“When blows the wind and drives the sleet,And all the trees droop down;When all the world is sad, ’tis meetGood company be known:And in my heart good companySits by the fire and sings to me.“When warriors return, and oneThat went returns no more;When dusty is the road we run,And garners have no store;One ingle-nook right warm shall beWhere my heart hath good company.“When man shall flee and woman fail,And folly mock and hope deceive,Let cowards beat the breast and wail,I’ll homeward hie; I will not grieve:I’ll draw the blind, I’ll there set freeMy heart’s beloved boon company.“When kings shall favor, ladies callMy service to their side;When roses grow upon the wallOf life, with love inside;I’ll get me home with joy to beIn my heart’s own good company!”
“When blows the wind and drives the sleet,And all the trees droop down;When all the world is sad, ’tis meetGood company be known:And in my heart good companySits by the fire and sings to me.
“When blows the wind and drives the sleet,
And all the trees droop down;
When all the world is sad, ’tis meet
Good company be known:
And in my heart good company
Sits by the fire and sings to me.
“When warriors return, and oneThat went returns no more;When dusty is the road we run,And garners have no store;One ingle-nook right warm shall beWhere my heart hath good company.
“When warriors return, and one
That went returns no more;
When dusty is the road we run,
And garners have no store;
One ingle-nook right warm shall be
Where my heart hath good company.
“When man shall flee and woman fail,And folly mock and hope deceive,Let cowards beat the breast and wail,I’ll homeward hie; I will not grieve:I’ll draw the blind, I’ll there set freeMy heart’s beloved boon company.
“When man shall flee and woman fail,
And folly mock and hope deceive,
Let cowards beat the breast and wail,
I’ll homeward hie; I will not grieve:
I’ll draw the blind, I’ll there set free
My heart’s beloved boon company.
“When kings shall favor, ladies callMy service to their side;When roses grow upon the wallOf life, with love inside;I’ll get me home with joy to beIn my heart’s own good company!”
“When kings shall favor, ladies call
My service to their side;
When roses grow upon the wall
Of life, with love inside;
I’ll get me home with joy to be
In my heart’s own good company!”
“Oh, fool, oh, beneficent fool, well done! ’Tis a song for a man—’twould shame De Carteret of St. Ouen’s to his knees,” cried Lemprière.
“Oh, benignant fool, well done!—’twould draw me from my meals,” said a voice behind the three, and turning hastily about they saw, smiling and applausive, the Duke’s Daughter. Beside her was Angèle.
The three got to their feet, and each made obeisance after his kind—Buonespoir ducking awkwardly, his blue eyes bulging with pleasure, Lemprière swelling with vanity and spreading wide acknowledgment of their presence, the fool condescending a wave of welcome.
“Oh, abundant Amicitia!” cried the fool to the Duke’s Daughter, “thou art saved by so doing. So get thee to thanksgiving and God’s mercy.”
“THEY SAW, SMILING AND APPLAUSIVE, THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER AND ANGÈLE”
“THEY SAW, SMILING AND APPLAUSIVE, THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER AND ANGÈLE”
“Wherefore am I saved by being drawn from my meals by thy music, fool?” she asked, linking her arm in Angèle’s.
“Because thou art more enamoured of lampreys than of man; and it is written that thou shalt love thy fellow-man, and he that loveth not is lost; therefore, thou art lost if thou lingerest at meals.”
“Is it so, then? And this lady—what thinkest thou? Must she also abstain and seek good company?”
“No, verily, Amicitia, for she is good company itself, and so she may sleep in the larder and have no fear.”
“And what think you—shall she be happy? Shall she have gifts of fate?”
“Discriminately so, Amicitia. She shall have souvenirs and no suspicions of fate. But she shall not linger here, for all lingerers in Delicio’s court are spied upon—not for their souls’ good. She shall go hence, and—”
“Ay, princely lady, she shall go hence,” interposed Lemprière, who had panted to speak and could bear silence no longer. “Her high Majesty will kiss her on the brow,and in Jersey Isle she shall blossom and bloom and know bounty—or never more shall I have privilege and perquage.”
