FLOWER
 
 FLOWER O' THE ORANGE
 
 Zlgnes & Bgerton Castle 
 
 THE PRIDE OF JENNICO 
 "IF YOUTH BUT KNEW!" 
 THE SECRET ORCHARD 
 ROSE OF THE WORLD 
 THE STAR-DREAMER 
 THE HOUSE OF ROMANCE 
 THE BATH COMEDY 
 INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS 
 THE HEART OF LADY ANNE 
 " MY MERRY ROCKHURST " 
 
 Sserton Castle 
 
 YOUNG APRIL 
 
 THE LIGHT OF SCARTHEY 
 
 CONSEQUENCES 
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 LE ROMAN DU PRINCE OTHON 
 
 THE JERNINGHAM LETTERS 
 
 ENGLISH BOOK-PLATES 
 
 SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF FENCE 
 
 ETC.
 
 FLOWER 0' THE ORANGE 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 OF BYGONE DAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 AGNES & EGERTON CASTLE 
 
 AUTHORS OF " THE PRIDE OF JENNICO," " ROSE OF THE 
 
 WORLD," " IF YOUTH BUT KNEW," " MY MERRY 
 
 ROCKHURST," ETC., ETC. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1908 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908, 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1908. 
 
 NortoooU 
 
 J. 8. Gushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 Stack 
 
 Annex 
 
 WE INSCRIBE THIS BOOK 
 TO OUR FRIEND 
 
 ROYAL CORTISSOZ
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. FLOWER o 1 THE ORANGE. {The period is the 
 
 early years of the last century) i 
 
 II. THE YOUNG CONSPIRACY. (/7^j) 53 
 
 III. THE GREAT WHITE DEEPS. (1749) 103 
 
 IV. MY RAPIER AND MY DAUGHTER. (1595) 147 
 
 V. THE GREAT TODESCAN'S SECRET THRUST. 
 
 (1602) ........ 191 
 
 VI. POMONA. {The period is the early part of 
 
 Charles IPs reign) ...... 247 
 
 VII. THE MIRROR OF THE FAITHFUL HEART. 
 
 (Early Georgian) ...... 293 
 
 vii
 
 FLOWER O' THE ORANGE
 
 FLOWER O' THE ORANGE 
 
 PERCHED high upon the southernmost headland of 
 Galloway ; looking down on the one side sheer from 
 the lip of the cliff upon the foaming fringe of Luce 
 Bay, and on the other upon the gently-sloping green 
 lands of woods and fat meadows, stands Eager- 
 nesse. 
 
 The ancestral home of the Carmichaels is one of 
 those buildings peculiar to Scotland, which bear 
 the impress of every period of national history. Its 
 foundations rest within the forgotten mounds of 
 camps once Pictish, later Roman; the thick, tall, 
 square Peel, noted landmark to all sailers into Sol- 
 way Firth, still rises, but for the ivy of its walls and its 
 roof of more civilised contrivance, much as it did 
 while the middle ages and subsequent warlike cen- 
 turies rolled by. 
 
 Around this frowning pile, with the growth of 
 modern security, has likewise grown the comfort 
 of modern dwellings. The compact stronghouse 
 
 3
 
 4 Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 has expanded into the mansion; the jealously 
 cleared and well-watched approaches have drifted 
 from the warder's care to that of the landscape 
 gardener, have become luxuriant with tall timber, 
 with varied underwood. Outlying walls inclose 
 high-tended gardens, and support exotic wall fruit. 
 And now, old and newer alike, everything about 
 Eagernesse has once more assumed the mellow- 
 ness of wealthy age. 
 
 From the topmost platform of the keep the view is 
 immense. When the sun is sinking, the Cumbrian 
 ranges stand out purple against the distant eastern 
 skies ; while to the south, Man, an island of amethyst, 
 melts away in a sea of grey silver. At the early hours, 
 when the rays are still level and cold, the heights of 
 the far Irish shore show faintly, steel blue, to the west. 
 And to the north, away beyond the rich coast land, 
 but almost at hand, it would seem, stretch the grey 
 hills of Galloway in all their Scottish grimness. In 
 a fine light the eye, in fact, can reach across the 
 marches of three kingdoms. And as he gazes over 
 the proud view, the watcher can tell himself that in 
 the receding ages the blood of the masters of Eager- 
 nesse had flowed in the veins of many a ruler of those 
 fair lands ; and that, in these days of peace for 
 times will change and men with them wealth and
 
 Flower o' the Orange 5 
 
 influence and wide connection yet maintains the name 
 of Carmichael as high in men's minds as did their 
 strong deeds of yore. 
 
 Many strange scenes have, in the course of ages, 
 taken place under the tall roofs of Eagernesse 
 scenes of brutality, no doubt, often enough, or of 
 cunning; of triumph or tragedy for the race; some- 
 times of happiness. 
 
 Not always among the most strenuous, however, are 
 the scenes which prove the opening of a new drama 
 in the family fortunes. In a fashion homely enough 
 began such an one at the close of a boisterous March 
 day in the year '16 of the last century. It was in a 
 turret-room midway up the old Peel once keeping- 
 chamber of the castellans, now (in respect of its 
 situation, which is well out of the way of modern 
 apartments) devoted to nursery uses. 
 
 Old Meg, the housekeeper, and Mrs. Adams, the 
 grand English nurse, stood facing each other in one 
 of those pauses which in the heart of a storm precede 
 the fiercer outbreak. Between them the heir of 
 Eagernesse kept up his persistent cry : 
 
 "Want Mary-Nan!"
 
 6 Flower o 1 the Orange 
 
 The bellow that had brought Meg Drummond 
 a-canter to the nursery had given place, at sight of an 
 ally, to a plaintive wail "a wail" (as she subse- 
 quently remarked) "that would have melted a heart 
 of stone." 
 
 But the person in authority stood firm alike against 
 genteel remonstrance and infantile sorrow, and after 
 the lull the gathering forces rushed into fresh colli- 
 sion. 
 
 "And, indeed, Mistress Adams," old Meg was 
 saying, "I'm no one for interfering, as I think you'll 
 do me the credit of conceding, these four weary years 
 that we've been together at Eagernesse hoping I 
 ken my duty to my master and her auld leddyship 
 who set ye in your place " Indescribably but 
 unmistakably did Meg convey how ill she deemed 
 that place filled. "But, seeing that I nursed his 
 father, aye, and served his grandfather before him, 
 I canna stand by and see harm done to the bairn. 
 It's no richt, Mistress Adams, mem, to gar him greet 
 that gate. 'Tis not for his health; ye'll be having 
 him sicken, and ony day his father might be stepping 
 in upon us. Whist, me lammie ! we'll have her up 
 till ye in a minute, so you'll be a gude laddie and take 
 your suppie milk!" 
 
 The sniffs, loud and prolonged, with which the
 
 Flower o j the Orange 7 
 
 nurse had commented on the housekeeper's discourse, 
 now gave place to grating accents, sharply bitten off, 
 as it were, by lips that had as much capacity for ten- 
 derness in them as a steel-trap. A gaunt, flat-chested 
 woman, with long face, framed by sleek bands of 
 unnaturally black hair, with goffered cap and apron 
 repellent in starchy whiteness such was the nurse 
 whom Lady Ishbel Carmichael had selected for the 
 supreme charge of her little grandson. 
 
 Old Meg, who was of the well-cushioned type of 
 womanhood herself, yearning to a child with a kind 
 of melting greed, had very clear ideas as to whom 
 Eagernesse's mother should have confided Eager- 
 nesse's son. "But God forgie her," she would say, 
 with a shake of her white curls, "she canna forget 
 in the bairn the mither that bore him. Aye, he has 
 his mither's eyes, and the auld leddy could never bring 
 herself to take him to her bosom. 'But I'll do my 
 duty by him,' says she to me." 
 
 The dowager's sense of duty had taken the un- 
 pleasant form of Mrs. Adams : a disciplinarian of the 
 most rigid Christian character and the highest testi- 
 monials. With this worthy, old Meg strove honestly 
 to keep on the most polite, curtseying terms. But, as 
 on the present occasion, not infrequent were the lapses 
 in which, warm heart getting the better of decorum,
 
 8 Flower o> the Orange 
 
 she was fain to make a whirlwind ascent into nursery 
 regions and to speak her mind efforts invariably 
 marked by conspicuous failure. 
 
 The steel-trap now snapped out its views on infant 
 education : 
 
 "Begging your pardon, Mrs. Drummond, I must 
 again request you not to infringe my rules by visiting 
 Master Carmichael at bedtime. Master Carmichael 
 has been very unruly. I have repeatedly informed 
 him that I cannot permit Miss Mackenzie to come 
 to the nursery to-night or indeed at any other 
 time." 
 
 "Want Mary-Nan!" broke in Master Car- 
 michael, shaking the sides of his cot with little fierce 
 hands. 
 
 "I shall have to chastise you a second time, sir," 
 said Mrs. Adams dispassionately. 
 
 She approached him with the bowl of hot milk 
 in one hand and with the other forcibly turned the 
 curly head. There was a struggle, a shout, an earth- 
 quake among the bedclothes ; the bowl rolled in one 
 direction, most of the milk ran streaming down Mrs. 
 Adams' aggressive apron, and Master CarmichaePs 
 howls were triumphant and desperate as befitted one 
 who in victory had sealed his doom. 
 
 The nurse removed her apron. Her hands shook
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 9 
 
 a little, but the grey face betrayed no emotion. 
 Then she advanced upon the cot. Old Meg, in great 
 agitation, interposed her stout form. 
 
 "Nay, Mistress Adams, not in my presence, mem ! 
 I'll no have a ringer laid on the blessed child the day. 
 Shame on ye, to call yourself a wumman ! If he 
 had the spirits of twenty, ye'd break them all ! 
 Whisht, my lamb!" 
 
 The lamb, with the cunning of his kind, clung to 
 the ample bosom. "Want Mary-Nan !" 
 
 " Give me that child, Mrs. Drummond," said the 
 nurse with deadly self-control. She laid her grasp 
 on the dimpled wrist. 
 
 Young Eagernesse had good lungs ; he filled them 
 now with a mighty breath and mightily expended it. 
 
 "Hech, but ye're an awful wumman!" cried the 
 flustered Meg. The two were struggling for the child. 
 
 The door opened. A tall man strode into the 
 room and stood looking at them. At the sound of his 
 steps there was dead silence. Even the babe ceased 
 his outcry to fix round, wet eyes on the stranger. 
 
 "Lord be gude to us ! 'Tis Eagernesse himself !" 
 
 Meg stared a second or two helplessly at the gaunt 
 figure in the high boots, the furred travelling cloak. 
 Eagernesse ! But, merciful heavens, how these four 
 years had changed him, her bonny lad ! How dour
 
 io Flower d 1 Ike Orange 
 
 and dark he looked, glowering at her from under 
 his bent brows ! 
 
 They had not met since the dreadful night when 
 the lady of Eagernesse, frail, false wife, had deserted 
 husband and babe. And here was the wee creature 
 with a head of curls sunning all over, just like to hers 
 
 the poor foolish young thing his eyes, his 
 mother's own blue, and the very mouth of her, parted, 
 appealing. Many a time had she looked at those 
 that chid her with just such a droop of the lip. 
 
 Mistress Drummond had not even sufficient pres- 
 ence of mind to curtsey. She hesitated, helpless, 
 still clutching the sweet, warm burden. She longed 
 to place it in the father's arms; but courage failed 
 her, for she read memory in that brooding gaze. 
 And so, at last, miserably, she put the child back in 
 its cot and, still keeping cautiously between it and the 
 disciplinarian, quavered her greeting : 
 
 "Lord sakes, Eagernesse, and is it yourself?" 
 Her heart was sore. The master's home-coming 
 
 the hour she had dreamed of night and day through 
 the lonely, empty years to have it thus ! 
 
 Exiled from the comfort of her embrace, Ronald 
 of the copper curls and the blue eyes lost his interest 
 in the new arrival and began to reflect on his own 
 woes again. The gaze of Mrs. Adams had a threat-
 
 Flower 0' the Orange n 
 
 ening glitter as it roamed towards him. To his infant- 
 perspicacity it assured him, more distinctly than 
 words, that what is postponed is not forgotten. 
 And he wanted his Mary-Nan ! 
 
 Simon Carmichael of Eagernesse had eyes of the 
 colour of one of his own burns, under rugged, frown- 
 ing brows. There was something not unkind, not un- 
 humorous in them, for those who could see beyond 
 the frown. His glance moved quickly now from his 
 old servant's quivering countenance to Mrs. Adams' 
 visage which wore a granite triumph, like to some 
 bleak Covenanter's monument, testifying to relentless 
 virtue. Then he looked at his child and then at 
 Meg once more. 
 
 "How now, you auld witch! And haven't you a 
 better welcome for me?" 
 
 The voice was harsh. There was no relaxation 
 about the melancholy mouth. But Meg knew her 
 master. Her heart leapt, tears sprang out upon her 
 apple cheeks. 
 
 "Hech, Eagernesse hech, my bonny man!" 
 
 She could utter no further word ; she was too full 
 of woe for him, minding all that had been, and too 
 fain to see him again. 
 
 "Fighting, screeching, scratching like a pair of 
 auld tabbies! Sic a hurdie-gurdie ! "
 
 12 Flower c? the Orange 
 
 He took a step up to her, and the next instant she 
 was weeping on his hand, clasping it in both her 
 own. 
 
 "Tush! You're nought but a fool!" said he. 
 He turned his eyes upon the child who was now re- 
 duced to the hoarse whine of exhaustion. "And so 
 yon's my bairn, Meg." His voice had altered subtly, 
 indescribably. Disengaging himself from her grasp, 
 he stretched out a finger and touched the wet velvet 
 of the babe's cheek. Little Eagernesse clutched at 
 the long finger with small fevered hands and was 
 shaken by a gusty sob : 
 
 "Want Mary-Nan!" 
 
 The father made no response; but, leaving his 
 hand in the satin-soft grip that, for all its fragility, 
 told of a will as indomitable as his own again 
 addressed his housekeeper with rough good-nature, 
 dropping as before into the familiarity of language 
 and accent that was to her the most flattering of com- 
 pliments. 
 
 "You'll have to bustle, old lady. I've brought 
 a pack of fine gentlemen with me, and ye'll have to 
 get them bite and bed or be clean disgraced ! Nay, 
 never gorm at me that way ! There are sheep in the 
 park, there's wine in the cellar. Aye, they are crack- 
 ing a bottle or so in the library this minute and will
 
 Flower o y the Orange 13 
 
 be none too particular over the meat by-and-by. And 
 I'll see to it that the heads that lie on your pillows 
 to-night will never sniff if they be musty." 
 
 The tears dried under the fire that mounted to Mrs. 
 Drummond's cheeks. 
 
 " Musty ! Gin ye brought home twenty gentlemen 
 as grand as yourself, Eagernesse, there'd be twenty 
 beds fit for them the night. And, troth, did ye think 
 when ye left me the head of a housefu' of servants all 
 these years that I'd let them eat the bread of idleness ? 
 There's a haunch in the larder below, aye and a sau- 
 mon that the King has no better. Hech, sir, there's 
 not a day since your flitting, and me not knowing 
 but the next would bring you hame again, that your 
 ain castle has not been kept ready for you reek 
 in the chimney, broth in the pot. Aye, and the very 
 orange trees thick with blossoms this verra day !" 
 
 No sooner had she said the last words than she 
 could have bitten her tongue out, remembering for 
 whom the orangery had been built. 
 
 "Mary-Nan," hiccoughed young Eagernesse. 
 
 " Be silent, Master Carmichael !" commanded Mrs. 
 Adams. 
 
 She had been awaiting the master's recognition with 
 her air of unyielding rectitude. She knew the story 
 of his house, knew for what qualities the bitter grand-
 
 14 Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 mother had chosen her among a hundred what evij 
 taint was to be driven from the little heir, even with 
 stripes. It was high time, indeed she smoothed 
 the prickly, black mohair skirt where the apron should 
 have spread that a man's hand should be wielded 
 upon the wilful boy. 
 
 "I am sorry to say, sir, that Master Carmichael 
 has been very disobedient to-night, very obstinate 
 and unsubmissive indeed." 
 
 The elder Carmichael shot a swift, flashing glance 
 at her out of his cairngorm eyes. Then he looked at 
 the over-turned milk-bowl, at the white pool on the 
 bare boards, and lastly at the bright-curled, hot- 
 cheeked criminal on the bed. The blue gaze looked 
 up at him brimming over. The baby hands kept 
 unflinching hold of his finger. Mrs. Drummond, 
 on her way about her household business, paused at 
 the door, shaking in her shoes. The master had 
 grown a dreadful dour-looking man. 
 
 "And what is Mary-Nan?" he asked, suddenly 
 and sharply. 
 
 Both women answered together: 
 
 "And, indeed, the puir bairn's just daft after 
 her" 
 
 "She has a most deplorable influence upon Master 
 Carmichael "
 
 Flower o' the Orange 15 
 
 "She's a verra gude kind young leddy, just the 
 daughter of the meenister " 
 
 "I should not be doing my duty, Mr. Carmichael, 
 sir, conformable to Lady Ishbel's instructions " 
 
 "She comes up whiles to have a crack with 
 me." 
 
 "Master Carmichael's passionate and rebellious 
 nature demands the strictest discipline." The nurse's 
 measured tones outstayed old Meg's fluttered volu- 
 bility. "I have informed Master Carmichael of my 
 decision to prohibit any further intercourse between 
 him and Miss Mackenzie, and he has shown very 
 evil tempers, hearing she was in the house." Her 
 eye, with its menace, fixed itself upon the child. "I 
 have already chastised him for his passion to-day, and 
 have had to tell him that I shall repeat the chastise- 
 ment presently." 
 
 Here Eagernesse's finger was nipped and wrung; 
 but in the roar that burst from the accused, he was 
 aware more of thwarted fury than of fear. 
 
 "Where is this girl this Mary-Nan?" 
 
 Housekeeper and nurse stared at him, both striv- 
 ing in vain to read the impassive face. Then Mrs. 
 Adams tossed her head victoriously. The peremp- 
 tory voice augured well in her ears. Certain people 
 should be taught their place at last. But old Meg
 
 1 6 Flower o' the Orange 
 
 glanced at the patient, extended finger and took heart 
 of grace. 
 
 "She's in the house the noo ! " she cried eagerly. 
 
 Equally rejoiced were the belligerents over the im- 
 mediate order : 
 
 "Send her up." 
 
 While they waited the nurse dilated at some length 
 on her educational system, drawn out by abrupt 
 questions. She was becoming, for her, quite genial, 
 when the nursery door burst open and a girl, with a 
 tartan shawl hanging off her shoulders, rushed in 
 upon them, panting as she ran. 
 
 " Oh, Mary-Nan, my Mary-Nan !" cried the child. 
 
 It was so rapturous, at the same time so pitiful 
 a call, that old Meg, toiling up the corkscrew stair 
 after the girl, was struck to the heart. 
 
 Little Eagernesse let go his father's finger to stretch 
 out his arms. Neither he nor the new-comer had eyes 
 but for each other. She came straight to him with 
 long swift steps, and culled him to her breast. He gave 
 a wriggle of comfort and content ineffable, and patting 
 her cheeks began to pour forth, in his incomplete lan- 
 guage, a tale of woe and misdeeds, the while she 
 cooed and crooned over him like some large, soft 
 mother-bird. 
 
 "My wee cummie, my bonny wee man 1"
 
 Flower 6* the Orange 17 
 
 "She heated me with her slipper I fro wed my 
 milk on the floor !" 
 
 ' ' Ah, but that was wrong of my bonny dove ! 
 How will sweet boys grow strong and big if they winna 
 drink their suppie suppie suppie ! " And kisses 
 well-nigh between every word soft, open-mouthed, 
 wet-lipped on the babe's part, close and sweet and 
 greedy on hers. 
 
 Mrs. Adams folded her arms. 
 
 "You see, Mr. Carmichael, sir," she said, exulting. 
 "You see for yourself my reasons for excluding Miss 
 Mackenzie from Master Carmichael 's society." 
 
 There was a tight smile on her face. She felt 
 very sure of her ground ; the father, she knew, had 
 not borne to look upon his son for four years, and the 
 Lady Isabel's instructions had been very precise. 
 
 Eagernesse started from the abstraction, during 
 which he had been gazing at the girl, and slowly 
 moved his eyes until they rested on the speaker. 
 Then he flung out his hand, long ringer still extended : 
 
 "As for you pack !" 
 
 Mrs. Adams could not credit her ears. 
 
 "Pack, I say! Out of my house this night! 
 Pack and go." 
 
 "Sir Mr. Carmichael " She turned a livid 
 face, defiant. She knew her rights.
 
 1 8 Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 He strode upon her ; it was enough. She quailed, 
 shrank ; her steel became mere rag. Whining, she 
 supplicated a few days' grace till the morning ! 
 
 "Not an hour." He came closer as she retreated. 
 "Meg'll see to your money. Out, neck and crop !" 
 
 On the threshold she made a last cringing halt. 
 The dear child, who should care for it that night? 
 
 "Mary-Nan," said Eagernesse, and slammed the 
 door on the long sinister visage. 
 
 Then he turned round, folded his arms, looked at 
 the two, and was shaken with sudden, silent laughter. 
 
 Mary-Nan was gazing at him over the curly head ; 
 and as their glances commingled the colour rose to 
 her face, even to the roots of her glorious black hair. 
 A cheek like an apricot she had, the eyes of a fawn, 
 a column of amber throat, a crisp wave of locks 
 round a head shaped like that of some Greek statue. 
 She held his heavy child against her bosom with the 
 ease of perfect strength. Wonder grew as he looked. 
 
 Ronald, worn out by his mighty battle, still 
 shaken with reminiscent sighs, drooped against her, 
 cuddled, and fell asleep. Instinctively she began to 
 rock him, as she stood, patting the dimpled arm : 
 
 "You did verra weel, sir," she said. "She was 
 a wicked woman yon, and cruel to the puir lad- 
 die."
 
 Flower o 1 the Orange 19 
 
 He made an abrupt gesture. Gone was the vile 
 hag from his thought ; more interesting matter was 
 before him. 
 
 "In God's name, and where do you spring from?" 
 
 "From the manse below, at Monreith." 
 
 "Good heavens!" 
 
 Aye, she explained, the minister, Mr. Mackenzie, 
 was her father. They had been here a few years 
 now, and they liked it very well. 
 
 "And your name is Mary Anne Mackenzie?" 
 
 She corrected him with a smile. She had beautiful 
 lips, richly cut and of a noble crimson to fit the smooth 
 amber of her skin : 
 
 " Maria- Annunziata Mackenzie." 
 
 He laughed again ; his quick, silent laughter that 
 seemed but to shake him, in his melancholy, for the 
 humour, but never for the mirth of things. 
 
 " Maria- Annunziata and to that, Mackenzie! 
 Maria-Annunziata, and you a daughter of the Kirk, 
 of the purified Kirk of Scotland !" 
 
 " My mother was of Italy," she went on composedly, 
 rocking and patting, with ever and anon a maternal 
 glance at the nestling head between her full frank 
 looks at him. Each time she lowered her lids he 
 marvelled at the black lashes sweeping her cheeks. 
 
 "My mother was of Italy," she repeated. "Aye,
 
 2O Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 sir, my father wedded her out of pity, one may say, 
 she being a castaway from the wreck of a foreign ship, 
 and all lost but her. Some folks said the ship sailed 
 from Genoa, for the cases of oranges that the waves 
 kept flinging upon the beach; but no one rightly 
 kenned. And she had not a word of any language 
 but her own. My father scarce knew aught but that 
 she was a puir desolate lass, and that her name was 
 Maria- Annunziata. Folks telled me," she went on, 
 unconsciously dropping her voice to a lilting rhythm 
 to accompany her rocking of the child, "that she 
 never was as ither folk after the shock and the hard- 
 ship. But my father loved her dear, and she died 
 when I was born. That was in the other parish 
 where we lived, near Arbroath by the sea." 
 
 She told her tale with a grave simplicity that 
 seemed to rob her of all embarrassment before 
 the great lord of the land. Her voice had a low 
 music, deeper than most women's ; indeed, there was 
 in her whole being a mellowness as of other suns, a 
 warmth, a generosity, an unconscious freedom. 
 
 "Ha," he cried, "I might have known, by the mere 
 look of you, that such a flower o' the orange could 
 bloom in our barren land but by a freak of fate !" 
 
 "In heaven's name, Eagernesse," said old Meg, 
 creaking open the door, "the gentlemen are wild for
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 21 
 
 you in the library, and I maun have an hour's grace 
 to get their fires up." 
 
 "I'm coming, them!" said Eagernesse, gen- 
 ially. 
 
 He drew close to Maria-Annunziata as he spoke, 
 and once more laid his finger lightly on his child's 
 cheek. Then, without word or look for the girl, he 
 marched to the door. On the threshold, however, 
 he paused and nodded at her. 
 
 "You will mind him to-night," he said. 
 
 She started in dismayed protest : 
 
 "Hech, sir, but my father! I canna leave my 
 father the night." 
 
 "Tush! Your father shall be warned. You'll 
 bide." The door was closed upon her further objec- 
 tion. 
 
 Left alone, old Meg and Mary-Nan gazed at each 
 other. 
 
 "You maun bide," said the housekeeper. 
 
 "And, indeed, Mistress Drummond, I canna. 
 If 'twas to save the bairnie from yon dreadful wum- 
 man, I'd stay and gladly. But he'll be safe wi' you ; 
 and my auld hinnie will take neither bite nor sup 
 this evening without me." 
 
 "You maun bide," repeated Meg. " Eh, you little 
 ken Eagernesse ! He's no to be thwarted, that gate.
 
 22 Flower o 1 the Orange 
 
 Hech, lass, he's master here, and the meenister him- 
 self would no wish to misplease him, the very nicht 
 of his hame-coming after a' the sair years ; he that 
 holds us all, as one may say, in the hollow of his hand ! 
 Me watch the bairn? I darena, Mary-Nan, that's 
 the truth. Did ye catch his eye upon me as he went 
 out? His order's given Tut, tut, hark to that 
 now!" The girl had endeavoured to slip the child 
 into his cot again. He woke, clung about her neck, 
 and set up a drowsy cry. "You'll have him roaring 
 again, Mary, lass. Aye, he may have his mother's 
 een and his mother's hair, but he has his father's 
 wull, and the pair of them will not let you hame the 
 nicht ! Besides, I have ower muckle to look after. 
 You maun bide, there's my douce lassie." 
 
 "Why, if I maun, I maun," said Maria- Annun- 
 ziata, placidly. She bent over the cot, soothing the 
 little tyrant. Then, suddenly looking up : 
 
 "He never so much as kissed the laddie," she said. 
 
 Old Meg hesitated at the door. Various duties 
 were calling her hence, urgently enough; yet she 
 loved a bit of gossip dearly, and here was the one 
 being worthy of her confidence. 
 
 "Eh, Mary-Nan" she came back, her voice 
 dropped to an important whisper. "They're a 
 strange race, the Carmichaels, and him the strangest
 
 Flower o' the Orange 23 
 
 of them all ! I tell you, even I who nursed him, many 
 a time my mind has misgiven me as to whether he'd 
 ever bear the sight of his child, sith it's got the image 
 stamped on it of the puir thing that's gone. Troth, 
 I could have dropped as I saw him standing there, a 
 while ago, looking at the wean; but he's a father's 
 heart in him, richt eneuch did you mind him wait- 
 ing by the cot with his finger in the wee hand, so 
 patient ? It did my old een guid to see. I was with- 
 out, in the passage, ye ken. Aye, and to hear him 
 turn on yon awfu' English woman ! ' Pack !' says he." 
 
 As Meg rambled on, the girl drew a stool by the cot 
 and sat, her long hand, delicately golden against the 
 white quilt, patting the sleeping child in a knowing 
 way, though her eyes were fixed and abstracted. 
 The shadows were growing deep in the great bare 
 tower-room; and a ghostly greyness was beginning 
 to settle about the familiar objects. 
 
 "He seems a dour, wilful gentleman indeed yet 
 I wonder how she could have left him." 
 
 "Is it the Lady Lilias ye mean? Whisht, Mary- 
 Nan, it is a fearsome thing to be speaking of her, 
 and him in the house ! Ah, lassie, when I think 
 of the night she ran, and Eagernesse's face when he 
 kenned the news !" 
 
 "Did he love her so much?" murmured Maria-
 
 24 Flower o' the Orange 
 
 Annunziata. "Hech! How could she have the 
 heart?" 
 
 "Love ! Aweel, I couldna tell ye. He would have 
 let her walk on siller and gowd if she'd had a mind ! 
 Nothing was too good or too grand for her. Wench, 
 the cedar-presses in the great room below are full of 
 her gowns this minute braw silks and satins that 
 would keep a family for life. And, ye mind the or- 
 angery, where ye be so fond of peeping into and 
 sniffing the scent ? That was built for a mere whim- 
 sey of hers. But love, lassie ? nay, there are whiles 
 I think he never loved her, and that she knew it ! " 
 
 "But she must have been bonny," said Mary-Nan, 
 her chin in her hand, crouching on the creepie stool. 
 The glow of the peat fire played on her face. "She 
 must have been bonny, since the bairn be so like 
 her." 
 
 "Bonny? Aye, bonny she was! But it was the 
 pride of the auld leddy that made the match, and sic 
 matches are not made in heaven. Lady Ishbel was 
 set on it in the upliftedness of her heart. 'A' the 
 Carmichaels,' says she, 'have wedded with dukes' 
 daughters since Colum Carmichael of Otterburn 
 and he chose the daughter of a king ! ' Weel, weel, 
 their pride was sune laid low, for within the twa year 
 the Lady Lilias had runned wi' a mad cousin of her
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 25 
 
 own just hame that week from the Indies ! And 
 her name never to be spoken again but wi' bated 
 breath for the shame on it." 
 
 " And where did she die ? " asked the girl, dropping 
 her voice. 
 
 "Far away from her ain country in some for- 
 eign place aye, it was Germany, as I heard tell. 
 And some say 'twas of fretting after the man and bairn 
 she had left. But I've heerd a queer tale, of how yon 
 ither the callant she was led away by, ye ken 
 was but a cauld, black-hearted traitor to her after 
 a' how he sune tired of her and left her wi'out 
 freend or money, in a strange land, her ain having 
 cast her off. Whilk the laird, having tracked him 
 across the seas, brought him by the ear, they say, as 
 you bring a cur-dog to the puir place she was 
 sheltered in. And then in the garden, beneath her 
 very windows, he ran him through the body. If I 
 ken Eagernesse, it was fair fecht but no mercy. 
 
 "And then, it being the night-time and the mune 
 in the sky, he called her by name, till she ran and 
 speered out. I'm thinking his voice, rising in her 
 sleep, must have seemed like some awful spirit-call 
 to her. But, there, gin the tale be true, stood Eager- 
 nesse, flesh and bluid, with the wan light on his face 
 and him laughing to himself. (I've never heard
 
 26 Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 him laugh out loud.) 'My lady, come and see what 
 I've made of your bonny lover. . . .' Weel, they 
 say, when she saw the two, the living and the dead, 
 she gave a great shriek and fell. They pit her back 
 in her bed, and she only left it for her coffin. Well, 
 well, 'tis all as may be. From first to last, an ower- 
 sad, ower-bitter business. The Leddy Ishbel, she 
 came to see me afterwards, three years agone now. 
 ' Have ye heard the news, Meg ? ' says she. ' Yon's 
 gone to her account,' says she. 'I ha vena had such 
 sweet sleep this twal' months.' God be wi' us, but 
 I'm a daft old fule 1 You suldna be temptin' me to 
 the gossip, lassie. And ne'er a one in this castle 
 with a head on her shoulders but myself !" 
 
 She had bustled forth even as she spoke. Maria- 
 Annunziata sat, still staring into the crumbling peat ; 
 the rhythmic breath of the child fell softly on her ear. 
 High in the tower-room no sound of the bustle in the 
 castle reached her ; nought but the wail of the wind 
 rising about the walls, and the grinding of the surf 
 on the rocks far below. They were terrible scenes, 
 lurid with passion and violence, that she pictured for 
 herself in the embers. And the centre of them was 
 ever Eagernesse, that strange, gaunt man, of the bent 
 brows and the clear, melancholy eyes, with their 
 stealthy gleam of kindness.
 
 Flower o* the Orange 27 
 
 n 
 
 It was a curious company that Simon Carmichael 
 had gathered round him that night; partly for the 
 carrying out of an irresponsible wager; partly be- 
 cause of his determination that none should pity him 
 for a sad home-coming. 
 
