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.
ACT I.
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 with defensive considerations, had taken its ancient preponderance from Gorey, on the eastern coast, which had once been the seat of administration; and thus commenced the importance of S. Helier, though in nothing like the present activity of its quays and wharves, or the throng of its streets and markets. Above the head of the "Bridge," indeed, the view from the North face of the Castle met with no buildings till it struck upon the Town Church, an ancient but plain structure of the fourteenth century, whose square central tower, although by no means of lofty elevation, formed a landmark for mariners out at sea by reason of a beacon that was always kept burning there by night. At the foot of this tower nestled a cemetery containing the tombs of "the rude forefathers" of what had been, till lately, indeed little more than a hamlet. On the southern aspect of this, facing the castle and the sea, the enclosure was marked by a strong granite breastwork armed with cannons mounted en barbette. These pieces were pointed, for the most part, on the bridge, or causeway leading to the Castle, into which they were capable of sending salvos of round-shot, as in fact they had often done a few years before. The rest of the cemetery was strongly walled, though without guns. To the north of the Church ran narrow streets, sloping gently upward from the seaside. The houses of these streets were built of the local granite, hewn and hammered flat and without projection or decoration, and with no other relief but what was afforded by small rectangular lattice-windows. They were usually of two storeys, crowned by high-pitched thatched roofs, with here and there a tiny dormer window. Some were shops or taverns, among which were interspersed the residences of the burgesses and the town houses of the rural gentry. Fronted by miry roadway, or at best an occasional strip of rough boulder pavement, over which wheeled carriages could rarely pass, these lines of houses had no form or comeliness, save what might be due to an occasional bit of small flower-garden before the few that were large and inhabited by persons in comparatively easy circumstances. Farther back the ground rose more rapidly and showed some scattered suburban houses. The "Town Hill" to the east, the "Gallows Hill" to the west, completed the amphitheatre. Up the main hollow ran a road leading due north to the Manor and Church of Trinity parish in the interior of the island, and terminating on the north coast in Boulay Bay, a fine natural harbour, which was the nearest point of embarkation for England. The whole island, scarcely less than the town, bore an appearance of defence, almost of inaccessibility; the manors, farm houses, and even many of the fields, being surrounded by granite walls, and capable of arresting the progress of an invader, unless in great force. Each of the twelve parish churches contained the arsenal of the local militia; and all things betokened a hardy population, ready to do battle against all intruders.
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.