The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-04

| talned us two days. I say us, for, al- though l sad started alone from Genoa for the long 800 miles wheel, I had come, early along the Cornlce road, on | Plerson, 6 little chap from Manchester, who was deploring a punctured tire, and whom I helped with my kit. He, l too, was in search of adventure, and fell easily into my purpose, I indeed don't know what I should have done without him in the long distances be- | yond Marseilles, when on the fourth day we fell into a region of peasantry speaking patois that was about as dense as their superstition and dis | trust of strangers. Yet All went we'll | enough until that afternoon, when In a desolate stretch of moor We rode into bowling thunder and rain. The way fell a bit hilly and rutty with mud. Drenched and disheartened, the moor seem limitless. We must have erred at a cross road, for the inn we hoped for did not appear-not a house, nor a human being, nor dog, nor sheep. We might have turned back, but we had | come so far that 1t seemed better to | pedal on. The scurrying wet bit our faces brutishly, and our legs were like mechanical metal cylinders, had it not been for their aching and, to add to our weary dismay, the night reached across the waste, crushing us with fearsome shadows.
 We, indeed, were about yielding, when suddenly a burst of livid light ming showed great battlement house to which the path led. Directly we were on 1t, and leaving the wheels, poked toward it, wondering why none had given us question, and why there was no gleam of light through any chink. A great outer gate was open, and We groped to an inner one at the | bottom of the narrow passage; and | then a more penetrating flash struck a glare over a broad door, and there look ed down a great bronze fox's head with the knocker ring hanging listless from its jaw. Our impatience left us no discretion; the blaokness was provok- ing, and raised the ring, which struck a chill through my gloved finger. The spot where 1t fell may have been cush- | toned, for We were dumbfounded by silence when the door was opened as of it's own vofition--sending certain | splendid glow over us-the light of many candles, and the sight, but strangely enough not the crackle, of a burning log in deep fireplace at a long halls end. The furnishings, elab- | crate in the extreme, were of Henri l Quatre. Portraits and mailed figures | lined the walls. The flickering light sought the polish, of the oaken flooring and ceiling, and close at the door was a lackey--a tall, dark fellow, with a dash of the hired bravo you gather from old books and old pictures; for he was dressed in livery fitting the pe- riod of all the decoration of this in- terior. His voice surprised us quite as much as this unexpected splendor of 1 light that no chink had revealed to us when groping outside-a faint-sound- | ing yet distinct tone in French that we understood, although it seemed not exactly the French we were schooled | to.
 'The Sieur deBenaire, sirs, has been 1 warning you, and despairing of your 1 appearance has sat down to dinner-I am to show you there"
 | began, and Piefson bore out my | disclaimer that he was mistaken; that | we could not be expected, that we were 1 simply itinerant bicyclists lost in the blindness of the s+orm on the stretch | ing moor. And We wondered who this gentleman could be who displayed so 1 bizarre taste in furnishing and dress of his lackey in this forsaken spot add l ing this new alteration to many pre- vious ones in my observation of the ec- centricity possible in eccentric million | aires. Surprise was doubled by the mans quick retort: "Ah, gentlemen, no mistake has been made, I assure you!'
 And although he looked at us slyly, | yet his manner seemed to reflect a masters cordiality. I thought of all I had heard of strange personages who kept their doors open for chance guests. Perhaps a glass had reveal ed us struggling on the moor along the path ending in this unexpected well come. And, mistake or no, our condi- tion, and weariness and hunger, made us accept, after our proper disclaimer had been disallowed. We asked but to go back for our wheels, when the man said he would care for them, and that his master ought not to be kept waiting longer. The master would excuse our appearance if we would join
 him at once; and we, now inclined to see the adventure to it's end, followed with some amaZement that the burn- ing log on the hearth seemed to give out no warmth.
 We were ushered into a great dining l hall, where a table was deliberately l spread with quaint and strange dishes all, it seemed, of the day of Henri Quatre; and 1t was a gentleman of that period nicely attired in silken hose, who bowed urbanely and motioned us l to the board, where places for two showed that we alone were expected
 Yet for moment we paused, obliv- ious of manners, at the hosts face, thin, narrow, clever. cunning, high bred, with strange-looking black eyes, and the voice had that same French which had certain antique phrases that | reminded eof an essay of the Sieur | de Montague. For the Sieur de Bel l laire appeared to have that nice sense 1 in this masquerade which MT Irving brings to the setting of play, where accuracy in every detail Is to be sought. The mouth put into the eX
 pression of this gentleman's face-with cruel lines and eager white teeth now and again showing-something bely-