The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories By English Authors: France, by Various

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Title: Stories By English Authors: France

Author: Various

Release Date: March 25, 2006 [EBook #2359]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: FRANCE ***

Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers

STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS

FRANCE

CONTENTS:

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT by R. L. Stevenson
A LEAF IN THE STORM by Ouida
A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED by Wilkie Collins
MICHEL LORIO'S CROSS by Hesba
Stretton A PERILOUS AMOUR by Stanley J. Weyman

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT, By Robert Louis Stevenson

It was late in November, 1456. The snow fell over Paris with rigorous,
relentless persistence; sometimes the wind made a sally and scattered
it in flying vortices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after flake
descended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, interminable.
To poor people, looking up under moist eyebrows, it seemed a wonder
where it all came from. Master Francis Villon had propounded an
alternative that afternoon, at a tavern window: was it only pagan
Jupiter plucking geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting?
He was only a poor Master of Arts, he went on; and as the question
somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst not venture to conclude. A
silly old priest from Montargis, who was among the company, treated the
young rascal to a bottle of wine in honour of the jest and grimaces with
which it was accompanied, and swore on his own white beard that he had
been just such another irreverent dog when he was Villon's age.

The air was raw and pointed, but not far below freezing; and the flakes
were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted up. An army
might have marched from end to end and not a footfall given the alarm.
If there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw the island like a
large white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars on the black
ground of the river. High up overhead the snow settled among the tracery
of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many a statue
wore a long