CHAPTER I - RUNNING WATER_The Wounded Name

THE WOUNDED NAME

D. K. Broster

Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, New York, 1923

languages, including the Scandinavian.

Printed in the United States at The Country Life Press, Garden City,

N.Y.

First Edition

"O good Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!"

_Hamlet_, Act v. Sc. 2

"How shall I find that friend

Of the rare friends, the deep-hearted?

When the delicate revels end

And the maskers have all departed.

At a sudden hour and a drear,

For the sweet hour is the sternest,

Thou shalt know who held thee dear,

Whose hand was thine in earnest."

Herbert Trench

CONTENTS

I. Running Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

II. "Roses, Roses all the Way" . . . . . . . . 29

III. In the Dust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

IV. The Captive Hawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

V. Free--with a Broken Wing . . . . . . . . . 125

VI. The Road to the Beech Tree . . . . . . . . 171

VII. The Road Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

VIII. The Love of Women . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

IX. The Toledo Blade . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

X. _"Sans Tache"_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

CHAPTER I - RUNNING WATER

"Without a horse, and a dog, and a friend, man would perish.

The Gods gave me all three, and there is no gift like friendship.

Remember this . . . when you become a young man. For your fate

will turn on the first true friend you make."

RUDYARD KIPLING, _Puck of Pook's Hill_ ("On the Great Wall").

(1)

The lady who was writing at the rosewood escritoire near the window

paused, and with the feather end of the quill traced along the days of

the month on a little calendar headed "1814" which was propped up

behind the ink-stand.

"April the twelfth," she murmured, and wrote it at the top of the

already finished letter under her hand.

She was not young--forty-five at least--but she was distinctly charming

in her very short-waisted, close-fitting gown of lilac sarcenet. The

irregular-shaped room, cool and fresh and sunlit, opened by a small

bow-window on her left hand on to a garden that could not have been

other than English. And she herself looked English, yet she had just

signed a French name at the bottom of her letter, while over the

mantelpiece hung the portrait of a middle-aged man with a refined and

thoughtful face who did not even look English.

The door opened, and a man's voice could be heard speaking to someone

outside.

"Laurent, is that you?" asked the lady, without looking up. She was

sealing her letter. "Dearest, are you going out? Will you take this

note to Mesdames Tantes, if you, are passing?--Where _are_ you going,

by the way?"

"Fishing," responded the owner of the voice, coming in. "Yes, of course

I will take it for you, Maman. But isn't it the anniversary of

something or other, so that the Aunts will be plunged in appropriate

gloom, and will not approve of my occupation?"

The lady held up her face to his kiss. "No, I do not think it is the

anniversary of any calamity to-day, otherwise they would not have

agreed to come to supper." Once again she ran her quill along the

almanac. "There is nothing now, I think, till Louis XVII's death in

June. . . . You will be careful about the river, will you not, chéri?

It must be in flood still, after the terribly severe winter we have

had."

"Probably the gigantic salmon that I shall hook will pull me in,"

prophesied the young man teasingly. "Or perhaps I shall be taken with

vertigo and fall in . . . or a tidal wave may come up from the sea!"

The smile in his clear grey eyes spread to his mouth. "I am so glad

that I shall never be a mother!"

"You are a very wicked son!" retorted the lady, laughing, too, and she

pulled down his head and kissed the crisp fair hair that, after the

fashion of the day, clustered rather thickly on his forehead. "In

France, you know, you will have to show me much more respect, from all

I hear of the authority of a mother there."

"Respect!" exclaimed Laurent de Courtomer, as he looked at the girlish

figure. "How can I respect the authority of a mother who only appears

to be about five years older than I am myself? Am I then to respect you

more in Paris, and to love you less?"

"Must they run in inverse proportion? Go and fish, Laurent, instead of

talking nonsense, and forget that we shall so soon be living in

France."

"I rather wish that I could," unpatriotically remarked the young

Frenchman, taking up the note from the escritoire. "Is it wrong to be

so fond of this country because one was born and brought up in it?" He

looked up at the portrait of his father over the mantelpiece. "If only

this had come four years ago!" And Mme de Courtomer followed his gaze

and sighed.

Although Fate's keys had opened the gate so long shut, and her voice,

through the bugles of the advancing Allies, was calling the stout

Bourbon, Louis XVIII, from his retreat at Hartwell to the throne of his

ancestors, _that_ exile would never return to his native land. And

since his widow was English, and his son had never set foot in France,

though both duty and sentiment might call them over the Channel to the

young man's patrimony, neither of them could welcome the summons in

quite the same spirit as he would have done. For to them it was not

"returning."

"The Allies are nearly at Paris and Napoleon's star has set," said

Laurent, turning away, "but, wonderful as it is, I do not somehow feel

any more exhilarated than you do, Maman, for, after all, it is the

bayonets of the foreigner which are bringing back the King. And I don't

know my French relatives, and I shall miss my English ones."

Mme de Courtomer, rising, slipped her arm through his.

"Take care, darling, that the Aunts do not hear you talking like this!

To them, as you know, it matters little who brings back the King,

provided he is brought back--and to regret Devonshire would be the last

offence."

"Nevertheless, I shall regret it," persisted Laurent, who did not easily

change his affections. "You will, too, I know. Still, we are coming

back here every year, are we not? . . . Yes, I must start. And this is

an invitation for Mesdames Tantes to sup with us to-night? Do you want

an answer?"

"No," said his mother, studying him with a smile. "It is only to confirm

an arrangement already made. But I should like a salmon."

"You shall have one," replied her son confidently. "And now permit me to

practise taking a Parisian farewell of my respected mother, the

Comtesse Henri de Courtomer, _née_ Seymour." And he kissed her hand

with a flourish.

(2)

Soon afterwards he mounted into his English gig, with his English groom

behind in charge of his rod and tackle, and drove down the village

street in one of the most English of counties. But he was thinking, "A

few weeks more, and I shall no longer be Mr. Laurent Courtomer of

Keynton House, but M. le Comte de Courtomer in the family mansion that

I have never seen in the Faubourg St. Germain where Mesdames Tantes, at

least, will be in their element."

For Laurent's three great-aunts, "Mesdames Tantes de Roi," so christened

by him on the analogy of those daughters of Louis XV who were thus

known in the days of Louis XVI, were of a Royalist and Catholic fervour

truly overwhelming. And of course, once in France, they would all, in

French fashion, live together--as indeed they almost did now, settled

in one small Devonshire village. But at least they were not all under

one roof, and Laurent was not quite sure that he was longing for that

increased proximity.

