The speaker cast upon the cloth-covered table a singular object, whose like none of those present had ever seen. They gathered about and bent over it curiously.

"This is that America," the speaker repeated. "Here you have it, barbaric, wonderful, abounding!"

With sudden gesture he swept his hand among the gold coin that lay on the gaming table. He thrust into the mouth of the object before him a handful of louis d'or and English sovereigns. "There is your America," said he. "It runs over with gold. No man may tell its richness. Its beauty you can not imagine."

"Faith," said Sir Arthur Pembroke, bending over the table with glass in eye, "if the ladies of that land have feet for this sort of shoon, methinks we might well emigrate. Take you the money of it. For me, I would see the dame could wear such shoe as this."

One after another this company of young Englishmen, hard players, hard drinkers, gathered about the table and bent over to examine the little shoe. It was an Indian moccasin, cut after the fashion of the Abenakis, from the skin of the wild buck, fashioned large and full for the spread of the foot, covered deep with the stained quills of the porcupine, and dotted here and there with the precious beads which, to the maker, had more worth than any gold. A little flap came up for cover to the ankle, and a thong fell from its upper edge. It was the ancient foot-covering of the red race of America, made for the slight but effectual protection of the foot, while giving perfect freedom to the tread of the wearer. Light, dainty and graceful, its size was much less than that of the average woman's shoe of that time and place.

"Bah! Pembroke," said Castleton, pushing up the shade above his eyes till it rested on his forehead, "'tis a child's shoe."

"Not so," said the first speaker. "I give you my word 'tis the moccasin of my sweetheart, a princess in her own right, who waits my coming on the Ottawa. And so far from the shoe being too small, I say as a gentleman that she not only wore it so, but in addition used somewhat of grass therein in place of hose."

The earnestness of this speech in no wise prevented the peal of laughter that followed.

"There you have it, Pembroke," cried Castleton. "Would you move to a land where princesses use hay for hosiery?"

"'Tis curious done," said Pembroke, musingly, "none the less."

"And done by her own hand," said the owner of the shoe, with a certain proprietary pride.

Again the laughter broke out. "Do your princesses engage in shoemaking?" asked a third gamester as he pushed into the ring. "Sure it must be a rare land. Prithee, what doth the king in handicraft? Doth he take to saddlery, or, perhaps, smithing?"

"Have done thy jests, Wilson," cried Pembroke. "Mayhap there is somewhat to be learned here of this New World and of our dear cousins, the French. Go on, tell us, Monsieur du Mesne—as I think you call yourself, sir?—tell us more of your new country of ice and snow, of princesses and little shoes."

The original speaker went a bit sullen, what with his wine and the jests of his companions. "I'll tell ye naught," said he. "Go see for yourselves, by leave of Louis."

"Come now," said Pembroke, conciliatingly. "We'll all admit our ignorance. 'Tis little we know of our own province of Virginia, save that Virginia is a land of poverty and tobacco. Wealth—faith, if ye have wealth in your end of the continent, 'tis time we English fought ye for it."

"Methinks you English are having enough to do here close at home," sneered Du Mesne. "I have heard somewhat of Steinkirk, and how ye ran from the half-dressed gentlemen of France."

Dark looks followed this bold speech, which cut but too closely to the quick of English pride. Pembroke quelled the incipient outcry with calmer speech.

"Peace, friends," said he. "'Tis not arms we argue here, after all. We are but students at the feet of Monsieur du Mesne, who hath returned from foreign parts. Prithee, sir, tell us more."

"Tell ye more—and if I did, would ye believe it? What if I tell ye of great rivers far to the west of the Ottawa; of races as strange to my princess's people as we are to them; of streams whose sands run in gold, where diamonds and sapphires are to be picked up as ye like? If I told ye, would ye believe?"

The martial hearts and adventurous souls of the circle about him began to show in the heightened color and closer crowding of the young men to the table. Silence fell upon the group.

"Ye know nothing, in this old rotten world, of what there is yet to be found in America," cried Du Mesne. "For myself, I have been no farther than the great falls of the Ontoneagrea—a mere trifle of a cataract, gentlemen, into which ye might pitch your tallest English cathedral and sink it beyond its pinnacle with ease. Yet I have spoke with the holy fathers who have journeyed far to the westward, even to the vast Messasebe, which is well known to run into the China sea upon some far-off coast not yet well charted. I have also read the story of Sagean, who was far to the west of that mighty river. Did not the latter see and pursue and kill in fair fight the giant unicorn, fabled of Scripture? Is not that animal known to be a creature of the East, and may we not, therefore, be advised that this new country takes hold upon the storied lands of the East? Why, this holy friar with whom I spoke, fresh back from his voyaging to the cold upper ways of the Northern tribes, who live beyond the far-off channel at Michilimackinac—did he not tell of a river of the name of the Blue Earth, and did he not himself see turquoises and diamonds and emeralds taken in handfuls from this same blue earth? Ah, bah! gentlemen, Europe for you if ye like, but for me, back I go, so soon as I may get proper passage and a connection which will warrant me the voyage. Back I go to Canada, to America, to the woods and streams. I would see again my ancient Du L'hut, and my comrade Pierre Noir, and Tête Gris, the trapper from the Mistasing—free traders all. Life is there for the living, my comrades. This Old World, small and outworn, no more of it for me."

"And why came you back to this little Old World of ours, an you loved the New World so much?" asked the cynical voice of him who had been called Wilson.

"By the body of God!" cried Du Mesne, "think ye I came of my own free will? Look here, and find your reason." He stripped back the opening of his doublet and under waistcoat, and showed upon his broad shoulder the scar of a red tri-point, deep and livid upon his flesh. "Look! There is the fleur-de-lis of France. That is why I came. I have rowed in the galleys, me—me a free man, a man of the woods of New France!"

Murmurs of concern passed among the little group. Castleton rose from his chair and leaned with his hands upon the table, gazing now at the face and now at the bared shoulder of this stranger, who had by chance become a member of their nightly party.

"I have not been in London a fortnight since my escape," said the man with the brand. "I was none the less once a good servant of Louis in New France, for that I found many a new tribe and many a bale of furs that else had never come to the Mountain for the robbery of the lying officers who claim the robe of Louis. I was a soldier for the king as well as a traveler of the forest. Was I not with the Le Moynes and the band that crossed the icy North and destroyed your robbing English fur posts on the Bay of Hudson? I fought there and helped blow down your barriers. I packed my own robe on my back, and walked for the king, till the raquette thongs cut my ankles to the bone. For what? When I came back to the settlements at Quebec I was seized for a coureur de bois, a free trader. I was herded like a criminal into a French ship, sent over seas to a French prison, branded with a French iron, and set like a brute to pull without reason at a bar of wood in the king's galleys—the king's hell!"

"And yet you are a Frenchman," sneered Wilson.

"Yet am I not a Frenchman," cried the other. "Nor am I an Englishman. I am no man of a world of galleys and brands. I am a man of America!"

"'Tis true what he says," spoke Pembroke. "'Tis said the minister of Louis was feared to keep these men in the galleys, lest their fellows in New France should become too bitter, and should join the savages in their inroads on the starving settlements of Quebec and Montréal."

"True," exclaimed Du Mesne. "The coureurs care naught for the law and little for the king. As for a ruler, we have discovered that a man makes a most excellent sovereign for himself."

"And excellent said," cried Castleton.

"None of ye know the West," went on the coureur. "Your Virginia, we know well of it—a collection of beggars, prostitutes and thieves. Your New England—a lot of cod-fishing, starving snivelers, who are most concerned how to keep life in their bodies from year to year. New France herself, sitting ever on the edge of an icy death, with naught but bickerings at Quebec and naught but reluctant compliance from Paris—what hath she to hope? I tell ye, gentlemen, 'tis beyond, in the land of the Messasebe, where I shall for my part seek out my home; and no man shall set iron on my soul again."

He spoke bitterly. The group about him, half amused, half cynical and all ignorant, as were their kind at this time of the reign of William, were none the less impressed and thoughtful. Yet once more the sneering voice of Wilson broke in.

"A strange land, my friend," said he, "monstrous strange. Your unicorns are great, and your women are little. Methinks to give thy tale proportion thou shouldst have shown shoon somewhat larger."

"Peace! Beau," said Castleton, quickly. "As for the size of the human foot—gad! I'll lay a roll of louis d'or that there's one dame here in London town can wear this slipper of New France."

"Done!" cried Wilson. "Name the one."

"None other than the pretty Lawrence whom thou hast had under thine ancient wing for the past two seasons."

The face of Wilson gathered into a sudden frown at this speech. "What doth it matter"—he began.

"Have done, fellows!" cried Pembroke with some asperity. "Lay wagers more fit at best, and let us have no more of this thumb-biting. Gad! the first we know, we'll be up for fighting among ourselves, and we all know how the new court doth look on that."

"Come away," laughed Castleton, gaily. "I'm for a pint of ale and an apple; and then beware! 'Tis always my fortune, when I come to this country drink, to win like a very countryman. I need revenge upon Lady Betty and her lap-dog. I've lost since ever I saw them last."

CHAPTER II

AT SADLER'S WELLS

Sadler's Wells, on this mild and cheery spring morning, was a scene of fashion and of folly. Hither came the élite of London, after the custom of the day, to seek remedy in the reputed qualities of the springs for the weariness and lassitude resultant upon the long season of polite dissipations which society demanded of her votaries. Bewigged dandies, their long coats of colors well displayed as they strutted about in the open, paid court there, as they did within the city gates, to the powdered and painted beauties who sat in their couches waiting for their servants to bring out to them the draft of which they craved healing for crow's-feet and hollow eyes. Here and there traveling merchants called their wares, jugglers spread their carpets, bear dancers gave their little spectacles, and jockeys conferred as to the merits of horse or hound. Hawk-nosed Jews passed among the vehicles, cursed or kicked by the young gallants who stood about, hat in hand, at the steps of their idols' carriages.

"Buy my silks, pretty lady, buy my silks! Fresh from the Turkey walk on the Exchange, and cheaper than you can buy their like in all the city—buy my silks, lady!" Thus the peddler with his little pack of finery.

"My philter, lady," cried the gipsy woman, who had left her donkey cart outside the line. "My philter! 'Twill keep-a your eyes bright and your cheeks red for ay. Secret of the Pharaohs, lady; and but a shilling!"

"Have ye a parrot, ma'am? Have ye never a parrot to keep ye free and give ye laughter every hour? Buy my parrot, lady. Just from the Gold Coast. He'll talk ye Spanish, Flemish or good city tongue. Buy my parrot at ten crowns, and so cheap, lady!" So spoke the ear-ringed sailor, who might never have seen a salter water than the Thames.

"Powder-puffs for the face, lady," whispered a lean and weazen-faced hawker, slipping among the crowd with secrecy. "See my puff, made from the foot of English hares. Rubs out all wrinkles, lady, and keeps ye young as when ye were a lass. But a shilling, a shilling. See!" And with the pretense of secrecy the seller would sidle up to a carriage of some dame, slip to her the hare's foot and take the shilling with an air as though no one could see what none could fail to notice.

Above these mingled cries of the hangers-on of this crowd of nobility and gentles rose the blare of crude music, and cries far off and confused. Above it all shone the May sun, brighter here than lower toward the Thames. In the edge of London town it was, all this little pageant, and from the residence squares below and far to the westward came the carriages and the riders, gathering at the spot which for the hour was the designated rendezvous of capricious fashion. No matter if the tower at the drinking curb was crowded, so that inmates of the coaches could not find way among the others. There was at least magic in the morning, even if one might not drink at the chalybeate spring. Cheeks did indeed grow rosy, and eyes brightened under the challenge not only of the dawn but of the ardent eyes that gazed impertinently bold or reproachfully imploring.

Far-reaching was the line of the gentility, to whose flanks clung the rabble of trade. Back upon the white road came yet other carriages, saluted by those departing. Low hedges of English green reached out into the distance, blending ultimately at the edge of the pleasant sky. Merry enough it was, and gladsome, this spring day; for be sure the really ill did not brave the long morning ride to test the virtue of the waters of Sadler's Wells. It was for the most part the young, the lively, the full-blooded, perhaps the wearied, but none the less the vital and stirring natures which met in the decreed assemblage.

Back of Sadler's little court the country came creeping close up to the town. There were fields not so far away on these long highways. Wandering and rambling roads ran off to the westward and to the north, leading toward the straight old Roman road which once upon a time ran down to London town. Ill-kept enough were some of the lanes, with their hedges and shrubs overhanging the highways, if such the paths could be called which came braiding down toward the south. One needed not to go far outward beyond Sadler's Wells of a night-time to find adventure, or to lose a purse.

It was on one of these less crowded highways that there was this morning enacted a curious little drama. The sun was still young and not too strong for comfort, and as it rose back of the square of Sadler's it cast a shadow from a hedge which ran angling toward the southeast. Its rays, therefore, did not disturb the slumbers of two young men who were lying beneath the shelter of the hedge. Strange enough must have been the conclusions of the sun could it have looked over the barrier and peered into the faces of these youths. Evidently they were of good breeding and some station, albeit their garb was not of the latest fashion. The gray hose and the clumsy shoes plainly bespoke some northern residence. The wig of each lacked the latest turn, perhaps the collar of the coat was not all it should have been. There was but one coat visible, for the other, rolled up as a pillow, served to support the heads of both. The elder of the two was the one who had sacrificed his covering. The other was more restless in his attitude, and though thus the warmer for a coat, was more in need of comfort. A white bandage covered his wrist, and the linen was stained red. Yet the two slept on, well into the morn, well into the rout of Sadler's Wells. Evidently they were weary.

The elder man was the taller of the two; as he lay on the bank beneath the hedge, he might even in that posture have been seen to own a figure of great strength and beauty. His face, bold of outline, with well curved, wide jaw and strong cheek bones, was shaded by the tangled mat of his wig, tousled in his sleep. His hands, long and graceful, lay idly at his side, though one rested lightly on the hilt of the sword which lay near him. The ruffles of his shirt were torn, and, indeed, had almost disappeared. By study one might have recognized them in the bandage about the hand of the other. Somewhat disheveled was this youth, yet his young, strong body, slender and shapely, seemed even in its rest strangely full of power and confidence.

The younger man was in some fashion an epitome of the other, and it had needed little argument to show the two were brothers. But why should two brothers, well-clad and apparently well-to-do, probably brothers from a country far to the north, be thus lying like common vagabonds beneath an English hedge?

Far down the roadway there rose a cloud of dust, which came steadily nearer, following the only vehicle in sight, probably the only one which had passed that morning. As this little dust-cloud came slowly nearer it might have been seen to rise from the wheels of a richly-built and well-appointed coach. Four dark horses obeyed the reins handled by a solemn-visaged lackey on the box, and there was a goodly footman at the back. Within the coach were two passengers such as might have set Sadler's Wells by the ears. They sat on the same seat, as equals, and their heads lay close together, as confidantes. The tongues of both ran fast and free. Long gloves covered the arms of these beauties, and their costumes showed them to be of station. The crinoline of the two filled all the body of the ample coach from seat to seat, and the folds of their figured muslins, flowing out over this ample outline, gave to the face of each a daintiness of contour and feature which was not ill relieved by the high head-dress of ribbons and bepowdered hair. Of the two ladies, one, even in despite of her crinoline, might have been seen to be of noble and queenly figure; the towering head-dress did not fully disguise the wealth of red-bronze hair. Tall and well-rounded, vigorous and young, not yet twenty, adored by many suitors, the Lady Catharine Knollys had rarely looked better than she did this morning as she drove out to Sadler's, for Providence alone knew what fault of a superb vital energy. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and every gesture betokened rather the grand young creature that she was than the valetudinarian going forth for healing. Her cheek, turned now and again, showed a clear-cut and untouched soundness that meant naught but health. It showed also the one blemish upon a beauty which was toasted in the court as faultless. Upon the left cheek there was a mouche, excessive in its size. Strangers might have commented on it. Really it covered a deep-stained birth-mark, the one blur upon a peerless beauty. Yet even this might be forgotten, as it was now.

The companion of the Lady Catharine in her coach was a young woman, scarce so tall and more slender. The heavy hoop concealed much of the grace of figure which was her portion, but the poise of the upper body, free from the seat-back and erect with youthful strength as yet unspared, showed easily that here, too, was but an indifferent subject for Sadler's. Dark, where her companion was fair, and with the glossy texture of her own somber locks showing in the individual roll which ran back into the absurd fontange of false hair and falser powder, Mary Connynge made good foil for her bosom friend; though honesty must admit that neither had yet much concern for foils, since both had their full meed of gallants. Much seen together, they were commonly known, as the Morning and Eve, sometimes as Aurora and Eve. Never did daughter of the original Eve have deeper feminine guile than Mary Connynge. Soft of speech—as her friend, the Lady Catharine, was impulsive,—slow, suave, amber-eyed and innocent of visage, this young English woman, with no dower save that of beauty and of wit, had not failed of a sensation at the capital whither she had come as guest of the Lady Catharine. Three captains and a squire, to say nothing of a gouty colonel, had already fallen victims, and had heard their fate in her low, soft tones, which could whisper a fashionable oath in the accent of a hymn, and say "no" so sweetly that one could only beg to hear the word again. It was perhaps of some such incident that these two young maids of old London conversed as they trundled slowly out toward the suburb of the city.

"'Twould have killed you, Lady Kitty; sure 'twould have been your end to hear him speak! He walked the floor upon his knees, and clasped his hands, and followed me about like a dog in a spectacle. Lord! but I feared he would have thrown over the tabouret with his great feet. And help me, if I think not he had tears in his eyes!"

"My friend," said Lady Kitty, solemnly, "you must have better care of your conduct. I'll not have my father's old friend abused in his own house." At which they both burst into laughter. Youth, the blithely cruel, had its own way in this old coach upon the ancient dusty road, as it has ever had.

But now serious affairs gained the attention of these two fairs. "Tell me, sweetheart," said Lady Catharine, "what think you of the fancy of my new dresser? He insists ever that the mode in Paris favors a deep bow, placed high upon the left side of the 'tower.' Montespan, of the French court, is said to have given the fashion. She hurried at her toilet, and placed the bow there for fault of better care. Hence, so must we if we are to live in town. So says my new hair-dresser from Paris. 'Tis to Paris we must go for the modes."

"I am not so sure," began Mary Connynge, "as to this arrangement. Now I am much disposed to believe—" but what she was disposed to believe at that time was not said, then or ever afterward, for at that moment there happened matters which ended their little talk; matters which divided their two lives, and which, in the end, drove them as far apart as two continents could carry them.

"O Gemini!" called out Mary Connynge, as the coachman for a moment slackened his pace. "Look! We shall be robbed!"

The driver irresolutely pulled up his horses. From under the shade of the hedge there arose two men, of whom the taller now stood erect and came toward the carriage.

"'Tis no robber," said Lady Catharine Knollys, her eyes fastened on the tall figure which came forward.

"Save us," said Mary Connynge, "what a pretty man!"

CHAPTER III

JOHN LAW OF LAURISTON

Unconsciously the coachman obeyed the unvoiced command of this man, who stepped out from the shelter of the hedge. Travel-stained, just awakened from sleep, disheveled, with dress disordered, there was none the less abundant boldness in his mien as he came forward, yet withal the grace and deference of the courtier. It was a good figure he made as he stepped down from the bank and came forward, hat in hand, the sun, now rising to the top of the hedge, lighting up his face and showing his bold profile, his open and straight blue eye.

"Ladies," he said, as he reached the road, "I crave your pardon humbly. This, I think, is the coach of my Lord, the Earl of Banbury. Mayhap this is the Lady Catharine Knollys to whom I speak?"

The lady addressed still gazed at him, though she drew up with dignity.

"You have quite the advantage of us," said she. She glanced uneasily at the coachman, but the order to go forward did not quite leave her lips.

"I am not aware—I do not know—," she began, afraid of her adventure now it had come, after the way of all dreaming maids who prate of men and conquests.

"I should be dull of eye did I not see the Knollys arms," said the stranger, smiling and bowing low. "And I should be ill advised of the families of England did I not know that the daughter of Knollys, the sister of the Earl of Banbury, is the Lady Catharine, and most charming also. This I might say, though 'tis true I never was in London or in England until now."

The speech, given with all respectfulness, did not fail of flattery. Again the order to drive on remained unspoken. This speaker, whose foot was now close to the carriage step, and whose head, gravely bowed as he saluted the occupants of the vehicle, presented so striking a type of manly attractiveness, even that first moment cast some spell upon the woman whom he sought to interest. The eyes of the Lady Catharine Knollys did not turn from him. As though it were another person, she heard herself murmur, "And you, sir?"

"I am John Law of Lauriston, Scotland, Madam, and entirely at your service. That is my brother Will, yonder by the bank." He smiled, and the younger man came forward, hesitatingly, and not with the address of his brother, though yet with the breeding of a gentleman.

The eyes of Mary Connynge took in both men with the same look, but her eyes, as did those of the Lady Catharine, became most concerned with the first speaker.

"My brother and I are on our first journey to London," continued he, with a gay laugh which did not consort fully with the plight in which he showed. "We started by coach, as gentlemen; and now we come on foot, like laborers or thieves. 'Twas my own fault. Yesterday I must needs quit the Edinboro' stage. Last night our chaise was stopped, and we were asked to hand our money to a pair of evil fellows who had made prey of us. In short—you see—we fared ill enough. Lost in the dark, we made what shift we could along this road, where we both are strangers. At last, not able to pay for better quarters even had we found them, we lay down to sleep. I have slept far worse. And 'tis a lovely morning. Madam, I thank you for this happy beginning of the day."

Mary Connynge pointed to the bandage on the younger man's arm, speaking a low word to her companion.

"True," said the Lady Catharine, "you are injured, sir; you did not come off whole."

"Oh, we would hardly suffer the fellows to rob us without making some argument over it," said the first speaker. "Indeed, I think we are the better off hereabouts for a brace of footpads gone to their account. I made them my duties as we came away. Will, here, was pricked a trifle, but you see we have done very well."

The face of Will Law hardly offered complete proof of this assertion. He had slept ill enough, and in the morning light his face showed gaunt and pale. Here, then, was a situation most inopportune; the coach of two ladies, unattended, stopped by two strangers, who certainly could not claim introduction by either friend or reputation.

"I did but wish to ask some advice of the roads hereabout," said the elder brother, turning his eyes full upon those of the Lady Catharine. "As you see, we are in ill plight to get forward to the city. If you will be so good as to tell me which way to take, I shall remember it most gratefully. Once in the city, we should do better, for the rascals have not taken certain papers, letters which I bear to gentlemen in the city—Sir Arthur Pembroke I may name as one—a friend of my father's, who hath had some dealings with him in the handling of moneys. I have also word for others, and make sure that, once we have got into town, we shall soon mend our fortune."