 From Edinburgh he had carried with him two boon 
 companions of his younger days, together with a new 
 acquaintance all culled, as it were, from a single 
 convivial meeting, on the mere gust of his mood. 
 There was Lord Dunure dashing member of the 
 Regent's own circle, and well qualified for that 
 exalted privilege who could boast that he had 
 wrenched off more knockers, disabled more watch- 
 men, backed more prizefighters, than any other gentle- 
 man honoured with the Royal regard ; there was Sir 
 Lucius Damory, would-be Maecenas and would-be 
 wit; with him his latest protege, Duncan Teague, a 
 poet, reputed to have been a shepherd in Aberdeen- 
 shire till his rhymes brought him into fame and high 
 circles a small, squat, dark man this third, given 
 to terrible passions of eloquence between pregnant 
 hours of silence. And besides there was a hard- 
 riding neighbouring laird, picked up en route, and a 
 slim, smooth-cheeked boy, the Marquess of Dum-
 
 28 Flower o 1 the Orange 
 
 barton, Eagernesse's own cousin on the maternal side. 
 The last was known as Dumb Dumbarton, because 
 of his extraordinary taciturnity : a taciturnity his own 
 neighbours estimated as in no way arising from the 
 bashfulness of his years. "Ower proud to speak," 
 they had it. He came from the far Highlands, arriv- 
 ing after the rest of the party, with quite a retinue of 
 servants, including his piper. Mistress Drummond 
 had taken special pains about his apartments; not 
 so much because he was the grandest of her master's 
 guests, as because "his hair had a bit curl in it, and 
 her heart always went out to a laddie." 
 
 The great dining hall was filled with light and 
 clamour. Servants ran hither and thither, poising 
 the silver dishes ; and the savoury reek of the feast 
 mingled with the fragrance of the blossoms from the 
 orangery that ran parallel to the hall. Each man 
 had to his hand brimming glasses of wines, red, white, 
 and amber; Burgundy, velvety, perfumed, potent; 
 claret, subtle and insidious; champagne with the 
 laughing bubble; Rhenish with its frosty sunshine. 
 Tongues were loosened, merriment rippled. 
 
 The shepherd -poet beat the table and stormed a 
 long speech in broad and picturesque tongue. Some- 
 thing it had to do with former existence and predesti- 
 nation, something with politics a good deal with
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 29 
 
 the speaker's conviction that one man was as good 
 as another in the present instance possibly better. 
 
 The company at first shouted and applauded, then 
 became suddenly and irrevocably bored ; until Eager- 
 nesse, with hoarse gibe, drove the poor rhymester 
 into a fit of fury, wherein he cursed and quoted 
 fiercely from Ezekiel and from that chiel, Burns; 
 whereat laughter broke out once more round the 
 table. Damory poured claret on his satellite's wrath, 
 and Dunure vowed it hissed as it ran down the hot 
 throat; which idea striking the poetic mind, the 
 shepherd yielded himself to one of his silences for 
 the working of it to a lilt. 
 
 The moment came when smoking joint and pom- 
 pous platter gave place to the less gross attractions of 
 dessert Four silver baskets, which had been of 
 Eagernesse's wedding gifts, gleamed in the candle- 
 light under their burden of pine and grape and ruddy 
 orange. The cut-glass decanters circled from hand to 
 hand, casting a glow like jewels on the mahogany. 
 It should have been the moment of highest mirth. 
 The guests had drunk deeply, but, as times went, 
 not too deeply. The fare had more than carried out 
 Meg's boast, and vindicated her master's rash wager. 
 Half a tree-bole was burning gloriously on the vast 
 hearth, and the March wind was rising without.
 
 30 Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 Each could picture to himself how the waves were 
 leaping upon the wild coast, how the trees were bow- 
 ing and writhing, and gladden his heart with the 
 cheer and comfort within. 
 
 Yet, as they sat, there had fallen a gloom about the 
 six men; a chill striking out, it seemed, from the 
 host himself, and passed on with interest by haughty 
 Dumbarton on his right. Damory lost the thread of 
 his wittiest sentence, and Dunure yawned in the midst 
 of a laugh; Rob Raeburn of Penninghame took 
 affront, God knows why, all of a sudden at being set 
 down to table with Teague, who had driven sheep. 
 He strove to catch Eagernesse's eye for the picking of 
 a quarrel; but, having met it, was withered into a 
 nameless fear and had to drink a glass of brandy 
 before his blood warmed again. As for Teague, he 
 was scanning his great thumb beating the table 
 but could not bring a rhyme, had he been hanged for 
 it. 
 
 Dunure, by the left of Eagernesse, struck him on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " For the Lord's sake, man, what's become of your 
 boast ? 'Tis not a funeral, I take it, you've convened 
 us to." 
 
 Carmichael lifted his head. 
 
 " My lord," said he, " I claim to have won my wager.
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 31 
 
 When ye were for pitying me at leaving the blithe 
 cheer of the town for my ramshackle old sea-castle 
 which I had not seen for so many years, I went war- 
 rant that I should find in it any day as good enter- 
 tainment as .we were sharing at the moment aye, 
 and better ! Now these gentlemen will bear me out : 
 has my venison been less savoury than that of old 
 Destournaux's at the George ? Or is it my wine 
 that is not up to the standard of his cellar? It was 
 scarce in the bargain," he went on, with a black look, 
 "that I should provide you with digestions to take 
 comfort in my vivers, or with wits to sparkle after 
 my bottles." 
 
 Lord Dunure was of a very different make from 
 country-bred Penninghame. He resented his host's 
 look and tone instantly. His light, dancing brown 
 eyes fixed themselves in answering menace. 
 
 ' ' Listen to Simon Carmichael ! " he scoffed . "Does 
 he not talk like an innkeeper, and a sullen one at 
 that? Vivers and wine his bottle, his venison!" 
 
 "If there is anything I can further provide for 
 Lord Dunure's entertainment?" said Eagernesse. 
 
 There was a threat in his voice like gathering 
 thunder, the veins in his forehead swelled. Damory, 
 scenting the tedium of a quarrel, strove to turn the 
 question with a joke, vowed the entertainment was
 
 32 Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 unexceptionable, but the evening only just begun; 
 called for a song and nudged Dumbarton to support 
 him ; whereat the latter, unostentatiously withdraw- 
 ing from the touch, suggested (not without a jesting 
 gleam in his blue eyes) that he could have his piper 
 in, if any one cared. 
 
 Here there rose a clamour; for Teague, standing 
 up, proposed to gie the table a bit verse of his ain, verra 
 divertin' ; and Rob, whom the brandy had altogether 
 befuddled, raised a steady roar for the piper. Into 
 this hurly-burly Dunure, his red eye still on the host, 
 slipped his dagger-thrust of words : 
 
 "Pshaw, friends, what we miss in this house is a 
 lady's presence. Your wine's good enough, Eager- 
 nesse, and so is your fare. But what's a man's castle 
 without a lady in bower? Gad, man, we do lack a 
 hostess." 
 
 "Say you so?" said Eagernesse. 
 
 In the emphasing silence that suddenly surrounded 
 them, both men smiled with dilated nostrils and un- 
 flinching stare upon each other. Then, unexpectedly, 
 Carmichael laughed in his noiseless way and rang the 
 bell that stood beside his plate. The silence deep- 
 ened as all watched him. 
 
 " Where host can gratify guest he is bound to do so, 
 by every rule of hospitality." He laid grating em-
 
 Flower o' the Orange 33 
 
 phasis on the words host, guest, and hospitality ; and 
 Dunure with repressed fury knew himself rebuked. 
 "You miss a lady at my table a hostess to whom to 
 toss your glasses? So be it!" 
 
 The butler stood before him. 
 
 "Bid Mistress Mackenzie come down to us !" 
 
 The man hesitated, met his master's eye, bowed 
 and withdrew. And in the persistent stillness that 
 succeeded for none knew what to make of him 
 Eagernesse looked slowly from face to face, and again 
 was shaken with hard, secret mirth. 
 
 But when an apple-cheeked old woman, resplen- 
 dent in white cap and lace apron, bustling skirts of 
 purple silk about her, appeared as if in answer to the 
 summons, there was such a shriek of laughter, such 
 howls and jeers that, for the moment, no word of 
 Carmichael could be heard. 
 
 Presently, however, as it dawned on his guests 
 by his stupendous frown and the sharpness with 
 which he turned on the new-comer that here was 
 no trick to mock their gallant humour, but an unex- 
 pected thwarting of his own, there was again a 
 general hush. 
 
 "How now, Meg, and who wants you here, auld 
 Jezebel?" 
 
 As Meg said later: "He might growl like ony ill-
 
 34 Flower 6* the Orange 
 
 tempered mastiff, but there was ever a wag of the tail 
 for me behind it a'." Nevertheless, she trembled a 
 little as she curtseyed, for it was a strange and a bold 
 thing for her to be standing there, and all the braw 
 gentlemen staring at her ; but she had no fear of him. 
 
 "Eagernesse, you're no in earnest in sending for 
 yon lassie, and she under the shelter of your roof the 
 night for the love of your ain bairn ? Hech, sirs, she 
 may not be the grand kind you're used to, but yon's 
 a leddy." 
 
 Eagernesse's eyes were fixed on the old woman. 
 
 "Meg," said he, "present my compliments to Miss 
 Mackenzie, and tell her I beg for the favour of her 
 company for half-an-hour. And what have I done" 
 (his voice dropped to a lower note) "that you'll no 
 trust a leddy at my table for a glass of wine ?" 
 
 She glanced at him smiling; her smile wavered; 
 she smoothed her apron; then she curtseyed, once 
 to him, once to the company, her poplin rattling and 
 rustling, and turned on her errand without another 
 word. 
 
 "Fill your glasses, gentlemen, and hold them 
 ready, for you'll soon have a sight worth toasting." 
 
 From gloom Carmichael seemed to have sprung 
 to highest spirits. There was fire under his rugged, 
 black brows ; colour had risen darkly to the lean face.
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 35 
 
 Among his guests a new interest had driven all dul- 
 ness forth : 
 
 But, after all, it was old Meg who came back again. 
 She looked scared this time, and her voice was plead- 
 ing. 
 
 "Miss Mackenzie's humble compliments, sir, she 
 trusts you will not think her discourteous, but she's 
 no raiment fit for company the nicht." 
 
 "No raiment? Bid her take what she fancies 
 from the cedar room. Begone, woman, hurry ! 
 And tell Miss Mackenzie we are all waiting on her." 
 
 With one glance, as if she had seen the devil in 
 him, old Meg hurried to the door. "Bid her make 
 herself grand!" thundered Carmichael after her. 
 
 The sound of laughter pursued her, as she panted 
 up the winding stairs; but she knew that his voice 
 was not of it, that the laughter shaking him was 
 dumb. 
 
 "Eh, lassie, but he's an awfu' man!" she cried, 
 as she tiptoed into the nursery, and stood wringing 
 her hands. "You maun go down, aye, and you 
 maun make yourself grand from the gowns in the 
 cedar presses. Hech, hinnie, you mind the puir 
 leddy's gowns ?" 
 
 She dropped her voice, in utter accents of awe. 
 But the girl, rising from the table where she had just
 
 36 Flower o 1 the Orange 
 
 finished her evening meal, had an expression of inno- 
 cent pleasure and curiosity. 
 
 "Maun I choose among the braw silks maun I 
 go down among a' the gentrice?" 
 
 "'Tis but for half-an-hour. Nay, nay, ye need 
 have no fear, lassie. Eagernesse may have his wild 
 ways now and then, but he's always an honest 
 gentleman. Have no fear, I'd be sair loth he'd think 
 you wudna trust him." 
 
 "And why for no?" said Maria- Annunziata, 
 opening velvet eyes wide. 
 
 ra 
 
 Lady Lilias had been tall and very slight; the 
 minister's daughter was as tall, but built on more 
 generous lines. There was a white satin gown for 
 which the girl hankered mightily, preferring it 
 with the taste inherited from a race where art is in 
 the very blood to the more elaborate garments in 
 which the dead woman seemed to have rejoiced. 
 
 The satin folds fell in grace over her hips to the 
 feet, but Mary-Nan turned with a rueful smile to 
 show Meg how far the gold clasps were from meeting 
 across her bust. 
 
 Then Meg had an inspiration. She had been woe-
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 37 
 
 ful, even to tears, over the drawing on of the silk 
 stockings, over the fitting of the high-heeled mules, 
 which had been her mistress's bedroom wear the very 
 month of her flitting (Maria- Annunziata's arched, 
 well-nigh classic foot made a mockery of the narrow 
 sandals) ; but the housekeeper's woman-instinct was 
 not long proof against the attractions of dressing up. 
 Shaking out of its folds, triumphantly, a scarf of lace, 
 filmy as though it had been wrought by the fairies, 
 she flung it round the girl's shoulders; there was a 
 hasty snapping of scissors, a fevered stitching; a 
 pinning here, a pinning there. 
 
 "Enough, enough !" cried Mary-Nan. 
 
 She stood before a long pier-glass; the bunch of 
 candles on either side of it made an oasis of light in 
 the great room, which was shrouded as if the dead 
 still lay there. Her level brows were drawn to lines 
 of gravity, she contemplated herself; her fingers 
 moved with unerring deftness not a thought had 
 she of her who had so often mirrored her frail, fatal 
 beauty upon that very spot. At last she wheeled 
 round with a flashing smile. With her coronet of 
 glorious hair, dark as night ; with the long snowy 
 folds about her, she looked a priestess: nay, with 
 the mist of lace over all, a bride ! 
 
 The old woman clapped her hands.
 
 38 Flower o j the Orange 
 
 "Eh, but you're bonny ! Her that's gane couldna 
 hold a candle to you. Come now, lassie, we've been 
 ower long and tread cannily, or we'll have a' the 
 hizzies in the hoose speering on this daft business. 
 Nay, I'll gang doun with ye." 
 
 At the foot of the stairs she paused and caught the 
 girl's arm, trembling, herself, with no unpleasurable 
 excitement : " Come in through the orangery, Mary- 
 Nan, and then I can be keeking how fine you look, 
 wi' the train spread out behind you as you walk 
 across the din ing-hall." 
 
 So through the scented gloom they went. The 
 heels of Maria- Annunziata's mules clacked on the 
 tiles some such slippers had her mother worn, no 
 doubt, as she tripped under her lace shawl along the 
 white pavement of Genoa and she accommodated 
 herself to them with unconscious ease. 
 
 Through the glazed arches of the orangery, be- 
 tween the outstretched branches, glimmered the 
 lights of the dining table. Voices reached them, 
 much laughter. Both the women halted, their hearts 
 beating, the old and the young, with almost kindred 
 anticipation. All at once a drone filled the air, 
 succeeded by a wild skirl. 
 
 "Gude save us!" cried Meg testily, "that's yon 
 heathen, naked Hieland chap of my Lord Marquess !
 
 Flower o' the Orange 39 
 
 Heaven forgie me, I could wrax the neck of him and 
 his bag this meenit !" 
 
 She had counted upon a completely effective en- 
 trance for Mary-Nan in all her finery. But Maria- 
 Annunziata's blood was dancing with all the inno- 
 cent gaiety of her mother's race ; the wild strains were 
 as the final spur to her intoxication. 
 
 "The pipes, the dear pipes!" she exclaimed. 
 "Ah, many's the time I've stepped to them up in the 
 North!" She caught, as she spoke, at a bunch of 
 blossoms shining out of the dimness. "Now I'm 
 going in," she said: and she went straight, head 
 high, the flowers at her breast, her heels clapping, 
 her long train trailing behind her. 
 
 Mistress Drummond looked from the still-swaying 
 orange branch to the retreating figure with sudden 
 misgiving. 
 
 "Be guid to us !" she muttered, "I misdoubt the 
 lassie's head is turned a'ready!" 
 
 Looking back upon it all af terwards, Maria- Annun- 
 ziata many a time marvelled at herself, blushing a 
 hot crimson how had she had the audacity ! But, 
 that night, neither embarrassment nor convention 
 hampered her. As she told Meg, she walked in upon 
 them all as though she had been somebody else; 
 and she felt as if she were somebody else, a great
 
 40 Flower o 1 the Orange 
 
 lady, who had always gone in rich stuffs, through 
 grand spaces, with fine company. 
 
 Every eye was turned upon her ; a deep hush fell. 
 Only Sandy McDougal, the Marquess's piper, with 
 fixed, protruding orbs, sustained his airy strut, swell- 
 ing himself in his pride like a blackcock at the woo- 
 ing. His drone and his skirl rose unchecked, but 
 subtly altered in rhythm to the swing of her step, to 
 the clap of her little heels. 
 
 Then up sprang Eagernesse ; and with him every 
 man. The little Marquess dragged a chair for her. 
 But Eagernesse gave her his own seat, taking her 
 hand in that way of his that seemed rough, yet was 
 gentle. He drew a deep breath through his nostrils, 
 inhaling the mixed fragrance of orange-blossom and 
 cedar-spice that surrounded her. His face was 
 strangely white, she thought ; of the many there she 
 was conscious only of him. Into the golden hazel 
 of his eye had sprung, first surprise, and then a light- 
 ning flash, gone ere she could think on what it meant. 
 
 In a mad way the pipe-music seemed to have got 
 into her blood. Sometimes, when out on the springy 
 moorland, with the mighty west wind in her face, she 
 had felt her pulses leap in just this manner, as if to 
 some mysterious irresistible call, some promise of 
 ecstasv.
 
 Flower o* the Orange 41 
 
 Eagernesse filled a glass and thrust it into her hand. 
 She had never tasted wine before; but she put her 
 lips to the rim, deeming it uncivil to refuse. Scarce 
 a mouthful did she swallow all bubbles and sweet 
 pungency, yet it seemed to run through her with a 
 singing exhilaration ; surely no seemly beverage for 
 a maid ! She set down the glass ; then the boy who 
 had the seat on the other side of her he with the 
 curly hair spoke. She wondered why there was 
 such an outbreak of laughter, just because of those 
 two or three civil phrases. He went steadily on, the 
 small cool tones that matched his person reaching 
 her through clamour of pipes and voices: 
 
 "May I take a glass of wine with you, Miss Mac- 
 kenzie?" And, as she shook her head: "Is cham- 
 pagne not to your liking ? Would you prefer claret ? 
 Nay, do you not wish to drink at all then may I 
 tempt you with some fruit?" 
 
 A gentleman with dancing eyes, who had been 
 staring at her across the table, gave a loud laugh : 
 
 "Hark to Dumb Dumbarton! Gadso, if there's 
 tempting to be done, let it be by some one who can 
 grow a beard !" 
 
 He seized the basket of fruit in front of him as he 
 spoke, and came round the table, to drop on one knee 
 by the side of the girl's chair.
 
 42 Flower 0' the Orange 
 
 This was the signal for Damory to reach for the 
 oranges, and Rob for the grapes. In another minute 
 the three men were each absurdly kneeling around her. 
 Maria- Annunziata smiled down at them. They were 
 very kind and very merry, to be sure ; and, as inno- 
 cently as a child, she found pleasure in feeling herself 
 the centre of admiring attention. All the while the 
 music surged round and round the table, droning like 
 the wind in the forest, with ever and anon the wild 
 exultant cry as if some bird had broken into flight. 
 
 "Nay, and if I may, I would like an orange weel 
 enough," she said, and took one from the dish. 
 
 He who proffered it had a narrow, pale face, with 
 narrow eyes, set darkly ; the chin that rested on his 
 tall stock had thin and cruel lines about it. He 
 sprang to his feet with a lurch that flung the golden 
 fruit in every direction. 
 
 "The choice is for me ! " he cried. He had a high 
 voice, very sweet. "Out of your chair, my Lord 
 Marquess; for once I take precedence." 
 
 The Marquess rose with a solemn bow ; and Maria- 
 Annunziata thought to read affront on his boyish 
 face. Never in her life would she wilfully hurt a 
 living creature. So, very quickly and pleasantly she 
 cried to him that she could very well like a pear, too, 
 if he would peel it for her. And when laughter ran
 
 Flower 0' the Orange 43 
 
 loose again, she thought in her mind that these great 
 gentlemen were as easy to mirth aye, and as 
 foolish as the callants in the village. 
 
 But one laughed not. Eagernesse, sunk back in his 
 chair, was staring straight before him, tapping the 
 table with restless fingers. 
 
 "The poor gentleman," said the girl to herself, 
 "he's thinking on her that left him !" A shadow fell 
 on her gaiety. She wondered why she should feel 
 thus sore at heart to see him brood, and why the pipe- 
 strains that she had deemed joyful should all at once 
 pierce her with their lament. 
 
 Then he who had first knelt before her spoke in 
 her ear so close that she started : 
 
 "I refuse to be left out in the cold." 
 
 Cold ! His face seemed all glow to her, with these 
 red sparks coming and going in his eyes, that flicker 
 of nostril and quivering lip, like the play of little 
 flames. She drew back though, courteously, she 
 tried to keep her smile. 
 
 "And, indeed," she cried, "you are very kind, sir, 
 but I must even abide by my choice." 
 
 Again the guffaw, the shouts. Her mouth opened 
 in astonishment. What had she said ? 
 
 "Dumbarton," cried Eagernesse, as sharply as a 
 dog snarls, "stop those confounded pipes !"
 
 44 Flower o* the Orange 
 
 "She's made her choice oh Gad!" cried 
 Damory, rocking himself to his mirth. 
 
 Unheeding, Lord Dumbarton pressed his chair 
 nearer, and laid the pear he had been delicately peel- 
 ing on her plate. The lean jaw of Sir Lucius be- 
 came suddenly set. 
 
 "Mark ye, Dumb, I am the first," he cried. 
 
 "Stop those pipes, I say!" repeated Eagernesse. 
 
 The order caught the piper in full blast ; the chanter 
 dropped from his mouth, and the wind of his self- 
 conceit seemed to go out of him as dismally as the 
 wailing breath from his bag. He rolled an eye of 
 indignation at his chief. But the latter held towards 
 him in silence a brimming quaigh. Sandy McDou- 
 gal was fain to swallow his mortification with its 
 contents, and strut from the room in the tallest dig- 
 nity he could muster. 
 
 As the music failed, a sense of loneliness fell on 
 Maria-Annunziata. She was no longer the grand 
 lady; she was only the poor minister's daughter, 
 dressed up in dead folk's clothes for the amusement 
 of the laird's idle guests. She glanced round the 
 table piteously ; truly she had been over-bold, over- 
 ready. The lights dazzled her; the fumes of the 
 wine in the air, the fierce sweetness of the orange- 
 blossom at her breast, turned her sick. Her cheeks
 
 Flower d 1 the Orange 45 
 
 burned because of the gaze of all those eyes that 
 looked at her so strangely, and her heart was cold 
 because Eagernesse looked at her no more. 
 
 "Fie, what a cursed set of ungallant beggars are 
 we!" cried Dunure of the dancing eyes. He had 
 drawn his chair close to the girl's, almost wedg- 
 ing out Lord Dumbarton. "We are scarce like 
 ever to have such a toast again ! A health ! a 
 health!' 
 
 He leaned freely over her shoulder to fill a glass as 
 he spoke; Teague sprang up, swaying, to give the 
 company the benefit of the inspiration her beauty 
 had brought to his muddled wits : 
 
 " Dark as the mountain shade, 
 Fair as the simmer mune, 
 Fair as the night of June. ..." 
 
 The flow of his muse was drowned in tipsy Rob's 
 shouts : 
 
 "A health, a health !" He would have drunk to 
 his mother's dairy-wench with the same enthusiasm. 
 
 Lord Dumbarton lifted a brimmer in silence ; but 
 Simon Carmichael never moved. All stood but he. 
 She heard the clucking of the wine as it ran in gulps 
 down their throats. 
 
 It was old Meg's conviction that, at this particular
 
 46 Flower o 1 the Orange 
 
 moment, the devil entered completely into her mas- 
 ter's guests. 
 
 "It a' came," she opined, "from meddlin' with the 
 clothes that belonged to the dead. Hech, the puir 
 lost soul ! She was angered at us from the sair place, 
 and she sent ane to avenge her and only that there 
 were good angels about !" 
 
 Within the orangery the old woman had been keep- 
 ing guard. She rapped against a pane, shook the 
 glass door, in the hope of attracting Mary-Nan's 
 attention and beckoning her away. But the girl 
 sat as if paralysed. 
 
 It was after the drinking of that last bumper, in- 
 deed, that, if devil there were among them, he broke 
 loose. 
 
 "We can't fight for her," hiccoughed Damory, 
 "but, dash it all, we can toss for her !" 
 
 In the midst of the acclamation that followed, 
 Eagernesse lifted his eyes and looked murder round 
 the table. 
 
 "Who told you she was to be tossed for?" 
 
 "Caw, caw!" cried Dunure, madly, in mimicry 
 of the harsh voice. 
 
 Dumbarton raised his rare note : 
 
 "Nay, gentlemen, our host is in the right; he 
 promised us a sight to toast, a hostess to drink to
 
 Flower o' the Orange 47 
 
 no more. I trust no one of us has so far forgot him- 
 self as to hanker for another man's property and 
 we his guests." 
 
 "Gad, be a sportsman toss for her, Eager- 
 nesse !" 
 
 "I'll gie ye my bay mare for her," shouted Rob 
 "Red Lass out of Red Douglas and Banshee !" 
 
 " Give me but an hour to speak for myself," whis- 
 pered Dunure "and you may ask of me what you 
 will, Simon Carmichael." 
 
 Teague, alone, sodden after that last cup, said 
 nothing. 
 
 Carmichael struck the table. 
 
 "By the Lord!" he cried, with sneering lip 
 "what a pack of fine fellows I've gathered round me 
 to-night. Faugh, you fools, who out of your own 
 rottenness can conceive nothing but rottenness ! 
 Was it not told you that a lady was coming down 
 among ye is it not a lady's privilege to have her 
 choice ? Let her have her choice of you in the name 
 of heaven or hell !" 
 
 Ere he had finished Dunure had boldly flung an 
 arm about Maria-Annunziata. Very little had she 
 understood of their clamour; but the most inno- 
 cent know evil by the horror of it. And this touch 
 upon her was a horror beyond bearing. Her blood
 
 48 Flower d 1 the Orange 
 
 uprose with a fierce anger that was like actual fire. 
 There sprang a flash as of flame before her eyes. 
 
 When she came back to her surroundings a cry 
 was ringing in her ears. In her hand she held the 
 silver fruit-knife, and it was stained with crimson 
 half its length. Dunure, his hand to his throat, was 
 glaring at her, panting, livid. She heard a silly, 
 strangled laugh somewhere. Then there was a ter- 
 rible silence. She began to tremble, still holding the 
 red blade. 
 
 Eagernesse walked across to Dumbarton, and asked 
 him in a low voice for his dirk which, awe-struck 
 and sobered, the boy unhooked and handed to him 
 without a word. Then he turned to Mari^-Annun- 
 ziata and laid the weapon, sheathed as it was, across 
 the carven arms of her chair. 
 
 " Gentlemen, here sits the lady whom if she so 
 condescend I hope to make my wife. He who 
 dares to cast upon her a look, unbefitting the chosen 
 of Eagernesse, shall answer for it to me, even to- 
 night." 
 
 All this he said with a very great air. Maria- 
 Annunziata cast away the stained knife ; and, cover- 
 ing her face with her hands, broke into tears. 
 
 She felt his touch upon her shoulder. She knew
 
 Flower o' the Orange 49 
 
 it was his touch ; but, for the rushing in her ears and 
 the bursting pain at her heart, she knew very little 
 of what passed next never knew how Dunure tried 
 to curse and choked; nor how Damory tried to 
 laugh again, and again failed ; how Dumbarton bowed 
 very deep to his cousin, and craved pardon of him 
 and of her like the honest gentleman he was, for the 
 offences he had merely witnessed; how Rob, with 
 one look at the dirk, slunk unsteadily from the room ; 
 nor how, with his head sunk in dreadful discomfort 
 on his breast, the poet was snoring. 
 
 " Don't, my dear, don't !" said Eagernesse, as she 
 sobbed. 
 
 The compassion in that altered voice stung her. 
 She dropped her hands and sprang to her feet ; the 
 dirk fell clattering on the floor. Down the front of 
 her white gown was an ugly smear of blood. She 
 looked round, her lip trembling, large tears welling 
 slowly and falling. She strove to steady her voice : 
 
 "It was no kind deed, gentlemen, to make sport 
 of a poor country lass. Eagernesse, I maun thank 
 you that you spoke up for me so kind ; but O ! 
 I winna hold you to your word " 
 
 A sob rose in her throat ; blindly she ran from them. 
 ****** 
 
 "She passed through the orangery like a wild
 
 50 Flower o* the Orange 
 
 thing," said Meg, as she afterwards narrated the cul- 
 minating events of the night. "And my legs were 
 sae waibly beneath me, they could scarce carry my 
 auld body up the stairs after her. Fair perplexed 
 I was lest it should be my duty to be with him that 
 had swooned within after the stab she dealt him under 
 the chin. Hech, but yon was a terrible business 
 to think of Mary-Nan, the meenister's daughter 
 eh, sirs ! Yet my mind misgave me sae sair for the 
 puir lassie and my ain folly in bringing her doun that 
 ' the foul fiend mend him ! ' says I (that I should 
 say so !). And, troth, I think I was as daft as the rest 
 of them that night. Off I set after her, the sound 
 of her sobbing and wailing unco pitiful in my ears. 
 
 "Midway on the tower-stairs there comes a shriek 
 from the nursery that gars me turn cold ; and on the 
 top of me falls the tawpie, Elspeth, who had been 
 watching by the bairn. 'The ghaist, the ghaist!' 
 she squeals, 'the ghaist of the leddy, a' in her wed- 
 ding gown, wi' bluid on it!' . . . And with that, 
 having found someone to do it upon, she makes a 
 show of swounding ; I had to clout her soundly on the 
 side of the pate to ca' the senses back to her. And, 
 as was to be expected, that roar of hers woke the 
 bairn, and he sets up a pretty rout on his own account 
 and him dreaming, puir laddie, of yon black-faced
 
 Flower o 1 the Orange 51 
 
 English wumman, an' calling out : ' Don't beat me, 
 don't beat me !' 
 
 "Weel, he was soothing doun, as I clambered wi' 
 all haste up the stair again, and I kent he was in 
 Mary-Nan's arms for as wae she was herself, she 
 would never let the bairn greet when, who should 
 go by me, with a leap like a goat up the crag's side, 
 but Eagernesse himsel' ! The Lord be gude to us, 
 but that was a nicht of hame-coming ! Weel, it 
 seemed to me that I was to do nowt syne my master 
 crossed his threshold the day but speer on his doings ! 
 But the truth maun be told. 
 
 "There I stood again, and the nursery door ajar, 
 keeking and hearkening wi' a' my een and ears ! 
 And, sure enough, there stood Mary-Nan, rocking 
 and cuddling the wee bairn, with tears running down 
 her ain face. Ae minute Eagernesse stood and glow- 
 ered at her, and the next he was close till her, speak- 
 ing eh, ye may believe me when I tell it ye, me 
 that knew him frae the hour he could speak at all, 
 I never heard that voice frae him. 
 
 "'O,' says he, 'to see you with my child ! That 
 first minute,' says he, 'I saw you with the child, I 
 knew in my heart. . . . Can you spare me a hand 
 from the bairn, Maria- Annunziata,' he goes on, 'for 
 I want to kiss it that chaste hand, that strong
 
 52 Flower d 1 the Orange 
 
 hand,' he says. 'Aye, it was a bitter test I let you 
 go through, I know that. But, see you, I am a hard 
 man, and I have been sore betrayed, and I grow 
 mad at times. Will you forgive me?' And never 
 a word out of her, but shivering and sighing, and 
 wee Ronald whimpering in between, no distress- 
 fully, but just to be comforted. 
 
 " ' O, my Flower o' the Orange,' says he (aye, queer 
 words he had), 'when you came in with those blos- 
 soms at your breast, and the scent of the cedar about 
 you I called you bride in my heart I called you 
 wife the wife I had dreamed of but never known. 
 Do you think,' he says, ' I can ever let you go again ? ' 
 And, as still she answered him nought, he cries, with 
 a summons in his tone : ' Maria- Annunziata, I think 
 you love my child.' 
 
 " At that she turns her face to him with a smile in 
 it among a' the tears. Eh, but she was bonny, even 
 with the grief upon her ! 
 
 "'Aye,' she says, 'I love the bairn.' 
 
 " With that he presses up to her. ' And me, Maria- 
 Annunziata ? ' 
 
 "And at last she answers him, soft and steady: 
 'O, aye,' says she, 'I could very well love you too, 
 Eagernesse.' 
 
 "I saw him take them baith into his arms, her and 
 the bairn. . . . Tut, tut, I'm an auld fule !"
 
 THE YOUNG CONSPIRACY
 
 n 
 
 THE YOUNG CONSPIRACY 
 
 A GREY place, in sooth, Edinburgh town seemed to 
 me, fresh as I was from the sunshine and gay colours 
 of France. And it was a bleak wind that came 
 hustling up the steep street when I reached the 
 corner of the Canongate. Yet my heart was blithe 
 enough: was I not back in my long-dreamed-of 
 native land ? My own master, for the first time in 
 twenty years ! (My own master, in my own coun- 
 try : what did that not mean for me !) And a week 
 or so, all my own, before passing into fresh thralls. 
 
 In St. Germains and Versailles, as you may guess, a 
 lad in the Gensdarmes Escossois, with his mother's 
 brother keeping guardian's watch over him the while, 
 sips of liberty so little that he scarce knows the taste 
 of it upon his tongue. And further, if all I heard 
 of him were true, my noble father was little like to 
 give me doucely the run of my youth once I got be- 
 neath those smoky rafters of Craigmalloch dimly 
 recollected from the hours of childhood. 
 