He lumbered forward and kissed Angèle’s hand as though conferring distinction, but with great generosity. “I said that all should go well, and so it shall. Rozel shall prevail. The Queen knows on what rock to build, as I made warrant for her, and will still do so.”
His vanity was incorrigible, but through it ran so childlike a spirit that it bred friendship and repulsed not. The Duke’s Daughter pressed the arm of Angèle, who replied:
“Indeed, it has been so according to your word, and we are—I am—shall ever be beholden. In storm you have been with us, so true a pilot and so brave a sailor; and if we come to port and the quiet shore, there shall be spread a feast of remembrance which shall never grow cold, seigneur.”
“One ingle-nook right warm shall beWhere my heart hath good company,”
“One ingle-nook right warm shall beWhere my heart hath good company,”
“One ingle-nook right warm shall be
Where my heart hath good company,”
sang the fool, and catching by the armBuonespoir, who ducked his head in farewell, ran him into the greenwood. Angèle came forward as if to stay Buonespoir, but stopped short reflectively. As she did so the Duke’s Daughter whispered quickly into Lemprière’s ear.
Swelling with pride he nodded, and said, “I will reach him and discover myself to him, and bring him, if he stray, most undoubted and infallible lady,” and with an air of mystery he made a heavily respectful exit.
Left alone, the two ladies seated themselves in the bower of roses and for a moment were silent. Presently the Duke’s Daughter laughed aloud.
“In what seas of dear conceit swims your leviathan seigneur, heart’s-ease?”
Angèle stole a hand into the cool palm of the other.
“He was builded for some lonely sea all his own. Creation cheated him. But God give me ever such friends as he, and I shall, indeed, ‘have good company’ and fear no issue.” She sighed.
“Remains there still a fear? Did you not have good promise in the Queen’s wordsthat night?”
“Ay, so it seemed, and so it seemed before—on May Day, and yet—”
“And yet she banished you, and tried you, and kept you heart-sick? Sweet, know you not how bitter a thing it is to owe a debt of love to one whom we have injured? So it was with her. The Queen is not a saint, but very woman. Marriage she hath ever contemned and hated; men she hath desired to keep her faithful and impassioned servitors. So does power blind us. And the braver the man, the more she would have him in her service, at her feet, the centre of the world.”
“I had served her in a crisis, an hour of peril. Was naught due me?”
The Duke’s Daughter drew her close. “She never meant but that all should be well. And because you had fastened on her feelings as never I have seen another of your sex, so for the moment she resented it; and because De la Forêt was yours—ah, if you had each been naught to the other, how easyit would have run! Do you not understand?”
“Nay, then, and yea, then—and I put it from me. See, am I not happy now? Upon your friendship I build.”
“Sweet, I did what I could. Leicester filled her ears with poison every day, mixed up your business with great affairs with France, sought to convey that you both were not what you are, until at last I counter-marched him.” She laughed merrily. “Ay, I can laugh now, but it was all hanging by a thread, when my leech sent his letter that brought you to the palace. It had grieved me that I might not seek you or write to you in all those sad days; but the only way to save you was by keeping the Queen’s command; for she had known of Leicester’s visits to you, of your meeting in the maze, and she was set upon it that alone, all alone, you should be tried to the last vestige of your strength. If you had failed—”
“If I had failed—” Angèle closed her eyes and shuddered. “I had not cared for myself, but Michel—”
“If you hadfailedthere had been no need to grieve for Michel. He had not grieved for thee. But see, the wind blows fair, and in my heart I have no fear of the end. You shall go hence in peace. This morning the Queen was happier than I have seen her these many years: a light was in her eye brighter than showeth to the court. She talked of this place, recalled the hours spent here, spoke even softly of Leicester. And that gives me warrant for the future. She has relief in his banishment, and only recalls older and happier days when, if her cares were no greater, they were borne by the buoyancy of girlhood and youth. Of days spent here she talked until mine own eyes went blind. She said it was a place for lovers, and if she knew any two lovers who were true lovers, and had been long parted, she would send them here.”
