The Cardinal's Musketeer
9781465686602
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The little Péron enjoyed every privilege of the clockmaker’s house, but there was one spot in it which he had never entered. That was the garret under the gabled roof. It was not forbidden him, perhaps because the mere prohibition was unnecessary, when it was impossible to penetrate that mysterious corner. For mysterious it was, not only to Péron, but also to the apprentices; and there was no little gossip about the closely fastened door in the roof, and the child heard it when he wandered into the workshop to watch the men manufacturing the marvellous machinery for his well-beloved jacquemarts. No one went to that garret but Madame Michel, and she went only at stated intervals; entering sometimes by the outer staircase, but more frequently by the ladder which went up to the trap-door in the ceiling of her own room. When she was up there, the apprentices always knew it, as well as Péron, for they could hear her steps overhead on the loose boards of the attic floor. What she did there was the subject of much idle, half-jesting conjecture. It could scarcely be a store-room, for she went up and came down empty-handed; they knew this, for the more curious had surprised her in her entrances and exits more than once. It was suggested that she sought this retired spot for the purpose of devotion, but it was further observed that she was usually out of temper after these excursions, and always belabored with her tongue any one whom she caught spying upon her, which did not support the theory of prayer and meditation. The more simple explanation, that she went there to clean and dust the attic, did not suit them either, although natural enough; for the goodwife was scrupulously neat, and had more than once wrought mischief with her dust brush among the curiosities of the shop, until she had been driven out by Jacques des Horloges. Many a jest was made about that garret, and when the apprentices found that little Péron shared their curiosity, they were only too ready to fill his mind with wonderful tales. The child began after awhile to feel a certain awe mingled with his interest in the secret chamber. The men amused themselves telling him of the hobgoblins who lived under the roof and blew the smoke down the chimneys into the house on days when they were angry. They dressed them up to please their own fancy and amaze the boy. Sometimes the goblins were little and grotesque and lived on eggs stolen from the swallows’ nests under the eaves; again they were large and fat, and sat squat on the ground like toads, and devoured only curious little boys who peeped into their dens in the attics. Again, they told him that the queen of the fairies lived there and ate nothing but cream of clouds à la Zamet. And so the garret became a wonderland to Péron, and he dreaded to see it as much as he longed to explore, with all a boy’s eager fancy for adventure. He was a sober-minded child, too, although so fanciful, and he did not altogether believe the tales that were told him. However, between belief and unbelief, his curiosity waxed strong, and he made many expeditions up the stone stairs from the court to try the handle of the door in the roof; but it was never unfastened, although he sat in the court below and watched it often. Nor was his success better with the trap-door; he could not reach this to try it, for the ladder was always locked up in a closet, except on the auspicious days when Madame Michel ascended. He asked once to accompany her, and was refused more sharply than he had ever been refused any favor before. He was not a child to fret or cry because of a denied pleasure; he neither repeated the request nor asked the cause of the refusal, but accepted the rissole that madame gave him, on her return, as an apology and peace offering.