 55
 
 56 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 So this week which I had resolved to allow myself 
 in Auld Reekie was stolen, as it were, from right- 
 ful authority all by the good fortune of a mar- 
 vellous favorable wind that ran us into Leith harbour 
 so many days before our computation. Here, then, 
 was I, with all the joys of the world before me; 
 but twenty, as I have told ; free ; a returned exile 
 to whom, though he was at home, everything was 
 yet new and alluring. A stout lad, to boot, not ill- 
 looking, fancy busy in his brain and springtime in 
 his blood. I had dropped my small baggage at a 
 decent-looking inn by the harbour ; and I had still 
 the sea-smell in my nostrils, even after my long walk, 
 as I stood under the Nether Bow Port and looked 
 up and down the tall street, the high-topping houses 
 on either side, with their small doors and many 
 windows, so unlike all I was familiar with, and all 
 around me the lilt of the kindly tongue. 
 
 " Now," says I to myself, " shall I break my fast in 
 some merry tavern ! And after that, why, I'll go with 
 the wind," says I, just as a gust caught me. And 
 this blew me into the High Street, whereup I walked 
 towards the sunset, casting eager eyes about for a 
 suitable house of entertainment and already reckon- 
 ing what I should order after the monotony of the 
 sea-fare.
 
 The Young Conspiracy 57 
 
 By-and-by, however, as I went, I began to perceive 
 that between the pleasant ease with which a French- 
 man learns to take his life and the attitude of my 
 countrymen towards existence there is a singular 
 difference. The folk went by me without a friendly 
 word upon the time o' day ; without even a glance of 
 curiosity, absorbed in grave nay, it seemed to me, 
 in sour thought; or deep in converse with some 
 equally serious companion. The women, hard-fa- 
 voured as they were hard- voiced, cast foul water into 
 the gutters, and shouted to their children from the 
 deeps of wynds, threatening dire punishment. The 
 very urchins, I thought, played with an air of pur- 
 pose and business; kicked and cuffed and shrilled 
 in anger at each other, but had no laughter. There 
 was ne'er the stave of a song afloat in the evening 
 air ; none of the bustling cheer you will hear all over 
 Paris at such a time, when pretty wenches trip home 
 from work, with a keek of the eye for passing ad- 
 mirers; where jolly house-mothers foregather on 
 their doorsteps, gossiping in the deepening light ; and 
 your rotisseur and your pdtissier, your sweep or your 
 barber, will each have a jest for you as you go. 
 
 Presently, accosting a worthy-looking, elderly man 
 who came towards me with sober mien and deliberate
 
 58 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 step, I begged of him to direct me to the ordinary 
 most a la mode. 
 
 He surveyed me with a dark look : 
 
 "There are pits enough gaping for youths and 
 fools," said he; then in his harsh Scots; "and if, 
 as I take it from your speech, you are from France, 
 young man, doubtless you will find the way yourself 
 without my pointing it." 
 
 With which civility he passed on, leaving me chilled 
 in my merry humour and stirred in my temper. 
 
 I began to think that I was, in truth, playing a fool's 
 part in seeking a frolic in this over-godly town. 
 "These are the wretches," said I to myself, in a new 
 mood of bitterness, "who have turned out their law- 
 ful King and called in a stranger to rule over them, 
 snuffling texts the while to justify the traitor's part ! " 
 
 At home, at least, I should be within loyal walls, 
 however sternly ruled. And I had more than a mind 
 as I stood, hungry and discontented, to throw up 
 my project and set my face forthwith towards the 
 Highlands. 
 
 Yet, even as I paused, a youth swung by me, 
 humming under his breath the tune of a loyal song 
 I knew : 
 
 " Little ivat ye who's coming. . . ."
 
 The Young Conspiracy 59 
 
 (I set the words to the air with a quick pleasure, as 
 at the unexpected meeting of an old friend.) He was 
 followed at a little distance by a couple of serving- 
 men. I noticed that none wore a cockade, but a 
 dried sprig of rowan or some such red-berried tree, in 
 their caps. I was not learned enough in Scottish 
 matters (after my upbringing in exile) to be able to 
 trace the badge, as I deemed it ; but that here was 
 the sign of a high house I thought to know. 
 
 The arrogant glance, the tilt of the head, the pride 
 of his carriage, the fashion in which the youth eyed 
 me passing, as if it were my duty to make way for 
 him, spoke eloquently enough. Beyond doubt I 
 should have resented these very airs of superiority 
 had I not been suddenly and singularly attracted by 
 the recklessness of his face by that very de- 
 fiance of young blood that flashed at me as he went 
 by, that swayed in the rhythm of his gait. It struck 
 me that he swung the full skirts of his coat as one 
 more familiar to the kilt ; that he cocked his hat as 
 it were a bonnet, and carried his smallsword as 
 provokingly as any claymore. I turned and stared 
 after the three a moment or two, then started in pur- 
 suit down the High Street once more. A spark 
 from this young cock-of-the-walk's joy of life had 
 set my own inflammable stuff afire again : it was as
 
 60 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 if a jewel, a ruby, had glinted at me out of the mud 
 of that sad grey town. 
 
 The lad of the rowan sprig made a straight course of 
 it for a while ; not like one sauntering, but rather one 
 who knows well where he is going. Just before reach- 
 ing the Nether Bow, he suddenly veered down a 
 wynd on the right, with his retainers in full tramp 
 behind. I drew up close, and thought myself fortu- 
 nate indeed when I saw that the cellar entrance into 
 which they presently plunged was that of a tavern: 
 the sign was painted over the door " The Fox and 
 Grapes." 
 
 I shall remember that sign as long as I live : the 
 black board with its bunch of scarlet fruit, and its 
 fox that might have been a squirrel for the jauntiness 
 with which he carried his brush. And the tavern it 
 heralded in Paris such a dismal entrance could 
 only have led to a coupe-gorge! And the narrow 
 black street running down hill, only its highest 
 windows streaked with a pale sunshine which seemed 
 to bring cold, not heat. And the stone steps, worn 
 cup-shape, disappearing into the murk of gaping 
 doors, whence issued savours of food and a thin blue 
 reek. 
 
 As I clattered down in my turn, I bethought me 
 of my grum gentleman's warning : "There are pits
 
 The Young Conspiracy 61 
 
 enough gaping for youths and fools." And I 
 laughed. Little thought I that, when my footsteps 
 should again beat these worn stones, the whole of 
 my life would lie changed before me. 
 
 I swaggered into the cellar with as good an imita- 
 tion of my guide's conquering grace as I could muster 
 in the uncertainty of my passage through unaccus- 
 tomed gloom. A lusty wench, with red hair and pale 
 blue eyes, and a softness of voice and manner that 
 brought back memories of childhood and of my High- 
 land nurse, received me. She motioned me to a 
 solitary table, over which she passed an apron that I 
 judged the day being Friday had seen service 
 throughout the week. She then requested my will. 
 
 With the tail of my eye on Master Rowan-Sprig, I 
 ordered, at hazard, the messes she suggested in her 
 pretty, insinuating way. Meanwhile he who was 
 evidently the master of the establishment attended to 
 the wants of his more important patron. He was a 
 burly, elderly man, whose chin bore as dingy witness 
 to Friday as did my wench's apron. He made a great 
 parade of mopping the gentleman's table, and shifted 
 a wooden salt bowl from corner to corner. But I, 
 intent in watching, was quick to apprehend that they 
 conversed earnestly together, and that in the Gaelic ;
 
 62 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 in which tongue I was not so proficient as my uncle 
 Craigmalloch who held fast to the old traditions 
 would have wished. Thus the drift of their 
 speech escaped me ; yet I could not be mistaken that 
 both looked towards me ever and anon, sharply, and 
 as though expectantly. Finally, aloud and in Eng- 
 lish, the host said : 
 
 "And I've not been forgettin' your honour's lik- 
 ing." And caught up from a cupboard a flagon, 
 darkly incrusted and cob webbed, which he nursed a 
 second in both hands, and deposited on the table as 
 gently as if it had been a baby. 
 
 "A man cannot have too good wine for a good 
 toast ! " cried Rowan-Sprig. His voice had a bright, 
 imperious ring that echoed gratefully in my ear. 
 Again he flung a look at me, which I returned as 
 bravely and invitingly as I might. I was burning 
 to have my knees under the same board, and to 
 chink a glass with one who had taken my youthful 
 fancy as freshly as the spring wind. 
 
 " And what wine will your honour wish ? " said the 
 soft voice of the girl in my ear. 
 
 " I'll have," cried I, starting round to her, " a bottle 
 from the same bin as yonder gentleman." 
 
 Her pale eyes grew round. She hesitated, looked 
 almost frightened.
 
 The Young Conspiracy 63 
 
 "The old clary?" 
 
 "Why not, my love?" and with the corner of my 
 glance upon my hero, who sat, his hand encircling a 
 brimming glass, fixing me now very steadily. "Why 
 not ?" cried I, arrogant young fool that I was, think- 
 ing myself as fine a fellow in the gentleman's eyes as 
 he was in mine. "If wine be measured here by 
 toasts, shall not my glass be of the best?" 
 
 I was meaning the toast to my native land and to 
 my first freedom, and (God help me ! ) to the sudden 
 desire of friendship that had sprung up within me. 
 But the other guest, though he could not have divined 
 any such complicated thought, pricked his ears. A 
 second still he measured me. Then he half rose and 
 addressed me with a very pretty curtsey. 
 
 "I believe," he said, "the old clary is growing 
 scarce. And, indeed, when heads should be clear, 
 'tis better to share a bottle than to drain it alone 
 however good . . . the toast." The last words he 
 said slowly, and, as I had good cause to remember, 
 with peculiar emphasis. 
 
 My answer need scarce be recorded. I made him 
 my best French bow. In a twinkling my wish was 
 accomplished : I was stretching my legs under the 
 same table as those arrogant limbs that had swung
 
 64 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 the coat-skirts as if they had been the free kilt ; I was 
 clinking my glass my hand trembled with that 
 held by his steady fingers. 
 
 "Take my lads to the kitchen, Duncan," said the 
 young chieftain to mine host, "and give them their 
 due fill, but no more. And, as this gentleman and 
 I evidently have matters to talk over, we will profit 
 at once of your empty hour." 
 
 The instant we were alone, my entertainer lifted his 
 glass ; and, his bright hazel eyes deep in mine, " From 
 St. Germains," he said in a sharp whisper. 
 
 " 'Tis my French court bow," thought I to myself. 
 And, seizing my glass in my turn I never knew what 
 took me or why the words should come so pat ; 'twas 
 doubtless from some vague notion of reestablishing 
 myself a true Scotsman in his estimation, in spite of 
 foreign ways : 
 
 "From St. Germains," I said, "to Holyrood." 
 
 Hereupon the watchful intensity that sat so cu- 
 riously on his boyish face vanished. He drew a 
 sharp breath. His eye gleamed. 
 
 "So may it be !" he cried solemnly. And I (who, 
 for 'a fool, had intimate inklings) realised that the 
 toast was no other than a proper loyal one ; upon 
 which, none being more loyal than myself, I thought 
 myself bound to look mighty knowing ; to echo his
 
 The Young Conspiracy 65 
 
 "So may it be!" in a tone of mysterious ardour, 
 and to quaff my beaker with all the ceremony con- 
 ceivable. 
 
 I was rolling the taste of the wine upon my tongue 
 when I found my companion's glance seeking mine 
 with something of impatience. 
 
 "You landed this morning?" queried he. 
 
 "Ay," quoth I, with mortification, thinking I 
 must indeed bear "foreigner" stamped in my air. 
 
 "You're before your time," he added, drawing his 
 watch. 
 
 "Ay," said I, speaking of the fair winds; "'tis all 
 a piece of mighty luck." 
 
 And when I had said it, I began to wonder how he 
 could know; whether, among all the mystery with 
 which it had pleased my uncle to surround my 
 departure, it had been his care to set friends to 
 watch my arrival? And this thought so displeased 
 me that the pleasure in my new acquaintance began 
 to fade, and I looked at him doubtfully. 
 
 "Luck?" echoed he, with a quick frown. 
 " 'Twould be a dangerous comrade to trust ! I 
 marked you, sir, from the first, in the Lawnmarket." 
 
 "And I you, sir," cried I, flattered out of my sus- 
 picions. I smiled as I spoke. That brave face of
 
 66 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 his had not yet relaxed. He turned it now upon me 
 with a deeper gravity and seemed to wait for me to 
 speak again. 
 
 " I wonder," said I, after a pause, more to cover the 
 embarrassment gathering upon me than from any 
 great hunger (for the strong wine, the reek of the 
 place, and something intangibly strange that was 
 growing into the situation had cut my fine appetite 
 of a little while ago) "I wonder when the slut 
 with the red hair will condescend to bring me those 
 collops? " 
 
 "Pshaw!" exclaimed my comrade, and his im- 
 patient hand, that had barely restrained itself these 
 last moments, began to tap the table. "Surely, sir, 
 your collops ..." He broke off, catching back an 
 evidently fierce temper with a strong effort of will. 
 "You are right to be cautious, no doubt. But surely 
 " Again he paused, pushed the empty glass and 
 the bottle on one side, and leaned across to me. 
 " Did all go off well ? Was the landing safe ? " 
 
 I stared at him. Was my first Scottish friend, my 
 pretty lad, a mere lunatic after all ? 
 
 "Why doubtless," I laughed, "since I am here." 
 
 "And . . . he?" His lips were nearly on my ear. 
 
 "He?" I echoed, and from sheer vagueness 
 laughed again.
 
 The Young Conspiracy 67 
 
 Without a moment's transition, fury leaped out of 
 his face. I never saw such a gamecock for sudden 
 anger. His lips trembled ; but once more some strong, 
 mysterious motive forced him to curb his passion. 
 He hastily poured himself a fresh glass of wine and 
 swallowed it in gulps. Then, dashing the red drops 
 from his lips : 
 
 " By the Rood, you are over-young to be so pru- 
 dent!" he said constrainedly. "But doubtless you 
 are right, and you put my recklessness to the shame. 
 Let us then exchange credentials before another 
 word passes." 
 
 Now it may seem strange that even at this point I 
 should fail to perceive that, by my petulant spring 
 humour, I had been drawn into the inner whirl of 
 some conspiracy. But, as my story will show, if I 
 was quick of impulse, I was somewhat slow of appre- 
 hension. Naturally, like all right-thinking sprigs of 
 the time, my highest aspirations pointed towards the 
 day when the rightful standard should be raised once 
 again in the old country ; when out of the bonny glens 
 the faithful lads should gather to it a day only 
 the more ardently yearned for since the failure of the 
 Roquefeuille expedition against the English coast last 
 year. But whenever I had broached the subject to 
 Craigmalloch I had been met by the quiet phrase:
 
 68 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 "We'll bide our time ! " Moreover, my head was full 
 this evening of my own small importance. The 
 thought had taken possession of me that here was some 
 young nobleman, some kinsman, maybe, who knew 
 more of me than I of him, and that his irritation arose 
 from what he doubtless took as an assumption of 
 ignorance on my part. " Foreign airs !" I had seen 
 a few visitors, fresh from the North country, bristle 
 with sensitive pride on the subject of these same airs, 
 without which (they averred) their Frenchified coun- 
 trymen of the Scottish Guards could not as much as 
 pass the time of day to them. 
 
 Therefore I deemed this a fair opening, at last, 
 for the smoothing of matters out between us, and 
 my smile was ingratiating as I answered him : 
 
 " Credentials ? Willingly, my dear sir, so that you 
 gratify me first with yours." 
 
 His eye widened upon me as I spoke ; in it no longer 
 that sparkling anger which, so far from offend- 
 ing, had added to his attraction but a dark sus- 
 picion. And, as he looked, to suspicion succeeded 
 fury. 
 
 "Impostor!" he shouted. "Spy!" and was at 
 my throat. 
 
 I had but time to see murder in his look, and to rise 
 to meet it standing. We had a silent death-grapple ;
 
 The Young Conspiracy 69 
 
 and then I shook him off. He raised a second screech 
 before he was for me again : 
 
 " Duncan ! Robbie ! Here, lads ! A spy, a 
 traitor!" 
 
 Whether it was the meanness of his calling for aid 
 when he had only one to deal with, or whether that 
 tussle for sheer life had roused the fighting devil 
 within me you have had it from me that my in- 
 stincts are quicker than my reason but here a rage 
 such as I had known but seldom before in my life- 
 time came upon me. Perhaps, if you want to exam- 
 ine closer, there was something of the fear of fear in it. 
 For was I not here, in a hideous dilemma, under as 
 odious a stigma as can threaten a man, and like to 
 leave my life in it ? My sudden enemy had his blade 
 out as he shouted. I cannot recall to mind how I 
 closed with him ; but the next instant I had a weapon 
 in my hand and had struck with it. With a deep 
 groan he staggered, and then fell across the table. 
 
 The fury in my brain cleared. I had a vision of the 
 stillness of that young body, the overturned wine 
 bottle, and the two reds slowly mingling ; of the burst- 
 ing open of the kitchen door, and of the white face 
 of my sandy wench peering in upon us. She raised 
 a loud wail ; and I heard an answering clamour far 
 within. I looked at the blade in my hand, dark half-
 
 70 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 way to the hilt : it was not mine. I had struck him 
 with his own sword ! At this, I know not why, the 
 fear I feared leaped upon me. I cast the bloody 
 thing from me. 
 
 " Awa' with ye ! " cried a voice. It was the girl's. 
 God knows for what reason she took the stranger's 
 part. She clapped the door to behind her, and held 
 it with both hands. I saw the terror of my fate in 
 her piteous eyes. 
 
 I ran out of the black room, up the steps into the 
 lane, and down into its deeper shadows. As I turned 
 the first corner I heard the hue and cry begin ; and, 
 my heart beating against my ribs, I fled at first blindly, 
 like a hare in an open field from shadow to shadow 
 in a mere instinct of concealment. 
 
 After a while, however, an extraordinary lucidity 
 succeeded to stupid panic. All my faculties seemed 
 to concentrate into cunning. I halted a second, and 
 deliberately took my bearings ; then I doubled round 
 the first opening; traversed a network of lanes; 
 emerged into an empty court. Here, catching sight 
 of a gaping doorway, I dived behind one of the great 
 panels. It was an inspiration. 
 
 I heard the rush pass by, the hubbub die away ; 
 waited yet awhile to taste the luxury of shelter and to 
 let my panting breath subside. Then I stepped forth
 
 The Young Conspiracy 71 
 
 again. Though I strove to assume a great air of com- 
 posure, even of swagger, as of a young gentleman 
 whose pleasure it was to take the air hatless, it was 
 now I began to feel a kind of trembling in my knees 
 and a general chill misery. 
 
 Was it fair that such misfortune should overtake 
 an honest lad, who sought but a spring adventure ? 
 "There are pits gaping for youths and fools!" . . . 
 Had the old man cursed me ? or was Edinburgh indeed 
 so dangerous a place that the mere cracking of a bot- 
 tle must be fraught with death and disaster ? There 
 was no one about to witness how ill my attempts at 
 jauntiness accorded with my distress. I was in a 
 dingy courtyard, deep and dank as a well, dominated 
 on three sides by tier upon tier of grey masonry 
 studded with black windows. Beyond the archway 
 ran the lane, dark and narrow and slimy. The sky 
 scarce gave light enough to make visible the melan- 
 choly scene. There was but a single gleam for the 
 eye to rest on : a narrow door in the main building 
 on the other side of the court was open, and through 
 it shone a peep of green. 
 
 In such plights as mine, the most reasonable must 
 needs be guided by chance. I cast another desperate 
 look about me, and then set my steps for that 
 tremor of budding foliage.
 
 72 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 And so it was, once again, the wanton humour of 
 spring that made me enter upon the second act in the 
 strange and tangled drama of my first day's freedom. 
 
 n 
 
 The beckoning of the green brought me, through 
 the narrow stone passage of the house, into a broader 
 lane (which I now know as Mary's Wynd). One 
 side of the road was dominated by the usual row of 
 those bleak houses of which I was growing heartily 
 sick. But on the other ran walls of uneven height, 
 broken by gateways; and from over the top of the 
 stonework, in the afterglow, came glimpses of blos- 
 soming fruit trees, gushes of heady fragrance. 
 
 Now, of course my sensible plan was first to seek 
 a hatter in the more noted part of the town, where a 
 fugitive might scarce be looked for ; thence to win my 
 way back to my harbour inn, and set face for home 
 with all speed. Yet I went up the street by the side 
 of the gardens ; lingering, here where the tide of April 
 had flung a foaming wave over the garden barriers, 
 there to peer in through a half-open door at nod- 
 ding daffodils or at a sweep of greensward. But 
 whereas an hour ago the call of the spring to my 
 blood had been all hot and blithe, now it filled me
 
 The Young Conspiracy 73 
 
 with melancholy unutterable. Once again, in fancy, 
 I saw the lad who, in my eyes, had embodied all 
 the pride of life, come swinging down the High 
 Street; met the glint of his handsome eyes and 
 heard the lilt of the old song; marked the rhythm 
 of his step; then saw him, a broken thing, cast 
 across the table over which our glasses had clinked 
 fellowship. 
 
 " Little wat ye -who's coming." 
 
 As softly as the scent of the blossoms from the 
 hidden parterres to my nostrils, came a tune his 
 tune to my ears. My guilty heart shuddered. 
 It was so faint, so intangible, yet so distinct, it 
 might have been his spirit mocking me on the 
 breeze : 
 
 " Little wat ye who's coming: 
 McGilvrey of Drumglass is coming." 
 
 I started, and looked round over my shoulder. 
 The street was empty: 
 
 " The Cam'rons and McLeans coming; 
 A 1 the dunywastles coming." 
 
 I think I swayed as I walked on again. And now
 
 74 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 the stave pursued me, soft yet insistent. It was a 
 woman's voice ; and the words were crooned rather 
 than sung. It seemed to me, though I had neither 
 time nor composure for reflection, that I must obey 
 the call, or signal, whichever it was. I came back 
 a few steps : 
 
 " The Drummonds and McDonalds coming; 
 Little wat ye who's coming." 
 
 In the opening of the door where I had paused to 
 gaze absent-mindedly on the daffodils, now stood a 
 woman. She had a tartan shawl flung over her 
 head, but not so closely as to hide the powder of 
 her massed-up curls. Out of the rich hues of the 
 setting, under the mist of the hair, dark eyes were 
 eagerly fixed upon me. I noticed little else then, 
 except that her face was pale and small and that 
 the hand which held the folds under her chin was 
 delicate as ivory. As I approached she flung the 
 door wide ; and, dropping her shawl, she stretched 
 out both hands to me. 
 
 "Oh, come in, come in!" she cried. She spoke 
 as she sang, in a sweet monotonous drawl ; yet there 
 was a desperate urgency in her gesture, a brilliant 
 excitement in the dark eyes. I hesitated. From 
 bewilderment to bewilderment this day was leading
 
 The Young Conspiracy 75 
 
 me. She caught my wrist with that little, fine hand ; 
 it had strength in it, but it was more the passion of 
 her gaze which compelled me. I let myself be drawn 
 into the inclosure and watched her close the door 
 and push the bolt. Then she stood with her back 
 against it, finger on lip, panting a little. 
 
 As I gazed stupidly I heard a rumour grow in the 
 street without and some shouting ; then running foot- 
 steps pass up and beyond us, then drop away again 
 into the distant hum of the city. Still she stood a 
 moment or two the taper finger at her pretty 
 mouth, the laces and silks of her gown a-fluttering 
 faintly with her quickened breath. Her image was 
 burnt into my heart and brain in that hour of my 
 dangerous adventure. I have but to close my eyes 
 to see her again as I saw her then the pointed face, 
 with its witty, delicate lines ; the curving mouth, with 
 its grave upward curl, as of inquiry; the eyes, so 
 dark under the powdered hair, filled with so radiant 
 a light of courage and devotion. I can see the faint 
 blue and white lines of her silk dress and the arch of 
 her most slender foot. 
 
 "Hounds!" she cried suddenly. "They were 
 close on the scent indeed! . . . Oh, sir " The 
 sweet drone of her voice was broken as by a sob. 
 "If I had not been on the watch . . . ! Ah, but
 
 76 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 I knew it was you ! Hush " as I tried to speak ; 
 "not a word ! Oh, you are so pale, so exhausted !" 
 
 The tenderness of her glance stirred me with an 
 agony of self-pity. I was but a lad after all, and had 
 done and suffered cruel things that day. 
 
 "Would God," I exclaimed bitterly, "I had never 
 set foot on this treacherous shore and it my own 
 land!" 
 
 She gave a cry like a hurt dove : 
 
 "Ah no, sir, it breaks my heart! Here you are 
 on loyal ground your own ground with your 
 own. Oh, we must have failed somehow in fore- 
 thought and prudence . . . but not in our devo- 
 tion!" 
 
 And the singular creature, the passion of whose 
 speech and movement struck me in ever quainter 
 contrast with the changeless soft note of her voice, 
 caught up the tartan shawl where it lay on the path, 
 and hurried to spread it upon the steps that led up 
 into the mansion. And, glancing back at me : 
 
 "No fear of treachery here," she said; "walk on, 
 sir, and enter your house." Then voicelessly : " Oh, 
 my liege !" she breathed. 
 
 " Madam ! " I exclaimed, the whole misconception, 
 as absurd as it was dangerous and tragic, flashing at 
 last upon me. "Madam, I cannot permit you "
 
 The Young Conspiracy 77 
 
 But freakish fate willed it otherwise. There was a 
 shout once again in the street. Someone was hoarsely 
 calling: "This way, this way!" and there came a 
 clatter of rushing feet. The old panic seized me. 
 Let those who have cleverer minds and stronger 
 nerves than myself blame me. It was no moment for 
 explanations. Bowing my head, I set foot upon the 
 tartan spread for the son of a King and entered 
 unwilling impostor into that house of loyalty. 
 
 Conceive me, then, introduced into an apartment 
 at the top of the house, overlooking the same strip 
 of green garden. The lady, mere girl as she was, 
 seemed mistress of the establishment. We were 
 crossed by some servants, to whom she gave orders. 
 On the topmost passage, an old woman in a white cap 
 met us, and flung out her hand with a quavering ges- 
 ture of inquiry. 
 
 "Ay, Meenie," said my guide, "the visitor has 
 come." The other dropped an obeisance to me as 
 before a sacred shrine. 
 
 "Glory be to God, Miss Rachel !" she cried. 
 
 Rachel ! The name pleased my ear. Together, 
 the old and the young, they brought me into the 
 guest chamber, with a reverence that makes me blush 
 even now to think on ; and there they left me. I 
 let myself drop into the great, carved oak chair, with
 
 78 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 its high back and its blazon tapestry, glad of the soli- 
 tude, trying to think, to plan. Yet there was but 
 one course open to me. 
 
 "I shall make a clean breast of the whole story," 
 said I to myself. "She will forgive me; my name 
 will be warrant for me : none of my house were ever 
 doubted." 
 
 Presently for to be young is to be all despair or 
 all hope I saw myself performing prodigies of 
 valour, the leading spirit of a great plot, inspired 
 by the eyes of the sweetest and fairest of conspir- 
 ators. 
 
 She scratched at the door, like a deliberate mouse, 
 and came in, followed by old Meenie, who bore a 
 tray with wine and viands. I had been so full of my 
 plans for self -revealing, and was now so disappointed 
 to see her enter accompanied, that unconsciously I 
 riveted another link in my chain by remaining 
 seated, as one who has never served himself. I 
 have thought often since of my folly. There is no 
 worse or more easy cowardice than that of silence; 
 no more fatal lie than the suppression of the truth. 
 What would it have mattered, after all, had twenty 
 old women heard me shamed, having to shame my- 
 self before that single, pure and ardent soul? I 
 dallied, while Rachel served me to wine, with those
 
 The Young Conspiracy 79 
 
 airs, at once reverential and tender, that were beau- 
 tiful and agonising to me to witness. As I drank, 
 revolving my speech upon my tongue, she addressed 
 me and my fate was sealed. 
 
 "You must forgive," she said, "that neither of my 
 brothers is here to attend upon you. Julian is 
 abroad at the harbour-side, watching ; and Alistair 
 has just been brought home to us, sorely wounded." 
 
 My teeth clicked against the glass. "Good 
 God!" I exclaimed, a horrible suspicion falling 
 like a cloud upon my brain. 
 
 "Yes," said the girl. Her soft voice went on un- 
 inflexed, but the eyes were fierce between tears ever 
 welling and ever burnt up, unshed. "There is a 
 traitor at work somewhere. A spy, who pretended 
 to be your messenger, met Alistair at the appointed 
 place and when unmasked tried to murder him. 
 They have just brought my brother back from the 
 tavern. It is a dangerous wound, and he is now 
 unconscious." 
 
 I sat petrified. 
 
 "What a misfortune !" I stammered at last. 
 
 "Ay, indeed, for Alistair is the cleverest of us all. 
 And the villain has escaped. The traitor! oh 
 could I but reach him !" 
 
 "What would you do with him, Miss Rachel?"
 
 8o The Young Conspiracy 
 
 I spoke as though in a dream. Beneath these accu- 
 mulated blows of fate I was as one struck silly. 
 
 "I would kill him!" said she. 
 
 She cooed the words after her fashion, in the voice 
 of a dreaming dove. But I saw how the ivory hand 
 was clenched; how the eyes flamed; into what a 
 thin, vindictive line the curving lips straightened 
 themselves. I had no doubt that she spoke her 
 heart. Ah, it was not the blade in her grasp I 
 dreaded, but the scorn in her glance. I should have 
 cared very little to lose my life, then ; but to save it 
 I could not have spoken the word that was to cast 
 me so low before her. 
 
 The passion left her face; gentleness came back 
 to her glance. "But indeed," she told me then, 
 "there can be no sorrow in this house to-day, since 
 you are safe. And from what peril ! I knew in my 
 heart you were in danger: all the morning I could 
 not rest. It was Heaven sent me to watch at the 
 gate. Our Alistair cannot die, now that you are 
 under his roof!" 
 
 Had I been he whom she deemed me to be, what 
 sweet comfort might I not have drawn from such 
 courage and loyalty ! I turned my head away. I 
 think I groaned. 
 
 At this she whispered something to the servant.
 
 The Young Conspiracy 81 
 
 The old woman turned upon me the canny eye of the 
 nurse who has had the rearing of many a man. I 
 caught the words : 
 
 " Puir laddie fair worn out !" 
 
 "Oh, you must rest," murmured Rachel then to 
 me. "Oh, I have done wrong to trouble you with 
 our trouble. You can sleep, without a thought, to 
 be strong for to-morrow's great day. God is above 
 us, the cause is just, we are your true servants." 
 
 'Twas some devil, surely, that moved me to play 
 on my part. It galled my vanity to see the disap- 
 pointment on her face, she who had had so brave 
 a front for her brother's danger. In sooth, I made 
 but an unprincely prince, for such a sacrifice, such 
 fanaticism of devotion ! I rose from my chair and 
 bowed, with all that French formality which had 
 already helped to my undoing. 
 
 "Madam," I said, "your trouble is our trouble." 
 (Ay, to think of the guile of that Royal plural, and 
 of the hypocrite I was in my blood-guiltiness !) " My 
 debt to this house is great ; pray God I may one 
 day discharge it ! " My voice trembled. This was 
 the truth at last, and deeply felt. 
 
 The old ardour and joy leaped back into her liq- 
 uid glance. I extended my hand : I felt her delicate 
 fingers touch it with butterfly lightness. Then she
 
 82 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 curtseyed deep before me; and as she curtseyed 
 kissed the hand that had shed her brother's blood. 
 
 The room reeled with me. Confusedly I saw 
 her withdraw backwards. How the quaint creature 
 seemed to have studied Court ceremonial ! At the 
 door once again she sank into a reverence, her silks 
 ballooning around her, and next I was alone. 
 
 I flung myself into the great chair and buried my 
 face in my hands. What a mortal coil was this! 
 Had I been the spy yon poor Alistair had deemed 
 me, instead of a simple lad between the devil and 
 the deep sea, striving to save his credit as best he 
 might, it would have gone easier with me. As there 
 is a heaven above me, it was never that I feared 
 to die, but that I could not die this dog's death of a 
 traitor. Stung by misery, I sprang to my feet again, 
 and wandered restlessly about the room, seeking the 
 issue by which, within a few hours, my ignominious 
 flight must be accomplished. For to fly in the night 
 was the only resource my base plight left me. 
 
 A curse on these Edinburgh houses, bleakly 
 rising skywards as if in imitation of the barren cliffs ! 
 A curse on the senseless custom of setting the guest 
 chambers among the clouds, where, in civilised cities, 
 lodge only scullions and cinder-wenches ! Sheer
 
 The Young Conspiracy 83 
 
 depth into the garden below from the parlour-win- 
 dow ; sheer depth from the bedchamber to the wynd 
 on the other side, and blank wall at that, without 
 so much as the jut of a cornice for an adventurous 
 foot ! I fell to tramping the room again. On every 
 side tokens of the most delicate forethought were 
 as fire to my pain ; the very burnish of the silver 
 candlesticks was a reproach. A framed parchment, 
 hanging over the writing-table, dimly glowing with 
 heraldic gold and tinctures, caught my glance. 
 Though it could scarce soothe me to know the name 
 of the house whose hospitality I was violating, yet I 
 felt impelled to look. It was Drummond, collateral 
 of the Duke of Perth; and Alistair, the lad of the 
 rowan-berry, my victim, the head of it at twenty- 
 three. Ay ! if he still breathed. What tragedy 
 might not even at this instant be happening in the 
 great, silent mansion? 
 
