Sir John Constantine by Prosper Paleologus Constantine

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"All that autumn I spent under her father's roof, and--my leave
having been extended--all the winter following. The old Count had
convinced himself by this time that by accepting the crown he would
confer a signal service on Corsica, and had opened a lengthy
correspondence with the two Paolis, whose hesitation to accept this
view at once puzzled and annoyed him. For me, I wished the
correspondence might be prolonged for ever, for meanwhile I lived my
days in company with Emilia, and we loved.

"I was a fool. Yet I cannot tax myself that I played false to duty,
though by helping to crown her father I was destroying my own hopes,
since as heiress to his throne Emilia must be far removed from me.
We scarcely thought of this, but lived in our love, we two.
So the winter passed and the spring came and the _macchia_ burst into
flower.

"Prosper, you have never set eyes on the _macchia_, the glory of your
kingdom. But you shall behold it soon, lad, and smell it--for its
fragrance spreads around the island and far out to sea. It belts
Corsica with verdure and a million million flowers--cistus and myrtle
and broom and juniper; clematis and vetch and wild roses run mad.
Deeper than the tall forests behind it the _macchia_ will hide two
lovers, and under the open sky hedge off all the world but their
passion . . . In the _macchia_ we roamed together, day after day, and
forgot the world; forgot all but honour; for she, my lady, was a
child of sixteen, and as her knight I worshipped her. Ah, those
days! those scented days!

"But while we loved and Count Ugo wrote letters, the two Paolis were
doing; and by-and-by they played the strangest stroke in all
Corsica's history. That spring, at Aleria on the east coast, there
landed a man of whom the Corsican's had never heard. He came out of
nowhere with a single ship and less than a score of attendants--to be
precise, two officers, a priest, a secretary, a major-domo, an
under-steward, a cook, three Tunisian slaves, and six lackeys.
He had sailed from Algiers, with a brief rest in the port of Leghorn,
and he stepped ashore in Turkish dress, with scarlet-lined cloak,
turban, and scimetar. He called himself Theodore, a baron of
Westphalia, and he brought with him a ship-load of arms and
ammunition, a thousand zechins of Tunis, and letters from half a
dozen of the Great Powers promising assistance. Whether these were
genuine or not, I cannot tell you.

"Led by the two Paolis--this is no fairy tale, my friends--the
Corsicans welcomed and proclaimed him king, without even waiting for
despatches from Count Rivarola (who had negotiated) to inform them of
the terms agreed upon. They led him in triumph to Corte, and there,
in their ancient capital, crowned and anointed him. He gave laws,
issued edicts, struck money, distributed rewards. He put himself in
person at the head of the militia, and blocked up the Genoese in
their fortified towns. For a few months he swept the island like a
conqueror.

"All this, as you may suppose, utterly disconcerted the Count Ugo
Colonna, who saw his dreams topple at one stroke into the dust.
But the chiefs found a way to reconcile him. Their new King Theodore
must marry and found a dynasty. Let a bride be found for him in
Colonna's daughter, and let children be born to him of the best blood
in Corsica.

"The Count recovered his good temper: his spirits rose at a bound: he
embraced the offer. His grandsons should be kings of Corsica.
And she--my Emilia--

"We met once only after her father had broken the news to her.
He had not asked her consent; he had told her, in a flutter of pride,
that this thing must be, and for her country's sake. She came to me,
in the short dusk, upon the terrace overlooking the Taravo.
She was of heart too heroic to linger out our agony. In the dusk she
stretched out both hands--ah, God, the child she looked! so helpless,
so brave!--and I caught them and kissed them. Then she was gone.

"A week later they married her to King Theodore in the Cathedral of
Corte, and crowned her beside him. Before the winter he left the
island and sailed to Holland to raise moneys! for the promises of the
Great Powers had come to nothing, even if they were genuinely given.
For myself, I had bidden good-bye to Corsica and sailed for Tuscany
on the same day that Emilia was married.

"Now I must tell you that on the eve of sailing I wrote a letter to
the queen--as queen she would be by the time it reached her--wishing
her all happiness, and adding that if, in the time to come, fate
should bring her into poverty or danger, my estate and my life would
ever be at her service. To this I received, as I had expected, no
answer: nor did she, if ever she received it, impart its contents to
her husband. He--the rascal--had a genius for borrowing, and yet
'twas I that had to begin by seeking him out to feed him with money.

