Chapter 20

Followed several happy years for Michel and Angele. The protection of the
Queen herself, the chaplaincy she had given De la Foret, the friendship
with the Governor of the island; and the boisterous tales Lempriere 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 Angele 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 not know their goodness, but
mostly in the parishes of St. Martin's and Rozel were their faithful
labours 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, Lempriere, so hastening the end.

The Comtesse de Montgomery, who lived in a cottage near by, came
constantly to the little house on the hillside 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 Angele.

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 Angele and De la Foret 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 Foret 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 rattled through 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 Foret to hasten to her Court for that she had
need of him, and it was a need which would bring him honour. Even as the
young officer who brought the letter handed it to De la Foret in the
little house on the hill-side above Rozel Bay, he was taken suddenly ill,
and fell at the Camisard's feet.

De la Foret 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
Ecrehos 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 Foret set sail for the Ecrehos.

There upon the black rocks the young man died, and Michel buried him in
the shore-bed of the Maitre Ile. 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 hillside 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 Angele. 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 Ecrehos, 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 ones had died of the plague. The
holiness and charity and love of Michel and Angele 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 honour,
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, Angele!"

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 Angele.
Having done much hard service for his country and for England's Queen,
Lempriere at length hung up his sword and gave his years to peace. From
the Manor of Rozel he was wont 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 Angele had lived he moved about as
though in the presence of a beloved sleeper he would not awake.

Michel and Angele had had their few years of exquisite life and love, and
had gone; Lempriere 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.