He soon pulled up before a door in a red brick wall, and in a few

seconds was walking up a tiled path to the habitation of Mesdemoiselles

de Courtomer. He knew that he must deliver his note in person, for the

Aunts would consider it unpardonable if he merely left it without

paying his respects.

The countenance of Augustine, their elderly, precise maid, bore signs of

excitement.

"Yes, Monsieur le Comte," she said in response to his query at the door.

"Mesdames are within. And they are receiving company."

"Really?" said Laurent. "In the morning?"

"A traveller, Monsieur le Comte. An old acquaintance just come over from

France--M. le Baron de Vicq."

Laurent, by now in the hall, with an engraving of Louis XVI mounting the

scaffold on one side of him and a bust of the Duc d'Enghien wreathed in

immortelles on the other, murmured, "This is indeed great news!" For he

seemed to remember having heard that in times inconceivably remote M.

de Vicq had been a suitor for the hand of Tante Bonne or was it that he

had been a flame of Tante Odile's? And, before he bowed respectfully

over the hands of his venerable relatives, he beheld a withered but

well-preserved old gentleman (yet younger, surely, by a decade than any

of them) rise from a chair at a disappointingly equal distance from all

of the old ladies . . . from Tante Odile's majestic piety and grey

curls, from Tante Clotilde's even greater majesty and even more denuded

(and therefore even more imposingly becapped) head, and from the

long-faded prettiness of Tante Bonne, the youngest, who wore the

smallest cap of any, and the least hideous cameo, and no jet at all, so

that Tante Clotilde had more than once been known to accuse this

eighty-year-old junior of hers of an ineradicable tendency to levity.

But Tante Clotilde herself had undergone a change since Lady Day, when a

fair wind from France had blown so many clouds out of the Royalist sky.

Her majesty was not less, her loyalism even more pronounced, but a

ribbon of a discreet maroon shade had replaced the black moiré round

her cap, and her manner to all and sundry was marked by an unexampled

benignancy. So that Laurent, when he had saluted her dry, shrivelled

hand with the mourning ring, was almost startled by the sensible favour

with which she kissed him on either cheek, for though the greeting was

not a novelty, it was often frosty. Tante Clotilde considered that

Laurent spoke English too well, and his mother's habit of occasionally

calling him Laurence--"a girl's name"--was an abomination to her. But,

willy-nilly, her great-nephew would have to be entirely French now.

M. de Vicq, on introduction, made him a bow of another generation, and

the young man, having duly delivered his note, was inspired to announce

his hope that if the newcomer were staying the night he would give the

ladies his escort up to Keynton House; this addition to the party

would, he assured him, procure his mother and himself the greatest

pleasure. After the proper amount of pressing the old gentleman

accepted, and Laurent thereupon began to make efforts to extricate

himself from his great-aunts' drawing-room.

But this was not so easy. M. de Vicq, whose fervour appeared to be

almost equal to that of the old ladies, had embarked on a rapturous

description of the enthusiasm manifested at the entry of the Duc

d'Angoulême, the King's nephew, into Bordeaux about three weeks before,

the news of which had caused such joyful anticipations in the little

court at Hartwell, and since, after all, Laurent was French and on the

point of treading French soil, the narration was not devoid of

interest. Only it had not the charm of entire novelty, and he would

rather have heard it at another time. It must, therefore, have been a

rather unfortunate spirit of contradiction which led him to remark that

Brittany and Vendée, for all their long and glorious struggle on behalf

of monarchy, had not at this particular juncture played much part in

the imminent restoration of the royal house.

"Oh, que si, Monsieur!" exclaimed the Baron, shocked; and Tante Clotilde

said, "Fie, nephew!" in her deepest voice, and he was assured that

under the rule of "the Corsican" more than thirty secondary chiefs had

perished in that region for the Cause, and their names began to shower

upon him.

"I take back my remark!" cried the young man, laughing. "Besides, after

all, mes tantes, you are not mentioning a leader who is alive, which is

better. What about that fellow in Brittany--L'Oiseleur, the Fowler, who

is always luring the enemy into difficult positions, and who is

personally so lucky that he is supposed to possess a charm of some

sort? . . . Or is that all a myth, and his defence of the burning mill

also?"

M. de Vicq almost started from his chair. "What an extraordinary thing

that you should speak of L'Oiseleur to-day, Monsieur!" he exclaimed.

"No, indeed, he is no myth! I have seen him--I saw him (though for the

time I had forgotten it) no later than yesterday, and on the very

packet which brought me from Brest to Plymouth."

"The Plymouth packet! Why, what was he doing there?" ejaculated Laurent

and the old ladies in the same moment.

"I do not in the least know, Mesdames," replied the visitor, "and as I

spent all the time of the voyage most miserably in the cabin below, I

knew nothing of our distinguished passenger till we were disembarking

at Plymouth. But then, as we were massed on the deck, eager for the

shore, I heard a compatriot say, 'That's he--that's L'Oiseleur!'" And so

I saw the personage pointed out--a rather stern, rough-looking man of

fifty or so, with thick dark hair, somewhat unshorn, a real Chouan

type. Greatly moved, I wished to shake him by his heroic hand, but in

the press I could not, and I lost sight of him thereafter."

"Owing to his amulet, perhaps," observed Laurent idly. "But I had a

notion that he was quite young, this famous fighter, and that he was a

gentleman--titled, in fact. Of course I must have been wrong.--Now, if

you will excuse me, mes tantes . . ."

"Yes, I, too, had previously thought that L'Oiseleur was gently born,"

said M. de Vicq slowly, "for he bears an old and honoured name--that of

La Rocheterie; but this man could not have been a gentleman. Yet that

does not prevent--"

"No, indeed!" cried the noble dames, generously waiving the claims of

their caste to exclusive leadership. "Think of the great, the sublime,

the sainted Cathelineau--a mason's son--"

"Think of Stofflet, a gamekeeper--"

"Think of Cadoudal, think of Guillemot--"

"Think of a salmon!" said Laurent irreverently to himself. And, by

concentrating his will-power on that object, he did at last succeed in

making his escape.

But as he drove between the high hedges, making for a chosen spot some

five miles up the river, he found his mind running, despite himself, on

the twenty years of struggle in the never-conquered west of France. He

had been too young to take part in its earlier manifestations, and it

was only in the last eighteen months or so that these had begun again,

often with the formation of bands of "_réfractaires_," conscripts who

would not serve Napoleon, led by gentlemen who equally refused. And

among these was this well-nigh legendary "L'Oiseleur," audacious,

undefeated, almost invisible, so swiftly and mysteriously did he move

and strike--"jeune homme du plus brillant courage, adoré par ses

hommes," as Laurent had heard him called. The double encomium was

certainly borne out by his famous defence of the mill at Penescouët,

where he and eighteen men were said to have kept five hundred

Imperialists, troops of the line, at bay for more than four hours, till

the soldiers were at last obliged to send for reinforcements, and

contrived to burn the place over their heads. And even then the little

band had operated a retreat almost more wonderful than their defence.