“There be two true lovers, and they have been long parted,” murmured Angèle.
“But she commanded these lovers not to meet till Trinity Day, and she brooks not disobedience even in herself. How couldshe disobey her own commands? But”—her eyes were on the greenwood and the path that led into the circle—“but she would shut her eyes to-day and let the world move on without her, let lovers thrive and birds be nesting without heed or hap. Disobedience shall thrive when the Queen connives at it—and so I leave you to your disobedience, sweet.”
With a laugh she sprang to her feet and ran. Amazed and bewildered, Angèle gazed after her. As she stood looking she heard her name called softly.
Turning, she saw Michel. They were alone.
WHENDe la Forêt and Angèle saw the Queen again it was in the royal chapel.
Perhaps the longest five minutes of M. de la Forêt’s life were those in which he waited the coming of the Queen on that Trinity Sunday which was to decide his fate. When he saw Elizabeth enter the chapel his eyes swam, till the sight of them was lost in the blur of color made by the motions of gorgeously apparelled courtiers and the people of the household. When the Queen had taken her seat and all was quiet, he struggled with himself to put on such a front of simple boldness as he would wear upon day of battle. The sword the Queen had given him was at his side, and his garb was still that of a gentleman, not of a Huguenot ministersuch as Elizabeth in her grim humor, and to satisfy her bond with France, would make of him this day.
The brown of his face had paled in the weeks spent in the palace and in waiting for this hour; anxiety had toned the ruddy vigor of his bearing; but his figure was the figure of a soldier and his hand that of a strong man. He shook a little as he bowed to her Majesty, but that passed, and when at last his eye met that of the Duke’s Daughter he grew steady; for she gave him, as plainly as though her tongue spoke, a message from Angèle. Angèle herself he did not see—she was kneeling in an obscure corner, her father’s hand in hers, all the passion of her life pouring out in prayer.
De la Forêt drew himself up with an iron will. No nobler figure of a man ever essayed to preach the Word, and so Elizabeth thought; and she repented of the bitter humor which had set this trial as his chance of life in England and his freedom from the hand of Catherine. The man bulked larger in her eyes than he had ever done, and she struggledwith herself to keep the vow she had made to the Duke’s Daughter the night that Angèle had been found in De la Forêt’s rooms. He had been the immediate cause, fated or accidental, of the destined breach between Leicester and herself; he had played a significant part in her own life. Glancing at her courtiers, she saw none that might compare with him, the form and being of calm boldness and courage. She sighed she knew scarce why.
When De la Forêt first opened his mouth and essayed to call the worshippers to prayer no words came forth—only a dry whisper. Some ladies simpered, and more than one courtier laughed silently. Michel saw, and his face flamed up. But he laid a hand on himself, and a moment afterwards his voice came forth, clear, musical, and resonant, speaking simple words, direct and unlacquered sentences, passionately earnest withal. He stilled the people to a unison of sentiment, none the less interested and absorbed because it was known that he had been the cause of the great breach between the Queen and the favorite. Ere he had spoken far, flippant gallants had ceased to flutter handkerchiefs, to idly move their swords upon the floor.
“‘AND WHAT MATTER WHICH IT IS WE WIELD’”
“‘AND WHAT MATTER WHICH IT IS WE WIELD’”
He took for his text, “Stand and search for the old paths.” The beginning of all systems of religion, the coming of the Nazarene, the rise and growth of Christianity, the martyrdoms of the early Church, the invasion of the truth by false doctrine, the abuses of the Church, the Reformation, the martyrdom of the Huguenots for the return to the early principles of Christianity, the “search for the old paths,” he set forth in a tone generous but not fiery, presently powerful and searching, yet not declamatory. At the last he raised the sword that hung by his side and the book that lay before him, and said:
“And what matter which it is we wield—this steel that strikes for God or this book which speaks of Him? For the book is the sword of the Spirit, and the sword is the life of humanity; for all faith must be fought for and all that is has been won by strife. But the paths wherein ye go to battle must bethe old paths; your sword shall be your staff by day and the book your lantern by night. That which ye love ye shall teach, and that which ye teach ye shall defend; and if your love be a true love your teaching shall be a great teaching and your sword a strong sword which none may withstand. It shall be the pride of sovereign and of people; and so neither ‘height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God.’”