 I gulped another glass of wine and broke a piece 
 of bread, yet could not eat. I looked at my watch. 
 Eight of the evening at least four hours of waiting 
 before the household was like to be in slumber deep 
 enough to favour my project of escape ! 
 
 I took a taper from its sconce and went to examine 
 my countenance in the mirror. I ought to have
 
 84 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 been flattered to pass so readily for one whose good 
 looks were a byword. The personage for whom I 
 was here had hardly been seen in France these last 
 years ; but every brown-eyed, fair-skinned, well-knit, 
 slim lad must bear a family look in a French wig. 
 How heartily I wished myself swarthy and ill- 
 favoured ! 
 
 I flung me down on the huge bed ; then, in a terror 
 lest I should sleep too deep, rose again and fell to 
 writing my confession, for Rachel to read when I 
 was far away. This was a happy inspiration for the 
 passing of the time. 
 
 I wrote a dozen letters; and none pleased me. 
 Full of such fine phrases they were, most of them, 
 that when I read again I blushed for them and tore 
 the sheet across and across. At length wearied 
 brain and sore heart dictated between them an 
 abrupt statement of facts, clear of either self-ex- 
 tenuation or penitence. After some hesitation I 
 signed it by my name which of itself spelt loyalty 
 and, in a hurry (my pen, it seemed, running with- 
 out my will), I scrawled underneath it: "Would I 
 had died before this!" I folded the sheet, sealed 
 and addressed it : 
 
 "For the hand of Miss Rachel Drummond, in this 
 house"
 
 The Young Conspiracy 85 
 
 My task accomplished, a new calm descended on 
 my spirit. Propping my head on my hand, I fell 
 a-musing. And, musing in a sadness that gradually 
 gathered a kind of sweetness, the feared sleep came 
 upon me. I woke with a start, as if my body had 
 leaped to catch my escaping soul. I had dreamed 
 that I was the lover of Rachel Drummond. It was 
 poignant to find myself, after all, but a kind of 
 traitor, bent on the further treachery of flight. The 
 great bell of St. Giles was striking some hour 
 three, I found it, on consulting my watch. The 
 sound welled down the ridge, over the sleeping 
 houses, like water. 
 
 Through the window, which I had left open, I 
 could see the bulk of the old town rise to the north, 
 ragged against the faint radiance of the sky. Upon 
 the black mass a few lights were gleaming, gross 
 yellow beneath the pure sheen of the stars. 
 
 It was a good hour for my purpose. I was sud- 
 denly seized with a frenzy to be gone out of this 
 trap, wherein my honour was so grievously entangled. 
 Tiptoe I crept about the room and extinguished the 
 candles already guttering in their sockets. A small 
 silver night-lamp had been placed at the foot of the 
 bed. I lit the wick. It burnt with a demure glow. 
 I stole to the door "Like a thief in the night,"
 
 86 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 I told myself, and bitterly carried on the simile in 
 my mind. Of how much I, thief, was robbing this 
 kind house ! . . . Of what generous, loyal illu- 
 sions, of what passionate hopes ! 
 
 The boards creaked, as they will beneath a fur- 
 tive footfall. The whole place seemed full of sighs 
 to me. Yet it was singular that I could hear any- 
 thing, so loud were the hammering pulses in my 
 ears. 
 
 On the very threshold my foot struck against a 
 barrier. Had my step been less timid, I must have 
 fallen across it. Instantly a figure reared itself into 
 what seemed to me giant stature. I saw a flushed 
 boyish countenance looking down at me, blinking 
 in the dim light beneath a short crop of tousled yel- 
 low hair. As I stared, absolutely bereft of speech 
 by miserable astonishment, I saw the creature fumble 
 with his sword-belt, straighten his disordered coat 
 with anxious hands ; saw him dive for his wig and 
 flusteringly adjust it on his dishevelled pow. And 
 then he stood, a mighty youth, unmistakably a 
 gentleman, bowing deep before me. 
 
 "I trust your Highness will forgive," he said in a 
 voice which brought me, with a pang, back to the 
 tavern. "I had fallen asleep at my post." 
 
 The passage was so dimly lit by a single lamp
 
 The Young Conspiracy 87 
 
 that it seemed to harbour nothing but shadows ; but 
 towards the end of it (where I remembered the stairs) 
 there came even as he spoke a faint clank, as of a 
 sentry stirring, echoed, or so my fancy had it, by a 
 similar sound from the black depths below. 
 
 "Truly," I exclaimed with a bitter laugh, "I am 
 well guarded !" 
 
 "Ay," said the giant simply; "had anyone sought 
 access to your Highness, it had been across my body. 
 Does your Highness require anything?" he added 
 respectfully, after a pause in which I felt like a 
 drowning man with the waters closing above his head. 
 
 I stammered from excuse to excuse. I was rest- 
 less. Had not been able to sleep. Had had a thought 
 of seeking fresh air in the garden. . . . 
 
 He was all eagerness. He would escort my High- 
 ness, if so it pleased me. Watchers were posted at 
 every entrance and down the lane. My Highness 
 might feel quite secure. This youth, Julian 
 Rachel's Julian, I had no doubt, just nineteen by the 
 pedigree, I remembered had abandoned the elab- 
 orate caution showed by my hostess even in privacy, 
 and gave me boldly the Royal title. It added to my 
 sense of exasperated helplessness. I answered him 
 somewhat tartly that I had changed my mind and 
 desired, above all things, solitude.
 
 88 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 Then, my heart misgiving me at the innocent 
 abashed look on his countenance, being conscious, 
 too, that I was playing my part extremely ill, I added 
 hastily that I would be grateful for a glass of fair 
 water, for I was feverish ; and on a further thought 
 bade him give me news of his brother. He was a 
 lad, apparently, of few words and simple thoughts, 
 and could scarce give himself time to blurt out that 
 Alistair was a trifle easier, so anxious was he to run 
 upon my errand. 
 
 I stood on the threshold as he tramped down the 
 passage, hesitating upon a last mad hope. But, spite 
 of his nineteen years, he was full-grown Scotch in 
 prudence. I heard him pause at the head of the 
 stairs, heard the gutturals of the Gaelic ; and a squat 
 fellow in a kilt came swaggering through the shadows 
 back upon me, to halt within a yard of my door. I 
 withdrew into my room to shut out his solemn, 
 staring eyes. The thought of forcing an escape, at 
 the penalty of injuring one of these loyal creatures, 
 was too odious to be entertained. Again the neces- 
 sity of a timely confession urged itself upon me; 
 yet at sight of honest, eager Julian, back with his 
 brimming glass, I hastily turned over my missive 
 of the night, lest its address should excite suspicion.
 
 The Young Conspiracy 89 
 
 The lad begged me with great simplicity to retire 
 to bed, once again assuring me, ere he departed, of 
 the thoroughness of the watch and ward. I could 
 have screamed at the hateful irony of it all. 
 
 in 
 
 Julian was in my chamber again at the first streak 
 of dawn. It seemed that I was to preside at some 
 secret meeting of my loyal adherents at this early 
 hour. As he was sparse of speech and I ignorant of 
 all I was supposed to know, it took much guessing 
 on my part to discover even so much. All my hints 
 and I dared not now insist with the peremptori- 
 ness I had shown in the night failed to dislodge my 
 overzealous subject from his attendance. When my 
 toilet was completed he knelt and kissed my hand. 
 
 " My brother bids me tell your Highness," said he, 
 "with his deep duty, that it is grievous to him not 
 to be present at the great meeting. He cannot speak 
 much, even in a whisper, for that it brings blood 
 from the lung in which, the surgeon will have it, 
 there is danger. But he bids me add that this morn- 
 ing your Highness will at last know his friends." 
 
 It was a long speech for the big lad and he 
 recited it something as a child his task, his knee still
 
 90 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 to the ground, his blue eyes fixed on mine, with the 
 look of a dog on his master. I said it was well, as 
 regally as I might. Had I wanted to lay bare the 
 truth at that moment, I could not have done so ; the 
 current had hold of me ; I must with it. Yet when 
 it came to the leaving of the room, my feet seemed 
 rooted to the boards. I stood staring towards the 
 window at the square of light, radiant blue against 
 the yellow of the candlelight. Then, as Julian 
 glanced at me with surprise, I turned to follow him 
 from the room, and my eye caught last night's letter, 
 which, if you will believe me, I had clean forgotten ! 
 
 "I pray you," said I, on the impulse, "to give this 
 letter to your sister when I am gone or," I added, 
 in a less assured tone, "if aught should hap to me." 
 
 He took it without speaking, and thrust it in hid- 
 ing over his great chest. 
 
 Now comes that scene of my life which to look 
 back on is more like the confusion of a dream than 
 aught that could ever have happened. Since then 
 I have joyed and sorrowed as other men, loved and 
 hated, prayed to my God and served my neighbour ; 
 but all the drama of my life was held in that single 
 hour, and no moment has ever pulsated since with 
 such poignancy.
 
 The Young Conspiracy 91 
 
 I was conducted by Julian, who trod with the mien 
 of one assisting at a sacred ceremony, into a long 
 room, on the ground floor. Some dozen people 
 were grouped at the end of it, conversing in low 
 tones. As I entered, silence fell. All eyes were 
 upon me. 
 
 I saw Julian meant me to advance, and I ad- 
 vanced. Then the group divided and stood right 
 and left bowing low, each man, as I passed him. I 
 took my seat where it was placed for me, on a chair 
 set with velvet cushions. Whereafter, one by one, 
 they approached and kissed my hand, giving me 
 their names as they did so. It was Drummond of 
 this and Drummond of that, and Grant of the single 
 loyal branch, and Cameron, and McPherson, Gor- 
 don, and McGregor names that should have been 
 music in my ears had I been he for whom they took 
 me. I saw that they were all youths; scarce a 
 bearded man among them. And some went white 
 with the emotion of their young ardour ; and some 
 deep red, as if the seething loyal blood of them had 
 gone to their heads; but all looked at me with 
 the same eyes of fire. All, I saw, wore the sprig of 
 the rowan-berry at their breasts. 
 
 The devil that had spoken for me before spoke up 
 now.
 
 92 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 " Gentlemen," said I, " I am glad to he here among 
 ye. But it is given me to understand that our time 
 is short ; it would be best that ye should speak first 
 and tell me your plans, for I have come hither, I 
 take it, to do your will." 
 
 When I had uttered the words, I thought them 
 mighty cunning, since they invited confidence with 
 little compromise to myself. (I could laugh, now, 
 to think how, but for the mercy of God, I was knot- 
 ting the noose about my neck.) There was a sudden 
 clamour among the lads as I finished, so eager was 
 everyone to speak. I saw a couple fiercely elbow 
 each other. It was clear that if, as I began to suspect, 
 the man I had wounded was the head of the Young 
 Conspiracy, his presence was sadly wanted. 
 
 "Pray, gentlemen " I began again the true 
 Chevalier could scarce have delivered himself with 
 a finer mixture of urbanity and command. 
 
 As upon my entrance, a quick silence fell upon 
 them, they exchanging looks the while like dogs 
 waiting to spring at each other's throats. And into 
 this silence came a voice Rachel's voice. Like 
 the far lament of the pipe in the hills, it stole in pure 
 sweetness to my ear ; yet before I heard its message 
 I knew that it spoke my doom.
 
 The Young Conspiracy 93 
 
 "Treachery !" it said. And again, "Treachery !" 
 And, as the notes of a tune vary on the same motive : 
 "We are betrayed betrayed!" 
 
 The cry came wailing towards us from the passage. 
 Now she stood on the threshold, her delicate hand on 
 the sleeve of a young man who went beside her in 
 silence. All turned and stared at her, and there was 
 a great stillness. She uttered no further sound, but 
 advanced steadily upon us, guiding the youth whose 
 arm she touched. 
 
 Of the conspirators, not one but utter astonish- 
 ment had robbed him of his utterance. I sat still 
 in my guilt as a man may wait, his head on the 
 block, expecting the blow. She came in a white 
 flame of anger, the like of which I never beheld, 
 either before or since. As she halted before me, 
 she dominated every creature in the room. A 
 second her eyes fixed me, as I sat ; and then in 
 her sweet singsong she spoke again : 
 
 "You are all betrayed, and it is my fault ! That 
 man it was I brought him into your midst he is 
 a spy!" 
 
 There ran a sort of howl about the group. Rachel 
 lifted her hand. 
 
 "Here," she said, "here is our Prince !" 
 
 Clamour sprang up again ; deep murmurs. Again
 
 94 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 she controlled all. " First, we must secure his safety. 
 That man has our secret : he must die." 
 
 Then the sluices of fury opened. Right and left, 
 blades leaped out of the scabbard. Eyes as of wild 
 beasts glared upon me. Then he whom Rachel had 
 spoken of as the Prince opened his lips for the first 
 time. 
 
 "Pray, gentlemen," he said very quietly, "put up 
 your swords. I do not wish to have blood spilt in 
 my presence." 
 
 Even in that moment of fierce tension I had a 
 singularly vivid impression of our Prince's person- 
 ality. I marked the bright-coloured boyish face, 
 the clear, brown eye turned with cold indifference 
 upon myself; the disdainful lip that dropped the 
 words of clemency not that the wretched life of 
 the spy mattered, but that, to the Royal gaze, blood 
 would be an unpleasing sight ! 
 
 "Mr. Drummond," said the Prince then, address- 
 ing Julian, who stood, a huge, silent menace, brood- 
 ing behind me, "will you give me the favour of your 
 attention for a few moments apart?" 
 
 As the pair drew aside to the further end of the 
 room, the wave of jealousy in the group of boys thus 
 left unnoticed diverted for a moment their attention 
 from myself. Only Rachel, clenching and un-
 
 The Young Conspiracy 95 
 
 clenching her little hands, took yet a step nearer to 
 me, and dropped her sweet- voiced hatred into my 
 ear: 
 
 " You must die oh, you must die ! Do not think 
 you can escape death !" 
 
 I turned my eyes and looked up at her. I was 
 still seated. Whereupon, moved by what singular 
 intuition I cannot explain, she exclaimed almost in 
 a whisper : 
 
 "I see my brother's blood upon your hands !" 
 
 The words rushed to my lips: "Kill me, then, 
 you!" I would have welcomed such a way out of 
 it at last. But I left them unspoken: some final 
 instinct of dignity kept me to a dumb endurance. 
 And, indeed, though it takes time to tell of them, 
 these events succeeded each other with such breathless 
 haste that a man's thought could scarce follow them, 
 much less reason upon them. Barely the time for 
 those angry lads about me to shoot their jealous 
 glances away from me after young Drummond, 
 when there broke in upon them a gentleman at sight 
 of whom there was a start of surprise, confusion, I 
 had almost said terror, among the conspirators. 
 
 "Murray!" exclaimed the Chevalier in tones of 
 relief. 
 
 The new-comer, a middle-aged man of extraor-
 
 g6 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 dinary masterful appearance, cast a flaming look 
 from face to face, to end upon the Prince's. 
 
 "Ay, Chevalier," he said in a low, rapid voice, 
 "you've done me finely, this time, with your secret 
 voyage ! . . . Ay, and done well for the cause, too ! 
 Wretched boobies !" he turned back upon the boys, 
 spitting the words in his rage "you'd be having 
 your own Association, would ye? That of your 
 elders is too slow and too cautious, and you'd lure 
 your Prince into the heart of danger, in spite 
 of us? ... Death ! You'd be setting up the throne 
 again, such as you ! Ay, and 'tis to the whipping- 
 block I'd send ye!" 
 
 At which, tiger cubs as they were, you should 
 have heard the growl that burst from them. 
 
 "Hush!" cried Murray. With a gesture of sud- 
 den warning, his countenance changing indescrib- 
 ably, he lifted a thin voice : 
 
 " By the Rood, I am too late ! The mischief's 
 done!" 
 
 The echo of a cry, unnaturally cut into dumbness, 
 was in our ears ; next the shuffle of footsteps, stealthy 
 yet numberless, in the garden without, beneath the 
 windows the repeated click of swords and fire- 
 locks. And ere a look could be exchanged, much 
 less a word, among us, a sharp voice rang out in
 
 The Young Conspiracy 97 
 
 command; and we heard the rhythmic thud of a 
 score of muskets on the clay of the path. 
 
 Within the room was first stupor, then the hard 
 breathing of men determined to the death ; but, for 
 the rest, deep silence. Into this silence came, very 
 quietly with no more trouble indeed than the 
 mere lifting of the latch some four gentlemen, one 
 in the uniform of the usurper ; and in the passage 
 behind them, massing sturdily, the soldiers. 
 
 'Twas then that the divine suggestion which was to 
 redeem me sprang into my mind. I was seated, you 
 may remember, in the chair of State ; and about me 
 the lads were still gathered, as though I were the chief 
 personage (as, in a way, indeed I was). I saw 
 now, in a flash, how out of my very baseness I 
 would play the hero, pass for my liege in earnest, 
 and take his danger to myself. Rising, with an air 
 of majesty which this time came unsought, I called 
 out commandingly : 
 
 "Surely, gentlemen, is not God with us? Draw, 
 my friends, and let your Prince lead you !" 
 
 So saying, I drew with a flourish and hurled 
 myself upon the foremost officer. 
 
 Before my point could reach him, I felt as if a 
 rock had been cast against my breast, dashing me, 
 as it were, down some sudden yawning precipice.
 
 98 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 And, as I fell, I heard a crash as of a world explod- 
 ing, into the reverberating echoes of which there 
 rang the words : "His blood is on his own head ! " 
 
 Now, seeing it is myself who is telling this story, 
 it needs no assurance that I did not die of that shot ; 
 nor that the Chevalier escaped capture, since ye all 
 know how he came again later ; how he fought and 
 conquered ; how he fought and lost. But this secret 
 chapter of his life no one knows but the few that were 
 of the Young Conspiracy itself and those that were 
 present at its failure. 
 
 It was many weeks later (for my journey back to 
 life was a long one indeed) that I myself had the last 
 word of that circumstantial enigma. Then I learnt 
 how, chafing in weary inaction month after month 
 at Gravelines in consequence of the failure of 
 Roquefeuille's expedition against England the 
 young Prince had allowed himself to be tempted by 
 the enthusiastic pledges of a band of hot-headed 
 Highland youths, and had come over to lend his 
 personal sanction to a new Loyalist movement. 
 
 This escapade had been carried through in secret, 
 in utter defiance of Murray and the Highland Asso- 
 ciation; though, indeed, Murray had been so dis- 
 trustful of some such coup de tete that a swift vessel
 
 The Young Conspiracy 99 
 
 of his chartering was at the time actually patrolling 
 the coast to intercept the young Chevalier, if need 
 be, and save him from his own folly. Murray knew 
 how keenly alert were the Elector's police, how well 
 informed both in England and Scotland as, indeed, 
 events proved but too well. Be it as it may, had it 
 not been for me whom you may well, in truth, 
 style the " Young Pretender " of that day there 
 would have been no Prestonpans, no Holyrood . . . 
 and no Culloden. 
 
 Now, he who fired at me was not the Hanoverian 
 officer, but a bitter Whiggish gentleman in his com- 
 pany, who thereby thought to perform an act of 
 high policy and cut the Gordian knot of civil strife. 
 
 But, as the blood of kings is not to be shed with 
 the same ease as that of commoners, so great an awe 
 fell upon the party when the deed was done, so deep 
 a feeling of responsibility and doubt, that by tacit 
 consent they withdrew without attempting a single 
 arrest. They could not, in sooth, be accused in high 
 quarters of want of zeal; yet none would be in a 
 hurry to boast of a share in such a transaction. 
 A man may render such monstrous service to his sov- 
 ereign that he will walk in fear all the rest of his life. 
 
 Murray (the wily old fox !) was not like to misuse 
 the opportunity I had given him. I have been made
 
 TOO The Young Conspiracy 
 
 to smile many a time hearing how he flung himself 
 upon my body, placed his hand upon my heart and, 
 groaning aloud, declared his Prince was dead ; how 
 thereupon he mouthed his curses upon the regicides, 
 and then, it is averred, fell to weeping actual tears ; 
 Julian's huge frame meanwhile proving useful in 
 concealing the quiet young man in the corner. 
 
 When the gentry had departed (which they did in 
 sneaking haste), all attention was turned to the ques- 
 tion of the Chevalier's immediate safety ; and not a 
 creature (save one) thought of seeing whether breath 
 remained in him who had proved himself the best 
 loyalist of them all. 
 
 But she, Rachel true heart, whether in hate or 
 love flew like a bird to my side. And never (as I 
 tell her now when I wish to tease) was higher honour 
 paid me than when she left Julian to pour out the 
 Prince's wine, that she might herself coax, drop by 
 drop, through my stiffened lips the cordial that ar- 
 rested my ebbing life. 
 
 I have dim visions of the days that followed. In 
 spite of pain and fever they are sweet. I see Rachel, 
 and that is the first memory, reading a letter by my 
 bed ; and I know it is my own letter, and am content. 
 The horrid web of anguish has gone from me as if 
 it had been but an evil dream. ... I see, with
 
 The Young Conspiracy 101 
 
 infinite pleasure, her delicate profile cut against the 
 black of the oak panels. I lose myself in ecstasy 
 over the curl of her upper lip, parted in its ever 
 unspoken question. Then, when the fever ran high 
 again, and I was thought to be dying, her tender 
 face comes between me and the void ; her exquisite 
 hand alone holds me back ; and Fate gives me the 
 precious revenge to hear the sweet, crooning voice 
 that once demanded my death now bid me again and 
 again to live. 
 
 "If you die my heart will break," come the words, 
 murmuring, sighing, sweet like the breath of the 
 wind in the pine-tops. 
 
 After that, how could I die? 
 
 And presently there are the days when I am very 
 glad to be alive : glad even in the mere flesh of me. 
 It is full spring without, and renewed Spring in my 
 blood, and something else which comes but once in 
 a man's years. And the day dawns when Alistair, 
 as pale as I am myself, but earlier on his feet, walks 
 into my room and sits beside me; and our hands 
 meet in the clasp of that friendship I had yearned 
 for in the tavern. He is a grand lad, is Alistair, 
 and I have never liked man so well before or since. 
 
 All the news of the world is good. The Chevalier 
 is safe again in Gravelines after his escapade ; Scot-
 
 IO2 The Young Conspiracy 
 
 land is biding her time, as Murray and my uncle 
 would have it; and the Hanoverians have been 
 beaten at Fontenoy. 
 
 There falls, too, an evening when Rachel makes 
 me a confession. And it is this : when the soldiers 
 clinked their muskets under the windows that 
 morning she (deeming this the final outcome of 
 my treachery) had had her hand on her brother's 
 sword that she might kill me. Only the blade re- 
 sisted her. I tell her that she could scarce have 
 pierced my coat; but she, in her dear singsong, 
 assures me otherwise. 
 
 "I would have plunged it in your heart!" she 
 croons. 
 
 Then I tell her she had already reached my heart 
 more surely; and I watch the trembling of her 
 grave, wistful lip, and am deeply happy. 
 
 In her mystic way she will have it that it was 
 written in heaven that her house should save the 
 Prince at this moment of his deadly peril. There- 
 fore was Alistair to mistake me for his messenger ; 
 therefore was she to mistake me for the Chevalier 
 himself; therefore, above all, was I to be held in 
 silence when I ought to have spoken. 
 
 It would ill become me would it not? to 
 quarrel with so pious and comforting a conclusion ?
 
 THE GREAT WHITE DEEPS
 
 Ill 
 
 THE GREAT WHITE DEEPS 
 
 MR. EVERARD MILDMAY, cornette in His Most 
 Christian Majesty's Gensdarmes Anglois, had posi- 
 tively not a louis d'or left to ballast his pocket. It 
 was not through lack of good pay, for Louis-the- 
 Well-Beloved treated his English company of gentle- 
 men-at-arms Jacobite refugees, all of them 
 right royally; but, in Paris or Versailles, gold will 
 slip like quicksilver through a young soldier's fingers. 
 And here was his off-duty week, and pay-day not 
 till the end of it ! He would not borrow : his Eng- 
 lish pride was too high. Nor were his English wits 
 nimble enough for the plausible shifts a French officer 
 would have found easy. 
 
 So Cornet Mildmay sentenced himself to arrest 
 in his little, high-perched, iron-balconied room in the 
 good old house of the Rue Ste. Placide; and after 
 three days of this seclusion, realised that his ennui 
 was rapidly growing beyond endurance. 
 
 Not the comfortable fireside in this bitter February 
 
 weather; not the excellent fare (sent up, on good 
 
 105
 
 io6 The Great White Deeps 
 
 credit, from the Mousquetaires Gris] ; not the last 
 book from England (a vastly entertaining work by 
 Mr. Henry Fielding, "The History of Tom Jones") 
 could keep the blood of this youth of twenty-three 
 from clamouring mad protest against such a waste of 
 existence. 
 
 And yet some obscure English obstinacy held him 
 firm against himself. He raged, but yielded not. 
 
 Never had the thought of the tavern-room, the 
 hazard of dice, or the flutter of the cards been more 
 alluring ; never the joy of comradeship so necessary ; 
 never had great Paris seemed to be so full of fair 
 women, gallant intrigue, rhythm of music and of 
 dancing feet, as upon this third evening of Mr. Mild- 
 may's voluntary imprisonment. 
 
 Impatience positively seethed in his brain, forbade 
 his lusty limbs a minute's rest. Full a score of times 
 had he been out on his balcony, now wrapped in his 
 great red military cloak, now merely in his douillette, 
 till the biting air drove him in again. He had watched 
 the sumptuous chariots of La Guiche and Croi sweep 
 with fine curve and clangour into their respective 
 courtyards a little way down the street; he had 
 watched the halting of sedan-chairs before the silent 
 grey walls of the convent opposite the Ladies' 
 Retreat of St. Elizabeth and with unspeculative
 
 The Great White Deeps 107 
 
 eye had marked the veiled figures slip in through 
 a discreetly opened door. 
 
 "Some ancient dames of the Faubourg, beginning 
 to think of their soul now that they have lost their 
 teeth!" he muttered irritably, and flung himself 
 back again to the vain solace of book and fireside, 
 only to begin his bear-walk once more. 
 
 And so on to the dusk, when, for the last time, 
 Tom Jones (genial companion who surely deserved 
 better usage) flew from a petulant hand, and Cornet 
 Mildmay, after kicking the logs on the hearth and 
 cursing the stifling four wails, suddenly seized at his 
 cloak again and was for his balcony, where at least 
 the airs were free. 
 
 Notwithstanding the gathering twilight, the world 
 seemed lighter than it had been all day, for a mantle 
 of snow had just fallen over Paris. He looked up 
 upon the slate and crimson sky, then down upon the 
 ancient walls across his narrow street. Strangely 
 sombre they showed under the white-powdered roofs, 
 over the white-carpeted pavement ; and, with closed 
 shutters, a secret, sullen place. 
 
 The mystery of shrouded Paris called to him. His 
 heart swelled. This coming night of nights seemed 
 to whisper to him of adventure. And he was tied 
 by his empty purse and his proud resolve !
 
 io8 The Great White Deeps 
 
 A lovely stillness was upon the city. All sounds of 
 traffic were muffled ; no living creature seemed to stir 
 within hearing ; there was only the faint clang of far- 
 off bells tolling the Angelus. The Rue Ste. Placide 
 seemed indeed to answer to its name. The pure 
 frozen air, in its crispness, had almost a taste as of 
 some fresh fruit. 
 
 Adventure comes to the adventurous, whether they 
 seek with alert eyes the secret byways of the world, 
 or whether fate tarries for them on their unconscious 
 threshold. The only wings required for the flight 
 are high courage in the game of life and disdain of 
 responsibility. When Cornet Mildmay rose from 
 his discontent for the last time at the sundown hour of 
 that 25th of February, 1749, there was waiting for 
 his immediate grasp the first link of a chain of expe- 
 riences which was to make of that date the most 
 critical of his gilded soldier's life. 
 
 As he stood a vivid patch of crimson against the 
 white and grey background flicking with his finger 
 little flakes of snow from the iron rails of his balcony, 
 one of the jealously shuttered windows of the con- 
 vent opposite, slightly below his level, was flung wide 
 open. He glanced idly down; and his gaze was 
 arrested, fixed.
 
 The Great White Deeps 109 
 
 Framed in the grey carved stone, blossoming like 
 a white flower against a background of darkness, 
 had appeared a vision : a girl's face, pale and ex- 
 quisite, illumined by the cold snow-light as by a spe- 
 cial radiance, with dark eyes, wistful ay, and, by 
 all the saints of England, gazing upward, full and 
 earnest upon him ! 
 
 "Mr. Mildmay!" 
 
 The call rang across the narrow French street, in 
 English accent, as silver pure to his astonished ear 
 as the tart air was to his lips. For nigh five years, 
 since his flight from England, Everard Mildmay had 
 not heard his mother-tongue from any but the rough 
 throats of men. From the lips of a woman it fell 
 now with a startling sweetness that gave him the 
 oddest sense of joy. There was, moreover, in the 
 tones a ring of appeal, a kind of echo of fear, which 
 made his generous blood leap. 
 
 "At your service !" he called back eagerly; and, 
 forgetting his French court bow, leaned down towards 
 her, perilously, over the iron-work. "Forgive me, 
 madam, I " 
 
 But she stopped him with a gesture. 
 
 " Do not speak ! Listen, if you would help." 
 
 Then she herself stopped for a moment to fling into 
 the street below a quick look, which he followed
 
 no The Great White Deeps 
 
 with the sharpened intuition of exceptional occur- 
 rences. The Rue Ste. Placide, a moment before, 
 had certainly been empty; and yet now two men 
 seemed to have sprung into being down there, out of 
 space two shapeless brown spots upon the snow, 
 just under their windows. One of them was re- 
 questing, in the most natural manner, of the other a 
 light for his pipe. 
 
 And on the instant, in Everard's brain flashed the 
 recollection of the many tales he had heard of M. de 
 Berryer, the Lieutenant of Police, and his army of 
 informers, ever at work in Louis-le-Bien-Aim6's 
 capital. Mouches, or mouchards, the people called 
 these detested spies, who, "like flies," they averred, 
 "appear everywhere, none knows where from; and, 
 like flies, see all around without seeming to look." 
 
 Thus, when the girl at the window addressed him 
 again, but this time in French and with a marked 
 alteration in her tone an affectation of coyness 
 very different from the eagerness with which she had 
 just spoken in English he would have been dense 
 indeed not to realise that her words were now aimed 
 at the hearkeners below. 
 
 "Yes, you may come over we are fearfully dull. 
 I am so glad you are better!" Then, with a slight 
 pause, as though to emphasise for his ear the next
 
 The Great White Deeps in 
 
 words : "Beware of the cold ! Keep on your cloak, 
 friend, when you come, or I shall be angry !" 
 
 With a pretty mimicry of shuddering, a coquettish 
 wave of the hand, she closed the window. And the 
 officer, puzzled, yet all aflame, withdrew on his side, 
 even as the two smokers in the street, having appa- 
 rently succeeded in striking fire, separated again and 
 went back into nothingness. 
 
 But it took little time to exchange his douillette 
 for the blue and silver uniform, and his slippers for 
 the long boots, to consult the mirror a moment or two, 
 to set the laced tricorne at the most approved angle, 
 to fling the end of the crimson cloak over one shoul- 
 der he smiled upon the thought of that quaint 
 behest to dash, clanking, down the stairs. And 
 then, in three steps, Everard Mildmay was across 
 the street. 
 
 Before he had time to raise the knocker the door 
 opened, and he was silently received by the white 
 vision herself. And once more the sweet English 
 voice spoke : 
 
 "Mr. Mildmay, the place is watched night and 
 day. You understood. I thank you for that no 
 less than for your courtesy. So you are willing to 
 help?" 
 
 She extended her hand; and, as he seized and
 
 ii2 The Great White Deeps 
 
 kissed it and held it still, he felt it first flutter like a 
 frightened bird, then close upon his. 
 
 On the pulse of his daring, he looked up and saw 
 the delicate face, half averted, crimson and then grow 
 pale. 
 
 "I want help, God knows," she said, under her 
 breath, with a little catch as of a stifled sob. 
 
 In the midst of the wild conjectures now whirling 
 in his head, the young man was chiefly conscious of 
 the girl's loveliness and of her clinging touch. 
 
 "Command me !" he said fervently. 
 
 She turned and fixed her full glance upon him. 
 
 " Ah ! I expected no less from you, my country- 
 man ; no less from one of your house, Mr. Mildmay 
 of Hildon." 
 
 "You know me, then? How am I to call you?" 
 
 She hesitated. "Call me Lucy," she said. 
 
 "Lucy?" The soft name fell from his lips like 
 a caress. 
 
 She drew her hand from his. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Lucy. Will not that suffice, for 
 the nonce at least?" The shade of an adorable 
 smile flickered on her lips. She gave her head a 
 little toss of pride, then she proceeded with gravity : 
 "Mr. Mildmay has bound himself my knight, and he 
 must lead, or follow, me to-night without question."
 
 The Great White Deeps 113 
 
 Here it was as if she would fain be arch; but 
 something the same strained anxiety that robbed 
 her smile of all mirth now robbed her coquetry 
 of freedom. 
 
 He laid aside his cloak and hat. 
 
 "I am off duty for four days more," he said, sud- 
 denly grave also. "Lead and command ; I follow." 
 