And now, if M. de Vicq were correct, this gallant fighter was in

England, a shaggy, middle-aged peasant, not, after all, the young man

of Laurent's own class who had seized the opportunity which he had

missed. For it must be rather fine to have contributed by something

more than prayers and wishes to restore Louis XVIII to that throne of

his ancestors which, in a few weeks, he would almost certainly mount.

(3)

But these reflections were totally forgotten an hour later, when the

young Frenchman was standing, in his high leather boots, the water

swirling about his legs, casting hopefully over the particular pool in

which it was impossible that there should not be a fish.

Maman was right (though he should not tell her so) about the river. It

was running so strongly that, as Laurent moved slowly forward, he used

considerable caution before he followed one foot by the other, for

though he stood in shallow, broken water, there was enough stream to

take him off his legs if he trod on a slippery stone or dropped

unexpectedly into even a small hole. Nevertheless, it was not really

the strength of the stream which prevented M. de Courtomer from

immersing himself even to the fifth button of his waistcoat, which was

then accounted the maximum depth, but the fact that, after the severe

cold which had once followed this exploit, he had promised his mother

never to repeat it. Indeed, in wading at all he was doing more than the

majority of fishermen ever thought of attempting.

The long, twenty-foot rod bent; he cast again a little farther over the

sliding, deeper water near the opposite bank, which there was flat and

pebbly, and sprinkled with low shrubs. Yet the deepest part of the

channel was below it. . . . No luck, not the ghost of a rise! Perhaps

there was a little too much flood, after all, though the water was

perfectly clear. Laurent thought he would try a change of fly. He

reeled up and caught the line.

But as he was detaching the fly he had been using (rather clumsily, for

his fingers were cold) he heard, somewhat to his annoyance, quick steps

on the pebbles of the other side. He did not desire a possibly

loquacious spectator. Finding, however, after a moment or two, that the

owner of the steps did not address him, he glanced up.

A young man--a gentleman--was standing on the opposite bank looking at

him. As Laurent raised his head he lifted his hat and said, in fair but

obviously foreign English,

"Can you tell me, sir, where I shall find a bridge across this river? I

have deceived myself of the road."

M. de Courtomer recognized in the flavour of the accent and the turn of

the idiom an undoubted compatriot though at first glance the speaker

did not look French, particularly in colouring. As he stood there

bareheaded the April sun struck warmly on hair of an unusual bronze

tint--a hue that had no real trace of red in it, and yet that was not

brown. He was tall, carefully dressed, and had a noticeably graceful

and easy carriage of the head, and indeed of his whole person. So much

Laurent took in before he replied pleasantly:

"There is no bridge, I regret to say, Monsieur, within less than two

miles of here. The nearest is at Oakford."

At his replying in French the stranger seemed surprised, as Laurent had

quite expected that he would be. "Monsieur also is French?" he enquired

in that tongue.

"I have that privilege," replied M. de Courtomer, smiling.

"You seem also, Monsieur, to have that of walking on the water, or

pretty nearly," observed the newcomer. "Am I right in supposing that

you arrived at your present position from the opposite bank--where I

desire to find myself? If you would permit me to join you on your

Ararat I could thence gain the shore, could I not?" And he advanced

right to the water's edge.

"Good Heavens, have a care!" cried Laurent, alarmed. "I am in shallow

water here, and have enough ado to keep my feet as it is, but between

you and me there is the full force of the current--I don't know how

deep the stream is to-day--and all sorts of nasty holes! Don't think of

such a thing, I implore you!"

The stranger looked down at the smooth water swirling past his feet at

remarkable speed. "The stream--yes, I see that it is excessive. But I

do so wish myself on that bank! I am walking from Bidcombe to pick up

the Bath coach again at Midhampton; and if I have to go out of my way

to this bridge of which you have been kind enough to tell me I shall

certainly miss it . . . and my valise which I sent on in it."

"But even that is not worth drowning yourself for," protested Laurent,

staggering a little as he spoke. "This river is said to claim a life

every year; pray do not be the candidate for 1814. The bridge

at--Damnation!" He had dropped his fly.

The stream had it in an instant. Laurent stooped involuntarily to grasp

at it as it was whirled out of his reach, lost his balance for a

second, had to take a hasty step to recover this, slipped on a stone

. . . and the stream had him also.

Not without a battle, however, since before it carried him into deeper

water he almost contrived to regain his feet . . . but was pulled down

again by the driving weight of it. As its cold fury rolled him over and

over, struggling and gasping, he had a distinct (but surely erroneous)

impression of a shout and a splash from the other bank, quickly

forgotten in the stinging interlude which followed, filled to the brim

as it was with confused sensations of choking, of a temperature which

took his breath away, of thoughts of Maman, of doubts whether he would

ever see France now, of a conviction that he must, of course, go with

the stream. . . . But it was so difficult to keep one's head above

water, . . . and he wasn't swimming, he was being hurtled. . . . And

then, inconceivably, and yet, in a way, expectedly, he was spluttering

in the shallows at the bend, his feet touching bottom in that place

where the bank was so eaten away--a difficult place to get out at, but

where he now most firmly intended to get out, and that instantly. Only

the bank was still above his head, and he still had water to his

breast, and the bottom was shelving and slippery. . . . But he managed

to catch a bit of the old staking with one hand--and just then

something clutched him from behind by the shoulder. . . .

Great God, he had jumped in, then! it was no illusion. Yet how, in the

name of fortune . . . "There's bottom here!" gasped Laurent, and

without loosing his hold of the staking, grabbed in his turn with his

other hand, and discovered that he had his compatriot by the collar.

"Have you found your feet?" he asked, not wasting speech over his own

amazement. "Try to catch hold of this piece of wood. Then I will get

out somehow, and help you out. But we must be careful--the bank is

rotten."

"Monsieur, how could you, how could you do such a hazardous thing!"

panted Laurent. "I . . . really, words are ridiculous in face of . . .

such an obligation. How you are here at all is nothing short of a

miracle. You must have jumped . . . straight into the swiftest part of

the current!"