Lady Catharine looked at Mary Connynge and the latter in turn gazed at her. "There could be no harm," said each to the other with her eyes. "Surely it is our duty to take them in with us; at least the one who is wounded."

Will Law had said nothing, though he had come forward to the road, and, bowing, stood uncovered. Now he leaned against the flank of one of the horses, in a tremor of vertigo which seized him as he stood. It was perhaps the paleness of his face that gave determination to the issue.

"William," called the Lady Catharine Knollys, "open the door for Mr. Law of Lauriston!"

The footman sprang to the ground and held open the door. Therefore, into the coach stepped John Law and his brother, late of Edinboro', sometime robbed and afoot, but now to come into London in circumstances which surely might have been far worse.

John Law entered the coach with the dignity and grace of a gentleman born. He bowed gravely as he took his seat beside his brother, facing the ladies. Will Law sank back into the corner, not averse to rest. The eyes of the two young women did not linger more upon the wounded man than upon his brother. He, in turn, looked straight into their eyes, courteously, respectfully, gravely, yet fearlessly and calmly, as though he knew what power and possibilities were his. Enigma and autocrat alike, Beau Law of Edinboro', one of the handsomest and properest men ever bred on any soil, was surely a picture of vigorous young manhood, as he rode toward Sadler's Wells, with two of the beauties of the hour, and in a coach and four which might have been his own.

Now all the sweet spring morning came on apace, and from the fields and little gardens came the breath of flowers. The sky was blue. The languor of springtime pulsed through the veins of those young creatures, those engines of life, of passion and desire. Neither of the two women saw the torn garb of the man before them. They saw but the curve of the strong chest beneath. They heard, and the one heard and felt as keenly as the other, the voice of the young man, musical and rich, touching some deep-seated and vibrating heart-string. So in the merry month of May, with the birds singing in the trees, and the scent of the flowers wafted coolly to their senses, they came on apace to the throng at Sadler's Wells. There it was that John Law, finding in a pocket a coin that had been overlooked, reached out to a vender and bought a rose. He offered his flower with a deep inclination of the body to the Lady Catharine.

It was at this moment that Mary Connynge first began to hate her friend, the Lady Catharine Knollys.

CHAPTER IV

THE POINT OF HONOR

"Tell me, friend Castleton," said Pembroke, banteringly, "art still adhering to thy country drink of lamb's-wool? Methinks burnt ale and toasted apple might better be replaced in thy case by a beaker of stronger waters. You lose, and still you lose."

"May a plague take it!" cried Castleton. "I've had no luck these four days. 'Tis that cursed lap-dog of the duchess. Ugh! I saw it in my dreams last night."

"Gad! your own fortune in love must be ill enough, Sir Arthur," said Beau Wilson, as he pushed back his chair during this little lull in the play of the evening.

"And tell me why, Beau?"

"Because of us all who have met here at the Green Lion these last months, not one hath ever had so steady a run of luck. Sure some fairy hath befriended thee. Sept et le va, sept et le va—I'll hear it in my ears to-night, even as Castleton sees the lap-dog. Man, you play as though you read the pack quite through."

"Ah, then, you admit that there is some such thing as a talisman. I'll not deny that I have had one these last three evenings, but I feared to tell ye all, lest I might be waylaid and robbed of my good-luck charm."

"Tell us, tell us, man, what it is!" cried Castleton. "Sept et le va has not been made in this room before for many a month, yet here thou comest with the run of sept et le va thrice in as many hours."

"Well, then," continued Pembroke, still smiling, "I'll make a small confession. Here is my charm. Salute it!"

He cast on the table the Indian moccasin which had been shown the same party at the Green Lion a few evenings before. Eager hands reached for it.

"Treachery!" cried Castleton. "I bid Du Mesne four pounds for the shoe myself."

"Oh ho!" said Pembroke, "so you too were after it. Well, the long purse won, as it doth ever. I secretly gave our wandering wood ranger, ex-galley slave of France, the neat sum of twenty-five pounds for this little shoe. Poor fellow, he liked ill enough to part with it; but he said, very sensibly, that the twenty-five pounds would take him back to Canada, and once there, he could not only get many such shoes, but see the maid who made this one for him, or, rather, made it for herself. As for me, the price was cheap. You could not replace it in all the Exchange for any money. Moreover, to show my canniness, I've won back its cost a score of times this very night."

He laughingly extended his hand for the moccasin, which Wilson was examining closely.

"'Tis clever made," said the latter. "And what a tale the owner of it carried. If half he says be true, we do ill to bide here in old England. Let us take ship and follow Monsieur du Mesne."

"'Twould be a long chase, mayhap," said Pembroke, reflectively. Yet each of the men at that little table in the gaming room of the Green Lion coffee-house ceased in his fingering the cards, and gazed upon this product of another world.

Pembroke was first to break the silence, and as he heard a footfall at the door, he called out:

"Ho, fellow! Go fetch me another bottle of Spanish, and do not forget this time the brandy and water which I told thee to bring half an hour ago."

The step came nearer, and as it did not retreat, but entered the room, Pembroke called out again: "Make haste, man, and go on!"

The footsteps paused, and Pembroke looked up, as one does when a strange presence comes into the room. He saw, standing near the door, a tall and comely young man, whose carriage betokened him not ill-born. The stranger advanced and bowed gravely. "Pardon me, sir," he said, "but I fear I am awkward in thus intruding. The man showed me up the stair and bade me enter. He said that I should find here Sir Arthur Pembroke, upon whom I bear letters from friends of his in the North."

"Sir," said Pembroke, rising and advancing, "you are very welcome, and I ask pardon for my unwitting speech."

"I come at this hour and at this place," said the newcomer, "for reasons which may seem good a little later. My name is John Law, of Edinboro', sir."

All those present arose.

"Sir," responded Pembroke, "I am delighted to have your name. I know of the acquaintance between your father and my own. These are friends of mine, and I am delighted to name ye to each other. Mr. Charles Castleton; Mr. Edward Wilson. We are all here to kill the ancient enemy, Time. 'Tis an hour of night when one gains an appetite for one thing or another, cards or cold joint. I know not why we should not have a bit of both?"

"With your permission, I shall be glad to join ye at either," said John Law. "I have still the appetite of a traveler—in faith, rather a better appetite than most travelers may claim, for I swear I've had no more to eat the last day and night than could be purchased for a pair of shillings."

Pembroke raised his eyebrows, scarce knowing whether to be amused at this speech or nettled by its cool assurance.

"Some ill fortune?"—he began politely.

"There is no such thing as ill fortune," quoth John Law. "We fail always of our own fault. Forsooth I must explore Roman roads by night. England hath builded better, and the footpads have the Roman ways. My brother Will—he waiteth below, if ye please, good friends, and is quite as hungry as myself, besides having a pricked finger to boot—and I lost what little we had about us, and we came through with scarce a good shirt between the two."

A peal of laughter greeted him as he pulled apart the lapels of his coat and showed ruffles torn and disfigured. The speaker smiled gravely.

"To-morrow," said he, "I must seek me out a goldsmith and a haberdasher, if you will be so good as to name such to me."

"Sir," said Sir Arthur Pembroke, "in this plight you must allow me." He extended a purse which he drew from his pocket. "I beg you, help yourself."

"Thank you, no," replied John Law. "I shall ask you only to show me the goldsmith in the morning, him upon whom I hold certain credits. I make no doubt that then I shall be quite fit again. I have never in my life borrowed a coin. Besides, I should feel that I had offended my good angel did I ask it to help me out of mine own folly. If we have but a bit of this cold joint, and a place for my brother Will to sit in comfort as we play, I shall beg to hope, my friends, that I shall be allowed to stake this trifle against a little of the money that I see here; which, I take it, is subject to the fortunes of war."

He tossed on the board a ring, which carried in its setting a diamond of size and brilliance.

"This fellow hath a cool assurance enough," muttered Beau Wilson to his neighbor as he leaned toward him at the table.

Pembroke, always good-natured, laughed at the effrontery of the newcomer.

"You say very well; it is there for the fortune of war," said he. "It is all yours, if you can win it; but I warn you, beware, for I shall have your jewel and your letters of credit too, if ye keep not sharp watch."

"Yes," said Castleton, "Pembroke hath warrant for such speech. The man who can make sept et le va thrice in one evening is hard company for his friends."

John Law leaned back comfortably in his chair.

"I make no doubt," said he, "that I shall make trente et le va, here at this table, this very evening."

Smiles and good-natured sneerings met this calm speech.

"Trente et le va—it hath not come out in the history of London play for the past four seasons!" cried Wilson. "I'll lay you any odds that you're not within eye-sight of trente et le va these next five evenings, if you favor us with your company."

"Be easy with me, good friends," said John. Law, calmly. "I am not yet in condition for individual wagers, as my jewel is my fortune, till to-morrow at least. But if ye choose to make the play at Lands-knecht, I will plunge at the bank to the best of my capital. Then, if I win, I shall be blithe to lay ye what ye like."

The young Englishmen sat looking at their guest with some curiosity. His strange assurance daunted them.

"Surely this is a week of wonders," said Beau Wilson, with scarce covered sarcasm in his tone. "First we have a wild man from Canada, with his fairy stories of gold and gems, and now we have another gentleman who apparently hath fathomed as well how to gain sudden wealth at will, and yet keep closer home."

Law took snuff calmly. "I am not romancing, gentlemen," said he. "With me play is not a hazard, but a science. I ought really not to lay on even terms with you. As I have said, there is no such thing as chance. There are such things as recurrences, such things as laws that govern all happenings."

Laughter arose again at this, though it did not disturb the newcomer, nor did the cries of derision which followed his announcement of his system.

"Many a man hath come to London town with a system of play," cried Pembroke. "Tell us, Mr. Law, what and where shall we send thee when we have won thy last sixpence?"

"Good sir," said Law, "let us first of all have the joint."

"I humbly crave a pardon, sir," said Pembroke. "In this new sort of discourse I had forgot thine appetite. We shall mend that at once. Here, Simon! Go fetch up Mr. Law's brother, who waits below, and fetch two covers and a bit to eat. Some of thy new Java berry, too, and make haste! We have much yet to do."

"That have ye, if ye are to see the bottom of my purse more than once," said Law gaily. "See! 'tis quite empty now. I make ye all my solemn promise that 'twill not be empty again for twenty years. After that—well, the old Highland soothsayer, who dreamed for me, always told me to forswear play after I was forty, and never to go too near running water. Of the latter I was born with a horror. For play, I was born with a gift. Thus I foresee that this little feat which you mention is sure to be mine this very night. You all say that trente has not come up for many months. Well, 'tis due, and due to-night. The cards never fail me when I need."

"By my faith," cried Wilson, "ye have a pretty way about you up in Scotland!"

John Law saw the veiled ill feeling, and replied at once:

"True, we have a pretty way. We had it at Killiecrankie not so long ago; and when the clans fight among themselves, we need still prettier ways."

"Now, gentlemen," said Pembroke, "none of this talk, by your leave. The odds are fairer here than they were at Killiecrankie's battle, and 'tis all of us against the Scotch again. We English stand together, but we stand to-night only against this threat of the ultimate fortune of the cards. Moreover, here comes the supper, and if I mistake not, also the brother of our friend."

Will bowed to one and the other gentlemen, unconsciously drifting toward his brother's chair.

"Now we must to business," cried Castleton, as the dishes were at last cleared away. "Show him thy talisman, Pem, and let him kiss his jewel good by."

Pembroke threw upon the table once more the moccasin of the Indian girl. John Law picked it up and examined it long and curiously, asking again and again searching questions regarding its origin.

"I have read of this new land of America," said he. "Some day it will be more prominent in all plans."

He laid down the slipper and mused for a moment, apparently forgetful of the scene about him.

"Perhaps," cried Castleton, the zeal of the gambler now showing in his eye. "But let us make play here to-night. Let Pembroke bank. His luck is best to win this vaunter's stake."

Pembroke dealt the cards about for the first round. The queen fell. John Law won. "Deux," he said calmly, and turned away as though it were a matter of course. The cards went round again. "Trois," he said, as he glanced at his stakes, now doubled again.

Wilson murmured. "Luck's with him for a start," said he, "but 'tis a long road." He himself had lost at the second turn. "Quint!" "Seix!" "Sept et le va!" in turn called Law, still coolly, still regarding with little interest the growing heap of coin upon the board opposite the glittering ring which he had left lying on the table.

"Vingt-un, et le va!"

"Good God!" cried Castleton, the sweat breaking out upon his forehead. "See the fellow's luck!—Pembroke, sure he hath stole thy slipper. Such a run of cards was never seen in this room since Rigby, of the Tenth, made his great game four years ago."

"Vingt-cinq; et le va!" said John Law, calmly.

Will touched his sleeve. The stake had now grown till the money on the hoard meant a matter of hundreds of pounds, which might he removed at any turn the winner chose. It was there but for the stretching out of the hand. Yet this strange genius sat there, scarce deigning to smile at the excited faces of those about him.

"I'll lay thee fifty to one that the next turn sees thee lose!" cried Castleton.

"Done," said John Law.

The iciness in the air seemed now an actual thing. There was, in the nature of this play, something which no man at that board, hardened gamesters as they all were, had ever met before. It was indeed as though Fate were there, with her hand upon the shoulder of a favored son.

"You lose, Mr. Castleton," said Law, calmly, as the cards came again his way. He swept his winnings from the coin pushed out to him.

"Now we have thee, Mr. Law!" cried Pembroke. "One more turn, and I hope your very good nerve will leave the stake on the board, for so we'll see it all come back to the bank, even as the sheep come home at eventide. Here your lane turns. And 'tis at the last stage, for the next is the limit of the rules of the game. But you'll not win it."

"Anything you like for a little personal wager," said the other, with no excitement in his voice.

"Why, then, anything you like yourself, sir," said Pembroke.

"Your little slipper against fifty pounds?" asked John Law.

"Why—yes—," hesitated Pembroke, for the moment feeling a doubt of the luck that had favored him so long that evening. "I'd rather make it sovereigns, but since you name the slipper, I even make it so, for I know there is but one chance in hundreds that you win."

The players leaned over the table as the deal went on. Once, twice, thrice, the cards went round. A sigh, a groan, a long breath broke from those who looked at the deal. Neither groan nor sigh came from John Law. He gazed indifferently at the heap of coin and paper that lay on the table, and which, by the law of play, was now his own.

"Trente et le va," he said. "I knew that it would come. Sir Arthur, I half regret to rob thee thus, but I shall ask my slipper in hand paid. Pardon me, too, if I chide thee for risking it in play. Gentlemen, there is much in this little shoe, empty as it is."

He dandled it upon his finger, hardly looking at the winnings that lay before him. "'Tis monstrous pretty, this little shoe," he said, rousing himself from his half reverie.

"Confound thee, man!" cried Castleton, "that is the only thing we grudge. Of sovereigns there are plenty at the coinage—but of a shoe like this, there is not the equal this day in England!"

"So?" laughed Law. "Well, consider, 'tis none too easy to make the run of trente. Risk hath its gains, you know, by all the original laws of earth and nature."

"But heard you not the wager which was proposed over the little shoe?" broke in Castleton. "Wilson, here, was angered when I laid him odds that there was but one woman in London could wear this shoe. I offered him odds that his good friend, Kittie Lawrence—"

"Nor had ye the right to offer such bet!" cried Wilson, ruffled by the doings of the evening.

"I'll lay you myself there's no woman in England whom you know with foot small enough to wear it," cried Castleton.

"Meaning to me?" asked Law, politely.

"To any one," cried Castleton, quickly, "but most to thee, I fancy, since 'tis now thy shoe!"

"I'll lay you forty crowns, then, that I know a smaller foot than that of Madam Lawrence," said Law, suavely. "I'll lay you another forty crowns that I'll try it on for the test, though I first saw the lady this very morning. I'll lay you another forty crowns that Madam Lawrence can not wear this shoe, though her I have never seen."

These words rankled, though they were said offhand and with the license of coffee-house talk at so late an hour. Beau Wilson rose, in a somewhat unsteady attitude, and, turning towards Law, addressed him with a tone which left small option as to its meaning.

"Sirrah!" cried he, "I know not who you are, but I would have a word or two of good advice for you!"

"Sir, I thank you," said John Law, "but perhaps I do not need advice." He did not rise from his seat.

"Have it then at any rate, and be civil!" cried the older man. "You seem a swaggering sort, with your talk of love and luck, and such are sure to get their combs cut early enough here among Englishmen. I'll not tolerate your allusion to a lady you have never met, and one I honor deeply, sir, deeply!"

"I am but a young man started out to seek his fortune," said John Law, his eye kindling now for the first time, "and I should do very ill if I evaded that fortune, whatsoever it may be."

"Then you'll take back that talk of Mrs. Lawrence!"

"I have made no talk of Mrs. Lawrence, sir," said Law, "and even had I, I should take back nothing for a demand like yours. 'Tis not meet, sir, where no offense was meant, to crowd in an offensive remark."

Pembroke said nothing. The situation was ominous enough at this point. A sudden gravity and dignity fell upon the young men who sat there, schooled in an etiquette whose first lesson was that of personal courage.

"Sirrah!" cried Beau Wilson, "I perceive your purpose. If you prove good enough to name lodgings where you may he found by my friends, I shall ask leave to bid you a very good night."

So speaking, Wilson flung out of the room. A silence fell upon those left within.

"Sirs," said Law, a moment later, "I beg you to bear witness that this is no matter of my seeking or accepting. This gentleman is a stranger to me. I hardly got his name fair."

"Wilson is his name, sir," said Pembroke, "a very good friend of us all. He is of good family, and doth keep his coach-and-four like any gentleman. For him we may vouch very well."

"Wilson!" cried Law, springing now to his feet. "'Tis not him known as Beau Wilson? Why, my dear sirs, his father was friend to many of my kin long ago. Why, sir, this is one of those to whom my mother bade me look to get my first ways of London well laid out."

"These are some of the ways of London," said Pembroke, grimly.

"But is there no fashion in which this matter can be accommodated?"

Pembroke and Castleton looked at each other, rose and passed him, each raising his hat and bowing courteously.

"Your servant, sir," said the one; and, "Your servant, sir," said the other.

CHAPTER V

DIVERS EMPLOYMENTS OF JOHN LAW

"And when shall I send these garments to your Lordship?" asked the haberdasher, with whom Law was having speech on the morning following the first night in London.

"Two weeks from to-day," said Law, "in the afternoon, and not later than four o'clock. I shall have need for them."

"Impossible!" said the tradesman, hitherto obsequious, but now smitten with the conviction regarding the limits of human possibilities.

"At that hour, or not at all," said John Law, calmly. "At that time I shall perhaps be at my lodgings, 59 Bradwell Street, West. As I have said to you, I am not clad as I could wish. It is not a matter of your convenience, but of mine own."

"But, sir," expostulated the other, "you order of the best. Nothing, I am sure, save the utmost of good workmanship would please you. I should like a month of time upon these garments, in order to make them worthy of yourself. Moreover, there are orders of the nobility already in our hands will occupy us more than past the time you name. Make it three weeks, sir, and I promise—"

His customer only shook his head and reiterated, "You heard me well."

The tailor, sore puzzled, not wishing to lose a customer who came so well recommended, and yet hesitating at the exactions of that customer, sat with perplexity written upon his brow.

"So!" exclaimed Law. "Sir Arthur Pembroke told me that you were a clever fellow and could execute exact any order I might give you. Now it appears to me you are like everybody else. You prate only of hardships and of impossibilities."

The perspiration fairly stood out on the forehead of the man of trade.

"Sir," said he, "I should be glad to please not only a friend of Sir Arthur Pembroke, but also a gentleman of such parts as yourself. I hesitate to promise—"

"But you must promise," said John Law.

"Well, then, I do promise! I will have this apparel at your place on the day which you name. 'Tis most extraordinary, but the order shall be executed."

"As I thought," said John Law.

"But I must thank you besides," resumed the tradesman. "In good truth I must say that of all the young gentlemen who come hither—and I may show the names of the best nobility of London and of some ports beyond seas—there hath never stepped within these doors a better figure than yourself—nay, not so good. And I am a judge of men."

Law looked at him carelessly.

"You shall make me none the easier, nor yourself the easier, by soft speech," said he, "if you have not these garments ready by the time appointed. Send them, and you shall have back the fifty sovereigns by the messenger, with perhaps a coin or so in addition if all be well."

"The air of this nobility!" said the tailor, but smiling with pleasure none the less. "This is, perhaps, some affair with a lady?" he added.

"'Tis an affair with a lady, and also with certain gentlemen."

"Oh, so," said the tailor. "If it he, forsooth, an enterprise with a lady, methinks I know the outcome now." He gazed with professional pride upon the symmetrical figure before him. "You shall be all the better armed when well fitted in my garments. Not all London shall furnish a properer figure of a man, nor one better clad, when I shall have done with you, sir."

Law but half heard him, for he was already turning toward the door, where he beckoned again for his waiting chair.

"To the offices of the Bank of England," he directed. And forthwith he was again jogging through the crowded streets of London.

The offices of the Bank of England, to which this young adventurer now so nonchalantly directed his course, were then not housed in any such stately edifice as that which now covers the heart of the financial world, nor did the location of the young and struggling institution, in a by-street of the great city, tend to give dignity to a concern which still lacked importance and assuredness. Thither, then, might have gone almost any young traveler who needed a letter of credit cashed, or a bill changed after the fashion of the passing goldsmiths.

Yet it was not as mere transient customer of a money-changer that young Law now sought the Bank of England, nor was it as a commercial house that the bank then commanded attention. That bank, young as it was, had already become a pillar of the throne of England. William, distracted by wars abroad and factions at home, found his demands for funds ever in excess of the supply. More than that, the people of England discovered themselves in possession of a currency fluctuating, mutilated, and unstable, so that no man knew what was his actual fortune. The shrewd young financier, Montague, chancellor of the exchequer, who either by wisdom or good fortune had sanctioned the founding of the Bank of England, was at this very time addressing himself to the question of a recoinage of the specie of the realm of England. He needed help, he demanded ideas; nor was he too particular whence he obtained either the one or the other.

John Law was in London on no such blind quest as he had himself declared. He was here by the invitation, secret yet none the less obligatory, of Montague, controller of the financial policy of England. And he was to meet, here upon this fair morning, none less than my Lord Somers, keeper of the seals; none less than Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest mathematician of his time; none less than John Locke, the most learned philosopher of the day. Strong company this, for a young and unknown man, yet in the belief of Montague, himself a young man and a gambler by instinct, not too strong for this young Scotchman who had startled the Parliament of his own land by some of the most remarkable theories of finance which had ever been proposed in any country or to any government. As Law had himself arrogantly announced, he was indeed a philosopher and a mathematician, young as he was; and these things Montague was himself keen enough to know.

