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| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| PROLOGUE. | 1 |
| ACT I. | 9 |
| ACT II. | 20 |
| ACT III. | 27 |
| ACT IV. | 36 |
| ACT V. | 45 |
| EPILOGUE. | 52 |
| APPENDIX. | 64 |
On a bright day in September of the year 1649 Mr. William Prynne, a suspended Member of Parliament, sat at the window of his lodging in the Strand, London, where the Thames at high water brimmed softly against the lawn, bearing barges, wherries, and other small craft, and gleaming very pleasantly in the slant brightness of an autumn noon.
The unprosperous politician looked upon the fair scene with quiet cheer. He was a man of austere aspect, and looked farther advanced in middle life than was actually the case. For he was bearing the unjust weight of a double enmity; and though his after conduct showed that the world’s injustice by no means threw him off his moral balance, yet it is impossible for a man to get into a position where every one but himself seems wrong and not acquire a certain sense of solitude, which, with a grave nature, will make him graver still. By the Cavaliers he had been pilloried, mutilated, fined and imprisoned: expelled from the University where he was a Master-of-Arts, driven out of the Inn-of-Court in which he had been a Bencher. By the Roundheads, on the other hand, he had been visited with a later and more intolerable wrong, exclusion from that House of Commons which was the only surviving seat of sovereignty. Thus excommunicated on all sides, Prynne still preserved his free and buoyant nature. He had the voice and impulsive manner of a young man; while there was a consistent moderation in his opinions which—however it might weigh against his success as a party-man—yet sprang from conviction, and was a guard against misanthropy.
In his apparel he was plain but not slovenly. His eyes were eager; his lean face, branded with the first letters of the words “Seditious Libeller,” was shaded by straight falls of lank hair, streaked here and there with grey, that was combed down on either side of his head to hide the loss of his ears.
Hearing a step without, Prynne laid down the book he had been reading—a pamphlet by John Milton—and advanced, with an air of polite reserve, to meet the entering visitor. This was a man more than ten years his junior, short of stature, with clear-cut features and thoughtful blue eyes contrasting with hair and moustache dark almost to blackness. His neatly brushed garments had a threadbare gloss, and his broad linen falling collar, though white and clean, was somewhat frayed. But his bearing was high-bred and distinguished, with an air of sober yet resolute earnestness. He wore no sword, and the hat which he carried in his hand was plain of shape and without adornment.
“M. de Maufant,” said Prynne, with the shy courtesy of a student, “will admire that I should seek speech of him after sundry passages that have been between us.”
“Alack! Mr. Prynne,” answered the stranger, with a slight foreign accent, “since your captivity in Mont Orgueil many things have befallen. ’Tis not alone I, Michael Lempriere the exile, changed from the state of Seigneur de Maufant and Chief Magistrate of Jersey to that of an outcast deriving a precarious subsistence from teaching French in your Babylon here; but methinks you yourself have had a fall too, since the days you speak of: when you left Jersey for London you came here in a sort of triumph. But by this time, methinks, you must be cured of your high hopes: I say it not for offence, but rather out of sorrow.”
“Why no,” answered the ex-Member. “Though I be no longer one of yonder assembly, I am still a denizen of London; and, let me tell you, a citizen of no mean city. And I bear my share in advancing the great cause on which so many of us are now engaged. Have you not read what Mr. Milton hath said here as touching this?” And he took up the book which he had dropped in the window-seat “It is well said, as you will find.”
Motioning Lempriere to a chair, he took another and read as follows:—
“’Behold now this vast city, a city of refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with its protection ... pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas, wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation.’ As he saith a little further on, the fields of our harvest are white already; and it is your privilege and mine that live among this wise and active people, to see it coming, perhaps to put in a sickle. The pamphlet is becoming a force stronger than the sword; and those Ironsides and Woodenheads who turn us out of the Chamber where our fellow citizens had seated us, may find an ill time before them when our work is over. But our work will be the work of freedom.”
What more would have been said, now that Prynne was setting forth on his dearly-loved hobby, of which the name was Cedant arma, is unknown; for the serving-man entered at this moment with a simple but plentiful repast carried on his head from the adjacent tavern; and even Prynne’s eagerness was dashed with caution enough to keep him to ordinary topics of talk so long as the man was in the room. But Lempriere had seen and heard enough to put him in good humour with his host. The intimacy of the latter with the Carterets, and a suspicion of general lukewarmness in the popular cause, had begotten old enmities, of which Lempriere, in the long probation of failure, exile, and poverty, had already learned to be ashamed; and to see the man he had misjudged, looking him eagerly and earnestly in the face as he uttered the language of a genuine reformer, completed the Jerseyman’s conversion. After the servant had brought pipes and glasses and left the gentlemen to their tobacco and their wine, their talk grew more familiar as they looked at the flowing river, and the deserted towers of Lambeth away on the other side.
“The truth is,” said Prynne, “that I received from the cavaliers of your island kindnesses that I cannot forget; yet as touching the trial and execution of the late King, if I have gainsayed aught of the other side, yet I need not repeat that I have ever been a friend to Liberty, as witness these indentures,” and with a starched smile he pointed to the marks upon his face. “I know that you have reason to be angry with Sir George Cartwright....”
“Let us not talk of him,” answered the other, with a flush on his swarthy cheek. “I lose all patience when I think of the many mischiefs entailed upon my country by the cruelty and greed of that house. When his late uncle, your protector, made Sir George a substitute in the Government of the island, he was but 23 years old: but old enough to be a serpent more subtle than any that went before; and see what he hath made of our little Eden! He and his men the servants, not of the people, but of Jermyn; prelacy and malignancy spread abroad. In the twelve parishes seven Captains are Carterets: and the Knight himself, beside his Deputyship, Bailiff and Receiver of the revenues, which he holds at an easy farm.”
“I conceive that your Eves and Adams should lose their virtue with such a tempter; yet, had you and Dumaresq been less bent on Sir Philip’s ruin, and on grasping his powers and profits, if you can pardon my plain speaking, I will be bold to say Sir Philip was no friend to tyranny, and would, under God’s pleasure, have been still alive to forward the cause of reasonable freedom.”
“I will follow your good example and use equal plainness, Mr. Prynne. This wise man hath said that ‘the simple believeth every word.’ But if we should do likewise and believe every word that is told of you, we might say ’that Mr. Prynne was seduced by Sir Philip and Lady Carteret when he was their prisoner in Mont Orgueil.’ And farther, it hath even been said that at that time you sent out a recantation to the King of that for which you suffered.”
“It skills not,” answered the host, with evident self-control, “it skills not to rake into that which is passed.”
“Neither did I seek to do so,” rejoined the Jerseyman, “I seek no offence, nor mean any. But, as touching the Knight’s spirit, and whether he sought the welfare of our island with singleness of heart, let me have leave to be of mine own mind. Will you not let me take the affirmation from the doings of Sir George, his nephew, and present successor? Where is the place of profit that he hath not bestowed upon a kinsman or creature of his own?”
“Methinks,” said Prynne, shrewdly, “there be others than he who would gladly share those barley loaves and few small fishes.”
“That may be,” said Lempriere. “The labourer is worthy of his hire, to give you Scripture for Scripture. But what will you say to the piracies by which the traffic of the seas is intercepted, and Mr. Lieutenant daily enriched by plunder from English vessels? Surely, even the charitable protecting of Mr. Prynne will hardly serve to cover such a multitude of sins!”
The conference was once more growing warm, when fortunately, it was abridged by the sudden entrance of a man not unlike Lempriere in general appearance, though taller and many years his junior. He wore a steel cap, a gorget, and a buff coat; and received a hearty welcome from the Jerseyman, by whom he was presented to Prynne.
“Captain Le Gallais is newly arrived from our island,” said Lempriere, “and I made bold to leave word that I was here, in case of his coming to my lodgings while I tarried with you. He brings me news of ’domus et placens uxor,’” added the speaker, taking with a sad smile the letter which Le Gallais handed him. The servant having brought a third long stalked glass and placed it on the table, left the room once more, as the visitor, unbuckling his long basket-hilted sword, threw himself into a high-backed chair, and stretched his limbs, as one who rests after long travel.
“I am come post,” said he, “from Southampton. There is that to do in Jersey which it imports the rulers of this land to know.”
“That may well be,” observed Lempriere, who shared his countryman’s idea of the importance of their little island. “But how fares my Rose? A wanderer may love his Ithaca, but he loves his wife most. Have I your leave, Mr. Prynne, to examine this missive?”
Prynne bowed, and Lempriere cut open his letter.
“Penelope maketh such cheer as she may,” he added, after glancing at the contents: “but I see nothing of your mighty news, Alain.”
“The letter was written before I learned the same. The return of Ulysses did not then seem so far as it does now.”
“Leave riddling, Alain, and let us know the worst.”
“The worst is, Charles Stuart is in S. Helier, with a large power, warmly received by Sir George, and holding the island as a tool of Jermyn and the Queen, if not a pensioner of France. I saw his barge row into the harbour at high tide, followed by others laden with silken courtiers and musicians; horse-boats and cook-boats swelled the train; the great guns of the Castle fired salvoes, and the militia stood to their arms upon the quay, with drums beating, fifes squeaking, and our own company from Saint Saviour’s ranked among the rest, green leaves in their hats and round the poles of their colours.”
Lempriere leant his head on his hand with a discomfited and despondent gesture. Prynne addressed him kindly:—
“Have a little patience, H. de Maufant,” said he. “The sun shines in heaven though earth’s clouds hide his face.”
“Lukewarm Reuben!” cried the other, impatiently. “What comfort can I have from such as thou? While we talk my country is indeed undone: my wife perhaps a wanderer, and my lands and house given over to the enemy.”
“Nay, but it need not be so,” said Prynne. “The Rump that ruleth here, even were it a complete Parliament, cannot be an idol to you and yours. I have read your island laws. Those that say that the Parliament hath jurisdiction there must, sure, be strangely ignorant. And so witnesseth Lord Coke, no slave of the prerogative. Your islands are the ancient patrimony of the Crown: what hinders you from casting in your lot with Charles? For my part, I would willingly compound with him. Let him rule as he pleases there, provided he make not slaves of us.”
“There spoke the self-loving Englishman,” cried Le Gallais, whom respect for his seniors had hitherto kept silent. “If you speak of hindering, what is to hinder Sir George, now that he hath the King for backer, from confiscating all our remaining lands and applying the produce to fitting out a fleet which will ruin the trade of all England? It is a question for you also, you perceive.”
“Proximus Ucalegon,” said Lempriere, whom nothing could long restrain from airing his classical knowledge. “But leave me to speak to Mr. Prynne in terms that will not offend, and that he cannot fail to understand. Harkye, Mr. Prynne,” he said, turning to his host and resuming use of the English language in lieu of the patois in which he had addressed his countryman. “You love the Commonwealth, I know; your many sufferings in that behalf show you a true friend to the cause of English liberty. But to me it appears that this cause cannot be fitly separated from that of your small satellite yonder.”
“I do not seek to deny it,” answered Prynne. “Now this good fellow,” pursued Lempriere, laying his hand on his young friend’s shoulder, “(and let his zeal make amends for his blunt manner) hath brought tidings, from which it appears that our affairs are in such a state as calls for your interposition. And I learn moreover from this letter that Henry Dumaresq is stirring, and the greed and grasping of the Carterets have made them many ill-wishers. Nevertheless, Pierre Benoist hath been taken, and under torture may readily betray our plans. On the other hand, he that is called King there, the young Charles Stuart, is under the regimen of his mother, who is the tool of France. Between them all Jersey may be lost to the Commonwealth before a blow be stricken.”
“Nay,” cried Prynne, interrupting, “I would not have you say so. We English are neither braggarts nor cowards. Whitelocke knoweth the mind of Mazarin; and I pray you note that Cromwell, though as a man of State I do not uphold him, is a soldier whose zeal never sleeps, and who cares more for the welfare of England and such as depend upon her than any Stuart will ever do, or undo. I sent for you, indeed, on this very behalf; not minded to show you all the springs of politics, yet to give you a word of comfort and to ask of you a word of friendliness in return, yea, word for word, an you will.”
The politician’s keen eye softened as he looked at the forlorn exile. The latter turned abruptly, as if to reveal no corresponding emotion: then, looking straight before him, said in low tones:—
“For comfort, God knows whether or no it be needed. My place and power are lost—such as they were—a price is set upon my head by those who slew Maximilian Messervy. My wife—who is to me like the apple of mine eye—is alone, battling with hostile authority, and with tenants too ready to profit by her helpless condition. I am as one encompassed by quicksands, and nigh to be swallowed up. I am tempted to say with David, ‘Vain is the help of man.’ Do you show me a bridge of escape?” he asked, turning to Prynne, “what is your meaning? I pray you speak it out.”
“You cannot,” said his host, “have forgotten Serjeant-Major Lydcott of this Army; and how with a slender company he landed on your island six years ago. It was about the end of August, 1643, I remember well, for Sir Philip had been dead bare three days and indeed was not yet buried: and the castles of Jersey still held out for the Cartwrights. I said then that, had Lydcott but taken three hundred of our sober, God fearing soldiers, he would have established himself as master of the island on behalf of the Commonwealth. George Cartwright had never come over from S. Maloes; the pirates of S. Aubin would have been confounded and brought to nought; Sir Peter Osborne had never held Castle Cornet in Guernsey (to the shame and sorrow of the well-affected in that island), had they but been backed and aided from Jersey. Even as things were, and with no more help but what he got from you—I say it not to offend you—how much did not Lydcott do? Three days after his landing he called together the States and opened before them his commission from the Earl of Warwick, Warden of the Isles and Lord High Admiral of England. You were present and presiding, as you must needs remember, together with all but three Jurats, all the Constables save one, and nearly half the Rectors. Without a dissentient voice you administered the oath of Lieutenant-Governor to Lydcott, yourself standing forth as Bailiff and sworn the first. What hindered you then from holding fast? Nothing but want of a backbone of strength. The militia, whom you now hold malignant, swore allegiance to a man, save and except one Colonel who was broke then and there. You may say George Cartwright drove you out; but what did he do that could justify your flight? I must be plain with you: with all outward and visible signs of power you gave way before three open boats and a mouldy ruin.”
“We gave way,” said Lempriere with an indignant flush, “because we were forsook by them on whom we leaned.”
“I know it,” pursued Prynne, “I say it not to blame you, but to blame the lukewarm weakness of those who held authority there on the part of the Commonwealth: for had Lydcott been ever so able and willing he lacked support from hence. We had our hands full of graver business. Only I neither desire nor expect such things should be done a second time. There be those now in power that will take better order. The future of your islands, the ties that bind them to us, were not known six years ago; and our friends—as I have already said—had other matters, more pressing, to attend to. But now is not then. Now, that a violent policy that I cannot altogether undertake to defend hath shorn the strength of tyranny, and that fair deceiver the late King—whom none could safely trust or utterly despise—is by that blow taken out of our path, we are free to set matters straight around us. It is therefore not to be endured that your small wasps’ nest yonder should continue to infest our ambient ocean with her petty and poisonous alarms. This is the word I have to give thee—friendly meant, though thou mayest have been hitherto no friend to me. Jersey will be brought under the power of the Commonwealth, and you will be among the instruments of its reduction. I seek a word from you in return for mine.”
“Sir,” said the bewildered exile, “you have spoken hardly, but, I believe, with a meaning kinder than seemed: a good intent makes amends for a harsh manner, and a bitter drink may strengthen the heart, as has this day been done to mine by the mingled counsel and reproof that have been poured out for me. I seek not to pry into your affairs of State, and what I have heard Le Gallais hath heard also. I therefore make no scrutiny as touching the means to be employed; the end we will take thankfully according as promised. If the Parliament and the Lord General be so minded, I make no doubt but we shall return to our home. But as regards the word you seek from me, I would fain know to what it shall relate. You seek, I presume, to make conditions with me: let me know, in the hearing of my friend, what they be. That we of the island shall be true and faithful servants to the Commonwealth of England, not seeking to intermeddle in matters that may be beyond our concernment, I would gladly undertake for myself and for all with whom my wishes may have weight: but methinks it shall hardly need. And perchance your Honour may intend to glance at some more private matter?”
“I do so,” answered the politician. “I have never hidden from you the love that I bore for good Sir Philip living, nor how dear I hold his memory now that he is dead. I would not that any who were of his party should suffer damage when the cause shall prosper in the island. You have heard of Cromwell’s present doings in Ireland: all the world knows what things are being wrought in that unhappy country, where the Lord Ormonde hath been another Cartwright and hath met with an overthrow the like of which I pretell for his Jersey antitype. Cartwright is as unbending and will hold out to the last.
“Mont Orgueil, indeed, can make no opposition to a regular siege: we are not now in the days of Du Guesclin. But it may be otherwise with Elizabeth Castle. Like her whose name she bears that fortress is a virgin, and not without a struggle will she yield. Cromwell loves not such defences. Let us be there when the hour comes, and let us combine to keep the garrison from perishing by the swords of our friends.”
“Gladly will I do my best in aid of mercy,” answered Lempriere, looking much relieved by the nature of the request. “If that be all that your Honour hath to ask, I can have no hesitancy in giving a hearty and honest pledge in such behalf. Jersey is no Corsica; and we love not revenge, do we, Alain?”
Alain readily endorsing his chief’s assertion, Prynne continued:—
“It is not all. I have to pray you for the Lieutenant himself; misguided and grasping as you deem him, he is of my deceased friend’s name and blood.”
“Alack, Mr. Prynne!” answered Lempriere, “have you quite forgotten what I owe to that blood and name? And I speak not in this for myself only. There are the spirits of the Bandinels before me; unhappy victims of George Carteret’s revenge. There is the shade of my friend Maximilian Messervy, judged by an unlawful and corrupt Court, executed under warrant of one who had no warrant for himself.”
In his excitement Lempriere had forgotten to quote Latin; he began to pace the floor of the room. Prynne also rose and leaned by the window, looking out at the shrubs standing dark and blotted against the evening light that lay on the smooth water.
“Take not your example,” he said; “from those whose deeds you abhor, neither make your enemies your pattern. Recollect who it is that hath said, ‘Vengeance is mine:’ and in the hour of your triumph remember to spare. Come, give me your word, willingly. I am doing much for you, more than you are aware. I call to mind some solemn words that I have heard Mr. Milton quote:—
“The quality of Mercy
is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle
dew from Heaven
Upon the place beneath:
it is twice blessed,
It blesseth him that gives
and him that takes.”