"News came to me that he was in straits in Holland, and had for a
year been drumming the banks in vain: also that the Genoese, whom his
incursion had merely confounded, were beginning to lift their heads
and take the offensive again. At first he had terrified them like a
mad dog; the one expedient they could hit on was to set a price upon
his head. Certainly he had gifts. He contrived--and by sheer
audacity, mark you, backed by a fine presence--to drive them into
such a panic that, months after he had sailed, they were petitioning
France to send over troops to help them. The Corsicans sent a
counter-embassy. 'If,' said they to King Louis, 'your Majesty force
us to yield to Genoa, then let us drink this bitter cup to the health
of the Most Christian King, and die.' King Louis admired the speech
but nibbled at the opportunity. Our own Government meanwhile had
either lost heart or suffered itself to be persuaded by the Genoese
Minister in London. In the July after my Emilia's marriage, our late
Queen Caroline, as regent for the time of Great Britain, issued a
proclamation forbidding any subject of King George to furnish arms or
provisions to the Corsican malcontents.

"And now you know, my dear Prosper, why I cast away the career on
which I had started with some ambition. My lady lacked help, which
as a British subject I was prohibited from offering. My conscience
allowed me to disobey: but not to disobey and eat His Majesty's
bread. I flung up my post, and as a private man hunted across Europe
for King Theodore."

I ran him to earth in Amsterdam. He was in handsome lodgings, but
penniless. It was the first time I had conversed with him; and he, I
believe, had never seen my face. I found him affable, specious,
sanguine, but hollow as a drum. For _her_ sake I took up and renewed
the campaign among the Jew bankers.

"To be short, he sailed back for Corsica in a well-found ship, with
cannon and ammunition on board, and some specie--the whole cargo
worth between twenty and thirty thousand pounds. He made a landing
at Tavagna and threw in almost all his warlike stores. His wife
hurried to meet him: but after a week, finding that the French were
pouring troops into the island, and becoming (they tell me) suddenly
nervous of the price on his head, he sailed away almost without
warning. They say also that on the passage he murdered the man whom
his creditors had forced him to take as supercargo, sold the vessel
at Leghorn, and made off with the specie--no penny of which had
reached his queen or his poor subjects. She--sad childless soul--
driven with her chiefs and counsellors into the mountains before the
combined French and Genoese, escaped a year later to Tuscany, and hid
herself with her sorrows in a religious house ten miles from
Florence.

"So ended this brief reign: and you, Prosper, have met the chief
actor in it. A very few words will tell the rest. The French
overran the island until '41, when the business of the Austrian
succession forced them to withdraw their troops and leave the Genoese
once more face to face with the islanders. Promptly these rose
again. Giafferi and Hyacinth Paoli had fled to Naples; Hyacinth with
two sons, Pascal and Clement, whom he trained there (as I am told) in
all the liberal arts and in undying hatred of the Genoese.
These two lads, returning to the island, took up their father's fight
and have maintained it, with fair success as I learn. From parts of
the island they must have completely extruded the enemy for a while;
since my lady made bold, four years ago, to settle these visitors of
ours in her palace above the Taravo. It would appear, however, that
the Genoese have gathered head again, and his business with them may
explain why Pascal Paoli has not answered the letter I addressed to
him, these eight months since, notifying my son's claim upon the
succession. Or he may have reckoned it indecent of me to address him
in lieu of his Queen, who had returned to the island. I had not
heard of her return. I heard of it to-day for the first time, and of
her peril, which shall hurry us ten times faster than our
pretensions. Prosper," my father concluded, "we must invade Corsica,
and at once."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed my uncle. "How!"

"In a ship," my father answered him as simply. "How otherwise?"

Said my uncle, "But where is your ship?"

Answered my father, "If you will but step outside and pick up one of
these fir-cones in the grass, you can almost toss it on to her deck.
She is called the _Gauntlet_, and her skipper is Captain Jo Pomery.
I might have racked my brain for a month to find such a skipper or a
ship so well found and happily named as this which Providence has
brought to my door. I attach particular importance to the name of a
ship."

My uncle ran his hands through his hair. "But to invade a kingdom,"
he protested, "you will need also an army!"

"Certainly. I must find one."

"But where?"

"It must be somewhere in the neighbourhood, and within twenty-four
hours," replied my father imperturbably. "Time presses."

"But an army must be paid. You have not only to raise one, but to
find the money to support it."

