M. des Graves saw very little of Louis that day, but about seven o’clock he strolled into the library.
“Haven’t you got a fire?” he asked, as he flung himself into a chair; “the evenings are getting chilly. Well, everything is beautifully arranged. I have been to every single house in the village—I think I have interviewed every individual man, woman, and child. I am perfectly hoarse with talking, but I think they all understand now.”
“Understand what?” asked the Curé, rather puzzled.
“That you are gone to La Rochelle, with the intention of emigrating to England, instead of waiting for deportation elsewhere. That is what they will all say if any Blues or municipal authorities come to investigate your whereabouts. Then I have settled how many of your flock may attend Mass every morning—very few; they must take it in turns. Personally, I don’t think a single one ought to come, for nothing in the world will put the authorities sooner on the scent than hearing that the faithful are trooping up here early in the morning. But I knew that if I forbade it altogether I should have a conflict with you. Then nobody is to come to see you unless it is absolutely necessary; that, I think, is also clear.”
“My dear Louis—” began the priest, not knowing whether he were more touched or amused by this unwonted activity.
“Now, don’t protest, Father. I am the lord of this domain; you are non-existent. You went to La Rochelle weeks ago (I vow I shall end by believing it myself). I am having a very special hiding-place made habitable for you in case of need; one in which I once shut up Gilbert for four hours, and whence nobody heard his yells. . . . I told my aunt that he had run away to sea—so likely! . . . I have also let it be known that I shall myself immediately shoot any informer.”
“Surely you did not say that to my parishioners!”
“Well, not in so many words; it did not seem necessary. But I read them a tremendous lecture on indiscretion. . . . Satan reproving sin, eh? Yet they listened to me as if I had been an archangel!”
CHAPTER XXVIII
LAND OF EXILE
The decades of shearing and rolling undergone by the bowling-green had rendered it of a fabulous smoothness. Yet the bowl which a cunning hand had launched with confident care trickled slowly to rest a good half-inch from its goal.