At length, as twilight deepened, the crowd dwindled and the last customer was served with a little phial of "Oil of Hercules," that the Doctor assured him would enable him to win the village ploughing contest in the coming spring; and having packed up their goods and chattels they went into the inn.
It was a poor place but the simple food was well cooked and, after they had eaten, the partners received three visitors, at intervals, in the room they were sharing. Dr. Aristotle had been averse to his young companion being present at these interviews but Roger, still a little suspicious from his sad experience of the previous day, thought it possible that the old man might secrete a portion of the fees wherewith to buy brandy on the sly, so he insisted.
The proceedings made him feel slightly sick in all three cases, as the first two patients were suffering from advanced stages of venereal disease, and the third was a bent but lecherous-looking old man who wanted a potion that would make him capable of deflowering a girl who worked on his holding. But the Doctor took a franc a-piece off the two former and a crown off the latter, so Roger felt that he had been wise to remain.
Next morning they struck away from the high road and walked at an easy pace for five miles down by-lanes until they came to the smaller village of Tancarville, at the mouth of the Seine. Here the performances were repeated with still more meagre results and at a penalty of having to sleep in a miserable inn where the beds were alive with fleas; but on the following day they turned north-east again and, arriving at the township of Lillebonne by midday, spent the following three nights there in reasonable comfort. On the first two they did good business and the third day of their stay being Sunday they rested from their labours.
On the Monday they set out again, zig-zagging eastward through the villages of Candebec and Duclair to another little township called Barentin, which they reached on the Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and Saturday they slept in the nearby adjacent villages of Le Houlme, Maromme and Deville, and on the Sunday morning they walked into the ancient city of Rouen.
By this time Roger had picked up the game, and on entering a place where they intended to pass the night was able to form a fair estimate of what their takings in it were likely to be. Any village, however small, seemed good enough for a night's bed and board with a iew crowns over, but in the small towns they had made much bigger profits. For one thing the crowds they attracted were considerably larger and, for another, the general run of the inhabitants being somewhat better off, the Doctor was able to charge more for his wares. So on entering Rouen Roger had high hopes of their garnering a bumper harvest.
On his mentioning this, however, his partner was quick to disabuse him of the idea. The Doctor emphasised that only from the poor and ignorant could they hope to exact unquestioning belief in his own powers, and consequent tribute. In the larger towns and cities there were properly qualified doctors, apothecarys' shops and barbers' establishments which dealt in beauty preparations much superior to his own. Moreover, a good part of their inhabitants were educated people or, worse, cynical riff-raff who thought it good sport to throw rotten eggs and decayed garbage at such poor street practitioners as himself. This visit to Rouen, he added, must be regarded only as a holiday and the occasion for a little relaxation.
Contrary to Roger's expectations the old man had, so far, been very good in refraining from asking for nips of Cognac; but, on hearing this, his young partner rightly suspected that the Doctor now had it in mind to indulge his weakness. In ten evenings' work they had, somewhat to Roger's surprise, managed to amass, mainly in sous and francs, some nine louis over and above their expenses, and he had no intention of seeing this small nucleus to their future fortunes frittered away. So he took the bull by the horns and said at once:
" 'Tis not yet two weeks since we set out upon our journey, so the time has not yet come for us to take a holiday."
"Why should we not take just a little holiday?" the Doctor pleaded. "Two or three nights, no more; but long enough for me to show you the site upon which the Maid of Orleans was burnt as a witch and the tombs of the Crusaders in the great Cathedral?"
"That we can do to-day," said Roger firmly. "And, since you say that we should only invite trouble by setting up our stand here, tomorrow morning we will continue our progress southward to lesser places where profits are to be made."
"So be it, sighed the Doctor. "But thou art a hard taskmaster for one so young. I intended to ask no more than a little rest for my old bones and, perhaps, a few crowns from our profits with which to purchase the wherewithal to warm the lining of my stomach."
"I knew it," Roger replied. "But one little dram leads to another little dram, as you yourself have said; and once you fall to drinking in earnest I'll never be able to get you on the move again. I've naught against our treating ourselves to a good dinner and a decent bottle of wine to go with it, but I pray you be content with that, and let us take the road again to-morrow."
The Doctor brightened a little and now seemed quite willing to let Roger fight his failing for him; but although they did not set up their stand in Rouen they were fated to meet trouble there.
Le Pomme D'Or, at which they put up, because the Doctor was known at it, proved to be a small inn down by the river. Having stabled Monsieur de Montaigne and taken their things up to their room, they went down to the parlour and found it to be full of sailors, who had recently been discharged from a man-o'-war. As in England, most of them had originally been pressed into the service, and many of them had spent the best years of their youth sailing the seas and fighting in the late war; yet now that the French Navy was gradually being reduced they had been paid off with a pittance which would barely keep them for a month, and comparatively few of them knew a trade by which they could earn a living ashore.
Naturally they were in an angry mood, and Roger, on learning the reason for their discontent, was indiscreet enough to remark that the French King's finances must be in a very poor state compared to those of the King of England, since the latter gave his sailors handsome bonuses on their discharge, and they went ashore with their pockets full of gold from their share of the prize money earned by the ships in which they had served.
On it emerging that he was English himself, they showed a sudden and alarming hostility. They knew nothing of the real causes of the late war; only that as a result of it they had been seized by the press-gangs and forced to spend years of hardship and danger far from their families. They had, moreover, been taught to believe that the perfidious English, desiring to dominate the world, had forced the war upon peaceful France, and that every Englishman was a fit object for the blackest hatred. In consequence they now regarded Roger as a visible cause of their past miseries and present anxieties.
With menacing looks half a dozen of these dark, wiry, uncouth-looking sailors now gathered round, shouting obscene abuse indiscriminately at him and everything that England stood for, and the street women they had picked up on landing added to the clamour with shrill, vindictive cries.