St. George's Cross; Or, England Above All

"Owls be abroad," said the stranger.

"They mouse by night," answered the king.

Without further communication the two walked silently through the town, and up the steep lane in which Mme. de Maufant had taken up her abode. It was on a hill over-looking the town, still known by the name of "The King's Cliff." At the back were woods and fields.

All this time Alain and the ladies of Maufant had remained in earnest consultation. Rose was for letting matters take their course. She had scant sympathy with those whose policy had separated her from her husband, and who were, as she believed, plotting the betrayal of her country, Jersey, and her Michael. In these lay all her world. That the king should be carried off to London was nothing to her. But Marguerite was younger and more generous. Wronged as she had been by Elliot's insolent schemes, that account was balanced and closed by the great audit. But she was not without a woman's romance, and the thought that a king, young and unfortunate, was to be sold to his father's relentless enemies and murderers, presented to her ardent mind a thing to be prevented at all hazards.

While they were thus debating the dog was heard to bark excitedly, and footsteps were audible in the garden behind the house.

"Mme. de Maufant," said a voice at the window, "come forth. It is I, Pierre Benoist. I bring a message from your husband."

"Wait an instant, Benoist," answered the lady, unalarmed, "I will let you in."

She went to the door, and gave admittance to two men in blouses. While one conversed with Mme. de Maufant, the other advanced to her sister, and, without taking heed of Le Gallais, addressed her in courtly tones, holding his fur cap in his hand, his brown hair fell down upon his shoulders.

"Fear nothing, bright pearl of Jersey," said the stranger. "A traveller who has heard of your charms asks leave to prove them."

"Marguerite!" whispered Le Gallais on the other side, "be careful, it is the king. I know his face. I have seen him many times in church."

Marguerite slipped to the ground on her knees. "Ah, sir," she said, imploringly, "the honour that you do us may cost your life. Your enemies are at hand. Perhaps the house is already surrounded. Ah, heaven! put up your hair!" So saying she aided the smiling young king to restore his disguise, whilst Alain, with a sudden impulse, threw himself upon Benoist, whom he gagged and pinioned almost before the rascal could utter a sound.

Charles, meanwhile not unwilling to wait the conclusion of the adventure, retired by a back door, followed by Rose, who showed him into the kitchen. The barking of the dog was at the same moment renewed, and other footsteps and voices were heard further from the house, which was apparently surrounded.

Marguerite sank into a chair, while Le Gallais carried the helpless Benoist out with whispered threats; and, throwing him into a dark stable, shut the door upon him, locking it behind him and putting the key into his pocket. He then returned into the parlour, and telling Rose—who had re-entered the room—what he had done, bade her be of good cheer. Marguerite continued to kneel, and her lips moved as if in prayer.

Meantime the voices came nearer. The dog, with one sharp yell ceased to bark, and knocks were heard at the door. Alain gave Rose one encouraging look and went out alone and unarmed to meet Querto and a number of peasants, most of whom he recognised as belonging to his own company of the parish militia.

"What is it, neighbours?" he said, taking no notice of the major, and speaking the local dialect.

"Why, this gentleman hath brought us here to seize a spy," said one of them—our old acquaintance Le Gros.

"There is no spy here but himself," answered Le Gallais. Do you not know who he is, Maître Le Gros? This is Major Querto, who came here about selling Jersey to the French.

"What are you saying in your whoreson lingo?'" cried the major. "Let us in."

"He wishes to do some mischief here," pursued Le Gallais. "Perhaps to rob the ladies. Will you see Michael Lempriere's wife plundered?"

"Never," said another of the peasants. "He said a spy had got admission on false pretences."

"There is no one here but I," said Le Gallais. "Do you take me for a spy?"

"We do not, Alain. Vive M. le Capitaine! What shall we do with him?" said many friendly voices.

"Take him to the Centenier under the Gallows-hill," said Alain, availing himself of the rising tide. "Or, stay"—as he caught a look from Querto, in which agony and reproach were mingled—"If he prefers it, carry him on board the first ship bound for France. I will answer for his passage money. Handle him as he deserves."

To hear was to obey with the angry islanders. Hustled and disarmed, bonnetted and bound with handkerchiefs, Querto was borne off, howling and cursing. In a few minutes all was once more still in and about the house, only the good watch dog had suffered. He would never sound another alarm. One strobe of Querto's sabre had severed his faithful head from his body.

Alain returned to the parlour.

Reassured by his telling them the story, they were easily persuaded to retire to their chamber. Alain's next care was to seek the king's hiding place.

"You must stay where you are till morning, sir," he said, without entering. "I will watch over the only way by which any one can approach you."

"As you will," cried Charles from within. "But hark ye, captain! methinks a pint of claret would not be amiss, warm with a spiced toast floating on the top."

