"What, Francis Agnew's daughter?" The King's voice grew suddenly kingly.
"Then he is dead--my Scot--my friend? When? How? Out with it, man!"
"The Leaguers or the King's Swiss shot him dead the Day of the Barricades--I know not which, but one or the other!"
The fine gracious lines of the King's face hardened. The Bearnais lifted his "boina," or flat white cap, which he had resumed at the close of worship, as was his right.
"They shall pay for this one day," he said; "Valois, King, and Duke of Guise--what is it they sing? Something about
'The Cardinal and Henry and Mayenne, Mayenne!'
If I read the signs of the times aright, the King of France will do Henry of Guise's business one of these days, while I shall have Mayenne on my hands. At any rate, poor Francis Agnew shall not go unavenged, wag the world as it will."
These were not the highest ideals of the Nazarene. But they suited a warring Church, and Henry of Navarre only voiced what was the feeling of all, from D'Aubigné the warrior to the pastor who sat in a corner by himself, thumbing his little Geneva Bible. There was no truce in this war. The League or the Bearnais! Either of the two must rule France. The present king, Henry of Valois, was a merry, sulky, careless, deceitful, kindly, cruel cipher--the "man-woman," as they named him, the "gamin"-king. He laughed and jested--till he could safely thrust his dagger into his enemy's back. But as for his country, he could no more govern it than a puppet worked by strings.
"And this girl?" said the King, "is she of her father's brood, strong for the religion, and so forth?"
"She is young and innocent--and very fair!"
The eyes of the Fool of the Three Henries met those of the Bearnais boldly, and the outlooking black eyes flinched before them.
"These Scottish maids are not as ours," said the King, perhaps in order to say something, "yet I think she was with her father in my camp, and shared his dangers."
"To the last she held up his dying head!" said Jean-aux-Choux. And quite unexpectedly to himself, his eyes were moist.
"And where at this moment is Francis Agnew's daughter?" said the King. Then he added, without apparent connexion, "He was my friend!"
But his intimates understood the word, and so, though a poor fool, did Jean-aux-Choux. Instinctively he held out his hand, as he would have done to a brother-Scot of his degree.