They were both on the bank by this, drenched and coughing and rather

like landed fishes themselves. But Laurent had no desire to laugh, for

though their situation might be absurd now, it had narrowly escaped

being tragic.

The water poured off the would-be rescuer as he raised himself and threw

back the soaked hair from which the river had dragged the ribbon--hair

longer than was usually to be seen in 1814. "I am here, Monsieur," he

replied rather breathlessly, "because you pulled me out, that is plain.

How could I stand there watching while the river carried you away! And

I accomplished nothing at all--I merely made it more difficult for you

to extricate yourself. . . . However, I daresay neither of us was

really in danger."

"We were in danger," responded Laurent seriously, "and you far more than

I. And I had warned you! As to accomplishing nothing, it is the

intention which counts in such cases."

His companion was wringing out his sodden locks. "I had the intention of

coming across, it is true. Here I am, then; I have saved . . . how much

did you say . . . two miles of road?" He suddenly smiled; it was a very

attractive smile, too.

"I shall always feel, at any rate, that I owe you the debt," said

Laurent rather huskily. "And . . . thank God that you did not pay the

price which you might very well have paid!" He held out his hand, wrung

the wet hand put into it, and then, jumping to his feet, became very

practical.

"We must not stay here a moment longer; we will go to the inn near, have

a fire, and get our clothes off at once. Yours, Monsieur"--and as he

looked at their deplorable condition he became aware that their owner

wore a red ribbon in his buttonhole; he must have the Cross of St.

Louis, then, but he was unusually young for such a distinction--"yours

will never be dry in time for you to continue your journey to Bath. So

you will allow me, will you not, the great pleasure of offering you

hospitality for the night at least? I live about five miles from here."

"You are very kind indeed, Monsieur," said the dripping young man,

hesitating. Then he looked at him frankly. "I should like it greatly

. . . on condition that you will not tell any of your acquaintances of

my foolish short cut across your river?"

"Conditions of that kind can be discussed later," responded M. de

Courtomer, smiling. "At present I think our joint physical condition is

what matters. . . . Excuse me if I lead the way."

(4)

Twenty minutes later both adventurers were peeling off their soaked

garments before a hastily lit fire in a room of the _Three Trouts_, and

shortly afterwards, wrapped in blankets, were ensconced before it in a

couple of large chairs, with two steaming glasses beside them. And

Walters the groom, to his own surprise, was riding across country on M.

de Courtomer's cob to intercept the Bath coach at Midhampton and bring

back the French gentleman's valise which it contained--this neat

strategic idea having occurred to his master on his way to the inn,

when it was borne in upon him that no clothes of his were likely to fit

his guest, taller than himself by nearly a couple of inches.

Laurent had just now had, too, the opportunity of verifying what his

first impressions had already told him, that his compatriot was an

exceptionally well-built young man, with the lithe strength of steel.

He had also seen that he wore round his left arm, just above the elbow,

a little strip of some plaited or woven substance, not fine enough to

be hair. Laurent had only obtained a momentary glimpse of this object,

and his curiosity had not been gratified by another; but he had now the

prospect of being able to study at leisure the appearance of this

strangely made acquaintance, and he proceeded to do so.

He had the clear pallor and fine skin which often go with hair of warm

colouring, and his, as it dried, was gradually resuming its proper

shade, the deepest tone of September bracken. Even his eyes, which at a

distance looked dark, were seen at closer quarters to be of a deep

red-brown. The rest of his features were noticeably straight and

delicate and strong; the chin, a little long, curved slightly forward

and was squared at the corners, the mouth was firm and sweet--

altogether a face of great individuality and charm, without the

weakness which sometimes accompanies the latter quality in a man.

Laurent took him to be about twenty-six--a couple of years older than

himself.

"I do not know," he observed at last, ashamed to scrutinize any longer,

"if it is correct to introduce oneself in this unconventional attire. I

ought to have done it earlier. My name is Courtomer--Laurent de

Courtomer. I have always lived in England."

"And mine," said the other, setting down his glass, "is La Rocheterie--

Aymar de la Rocheterie, at your service. For my part, I have always

lived in France."

"What!" cried Laurent, nearly bounding out of his blanket. "La . . . La

Rocheterie . . . L'Oiseleur! You, Monsieur, are L'Oiseleur! Is it

possible!"

In a lesser degree his companion also showed surprise. "My name is then

known to you, Monsieur? But this is not Brittany!"

"But I am a Frenchman--and a Royalist!" cried M. de Courtomer. "I have

known of you, Monsieur, for some time--no, I assure you that your name

is not so unfamiliar over here as your modesty assumes. We have heard

of the defence of the Moulin Brûlé! Indeed we were speaking of you only

this morning, my great-aunts and I, and a gentleman who thinks he came

over with you in the Brest packet. But he said you were . . . It's more

than extraordinary! . . . L'Oiseleur, himself, here!"

"Ma foi, but this is to find oneself famous!" said M. de la Rocheterie,

laughing. "One had, perhaps, the good--or ill--fortune to be known on

the other side of the Channel, but over here, who cares for an obscure

brigand, as our foes are so fond of calling us?"

Even in his present unusual attire, or absence of it, a young man who

looked less like a brigand could hardly be imagined. And the question

of birth could be set at rest for ever by the beautifully shaped if

sunburnt hands emerging from the blanket. So Laurent, remembering M. de

Vicq's picture of the hairy individual "not a gentleman" whose hand he

had longed to shake, and mindful that he and the Aunts were coming to

supper that evening, foresaw an amusing encounter. . . . But--to be

sitting here tête-à-tête with this young hero, who had known countless

days and nights of hazard and discomfort among the gorse and broom,

with only a handful of men and his own wits and courage between him and

Napoleon's vengeance . . . and he wrapped in a blanket because he had

jumped into the Dart after him--it was incredible!

He pulled himself together.

"I believe, Monsieur, that you bear a title, do you not?" he asked,

thinking of the introductions he should have to effect.

"A small one--Vicomte. You, Monsieur, perhaps also?"

Laurent named his. "But I do not use it here. When we are in France I

suppose I shall have to tack it on again."

"Ah, you are returning, of course?"

"Almost immediately. Yet, since it is not really a return, it will be

strange. . . . I was born in England; my father, now dead, married an

Englishwoman and settled here in the early days of the Revolution."

"So Madame votre mère is English?" observed the Vicomte de la

Rocheterie, with interest. "That then accounts for the perfection of

your accent, Monsieur de Courtomer, and also--if as a Frenchman you can

forgive me--for an appearance not altogether French. As you stood in

the river which has so happily brought us together I had no idea that

you were a compatriot."

