Michel and Angele | Page 3

by
the sands of Hatainville. Near by the Tour de Rozel shall I be watching
and awaiting thee. By day and night doth my prayer ascend for thee.
The messenger who bears this to thee (a piratical knave with a most
kind heart, having, I am told, a wife in every port of France and of
England the south, a most heinous sin!) will wait for thy answer, or will
bring thee hither, which is still better. He is worthy of trust if thou
makest him swear by the little finger of St. Peter. By all other

swearings he doth deceive freely.
The Lord make thee true, Michel. If thou art faithful to me, I shall
know how faithful thou art in all; for thy vows to me were most
frequent and pronounced, with a full savour that might warrant short
seasoning. Yet, because thou mayst still be given to such dear fantasies
of truth as were on thy lips in those dark days wherein thy sword saved
my life 'twixt Paris and Rouen, I tell thee now that I do love thee, and
shall so love when, as my heart inspires me, the cloud shall fall that
will hide us from each other forever.
ANGELE.
An Afterword:
I doubt not we shall come to the heights where there is peace, though
we climb thereto by a ladder of swords. A.
Some years before Angele's letter was written, Michel de la Foret had
become an officer in the army of Comte Gabriel de Montgomery, and
fought with him until what time the great chief was besieged in the
Castle of Domfront in Normandy. When the siege grew desperate,
Montgomery besought the intrepid young Huguenot soldier to escort
Madame de Montgomery to England, to be safe from the oppression
and misery sure to follow any mishap to this noble leader of the
Camisards.
At the very moment of departure of the refugees from Domfront with
the Comtesse, Angele's messenger--the "piratical knave with the most
kind heart "presented himself, delivered her letter to De la Foret, and
proceeded with the party to the coast of Normandy by St. Brieuc.
Embarking there in a lugger which Buonespoir the pirate secured for
them, they made for England.
Having come but half-way of the Channel, the lugger was stopped by
an English frigate. After much persuasion the captain of the frigate
agreed to land Madame de Montgomery upon the island of Jersey, but
forced De la Foret to return to the coast of France; and Buonespoir

elected to return with him.

CHAPTER II
Meanwhile Angele had gone through many phases of alternate hope
and despair. She knew that Montgomery the Camisard was dead, and a
rumour, carried by refugees, reached her that De la Foret had been with
him to the end. To this was presently added the word that De la Foret
had been beheaded. But one day she learned that the Comtesse de
Montgomery was sheltered by the Governor, Sir Hugh Pawlett, her
kinsman, at Mont Orgueil Castle. Thither she went in fear from her
refuge at Rozel, and was admitted to the Comtesse. There she learned
the joyful truth that De la Foret had not been slain, and was in hiding
on the coast of Normandy.
The long waiting was a sore trial, yet laughter was often upon her lips
henceforth. The peasants, the farmers and fishermen of Jersey, at first
--as they have ever been--little inclined towards strangers, learned at
last to look for her in the fields and upon the shore, and laughed in
response, they knew not why, to the quick smiling of her eyes. She
even learned to speak their unmusical but friendly Norman-Jersey
French. There were at least a half-dozen fishermen who, for her, would
have gone at night straight to the Witches' Rock in St. Clement's
Bay--and this was bravery unmatched.
It came to be known along the coast that "Ma'm'selle" was waiting for a
lover fleeing from the French coast. This gave her fresh interest in the
eyes of the serfs and sailors and their women folk, who at first were not
inclined towards the Huguenot maiden, partly because she was French,
and partly because she was not a Catholic. But even these, when they
saw that she never talked religiously, that she was fast learning to speak
their own homely patois, and that in the sickness of their children she
was untiring in her kindness, forgave the austerity of the
gloomy-browed old man her father, who spoke to them distantly, or
never spoke at all; and her position was secure. Then, upon the other
hand, the gentry of the manors, seeing the friendship grow between her

and the Comtesse de Montgomery at Mont Orgueil Castle, made
courteous advances towards her father, and towards herself through
him.