Again I say, it shall, and must be. Nay, if you still refuse, there shall be two victims, for I will tear off the dress here where I stand, and openly declare myself the son of the Royalist Tiernay.’

Already the commotion in the court beneath was beginning to subside, and even now the turnkeys’ voices were heard in the refectory, recalling the prisoners to table – another moment and it would have been too late: it was, then, less by persuasion than by actual force I compelled him to yield, and, pulling off his black serge gown, drew over his shoulders my yellow blouse, and placed upon his head the white cap of the ‘Marmiton.’ The look of shame and sorrow of the poor curé would have betrayed him at once, if any had given themselves the trouble to look at him.

‘And thou, my poor child,’ said he, as he saw me array myself in his priestly dress, ‘what is to be thy fate?’

‘All will depend upon you, Père Michel,’ said I, holding him by the arm, and trying to fix his wandering attention. ‘Once out of the prison, write to Boivin, the restaurateur of the “Scélérat,” and tell him that an escaped convict has scruples for the danger into which he has brought a poor boy, one of his “Marmitons,” and whom by a noxious drug he has lulled into insensibility, while, having exchanged clothes, he has managed his escape. Boivin will comprehend the danger he himself runs by leaving me here. All will go well – and now there’s not a moment to lose. Take up your basket, and follow the others.’

‘But the falsehood of all this,’ cried the père.

‘But your life, and mine, too, lost, if you refuse,’ said I, pushing him away.

‘Oh, Maurice, how changed have you become!’ cried he sorrowfully.

‘You will see a greater change in me yet, as I lie in the sawdust beneath the scaffold,’ said I hastily. ‘Go, go.’

There was, indeed, no more time to lose. The muster of the prisoners was forming at one end of the chamber, while the ‘Marmitons’ were gathering up their plates and dishes, previous to departure, at the other; and it was only by the decisive step of laying myself down within the recesses of the window, in the attitude of one overcome by sleep, that I could force him to obey my direction. I could feel his presence as he bent over me, and muttered something that must have been a prayer. I could know, without seeing, that he still lingered near me, but as I never stirred, he seemed to feel that my resolve was not to be shaken, and at last he moved slowly away.

At first the noise and clamour sounded like the crash of some desperate conflict, but by degrees this subsided, and I could hear the names called aloud and the responses of the prisoners, as they were ‘told off’ in parties from the different parts of the prison. Tender leave-takings and affectionate farewells from many who never expected to meet again, accompanied these, and the low sobs of anguish were mingled with the terrible chaos of voices; and at last I heard the name of ‘Michel Delannois’: I felt as if my death-summons was in the words ‘Michel Delannois,’

‘That crazy priest can neither hear nor see, I believe,’ said the gaoler savagely. ‘Will no one answer for him?’

‘He is asleep yonder in the window,’ replied a voice from the crowd.

‘Let him sleep then,’ said the turnkey; ‘when awake he gives us no peace with his prayers and exhortations.’

‘He has eaten nothing for three days,’ observed another; ‘he is, perhaps, overcome by weakness more than by sleep.’

‘Be it so! if he only lie quiet, I care not,’ rejoined the gaoler, and proceeded to the next name on the list.

The monotonous roll-call, the heat, the attitude in which I was lying, all conspired to make me drowsy: even the very press of sensations that crowded to my brain lent their aid, and at last I slept as soundly as ever I had done in my bed at night. I was dreaming of the dark alleys in the wood of Belleville, where so often I had strolled of an evening with Père Michel: I was fancying that we were gathering the fresh violets beneath the old trees, when a rude hand shook my shoulder, and I awoke. One of the turnkeys and Boivin stood over me, and I saw at once that my plan had worked well.

‘Is this the fellow?’ said the turnkey, pushing me rudely with his foot.

‘Yes,’ replied Boivin, white with fear; ‘this is the boy; his name is Tristan.’ The latter words were accompanied with a look of great significance towards me.

‘What care we how he is called! let us hear in what manner he came here.’

‘I can tell you little,’ said I, staring and looking wildly around; ‘I must have been asleep, and dreaming, too.’

‘The letter,’ whispered Boivin to the turnkey – ‘the letter says that he was made to inhale some poisonous drug, and that while insensible – ’

‘Bah,’ said the other derisively, ‘this will not gain credit here; there has been complicity in the affair, Master Boivin. The commissaire is not the man to believe a trumped-up tale of the sort; besides, you are well aware that you are responsible for these “rats” of yours. It is a private arrangement between you and the commissaire, and it is not very probable that he’ll get himself into a scrape for you.’

‘Then what are we to do?’ cried Boivin passionately, as he wrung his hands in despair.

‘I know what I should, in a like case,’ was the dry reply.

‘And that is? – ’

‘Laisser aller! was the curt rejoinder. ‘The young rogue has passed for a curé for the last afternoon; I’d even let him keep up the disguise a little longer, and it will be all the same by this time to-morrow.’