Let your promise to bless come as freely as the dews that are falling out there on my little grass-plot. Peace is upon the world—let peace be in our hearts also!”
The vehement controversial voice changed and became musical as it uttered the words. The fervour of an unwonted mood had brought something of a mist into the speaker’s eye; persuasion hung upon his gestures, and the voice of private rancour sank before the pleading of his lips. As the Jerseyman remained silent, Prynne went to the table and filled the glasses from the flagon of Rhenish wine that stood there.
“We Presbyterians,” he said, “are not given to the drinking of toasts. But ’tis no common occasion. England’s wars are over, may there be peace upon Israel. Let us drink one glass together, and let us join in the blessing of old, invoking it on our land:—’Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces: for my brethren and companions’ sake!’”
The guests followed their host’s example, and seemed to share his mood. Then, setting down their empty glasses, the three men parted in more loving-kindness, it might well be, than what had marked some early stages of their conversation. Prynne, when left alone, called for candles and sat down to his writing-table. The Jerseymen walked together towards Temple Bar.
“Knowest thou, mon cher,” said the Ex-Bailiff in the island language, “a heartier friend than one of these English that seem so cold?”
“But tell me, I pray thee, wherefore they call the present master of our island by an English name? For surely yonder gentleman said ‘Cartwright,’ which is a name not of Jersey but of England.” “They are stupid, Alain, that is all; and they think to weigh the world in their own scales. But whether we call him Cartwright or Carteret, it is equally hard to pardon his voracity. He is like Time—Edax rerum. Nevertheless, I feel as if it was not only the sight of you and news from home that had made me of such good cheer to-night: but that I owe something of it to Mons. Prynne; aye! thanks to his schooling and a readiness to perform what he has made me promise, should Carteret ever stand at my disposal. The time may be near or it may be far; but I feel that it must come.”
“And then,” asked Alain shyly, “shall not I too have something to expect from thee: when thou art Bailiff again, and a man high in power, will thou still be willing to give me thy sister-in-law?”
“Parbleu!” cried Lempriere, “if maids could be given like passports. But Marguerite will have her way; it is for thee, coquin, to make her way thine.”
Thus, jointly labouring at airy castles, the pair of islanders pricked their steps through the dirty and dimly-lighted streets till they reached a squalid row of houses on Tower Hill, where was situated the only lodging within the present means of the Seigneur of Maufant.
“To-night thou must share my chamber, telle quelle,” he said. “’Tis a poor one, as thou mayest suppose. Infelix, habitum temporis hujus habe?”
“It is all one to me,” said Alain, lightly; “whether here or at Maufant thou art always good.”
As they neared the door a voice came to them from the shadow of a projecting oriel:—
“Have a care, Jerseymen! You are betrayed.”
They ran to the shaded corner; but the moon was young and low and gave but little light in the narrow street. A figure, seemingly that of a tall man, was seen to glide away into another street, but they failed to recognise it or trace its departing movements. Silently, and with downcast looks they sought the entry of Lempriere’s lodging, the door of which he opened with a key that he carried in his pocket. Striking a light from flint and steel on the hall table, Lempriere kindled a hand-lamp, and led the way into a small chamber on the ground floor, where they wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down on a pallet in the corner. The younger man, fatigued with travel, was soon asleep; Lempriere, with more to think of, passed great part of the night in wakeful anxiety. Before he finally sank to slumber he had resolved to send Alain back at once to Jersey.
The king.
In 1649, when Charles II. was uncertain as to what steps he should take on the death of his father, it was considered that the best and safest place for his temporary residence was the Castle at S. Helier, in Jersey, known by the name of Queen Elizabeth, where he had already lived for a short time on an earlier occasion. Founded by order of the Sovereign whose name it bore, it stands on a rocky islet, once a promontory of the mainland, but long since insulated by every high tide. At low water it communicated with the town by a natural causeway of shingly rock called “The Bridge,” commanded by its own guns. On the Western curve of the bay, nearly two miles off as the bird flies, was the small town of S. Aubin, guarded by a smaller fortress. The entire bay was protected, by the batteries of these two places, against the entrance of hostile shipping. Circumstances, not now entirely traceable but connected probably
The titular Governor, Lord Jermyn, was an absentee, following the fortunes of the widowed Queen, Henrietta Maria, in France. The actual administration, both civil and military, was in the hands of a naval officer of experience, Sir George Carteret, or de Carteret, cousin and brother-in-law to the Seigneur of S. Owen, a large manor on the western side of the island. This family, distinguished in island history ever since it abandoned its fief of Carteret on the coast of Normandy to follow the fortunes of John Lackland, when the Duchy was confiscated by Philip Augustus, was by far the most powerful in the island. Its only possible rival, the house of Lempriere, of Maufant, had espoused warmly the cause of the Parliament, and had consequently met with reverses when the Carterets, who were royalist, effected the revolution mentioned in our Prologue.
It only remains to be added that the people at large were not at all warmly attached to either of the parties to the Civil War. The language of the majority was an old form of French, now reduced to the condition of a patois; the more educated classes studied the laws and language of France. The proceedings of the Courts and the services of the Church were conducted in modern French, and the sympathies of the community were divided between a mundane attachment to England, and a religious leaning to the creed of the Huguenots, of whom a great number had sought refuge on their shores. Hence the Jersey folks were indifferently submissive to royalty, the only form of English government of which, till these days, they had heard; but they by no means shared the High-Church fervour which had animated the late unfortunate King. Their ultimate motive, as is common to human nature, was for their own interests; and although the influence of the Carterets had kept them, for the most part, nominal followers of the cause of royalty, men like Michael Lempriere and Prynne had good reason for believing that they would, in the long run, favour those who seemed the best friends to Jersey. Let them not be blamed for this. Their love for England was very much founded upon fear of France. By observing the attitude of the Scottish borderers of a slightly earlier period, an Englishman of the seventeenth century could imagine the attitude of the Jersey mind towards the “Normans,” by which name they were accustomed to designate their feudal and aggressive Catholic neighbours the Lords and Ministers of the French Kingdom. Even as the Grahams and Scotts of Tweedside stood at arms against each other on either bank of the dividing stream, so did the de Gruchys and Malets, the Le Feuvres and de Quettevilles, on either side the Channel. The danger that was nearest was the most formidable; and the Channel Islanders were ready to side with England much as the Saxon Scots of the Lothians came to make common cause with the Celts of the Highlands.
These explanations may appear tedious: but the reader is implored to pardon them; for without such he could not realise the passions which are exemplified in this little story. Long exposed to invasion, the Jerseymen of the middle ages had handed down to their descendants an abhorrence of France which was fomented by the stories of persecution brought to them by Huguenot refugees; and which, indeed, has hardly yet completely died out among the rural population. Thus sentiment and interest kept the islanders attached to England by a two-fold cord; careless whether their immediate leaders were Cavaliers, as in Jersey, or Parliamentarians, as in the neighbouring island of Guernsey, where the royal Governor was beleaguered in Castle Cornet.
For reasons arising out of this state of things, Carteret did not leave the protection of the King to the unaided loyalty of the local militia. Cooped up in the narrow limits of the Castle rock were no less than three hundred Englishmen and women attached to the Court, and, in addition, a strong force of Irish and Cornish soldiers who had been brought over by Charles on his former visit, as Prince of Wales, after the battle of Naseby. His Sacred Majesty—de jure of England, Scotland, and Ireland, King, to say nothing of France, whose lilies were blazoned on his scutcheon—was de facto monarch of this little island plot of 45 square miles; and his state was at least equal to his temporary sway. The accommodation of the Castle was, in truth, but small; but it was the best that the occasion afforded; the royal palace consisting of a suite of small apartments vacated for the King’s convenience by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir G. Carteret, who had removed to the lower ward. S. Aubin, on the other horn of the bay, was the seat of the naval power; here lived the families of the officers of the corsair-squadron then constituting the Royal Navy. The rest of the King’s following was billetted on farm-houses in the parishes nearest to the town. Yet, as a warning that all was not their own, four frigates and two line-of-battle ships, with a commission from the rebel government of London, and flying the broad pennant of Admiral Batten, cruised between Jersey and Guernsey, never far from sight, although giving for the most part a wide berth to both the island castles, whose gunners watched them night and day.
Such was the position of affairs on a Sunday towards the end of September, a few days later than the events related in the Prologue. The morning had been wet and windy, and the sacredness of the day had joined to keep the men of those simple times from all activity save that connected with the services of religion. But, in spite of the weather, it had been judged wise and proper that Charles should show himself at Church on this, the first Sunday of his kingship in Jersey: and he accordingly attended worship at the Town Church of S. Helier’s. The tide was low, and the royal cortege, muffled in their cloaks, rode or walked
After the conclusion of the Service the clergyman ascended the pulpit in his black gown. He took his text from the second book of Chronicles, c. 35, the end of the 24th verse:—“And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.”
The turn of Mr. La Cloche’s discourse may be in great measure anticipated. Setting forth the heinousness of rebellion and regicide, he dwelt upon the virtues of the Royal Martyr, his courage, his patience, his devotion to the Church. As was but natural in the circumstances, there followed an application to local politics. They were there, he informed his hearers (as the old lattices, shaken by the gale, rattled their accompaniment to his monotone) in the character of Englishmen; but he had to notice that to the existing rulers of England they owed no obedience. The so-called Parliament which had judged and murdered the late lamented Monarch, and which now claimed the right of ruling in his stead, was no divinely appointed head of affairs, not even representative of one Estate
As the sermon came to an end the storm without showed signs of abatement; and by the time the blessing had been pronounced and the King and Prince had mounted their richly caparisoned horses, the wind had lulled and the September sun gleamed brightly out upon the attentive and orderly crowd. On returning to the Castle Charles sate down to dinner, and a select portion of the more loyal Jersey society was admitted into the Hall to see the King at table. Only two places were set; and after a Latin grace had been pronounced by the Court-Chaplain, the dishes were taken, one by one, to the King and his brother, and whatever meats were approved were taken to the side-board and carved. The royal youths had stood with uncovered heads while grace was being said; but they replaced their hats when they sate down, and wore them throughout dinner. After they had dined the Page-in-waiting, a tall and handsome youth, richly attired, brought each of them a ewer and basin of parcel-gilt silver, with a fringed damask napkin; and after they had washed their hands a butler served them with Spanish and Gascon wines. Dessert having been placed upon the table and tasted, the princes withdrew; and then the hungry courtiers sate down to finish the repast.
Retired to his private sitting-room, Charles lay back on a window-seat, tooth-pick in hand, and looked out indolently on the sea. The waves scintillated and broke into white foam, among the brown rocks, which disappeared gradually under the rising tide; and the wings of glancing gulls shone out against a rain-cloud which was bearing off the recent storm. Below the dark pall the sky of the horizon glowed bright and clear as jade over the deepening line of the distant waters. At the King’s feet sat the page who had served the princes at dinner, a bright rakish-looking young fellow named Thomas Elliot; apparently absorbed in the preparation of fishing-tackle, he was heedfully watching the face of his royal master out of the corner of his dare-devil eyes.
“Where is James, Tom?” asked presently the King.
“Gone to feed the hawks, Sir.”
“One’s own flesh-and-blood is poor company, he finds. By the Lord, Tom, this is no life for a Christian, be he man or boy. To be lunged round my good mother at the length of her apron-string seemed but dull work, and making love to the Grande Mademoiselle was indifferent pastime. But, odsfish, I would willingly be back there. In this God-forgotten corner you cannot see a petticoat on any terms, save the farthingale of Dame Carteret or her ancient housekeeper, as they cross the courtyard to give corn to the pigeons. James and I went out fishing yesterday, as far as S. Owen’s pond; but no sport had we there but the chance of a broken head from a Puritan farmer.”
“Why, what a plague did they want by laying hands on our anointed pate?”
“Ah! look you,” said Charles, in his languid drawl, “We did but beg a cup of cider from his daughter. James hath a long face and a dull tongue for a boy of his age; but I warrant I spoke the wench fair for my part; and in French that had passed muster at Versailles. But ’tis a perverse and stiff-necked generation. The wench screamed in some language not understandable by us—Carribee it may be—but faith there was no difficulty about the farmer’s meaning: he conjugated his fists, but we declined the encounter; and so we were quit as to grammar.”
The manner of the speaker was in such dry and droll contrast with his matter that Elliot had no difficulty in according the sympathetic smile which is the tribute of the jovial and manly sycophant to a superior he wishes to please.
“And this is then, the escapade for which the gros bonnets down there have determined that you are not to stir out of this charming retreat without a guard, or suffer your sacred person to meet the air of the island without the hedge of an escort. But I have a plan to defeat them....”
Whatever projects the young men might be disposed to form for the purpose of eluding the prudent precautions of their seniors were for the moment cut short by a knocking at the door, which made them start aside like the disturbed conspirators that they were.
“Quick! vanish,” muttered the King sharply; “behind the bureau there. If the comer be Nicholas let him not see thee here. He bears thee no good will.”
As Elliot hurriedly obeyed, the door slowly opened, giving entrance to the Rector of S. Owen. The worthy clergyman still wore the gown and bands in which he had preached in the forenoon, and carried in his hand the four-cornered but boardless college-cap which formed part of the clerical costume of those days. Bestowing upon the youthful King a look whose awestruck humility was at curious variance with the respective ages and appearance of the two, and making an awkward obeisance, Mr. La Cloche spoke:—
“I crave your pardon, Sir. Receiving no reply to my knock I presumed to enter, deeming mine errand an excuse.”
Charles pointed to a seat and drew himself up with dignity:—
“It needs no further excuse, reverend Sir, say on, and fear nothing.” La Cloche seated himself on the corner of the chair.
“It is my humble duty to warn your Majesty that Jersey is no suitable place for your residence,” he said.
“We are very much of your mind,” answered Charles, “but how made you the mighty discovery?”
“I have been dining,” answered the clergyman, “in company with the Honourable Sir Edward Nicholas, Knight, Secretary of State to your Majesty. Certain of your Majesty’s affectionate servants and well-wishers were of the party, as also the Lieutenant-Governor, who was the host. The discourse was grave; and albeit without permission of the gentlemen—yet, in virtue of mine office, I hope I but anticipate their humble duty to your Majesty, if I take upon myself to lay their thoughts before you.”
“And for your own part, Sir, as a Jerseyman having, both by religion and as a Member of the States, the means of knowing what the people think, you would fain join your own private word to those who are refusing an asylum to Charles Stuart in the dominions of his fathers. You had better let them speak for themselves.”
The clergyman shuffled in his uneasy seat. The perspicacity of the young man—it is a part of a Prince’s stock-in-trade—had taken him by surprise.
“I am an old man,” he faltered, “unversed in affairs of State. If it be true, however, that the Lord Jermyn....”
“Our mother’s trusted councillor, Mr. Rector! What of my Lord Jermyn? Thou hast not said enough—or, by God! thou hast said too much.”
The Chaplain’s island temper hardened under menace, even from the Lord’s Anointed. What he felt he did not indeed care to lay bare: yet the upshot he would tell. The King’s recent exploit in the parish of which he was Rector had come to his ears, garnished and exaggerated, perhaps; and he was determined to get rid of such visitors if he could. The news from France was an occasion, and he gladly used it. Lord Jermyn, it seemed, had been talking openly—and not for the first time—of selling the Channel Islands to France; and his connection with the Queen made men suspect that he had not entertained such a design without high sanction. On the other hand the Rector knew that Carteret would sooner cede the Island over which he was set to Cromwell than see it occupied by the French. The King would be in obvious danger, and he had determined, under that excuse, to endeavour to dispose the King’s mind towards a removal which he himself, on other grounds, considered highly desirable. Charles listened to all the clergyman had to say, with impatience thinly veiled by good breeding. When the speaker came to a pause, the King said, with a kinder manner, “Thou hast done well, and hast given no just cause of offence to anyone. Mr. Secretary is an approved friend: but I need not remind your Reverence of the prayer of the Psalmist: ‘Let not his precious balms break mine head!’”
The King’s manner indicated that the conference was at an end. He wished to get rid of the Rector, not only because the good man was “boring” him, as would be said now-a-days, but because he had but little trust in Tom Elliot’s discretion, and thought that at any moment the page might be led to break forth from what must needs be an irksome confinement. Moreover, the King knew that, sooner or later, he would have to undergo a more serious lecture from some of his councillors, and it was an object with him to make some inquiries in confidential quarters and devise a course of speech if not of action.
But the worthy Rector was, as he said, unversed in the ways of the great; and the young King’s affable manner had drawn him into forgetfulness of any little lessons of etiquette that he might have ever learned. Instead of departing on the King’s hint, he let his tongue wag afresh.
“Alack, Sir! may your Majesty’s prayers be heard. And may what I have done breed myself no harm! For what saith the Wise Man? ’Burden not thyself above thy power while thou livest, and have no fellowship with one that is mightier than thyself: for how agree the kettle and earthen pot together?’”
“It was well said of the Wise Man,” observed the King demurely. “And your Reverence will do well to consider the words that follow, if my memory do not deceive me;—’If thou be invited of a great man, withdraw thyself!’”
The underlined words, being pronounced with a voice changed to a sharp and sudden tone from the solemn snuffle into which the King had slid in first quoting Ecclesiasticus, were too much for Elliot, who broke into an irrepressible giggle behind the bureau. Mr. La Cloche started at the sound; then, recollecting himself, retired with a bow into which he threw a look of surprise not unmixed with silent reproach.
Still laughing, the page emerged from his ambush, knocking the dust from his doublet with his hand, and eyeing the door as it closed after the retreating Rector.
“I’ll wager he thinks thou wert a wench, Tom,” cried Charles; “but tell me, how much of the worthy parson’s discourse didst thou hear?”
“As much as you desire, Sir, and no more,” was the discreet reply. “But it is true that one is come from France who knows Lord Jermyn.”
“Jermyn,” said the King, half soliloquising, “is a son of a——; and I would as lief run him through the body as I would open an oyster. But that is neither here nor there; such pleasures are not for Kings.” He sate thinking for a few minutes, and then, looking up, added, “Go, Tom, and tell Nicholas and the rest that I would see them here.”
The page departed, presently returning to introduce four gentlemen, after which, he again left the room and shut the door, which it would be his office to keep against all intrusion while the conference lasted.
