When Ranulph returned to his little house at St. Aubin’s Bay night had
fallen. Approaching he saw there was no light in the windows. The
blinds were not drawn, and no glimmer of fire came from the chimney.
He hesitated at the door, for he instinctively felt that something must
have happened to his father. He was just about to enter, however, when
some one came hurriedly round the corner of the house.
“Whist, boy,” said a voice; “I’ve news for you.” Ranulph recognised the
voice as that of Dormy Jamais. Dormy plucked at his sleeve. “Come with
me, boy,” said he.
“Come inside if you want to tell me something,” answered Ranulph.
“Ah bah, not for me! Stone walls have ears. I’ll tell only you and the
wind that hears and runs away.”
“I must speak to my father first,” answered Ranulph.
“Come with me, I’ve got him safe,” Dormy chuckled to himself.
Ranulph’s heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. “What’s that you’re
saying--my father with you! What’s the matter?”
As though oblivious of Ranulph’s hand Dormy went on chuckling.
“Whoever burns me for a fool ‘ll lose their ashes. Des monz a fous--I
have a head! Come with me.” Ranulph saw that he must humour the shrewd
natural, so he said:
“Et ben, put your four shirts in five bundles and come along.” He was
a true Jerseyman at heart, and speaking to such as Dormy Jamais he used
the homely patois phrases. He knew there was no use hurrying the little
man, he would take his own time.
“There’s been the devil to pay,” said Dormy as he ran towards the shore,
his sabots going clac--clac, clac--clac. “There’s been the devil to pay
in St. Heliers, boy.” He spoke scarcely above a whisper.
“Tcheche--what’s that?” said Ranulph. But Dormy was not to uncover his
pot of roses till his own time. “That connetable’s got no more wit than
a square bladed knife,” he rattled on. “But gache-a-penn, I’m hungry!”
And as he ran he began munching a lump of bread he took from his pocket.
For the next five minutes they went on in silence. It was quite dark,
and as they passed up Market Hill--called Ghost Lane because of the Good
Little People who made it their highway--Dormy caught hold of Ranulph’s
coat and trotted along beside him. As they went, tokens of the life
within came out to them through doorway and window. Now it was the voice
of a laughing young mother:
“Si tu as faim
Manges ta main
Et gardes l’autre pour demain;
Et ta tete
Pour le jour de fete;
Et ton gros ortee
Pour le Jour Saint Norbe”
And again:
“Let us pluck the bill of the lark,
The lark from head to tail--”
He knew the voice. It was that of a young wife of the parish of St.
Saviour: married happily, living simply, given a frugal board, after the
manner of her kind, and a comradeship for life. For the moment he felt
little but sorrow for himself. The world seemed to be conspiring against
him: the chorus of Fate was singing behind the scenes, singing of the
happiness of others in sardonic comment on his own final unhappiness.
Yet despite the pain of finality there was on him something of the
apathy of despair.
From another doorway came fragments of a song sung at a veille. The
door was open, and he could see within the happy gathering of lads and
lassies in the light of the crasset. There was the spacious kitchen, its
beams and rafters dark with age, adorned with flitches of bacon, huge
loaves resting in the racllyi beneath the centre beam, the broad open
hearth, the flaming fire of logs, and the great brass pan shining like
fresh-coined gold, on its iron tripod over the logs. Lassies in
their short woollen petticoats, and bedgones of blue and lilac, with
boisterous lads, were stirring the contents of the vast bashin--many
cabots of apples, together with sugar, lemon-peel, and cider; the old
ladies in mob-caps tied under the chin, measuring out the nutmeg and
cinnamon to complete the making of the black butter: a jocund recreation
for all, and at all times.
In one corner was a fiddler, and on the veille, flourished for the
occasion with satinettes and fern, sat two centeniers and the prevot,
singing an old song in the patois of three parishes.
Ranulph looked at the scene lingeringly. Here he was, with mystery and
peril to hasten his steps, loitering at the spot where the light of home
streamed out upon the roadway. But though he lingered, somehow he seemed
withdrawn from all these things; they were to him now as pictures of a
distant past.
Dormy plucked at his coat. “Come, come, lift your feet, lift your feet,”
said he; “it’s no time to walk in slippers. The old man will be getting
scared, oui-gia!” Ranulph roused himself. Yes, yes, he must hurry on.
He had not forgotten his father, but something held him here; as though
Fate were whispering in his ear. What does it matter now? While yet you
may, feed on the sight of happiness. So the prisoner going to
execution seizes one of the few moments left to him for prayer, to look
lingeringly upon what he leaves, as though to carry into the dark a
clear remembrance of it all.
Moving on quietly in a kind of dream, Ranulph was roused again by
Dormy’s voice: “On Sunday I saw three magpies, and there was a wedding
that day. Tuesday I saw two--that’s for joy--and fifty Jersey prisoners
of the French comes back on Jersey that day. This morning one I saw.
One magpie is for trouble, and trouble’s here. One doesn’t have eyes for
naught--no, bidemme!”
Ranulph’s patience was exhausted.
“Bachouar,” he exclaimed roughly, “you make elephants out of fleas!
You’ve got no more news than a conch-shell has music. A minute and
you’ll have a back-hander that’ll put you to sleep, Maitre Dormy.”