It promised, then, to be a strange and interesting council, this which was to meet to-day at the Bank of England, to adjust the value of England's coinage; two philosophers, one pompous trimmer, and two gamblers; the younger and more daring of whom was now calmly threading the streets of London on his way to a meeting which might mean much to him.

To John Law, adventurer, mathematician, philosopher, gambler, it seemed a natural enough thing that he should be asked to sit at the council table with the ablest minds of the day and pass upon questions the most important. This was not what gave him trouble. This matter of the coinage, these questions of finance—they were easy. But how to win the interest of the tall and gracious English girl whom he had met by chance that other morn, who had left no way open for a further meeting; how to gain access to the presence of that fair one—these were the questions which to John Law seemed of greater importance, and of greater difficulty in the answering.

The chair drew up at the somber quarters where the meeting had been set. Law knew the place by instinct, even without seeing the double row of heavy-visaged London constabulary which guarded the entrance. Here and there along the street were carriages and chairs, and multiplied conveyances of persons of consequence. Upon the narrow pavement, and within the little entrance-way that led to the inner room, there bustled about important-looking men, some with hooked noses, most with florid faces and well-fed bodies, but all with a certain dignity and sobriety of expression.

Montague himself, young, smooth-faced, dark-eyed, of active frame, of mobile and pleasing features, sat at the head of a long table. The high-strung quality of his nervous system was evidenced in his restless hands, his attitude frequently changed.

At the left of Montague sat Somers, lord keeper; older, of more steady demeanor, of fuller figure, of bold face and full light eye, a politician, not a ponderer. At the right of Montague, grave, silent, impassive, now and again turning a contemplative eye about him, sat that great man. Sir Isaac Newton, known then to every nobleman, and now to every schoolboy, of the world. A gem-like mind, keen, clear, hard and brilliant, exact in every facet, and forsooth held in the setting of an iron body. Gentle, unmoved, self-assured, Sir Issac Newton was calm as morn itself as he sat in readiness to give England the benefit of his wisdom.

Beyond sat John Locke, abstruse philosopher, a man thinner and darker than his confrère, with large full orb, with the brow of the student and the man of thought. In dignity he shared with the learned gentleman sitting near him.

All those at the board looked with some intentness at the figure of the young man from the North, who came as the guest of Montague. With small formality, the latter rose and advanced to meet Law with an eager grasp of the hand. He made him known to the others present promptly, but with a half apology.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I have made bold to ask the presence with us of a young man who has much concerned himself with problems such as those which we have now in hand. Sir Isaac Newton, this is Mr. Law of Edinboro'. Mr. Law, the fame of John Locke I need not lay before you, and of my Lord Somers you need no advice. Mr. Law, I shall pray you to be seated.

"I shall but serve as your mouthpiece to the Court, gentlemen," resumed Montague, seating himself and turning at once to the business of the day. "We are all agreed as to the urgency of the case. The king needs behind him in these times a contented people. You have already seen the imminence of a popular discontent which may shake the throne of England, none too safe in these days of change. That we must reorganize the coinage is understood and agreed. The question is, how best to do this without further unsettling the times. My Lord Keeper, I must beg you for your suggestions."

"Sir," said Somers, shifting and coughing, "it is as you say. The question is of great moment. I should suggest a decree that the old coin shall pass by weight alone and not by its face value. Call in all the coin and have it weighed, the government to make future payment to the owner of the coin of the difference between its nominal and its real value. The coin itself should be restored forthwith to its owner. Hence the trade and the credit of the realm would not suffer. The money of the country would be withdrawn from the use of the country only that short time wherein it was in process of counting. This, it occurs to me, would surely be a practical method, and could work harm to none." My Lord Somers sat back, puffing out his chest complacently.

"Sir Isaac," said Montague, "and Mr. Locke, we must beg you to find such fault as you may with this plan which my Lord Keeper hath suggested."

Sir Isaac made no immediate reply. John Locke stirred gently in his chair. "There seemeth much to commend in this plan of my Lord Keeper," said he, leaning slightly forward, "but in pondering my Lord Keeper's suggestion for the bringing in of this older coin, I must ask you if this plan can escape that selfish impulse of the human mind which seeketh for personal gain? For, look you, short as would be the time proposed, it taketh but still shorter time to mutilate a coin; and it doth seem to me that, under the plan of my Lord Keeper, we should see the old currency of England mutilated in a night. Sir, I should opine in the contrary of this plan, and would base my decision upon certain principles which I believe to be ever present in the human soul."

Montague cast down his eye for a moment. "Sir Isaac," at length he began, "we are relying very much upon you. Is there no suggestion which you can offer on this ticklish theme?"

The large, full face of the great man was turned calmly and slowly upon the speaker. His deep and serene eye apparently saw not so much the man before him as the problem which lay on that man's mind.

"Sir," said Sir Isaac, "as John Locke hath said, this is after all much a matter of clear reasoning. There come into this problem two chief questions: First, who shall pay the expense of the recoinage? Shall the Government pay the expense, or shall the owner of the coin, who is to obtain good coin for evil?

"Again, this matter applieth not to one man but to many men. Now if one half the tradesmen of England rush to us with their coin for reminting, surely the trade of the country will have left not sufficient medium with which to prosper. This I take to be the second part of this problem.

"There be certain persons of the realm who claim that we may keep our present money as it is, but mark from its face a certain amount of value. Look you, now, this were a small thing; yet, in my mind, it clearly seemeth dishonesty. For, if I owe my neighbor a debt, let us say for an hundred sovereigns, shall I not be committing injustice upon my neighbor if I pay him an hundred sovereigns less that deduction which the realm may see fit thus to impose upon the face of my sovereign? This, in justice, sirs, I hold it to be not the part of science, nor the part of honesty, neither of statesmanship, to endorse."

"Sir Isaac," cried Montague, striking his nervous hands upon the table, "recoin we must. But how, and, as you say, at whose expense? We are as far now from a plan as when we started. We but multiply difficulties. What we need now is not so much negative measures as positive ones. We must do this thing, and we must do it promptly. The question is still of how it may best be done. Mr. Law, by your leave and by the leave of these gentlemen here present, I shall take the liberty of asking you if there doth occur to your mind any plan by which we may be relieved of certain of these difficulties. I am aware, sir, that you are much a student in these matters."

A grave silence fell upon all. John Law, young, confident and arrogant in many ways as he was, none the less possessed sobriety and depth of thought, just as he possessed the external dignity to give it fitting vehicle. He gazed now at the men before him, not with timorousness or trepidation. His face was grave, and he returned their glances calmly as he rose and made the speech which, unknown to himself, was presently to prove so important in his life.

"My Lords," said he, "and gentlemen of this council, I am ill-fitted to be present here, and ill-fitted to add my advice to that which has been given. It is not for me to go beyond the purpose of this meeting, or to lay before you certain plans of my own regarding the credit of nations. I may start, as does our learned friend, simply from established principles of human nature.

"It is true that the coinage is a creature of the government. Yet I believe it to be true that the government lives purely upon credit; which is to say, the confidence of the people in that government.

"Now, we may reason in this matter perhaps from the lesser relations of our daily life. What manner of man do we most trust among those whom we meet? Surely, the honest man, the plain man, the one whose directness and integrity we do not doubt. Truly you may witness the nature of such a man in the manner of his speech, in his mien, in his conduct. Therefore, my Lords and gentlemen, it seems to me plain that we shall best gain confidence for ourselves if we act in the most simple fashion.

"Let us take up this matter directly with Parliament, not seeking to evade the knowledge of Parliament in any fashion; for, as we know, the Parliament and the king are not the best bed-fellows these days, and the one is ready enough to suspect the other. Let us have a bill framed for Parliament—such bill made upon the decisions of these learned gentlemen present. Above all things, let us act with perfect openness.

"As to the plan itself, it seems that a few things may be held safe and sure. Since we can not use the old coin, then surely we must have new coin, milled coin, which Charles, the earlier king of England, has decreed. Surely, too, as our learned friend has wisely stated, the loss in any recoinage ought, in full justice and honesty, to fall not upon the people of England, but upon the government of England. It seems equally plain to me there must be a day set after which the old coin may no longer be used. Set it some months ahead, not, as my Lord Keeper suggests, but a few days; so that full notice may be given to all. Make your campaign free and plain, and place it so that it may be known, not only of Parliament, but of all the world. Thus you establish yourselves in the confidence of Parliament and in the good graces of this people, from whom the taxes must ultimately come."

Montague's hands smote again upon the table with a gesture of conviction. John Locke shifted again in his chair. Sir Isaac and the lord keeper gazed steadfastly at this young man who stood before them, calmly, assuredly, and yet with no assumption in his mien.

"Moreover," went on John Law, calmly, "there is this further benefit to be gained, as I am sure my countryman, Mr. Paterson, has long ago made plain. It is not a question of the wealth of England, but a question of the confidence of the people in the throne. There is money in abundance in England. It is the province of my Lord Chancellor to wheedle it out of those coffers where it is concealed and place it before the uses of the king. Gentlemen, it is confidence that we need. There will be no trouble to secure loans of money in this rich land, but the taxes must be the pledge to your bankers. This new Bank of England will furnish you what moneys you may need. Secure them only by the pledge of such taxes as you feel the people may not resent; give the people, free of cost, a coinage which they can trust; and then, it seems to me, my Lords and gentlemen, the problem of the revenue may be thought solved simply and easily—solved, too, without irritating either the people or the Parliament, or endangering the relations of Parliament and the throne."

The conviction which fell upon all found its best expression in the face of Montague. The youth and nervousness of the man passed away upon the instant. He sat there sober and thoughtful, quiet and resolved.

"Gentlemen," said he at last, slowly, "my course is plain from this instant. I shall draw the bill and it shall go to Parliament. The expense of this recoinage I am sure we can find maintained by the stockholders of the Bank of England, and for their pay we shall propose a new tax upon the people of England. We shall tax the windows of the houses of England, and hence tax not only the poor but the rich of England, and that proportionately with their wealth. As for the coin of England, it shall be honest coin, made honest and kept honest, at no cost to the people of old England. Sirs, my heart is lighter than it has been for many days."

The last trace of formality in the meeting having at length vanished, Montague made his way rapidly to the foot of the table. He caught Law by both his hands.

"Sir," said he, "you helped us at the last stage of our ascent. A mistake here had been ruinous, not only to myself and friends, but to the safety of the whole Government. You spoke wisely and practically. Sir, if I can ever in all my life serve you, command me, and at whatever price you name. I am not yet done with you, sir," resumed Montague, casting his arm boyishly about the other's shoulder as they walked out. "We must meet again to discuss certain problems of the currency which, I bethink me, you have studied deeply. Keep you here in London, for I shall have need of you. Within the month, perhaps within the week, I shall require you. England needs men who can do more than dawdle. Pray you, keep me advised where you may be found."

There was ill omen in the light reply. "Why, as to that, my Lord," said Law, "if you should think my poor service useful, your servants might get trace of me at the Green Lion—unless I should be in prison! No man knoweth what may come."

Montague laughed lightly. "At the Green Lion, or in Newgate itself," said he. "Be ready, for I have not yet done with you."

CHAPTER VI

THE RESOLUTION OF MR. LAW

The problems of England's troubled finances, the questions of the coinage, the gossip of the king's embroilments with the Parliament—these things, it may again be said, occupied Law's mind far less than the question of gaining audience with his fair rescuer of the morn at Sadler's Wells. This was the puzzle which, revolve it as he might, not even his audacious wit was able to provide with plausible solution. He pondered the matter in a hundred different pleasing phases as he passed from the Bank of England through the crowded streets of London, and so at length found himself at the shabby little lodgings in Bradwell Street, where he and his brother had, for the time, taken up their quarters.

"It starteth well, my boy," cried he, gaily, to his brother, when at length he had found his way up the narrow stair into the little room, and discovered Will patiently awaiting his return. "Already two of my errands are well acquit."

"You have, then, sent the letters to our goldsmith here?" said Will.

"Now, to say truth, I had not thought of that. But letters of credit—why need we trouble over such matters? These English are but babes. Give me a night or so in the week at the Green Lion, and we'll need no letters of credit, Will. Look at your purse, boy—since you are the thrifty cashier of our firm!"

"I like not this sort of gold," said Will Law, setting his lips judicially.

"Yet it seems to purchase well as any," said the other, indifferently. "At least, such is my hope, for I have made debt against our purse of some fifty sovereigns—some little apparel which I have ordered. For, look you, Will, I must be clothed proper. In these days, as I may tell you, I am to meet such men as Montague, chancellor of the exchequer—my Lord Keeper Somers—Sir Isaac Newton—Mr. John Locke—gentry of that sort. It is fitting I should have better garb than this which we have brought with us."

"You are ever free with some mad jest or other, Jack; but what is this new madness of which you speak?"

"No madness at all, my dear boy; for in fact I have but come from the council chamber, where I have met these very gentlemen whom I have named to you. But pray you note, my dear brother, there are those who hold John Law, and his studies, not so light as doth his own brother. For myself, the matter furnishes no surprise at all. As for you, you had never confidence in me, nor in yourself. Gad! Will, hadst but the courage of a flea, what days we two might have together here in this old town!"

"I want none of such days, Jack," said Will Law, soberly. "I care most to see you settled in some decent way of living. What will your mother say, if we but go on gaming and roistering, with dangers of some sudden quarrel—as this which has already sprung up—with no given aim in life, with nothing certain for an ambition—"

"Now, Will," began his brother, yet with no petulance in his tone, "pray go not too hard with me at the start. I thought I had done fairly well, to sit at the table of the council of coinage on my first day in London. 'Tis not every young man gets so far as that. Come, now, Will!"

"But after all, there must be serious purpose."

"Know then," cried the elder man, suddenly, "that I have found such serious purpose!"

The speaker stood looking out of the window, his eye fixed out across the roofs of London. There had now fallen from his face all trace of levity, and into his eye and mouth there came reflex of the decision of his speech. Will stirred in his chair, and at length the two faced each other.

"And pray, what is this sudden resolution, Jack?" said Will Law.

"If I must tell you, it is simply this: I am resolved to marry the girl we met at Sadler's Wells."

"How—what—?"

"Yes, how—what—?" repeated his brother, mockingly.

"But I would ask, which?"

"There was but one," said John Law. "The tall one, with the brassy-brown, copper-red hair, the bright blue eye, and the figure of a queen. Her like is not in all the world!"

"Methought 'twas more like to be the other," replied Will. "Yet you—how dare you think thus of that lady? Why, Jack, 'twas the Lady Catharine Knollys, sister to the Earl of Banbury!"

Law did not at once make any answer. He turned to the dressing-table and began making such shift as he could to better his appearance.

"Will," said he, at length, "you are, as ever, a babe and a suckling. I quite despair of you. 'Twould serve no purpose to explain anything to so faint a heart as yours. But you may come with me."

"And whither?"

"Whither? Where else, than to the residence of this same lady! Look you, I have learned this. She is, as you say, the sister of the Earl of Banbury, and is for the time at the town house in Knightwell Terrace. Moreover, if that news be worth while to so white-feathered a swain as yourself, the other, damsel, the dark one—the one with the mighty pretty little foot—lives there for the time as the guest of Lady Catharine. They are rated thick as peas in a pod. True, we are strangers, yet I venture we have made a beginning, and if we venture more we may better that beginning. Should I falter, when luck gave me the run of trente et le va but yesterday? Nay, ever follow fortune hard, and she waits for you."

"Yes," said Will, scornfully. "You would get the name of gambler, and add to it the name of fortune-hunting, heiress-seeking adventurer."

"Not so," replied John Law, taking snuff calmly and still keeping the evenness of his temper. "My own fortune, as I admit, I keep safe at the Green Lion. For the rest, I seek at the start only respectful footing with this maid herself. When first I saw her, I knew well enough how the end would be. We were made for each other. This whole world was made for us both. Will, boy, I could not live without the Lady Catharine Knollys!"

"Oh, cease such talk, Jack! 'Tis ill-mannered, such presumption regarding a lady, even had you known her long. Besides, 'tis but another of your fancies, Jack," said Will. "Wilt never make an end of such follies?"

"Yes, my boy," said his brother, gravely. "I have made an end. Indeed, I made it the other morning at Sadler's Wells."

"Methinks," said Will, dryly, "that it might be well first to be sure that you can win past the front door of the house of Knollys."

John Law still kept both his temper and his confidence.

"Come with me," said he, blithely, "and I will show you how that thing may be done."

CHAPTER VII

TWO MAIDS A-BROIDERING

"Now a plague take all created things, Lady Kitty!" cried Mary Connynge, petulantly flinging down a silken pattern over which she had pretended to be engaged. "There are devils in the skeins to-day. I'll try no more with't."

"Fie! For shame, Mary Connynge," replied Lady Catharine Knollys, reprovingly. "So far from better temperance of speech, didst ever hear of the virtue of perseverance? Now, for my own part—"

"And what, for your own part? Have I no eyes to see that thou'rt puttering over the same corner this last half hour? What is it thou art making to-day?"

The Lady Catharine paused for a moment and held her embroidery frame away from her at arm's length, looking at it with brow puckering into a perplexed frown.

"I was working a knight," said she. "A tall one—"

"Yes, a tall one, with yellow hair, I warrant."

"Why, so it was. I was but seeking floss of the right hue, and found it difficult."

"And with blue eyes?"

"True; or perhaps gray. I could not state which. I had naught in my box would serve to suit me for the eyes. But how know you this, Mary Connynge?" asked the Lady Catharine.

"Because I was making some such knight for myself," replied the other. "See! He was to have been tall, of good figure, wearing a wide hat and plume withal. But lest I spoil him, my knight—now a plague take me indeed if I do not ruin him complete!" So saying, she drew with vengeful fingers at the intricately woven silks until she had indeed undone all that had gone before.

"Nay, nay! Mary Connynge! Do not so!" replied Lady Catharine in expostulation. "The poor knight, how could he help himself? Why, as for mine, though I find him not all I could wish, I'll e'en be patient as I may, and seek if I may not mend him. These knights, you know, are most difficult. 'Tis hard to make them perfect."

Mary Connynge sat with her hands in her lap, looking idly out of the window and scarce heeding the despoiled fabric which lay on her lap. "Come, confess, Lady Kitty," said she at length, turning toward her friend. "Wert not trying to copy a knight of a hedge-row after all? Did not a certain tall young knight, with eyes of blue, or gray, or the like, give pattern for your sampler while you were broidering to-day?"

"Fie! For shame!" again replied Lady Catharine, flushing none the less. "Rather ask, does not such a thought come over thine own broidering? But as to the hedge-row, surely the gentleman explained it all proper enough; and I am sure—yes, I am very sure—that my brother Charles had quite approved of my giving the injured young man the lift in the coach—

"Provided that your Brother Charles had ever heard of such a thing!"

"Well, of that, to be sure, why trouble my brother over such a trifle, when 'twas so obviously proper?" argued Lady Catharine, bravely. "And certainly, if we come to knights and the like, good chivalry has ever demanded succor for those in distress; and if, forsooth, it was two damsels in a comfortable coach, who rescued two knights from underneath a hedge-row, why, such is but the way of these modern days, when knights go seeking no more for adventures and ladies fair; as you very well know."

"As I do not know, Lady Catharine," replied Mary Connynge. "To the contrary, 'twould not surprise me to learn that he would not shrink from any adventure which might offer."

"You mean—that is—you mean the tall one, him who said he was Mr. Law of Lauriston?"

"Well, perhaps. Though I must say," replied Mary Connynge, with indirection, "that I fancy the other far more, he being not so forward, nor so full of pure conceit. I like not a man so confident." This with an eye cast down, as much as though there were present in the room some man subject to her coquetry.

"Why, I had not found him offering such an air," replied Lady Catharine, judicially. "I had but thought him frank enough, and truly most courteous."

"Why, truly," replied Mary Connynge. "But saw you naught in his eye?"

"Why, but that it was blue, or gray," replied Lady Catharine.

"Oh, ho! then my lady did look a bit, after all! And so this is why the knight flourisheth so bravely in silks to-day—Fie! but a mere adventurer, Lady Kitty. He says he is Law of Lauriston; but what proof doth he offer? And did he find such proof, it is proof of what? For my part, I did never hear of Lauriston nor its owner."

"Ah, but that I have, to the contrary," said Lady Catharine. "John Law's father was a goldsmith, and it was he who bought the properties of Lauriston and Randleston. And so far from John Law being ill-born, why, his mother was Jean Campbell, kinswoman of the Campbell, Duke of Argyll; and a mighty important man is the Duke of Argyll these days, I may tell you, as the king's army hath discovered before this. You see, I have not talked with my brother about these things for naught."

"So you make excuse for this Mr. Law of Lauriston," said Mary Connynge. "Well, I like better a knight who comes on his own horse, or in his own chariot, and who rescues me when I am in trouble, rather than asks me to give him aid. But, as to that, what matter? We set those highway travelers down, and there was an end of it. We shall never see either of them again."

"Of course not," said Lady Catharine.

"It were impossible."

"Oh, quite impossible!"

Both the young women sighed, and both looked out of the window.

"Because," said Mary Connynge, "they are but strangers. That talk of having letters may be but deceit. They themselves may be coiners. I have heard it said that coiners are monstrous bold."

"To be sure, he mentioned Sir Arthur Pembroke," ventured Lady Catharine.

"Oh! And be sure Sir Arthur Pembroke will take pains enough that no tall young man, who offers roses to ladies on first acquaintance, shall ever have opportunity to present himself to Lady Catharine Knollys. Nay, nay! There will be no introduction from that source, of that be sure. Sir Arthur is jealous as a wolf of thee already, Lady Kitty. See! He hath followed thee about like a dog for three years. And after all, why not reward him, Lady Kitty? Indeed, but the other day thou wert upon the very point of giving him his answer, for thou saidst to me that he sure had the prettiest eyes of any man in London. Pray, are Sir Arthur's eyes blue, or gray—or what? And can you match his eyes among the color of your flosses?"

"It might be," said Lady Catharine, musingly, "that he would some day find means to send us word."

"Who? Sir Arthur?"

"No. The young man, Mr. Law of Lauriston."

"Yes; or he might come himself," replied Mary Connynge.

"Fie! He dare not!"

"Oh, but be not too sure. Now suppose he did come—'twill do no harm for us to suppose so much as that. Suppose he stood there at your very door, Lady Kitty. Then what would you do?"

"Do! Why, tell James that we were not in, and never should be, and request the young man to leave at once."