One of the visitors appeared to take precedence; a tall, high-featured man, with a stoop and a receding chin. This was Lord Hopton, one of the most respectable of Charles’s followers; an honourable, stupid, middle-aged nobleman, who could never marshal his own thoughts and who, necessarily, spoke without persuading others. The other Englishmen were Nicholas, the Secretary of State, and the old Lord Cottington. The fourth gentleman was Sir George Carteret, the Lieutenant-Governor, a bluff sea-faring man, little used to obey, yet anxious, in that presence, to be deferential; with an unmistakable pugnacity varnished over with a gloss of ruse. There being but one arm-chair in the room Charles took his seat upon it, and awaited the advice of his friends who perforce remained standing.
“I have sent for you, my Lords and gentlemen, to confer on the matter brought me by Mr. La Cloche, the Rector of St. Owen, and Chaplain to Sir George Carteret.”
Hopton opened the conference, speaking in a dull, precise manner, from the lips only, hardly opening his teeth:—
“May it please you Sir, Mr. La Cloche hath reported to me, as I met him returning from your presence, that while he was imparting to your Highness—I may say, your Majesty—a matter of great moment, there was one hid in the room that played the eavesdropper. Before proceeding farther I would humbly ask....”
“Hold there, my Lord,” broke in Charles. “Remember, I pray you, that—howbeit our present power, by the malice of our enemies, be brought to a narrow pass, we are still, by the grace of God your King, of full age, moreover, and no longer to be schooled. As touching what anyone may have heard here, by our consent, we need answer to no man; neither to Mr. La Cloche nor to your Lordship. There is, however, no one but ourselves in this room, as you may clearly see. As to the matter of the priest’s discourse, we opine that it is already known to you. It is of that matter that we now seek to know your minds.”
The words were not ungracefully uttered; but Hopton found no immediate answer. He only knit his narrow brow and held his peace. Carteret, however, stepped briskly forward; and would perhaps have committed some indiscretion had not Nicholas plucked him by the cloak. “By your leave, Mr. Lieutenant,” said the jovial lawyer, “I would say an humble word to his Majesty, with the freedom of an ancient servant.” His round face and merry eye were rendered serious by the resolution of a full-lipped yet firm mouth. “Sir!” said he, turning to the young King with a look in which the bonhomie of an indulgent Mentor was blended with genuine respect, “it will, no doubt, seem to your Majesty both meet and proper that we should not leave a meddlesome parson to let you know that our faithful hearts have been sorely exercised by that which is newly come to us out of France. Not to stay on sundry general advertisements and rumours that have reached us—and which seemed to glance at a very exalted personage—I mean, more particularly, what we have received this morning from a very discreet and knowing gentleman (now residing at Paris) of what he hath learned from persons of honour conversant in the secrets of the Court there.”
“If it be her Majesty the Queen that you fear to name, Mr. Secretary,” interrupted the King, “it is but vain to fence. Do your duty, as you have ever done.”
“With your Majesty’s leave, I will name no one, save it be one Mr. Cooly, Secretary to the Lord Jermyn, whom your Majesty, doubtless, graciously recollects. Our informant was plainly asked by this gentleman, how the islanders would take it if there should be an overture of giving them up to the French.”
“This is but talk,” observed the King.
“Nay Sir, there is yet more. This letter, which is come to one of us in cypher, goes on to tell that it hath been heard, from a very good source, that the chief mover herein is to be made Duke and Peer of France, and receive 200,000 pistoles, for which he is to deliver up not Jersey only but Guernsey, Aurigny, and Serk. Nay, further, his Eminence Cardinal Mazarine hath taken up ships for the transport of 2,000 French soldiers, nominally for the service of your Majesty, actually for the service whereof we are now speaking.”
“Let them come,” said Charles. “We will put ourself at their head and fall upon Guernsey, that nest of Roundheads where Osborne and honest Baldwin Wake have borne so long the brunt of insult and privation.”
“Under your favour, Sir,” broke in Carteret, “you would be bubbled. I have seen and spoke with a known creature of my Lord Jermyn’s; and I know well that the design of the French is—so to speak—to clap your Majesty under the hatches, and to steer the vessel on their own account. Mr. La Cloche shall answer for this,” he added in a lower tone.
“By your leave again, Sir George,” put in the beaming Secretary, “we lawyers are to speak by our calling. It is not indeed, Sir, that my Lord Jermyn hath made direct overtures to us. And ’tis to be thought that in this last respect the messenger spoke but according to his own understanding.”
“I would cut every throat in the island,” cried Carteret, with savage interruption....
“Sir George Cartwright’s zeal hath eaten him up,” said Nicholas with a twinkle of his merry eye. “Let it suffice that the concurrent information of divers persons (and they strangers to one another), together with the Lord Jermyn’s total neglect of the island in regard of the provisions that he hath not sent as promised nor repaid sums of money lent to your service by the people, have led us to sign a paper of association for which we shall crave your gracious approval. We doubt not you will agree with us that the delivery of the islands to the French is not consistent with the duty and fidelity of Englishmen, and would be an irreparable loss to the nation besides being an indelible dishonour to the Crown.”
As Charles took the paper handed him for perusal by Nicholas, a flush arose upon his swarthy countenance.
“Enough said, my Lords and gentlemen! We need not that any should instruct us as to our duty.”
“We trust not,” cried Carteret, bluffly. “If the French come here we shall give them a sour welcome; and as to my Lord the Governor, he will find,” and he slipped in his eagerness into his native tongue, “that he has made le marche de la peau de l’ours qui ne seroit pas encore tue.”
Presently the little Council broke up. The King, after glancing at the paper of association, consented that Lord Hopton—in whose diplomatic abilities he perhaps did not feel much confidence—should proceed at once to the Hague, and lay the case before the States General of Holland as the power most interested—after England—in sifting and, if need were, opposing the designs of France. Meanwhile the articles of the association were not to be divulged; the whole affair being kept a profound secret and mystery of State.
Somewhat relieved, the associates then retired from the presence of the yawning King, and passed down the little corridor. Here they found Elliot keeping watch, and pacing innocently to and fro. And the graceless page bowed their Honours down the stairs, without betraying by his manner anything to suggest—which was, nevertheless, the simple truth—that he had been attentively listening to as much of their recent conversation as could be gathered through the imperfect channel afforded by the key-hole of the door. Carteret cursed La Cloche’s officious meddling all the way to his own quarters, and on arriving there sent a sergeant to the unfortunate clergyman, who deported him to France by the next boat that sailed.
On returning to the room, Elliot found Charles walking up and down the narrow floor of his room in evident excitement.
“Tom,” said the King, as the page entered, “what is to do here? It seems that I am not to be master even in this little island of Hop o’ my Thumb. They lord it over me even as they did when I was here before, as Prince of Wales in partibus.”
“Why then,” answered the audacious youth, “I would even show them a clean pair of heels, and take refuge with the Scots.”
“The Scots who sold my father!”
“The Scots, Sir, of whom I am one,” cried the page, the hot blood of a race of Border-Barons rising to his forehead. “Am I and mine to be confounded with a crew of cuckoldy Presbyterians? I will not listen to any one who says so, King or no King.”
And the malapert youth flung out of the room, while his wearied master—not unaccustomed to such outbreaks—lounged into the dining room and called for his supper.
THE MANOR.
If the page was to be blamed for his disrespectful demeanour in abruptly leaving his helpless but indulgent Sovereign, his next step was still less worthy of commendation. But he had the perfervid temper of his race, and he was not twenty-two. Having attended his royal Master in a former visit to Jersey, he had made friends with some of the island gentry, and among others with the family of St. Martin (then resident at Rozel), in which he found a maiden of his own age with whom he soon imagined himself to have fallen in love. Mdlle. de St. Martin was the sister of Michael Lempriere’s wife; with her she had since taken up her abode; and the first thing that Elliot had done after the return of the Court to Jersey had been to acquaint himself with this fact. In the present excitement of his feelings he resolved to seek an interview with the girl whose charms he so well remembered. A boat was moored at the foot of the castle rock; and the impetuous young cavalier sprang on board, loosened the painter, and with the aid of a pair of sculls that had been left in the boat rapidly propelled himself to the shore of the bay aided by the flowing tide. While he is engaged in making his way to the northern extremity of the parish of S. Saviour, where the manor of the Lemprieres was situated, we will anticipate his progress and describe the scene.
The manor-house stood in its own walled grounds, admission being obtained through a round Norman archway, over which was carved the scutcheon of the family—gules, three eagles displayed, proper—with the date 1580. This opened on a long narrow avenue of tall elms, at the end of which two enormous juniper trees made a second arch, of perennial verdure. Such was the entrance, passing under which the visitor found himself in a flower-garden in which summer roses still bloomed, and the bees were still busy. On one side stood the house, a two-storeyed building of stone, pierced with many small latticed windows, and thatched with straw. The main-door bore another scutcheon, of newer stone than the rest of the house, quartering the arms of St. Martin (azure, nine billets or) over a device of two hearts tied together with a cipher formed by the letters L. and M. This doorway opened into a small hall, in front of which was a stair-case of polished oak. On either side of the hall were low-ceiled parlours wainscotted with dark wood, beams of which supported the ceilings. The floor of the room to the right was paved with stone and carpeted with fresh rushes, a yawning chimney of carved granite, on which a fire of drift-wood was burning with parti-coloured flames, occupied one end of the room, which was occupied by the ladies of the house. At the back were the kitchen and offices, looking out upon a paved court-yard containing a well, and backed by farm buildings.
Madame Lempriere (or “de Maufant”) and her sister sate by the fire knitting in the autumn twilight. Both were lovely; beautiful women in the typical style of island beauty, which not even the primness of their somewhat old-fashioned costume could wholly disguise. For their eyes were dark and sparkling, and their cheeks glowed with the rosy bloom of a healthy and innocent womanhood. They were talking in low tones of the troubles of the time and of their absent friends; their language was in the island French.
“It is more than a month,” said Rose Lempriere, “since I had tidings of M. de Maufant. Methinks your fiance M. le Gallais might show more alacrity in his coming.”
“Helas!” replied Marguerite, “poor Alain will never err on the side of precipitancy. But seest thou not, my sister, the equinox here, and gales are abroad. I did not expect him till the S. Michel; and then there are Captain Bowden and M. the Lieutenant’s cruisers to reckon with.”
“You do not appear to mind making the crane’s foot, my sister,” said Rose, with a slight smile. “In my youth lovers were expected to be forward and maidens looked for attention.”
“It is not so long since your youth, my all fair.”
“But perhaps M. le Gallais is better occupied in another part.”
“Voyons, ma soeur; it is quite equal, to me. Your M. le Gallais indeed! one would think it was you and M. de Maufant that wanted to marry him. As for me, I do not want to marry at all. Least of all does it import me to marry a man chosen by others. I prefer the ways of England.”
“Di va!” exclaimed her sister. “A good man is not bad because our friends like him. Marry this good Alain, and love him after.”
The damsel replied by a pretty grimace.
“Marguerite!” said Mme. de Maufant, with a little frown, “on ne badine pas avec l’amour. Or do you love another perhaps? Ah! malheureuse; art thou still thinking of ce beau guilliard, how did they call him? M. Elliot, I think, the King’s page? I hear that he is returned with the King; and—oh, Marguerite!——”
“I swear to you Rose, I know nothing of M. Elliot—”
As she spoke a low whistle was heard without.
“It is Alain’s signal,” cried Rose, all in a flutter. “He brings me news from Michael.”
So saying Mme. de Maufant moved with a quick step towards the door opening on the back yard, whence the signal-whistle evidently came. Marguerite site still on her tabouret, her head hidden in her shapely white hands.
On reaching the back-door Rose threw a wimple over her head, and carefully undoing the-chain and bar, admitted le Gallais, weary and travel-stained. Taking both her hands the young man gazed in her face with the honest gaze of a loving brother. Then searching in the lining of his doublet he drew out a letter, or rather a packet tied with string, and gave it to her.
“He is well,” he said, “but his heart suffers.”
“I know it, I know it,” sobbed the wife, “but come in, Alain; come in and take some repose.”
With which she led him into the room, and up to the hearth where sate the wilful beauty.
“Marguerite,” she said, “do you not see Alain le Gallais?”
“I am delighted to see M. le Capitaine,” was the girl’s reply, as she rose and made an obeisance, immediately resuming her seat.
Poor Alain! the cold of the autumn evening outside was nothing in comparison with the chill that fell upon him by that blazing hearth. Weary as he was, and—as soon appeared—wounded also, his nerve, shaken by fatigue, gave way before this reception. With giddy brain and wan face he sank into the nearest seat.
“What hast thou, my friend, speak, for the love of God,” said the lady of Maufant, while her sister’s reluctant eye glanced at him, through unshed tears with yet more tender inquiry.
“A scratch, no more,” said Alain, tightening the scarf on his left arm, which showed stains of new blood. “I am but now landed in Boulay Bay, and a militia-sentry discharged his matchlock at me as I ran down the lane under the battery. They are indifferent marksmen, my good compatriots, and their pieces make small impression compared with Cromwell’s snaphaunces.”
Rose tenderly unbound the bandage, found a mere flesh-wound, to which she applied some lint steeped in styptic, and restored the ligature in a manner more effective.
“Remets-toi Alain, reprends ton haleine, et dis-nous ce que c’est,” said she, after paying these quasi-maternal attentions to the fugitive. “And first tell me, how bears himself my Michael, and what greeting sends he to his home?”
But before Alain could answer there came a knocking at the gate: and the scared ladies had barely time to dismiss Le Gallais by a side door almost hidden in the wainscot before Elliot entered, hat in hand, and looking shy and breathless in the leaping light of the hearth.
“Pardon me, fair ladies,” he stammered, “have you any welcome for an old friend.”
The two women leaned against each other, even more embarrassed than, for a moment, was their visitor. They seemed to remember the voice, yet could not speak to much purpose for the beating of their scared pulses. But it is not easy for female self-love to be deceived. The boy had not changed so much in turning into man but that the face of an old love could resume its familiarity.
“’Tis Mr. Elliot,” presently said Marguerite, addressing her sister in English. “Mr. Chevalier, the Centenier, told you of his return but yesterday when we went to the market at S. Helier. I admire to see him here so soon.”
Rose advanced, with the restored self-possession of a lady on her own hearth, and gave the visitor her hand. “Welcome back to Jersey, Mr. Elliot. Time hath dealt kindly with you: you are almost grown to man’s estate.”
The young Scot flushed, somewhat angrily, at this equivocal compliment. “What Time hath done with me I cannot tell,” said he, with less than his wonted ease, “save that nothing Time can do can avail to quench old feelings. This is the first liberty that I have had since we landed. I have used it to lay myself at your feet.”
The ladies resumed their seats, motioning Tom to the place between them, just vacated by Le Gallais: and the talk soon ran into easier grooves.
“I have that to say,” continued the page, “that may shake your spirits, fair ladies. What I have listened to this day it may cost me my ears to have heard. But,” with an air of important resolution, “cost what it may, I will not nor cannot keep it from you.”
“A groat for your tidings,” replied Rose, “we poor women hear none in this remote corner. But is it a secret? Women may keep one,” she added, looking at the panel that had closed on Le Gallais, “but walls have ears: and so have you, as yet such as they are, which I would not have you sacrifice in our cause. If therefore your news be dangerous, think not of our curiosity, and give the matter no vent.”
Elliot was a scamp, no doubt, yet he could not but be moved by this thoughtful speech of a woman who could decline a secret. But he had come too far, laden with a burden that he would fain lay down. So long as he kept to himself what he had heard in the King’s chamber he might be doing his duty to Charles. But Charles had insulted him and his nation. Marguerite de St. Martin was his first love, the welfare of herself and her sister was at stake; he had trudged, four miles and more through the mire of steep and devious lanes to tell them; was he to leave them unwarned? Love and Duty fought their old battle, and with the old result—Love conquered and the secret was told. He had not, it is true, heard the full purport of the Secretary’s grave words or of Charles’ light replies: but what he had caught, tallying with the Chaplain’s disclosures of an earlier hour, had led him to conclude that there was a villainous plot on foot, of which the King did not seem to approve, and which therefore might be made known to those interested without real breach of faith. What he knew he told, and eked it out with what he could but conjecture.
The conference lasted long. While it was confined to the designs of the French, on which the short gusts of the Lieutenant-Governor’s stormy impatience had thrown a transient gleam of lurid light, the ladies were all attention. When the page began to talk of the King’s loyal resolves and of what great things he would do, they gave less heed. It seemed to them that Charles Stuart was all too young, too much bound to his mother, to be trusted in an affair wherein her favourite took an interest. Tom pleaded his master’s cause with the zeal of one who felt himself to have done that master some wrong; but he pleaded in vain. Little did the Jersey ladies care who might bear rule in the British islands; their chief care was for what would affect Jersey, and—above all men and things of Jersey—their dear Michael, now in exile.
It had long grown dusk, and Tom knew that he was absent without leave. His visit must be cut short. If he glanced significantly at Marguerite as he bent over Rose’s hand, if he hoped that Marguerite would follow him to the door and allow an integration of former toys, he was only building on a precocious knowledge of the sex. “I will but lock the door after Mr. Elliot,” said she to Rose, in patois, “be tranquil, my sister, he is but an infant.”
The dismissal of the infant appeared a work of time. In the meanwhile Rose opened the wainscot door, and called softly up the narrow stair to which it led. Alain heard her, and came down, looking anxiously round the parlour as he came inside.
“Is Marguerite gone out,” he asked, “with yonder polisson of the Court?”
“Thou knowest her, my friend,” answered Madame de Maufant, kindly; “ever since her mother’s death she has been a daughter to me. But a sister is not a mother at the end of the account; and our little one will not be kept a prisoner. She has learned English ideas in her girlhood, passed as you know with our London kinsfolk. Once she is married her husband will find her faithful, in life and to the death.”
“Such freedoms are not according to our island ways.”
“Be not stupid, my good Alain. Mr. Elliot is an old friend; though her dealings with him—or with others—be never so little to thy taste, I advertise thee to seek no cause of quarrel upon them; unless thou wouldst lose her altogether.”
“I do not understand how a girl that is promised can do such things. Moreover, his coming here at all is what Michael would not find well.”
“He has done us a very friendly act in coming here, and has told us of a matter which it may cost him dear to have revealed. For the rest, we can take very good care of ourselves.”
Alain was not a man of the world. With something of a poet’s nature, he was born to be the slave of women. Passionately attached to the mother who had brought him up—and who was lately dead—and wholly unacquainted with the coarser aspects of feminine character, he had a romantic ideal of womanhood. The ladies in whose company he might chance to find himself were usually quick enough to discover this; and seeing him at their feet were always trampling upon him, reserving their wiles and fascinations for men who were more artful or less chivalrous. The case was by no means singular in those days, and is believed to be occasionally reproduced even in more recent times.