"You put me in mind of an old German tale," said my father, helping
himself to wine. "Once upon a time there were three brothers--but
since, my dear Gervase, you show signs of impatience, I will confine
myself to the last and luckiest one. On his travels, which I will
not pause to describe in detail, he acquired three gifts--a knapsack
which, when opened, discharged a regiment of grenadiers; a cloth
which, when spread, was covered with a meal; and a purse which, when
shaken, filled itself with money."

"Will you be serious, brother?" cried my uncle.

"I am entirely serious!" answered my father. "The problem of an army
and its pay I propose to solve by enlisting volunteers; and the
difficulty of feeding my troops (I had forgotten it and thank you for
reminding me) will be minimized by enlisting as few as possible.
Myself and Prosper make two; Priske, here, three; I would fain have
you accompany us, Gervase, but the estate cannot spare you.
Let me see--" He drummed for a moment on the table with his fingers.
"We ought to have four more at least, to make a show: and seven is a
lucky number."

"You seriously design," my uncle demanded, "to invade the island of
Corsica with an army of seven persons?"

"Most seriously I do. For consider. To begin with, this Theodore--
a vain hollow man--brought but sixteen, including many
non-combatants, and yet succeeded in winning a crown. You will allow
that to win a crown is a harder feat than to succeed to one.
On what reckoning then, or by what Rule-of-Three sum, should Prosper,
who goes to claim what already belongs to him, need more than seven?

"Further," my father continued, "it may well be argued that the fewer
he takes the better; since we sail not against the Corsicans but
against their foes, and therefore should count on finding in every
Corsican a soldier for our standard.

"Thirdly, the Corsicans are a touchy race, whom it would be impolitic
to offend with a show of foreign strength.

"Fourthly, we must look a little beyond the immediate enterprise, and
not (if we can help it) saddle Prosper's kingdom with a standing
army. For, as Bacon advises, that state stands in danger whose
warriors remain in a body and are used to donatives; whereof we see
examples in the turk's Janissaries and the Pretorian Bands of Rome.

"And fifthly, we have neither the time nor the money to collect a
stronger force. The occasion presses: and _fronte capillata est,
post haec Occasio calva_. Time turns a bald head to us if we miss
our moment to catch him by the forelock."

"The Abantes," put in Mr. Grylls, "practised the direct contrary: of
whom Homer tells us that they shaved the forepart of their heads, the
reason being that their enemies might not grip them by the hair in
close fighting. I regret, my dear Sir John, you never warned me that
you designed Prosper for a military career. We might have bestowed
more attention on the warlike customs and operations of the
ancients."

My father sipped his wine and regarded the Vicar benevolently.
For closest friends he had two of the most irrelevant thinkers on
earth and he delighted to distinguish between their irrelevancies.

"But I would not," he continued, "have you doubt that the prime cause
of our expedition is to deliver my lady from the Genoese; or believe
that Prosper will press his claims unless she acknowledge them."

"I am wondering," said my uncle, "where you will find your other four
men."

"Prosper and I will provide them to-morrow," my father answered, with
a careless glance at me. "And now, my friends, we have talked
over-long of Corsica and nothing as yet of that companionship which
brings us here--it may be for the last time. Priske, you may open
another four bottles and leave us. Gervase, take down the book from
the cupboard and let the Vicar read to us while the light allows."

"The marker tells me," said the Vicar, taking the book and opening
it, "that we left in the midst of Chapter 8--_On the Luce or Pike_.

"Ay, and so I remember," my uncle agreed.

The Vicar began to read--

"'And for your dead bait for a pike, for that you may be taught
by one day's going a-fishing with me or any other body that
fishes for him; for the baiting of your hook with a dead
gudgeon or a roach and moving it up and down the water is too
easy a thing to take up any time to direct you to do it.
And yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it
by telling you that that was told me for a secret. It is this:
Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your
dead bait for a pike, and then cast it into a likely place, and
when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards
the top of the water and so up the stream, and it is more than
likely that you have a pike follow with more than common
eagerness. And some affirm that any bait anointed with the
marrow of the thigh-bone of a heron is a great temptation to
any fish.

"'These have not been tried by me, but told me by a friend of
mine, that pretended to do me a courtesy. But if this
direction to catch a pike thus do you no good, yet I am certain
this direction how to roast him when he is caught is choicely
good--'"

"Upon my soul, brother," interrupted my uncle Gervase, removing the
pipe from his mouth, "this reads like a direction for the taking of
Corsica."