"And never let him pass the door again."

"Certainly not! 'Twould be presumption. But then"—this with a gentle sigh—"we need not trouble ourselves with this. I doubt not he hath forgot us long ago, just as indeed we have forgotten him—though I would say—. But I half believe he hit thee, girl, with his boldness and his bow, and his fearlessness withal."

"Who, I? Why, heavens! Lady Kitty! The idea never came to my mind. Indeed no, not for an instant. Of course, as you say, 'twas but a passing occurrence, and 'twas all forgot. But, by the way, Lady Kitty, go we to Sadler's Wells to-morrow morn?"

"I see no reason for not going," replied Lady Catharine. "And we may drive about, the same way we took the other morn. I will show you the same spot where he stood and bowed so handsomely, and made so little of the fight with the robbers the night before, as though 'twere trifling enough; and made so little of his poverty, as though he were owner of the king's coin."

"But we shall never see him more," said Mary Connynge.

"To be sure not. But just to show you—see! He stood thus, his hat off, his eye laughing, I pledge you, as though for some good jest he had. And 'twas 'your pardon, ladies!' he said, as though he were indeed nobleman himself. See! 'Twas thus."

What pantomime might have followed did not appear, for at that moment the butler appeared at the door with an admonitory cough. "If you please, your Ladyship," said he, "there are two persons waiting. They—that is to say, he—one of them, asks for admission to your Ladyship."

"What name does he offer, James?"

"Mr. John Law of Lauriston, your Ladyship, is the name he sends. He says, if your Ladyship please, that he has brought with him something which your Ladyship left behind, if your Ladyship please."

Lady Catharine and Mary Connynge had both arisen and drawn together, and they now turned each a swift half glance upon the other.

"Are these gentlemen waiting without the street door?" asked Lady Catharine.

"No, your Ladyship. That is to say, before I thought, I allowed the tall one to come within."

"Oh, well then, you see, Mary Connynge," replied Lady Catharine, with the pink flush rising in her cheek, "it were rude to turn them now from our door, since they have already been admitted."

"Yes, we will send to the library for your brother," said Mary Connynge, dimpling at the corners of her mouth.

"No, I think it not needful to do that," replied Lady Catharine, "but we should perhaps learn what this young man brings, and then we'll see to it that we chide him so that he'll no more presume upon our kindness. My brother need not know, and we ourselves will end this forwardness at once, Mary Connynge, you and I. James, you may bring the gentlemen in."

Enter, therefore, John Law and his brother Will, the former seeming thus with ease to have made good his promise to win past the door of the Earl of Banbury.

John Law, as on the morning of the roadside meeting, approached in advance of his more timid brother, though both bowed deeply as they entered. He bowed again respectfully, his eyes not wandering hither and yon upon the splendors of this great room in an ancestral home of England. His gaze was fixed rather upon the beauty of the tall girl before him, whose eyes, now round and startled, were not quite able to be cold nor yet to be quite cast down; whose white throat throbbed a bit under its golden chain; whose bosom rose and fell perceptibly beneath its falls of snowy laces.

"Lady Catharine Knollys," said John Law, his voice deep and even, and showing no false note of embarrassment, "we come, as you may see, to make our respects to yourself and your friend, and to thank you for your kindness to two strangers."

"To two strangers, Mr. Law," said Lady Catharine, pointedly.

"Yes"—and the answering smile was hard to be denied—"to two strangers who are still strangers. I did but bethink me it was sweet to have such kindness. We were advised that London was cruel cold, and that all folk of this city hated their fellow-men. So, since 'twas welcome to be thus kindly entreated, I believed it but the act of courtesy to express our thanks more seeming than we might as that we were two beggars by the wayside. Therefore, I pay the first flower of my perpetual tribute." He bowed and extended, as he spoke, a deep red rose. His eye, though still direct, was as much imploring as it was bold.

Instinctively Mary Connynge and Lady Catharine had drawn together, retreating somewhat from this intrusion. They were now standing, like any school girls, looking timidly over their shoulders, as he advanced. Lady Catharine hesitated, and yet she moved forward a half pace, as though bidden by some unheard voice. "'Twas nothing, what we did for you and your brother," said she. She extended her hand as she spoke. "As for the flower, I think—I think a rose is a sweet-pretty thing."

She bent her cheek above the blossom, and whether the cheek or the petal were the redder, who should say? If there were any ill at ease in that room, it was not Law of Lauriston. He stood calm as though there by right. It was an escapade, an adventure, without doubt, as both these young women saw plainly enough. And now, what to do with this adventure since it had arrived?

"Sir," said Lady Catharine at length, "I am sure you must be wearied with the heavy heats of the town. Your brother must still be weak from his hurt. Pray you, be seated." She placed the rose upon the tabouret as she passed, and presently pulled at the bell cord.

"James," said she, standing very erect and full of dignity, "go to the library and see if Sir Charles be within."

When the butler's solemn cough again gave warning, it was to bring information which may or may not have been news to Lady Catharine. "Your Ladyship," said he, "Sir Charles is said to have taken carriage an hour ago, and left no word."

"Send me Cecile, James," said Lady Catharine, and again the butler vanished.

"Cecile," said she, as the maid at length appeared, "you may serve us with tea."

CHAPTER VIII

CATHARINE KNOLLYS

"You mistake, sir! I am no light o' love, John Law!"

Thus spoke Catharine Knollys. She stood near the door of the great drawing-room of the Knollys mansion, her figure beseeming well its framing of deep hangings and rich tapestries. Her eyes were wide and flashing, her cheeks deeply pink, the sweet bow of her lips half a-quiver in her vehemence. Her surpassing personal beauty, rich, ripe, enticing, gave more than sufficient challenge for the fiery blood of the young man before her.

It was less than two weeks since these two had met. Surely the flood of time had run swiftly in those few days. Not a day had passed that Law had not met Catharine Knollys, nor had yet one meeting been such as the girl in her own conscience dared call better than clandestine, even though they met, as now, under her own roof. Yet, reason as she liked, struggle as she could, Catharine Knollys had not yet been quite able to end this swift voyaging on the flood of fate. It was so strange, so new, so sweet withal, this coming of her suitor, as from the darkness of some unknown star, so bold, so strong, so confident, and yet so humble! All the old song of the ages thrilled within her soul, and each day its compelling melody had accession. That this delirious softening of all her senses meant danger, the Lady Catharine could not deny. Yet could aught of earth be wrong when it spelled such happiness, such sweetness—when the sound of a footfall sent her blood going the faster, when the sight of a tall form, the ring of a vibrant tone, caused her limbs to weaken, her throat to choke?

But ah! whence and why this spell, this sorcery—why this sweetness filling all her being, when, after all, duty and seemliness bade it all to end, as end it must, to-day? Thus had the Lady Catharine reflected but the hour before John Law came; her knight of dreams—tall, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, bold and tender, and surely speaking truth if truth dwelt beneath the stars. Now he would come—now he had come again. Here was his red, red rose once more. Here, burning in her ears, singing in her heart, were his avowing, pleading words. And this must end!

John Law looked at her calmly, but said nothing. One hand, in a gesture customary with him, flicked lightly at the deep cuff of the other wrist, and this nervous movement was the sole betrayal of his uneasiness.

"You come to this house time and again," resumed Catharine Knollys, "as though it were an ancient right on your part, as though you had always been a friend of this family. And yet—"

"And so I have been," broke in her suitor. "My people were friends of yours before we two were born. Why, then, should you advise your servant, as you have, fairly to deny me admission at the door?"

"I have done ill enough to admit you. Had I dreamed of this last presumption on your part I should never have seen your face again."

"'Tis not presumption," said the young man, his voice low and even, though ringing with the feeling to which even he dared not give full expression. "I myself might call this presumption in another, but with myself 'tis otherwise."

"Sir," said Lady Catharine Knollys, "you speak as one not of good mind."

"Not of good mind!" broke out John Law. "Say rather of mind too good to doubt, or dally, or temporize. Why, 'tis plain as the plan of fate! It was in the stars that I should come to you. This face, this form, this heart, this soul—I shall see nothing else so long as I live! Oh, I feel myself unworthy; you have right to think me of no station. Yet some day I shall bring to you all that wealth can buy, all that station can mean. Catharine—dear Lady Kitty—dear Kate—"

"I like not so fast a soothsaying in any suitor of mine," replied Lady Catharine, hotly, "and this shall go no further." Her hand restrained him.

"Then you find me distasteful? You would banish me? I could not learn to endure it!"

Lady Catharine looked at him curiously. "Actually, sir," said she, "you cause me to chill. I could half fear you. What is in your heart? Surely, this is a strange love-making."

"And by that," cried John Law, "know, then the better of the truth. Listen! I know! And this is what I know—that I shall succeed, and that I shall love you always!"

"'Tis what one hears often from men, in one form or another," said the girl, coolly, seating herself as she spoke.

"Talk not to me of other men—I'll not brook it!" cried he, advancing toward her a few rapid paces. "Think you I have no heart?" His eye gleamed, and he came on yet a step in his strange wooing. "Your face is here, here," he cried, "deep in my heart! I must always look upon it, or I am a lost man!"

"'Tis a face not so fair as that," said the Lady Catharine, demurely.

"'Tis the fairest face in England, or in the world!" cried her lover; and now he was close at her side. Her hand, she knew not how, rested in his own. Something of the honesty and freedom from coquetry of the young woman's nature showed in her next speech, inconsequent, illogical, almost unmaidenly in its swift sincerity and candor.

"'Tis a face but blemished," said she, slowly, the color rising to her cheek. "See! Here is the birth-mark of the house of Knollys. They tell me—my very good friends tell me, that this is the mark of shame, the bar sinister of the hand of justice. You know the story of our house."

"Somewhat of it," said Law.

"My brother is not served of the writ when Parliament is called. This you know. Tell me why?"

"I know the so-called reason," replied John Law. "'Twas brought out in his late case at the King's Bench."

"True. 'Twas said that my grandfather, past eighty, was not the father of those children of his second wife. There is talk that—"

"'Twas three generations ago, this talk of the Knollys shortcoming. I am not eighty. I am twenty-four, and I love you, Catharine Knollys."

"It was three generations ago," said the Lady Catharine, slowly and musingly, as though she had not heard the speech of her suitor. "Three generations ago. Yet never since then hath there been clean name for the Banbury estate. Never yet hath its peer sat in his rightful place in Parliament. And never yet hath eldest daughter of this house failed to show this mark of shame, this unpurged contempt for that which is ordained. Surely it would seem fate holds us in its hands."

"You tell me these things," said John Law, "because you feel it is right to tell them. And I tell you of my future, as you tell me of your past. Why? Because, Lady Catharine Knollys, it has already come to matter of faith between us."

The girl leaned back against the wall near which she had seated herself. The young man bent forward, taking both her hands quietly in his own now, and gazing steadily into her eyes. There was no triumph in his gaze. Perhaps John Law had prescience of the future.

"Oh, sir, I had far liefer I had never seen you," cried Catharine Knollys, bending a head from whose eyes there dropped sudden tears.

"Ah, dear heart, say anything but that!"

"'Tis a hard way a woman must travel at best in this world," murmured the Lady Catharine, with wisdom all unsuited to her youth. "But I can not understand. I had thought that the coming of a lover was a joyous thing, a time of happiness alone."

"Ah, now, in the hour of mist can you not foresee the time of sunshine? All life is before us, my sweet, all life. There is much for us to do, there are so many, many days of love and happiness."

But now the Lady Catharine Knollys veered again, with some sudden change of the inner currents of the feminine soul.

"I have gone far with you, Mr. Law," said she, suddenly disengaging her hand. "Yet I did but give you insight of things which any man coming as you have come should have well within his knowledge. Think not, sir, that I am easy to be won. I must know you equally honest with myself. And if you come to my regard, it must be step by step and stair by stair. This is to be remembered."

"I shall remember."

"Go, then, and leave me for this time," she besought him. But still he could not go, and still the Lady Catharine could not bid him more sternly to depart. Youth—youth, and love, and fate were in that room; and these would have their way.

The beseeching gaze of an eye singular in its power rested on the girl, a gaze filled with all the strange, half mandatory pleading of youth and yearning. Once more there came a shift in the tidal currents of the woman's heart. The Lady Catharine slowly became conscious of a delicious helplessness, of a sinking and yielding which she could not resist. Her head lost power to be erect. It slipped forward on a shoulder waiting as by right. Her breath came in soft measure, and unconsciously a hand was raised to touch the cheek pressed down to hers. John Law kissed her once upon the lips. Suddenly, without plan—in spite of all plan—the seal of a strange fate was set forever on her life!

For a long moment they stood thus, until at length she raised a face pale and sharp, and pushed back against his breast a hand that trembled.

"'Tis wondrous strange," she whispered.

"Ask nothing," said John Law, "fear nothing. Only believe, as I believe."

Neither John Law nor the Lady Catharine Knollys saw what was passing just without the room. They did not see the set face which looked down from the stairway. Through the open door Mary Connynge could see the young man as he stepped out of the door, could see the conduct of the girl now left alone in the drawing-room. She saw the Lady Catharine sink down upon the seat, her head drooped in thought, her hand lying languidly out before her. Pale now and distraught, the Lady Catharine Knollys wist little of what went on before her. She had full concern with the tumult which waged riot in her soul.

Mary Connynge turned, and started back up the stair unseen. She paused, her yellow eyes gone narrow, her little hand clutched tight upon the rail.

CHAPTER IX

IN SEARCH OF THE QUARREL

As Law turned away from the door of the Knollys mansion, he walked with head bent forward, not looking upon the one hand or the other. He raised his eyes only when a passing horseman had called thrice to him.

"What!" cried Sir Arthur Pembroke. "I little looked to see you here, Mr. Law. I thought it more likely you were engaged in other business—"

"Meaning by that—?"

"What should I mean, except that I supposed you preparing for your little affair with Wilson?"

"My little affair?"

"Certainly, with Wilson, as I said. I saw our friend Castleton but now, and he advised me of your promptness. He had searched for you for days, he being chosen by Wilson for his friend—and said he had at last found you in your lodgings. Egad! I have mistook your kidney completely. Never in London was a duel brought on so swift. 'Fight? This afternoon!' said you. Jove! but the young bloods laughed when they heard of it. 'Bloody Scotland' is what they have christened you at the Green Lion. 'He said to me,' said Charlie, 'that he was slow to find a quarrel, but since this quarrel was brought home to him, 'twere meet 'twere soon finished. He thought, forsooth, that four o'clock of the afternoon were late enough.' Gad! But you might have given Wilson time at least for one more dinner."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Law, mystified still.

"Mean! Why, I mean that I've been scouring London to find you. My faith, man, but thou'rt a sudden actor! Where caught you this unseemly haste?"

"Sir Arthur," said the other, slowly, "you do me too much justice. I have made no arrangement to meet Mr. Wilson, nor have I any wish to do so."

"Pish, man! You must not jest with me in such a case as this. 'Tis no masquerading. Let me tell you, Wilson has a vicious sword, and a temper no less vicious. You have touched him on his very sorest spot. He has gone to meet you this very hour. His coach will be at Bloomsbury Square this afternoon, and there he will await you. I promise you he is eager as yourself. 'Tis too late now to accommodate this matter, even had you not sent back so prompt and bold an answer."

"I have sent him no answer at all!" cried Law. "I have not seen Castleton at all."

"Oh, come!" expostulated Sir Arthur, his face showing a flush of annoyance.

"Sir Arthur," continued Law, as he raised his head, "I am of the misfortune to be but young in London, and I am in need of your friendship. I find myself pressed for rapid transportation. Pray you, give me your mount, for I must have speed. I shall not need the service of your seconding. Indulge me now by asking no more, and wait until we meet again. Give me the horse, and quickly."

"But you must be seconded!" cried the other. "This is too unusual. Consider!" Yet all the time he was giving a hand at the stirrup of Law, who sprang up and was off before he had time to formulate his own wonder.

"Who and what is he?" muttered the young nobleman to himself as he gazed after the retreating form. "He rides well, at least, as he does everything else well. 'Till I return,' forsooth, 'till I return!' Gad! I half wish you had never come in the first place, my Bloody Scotland!"

As for Law, he rode swiftly, asking at times his way, losing time here, gaining it again there, creating much hatred among foot folk by his tempestuous speed, but giving little heed to aught save his own purpose. In time he reached Bradwell Street and flung himself from his panting horse in front of the dingy door of the lodging house. He rushed up the stairs at speed and threw open the door of the little room. It was empty.

There was no word to show what his brother had done, whither he had gone, when he would return. Around the lodgings in Bradwell Street lay a great and unknown London, with its own secrets, its own hatreds, its own crimes. A strange feeling of on-coming ill seized upon the heart of Law, as he stood in the center of the dull little room, now suddenly grown hateful to him. He dashed his hand upon the table, and stood so, scarce knowing which way to turn. A foot sounded in the hallway, and he went to the door. The ancient landlady confronted him. "Where has my brother gone?" he demanded, fiercely, as she came into view along the ill-lighted passage-way.

"Gone, good sir?" said she, quaveringly. "Why, how should I know where he has gone? More quality has been here this morning than ever I saw in Bradwell Street in all my life. First comes a coach this morning, with four horses as fine as the king's, and a man atop would turn your blood, he was that solemn-like, sir. Then your brother was up here alone, sir, and very still. I will swear he was never out of this room. Then, but an hour ago, here comes another coach, as big as the first, and yellower. And out of it steps another fine lord, and he bows to your brother, and in they get, and off goes the coach. But, God help me, sir! How should I know which way they went, or what should be their errand? Methinks it must be some servant come from the royal palace. Sir, be you two of the nobility? And if you be, why come you here to Bradwell Street? Sir, I am but a poor woman. If you be not of the nobility, then you must be either coiners or smugglers. Sir, I am bethought that you are dangerous guests in my house. I am a poor woman, as you know."

Law flung a coin at her as he sped through the hall and down the stair. "'Twas to Bloomsbury Square," he said, as he sprang into saddle and set heel to the flank of the good horse. "To Bloomsbury Square, then, and fast!"

CHAPTER X

THE RUMOR OF THE QUARREL

Meantime, at the Knollys mansion, there were forthcoming other parts of the drama of the day. The butler announced to Lady Catharine, still sitting dreaming by the window, Sir Arthur Pembroke, now late arrived on foot. Lady Catharine hesitated. "Show the gentleman to this room," she said at length.

Pembroke came forward eagerly as he entered. "Such a day of it, Lady Kitty!" he exclaimed, impulsively. "You will pardon me for coming thus, when I say I have just been robbed of my horse. 'Twas at your very door, and methinks you must know the highwayman. I have come to tell you of the news."

"You don't mean—"

"Yes, but I do! 'Twas no less than Mr. Law, of Scotland. He hath taken my horse and gone off like a whirlwind, leaving me afoot and friendless, save for your good self. I am begging a taste of tea and a little biscuit, for I vow I am half famished."

The Lady Catharine Knollys, in sheer reaction from the strain, broke out into a peal of laughter.

"Sure, he has strange ways about him, this same Mr. Law," said she. "That young man would have come here direct, and would have made himself quite at home, methinks, had he had but the first encouragement."

"Gad! Lady Catharine, but he has a conceit of himself. Think you of what he has done in his short stay here in town! First, as you know, he sat at cards with two or three of us the other evening—Charlie Castleton, Beau Wilson, myself and one or two besides. And what doth he do but stake a bauble against good gold that he would make sept et le va."

"And did it?"

"And did it. Yes, faith, as though he saw it coming. Yet 'twas I who cut and dealt the cards. Nor was that the half of it," he went on. "He let the play run on till 'twas seize et le va, then vingt-un et le va, then twenty-five. And, strike me! Lady Catharine, if he sat not there cool as my Lord Speaker in the Parliament, and saw the cards run to trente et le va, as though 'twere no more to him than the eating of an orange!"

"And showed no anxiety at all?"

"None, as I tell you, and he proved to us plain that he had not two-pence to his name, for that he had been robbed the night before while on his way to town. He staked a diamond, a stone of worth. I must say, his like was never seen at cards."

"He hath strange quality."

"That you may say. Now read me some farther riddles of this same young man. He managed to win from me a little shoe of an American savage, which I had bought at a good price but the day before. It came to idle talk of ladies' shoes, and wagers—well, no matter; and so Mr. Law brought on a sudden quarrel with Beau Wilson. Then, though he seemed not wanting courage, he half declined to face Wilson on the field. Sudden to change as ever, this very morning he sent word to Wilson by Mr. Castleton that he was ready to meet him at four this afternoon. God save us! what a haste was there! And now, to cap it all, he hath taken my horse from me and ridden off to keep an appointment which he says he never made! Gad! These he odd ways enough, and almost too keen for me to credit. Why, 'twould not surprise me to hear that he had been here to make love to the Lady Catharine Knollys, and to offer her the proceeds of his luck at faro. And, strike me! if that same luck holds, he'll have all the money in London in another fortnight! I wish him joy of Wilson."

"He may be hurt!" exclaimed the Lady Catharine, starting up.

"Who? Beau Wilson?" exclaimed Sir Arthur. "Take no fear. He carries a good blade."

"Sir Arthur," said the girl, "is there no way to stop this foolish matter? Is there not yet time?"

"Why, as to that," said Sir Arthur, "it all depends upon the speed of my own horse. I should think myself e'en let off cheaply if he took the horse and rode on out of London, and never turned up again. Yet, I bethink me, he has a way of turning up. If so, then we are too late. Let him go. For me, I'd liefer sit me here with Lady Catharine, who, I perceive, is about now to save my death of hunger, since now I see the tea tray coming. Thank thee prettily."

Lady Catharine poured for him with a hand none too steady. "Sir Arthur," said she, "you know why I have this concern over such a quarrel. You know well enough what the duello has cost the house of Knollys. Of my uncles, four were killed upon this so-called field of honor. My grandfather met his death in that same way. Another relative, before my time, is reputed to have slain a friend in this same manner. As you know, but three years ago, my brother, the living representative of our family, had the misfortune to slay his kinsman in a duel which sprang out of some little jest. I say to you, Sir Arthur, that this quarrel must be stopped, and we must do thus much for our friends forthwith. It must not go on."

"For our friends! Our friends!" cried Sir Arthur. "Ah, ha! so you mean that the old beau hath hit thee, too, with his ardent eye. Or—hang! What—you mean not that this stranger, this Scotchman, is a friend of yours?"

"I speak but confusedly," said the Lady Catharine. "'Tis my prejudice against such fighting, as you know. Can we not make haste, and so prevent this meeting?"