He was now thoroughly annoyed; and Rose’s reasoning, far from composing his mind, had rendered it only the more anxious. Therefore, when Marguerite returned into the parlour, with a somewhat heightened colour, Alain affected to take no notice of her, and sate gazing moodily at the fire.
“I have been plucking these roses,” said the girl, offering Alain a bunch of flowers wet with early dew.
He took them with a negligent air, stuck one of the buds into the band of his broad-brimmed hat that lay on the table, and allowed the rest to fall upon the rushes that strewed the stone floor. Marguerite, with a slight and mocking grimace, watched the ill-tempered action without taking any audible notice of it. Then resuming her seat, she took up her wool and needles and applied herself to her interrupted knitting.
Meantime the page, apparently well satisfied with the circumstances of his visit, including those of his parting from the fair Marguerite, pursued his way to S. Helier. The darkness of the autumn evening was relieved by the multitudinous illumination of a cloudless sky. The lanes, bordered by the fortress-like enclosures of the fields, were shaded overhead by tunnels of interlacing boughs still in the full thickness of their summer foliage. A bird, disturbed by Elliot’s brushing against the branch on which she roosted, gave a solitary cry of angry alarm; the dogs barked in the distant farms; the grazing cows, tethered in the wayside pastures, made soft noises as they cropped the grass. Passing on by the old grammar school of S. Manelier and then through the village of Five Oaks, where he scared a quiet family assembled in their parlour by looking in at their window with a grimace and a wild scream, he ran on rapidly by the Town Mills and through the town towards the quay. When he reached the bridge-head the tide was ebbing; but partly walking, partly wading, he made good his footing on the Castle-rock. A sleepy sentry challenged, but the page crept through the darkness without deigning a reply. A ball whizzed through his hat, but did not check his progress. Availing himself of projections in the wall with which he seemed well acquainted, he entered his own little room by the open casement, and throwing himself on the pallet soon slept the sleep of youth and healthy fatigue.
At Maufant matters were not quite so peaceful. The ladies there, it may be feared, were ready enough to regret the page’s visit and its consequences, if not to express that regret to the old friend who might with some cause have complained.
Pretending indifference, he sate silently in a seat further from the ladies than that which he had occupied before the page’s intrusion. Finding him disinclined for talk, Rose read her husband’s letter without taking any further notice of him by whom it had been brought.
At length she broke the awkward silence; replacing the letter in her bosom and turning to Alain, she said:—
“I must go and get your chamber ready. I shall be back anon.” And she left the room by the concealed door.
Left alone with his mistress, Alain fell into a great embarrassment. Marguerite, for her part, felt a qualm of conscience, had he only known it. But her amour-propre was, none the less, extremely hurt by his cavalier treatment of her flowers. She was by no means in love with the saucy Scot, who had indeed given her some offence by the frankness of his leave-taking, though this was a matter of which she was not likely to complain, least of all to her official adorer.
“Pourquoi me boudez-vous, Monsieur?” at last she said; “are you perhaps permitting yourself to be offended at my seeing M. Elliot to the door? Do you not know that he is our old friend?”
“He is nothing to me,” answered Alain, moodily, “it is you of whom I am thinking.”
“As Rose says, we can take care of ourselves. Do you for one moment think that I acknowledge any restraining right on your part, any privilege of question even? But come, if M. Elliot is an old friend you are a much older. Do not let us quarrel.”
“It takes two to make a quarrel,” said the foolish fellow, not observing the olive-branch.
If his display of annoyance was only a mask of jealousy she fancied that she could deal with it, and forgive it, but if it should be really a sign of indifference? so reasoned her rapid female brain; the cruder masculine mind was but too ready to supply the solution of the problem.
“Voyons, Marguerite,” said her lover, almost blubbering. “I have loved you all your life. Ever since you were a little totterer whom I carried in my arms and planted on the top of the garden wall to pick coquelicots, I have thought of you as one to be some day mine. I see now how foolish I have been. I will put the sea between us; and I hope my boat will go to the bottom; and then perhaps you will be sorry.” ... And in the fervour of self-pity he actually shed tears.
Marguerite watched him, with a joyous sense of triumph. Secure of her victory, she could now assume her turn to show anger. But she did not feel it; and she had not much skill in the feigning of unbecoming passions.
“That is ungenerous, Monsieur. You do not think of the poor boatmen who would go to the bottom with you. They are not sulky young men who have quarrelled with harmless women. The Race of Alderney will do without them; dame! it may afford to wait for you too.”
If Alain had but caught the look with which these final words were accompanied! But he was still sitting in the distant darkness, with his moistened eyes bent obstinately on the ground.
And so the misunderstanding widened and deepened; and presently Rose returned. Taking in the situation with a rapid glance, she passed through the room and out into the buttery, whence she soon returned with the materials of a modest supper. “We must be our own domestics,” she said with an attempt at lightness: but the attempt was hollow; a cloud seemed to fill the low room, and press upon the inmates. The three sate down, but neither of the young people did much justice to her hospitality. After supper she held a brief consultation with Alain; and after giving him a bag of gold and a letter for her husband, dismissed him, to rest if not to slumber, in the chamber that stood at the head of the stair on which the door in the wainscot opened. Then she and Marguerite retired by the other door to their own part of the upper floor, where I fear the young lady received a lecture before she went to her virgin couch.
THE STATES.
Next morning the Militia Captain left before the house was awake, to return to Lempriere in London. When the ladies went, later in the forenoon, to arrange the chamber in which he had passed the night, they found that the bed had not been used during Le Gallais’ occupation. A copy of Ben Jonson’s Poems lay on the table; by the side of which were pen and ink, and a burnt-out candle. On opening the book, Mdlle. de St. Martin found some lines written on the fly-leaf, which ran as follows:—
“What tho’ the
floures be riche and rare
of hue and fragrancie,
What tho’ the giver
be kinde and fair,
they have no charme
for me.
The wreathe whose brightest
budde is gone
is not ye wreathe
I’de prise:
I’de pluck another,
and so passe on,
with unregardfull
eyes.
And so the heart whose sweet
resorte
an hundred rivalls
share
May yielde a moment’s
passing sporte,
but Love’s
an alyen there.”
“He is unpolite, my sister,” cried Marguerite, laughing. “But that is only because he is sore. The wounded bird has moulted a feather in his empty nest.”
“All the same, he is flown,” answered Mdme. de Maufant, gravely.
“N’importe,” answered the damsel. “Leave him to me. I can whistle him back when I want him—if I ever do.”
Leaving the ladies to the discussion of the topic thus set afoot, let us turn to the more prosaic combinations of the rougher, if not harder, sex. Majora canamus!
About four miles south-east of the manor-house, the old Castle of Gorey arose out of the sea, almost as if it grew there, a part of the granite crag. A survival of the rude warfare of Plantagenet times, it bore—as it still does—the self assertive name of “Mont Orgueil,” and boasted itself the only English fortress that had ever resisted the avenger of France, the constable Bertrand du Guesclin. But, in spite of its pride, it proved to be commanded by a yet higher point, sufficiently near to throw round shot into the Castle in the more advanced days to which our tale relates. For this reason, and also because of the smallness of the harbour at its feet, Mont Orgueil had given way to the growing importance of S. Helier, protected by its virgin Castle. Hence the place, though not quite in ruins, had sunk to a minor and subordinate character; the Hall, in which the States had once assembled, was neglected and dirty; the chambers formerly appropriated to the Governor and his family were used as cells, or not used at all; the garden was unweeded; and Mont Orgueil in general had sunk to be a prison and a watch-tower. None the less proudly did it rise—as it does still—with a protecting air above its little town and port, and look defiance upon the opposite shores of Normandy.
In a narrow guard-room on the South side of this castle, a few days later than the visit of La Cloche to the King, the Lieutenant-Governor was sitting at a heavy oaken table, with his steel cap before him and his basket-hilted sword hung by the belt from the back of his carven chair. A writer sate at the left-hand side of the same table, and between them lay militia muster-rolls and other papers. At the further end of the room, between two halberdiers in scarlet doublets, stood a tall Jerseyman in squalid garments, his legs in fetters, his wrists in manacles. Keen little grey eyes peered through the neglected black hair that fell over his narrow brow; and his iron-grey beard showed signs of long neglect.
“Now, Pierre Benoist,” said Sir George, “for the last time I give you warning. If you do not speak, freely and to the purpose, it will be the worse for you. There be those who can tell me what I desire to know. As for you, I shall deliver you to the Provost-Sergeant, who will need no words from me to tell him how to deal with you. I ask you, is Michael Lempriere in correspondence with Henry Dumaresq?”
“Palfrancordi! Messire; you press me hard,” said the prisoner, but his eye was scarcely that of a pressed man. “When you examined me a week ago in secret I think I answered that. I know of no letters that have passed between M. de Samares and M. de Maufant. That is,” he added hastily, as the Governor began to look impatient, “I have carried none myself.”
“Who has?” asked the Governor.
The Greffier, at a signal from Carteret, plunged his pen into the ink; the halberdiers shifted their legs and leaned upon their weapons; the prisoner moistened his lips with his tongue.
“Speak, Benoist; who carried the letters?”
“It was Alain Le Gallais,” answered Pierre in a low voice.
“It was Alain Le Gallais? Write, Master Greffier, the prisoner says that the letters were carried by one Alain Le Gallais. You are sure of that, Benoist?”
“As sure as my name is Peter.” A cock crew in the yard of the castle. The coincidence did not seem to strike any of the party in the room.
“By what route did Le Gallais go?”
“He went by Boulay Bay.”
“By what conveyance?”
“By Lesbirel’s lugger.”
“When did he go last?”
“This is the fourth day.”
Carteret compared these replies with some that lay before him, and proceeded:—
“Do you know when he will return?”
“I cannot know; but I can divine. The wind is changing; if he landed at Southampton on Monday night he would be in London in twenty-four hours, riding on the horses of the Parliament. Riding back in the same way he might be back in Boulay Bay, with a fair wind, some time to-morrow.”
“C’est assez,” said the Governor, “take the prisoner away; but not to his former quarters. Lodge him in Prynne’s old cell.”
As the prisoner was being removed, in obedience to these orders, he was seen to limp heavily, and there was a bandage on one of his legs.
“March, comrade,” said one of his guards, when they were in the corridor.
“My leg was hurt, John Le Gros, when I tried to escape last night.”
“Not so badly but you can walk if you like,” and the militia-man emphasised his words by a slight thrust with the point of his weapon.
To which of the parties in the island Master Benoist was faithful, the muse that presides over this history declines to reveal: perhaps he was an impartial traitor to both. It became presently clear that, in any case, his lameness was little more than a feint. During that same night he made a rope of his bedding, and letting himself down from the window of his cell at high water, swam like a fish to the unwatched shore of Anneport, and so effected his escape. It was long ere he was again heard of by the Jersey authorities; but there is no record to show that he was either mourned or missed.
For the next three nights a party of soldiers—not militia-men, but Cornishmen of the Royal body-guard—occupied a hut on the landing-place at Boulay Bay, belonging to Lesbirel, the man whose lugger was known to be employed in the communication between the Parliamentary party in the island and their English allies. The third night being dark and stormy, the patrol was suspended by orders of the sergeant in command, and the men devoted themselves to the indoor pleasures afforded by cards, tobacco, and cider. But others were less careful of personal comfort. On the western point of the cliff over their heads (the “Belle Hougue”) a beacon was burning, of whose existence the sergeant and his men were unaware. A man watched by the fire, keeping it alive by constant care and attention, or rekindling it from time to time, when it was overcome by the wind and rain. The soldiers in their hut did not see the light; but it was seen by the crew of a lugger, driving through the waves of the flowing tide before a rough but favouring gale. Accordingly, putting the helm down, their steersman drove the craft clear of the threatened danger that was prepared for the occupants below, and made her touch the land in the adjacent bay of Bonne Nuit, hid from observation by the interposing cliffs. Leaping to the shore, Alain Le Gallais, who was the sole passenger, climbing the western heights, made his way by paths with which he was well acquainted from his youth, to the manor-house of his exiled friend the Seigneur of Maufant.
It was near midnight when he arrived. All was dark. The yard-dog, roused by his familiar footsteps, shook himself and sate down without raising any alarm: nay, when Alain lifted the latch and passed through the outer gate of the court-yard, the animal rose once more, and advanced to meet Alain, fawning and wagging his tail. Alain was not sorry that the ladies were asleep. Perhaps the readers of his verses may not have understood that he was a poet; but, be it remembered, those verses were in a language not native to the writer. Those who are able to understand such fragments of his patois-poetry as still survive, declare that it is marked by tenderness and verve; even if this be not so, a man may lack the power of expression and yet have the poet’s temper; Alain was certainly of a deep and sensitive nature; he thought that he had borne much from Marguerite, with whom he was now really angry; it was therefore of set purpose that he had chosen this hour to visit the manor instead of waiting till the morning. Depositing a letter with which Lempriere had entrusted him in a cornbin of the stable which Mdme. de Maufant had instructed him to use in such cases, he went his way without disturbing any of the inmates of the house.
His intention was to pass the rest of the night in the barn of a farm called La Rosiere, where he would be safe from pursuit for the moment, and in the morning could join a party of the “well-affected,” who were in the habit of meeting in the neighbouring parish of S. Lawrence. Man proposes; but his purpose was destined to failure. The sky had cleared in the sudden way so common at midnight in these islands. The guard at Lesbirel’s, turning out to patrol, had at last caught sight of the fire burning on the point above them. Taking alarm, the sergeant, who was an intelligent and aspiring soldier, guessed that something was amiss, and set off at the head of his men to search for the escaped prey. Taking the road to the manor, where he had reason to believe Lempriere’s messenger would be found, and spreading his men among the shadows of the bordering walls and hedges, he came upon the fugitive in a lane. To his challenge, “Who goes there?” he received for answer a pistol-shot, which laid him low in the mire of the lane, with a great flesh wound in the right shoulder; but the soldiers hearing the report ran up from both sides. Le Gallais was overpowered and secured after a brief resistance.
“Search him and take him to the governor,” said the wounded sergeant, as he swooned from loss of blood.
The following morning found Sir George and his clerk in their old places in the Gorey Castle. Pale and draggled, Le Gallais confronted his examiners with such firmness as he could gather from a good cause.
“You have nothing against me, Messire de Carteret,” he said firmly.
“If I have not I shall soon make it,” said the governor fiercely. “Whence were you coming when you pistolled my sergeant?”
“I was going to join my company of militia, in order to be present at morning exercise,” answered the prisoner, undauntedly. “Your sergeant laid hands on me without warrant or warning on a public thoroughfare, and I shot him in self-defence. What would you have done in my place?”
“Insolence will not avail you. If you would save yourself from the gallows, you have but one way. You must make a clean breast of it.”
Le Gallais made no answer, but stooping down, drew a letter out of his boot and threw it on the table. The governor started as he read the address:—
“For the honoured hands of Sir George Carteret, Knight and Baronet, these.”
He cut the string and opened the missive. After reading a few lines he looked up.
“Clear the room,” he said; and as the clerk and guards obeyed, he added, in a changed tone:—
“Be seated, M. Le Gallais!
“This letter, as you probably know, is from Mr. Prynne, of the Parliament. Why did you not bring it to me at once?”
“I should have done so,” answered Le Gallais.
“It contains matter of the utmost moment,” added the governor, after finishing the perusal. “Are you aware of its contents?”
“Of its general purport, yes,” answered Le Gallais. “The emissaries of Queen Henrietta are due from S. Malo this day. They will not go to you (unless they are forced) nor yet to Mr. Secretary Nicholas. They are the bringers of a secret communication from the queen mother to her son. You see, sir, that I may be trusted.”
“By the faith of a gentleman, it is too strong,” cried the governor, in an impassioned voice. “Was ever honour or gratitude known among that family? But I care not. Your friends, M. Le Gallais, are my enemies. If Whitelock and company send to this island all the rebels outside the gates of hell I will fight them. You may depart and take them that message from me.”
Le Gallais did not move. “But in case of a French force landing—?”
“In that case, sir,” answered the governor, and his voice rose to a quarter-deck shout. “In that case it would be ’up with the red cross ensign and England for ever!’”
Le Gallais rose and in a gentler tone echoed the cry, sharing the generous impulse.
“Now go,” said the governor, more gently, “go to the buttery and get thyself refreshed. I know what a sailor’s appetite can be. No words; you came from England last night. God bless England and all her friends!”
So saying the governor departed, and in a few minutes more was seen to mount his horse at the fort gate and gallop towards S. Helier, followed by a single orderly.
Immediately on arriving at the town, Sir George’s first care was to send his follower to the Denonciateur and order him to summon an extraordinary meeting of the States. After which be went on to the Castle and demanded an immediate audience of the King.
Charles was sitting in his chamber, indolently trimming his nails. A tall swash-buckler, with a red nose and a black patch over his eye, was with him, also seated and conversing with familiar earnestness, as the governor entered.
“How now?” asked the King, with some show of energy; “To what are we indebted for the honour of this sudden visit? Were you not told, Sir George, that we were giving private audience to Major Querto?”
“Faith I was, Sir,” answered Carteret, with a seaman’s bluntness. “But, under your pardon, I am Lieutenant-Governor of this island and Castle; I know the matter on which Major Querto hath audience, and it is not one that ought to be debated in my absence.”
Charles looked at Carteret with a mixture of impatience and ennui. But the Governor was not a man to be daunted by looks; and with Charles, the last speaker usually prevailed, unless he was much less energetic than in the present instance.
“If there be any man more ready to lay down life in your Majesty’s service than George Carteret, I willingly leave you in his hands. But your Majesty knows that there is not. I am here to claim that the message from the Queen be laid before the States. We are your Majesty’s to deal with; but if we are to help, we must know in what our help is required.”
Charles gave way before a will far stronger and a principle far higher than his own.
“Go, Major,” he said, with an expressive look and gesture. “Let Messieurs les Etats know of our Mother’s message. Sir George! be pleased to bring Major Querto into your assembly. And, I pray you, bid some one send me here Tom Elliott,” added the King, in a more natural tone of voice. “A bientot! Sir George.” He waved his visitors out and resumed the care of his finger-ends, neglected in the excitement of the discussion.