 Thus was struck, in the flight of a few seconds, an 
 amazing compact. All the iridescent possibilities 
 floating in his brain when, but a few minutes before, 
 he had given the best approved swelling turn to his 
 lace ruffle, the last sprinking of scented powder to his 
 side curls a la Brigadiere, were blown away as by a 
 gust from a world unknown. He felt himself stand- 
 ing upon the edge of a current, sweeping whither he 
 could not guess ; but for his life he would not forego 
 the plunge ! 
 
 Mademoiselle Lucy beckoned, and he followed. 
 There was nothing alarming in the first stage a 
 silk-panelled, much gilded boudoir, illumined by 
 candelabras. In front of a gay fire, upon the sofa, 
 a dark woman in the late summer of her beauty and 
 very bright eyed. Though her face bore that hard, 
 almost cruel, look peculiar to so many Frenchwomen 
 of the aristocracy, she smiled most brilliantly upon 
 his entrance. Withdrawing the generous display of
 
 ii4 The Great White Deeps 
 
 shapely feet exposed to the blaze, she curtseyed to 
 his bow. As she rose from her bend she stepped on 
 one side and waved her hand. 
 
 "Sister Bonnefoy," she said. And then Everard 
 saw a singularly tall nun, who, from her dark corner, 
 slightly inclined her head. Her eyes, he thought, 
 were fixed upon him with strangely watchful scru- 
 tiny. 
 
 A panting little clock struck six ; and as if spurred 
 on by the sound, the Frenchwoman once more 
 spoke : 
 
 " Ah, M. de Mildmay ! To the rescue of your little 
 compatriot ? That is well. Now, not a moment to 
 lose, if Lucy is to escape to-night. Art ready, little 
 one?" 
 
 "I have but to slip my mantle on, madame." 
 
 The girl's face looked white, almost drawn. 
 The lady tapped her on the cheek. 
 
 "Fie !" said she ; "and a minute ago we were all 
 so proud of your courage eh, my sister?" The 
 tall nun inclined her head again, and the young man 
 felt that mystery was indeed closing round him. 
 
 "Oh, hurry ! hurry !" pursued the lady, bustling. 
 " First we must off with these, our chevalier ! " point- 
 ing to those great, high-rowelled spurs which, among 
 other old-fashioned accoutrements, were distin-
 
 The Great White Deeps 115 
 
 guishing badges of the Maison du Roy. "For in the 
 ways your valour must tread to-night they would but 
 hinder you. Nay ! when you see whose fingers 
 doff them, and when I tell you whose fingers will 
 buckle them on once more, I warrant you that frown 
 shall pass!" 
 
 The Cornet looked from the clear-cut face, trans- 
 figured with a smile, as bright and as cold as the dia- 
 mond at its ears, to the girl's bent head as she knelt 
 at his feet. He saw the tip of her little ear crimson 
 and felt the trembling of her hand. Poignant sweet 
 movement of embarrassment ! He stood passive, for 
 ere she had dropped into that lowly posture she had 
 flung him a look of mingled pleading and command, 
 and had laid her finger on her lip. 
 
 "And this handsome coat," the elder lady began 
 with fresh gusto. "It would be irremediably ruined 
 on the muddy and difficult way. M. de Mildmay 
 will allow me, I beg, to provide him with one more 
 suitable." And she seized the blue and silver lapels 
 with a firm grip. 
 
 A man Everard might have, must have, resisted. 
 But these women ! Now, upon his other sleeve was 
 Mademoiselle Lucy's touch, too exquisite to resist. 
 And had he not promised ? Like a child he let them 
 pull off his stiff-skirted coat ; and like a child slipped
 
 u6 The Great White Deeps 
 
 his arms into the "wall-coloured" houpelande they 
 held up for him between them. 
 
 Motionless, the tall nun watched. 
 
 "And now," pursued the dark-browed dame, 
 "now for your instructions." 
 
 "Indeed!" said the young man with a puzzled 
 laugh. "I shall be glad, madam, of some explana- 
 tion" 
 
 "Explanation!" she echoed quickly. "I did 
 not promise you that ! See here, sir : is not that ex- 
 planation enough?" She caught Lucy by the chin 
 and turned the girl's face towards him. "And the 
 child is in danger!" 
 
 Lucy met his eyes, with pride in hers. 
 
 "Yes, in danger," she said in English and with 
 more coldness and decision than she had yet dis- 
 played ; " and if Mr. Mildmay carries out his promise 
 of help, he must understand that he will be in danger 
 too." 
 
 This English girl must have known the mettle of 
 her countryman ; her words were as oil to his flame. 
 If he had felt a moment's hesitation he was ashamed 
 of it now. 
 
 But the French lady laughed aloud. 
 
 "And, after all, what is it we ask of the gallant 
 gentleman ? It is our woman's way, you see, to ro-
 
 The Great White Deeps 117 
 
 mance about the little services rendered to us. My 
 pretty young sir, I am sorry to undeceive you, but 
 this is no very great affair merely to escort a poor, 
 persecuted child through some lonely passages, for 
 which she wants the help of a man's head and a man's 
 arm and there are nothing but weak women in this 
 holy place." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders, and let her eye rove 
 from Everard's slightly abashed countenance to the 
 girl's set face. 
 
 As she spoke, she had been spreading upon the 
 table a large sheet of paper, incredibly worn, creased 
 and greasy with usage. She now signed to him; 
 and the next moment found him listening to some 
 very concise instructions, which she gave with such 
 an air of gravity that he felt them to be of vital 
 importance. 
 
 "No escape through the streets," she was saying. 
 "We are watched, caught like rats in a trap. But, 
 with this in your hands, with your determination, 
 M. de Mildmay, a safe passage for you both if not 
 above ground, then under ground. You have heard 
 perhaps of the abandoned stone-quarries that are 
 said to lie under this side of the town?" 
 
 He assented briefly he had heard rumours, 
 vague accounts.
 
 n8 The Great White Deeps 
 
 "Nothing vague about them. Here is a plan of 
 those deserted wastes, those great voids that run deep 
 under our streets and out into the country ; and there 
 is a way unknown to any but us. Here it is 
 see," she went on, running her strong white finger 
 along a wavy streak of red that cut through the irreg- 
 ular fretwork of black lines upon the paper. "It 
 would indeed be hazardous to venture in those spaces 
 without a guide ; but with this you have, pray God, 
 an assured deliverance." 
 
 Everard took the plan into his hands to con it for 
 himself ; the lady leaned over his shoulder explain- 
 ing :- 
 
 "Look. Here where this red line ends are our 
 cellar stairs. And there, at the other end of it, one 
 of the many openings outside Paris, where even now 
 a coach and attendants are awaiting the flight of this 
 bird. The way you must traverse is due south, and 
 the distance not more than half a league." 
 
 "I am ready," said Everard. He folded the paper 
 and thrust it into his breast. 
 
 "Remember who will tie on your spurs of gold 
 again, beau chevalier!" cried the lady then, fever- 
 ishly. And to the girl : " Kiss me, Lucy. Courage !" 
 
 Lucy embraced her, coldly enough, thought Ever- 
 ard. Then, with a sudden turn, ran across to the
 
 The Great White Deeps 119 
 
 nun, fell on her knees, and passionately kissed the 
 long pale hand that was silently extended to her. In 
 another instant she was back at Everard's side. 
 
 "Let us go," she said. Colour had returned to her 
 face and her eyes were bright : it was as if something 
 had rekindled the torch of her courage. She drew 
 up the hood of her cloak and led the way, followed 
 by her companion, who paused on the threshold to 
 throw a significant smile across the room at Sister 
 Bonnefoy. The latter still stood and still watched, 
 till Everard went out in his turn. And he thought 
 he could feel between his shoulders the last look of 
 those suspicious eyes. 
 
 Through corridors they went, in haste; then 
 through courtyards, down other passages and steps; 
 passed an iron-bound door, and at last found him- 
 self in a small low vault, empty save for a lantern 
 ready lit on the floor. There, drawing the eyes, in the 
 opposite wall was a recently made gap yawning into 
 blackness, from which rose an earthy breath, mark- 
 edly warmer on this night of frost than that of the 
 world above ground. 
 
 "Here lies our way, Mr. Mildmay," said Lucy, 
 with a sort of taunt, taking up the lantern and look- 
 ing, as she spoke, back at him over her shoulder. 
 
 "Forward, then," he returned, and took her hand,
 
 I2O The Great White Deeps 
 
 which struck him with such coldness that it seemed 
 as if all her brave blood were burning in her cheek. 
 "You will find a brace of pistols in the pockets; 
 also a compass, flints and matches," madame called 
 to him as they moved on. "Were you going alone, 
 sir, I should say to you: 'Service du Roy!' But as 
 it is, why " Her laugh and the grating of the clos- 
 ing doors behind them were the last sounds of the 
 outer world to fall upon their ears. They were en- 
 gulfed into an awful silence, pointed by their foot- 
 steps. 
 
 After some minutes of steep descent down narrow 
 stairs they emerged upon wider spaces, and Everard's 
 somewhat scattered wits came back to him. He took 
 the light from the girl's hand and drew her to his 
 side, and then stood to survey the scene. 
 
 Here, then, were the first crossways of those 
 mysterious labyrinths, unexplored for ages, whose 
 very existence was all but forgotten by the Paris 
 above ; extending under the network of busy streets 
 and the cluster of gardens, palaces, churches, and 
 convents that men above ground called the Faubourg 
 St. Germain. It might have been another world, 
 so completely did these two already find themselves 
 cut off from human life from life, indeed, of any
 
 The Great White Deeps 121 
 
 kind, for not even creatures of darkness, rat or bat 
 or reptile, stirred in the stony depths so unreal 
 seemed the idea of these endless ramifications of pas- 
 sages leading to unknown pits, extending in every 
 direction. A world like a shroud; roof, floor, and 
 sides, wherever the rays of the lantern struck the soft 
 stone, shone back white as milk; and every void 
 gaped black as death. And over all, for ever, the 
 silence silence such as is not known in the stillest 
 night under the heavens, the silence that oppresses 
 the soul as with breathlessness, that makes the fall 
 of a drop of water twenty yards away heard as if it 
 fell on the brain. 
 
 Moved by the same thoughts, they looked at each 
 other ; and as they stood, it was as if they could hear 
 the beat of each other's heart. But when he marked 
 her quivering lip and dilating eye, he determinedly 
 threw off the sense of awe that had crept over him. 
 He smiled boldly at her, took her hand again and 
 pressed it as he spoke, though this was, unconsciously, 
 in a whisper. 
 
 "A strange place, sweet ! But safer, we know, for 
 us, than the merry streets to-night. Nay, am I not 
 with you?" 
 
 She rallied at once, he knew not whether to the ten- 
 derness in his voice or to the comfort of his protection.
 
 122 The Great White Deeps 
 
 "And did you deem I was afraid, sir? Nay, then, 
 it must be the reflection of these pale walls, for I vow 
 I saw you turn the colour of fear yourself. And 
 now," she went on, with yet more assurance, forbid- 
 ding his attempted approach with imperious hand, 
 "to work, good Mr. Mildmay. Your map, sir, and 
 your compass." 
 
 Half piqued, half in admiration of her courage, 
 he made her a bow, the most flourishing that his 
 French court life had taught him; and then obedi- 
 ently laid down his lantern, spread out his plan, and 
 knelt beside it. As he bent he felt her lean over 
 him, and suddenly looked up again with laughing 
 eyes. And the next instant the laugh died in him, 
 for, catching her face unawares, he caught there the 
 image of terror. The very pulse in her soft throat 
 was beating like a thing in agony. He glanced back 
 at his plan, and for the first time, in the light of 
 what he had seen of the great white deeps, the true 
 knowledge of their perilousness burst upon him. 
 To be lost underground in these endless white mazes 
 horrible fate ! To run vainly, seeking issue, to 
 fear madly, to meet madness at last and die there, 
 like a rat ! And how easy to be thus lost ! 
 
 But what danger, then, so awful, threatened this 
 frail creature that to escape it she must face such
 
 The Great White Deeps 123 
 
 terrors? Sobered indeed, he set his compass, saw 
 the needle slowly swing back to repose and at last 
 unmistakably point to one of the smaller galleries. 
 He studied the plan carefully before making up his 
 mind ; but red line and needle were true to each other. 
 He picked up the implements, and with decision : 
 
 "Come," said he briefly, and then in softer tones 
 bade her take his arm. And once more, in silence 
 they took their road. 
 
 They first passed a succession of similar crossways, 
 which only required the verdict of the compass. 
 But after a while the character of the surroundings 
 changed. There came a chain of broader chambers 
 where the quarrying seemed to have been more reck- 
 less, and where, amid a chaos of rough pillars (built 
 God knows in what ages of the Paris above) that 
 seemed but precarious support for the lowering vault 
 of chalk, it was more difficult to pick out the one way 
 of safety by the red streak on the plan. 
 
 A pervading dampness, which up to now they had 
 been spared, was beginning to assert itself in oozing 
 walls, in pools of clear water, at the bottom of which 
 the lantern rays revealed a soft white slime. Thick 
 white mud sucked at their feet as they went; their 
 progress became more and more a matter of difficulty, 
 and seemed to the man to lead them into greater
 
 124 The Great White Deeps 
 
 danger. The surrounding pillars presented an ever 
 more crushed and rotten appearance ; the low, water- 
 soaked ceilings bulged over their heads, rift in many 
 directions. In front, behind, from all the side gal- 
 leries, came the sound of long-gathered drops falling 
 from the roof into the ooze of the ground with a faint 
 melancholy plash. 
 
 Suddenly, whether from the oppressive silence or 
 the muffled unwholesome airs which drove the 
 blood to his head, a wave of anger, of exasperation, 
 swept over Everard. Was his alluring adventure 
 to be nothing but this mole-like creeping, leading 
 perchance to nothing but a vermin's death? And 
 this still, dumb creature that went by his side, hold- 
 ing her fears under her pride and meanwhile scarce 
 concealing her disdain for him whom a bend of the 
 finger and a look over the shoulder had sufficed to 
 draw blindly after her should she not repay him 
 for his folly of submissiveness ? Was he not to 
 secure whatever else these caves held in store for 
 him the present good at least of kisses ? 
 
 He wheeled round upon her with a sharp move- 
 ment : there was a dancing light, not over-sane, in 
 his eyes. At the same moment, as if a kindred 
 tinge of madness had infected her own spirits, the 
 girl clutched him by the arm.
 
 The Great White Deeps 125 
 
 "Speak!" she cried. "Say something, or the 
 silence of this awful place will make me scream." 
 
 His strange passion broke loose then, like straining 
 dogs from the leash. He caught her to him, and with 
 how hard a grip he himself was all unconscious ; and 
 holding up the lantern devoured her beauty with 
 fierce gaze. And he called back to her : 
 
 "Speak? Ay, that will I! Tell you how 
 maddening you are, and how, if it be death you 
 are leading me to, I shall not complain so you first 
 make the end of life sweet. Lucy, white witch ! 
 Temptress! ..." 
 
 He bent to kiss her ; but she flung her hand over 
 her face, and then, with frenzied outward gesture, 
 thrust him from her. 
 
 The very feeling of the pitiableness of her strength 
 in his grasp, the sudden trembling that seized her as 
 he had held her, brought him to himself. But if the 
 strength of her woman's body was small, not so that 
 of her woman's spirit. She flamed upon him in 
 such fury that all the echoes surprised and caught the 
 notes of her voice and flung them one to the other till 
 the whole weird region seemed alive. 
 
 " I trusted myself to your honour ! Is this how 
 my countryman keeps his promise to a woman in dis- 
 tress? Or perhaps you imagine, sir, that the mere
 
 126 The Great White Deeps 
 
 sight of you in your red cloak has been too much for 
 my maiden heart, and that was why I have lured you 
 after me ? Faith ! Then the place of intrigue is 
 well chosen. I need fear at least no rival to distract 
 your attention. . . . Oh, Mr. Mildmay!" 
 
 Reproach, indignation, jeer she rang the whole 
 gamut of her anger. Her words stung him from his 
 shame into a new irritation. 
 
 "Madam," he retorted, "I would remind you that 
 it is I who have trusted myself to you. I asked no 
 question. In all this mystery there is but one thing 
 clear to me, and it is : that this seems a strange place 
 for seeking safety." 
 
 By the light of the lantern he saw her pale face 
 change. Contempt faded from her lips. 
 
 " I warned you of the danger ! " she cried earnestly. 
 
 "No, Lucy," he returned; "you taunted me with 
 the fear of it." 
 
 Convicted, she had not a word. But then all his 
 chivalrous manhood woke up again, and he repented 
 him. 
 
 "Never mind," said he, comfortingly; "I would 
 do it again, for your sweet sake." 
 
 "For my sake!" she echoed quickly. Her eyes 
 flashed a sombre fire. "And do you think I would 
 have brought you here thus for myself? Are you
 
 The Great White Deeps 127 
 
 really so simple as to think that a poor girl like me 
 could have enemies so powerful? No, sir, other 
 issues were at stake something more than life 
 indeed. Oh ! we have gone so far, I will tell you 
 now, and it may wake you to a better pride in your- 
 self, sir, than that which led you to insult me. A 
 cause, a nation's hopes, were trembling in the bal- 
 ance. We were in dire straits, knew not which way 
 to turn, pressed for time, when, with a flash of your 
 crimson cloak, came to me the inspiration " 
 
 "My cloak?" 
 
 "Ay, sir, your red cloak, after all; and it now 
 wraps, please God, one for whom you should be 
 ready to dye it yet deeper crimson in your best heart's 
 blood ! You serve a nobler cause than you wot of ; 
 and if you and I both lay down our lives to-night 
 we shall have but given them up for one who has the 
 right to demand them." 
 
 His breath came short. 
 
 "Our lives!" He scarce dared understand her. 
 Then with a flash of intuition that seemed, as it were, 
 to start afresh all the settling birds of surmise to wild 
 flight in his brain, so that it was rilled with beating 
 wings : 
 
 "Sister Bonnefoy!" he cried. 
 
 Lucy made no reply, and Everard repeated with
 
 128 The Great White Deeps 
 
 conviction: "Sister Bonnefoy!" He remembered 
 the mistrustful, watching eye and the passion with 
 which Lucy had prostrated herself. And his soul 
 was filled with anger. 
 
 "My life," he said, " belongs to the King of France." 
 
 "Right!" she cried sharply. "And therefore re- 
 proach me not that I tricked you. For had I asked 
 your help for another King, what then would you 
 have said to me?" 
 
 His gaze grew troubled, his eyes dilated. 
 
 "I must have said, 'A man may not serve two 
 masters.'" 
 
 "Then Madame de Vasse was right," she said re- 
 gretfully. "I would have trusted you." 
 
 "Madame de Vasse!" he exclaimed. 
 
 It was with the name of that notoriously beautiful 
 and self-willed woman that had always been asso- 
 ciated at court the Young Pretender's obstinate refu- 
 sal to leave France (as stipulated by the Treaty of 
 Aachen); refusal which had led to the disgraceful 
 scene of his arrest but a year before. 
 
 "Therefore I did well I did well!" Lucy re- 
 sumed and smiled with a sort of triumph. "And 
 now to draw back would be worse than to go on. 
 Let us on, then, Mr. Mildmay!" 
 
 "One word more," he panted.
 
 The Great White Deeps 129 
 
 "Not a word !" said she, and forced him onwards. 
 
 "But surely," he insisted, "a man has the right 
 to be told for whom he may have to die, and why, 
 and how! I don't understand what part I !" 
 
 "Why, Everard Mildmay," she interrupted with 
 deep reproach, "have you already forgotten you were 
 once a loyal Englishman ? Your father's head bore 
 witness to another spirit when last I passed under 
 Temple Bar!" 
 
 He was silenced. In very truth he was ashamed 
 to have questioned where he already knew. But 
 he was far from being elated, or even satisfied, with 
 his rdle. It is one thing for a man to devote himself 
 and he would have given the last drop of his blood 
 for the Cause, as his father had before him it is 
 quite a different thing to be made the tool of another's 
 loyalty. For a long while the Cornet went his way 
 beside his fair companion without speaking ; and so 
 strong is human nature that he forgot the many sur- 
 rounding perils and his responsibilities in a keen sense 
 of personal annoyance. 
 
 "I am tired," said Lucy suddenly, and leaving 
 his side went and sat down on a block of stone. 
 Everard looked around him with a start. They 
 had emerged, apparently, from the water-logged area, 
 and were again at some intersecting ways which
 
 130 The Great White Deeps 
 
 required the help of the compass. He moved back 
 some paces to place his lantern on a convenient ledge, 
 and was about to stretch out his plan, when a stifled 
 cry brought him to her side in a few bounds. 
 
 She was pointing with rigid finger towards the gap- 
 ing spaces they had just left. At the same instant 
 there was a beat of steps behind him. 
 
 He wheeled round. In a second one of the pistols 
 was in his hand, and he was peering he scarce knew 
 at what. 
 
 "Halt there," he called in sharp military French, 
 " or I fire!" 
 
 Clear as was his voice the words rolled confusedly, 
 and were echoed fantastically through the labyrinths. 
 A black form had already detached itself from the 
 outer blacknesses and crept into the narrow area of 
 light thrown by the lantern some twenty feet away, 
 when the crisp click of the locks brought it to a 
 sudden standstill. 
 
 "Des pistolets . . . gare!" cried a hoarse French 
 voice, and the figure disappeared behind a pillar. 
 But the only answer to the warning was an angry 
 growl from the depths behind and the shuffle of 
 running feet among the stones. A man dashed past 
 the light : to fall upon his face as the flash of Ever- 
 ard's pistol leaped at him, red and long, with such
 
 The Great White Deeps 131 
 
 thundering amid these caverns that it seemed as if 
 the world was blasted. The echoes had scarce time 
 to send back their counterfeit roar before new clan- 
 gours broke forth crash upon crash rending the 
 heavy air ; thud after thud shaking the soil. Sounds 
 of collapsing pillars, subsiding roofs, avalanching 
 rocks, broke forth from the great vaults they had just 
 passed through. 
 
 Everard was bending forward, his second pistol 
 at the ready, striving through the faint light, made 
 fainter yet by the powder smoke, to see the effect of 
 his shot. The appalling turmoil for the moment 
 paralysed his wits. As he stood rigid, one hand still 
 holding Lucy behind the shelter of his own body, a 
 last crash broke about them, nearer, and with it 
 rang a fearful yell; still more fearfully cut short. 
 And at the same instant the light went out, the world 
 became solid blackness. And the hideous silence 
 settled upon them once more. 
 
 As, slowly, the reaction came, and his brain began 
 to work again, he set himself in a half dazed way to 
 piece together what had happened. 
 
 The shock of the pistol-shot had brought down 
 some of these rotten pillars, the instability of which 
 he remembered noticing with anxiety but a few 
 moments before; and the waylayers (whoever they
 
 132 The Great White Deeps 
 
 might be) now lay buried under the ruins, with the 
 lantern. The lantern ! The whole unspeakable 
 horror of the situation burst upon him. His brow 
 grew clammy with an icy sweat ; his breath stopped 
 stopped, too, the very pulse of his heart. 
 
 A warm young voice called upon him ; warm young 
 arms clasped him ; he felt upon his hand the falling 
 of warm tears. 
 
 "We are going to die here, and it is I it is I who 
 brought you to this ! Oh, forgive !" 
 
 She held him close, pressing herself against him, 
 and laid her face against his breast. The touch of 
 the frail arms, claiming as it were unconsciously the 
 protection of his man's strength, even while, in her 
 sweet woman's soul, she forgot her own peril to la- 
 ment his, revived all the manhood in him. The 
 very perfume of her hair, rising to his nostrils in the 
 dark, called up a vision of all the joys of a fair earth, 
 of a beauty of life greater than he had ever realised 
 before. No, they should not die without a fight ! 
 The clogging mantle of helplessness fell from him; 
 the blood rushed back to heart and brain. 
 
 " Courage, Lucy," he whispered his lips were 
 on her silken strands of hair "I shall still lead you 
 out of this, if I have to grope upon my knees. There 
 is not so far to go that we should lose hope."
 
 The Great White Deeps 133 
 
 Her nimble feminine wits leaped to his brave 
 impulse. 
 
 "Yes quick!" she cried. "The flint, the steel 
 . . . matches!" 
 
 Hastily he struck, and the sparks flew in showers. 
 And in their lurid light he saw her fair face, close, 
 eager, almost with a smile upon the parted lips ; saw 
 and thought that in all the wide free ways of the world 
 above he had never seen anything more lovely than 
 this flower in the vaults of death. Then darkness 
 fell again, yet for that look, he forgot everything. 
 But under the next flashes the tinder glowed and 
 the match found its fire. He held it aloft and 
 once more they started on their precarious pil- 
 grimage ; with many stops, many anxious consulta- 
 tions of the plan by the uncertain glimmer; with 
 much stumbling over unseen obstacles ; with much 
 husbanding of the little store of pinewood splinters ; 
 pressed one against the other without speaking, yet 
 with every thought consorting. At last, upon one 
 of these halts, he paused so long over the plan that 
 the little torch burned down to his very nails. He 
 fumbled in his pockets. She heard his breath 
 come short. 
 
 "What is it?" she whispered. 
 
 ' ' The last match ! " He barely breathed the words.
 
 134 The Great White Deeps 
 
 An icy pall had fallen upon them. After a long 
 while she said, very low : 
 
 "Then this is death!" 
 
 And as the man in him strove still feebly to com- 
 fort the woman with deceitful hope, she interrupted 
 him gently : 
 
 "No, no, Everard!" And then, laying both her 
 hands against him: "Kiss me," she said, "that I 
 may know you forgive !" 
 
 And so, in the darkness, in their living tomb, as 
 they thought, these two poor children kissed. And 
 as they pressed one against the other, upholding each 
 other, each trying to comfort the other, each thinking 
 for the other, Love was borne to them the love 
 that is stronger than death. 
 
 A span they could not have said whether long 
 or short, for, as if they had already crossed the boun- 
 daries of life, the measure of time was lost to them 
 they stood thus. Then the silence that had begun 
 to roar into their ears like a tide of great waters, 
 was riven by a faint distant cry, like a call of distress 
 across a sea of storm. They started from their trance- 
 like stillness and hearkened : and the sense of life 
 returned to them. 
 
 From far away, from some unknown direction 
 amid the stone mazes, it drew upon them, rising and
 
 The Great White Deeps 135 
 
 falling; now seeming to retreat, now to approach, 
 then ever louder, ever nearer a sort of nightmare 
 howl. And then it became a confused medley of 
 lamentations and yelping sobs, the mad babbling 
 voice of terror. And presently, words, incoherent 
 but distinguishable English words, by all that 
 was fantastic ! fell upon their ears. 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! Oh, Lord ! Oh, Lord ! . . . Lost ! 
 I am lost ! Toby is lost ! Oh, Lord ! Oh, Lord !" 
 
 A moment it might have seemed as if their own fear 
 had taken some devil-shape and was let loose upon 
 them. But the next instant, dancing upon the wall 
 some twenty feet away, appeared a faint gleam of 
 light a blessed ray. And suddenly, a man bear- 
 ing a lantern dashed into the wider gallery on the 
 edge of which they stood and began wildly circling 
 round like a frenzied dog, still wailing his mad itera- 
 tion to the echoes. 
 
 With the new hope a keen decisiveness leaped into 
 Everard's soul. He took a step forward, and in a 
 second had cocked his pistol and was taking aim. 
 
 "Stop, fellow!" 
 
 His voice rang like a clarion. The man stopped 
 as if he had been shot, wheeled round ; then with a, 
 screech ran towards them. 
 
 Everard, his weapon levelled in the right hand,
 
 136 Tlie Great White Deeps 
 
 took with the left nimble possession of the light. 
 But, far from resisting, the creature sank to the 
 ground, embracing the young man's knees: 
 
 "Oh! oh! take me out of this! You will take 
 me out of this ! I am lost, lost a poor English lad ! 
 Those French devils, they set me on guard at a cross- 
 way and left me ! God blast them ! I was all 
 alone, with the whole place falling about ! Ugh ! 
 And I have been running for hours, hours, and there's 
 no way through, and my candle is burning down ! 
 Oh, take me out ! If you will only take me out I'll 
 tell your honour all, I'll give your honour his re- 
 venge." 
 
 "Oh ! you'll give me my revenge?" said the Cor- 
 net grimly. "I think I begin to understand. But 
 I have had my revenge, sirrah. And what is there 
 to keep me from shooting you, too, and leaving your 
 carcase to rot here with the rest of your gang? 
 Strange doings for an honest English lad, to join with 
 French devils to track down and murder an English 
 gentleman! Well, up with you!" cried Everard, 
 as the man with a new howl of despair rolled a shock 
 head against his knees. " Up with you, and on ! 
 The wretch is right, Lucy. That candle would not 
 have lasted long, but it will see us through." 
 
 And the strange companions started upon their
 
 The Great White Deeps 137 
 
 way. Soon they emerged into what, according to the 
 plan, was the gallery opening into the fields of Vau- 
 girard. Freer airs began to circulate, colder and 
 colder ; and, though they were now able to advance 
 rapidly, the freezing temperature of the outer world 
 struck deadly chill upon their shaken nerves. Lucy 
 shivered, and wrapped her hooded cloak about her 
 as close as she could. Toby, the crestfallen ruffian, 
 after walking awhile within the circle of light in de- 
 jected obedience, began by degrees to pluck up his 
 base spirits as they obviously drew near safety. 
 Every now and then he half turned round to cast 
 upon his deliverers a look of cunning and of 
 singular malignity. 
 
 At the last corner Lucy laid her fingers on 
 Everard's hand and pointed to where, across a fallen 
 block of freestone, a long bramble was stretching in 
 from the outer soil into the shelter of the caves, 
 heralding the end of their journey. He halted a 
 moment to share with her the joy of deliverance 
 written upon her quivering face. When he turned 
 round again their rascally fellow-traveller was gone. 
 Everard looked grave for a moment, but then 
 shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "I doubt," he said, "if even now our poor country 
 could produce a more pitiful wretch. Oh, I under-
 
 138 The Great White Deeps 
 
 stand !" he went on quickly as the girl seemed about 
 to speak. "Here was another wolf upon the trail 
 of blood. Faugh ! Let him run and seek his ver- 
 min's fate elsewhere. Now, Lucy, to be under 
 God's skies once more!" 
 
 As he spoke the flickering wick of the candle fell 
 over, and the light went out. But beyond the jagged 
 opening there was the light of the stars. And in 
 another moment they stood free ; the night air, aus- 
 tere in its cold purity, cleansing them from the 
 earthy taint of the quarries. 
 
 They stood awhile, close side by side, to taste the 
 ecstasy. Once more they heard homely sounds of 
 life it seemed a cycle since they had known such 
 things a dog barking in a distant farmyard, an- 
 swered by another yet further off; away along a 
 road the trot of some willing horse carrying some 
 unknown rider to some unknown goal ; the cry of a 
 night bird startled under a snow-laden bush; then 
 suddenly the impatient stamp of a hoof, the jingle 
 of harness. And, indeed, in the faint glimmer 
 of starlight a short distance away, was seen upon the 
 snow the dark outline of a coach and the gleam 
 of its lamps. 
 
 Again Lucy laid her hand upon his. He could but 
 descry the outline of her face, but she spoke with a
 
 The Great White Deeps 139 
 
 nervous ring of girlish laughter in her voice, new to 
 him: 
 
 "And now, my gallant cavalier, you will bear me 
 no grudge for one last little mystification ..." 
 
 But pursuing fate had not yet done with them 
 the words of pretty mockery passed suddenly into a 
 wild shriek. 
 
 There was a tearing rush from the brambles, as of 
 a boar breaking cover. Before Everard could even 
 turn round, something horrible, something thick 
 and yet flexible, clinging like an unspeakable living 
 sheet, glutinous, slimy, was dashed over his face, 
 and with fiendish twist rolled round his head, blind- 
 ing, inexorably choking. It gripped so close that 
 not a sound could escape him. Through his furious 
 efforts to tear off the thing he could hear Lucy scream 
 again. He reeled round, stumbled, fell on his side. 
 He knew that in another minute he would be dead, 
 as surely suffocated as by twenty fathoms of water. 
 But he had barely touched ground before he was again 
 seized upon and raised to his feet, whilst strong hands 
 hastily unrolled the cruel cloth, which clung so tena- 
 ciously that it only yielded with a sound as of tearing 
 silk ; to be wrenched away at last, leaving his face 
 streaming with blood. But little recked he of the smart- 
 ing pain, so exquisite was the blessed air to his lungs.
 
 140 The Great White Deeps 
 
 Gasping and dazed he stood contemplating a scene 
 which was yet further bewilderment. He was now 
 
 surrounded by a number of men, in the sombre uni- 
 
 * 
 
 form of the marechaussee, that seemed to have sprung 
 in fantastic manner from the soil. Two of these were 
 converging upon him the rays of dark lanterns, an- 
 other was supporting the half-fainting form of Lucy ; 
 a few paces away two or three more were occupied in 
 tricing up Toby, the honest English lad, in spite of 
 his frantic struggles. 
 
 Now one, who was evidently in command, ad- 
 vanced, hat in hand, and bowed deeply. 
 
 "Monseigneur," said he in French, "I find that I 
 have been happy enough to be the instrument of 
 saving your Highness's life." 
 
