The Last Hope | Page 7

"The Last Hope" began
another verse. The words were clearly audible to such as knew the
language, and Colville noted that the girl turned with a sudden gravity
to listen to them.
"Un tel qu'on vantait Par hasard etait D'origine assez mince; Par hasard
il plut, Par hasard il fut Baron, ministre, et prince."
Captain Clubbe's harsh voice broke into the song with the order to let
go the anchor. As the ship swung to the tide the steersman, who wore
neither coat nor waistcoat, could be seen idly handling the wheel still,
though his duties were necessarily at an end. He was a young man, and
a gay salutation of his unemployed hand toward the assembled
people--as if he were sure that they were all friends-- stamped him as

the light-hearted singer, so different from the Farlingford men, so
strongly contrasted to his hearers, who nevertheless jerked their heads
sideways in response. He had, it seemed, rightly gauged the feelings of
these cold East Anglians. They were his friends.
River Andrew's boat was alongside "The Last Hope" now. Some one
had thrown him a rope, which he had passed under his bow thwart and
now held with one hand, while with the other he kept his distance from
the tarry side of the ship. There was a pause until the schooner felt her
moorings, then Captain Clubbe looked over the side and nodded a curt
salutation to River Andrew, bidding him, by the same gesture, wait a
minute until he had donned his shore-going jacket. The steersman was
pulling on his coat while he sought among the crowd the faces of his
more familiar friends. He was, it seemed, a privileged person, and took
it for granted that he should go ashore with the captain. He was,
perhaps, one of those who seemed to be privileged at their birth by Fate,
and pass through life on the sunny side with a light step and laughing
lips.
Captain Clubbe was the first to step ashore, with one comprehensive
nod of the head for all Farlingford. Close on his heels the younger
sailor was already returning the greetings of his friends.
"Hullo, Loo!" they said; or, "How do, Barebone?" For their tongues are
no quicker than their limbs, and to this day, "How do?" is the usual
greeting.
The Marquis de Gemosac, who was sitting in the background, gave a
sharp little exclamation of surprise when Barebone stepped ashore, and
turned to Dormer Colville to say in an undertone:
"Ah--but you need say nothing."
"I promised you," answered Colville, carelessly, "that I should tell you
nothing till you had seen him."
CHAPTER III.

THE RETURN OF "THE LAST HOPE"

Not only France, but all Europe, had at this time to reckon with one
who, if, as his enemies said, was no Bonaparte, was a very plausible
imitation of one.
In 1849 France, indeed, was kind enough to give the world a breathing
space. She had herself just come through one of those seething years
from which she alone seems to have the power of complete recovery.
Paris had been in a state of siege for four months; not threatened by a
foreign foe, but torn to pieces by internal dissension. Sixteen thousand
had been killed and wounded in the streets. A ministry had fallen. A
ministry always does fall in France. Bad weather may bring about such
a descent at any moment. A monarchy had been thrown down--a king
had fled. Another king; and one who should have known better than to
put his trust in a people.
Half a dozen generals had attempted to restore order in Paris and
confidence in France. Then, at the very end of 1848, the fickle people
elected this Napoleon, who was no Bonaparte, President of the new
Republic, and Europe was accorded a breathing space. At the beginning
of 1849 arrangements were made for it--military arrangements--and the
year was almost quiet.
It was in the summer of the next year, 1850, that the Marquis de
Gemosac journeyed to England. It was not his first visit to the country.
Sixty years earlier he had been hurried thither by a frenzied mother, a
little pale-faced boy, not bright or clever, but destined to pass through
days of trial and years of sorrow which the bright and clever would
scarcely have survived. For brightness must always mean friction,
while cleverness will continue to butt its head against human
limitations so long as men shall walk this earth.
He had been induced to make this journey thus, in the evening of his
days, by the Hope, hitherto vain enough, which many Frenchmen had
pursued for half a century. For he was one of those who refused to

believe that Louis XVII. had died in the prison of the Temple.
Not