Carteret, accompanied by Major Querto, repaired to the mainland. They proceeded together to the Market-place (now the Royal Square) and entered the newly-built Cohue or Court-house, where the States were assembling. Seven of the Jurats (or Justices) were already collected, in their scarlet robes of office: Sir Philip de Carteret, Seigneur of S. Owen (the Lieutenant-Bailiff); Amice de Carteret, Seigneur of Trinity; Francis de Carteret, Joshua de Carteret, Elias Dumaresq, Philip le Geyt, and John Pipon. These, in official tranquillity—as became their high dignity—took seats on the dais, to the right and left of the Governor’s chair. Below them gradually gathered the officers of the Crown, the Procureur du Roy, or Attorney-General (another de Carteret), and the Viscount, or Sheriff, Mr. Lawrence Hamptonne. In the body of the hall sate the Constables of the parishes, and some of the Rectors. The townsmen swarmed into the unoccupied space beyond the gangway. When the hall was full, the usher, having placed the silver mace on the table, thrice proclaimed silence. Then Sir George—who united the little-compatible offices of Bailiff and Lieutenant-Governor—arose from his central seat and presented the Major who stood beside it.
“M. le Lieutenant-Bailly, and Messieurs les Etats!” he said, “I have called you together to consider a message from the Queen: this gentleman here will impart it to you, Major Querto, of his Majesty’s army.”
The Major’s face assumed the colour of his nose.
“I am a rough soldier,” he muttered, in English, “and little used to address such an august assembly as I see here; least of all in a foreign language.”
“English, English,” cried a dozen voices. But Querto was silent, and looked at the Governor with a scared and anxious gaze.
“Since our guest is so modest,” resumed Carteret, “it is necessary that I should speak for him. The question is simple. Her Majesty, with her constant care for the subjects of her son, has heard with dismay that the rebels in England are projecting a descent upon Jersey. At the same time, Castle Cornet, in Guernsey, will be attacked by sea. Sir Baldwin Wake, with your active aid, has hitherto held out against the Roundheads of that island; and surely since the time of Troy has seldom been so long a siege, so stout a defence. But, with the Roundheads assaulting him by land, and Blake’s squadron by sea—Gentlemen, I know Blake and his brave seamen—what can Wake and a hundred half-starved men avail? To guard us against all these dangers, and against the loss of all the profits that we now have from our letters-of-marque in the Channel, her Majesty has been pleased to devise a means of succour.”
Here the Governor’s speech was interrupted by cries of “Vive la Reine,” led by the Constable of S. Brelade, in whose parish was situated the town of S. Aubin, the principal port and residence of the corsairs.
“Nay, but hear her Majesty’s gracious project. Nothing doubting your good affection or your courage, the Queen is persuaded that her royal son’s person (to say little of the other small matters already named by me) cannot be safe in your hands against a serious attempt such as can be made as soon as General Cromwell returns victorious—as he doubtless will—from the Irish war. She therefore intends—and here, Gentlemen, I come to the main purpose of our present meeting—she intends, I say, to send over a strong force of French troops to occupy the island.”
Consternation kept the assembly silent.
“You are not ignorant of the history of your country,” pursued the Governor. “When a former Queen sought the aid of France you know on what terms that aid was given. You know the name of Maulevrier; how for six years he held the Castle of Gorey with the Eastern half of our island. ‘We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared to us’ what things the Papists did in those days, and how the Lord delivered you by the hands of my own ancestor and of the sailors of England. Are we to do it again; it is to be France or England?”
The hall was in an uproar. With startling unanimity the last word was echoed from all sides: “England for ever! England above all!”
Returning to his quarters in the part of the Castle called by the name of the late King, Carteret found Sir Edward Nicholas—who was ageing and felt the cold of sunset—in a mantle and with a black silk skullcap on his head, pacing up and down the little esplanade by the faint light of a waning moon. There was an old friendliness between the two: Nicholas having been long loved and favoured by Hyde, now in Spain, but formerly the cherished guest of the Carterets. Hence the Secretary was both willing and able to give sympathy and counsel to his host almost as well as could have been done by the author of the famous History of the Rebellion, had himself been once more in the Castle.
“I hear by letter from Prynne, this day received,” said the Lieutenant-Governor, “to the effect that our giving harbour here to his Majesty is a cause of umbrage to yonder cuckoldy knaves in London. Meanwhile I have grave doubts as to the young man himself—under your favour, Sir Edward. We are undergoing so many and great dangers and distresses for him that we might well hope to have no renewal of the old dealings to our disadvantage. Yet it seems that things are coming to that pass that we may ere long have to choose between England and France.”
“As for France,” answered the Secretary, “we may expect due provision from his Majesty who is—believe me—a true lover of his own country; as also from your Honour, whose noble house has done well-known service in bye-gone times. For England, we know what her power is; but that power lies in the collection of her organs (as Sir Edward Hyde hath often taught us) by no means in the hypertrophe of one organ, and that one mutilated. The Church, Lords, Commons, are Three Estates—”
“Alack, Sir Edward,” interrupted the impatient sailor, “this is that whereto Prynne would lead us. Bethink you of Will Shakspeare’s saying, ‘If two men ride on a horse one must go behind.’ How much more if there be three of them. Here, in Jersey, where there is but one organ of Government—I mean the States—we may have labour, but we have none of these confusions. But in England, look you—”
“If it were as you suppose,” cried Nicholas, “the King must needs ride before and the Parliament behind. But let me hear more of Mr. Prynne. Barring his sourness in regard of stage-plays and Bishops—which seemed strangely coupled in his mind—he was ever a wise and moderate man.”
“Marry,” replied Carteret, “I will show you what he hath writ. He would persuade us—I will be plain with you—to send Charles packing, and to yield ourselves wholly to the present Government in England. He argues that might is right, and that it is to that a weak state like ours must needs bow;—Here be your three organs of Government—or rather were—yet one hath ever the last word, the casting vote; and that it is which in very truth governs: the others are but baubles. For, put case it were otherwise, then how would it fare with the public weal when one organ says, ’This shall be so, while another saith, ’Nay, but it shall be so;’ and a third perhaps is divided. It is put to the touch, as hath been lately seen in this nation, where the King came forth on one side with his cavaliers, followed by tapsters, serving-men and clodhoppers; officers and men for the most part broken in fortune, debauched in body and mind. Against him were ranged the citizens, the gentry, many even of the lords and the sober well-informed part of the yeomen. Your Royal tapsters are scattered in almost every encounter, your King is taken, dethroned, slain. Where be then your joint-organs, your paper-balance? Is it not the merest audit of a bankrupt’s books?’ So far Mr. Prynne, of whose wisdom you perhaps will make short work.”
“I do not say that he is wrong,” answered the Secretary, with a puzzled look. “I must own that we are beaten for the nonce. And it may be that if we were uppermost we should equally destroy the balance. But who will judge a man’s constitution by the symptoms of calenture? The nation is sick, yet it is not like to die.”
“My faith!” said Sir George, after a brief pause of reflection, “I think thou must be right, Sir Edward. This present condition of things cannot endure: but England will not die. When once men are earnestly disposed upon a way of reconciliation there must be give-and-take on either side until we get to work again. Mr. Prynne’s own tyranny, that of the Parliament, hath been already encountered by a stronger tyranny, that of the army. But that is a regimen to which Englishmen will not submit.”
“Then you are for the English, Sir George, rather than for the French.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” answered the other. “For the King of England, if possible. But for the Gaul we are not. We are of the old blood of the Franks and Normans. We have served our Dukes ever since the battle of Hastings; but when they became English, why, we became English too. We beat the French under Du Guesclin, we beat them under Maulevrier. From England we have had none but good and honest handling. We are English above all.”
“Well said!” cried the Secretary. “I am no boaster, neither do I claim the gift of prophecy, like some of our saints yonder. But I am persuaded that a day will come when your words will be put to the proof. You will have to choose not between King and Commons, but between England and France you yourself said so but now.”
“Mon Dieu! the choice will be soon made,” cried Carteret. “And now let us to table. For albeit Dame Carteret is lying-in, it will be hard but I can furnish a friend some junk and biscuit.”
THE DUEL.
Tom Elliot was a very bad sample of the cavalier party. Trained in camps, he had learned betimes to seek his happiness in wine, dice, loose speech, and morals to match. As in France, the successors of the Sullys and Du Plessis Mornays had become the coxcombs of the Fronde, and the grandson of Bras-de-Fer was known as Bras-de-Laine, so the character and conduct of men like Hyde, Ormonde, and Falkland furnished no example to such as Villiers and Wilmot, whose only ideal of imitation was scurrilous mimicry. Where the elder cavaliers had been proud to serve their king, the rising generation was content if it could amuse him; and with that Charles was satisfied.
Thus Elliot had learned that for such an escapade as his last he might easily obtain forgiveness. It was not that Charles was, even in youth, a sincere or warm friend. His easy good nature had its root in self-indulgence. Clarendon, who knew him and his family intus et in cute, has pointed this out in one of his best character sentences. “They were too much inclined to love men at first sight,” so writes the faithful servant of the Stuarts. “They did not love the conversation of men of more years than themselves. They did not love to deny, ... not out of bounty or generosity, which was a flower that did never grow naturally in the heart of either family—that of Stuart or the other of Bourbon—and when they prevailed with themselves to make some pause rather than to deny, importunity removed all resolution.” [Continuation of Life, p. 339, fol. ed.]
And there were not wanting particular reasons to dispose Charles to favour and forgiveness in this instance. Though Elliot had concealed the fact at Maufant, he was in fact a married man. His wife was the daughter of the Mrs. Wyndham who had been the king’s nurse. To this family connection he owed his first introduction to the royal household, which had been constantly improved by his lawless and pushing nature. A contemporary remarked of Elliot that “he was not one who would receive any injury from his modesty.” The late king’s grave and virtuous mind had been greatly alienated by these things, and he had once dismissed him from his family. The passionate youth had recovered his position owing to the Wyndham influence, but he came back with illwill in his heart. The memory of the royal martyr inspired him with scant reverence, nor did he feel either respect or compassion for the queen-mother. From these sentiments, however, one advantage flowed. Elliot was bitterly opposed to Jermyn and the French interest, and made use of his opportunities about the king’s person to strengthen him in a like opposition. So it came to pass that, after sulking an hour, the facile master not only pardoned the petulant servant, but promoted him to be a groom of the bedchamber; and the return was made in an increased persistence in efforts on Elliot’s part to amuse the king and flatter all his propensities, whether political or personal.
The “Indian summer,” or ete de S. Martin, was at its height in Jersey, when Carteret, obtaining Charles’s ready acquiescence, resolved on ordering a general review of the militia. Soon after daybreak on the 30th October the population began streaming in from all parishes, under the mild splendour of a cloudless heaven. The scene was on the sands of S. Aubin’s Bay, between the Mont Patibulaire and Millbrook. On the right wing stood two squadrons of mounted infantry, with their standards displayed in the morning breeze. On the left were the parish batteries, with their guns, caissons, and tumbrils. In the centre were the Cornish body guard and the militia infantry in battalion six deep, while the reserve and recruits brought up the rear. All but the last-named carried matches for their firearms, which were loaded with blank cartridge. The supports carried pikes. The drums beat, the colours flew, as Charles and his staff, surrounded by an escort of the mounted infantry, emerging from the south gate of the castle, rode along the low-water causeway.
Mme. de Maufant and her sister, mounted on sober but well-bred nags, and accompanied by some of their farm hands in gala costume, occupied a foremost place among the spectators. But the appearance of the castle cortege threatened their comfort, if not their safety. For the public excitement grew from moment to moment, “and those behind cried forward! and those before cried back!” The younger and more excitable especially, spurred by the fine weather and the novel spectacle, pressed eagerly to the front, mixed with mothers of scrofulous children, desirous of gaining for them the healing virtue of the royal touch. The king’s horse, short of work, and participating in the general excitement, reared and curvetted in the crowd, but was reined in by his skillful rider.
Charles was in his purple velvet, with no token of a military purpose. But on his left rode a gigantic guardsman in full panoply, while Elliot came on the right (but with his horse half a length behind) in gorgeous array, though more for show than for service. In his silver helmet fluttered a lissom ostrich plume, his shining cuirass was damascened with gold, which metal also glittered on the hilt of his sword. The tops of his buff boots and gauntlets were fringed with costly Brussels point. As they approached the crushed and alarmed ladies, a militia officer rushing to their aid from his place between the guns and the nearest company of foot, came into involuntary contact with the glistening groom of the chamber. The lace of the later’s boot caught in the steel shoulder piece of the infantry officer, and was torn. Irritated and excited Elliot brought down his hand upon the unconscious offender, and dealt him a heavy blow on the side of the face. At this sight—with nerves already overstrung—Marguerite became unable to control her usually placid steed; and Alain le Gallais—for he was the militia officer—was diverted from his instinctive but imprudent impulse of immediate retaliation, by seeing the young lady slip from her saddle into his arms.
The little incident was over in an instant, and the king passed on, but not without taking it all in with the observation natural to him.
“A comely wench, Tom!” he said to his companion, “and one that seemeth to know thee. But it seems that others gather what thou fellest.”
“Faith, sir,” answered Elliot, smilingly, “I have given him his wage beforehand. It is well that he should do my work.”
There was no time for longer or plainer speech. The guns began a royal salute, their muzzles fortunately directed towards the sea—for many of the pieces had been charged for ball practice. This somewhat dangerous demonstration was followed by a dropping fire of blank cartridge from the matchlocks of the foot, and then by general acclamations of “Vive le Roi” from all ranks. Then Philip de Carteret, Seigneur of S. Ouen, being called to the front, received the congratulations of the king on the appearance of the forces, in which, under the lieutenant-governor, his uncle, he held the chief command. He was then bidden to kneel, touched with the royal sword, and told to “Rise, Sir Philip de Carteret.” The eighteen stand of colours were displayed on the outer sides of the columns. Again the drums beat, the trumpets blew, and with the same state as that in which he had arrived, the king was escorted back to the castle.
As soon as Charles and his followers had been relieved of their full dress they renewed the conversation in which they had been interrupted on the sands, Elliot first endeavouring to improve the occasion into an argument against the king’s remaining in Jersey.
“That malapert bumpkin will be no friend either to me or to your majesty,” he said. “At himself I snap my fingers. But it seems to me there are some two thousand of them who cry ‘Vive le Roi’ for half a pistole, but would cry ‘Vivent nous autres’ for nothing. If the French land here they will turn against you at once. If the Parliament prevail they will submit, willy nilly. And your majesty may feel no ailment, yet have to be attended by the surgeon who cured your father.”
“Whither should I go hence?” asked the other. “The news of Ireland is hardly such as to give colour to Ormonde’s invitation.”
“I have told you what to do, sir, but got small thanks for my pains. Think on it well. Now, by your leave I must attend to affairs of my own. May I find you in a wiser mood when I return!”
“Farewell, then, Tom,” said Charles. “But beware of poaching on a Jersey manor!”
“There are no game laws here, or if there be the keeper is away.” With these words Elliot retired with a careless bow, and the king waved his hand gaily as he disappeared.
The forward young man bent his way, as often before, in the direction of Maufant. On entering the garden he saw the lady of the manor—a rose among the roses, as Malherbe might have said. The moment she perceived Elliot she stood sternly, and with dilated eye before the entry of the house, as if to bar the way, the united blazon of her husband’s ancestors and her own appearing above her head like a crest of battle.
“Why so stern, fair lady?” demanded the courtier, saluting her, “And why alone?”
“My sister is not here,” said Mme. de Maufant, answering but the second of Elliot’s questions. “She has spoken with you for the last time, Mr. Elliot. I hope that I too have the same advantage. You should go home, Monsieur, to your wife.”
Elliot started, but quickly recovering himself, said, with an insolent smile, “Always thinking of marriage, these dear creatures. Ah, ah! madame, sits the wind in that quarter? You thought the poor Scots gentleman might be caught by the rosy cheeks of a Jersey farm girl. Pas si bete.”
Rose pointed to the garden archway. “If you do not relieve me of your presence this very instant,” she said, pale and panting, “my farm labourers shall drive you out with cudgels.”
“It shall not need, madame, to pay me this last attention, so worthy of your habits. ‘Au revoir, madame!’” And with a profound and mocking reverence the wanton cavalier slowly retreated, leaving Rose to sink, half fainting, into a stone seat by the house door.
Elliot strode off, smarting with the sting of his well-merited humiliation. A brief moment of reflection was enough to show its probable origin. It was evident that the secret of his marriage had found its way to the manor, where the court he had been paying to Marguerite had consequently ceased to be regarded as a harmless gallantry, and come to be taken for insult, as indeed it deserved. Nor was it difficult to go on to guess the channel of this information. Le Gallais was Marguerite’s acknowledged lover, the person who would benefit by the removal of a fascinating dog like Elliot—a formidable rival, as he flattered himself such as he must be to a bumpkin officer of militia. How Le Gallais could have learned the fact of his having a wife in France might be a harder question, but it was one that was not material. Revenge would be equally sweet, whether that were answered or not.
Full of these thoughts the groom of the chamber stalked on to S. Helier. On reaching the quay, he came to “The White Ship”—a tavern frequented alike by the officers of the garrison and by those of the island militia. The parlour was full of men, some in uniform, some in plain clothes, smoking, drinking, playing cards—a scene of Teniers. One of the first faces on which his eye fell was that of Le Gallais, who sprang from his chair on Elliot’s entrance, but was restrained by his neighbours, and sat down watching the intruder’s movements with glaring eye. Striding up to the hearth, and standing with his back to it, the cavalier broke into a forced laugh.
“Strange company you keep, gentlemen. I spy one among you whom you had better put forth without delay.”
“Whom mean you?” asked the patch-wearing Querto. “’May I not take mine ease in mine inn?’ as the fat fellow says in the play. May not a plain soldier choose his own company?”
“A soldier is a gentleman, and should keep company with gentlemen,” answered the flushed youth. “Mr. Le Gallais is no mate for cavaliers. I say to his face that he is a cropeared rebel, a busybody, and a pestilent knave.”
“I appeal to you, Major Querto,” said Le Gallais, roused from his temporary pause, and turning to the major, whom indeed he had brought to the place, and for whose refreshment he was providing.
“Appeal me no appeals,” said the Major, with a truculent look. “No man shall appeal to Dick Querto till he is purged of such epitaphs.”
Confusion reigned. Le Gallais looked about him for a friendly face, and presently saw sympathy on that of a fellow-countryman and brother officer.
“Captain Bisson,” he said, “you will speak to Mr. Elliot’s friend.”
Elliot flung out of the house, followed by Querto and two or three Royalist officers, Le Gallais, and Bisson in the rear. They walked towards the beach, and on their arriving at the foot of the Gallows Hill—near where the picquet-house now stands—an Irish officer came from Elliot’s group and met Bisson, hat in hand.