Ere he had ended some of the ladies were overcome, the eyes of the Duke’s Daughter were full of tears, and Elizabeth said, audibly, when he ceased speaking: “On my soul, I have no bishop with a tongue like his. Would that my lord of Ely were here to learn how truth should be spoke. Henceforth my bishops shall first be Camisards.”
Of that hour’s joyful business the Queen wrote thus to the Medici before the day was done:
“Cancelling all other letters on the matter, this M. de la Forêt shall stay in my kingdom. I may not be the headsman of one ofmy faith—as eloquent a preacher as he was a brave soldier. Abiding by the strict terms of our treaty with my brother of France, he shall stay with us in peace and in our own care. He hath not the eloquence of a Knox, but he hath the true thing in him, and that speaks.”
To the Duke’s Daughter the Queen said, “On my soul, he shall be married instantly, or my ladies will carry him off and murder him for love.”
And so it was that the heart of Elizabeth the Queen warmed again, and dearly, towards two Huguenot exiles, and showed that in doing justice she also had not so sour a heart towards her sex as was set down to her credit. Yet she made one further effort to keep De la Forêt in her service. When Michel, once again, declined, dwelt earnestly on his duty towards the widow of his dead chief, and begged leave to share her exile in Jersey, Elizabeth said, “On my soul, but I did not think there was any man on earth so careless of princes’ honors!”
To this De la Forêt replied that he had givenhis heart and life to one cause, and since Montgomery had lost all, even life, the least Michel de la Forêt could do was to see that the woman who loved him be not unprotected in the world. Also, since he might not at this present fight for the cause, he could speak for it; and he thanked the Queen of England for having shown him his duty. All that he desired was to be quiet for a space somewhere in “her high Majesty’s good realm” till his way was clear to him.
“You would return to Jersey, then, with our friend of Rozel?” Elizabeth said, with a gesture towards Lemprière, who, now recovered from his wound, was present at the audience.
De la Forêt inclined his head. “If it be your high Majesty’s pleasure.”
And Lemprière of Rozel said, “He would return with myself your noble Majesty’s friend before all the world, and Buonespoir his ship theHoneyflower.”
Elizabeth’s lips parted in a smile, for she was warmed with the luxury of doing good, and she answered:
“I know not what the end of this will be, whether our loyal Lemprière will become a pirate or Buonespoir a butler to my court; but it is too pretty a hazard to forego in a world of chance. By the rood, but I have never, since I sat on my father’s throne, seen black so white as I have done this past three months. You shall have your Buonespoir, good Rozel; but if he plays pirate any more—tell him this from his Queen—upon an English ship, I will have his head, if I must needs send Drake of Devon to overhaul him.”
That same hour the Queen sent for Angèle, and by no leave, save her own, arranged the wedding-day, and ordained that it should take place at Southampton, whither the Comtesse de Montgomery had come on her way to Greenwich to plead for the life of Michel de la Forêt and to beg Elizabeth to save her poverty, both of which things Elizabeth did, as the annals of her life record.
After Elizabeth—ever self-willed—had declared her way about the marriage ceremony, looking for no reply save that of silent obedience,she made Angèle sit at her feet and tell her whole story again from first to last. They were alone, and Elizabeth showed to this young refugee more of her own heart than any other woman had ever seen. Not by words alone, for she made no long story; but once she stooped and kissed Angèle upon the cheek, and once her eyes filled up with tears, and they dropped upon her lap unheeded. All the devotion shown herself as a woman had come to naught; and it may be that this thought stirred in her now. She remembered how Leicester and herself had parted, and how she was denied all those soft resources of regret which were the right of the meanest women in her realm. For, whatever she might say to her Parliament and people, she knew that all was too late—that she would never marry, and must go childless and uncomforted to her grave. Years upon years of delusion of her people, of sacrifice to policy, had at last become a self-delusion, to which her eyes were not full opened yet—she sought to shut them tight. But these refugees, coming at the moment ofher own struggle, had changed her heart from an ever-growing bitterness to human sympathy. When Angèle had ended her tale once more the Queen said:
“God knows ye shall not linger in my court. Such lives have no place here. Get you back to my Isle of Jersey, where ye may live in peace. Here all is noise, self-seeking, and time-service. If ye twain are not happy I will say the world should never have been made.”