 "Highness, sir?" cried Everard, whose wits were 
 still somewhat scattered. 
 
 "Your Highness finds us well informed," answered 
 the other, bowing with a gratified smile. Then, with 
 renewed gravity, he proceeded : 
 
 " Now, sir, in the King's name, I arrest you. I trust 
 your Highness will find less cause for resentment 
 than on the occasion when M. Vaudreuil my name, 
 sir, is Beuvrey so brutally carried your Highness 
 from the Opera." 
 
 " M. de Beuvrey, "returned the Cornet, " I am grate-
 
 The Great White Deeps 141 
 
 ful for your courtesy. But I must tell you you are in 
 error when you address me thus. My name is " 
 
 Lucy had suddenly released herself from the arms 
 that supported her. 
 
 "Monseigneur is safe!" she cried, with a wild 
 thrill in her voice. And Everard, remembering her 
 half confidences, stood abashed, biting his lip. But 
 he was spared the trouble of mending his mistake 
 by the officer's next words : 
 
 " By what name, then, will Monseigneur be pleased 
 to be called ?" he inquired with another deep bow. 
 
 "Since you will have it so," answered the young 
 man, smiling, yet not without a side-thought of the 
 Bastille, "it is my pleasure to be called Mildmay." 
 Then he added, with a secret malicious enjoyment of 
 his enforced role of deception, "I may be permitted, 
 I presume, to confer with this lady a moment?" 
 
 But the officer interposed hastily. 
 
 " Monseigneur will forgive me if I implore him to 
 come with me now. He will have every opportunity 
 by-and-by, and may rest assured that Madame will 
 receive every attention. Will not your Highness 
 honour me by leaning on my arm? Monseigneur 
 is much shaken, and no wonder," pursued M. de 
 Beuvrey, "and his face will require the care of a 
 surgeon."
 
 142 The Great White Deeps 
 
 "Yes. And, by the way," said Everard, halting 
 to cast back a look in the prisoner's direction, "that 
 man, my assailant ?" 
 
 "Oh, sir, rest assured he shall be dealt with as he 
 deserves. Sacripant, with his masque d'empois! 
 That birdlime towel, sir an invention of Car- 
 touche, the brigand. We had thought it had re- 
 mained his secret. But this man an Englishman, 
 too seems to have been an expert at it. Well, I 
 am overjoyed it was no Frenchman assaulted your 
 Highness. He is no doubt one of the gang who 
 meant to earn to-night the thirty thousand livres 
 offered, as we hear, by the by someone in England 
 for the head of " 
 
 "Of Mr. Mildmay, I suppose," said the Cornet, 
 ironically. 
 
 "Of Mr. Mildmay," assented the police officer, 
 respectfully. " When His Majesty was informed that 
 a price had infamously been put upon your head, he 
 was anxious that the arrest (to which treaties bind 
 him) should not be delayed, were it only as a means 
 of safety. We could, of course, have carried you 
 away from your retreat in the convent of St. Eliza- 
 beth; but the King is desirous to avoid any such 
 scandal as that of last year. And then we knew 
 the police know most things of your intention to
 
 The Great White Deeps 143 
 
 come out by Vaugirard quarries. Yonder scoundrel 
 seems to have discovered your Highness's intended 
 movements also ; for this man was undoubtedly one 
 of the emissaries charged with ... he had, I find, 
 a canvas sack and a butcher's knife about him !" 
 
 Upon this last startling item of information they 
 had reached the coach, into which Everard was 
 assisted as became his supposed rank. The officer 
 took a seat facing him; and then, to the young 
 man's joy, Lucy was ushered in beside him. 
 
 "Forgive me, sir, for presuming to give orders in 
 your own coach," said in honey tone the elegant police 
 officer. "The King has selected Chateau-Gaillon 
 as your Highness's permanent residence, but to-night, 
 to save you fatigue, we stop at Vincennes. The 
 carriage will then convey madame back to the House 
 of St. Elizabeth." 
 
 And now the carriage, surrounded by a small 
 mounted escort, rolled rapidly away, circling round 
 Paris outside the barriers.. 
 
 In the semi-darkness Lucy sought the young man's 
 hand and pressed it ; and while M. de Beuvrey dis- 
 creetly looked out upon the starlit snow, she brought 
 her fresh lips to his bleeding ear and whispered : 
 
 "Everard, to-night, while they are looking for
 
 144 The Great White Deeps 
 
 their prisoner here and wasting their time on us, Sister 
 Charles Edward Stuart is posting towards the sea in 
 the cloak, hat, and spurs of a Gensdarme Anglois, 
 and to-morrow night, pray God, embarks safely. 
 Now you know all. Nay, listen still : you must soon 
 be liberated, but meanwhile nothing you could 
 say will convince this man of his error. You do not 
 mind remaining an august person yet a little while? 
 You have sped your prince towards his throne, per- 
 haps . . . and you have earned the gratitude of 
 Lucy." 
 
 "Only gratitude?" he whispered back eagerly. 
 But by the flickering glow from the carriage lamps 
 he saw her smile, and it was a smile full of sweet 
 promises. 
 
 ****** 
 
 After two days of respectful detention, one in a 
 travelling chaise, the other in the decidedly tolerable 
 duress of Chateau- Gaillon, Cornet Mildmay (who 
 had wisely reiterated his protestation that Mildmay 
 was indeed his name) was released from custody 
 with a somewhat sudden decline of ceremony but 
 not without soldierlike cordiality and brought 
 back, at his Majesty's expense, to his door in the 
 Rue Ste. Placide, just in time to get ready for a 
 resumption of duty.
 
 The Great White Deeps 145 
 
 Upon his bed he found a parcel containing the 
 borrowed articles of uniform (with one exception), 
 and two letters. One was signed " Sister Bonnefoy," 
 and contained some singularly ill-spelt phrases of 
 vague and haughty acknowledgment ; it was tossed 
 on one side with something of disappointment and 
 impatience. But the wording of the other brought a 
 glow to his cheek and a gleam to his eyes : 
 
 "When will my preux chevalier come across the 
 way to have his spurs of gold buckled on once 
 more?" 
 
 He rushed to his balcony. The shutters in the 
 grey walls opposite were open, and the white vision 
 rose against the dark background. 
 
 A few minutes later the Cornet, cloaked and 
 dressed to regulation, though still spurless, was 
 knocking at the discreet door of St. Elizabeth.
 
 MY RAPIER AND MY DAUGHTER
 
 IV 
 
 MY RAPIER AND MY DAUGHTER 
 
 IN the year 1595, Master Vincent, the rapier and 
 dagger man, kept his school in the narrow-fronted 
 but substantial house in Knight-Rider Street at the 
 southwest corner of Paul's Chains. It faced on 
 three ways ; for behind it ran the blind alley, Garden 
 Lane, so called because it abutted against the in- 
 closed gardens at the back of Baynard's Castle. 
 
 The building was tall. From the topmost gable- 
 room, looking down over the serried roofs that 
 seemed to slide on the slope of Blackfriars towards 
 the Thames side, there was a fair view of the wide 
 water-way, with its innumerable crafts, its ceaseless 
 animation ; and, looking up towards the great heart 
 of the town, one could see the Gothic buttresses 
 and the unrepaired steeple of old St. Paul's. 
 
 This upper and retired room was Master Vincent's 
 
 own sanctum, reserved to the great man's personal 
 
 149
 
 150 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 intercourse with the more advanced scholars, or with 
 those of special quality. Here were precious secret 
 thrusts revealed with due solemnity ; abstract points 
 of honourable difficulties philosophically made clear. 
 
 Tyrones were handed over for their rudiments to 
 one Heronymo the Provost, as he was called 
 Master Vincent's lieutenant with the foil, and his 
 trusty factotum besides. Their practice took place 
 in the lower room, a wide apartment raised some few 
 feet from the level of Knight-Rider Street ; wonder- 
 fully light and airy for a city house, lit by high, 
 broad casements on the three sides. There, between 
 two doors one leading to the upper sanctum, the 
 other opening on the stairs the wall was fitted in 
 rows with trophies of fencing weapons. At the 
 further end was a broad pillar, cased with wood 
 to man's height, used for hacking and thrusting 
 practice. A few benches and a table provided with 
 a standish and writing materials, completed the fur- 
 niture of what was known as Saviolo's Academy. 
 
 For some years already the neighbourhood had 
 grown reconciled to the rousing din that at certain 
 hours proceeded from the open windows of Master 
 Vincent's house ; had ceased to wonder at the high- 
 pitched Italianate yells, the round English oaths of 
 his scholars : at their Hay-la / . . . Have-at-thee-
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 151 
 
 now ! Yes ? No, Sirrah ! Here, then I A hit, 
 by St. Paul ! A ha, the punta-riversa I Indeed the 
 clink and clash of steel, the stamping and shuffling 
 of feet, and ever the joyous catches of laughter, had 
 become recognised as a part of life's music in Paul's 
 Chains. It heralded good business to ostlers and 
 to keepers of taverns or ordinaries, for your young 
 fencers' thirst and hunger require more than usual 
 attention; to sword-cutler and loriner; to draper 
 and haberdasher, for your poking rapier-play is 
 fraught with rents to wearing apparel ; ay, even to 
 human skin ! Sundry surgeon-barbers, in fact, and 
 more than one apothecary in Blackfriars had seen 
 competency doubled since the settling of Master 
 Vincent in Knight-Rider Street, at the sign of the 
 "Sword Hand." 
 
 Whether or no Master Vincent or rather, to 
 give him his full designation, Signer Vincentio 
 Saviolo possessed that invincible skill which, in 
 a teacher of fence, would amount to genius, at least 
 there was no record of his defeat in any fair encounter, 
 whether at sharps or on the prize-stage. And if, like 
 all new-comers, he had bitter detractors, his pupils 
 one and all swore by his name. In any case the 
 anglicised Italian was by far the most prosperous
 
 152 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 man of his calling within the Queen's realm per- 
 haps, indeed, in the whole of Europe. 
 
 The mere fact of having struck steel and discussed 
 knotty points of honour in Saviolo's own rooms was 
 in itself a brevet of fashion. The high fees he 
 exacted were eagerly paid. The house at the cross- 
 ways was thronged with young Templars and cour- 
 tiers, with town gallants and country gulls, thirsting, 
 some merely for cunning tricks of fence, others for 
 the latest and right proper cavaliero sword-and-cloak 
 deportment. More, in fact, wished to drink in the 
 magnificent stranger's lessons than his time and 
 temper would accommodate. At any rate he would 
 of none but youths of- coat-armour: of such only 
 (he was wont to assert) could he make "your true 
 captains of complements." William Shakespeare 
 was well acquaint with Saviolo's "inner room 
 scholars" in the Blackfriars days; with "the gentle- 
 men of the very first house, of the first and second 
 cause"; with "the very butcher of a silk button" 
 himself. 
 
 Midsummer Day in the year of our Lord 1595 was 
 to prove a red letter date in the fulness of Saviolo's 
 career. 
 
 A tall, thin man of forty years, sallow of face and
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 153 
 
 brown-red of hair, with sharp, stern features, deep- 
 set grave eyes and thick brows point device in his 
 dress though always in black Master Vincent stood 
 contemplating with suppressed delight (for he was, 
 by long practice of decorum if not by nature, self- 
 possessed even in the solitude of his own company) 
 a freshly printed, newly bound book that lay open 
 on his table, exhibiting the title page : 
 
 VINCENTIO 
 
 SAVIOLO 
 HIS PRACTISE 
 
 In two Bookes 
 The first intreating of the use of the Rapier 
 
 and Dagger 
 
 The second, of Honor and honorable 
 Quarrels 
 
 This volume (fraught with the subtle joy known 
 to the composer of a first book and most of all to the 
 Homo unius Libri] he had just brought back from 
 the shop of John Wolfe, the printer thereof, in Paul's 
 Churchyard. With extended finger he turned over 
 the pages, verifying the catch- words; then harked 
 back to the dedication, and half aloud read over its 
 opening words :
 
 154 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 3T0 tfje &ts!)t ^onorable, mg singular 
 gooo 3Lortj, l&o&ert Earl of 00ex ano 
 Sine, Ffecount ^errforo, ILortJ tfermg 
 of Cfjartleg, SSotirrfjier ana 3L0ubain, 
 IKaster of tfte (Oiueen's ffiajestie'0 
 
 then let his eyes be lost, bathed in a solemnity of 
 satisfied pride, over the distant view of shimmering 
 Thames at rising tide. His keen glance noted 
 amid the throng of crafts the streamer of a par- 
 ticular barge, and recognised its gay colours and 
 the matchless swing of its oarsmen. 
 
 "My lord in person, returning from Greenwich," 
 said he to himself. "I will even be in time to greet 
 him on his landing." 
 
 He took down from the wall his gilt-hatched rapier 
 latest pattern of Bolognese seven-ringed hilts 
 and, left leg braced, bust erect but head negligently 
 bent leftwards, with that natty, defiant, one-action 
 gesture which alone was worth a broad piece for any 
 gallant to learn, hooked it on the carriages at his belt. 
 Next he placed the book in his pouch, on the other 
 side, under the guard of his shell dagger ; then, with 
 hand on sword depressing the pommel until the tip 
 of his scabbard was as high as his shoulders, pro- 
 ceeded grandly downstairs.
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 155 
 
 It being near the hour of mid-day meals, there 
 were but two occupants left in the practice-room: 
 the newest scholar and Heronymo, the Provost. 
 Both were still hard at work; the latter frowning, 
 with words of speeding or correction; the former 
 sedulous, and panting with passes and lunges at 
 the hacking-pillar. They stopped and bowed as 
 Saviolo silently passed through; and whilst Hero- 
 nymo ran to open the outer door for his master, the 
 scholar followed him with his eyes, critically mark- 
 ing the inimitable bearing of head and shoulders, 
 the rhythm of spurs, the negotiation of corners, steps 
 and doorways, which the now horizontal length of 
 the great man's scabbard never once encountered. 
 
 The door closed; Saviolo proceeded towards 
 Essex House by the Outer Temple. Meanwhile, 
 within the school, the rudiments of rapier fight were 
 resumed. 
 
 The stroke under study that morning was the 
 punta-riversa, Saviolo's triumph of deadly neatness 
 in the art of returning cut by thrust. After a min- 
 ute the scholar one Hal Greene, a pert, squat, 
 young Templar, drew himself up. 
 
 "Now, Heronymo, a truce!" he cried, passing 
 his foil to the left hand and mopping his brow. 
 
 The Provost shrugged his shoulders. He was a
 
 156 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 dry, spare, black-avised man of outlandish mien 
 and accent ; of small stature yet second only to 
 Saviolo in point of sword repute. 
 
 "Rest!" he growled. "Holy Cavaliero St. 
 George ! And pray, young master, hope you ever 
 to master the noble mystery of arms?" 
 
 "Marry, do I not? See how I sweat!" returned 
 the youth cheerfully. 
 
 "Come, master, to your ward!" the Provost 
 ordered gruffly. "Perhaps the great Saviolo may 
 not remain so long with ye that you can even reach 
 the last link of his precious chain of passes and 
 finctures. . . . Higher the fist, sir, as I ever beseech 
 you ! And the nails upward ! Sink on the hams. 
 So ! Verily this pass is the most precious, mark me, 
 to make hand and foot in concert seek the mark 
 chosen of your eye. Know it but truly and ye shall 
 count with your point the buttons on your enemy's 
 doublet, whenever it please you." 
 
 On the words of this flattering promise the door 
 was opened and there entered briskly a tall youth 
 of some five and twenty years fair-haired and 
 brown-eyed, best type of English manly comeliness. 
 He was arrayed in the latest courtly style, yet wore 
 the short walking-sword which, in these days of 
 lengthy tucks, seemed oddly old-fashioned.
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 157 
 
 In the new-comer Heronymo recognised, with 
 dubious interest, one Edward Strange, a gentleman 
 attached to the household of the Earl of Pembroke ; 
 of gallant reputation, as he knew, but reputed also 
 to be intemperately prejudiced against all Italianate 
 manners in general and a sworn contemner of new- 
 fangle rapier-play in particular. 
 
 In this lad of mettle who, be it noted, in my 
 Lord Pembroke's household passed also for a poet 
 the old English style of fence found an uncompro- 
 mising champion ; one whom, up to this midsum- 
 mer day, nothing had been able to induce even to 
 cross the innovating foreigner's threshold. 
 
 But if Heronymo for one fond moment believed in a 
 conversion of the arch-detractor of Saviolo's worth, he 
 was promptly disabused. The youth stopped in the mid- 
 dle of the room, and, without even doffing his cap : 
 
 "Now, even as I thought!" he exclaimed. "No 
 need to seek you far, Hal ! At your antics as usual 
 at the scratching and the ramping with your 
 what-shall-call-it, your imbrocade, reverse, inverse, 
 foh ! Perverse ! Apish tricks, lad, that never yet 
 stopped an honest English right-down blow ! " 
 
 All this was said loud, with a sneer aimed at the 
 scowling teacher. Lower, but in earnest tone, he 
 added :
 
 158 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 "Harry, I must speak with thee. Come!" 
 
 But Heronymo here stepped angrily between them. 
 
 "Not so! Your ward, young sir! ... This is 
 no Paul's Walk for meetings and greetings and idle 
 chatterings. The left knee bowed, master!" He 
 gave an authoritative tap of the foil on Greene's 
 left leg; then, turning upon the intruder: "We 
 have business, sir, if you have none. Life is short, 
 and the art ..." 
 
 But the young lawyer's curiosity was stirred. He 
 strode to the wall and replaced his foil on its nail. 
 
 "Nay, worthy janitor of the Long Art," he inter- 
 posed complacently and with all the pedantic air of 
 the school, "though life be short, I'll no more to-day ! 
 My hand and foot in concert," he added, mimick- 
 ing Heronymo's professional gesture, "crave a 
 release. And now mine eyes would fainer seek the 
 mark of a red lattice, and count the hoops of a fair 
 ale-pottle, than the buttons on the paunch of my 
 bitterest enemy. Give us leave, good Heronymo. 
 So!" 
 
 The Provost retired in dudgeon and busied him- 
 self over some broken foils. Meanwhile the pupil, 
 mopping and dressing himself, rallied the new- 
 comer, whose countenance displayed unusual pre- 
 occupation :
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 159 
 
 "How now, friend Strange and strange friend, 
 what make you in the school of the 'frog-pricking 
 Italian,' in the sanctum of the 'new-f angle mere- 
 tricious rapier' ? Have you " 
 
 "Hush!" interposed the other earnestly. "I 
 have strange news indeed ! Do you mind the fair 
 face we saw, the star-like eyes that shot such mis- 
 chief to my cleft heart? Do you mind her of the 
 divine throat, who, with Hebe's grace, yet Venus' 
 own loveliness " 
 
 It was the Templar's turn to interrupt. 
 
 "Ho! ho! Now, now!" he exclaimed with a 
 guffaw. "The pretty wench at the window in Gar- 
 den Lane? Why, yes: some merchant's Moll or 
 shipman's Sue. Ned, Ned, it is your brain that's 
 cleft. . . . Yet I grant you she was a comely queen 
 enough. I have not seen her since, yet do I mind 
 her well." 
 
 Here he blew a kiss from his fingers with a flip- 
 pant air. 
 
 " A truce to jest, Hal ! I want your help. Yes, 
 in sooth, coz, I am in burning earnest," whispered 
 the gallant, drawing his friend by the arm and 
 looking darkly over his shoulder at Heronymo. 
 "Listen : the lady is of this house ! Of this house ! 
 I have seen her at this very window."
 
 160 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 Greene looked askance; then, after a moment's 
 reflection : 
 
 "Fantasy, pure fantasy!" he asserted, smiling 
 indulgently. "Both sun and moon have told upon 
 thy pate, Ned. Art indeed stark; and thy vision 
 doubled even as thy poor cleft heart? 'Tis well 
 known Saviolo hath no womankind, tolerates none. 
 He is wedded to his white rapier aha ! And, by 
 her, father to half a score of admirable offsprings. 
 Well-christened too, as thou knowest," he pursued, 
 following the vein of far-stretched conceits which 
 were the mode of those years. "There is the fair 
 Mandritta Saviolo, Stoccata the nimble, and Imbroc- 
 cata the resolute, and Rinversa the sly; also Falso- 
 manco, and the sturdy Passadosotto. Ha, ha ! 
 eh, Heronymo? Oh, he needs no other family !" 
 
 Strange could barely contain his impatience. 
 
 "I tell you she was here," he said decisively, and 
 thereupon fell himself into a prolixity german to his 
 own temper. " 'Twas from that window I saw her 
 lean out, rare in her beauty as the virgin moon from 
 the skies, fresh as a rose in early dew no later 
 than this morning. It was as the bell of Paul's gave 
 seven. I had paced the lane from sunrise watching 
 the casements you wot of, but there it was," point- 
 ing once more to the window, "there, from the for-
 
 My Rapier and My Daughter 161 
 
 eign swaggerer's own room, my life's light shone 
 forth ! And, by the heaving of her breast, I know 
 for sure she sighed as she gazed into the blue. And 
 methought, as she was called back by some brutal 
 voice, she looked most piteous and appealing for 
 help." 
 
 The young men had approached the window in 
 question. 
 
 "Here," resumed Strange, "rested her little hand, 
 white as first snow-flake on grimy earth. Think you 
 still I saw visions?" And, bending, he sentimen- 
 tally kissed the sill. Greene laughed outright. 
 
 "Heigho ! Poor Strange ! Nay, then, if you will 
 not believe me, satisfy yourself with other witness- 
 ing," he said, and then called over his shoulder: 
 "Heronymo, here!" 
 
 The Provost, who, at his mechanical work had 
 kept suspicious eyes upon their secret consorting, 
 rose with alacrity : 
 
 "'Here' is for a dog, .sir, but let it pass! Well, 
 masters, Heronymo is here." 
 
 "Then hear, Heronymo," Greene proceeded, still 
 with his best modish affectation of speech. "What 
 beauteous damsel is it that haunts these male-sacred 
 purlieus, and rests her snowy arms on this window- 
 sill; bends a face lovely as virgin moon, blushing
 
 1 62 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 as the dewy rose it is rightly said so, eh, friend 
 Strange? from that casement of a morning?" 
 
 At the very first words the Provost had suppressed 
 a start. " Plague on ye for prowling cats ! " had been 
 his angry thought, as with stubborn mien he scanned 
 the gallant's inquiring countenance. But in spoken 
 words he only made answer : 
 
 "You please to be merry, masters. There are 
 no women here. Womankind!" he asserted again 
 doggedly, "my noble master hath none. Will that 
 suffice?" 
 
 "Hearest, Ned? Said I right?" whispered 
 Greene. Then, genially: "And thou, Hero- 
 nymo?" 
 
 "I, master? Nay, trouble enough without! 
 None here. Not a patten, not a farthingale. We 
 have no women here, nor ever shall. And so, your 
 leave, sir." 
 
 "Here is mystery," whispered Strange to his 
 friend. Then arresting Heronymo as the latter 
 was moving away : 
 
 "Who, then, was it, honest man," he called with 
 a sneer, "stood at that window that window, 
 mark you, in your noble master's house, this very 
 morn, at the stroke of seven?" 
 
 The Provost stopped short, and remained a mo-
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 163 
 
 ment silent. "The little jade!" he was thinking. 
 Then he turned round with well-assumed looks of 
 wonder: "At the stroke of seven?" he repeated. 
 "At that time I was strewing the rushes. None but 
 myself was here. The window stood open, true : 
 I may have looked forth. In faith I mind me now 
 I did." 
 
 Once more did Greene's great laugh ring under 
 the rafters. He seized the Provost by the shoulders 
 and thrust him forward. 
 
 "Here, then, haha ! is the mystery solved ! Sweet 
 coz, behold the rosy moon ! Ha ! Ha ! Feast once 
 more thine eyes on its virgin beauty ! Kiss the 
 snowflake hand !" 
 
 With a malediction Heronymo freed himself from 
 the irrepressible Templar's clutch. 
 
 "I have no time for jesting, and 'tis close upon 
 noon, when I go forth for my meal. The school 
 now closes, masters, I pray you " 
 
 He significantly pointed to the door. The twelve 
 strokes of mid-day were beginning to throb from 
 Paul's belfry into the room. Greene, who had 
 finished his dressing, now began to hustle his friend. 
 
 " Come, Ned, Heronymo says right, and 'tis noon." 
 
 "I tell you," retorted Strange, scowling suspi- 
 ciously around, "the fellow says wrong. Here is
 
 164 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 mystery ! My heart cries out there is foul wrong 
 done here; here, at the sign of the Sword Hand, 
 that I must and shall be even with." 
 
 "And I tell thee here is hunger! My maw cries 
 out there is a fair fowl done there there, at the 
 sign of the Tankard, that I must and shall be even 
 with!" 
 
 And, laughing, he pushed his still protesting 
 friend through the door. Heronymo listened to 
 their voices, dying away upon the stairs to ring up- 
 wards in loudness once more for an instant as they 
 passed down the street below the window. He 
 remained yet awhile musing in the silence which 
 had returned to the fencing room; then shrugging 
 his shoulders, he sallied forth in his turn. 
 
 n 
 
 Half-an-hour after the meridian Master Vincent 
 had just concluded a brief but gratifying interview 
 with my Lord of Essex, and was embarking at the 
 Temple stairs. The noble patron had graciously 
 insisted upon his own galley taking back the signor 
 to Blackfriars. The tide still flowing, the return 
 journey was slow; but Master Vincent was full of 
 engrossing thoughts, and the tardy progress of his 
 lordship's oarsmen caused him no impatience.
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 165 
 
 He had received the praise of the gallant Essex, 
 a good judge if there was one in the land, on the 
 new-blossomed work. He had even been assured 
 that the Queen herself, who ever commended pur- 
 suits of manliness and chivalry, would have occa- 
 sion to cast her royal glance upon the learned pages. 
 In short, he was riding the high tide of life. Wealth 
 he was rapidly achieving, and repute second to none ; 
 and now honours appeared on his horizon. It was 
 a great day. Yet there was a cloud or two in the 
 purity of his sky, the shadow of which tinged with 
 vague trouble the fair colour of his meditation. 
 
 Men, Saviolo could always manage, whether in 
 counsel, fight, or argument. But he had a daughter 
 his own daughter, in sooth, for southern, pas- 
 sionate strength of blood, albeit she had taken from 
 her dead English mother her fairness of looks and 
 her blue eyes. On Francesca, a chit of eighteen, 
 the stern man centred a whole-souled love, dis- 
 guised under a transparent garb of severity. The 
 child had been brought up by friends in the sweet- 
 ness of Kentish orchards and the father's flying 
 visits thereto had been the landmarks of joy in his 
 life. 
 
 Of late, however (knowing that the threshold of 
 womanhood is fraught with untold dangers) he had,
 
 1 66 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 in his solicitude, thought it safer to have his one 
 priceless treasure more immediately under his eye. 
 And from that moment all true peace of mind had 
 departed. 
 
 Following his Italian notions, which some twenty 
 years of English life had not eradicated, he had 
 cloistered the fresh country girl in a retired house, 
 next to his school, in Garden Lane. To the father 
 of a too handsome daughter the spring-gallants of a 
 rapier-school were even as ravenous wolves unto the 
 shepherd. Strict therefore were his precautions con- 
 cerning secrecy. That the news should ever go 
 round "Master Vincent hath a fair daughter!" 
 would have been disaster indeed. 
 
 Master Vincent, however, had (as he compla- 
 cently believed) solved the problem. An inner door, 
 secretly contrived between the topmost rooms of the 
 houses, enabled the father to consort freely with his 
 child without being seen to cross her house-door; 
 none were in the confidence but Heronymo and an 
 old nurse, the duenna. And thus Saviolo had flat- 
 tered himself the pretty mystery could be preserved 
 till the maturity of time ! 
 
 Of the girl's faithfulness to her promise never to 
 let herself be seen, or even to enter the precincts of 
 the fencing-school, he entertained no doubt. Yet
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 167 
 
 Saviolo was anxious. The life that hides a secret 
 ever carries a burden. Since Francesca's coming 
 to London he had ever been haunted by dire possi- 
 bilities, fretted by apprehension. And the child ! 
 She had wept that morning to go on a fair free barge, 
 like other maids, and had flung her mask upon the 
 floor in bitter, pettish fit that had pierced the father's 
 heart as never blade was ever forged to do. In short, 
 he was beginning to foresee, with fresh sorrow, a 
 fresh parting, yet without finding the courage to 
 resolve on it. 
 
 Another thought (all Saviolo's thoughts that were 
 not of his daughter were of his rapier), one of lesser 
 import, yet vexing as trifles are apt to be, came ever 
 and anon further to disturb his self-satisfaction 
 that young Strange ! 
 
 It was but a few days before that Master Vincent, 
 with the appreciation of the true adept, had watched 
 him play his "Master's prize against all comers" in 
 the great halls of Baynard's Castle, under my Lord 
 Pembroke's own patronage. What a swordsman 
 so mettled a lad could become, were he but properly 
 taught ! . . . Nay, Saviolo's triumph would never 
 be complete until he reckoned this fencer of match- 
 less promise among his own scholars. 
 
 Yet, with what unwarrantable scorn had the lad
 
 1 68 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 received his courteous invitation to visit the School 
 at the sign of the Sword Hand, and there acquire, 
 in addition to native gifts, the higher sword-skill of 
 Italy ! As he recalled the haughty rebuff, Master 
 Vincent tasted again all the savour of angry resent- 
 ment in his mouth; and the shadow of Baynard's 
 Castle seemed, in his meditations, to eclipse the 
 brightness of Essex House itself. 
 
 Little did he think when, landing at Blackfriars 
 stairs, he began pensively to ascend homewards, 
 weaving these alternately grey or scarlet thoughts 
 of rapier and daughter, that the two vexing problems 
 of the hour, so little connected thus far, were to be 
 solved that very midsummer day, and with unex- 
 pected quaintness. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Like the forbidden fruit, the forbidden door will 
 ever be an irresistible temptation. All promises 
 notwithstanding, who could in his heart condemn a 
 too solitary daughter of Eve almost a child for 
 yielding ? 
 
 During the few weeks that had elapsed since Fran- 
 cesca had been brought to London, the tension of 
 repressed curiosity in the midst of idleness had be- 
 come well-nigh intolerable. On this fateful morn- 
 ing, Saviolo having in unwonted abstraction left the
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 169 
 
 secret door open when he had sallied forth early to 
 receive the promised precious book from the printers, 
 the fever of forbidden ventures had proved overpow- 
 ering. True, the venture itself had been brought 
 to premature conclusion by Heronymo stern re- 
 specter of orders; but the short glimpse Francesca 
 had had of the strange, to her quite fantastic, sword- 
 room, of the ruffling young courtiers' playing ground, 
 whence arose such extraordinary harmonies of manly 
 sounds, had but served to whet her interest to sharp- 
 est edge. 
 
 As soon as silence once more reigned in the house, 
 the emboldened maid, profiting of the duenna's 
 slumber during the noonday heat, crept once more 
 down the inner stairs; and, like peeping mouse, 
 looked into the room. Then, defiantly, she stepped 
 in. 
 
 Well might Master Vincent think it wise to keep 
 this alert, merry-eyed, red-lipped girl, rich already 
 in fair womanly lines and richer in promise, away 
 from the inquiring gaze of those ruffling gallants, 
 his scholars ! 
 
 She paused a moment and bent a pretty ear to 
 hearken. Then, reassured, with almost childish 
 glee, she began to inspect every detail, peer into 
 every corner; read the name of each scholar and
 
 170 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 scan the coat-of-arms over each set of rapier and 
 dagger foils, wondering if one of these might not 
 well belong to the comely youth who this morning 
 had doffed his cap with such a look of startled won- 
 der as she had met his glance through this very 
 window. If she dared look out again ! But no, her 
 father might upon any moment be passing through 
 the street. . . . Stay ! The Garden Lane case- 
 ment was safe. Her father never walked that way ; 
 and he, he of the cornfield-coloured hair, of the 
 beseeching eyes, so often did ! She moved on tiptoe, 
 and peered out. 
 
 Yes oh, dear mother of the loves yes ! 
 There was the gallant youth again ! But, with 
 hands resting against the wall, what was he doing? 
 . . . Writing on tablets, and ever and anon cast- 
 ing a glance upwards at the little, high, barred 
 window of the neighbouring house . . . her window ! 
 In the hilt of his sword is thrust a knot of dark red 
 roses. ... O, the spite of Fate, will he never look 
 this way ! The golden minutes are fleeting, gentle 
 sir . . . ! 
 
 Francesca's bosom heaved with her quickening 
 breath. Suddenly, almost as instinctively as a 
 caged bird will sing at sight of a free mate, in clear 
 young voice she began the verse of a song known to
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 171 
 
 every maid that year little wotting that below 
 there stood the very author of the sweet words, 
 Edward Strange the poet : 
 
 There is a lady sweet and kind 
 Was never face so pleased my mind! 
 I did but see her passing by, 
 And yet I love her till I die! 
 
 At the first note the watcher started, turned ; and, 
 with flashing eyes, recognised the singer. Without 
 a moment's hesitation he himself took up the second 
 verse : 
 
 Her gesture, motion, and her smiles, 
 Her look, her voice, my heart beguiles I 
 Beguiles my heart, I know not why 
 And yet I love her till I die! 
 