"Oh, I doubt if there be much need of haste," said Sir Arthur, balancing his cup in his hand judicially. "This matter will fall through at most for the day. They assuredly can not meet until to-morrow. This will be the talk of London, if it goes on in this pell-mell, hurly-burly fashion. As to the stopping of it—well now, the law under William and Mary saith that one who slays another in a duel of premeditation is nothing but a murderer, and may be hanged like any felon; hanged by the neck, till he be dead. Alas, what a fate for this pretty Scotchman!"

Sir Arthur paused. A look of wonder swept across his face. "Open the window, Annie!" he cried suddenly to the servant. "Your mistress is ill."

CHAPTER XI

AS CHANCE DECREED

Mischance delayed the carriage of Beau Wilson in its journeying to Bloomsbury Square. It had not appeared at that moment, far toward evening, when John Law, riding a trembling and dripping steed, came upon one side of this little open common and gazed anxiously across the space. He saw standing across from him a carriage, toward which he dashed. He flung open the carriage door, crying out, even before he saw the face within.

"Will! Will Law, I say, come out!" called he. "What mad trick is this? What—"

He saw indeed the face of Will Law inside the carriage, a face pale, melancholy, and yet firm.

"Get you back into the city!" cried Will Law. "This is no place for you, Jack."

"Boy! Are you mad, entirely mad?" cried Law, pushing his way directly into the carriage and reaching out with an arm of authority for the sword which he saw resting beside his brother against the seat. "No place for me! 'Tis no place for you, for either of us. Turn back. This foolishness must go no further!"

"It must go on now to the end," said Will Law, wearily. "Mr. Wilson's carriage is long past due."

"But you—what do you mean? You've had no hand in this. Even had you—why, boy, you would be spitted in an instant by this fellow."

"And would not that teach you to cease your mad pranks, and use to better purpose the talents God hath given you? Yours is the better chance, Jack."

"Peace!" cried John Law, tears starting to his eyes. "I'll not argue that. Driver, turn back for home!"

The coachman at the box touched his hat with a puzzled air. "I beg pardon, sir," said he, "but I was under orders of the gentleman inside."

"You were sent for Mr. John Law."

"For Mr. Law—"

"But I am John Law, sirrah!"

"You are both Mr. Law? Well, sir, I scarce know which of you is the proper Mr. Law. But I must say that here comes a coach drove fast enough, and perhaps this is the gentleman I was to wait for, according to the first Mr. Law, sir."

"He is coming, then," cried John Law, angrily. "I'll see into this pretty meeting. If this devil's own fool is to have a crossing of steel, I'll fair accommodate him, and we'll look into the reasons for it later. Sit ye down! Be quiet, Will, boy, I say!"

Law was a powerful man, over six feet in height. The sports of the Highlands, combined with much fencing and continuous play in the tennis court, indeed his ardent love for every hardy exercise, had given his form alike solid strength and great activity. "Jessamy Law," they called him at home, in compliment of his slender though full and manly form. Cool and skilful in all the games of his youth, as John Law himself had often calmly stated, in fence he had a knowledge amounting to science, a knowledge based upon the study of first principles. The intricacies of the Italian school were to him an old story. With the single blade he had never yet met his master. Indeed, the thought of successful opposition seemed never to occur to him at all. Certainly at this moment, angered at the impatient insolence of his adversary, the thought of danger was farthest from his mind. Stronger than his brother, he pushed the latter back with one hand, grasping as he did so the small-sword with which the latter was provided. With one leap he sprang from the carriage, leaving Will half dazed and limp within.

Even as he left the carriage step, he found himself confronted with an adversary eager as himself; for at that instant Beau Wilson was hastening from his coach. Vain, weak and pompous in a way, yet lacking not in a certain personal valor, Beau Wilson stopped not for his seconds, tarried not to catch the other's speech, but himself strode madly onward, his point raised slightly, as though he had lost all care and dignity and desired nothing so much as to stab his enemy as swiftly as might be.

It would have mattered nothing now to this Highlander, this fighting Argyll, what had been the reason animating his opponent. It was enough that he saw a weapon bared. Too late, then, to reason with John Law, "Beau" Law of Edinboro', "Jessamy" Law, the best blade and the coolest head in all the schools of arms that taught him fence.

For a moment Law paused and raised his point, whether in query or in salute the onlookers scarce could tell. Sure it was that Wilson was the first to fall into the assault. Scarce pausing in his stride, he came on blindly, and, raising his own point, lunged straight for his opponent's breast. Sad enough was the fate which impelled him to do this thing.

It was over in an instant. It could not be said that there was an actual encounter. The side step of the young Highlander was soft as that of a panther, as quick, and yet as full of savagery. The whipping over of his wrist, the gliding, twining, clinging of his blade against that of his enemy was so swift that eye could scarce have followed it. The eye of Beau Wilson was too slow to catch it or to guard. He never stopped the riposte, and indeed was too late to attempt any guard. Pierced through the body, Wilson staggered back, clapping his hands against his chest. Over his face there swept a swift series of changes. Anger faded to chagrin, that to surprise, surprise to fright, and that to gentleness.

"Sir," said he, "you've hit me fair, and very hard. I pray you, some friend, give me an arm."

And so they led him to his carriage, and took him home a corpse. Once more the code of the time had found its victim.

Law turned away from the coach of his smitten opponent, turned away with a face stern and full of trouble. Many things revolved themselves in his mind as he stepped slowly towards the carriage, in which his brother still sat wringing his hands in an agony of perturbation.

"Jack, Jack!" cried Will Law, "Oh, heavens! You have killed him! You have killed a man! What shall we do?"

Law raised his head and looked his brother in the face, but seemed scarce to hear him. Half mechanically he was fumbling in the side pocket of his coat. He drew forth from it now a peculiar object, at which he gazed intently and half in curiosity, It was the little beaded shoe of the Indian woman, the very object over which this ill-fated quarrel had arisen, and which now seemed so curiously to intermingle itself with his affairs.

"'Twas a slight shield enough," he said slowly to himself, "yet it served. But for this little piece of hide, methinks there might be two of us going home to-day to take somewhat of rest."

CHAPTER XII

FOR FELONY

Late in the afternoon of the day following the encounter in Bloomsbury Square, a little group of excited loiterers filled the entrance and passage way at 59 Bradwell Street, the former lodgings of the two young gentlemen from Scotland. The motley assemblage seemed for the most part to make merry at the expense of a certain messenger boy, who bore a long wicker box, which presently he shifted from his shoulder to a more convenient resting place on the curb.

"Do 'ee but look at un," said one ancient dame. "He! he! Hath a parcel of fine clothes for the tall gentleman was up in third floor! He! he! Clothes for Mr. Law, indeed!"

"Fine clothes, eh?" cried another, a portly dame of certain years. "Much fine clothes he'll need where he'm gone."

"Yes, indeed, that he will na. Bad luck 'twas to Mary Cullen as took un into her house. Now she's no lodging money for her rooms, and her lodgers be both in Newgate; least ways, one of un."

"Ah now, 'tis a pity for Mary Cullen, she do need the money so much—"

"Shut ye all your mouths, the lot o' you," cried Mary Cullen herself, appearing at the door. "'Tis not she is needing the little money, for she has it right here in the corner of her apron. Every stiver Mary Cullen's young men said they'd pay they paid, like the gentlemen they were. I'll warrant the raggle of ye would do well to make out fine as Mary Cullen hath."

"Oh now, is that true, Mary Cullen?" said a voice. "'Twas said that these two were noble folk come here for the sport of it."

"What else but true? Do you never know the look of gentry? My fakes, I'll warrant the young gentleman is back within a fortnight. His brother, the younger one, said to me hisself but this very morn, his brother was hinnocent as a child; that he was obliged to strike the other man for fear of his own life. Now, what can judge do but turn un loose? Four sovereigns he gave me this very morn. What else can judge do but turn un free? Tell me that, now!"

"Let's see the fine clothes," said the first old lady to the apprentice boy, reaching out a hand and pulling at the corner of the box-lid. The youth was nothing loath to show, with professional pride, the quality of his burden, and so raised the lid.

"Land save us! 'Tis gentry sure enough they are," cried the inquisitive one. "Do-a look in there! Such clothes and laces, such a brand new wig, such silken hose! Law o' land! Must have cost all of forty crowns. Mary Cullen, right ye are; 'twas quality ye had with ye, even if 'twas but for little while."

"And them gone to prison, him on trial for his life! I saw un ride out this very yesterday, fast as though the devil was behind un, and a finer body of a man never did I look at in my life. What pity 'tis, what pity 'tis!"

"Well," said the apprentice, with a certain superiority in his air. "I dare wait no longer. My master said the gentleman was to have the clothes this very afternoon. So if to prison he be gone, to prison must I go too." Upon which he set off doggedly, and so removed one of the main causes for the assemblage at the curb.

The apprentice was hungry and weary enough before he reached the somber portals, yet his insistence won past gate-keeper and turnkey, one after another, till at length he reached the jailer who adjudged himself fit to pass upon the stolid demand that the messenger be admitted with the parcel for John Law, Esquire, late of Bradwell Street, marked urgent, and collect fifty sovereigns. The humor of all this appealed to the jailer mightily.

"Send him along," he said. And the boy came in, much dismayed but still faithful to his trust.

"Please, sir," said the youth, "I would know if ye have John Law, Esquire, in this place; and if so, I would see him. Master said I was not to bring back this parcel till that I had seen John Law, Esquire, and got from him fifty sovereigns. 'Tis for his wedding, sir, and the clothes are of the finest."

The jailer smiled grimly. "Mr. Law gets presents passing soon," said he. "Set down your box. It might be weapons or the like."

"Some clothes," said the apprentice. "Some very fine clothes. They are of our best."

"Ha! ha!" roared the jailer. "Here indeed be a pretty jest. Much need he'll have of fine clothes here. He'll soon take his coat off the rack like the rest, and happen it fits him, very well. Take back your box, boy—or stay, let's have a look in't."

The jailer was a man not devoid of wisdom. Fine clothes sometimes went with a long purse, and a long purse might do wonders to help the comfort of any prisoner in London, as well as the comfort of his keeper. Truly his eyes opened wide as he saw the contents of the box. He felt the lapel of the coat, passing it approvingly between his thumb and finger. "Well, e'en set ye down the box, lad," said he, "and wait till I see where Mr. Law has gone. Hum, hum! What saith the record? Charged that said prisoner did kill—hum, hum! Taken of said John Law six sovereigns, three shillings and sixpence. Item, one snuff-box, gilt. Hour of admission, five o'clock of the afternoon. We shall see, we shall see."

"Sir," said the jailer, approaching the prisoner and his brother, who both remained in the detention room, "a lad hath arrived bearing a parcel for John Law, Esquire. 'Tis not within possibility that you have these goods, but we would know what disposition we shall make of them."

"By my faith!" cried Law, "I had entirely forgot my haberdasher."

The jailer stood on one foot and gave a cough, unnecessarily loud but sufficiently significant. It was enough for the quick wit of Law.

"There was fifty sovereigns on the charge list," said the jailer.

"Sixty sovereigns, I heard you say distinctly," replied Law. "Will, give me thy purse, man!"

Will Law obeyed automatically.

"There," said John Law to the jailer. "I am sure the garments will be very proper. Is it not all very proper?"

The turnkey looked calmly into the face of his prisoner and as calmly replied: "It is, sir, as you say, very proper."

"It would be much relief," said John Law, as the turnkey again appeared, bearing the box in his own hands, "if I might don my new garments. I would liefer make a good showing for thy house, friend, and can not, in this garb."

"Sirrah," said the jailer, "there be rules of this place, as you very well know. Your little chamber was to have been in corridor number four, number twelve of the left aisle. But, sir, as perhaps you know, there be rules which are rules, and rules which are not so much—that is to say—rules, as you might put it, sir. The main thing is that I produce your body on the day of the hearing, which cometh soon. Meantime, since you seem a gentleman, and are in for no common felony, but charged, as I might say, with a light offense, why, sir, in such a case, I might say that a gentleman like yourself, if he cared to wear a bit of good clothes and wear it here in the parlor like, why, sir, I can see no harm in it. And that's competent to prove, as the judge says."

"Very well, then," said Law, "I'll e'en deck out with the gear I should have had to-night had I been free; though I fear my employment this evening will scarce be pleasing as that which I had planned. Will, had I had but one more night at the Green Lion, we'd e'en have needed a special chair to carry home my winnings of their English gold."

Enter then, a few moments later, "Beau" Law, "Jessamy" Law, late of Edinboro', gentleman, and a right gallant figure of a man. Tall he was indeed, and, so clad, making a picture of superb manhood. Ease and grace he showed in every movement. His long fingers closed lightly at top of a lacquered cane which he had found within the box. Deep ruffles of white hung down from his wrists, and a fall of wide lace drooped from the bosom of his ruffled shirt. His wig, deep curled and well whitened, gave a certain austerity to his mien. At his instep sparkled new buckles of brilliants, rising above which sprang a graceful ankle, a straight and well-rounded leg. The long lapels of his rich coat hung deep, and the rich waistcoat of plum-colored satin added slimness to a torso not too bulky in itself. Neat, dainty, fastidious, "Jessamy" Law, late of Edinboro', for some weeks of London, and now of a London prison, scarce seemed a man about to be put on trial for his life.

He advanced from the door of the side room with ease and dignity. Reaching out a snuff-box which he had found in the silken pocket of his new garment, he extended it to the turnkey with an indifferent gesture.

"Kindly have it filled with maccaboy," he said. "See, 'tis quite empty, and as such, 'tis useless."

"Certainly, Captain Law," said the turnkey. "I am a man as knows what a gentleman likes, and many a one I've had here in my day, sir. As it chances, I've a bit of the best in my own quarters, and I'll see that you have what you like."

"Will," said Law to his brother, who had scarce moved during all this, "come, cheer up! One would think 'twas thyself was to be inmate here, and not another."

Will Law burst into tears.

"God knows, 'twere better myself, and not thee, Jack," he said.

"Pish! boy, no more of that! 'Twas as chance would have it. I'm never meant for staying here. Come, take this letter, as I said, and make haste to carry it. 'Twill serve nothing to have you moping here. Fare you well, and see that you sleep sound."

Will Law turned, obedient as ever to the commands of the superior mind. He passed out through the heavily-guarded door as the turnkey swung it for him; passed out, turned and looked back. He saw his brother standing there, easy, calm, indifferent, a splendid figure of a man.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MESSAGE

To Will Law, as he turned away from the prison gate upon the errand assigned to him, the vast and shapeless shadows of the night-covered city took the form of appalling monsters, relentless, remorseless, savage of purpose. He passed, as one in some hideous dream, along streets that wound and wound until his brain lost distance and direction. It might have been an hour, two hours, and the clock might have registered after midnight, when at last he discovered himself in front of the dark gray mass of stone which the chairmen assured him was his destination. It was with trepidation that he stepped to the half-lighted door and fumbled for the knocker. The door slowly swung open, and he was confronted by the portly presence of a lackey who stood in silence waiting for his word.

"A message for Lady Catharine Knollys," said Will, with what courage he could summon. "'Tis of importance, I make no doubt." For it was to the Lady Catharine that John Law had first turned. His heart craved one more sight of the face so beloved, one more word from the voice which so late had thrilled his soul. Away from these—ah! that was the prison for him, these were the bars which to him seemed imperatively needful to be broken. Aid he did not think of asking. Only, across London, in the night, he had sent the cry of his heart: "Come to me!"

"The Lady Catharine is not in at this hour," said the butler, with, some asperity, closing the door again in part.

"But 'tis important. I doubt if 'twill bear the delay of a night." Indeed, Will Law had hitherto hardly paused to reflect how unusual was this message, from such a person, to such address, and at such an hour.

The butler hesitated, and so did the unbidden guest at the door. Neither heard at first the light rustle of garments at the head of the stair, nor saw the face bent over the balustrade in the shadows of the hall.

"What is it, James?" asked a voice from above.

"A message for the Lady Catharine," replied the servant. "Said to be important. What should I do?"

"Lady Catharine Knollys is away," said the soft voice of Mary Connynge, speaking from the stair. Her voice came nearer as she now descended and appeared at the first landing.

"We may crave your pardon, sir," said she, "that we receive you so ill, but the hour is very late. Lady Catharine is away, and Sir Charles is forth also, as usual, at this time. I am left proxy for my entertainers, and perhaps I may serve you in this case. Therefore pray step within."

Reluctantly the butler swung open the door and admitted the visitor. Will Law stood face to face with Mary Connynge, just from her boudoir, and with time for but half care as to the details of her toilet; yet none the less Mary Connynge, Eve-like, bewitching, endowed with all the ancient wiles of womankind. Will Law gazed, since this was his fate. Unconsciously the sorcery of the sight enfolded the youth as he stood there uncertainly. He saw the round throat, the heavy masses of the dark hair, the full round form. He noted, though he could not define; felt, though he could not classify. He was young. Utterly helpless might have been even an older man in the hands of Mary Connynge at a time like this, Mary Connynge deliberately seeking to ensnare.

"Pardon this robe, but half concealing," said her drooping eye and her half uplifted hands which caught the defining folds yet closer to her bosom. "'Tis in your chivalry I trust. I would not so with others." This to the beholder meant that he was the one man on earth to whom so much could be conceded.

Therefore, following to his own undoing, as though led by some actual command, while but bidden gently by the softest voice in all the kingdom, the young man entered the great drawing-room and waited as the butler lessened the shadows by the aid of candles. He saw the smallest foot in London just peep in and out, suddenly withdrawn as Mary Connynge sat her down.

She held the message now in her hand. In her soul sat burning impatience, in her heart contempt for the callow youth before her. Yet to that youth her attitude seemed to speak naught but deference for himself and doubt for this unusual situation.

"Sir, I am in some hesitation," said Mary Connynge. "There is indeed none in the house except the servants. You say your message is of importance—"

"It has indeed importance," responded Will. "It comes from my brother."

"Your brother, Mr. Law?"

"From my brother, John Law. He is in trouble. I make no doubt the message will set all plain."

"'Tis most grievous that Lady Catharine return not till to-morrow."

Mary Connynge shifted herself upon her seat, caught once more with swift modesty at the robe which fell from her throat. She raised her eyes and turned them full upon the visitor. Never had the spell of curve and color, never had the language of sex addressed this youth as it did now. Intoxicating enough was this vague, mysterious speech even at this inappropriate time. The girl knew that the mesh had fallen well. She but caught again at her robe, and cast down again her eyes, and voiced again her assumed anxiety. "I scarce know what to do," she murmured.

"My brother did not explain—" said Will.

"In that case," said Mary Connynge, her voice cool, though her soul was hot with impatience, "it might perhaps be well if I took the liberty of reading the message in Lady Catharine's absence. You say your brother is in trouble?"

"Of the worst. Madam, to make plain with you, he is in prison, charged with the crime of murder."

Mary Connynge sank back into her chair. The blood fled from her cheek. Her hands caught each other in a genuine gesture of distress.

"In prison! John Law! Oh heaven! tell me how?" Her voice was trembling now.

"My brother slew Mr. Wilson in a duel not of his own seeking. It happened yesterday, and so swift I scarce can tell you. He took up a quarrel which I had fixed to settle with Mr. Wilson myself. We all met at Bloomsbury Square, my brother coming in great haste. Of a sudden, after his fashion, he became enraged. He sprang from the carriage and met Mr. Wilson. And so—they passed a time or so, and 'twas done. Mr. Wilson died a few moments later. My brother was taken and lodged in jail. There is said to be bitter feeling at the court over this custom of dueling, and it has long been thought that an example would be made."

"And this letter without doubt bears upon all this? Perhaps it might be well if I made both of us owners of its contents."

"Assuredly, I should say," replied Will, too distracted to take full heed.

The girl tore open the inclosure. She saw but three words, written boldly, firmly, addressed to no one, and signed by no one.

"Come to me!" Thus spoke the message. This was the summons that had crossed black London town that night.

Mary Connynge rose quickly to her feet, forgetting for the time the man who stood before her. The instant demanded all the resources of her soul. She fought to remain mistress of herself. A moment, and she passed Will Law with swift foot, and gained again the stairway in the hall, the letter still fast within her hand. Will Law had not time to ask its contents.

"There is need of haste," said she. "James, have up the calash at once. Mr. Law, I crave your excuse for a time. In a moment I shall be ready to go with you."

In two minutes she was sobbing alone, her face down upon the bed. In five, she was at the door, dressed, cloaked, smiling sweetly and ready for the journey. And thus it was that, of two women who loved John Law, that one fared on to see him for whom he had not sent.

CHAPTER XIV

PRISONERS

The turnkey at the inner door was slothful, sleepy and ill disposed to listen when he heard that certain callers would be admitted to the prisoner John Law.

"Tis late," said he, "and besides, 'tis contrary to the rules. Must not a prison have rules? Tell me that!"

"We have come to arrange for certain matters regarding Mr. Law's defense," said Mary Connynge, as she threw back her cloak and bent upon the turnkey the full glance of her dark eye. "Surely you would not deny us."

The turnkey looked at Will Law with a hesitation in his attitude. "Why, this gentleman I know," he began.

"Yes; let us in," cried Will Law, with sudden energy. "'Tis time that we took steps to set my brother free."

"True, so say they all, young master," replied the turnkey, grinning. "'Tis easy to get ye in, but passing hard to get ye out again. Yet, since the young man ye wish to see is a very decent gentleman, and knoweth well the needs of a poor working body like myself, we will take the matter under advisement, as the court saith, forsooth."

They passed through the heavy gates, down a narrow and heavy-aired passage, and finally into a naked room. It was here, in such somber surroundings, that Mary Connynge saw again the man whose image had been graven on her heart ever since that morn at Sadler's Wells. How her heart coveted him, how her blood leaped for him—these things the Mary Connynges of the world can tell, they who own the primeval heart of womankind.

When John Law himself at length entered the room, he stepped forward at first confidently, eagerly, though with surprise upon his face. Then, with a sudden hesitation, he looked sharply at the figure which he saw awaiting him in the dingy room. His breath came sharp, and ended in a sigh. For a half moment his face flushed, his brow showed question and annoyance. Yet rapidly, after his fashion, he mastered himself.

"Will," said he, calmly, to his brother, "kindly ask the coachman to wait for this lady."

He stood for a moment gazing after the form of his brother as it disappeared in the outer shadows. For this half-moment he took swift counsel of himself. It was a face calm and noncommittal that he turned toward the girl who sat now in the darkest corner of the room, her head cast down, her foot beating a signal of perturbation upon the floor. From the corner of her eye Mary Connynge saw him, a tall and manly man, superbly clad, faultless in physique and raiment from top to toe. He stood as though ready to step into his carriage for some voyage to rout or ball. Youth, vigor, self-reliance, confidence, this was the whole message of the splendid figure. The blood of Mary Connynge, this survival, this half-savage woman, unregulated, unsubdued, leaped high within her bosom, fled to her face, gave color to her cheek and brightness to her eye. Her breath shortened after feline fashion. Deep was calling unto deep, ancient unto ancient, primitive unto primitive. Without the gate of London prison there was one abject prisoner. Within its gates there were two prisoners, and one of them was slave for life!