Before they left Greenwich Palace—M. Aubert and Angèle, De la Forêt, Lemprière, and Buonespoir—the Queen made Michel de la Forêt the gift of a chaplaincy to the crown. To Monsieur Aubert she gave a small pension, and in Angèle’s hands she placed a deed of dower worthy of a generosity greater than her own.
At Southampton Michel and Angèle were married by royal license, and with the Comtesse de Montgomery set sail in Buonespoir’s boat, theHoneyflower, which brought them safe to St. Helier’s, in the Isle of Jersey.
FOLLOWEDseveral happy years for Michel and Angèle. The protection of the Queen herself, the chaplaincy she had given De la Forêt, the friendship with the governor of the island, and the boisterous tales Lemprière had told of those days at Greenwich Palace quickened the sympathy and held the interest of the people at large, while the simple lives of the two won their way into the hearts of all, even, at last, to that of De Carteret of St. Ouen’s. It was Angèle herself who brought the two seigneurs together at her own good table; and it needed all her tact on that occasion to prevent the ancient foes from drinking all the wine in her cellar.
There was no parish in Jersey that did notknow their goodness, but mostly in the parishes of St. Martin’s and Rozel were their faithful labors done. From all parts of the island people came to hear Michel speak, though that was but seldom; and when he spoke he always wore the sword the Queen had given him and used the Book he had studied in her palace. It was to their home that Buonespoir the pirate—faithful to his promise to the Queen that he would harry English ships no more—came wounded, after an engagement with a French boat sent to capture him, carried thither by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It was there he died, after having drunk a bottle of St. Ouen’s muscadella, brought secretly to him by his unchanging friend Lemprière, so hastening the end.
The Comtesse de Montgomery, who lived in a cottage near by, came constantly to the little house on the hill-side by Rozel Bay. She had never loved her own children more than she did the brown-haired child with the deep-blue eyes which was the one pledge of the great happiness of Michel and Angèle.
Soon after this child was born M. Aubert had been put to rest in St. Martin’s churchyard, and there his tombstone might be seen so late as a hundred years ago. So things went softly by for seven years, and then Madame de Montgomery journeyed to England, on invitation of the Queen and to better fortune, and Angèle and De la Forêt were left to their quiet life in Jersey. Sometimes this quiet was broken by bitter news from France of fresh persecution and fresh struggle on the part of the Huguenots. Thereafter for hours, sometimes for days, De la Forêt would be lost in sorrowful and restless meditation; and then he fretted against his peaceful calling and his uneventful life. But the gracious hand of his wife and the eyes of his child led him back to cheerful ways again.
Suddenly one day came the fearful news from England that the plague had broken out and that thousands were dying. The flight from London was like the flight of the children of Israel into the desert. The dead-carts, filled with decaying bodies, rattledthrough the foul streets, to drop their horrid burdens into the great pit at Aldgate; the bells of London tolled all day and all night for the passing of human souls. Hundreds of homes, isolated because of a victim of the plague found therein, became ghastly breeding-places of the disease, and then silent, disgusting graves. If a man shivered in fear or staggered from weakness, or for very hunger turned sick, he was marked as a victim, and despite his protests was huddled away with the real victims to die the awful death. From every church, where clergy were left to pray, went up the cry for salvation from “plague, pestilence, and famine.” Scores of ships from Holland and from France lay in the Channel, not allowed to touch the shores of England nor permitted to return whence they came. On the very day that news of this reached Jersey came a messenger from the Queen of England for Michel de la Forêt to hasten to her court, for that she had need of him, and need which would bring him honor. Even as the young officer who brought the letter handed it to De la Forêtin the little house on the hill-side above Rozel Bay, he was taken suddenly ill and fell at the Camisard’s feet.