 And while he sang his gaze never removed its 
 earnestness from her face. The lad's manly tones, 
 deep and true, were troubling delight to the maid: 
 she threw her heart at him. In such guise do un- 
 known lovers meet in dreams, and forthwith talk of 
 love as of a thing long avowed. 
 
 "No, no, kind sir," Francesca was answering. 
 " 'Twas no angel sang, but a poor caged bird. And 
 one, indeed, much affrighted." (In sooth stolen 
 interviews are fraught with terrors.) "Oh, my
 
 172 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 lord, go ! 'tis veriest madness ! Yes, yes, I will take 
 your flowers, but haste. ..." 
 
 Short as was Edward Strange's sword, its point, 
 now stabbing the bunch of June roses, could reach 
 as high as her outstretched hand. She snatched at 
 the posy, then fearfully drew within. A small 
 folded sheet lay between the flowers. It was tied 
 with a silken point torn from the writer's doublet. 
 
 Francesca dropped the roses on the table, and, 
 quivering, opened the note. "Why, 'tis writ in 
 verse!" she almost cried aloud; and as she read 
 her bright eyes became brighter with the joy of it. 
 
 Ran the epistle : 
 
 Most noble lady, 
 
 and most beauteous goddess 
 Who, rapt in veil of envious mystery, 
 Like to a star upon a night of storm. . . . 
 
 "Ah! me," sighed she, "how beautiful! . . . 
 upon a night of storm!" 
 
 Hast flashed athwart the restless circumstance 
 And lightless blank of my uncoupled life, 
 Thy beams divine, leave me not lost, I pray, 
 Not lost in nether darkness of despair. 
 
 She hazarded another look out of the window : 
 the sunny-headed poet was still there, anxiously
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 173 
 
 watchful. She smiled tenderly : "Alas! poor youth, 
 who could be hard with you ! darkness of despair" 
 
 Let at thy feet the humblest of thy slaves 
 
 His homage lay. O grant me, sovereign maid, 
 
 One moment's speech -with thee, one moment's grace, 
 
 Lest, by the sharpness of my longing slain, 
 
 'Neath thy unopening window I expire ! 
 
 I fain would live that I might fight for thee, 
 
 Or if I die, would die for thy sweet sake. 
 
 (No, no, sweet gentleman ! ) 
 
 To be so lovely, and to be unkind, 
 
 Were, with fair flow 'rs and living springs, to kill. 
 Nature is not of such uncertain mind, 
 
 And her sweets culled, do greater sweets distil. 
 Thus if I sin in sending thee love's token, 
 
 By thy fair lips be absolution spoken, 
 And if by thee, this loving fault be shriven, 
 
 So shall the unrepentant enter heaven! 
 
 As she came to the end, reading ever more slowly, 
 eyes dim with sweet emotion, a distant sound of gay 
 voices, a clanking of steel, awoke her to a fresh sense 
 of her position. Time was fleeting the school 
 might be invaded at any moment ! Her eyes fell 
 on the standish and the array of quills and gilt papers. 
 She tore off half a sheet, and bending her fair bosom 
 over the table, wrote trembling, yet such wings 
 does new awakened love lend a maid's imagination 
 glibly enough :
 
 174 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 Your words are sweet and glowing as the flowers that 
 brought them. I cannot say thee nay ! Yes, Francesca 
 will admit you to her presence whoever you be, for her 
 heart tells her a true heart speaks in you. She is a 
 prisoner ; but watch, watch if this posy falls from the 
 window of the school then know that ye shall find her 
 within. Yet, beware ! Oh ! beware, how you venture, 
 for should the dread Saviolo aught of this discover all 
 would, in very truth, be undone ! So be prudent if 
 indeed you love the poor caged bird ; her gaolers watch 
 her keenly. 
 
 The clank and mirth was gathering closer outside. 
 A knock at the street door made Francesca start. 
 She ran to the Lane window, hesitated, flung forth 
 the note, kissed her hand ; and bounding like a deer, 
 reached the inner door and disappeared just as Mas- 
 ter Vincent entered, followed by Heronymo and 
 three or four eager young men who had been await- 
 ing the lesson hour. 
 
 He stood a second on the threshold looking at the 
 closing door through which he had just seen the last 
 flutter of a gay coloured skirt. Saviolo's counte- 
 nance was forbidding. As he had, just now, passed 
 before the entrance of the Lane, he had noted in 
 that usually deserted spot a young man's figure 
 posted in an attitude of observation under the 
 school's window. And nothing but the greeting of 
 his pupils, whom he accidentally met at that very
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 175 
 
 moment, could have prevented his instant interpel- 
 lation of the suspicious stranger. Thus, even before 
 he had entered the house, was suspicion all aflame. 
 There his first glance had detected his daughter's 
 disobedience. And now, on the table, a glow of 
 gorgeous rose-leaves loudly claimed the eye. 
 
 Without a word he strode forward, took note of 
 the torn leaf of paper and the still wet quill; and 
 for a moment, turning over one of Francesca's for- 
 gotten flowers with the tip of his fingers, remained 
 musing. 
 
 "Heronymo," asked Master Vincent in a low voice, 
 "which of our gentle scholars wrote here lately?" 
 
 "None wrote whilst I was here, Master, and I was 
 here last." 
 
 Saviolo moved to the window, cast one swift glance 
 out the mysterious watcher was still there then 
 came back into the room. Saviolo's wits were as 
 prompt to resolution as his dagger and his rapier to 
 parry and to thrust. 
 
 He turned to his expectant pupils. In choice 
 words of civility he craved their pardon : " Only 
 matters of gravest import," he assured them, "could 
 make him wish to remain alone in his house this day. 
 Of their kindness and courtesy he implored their 
 immediate departure."
 
 176 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 "And thou, Heronymo," he added, when, with 
 salutations, the last of the wondering disciples had 
 taken his leave, "must this day in my stead attend 
 Master Shakespeare who awaits me at the theatre. 
 Haste ! I bide here." 
 
 And now he waited. 
 
 Not for long. Into the stillness of the room 
 there came a little patter of approaching feet; a 
 pause, the creaking of the door and then the pretty 
 patter entered the room itself. Concealed behind the 
 practising pillar, motionless, the father saw his 
 Francesca flutter up to the table like a bird, and, with 
 a small, bird-like cry, catch the roses to her breast. 
 
 As she turned she met full his grave though not 
 unkind gaze and stood paralysed with the terror 
 of the detected. 
 
 "Daughter," he asked gently, "what dost thou 
 here?" 
 
 Francesca hung her head, hid the flowers behind 
 her and stammered : 
 
 "Father ... I know you did forbid me to come 
 here . . . but so, you see, father . . . why, thus 
 ... I am ever your dutiful daughter, yet I 
 came . . ." 
 
 "Faith!" he answered indulgently enough, as 
 strong men will do when rebuking a child, "a most
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 177 
 
 excellent argument and of most convincing clear- 
 ness but well?" 
 
 "Look you, father, the day is passing hot . . . 
 and your great, long room here strikes pleasant, cool, 
 and fresh." 
 
 "True," admitted the father. "I grudge thee 
 not the cooler air, God knows. But there's danger 
 here thou knowest nothing of poor motherless 
 one, I have to take a mother's place by thee!" 
 And, with sudden tenderness, he took the girl's face 
 between his hands. "Canst thou not have patience, 
 my Francesca ? Saviolo works for thee : each stroke 
 of his white rapier rings out red gold for his daugh- 
 ter's dowry. The day is not so far when his jewel 
 will be brought fair to the light, to shine in its proper 
 setting. Thy father shall then find fit mate for thee. 
 Come, kiss me, sweet ! Confess what dost thou 
 here?" 
 
 The maid flung her arms round her father's neck 
 and rested her head on his bosom. 
 
 "Thy roses have a sweet smell, daughter," said 
 he gravely, after a pause, "whence came they?" 
 
 Francesca disengaged herself. "Indeed, father, 
 I know not, I ..." she faltered. 
 
 "What riddle is this?" Cold disappointment 
 was now in his voice ; severity in his eye. 
 
 N
 
 178 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 "The roses? I found them here I mean " 
 "Found them here ! Blooming, no doubt, among 
 these steel blades, planted in the fields of yonder 
 escutcheons!" exclaimed Saviolo, with hard voice of 
 sarcasm. " Why, girl, these tags do whip thee untrue 
 to thy face!" he pursued, taking the flowers from 
 her hand and angrily shaking the silken points. "I 
 would have forgiven all but deceit ! Go, go, back 
 to thy room, Francesca! I would not speak with 
 thee, now that choler is my master. Anon ! Go !" 
 There was no appeal against the stern gesture. 
 Francesca fled, weeping. 
 
 m 
 
 Master Vincent paced the room once or twice, 
 in sore perturbation; then suddenly flung the posy 
 from his hand as if it had stung him. The gentle 
 guerdon flew through the open casement. From 
 the quiet lane below rose a half suppressed cry. 
 
 Saviolo sprang to the window; the alley was de- 
 serted from end to end. Cursing his own dilatori- 
 ness, he stood a moment irresolute. Now, the door 
 of the school was flung open; and in dashed the 
 gallant figure of the very youth he had looked for, 
 clasping against his purple doublet the self-same 
 knot of crimson roses.
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 179 
 
 Edward Strange stopped dead short, as if the 
 fierce smile with which Saviolo received him had 
 been the point of a sword at his face. 
 
 But, the next instant, the Master's countenance 
 changed and was twitched as though by a spasm of 
 pain. His eyes upon the roses, he was hearkening 
 to a bitter inward cry: "What! Signals and assig- 
 nations ! Shame, my Francesca, thou that hast thy 
 mother's eyes ! . . . Oh, my white bird, could'st 
 wing so low a flight?" 
 
 Then he spoke : 
 
 " By Saint Paul, why 'tis even Master Strange ! 
 How, now, gentle sir, are you come at last to seek a 
 lesson from the juggling foreigner? Body o' me! 
 'Tis like to-day to take the form of seasoned wood. 
 Hand down, young man!" he ordered, raising his 
 threatening voice yet one tone, as Strange instinc- 
 tively laid his hand on his hilt, "for I will speak with 
 thee, and thou shalt answer first." 
 
 The bewildered youth had involuntarily stepped 
 back one pace. Now, furiously clenching his fists, 
 he came up close : 
 
 '"Fore God, you are right," he retorted. "You 
 have to speak and even hear me speak ! What I 
 came here to seek, that know you well. We are 
 somehow betrayed, and you have lured me with my
 
 180 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 lady's own dear signal. Ay, Master Vincentio, I 
 know, all the world knows, you have no wife, nor 
 child, nor sister. But you have a prisoner you've 
 hid well ah, have I hit thee, Master ? But there 
 is a God for the helpless. Be I, this day, His instru- 
 ment and, strong in my righteous cause, rescue the 
 wronged !" 
 
 As Saviolo listened to these hot words of youthful 
 chivalry, his face relaxed, grew wondering ; its anger 
 faded. It was with almost a friendly smile that he 
 answered : 
 
 "Thou rollest forth some very mighty sounds, lad ; 
 yet, to my dullard ear, but little sense. Pray tell me, 
 in plain words if you can, where you gleaned ma- 
 terials for this piteous tale; for, in my hearing, it 
 runs as the very babble of madness?" 
 
 "Signer Saviolo," said the young man, between 
 his set teeth, "I know your secret." 
 
 "A very midsummer madness!" replied Saviolo 
 in pleasant mockery. "What now, my Amadis of 
 Gaul, go right thee wrongs elsewhere; for, believe 
 it, there is no call here for thy derring-do." 
 
 "Now do I brand thee liar!" hissed the cham- 
 pion, crossing fierce glances with his enemy as he 
 would have crossed murderous blades. "For 
 'twas but at noon this day I had speech of her; I
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 181 
 
 cast roses up to her and craved a meeting. And this 
 she promised, so she could but evade her gaolers 
 another hit, Signer?" 
 
 "Enough!" cried Master Vincent, drawing black 
 brows together. "And who art thou, that would 
 dare come between Saviolo and whomsoever it pleases 
 Saviolo to keep from the world ! Go ! I give thee 
 thy life. Fly, sirrah, but forget thou hast ever seen 
 Saviolo's prisoner!" 
 
 "Not so, by my father's sword!" And the 
 youth, stepping back, bared his broad blade. "We 
 are alone before God. I challenge you to combat 
 before God. And, as God rules all, so rule He now 
 the fight ! Could I desert her field without striking 
 a blow, then were indeed life wasted on me !" 
 
 "The cockerel croweth loud but croweth to 
 good purpose," muttered Master Vincent to himself, 
 ever more pleased, in spite of all, with the lover's 
 chivalrous bearing. "But, pray you, valiant sir," 
 said he aloud, "before you smite me with your 
 mighty weapon, answer me first one question : To 
 what higher estate would you raise this same poor 
 captive lady . . . when you have conquered me, 
 and thus delivered her?" 
 
 "Ah, it wanted but this," exclaimed Strange, "to 
 fill the measure of my righteous hate ! Oh, man,
 
 1 82 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 whatever guilt toward her may lie upon your soul, 
 to me she will ever be all stainless. Have I not seen 
 her face ? Gentle maid, what would I make of thee ? 
 My lady, my loved wife !" 
 
 Saviolo was fain to turn half aside to hide an 
 irrepressible smile. "I'll swear," was the thought 
 singing joyously in his heart, "I've not met a truer 
 knight in all honourable England, nor a more valour- 
 ous. Ay, he who would beard Saviolo himself in 
 his den, and face his rapier for a woman's sake, is 
 almost worthy of Saviolo 's daughter. . . . Sweet 
 poet and sturdy fighter ... he belieth not his 
 fame!" 
 
 "A noble flow of words, indeed," he said, aloud, 
 and feigning coldness. "Art a most brave youth 
 ... in words!" 
 
 "No more!" cried Strange, making the air hiss 
 with his menacing blade. " Draw, sir, or even now 
 I strike!" 
 
 Saviolo, pleased to his fill, stepped to the table, 
 took up his rapier, and released it with leisurely grace. 
 Then, balancing his dagger in his left hand, he fell 
 on guard and smilingly received the reckless on- 
 slaught. 
 
 But, although he smiled, never in his life had he 
 fenced with more intent watchfulness or more closely
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 183 
 
 brought his experience to bear upon his science. 
 His slender double-edged blade was, towards the 
 point, keen as a surgeon's knife : let but one un- 
 lucky stroke meet the lad on his headlong attacks 
 and it might even cut the thread of Francesca's 
 coming happiness. Ay, he would spare this gal- 
 lant's blood ay, even for its own sake. Yet it 
 was imperative (so Saviolo thought) that this suitor 
 should find out the worth of Saviolo 's rapier, even 
 as he had discovered that of Saviolo's daughter. 
 
 "Methinks," said the peerless swordsman, "I 
 mind me now thou hast a very homely scorn for the 
 new-fangle rapier and its apish tricks. Despite all, 
 shalt take lesson of Saviolo." Here with his dagger 
 he parried a furious lunge; then, with equal ease, 
 took a murderous cut upon his hilt. "Now, about 
 those silken points of thine it offends mine eye 
 to see thee partly shorn. 'Twere neater to have 
 none, or so it seems to me." 
 
 And, nimbly traversing right and left in front 
 of his opponent, with the extreme edge of his blade 
 he severed in quick succession the remaining points 
 on the disordered doublet. 
 
 "These twain upon thy sleeve," he went on, 
 bantering, "they have a lonely look!" 
 
 Now he evaded another stroke by the most un-
 
 184 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 expected incartade which placed him on his adver- 
 sary's flank; and, upon the instant, sliced off yet 
 another ribbon. 
 
 By this time Strange was beside himself with rage. 
 The skill which could have traversed his body a 
 score of times or more, which could have slashed 
 his face and hands, was yet nothing to the skill which 
 thus spared, yet left its scornful mark at every stroke 
 and in touches as delicate as a lady's scissors. 
 Better to lie weltering in blood than to be played 
 with thus, defeated and yet protected ! 
 
 "Draw blood, Saviolo ! . . . Wound, kill!" he 
 panted, "but leave these devil's pranks!" 
 
 Upon this cry he bounded like a panther and 
 would instantly have been impaled upon the despised 
 foreign steel had not the master mercifully raised 
 his point and contented himself with receiving on 
 the joint blades of crossed rapier and dagger the cut 
 that was meant to cleave him to the chine. 
 
 Then, in a trice, followed one of Saviolo's most 
 precious "inclosings," the secret of which was im- 
 parted only in the inner sanctum and belonged not 
 to the practice-room. Rapier and dagger were 
 dropped, clattering, on the floor; but, in the same 
 second, the youth found himself disarmed and help- 
 less, his own weapon, he knew not how, in his ad-
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 185 
 
 versary's hand and its edge resting, thin and cold, 
 on his own throat. 
 
 But, far from carrying the lesson to its grim con- 
 clusion, Master Vincent gave the young man a good- 
 natured push which sent him reeling back; then 
 stood smiling (not without a little malicious com- 
 placency) upon the unwilling pupil, who, breathless, 
 tore at his breast in futile despair. 
 
 "Thus it is done !" said Saviolo's voice. 
 
 There came an echoing cry behind : 
 
 " 'Tis done ! My father's slain him, and my soul 
 bears the guilt." And Francesca was upon them 
 like a whirlwind. 
 
 Saviolo, passing the conquered sword to his left 
 hand, caught her up in his arms. 
 
 "Look, silly bird," he said. 
 
 She looked and saw her lover standing before 
 her, all-ashamed of tattered garments and a whole 
 skin. And in the revulsion of feeling, between 
 laughing and sobbing, she hid her head and cried 
 again : 
 
 "Oh, father, father!" 
 
 Then did Edward Strange awake from his fan- 
 tastic dream. 
 
 "Father!" he echoed, struck his forehead, stared 
 aghast at his whilom enemy, who now over the
 
 1 86 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 girl's fair head was contemplating him with grave 
 eyes. "Oh! blind fool!" he went on, thinking 
 aloud, "this, then, is the mystery. No wrong, but 
 a most simple tale." His wandering hand met his 
 empty scabbard. "To draw upon her father! Ah, 
 now may I give up all hope indeed ! Alas, Signer 
 Vincentio, how have I borne myself with you !" 
 
 "In truth, mighty ill with thy weapon," answered 
 the Italian with a small dry smile; "but with thy 
 heart, Edward Strange, as well as ever I could wish 
 to see a son of mine." 
 
 "Sir?" murmured the boy, hardly daring to catch 
 at the hope the words held out. 
 
 Francesca raised her face to shoot a quick look at 
 her father, and then hid it again. Her sobs were 
 suddenly stilled. 
 
 "Look up, pretty one," said Saviolo, and Strange 
 marvelled to hear the stern man's voice take so 
 gentle an inflexion. "Look again thou art a fas- 
 tidious wench: could 'st ever give thy favour to so 
 dilapidated a swain?" 
 
 And Strange felt all the blood in his body rush 
 to his cheek under the roguish glance which now was 
 shot at him from the shelter of the rapier-man's arms. 
 But, if Francesca made no reply in speech, the pres- 
 sure of her clinging hands conveyed her clear meaning.
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 187 
 
 Master Vincent shook with genial laughter, and 
 his face became ever more benign. 
 
 "And you, young master, are you of a mind that 
 Saviolo's beloved daughter could be as much to you 
 as Saviolo's suffering prisoner ? Then here's a hand 
 would mend more tattered fortunes still." 
 
 He disengaged the tender fingers as he spoke, then 
 held them out lying on his own strong black palm. 
 
 Strange sprang forward. But before he could 
 touch the lovely prize Saviolo had drawn it from 
 him, and, folding his daughter closer than before, 
 looked at him grave again, if not a little severe : 
 
 "He who would rob me of my daughter must first 
 learn to guard her. How would she have fared to- 
 day if " 
 
 He did not finish the phrase, but held out the 
 captured sword and delivered it into Strange 's ad- 
 vanced hand. This was done with a grace con- 
 scious of conferring favour. And, indeed, it was to 
 the youth as if he thus received his honour back. 
 
 "In truth, sir," said he, colouring deep, yet look- 
 ing back into Saviolo's eyes with brave glance, 
 "you have already taught me more than one lesson 
 to-day. Yet, I think, Signer Vincentio, I could 
 learn further still, would you but receive so feeble a 
 scholar."
 
 1 88 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 A smile of gratification came again on the swords- 
 man's face: at last was the one homage he lacked 
 laid to the worth of his school ! 
 
 "So then, it is a bargain," said he, at last, briskly. 
 "I have misused you much to-day, my gentle 
 scholar. But your mettle likes me, and you need 
 not despair. What say you, Francesca? The day 
 thy unskilful lover shall hit thy father, fair and 
 square, on the breast, in a courteous bout, that day 
 shall see thy betrothal " 
 
 But the girl had torn herself from his embrace and 
 turned on him with petulant eyes and quivering lips. 
 
 "Why, father, father! that means never? Oh, 
 do you play with me, too?" And her tears welled 
 up. "Do you offer but again to take away so 
 quickly?" 
 
 Consternation was now again writ on both the 
 spring faces; the autumn countenance of Saviolo, 
 however, was once more lit by a gratified smile. 
 
 "Comfort ye, my child," he returned, with gentle 
 meaning, "stranger miracles have taken place! I 
 may be, as Will Shakespeare hath it," he added, 
 stooping to pick up one of Strange 's silk points, 
 "the very butcher of a silk button yet am I no 
 butcher of young hearts."
 
 My Rapier and my Daughter 189 
 
 On the following day, as Master Hal Greene came 
 up Godliman Street, bound for the sign of the 
 "Sword Hand," he encountered Edward Strange. 
 He noted with curiosity that his friend walked down 
 the middle of the way, with a certain air of self- 
 consciousness ; and that, on his hip, instead of 
 the former well-known ostentatiously broad-bladed 
 sword, was balanced, somewhat uncomfortably, a 
 slender swept-hilted rapier of unmistakable Italian 
 length. 
 
 "Yes, Hal it is even so," said Strange, smiling, 
 with a slight blush. "Call it a conversion, call 
 it a wager with fate, or anything you will; but, as 
 you love me, inquire no more till the wager be de- 
 cided." 
 
 On Lammas Eve, in the Hall of the Inner Temple, 
 there was played a prize at sword and dagger. The 
 function was well attended, for it was well known 
 that Master Vincent himself would fight a bout with 
 one of his most favoured scholars, Edward Strange. 
 
 To the amazement of everyone or nearly so 
 the hitherto invincible rapier-and-dagger man was 
 hit, once only, it is true, but most palpably, by the 
 scholar. 
 
 Her Majesty, who graced the occasion with her
 
 190 My Rapier and my Daughter 
 
 presence (no doubt by my Lord of Essex's per- 
 suasion) expressed approval of Signer Vincentio's 
 mastery of the elegant weapon; she was indeed 
 observed to handle and apprise it with a grace of her 
 own as she discussed the merits of the new fence in 
 Italian, loud and clear, that all might hear who list. 
 
 And she, no doubt, fully appreciated the master's 
 explanation of the scholar's lucky stroke : The 
 successful thrust was an imbroccata (following the 
 tincture as of falsomanco), pushed in guise of cari- 
 cado by a pass and botta lunga. It should have been 
 avoided by a timely incartata and promptly punished 
 by the punta-riversa. But the youth's nimbleness, 
 it seemed, had been too sudden, his eye too precise. 
 ... In sooth, it was a right fair hit ! 
 
 So thought Her Majesty, for she patted the win- 
 some young swordsman on the cheek when he was 
 brought up to her, and vowed he was worthy of his 
 master. 
 
 But it was noted that her countenance evinced less 
 sympathy when Master Vincent, pointing to a happy- 
 faced wench in grey and scarlet taffeta amid the 
 crowd of bystanders, announced Edward Strange's 
 approaching nuptials with his only daughter.
 
 THE GREAT TODESCAN'S 
 SECRET THRUST
 
 THE GREAT TODESCAN'S SECRET 
 THRUST 
 
 IT was close upon noon, hour of the ordinary at 
 the Bolt-in-Tun, that noted tavern over against 
 Ludgate, by the Fleet. 
 
 Hither a goodly company of your cavaliero gentry, 
 whether captains of fortune or "town gulls," 
 were wont daily to foregather, intent as much upon 
 the gleaning of foreign news as upon the savoury 
 promise of dinner. For the common-room of the 
 Bolt-in-Tun was rarely devoid of some new great 
 man, fresh from overseas experience and full of tales 
 as a hen is of clacks. Here might you at all times 
 reckon upon the diversion of stirring stories of Bo- 
 hemia or Eldorado ; of Castile's splendour or cruelty ; 
 of border onsets and leaguers ; of outfalls and cami- 
 sacloes in Portugal or Muscovy ; of boardings, wrecks, 
 and discoveries about the Spanish Main admirable 
 
 and much admired adventures which nevertheless 
 o 193
 
 194 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 
 
 seemed, as a rule, to have left their hero none the 
 wealthier, save in fine-chased, outlandish oaths. 
 
 But this day (the last of September in the year 
 1602, forty-fourth of Elizabeth's reign) the ruffling 
 community at the Tun, old and young, all lovers of a 
 blade, was too deeply engrossed in the topic of the 
 London hour to have much interest to spare for 
 travellers' tales. Yet the latest oracle a man tall, 
 grey-bearded, of freebooting manner and conscious 
 truculence of mien was not only well prepared (as 
 his attitude testified) to fill his post with due relish, 
 but, unlike many of his kind, bore evidence of having 
 really countered many hard knocks of fate. One 
 hollow orbit and a gash that had shorn his weather- 
 beaten countenance of the best part of an ear, not to 
 speak of a left hand reduced to one finger and a 
 thumb each memento of adventure might in its 
 turn have served for fitting introduction to some tall 
 story. 
 
 For the moment he sat in moody silence, his single 
 eye roaming, fierce and wary, from one to the other of 
 the eager faces about him watching for the chance, 
 it seemed, of springing upon the talk and then holding 
 it as his own. From time to time he lifted the ale-pot 
 to his lips with that mutilated hand of his that yet
 
 MARIA-ANNUNZ1ATA
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 195 
 
 showed menace in its pinch. At length a scanty 
 stock of patience seemed, of a sudden, to fail him; 
 he raised a voice that drew every eye upon him : 
 
 "Vincent, again!" quoth he. "By the curse of 
 Mahound, who may this Vincent be that ye all 
 should be gathering, in thought, like so many rats, 
 to-day round his carcase? Let us talk of living 
 men, my springalds, and let the dead go rot ! For, 
 by your laments, I take it that he's dead in his bed 
 even as any old woman this same gallant Vincentio 
 Saviolo!" 
 
 For an instant there was that pause round the 
 table which marks the hearing of some monstrous 
 pronouncement ; then a sudden clamour among the 
 huffing crowd, a scraping of boots and spurs as sundry 
 started to their feet, a mouthing of oaths, a jingling 
 of cans as others turned upon their bench to confront 
 the blasphemer. It required all mine host's per- 
 suasiveness to quell the rising threat, aided, no 
 doubt, by the steadiness of the adventurer's single 
 orb that looked with much mastery out of the tanned 
 visage. 
 
 "I pray you, masters, no tumult here, and on this 
 day ! And pray you, good Captain Strongitharm, 
 you should know that the name of Vincent Saviolo, 
 the great master of fence, who died but yestereve,
 
 196 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 is one we speak here with respect. Where shall he 
 be mourned more than at Bolt-in-Tun, which has 
 sounded to his tread daily these twenty years? But 
 you are from foreign parts, captain, and have not 
 known him." 
 
 " 'Twas the tallest man of his hands, at all manner 
 of weapons, but above all at rapier play," asserted 
 a gallant from the end of the table, and made in 
 dumb-show, with his two forefingers extended, the 
 sketch of a pass with sword and dagger. 
 
 "The subtlest arbiter in all matters of honourable 
 difficulty," cried another, older and grave. The 
 encomium was capped by a mincing youth with a 
 Court air about him: 
 
 "A most noted favourite, look you, of Her Majesty. 
 Her Grace liked above all things to be heard tripping 
 Italian with the gallant signor. Ah, her Grace 
 knows a right proper man !" added he, and smiled 
 as one who has his reasons for saying so. 
 
 "Ay, ay," commented mine host genially, glad to 
 see the vexed question like to be settled by way of 
 tongue only, "and of late years Master Vincent was 
 likewise a friend of my good Lord of Pembroke !" 
 
 "And I'll tell you more," interposed a raffish 
 blade from the 'Friars, much bedizened, if somewhat 
 out at elbows : "one who first put a rapier in Master
 
 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 197 
 
 Will Shakespeare's hand one who was himself 
 the 'butcher of a silk button' (O rare !), as Mercutio 
 hath it in the play!" 
 
 Captain Strongitharm's little, fierce eye, which had 
 mellowed under something like amusement, sud- 
 denly became fixed upon the doorway. 
 
 "Here come two as goodly youths," he asserted into 
 space, "as I have seen since I landed ! But, by St. 
 Paul, whence do our honest English lads get know- 
 ledge of these foreign antics ? In my time, an elbow 
 in the stomach was the way to settle precedence if 
 doorway was scant for two." 
 
 " Aha, now ! " exclaimed the gallant who was of the 
 Court, " these same antics, as you call them, are as a 
 point of honour with all scholars of our lamented 
 Master Vincent ; and all the more punctiliously ob- 
 served by yonder pair that, from the friends they 
 were yesterday, they have become rivals to-day." 
 
 "Say you so?" cried eagerly a young gull from 
 the other side of the table. "How so, fair sir?" 
 
 "Why, 'tis the sole talk in Paul's Walk this morn- 
 ing. Have you never heard? Robert Beckett and 
 Dick Wyatt are (by Signer Vincentio's dying wish, 
 expressed to my Lord Pembroke himself) to con- 
 tend for the reversion of the master's honours in the
 
 198 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 'Friars, ay, and of the mastership itself at the 
 academy!" 
 
 All glances were now turned towards the door, 
 to gaze upon the two who had assumed so sudden an 
 importance in the ruffling world. The question of 
 courteous precedence had been settled, and the 
 shorter of the new-comers advanced into the room 
 with a slow step and an air of gravity that seemed 
 to sit uneasily upon his comely, sanguine counte- 
 nance. A goodly youth, as the captain had it: 
 broad-shouldered, sinewy, his bright brown eyes 
 seemed made to match a flashing smile. 
 
 " Master Robert Beckett, a student at the Temple. 
 Good Kentish stock, sir," murmured mine host 
 confidentially into Strongitharm's split ear. "And 
 behind him, sir, his friend, Master Wyatt." 
 
 "A tall galliard," commented the adventurer, 
 "though less of the gentleman than your Templar." 
 
 "Ay, good, sir," assented the other, still under his 
 voice ; " your perspicacity has hit in the gold. 'Twas 
 a mere City 'prentice till some good dame marked 
 him for her heir, and, dying, left him rich." 
 
 "Master Vincent's two best scholars, sir traveller," 
 here interposed a typical Paul's man, with long tooth 
 and ragged lip, fixing on the veteran an aggressive 
 stare, and speaking loud as one in hopes of stirring
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 199 
 
 up the drooping spirit of fight. "These are the 
 lads to take up with you for the fame of Saviolo's 
 academy." 
 
 Under the insolent look, the old man's blood was 
 fired again. He struck the table with his sound hand. 
 
 " Good lack !" he cried testily, "Saviolo, Saviolo ! 
 I've a surfeit of the name !" 
 
 As the words rang out, Master Beckett halted and 
 faced the speaker. Then, with measured action, he 
 unhooked his rapier and clapped it, still sheathed, on 
 the table. Not brutally, mark you, but with that 
 nice hinting of declared hostility that was to be 
 learned in the inner room of Saviolo's academy, 
 where the more recondite points of honourable 
 quarrelling were studied. 
 
 After which he sat down in silence, half facing 
 this contemner of the revered master. Stillness had 
 fallen upon the room. Even the drawer hung in 
 the doorway to watch progress. 
 
 A gleam of new appreciation appeared in the vet- 
 eran's solitary orb. For a while he gazed upon the 
 Templar; then, slowly smiling, raised his tankard 
 and saluted. 
 
 " 'Twas right gallantly done, young sir," he said. 
 "Don Lewis Pacheco de Narvaez" Spanish pro- 
 nounced with exaggerated lisp " Don Lewis, who
 
 2oo The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 
 
 follows the footsteps of the great Carranza mirror 
 of cavalier perfection never put the countercheck 
 quarrelsome with better grace ! You mind me of him, 
 fair youth," he went on paternally. "Hast travelled 
 doubtless? Nay, I'll swear thou hast met him. 
 None but your Castillano, say I, to open a difference 
 with the right martial scorn." 
 
 "Sir," retorted Beckett, with some harshness, 
 giving his beaver, as he spoke, a bellicose dent with 
 his knuckles, "I claim no travels, and therefore no 
 Spanish schooling. Nor have I known a brighter 
 mirror of honourable bearing than Master Vincent 
 Saviolo, whose loss we are this day lamenting." 
 
 "Saviolo! Why, 'tis as the burthen of a song!" 
 
 "And this," the young man interrupted, of a sud- 
 den overboiling, "I am ready to maintain with dis- 
 putation, and eke with my body, against any soldado 
 or capitan who will walk !" 
 
