Not much interested, I am sorry to say, in the description of this splendid scene, or in the heraldic bearings of the different Flemish and German knights, which the lady blazoned with pitiless accuracy, Quentin began to entertain some alarm lest he should have passed the place where his guide was to join him – a most serious disaster, and from which, should it really have taken place, the very worst consequences were to be apprehended.
While he hesitated whether it would be better to send back one of his followers, to see whether this might not be the case, he heard the blast of a horn, and looking in the direction from which the sound came, beheld a horseman riding very fast towards them. The low size, and wild, shaggy, untrained state of the animal, reminded Quentin of the mountain breed of horses in his own country; but this was much more finely limbed, and, with the same appearance of hardiness, was more rapid in its movements. The head particularly, which, in the Scottish pony, is often lumpish and heavy, was small and well placed in the neck of this animal, with thin jaws, full sparkling eyes, and expanded nostrils.
The rider was even more singular in his appearance than the horse which he rode, though that was extremely unlike the horses of France. Although he managed his palfrey with great dexterity, he sat with his feet in broad stirrups, something resembling shovels, so short in the leathers, that his knees were wellnigh as high as the pommel of his saddle. His dress was a red turban of small size, in which he wore a sullied plume, secured by a clasp of silver; his tunic, which was shaped like those of the Estradiots, (a sort of troops whom the Venetians at that time levied in the provinces, on the eastern side of their gulf,) was green in colour, and tawdrily laced with gold; he wore very wide drawers or trowsers of white, though none of the cleanest, which gathered beneath the knee, and his swarthy legs were quite bare, unless for the complicated laces which bound a pair of sandals on his feet; he had no spurs, the edge of his large stirrups being so sharp as to serve to goad the horse in a very severe manner. In a crimson sash this singular horseman wore a dagger on the right side, and on the left a short crooked Moorish sword; and by a tarnished baldric over the shoulder hung the horn which announced his approach. He had a swarthy and sun-burnt visage, with a thin beard, and piercing dark eyes, a well-formed mouth and nose, and other features which might have been pronounced handsome, but for the black elf-locks which hung around his face, and the air of wildness and emaciation, which rather seemed to indicate a savage than a civilized man.
"He also is a Bohemian!" said the ladies to each other; "Holy Mary, will the King again place confidence in these outcasts?"
"I will question the man, if it be your pleasure," said Quentin, "and assure myself of his fidelity as I best may."
Durward, as well as the ladies of Croye, had recognised in this man's dress and appearance, the habit and the manners of those vagrants with whom he had nearly been confounded by the hasty proceedings of Trois-Eschelles and Petit-André, and he, too, entertained very natural apprehensions concerning the risk of reposing trust in one of that vagrant race.
"Art thou come hither to seek us?" was his first question.
The stranger nodded.
"And for what purpose?"
"To guide you to the palace of him of Liege."
"Of the Bishop?"
The Bohemian again nodded.
"What token canst thou give me, that we should yield credence to thee?"
"Even the old rhyme, and no other," answered the Bohemian, –
"A true token," said Quentin; "Lead on, good fellow – I will speak further with thee presently." Then falling back to the ladies, he said, "I am convinced this man is the guide we are to expect, for he hath brought me a pass-word, known, I think, but to the King and me. But I will discourse with him further, and endeavour to ascertain how far he is to be trusted."
CHAPTER XVI. THE VAGRANT.
I am as free as
Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
While Quentin held the brief communication with the ladies, necessary to assure them that this extraordinary addition to their party was the guide whom they were to expect on the King's part, he noticed, (for he was as alert in observing the motions of the stranger, as the Bohemian could be on his part,) that the man not only turned his head as far back as he could, to peer at them, but that, with a singular sort of agility, more resembling that of a monkey than of a man, he had screwed his whole person around on the saddle, so as to sit almost sidelong upon the horse, for the convenience, as it seemed, of watching them more attentively.
Not greatly pleased with this manoeuvre, Quentin rode up to the Bohemian, and said to him, as he suddenly assumed his proper position on the horse, "Methinks, friend, you will prove but a blind guide, if you look at the tail of your horse rather than his ears."
