Michel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] — Complete. Gilbert Parker

      There is another striking record, which says that in August of the same year Demoiselle Angele Claude Aubert, daughter of Monsieur de la Haie Aubert, Councillor of the Parliament of Rouen, was married to Michel de la Foret, of the most noble Flemish family of that name.

      When I first saw these records, now grown dim with time, I fell to wondering what was the real life-history of these two people. Forthwith, in imagination, I began to make their story piece by piece; and I had reached a romantic ‘denoument’ satisfactory to myself and in sympathy with fact, when the Angel of Accident stepped forward with some “human documents.” Then I found that my tale, woven back from the two obscure records I have given, was the true story of two most unhappy yet most happy people. From the note struck in my mind, when my finger touched that sorrowful page in the register of the Church of the Refugees at Southampton, had spread out the whole melody and the very book of the song.

      One of the later-discovered records was a letter, tear-stained, faded, beautifully written in old French, from Demoiselle Angele Claude Aubert to Michel de la Foret at Anvers in March of the year 157_. The letter lies beside me as I write, and I can scarcely believe that three and a quarter centuries have passed since it was written, and that she who wrote it was but eighteen years old at the time. I translate it into English, though it is impossible adequately to carry over either the flavour or the idiom of the language:

      Written on this May Day of the year 157_, at the place hight Rozel

       in the Manor called of the same of Jersey Isle, to Michel de la

       Foret, at Anvers in Flanders.

       MICHEL, Thy good letter by safe carriage cometh to my hand, bringing

       to my heart a lightness it hath not known since that day when I was

       hastily carried to the port of St. Malo, and thou towards the King

       his prison. In what great fear have I lived, having no news of thee

       and fearing all manner of mischance! But our God hath benignly

       saved thee from death, and me He hath set safely here in this isle

       of the sea.

       Thou hast ever been a brave soldier, enduring and not fearing; thou

       shalt find enow to keep thy blood stirring in these days of trial

       and peril to us who are so opprobriously called Les Huguenots. If

       thou wouldst know more of my mind thereupon, come hither. Safety is

       here, and work for thee—smugglers and pirates do abound on these

       coasts, and Popish wolves do harry the flock even in this island

       province of England. Michel, I plead for the cause which thou hast

       nobly espoused, but—alas! my selfish heart, where thou art lie work

       and fighting, and the same high cause, and sadly, I confess, it is

       for mine own happiness that I ask thee to come. I wot well that

       escape from France hath peril, that the way hither from that point

       upon yonder coast called Carteret is hazardous, but yet-but yet all

       ways to happiness are set with hazard.

       If thou dost come to Carteret thou wilt see two lights turning this-

       wards: one upon a headland called Tour de Rozel, and one upon the

       great rock called of the Ecrehos. These will be in line with thy

       sight by the sands of Hatainville. Near by the Tour de Rozel shall

       I be watching and awaiting thee. By day and night doth my prayer

       ascend for thee.

       The messenger who bears this to thee (a piratical knave with a most

       kind heart, having, I am told, a wife in every port of France and of

       England the south, a most heinous sin!) will wait for thy answer, or

       will bring thee hither, which is still better. He is worthy of

       trust if thou makest him swear by the little finger of St. Peter.

       By all other swearings he doth deceive freely.

       The Lord make thee true, Michel. If thou art faithful to me, I

       shall know how faithful thou art in all; for thy vows to me were

       most frequent and pronounced, with a full savour that might warrant

       short seasoning. Yet, because thou mayst still be given to such

       dear fantasies of truth as were on thy lips in those dark days

       wherein thy sword saved my life ’twixt Paris and Rouen, I tell thee

       now that I do love thee, and shall so love when, as my heart

       inspires me, the cloud shall fall that will hide us from each other

       forever.

       ANGELE.

       An Afterword:

       I doubt not we shall come to the heights where there is peace,

       though we climb thereto by a ladder of swords. A.

      Some years before Angele’s letter was written, Michel de la Foret had become an officer in the army of Comte Gabriel de Montgomery, and fought with him until what time the great chief was besieged in the Castle of Domfront in Normandy. When the siege grew desperate, Montgomery besought the intrepid young Huguenot soldier to escort Madame de Montgomery to England, to be safe from the oppression and misery sure to follow any mishap to this noble leader of the Camisards.

      At the very moment of departure of the refugees from Domfront with the Comtesse, Angele’s messenger—the “piratical knave with the most kind heart” presented himself, delivered her letter to De la Foret, and proceeded with the party to the coast of Normandy by St. Brieuc. Embarking there in a lugger which Buonespoir the pirate secured for them, they made for England.

      Having come but half-way of the Channel, the lugger was stopped by an English frigate. After much persuasion the captain of the frigate agreed to land Madame de Montgomery upon the island of Jersey, but forced De la Foret to return to the coast of France; and Buonespoir elected to return with him.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      Meanwhile Angele had gone through many phases of alternate hope and despair. She knew that Montgomery the Camisard was dead, and a rumour, carried by refugees, reached her that De la Foret had been with him to the end. To this was presently added the word that De la Foret had been beheaded. But one day she learned that the Comtesse de Montgomery was sheltered by the Governor, Sir Hugh Pawlett, her kinsman, at Mont Orgueil Castle. Thither she went in fear from her refuge at Rozel, and was admitted to the Comtesse. There she learned the joyful truth that De la Foret had not been slain, and was in hiding on the coast of Normandy.

      The long waiting was a sore trial, yet laughter was often upon her lips henceforth. The peasants, the farmers and fishermen of Jersey, at first—as they have ever been—little inclined towards strangers, learned at