EPILOGUE
St. John’s Eve had passed. In the fields at Bonne-Nuit Bay the “Brow-brow! ben-ben!” of the Song of the Cauldron had affrighted the night; riotous horns, shaming the blare of a Witches’ Sabbath, had been blown by those who, as old Jean Touzel said, carried little lead under their noses. The meadows had been full of the childlike islanders welcoming in the longest day of the year. Mid-summer Day had also come and gone, but with less noise and clamour, for St. John’s Fair had been carried on with an orderly gaiety—as the same Jean Touzel said, like a sheet of music. Even the French singers and dancers from St. Malo had been approved in Norman phrases by the Bailly and the Jurats, for now there was no longer war between England and France, Napoleon was at St. Helena, and the Bourbons were come again to their own.
It had been a great day, and the roads were cloudy with the dust of Mid-summer revellers going to their homes. But though some went many stayed, camping among the booths, since the Fair was for tomorrow and for other to-morrows after. And now, the day’s sport being over, the superstitious were making the circle of the rock called William’s Horse in Boulay Bay, singing the song of William, who, with the fabled sprig of sacred mistletoe, turned into a rock the kelpie horse carrying him to death.
There was one boat, however, which putting out into the Bay did not bear towards William’s Horse, but, catching the easterly breeze, bore away westward towards the point of Plemont. Upon the stern of the boat was painted in bright colours, Hardi Biaou. “We’ll be there soon after sunset,” said the grizzled helmsman, Jean Touzel, as he glanced from the full sail to the setting sun.
Neither of his fellow-voyagers made reply, and for a time there was silence, save for the swish of the gunwale through the water. But at last Jean said:
“Su’ m’n ame, but it is good this, after that!” and he jerked his head back towards the Fair-ground on the hill. “Even you will sleep to-night, Dormy Jamais, and you, my wife of all.”
Maitresse Aimable shook her great head slowly on the vast shoulders, and shut her heavy eyelids. “Dame, but I think you are sleeping now—you,” Jean went on.
Maitresse Aimable’s eyes opened wide, and again she shook her head.
Jean looked a laugh at her through his great brass-rimmed spectacles and added:
“Ba su, then I know. It is because we go to sleep in my hut at Plemont where She live so long. I know, you never sleep there.”
Maitresse Aimable shook her head once more, and drew from her pocket a letter.
At sight of it Dormy Jamais crawled quickly over to where the Femme de Ballast sat, and, ‘reaching out, he touched it with both hands.
“Princess of all the world—bidemme,” he said, and he threw out his arms and laughed.
Two great tears were rolling down Maitresse Aimable’s cheeks.
“How to remember she, ma fuifre!” said Jean Touzel. “But go on to the news of her.”
Maitresse Aimable spread the letter out and looked at it lovingly. Her voice rose slowly up like a bubble from the bottom of a well, and she spoke.
“Ah man pethe benin, when it come, you are not here, my Jean. I take it to the Greffier to read for me. It is great news, but the way he read so sour I do not like, ba su! I see Maitre Damian the schoolmaster pass my door. I beckon, and he come. I take my letter here, I hold it close to his eyes. ‘Read on that for me, Maitre Damian—you,’ I say. O my good, when he read it, it sing sweet like a song, pergui! Once, two, three times I make him read it out—he has the voice so soft and round, Maitre Damian there.”
“Glad and good!” interrupted Jean. “What is the news, my wife? What is the news of highnesss—he?”
Maitresse Aimable smiled, then she tried to speak, but her voice broke.
“The son—the son—at last he is the Duke of Bercy. E’fin, it is all here. The new King of France, he is there at the palace when the child which it have sleep on my breast, which its mother I have love all the years, kiss her son as the Duke of Bercy.”
“Ch’est ben,” said Jean, “you can trust the good God in the end.”
Dormy Jamais did not speak. His eyes were fastened upon the north, where lay the Paternoster Rocks. The sun had gone down, the dusk was creeping on, and against the dark of the north there was a shimmer of fire—a fire that leapt and quivered about the Paternoster Rocks.
Dormy pointed with his finger. Ghostly lights or miracle of Nature, these fitful flames had come and gone at times these many years, and now again the wonder of the unearthly radiance held their eyes.
“Gatd’en’ale, I don’t understand you—you!” said Jean, speaking to the fantastic fires as though they were human.
“There’s plenty things we see we can’t understand, and there’s plenty we understand we can’t never see. Ah bah, so it goes!” said Maitresse Aimable, and she put Guida’s letter in her bosom.
.......................
Upon the hill of Plemont above them, a stone taken from the chimney of the hut where Guida used to live, stood upright beside a little grave. Upon it was carved:
BIRIBI,
Fidele ami
De quels jours!
In the words of Maitresse Aimable, “Ah bah, so it goes.” FINIS
NOTE: IT is possible that students of English naval history may find in the life of Philip d’Avranche, as set forth in this book, certain resemblances to the singular and long forgotten career of the young Jerseyman, Philip d’Auvergne of the “Arethusa,” who in good time became Vice-Admiral of the White and His Serene Highness the Duke of Bouillon.
Because all the relatives and direct descendants of Admiral Prince Philip d’Auvergne are dead, I am the more anxious to state that, apart from one main incident, the story here-before written is not taken from the life of that remarkable man. Yet I will say also that I have drawn upon the eloquence, courage, and ability of Philip d’Auvergne to make the better part of Philip d’Avranche, whose great natural fault, an overleaping ambition, was the same fault that brought the famous Prince Admiral to a piteous death in the end.
In any case, this tale has no claim to be called a historical novel.