“Are the gentlemen to fight now?” he asked.
“The sooner the better,” answered Bisson.
“Will it be a pas de deux, or will we all join the dance?”
“Surely, a combat of two,” gravely replied the islander. “We do not understand Paris fashions here. With you and me, sir, there need be no quarrel.”
“Sure, and we could have an elegant fight without quarrelling,” muttered the Irishman, with a disappointed frown. “But ’anything for a quiet life’ is my motto. This is a mighty fine place, I’m thinking, where two brave fellows can cut each other’s throats in peace and without disturbance.” Major Querto stood by with the air of an indispensable umpire.
The escrime of those days had not attained its later refinements. The combatants were placed opposite to each other, each flinging a cloak about his left arm, to serve as a shield, and they prepared to encounter in what would seem a fashion of “rough-and-tumble” to our modern masters.
Both were brave men, and in the bloom of manhood. Elliot was the taller, but Le Gallais, some seven or eight years older, far exceeded in strength and weight. After scant ceremony the thrusting began. Feet trampled, steel rang. A furious pass from the Jerseyman was with difficulty caught in Elliot’s cloak, and the sword for a moment hampered. Before Le Gallais could extricate it, Elliot, with a savage cry, ran in upon him, drawing back his elbow, so as to stab his adversary with a shortened sword. A scuffle ensued, of which no bystander could follow with his eye the full details, till the Scot’s sword was seen to turn upwards, and the point to pierce his own throat. Each combatant fell backwards, Le Gallais bleeding from the left hand, and Elliot spouting black gore from a severed artery.
At that instant cries name from the outside of the ring, “The guard!” On which the spectators hastened to disperse, while the Lieutenant-Governor rode up at the head of a mounted patrol. Elliot was taken from the ground in a dying state, and Le Gallais arrested, and ordered to Mont Orgueil, to await the arrival of the magistrate, who should make the preliminary inquiry.
Left in that irksome durance, but with wound duly cared for, Alain had abundant time to muse over the mistakes and misfortunes of the past. After the inquiry he was necessarily committed for trial at the next criminal session; and fell at first into a semi-mechanical existence. But slowly the twin stars of memory and hope rose out of the dark, while conscious integrity began to clear the moral aether. He tried in vain to cherish remorse, but Elliot’s treachery overbore the effort; slowly calm returned.
It was true that the news of Elliot’s fraud had been made known to the ladies of Maufant by himself. But as he thought over the matter in the solitude of his chilly cell, he could not see any reason to blame himself on that account. Hearing from Querto—who was connected with the family—that Elliot was unquestionably a married man, he had only done his duty in warning Rose and her sister against the groom of the chamber. He would not admit to himself that jealousy had influenced him in so doing. As Lempriere’s agent, as the old friend of the family, he could not have done otherwise. All was over between him and Marguerite, yet he could not forget that, by the wish of the young lady’s friends, if not by her own, he had once been her affianced husband. As for the death of the courtier, it was not in itself a subject for much regret; and, further, it had been wholly the consequence of the dead man’s own actions, from his deceit towards the ladies to his final ferocity and foul play in an encounter of his own provoking.
While Alain Le Gallais thus sought comfort by the road of reason and of conscience, his heart continued very sore. But on the morrow of his commitment an event occurred which changed his cheer, and made his prison for an instant more lovely than a palace. All the Jerseymen were acquainted with each other, and the prison warder, though fully meaning to keep his captive, did not by any means understand his duty to extend to making such detention a punishment to a man whom he liked, and who had not yet been condemned. So when Mme. de Maufant and her sister presented themselves at the gate, seeking admission to Alain’s cell, the worthy jailor unhesitatingly showed them into his own parlour, and fetched Alain to them, only taking the precaution of turning the door key upon the outside as he left them alone with the priser, on the understanding that they should call him from the window when they wished to leave.
Pale as death, her lovely eyes ringed with dark shades, poor Marguerite fell upon Alain’s breast, without pretence of coyness.
“Alain, mon ami!” she cooed in her soft rich voice, “can you give me your pardon?”
How far Alain believed this sudden revelation cannot certainly be told. All that he felt able to do was to strain the girl to his heart and be silent. Rose stood discreetly at the window; but finding that the lovers had no more to say to each other, she by and by broke silence.
“We shall not leave you to suffer for us,” she said. “Carteret is without scruple and without mercy. As a friend of Michael’s, he will seek every loophole for your ruin. I have already seen the Advocate Falle. He says that you will be tried for murder next week, and that if Carteret presides you are no better than a dead man.”
“To die for you and Marguerite is not so hard,” said the young man, with a smile.
“You shall do nothing of the sort,” cried Rose, warmly, “listen to me. The day is setting in for rain and storm. At five in the afternoon it will be dark. Then one of us will come back with John Le Vesconte, of La Rosiere, who is your match in stature, and who will be admitted on account of his being of kin to us. He will change clothes with you, and will remain in your stead while you come out of prison in his. He is in favour with Carteret, and will be quit for a fine, which I will gladly pay.”
As she stood, warm and bright with zeal, and intellect flushing in her eye, Alain thought that, with all his troubles, her exiled lord was a happy man. But he had to think of his own case. Placing the broken form of Marguerite tenderly in a chair, he stood up and looked full in Rose’s face, his hands joined, almost in an attitude of prayer.
“Do not tempt me,” he said, in a low, but determined voice. “I will not put another in my place to save my life, nor even to please Michael Lempriere’s wife. Moreover, John Valpy, the jailor here—who is somewhat of my family, too, for our fathers married cousins—has dealt tenderly with me, and I will not do what would bring ruin upon him. Tempt me no more,” he repeated hastily, seeing Rose about to interrupt him. “My mind is fully made up.”
“But for her sake,” pleaded Mme. de Maufant, eyeing the almost senseless girl with yearning pity. “Think of her young life, bound up with yours.”
“Alas!” answered he, “who knows what maidens mean? She has been excited by all that has befallen, and will doubtless be sorry for me, and remember me. But her life can never be bound but by herself. Briefly, I will not be saved on the terms you offer. Existence for me is without value, honour is not.”
After this speech, delivered in a tone of conviction, Rose could say no more. For her part, Marguerite was helpless. Her nerves had broken in the excitement of the whole scene, and by the time that Alain had done speaking, she was on the edge of a fit of violent hysterics. When her sister had succeeded, by the aid of the jailor’s wife, hastily summoned, in restoring a little calm, Marguerite insisted upon being taken away. Alain was left unshaken in his resolve, and Rose, weary of the unsuccessful interview, removed her sister to their temporary lodgings in the town. Leaving her there in the careful hands of the woman of the place—an old acquaintance—she hurried off to Hill-street, where she had another consultation with the Advocate Falle.
The result was soon apparent. To whatever motive Carteret may have yielded, he did not preside at the trial of Le Gallais, leaving the task—as indeed he usually did—to the Lieutenant-Bailiff. The record of the trial has perished, along with many public papers of those troublous times. But thus much we know, that Alain Le Gallais was tried before the Lieutenant-Bailiff and six jurats, and, in spite of a strenuous defence by Advocate Falle, was found guilty and sentenced to death.
It would be impossible to describe the anguish of the ladies of Maufant, who had remained in town during these proceedings. Rose had already spent in the conduct of the case money that she could ill afford. But she knew that her husband would never forgive her if she neglected any means of delivering their champion. Nor was she in any way disposed to do so. Secret service money was laid out to the full extent of Mme. de Maufant’s powers of borrowing.
Meanwhile the political horizon grew darker day by day. Charles fretted and yawned; but he continued to attend Divine service in the town church. He also dined in public, “touched” for the king’s evil, and exercised such functions of royalty (as understood in that period of transition) as the conditions of the place permitted. Just before the end of the Stuart dynasty kingship in England was in much the same condition among the English as it is now among the German nations. The monarch was still regarded as the head of the feudal State, while a number of the leading men were beginning to perceive more or less clearly that society had passed out of a condition in which it could be deeply or permanently swayed by the absolute will of one individual, however highly placed by what one called the Divine pleasure, and another the accident of birth. Among the personal prerogatives of the Crown was the pardon of persons condemned to death.
On the morning of the day when Mr. Secretary Nicholas was ordered to bring up the papers in the case of Rex v. Le Gallais, the Lieutenant-Governor of the small territory to which Charles’s sway was for the present restricted had a long audience. The king had, in his light way, lamented the loss of his petulant favourite. But Carteret had, with less pains than he had looked for, succeeded in convincing the facile and intelligent sovereign that for both the quarrel and its result Tom Elliot had been alone answerable. Probability leads us to suspect that Charles had his own reasons for the readiness with which he accepted the governor’s arguments. Among all the young king’s heavy faults, vindictiveness was not, at that time, in the faintest degree traceable; but, besides that, he had learned, in the intercourse of the last day or two before the fatal encounter, too much of Elliot’s nefarious designs upon Marguerite de St. Martin to suppose that he would with decency punish the conduct of her defender. Nor need we wonder if a bag of Rose Lempriere’s pistoles lent weight, even to royal scruples.
“Odsfish, Sir George,” he said, finally, “I believe that you must e’en take the pardon of your choleric countryman.”
“Your majesty is ever gracious,” answered Carteret, with his best quarter-deck reverence, “though under your pardon my countrymen are in no respect to be taxed with ready choler. They are ever courteous and patient. Only steadfast malice is what they cannot abide.”
“I dare be bold to say that human nature hath its operation amongst them,” answered Charles, with his languid smile. “Give them what they want and their temper is easy. But enough of this, Nicholas will draw the pardon, and it shall be signed and sealed anon. But, further, take order that there be no more duelling. And now, as touching another of your prisoners, Major Querto?”
“The major was arrested among those present at the duel, in which it hath been shown that he was not a participator,” said Sir George; “but letters have been found in his possession which hinder his release without further inquiry.”
“I can be the major’s warrant,” answered Charles. “He was a trooper in Goring’s horse, and rose by reason of his wife being chosen to nurse my mother’s last-born infant at Exeter. When her majesty retired into France, Querto, raised to be a commissioned officer, remained in Exeter. When that city was taken he followed his wife to France, from whence he is now come, bringing letters from her majesty to me.”
“By your leave, sir,” answered Carteret, “your information lacks completeness. Querto by no means repaired from Exeter to France. We have searched his valise, and have taken therefrom a packet of papers, from which it plainly appears that he is a false knave, who hath bubbled both sides. There is among these papers a letter from Sir John Grenville, to the effect that this fellow was to obtain
The king moved uneasily in his chair. He shunned the governor’s searching eye, and affected to be watching a ship in the offing, of which a view was commanded by his casement.
“That vessel appears to interest your majesty,” said Carteret, “she flies St. Andrew’s Cross.”
“I opine that it is the vessel of the Scots Commissioners,” answered Charles. “An it be so, we will receive them in council. Matters of great moment may be awaiting their arrival. For the present, Sir George, I bid you farewell.”
It was now December. The “St. Martin’s summer” of the Channel Islands was almost over. The trees were losing their leaves. The last roses lingered still only in sheltered nooks, rich as the Maufant garden. The sky was, however, serene, and the sea calm, as the Scottish ship sailed into the harbour. She had come over from Holland with a favouring wind, bringing the Chief Commissioner of the Parliament and clergy of Scotland, together with other gentlemen and officers, and an emissary from the Duke of Lorraine. The result of their arrival demands another chapter, for it seriously affected the fortunes of several persons concerned in the events which our history relates. Our scene changes to the ancient monastic chapel of the castle, in which the commissioners were brought before the king in council.
FAREWELL TO JERSEY.
The king’s ordinary cabinet council was now reduced to three persons besides himself, for it must be remembered that down to the days of the German sovereigns, who could not join from ignorance of the language, the English kings were always members of the cabinet, as the viceroy is to this day in British India. Hyde still playing the vain Ind futile part of ambassador in Madrid, Lord Hopton and the two secretaries, Nicholas and Long, were the only ministers present.
But the matter now opened by the arrival of the Scottish commissioners, was considered of so much moment as to justify, and even to demand, the summoning of the lieutenant-governor, and of all the peers then resident in Jersey. The deliberations of this assembly—which may be regarded as being tantamount to the Privy Council at large—lasted to the end of the month of December. But we are not dealing with general history. It will suffice to record that Winram, of Liberton, the chief of the mission, appeared charged, in the name of the parliament and clergy of the northern kingdom, to present and enforce certain written addresses, of which the gist was this.
Charles was to subscribe the “solemn league and covenant,” to give pardon and amnesty to all past political offences, and to agree to maintain the Protestant religion, according to the Presbyterian rite. Our fathers fought for freedom, but it was freedom only for themselves.
Upon these conditions it was observed by the foremost of the king’s advisers, that the so-called “Scottish Parliament” was no Parliament at all, neither having been called by royal mandate nor dissolved by the late king’s death. It was thus wanting in the essential elements and attributes. Dishonour and prejudice would accrue to any sovereign who should upset the very nature of the constitution. Yet the commissioners asserted stoutly that their employers would not be treated with under any other style, title, or appellation. The king’s councillors frowned. It was added, further, that the clergy of the Church of England, as might be learnt from his majesty’s own chaplains then present in Jersey, would strenuously oppose the Scottish alliance. They would indeed rather see the king go among the Papists in Ireland than among such strict Protestants as the Scots. These counsels were upheld by certain of the lords; and the Lord Byron, though not giving such extreme lengths, thought it not well to form a conclusive opinion until it was seen what advices should be received from Ireland, where Ormonde was still endeavouring to withstand the forces of the English Parliament under General Cromwell.
About the end of the month, however, all hope from that side faded away. The defence of Ireland had melted before the two passions of fear and avarice. All the strong places in Ireland had yielded themselves to the parliament. Ormonde admitted his failure in a letter to Charles, dated “Waterford, December 15, 1619.” On this Lord Byron joined in urging the king to yield the questions of form or title, and to treat with the Scots on their own terms.
While things were still in suspense, Alain le Gallais was wandering idly on the rude quay of S. Helier, looking up at the insulated castle, and vainly seeking to conjecture what might be the nature of the plans being there matured, when he was suddenly addressed from behind in a rough, but not wholly unfamiliar voice. Turning about he beheld the grim face and gaunt form of Major Querto, by no means softened by prison fare and restraint.
“I cannot say much in praise of your island, Captain,” growled the veteran, “either as regards hospitality or diversion. Out of bare eight weeks that I have lived here, six have been spent in prison; and now that they have let me out, I can find nothing better to do than to count the pebbles upon this beach here.”
Le Gallais led the grumbling officer to a neighbouring tavern, and called for a mug of cider and two glasses. When the liquor had begun to do its office, Querto showed signs of better cheer, nothing loth to have a companion.
“It is not often that a poor gentleman hath even such refreshment as this,” he said presently, after lighting a pipe of tobacco. The words were hardly courteous, but the speaker had not been bred in courtesy. “We had short commons in Exeter, but then there was none of the citizens fared better than we. Here in Jersey Mr. Lieutenant takes good care that they who have keep and they who want go on lacking. Yet methinks he might find it worth his while to take care for something else.”
“What, mean you, major?” demanded the Jerseyman.
“Marry this,” answered his companion, “that there be some among your friends who do not choose to starve while there are pistoles to be won by a brave action. Hark ye, captain, are you well affected or no? You need have no fear, sir, in telling me. I am not strait-laced, and I can keep counsel.
“Dost thou call to mind a certain evening in London when you and Mr. Lempriere were walking home together, and a warning was uttered in your ears?”
“Was it thou that played the raven? Didst thou think that we were of your side?”
“Of my side, quotha. Why, man, do you think me one to take sides? O, lord Sir, sides are for the quality. Dick Querto is of his own side, no other. Now, see here, Captain le Gallais, mayhap you know one Pierre Benoist that was then in limbo?”
“Aye, do I, and what of him?”
“Why, marry this; that he is at large, and hath a lure for your young Charlie there that will bring him from his perch on the rock yonder, and mew the tercel in London town. What think ye the Parliament will deem a meet reward for the men who bring them such a prize as that?”
Le Gallais was aghast. He was asked to consent to a plot to kidnap the king, and convey him into the hands of those who had taken his father’s anointed head from his shoulders. A plot to be carried out in Jersey, and by the aid of Jerseymen! Alain was not a blind royalist, as we have seen, but he had not learned, either from Prynne or from Lempriere, either that Jersey could exist without a King of England or that treachery was a necessary part of the work of liberty. At the same time the ruffian before him must not be prematurely alarmed. So he played his part as best he might.
“I must think of it,” he said, “the enterprise is bold. Tell me no more of your projects,” he added, with a sudden shame, as the swashbuckler was about to enter into details. “I cannot now take part in your work, for reasons.”
“All the better,” said the bravo, “but see that you betray me not. The fewer of us the larger the share; but you were best not betray me.”
“Threats are not needed, major,” answered the Jerseyman, “I am no traitor.”
Le Gallais paid the reckoning and sauntered off, a prey to contending thoughts. That the cruel plot should come to nought, if its frustration were within his means, he unhesitatingly resolved. That Querto’s confidence—unasked though it had been—should be used against himself, was equally unwelcome to Alain’s sense of honour.
In his perplexity, he wandered almost as by instinct to the lodgings of the Lemprieres. He had long been accustomed to regard the simple good faith and courage of Mme. de Maufant as an infallible oracle in cases of conscience. Never had so hard a need for an infallible oracle presented itself to his mind as this.
He found the ladies seated in a parlour on the ground floor, engaged in their usual employment of knitting. The room was small, but warm and snug. Under a pledge of secrecy, he told them in general terms that there was a plot to seize the king, but took care not to mention the names either of Querto or Benoist.
Meanwhile the council having broken up for the day, the king retired to his chamber. But instead of resting and calling for refreshment, as was his wont on such occasions, he seemed to meditate an excursion. Only that, in deference to the prudent scruples of his council, he was apparently going forth in strict disguise, for he unbuckled his jewel-hilted sword, and took off his velvet doublet. Then tucking his long hair under a fur cap, and putting on a blouse, such as was worn by the country people, he walked out of the castle in the dark of the winter evening, passing the sentries by giving the parole of the day. The tide being low he walked across the “bridge,” and at the town end was accosted by a man, attired like himself, who was waiting for him there.
“Owls be abroad,” said the stranger.
“They mouse by night,” answered the king.
Without further communication the two walked silently through the town, and up the steep lane in which Mme. de Maufant had taken up her abode. It was on a hill over-looking the town, still known by the name of “The King’s Cliff.” At the back were woods and fields.
