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."

CHAPTER IV

Thus began the friendship of the bragging Seigneur of Rozel for the
three Huguenots, all because he had seen tears in a girl's eyes and
misunderstood them, and because the same girl had kissed him. His pride
was flattered that they should receive protection from him, and the
flattery became almost a canonising when De Carteret of St. Ouen's
brought him to task for harbouring and comforting the despised
Huguenots; for when De Carteret railed he was envious. So henceforth
Lempriere played Lord Protector with still more boisterous unction.
His pride knew no bounds when, three days after the rescue, Sir Hugh
Pawlett, the Governor, answering De la Foret's letter requesting
permission to visit the Comtesse de Montgomery, sent him word to fetch
De la Foret to Mont Orgueil Castle. Clanking and blowing, he was shown
into the great hall with De la Foret, where waited Sir Hugh and the
widow of the renowned Camis