MONTHLY DEVOTED TO Literature, Science, Art, and Politics HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New York: II East Seventeenth Street The Riverside Press, Cambridge Copyright, 1895, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co. SINGLE NUMBERS, 35 INTS YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION Entered at the Post Office in Boston as second-class matter Mellin's Food Children everywhere are the best advertisement of MELLIN'S FOOD: with their sound bodies, straight limbs, bright eyes, plump cheeks, and fresh, radiant faces, they are the highest types of happy, healthy childhood, and the best evidence that MELLIN'S FOOD fulfils every requisite of a food for infants. sen'n typic THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics. VOL. LXXVI. - NOVEMBER, 1895. —No. CCCCLVII. THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY: BEING THE MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROBERT STOBO, SOMETIME AN OFFICER IN THE VIRGINIA REGIMENT, AND AFTERWARDS OF AMHERST'S REGIMENT. XXI. Ar nine o'clock I was waiting by the window, and even as a bugle sounded "lights out" in the barracks, and change of guard, I let the string down and put out my head. Mr. Stevens shot round the corner of the Château, just as the departing sentinel disappeared, and attached a bundle to the string, and I drew it up. "Is all well?" I called softly down. "All well," said Mr. Stevens, and, hugging the wall of the Château, he sped away. In another moment a new sentinel began pacing up and down, and I shut the window and untied my bundle. All that I had asked for was there. I hid the things away in the alcove and went to bed at once, for I knew that I should have no sleep on the following night. I did not leave my bed till the morning was well advanced. Once or twice during the day I brought my guards in with fear on their faces, the large fat man more distorted than his fellow, by the lamentable sounds I made with my willow toys. They crossed themselves again and again, and I myself appeared devout and troubled. When we walked abroad during the afternoon, I chose to saunter by the river rather than walk, for I wished to conserve my strength, which was now vastly greater, though, to mislead my watchers and the authori ties, I assumed the delicacy of an invalid, and appeared unfit for any enterpriseno hard task, for I was still very thin and worn. So I sat upon a favorite seat on the cliff, set against a solitary tree, fixed in the rocks, defiant of storm and soil. I gazed long on the river, and my guards, stoutly armed, stood near, watching me, and talking in low tones. Eager to hear their gossip, I made pretense of reverie, and finally put on the appearance of sleep. They came nearer, and, facing me, sat upon a large stone, and gossiped freely, and, as I had guessed and hoped, concerning the strange sounds heard in my room at the Château. "See you, my Bamboir," said the lean to the fat soldier, "the British captain, he is to be carried off in burning flames by that La Jongleuse. We shall come in one morning and find a smell of sulphur only, and a circle of red on the floor where the imps danced before La Jongleuse said to them, 'Up with him, darlings, and away!'"' At this Bamboir shook his head, and answered, "To-morrow I'll to the Governor, and tell him what is coming. My wife, she falls upon my neck this morning. Argose,' she says, ''t will need the Bishop and his college to drive La Jongleuse out of the grand Château.'” 6 "No less," replied the other. "A deacon and sacred palm and sprinkle of holy water would do for a cottage, or even for a little manor house, with twelve candles burning, and a hymn to the Virgin. But in a king's house" ""T is not the King's house." "But yes, it is the King's house, even though his Most Christian Majesty lives in France. The Marquis de Vaudreuil stands for the King, and we are sentinels in a king's house. But, my faith, I would rather be sucking blood like leeches against Frederic, the Prussian boar, than watching this mad Englishman." "Well, well, who knows, Bamboir? This morning I said to Nanette, 'Why is 't, all in one moment, you send me to the devil, and pray to meet me in Abraham's bosom too?' And what think you she answered me? Why, this, my Bamboir: Why is 't Adam loved his wife and swore her down before the Lord also, all in one moment?' Why Mademoiselle Duvarney does this or that is not for muddy brains like ours. It is some whimsy; they say that women are more curious about the devil than about St. Jean Baptiste. Perhaps she got of him a magic book." "And well said. But see you, my brother, that Englishman's a devil - he "No, no! If he had the magic Petit is no honest man. Else how has he not Albert, he would have turned us into been hanged long ago? He has vile arts dogs long ago. But I do not like him. to blind all, or he would not be sitting He is but thirty years, they say, and yet there. It is well known that Monsieur his hair is white as a pigeon's wing. It Doltaire, even the King's son his mois not natural. Nor did he ever, says ther worked in the fields like your Na- Gabord, do aught but laugh at everynette, Bamboir " thing they did to him. The chains they put would not stay, and when he was set against the wall to be shot, the watches stopped the minute of his shooting passed. Then Monsieur Doltaire came, and said a man that could do a trick like that should live to do another. And he did it, for Monsieur Doltaire is gone to the Bastile. Yes, this Englishman is a damned heretic, and has the wicked arts." "Or your Lablanche, my boy; hard hands has she, with warts, and red knuckles therefrom "Or your Nanette, Bamboir, with nose that blisters in the summer, as she goes swingeing flax, and swelling feet that sweat in sabots, and chin thrust out from carrying pails upon her head" "Ay, like Nanette and like Lablanche, this peasant mother of Monsieur Doltaire, and maybe no such firm breasts like Nanette "Nor such an eye as has Lablanche. Well, Monsieur Doltaire, who could override them all, he could not kill this barbarian. And Gabord- - you know well how they fought, and the black horse and his rider came and carried him away. And the young Monsieur Duvarney had him on his knees and the blade at his throat, and a sword flashed out from the dark they say it was the devil's and took him in the ribs and well-nigh killed him." "But what say you to Mademoiselle Duvarney coming to him that day, and again yesterday with Gabord?" |