ll. Pierre Doucett groaned upon his settle, and Madame
La Tour being on the lookout in the turret, Pierre Doucett's wife again
took to wailing over him. The other women comforted her with their
ignorant sympathy, and Marguerite sat with her back to it all. But the
children adapted themselves to the situation, and trooped across to the
foot of the stairway to play war. On that grim pavement door which led
down into the keep they shot each other with merry cannonading and were
laid out in turn on the steps.

Le Rossignol passed hours of that day sitting on the broad door-sill of
the tower. She loved to watch the fiery rain; but she was also waiting
for a lull in the cannonading that she might release her swan. He was
always forbidden the rooms in the tower by her lady; for he was a
pugnacious creature, quick to strike with beak or wings any one who
irritated him. Especially did he seem tutored in the dwarf's dislike of
Lady Dorinda. In peaceful times when she descended to the ground and
took a sylvan excursion outside the fort, he ruffled all his feathers
and pursued her even from the river. Le Rossignol had a forked branch
with which she yoked him as soon as D'Aulnay's vessels alarmed the fort.
She also tied him by one leg under his usual shelter, the pent-house of
the mill. He always sulked at restraint, but Le Rossignol maintained
discipline. In the destruction of the oven and the reeling of the mill,
Shubenacadie leaped upward and fell back flattened upon the ground. The
fragments had scarcely settled before his mistress had him in her arms.
At the risk of her life she dragged him across to the entrance, and sat
desolately crumbling away between her fingers such feathers as were
singed upon him, and sleeking his long gasping neck. She swallowed
piteously with suspense, but could not bring herself to examine his
body. He had his feet; he had his wings; and finally he sat up of his
own accord, and quavered some slight remark about the explosion.

"What ails thee?" exclaimed the dwarf indignantly. "Thou great coward!
To lie down and gasp and sicken my heart for the singeing of a few
feathers!"

She boxed the place where a swan's ear should be, and Shubenacadie bit
her. It was a serene and happy moment for both of them. Le Rossignol
opened the door and pushed him in. Shubenacadie stood awkwardly with his
feet sprawled on the hall pavement, and looked at the scenes to which
his mistress introduced him. He noticed Marguer