De la Forêt straightway raised him in his arms. He called to his wife, but, bidding her not come near, he bore the doomed man away to the lonely Ecréhos rocks lying within sight of their own doorway. Suffering no one to accompany him, he carried the sick man to the boat which had brought the Queen’s messenger to Rozel Bay. The sailors of the vessel fled, and alone De la Forêt set sail for the Ecréhos.
There, upon the black rocks, the young man died, and Michel buried him in the shore-bed of the Maître Île. Then, after two days—for he could bear suspense no longer—he set sail for Jersey. Upon that journey there is no need to dwell. Any that hath ever loved a woman and a child must understand. A deep fear held him all the way, and when he stepped on shore at Rozel Bay he was as one who had come from the grave, haggard and old.
Hurrying up the hill-side to his doorway,he called aloud to his wife, to his child. Throwing open the door, he burst in. His dead child lay upon a couch, and near by, sitting in a chair, with the sweat of the dying on her brow, was Angèle. As he dropped on his knee beside her, she smiled and raised her hand as if to touch him, but the hand dropped and the head fell forward on his breast. She was gone into a greater peace.
Once more Michel made a journey—alone—to the Ecréhos, and there, under the ruins of the old Abbey of Val Richer, he buried the twain he had loved. Not once in all the terrible hours had he shed a tear; not once had his hand trembled; his face was like stone and his eyes burned with an unearthly light.
He did not pray beside the graves. But he knelt and kissed the earth again and again. He had doffed his robes of peace, and now wore the garb of a soldier, armed at all points fully. Rising from his knees, he turned his face towards Jersey.
“Only mine! Only mine!” he said, aloud, in a dry, bitter voice.
In the whole island, only his loved oneshad died of the plague. The holiness and charity and love of Michel and Angèle had ended so!
When once more he set forth upon the Channel, he turned his back on Jersey and shaped his course towards France, having sent Elizabeth his last excuses for declining a service which would have given him honor, fame, and regard. He was bent upon a higher duty.
Not long did he wait for the death he craved. Next year, in a Huguenot sortie from Anvers, he was slain.
He died with these words on his lips:
“Maintenant, Angèle!”
In due time the island people forgot them both, but the Seigneur of Rozel caused a stone to be set up on the highest point of land that faces France, and on the stone were carved the names of Michel and Angèle. Having done much hard service for his country and for England’s Queen, Lemprière at length hung up his sword and gave his years to peace. From the Manor of Rozel he waswont to repair constantly to the little white house, which remained as the two had left it—his own by order of the Queen—and there, as time went on, he spent most of his days. To the last he roared with laughter if ever the name of Buonespoir was mentioned in his presence; he swaggered ever before the royal court and De Carteret of St. Ouen’s; and he spoke proudly of his friendship with the Duke’s Daughter, who had admired the cut of his jerkin at the court of Elizabeth. But in the house where Angèle had lived he moved about as though in the presence of a beloved sleeper he would not awake.
Michel and Angèle had had their few years of exquisite life and love, and had gone; Lemprière had longer measure of life and little love, and who shall say which had more profit of breath and being? The generations have passed away, and the Angel of Equity hath a smiling pity as she scans the scales and the weighing of the past.
THE END
“Come hither, O come hither,There’s a bride upon her bed;They have strewn her o’er with roses,There are roses ’neath her head:Life is love and tears and laughter,But the laughter it is dead—Sing the way to the valley, to the valley!Hey, but the roses they are red!”
“Come hither, O come hither,There’s a bride upon her bed;They have strewn her o’er with roses,There are roses ’neath her head:Life is love and tears and laughter,But the laughter it is dead—Sing the way to the valley, to the valley!Hey, but the roses they are red!”
“Come hither, O come hither,
There’s a bride upon her bed;
They have strewn her o’er with roses,
There are roses ’neath her head:
Life is love and tears and laughter,
But the laughter it is dead—
Sing the way to the valley, to the valley!
Hey, but the roses they are red!”