All this time Alain and the ladies of Maufant had remained in earnest consultation. Rose was for letting matters take their course. She had scant sympathy with those whose policy had separated her from her husband, and who were, as she believed, plotting the betrayal of her country, Jersey, and her Michael. In these lay all her world. That the king should be carried off to London was nothing to her. But Marguerite was younger and more generous. Wronged as she had been by Elliot’s insolent schemes, that account was balanced and closed by the great audit. But she was not without a woman’s romance, and the thought that a king, young and unfortunate, was to be sold to his father’s relentless enemies and murderers, presented to her ardent mind a thing to be prevented at all hazards.
While they were thus debating the dog was heard to bark excitedly, and footsteps were audible in the garden behind the house.
“Mme. de Maufant,” said a voice at the window, “come forth. It is I, Pierre Benoist. I bring a message from your husband.”
“Wait an instant, Benoist,” answered the lady, unalarmed, “I will let you in.”
She went to the door, and gave admittance to two men in blouses. While one conversed with Mme. de Maufant, the other advanced to her sister, and, without taking heed of Le Gallais, addressed her in courtly tones, holding his fur cap in his hand, his brown hair fell down upon his shoulders.
“Fear nothing, bright pearl of Jersey,” said the stranger. “A traveller who has heard of your charms asks leave to prove them.”
“Marguerite!” whispered Le Gallais on the other side, “be careful, it is the king. I know his face. I have seen him many times in church.”
Marguerite slipped to the ground on her knees. “Ah, sir,” she said, imploringly, “the honour that you do us may cost your life. Your enemies are at hand. Perhaps the house is already surrounded. Ah, heaven! put up your hair!” So saying she aided the smiling young king to restore his disguise, whilst Alain, with a sudden impulse, threw himself upon Benoist, whom he gagged and pinioned almost before the rascal could utter a sound.
Charles, meanwhile not unwilling to wait the conclusion of the adventure, retired by a back door, followed by Rose, who showed him into the kitchen. The barking of the dog was at the same moment renewed, and other footsteps and voices were heard further from the house, which was apparently surrounded.
Marguerite sank into a chair, while Le Gallais carried the helpless Benoist out with whispered threats; and, throwing him into a dark stable, shut the door upon him, locking it behind him and putting the key into his pocket. He then returned into the parlour, and telling Rose—who had re-entered the room—what he had done, bade her be of good cheer. Marguerite continued to kneel, and her lips moved as if in prayer.
Meantime the voices came nearer. The dog, with one sharp yell ceased to bark, and knocks were heard at the door. Alain gave Rose one encouraging look and went out alone and unarmed to meet Querto and a number of peasants, most of whom he recognised as belonging to his own company of the parish militia.
“What is it, neighbours?” he said, taking no notice of the major, and speaking the local dialect.
“Why, this gentleman hath brought us here to seize a spy,” said one of them—our old acquaintance Le Gros.
“There is no spy here but himself,” answered Le Gallais. Do you not know who he is, Maitre Le Gros? This is Major Querto, who came here about selling Jersey to the French.
“What are you saying in your whoreson lingo?’” cried the major. “Let us in.”
“He wishes to do some mischief here,” pursued Le Gallais. “Perhaps to rob the ladies. Will you see Michael Lempriere’s wife plundered?”
“Never,” said another of the peasants. “He said a spy had got admission on false pretences.”
“There is no one here but I,” said Le Gallais. “Do you take me for a spy?”
“We do not, Alain. Vive M. le Capitaine! What shall we do with him?” said many friendly voices.
“Take him to the Centenier under the Gallows-hill,” said Alain, availing himself of the rising tide. “Or, stay”—as he caught a look from Querto, in which agony and reproach were mingled—“If he prefers it, carry him on board the first ship bound for France. I will answer for his passage money. Handle him as he deserves.”
To hear was to obey with the angry islanders. Hustled and disarmed, bonnetted and bound with handkerchiefs, Querto was borne off, howling and cursing. In a few minutes all was once more still in and about the house, only the good watch dog had suffered. He would never sound another alarm. One strobe of Querto’s sabre had severed his faithful head from his body.
Alain returned to the parlour.
Reassured by his telling them the story, they were easily persuaded to retire to their chamber. Alain’s next care was to seek the king’s hiding place.
“You must stay where you are till morning, sir,” he said, without entering. “I will watch over the only way by which any one can approach you.”
“As you will,” cried Charles from within. “But hark ye, captain! methinks a pint of claret would not be amiss, warm with a spiced toast floating on the top.”
The man and his wife who waited on the ladies had been spirited away by some intrigue on the part of Benoist, and the king would have to pass the night alone in the small kitchen.
More amused than disgusted with the royal levity, Le Gallais—who knew the ways of the house—brewed the desired tankard, and, returning to the kitchen, set the hot drink upon the table; then wishing the king “good repose;” left him to his meditations.
On returning to the parlour, Le Gallais carefully secured both the inner and the outer door, put a log upon the fire, looked to the priming of his pistols, laid his sword upon the table, threw a cloak over his knees, sate up in his arm chair with a look of resolute vigilance, and sank into a profound sleep, from which he did not wake till day streamed through the casement. His first care was to go to the stable and release Benoist, but that slippery rascal, after his wont, had released himself. His gag and bandage lay upon the stable floor, along with a bar shaken out of the loophole in the wall, leaving an aperture just large enough for a lean man to push through.
Returning to the house, Le Gallais found the graceless monarch seated at table before a steaming bowl of porridge, while Rose was pouring him some cider.
“Odsfish,” he heard Charles say, “I owe Captain Le Gallais thanks for a fair deliverance, and you, madame, a courteous usage under difficulty. But a la guerre comme a la guerre, and I have slept in worse conditions than those of your house, madame. Let me but bid farewell to your sweet sister, and I will be back in the castle before my absence has been observed. Ha! Captain Le Gallais, you must be my guide back to the quay. This part is strange to me.”
All Charles’s prayers were vain. Marguerite had a migraine, and could not have the honour of receiving the king’s farewell. He finished his breakfast, took a courtier’s leave of his hostess, and set forth on his homeward way, respectfully attended by Le Gallais. They walked through the streets in silence for some time, the king having quite enough sense to be ashamed of his situation.
“You have an interest,” he presently said, “in yonder ladies, captain?”
“I have, sir. I am M. de Maufant’s friend.”
“And therefore my enemy, I take it. No matter, you have served me a good turn.”
Soon the strangely-assorted couple approached the quay. Scarcely anyone being abroad at that early hour. Moreover they had come down to the bridge head by way of the Gallows-hill, to avoid the publicity of the main streets. As they parted, Charles turned kindly to his unwonted follower, and said once more—
“We shall not forget our obligation to you, Captain Le Gallais, whenever a time comes for proper acknowledgment. Meantime, if you will not own us as your king, tell me, as man to man, if there be anything in which Charles Stuart can serve you.”
“Aye, is there,” answered the Jerseyman, out of the fullness of his heart. “For your own sake, sir, leave us. We are a simple folk, unused to the ways of the great world, and only asking to be left in peace.”
“By the faith of a gentleman,” muttered Charles, as he made his way out to the castle, “the islander is right in his amphibious way. The solemn league and covenant is not amusing, but it cannot be worse than living here like a seal upon a rock; and when one goes forth to talk to a comely wench, being reconducted to one’s rock by a Puritan with webbed feet. Yet he hath saved me from a shrewd pinch, and that is the truth.”
It will not be supposed that Charles was all at once prepared to drop the little intrigue—so united to his already corrupted character, into which he had been led by Benoist’s insidious suggestions, acting upon a mind always anxious for excitement, and predisposed by the talk of the deceased groom-of-the-chamber. But the danger which he had incurred was a warning in the opposite direction. Benoist was in hiding, and appeared no more in the castle; lastly, the negotiations with the Scots now became so urgent and so perpetual as to require his almost constant presence and personal influence. The opposing motives and conflicting opinions of his various advisers often kindled into violent altercation, in composing which the really excellent qualities of the young king’s prematurely developed character had room for beneficial action. So the ladies of Maufant were left free from a troublesome persecution, against which, nevertheless, they took all due precautions.
Upon general grounds Charles was now willing enough to leave Jersey. The bluff firmness of Sir George Carteret, and the grave counsels of Nicholas, by whom the lieutenant-governor was usually backed up, were unwelcome to a sovereign; and his tiny kingdom afforded but little compensation, especially when he was forbidden to visit it, and was virtually prisoner on an almost insulated corner thereof. For Carteret and Nicholas had heard of his nocturnal adventure, and had extorted a promise from him not to go on land without their knowledge. They had also taken other precautions in the same behalf, which were perhaps more trustworthy.
It was finally determined that the king and his retinue should leave the island. The Scots’ invitation was accepted on the terms proposed by what it was agreed to call “the committee of estates;” and Breda, in Holland, was named as the place where the final agreement should be engrossed and signed by the high contracting parties. Here Charles would be safe in the protection of his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, until matters should be ripe for his departure to Scotland.
Since the events related in the foregoing chapters nearly two years had gone by. Jersey had been saved from intrigues of the Queen and Lord Jermyn. Charles had gone to France, and thence to Holland, followed by the Duke of York, his brother, and later by Sir Edward Nicholas and the other members of his council and court. The lieutenant-governor, freed from even the slight control afforded by their presence, had given full scope to the worse parts of his peculiar and complicated character. More than ever was his administration of his native island marked by unblushing egotism. Oppressive, grasping, unguarded in speech, and almost unrestrained in action, he seemed, from one point of view, the model of a sordid, short-sighted despot, making hay while the sun shone. But he had a fund of caution which kept him from proceeding quite to extremes, and his energy and ability were undeniable, as was also his attention to business. Hence, while feared and even hated, he was still respected and obeyed. Most of the militia officers were his creatures, as were also—as we have already seen—the civil, judicial, and legislative officers of the little republic. The seat of his government was at S. Helier, while S. Aubin, on the opposite point of the bay, was filled with his skippers and their crews, and the traders who profited by their piratical proceedings. Hardly a week passed but some rich prize—usually an English merchantman—was brought in there, to be condemned by Carteret’s court, and sold, together with her cargo, while the unfortunate mariners who had manned her were left to their own resources. Adventurers from all parts flocked to Jersey, to share the gains of this new and irregular trade, while the lawful commerce of England was menaced as with a cancer. With the
Matters were in this state, when one lovely day in September, 1651, Alain came before Mme. de Maufant and her sister as they sate knitting in the doorway.
“Great news!” he cried, as soon as he was near enough for the ladies to hear. “Great news! General Cromwell has thoroughly purged the garner. He has beaten and scattered the Scots at Worcester. ’Tis said Charles Stuart their king is taken prisoner. This ‘crowning mercy,’ as it is called by the lord general, befel on the 3rd, the same day last year he beat these same Scots at Dunbar. ’Tis a great and a bright day in his lordship’s life.”
“Count no man happy till his end,” answered Rose gravely. “A day of triumph may be a day of doom when God pleases. And how does this event touch us, thinkest thou, Alain?”
“Why thus,” replied the young man. “The general is not a man to bear with our lieutenant-governor’s oppressions and piracies for ever. Like Satan in the Apocalypse, Carteret hath great wrath, because he knoweth that his time is short. For Admiral Blake hath been collecting his ships at Portsmouth, and our informant says that they were to sail to-day, eighty vessels of war. They carry a strong force of fantassins, pikemen, and arquebussiers, with the new snaphaunces devised in the low countries. Their commander is Major-General Haine, Prynne is there as commissioner, and, best of all, Michael Lempriere is on board!”
Rose looked at him with swimming eyes.
“And Michael Lempriere comes as bailiff. He said that he would. And then, when your fortunes are once more high, and you have no further need of me ...”
Alain faltered and looked down. But for that gesture even his despondent mind might have been roused by the look that Marguerite cast upon him. But the dart was parried by the shield of an obstinate depression.
“I have arranged,” he pursued, “with Sir George. You know that last year he sent out a ship of five guns to America, laden with passengers, all sorts of grain, and tools for husbandry. She was lost, being captured (that is to say) off the Isle of Wight by Captain Green, of the Commonwealth’s navy. The stores were confiscated, but most of the passengers came back to the island, and have been here ever since awaiting a fresh opportunity for New Jersey. It will come soon, and I sail with the next venture.”
“With the next fiddlestick,” broke in Rose. “Speak to the silly fellow, Marguerite. This is the last time of asking.”
Whatever may be thought of Alain’s project of emigration, his information was true enough. Cromwell had determined to put a stop to the trouble caused by the present doings in Jersey. Yet he had no desire to repeat the severities of Ireland. The Jersey cavaliers were good Protestants, there had been no massacres, and their cause was warmly supported by Prynne—a man with whom the general could not wholly sympathise, but with whom he could still less afford to break on what appeared to him a not very important difference. Left to himself, he would not probably have been as stern with Jersey as he had been with the blood-stained Rapparees and their allies, solicited by the leader of the Moderates, he was willing to be won. So he readily agreed to the counsels of those who urged him to accept Prynne’s offer of service, and appointed the Presbyterian confessor to accompany Blake and Haine as a representative of conciliation and indulgence.
Setting sail with a light north-east wind, the transports and their convoy, multiplied by popular rumour into a vast fleet of war, and really bearing nearly three thousand good troops and a quantum of field guns, made slow way out of Portsmouth harbour on Sunday, September 19th. Next morning they were in the open sea with all sail set. On the quarter-deck of the Constant Warwick, a fine frigate (the first launched by the new government) Lempriere and Prynne—now completely reconciled—paced slowly up and down, talking of the present situation and future policy. As they did so their eyes glanced from time to time on the fair sea scape, illumined by the early autumn sunlight, and shaded by the sails of the surrounding shipping.
“’Tis a fair show, Mr. Bailiff,” said the English politician, “And one that ought to bring down our friend’s stomach.”
“Faith! I do not know,” answered the Jerseyman. “Sir George will fight, I doubt. You know him as well as I.”
“Nevertheless, he cannot fight to much purpose, and I see not how there can be any great effusion of blood. By himself he can do nothing, and who will be of his side? It is the divine asseveration of the wisest of men, Ecclesiastes vii. 7, ‘Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad.’ And if it be so, Cartwright should have but few sane men about him. Yet in his fall I pray he may find mercy. And I am forced to lean upon you, Mr. Bailiff, in that behalf.”
“Non tali auxilio,” began the quotation-loving bailiff. But Prynne gravely pursued his pleading.
“You may recollect what I said to the Commons’ House three full years ago. Indeed it was the very night before Pride’s Purge. If fines, I reminded them, if imprisonments, grievous mutilations, and brandings of S.L.—which I once called ‘stigmata landis;’ but ’tis an ill subject for jesting—could bespeak a true friend to liberty, why then sure I am one whose voice might well claim, a hearing. Yet it hath been far otherwise with yonder masterful men of the carnal weapon, who seek their own advancement in the name of the Commonwealth. I have never coveted the transient treasures, honours, or preferments of the world, but only to do to my God, country, aye, and king, too, the best public services I could, even though it brought upon me the loss of my liberty, the ruin of my mean estate, and the hazard of my life. When the late king did wrong I withstood him, to the extent of my poor capacity; but I was not for seeing the crown and lords of the ancient realm of England subverted or submerged by the flood of usurpation let in by some members of the Lower House. My speech of the 4th December, 1649——.”
“I heard it,” broke in the other, “And well do I remember the hum of assent and approbation with which it was received.”
“It was printed no less than three times last year. Then followed my tractate upon their deposing and executing their lawful king; and other leaves against the arbitrary taxation of what I call ’the Westminster Junto.’ Think you that these things can be forgotten, or that my being sent here with Haine is more than a hollow compliment? Recollect the word that we exchanged at my lodging in the Strand two years ago, and bear in mind that it is rather in your hands than in mine to temper justice with mercy when my friends shall be overthrown in yonder island.”
So pleaded, and to yet greater length, the verbose but earnest advocate. But in truth he might have been more concise, less eloquence would have sufficed had not the idle hours of a sea voyage thrown open a wider door for its display. Lempriere was ready to promise anything on the joy of the long-wished for moment.
“Quod optanti Divum
promittere nemo
Auderet.”
As he himself expressed the matter with wonted Latinity. His own nature would have disposed him to adhere to the promise given long ago, and still so urgently demanded of him by Prynne.
On the evening of Monday, the 20th of September, the flotilla was signalled in the north-western part of Jersey, where a vigilant outlook had long been maintained upon the very top of Plemont. The sea heaved to and fro in smooth fluctuations under the bright weather, which shed mild splendour over the violet surface, studded with orange rocks. With favouring airs the stately ships slid slowly on in crescent formation. They cast anchor for the evening in S. Owen’s Bay, sheltered on the north by Grosnez Gape, and on the south by the cliffs that end in the Corbiere—an extent of nearly five miles.
On shore all was bustle and preparation. Sir George’s head-quarters were at his cousin’s seat, the manor house of S. Owen. The sandy plains to seaward were held by companies of the island militia; the lieutenant-governor’s own immediate following consisted of a small squadron of horse, raised and equipped by himself, but mounted on chargers especially presented to them by the king. Considering the natural difficulties of the coast, and that the equinox was at hand, the numerical disparity was not absolutely desperate. Jersey is a strong place yet. In those days of sailing ships and weak artillery it was a gigantic fortress, if only held by a wholehearted and determined garrison. Had that but been now the case, which, however, it was not. The population in general had no insurmountable feeling of hostility towards the de facto government of England. On the other hand, the hearts of the Cavalier party were not high. A rumour had been spread—not traceable to any distinct source—that Charles had been taken after the rout of Worcester. The public, ever credulous of ill tidings, fastened with morbid eagerness on such reports. “Sorrow and despair,” writes a Royalist eye-witness with natural exaggeration, “could be seen in every face. The more dispirited began to cry out that it was in vain to contend any longer against powers that, like a torrent, bore down everything before them.”
Carteret, who though ambitious and covetous, was never wanting in courage, energy, intelligence or versatility, turned the more obstinately to his task. Concealing his natural anxieties, he rode about from post to post in morion and buff coat, wearing a resolute countenance, and doing all that one man could do to keep up the hearts of his people and prepare a stout defence.
