CHAPTER XLV

The white and red flag of Jersey was flying half-mast from the Cohue
Royale, and the bell of the parish church was tolling. It was Saturday,
but little business was being done in the Vier Marchi. Chattering people
were gathered at familiar points, and at the foot of La Pyramide a large
group surrounded two sailor-men just come from Gaspe, bringing news of
adventuring Jersiais--Elie Mattingley, Carterette and Ranulph Delagarde.
This audience quickly grew, for word was being passed on from one little
group to another. So keen was interest in the story told by the home-
coming sailors, that the great event which had brought them to the Vier
Marchi was, for the moment, almost neglected.

Presently, however, a cannon-shot, then another, and another, roused the
people to remembrance. The funeral cortege of Admiral Prince Philip
d'Avranche was about to leave the Cohue Royale, and every eye was turned
to the marines and sailors lining the road from the court-house to the
church.

The Isle of Jersey, ever stubbornly loyal to its own--even those whom the
outside world contemned or cast aside--jealous of its dignity even with
the dead, had come to bury Philip d'Avranche with all good ceremony.
There had been abatements to his honour, but he had been a strong man and
he had done strong things, and he was a Jerseyman born, a Norman of the
Normans. The Royal Court had judged between him and Guida, doing tardy
justice to her, but of him they had ever been proud; and where conscience
condemned here, vanity commended there. In any event they reserved the
right, independent of all non-Jersiais, to do what they chose with their
dead.