"Madam," said John Law, in deep and vibrant tone, "you will pardon me if I say that it gives me surprise to see you here."

"Yes; I have come," said the girl, not logically.

"You bring, perhaps, some message?"

"I—I brought a message."

"It is from the Lady Catharine?"

Mary Connynge was silent for a moment. It was necessary that, at least for a moment, the poison of some æons should distil. There was need of savagery to say what she proposed to say. The voice of training, of civilization, of unselfishness, of friendship raised a protest. Wait then for a moment. Wait until the bitterness of an ambitious and unrounded life could formulate this evil impulse. Wait, till Mary Connynge could summon treachery enough to slay her friend. And yet, wait only until the primitive soul of Mary Connynge should become altogether imperative in its demands! For after all, was not this friend a woman, and is not the earth builded as it is? And hath not God made male and female its inhabitants; and as there is war of male and male, is there not war of female and female, until the end of time?

"I came from the Lady Catharine," said Mary Connynge, slowly, "but I bring no message from her of the sort which perhaps you wished." It was a desperate, reckless lie, a lie almost certain of detection yet it was the only resource of the moment, and a moment later it was too late to recall. One lie must now follow another, and all must make a deadly coil.

"Madam, I am sorry," said John Law, quietly, yet his face twitched sharply at the impact of these cutting words. "Did you know of my letter to her?"

"Am I not here?" said Mary Connynge.

"True, and I thank you deeply. But how, why-pray you, understand that I would be set right. I would not undergo more than is necessary. Will you not explain?"

"There is but little to explain—little, though it may mean much. It must be private. Your brother—he must never know. Promise me not to speak to him of this."

"This means much to me, I doubt not, my dear lady," said John Law. "I trust I may keep my counsel in a matter which comes so close to me."

"Yes, truly," replied Mary Connynge, "if you had set your heart upon a kindly answer."

"What! You mean, then, that she—"

"Do you promise?"

The brows of Law settled deeper and deeper into the frown which marked him when he was perturbed. The blood, settled back, now slowly mounted again into his face, the resentful, fighting blood of the Highlander.

"I promise," he cried. "And now, tell me what answer had the Lady Catharine Knollys."

"She declined to answer," said Mary Connynge, slowly and evenly. "Declined to come. She said that she was ill enough pleased to hear of your brawling. Said that she doubted not the law would punish you, nor doubted that the law was just."

John Law half whirled upon his heel, smote his hands together and laughed loud and bitterly.

"Madam," said he, "I had never thought to say it to a woman, but in very justice I must tell you that I see quite through this shallow falsehood."

"Sir," said Mary Connynge, her hands clutching at the arms of her chair, "this is unusual speech to a lady!"

"But your story, Madam, is most unusual."

"Tell me, then, why should I be here?" burst out the girl. "What is it to me? Why should I care what the Lady Catharine says or does? Why should I risk my own name to come of this errand in the night? Now let me pass, for I shall leave you."

Tho swift jealous rage of Mary Connynge was unpremeditated, yet nothing had better served her real purpose. The stubborn nature of Law was ever ready for a challenge. He caught her arm, and placed her not unkindly upon the chair.

"By heaven, I half believe what you say is true!" said he, as though to himself.

"Yet you just said 'twas false," said the girl, her eyes flashing.

"I meant that what you add is true, and hence the first also must be believed. Then you saw my message?"

"I did, since it so fell out."

"But you did not read the real message. I asked no aid of any one for my escape. I but asked her to come. In sheer truth, I wished but to see her."

"And by what right could you expect that?"

"I asked her as my affianced wife," replied John Law.

Mary Connynge stood an inch taller, as she sprang to her feet in sudden scorn and bitterness.

"Your affianced wife!" cried she. "What! So soon! Oh, rare indeed must be my opinion of this Lady Catharine!"

"It was never my way to waste time on a journey," said John Law, coolly.

"Your wife, your affianced wife?"

"As I said."

"Yes," cried Mary Connynge, bitterly, and again, unconsciously and in sheer anger, falling upon that course which best served her purpose. "And what manner of affianced wife is it would forsake her lover at the first breath of trouble? My God! 'tis then, it seems to me, a woman would most swiftly fly to the man she loved."

John Law turned slowly toward her, his eyes scanning her closely from top to toe, noting the heaving of her bosom, the sparkling of her gold-colored eye, now darkened and half ready to dissolve in tears. He stood as though he were a judge, weighing the evidence before him, calmly, dispassionately.

"Would you do so much as that, Mary Connynge?" asked John Law.

"I, sir?" she replied. "Then why am I here to-night myself? But, God pity me, what have I said? There is nothing but misfortune in all my life!"

It was one rebellious, unsubdued nature speaking to another, and of the two each was now having its own sharp suffering. The instant of doubt is the time of danger. Then comes revulsion, bitterness, despair, folly. John Law trod a step nearer.

"By God! Madam," cried he, "I would I might believe you. I would I might believe that you, that any woman, would come to me at such a time! But tell me—and I bethink me my message was not addressed, was even unsigned—whom then may I trust? If this woman scorns my call at such a time, tell me, whom shall I hold faithful? Who would come to me at any time, in any case, in my trouble? Suppose my message were to you?"

Mary Connynge stirred softly under her deep cloak. Her head was lifted slightly, the curve of cheek and chin showing in the light that fell from the little lamp. The masses of her dark hair lay piled about her face, tumbled by the sweeping of her hood. Her eyes showed tremulously soft and deep now as he looked into them. Her little hands half twitched a trifle from her lap and reached forward and upward. Primitive she might have been, wicked she was, sinfully sweet; and yet she was woman. It was with the voice of tears that she spoke, if one might claim vocalization for her speech.

"Have I not come?" whispered she.

"By God! Mary Connynge, yes, you have come!" cried Law. And though there was heartbreak in his voice, it sounded sweet to the ear of her who heard it, and who now reached up her arms about his neck.

"Ah, John Law," said Mary Connynge, "when a woman loves—when a woman loves, she stops at nothing!"

CHAPTER XV

IF THERE WERE NEED

Time wore on in the ancient capital of England. The tramp of troops echoed in the streets, and the fleets of Britain made ready to carry her sons over seas for wars and for adventures. The intrigues of party against party, of church against church, of Parliament against king; the loves, the hates, the ambitions, the desires of all the city's hurrying thousands went on as ever. Who, then, should remember a single prisoner, waiting within the walls of England's jail? The hours wore on slowly enough for that prisoner. He had faced a jury of his peers and was condemned to face the gallows. Meantime he had said farewell to love and hope and faithfulness, even as he bade farewell to life. "Since she has forsaken me whom I thought faithful," said he to himself, "why, let it end, for life is a mockery I would not live out." And thenceforth, haggard but laughing, pale but with unbroken courage, he trod on his way through his few remaining days, the wonder of those who saw him.

As for Mary Connynge, surely she had matters enough which were best kept secret in her own soul. While Lady Catharine was hoping, and praying, and dreaming and believing, even as the roses left her cheek and the hollows fell beneath her eyes, she saw about her in the daily walks of life Mary Connynge, sleek and rounded as ever. They sat at table together, and neither did the one make sign to the other of her own anxiety, nor did that other give sign of her own treachery. Mary Connynge, false guest, false friend, false woman, deceived so perfectly that she left no indication of deceit. She herself knew, and blindly satisfied herself with the knowledge, that she alone now came close into the life of "Beau" Law, the convict; "Jessamy" Law, the student, the financier, the thinker; John Law, her lord and master. Herein she found the sole compensation possible in her savage nature. She had found the master whom she sought!

Cynically mirthful or irreverently indifferent, yet never did her master's strength forsake him, never did his heart lose its undauntedness. And when he bade Mary Connynge do this or that she obeyed him; when he bade her arise she arose; at his word she came or departed. A dozen nights in the month she was absent from the house of Knollys. A dozen nights Will Law was cozened into frenzy, alternating between a heaven of delight and a hell of despair, and ignorant of her twofold duplicity. A dozen nights John Law knew well enough where Mary Connynge was, though no one else might know. There was feminine triumph now in full in the heart of this Mary Connynge, who had gone white with rage at the sight of a rose offered across her face to another woman. Had she not her master? Was he not hers, all hers, belonging in no wise to any other?

For the future, Mary Connynge did not ponder it. An ephemera, once buried generations deep in the mire and slime of lower conditions, and now craving blindly but the sunlight of the day, she would have sought the deadly caress of life even though at that moment it had sealed her doom. Foolish or wise, she was as she was; since, under our frail society, life is as it is.

Only at night, on those nights when she was sleepless on her own couch beneath the roof of Catharine Knollys, did Mary Connynge allow herself to think. Tell, then, ye who may, whether or not she was a mere survival of some forgotten day of the forest and the glade, as she lay with her hands clasped in brief moments of emotion. Surely she hoped, as all women hope who love, that this might endure for her forever. Yet the next moment there came the thought that inevitably it all must end, and soon. Then her hand clenched, her eyes grew dry and brilliant. She said to herself: "There is no hope. He can not be saved! For this short period of his life he shall be mine, all mine! He shall not be set free! He shall not go away, to belong, at any time, in any part, to any other woman! Though he die, yet shall he love me to the end; me, Mary Connynge, and no other woman!"

Now, under this same roof of Knollys, separated by but a few yards of space, there lay another woman, thinking also of this convict behind the prison bars. But this was a woman of another and a nobler mold. Into the heart of Catharine Knollys there came no mere mad selfishness of desire, yearn though she did in every fiber of her being since that first time she felt the mastering kiss of love. There was born in her soul emotion of a higher sort. The Lady Catharine Knollys prayed, and her prayer was not that her lover should die, but that he might live; that he might be free.

Nor was this hope left to wither unnourished in the mind of the high-bred and courageous English girl. Alone, without confidant to counsel her, with no woman friend to aid her, the Lady Catharine Knollys backed her own hopes and wishes with resource and energy. There came a time, perilously late, when a faint rose showed once more in her cheek, long so worn, a faintly brighter light glowed in her deep eye.

When Sir Arthur Pembroke received a message from the Lady Catharine Knollys advising him that the latter would receive him at her home, it was left for the impulses, the hopes, the imaginings of that modest young nobleman to establish a reason for the message. Puzzling all along his rapid way in answer to the summons, Sir Arthur found the answer which best suited his hopes in the faint flush, the brightened eye of the young woman who received him.

"Lady Catharine," he began, impetuously, "I have come, and let me hope that 'tis at last to have my answer. I have waited—each moment has been a year that I have spent away from you."

"Now, that is very pretty said."

"But I am serious."

"And that is why I do not like you."

"But, Lady Catharine!"

"I should like it better did you but continue as in the past. We have met on the Row, at the routs and drums, in the country; and always I have felt free to ask any favor of Sir Arthur Pembroke. Why could it not be always thus?"

"You might ask my very life, Lady Catharine."

"Ah, there it is! When a man offers his life, 'tis time for a woman to ask nothing."

She turned from the open window, her attitude showing an unwonted weakness and dejection. Sir Arthur still stood near by, his own face frowning and uncertain.

"Lady Catharine," he broke out at length, "for years, as you know, I have sought your favor. I have dared think that sometime the day would come when—my faith! Lady Catharine, the day has come now when I feel it my right to demand the cause of anything which troubles you. And that you are troubled is plain enough. Ever since this man Law——"

"There," cried Lady Catharine, raising her hand. "I beg you to say no more."

"But I will say more! There must be a reason for this."

The face of the young woman flushed in spite of herself, as Pembroke strode closer and gazed at her with sternness.

"Lady Catharine," said he, slowly, "I am a friend of your family. Perhaps now I may be of aid to you. Prove me, and at the last, ask who was indeed your friend."

"We have had misfortunes, we of the family of the Knollys," said Lady Catharine. "This is, perhaps, but the fate of the house of Knollys. It is my fate."

"Your fate!" said Sir Arthur, slowly. "Your fate! Lady Catharine, I thank you. It is at least as well to know the truth."

"Pick out the truth, then, Sir Arthur, as you like it. I am not on the witness stand before you, and you are not my judge. There has been forsworn testimony enough already in this town. Were it not for that, Mr. Law would at this moment be free as you or I."

Sir Arthur struck his hands together in despair, and turning away, strode down the room.

"Oh, I see it all well enough," cried he. "You are mad as any who have hitherto had dealings with this madman from the North."

The girl rose to her full height and stood before him.

"It may be I am mad," said she. "It may be the old Knollys madness. If so, why should I struggle against it? It may be that I am mad. But I venture to say to you that Mr. Law is not born to die in Newgate yards. My life! sir, if I love him, who should say me nay? Now, say to yourself, and to your friends—to all London, if you like, since you have touched me to this point—that Catharine Knollys is friend to Mr. Law, and believes in him, and declares that he shall be freed from his prison, and that within short space! Say that, Sir Arthur; tell them that! And if they argue somewhat from it, why, let them reason it as best they may."

The young man stood, his lips close together, his head still turned away. The girl continued with growing energy.

"I have sent for you to tell you that Mr. Law's life has a value in my eyes. And now, I say to you, Sir Arthur, that you must aid me in his escape."

A beautiful picture she made, tearful, pleading, a lock of her soft red-brown hair falling unnoticed across her tear-wet cheek. It had been ill task, indeed, to make refusal of any sort to a woman so gloriously feminine, so noble, now so beseeching.

"Lady Catharine," said the young man, turning toward her, "this illness, this anxiety—"

"No, I know perfectly well whereof I speak! Listen, and I'll tell you somewhat of news. Montague, chancellor of the exchequer, is my warrant for what I say to you when I tell you that Mr. Law is to be free. Montague himself has said to me, in this very room, that Mr. Law was like to be half the salvation of England in these uncertain times. I could tell you more, but may not. Only look you, Sir Arthur, John Law does not rest in Newgate more than one week from this time!"

Sir Arthur took snuff, his voice at length regaining that composure for which he had sought.

"'Tis very excellent," he said. "For myself, two centuries have been spent in my family to teach me to love like a gentleman, and to deserve you like a man. What does this young man need? A few days of bluster, of assertion! A few weeks of gaming and of roistering, of self-asserted claims! Gad! Lady Catharine, this is passing bitter! And now you ask me to help him."

"I wish you to help him," said Lady Catharine, slowly, "only in that I ask you to help me."

"And if I did?"

"And if you did, you should dwell in a part of my heart forever! Let it be as you like."

"Then," cried the young man, flushing suddenly and hotly as he strode toward her, "do with me as you like! Let me be fool unspeakable!"

"And do you promise?" said Lady Catharine, rising and advancing toward him. Her face was sad and appealing. Her eyes swam in tears, her lips were trembling.

Sir Arthur held out his hand. The Lady Catharine extended both her own, and he bent and kissed them, tears springing in his eyes. For a time the room was silent. Then the girl turned, her own lashes wet. She stepped at length to a cabinet and took from an inner drawer a paper.

"Sir Arthur, look at this," she Said.

He took it from her and scrutinized it carefully.

"Why, this seems to be a street bill, a placard for posting upon the walls," said he.

"Read it."

"Yes, well—so, so. 'Five hundred pounds reward for information regarding the escaped felon, Captain John Law, convicted of murder and under sentence of death of the King's Bench. The same Law escaped from Newgate prison on the night of'—hum—well—well—'May be known by this description: Is tall, of dark complexion, spare of build, raw-boned, face hath deep pock-marks. Eyes dark; hair dark and scanty. Speaketh broad and loud.' How—how, why my dear Lady Catharine, this is the last proof that thou'rt stark, staring mad! This no more tallies with the true John Law than it does with my hunting horse!"

"And but few would know him by this description?"

"None, absolutely none."

"None could tell 'twas he, even did they meet him full face to face—no one would know it was Mr. Law?"

"Why, assuredly not. 'Tis as unlike him as it could be."

"Then it is well!" said Lady Catharine.

"Well? Very badly done, I should say."

"Oh, my poor Sir Arthur, where are your wits? 'Tis very well because 'tis very ill, this same description."

"Ah, ha!" said he, a sudden light dawning upon him. "Then you mean to tell me that this description was misconceived deliberately?"

"What would you think?"

"Did you do this work yourself?"

"Guess for yourself. Montague, as you know, was once of a pretty imagination, ere he took to finance. If he and the poet Prior could write such conceits as they have created, could not perhaps Montague—or Prior—or some one else—have conceived this description of Mr. Law?"

The young man threw himself into a seat, his head between his hands. "'Tis like a play," said he. "And surely the play of fortune ever runs well enough for Mr. Law."

"Sir Arthur," said Lady Catharine, rising uneasily and standing before him, "I must confess to you that I bear a certain active part in private plans looking to the escape of Mr. Law. I have come to you for aid. Sir Arthur, I pray God that we may be successful."

The young man also rose and began to pace the floor.

"Even did Law escape," he began, "it would mean only his flight from England."

"True," said the Lady Catharine, "that is all planned. The ship even now awaits him in the Pool. He is to take ship at once upon leaving prison, and he sails at once from England. He goes to France."

"But, my dear Lady Catharine, this means that he must part from you."

"Of course, it means our parting."

"Oh, but you said—but I thought—"

"But I said—but you thought—Sir Arthur, do not stand there prating like a little boy!"

"You do not, then, keep your prisoner bound by other fetters after he escapes from Newgate?"

"I do nothing unwomanly, and I do nothing, I trust, ignoble. I go to meet the Knollys fate, whatever it may be."

"Lady Catharine," cried Pembroke, passionately, "I have said I loved you. Never in my life did I love you as I do now!"

"I like to hear your words," said the girl, frankly. "There shall always be your corner in my heart—"

"Yet you will do this thing?"

"I will do this thing. I shall not whimper nor repine. I am sending him away forever, but 'tis needful for his sake. I shall be ready for whatever fate hath for me."

"Tell me, then," said Pembroke, his face haggard and unhappy, "how am I to serve you in this matter."

"In this way: To-morrow night call here with your coach. My household, if they note it, may take your coach for my own, and may perhaps understand that I go to the rout of my Lady Swearingsham. We shall go, instead, to Newgate. For the night, Sir Arthur Pembroke shall serve as coachman. You must drive the carriage to Newgate jail."

"And 'tis there," said Pembroke, slowly, "that the Lady Catharine Knollys, the dearest woman of all England, would take the man who honorably loves her—to Newgate, to feloniously set free a felon? Is it there, then, Lady Catharine, you would go to meet your lover?"

The tall figure of the girl straightened up to its full height. A shade of color came to her cheeks, but her voice was firm, though tears came to her eyes as she answered:

"Aye, sir, I would go to Newgate if there were need!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE ESCAPE

On a certain morning a messenger rode in hot haste up to the prison gate. He bore the livery of Montague. Turnkey after turnkey admitted him, until finally he stood before the cell of John Law and delivered into his hand, as he had been commanded, the message that he bore. That afternoon this same messenger paused at the gate of the house of Knollys. Here, too, he was admitted promptly. He delivered into the hands of the Lady Catharine Knollys a certain message. This was of a Wednesday. On the following Friday it was decreed that the gallows should do its work. Two more days and there would be an end of "Jessamy" Law.

That Wednesday night a covered carriage came to the door of the house of Knollys. Its driver was muffled in such fashion that he could hardly have been known. There stepped from the house the cloaked figure of a woman, who entered the carriage and herself pulled shut the door. The vehicle was soon lost among the darkling streets.

Catharine Knollys had heard the summons of her fate. She now sat trembling in the carriage.

When finally the vehicle stopped at the curb of the walk which led to the prison gate, a second carriage, as mysterious as the first, came down the street and stopped at a little distance, but close to the curb on the side nearest to the gate. The driver of the first carriage, evidently not liking the close neighborhood at the time, edged a trifle farther down the way. The second carriage thereupon drew up into the spot just vacated, and the two, not easily distinguishable at the hour and in the dark and unlighted street, stood so, each apparently watchful of the other, each seemingly without an occupant.

Lady Catharine had left her carriage before this interchange, and had passed the prison gate alone. Her steps faltered. It was hardly consciously that she finally found her way into the court, through the gate, down the evil-smelling corridors, past the sodden and leering constables, up to the last gate which separated her from him whom she had come to see.

She had been admitted without demur as far as this point, and even now her coming seemed not altogether a matter of surprise. The burly turnkey at the last door stood ready to meet her. With loud commands, he drove out of the corridor the crowd of prison attendants. He approached Lady Catharine, hat in hand and bowing deeply.

"I presume you are the man whom I would see," said she, faintly, almost unequal to the task imposed upon her.

"Aye, Madam, I doubt not, with my best worship for you."

"I was to come"—said Lady Catharine. "I was to speak to you—"

"Aye," replied the turnkey. "You were to come, and you were to speak. And now, what were you to say to me? Was there no given word?"

"There was such a word," she said. "You will understand. It is in the matter of Mr. Law."

"True," said the turnkey. "But I must have the countersign. There are heads to lose in this, yours and mine, if there be mistake."

Lady Catharine raised her head proudly. "It was for Faith," said she, "for Love, and for Hope! These were the words."

Saying which, as though she had called to her aid the last atom of her strength, she staggered back and half fell against the wall near the inner gate. The rude jailer sprang forward to steady her.

"Yes, yes," he whispered, eagerly. "'Tis all proper. Those be the words. Pray you, have courage, lady."

There came into the corridor a murmur of voices, and there was audible also the sound of a man's footfalls approaching along the flags. Catharine Knollys looked through the bars of the gate which the turnkey was already beginning to throw open for her. She looked, and there appeared upon her vision, a sight which caused her heart to stop, which confounded all her reason. From a side door there advanced John Law, magnificently clad, walking now as though he trod the floor of some great hall or banquet room.

The woman waiting without the gate reached out her arms. She would have cried aloud. Then she fell back against the wall, whereat had she not grasped she must have sunk down to the floor.

Upon the arm of John Law, and looking up to him as she walked, there hung the clinging figure of a woman, half-hidden by the flickering shadows of the torches. A deep cloak fell back from her shoulders. It might have been the light fabric of the aborigine. Upon the foot of Mary Connynge, twinkling in and out as she walked, showed the crudely garnished little shoe of the Indian princess over seas, dainty, bizarre, singular, covering the smallest foot in all London town.

"By all the saints!" Law was saying, "you might be the very maker of this little slipper yourself. I have won the forty crowns, I swear! Perforce, I'll leave them to you in my will."

