D. K. Broster

“ And Anne made a bow, while Gosset laughed, half puzzled, and the lugger's mainsail went up.
"May I stay on deck with you a little quarter of an hour?" begged Anne, snuggling down by La Vireville's side in the moonlight. "And tell me, please, M. le Chevalier, about Madame your mother, to whom we are going. Is she—is she old?"
"That depends on what you consider old, my pigeon. She does not seem so to me. But perhaps I am old myself; I expect you think so, don't you? Her hair is grey, it is true—but so would mine be, Anne, if I had to look after you much longer." ”

“ La Vireville looked at her steadily as she faced him, the embroidery still in one frail, blue-veined hand, mockery round her mouth. It was sheer insanity. He had no right to do it, for he knew his life to be a hundred times more valuable than a child's happiness. He could be very ill-spared in Northern Brittany, in Jersey. . . . And though his real intention was not merely to cross the Channel and deliver himself up as a hostage, but by hook or by crook to get Anne out of France and himself into the bargain, the chances were quite fifty to one against his succeeding, and he knew it. ”

“ In their stead, flaring defiantly out in the wind and rain over counterscarp and glacis, was the red, white, and blue of the Republic.
"Halt!" cried La Vireville, and remained a moment staring at that significant sight. Then he called for Grain d'Orge.
"Mon vieux, the moment has come," he said sadly. "I give the word to disband. It is not right to sacrifice the rest of the men uselessly. Remember what I told you about the mainland. Try to get them all taken off in the boats of the English squadron, which will be possible if the wind goes down."
"But you, Monsieur Augustin, what will you do?" ”

“ Mme. de Guéfontaine lifted her head and met his eyes.
"The difficulty is," she said quietly, "to be sure that I have convinced you that I did not betray you even in intention; that when they rushed in, my idea of vengeance was already dead."
"I am content to take your word for that, Madame," said La Vireville, and, bending forward, he lightly took one of her hands and lifted it to his lips.
She flushed and sighed. "It is no use for you to deny it, M. le Chevalier. You are what you refuse to be called." ”

“ Yes, in a couple of days, most probably," answered the émigré rather absently, gazing at the moon-silvered coast, dear and implacable, where one day, as he well knew, he should land for the last time.
"And what the devil is this, M. de la Vireville?" demanded a voice behind him, and La Vireville turned to see Lieutenant Gosset, the Jerseyman who commanded the Aristocrate. "Have you kidnapped it, or is it, perchance, your own?" went on the sailor.
"Neither," answered La Vireville. "Let me make known to you the Comte Anne-Hilarion de Flavigny. ”

“ La Vireville's heart missed a couple of beats, then pounded harder than ever, seeming to shake his whole body—a humiliating experience. But for his present physical condition, however, no doubt he would not have gasped for breath as he did, nor would the colour have come and gone like a woman's in his hollow cheeks. Nevertheless, as both these things happened, Anne-Hilarion looked at him in a little dismay.
"You are—do you feel ill, M. le Chevalier?" he asked solicitously.
"No—yes," stammered Fortuné, lifting himself on his elbow. "No, child, don't move! It is not that you are . . . ”

“ For three days, as he had said, the fleur-de-lys had floated over Fort Penthièvre, having been hoisted there, in fact, on the very day of the failure of the Chouan attack on Auray. What wonder if the enheartened Royalists had toasted the future that night, in the poor little villages scattered among the stone-encircled fields, or that they saw in a bright vision not only the restored splendours of Versailles—the triumph of a cause—but the tourelles of the château or the little manoir, long in alien hands, which they had left for poverty and exile . ”

“ Such was René de Flavigny's prayer in that speaking radiance. And the sight of that shore and the beauty of the night itself made him think also. If only one were not coming with a sword against one's mother! There stole back to him too the remembrance of the day when he had pointed out the oncoming shores of France to Jeannette—a bride—and then of the day when they had left them behind in their flight—the last time she was ever to see them. Yes, when last he had looked on France she had been in his arms, and Anne in hers. ”

“ La Vireville had his way in the end, and rode with them at dusk to the sea, and Mme. de Guéfontaine walked beside the grey horse, throwing a glance now and then at the bandaged foot, which his rider could not get into the stirrup.
"It was all my fault," she said, when they had gone a little way, and L'Estournel, place of refuge and memories, was a memory once more.
"Pardon me, Madame," objected La Vireville from above her, "it was not you who dropped a barrel on my toes."
She gave a rather impatient sigh. "Do you always jest about yourself, M. le Chevalier?" ”