"You must remember that I have lived all my life in England," said

Laurent to this. "That, probably, has even more to do with it. And

since we are on the subject of personal appearance, may I say that I

never took you for French, either--till you spoke? Your hair . . . you

will excuse me, I trust? is of an unusual colour for a Frenchman, is it

not?"

The young man good-humouredly took hold of a damp bronze lock. "This

tiresome stuff? Yes, I believe it is not often met with. Indeed, I have

found it inconvenient at times, for that reason; in a tight corner one

usually does not wish to be identified. As a matter of fact, I have

some Norse blood in my veins, and the . . . the other member of my

family who shares that with me has much the same hair. So no doubt it

comes from that strain. . . . I hope that the next time I fall into a

river I shall be wearing it short, which is probable, for I only keep

it long to be like my Chouans. I wish it would dry." He put up his

other hand to his head, and the blanket slipped instantly off his left

shoulder and arm.

Before he could replace it Laurent's eyes had involuntarily darted to

his elbow--and away again.

"You were looking at my bracelet, Monsieur?" enquired its owner, in his

pleasant voice. "Now there, no doubt, is the explanation of my safe

navigation of your river. Are you superstitious, Monsieur de Courtomer?

No more than I, probably; so I would like you to realize that I wear

this ridiculous thing for the sake of other people's superstitions

only--I mean, of course, my men's."

And the little half-smile he gave Laurent (he seemed rarely to smile

fully) had a tinge of mischief in it.

"I could not help seeing it," confessed the latter, rather red. "And

that, then, is the famous charm which makes you invincible! Might I

. . . ?"

L'Oiseleur thrust out his arm again for his inspection. The mysterious

object upon it resolved itself into a band of plaited rushes or coarse

grass, about half an inch wide, fitting just tightly enough not to slip

down over the elbow.

"I will make you another confession about that, Monsieur," said its

wearer, looking down at it. "It is not even the original __jartier__

which is supposed to have been bestowed upon me by the fairy Mélusine

or her deputy! In a somewhat rough-and-tumble life a bracelet of rushes

will not last for ever, and so I . . . have it renewed from time to

time. Still, there is a strand of the original in it somewhere." He

smiled again as he made this rather cynical admission, and finished the

remains of his punch.

Laurent was examining the talisman with deep interest. "There is no

fastening. Then, Monsieur, the . . . the fairy Mélusine plaits it on

your arm every time?"

"She does," replied M. de la Rocheterie.

A woman's fingers, of course. Perhaps he was married; but Laurent did

not, somehow, think so. He could not pursue further the question of the

weaver, and, moreover, the possessor of the rush bracelet was now

looking thoughtfully into the fire.

"And nothing has ever touched you, in all the time you have fought,

since you wore that?" asked Laurent after a moment.

L'Oiseleur turned his head, and the enquirer had a little shock of

surprise. . . . Or had he merely imagined that a profound sadness

looked for a moment out of the red-brown eyes? It was gone so quickly

that he was not sure--gone by the time his companion answered simply,

"Nothing. I have never received a scratch, so I cannot claim the honour

of having shed my blood for the King, as so many better men have done."

"Yet," observed Laurent, "the King seems to consider that you have done

fully enough for him without that. That ribbon . . ."

"Yes. His Majesty was pleased to send me the Cross last year. Some of my

men had better deserved it. _They_ had no talisman."

"You must really need a strong head, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, not to

believe, after all, in the efficacy of yours! Tell me, if I am not

impertinent, whether there is not some one action which will break its

power if you happen to do it? In most fairy tales it is so."

"I believe," said the young leader, wrapping himself up again, "that

there is some dark story in the past history of this object or its

predecessors, but I do not know what moral it is supposed to point.

Apart from that--Morbleu, what an extraordinary thing! It has just

happened to me, and I never gave it a thought!"

"What is it?" asked Laurent eagerly.

"I must never cross running water, except by a bridge, or on horseback,

or by some means of that sort. I must never go through it in person.

And, to do myself justice--and again in deference to those Chouans of

mine--I never have . . . until to-day. But you cannot deny that I have

crossed it this morning--water of the most running!"

And he looked at his fellow-adventurer in running water with unfeigned

amusement.

(5)

As Laurent de Courtomer tied his stock that evening in his own bedroom,

he was both thoughtful and excited. To fall into the river and narrowly

escape drowning, to have a total stranger risk his life for him over

it, to discover that the stranger in question was someone he knew about

and admired, and, finally, to possess him at the moment as a guest

under his own roof--these were sufficient reasons why the stock should

be well tied . . . and sufficient excuse for the fact that it was not.

Nor had Laurent quite shaken off the shyness which had unexpectedly

descended upon him when he was driving home from the _Three Trouts_

with L'Oiseleur beside him--that sudden hot conviction that he, with

nothing to his credit, had been chattering too freely to this young

hero. Had or had not M. de la Rocheterie seemed a little remote, a

little withdrawn, during that drive?

A knock at the door, interrupting these cogitations, heralded the

entrance of Mme de Courtomer, looking charming but pale. Laurent's

heart smote him as he turned round from the dressing-table. She kissed

him long and closely; she had not yet got over her emotion.

"I am just going down to the drawing-room, my darling," she said. "I

hope M. de la Rocheterie may be there; I want to see him alone. When

you brought him to me in the garden I was, I fear, rather selfishly

absorbed in thoughts of you and your danger."

Laurent nodded. "He tried to make me promise not to mention what he did,

but of course--"

"An absolute stranger, Laurent! And such a risk! I cannot get accustomed

to the idea!"

Like her son, Mme de Courtomer seemed a firm believer in the theory of

"intention." Yet it had already been made perfectly clear to her by M.

de la Rocheterie himself that he had in no sense saved Laurent's life.

"Maman," said Laurent, putting his arm round her, "if you can't get some

more colour into those cheeks I shall not eat any dinner. Dearest,

dearest little mother, I did not do it on purpose!--See now, I am going

to kiss them very hard. . . . That's a trifle better! Now go down and

thank M. de la Rocheterie for spoiling a very elegant suit of

clothes--if he gives you the chance. Unless I have gauged him wrongly,

you will not get very far."

"There is one thing that comforts me, Laurent," said Virginia de

Courtomer, "and that is, that you would have done just the same in

similar circumstances."

"Perhaps," replied her son. "But not so quickly!"

