The courier looked up, and touched his cap.
“I'm not going, Monsieur Gregoire; the affair is arranged.”
“Ah! I am charmed to hear it, Mademoiselle,” said he, smiling in seeming ecstasy, while he muttered a malediction between his teeth.
“Miladi has made submission, and I forgive everything. You must pardon all the trouble I 've given you.”
“These happy tidings have made me forget it,” said he, with a smile that verged upon a grin. “Peste!” growled he, under his breath, “we 'd unpacked the whole fourgon.”
“Ah, que vous etes aimable!” said she, sighing.
“Belle tigresse!” exclaimed he, returning the leer she bestowed; and the window was once more closed upon her exit. “I submitted to the labor, in the hope we had done with you forever,” said he, wiping his forehead; “and la voila there you are back again. Throw that ape down; away wid him, cursed beast!” cried he, venting his spite upon the minion, since he dare not attack the mistress. “But what have we here?”
This latter exclamation was caused by the sudden entrance into the courtyard of two porters carrying an enormous trunk, whose iron fastenings and massive padlock gave it the resemblance of an emigrant's sea-chest. A few paces behind walked Mr. Dalton, followed again by Old Andy, who, with a huge oil-silk umbrella under one arm, and a bundle of cloaks, shawls, and hoods on the other, made his way with no small difficulty.
Gregoire surveyed the procession with cool amazement, and then, with a kind of mock civility, he touched his cap, and said, “You have mistak de road, saar; de diligenz-office is over de way.”
“And who told you I wanted it?” said Dalton, sternly. “Maybe I'm just where I ought to be! Isn't this Sir Stafford Onslow's coach?”
“Yes, saar; but you please to remember it is not de 'Eil wagen. '”
“Just hold your prate, my little chap, and it will be pleasanter, and safer, ay, safer, too, d'ye mind? You see that trunk there; it 's to go up with the luggage and be kept dry, for there 's valuable effects inside.”
“Datis not a trunk; it is a sentry-house, a watch-box. No gentleman's carriage ever support a ting of dat dimension!”
“It 's a trunk, and belongs to me, and my name is Peter Dalton, as the letters there will show you; and so no more about it, but put it up at once.”
“I have de orders about a young lady's luggage, but none about a great coffin with iron hoops,” said Gregoire, tartly.
“Be quiet, now, and do as I tell you, my little chap. Put these trifles, too, somewhere inside, and this umbrella in a safe spot; and here 's a little basket, with a cold pie and a bottle of wine in it.”
“Himmel und Erde! how you tink milady travel mit dass schweinerei?”
“It 's not pork; 't is mutton, and a pigeon in the middle,” said Dalton, mistaking his meaning. “I brought a taste of cheese, too; but it 's a trifle high, and maybe it 's as well not to send it.”
“Is the leetle old man to go too?” asked Gregoire, with an insolent grin, and not touching the profanation of either cheese or basket.
“That 's my own servant, and he 's not going,” said Dalton; “and now that you know my orders, just stir yourself a little, my chap, for I 'm not going to spend my time here with you.”
A very deliberate stare, without uttering a word, was all the reply Gregoire returned to this speech; and then, addressing himself to the helpers, he gave some orders in German about the other trunks. Dalton waited patiently for some minutes, but no marks of attention showed that the courier even remembered his presence; and at last he said,
“I 'm waiting to see that trunk put up; d' ye hear me?”
“I hear ver well, but I mind noting at all,” said Gregoire, with a grin.
“Oh, that 's it,” said Dalton, smiling, but with a twinkle in his gray eyes that, had the other known him better, he would scarcely have fancied, “that's it, then!” And taking the umbrella from beneath Andy's arm, he walked deliberately across the yard to where a large tank stood, and which, fed from a small jet d'eau, served as a watering-place for the post-horses. Some taper rods of ice now stood up in the midst, and a tolerably thick coating covered the surface of the basin.
Gregoire could not help watching the proceedings of the stranger, as with the iron-shod umbrella he smashed the ice in one or two places, piercing the mass till the water spouted up through the apertures.
“Have you any friend who live dere?” said the courier, sneeringly, as the sound of the blows resembled the noise of a door-knocker.
“Not exactly, my man,” said Dalton, calmly; “but something like it.”
“What is 't you do, den?” asked Gregoire, curiously.
“I'll tell you,” said Dalton. “I'm breaking the ice for a new acquaintance;” and, as he spoke, he seized the courier by the stout leather belt which he wore around his waist, and, notwithstanding his struggles and his weight, he jerked him off the ground, and, with a swing, would have hurled him head foremost into the tank, when, the leather giving way, he fell heavily to the ground, almost senseless from shock and fright together. “You may thank that strap for your escape,” said Dalton, contemptuously, as he threw towards him the fragments of broken leather.
“I will have de law, and de polizei, and de Gericht. I will have you in de Kerker, in chains, for dis!” screamed Gregoire, half choked with passion.
“May I never see peace, but if you don't hold your prate I 'll put you in it! Sit up there, and mind your business; and, above all, be civil, and do what you 're bid.”
“I will fort; I will away. Noting make me remain in de service,” said Gregoire, brushing off the dirt from his sleeve, and shaking his cap. “I am respectable courier travel wid de Fursten vom Koniglichen Hatisen mit Russen, Franzosen, Ostereichen; never mit barbaren, never mit de wilde animalen.”
“Don't, now don't, I tell you,” said Dalton, with another of those treacherous smiles whose expression the courier began to comprehend. “No balderdash! no nonsense! but go to your work, like a decent servant.”
“I am no Diener; no serve anybody,” cried the courier, indignantly.
But somehow there was that in old Dalton's face that gave no encouragement to an open resistance, and Monsieur Gregoire knew well the case where compliance was the wisest policy. He also knew that in his vocation there lay a hundred petty vengeances more than sufficient to pay off any indignity that could be inflicted upon him. “I will wait my times,” was the reflection with which he soothed down his rage, and affected to forget the insult he had just suffered under.
Dalton, whose mind was cast in a very different mould, and who could forgive either himself or his neighbor without any great exertion of temper, turned now coolly away, and sauntered out into the street. The flush of momentary anger that colored his cheek had fled, and a cast of pale and melancholy meaning sat upon his features, for his eye rested on the little wooden bridge which crossed the stream, and where now two muffled figures were standing, that he recognized as his daughters.
They were leaning on the balustrade, and gazing at the mountain that, covered with its dense pine-wood, rose abruptly from the river-side. It had been the scene of many a happy ramble in the autumn, of many a delightful excursion, when, with Frank, they used to seek for fragments of wood that suited Nelly's sculptures. How often had they carried their little basket up yonder steep path, to eat their humble supper upon the rock, from which the setting sun could be seen! There was not a cliff nor crag, not a mossy slope, not a grass bank, they did not know; and now, as they looked, all the past moments of pleasure were crowding