A Ladder of Swords: A Tale of Love, Laughter and Tears. Gilbert Parker

      “When didst fetch and carry for me, varlet?” Lemprière roared again.

      “When the Seigneur of Rozel fell from his horse, overslung with sack, the night of the royal duke’s visit, and the footpads were on him, I carried him on my back to the lodge of Rozel Manor. The footpads had scores to settle with the great Rozel.”

      For a moment the seigneur stared, then roared again, but this time with laughter.

      “By the devil and Rollo, I have sworn to this hour that there was no man in the isle could have carried me on his shoulders. And I was right, for Jersiais you’re none, neither by adoption nor grace, but a citizen of the sea.”

      He laughed again as a wave swept over them, drenching them, and a sudden squall of wind came out of the north. “There’s no better head in the isle than mine for measurement and thinking, and I swore no man under eighteen stone could carry me, and I am twenty-five—I take you to be nineteen stone, eh?”

      “Nineteen, less two ounces,” grinned Buonespoir.

      “I’ll laugh De Carteret of St. Ouen’s out of his stockings over this,” answered Lemprière. “Trust me for knowing weights and measures! Look you, varlet, thy sins be forgiven thee. I care not about the fleeces, if there be no more stealing. St. Ouen’s has no head—I said no one man in Jersey could have done it—I’m heavier by three stone than any man in the island.”

      Thereafter there was little speaking among them, for the danger was greater as they neared the shore. The wind and the sea were against them; the tide, however, was in their favor. Others besides M. Aubert offered up prayers for the safe landing of the rescued and rescuers. Presently an ancient fisherman broke out into a rude sailor’s chantey, and every voice, even those of the two Huguenots, took it up:

      “When the Four Winds, the Wrestlers, strive with the Sun,

      When the Sun is slain in the dark;

      When the stars burn out, and the night cries

      To the blind sea-reapers, and they rise,

      And the water-ways are stark—

      God save us when the reapers reap!

      When the ships sweep in with the tide to the shore,

      And the little white boats return no more;

      When the reapers reap,

      Lord give Thy sailors sleep,

      If Thou cast us not upon the shore,

      To bless Thee evermore:

      To walk in Thy sight as heretofore

      Though the way of the Lord be steep!

      By Thy grace,

      Show Thy face,

      Lord of the land and the deep!”

      The song stilled at last. It died away in the roar of the surf, in the happy cries of foolish women and the laughter of men back from a dangerous adventure. As the seigneur’s boat was drawn up the shore Angèle threw herself into the arms of Michel de la Forêt, the soldier dressed as a priest.

      Lemprière of Rozel stood abashed before this rich display of feeling. In his hottest youth he could not have made such passionate motions of affection. His feelings ran neither high nor broad, but neither did they run low and muddy. His nature was a straight level of sensibility—a rough stream between high banks of prejudice, topped with the foam of vanity, now brawling in season, and now going steady and strong to the sea. Angèle had come to feel what he was beneath the surface. She felt how unimaginative he was, and how his humor, which was but the horse-play of vanity, helped him little to understand the world or himself. His vanity was ridiculous, his self-importance was against knowledge or wisdom; and Heaven had given him a small brain, a big and noble heart, a pedigree back to Rollo, and the absurd pride of a little lord in a little land. Angèle knew all this, but realized also that he had offered her all he was able to offer to any woman.

      She went now and put out both hands to him. “I shall ever pray God’s blessing on the Lord of Rozel,” she said, in a low voice.

      “ ’Twould fit me no better than St. Ouen’s sword fits his fingers. I’ll take thine own benison, lady—but on my cheek, not on my hand as this day before at four of the clock.” His big voice lowered. “Come, come, the hand thou kissed, it hath been the hand of a friend to thee, as Raoul Lemprière of Rozel said he’d be. Thy lips upon his cheek, though it be but a rough fellow’s fancy, and I warrant, come good, come ill, Rozel’s face will never be turned from thee. Pooh, pooh! let yon soldier-priest shut his eyes a minute; this is ’tween me and thee; and what’s done before the world’s without shame.”

      He stopped short, his black eyes blazing with honest mirth and kindness, his breath short, having spoken in such haste.

      Her eyes could scarce see him, so full of tears were they, and, standing on tiptoe, she kissed him upon each cheek.

      “ ’Tis much to get for so little given,” she said, with a quiver in her voice; “yet this price for friendship would be too high to pay to any save the Seigneur of Rozel.”

      She hastily turned to the men who had rescued Michel and Buonespoir. “If I had riches, riches ye should have, brave men of Jersey,” she said, “but I have naught save love and thanks, and my prayers, too, if ye will have them.”

      “ ’Tis a man’s duty to save his fellow an’ he can,” cried a gaunt fisherman, whose daughter was holding to his lips a bowl of congereel soup.

      “ ’Twas a good deed to send us forth to save a priest of Holy Church,” cried a weazened boat-builder with a giant’s arm, as he buried his face in a cup of sack and plunged his hand into a fishwife’s basket of limpets.

      “Ay, but what means she by kissing and arm-getting with a priest?” cried a snarling vraic-gatherer. “ ’Tis some jest upon Holy Church, or yon priest is no better than common men, but an idle shame.”

      By this time Michel was among them. “Priest I am none, but a soldier,” he said, in a loud voice, and told them bluntly the reasons for his disguise; then, taking a purse from his pocket, thrust into the hands of his rescuers and their families pieces of silver and gave them brave words of thanks.

      But the seigneur was not to be outdone in generosity. His vanity ran high; he was fain to show Angèle what a gorgeous gentleman she had failed to make her own; and he was in ripe good-humor all round.

      “Come, ye shall come, all of ye, to the Manor of Rozel, every man and woman here. Ye shall be fed, and fuddled too ye shall be an’ ye will; for honest drink which sends to honest sleep hurts no man. To my kitchen with ye all; and you, messieurs”—turning to M. Aubert and De la Forêt—“and you, mademoiselle, come, know how open is the door and full the table at my Manor of Rozel—St. Ouen’s keeps a beggarly board.”

IV

       Table of Contents

       THUS began the friendship of the bragging Seigneur of Rozel for the three Huguenots, all because he had seen tears in a girl’s eyes and misunderstood them, and because the same girl had kissed him. His pride was flattered that they should receive protection from him, and the flattery became almost a canonizing when De Carteret of St. Ouen’s brought him to task for harboring and comforting the despised Huguenots; for when De Carteret railed he was envious. So henceforth Lemprière played lord protector with still more boisterous unction. His pride knew no bounds when, three days after the rescue, Sir Hugh Pawlett, the governor, answering De la Forêt’s letter requesting permission to visit the Comtesse de Montgomery, sent him word to fetch De la Forêt to Mont Orgueil Castle. Clanking and blowing,