The man and his wife who waited on the ladies had been spirited away by some intrigue on the part of Benoist, and the king would have to pass the night alone in the small kitchen.

More amused than disgusted with the royal levity, Le Gallais—who knew the ways of the house—brewed the desired tankard, and, returning to the kitchen, set the hot drink upon the table; then wishing the king "good repose;" left him to his meditations.

On returning to the parlour, Le Gallais carefully secured both the inner and the outer door, put a log upon the fire, looked to the priming of his pistols, laid his sword upon the table, threw a cloak over his knees, sate up in his arm chair with a look of resolute vigilance, and sank into a profound sleep, from which he did not wake till day streamed through the casement. His first care was to go to the stable and release Benoist, but that slippery rascal, after his wont, had released himself. His gag and bandage lay upon the stable floor, along with a bar shaken out of the loophole in the wall, leaving an aperture just large enough for a lean man to push through.

Returning to the house, Le Gallais found the graceless monarch seated at table before a steaming bowl of porridge, while Rose was pouring him some cider.

"Odsfish," he heard Charles say, "I owe Captain Le Gallais thanks for a fair deliverance, and you, madame, a courteous usage under difficulty. But à la guerre comme à la guerre, and I have slept in worse conditions than those of your house, madame. Let me but bid farewell to your sweet sister, and I will be back in the castle before my absence has been observed. Ha! Captain Le Gallais, you must be my guide back to the quay. This part is strange to me."

All Charles's prayers were vain. Marguerite had a migraine, and could not have the honour of receiving the king's farewell. He finished his breakfast, took a courtier's leave of his hostess, and set forth on his homeward way, respectfully attended by Le Gallais. They walked through the streets in silence for some time, the king having quite enough sense to be ashamed of his situation.

"You have an interest," he presently said, "in yonder ladies, captain?"

"I have, sir. I am M. de Maufant's friend."

"And therefore my enemy, I take it. No matter, you have served me a good turn."

Soon the strangely-assorted couple approached the quay. Scarcely anyone being abroad at that early hour. Moreover they had come down to the bridge head by way of the Gallows-hill, to avoid the publicity of the main streets. As they parted, Charles turned kindly to his unwonted follower, and said once more—

"We shall not forget our obligation to you, Captain Le Gallais, whenever a time comes for proper acknowledgment. Meantime, if you will not own us as your king, tell me, as man to man, if there be anything in which Charles Stuart can serve you."

"Aye, is there," answered the Jerseyman, out of the fullness of his heart. "For your own sake, sir, leave us. We are a simple folk, unused to the ways of the great world, and only asking to be left in peace."

"By the faith of a gentleman," muttered Charles, as he made his way out to the castle, "the islander is right in his amphibious way. The solemn league and covenant is not amusing, but it cannot be worse than living here like a seal upon a rock; and when one goes forth to talk to a comely wench, being reconducted to one's rock by a Puritan with webbed feet. Yet he hath saved me from a shrewd pinch, and that is the truth."

It will not be supposed that Charles was all at once prepared to drop the little intrigue—so united to his already corrupted character, into which he had been led by Benoist's insidious suggestions, acting upon a mind always anxious for excitement, and predisposed by the talk of the deceased groom-of-the-chamber. But the danger which he had incurred was a warning in the opposite direction. Benoist was in hiding, and appeared no more in the castle; lastly, the negotiations with the Scots now became so urgent and so perpetual as to require his almost constant presence and personal influence. The opposing motives and conflicting opinions of his various advisers often kindled into violent altercation, in composing which the really excellent qualities of the young king's prematurely developed character had room for beneficial action. So the ladies of Maufant were left free from a troublesome persecution, against which, nevertheless, they took all due precautions.

Upon general grounds Charles was now willing enough to leave Jersey. The bluff firmness of Sir George Carteret, and the grave counsels of Nicholas, by whom the lieutenant-governor was usually backed up, were unwelcome to a sovereign; and his tiny kingdom afforded but little compensation, especially when he was forbidden to visit it, and was virtually prisoner on an almost insulated corner thereof. For Carteret and Nicholas had heard of his nocturnal adventure, and had extorted a promise from him not to go on land without their knowledge. They had also taken other precautions in the same behalf, which were perhaps more trustworthy.

It was finally determined that the king and his retinue should leave the island. The Scots' invitation was accepted on the terms proposed by what it was agreed to call "the committee of estates;" and Breda, in Holland, was named as the place where the final agreement should be engrossed and signed by the high contracting parties. Here Charles would be safe in the protection of his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, until matters should be ripe for his departure to Scotland.