The enlightenment of M. de Vicq and the old ladies that evening was

indeed great fun, only it was too soon over, and Laurent was a little

afraid of embarrassing his guest, who seemed genuinely averse from

anything resembling posing or display. But, probably just because he

was so free from self-consciousness and so simply dignified, he took

the ensuing adulation lightly, and yet with a fine courtesy as if he

were aware that he was a young man receiving the homage of the old. If

he found the worshippers a little absurd, he did not betray it. The

impression which he had produced on Tante Clotilde, even before she

realized whom the "Monsieur le Vicomte de la Rocheterie" of Laurent's

introduction cloaked, was marked by her making him the suggestion of a

curtsey of fifty years ago, with all Versailles behind it--an honour

which no Englishman ever received from her. And M. de la Rocheterie had

kissed her hand in a manner which also had tradition behind it. Yet

more important to Laurent, really, than the unqualified success of his

little coup de théâtre, than the joy of being able to whisper to M. de

Vicq, "I expect you think, Monsieur, that L'Oiseleur has shaved since

you saw him last? I expect he has--_but not to that extent_!" was his

mother's murmur to him, just before they went in to supper. "Your

Chouan has already enslaved me, Laurent, I think he is charming!"

But now supper was going forward, and M. de la Rocheterie was making

obvious efforts to efface himself, to avoid being what he had become,

the centre of the little festivity. But with everybody determined to

make him so, it was impossible to get out of the position. First of

all, M. de Vicq's mistake of the packet had to be explained. It

appeared that L'Oiseleur _had_ come over in it, and that he had heard

another passenger being pointed out as himself, "which," as he added

with a little smile, "enabled me to escape an attention that I had then

no idea I should encounter."

"Ah, Vicomte," interposed Tante Clotilde significantly at this, "you are

doubtless in England--am I indiscreet?--on the King's business?"

One felt it almost needed courage to reply, as L'Oiseleur did, "No,

Madame; on a purely private matter." However, Tante Clotilde's large

face wore the air of one who "knows better."

"I think," said M. de Vicq, then addressing him, "that I once had the

pleasure, a few years ago, of meeting a gentleman of your name--a good

deal older than you, however. Your father, perhaps?"

The young man's face changed subtly. "My father was guillotined with my

mother, during the Terror, Monsieur."

It only needed this avowal to complete his prestige in the eyes of the

Aunts. A ripple of emotion went round.

"Where did you meet M. de la Rocheterie, did you say, Laurent?" enquired

Tante Clotilde when she had contributed to it.

"In the river, ma tante."

The old lady looked severe, for she did not like being jested with.

"Please express yourself more accurately, great-nephew!" So Laurent

elaborated, without changing, his statement.

On the heels of the ensuing sensation M. de Vicq asked suddenly whether

it was true that the guest possessed, or was popularly supposed to

possess, a talisman of some kind.

"Quite true, Monsieur," responded L'Oiseleur soberly. "I really have

it--a magic garter, or __jartier__, as the common folk call it." Then

he caught Laurent's eye, and smiled. "But its virtue is, of course, all

nonsense."

"The popular voice, in short, ascribes to the possession of a charm what

is in reality due solely to your own skill and valour!" observed M. de

Vicq rather sententiously, but pointing this remark as a compliment by

a bow.

"I did not mean that!" said Aymar de la Rocheterie, looking for the

first time a trifle disconcerted. "And I spoke too strongly, for

undoubtedly my possession of the __jartier__ has influenced my men and

given them confidence--they are exceedingly superstitious--so in that

way the thing has its value. That is, in fact, why I wear it."

"And how did you acquire this __jartier__?" enquired Tante Clotilde

massively.

"A witch gave it to me, Madame."

"A witch--a real witch!" exclaimed his hostess. "Oh, how, Monsieur de la

Rocheterie--and why?"

"The 'why' makes rather a long story, Madame."

"We shall hope to hear it, then, after supper," announced Mlle Clotilde

de Courtomer in a tone that seemed to settle the whole matter.

"And, perhaps, the whole story of the Moulin Brûlé too?" hazarded M. de

Vicq; but L'Oiseleur shook his head with a little smile.

Mme de Courtomer looked from one to the other. "What _was_ the Moulin

Brûlé?" she enquired of the old gentleman in a low voice.

But it was Tante Clotilde who replied for him. "My dear Virginia--

really!--before the hero of Penescouët himself! The details which

reached us of that exploit were, I doubt not, inadequate, but surely we

all treasure them too securely in our memories to ask 'What was the

Moulin Brûlé'?"

Poor Mme de Courtomer, thus brought to book at her own table, before and

on account of her guest, flushed, M. de la Rocheterie bit his lip and

looked thoroughly uncomfortable, and Laurent's anger was kindled.

"You forget, I think, ma tante," he said as politely as he could, "that

my mother, after all, is not French by birth; and it is quite plain

that no one can have told her the story, for it is not one which she

could ever have forgotten."

"Quite so--very well said!" put in M. de Vicq hastily, and he gallantly

monopolized the old lady's attention while the awkward wave in the

conversation caused by the boulder she had cast into it spent itself.

Indeed Laurent, looking down the table after a moment's silent fight

with his annoyance, was relieved to find that the "hero of Penescouët"

was smiling delightfully at his hostess, and heard her say, smiling,

too, "Will you ever be able to forgive me, Monsieur de la Rocheterie?"

"Madame," replied L'Oiseleur, "you cannot conceive what a relief it is

to find that there is one fortunate being in Royalist circles who has

not been pestered with the tale of that detestable old windmill! I

sometimes wish I had never seen the place!"

When the ladies, following English custom, had left them, M. de Vicq

drew in his chair and concentrated his attention on his fellow-guest.

"I remember the Vendée, of course," he remarked, "and the great days of

the Chouannerie, Cadoudal's days. You are too young to recall them,

Monsieur--but you have relit the sacred fire!"

"No--only fanned the embers," said L'Oiseleur quickly. "The fire is

always there. The Breton does not change. Indeed, some of mine are

identically the same as those of the great days. And one has the same

devotion to rely on, the same obstinacy to combat, the same

superstitions to use or respect, and the same kind of warfare."

"That warfare of hedgerows and heather of which one has heard," put in

Laurent, his chin on his hands, "and which needs, I imagine, a special

aptitude."

"I suppose it does. At any rate, it is the only kind which the Breton

really understands. You have to be always on the move; if you have very

few men, as I had--at least at the beginning, when I started with

twenty-five--that is easy. And if you keep moving you are not only

invisible, but the enemy thinks your numbers are much greater than they

are. I have never had more than six hundred men, but they were all

picked, and if I had told any one of them to go immediately and cut off

his hand the only delay would have been the finding of the

chopper. . . . Well, that is all over now. I suppose I ought to say,

Thank God. I do say it--but one does not like parting from one's

comrades."

