Not even a real
honest bit of _Chouannerie_, I am afraid."

CHAPTER XXI

HOW MONSIEUR JOSEPH FOUND HIMSELF MASTER OF THE SITUATION

In the old labyrinth of rooms at Les Chouettes, Monsieur Joseph's
gun-room was the best hidden from the outside. It had solid shutters,
always kept closed and barred; the daylight only made its way in through
their chinks, or through the doors, one of which opened into Monsieur
Joseph's bedroom, the other into a little anteroom between that and the
hall. Both doors were generally locked, and the keys safely stowed away.

The gun-room was not meant for ordinary visitors; Angelot himself, as a
rule, was the only person admitted there. For the amount of arms and
ammunition kept there, some of it in cupboards cleverly hidden in the
panelling, some in a dry cellar entered by a trap-door in the floor, was
very different, both in kind and quality, from anything the most
energetic sportsman could require.

In this storehouse the amiable conspirator shut up his nephew, and
Angelot spent the next few days there, well employed in cleaning and
polishing wood and steel. He slept at night on a sofa in the anteroom,
but was allowed to go no farther. Monsieur Joseph had reasons of his
own.

He was a very authoritative person, when once he took a matter into his
own hands, and his influence with Angelot was great. He took a far more
serious view of the arrest than Angelot himself did. He was sure that
his nephew had been kidnapped by special orders from Paris--probably
from Real, whom he knew of old--in order to gain information as to any
existing Chouan plots in Anjou. Thus the authorities meant to protect
themselves from any consequences of the Prefect's indulgent character.
It was even possible that some suspicion of the mission to England, only
lately discussed by himself and his friends, might have filtered through
to Paris; and in that case several persons were in serious danger.

Monsieur Joseph was confirmed in these ideas by the fact that his
brother started off to Sonnay to demand of the authorities there the
reason of his son's arrest, and found that absolutely nothing was known
of it. Coming back in a state of rage and anxiety, which quite drove his
philosophy out of the field, Urbain attacked his brother in words that
Joseph found a little hard to bear, accusing him of having ruined
Angelot's life with his foolish fancies, and of being the actual cause
of this catastrophe which