The position of Le Gallais, though humbler, was much more complicated. Nor was he possessed of sufficient strength of character to choose a distinct path and steadily pursue it. Determined enough, as we have seen, under excitement he could fight with his back to the wall. Nor was he one to shrink from any duty that was plainly pointed out to him. He could not prepare himself de longue main for a definite and consistent conduct; still less had he the power—often wielded by natures otherwise inferior—of striking a balance between opposing motives. His duty as a militia-officer was at complete variance with his desires as a friend of Lempriere’s. He could not choose between them. He might have thrown up his commission and devoted himself to watching over his friends at King’s Cliff. He might have cast his feelings to the winds and accepted the post of orderly officer to the Lieutenant-Governor which was offered him by Carteret. He chose neither line but adopted what he called “a middle-course,” in other words left himself to be drifted on the current of events. He saw that the position of the cavaliers was hopeless if they had to maintain a long and unaided contest against the conquerors of Ireland and Scotland. He had no great trust in the willingness of the French, none whatever in their good faith. His ardent desire to prevent effusion of Jersey blood was a preoccupation that hid almost all other considerations from his mind. And he had trust in the discipline and morale of the Parliamentary troops, and in the presence among them of Prynne and Lempriere, which saved him from much anxiety as to the welfare of the ladies at King’s Cliff.
As he sate, that night, by the camp-fire of a picquet of his company he heard two militiamen conversing, and recognised Benoist and Le Gros as the speakers.
“To what purpose are we here, mon voisin?” asked the former. “What good would the sacrifice of ourselves do the King now, when perhaps he has already undergone his father’s fate and is no longer in this world?”
“If the King be dead, indeed,” answered Le Gros, “I for one will not fire a single cartridge. All the same, he was a debonair prince, and once gave me a groat to drink his health when he saw me holding his horse.”
“That he is a prisoner is certain,” croaked Benoist. “And if prisoner to Maitre Cromouailles he can only make his escape through one door. And that door does not lead to Jersey, though it may to Paradise.”
Here the men got up and moved off in search of cider, which was being served out by the Governor’s orders at a neigbouring farm-house. But their conversation mingled with the young Captain’s thoughts as, wearied with the marchings and countermarchings of the day, he dozed in the still night air, lulled by the fire at his feet. Deep slumber must have followed, for he started from dreams of tumult to feel the vibration of air caused by a round-shot passing over his head. The wind had fallen to an almost complete calm: a light breeze of autumn morning breathed keen over the barren moor; bugles were sounding, drums rattling, men shouting as they collected their accoutrements and fell in under arms.
Four-and-twenty guns from the nearest ships were playing upon them, answered briskly by the little militia batteries that lined the bay. Gunboats began to stand in, laden with red-coated marksmen discharging their new pattern fire-locks. The militiamen on their part waded into the sea and gave such answer as they could from their clumsy old matchlocks: making good the deficiency—so far as noise was concerned—by shouts of vituperation; and calling on their assailants as “Rebels,” “Traitors,” and “Murderers of their King.” The landing was frustrated for the time.
The next day was occupied in rapid movements from one part of the island to another, in order to meet feigned attacks by the enemy who were ready to turn any of those diversions into a real assault, on finding the Jersey people unprepared. The Lieutenant-Governor had no choice but to distract and weary his men, marching them backwards and forwards to S. Aubin, S. Clement, and Gorey, according as the invaders appeared at one or other of those landing-places. The militiamen were worn out by these tactics, and were moreover of the class on whom Carteret’s oppressive taxations had long pressed with an almost intolerable weight. On the third day their strength was reduced both by fatigue and desertion; and in the afternoon, after more demonstrations a real landing took place in S. Owen’s Bay, the original point of attack. Carteret, as soon as he perceived what was intended, galloped up his cavalry, ordering up a battalion of militia in support, under his cousin, the Seigneur of S. Owen. The English infantry formed upon the beach, and advanced to the attack with terrible shouts and cheers. The first troop of Carteret’s horse met them boldly, and delivered a headlong charge; but the men who had fought Rupert and Goring were not to be intimidated by a handful of untrained cavaliers. The troopers were received with a volley that emptied several saddles; and retired, leaving several of their number dead and carrying off Colonel Bovil, a gallant English officer by whom they had been led, and who soon after died of his wounds. The second troop failed to support them, but guarded the retreat as the troopers drew off without renewing their charge. Meanwhile, the militia who should have been the third line dispersed and gained their homes. The red ’coats meeting no further opposition marched cautiously across the island, and encamped for the night on Gorey Common. Carteret, with such men—mostly Cornishmen and Irish—as remained with him, threw himself into Elizabeth Castle; the other forts, S. Aubin and Mont Orgueil, yielded, almost without show of resistance, in a few days.
In anticipation of such an occasion Carteret had furnished the Castle of S. Helier with abundant provision, alike of victuals and ammunition; the latter being stored in the old Abbey Church, which was proof against the bullets used by the ordinary artillery of those days. His guns were mounted on the landward batteries, so as to command the town and any camp that might be formed there for siege purposes. The hill above—the Mont de la Ville—was too remote to cause any serious danger from the field-pieces of the period, which were not capable of sending shot with effect to a greater distance than half-a-mile. He despatched boats to convey his private property to France, and to take letters to the Royalists there, asking for instructions and assistance; and then stoutly prepared—with a garrison of 350 men—to sustain the siege against the grim victors of Tredagh.
Le Gallais, having lost his men in the late dispersal of the militia, felt no scruple in seeking his friend Lempriere. The latter, after a warm greeting, brought him to Prynne; and all three presently repaired to the head-quarters, in La Motte-street, where they were amicably received by Colonel Haine, the commander of the English forces.
Haine was one of those rapidly-formed soldiers, who had been thrown up and hardened by the war in England ten years before. He listened with due attention to what Le Gallais had to say about the Lieutenant-Governor’s resources and probable intentions.
“And who is this youth that hath such knowledge of affairs?” he asked, turning to the Bailiff—for as such was Lempriere now officially recognised.
“He is one, sir, that hath suffered for the cause; a Captain in our Militia, and my brother-in-law.”
Alain shot a glance of gratitude at Lempriere, while Haine, laying his hand upon his shoulder, said in a friendly tone; “I pray you, Captain, attend me as aide-de-camp until your company be reformed.”
Then calling for his horse, he led the party, swollen by the number of his staff, to the head of the causeway leading to the Castle, “If what I hear from Captain Le Gallais be correct,” he said to his Brigade-Major, “the Castle will not yield. But send them a trumpet, and let them not have cause to say the officers of the Commonwealth are unacquainted with the usages of war.”
The trumpeter rode forward to summons the Castle, a white flag flying from the tube of his instrument. Ere he could reach the gate, a gun boomed out from the Castle, a round shot whizzed over the heads of the summoners, and Haine roared at the top of his well-trained voice, “Come back; it is a sufficient answer.”
And so the fiery duet began—the batteries of the Churchyard sounding daily in harmony with those of the Castle, whilst ever and anon a piece of greater calibre roared its bass from the Town-hill.
Lempriere made haste to remove his wife and their sister from the noisy alarms of war to their quiet home at Maufant, where he left them to remove the traces of the usurper, and restore the old state of things with the help of the steward and such of the farmers as had not died out or left the country. One consequence of this removal was that Le Gallais saw nothing of the ladies. His new duties kept him much at the Brigadier’s side; when not so employed, he was chiefly occupied with Prynne, who was attracted by the turn of the young man’s mind, more akin to his own than that of the “hot gospellers,” the “levellers,” and the professional soldiers by whom he was surrounded.
Meanwhile, the siege dragged slowly on, until one dark night in the end of November an old acquaintance, Pierre Benoist, threw himself in the way of a party of Carteret’s scouts, who had come on the mainland and were questing for intelligence or plunder. Taken before Sir George, he was threatened with the doom of a prisoner-of-war, who was also a spy, unless he would tell all that he knew. He asked for nothing better, having got himself taken by the patrol for the express purpose of furnishing the garrison grounds for an early surrender. Especially pleased was the rogue when the Lieutenant-Governor pressed him to explain the nature of a movement of the enemy upon the top of the Town-hill, which had been perceived before nightfall; and of the cargo landed at S. Aubin by a heavy-looking craft that had arrived in the morning, and which seemed neither man-of-war nor trader.
“That I can tell you,” said Benoist; “they are preparing engines for your ruin. I saw the pieces landed, and drawn by oxen to the Mont de la Ville. Two pieces of ordnance whereof each shot weighs four hundred Jersey pounds, and takes ten pounds of powder to discharge. The like has never been seen, and they will carry a ball from Mont Orgueil to the coast of Prance. Ver di!”
Carteret laughed; but his laughter was only justified by the exaggeration. It did not altogether conceal the genuine anxiety caused by so much of the information as might be reasonably believed.
The anxiety was soon realised. When the mists of the winter dawn cleared up, it was seen that a strong work of granite had been newly thrown up on the nearest point of the hill, and while the besieged were still examining the structure, a vivid jet of flame and a puff of smoke darted from one of the embrasures, and a thirteen-inch shell—the largest projectile then seen—came booming over their astonished heads. Two more followed, at short intervals. After the third, an awful report was heard, a babel of tumult followed, and a gigantic column of smoke towered up behind them, from the magazine in the old Abbey Church. Splinters and fragments of stone and timber, mingled with pieces of powder, barrels, and ghastly members of human carcases were scattered, as they rose as out of a horrid volcano. The magazine had been struck and exploded by the great shell, killing no less than sixteen men, and wounding horribly ten others, including soldiers on guard, armourers, and workmen who had been collected for the daily labours of the arsenal. Among the bystanders was Pierre Benoist, who now lay among the ruins, half crushed by a stone, and who died after intense suffering in the course of the day.
A panic spread through the garrison; some prepared to fly at once, others clamoured for surrender. Carteret called them together; and when the officers and men were all collected on parade, appealed to all classes, as Lieutenant-Governor of the King whom they had all seen trusting himself in their protection, and as commander of the royal forces in the loyal island “I am determined,” said the undaunted seaman, “to keep this castle for His Majesty so long as I have a man left to fire a gun, and a loblolly boy to fetch the ammunition. The royal standard still flies over our heads, the sea still lies between us and France, to bring us Prince Rupert and his fleet. Let those who are afraid depart—I keep no man against his will. Those who remain will be all the more trustworthy. Let the gate stand open for the next half-hour.”
His orders were obeyed; but as he probably foresaw, no one dared to leave openly. By night, however, many of the garrison, who were of the Jersey Militia, silently departed. The bulk of the garrison, however, had heard of the storm of Drogheda, and chose what they deemed the lesser evil of trusting to the strength of their walls and the resources of their commander. To go to a town where they were unpopular strangers, and where the soldiers of the Commonwealth were in undisputed possession, would be to go to certain and immediate slaughter—to remain with Carteret was to gain the present hour and the chances of the future. Lady Carteret and the women and children were sent by the next opportunity to France; and then the work of defence was renewed; the guns were fired, as powder served and supplies were received from France; injured walls were repaired, and aid was anxiously awaited. Castle Cornet, in Guernsey, had held out since the Outbreak of hostilities more than ten years before—why should not Elizabeth, do as much, until the king enjoyed his own again? Meanwhile, December had begun, and the days grew short and cold. Haine’s great mortars proved rude and cumbrous; before they could be loaded and fired, and cooled again, one after the other, many times, the darkness would come on. The remaining stores were buried out of range. In the black and stormy nights, which lasted nearly sixteen hours, the men of the garrison threw up mounds of shingle and sand behind the breaches made during the day.
On the morning of the 5th December the sun rose clear and bright, and a south-west wind softly threw out the silken folds of the Royal Standard on the main tower of the Castle. Haine was standing by a cromlech that in those days occupied the summit of the Town-hill; Prynne, Lempriere, and some officers, of whom Le Gallais was one, stood beside him. In their immediate front the gunners, under an officer, were preparing to renew their apparently endless operations.
“This must be brought to an end, Mr. Bailiff,” said Haine. “For seven weeks and more I have exhausted the powers of modern war upon that eyry of malignants; and there is still the Guernsey Castle to be dealt with. Mr. Prynne knoweth what is the mind of the Lord General; but a time comes when sharp measures become necessary. I must take up scaling-ladders and deliver an assault.”
As they looked out to sea a small barque was seen standing in; by the help of field-glasses, it was observed that she flew the French flag. At the same instant the Castle guns saluted.
“Lo you, now!” pursued the commander, “there comes to them a promise of help from France. As the Lord liveth, it must be prevented! I must recall our cruisers from Guernsey; that castle shall be breached and stormed on Monday. And then on their own heads be the blood of Sir George and of those that hold with him!”
“Under your favour, sir,” said Prynne, “I think it shall not need.” He exchanged a hurried whisper with Lempriere. “What flag is that which you see flying on the Castle staff?”
“It is not a flag of truce,” shouted Haine. “God do so to me and more also if I make them not like unto Oreb and Zeb!”
The text seemed to relieve the veteran like an execration.
“What mean you by your flag, Mr. Prynne? I am not to take my orders from you, sir, I hope.”
“It is the flag of England,” answered the politician, “of your country and of theirs—the red cross of S. George. The Royal Ensign has been hauled down; do you not see? God save England!”
With the impulse of Latin manners, Lempriere held out his arms, and Le Gallais fell upon his breast. Meanwhile a drummer from the Castle was seen to ascend the bill, bearing a white pennon at the end of a lance, which he planted on the ground when he came within sight, and beat the chamade upon his instrument.
The messenger being brought before the Brigadier, handed him a small packet. Among them was a short note to the address of Captain Le Gallais, in which Carteret, reminding the militia officer of their past relations, invited him to plead his cause and that of the garrison with Lempriere and Prynne. This note Le Gallais, after attentive perusal, handed to Lempriere, who read it over, and waited in silence until Haine had finished his own despatch. He then addressed the Brigadier, and pleaded strongly the cause of his countrymen, concluded with these words:
“Carteret, sir, was a sentinel; he hath but done his duty to his master. So long as he was not relieved, he could not honestly leave or surrender that which he was placed to guard. Why he now lowers his arms he hath made plain I doubt not, to your Honour.”
“Why, yes, Mr. Bailiff; for the matter of that, he hath put a fair case. Yonder barque, it seems, brought him cold comfort. As for that thing they call their ‘King,’ he is lost. He can only offer them aid on condition of delivering the island to the French. Not that Mazarin dares affront us by sending a French army to occupy the Castle in the name of his King, and risk the giving us battle. Far from that, he hath a conjunction of counsels with the Lord General, and they understand one another. Nevertheless, there is ever a rabble of Irish cut-throats, Flemish mercenaries, and such-like, and no lack of Maulevriers to be their leaders.”
“But if such men come into Jersey,” said the Bailiff, “who can say when or how they would quit, or what mischief they might not have wrought first.”
“One remedy for that,” said the soldier, grimly, “will be to storm the Castle forthwith, and let all be over before their friends can arrive.”
“For God’s sake, do not so!” cried Lempriere; “not now that they have surrendered.”
“I will be bail,” added Prynne, “that Carteret shall depart in peace, after giving up all that is in his charge. Only let Captain Le Gallais go to him with a note of your Honour’s terms; and let us await, I pray you, his return.”
The General having at last consented, after just so much show of hesitation as to make it appear that the terms were yielded to the persuasion of his chief associates, Le Gallais returned with the drummer bearing the ultimatum of the English commander. He found the interior of the Castle a scene of havoc; among the debris Carteret, like a modern Marius, maintained an air of resolution.
“It is not enough, Captain,” said he, after brief salutations had been exchanged, “that we have fired away all our ammunition, and eaten our last horse, while the blockade of your friend’s cruisers ever increases its rigour. After all was done, we could die in the breach or in a general sortie. But there is treachery abroad. Not indeed among ourselves, but among those whom we desire to serve.”
“Your King, urged by his necessities, would sell you to the French?”
“It shall not be!” cried Carteret, with a fierce oath. “Let me see your General’s terms. Better an English Parliament than a Popish King.” He called into the corridor, “Bring the best bottle of wine that is left in my cellar!”
Le Gallais handed him the note containing the heads of Haine’s terms. “Perhaps, messire, you would consult with your council?” he asked.
“’A quoi bon?” said Carteret. “You heard what the States carried by acclamation, in October, 1649? All who are with me are of the same mind still.” The wine was brought. “What was said then in a triumph, I say now in the day of my downfall; Captain, fill your glass! ’England for ever! England above all!’”
* * * * *
The happy effect of this unexpected but welcome end of strife was soon made known throughout the island. In the towns and villages tar-barrels blazed all through the winter-night, and the best cider flowed free in the farms.
At Maufant all was happiness. The character of Marguerite de S. Martin had come out purified from the trials of the past two years, and the coquette-girl had grown into a woman, with but a lingering spice of mutinerie. Rose, happy in the restoration of her husband to all public honour and private joy, was anxious that her sister should partake in her happiness.
“Alain Le Gallais is no Solomon; that I grant you,” so she concluded a conversation on family matters, which they held after the labours and excitement of the day; “but he can do his duty to his country; he has proved himself a serviceable friend. Take him, tel quel, my little heart, thou canst not hope for a better.”
“Marriage is a slavery, quand meme,” said Marguerite, with a saucy shake of the head. “But it is not,” she presently added, “I that will be the slave; and there is some comfort in knowing so much.”
So the public and private troubles wore brought to an end at the same time. Carteret and his followers were allowed to go to France in peace and honour. Lempriere and he had held no intercourse since the surrender, but the Bailiff and his wife were honoured members of the assembly that gathered on the quay on the morning of the Cavaliers’ departure. The rising sun threw his orange hues on their swelling sails.
“We have won this time,” said Rose, pressing her husband’s arm. “Mr. Prynne, have you no compliment for us?”
“It is our advantage,” said Prynne in answer; “let us see that we deserve it. There as a Power that judgeth right, and in serving of whom there is great reward. For my part, I have done much wrong, to your husband among others. I have been punished for mine offences; if I would avoid more punishment, I must offend no more.”
The character of Sir George Carteret is taken from the materials of the time, without aid from fancy.
It should be added that Charles showed no ingratitude towards this faithful servant. After the Restoration he settled in London, where—in spite of his bad English, noticed by Andrew Marvell—he rose to high rank and founded a noble family, now represented by the Marquess of Bath.
Carteret was employed at the Admiralty, first as Treasurer, afterwards as Commissioner—or Junior Lord. He was also Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household; and he amassed considerable wealth.
But he never forgot his native island. He endeavoured to found a High School at St. Helier, what in the pompous style of these days would be called a “College.” But the project broke down for want of earnestness on the part of the Jersey people, though Sir George offered the then very large sum of 50,000 livres tournois towards the endowment. He lived till 1680.