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

      The song stilled at last. It died away in the roar of the surf, in the happy cries of foolish women, and the laughter of men back from a dangerous adventure. As the Seigneur’s boat was drawn up the shore, Angele threw herself into the arms of Michel de la Foret, the soldier dressed as a priest.

      Lempriere of Rozel stood abashed before this rich display of feeling. In his hottest youth he could not have made such passionate motions of affection. His feelings ran neither high nor broad, but neither did they run low and muddy. His nature was a straight level of sensibility—a rough stream between high banks of prejudice, topped with the foam of vanity, now brawling in season, and now going steady and strong to the sea. Angele had come to feel what he was beneath the surface. She felt how unimaginative he was, and how his humour, which was but the horse-play of vanity, helped him little to understand the world or himself. His vanity was ridiculous, his self-importance was against knowledge or wisdom; and Heaven had given him a small brain, a big and noble heart, a pedigree back to Rollo, and the absurd pride of a little lord in a little land. Angele knew all this; but realised also that he had offered her all he was able to offer to any woman.

      She went now and put out both hands to him. “I shall ever pray God’s blessing on the lord of Rozel,” she said, in a low voice.

      “ ’Twould fit me no better than St. Ouen’s sword fits his fingers. I’ll take thine own benison, lady—but on my cheek, not on my hand as this day before at four of the clock.” His big voice lowered. “Come, come, the hand thou kissed, it hath been the hand of a friend to thee, as Raoul Lempriere of Rozel said he’d be. Thy lips upon his cheek, though it be but a rough fellow’s fancy, and I warrant, come good, come ill, Rozel’s face will never be turned from thee. Pooh, pooh! let yon soldier-priest shut his eyes a minute; this is ’tween me and thee; and what’s done before the world’s without shame.”

      He stopped short, his black eyes blazing with honest mirth and kindness, his breath short, having spoken in such haste.

      Her eyes could scarce see him, so full of tears were they; and, standing on tiptoe, she kissed him upon each cheek.

      “ ’Tis much to get for so little given,” she said, with a quiver in her voice; “yet this price for friendship would be too high to pay to any save the Seigneur of Rozel.”

      She hastily turned to the men who had rescued Michel and Buonespoir. “If I had riches, riches ye should have, brave men of Jersey,” she said; “but I have naught save love and thanks, and my prayers too, if ye will have them.”

      “ ’Tis a man’s duty to save his fellow an’ he can,” cried a gaunt fisherman, whose daughter was holding to his lips a bowl of conger-eel soup.

      “ ’Twas a good deed to send us forth to save a priest of Holy Church,” cried a weazened boat-builder with a giant’s arm, as he buried his face in a cup of sack, and plunged his hand into a fishwife’s basket of limpets.

      “Aye, but what means she by kissing and arm-getting with a priest?” cried a snarling vraic-gatherer. “ ’Tis some jest upon Holy Church, or yon priest is no better than common men but an idle shame.”

      By this time Michel was among them. “Priest I am none, but a soldier,” he said in a loud voice, and told them bluntly the reasons for his disguise; then, taking a purse from his pocket, thrust into the hands of his rescuers and their families pieces of silver and gave them brave words of thanks.

      But the Seigneur was not to be outdone in generosity. His vanity ran high; he was fain to show Angele what a gorgeous gentleman she had failed to make her own; and he was in ripe good-humour all round.

      “Come, ye shall come, all of ye, to the Manor of Rozel, every man and woman here. Ye shall be fed, and fuddled too ye shall be an’ ye will; for honest drink which sends to honest sleep hurts no man. To my kitchen with ye all; and you, messieurs”—turning to M. Aubert and De la Fore—“and you, Mademoiselle, come, know how open is the door and full the table at my Manor of Rozel—St. Ouen’s keeps a beggarly board.”