“ A little way off Anne-Hilarion was crouched in a patch of primroses, which he was adding one by one to the tight, hot bunch in his hand. Grain d'Orge and another Chouan of about the same standard of personal cleanliness, sitting on a fallen trunk, their muskets resting against them, regarded his labours with a wide, admiring grin. And under a beech-tree, a fresh bandage round his head, La Vireville himself lay propped on his elbows, reading and re-reading a letter. A map lay open on the ground beside him. ”

“ Mme. de Chaulnes' smile was insolent. "Quite easily, Monsieur. I fight for my country—at the cost, I grant you, of my class; you, for your class, that degenerate, self-seeking class, at the expense of your country. To me it seems the more patriotic course to sacrifice the part to the whole, whatever it may cost one personally. I had a nephew in this morning's batch, but I would not have saved him if I could. Yes, it is rotten, this aristocracy of ours, and the sooner France is purged of it the better."
That smile had maddened La Vireville. ”

“ The stars moved on; the sea-wind swept, sighing, over the prone figures which would lie yet more still to-morrow, and at last La Vireville, rousing himself, came back to the present.
Should he try to save himself, this time, at his trial? There was just a chance of doing so if, as was probable, the tribunal had not the minutes of the court at Auray. Could he gull his judges with some story of his being just a Breton peasant, as his dress, or at least the chief part of it, proclaimed him? They were showing more mercy to the Chouans than to their leaders. ”

“ To his surprise it turned, and the door opened.
"Odd!" thought the intruder. "Mme. de Chaulnes' emissary is of a singularly trustful nature." And he slipped in with great caution.
The room was absolutely dark, but not silent. A heavy snoring proceeded from the bed, and was, indeed, the only evidence of its whereabouts. "I had not somehow thought him a snorer," reflected La Vireville. "At any rate one knows that he sleeps. Now I wonder whereabouts is that inner room?" Very softly he breathed Anne's name in the close darkness. Nothing but snores answered him. ”

“ There is the devil of a deal of fighting before you if you wish to do that."
"Ma Doué, I am sure of it!" said Grain d'Orge with a chuckle. He rubbed off some blood, presumably Le Goffic's, from his hands on to his baggy breeches. "You and I, Monsieur Augustin, have seen much of that—and of this too," he added, laying a grimy finger on La Vireville's wounded arm. "And I know that I shall see my parish again, because the wise woman told me so before I left. But not many of the others, perhaps." ”

“ Very likely I shall pretend also that we live at Caen. You must not say anything about England. You understand, little one?"
"Yes," replied Anne-Hilarion, lifting a rather grimy and pallid face. Then he gave a little sigh, as one who makes a reluctant sacrifice of truth to necessity. And indeed he was a very truthful child; yet La Vireville more correctly interpreted his emotion.
"You want your breakfast, mon petit, do you not? Never mind, you shall soon have it. Only help me to soften the heart of this sea-captain."
And, approaching the Trois Frères, the émigré hailed the smoker. ”

“ But the rest of the Carhoët country, she suddenly acknowledged in a voice that shook, had become intolerable to her.
An extraordinary devotion to her brother André had always been hers from childhood; listening to her, La Vireville thought that so ardent a nature as hers (beating under an exterior that in some ways belied it) must always have needed someone on whom to expend itself, and that having so early found that person, it was singularly fitting that she should never have been forced to transfer her allegiance. ”

“ Again Mme. de Chaulnes smiled that wintry smile. "Do not seek to probe too deeply, Monsieur. Yet, since you spoke of playing with the cards on the table, the Convention would, perhaps, rather see your band of Chouans leaderless, Monsieur Augustin, than possess themselves of the person of M. de Flavigny, who, after all, has no such forces at his disposal. 'Tout étant fait pour une fin, tout est nécessairement pour la meilleure fin.' You know your Candide, no doubt. . . . But to return to business. Does this safe-conduct convince you?"
"Only tolerably," answered La Vireville, as he examined it. ”