If he had been asked his news politely Dormy would have been still more
cunningly reticent. To abuse him in his own argot was to make him loose
his bag of mice in a flash.
“Bachouar yourself, Maitre Ranulph! You’ll find out soon. No news--no
trouble--eh! Par made, Mattingley’s gone to the Vier Prison--he! The
baker’s come back, and the Connetable’s after Olivier Delagarde. No
trouble, pardingue, if no trouble, Dormy Jamais’s a batd’lagoule and
no need for father of you to hide in a place that only Dormy knows--my
good!”
So at last the blow had fallen; after all these years of silence,
sacrifice, and misery. The futility of all that he had done and suffered
for his father’s sake came home to Ranulph. Yet his brain was instantly
alive. He questioned Dormy rapidly and adroitly, and got the story from
him in patches.
The baker Carcaud, who, with Olivier Delagarde, betrayed the country
into the hands of Rullecour years ago, had, with a French confederate of
Mattingley’s, been captured in attempting to steal Jean Touzel’s boat,
the Hardi Biaou. At the capture the confederate had been shot. Before
dying he implicated Mattingley in several robberies, and a notorious
case of piracy of three months before, committed within gunshot of the
men-of-war lying in the tide-way. Carcaud, seriously wounded, to save
his life turned King’s evidence, and disclosed to the Royal Court in
private his own guilt and Olivier Delagarde’s treason.
Hidden behind the great chair of the Bailly himself, Dormy Jamais had
heard the whole business. This had brought him hot-foot to St. Aubin’s
Bay, whence he had hurried Olivier Delagarde to a hiding-place in the
hills above the bay of St. Brelade. The fool had travelled more swiftly
than Jersey justice, whose feet are heavy. Elie Mattingley was now in
the Vier Prison. There was the whole story.
The mask had fallen, the game was up. Well, at least there would be no
more lying, no more brutalising inward shame. All at once it appeared to
Ranulph madness that he had not taken his father away from Jersey long
ago. Yet too he knew that as things had been with Guida he could never
have stayed away.
Nothing was left but action. He must get his father clear of the island
and that soon. But how? and where should they go? He had a boat in St.
Aubin’s Bay: getting there under cover of darkness he might embark with
his father and set sail--whither? To Sark--there was no safety there. To
Guernsey--that was no better. To France--yes, that was it, to the war of
the Vendee, to join Detricand. No need to find the scrap of paper once
given him in the Vier Marchi. Wherever Detricand might be, his fame
was the highway to him. All France knew of the companion of de la
Rochejaquelein, the fearless Comte de Tournay. Ranulph made his
decision. Shamed and dishonoured in Jersey, in that holy war of the
Vendee he would find something to kill memory, to take him out of life
without disgrace. His father must go with him to France, and bide his
fate there also.
By the time his mind was thus made up, they had reached the lonely
headland dividing Portelet Bay from St. Brelade’s. Dark things were said
of this spot, and the country folk of the island were wont to avoid it.
Beneath the cliffs in the sea was a rocky islet called Janvrin’s Tomb.
One Janvrin, ill of a fell disease, and with his fellows forbidden
by the Royal Court to land, had taken refuge here, and died wholly
neglected and without burial. Afterwards his body lay exposed till the
ravens and vultures devoured it, and at last a great storm swept his
bones off into the sea. Strange lights were to be seen about this rock,
and though wise men guessed them mortal glimmerings, easily explained,
they sufficed to give the headland immunity from invasion.
To a cave at this point Dormy Jamais had brought the trembling Olivier
Delagarde, unrepenting and peevish, but with a craven fear of the Royal
Court and a furious populace quickening his footsteps. This hiding-place
was entered at low tide by a passage from a larger cave. It was like a
little vaulted chapel floored with sand and shingle. A crevice through
rock and earth to the world above let in the light and out the smoke.
Here Olivier Delagarde sat crouched over a tiny fire, with some bread
and a jar of water at his hand, gesticulating and talking to himself.
The long white hair and beard, with the benevolent forehead, gave
him the look of some latter-day St. Helier, grieving for the sins and
praying for the sorrows of mankind; but from the hateful mouth came
profanity fit only for the dreadful communion of a Witches’ Sabbath.
Hearing the footsteps of Ranulph and Dormy, he crouched and shivered in
terror, but Ranulph, who knew too well his revolting cowardice, called
to him reassuringly. On their approach he stretched out his talon-like
fingers in a gesture of entreaty.
“You’ll not let them hang me, Ranulph--you’ll save me,” he whimpered.
“Don’t be afraid, they shall not hang you,” Ranulph replied quietly, and
began warming his hands at the fire. “You’ll swear it, Ranulph--on the
Bible?”
“I’ve told you they shall not hang you. You ought to know by now whether
I mean what I say,” his son answered more sharply.
Assuredly Ranulph meant that his father should not be hanged. Whatever
the law was, whatever wrong the old man had done, it had been atoned
for; the price had been paid by both. He himself had drunk the cup of
shame to the dregs, but now he would not swallow the dregs. An iron
determination entered into him. He had endured all that he would endure
from man. He had set out to defend Olivier Delagarde from the worst that
might happen, and he was ready to do so to the bitter end. His scheme
of justice might not be that of the Royal Court, but he would defend it
with his life. He had suddenly grown hard--and dangerous.