perance, 28me Decembre, 1694."

Then a pair of mailed hands, clasped as in sign of friendship or
loyalty, and beneath them again, the words,

"D'Arthenay, tenez foi!"

The story was that the son of this first Sieur d'Arthenay had been
exposed to some dire temptation, whether of love or of ambition was not
clearly known, and had been in danger of turning from the faith of his
people and embracing that of Rome. He came one day to meditate beside
his father's grave, hoping perhaps to draw some strength, some
inspiration, from the memories of that stern and righteous Huguenot;
and as he sat beside the stone, lo! a mailed hand appeared, holding a
sword, and graved with the point of the sword on the stone, the old
motto of his father's house,--

"D'Arthenay, tenez foi!"

And he had been strengthened, and lived and died in the faith of his
father. Many people in the village scouted this story, and called it
child's foolishness, but there were some who liked to believe it, and
who pointed out that these words were not carved deeply and regularly,
like the rest of the inscription, but roughly scratched, as if with a
sharp point. And that although merely so scratched, they had never
been effaced, but were even more easily read than the carven script.

Among those who held it for foolishness was the present Jacques De
Arthenay. He was perhaps the fifth in descent from the old Huguenot,
but he might have been his own son or brother. The Huguenot doctrines
had only grown a little colder, a little harder, turned into New
England Orthodoxy as it was understood fifty years ago. He thought
little of his French descent or his noble blood. He pronounced his
name Jakes, as all his neighbors did; he lived on his farm, as they
lived on theirs. If it was a better farm, the land in better
condition, the buildings and fences trimmer and better cared for, that
was in the man, not in his circumstances. He was easily leader among
the few men whose scattered dwellings made up the village of Sea
Meadows (commonly pronounced Semedders.) His house did not lie on the
little "street," as that part of the road was called where some
half-dozen houses were clustered together, with their farms spreading
out behind them, and the post-office for the king-pin; yet no important
step would be taken by the villagers without the advice and approval of
Jacques De Arthenay. Briefly, he was a born leader; a masterful man,
with a habit of thinkin