CHAPTER VII.

THE COMPANY OF THE ROSE.

"Alway be merry if thou may,
But waste not thy good alway:
Have hat of floures fresh as May,
Chapelet of roses of Whitsonday
For sich array ne costneth but lyte."
_Romaunt of the Rose_.

_Somerset_. "Let him that is no coward
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me."
_First Part of King Henry VI_.

Early next morning I was returning, a rosebud in my hand, from the
neglected garden to the east of the house, when I spied my father
coming towards me along the terraces, and at once felt my ears
redden.

"Good morning, lad!" he hailed. "But where is mine?"

I turned back in silence and picked a bud for him. "So," said I,
"'twas you, sir, after all, that wrote the advertisement?"

"Hey?" he answered. "I? Certainly not. I noted it and sent you the
news-sheet in half a hope that you had been the advertiser."

"You were mistaken, sir."

He halted and rubbed his chin. "Then who the devil can he be, I
wonder? Well, we shall discover."

"You ride to Falmouth this morning?"

"We have an army to collect," he answered, gripping me not unkindly
by the shoulder.

We rode into Falmouth side by side in silence, Billy Priske following
by my father's command, and each with a red rose pinned to the flap
of his hat. Upon the way we talked, mainly of the Trappist Brothers,
and of Dom Basilio, who (it seemed) had at one time been an agent of
the British legation at Florence, and in particular had carried my
father's reports and instructions to and fro between Corsica and that
city, avoiding the vigilance of the Genoese.

"A subtle fellow," was my father's judgment, "and, as I gave him
credit, in the matter of conscience as null as Cellini himself: the
last man in the world to turn religious. But the longer you live the
more cause will you find to wonder at the divine spirit which bloweth
where it listeth. Take these Methodists, who are to preach in
Falmouth to-day. I have seen Wesley, and stood once for an hour
listening to him. For aught I could discover he had no great
eloquence. He said little that his audience might not have heard any
Sunday in their own churches. His voice was hoarse from overwork,
and his manner by no means winning. Yet I saw many notorious
ruffians sobbing about him like children: some even throwing
themselves on the ground and writhing, like the demoniacs of
Scripture. The secret was, he spoke with authority: and the secret
again was a certain kingly neglect of trifles--he appeared not to see
those signs by which other men judge their neighbours or themselves
to be past help. Or take these Trappists: Dom Basilio tells me that
more than half of them are ex-soldiers and rough at that. To be sure
I can understand why, having once turned religious, an old soldier
runs to the Trappist rule. He has been bred under discipline, and
has to rely on discipline. 'Tis what he understands, and the harder
he gets it the more good he feels himself getting--"

We were nearing the town by the way of Arwennack, and just here a
turn of the road brought us in sight of a whitewashed cottage and put
a period to my father's discourse, as a garden gate flew open and out
into the highway ran a lean young man with an angry woman in pursuit.
His shoulders were bent and he put up both hands to ward off her
clutch. But in the middle of the road she gripped him by the collar
and caught him two sound cuffs on the nape of the neck.

She turned as we rode up. "The villain!" she cried, still keeping
her grip. "Oh, protect me from such villains!"

"But, my good woman," remonstrated my father, reining up,
"it scarcely appears that you need protecting. Who is this man?"

"A thief, your honour! Didn't I catch him prowling into my garden?
And isn't it for him to say what his business was? I put it to your
honour"--here she caught the poor wretch another cuff--"what honest
business took him into my garden, and me left a widow-woman these
sixteen years?"

"Ai-ee!" cried the accused, still shielding his neck and cowering in
the dust--a thin ragged windlestraw of a youth, flaxen-headed,
hatchet-faced, with eyes set like a hare's. "Have pity on me sirs,
and take her off!"

"Let him stand up," my father commanded. "And you sir, tell me--
What were you seeking in this good woman's garden?"

"A rose, sir--hear my defence!--a rose only, a small rose!"
His voice was high and cracked, and he flung his hands out
extravagantly. "Oh, York and Lancaster--if you will excuse me,
gentlemen--that I should suffer this for a mere rose? The day only
just begun too! And why, sirs, was I seeking a rose? Ay, there's
the rub." He folded his arms dramatically and nodded at the woman.
"There's the gall and bitterness, the worm in the fruit, the peculiar
irony--if you'll allow me to say so--of this distressing affair.
Listen, madam! If I wanted a rose of you, 'twas for your whole sex's
sake: your sex's, madam--every one of whom was, up to five or six
months ago, the object with me of something very nearly allied to
worship."

