rded by cards,
tobacco, and cider. But others were less careful of personal comfort. On
the western point of the cliff over their heads (the "Belle Hougue") a
beacon was burning, of whose existence the sergeant and his men were
unaware. A man watched by the fire, keeping it alive by constant care
and attention, or rekindling it from time to time, when it was overcome
by the wind and rain. The soldiers in their hut did not see the light;
but it was seen by the crew of a lugger, driving through the waves of
the flowing tide before a rough but favouring gale. Accordingly, putting
the helm down, their steersman drove the craft clear of the threatened
danger that was prepared for the occupants below, and made her touch the
land in the adjacent bay of Bonne Nuit, hid from observation by the
interposing cliffs. Leaping to the shore, Alain Le Gallais, who was the
sole passenger, climbing the western heights, made his way by paths with
which he was well acquainted from his youth, to the manor-house of his
exiled friend the Seigneur of Maufant.

It was near midnight when he arrived. All was dark. The yard-dog, roused
by his familiar footsteps, shook himself and sate down without raising
any alarm: nay, when Alain lifted the latch and passed through the outer
gate of the court-yard, the animal rose once more, and advanced to meet
Alain, fawning and wagging his tail. Alain was not sorry that the ladies
were asleep. Perhaps the readers of his verses may not have understood
that he was a poet; but, be it remembered, those verses were in a
language not native to the writer. Those who are able to understand such
fragments of his patois-poetry as still survive, declare that it is
marked by tenderness and _verve_; even if this be not so, a man may lack
the power of expression and yet have the poet's temper; Alain was
certainly of a deep and sensitive nature; he thought that he had borne
much from Marguerite, with whom he was now really angry; it was
therefore of set purpose that he had chosen this hour to visit the manor
instead of waiting till the morning. Depositing a letter with which
Lempriere had entrusted him in a cornbin of the stable which Mdme. de
Maufant had instructed him to use in such cases, he went his way without
disturbing any of the inmates of the house.

His intention was to pass the rest of the night in the barn of a farm
called La Rosiere, where he would be safe from pursuit for the moment,
and in the morning could j