St. George's Cross; Or, England Above All

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.

ACT III.

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 rareof hue and fragrancie,What tho' the giver be kinde and fair,they have no charme for me.The wreathe whose brightest budde is goneis not ye wreathe I'de prise:I'de pluck another, and so passe on,with unregardfull eyes.And so the heart whose sweet resortean hundred rivalls shareMay 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 Samarès 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 Rosière, 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 Dénonciateur 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 bientôt! 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.