EPILOGUE

Since the events related in the foregoing chapters nearly two years had gone by. Jersey had been saved from intrigues of the Queen and Lord Jermyn. Charles had gone to France, and thence to Holland, followed by the Duke of York, his brother, and later by Sir Edward Nicholas and the other members of his council and court. The lieutenant-governor, freed from even the slight control afforded by their presence, had given full scope to the worse parts of his peculiar and complicated character. More than ever was his administration of his native island marked by unblushing egotism. Oppressive, grasping, unguarded in speech, and almost unrestrained in action, he seemed, from one point of view, the model of a sordid, short-sighted despot, making hay while the sun shone. But he had a fund of caution which kept him from proceeding quite to extremes, and his energy and ability were undeniable, as was also his attention to business. Hence, while feared and even hated, he was still respected and obeyed. Most of the militia officers were his creatures, as were also—as we have already seen—the civil, judicial, and legislative officers of the little republic. The seat of his government was at S. Helier, while S. Aubin, on the opposite point of the bay, was filled with his skippers and their crews, and the traders who profited by their piratical proceedings. Hardly a week passed but some rich prize—usually an English merchantman—was brought in there, to be condemned by Carteret's court, and sold, together with her cargo, while the unfortunate mariners who had manned her were left to their own resources. Adventurers from all parts flocked to Jersey, to share the gains of this new and irregular trade, while the lawful commerce of England was menaced as with a cancer. With the resources derived from his maritime enterprise, joined to what he drew from his fines, taxes, exactions, compositions, and confiscations within the limits of the island, the unscrupulous governor was founding a sort of Christian Barbary, and becoming a hostile power no less than a public scandal. Nevertheless, he could on occasion make a generous use of his ill-gotten gains.[v. Appendix.] He sent money more than once to the necessitous court in Holland, continuing to do so until the king departed thence to Scotland. And he kept up such a stream of supplies for Castle Cornet, in Guernsey, as enabled Sir Baldwin Wake, the commandant, to hold out against all the force of the Parliamentary power in that island, and against all attempts by sea. Indeed this remarkable siege lasted longer than the fabled one of Troy, and the feat, however creditable to the handful of men by whom it was performed, and to Osborne and his successor Wake, was only rendered possible by the constant aid of Sir George Carteret. Most of all, however, did that energetic officer enrich himself, laying in fact the foundation of that greatness which afterwards culminated in his descendant, the famous Lord Granville, the rival of Walpole. He obtained from Charles a grant of Crown lands, including the escheated manor of Melèches. And he further appropriated to his own use the revenues of his personal enemies, the chief of whom were the exiled Seigneurs Dumaresq, of Samares, and Lempriere, of Maufant. It should, however, be added that he shed no more blood. In fact with the exception of the Bandinels and Messervy, Seigneur of Bagot (already mentioned), no one lost life for opposition to Sir George. He even attempted to conciliate some of his opponents, restoring Le Gallais to his post of captain in the militia, and empowering him to offer to Lempriere's wife the use of her house at Maufant, which he had confiscated. But that valiant lady resolutely refused to hold or inhabit under the favour of an usurper, and continued to occupy the lodgings on King's Cliff, though in constant straits for want of money. Marguerite, who, however wild and light others found her, was always faithful to her good sister, cast in her lot with Mme. de Maufant, with the consent of her own family at Rozel; and it was chiefly by her assistance that the expenses were in any way met. Le Gallais also lost no opportunity of visiting the ladies and ministering to their wants like a brother, to the great straining of his own slender savings. He carefully forebore to press Mlle. de St. Martin with a lover's suit, whether or no to that young lady's complete satisfaction we are not informed. In any case, her manner, though composed by trouble, gave no sign of the state of her feelings; and whether she was fond of Alain or weary of him, her self-control was equally to her credit. As for Alain, he seemed to be stupefied, rather awaiting ruin than expecting better times.

Matters were in this state, when one lovely day in September, 1651, Alain came before Mme. de Maufant and her sister as they sate knitting in the doorway.

"Great news!" he cried, as soon as he was near enough for the ladies to hear. "Great news! General Cromwell has thoroughly purged the garner. He has beaten and scattered the Scots at Worcester. 'Tis said Charles Stuart their king is taken prisoner. This 'crowning mercy,' as it is called by the lord general, befel on the 3rd, the same day last year he beat these same Scots at Dunbar. 'Tis a great and a bright day in his lordship's life."

"Count no man happy till his end," answered Rose gravely. "A day of triumph may be a day of doom when God pleases. And how does this event touch us, thinkest thou, Alain?"

"Why thus," replied the young man. "The general is not a man to bear with our lieutenant-governor's oppressions and piracies for ever. Like Satan in the Apocalypse, Carteret hath great wrath, because he knoweth that his time is short. For Admiral Blake hath been collecting his ships at Portsmouth, and our informant says that they were to sail to-day, eighty vessels of war. They carry a strong force of fantassins, pikemen, and arquebussiers, with the new snaphaunces devised in the low countries. Their commander is Major-General Haine, Prynne is there as commissioner, and, best of all, Michael Lempriere is on board!"