"The first stage of their journey to Havre."
Lord Rochester laughed loudly. He had all along only seen the humour of the adventure. A woman's reputation destroyed, a woman won by a trick, by Gad! these were of every-day occurrence in the life of a fashionable gentleman. Indeed he thought that both Stowmaries and Ayloffe were making far too much of the whole business, and though he, too, called Michael Kestyon a rogue, yet he admired him for his pluck and envied him for his good fortune.
In his heart of hearts he much regretted that on the memorable night when the adventure was proposed, he had been too drunk to accept its terms or to enter the lists for it himself.
"Nay then!" he said lustily, "we'll all call on the turtle doves at St. Denis to-night, and whilst my lord of Stowmaries pays up like a man for all that he gains by Michael's roguery, Sir John Ayloffe and I will entertain the bride by hoodwinking her still further into the belief that she is of a truth Countess of Stowmaries forever and ever Amen, as the Archbishop told her this day."
"I should be glad to get to St. Denis to-night," rejoined Stowmaries. "I owe Michael seventy thousand pounds, which according to promise I should pay him to-day. The draft for it on Master Vivish the goldsmith is in my pocket now. The sooner I am rid of it the more pleased will I be."
"Then will I at once and see about a coach," said Sir John. "We can make a start at about six o'clock, one hour after the dove hath flown out of the paternal cote."
"Nay, old Daniel Pye will see about the coach," rejoined Stowmaries. "He hath met a crony who speaks English and knows his way about Paris better than we do. He'll get us what we want."
"Daniel Pye!" exclaimed Sir John in astonishment. "What doth my kinswoman's faithful henchman in this depraved city?"
"Mistress Julia Peyton desired him to do certain commissions for her here in Paris. When she heard that I was making the journey she requested that I should allow her servant to travel in the company of my men, since he was unversed in foreign ways, and knew nothing of the French language."
Sir John made no further comment, but he wondered vaguely in his mind as to why the fair Julia had sent old Pye over to Paris. The question of commissions was of course nonsense. Daniel could no more choose a length of silk or even of grogram, than he could trim a lace coif or fashion a pinner.