A Romance of the West Indies Part 62

"I, who have had no news of France for eighteen years, I know no more than you, my lord, but this is why I concern myself. I left to him the price of the Unicorn; he is a good and honest priest; if he still lives, there must remain to him some of it, for he would have been prudent and careful in his almsgiving. My advice would be to seek to know where the Reverend Father is, for if the good G.o.d has willed that he should have kept some good morsel from the Unicorn, own, my lord, that this would not be bad eating at this moment; if not for you, at least, for these two beautiful children, for my heart bleeds to see them with their wooden shoes and their woolen hose, although they may keep their feet warmer than boots of leather and gilded spurs, or shoes of satin with silken hose, should they be red, these hose! red like those I wore in 1690," added the chevalier, with a sigh. Then he resumed: "Ah, well! my lord, what say you to my Griffen idea?"

"I say, my friend, that it is an idle hope. Father Griffen is without doubt dead; he will doubtless have left your fortune to some religious community."

"To the Abbey of St. Quentin, perhaps," said Angela.

"Zounds! it wants but that! I would instantly set fire to the monastery!"

"Ah--fie! fie! chevalier!" said Angela.

"It is also because I am raging at having done what I did with your two hundred thousand crowns; but could I then imagine that I should find again, as a farmer, the son of a king who handled his diamonds by the shovelful? Ah, it is no use to philosophize here; but to find Father Griffen again if he is still living!"

"And how to find him again?" said Monmouth.

"By seeking him, my lord. I who have no reason for concealing myself, to-morrow I will take up this quest, hobbling around. Nothing is more simple; in truth, I am stupid not to have thought of it sooner. I will direct myself at once to the Superior of Foreign Missions, thus we shall know what we have to look to. The Superior will at least inform me if the good Father is alive or not; and even, on this account, I will to-morrow make a visit to your neighbor, the abbot of St. Quentin. He will tell me what to do about it--how to get this information. I will carry him your hundred crowns; that will be a good way to contrive the interview."

The three friends pa.s.sed the day together. We leave the reader to imagine the stories, the reminiscences, gay, touching, or sad, which were recalled.

On the morrow Croustillac, who had already made friends with young James, started for the abbey. The amount of the rent, in bright _louis d'or_, was an excellent pa.s.sport to the presence of the treasurer.

"Father," said Croustillac, "I have a very important letter to place in the hands of a good priest of the order of Preaching Brothers; I do not know if he is alive or dead; if he is in Europe, or at the end of the world; to whom should I address myself for information on this subject?"

"To one of our canons, my son, who has had much to do with missions, and who, after long and painful apostolic labors, came six months since to repose in a canonicate of our abbey."

"And when can I see this venerable canon, Father?"

"This very morning. In descending to the court of the cloister, ask a lay brother to conduct you to Father Griffen."

Croustillac gave so tremendous a blow of his staff on the floor, shouting three times his Muscovite exclamation, "hurrah! hurrah!

hurrah!" that the reverend treasurer was startled by it, and rang the bell precipitately, thinking he had to do with a madman.

A friar entered.

"Pardon, good Father," said Croustillac; "these savage cries, and this no less savage blow of the stick, paint to you the state of my soul, my astonishment, my joy! It is Father Griffen, himself, that I seek."

"Then conduct this gentleman to Father Griffen," said the treasurer.

We will not attempt to depict this new recognition, so important in the results the Gascon expected from it. We will only say that the good priest, charged with the trust of Croustillac, and fearing lest the chevalier should one day come to regret his disinterestedness, but wishing, however, to execute till then his charitable intentions, and not to deprive the unfortunate of this rich alms, had each year distributed to the poor the revenue of the capital, which he reserved for a pious foundation if the Gascon should not reappear.

The sale of the Unicorn, prudently managed, had brought about seven hundred thousand livres. The Father, finding by chance an advantageous sale of property in the environs of Abbeville, not far from the abbey of St. Quentin, had profited by it. He had thus become proprietor of a very fine estate called Chateauvieux.

On his return from his long voyages, six months before the time of which we speak, Father Griffen had asked by preference, a canonicate in Picardy, in order to be more within reach of the property which he managed, always ignorant whether the Gascon was dead or alive, but inclining rather to the former supposition, after a silence of eighteen years.

Father Griffen, very old, very infirm, quitted the abbey only to visit the estate of Chateauvieux. During the six months he lodged at St.

Quentin, he had never gone to the side of the farm of which James of Monmouth was the farmer. The reunion of Father Griffen, the duke and his wife, was as touching as that of the adventurer.

After much discussion it was decided that one-half of the estate belonged to James; the other half to Croustillac, in whose name it remained.

The Gascon immediately made his will in favor of the two children of Monmouth on condition that the son should take the name of Jacques de Chateauvieux.

In order to explain this sudden change of fortune to the eyes of the people of the abbey and the environs, it was agreed that Croustillac should pa.s.s as an uncle from America, who had come incognito to test his nephew and his wife, poor cultivators of the soil.

James gave up his farm to the tenant who had been destined to replace him, and departed with his wife, his children and his uncle Croustillac for Chateauvieux.

The three friends lived long and happily in their domain, and their children and grandchildren lived there after them. The chevalier never left Monmouth and his wife. Once a year Father Griffen came to pa.s.s some weeks at Chateauvieux.

One single day yearly cast a gloom over this peaceful and happy life; this was the anniversary of the 15th of July, 1685, the anniversary of the sacrifice of the courageous Sidney.

Never did the son of James of Monmouth know that his father descended from a royal race. The secret was always kept by James, by his wife, by Croustillac, and by Father Griffen.

Age had so changed the duke; so many years, beside, had pa.s.sed over the event of Martinique, that he was no longer disquieted by it. Only sometimes, the children and grandchildren of James of Monmouth opened astonished eyes when their good and old friend, the Chevalier de Croustillac, addressing himself to the d.u.c.h.ess of Monmouth with an air of understanding, said to her, while striving to hide a tear of emotion, the following apparently truly cabalistic words:

_Blue Beard, Whirlwind, Rend-your-Soul, Youmaale, Devil's Cliff_.

THE END.