“ He lifted the pistol.
La Vireville nodded. "Give me the lantern." And with it he went forward to the little ranks, now pitifully depleted. "Mes gars," he cried, holding the lantern high, and running his eyes over the rows of familiar faces, "this is our last chance. We must help retake the fort. If it is not retaken, all is finished. But listen now. If I think that to fight any further is useless I shall give the word—Every man for himself." And he explained, as he had explained to Grain d'Orge, his reason for this course. ”

“ And now the Comte de Flavigny was seated again at that very table, his legs dangling, eating his porridge, not with any great appetite, but because it was commanded him.
And Mr. Elphinstone did the same, glancing across now and again with his kind blue eyes to observe his grandson's progress. The suns of India, where so much of his life had been passed, had done little more than fade his apple cheeks to a complexion somewhat less sanguine than would have been theirs under Scottish skies. ”

“ Her hand was already on the door. "Too late, M. le Marquis! What is done is done. But you shall never step into André's shoes. And at least you know now why I am going to give you up!"
"The devil you are!" said La Vireville, with a very grim face. The pistol in his hand covered her with a perfectly steady aim. "There is this between you and your hospitable project, Mme. de Guéfontaine!" He cocked it.
She stood flattened against the door, wide-eyed, scarcely breathing, but not attempting to move.
"Now swear," commanded the émigré, "swear on the crucifix there that you will do no such thing! ”

“ Then he deposited his precious burden with haste on the floor, and, running to the bed, flung himself into the welcome of La Vireville's arm.
"My cabbage, my little comrade!" murmured the émigré, and he kissed the cold, fresh cheek again and again. "You are not changed at all—yes, I suppose you have grown. . . . Then you have not forgotten me after all? Have you come all this way to see your poor bedridden uncle—not by yourself, though, I trust?"
"Oh no," replied Anne-Hilarion, his arms round Fortuné's neck. ”

“ The Man she would have Married (1) So he was dead—was lying with his comrades in a hasty trench at Auray, or under the bloodstained sand of Quiberon itself. Sometimes—for she had heard that many had been drowned—Raymonde de Guéfontaine had fancied that the sea, out of which he had come to her, had claimed him again, and that his body lay forgotten on some lonely Breton beach, or swayed gently, far down, with the drift of the full Atlantic. ”

“ God knows of what use the revelations of a child of five or six can be to the Committee of Public Safety, even if he do reveal anything to them, and that I am certain he would never do unless he were tricked into it, as you tricked him."
"Ah, Monsieur," said the old lady, smiling, "you speak as a man, and a strong man. It is not so difficult to make a small boy speak—or remember!"
A thrill of fear and abhorrence ran down La Vireville's spine, and he drew back from the table on which he was leaning.
"No, no!" said Mme. de Chaulnes, putting up a delicate mittened hand. ”

“ M. Duchâtel staggered back, his arms going wide, and the passport flew half across the room as La Vireville followed up with a smashing blow over the heart. The tall mahogany bedpost, which the kidnapper's head next violently encountered, finished La Vireville's work for him with much completeness, but before the inanimate body could slide to the floor La Vireville had grabbed at it and pulled it on to the bed.
"If I have killed him!" he thought, as he bent over his victim, for it looked rather like it. "No; that kind does not die of a good honest blow." ”

“ That night it fell to him, as officer of the watch, to witness the arrival up the side of the Pomone, from a tiny boat, of two Chouan chiefs, the Chevalier de Tinténiac and the Comte du Boisberthelot, gentlemen of title arrayed in dirty Breton costumes. As a matter of fact the young man had seen them before, for they had boarded the frigate at Southampton before she sailed, but he hardly recognised them now. ”

“ And the moon would put aside the flying clouds for a moment, to show them the surf boiling white round some evil splinter of rock standing up in the channel like a warning finger, or the water sucking greedily over an unseen slab of granite. Only François' consummate steering, his steady nerves, and, perhaps, the luck which sometimes attends those who challenge risks, got them safely through. La Vireville kept Anne's eyes covered the whole time. ”

“ So the woman he desired lay at last against Fortuné de la Vireville's breast, and up from the sea of gorse in which they stood welled the warm honey-sweet scent that is like no other in the world to steal away the heart. The wind had dropped to a caress; it caught at Raymonde's gown no longer, and out over the illimitable wrinkled blue, from the height on which they stood, the poised gulls looked like slowly drifting flecks of snow. ”