In the Day of Adversity

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!"

St. Georges was lodged in an old inn on Tower Hill now, in a large room that ran from the front to the back of the house and with, on the latter side, a lookout upon an old churchyard, which in the swift-coming spring of 1692—for it was now April of that year—was green and bright with the new shooting buds. Here he worked hard to earn a living, spending part of his day in translating a book or so from French into English—at beggar's wages!—another part in giving lessons in fencing and swordsmanship—he knowing every trick and passade of the French school—and a third in giving lessons in his old language. And between them he managed to earn enough to support existence while waiting for that which through the interest of Admiral Rooke had been promised him—namely, permission to volunteer into the first vessel taking detachments of recruits to sea with it.

Meanwhile, there were many about the court who had heard his story and who knew he was a man who had once worn the red dress of the chiourme—when his back was not bared to the lashings of the comites!—that he had slaved at the galley oar in summer and been put to road-mending and road-sweeping in the winter, and that he nourished against France a deep revenge. And among them was the king himself.

Rooke had told William his history, over long clay pipes and tankards at Hampton Court, and the astute Dutchman had not hesitated a moment in promising him employment—would, indeed, have taken a hundred such into that employ if he could have found them. He had learned how the exile hated France—as he did himself, his hatred being the mainspring of his life; moreover, that exile knew more about Louis's regiments and whole military system than almost any one else whom the English king could discover. That was sufficient for him.

So St. Georges went on his way, waiting—waiting ever for one of two things to occur: either that the marine regiment should call for volunteers and be sent out again to France, or that he should be able to return disguised to that country and recommence his search for Dorine.

During the period that had elapsed, however, since he was rescued by Rooke, one thing had happened that had brought great happiness to his heart: he had heard more than once from Boussac, now a lieutenant of the Mousquetaires Noirs, and in so hearing had gained news of his child, who was still alive, and, as Boussac believed, well treated.

"Mon pauvre ami," that gallant officer had written, in reply to a letter forwarded him by St. Georges and addressed to Paris, where he imagined the Mousquetaires might be, "how shall I answer yours, since, when I received it, I had long deemed you dead? Ah! monsieur, I was desolated when we came into Paris at the tidings I gleaned. I sought for you at once, inquired at the Bureau Militaire, and learned—what? That you had threatened to murder the minister—had, indeed, almost murdered the Marquis de Roquemaure; and that for this you were condemned to the galley L'Idole, en perpétuité. Figure to yourself my dismay—nay, more, my most touching grief—for, my friend, I had news for you of the best, the most important. And I could not deliver it, should never now deliver it to you in this world. Monsieur, I had the news to give you that I had seen your child—had seen it well, and, as I think, not unhappy."

It was St. Georges's habit to sit sometimes in the little, old city churchyard beneath his window, and there to muse on his past and meditate upon the future. It had an attraction for him, this old place, more, perhaps, for the reason that scarce any one ever came into it on week days, except himself and a decrepit gravedigger to occasionally open old graves or prepare new ones, than for any other; but also because there was one tombstone that interested him sadly. It bore upon it a child's name, "Dorothy," and told how she had died, "aged three," in January, "in the yeare of Oure Lorde" 1688. And below the scroll of flowers, with an angel's head in their midst, was the quotation from Kings: "Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well."

To his seared and bruised heart some sad yet tender comfort seemed to be afforded by this stone, which marked and recorded the death of one whose very name partly resembled the name of her he had lost—whose little life had been taken from her almost at the very time Dorine was snatched away from him. And the question of the prophet was the question that he so often asked in his prayers. The answer was that which so often he beseeched his Maker to vouchsafe to him.

He was seated opposite to this stone on the day he first received Boussac's letter, having brought it out with him to peruse in quiet. He was seated on it now, many months later, as he reread the mousquetaire's words which told him that Dorine was well, and, he thought, not unhappy. And he raised his eyes to the words of the Shunamite woman and murmured, "It is well with the child," and whispered, "God, I thank thee!" as he had done on the day when first the letter came to him. Then he continued: