Evening star., 1897-09-25


labyrinth Of bales and casks and darted
up the first lane to which came.
Fear gave me wings, and left the wharf
a score of yards ahead of my pursuers.
chase with the gusto of boys let loose
from school made up for the lack of speed
by whooping like demons. and the En-
glish among them hallooing, stop thiefv'
ard the others some French words alike
In import, the alarm went abreast of me.
Fortunately the lane was almost deserted.
ard l easily evaded the half-hearted ef-
forts to stop me which one or two made
1t seemed that I should for the present
get away. But at the last moment at the
head of the lane fate waited for me; an
old woman standing In doorWay-and
who made. as I came up, as II she was
afraid of me-fung a bucket after me-. 1t
fell in front of me. / trod on the eoge'
and fell with shrek Of pain.
Before could rise or speak, the foremost
of the sailors came up and struck me on
the head with sandbag, and the others
as they arrived, rained blows on me with
out mercy. I managed to utter cry. then
instinctively covered my head with my
arms. They belabored me until they were
tired and 1 almost senseless, when. think
ing me dead, they went on whfstling, ana
crawled into the nearest doorway and
tainted away.
Chapter XII.
When I recovered my senses was on my
white-walled room. having barred windows
and vaulted ceiling. A woman, ga-bed
strangely il. black. and with a queer white
cap drawn tight round her face, leaned
over me, and with her finger laid to her
lips enjoined silence. Here and there along
the wall were pictures of saints. and at the
end two candles burned before Il kind of
altar. 1 had an idea that I had been part
ly conscious, and had lain tossing giddily
with burning head and dreadful thirst
through days and nights of fever. Now,
though 1 could scarcely raise my head, and
my brain reeled If l stirred, 1 was clear
minded and knew that the bone CT my leg
was broken, and that for that reason 1
had bed to myself where most lay double;
for the rest, 1 was so weak 1 could only
cry in pure gratitude, when the nun came
to me in my turn and fed me, and piain
stout and gentle-eyed, laid her fingers on
her lips, or smiling, said in her odd Eng
Hsh. "Quee-at, quee-at monsieur"
In the face of the blessings which the
Protestant succession, as settled in our
present house of Hanover, has secured to
these islands, it would little become me to
find virtue in papistry. and my late lord,
who early and abjured the errors of
that faith, would have been the last to
support or encourage such a thesis. Not
withstanding which, l venture to say that
the devotion of these women to their call
ing is thing not to be 1ecried, merely be-
cause we have no counterpart of it; nor the
charity of that hospital, simply because the
burning of candles and worshping of
saints alternate with the tendance cf the
wretched. On the contrary it seems to ne
that were such profession, the idolatrous
vows excepted, grated on our church, it
might rebound alike to the credit of re-
!igion which of late the writings of Lord
BClingbroke have somewhat belittled-and
to the good of mankind
So much with submission; nor will the
NEST rigid of our divineS blame me, when
they learn that lay ten weeks in the Mai
son de Dieu at Dunquerqua dependent for
women, and nursed during that long period
with a solicitude and patience not to be
exceeded by that of wife or mother. When
L had so far recovered as to be able to
leave my bed and move a few yards on
clutches l was assisted to shady court
yard, nestled snugly between the hospital
and the old town wall Here, under a
gLarled mulberry tree which had sheltered
the troops of Parma, 1 spent my time in a
dream of peace, through whicn nuns, ap-
ple-faced and kind-eyed, fitted laden with
tisanes or bearing bottles that called for
the immediate attention of NJ lie -Iedecin's 8
long nose and silver-rimmnd spcctacles
Occasionally their director would seat him.
self beside me and silently run through his
office, or instruct me in the French tongue
and the evils of Jansenism mainly by
means of the snuff box. which rarely left
his fine white hands. More often the mea-
ger apothecary, young. yellow, dry, am
b,tous, with hungry light in his eyes,
would take an English lesson until the
coming of his superior routed him and sent
him to his gallipots and compounding with
a flea in his ear.
such were the scenes and companions
that attended my return to health; nor nv
spirits being attUned to these should I
nave come to seek or desire others though
enhanced by my native ARA species Of
lhertia more easily excused by those who
have viewed French life near at hand than
frnX Inl- but r1,,
encounter as important in its consequences
as IL was unexpected, which broke the
even current of my days.
IL was no uncommon thing for the nuns
10 prlng one OF my countrymen to me- in
the fond hope that l might find a friend
But as these persons, from the nature of
the case, were invariably Jacobites and Ell
ther, knowing something of my story
thought me well served, or coming to ex-
anime me SHE'D at the names of Mr. Bronze
and Lord Shrewsbury. such efforts had but
one end. When i heard, therefore. for the
fourth or fifth time that compatriot of
mine, amiable and of a vivacity tout-a- -fait
marveiileuse was coming to see me- l was
as far from supposing that l should find an
acquaintance as l was from anticipating
the interview with pleasure. Imagine my
surprise therefore when Soeur Marie call
ed me into the garden at the appointed
time, and her simple face shining with de-
light. led me to the old mulberry tree
where. who should be sitting but Mary
Ferguson.
She had as little expected to meet me as
l. TO meet her; but coming on me thus sud-
denly, and seeing me lame, and in a sense
cripple. reduced, moreover, by the long
illness through which had passed, she let
her feelings have way. Such tenderness as
she had entertained for me before welled
up now with irresistible force, and giving
the lie to certain hoydenish hardness ir-
herent in a disposition which was never
one of the most common, in moment she