a young officer, well-looking and well-mounted, cantered up, and threw you his brandy flask. Your acknowledgment of the civility showed you to be a gentleman; and the acquaintance thus opened, soon ripened into intimacy."
"But he was the young Marquis de Saint Trone," said I, perfectly remembering the incident.
"Or Eugene Santron, of the republican army, or the barber at Albany, without any name at all," said he, laughing. "What, Maurice, don't you know me yet?"
"What, the lieutenant of my regiment! The dashing officer of Hussars!"
"Just so, and as ready to resume the old skin as ever," cried he, "and brandish a weapon somewhat longer, and perhaps somewhat sharper, too, than a razor."
We shook hands with all the cordiality of old comrades, meeting far away from home, and in a land of strangers; and although each was full of curiosity to learn the other's history, a kind of reserve held back the inquiry, till Santron said, "My confession is soon made, Maurice; I left the service in the Meuse, to escape being shot. One day, on returning from a field manœuvre, I discovered that my portmanteau had been opened, and a number of letters and papers taken out. They were part of a correspondence I held with old General Lamarre, about the restoration of the Bourbons, a subject, I'm certain, that half the officers in the army were interested in, and, even to Bonaparte himself, deeply implicated in too. No matter, my treason, as they called it, was too flagrant, and I had just twenty minutes' start of the order which was issued for my arrest, to make my escape into Holland. There I managed to pass several months in various disguises, part of the time being employed as a Dutch spy, and actually charged with an order to discover tidings of myself, until I finally got away in an Antwerp schooner, to New York. From that time my life has been nothing but a struggle, a hard one, too, with actual want, for in this land of enterprise and activity, mere intelligence, without some craft or calling, will do nothing.
"I tried fifty things – to teach riding, and when I mounted into the saddle, I forgot everything but my own enjoyment, and caracolled, and plunged, and passaged, till the poor beast hadn't a leg to stand on; fencing, and I got into a duel with a rival teacher, and ran him through the neck, and was obliged to fly from Halifax; French, I made love to my pupil, a pretty looking Dutch fraulein, whose father didn't smile on our affection; and so on I descended from a dancing-master to a waiter, a laquais de place, and at last settled down as a barber, which brilliant speculation I had just determined to abandon this very night; for to-morrow morning, Maurice, I start for New York and France again; ay, boy, and you'll go with me. This is no land for either of us."
"But I have found happiness, at least contentment, here," said I, gravely.
"What! play the hypocrite with an old comrade! shame on you, Maurice," cried he. "It is these confounded locks have perverted the boy," added he, jumping up; and before I knew what he was about, he had shorn my hair, in two quick cuts of the scissors, close to the head. "There," said he, throwing the cut-off hair toward me, "there lies all your saintship; depend upon it, boy, they'd hunt you out of the settlement if you came back to them cropped in this fashion."
"But you return to certain death, Santron," said I; "your crime is too recent to be forgiven or forgotten."
"Not a bit of it; Fouche, Cassaubon, and a dozen others now in office, were deeper than I was. There's not a public man in France could stand an exposure, or hazard recrimination. It's a thieves' amnesty at this moment, and I must not lose the opportunity. I'll show you letters that will prove it, Maurice; for, poor and ill-fed as I am, I like life just as well as ever I did. I mean to be a general of division one of these days, and so will you too, lad, if there's any spirit left in you."
Thus did Santron rattle on, sometimes of himself and his own future; sometimes discussing mine; for while talking, he had contrived to learn all the chief particulars of my history, from the time of my sailing from La Rochelle for Ireland.
The unlucky expedition afforded him great amusement, and he was never weary of laughing at all our adventures and mischances in Ireland. Of Humbert, he spoke as a fourth or fifth-rate man, and actually shocked me by all the heresies he uttered against our generals, and the plan of campaign; but, perhaps, I could have borne even these better than the sarcasms and sneers at the little life of "the settlement." He treated all my efforts at defense as mere hypocrisy, and affected to regard me as a mere knave, that had traded on the confiding kindness of these simple villagers. I could not undeceive him on this head; nor what was more, could I satisfy my own conscience that he was altogether in the wrong; for, with a diabolical ingenuity, he had contrived to hit on some of the most vexatious doubts which disturbed my mind, and instinctively to detect the secret cares and difficulties that beset me. The lesson should never be lost on us, that the devil was depicted as a sneerer! I verily believe the powers of temptation have no such advocacy as sarcasm. Many can resist the softest seductions of vice: many are proof against all the blandishments of mere enjoyment, come in what shape it will; but how few can stand firm against the assaults of clever irony, or hold fast to their convictions when assailed by the sharp shafts of witty depreciation.
I'm ashamed to own how little I could oppose to all his impertinences about our village, and its habits; or how impossible I found it not to laugh at his absurd descriptions of a life which, without having ever witnessed, he depicted with a rare accuracy. He was shrewd enough not to push this ridicule offensively, and long before I knew it I found myself regarding, with his eyes, a picture in which, but a few months back, I stood as a fore-ground figure. I ought to confess, that no artificial aid was derived from either good cheer, or the graces of hospitality; we sat by a miserable lamp, in a wretchedly cold chamber, our sole solace some bad cigars, and a can of flat, stale cider.
"I have not a morsel to offer you to eat, Maurice, but to-morrow we'll breakfast on my razors, dine on that old looking-glass, and sup on two hard brushes and the wig!"
Such were the brilliant pledges, and we closed a talk which the flickering lamp at last put an end to.
A broken, unconnected conversation followed for a little time, but at length, worn out and wearied, each dropped off to sleep – Eugene on the straw settle, and I in the old chair – never to awake till the bright sun was streaming in between the shutters, and dancing merrily on the tiled floor.
An hour before I awoke he had completed the sale of all his little stock in trade, and, with a last look round the spot where he had passed some months of struggling poverty, out we sallied into the town.
"We'll breakfast at Jonathan Hone's," said Santron. "It's the first place here. I'll treat you to rump steaks, pumpkin pie, and a gin twister that will astonish you. Then, while I'm arranging for our passage down the Hudson, you'll see the hospitable banker, and tell him how to forward all his papers, and so forth, to the settlement, with your respectful compliments and regrets, and the rest of it."
"But am I to take leave of them in this fashion?" asked I.
"Without you want me to accompany you there, I think it's by far the best way," said he, laughingly. "If, however, you think that my presence and companionship will add any lustre to your position, say the word and I'm ready. I know enough of the barber's craft now to make up a head 'en Puritan,' and, if you wish, I'll pledge myself to impose upon the whole colony."
Here was a threat there was no mistaking; and any imputation of ingratitude on my part were far preferable to the thought of such an indignity. He saw his advantage at once, and boldly declared that nothing should separate us.
"The greatest favor, my dear Maurice, you can ever expect at my hands is, never to speak of this freak of yours; or, if I do, to say that you performed the part to perfection."
My mind was in one of those moods of change when the slightest impulse is enough to sway it, and more from this cause than all his persuasion, I yielded; and the same evening saw