"You have disbanded them, then?"

"Not yet. But I shall do so directly the King is actually in Paris."

"The King in Paris!" exclaimed the Baron de Vicq in a rapt tone. And he

began a loyal reverie on that theme, to which the two young men

listened with becoming patience. Then he reverted somewhat abruptly to

the question of L'Oiseleur's amulet, and asked so many questions about

it, that in the end M. de la Rocheterie, beginning, Laurent fancied, to

be slightly bored, offered to show it to him, and, while M. de Vicq

murmured delightedly, "Monsieur, you are really too obliging!" took off

his coat with an apology to his host and turned up the sleeve of his

fine shirt.

Laurent, leaning back on his chair, his hands behind his head, looked on

amused. Little exclamations broke from the old Royalist as, spectacles

on nose, he bent over the table and scrutinized the circlet closely.

"And that is really the fairy garter of the legend--dear, dear, how

wonderful! After all these years . . . so fresh and well-preserved

. . . there must be something in it, after all! It is indeed to be

hoped, Monsieur, that you will never lose that!"

The owner of the __jartier__, with his bare arm stretched out before him

on the mahogany, caught his host's eye over the grey head. "Yes, as you

say, Monsieur, remarkably well-preserved!" And Laurent, smiling back,

had a delightful sense of complicity with him. He was not going to tell

the old fellow what he had told him!

"My last doubts are removed," murmured M. de Vicq, taking off his

spectacles. "Now I know that I really have shaken L'Oiseleur and no

other by the hand!"

The bearer of that name, who was turning down his shirt-sleeve, stopped,

and flushed very slightly.

"Why, Monsieur, did you think I was an impostor?" he demanded. "Was that

why you wanted to see the thing?" And he looked at the old gentleman

very straight and challengingly.

Poor M. de Vicq, meeting the spark he had so tactlessly struck out,

confounded himself in apologies; on which M. de la Rocheterie,

evidently quickly penitent, but still with a little air not free from

hauteur, begged his pardon for having suspected his motive, and, peace

being restored, their young host suggested that they should join the

ladies.

"Very interesting, that," he thought as he opened the door. "So he's got

a hot temper under that quiet exterior of his! I think that, for all

his modesty and charm, I should be sorry to take liberties with M. le

Vicomte de la Rocheterie!"

(6)

Installed on the sofa in the drawing-room, Tante Clotilde immediately

motioned to M. de la Rocheterie to take his place beside her.

"Now, Vicomte, the story you promised us, if you please--the story of

the _jartier_!" she said with heavy graciousness.

"I can recall no such promise, Madame," replied L'Oiseleur. "However, if

you conceive that it would interest you . . . and M. le Baron," he

added, flashing a glance half malicious, half apologetic on that

offender, "I will endeavour not to bore you too much." He stirred his

coffee for an instant. "You must know, then, that in the district of

Penescouët there is a legend of an enchanted garter given in the Middle

Ages by that ubiquitous immortal, the fairy Mélusine, to a knight whom

it rendered invincible. This garter was said to be still in existence,

in the keeping of an old witch in the forest of Armor--we still have

witches in Brittany--whom some held to be the fairy Mélusine herself. I

must also tell you, if you will pardon a reference to my personal

appearance, that this knight--known to after ages only as

L'Oiseleur--seems to have been so unfortunate as to possess hair of the

colour of mine.

"Well, I had--I have--a specially devoted follower named Jacques Eveno,

who comes from the neighbourhood of my little estate at Sessignes. This

man, who not only knew the legend, but the old woman, too, who had the

_jartier_, must have begun by wishing that he could procure the lucky

talisman for me, but hesitated to steal it for fear the theft should

bring misfortune on me. Then he must have pondered how to trick the

witch into giving it me of her own free will, and how therefore to

inveigle me--at the time perfectly innocent--into playing the part as

it should be played. For it seems (but I only learnt this afterwards)

that if a young man with reddish hair came at sunset to her hut with a

hawk on his shoulder, and asked for a night's lodging, offering in

payment merely a sprig of mistletoe . . . well, he was the dead Fowler

come to life again, and she would give him the _jartier_ as of right.

Eveno, a simple peasant, successfully contrived that all those

coincidences should come about--except indeed the finding of the hawk.

One afternoon he got me into the heart of the forest on some pretext or

other, and deliberately misled me, so that I lost my way and had to ask

for shelter at the witch's hut. Knowing her reputation I made no

difficulty about his suggestion that I should offer her the bit of

mistletoe which he had plucked for me--one learns to humour

superstition in Brittany. But the hawk . . . yes, that was strange."

"How did he procure the hawk, then?" asked Tante Odile as he paused.

"He did not, Madame; chance procured it, turning his fraud, for him,

into reality . . . and somewhat frightening him, I think. For, as we

went through the wood, I came on a young hawk half stunned on the

ground, with a broken wing, and I picked the poor bird up and carried

it for a while, and ended by putting it (all innocently) on my

shoulder, where it stayed. So it was there, quite correctly, when I

knocked at the witch's door." He smiled--that most attractive smile of

his.

"And the witch, Monsieur--she gave you the charm?"

"Without demur. I was only afraid that she was going to kiss me! She did

kiss my hands. You must remember, Mesdames, that at the moment I was

completely in the dark, and had no idea for whom she took me, nor why,

with the tears running down her wrinkled face, she brought out with

such awe from a box of battered and time-blackened silver this little

dried twist of rushes. Then the legend suddenly came back to me; and as

she and Eveno were by now in a frenzy of excitement, and my protests

had no effect, I . . . accepted the talisman, which was, so the wise

woman assured me, the identical magic circlet which Mélusine had

bestowed on the original L'Oiseleur of whom I was, somehow, a

reincarnation. I retain, naturally, my own ideas on that subject, but

afterwards, of course, my men always called me by that name."

"And you have the _jartier_ still--you wear it perhaps?" asked Mme de

Courtomer.

L'Oiseleur bowed. "I always wear it--for my men's sake. But as it was

shrunken with age, and had moreover been cut, I could not wear it where

a garter should be worn. So the witch fastened it round my left arm,

like a bracelet."

The eyes of all the ladies went to his sleeve. But that it would have

been out of place they would all, obviously, have dearly loved to

invite the young man to remove his coat. Laurent thought it charming of

him not to spoil the story for them by confessing that it was not

exactly the original _jartier_ which he wore now, and hugged himself to

think that he had been the sole recipient of that confidence.