"And if I were actually blind," answered the Bohemian, "I could not the less guide you through any country in this realm of France, or in those adjoining to it."
"Yet you are no Frenchman born," said the Scot.
"I am not," answered the guide.
"What countryman, then, are you?" demanded Quentin.
"I am of no country," answered the guide.
"How! of no country?" repeated the Scot.
"No," answered the Bohemian, "of none. I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans, in their different languages, may choose to call our people; but I have no country."
"Are you a Christian?" asked the Scotchman.
The Bohemian shook his head.
"Dog!" said Quentin, (for there was little toleration in the spirit of Catholicism in those days,) "dost thou worship Mahoun?"
"No," was the indifferent and concise answer of the guide, who neither seemed offended or surprised at the young man's violence of manner.
"Are you a Pagan then, or what are you?"
"I have no religion[30]," answered the Bohemian.
Durward started back; for though he had heard of Saracens and Idolaters, it had never entered into his ideas or belief, that any body of men could exist who practised no mode of worship whatever. He recovered from his astonishment, to ask his guide where he usually dwelt.
"Wherever I chance to be for the time," replied the Bohemian. "I have no home."
"How do you guard your property?"
"Excepting the clothes which I wear, and the horse I ride on, I have no property."
"Yet you dress gaily, and ride gallantly," said Durward. "What are your means of subsistence?"
"I eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, and have no other means of subsistence than chance throws in my way," replied the vagabond.
"Under whose laws do you live?"
"I acknowledge obedience to none, but as it suits my pleasure or my necessities," said the Bohemian.
"Who is your leader, and commands you?"
"The Father of our tribe – if I choose to obey him," said the guide – "otherwise I have no commander."
"You are then," said the wondering querist, "destitute of all that other men are combined by – you have no law, no leader, no settled means of subsistence, no house or home. You have, may Heaven compassionate you, no country – and, may Heaven enlighten and forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you, deprived of government, domestic happiness, and religion?"
Note 30
Religion of the Bohemians. It was a remarkable feature of the character of these wanderers, that they did not, like the Jews, whom they otherwise resembled in some particulars, possess or profess any particular religion, whether in form or principle. They readily conformed, as far as might be required, with the religion of any country in which they happened to sojourn, nor did they ever practise it more than was demanded of them. It is certain that in India they embraced neither the tenets of the religion of Bramah nor of Mahomet. They have hence been considered as belonging to the outcast East Indian tribes of Nuts of Parias. Their want of religion is supplied by a good deal of superstition. Such of their ritual as can be discovered, for example that belonging to marriage, is savage in the extreme, and resembles the customs of the Hottentots more than of any civilized people. They adopt various observances, picked up from the religion of the country in which they live. It is, or rather was, the custom of the tribes on the Borders of England and Scotland, to attribute success to those journeys which are commenced by passing through the parish church; and they usually try to obtain permission from the beadle to do so when the church is empty, for the performance of divine service is not considered as essential to the omen. They are, therefore, totally devoid of any effectual sense of religion; and the higher, or more instructed class, may be considered as acknowledging no deity save those of Epicurus, and such is described as being the faith, or no faith, of Hayraddin Maugrabin.
I may here take notice, that nothing is more disagreeable to this indolent and voluptuous people, than being forced to follow any regular profession. When Paris was garrisoned by the Allied troops in the year 1815, the author was walking with a British officer, near a post held by the Prussian troops. He happened at the time to smoke a cigar, and was about, while passing the sentinel, to take it out of his mouth, in compliance with a general regulation to that effect, when, greatly to the astonishment of the passengers, the soldier addressed them in these words; "Rauchen sic immerfort; verdamt sey der Preussiche dienst!" that is, "Smoke away; may the Prussian service be d—d!" Upon looking closely at the man, he seemed plainly to be a Zigeuner, or gipsy, who took this method of expressing his detestation of the duty imposed on him. When the risk he ran by doing so is considered, it will be found to argue a deep degree of dislike which could make him commit himself so unwarily. If he had been overheard by a sergeant or corporal, the prugel would have been the slightest instrument of punishment employed.