"Lord help the creature!" cried the woman. "What's he telling
about? And what have you to do with my sex, young man? which is what
the Lord made it."

"It is _not_, madam. Make no mistake about it: 'twere blasphemy to
think so. But speaking generally, what I--as a man--have to do with
your sex is to protect it."

"A nice sort of protector you'd make!" she retorted, planting her
knuckles on her hips and eyeing him contemptuously.

"I am a beginner, madam, and have much to learn. But you shall not
discourage me from protecting you, though you deny me the rose which
was to have been my emblem. Every woman is a rose, madam, as says
the poet Dunbar--

"'Sweet rose of vertew and of gentilness,
Richest in bonty and in bewty clear
And every vertew that is werrit dear,
Except only that ye are merciless--"

"You take me? 'Merciless,' madam?"

"I don't understand a word," said she, puzzled and angry.

"He was a Scotsman: and you find it a far cry to Loch Awe.
Well, well--to resume--

"'Into your garth this day I did pursue--'"

"by 'garth' meaning 'garden': a good word, and why the devil it
should be obsolescent is more than I can tell you--"

But here my father cut him short. "My good Mrs. Ede," said he,
turning to the woman, "I believe this young man intended no harm to
you and very little to your garden. You are quits with him at any
rate. Take this shilling, step inside, and choose him a fair red
rose for the price and also in token of your forgiveness, while he
picks up his hat which is lying yonder in the dust."

"Hey?" The youth started back, for the first time perceiving the
badges in our hats. "Are you too, sirs, of this company of the
rose?" His face fell, but with an effort he recovered himself and
smiled.

"You are not disappointed, I hope?" inquired my father.

"Why--to tell you the truth, sir--I had looked for a rendezvous of
careless jolly fellows. For cavaliers of your quality it never
occurred to me to bargain." He held up a flap of his ragged coat and
shook it ruefully.

My father frowned. "And I, sir, am disappointed. A moment since I
took you for an original; but it appears you share our common English
vice of looking at the world like a lackey."

"I, sir?" The young man waved a hand. "I am original? Give me
leave to assure you that this island contains no more servile
tradesman. Why, my lord--for I take it I speak to a gentleman of
title?--"

"Of the very humblest, sir. I am a plain knight bachelor."

The original cringed elaborately, rubbing his hands. "A title is a
title. Well, sir, as I was about to say, I worship a lord, but my
whole soul is bound up in a ledger: and hence (so to speak) these
tears: hence the disreputable garb in which you behold me. If I may
walk beside you, sir, after this good woman has fetched me the rose--
thank you, madam--and provided me with a pin from the _chevaux de
frise_ in her bodice--and again, madam, I thank you: you wear the
very cuirass of matronly virtue--I should enjoy, sir, to tell you my
history. It is a somewhat curious one."

"I feel sure, sir"--my father bowed to him from the saddle--"it will
lose nothing in the telling."

The young man, having fastened the rose in his hat, bade adieu to his
late assailant with a bow; waved a hand to her; lifted his hat a
second time; turned after us and, falling into stride by my father's
stirrup, forthwith plunged into his story.

THE TRAVELS OF PHINEAS FETT.

"My name, sir, is Phineas Fett--"

He paused. "I don't know how it may strike you: but in my infant
ears it ever seemed to forebode something in the Admiralty--a
comfortable post, carrying no fame with it, but moderately lucrative.
In wilder flights my fancy has hovered over the Pipe Office (Addison,
sir, was a fine writer; though a bit of a prig, between you and me)."

"There was a Phineas Pett, a great shipbuilder for the Navy in King
Charles the Second's time. I believe, too, he had a son christened
after him, who became a commissioner of the Navy."

"You don't say so! The mere accident of a letter . . . but it proves
the accuracy of our childish instincts. A commissionership--whatever
the duties it may carry--would be the very thing, or a
storekeepership, with a number of ledgers: it being understood that
shipping formed my background, in what I believe is nautically termed
the offing. I know not what exact distance constitutes an offing.
My imagination ever placed it within sight and sufficiently near the
scene of my occupation to pervade it with an odour of hemp and tar."

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