The shock of the light speech made even Mary Connynge wince. For the moment she averted her eyes from the handsome face above her. She looked, and saw what gave her greater shock. Law, too, stared, as her own startled gaze grew fixed. He advanced close to the gate, only to start back in a horror of surprise which racked even his steeled composure.

"Madam!" he cried; and then, "Catharine!"

Catharine Knollys made no answer to him, though she looked straight and calmly into his face, seeming not in the least to see the woman near him. Her eyes were wide and shining. "Sir," said she, "keep fast to Hope! This was for Faith, and for Love!"

The jailer with one quick gesture swung wide the gate. "Haste, haste!" he cried. "Quick and begone! This night may mean my ruin! Get ye gone, all of ye, and give me time to think. Out with ye all, for I must lock the gate!"

John Law passed as one stupefied, the slender form of Mary Connynge still upon his arm. Hands of men hurried them. "Quick! Into the carriage!" one cried.

And now the sounds of feet and voices approaching along the corridor were heard. The jailer swiftly swung the heavy gate to and locked it. Catharine Knollys caught his last gesture, which bade her begone as fast as might be. Her feet were strangely heavy, in spite of her. She reached the curb in time to hear only the whir of wheels as a carriage sped away over the stones of the street. She stood alone, irresolute for half an instant as the crunch of wheels spun up to the curb again. A hand reached out and beckoned; involuntarily she obeyed the summons. Her wrist was seized, and she was half pulled through the door of the carriage.

"What!" cried a voice. "You, Lady Catharine! Why, how is this?"

It was the voice of Will Law, whom she knew, but who certainly was not the one who had brought her hither. The Lady Catharine accepted this last situation as one no longer able to reason. She sank down in the carriage seat, shivering.

"Is all well?" asked Will Law, eagerly.

"He is safe," said Lady Catharine Knollys. "It is done. It is finished."

"What does this mean?" exclaimed Will.

"His carriage—there it is. It goes to the ship—to the Pool. He and Mary Connynge are only just ahead of us. You may hear the wheels. Do you not hear them?" She spoke with leaden voice, and her head sank heavily.

"What! My brother—Mary Connynge—in that carriage—what can you mean? My God! Lady Catharine, tell me, what do you mean?"

"I do not know," said Catharine Knollys. All things now seemed very far away from her. Her head sank gently forward, and she heard not the words of the man who frantically sought to awaken her to speech.

From the prison to London Pool was a journey of some distance across the streets of London. Will Law called out to the driver with savagery in his voice. He shouted, cursed, implored, promised, and betimes held one hand under the soft, heavy tresses of the head now sunk so humbly forward.

The mad ride ended at the quay on Thames side, where the shadows of the tall buildings lay rank and thick upon the earth, where tarry smells and evil odors filled the heavy air, penetrated none the less by the savor of the keen salt air. More than one giant form was outlined in the broad stream, vessels tall and ghost-like in the gloom, shadowy, suggestive, bearing imprint and promise of far lands across the sea.

Here was the initial point of England's greatness. Here on this heavy stream had her captains taken ship. Thence had sailed her admirals to encompass all the world. In these dark massed shadows, how much might there not be of fate and mystery! Whither might not these vessels carry one! To France, to the far-off Indies, to the new-owned islands, to America with its little half-grown ports. Whence and whither? What might not one do, here at this gateway of the world?

"To the brigantine beyond!" cried Will Law to the wherryman who came up. "We want Captain McMasters, of the Polly Perkins. For God's sake, quick! There's that afoot must be caught up within the moment, do you hear!"

The wherryman touched his cap and quickly made ready his boat. Will Law, understanding naught of this swift coil of events, and not daring to leave Lady Catharine behind him at the carriage, made down the stairway, half carrying the drooping figure which now leaned weakly upon his shoulder.

"Pull now, man! Pull as you never did before!" cried he, and the wherryman bent hard to his oars.

Yet great as was the haste of those who put forth into the foggy Thames, it was more than equalled by that of one who appeared upon the dock, even as the creak of the oars grew fainter in the gloom. There came the rattle of wheels upon the quay, and the sound of a driver lashing his horses. A carriage rolled up, and there sprang from the box a muffled figure which resolved itself into the very embodiment of haste.

"Hold the horses, man!" he cried to the nearest by-stander, and sprang swiftly to the head of the stairs, where a loiterer or two stood idly gazing out into the mist which overhung the water.

"Saw you aught of a man," he demanded hastily, "a man and a woman, a tall young woman—you could not mistake her? 'Twas the Polly Greenway they should have found. Tell me, for God's sake, has any boat put out from this stair?"

"Why, sir," replied one of the wherrymen who stood near by, pipe in mouth and hand in pocket, "since you mention it, there was a boat started but this instant for midstream. They sought McMaster's brigantine, the Polly Perkins, that lies waiting for the tide. 'Twas, as you say, a young gentleman, and with him was a young woman. I misdoubt the lady was ill."

"Get me a boat!" cried the new-comer. "A sovereign, five sovereigns, ten sovereigns, a hundred—but that ship must not weigh anchor until I board her, do you hear!"

The ring of the imperative voice, and moreover the ring of good English coin, set all the dock astir. Straightway there came up another wherry with two lusty fellows, who laid her at the stair where stood the impatient stranger.

"Hurry, men!" he cried. "'Tis life and death—'tis more than life and death!"

And such fortune attended Sir Arthur Pembroke that forsooth he went over the side of the Polly Perkins, even as the gray dawn began to break over the narrow Thames, and even as the anchor-song of the crew struck up.

CHAPTER XVII

WHITHER

A few hours later a coppery sun slowly dispersed the morning mists above the Thames. The same sun warmed the court-yards of the London jail, which lately had confined John Law, convicted of the murder of Beau Wilson, gentleman. It was discovered that the said John Law had, in some superhuman fashion, climbed the spiked walls of the inner yard. The jailer pointed out the very spot where this act had been done. It was not so plain how he had passed the outer gates of the prison, yet those were not wanting who said that he had overpowered the turnkey at the gate, taken from him his keys, and so forced his way out into London city.

Far and wide went forth the proclamation of reward for the apprehension of this escaped convict. The streets of London were placarded broadcast with bills bearing this description of the escaped prisoner:

"Five hundred pounds reward for information regarding the escaped felon, John Law, convicted in the King's Bench of murder and under sentence of death. The same Law escaped from prison on the night of 20 July. May be known by the following description: Is tall, of dark complexion, spare of build, raw-boned, face hath deep pock-marks. Eyes dark, hair dark and scanty. Speaks broad and loud. Carries his shoulders stooped, and is of mean appearance.

"WESTON, High Sheriff.

Done at Newgate prison, this 21 July."

Yet though the authorities of the law made full search in London, and indeed in other of the principal cities of England, they got no word of the escaped prisoner.

The clouded dawn which broke over the Thames below the Pool might have told its own story. There sat upon the deck of the good ship Polly Greenway, outbound from Thames' mouth, this same John Law. He regarded idly the busy scenes of the shipping about him. His gaze, dull and listless, looked without joy upon the dawn, without inquiry upon the far horizon. For the first time in all his life John Law dropped his head between his hands.

Not so Mary Connynge. "Good sir," cried she, merrily, "'tis morning. Let's break our fast, and so set forth proper on our voyage."

"So now we are free," said Law, dully. "I could swear there were shackles on me."

"Yes, we are free," said Mary Connynge, "and all the world is before us. But saw you ever in all your life a man so dumfounded as was Sir Arthur when he discovered 'twas I, and not the Lady Catharine, had stepped into the carriage? That confusion of the carriages was like to have cost us everything. I know not how your brother made such mistake. He said he would fetch me home the night. Gemini! It sure seems a long way about! And where may be your brother now, or Sir Arthur, or the Lady Catharine—why, 'tis as much confused as though 'twere all in a play!"

"But Sir Arthur cried that my ship was for France. Yet here they tell me that this brigantine is bound for the mouth of the St. Lawrence, in America! What then of this other, and what of my brother—what of us—what of—?"

"Why, I think this," said Mary Connynge, calmly. "That you do very well to be rid of London jail; and for my own part, 'tis a rare appetite the salt air ever gives me!"

Upon the same morning tide there was at this very moment just setting aloft her sails for the first high airs of dawn the ship of McMasters, the Polly Perkins, bound for the port of Brest.

She came down scarce a half-dozen cable lengths behind the craft which bore the fugitives now beginning their journey toward another land. Upon the deck of this ship, even as upon the other, there were those who waited eagerly for the dawn. There were two men here, Will Law and Sir Arthur Pembroke, and whether their conversation had been more eager or more angry, were hard to tell. Will Law, broken and dejected, his heart torn by a thousand doubts and a thousand pains, sat listening, though but half comprehending.

"Every plan gone wrong!" cried Sir Arthur. "Every plan gone wrong, and out of it all we can only say that he has escaped from prison for whom no prison could be enough of hell! Though he be your brother, I tell it to your face, the gallows had been too good for John Law! Look you below. See that girl, pure as an angel, as noble and generous a soul us ever breathed—what hath she done to deserve this fate? You have brought her from her home, and to that home she can not now return unsmirched. And all this for a man who is at this moment fleeing with the woman whom she deemed her friend! What is there left in life for her?"

Will Law groaned and buried his own head deeper in his hands. "What is there left for any of us?" said he. "What is there left for me?"

"For you?" said Sir Arthur, questioningly. "Why, the next ship back from Brest, or from any other port of France. 'Tis somewhat different with a woman."

"You do not understand," said Will Law. "The separation means somewhat for me."

"Surely you do not mean—you have no reference to Mary Connynge?" cried Sir Arthur.

Will bowed his head abjectly and left the other to guess that which sat upon his mind. Sir Arthur drew a long breath and stopped his angry pacing up and down.

"It ran on for weeks," said Will Law. "We were to have been married. I had no thought of this. 'Twas I who took her to and from the prison regularly, and 'twas thus that we met. She told me she was but the messenger of the Lady Catharine."

Sir Arthur drew a long, slow breath. "Then I may say to you," said he, "that your brother, John Law, is a hundred times more traitor and felon than even now I thought him. Yonder he goes"—and he shook his fist into the enveloping mist which hung above the waters. "Yonder he goes, somewhere, I give you warning, where he deems no trail shall be left behind him. But I promise you, whatever be your own wish, I shall follow him into the last corner of the earth, but he shall see me and give account for this! There is none of us he has not deceived, utterly, and like a black-hearted villain. He shall account for it, though it be years from now."

So now, inch by inch, fathom after fathom, cable length after cable length, soon knot after knot, there sped two English ships out into the open seaway. Before long they began to toss restlessly and to pull eagerly at the helm as the scent of the salt seas came in. Yet neither knew fully the destination of the other, and neither knew that upon the deck of that other there was full solution of those questions which now sat so heavily upon these human hearts. Thus, silently, slowly, steadily, the two drew outward and apart, and before that morn was done, both were tossing widely upon the swell of that sea beyond which there lay so much of fate and mystery.

BOOK II

AMERICA

CHAPTER I

THE DOOR OF THE WEST

"Nearly a league farther, Du Mesne, and the sun but an hour high. Come, let us hasten!"

"You are right, Monsieur L'as," replied the one addressed, as the first speaker seated himself on the thwart of the boat in whose bow he had been standing. "Bend to it, mes amis!"

John Law turned about on the seat, gazing back over the length of the little ship which had brought him and his comrades thus far on the wildest journey he had ever undertaken. Six paddlers there were for this great canot du Nord, and steadily enough they sent the thin-shelled craft along over the curling blue waves of the great inland sea. And now their voices in one accord fell into the cadences of an ancient boat-song of New France:

"En roulant ma boule, roulant,

Roulant, rouler, ma boule roulant."

The ictus of the measure marked time for the sweeping paddles, and under the added impetus the paper shell, reinforced as it was by close-laid splints of cedar, and braced by the fiber-fastened thwarts, fairly yielded to the rush of the waves as the stalwart paddlers sent it flying forward. A tiny blur of white showed about the bows, and now and again a splash of spray came inboard, as some little curling white cap was divided by the rush of the swiftly moving prow.

"We shall not arrive too soon, my friend," rejoined the captain of the voyageurs, casting an eye back across the great lake, which lay black and ominous under a threatening sky, the sweep and swirl of its white caps ever racing hard after the frail craft, as though eager to break through its paper sides and tear away the human beings who thus fled on so lightly.

This boat, mysteriously appearing as though it were some spirit craft railed from the ancient deeps, was far from the beginning of its wild journey. Wide as the eye might reach, there arose no fleck of snowy canvas, nor showed the dark line of any similar craft propelled by oar or paddle. They were alone, these travelers. Before them, at the entrance of the wide arm of the great lake Michiganon, lay the point even at that early day known as the Door of the West, the beginning of the winding water-way which led on into the interior of that West, then so alluring and unknown. The eyes of all were fixed on the low, white-fronted bluffs, crowned by dark forest growth, which guarded the bay at either hand. This spot, so wild, so remote, so significant—it was home for these voyageurs as much as any; as much, too, for Law and the woman who lay back, pale-faced and wide-eyed, among the bales in the great canoe.

In time the graceful craft approached the beach, on which the long waves rolled and curled, now gently, now with imposing force. With the water yet half-leg deep, Du Mesne and two of the paddlers sprang bodily overboard and held the boat back from the pebbles, so that its tender shell might not be damaged. Law himself was as soon as they in the water, and he waded back along the gunwale until he reached the stern, the water nearly up to his hips. Reaching out his arms, he picked up Mary Connynge from her seat and carried her dry-shod ashore, bending down to catch some whispered word. Not so gallant was Du Mesne, the leader of the voyageurs. He uttered a few short words of semi-command to the Indian woman, who had been seated on the floor of the canoe, and she, without protest, crawled forward over the thwarts and the heaped bundles until she reached the bow, and then went ankle deep into the creaming flood. The great canoe, left empty and anchored safe from the pebbles of the beach, tossed light as a cork on the incoming waves.

A little open space was quickly found at the edge of the cove in which the disembarkation was made, and here Du Mesne and his followers soon kicked away the twigs and leveled out a smooth place upon the grass. Each man produced from his belt a broad-bladed knife, and for the moment disappeared in the deep fringe of evergreens which lined the shore. Fairly in the twinkling of an eye a rude frame of bent poles was made, above which were spread strips of unrolled birch bark from the cargo of the canoe. Over the spaces left uncovered by the supply of bark sheets there were laid down long mats made by Indian hands from dried reeds and bulrushes, affording no inconsiderable protection against the weather. Inside the lodge, bales of goods and packages of provisions were quickly arranged in comfortable fashion. Gaudy blankets were spread upon layers of soft skins of the buffalo. The Indian woman had meantime struck a fire, whose faint blue smoke curled lakeward in the soft evening air. Quickly, and with the system of experienced campaigners, the evening bivouac had been prepared; and wildly picturesque it must have seemed to a bystander, had there been indeed any possible spectator within many leagues.

Far enough was this from the turmoil of London, which Law and his companion had left nearly a year before; far enough still from the wild capital of New France, where they had spent the winter, after landing, as much by chance as through any plan, at the port of the St. Lawrence. Ever a demon of unrest drove Law forward; ever there beckoned to him that irresistible West, of which he was one of the earliest to feel the charm. Farther and farther westward, swift and swifter than ever the boats of the fur traders had made the journey before, he and his party, led by Du Mesne, the ex-galley-slave and wanderer whom Law had by chance met again, and gladly, at Montréal, had made the long and dangerous run up the lakes, past Michilimackinac, down the lake of Michiganon, headed toward the interior of a new continent which was then, as for generations after then, the land of wondrous distances, of grand enterprises, of magnificent promises and immense fulfilments. The bales and bundles of this bivouac belonged to John Law, bought by gold from the gaming tables of Montréal and Quebec, and ventured in the one great hazard which appealed to him most irresistibly, the hazard of life and fortune in a far land, where he might live unneighbored, and where he might forget. Gambler in England, gambler again in New France, now trading fur-merchant and voyageur, he was, as always, an adventurer. Du Mesne and his hardy crew hailed him already as a new captain of the trails, a new coureur, won from the Old World by the savage witchery of the New. He was their brother; and had he indeed owned longer years of training, his keenness of eye, his strength of arm, his tirelessness of limb could hardly have been greater than they seemed in his first voyage to the West.

"Tous les printemps,

Tant des nouvelles"

hummed Du Mesne, as he busied himself about the camp, casting the while a cautious eye to note the progress of the threatening storm.

"Tous les amants

Changent des maîtresses.

Jamais le bon vin n'endort—

L'amour me réveille!"

"The best is before us now, Monsieur L'as," said Du Mesne, joining Law, at length. "Assuredly the best is always that which is ahead and which is unknown; but in point of fact the hardest of our journey is over, for henceforth we may stretch our legs ashore, and hunt and fish, and make good camps for madame, who, as we both perceive, is much in need of ease and care. We shall make all safe and comfortable for this night, doubt not.

"Meantime," continued he, "let us see that all is well with our men and arms, for henceforth we must put out guards. Attention, comrades! Present your pieces and answer the roll-call! Pierre Berthier!"

"Ici! Monsieur," replied the one better known as Pierre Noir, a tall and dark-visaged Canadian, clad in the common costume, half-Indian and half-civilized, which marked his class. A shirt of soft dressed buckskin fell about his thighs; his legs were encased in moose-skin leggings, deeply fringed at the seams. About his middle was a broad sash, once red, and upon his head a scanty cap of similar color was pushed back. At his belt hung the great hunting knife of the voyageur, balanced by a keen steel tomahawk such as was in common use among the Indians. In his hand he supported a long-barreled musket, which he now examined carefully in the presence of the captain of the voyageurs.

"Robert Challon!" next commanded Du Mesne, and in turn the one addressed looked over his piece, the captain also scrutinizing the flint and priming with careful eye.

"Naturally, mes enfants," said he, "your weapons are perfect, as ever. Kataikini, and you, Kabayan, my brothers, let me see," said he to the two Indians, the former a Huron and the latter an Ojibway, both from the shores of Superior. The Indians arose silently, and without protest submitted to the scrutiny which ever seemed to them unnecessary.

"Jean Breboeuf!" called Du Mesne; and in response there arose from the shadows a wiry little Frenchman, who might have been of any age from twenty to forty-five, so sun-burnt and wrinkled, yet so active and vigorous did he seem.

"Mon ami," said Du Mesne to him, chidingly, "see now, here is your flint all but out of its engagement. Pray you, have better care of your piece. For this you shall stand the long watch of the night. And now let us all to bed."

One by one the little party was lost to view within the dark interior of the hut which they had arranged for themselves. Du Mesne retired a distance from the fire and seated himself upon a fallen log, his pipe glowing like a coal in the enveloping darkness.

Law himself did not so soon leave the outer air. He remained gazing out at the wild scene about him, at the rolling waves dashing on the shore, their crests whitening in the glare of the lightning, now approaching more closely. He harkened to the roll of the far-off thunder reënforced by the thunder of the waves upon the shore, and noted the sweep of the black forest about, of the black sky overhead, unlit save for one far-off, faint and feeble star.

It was a new world, this that lay around him, a new and savage world. If there were a world behind him, a world which once held sunlight and flowers, and love and hope—why then, it was a world lost and gone forever, and it was very well that this new world should be so different and so stern.

In the darkness John Law heard a voice, the voice of a woman in terror. Swiftly he stepped to the door of the rude lodge.

"Don't let them sing it again—never any more—that song."

"And what, Madam?"

"That one—'Tous les amants changent des maîtresses!'"

A moment later she whispered, "I am afraid."

CHAPTER II

THE STORM

Marshaling to the imperious orders of the tempest, and crowding close upon the flaming standards of the lightning, the armies of the clouds came on. The sea-wide surface of the lake went dull, and above it bent a sky appalling in its blackness. The wind at first was light, then fitful and gusty, like the rising choler of a man affronted and nursing his own anger. It gained in volume and swept on across the tops of the forest trees, as though with a hand contemptuous in its strength, forbearing only by reason of its own whimsy. Now and again the cohorts of the clouds just hinted at parting, letting through a pale radiance from the western sky, where lingered the departing day. This light, as did the illuminating glare of the forked flames above, disclosed the white helmets of the trooping waters, rushing on with thunderous unison of tread; and the rattling thunder-shocks, intermittent, though coming steadily nearer, served but to emphasize these foot strokes of the waves. The heavens above and the waters under the earth—these conspired, these marched together, to assail, to overwhelm, to utterly destroy.

To destroy what? Why this wild protest of the wilderness? Was it this wide-blown, scattered fire, whose sparks and ashes were sown broadcast, till but stubborn remnants clung under the sheltering back-log of the bivouac hearth? Was it this frail lodge, built upon pliant, yielding poles, covered cunningly with mats and bark, carpeted with robe of elk and buffalo? Yet why should the elements rage at a tiny fire, and why should they tear at a little house of nomad man, since these things were old upon the earth? Was it somewhat else that incited this elemental rage? This might have been; for surely, builder of this hearth-fire which would not quench, master of this house which would not yield, there was now come up to the door of the wilderness the white man, risen from the sea, heralding the day which the tribes had for generations blindly prophesied! The white man, stern, stubborn, fruitful, had come to despoil the West of its secrets!

Let all the elements therefore join in riotous revolt! Let earth and sea and sky make common cause! Rage, waves, and blaze, ye fiery tongues, and threaten, forests, with all your ominous voices! Smite, destroy, or terrify into swift retreat this little band! Crush out their tenement! Loosen and brush off this feeble finger-grasp at the ancient threshold! With banners of flame, with armies of darkness, with shoutings of the captains of the storms, assail, denude, destroy, if even by the agony of their terrors, these feeble folk now come hither! And by this more especially, since they would set the seal of fruitfulness upon the land, and bring upon the earth a generation yet to follow. Hover about this bed in the frail and swaying lodge of bark and boughs, all ye most terrifying spirits! Let not this thing be!

"Mother of God!" cried Jean Breboeuf, bending low and pulling his tunic tighter by the belt, as he came gasping into the faint circle of light which still remained at the fire log. "'Tis murderous, this storm! Ah, Monsieur du Mesne, we are dead men! But what matter? 'Tis as well now as later. Said I not so to you all the way down Michiganon from the Straits? A rabbit crossed my path at the last camp before Michilimackinac, and when we took boat to leave the mission at the Straits, three crows flew directly across our way. Did I not beseech you to turn back? Did I not tell you, most of all, that we had no right, honest voyageurs that we are, to leave for the woods without confessing to the good father? 'Tis two years now since I have been proper shriven, and two years is too long for a voyageur to remain unabsolved. Mother of God! When I see the lightnings and listen to that wind, I bethink me of my sins—my sins! I vow a bale of beaver—"

"Pish! Jean," responded Du Mesne, who had come in from the cover of the wood and was casting about in the darkness as best he might to see that all was made secure. "Thou'lt feel better when the sun shines again. Call Pierre Noir, and hurry, or our canoe will pound to bits upon the beach. Come!"