"But what, Monsieur," asked Tante Bonne a little timidly, "was the story

of the first owner of the _jartier_?"

"Alas, Madame, I fear that it was tragic. The legends say that he was

betrayed by the woman he loved . . . or else that he gave her the

garter in obedience to her whim, and in consequence his enemies fell on

him and slew him. I am not sure which; but it comes to the same thing."

"I hope--" began Mme de Courtomer rather rashly; and then, checking

herself, blushed like a girl.

"Maman, Maman!" said Laurent to himself--and was surprised to see M. de

la Rocheterie look across at her without the shadow of offence, and to

hear him say, "Merci, Madame, but of that there is no danger!"

A little enigmatic smile just touched the corners of his firmly cut

mouth, and Laurent presumed it meant that he was sure that no woman

would ever have sufficient power over him to play Delilah.

At any rate no woman--or man either--had the power to get him to talk

any more about himself that evening, and the affair of Penescouët went

untold . . . till the guests had driven away in the venerable fly which

had brought them.

"And now, Maman," said Laurent with a sigh of relief, "M. de la

Rocheterie, as a sign that he has forgiven you for your lamentable

ignorance, shall tell us two the true story of the Moulin Brûlé. Will

you, Vicomte?"

"To save me from the possibility of being crushed like that again,

Monsieur?" pleaded Mme de Courtomer, putting out her hand to him.

L'Oiseleur bent his handsome head and kissed it. "You could extort

anything from me with that weapon, Madame," he replied. "Let us get it

over then!"

(7)

Late that night Laurent, deeper than ever in the toils of hero-worship,

stood, candlestick in hand, in his guest's bedroom, and, looking at M.

de la Rocheterie as he took the watch from his fob and laid it on the

dimity-hung dressing-table, said earnestly, "I hope you will sleep

well!"

He himself would dream to-night of those revolving sheets of flame, the

sails of the riddled Moulin Brûlé; of the Emperor's soldiers ceasing

fire at last, thinking that they were merely wasting ammunition on the

holocaust whose heat was too great for them to approach; and of the

dozen blackened figures--or, more probably, of one figure in

particular--bursting out of that inferno of smoke and blood and,

completely surrounded though they were, cutting a way through the

stupefied besiegers.

"I suppose you can--sleep in any surroundings," he added, for though he

knew that L'Oiseleur must often have spent the night in the open, that

reflection was somehow as incongruous as the recital downstairs with

this composed and very well-dressed young man now calmly winding up his

watch in the best bedroom of Keynton House.

"I much prefer a bed to any other surroundings," replied the Vicomte de

la Rocheterie. "Yours, I am sure, is most comfortable." Here, as

Laurent afterwards realized, he must have discovered on what a vain

employment he was spending his time; but, instead of holding his

useless watch to his ear, or otherwise betraying to the man in whose

service he had wrecked it, the effect of Dart water upon its interior,

he quietly laid it face downwards on the dressing-table, glanced at the

mantelpiece to ascertain that there was a clock in the room, and went

on, "By the way, Monsieur de Courtomer, I hope my early start to-morrow

will not prevent my taking farewell of Mme la Comtesse?"

Laurent reassured him, warning him that, unless he chose to have coffee

brought to him in his room, he would have to face an English breakfast.

But for this M. de la Rocheterie expressed a preference.

"I trust you have everything you require?" then said Laurent,

reluctantly preparing to take his leave. "No, there is one thing that

you will need in the morning, Monsieur, and that is a hat. You cannot

travel without one, though you can remedy the lack excellently well

when you get to Bath. You must really allow me to supply you with one."

"Thank you," said his guest. "Yes, I suppose that to travel so far

bareheaded might excite comment."

"Especially in your case," thought Laurent, though by now he admired the

hair en queue. "Do you know Bath, Vicomte?" he asked as an excuse to

linger a little.

"No, not at all," returned the traveller.

"It is a prodigious fine place," pronounced Laurent. "I hope I am not

impertinent in assuming that it is not--fortunately--for the good of

your health that you are going there?"

"No," answered L'Oiseleur, "it is certainly not for my health that I am

going to Bath."

He was fingering, with bent head, the seals of his watch lying there.

Laurent had the impression that his mouth tightened as he spoke, and

got an instant conviction that M. de la Rocheterie's visit to Bath was

no pleasure to him. He wondered, not for the first time, what the

object of his journey could be, he whose Chouans were still under arms,

yet who avowed that he was not on the King's business. And his eyes,

following the strong, slender hand, noted the crest on the back of the

watch, a swan with its neck encircled by a crown; he even

distinguished, on the scroll below the proud and laconic motto, _Sans

tache_. Both pleased him.

Then he made a more determined effort, and bade his guest good-night.

There would always be the morning.

But the morning was disappointing, as usually on the occasion of an

early start. There seemed no time for conversation, no opportunity for

learning any more of the visitor. The inspiration which had come to

Laurent of begging the latter to spend a day or two at Keynton House on

his way back from Bath proved unfruitful, M. de la Rocheterie

explaining that he would probably have to return by London and Dover.

It was Mme de Courtomer who had most of L'Oiseleur's attention during

the English breakfast, and it seemed to her son that it was not till

the last stage of all had arrived, and he was walking down the village

beside his guest, with Walters behind carrying his valise, that he had

the chance of a word with him; and then there seemed nothing to say

. . . just because there was so much. He tried, indeed, to thank him

anew for yesterday's act, but even that expression of his feelings was

debarred him. Aymar de la Rocheterie declared that thanks for a thing

which he had not done made him feel as fraudulent as he sometimes did

over the _jartier_. So Laurent, after murmuring stubbornly, "You meant

to save me! I only wish I might have a chance of repaying you some

day," had to desist. Then the coach came rumbling in.

"You have promised my mother that when you are in Paris you will give us

the pleasure of seeing you, Monsieur," Laurent reminded the traveller.

"I want the promise made to me, too."

"I do not need to be doubly bound," retorted M. de la Rocheterie,

smiling. "And you, Monsieur de Courtomer, when are you coming to

Brittany? We have a little river at Sessignes, with indifferent fishing

. . . though to be sure I have succeeded in catching excellent trout at

Pont-aux-Rochers . . . but that is a good way off."

"I do not need to be tempted by fishing," responded Laurent in his turn.

"Some day . . ."

A hearty shake of the hand on both sides, and again that charming smile

of L'Oiseleur's, and he was mounting to his place.

"At any rate, he's got my hat!" reflected Laurent, watching the coach

roll off. Then he went rather pensively home.