All three went now knee-deep in the surf, and Du Mesne, clinging to the gunwale as he passed out, was soon waist deep, and time and again lost his footing in the flood.

"Pull!" he cried at last. "Now, en avant!" He had flung himself over the stern, and with his knife cut the hide rope of the anchor-stone. Overboard again in an instant, he joined the others in their rush up the beach, and the three bore their ship upon their shoulders above the reach of the waves.

"Myself," said Pierre Noir, "shall sleep beneath the boat to-night, for since she sheds water from below, she may do as well from above."

"Even so, Pierre Noir," said Du Mesne, "but get you the boat farther toward your own camp to-night. Do you not see that Monsieur L'as is not with us?"

"Eh bien?"

"And were he not surely with us at such time, unless—?"

"Oh, assurément!" replied Pierre Noir. "Jean Breboeuf, aid me in taking the boat back to our camp in the woods."

Now came the rain. Not in steady and even downpour, not with intermittent showers, but in a sidelong, terrifying torrent, drenching, biting, cutting in its violence. The swift weight of the rain gave to the trees more burden than they could bear. As before the storm, when all was still, there had come time and again the warning boom of a falling tree, stricken with mysterious mortal dread of that which was to come, so now, in the riot of that arrived danger, first one and then another wide-armed monarch of the wood crashed down, adding with its downfall to the testimony of the assailing tempest's strength and fury. The lightning now came not only in ragged blazes and long ripping lines of light, but in bursts and shocks, and in bomb-like balls, exploding with elemental detonations. Balls of this tense surcharged essence rolled out over the comb of the bluff, fell upon the shadows of the water, and seemed to bound from crest to white-capped crest, till at last they split and burst asunder like some ominous missiles from engines of wrath and destruction.

And now, suddenly, all grew still again. The sky took on a lighter, livid tone, one of pure venom. There came a whisper, a murmur, a rush as of mighty waters, a sighing as of an army of the condemned, a shrieking as of legions of the lost, a roaring as of all the soul-felt tortures of a world. From the forest rose a continuous rending crash. The whiplash of the tempest cracked the tree trunks as a child beheads a row of daisies. Piled up, falling, riven asunder, torn out by the wind, the giant trees joined the toys which the cynic storm gathered in its hands and bore along until such time as it should please to crush and drop them.

There passed out over the black sea of Michiganon a vast black wraith; a thing horrible, tremendous, titanic in organic power. It howled, execrated, menaced; missed its aim, and passed. The little swaying house still stood! Under the sheltered log some tiny sparks of fire still burned, omen of the unquenchable hearthstones which the land was yet to know!

"Holy God! what was it? What was that which passed?" cried Jean Breboeuf, crawling out from beneath his shelter. "Saint Mary defend us all this night! 'Twas the great Canoe of the Damned, running au large across the sky! Mary, Mother of God, hear my vow! From this time Jean Breboeuf shall lead a better life!"

The storm, baffled, passed on. The rain, unsatisfied, sullenly ceased in its attack. The waves, hopeless but still vindictive, began to call back their legions from the narrow shore. The lightnings, unsated in their wrath, flared and flickered on and out across the eastward sea. With wild laughter and shrieks and imprecations, the spirit of the tempest wailed on its furious way. The red West had raised its hand to smite, but it had not smitten sure.

In the silence of the night, in the hush following the uproar of the storm, there came a little wailing cry; so faint, so feeble, yet so mighty, so conquering, this sign of the coming generation, the voice of the new-born babe. At this little human voice, born of sorrow and sin, born to suffering and to knowledge, born to life in all its wonders and to death in all its mystery—the elements perchance relented and averted their fury. Not yet was there to be punished sin, or wrong, or doubt, or weakness. Not at once would justice punish the parents of this babe and blot out at once the record of their fault. Storm and lightning, darkness and the night yielded to the voice of the infant and allowed the old story of humanity and sin, and hope and mercy to run on.

The babe wailed faintly in the silence of the night. Under the hearth-log there still endured the fire. And then the red West, seeing itself conquered, smiled and flung wide its arms, and greeted them with the burgeoning dawn, and the voices of birds, with a sky blue and repentant, a sun smiling and not unkind.

CHAPTER III

AU LARGE

It was weeks after the night of the great storm, and the camp of the voyageurs still held its place on the shore of the great Green Bay. The wild game and the abundant fishes of the lake gave ample provender for the party, and the little bivouac had been rendered more comfortable in many ways best known to those dwellers of the forest. The light jest, the burst of laughter, the careless ease of attitude showed the light-hearted voyageurs content with this, their last abode, nor for the time did any word issue which threatened to end their tarrying.

Law one morning strolled out from the lodge and seated himself on a bit of driftwood at the edge of the forest's fringe of cedars, where, seemingly half forgetting himself in the witchery of the scene, he gazed out idly over the wide prospect which lay before him. He was the same young man as ever. Surely, this increased gauntness was but the result of long hours at the paddle, the hollow cheeks but betokened hard fare and the defining winds of the outdoor air. If the eye were a trace more dim, that could be due but to the reflectiveness induced by the quiet scene and hour. Yet why should John Law, young and refreshed, drop chin in hand and sit there moodily looking ahead of him, comprehending not at all that which he beheld?

Indeed there appeared now to the eye of this young man not the white shores and black crowned bluffs and distant islands, not the sweep of broad-winged birds circling near the waters, nor the shadow of the high-poised eagle drifting far above. He felt not the soft wind upon his cheek, nor noted the warmth of the on-coming sun. In truth, even here, on the very threshold of a new world and a new life, he was going back, pausing uncertainly at the door of that life and of that world which he had left behind. There appeared to him not the rolling undulations of the black-topped forest, not the tossing surface of the inland sea, nor the white-pebbled beach laved by its pulsing waters. He saw instead a white and dusty road, lined by green English hedge-rows. Back, over there, beyond these rolling blue waves, back of the long water trail over which he had come, there were chapel and bell and robed priest, and the word which made all fast forever. But back of the wilderness mission, back of the straggling settlements of Montréal and Quebec, back of the blue waters of the ocean, there, too, were church and minister; and there dwelt a woman whose figure stood now before his eyes, part of this mental picture of the white road lined with the hedges of green.

A hand was laid on his shoulder, and he half started up in sudden surprise. Before him, the sun shining through her hair, her eyes dark in the shadow, stood Mary Connynge. A fair woman indeed, comely, round of form, soft-eyed, and light of touch, she might none the less have been a very savage as she stood there, clad no longer in the dress of civilization, but in the soft native garb of skins, ornamented with the stained quills of the porcupine and the bizarre adornments of the native bead work; in her hair dull metal bands, like any Indian woman, upon her feet little beaded moccasins—the very moccasin, it might have been, which Law had first seen in ancient London town and which had played so strange a part in his life since then.

"You startled me," said Law, simply. "I was thinking."

A sudden jealous wave of woman's divining intuition came upon the woman at his side. "I doubt not," said she, bitterly, "that I could name the subject of your thought! Why? Why sit here and dream of her, when here am I, who deserve everything that you can give?"

She stood erect, her eyes flashing, her arms outstretched, her bosom panting under the fringed garments, her voice ringing as it might have been with the very essence of truth and passion. Law looked at her steadily. But the shadow did not lift from his brow, though he looked long and pondered.

"Come," said he, at length, gently. "None the less we are as we are. In every game we take our chances, and in every game we pay our debts. Let us go back to the camp."

As they turned back down the beach Law saw standing at a little distance his lieutenant, Du Mesne, who hesitated as though he would speak.

"What is it, Du Mesne?" asked Law, excusing himself with a gesture and joining the voyageur where he stood.

"Why, Monsieur L'as," said Du Mesne, "I am making bold to mention it, but in good truth there was some question in my mind as to what might be our plans. The spring, as you know, is now well advanced. It was your first design to go far into the West, and there to set up your station for the trading in furs. Now there have come these little incidents which have occasioned us some delay. While I have not doubted your enterprise, Monsieur, I bethought me perhaps it might be within your plans now to go but little farther on—perhaps, indeed, to turn back—"

"To go back?" said Law.

"Well, yes; that is to say, Monsieur L'as, back again down the Great Lakes."

"Have you then known me so ill as this, Du Mesne?" said Law. "It has not been my custom to set backward foot on any sort of trail."

"Oh, well, to be sure, Monsieur, that I know quite well," replied Du Mesne, apologetically. "I would only say that, if you do go forward, you will do more than most men accomplish on their first voyage au large in the wilderness. There comes to many a certain shrinking of the heart which leads them to find excuse for not faring farther on. Yonder, as you know, Monsieur, lie Quebec and Montréal, somewhat better fitted for the abode of monsieur and madame than the tents of the wilderness. Back of that, too, as we both very well know, Monsieur, lie London and old England; and I had been dull of eye indeed did I not recognize the opportunities of a young gallant like yourself. Now, while I know yourself to be a man of spirit, Monsieur L'as, and while I should welcome you gladly as a brother of the trail, I had only thought that perhaps you would pardon me if I did but ask your purpose at this time."

Law bent his head in silence for a moment. "What know you of this forward trail, Du Mesne?" said he. "Have you ever gone beyond this point in your own journeyings?"

"Never beyond this," replied Du Mesne, "and indeed not so far by many hundred miles. For my own part I rely chiefly upon the story of my brother, Greysolon du L'hut, the boldest soul that ever put paddle in the St. Lawrence. My brother Greysolon, by the fire one night, told me that some years before he had been at the mouth of the Green Bay—perhaps near this very spot—and that here he and his brothers found a deserted Indian camp. Near it, lying half in the fire, where he had fallen in exhaustion, was an old, a very old Indian, who had been abandoned by his tribe to die—for that, you must know, Monsieur, is one of the pleasant customs of the wilderness.

"Greysolon and his men revived this savage in some fashion, and meantime had much speech with him about this unknown land at whose edge we have now arrived. The old savage said that he had been many moons north and west of that place. He knew of the river called the Blue Earth, perhaps the same of which Father Hennepin has told. And also of the Divine River, far below and tributary to the Messasebe. He said that his father was once of a war party who went far to the north against the Ojibways, and that his people took from the Ojibways one of their prisoners, who said that he came from some strange country far to the westward, where there was a very wide plain, of no trees. Beyond that there were great mountains, taller than any to be found in all this region hereabout. Beyond these mountains the prisoner did not know what there might be, but these mountains his people took to be the edge of the world, beyond which could live only wicked spirits. This was what the prisoner of the Ojibways said. He, too, was an old man.

"The captive of my brother Greysolon was an Outagamie, and he said that the Outagamies burned this prisoner of the Ojibways, for they knew that he was surely lying to them. Without doubt they did quite right to burn him, for the notion of a great open country without trees or streams is, of course, absurd to any one who knows America. And as for mountains, all men know that the mountains lie to the east of us, not to the westward."

"'Twould seem much hearsay," said Law, "this information which comes at second, third and fourth hand."

"True," said Du Mesne, "but such is the source of the little we know of the valley of the Messasebe, and that which lies beyond it. None the less this idea offers interest."

"Yet you ask me if I would return."

"'Twas but for yourself, Monsieur. It is there, if I may humbly confess to you, that it is my own ambition some day to arrive. Myself—this West, as I said long ago to the gentlemen in London—appeals to me, since it is indeed a land unoccupied, unowned, an empire which we may have all for ourselves. What say you, Monsieur L'as?"

John Law straightened and stiffened as he stood. For an instant his eye flashed with the zeal of youth and of adventure. It was but a transient cloud which crossed his face, yet there was sadness in his tone as he replied.

"My friend," said he, "you ask me for my answer. I have pondered and I now decide. We shall go on. We shall go forward. Let us have this West, my friend. Heaven helping us, let me find somewhere, in some land, a place where I may be utterly lost, and where I may forget!"

CHAPTER IV

THE PATHWAY OF THE WATERS

The news of the intended departure was received with joy by the crew of voyageurs, who, on the warning of an instant, fell forthwith to the simple tasks of breaking camp and storing the accustomed bales and bundles in their places in the great canot du Nord.

"La voilà!" said Tête Gris. "Here she sits, this canoe, eager to go on. 'Tis forward again, mes amis! Forward once more; and glad enough am I for this day. We shall see new lands ere long."

"For my part," said Jean Breboeuf, "I also am most anxious to be away, for I have eaten this white-fish until I crave no more. I had bethought me how excellent are the pumpkins of the good fathers at the Straits; and indeed I would we had with us more of that excellent fruit, the bean."

"Bah! Jean Breboeuf," retorted Pierre Noir. "'Tis but a poor-hearted voyageur would hang about a mission garden with a hoe in his hand instead of a gun. Perhaps the good sisters at the Mountain miss thy skill at pulling weeds."

"Nay, now, I can live as long on fish and flesh as any man," replied Jean Breboeuf, stoutly, "nor do I hold myself, Monsieur Tête Gris, one jot in courage back of any man upon the trail."

"Of course not, save in time of storm," grinned Tête Gris. "Then, it is 'Holy Mary, witness my vow of a bale of beaver!' It is—"

"Well, so be it," said Jean Breboeuf, stoutly. "'Tis sure a bale of beaver will come easily enough in these new lands; and—though I insist again that I have naught of superstition in my soul—when a raven sits on a tree near camp and croaks of a morning before breakfast—as upon my word of honor was the case this morning—there must be some ill fate in store for us, as doth but stand to reason."

"But say you so?" said Tête Gris, pausing at his task, with his face assuming a certain seriousness.

"Assuredly," said Jean Breboeuf. "'Tis as I told you. Moreover, I insist to you, my brothers, that the signs have not been right for this trip at any time. For myself, I look for nothing but disaster."

The humor of Jean Breboeuf's very gravity appealed so strongly to his older comrades that they broke out into laughter, and so all fell again to their tasks, in sheer light-heartedness forgetting the superstitions of their class.

Thus at length the party took ship again, and in time made the head of the great bay within whose arms they had been for some time encamped. They won up over the sullen rapids of the river which came into the bay, toiling sometimes waist-deep at the cordelle, yet complaining not at all. So in time they came out on the wide expanse of the shallow lake of the Winnebagoes, which body of water they crossed directly, coming into the quiet channel of the stream which fell in upon its western shore. Up this stream in turn steadily they passed, amid a panorama filled with constant change. Sometimes the gentle river bent away in long curves, with hardly a ripple upon its placid surface, save where now and again some startled fish sprang into the air in fright or sport, or in the rush upon its prey. Then the stream would lead away into vast seas of marsh lands, waving in illimitable reaches of rushes, or fringed with the unspeakably beautiful green of the graceful wild rice plant.

In these wide levels now and again the channel divided, or lost itself in little cul de sacs, from which the paddlers were obliged to retrace their way. All about them rose myriads of birds and wild fowl, which made their nests among these marshes, and the babbling chatter of the rail, the high-keyed calling of the coot, or the clamoring of the home-building mallard assailed their ears hour after hour as they passed on between the leafy shores. Then, again, the channel would sweep to one side of the marsh, and give view to wide vistas of high and rolling lands, dotted with groves of hardwood, with here and there a swamp of cedar or of tamarack. Little herds of elk and droves of deer fed on the grass-covered slopes, as fat, as sleek and fearless of mankind as though they dwelt domesticated in some noble park.

It was a land obviously but little known, even to the most adventurous, and as chance would have it, they met not even a wandering party of the native tribes. Clearly now the little boat was climbing, climbing slowly and gently, yet surely, upward from the level of the great Lake Michiganon. In time the little river broadened and flattened out into wide, shallow expanses, the waters known as the Lakes of the Foxes; and beyond that it became yet more shallow and uncertain, winding among quaking bogs and unknown marshes; yet still, whether by patience, or by cheerfulness, or by determination, the craft stood on and on, and so reached that end of the waterway which, in the opinion of the more experienced Du Mesne, must surely be the place known among the Indian tribes as the "Place for the carrying of boats."

Here they paused for a few days, at that mild summit of land which marks the portage between the east bound and the west bound waters; yet, impelled ever by the eager spirit of the adventurer, they made their pause but short. In time they launched their craft on the bright, smooth flood of the river of the Ouisconsins, stained coppery-red by its far-off, unknown course in the north, where it had bathed leagues of the roots of pine and tamarack and cedar. They passed on steadily westward, hour after hour, with the current of this great stream, among little islands covered with timber; passed along bars of white sand and flats of hardwood; beyond forest-covered knolls, in the openings of which one might now and again see great vistas of a scenery now peaceful and now bold, with turreted knolls and sweeping swards of green, as though some noble house of old England were set back secluded within these wide and well-kept grounds. The country now rapidly lost its marshy character, and as they approached the mouth of the great stream, it being now well toward the middle of the summer, they reached, suddenly and without forewarning, that which they long had sought.

The sturdy paddlers were bending to their tasks, each broad back swinging in unison forward and back over the thwart, each brown throat bared to the air, each swart head uncovered to the glare of the midday sun, each narrow-bladed paddle keeping unison with those before and behind, the hand of the paddler never reaching higher than his chin, since each had learned the labor-saving fashion of the Indian canoeman. The day was bright and cheery, the air not too ardent, and across the coppery waters there stretched slants of shadow from the embowering forest trees. They were alone, these travelers; yet for the time at least part of them seemed care-free and quite abandoned to the sheer zest of life. There arose again, after the fashion of the voyageurs, the measure of the paddling song, without which indeed the paddler had not been able to perform his labor at the thwart.

"Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré—"

chanted the leader; and voices behind him responded lustily with the next line:

"Trois cavaliers bien montés—"

chanted the leader again.

"L'un à cheval et l'autre à pied—"

came the response; and then the chorus:

"Lon, lon laridon daine—

Lon, lon laridon dai!"

The great boat began to move ahead steadily and more swiftly, and bend after bend of the river was rounded by the rushing prow. None knew this country, nor wist how far the journey might carry him. None knew as of certainty that he would ever in this way reach the great Messasebe; or even if he thought that such would be the case, did any one know how far that Messasebe still might be. Yet there came a time in the afternoon of that day, even as the chant of the voyageurs still echoed on the wooded bluffs, and even as the great birch-bark ship still responded swiftly to their gaiety, when, on a sudden turn in the arm of the river, there appeared wide before them a scene for which they had not been prepared. There, rippling and rolling under the breeze, as though itself the arm of some great sea, they saw a majestic flood, whose real nature and whose name each man there knew on the instant and instinctively.

"Messasebe! Messasebe!" broke out the voices of the paddlers.

"Stop the paddles!" cried Du Mesne. "Voilà!"

John Law rose in the bow of the boat and uncovered his head. It was a noble prospect which lay before him. His was the soul of the adventurer, quick to respond to challenge. There was a fluttering in his throat as he stood and gazed out upon this solemn, mysterious and tremendous flood, coming whence, going whither, none might say. He gazed and gazed, and it was long before the shadow crossed his face and before he drew a sigh.

"Madam," said he, at length, turning until he faced Mary Connynge, "this is the West. We have chosen, and we have arrived!"

CHAPTER V

MESSASEBE

The boat, now lacking its propelling power, drifted on and out into the clear tide of the mighty stream. The paddlers were idle, and silence had fallen upon all. The rush of this majestic flood, steady, mysterious, secret-keeping, created a feeling of awe and wonder. They gazed and gazed again, up the great waterway, across to its farther shore, along its rolling course below, and still each man forgot his paddle, and still the little ship of New France drifted on, just rocking gently in the mimic waves which ruffled the face of the mighty Father of the Waters.

"By our Lady!" cried Du Mesne, at length, and tears stood in his tan-framed eyes as he turned, "'tis true, all that has been said! Here it is, Messasebe, more mighty than any story could have told! Monsieur L'as, 'tis big enough to carry ships."

"'Twill carry fleets of them one day, Du Mesne," replied John Law. "'Tis a roadway fit for a nation. Ah, Du Mesne! our St. Lawrence, our New France—they dwindle when compared to this new land."

"Aye! and 'tis all our own!" cried Du Mesne. "Look; for the last ten days we have scarce seen even the smoke of a wigwam, and, so far as I can tell, there is not in all this valley now the home of a single white man. My friend Du L'hut—he may be far north of the Superior to-day for aught we know, or somewhere among the Sauteur people. If there he any man below us, let some one else tell who that may be. Sir, I promise you, when I see this big water going on so fast and heading so far away from home—well, I admit it causes me to shiver!"

"'Tis much the same," said Law, "where home may be for me."

"Ah, but 'tis different on the Lakes," said Du Mesne, "for there we always knew the way back, and knew that 'twas down stream."

"He says well," broke in Mary Connynge. "There is something in this big river that chills me. I am afraid."

"And what say you, Tête Gris, and you, Pierre Noir?" asked Law.

"Why, myself," replied the former, "I am with the captain. It matters not. There must always be one trail from which one does not return."

"Oui," said Pierre Noir. "To be sure, we have passed as good beaver country as heart of man could ask; but never was land so good but there was better just beyond."

"They say well, Du Mesne," spoke John Law, presently; "'tis better on beyond. Suppose we never do return? Did I not say to you that I would leave this other world as far behind me as might be?"

"Eh bien, Monsieur L'as, you reply with spirit, as ever," replied Du Mesne, "and it is not for me to stand in the way. My own fortune and family are also with me, and home is where my fire is lit."

"Very well," replied Law. "Let us run the river to its mouth, if need be. 'Tis all one to me. And whether we get back or not, 'tis another tale."

"Oh, I make no doubt we shall win back if need be," replied Du Mesne. "'Tis said the savages know the ways by the Divine River of the Illini to the foot of Michiganon; and that, perhaps, might be our best way back to the Lakes and to the Mountain with our beaver. We shall, provided we reach the Divine River, as I should guess by the stories I have heard, be then below the Illini, the Ottawas and the Miamis, with I know not what tribes from west of the Messasebe. 'Tis for you to say, Monsieur L'as, but for my own part—and 'tis but a hazard at best—I would say remain here, or press on to the river of the Illini."

THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE

HOW THE STAR OF GOOD FORTUNE ROSE AND SET AND ROSE AGAIN, BY A WOMAN'S GRACE, FOR ONE JOHN LAW of LAURISTON

A NOVEL by EMERSON HOUGH

THE ILLUSTRATIONS by HENRY HUTT

NINETEEN HUNDRED TWO

TOL.C.H.

CONTENTS