 "Well crowed for a cockerel, fair sir ! since crow- 
 ing there must be, yet mark me somewhat 
 too loud at first point of quarrel. Hast come to the 
 challenge already, and upon a lie circumstantial only ? 
 And as for thy retort, it lacks first element. 'Nor 
 have I known,' say you. How couldst thou know? 
 Hast not travelled. Cockaigne is fair enough : 'tis 
 not the world. How old are you, boy? Think-
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 201 
 
 est thou, because thou hast achieved fair London 
 skill in thy rapier, couldst already have the whole art 
 and mystery of fence under that saucy cap ? which 
 same thou mayest as well remove at this stage, lad, 
 for I will not fight thee." 
 
 "Nay, then, sir, 'twere fitter not to dispute when 
 there is no readiness to prove." 
 
 The retort, given in a tone of doggedness, was 
 capped drily enough: 
 
 "Ay; 'tis easy for April to challenge December. 
 Time was look you when I would have met not 
 thee, but this Saviolo himself in proper wrangle and 
 disputation. Ay; I would mayhap have confuted 
 his passes with suitable blade-logic ! Wilt thou fight 
 me for thy teacher's sake?" 
 
 He stretched out his left hand as he spoke, and laid 
 it, not unkindly but with some authority, on Master 
 Beckett's arm. Ere the lad could fling off the touch, 
 he caught sight of the maimed stumps, and red- 
 dened. 
 
 "Ay," went on the old soldier, resignedly; "that 
 was my dagger hand a halbert at the infall of the 
 Pamplona palisadoes ! 'Tis gone ; fit for naught but 
 the holding of a pipe or the ringing of a coin. And 
 without your dagger, these days, your rapier's best 
 strokes in counter-time are naught. To such as me,
 
 2O2 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 your broad bilbo " he jerked his thumb towards the 
 basket-hilt that hung behind him on the wall "is 
 the only thigh companion. Plain cut and thrust ! 
 and the less occasion for it the healthier. For in all 
 fighting as one of your mastery, fair sir, full well 
 knows he who trusts long to mere defence waits 
 but to be hit. 'Tis the onslaught wins the duello. . . . 
 And to what manner of onslaught, think you, master, 
 will this timber lead me against thy lusty legs?" 
 
 As he spoke, he hoisted himself from the bench, 
 thrusting his figure into a burlesque attitude of fence ; 
 and it became plain to all that his right leg was naught 
 but a wooden stump. 
 
 A murmur ran through the room, followed by a 
 general shout of laughter; but the old man struck 
 at the wood with the knife he was brandishing, and 
 lumbered back to his bench. Then, after surveying 
 the piteous makeshift for a missing limb with an 
 air of melancholy philosophy, he turned his shrewd 
 eye once more on the youth's abashed face. 
 
 "Time was !" he repeated, between a sigh and a 
 laugh. "I be now but a hulk, towed into harbour 
 at last, from long journeys, unfit for fresh cruises. 
 But what though? A man may be no more for 
 jaunty quarrels, yet he may speak Ho there, 
 Thomas the drawer : bring me a quart of burnt sack,
 
 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 203 
 
 put me a toast in it, and place it me by my young 
 fellow's elbow ! Nay, lad," he added with a kind of 
 paternal authority, "but you shall have a nooning- 
 cup with me." 
 
 "Oh, sir " cried Beckett, and his lips trembled 
 upon words of regret that failed to form themselves. 
 
 The drawer had returned with the brimming 
 tankard ; the roast crab bobbing, a little brown island, 
 in the frothing amber of the burnt sack. The young 
 Templar seized the cup, and, pledging the donor 
 with his frank glance, raised the draught to his lips. 
 Then, removing his rapier from the table, further 
 doffed his cap with pretty deference. 
 
 Dick Wyatt, who had watched his rival's behaviour, 
 fruitlessly racking his brain the while in search of 
 some right proper cavalier-like sally of his own, here 
 followed the example, if more awkwardly, and sat 
 down on the other side. Strongitharm looked from 
 one to the other with benevolent interest. 
 
 "And so you two boys are rivals for the great 
 prize !" 
 
 The glances of the two young men met. Blue 
 eyes and brown flashed a second like blades. Then, 
 upon a common thought, were veiled with dropped 
 lids; and both boyish faces coloured deep.
 
 2O4 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 
 
 "It was the master's wish," said Beckett then. 
 "He could not choose between us." 
 
 Wyatt tossed his fair curls with sudden defiance. 
 
 "'Twill be a rare sight, Master Traveller," quoth 
 he, with not unbecoming arrogance. "Trial in the 
 'Friars at rapier single, rapier and dagger, rapier and 
 cloak, the case of rapiers ; on the scaffold, under my 
 Lord Pembroke's ordering. Ah, and under her 
 Grace's own eyes ! We have six months to be ready 
 against the match." 
 
 And again the young eyes met. 
 
 Captain Strongitharm cast round the table a glance 
 of triumph. In spite of the counter-interest, he was 
 at last the leader of the meeting. He chuckled in his 
 beard, cleared his throat, and now took the lead that 
 was his due : 
 
 "Having heard you, sirs, there even comes to 
 me a regret that I knew not this Master Vincent. 
 (It was soon after the great year of Cadiz that I sailed 
 from home.) God, no doubt, made him a good man, 
 since the youth of England loved him so greatly. 
 Nathless, what know ye of other lands where cun- 
 ning at tricks of point and edge is as common as 
 potency at ale-potting is among us ? What know ye 
 of lands where the long rapier is the true staff of life ? 
 For, hark ye, in these days, your Signor, your Don,
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 205 
 
 your Mounseer find a commodity of secret foynes 
 better equipment on a walk through the town than the 
 best-lined pouch. No gallant worth looking at that 
 has not killed his man ! There, every captain of for- 
 tune and eke every private gentleman, if he weathers 
 the thirtieth year unscathed, must needs be indeed a 
 master-sword. Ay, believe me, he who would set 
 up as a master, let him have met abundance of cun- 
 ning blades not scores, but hundreds ! More to 
 learn every year, north and south. If it be not in 
 Antwerp, then in Milan or Madrid. Now, where in 
 England " 
 
 "I greatly marvel, sir," put in a gallant, huffily 
 preparing to rise, "at hearing an Englishman extol 
 the foreigner's valour over his countryman's." 
 
 ii 
 
 The veteran's eye lighted with a flash. He was 
 about to make a scathing reply, but checked himself 
 and resumed his didactic tone : 
 
 "Valour? We speak of fencer's skill, not of the 
 soldier's fight natural, wherein (who should chron- 
 icle it better than I, Captain Strongitharm ?) our 
 English do excel at push of pike and swash of good 
 backsword. We speak of the duello. It has rules 
 of bearing galore : ay, and surprises endless, as
 
 2o6 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 
 
 on any chessboard. And no man may say that he 
 has encompassed them all. Great he may be, even 
 as your dead Vincent . . . till a greater be found." 
 
 Eager, the circle now hung on the words. None 
 more eager than the two young rivals, who had edged 
 along the bench till they pressed the speaker on either 
 side. Brown eyes sparkling, white teeth flashing, 
 Beckett flung a breathless question into the first 
 pause : 
 
 "Who, then, most experienced captain, since : 
 dropping his voice in melancholy loyalty, "since 
 our Vincent is no more, reckon you, is the true 
 master of these days?" 
 
 The fine old wreck of venture was now fully 
 launched upon the waters of garrulity. He turned his 
 single eye towards the rafter, as if he could see painted 
 thereon some vivid images of memory. 
 
 "Ah, who shall say?" he went on with gusto. 
 " Not I, till I have seen all those who would be called 
 masters, brought together in one pit and matched as 
 cocks are in battle royal. Ay, the talk is now of the 
 peerless Narvaez of Madrid. Yet have I known others 
 as magnificently spoke of. There is Petty Jean, the 
 Burgonian, look you . . . and the Seigneur St. 
 Didier of Provence. And we hear much of Caizo 
 the Neapolitan and Tappa, Milanese . . . and of
 
 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 207 
 
 Mynheer Joach;m, best famed as the Great Almayne 
 . . . and I have known Meister Eisenkopf, alias 
 Mastro Capoferro of Bologna a valiant. Valiant ? 
 They are all valiant as cocks, on their own ground ! 
 Ever, when I hear of a new mighty peck-and-spur, 
 I marvel what would happen of the last, could they 
 both meet on the same dunghill ! I knew one, espe- 
 cially, of late ; and, by St. Paul ! were I a youth again, 
 with limbs and eyes and blood fit for prowess ; were 
 I one of those that are ever readier with proof by 
 stoccata than with word argument, with slap of cloak 
 at the face than with sweep of plumed hat . . ." 
 He struck Beckett on the shoulder with the mutilated 
 hand in friendly mockery, to emphasise his words; 
 and at the same time (not to leave the eager boy on 
 the right out of his amenity) gave Wyatt a sly thrust 
 of his wooden leg under the table . Then he proceeded : 
 "Were I one of your wild cats, say I, 'tis not to Don 
 Lewis, nor to Thibault of Antwerp, nor yet to Caval- 
 cabo of Rome that I would hie me though Caval- 
 cabo was a man ... ere he was slit to the heart by 
 one Fabricius, a Danish gentleman, all about a mat- 
 ter of wager in fencing argument. To none of these 
 . . . but to one like Maistre Todescan, of Geneva." 
 Now, it was singular to note how, at this point, 
 both the scholars flung a furtive glance towards each
 
 2o8 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 
 
 other, arrested midway, and modestly dropped again 
 upon their can. Singular, too, the abstract air they 
 assumed ; and the tone of indifference in v/hich Dick 
 Wyatt presently asked : 
 
 "And what countryman was he, worthy captain?" 
 
 The veteran, who, lost in fond retrospection, had 
 
 been meditatively twirling his tankard to stir up the 
 
 last drop of sugar, tilted it finally, smacked his lips, 
 
 and was off again : 
 
 "Would I could say of such a manqueller: he is 
 an Englishman ! But no. They call him Todes- 
 can ! Ho, ho ! I once met a corporal in Piedmont 
 they called Espingola, who was the longsword-man 
 of a German company. Now ... an he and my 
 Todescan were not within the same skin But 
 'tis no part of an old soldier's to rake up tales ! 
 So Todescan he is, from Provence, and a Hugue- 
 not ... let him have it so ! Anyhow, he is a great 
 man in Geneva now, provost-of-arms, trainer of the 
 town companies, accepted citizen. . . . Ay, ay, 
 those long-headed burghers, ever thinking of their 
 ravening neighbours in the mountains of Savoy, 
 have gauged the worth of such a man ! Espingola 
 was a good rogue, stuffed with fighting tricks as a 
 brush is with bristles, and the simplest of them worth 
 a Jew's eye. . . . Todescan sings psalms, hath no
 
 209 
 
 variety in his swearing, and holds an even prospect 
 of not dying in his boots after all. But the youth 
 of Geneva sucks knowledge out of him as a weasel 
 sucks an egg ! Yet," added the speaker slily, as 
 he marked the changing visage of the young Templar, 
 " rest ye merry, masters. They are little likely to cross 
 the silver sea to contest it with you for Saviolo's 
 honours !" 
 
 Beckett rose suddenly. " I cry you mercy, captain," 
 he said, taking up his rapier from the wall and sling- 
 ing it briskly back to its carriages, as if moved by a 
 mighty haste. "I would we could invite you to a 
 friendly bout on the scaffold. But, since it cannot be 
 
 Bellona having marked you too often for her own 
 
 why, then, give you good den, Signor Strong- 
 itharmo !" 
 
 The captain rose upon his stump, went through an 
 elaborate congee ; then stood, with good-humoured 
 mien, watching the young man salute his comrade 
 and stride out of the door in right dapper deport- 
 ment. When the last inch of the smartly cocked 
 rapier-scabbard, neatly draping a flap of the cloak, 
 had disappeared round the corner, he himself called 
 for his bilbo and cape. As he flung the patched folds 
 with noble gesture about his old shoulders, he found 
 Dick Wyatt at his elbow.
 
 2io The Great Todescan'' s Secret Thrust 
 
 "Ah, fare ye well, young sir," said he genially. 
 "Shall ye take advice? Then, till your locks are 
 blanched and rare, like these, never believe you have 
 that skill, not only in your rapier-play but in any art 
 military, which is not some day to be caught in a trap. 
 . . . Now, I mind me, being in Genoa, the year of 
 the great Barbary sailing, there was mighty talk of 
 a new-fangled kind of firepot, and " 
 
 "But, nay, good captain, let me entreat you yet 
 to one moment more of rapier-talk. An it please 
 you, I would fain attend you on your walk home." 
 
 And, as the clank of the lusty young spurred heel 
 presently rang out past the open window of the tav- 
 ern, punctuated by the thud of the voyager's wooden 
 stump on the cobble-stones of Fleet Lane, the lin- 
 gerers within the room could hear a boyish voice 
 stammering outlandish names: Meyer . . . Thi- 
 bault . . . Capoferro . . . Todescan Todescan, 
 of Geneva. 
 
 in 
 
 It was on the eleventh day of December, by Eng- 
 lish reckoning ; on the twenty-second according to 
 the new Gregorian calendar as used in foreign lands, 
 that Dick Wyatt, at a turning of the road by the
 
 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 21 1 
 
 elbow of a hill, came in sight of the goal of his long 
 journeying. 
 
 Reining in his nag, he gazed. Yonder was Geneva ! 
 It rose in the distance from the plain, severe within 
 its bastioned walls, a few spires faintly gilt by the 
 parting rays of the sun, that was fast sinking behind 
 the further chain of low hills. There was something 
 in the spring of the cathedral on its eminence, above 
 the black, clustering roofs, which brought back to his 
 mind, with a transient pang of yearning, the outline of 
 Paul's on the Ludgate heights, away in far England. 
 In the forefront the Rhone bounded and roared, 
 foaming in its southward race. Beyond the grim 
 city spread the dark waters and the silence of Lake 
 Leman. Beyond again, through the clear, frosty 
 air, against a darkening sky, towered the still gold 
 and rosy snows of Savoy. 
 
 The sight, impressive enough as the sudden vision 
 of a long-dreamed-of journey's end, was specially wel- 
 come at the end of a day's ride through bitter weather 
 and sorely rough ways. As the traveller gazed, with 
 eyes of satisfaction, not unmixed with awe, a distant 
 boom rolled through the still air. 
 
 Many experiences had Dick Wyatt gone through 
 since he had left his peaceful island : among others,
 
 212 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 the disastrous one of closed town-gates at fall of 
 night. He spurred his tired mount, therefore ; and 
 it was with but a few minutes to spare that he 
 reached the Porte de Cornevin, and found himself 
 inside the staid stronghold of Calvinism. Before 
 being granted free entrance, he was suspiciously 
 questioned by the sergeant of the burgher-guard, 
 on his character, religion, and the purpose of his 
 journeying; an examination which he passed with 
 some difficulty, for French was still unready to 
 his tongue. So soon, however, as it transpired that 
 his business was with one Maitre Todescan, the sour 
 visage of the sergeant relaxed ; he was not only ad- 
 mitted, but sped on. Any friend of worthy Master 
 Todescan, Provost of the town companies, must be 
 welcome in Geneva ! 
 
 And so, all in the uncertain light of a wintry, 
 orange afterglow, the last comer to the town found 
 his way through the winding streets past the old 
 Castel of St. Gervais, by the Pont aux Mariniers over 
 the thundering Rhone as it rushes out of the lake, 
 across the isle, towards the steep rising Grand' Rue, 
 wherein (so had said the burgher sergeant) dwelt the 
 great Provost-at-arms, "at the sign of the Roy David, 
 just a pistol-shot short of St. Germain Church." 
 
 Dick Wyatt, as men will who are haunted by a
 
 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 213 
 
 fixed purpose, paid little heed to aught but what fell 
 in with the main tenor of his thoughts. He mar- 
 velled not at the prosperity of the noble Free-town ; 
 at the orderly, sober throng, the breath of peace that 
 pervaded the place, unlike those airs of furtive mer- 
 riment snatched between spells of disaster which 
 marked the war-ridden towns he had recently passed 
 through. He took no heed of the houses, wondrous 
 tall, showing at almost every floor a glow of fire or 
 lamp that met you like a smile of welcome. But 
 rather he marvelled how a man of martial renown, 
 such as the great Todescan, could find congenial 
 dwelling among people where psalming and grave 
 converse, rather than the ringing of spurs and the 
 cocking of beavers, seemed the chief assertion of 
 manliness. 
 
 And it made his heart leap, for all his weariness, 
 as he halted at length before the Roy David, suddenly 
 to hear, above the bustle of a hostelry at supper-time, 
 the rousing clank of iron, the stamp of foot and the 
 sharp cries which tell of the fencing hour. He raised 
 his head and perceived that the sounds proceeded 
 from a row of windows on the first floor, lighted redly 
 and wide open in spite of the great cold. 
 
 "So! Todescan at last!" 
 
 With an eager presentiment of all that he well-
 
 214 The Great Todescan 1 s Secret Thrust 
 
 prepared scholar, if ever there was one was soon 
 to learn under those projecting gables, Dick Wyatt 
 entered the door of the inn. Little did he dream 
 how fast his knowledge would grow that very night ! 
 
 Mine host of the Roy David appraised the new- 
 comer's appearance with one look of an experienced 
 eye. 
 
 "Ay, faith ! There is still accommodation, though 
 my house is all but full. And you would have speech 
 with Master Todescan? And, faith, I thought as 
 much. Though, what there is in our Todescan 
 that you all should thus . . . and Englishmen too ! 
 But I, for one, have no call to grumble. . . . And 
 I may make bold to guess further, my gentleman, that 
 you desire speech of Todescan even before sight of 
 supper? Eh? Said I truly?" 
 
 And without more ado the traveller was conducted 
 up a winding stairway to the door of the fencing- 
 room. 
 
 It was a long, low, beam-ceiled gallery, covering 
 the whole depth of the house from high street to back 
 lane; lit with four oil lamps; bare of all furniture 
 but for a couple of forms and an arm-rack in the cor- 
 ner. The last lesson of the day was over. A heavy- 
 looking youth had just drawn on his doublet and was 
 adjusting its points, ever and anon wiping his face
 
 The Great T ode scan's Secret Thrust 215 
 
 and the back of his neck, spite of the icy blast pour- 
 ing through the open windows. 
 
 "Mattre Todescan," cried mine host from the 
 threshold, all professional cheeriness, "again I bring 
 an English admirer one, mark you, that cannot 
 wait another hour before saluting you ! What a man 
 you are, aha ! No doubt you would, as usual, par- 
 take of supper together ? I leave you. But the time 
 to toss that basket of trout into the pan, and to car- 
 bonade a rib of that veal Say I well ? Ay ; and 
 a pitcher of the white wine of Merges eh ? I know 
 -I know!" 
 
 Without waiting for reply, he retired, leaving Dick 
 Wyatt face to face with his great man. 
 
 The first impression was curiously unpleasant; 
 and Dick was seized with an unexpected revulsion a 
 sense of resentment as against something unnatural. 
 He had grow r n accustomed to expect, oddly enough, a 
 genial strain as inseparable from a great teacher of 
 the murderous science. But here was a saturnine 
 visage, with a vengeance ! An unformed thought 
 quickly took possession of the Englishman's mind : in 
 practice with such an one, cunning strokes of fence 
 would assume a new, gruesome complexion would 
 savour more of cruelty and treachery than of skill.
 
 216 The Great Todescan' s Secret Thrust 
 
 As a fact, Maitre Todescan 's face displayed any- 
 thing but cordiality at that instant. It was with the 
 air of him who finds his time trespassed upon at a 
 decidedly inopportune moment that he turned upon 
 the visitor, looking deeply at him. Meanwhile with an 
 engaging glibness, cultivated on repeated occasions, 
 the youth fell to explaining his presence. For a spell 
 Todescan listened in silence ; then suddenly seemed 
 to make up his mind to more graciousness. A smile 
 found its way to his lips, without, however, reaching 
 the eyes, that remained filled as with some dark and 
 absorbing speculation : 
 
 He was honoured. Yes ; he would, on the mor- 
 row, offer his humble services to the gentleman. 
 Now, however, he must go forth. He had charge 
 to-night of the burgher-guards' watch. But to-mor- 
 row He bowed. There came a furtive look into 
 the close-set eyes. It was happy, was it not? for 
 the stranger that he had just saved the hour of the 
 setting of the watch. The days were of the shortest. 
 Had he encountered any noticeable experience on his 
 approach to Geneva? Which road had his been? 
 From the Bern side ? Ah, from the north ! Maitre 
 Todescan stood musing for a moment. Well, he 
 must even crave the young master's leave until the 
 morrow.
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 217 
 
 The man spoke with a conscious air, which betrayed 
 the tardy grafting of courtly manners upon an original 
 stock of camp brutality. And Dick Wyatt, escorted 
 downstairs, politely but firmly shaken off at the 
 kitchen door, as he watched the fencing-master wrap 
 himself up scientifically in his great cloak and stride 
 out into the night, had a fantastic impression as one 
 who had just passed by an unknown personal danger. 
 
 In some dudgeon, with a lingering regret for the 
 merry taverns of Paul's Chains (oh, how far they 
 seemed !), the Englishman consumed his trout and 
 drank his thin wine by himself. And soon after, 
 the melancholy drone of curfew having sounded from 
 a neighbouring tower, he wended his way dejectedly 
 to the bare and very cold room allotted to him just 
 below the eaves. 
 
 But under the combined influence of bodily chill, 
 over-fatigue, and mental annoyance, it seemed as 
 though decidedly the soothing of sleep were not to be 
 granted that night. After a few hours of angry toss- 
 ing, the youth made up his mind to defy all curfew 
 laws : he struck the flint, and once more lit the small 
 length of tallow allotted to him. 
 
 Geneva at last ! . . . Three months since he had 
 started from England, but a few days after that tav- 
 ern meeting which had fired his young blood ; and
 
 2i8 The Great Todescan 1 s Secret Thrust 
 
 throughout the burthen of his thoughts had been 
 Todescan. . . . Todescan of Geneva ! A long and 
 tedious way it had been, with more than one unpleas- 
 ant adventure. Laid by the heels at Cologne, through 
 some pernicious fever; hindered, almost at every 
 step, by his ignorance of tongues, of travel. . . . 
 But the goal was reached Geneva at last ! 
 
 Wrapped in his travelling-cloak, he began to re- 
 hearse the tale of his fencing knowledge in prepara- 
 tion of the morrow's ordeal, when he should face, 
 foiled-rapier in hand, "the king of them all," as 
 Captain Strongitharm had dubbed this Todescan. 
 
 After the manner of men enamoured, living in 
 dreams of their lady; of poets haunted by rhymes 
 and lilts and metaphors ; of misers, with thoughts ever 
 circling round their treasures (madmen all, in their 
 degree), so this youth, on whom the meretricious new- 
 fangle rapier had cast her spell, had grown mad, mad 
 as any lover, rhymester, or harpagon; fencing-mad 
 ever as the Martius portrayed by Marston no un- 
 common occurrence about these years. 
 
 The few inches of candle supplied by the Roy 
 David came abruptly to an end ; the long, unstuffed 
 wick collapsed, drowned its flame with a sizzle, and 
 left him once more in darkness. Dick Wyatt was 
 in that state of nocturnal lucidity of mind in which it
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 219 
 
 seems verily as if sleep would never be known again 
 in life. He remained as he was, sitting up in bed, 
 gazing at some particular bright star that, between 
 two gables, peered into the blackness of his room. 
 In time the star progressed out of sight, and he had 
 nothing left but to hearken to the all-pervading silence 
 that singular silence of an enclosed town buried 
 in slumber, on a night of frost, when not even a 
 prowling animal is about. 
 
 Into the great stillness the tower-clock of a neigh- 
 bouring church dropped the stroke of one. The 
 grave note reverberated with an odd emphasis ; the 
 pulsing vibrations hung, lingering, upon the air, 
 as if in warning. Strangely, the reminder of the 
 hour appeared to break a spell. At first, to the 
 musing listener, it was only as if that sense of death- 
 like hush had departed. True, he could hear noth- 
 ing; yet he felt as if, in the world around, were 
 sounds that could be heard. Presently he realised 
 that there was indeed something astir under the silent 
 scintillation of the stars. Filled with an unaccount- 
 able sense of surprise he sprang out of bed; and, 
 standing tiptoe in the darkness, strained his ear to 
 catch he knew not what. A moment later he had 
 pushed open the casement and thrust his head into 
 the cold night : a rumour without, eery, faint, inter-
 
 22O The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 
 
 mittent, indefinable; into the midst of it, suddenly 
 springing, human sounds ; a sharp cry, pain or rage ; 
 a call; and then a shot, harquebuss or pistol; an- 
 other ! . . . Silence again. And now a clang that 
 made the woodwork rattle. All was clear to his 
 mind's eye as if he saw : a culverin on the rampart 
 had spoken. It was fight ! It was a dead-of- 
 night assault on the sleeping town ! 
 
 The news began to rush like water from open 
 sluices through the main ways; drums, sharp and 
 panting, ran north and west, chequering the night. 
 One came drubbing up the High Street, and Dick 
 bent out of his window to peer down. Nothing to 
 be seen but a denser shadow in the dark, and a faint 
 whiteness: the skin of the drum. But out of the 
 murk rose the cry, thrown out between the taps in 
 strangled words by one out of all breath: "Armes, 
 armes ! A la Tertasse ! La porte est prise ! Armes ! 
 Au Savoyard !" 
 
 Right and left casements clattered back; heads 
 were thrust forth with much exchange of exclama- 
 tion. Half-dressed men, many in naught but shoes 
 and shirts, came hastening out of their houses, hal- 
 bert or matchlock in hand, feverishly concerting as 
 they scurried towards the west ramparts, from whence 
 the clamour upwelled. And presently, over all, the
 
 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 221 
 
 great bell of the cathedral threw the clang and drone 
 of the tocsin lamentable, making the windows, the 
 very rafters, shiver as if with terror in the dark. 
 
 Some new treachery of the ever-treacherous Ligue 
 party. . . . The ferocious mercenaries of the Duke 
 of Savoy. . . . The sack of the town. . . . 'Twas 
 a fearsome thing to contemplate Les Savoyards! 
 Awe-struck voices cried the tidings from window to 
 window. * 
 
 Dick Wyatt understood but one thing : there was 
 fighting forward. And a new spirit awoke in him. He 
 thrust his feet into his list shoes no time to pull 
 on long boots buckled his sword over a still un- 
 fastened doublet, and groped his way down the black 
 stairs into the street. Men moved like shadows. 
 Here and there a lanthorn made a narrow circle 
 of light. More shirts, vaguely white in the all 
 but complete darkness, were to be met than doublets 
 or cloaks ; many a foot went bare to save that price- 
 less minute of time at the rampart that might decide 
 between success or massacre. With jaws firmly set 
 on the thought of the coming death-struggle (ay, and 
 on the thought of children and women !), none found 
 breath to spare for words. A sudden halt was called 
 at the entrance, squat and thick-pillared, of some 
 monstrous cavern, or so it seemed to Dick. Pun-
 
 222 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 gent into the crisp air spread the smell of apples, 
 onions, straw. . . . Ah, the Market Hall ! A man 
 sprang into the midst of them, out of the black. 
 His voice rang a soldier's voice, accustomed to 
 command : 
 
 "Back! To the Bastion de Rive, every man! 
 Every man, I say ! The attack at the Tertasse is 
 but a feint. The enemy is at the Rive Gate ! That 
 is where men are wanted ! Back !" 
 
 He ran, flinging out his arms; and the whole 
 posse turned before him as the flock before the sheep- 
 dog. The light of a lantern fell upon a harsh, thin 
 face, upon gleaming, small eyes. It was Todescan, 
 the Provost ! 
 
 Dick Wyatt's soul leaped to the splendid mastery 
 of this soldier in the emergency. Here was the 
 champion in his right place ; here the leader for him ; 
 here a gorgeous chance to take his first lesson from 
 the terrible blade ! 
 
 Upon the very spring of this elation fell a sudden 
 chilling doubt. The last of the crowd had moved 
 lustily up the narrow street once more, but Todescan 
 had stopped short ; and, with a stride to one side, and 
 a swift glance right and left, he had dived down 
 an alley. After a second's hesitation, moved by 
 uneasy curiosity, Wyatt bounded forward in his
 
 The Great TodescarSs Secret Thrust 223 
 
 wake, found the mouth of the entry, and noiselessly 
 followed in pursuit. 
 
 The alley, narrow, winding, and all but closed 
 from the skies by overhanging eaves, was pitch dark. 
 But the rapid, assured footsteps in front guided him, 
 and he was able to thread his way. At a turn of the 
 lane, a vague lifting of the gloom told of a more open 
 space ; and, against the lighter background, the black 
 bulk of his man became perceptible. A vague 
 but overpowering suspicion caused Dick Wyatt to 
 remain concealed. Todescan had halted. His steel 
 cap, catching the glint of starlight, revealed a furtive 
 movement as of one peering and hearkening. Against 
 the faintly luminous sky, a crenellated outline, cut 
 high above, told the nature of the place some 
 inner patrol-way at the foot of the town walls. 
 The night all around was now alive with rumour; 
 but this open spot still held silence and emptiness. 
 With a dart, like a serpent, Todescan suddenly 
 stooped, and from under a pile of stones (as far as 
 the listener could judge) dragged forth some heavy 
 object. 
 
 rv 
 
 Wyatt watched, held by the horrid suspicion that 
 gripped him ever more sickeningly. Todescan was
 
 224 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 
 
 fiercely busy. There came a thud, as though the 
 unknown instrument of mischief, that was so heavy 
 and clanked on the cobbles as it moved, were being 
 thrust against a door. And now, out of the dark- 
 ness, danced the red sparkle of flint and steel. A 
 faint point sprang and remained aglow. Thereafter, 
 more sparkle, and then a steady fizzle. Wyatt was 
 no soldier, but he knew of the quick-match. The 
 little, hissing fire-snake whispered of dire treachery; 
 with its evil glimmer it lit lurid understanding in his 
 brain. . . . An unguarded postern in the ramparts, 
 a traitor behind it, a petard to blow the breach ! 
 
 The young man's blood rose in fury. He drew his 
 sword ; his cry rang out incoherently : 
 
 " O base and murderous ! Treachery ! Hold ! 
 Rogue, traitor, renegade rogue ! Help there ! O 
 sweet Jesu!" 
 
 The English words could be but mere sounds to the 
 knave ; but their clamour was eloquent. Todescan 
 started, wheeled round ; his blade leaped forth. The 
 scintillation of the match cast the merest trembling 
 gleam, yet he recognised the youth; and, cursing 
 him blasphemously for an English fool, opposed his 
 headlong attack with contemptuous yet vindictive 
 mastery. 
 
 For a single moment, that yet seemed in its tension
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 225 
 
 to pass the bounds of time, as Wyatt found himself 
 under the glare felt rather than seen of those 
 sinister eyes, that from the first had struck a chill to 
 his soul, the full realisation of his own madness swept 
 upon him. Here was he challenging to the death 
 the world's greatest swordsman : all his own science 
 served but to emphasise his sense of appalling help- 
 lessness. But even at the first meeting of blades the 
 misgiving vanished. His spirit rose to exaltation, 
 stimulated by the feeling of his opponent's superb 
 mastery; stimulated, too, by the low chuckle that 
 Todescan gave. The utter scorn of it ! So might 
 a demon laugh in the dark, exulting in the power 
 of his own evil. 
 
 Upon a singular trick of the imagination, as in the 
 flash of a vision, the youth thought to be once more 
 in the old fencing-room of Paul's Chains, in the 'Friars. 
 There rose the great yellow windows looking Thames- 
 ward; there the panelled walls, the hacked pillar; 
 and there, over the point of his own rapier, the kindly, 
 keen face of his revered master ; of Saviolo, the mirror 
 of chivalrous courtesy. . . . Hark to his voice, 
 admonitory yet encouraging : 
 
 "Eh, la! point in line, figlio mio; ever in line! 
 And ever lower than the wrist ! Lower, lower, good 
 lad ! Thumb down, and up with the little finger, 
 Q
 
 226 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 elbow out, nearly straight ! So, stand thus, and I 
 promise thee ne'er a blade in the world shall surprise 
 thy ward!" 
 
 As if in obedience, Dick swiftly fell into the well- 
 known expectant guard. Even as he did so, there 
 was a jerk it was almost like an exclamation of 
 wonder and disappointment in the steel that 
 pressed on his own ; and Dick Wyatt was back again, 
 fighting for his life, the Genevan cobblestones under 
 his feet, the glimmer of the quick-match and its 
 steady hiss, frightful menace warning him to haste ! 
 He gripped the ground in his soft shoes (a blessing it 
 was, thought he swiftly, he had not waited to don the 
 great boots !) ; he set his teeth. Never, for smallest 
 breathing-space, did the Provost's terrible long blade 
 release his own. He felt it gliding, seeking to bind, 
 fiercely caressing; felt the deadly spring behind a 
 tiger's crouch; felt the invincible, unknown thrust 
 ready against his first weakening. And that weaken- 
 ing was coming apace ! It was all he could do to hold 
 his opposition. As a kind of spell cast by the fingers 
 of steel, by the superhuman flexibility of his oppo- 
 nent's wrist, a palsy seemed to be creeping up his own 
 outstretched arm. One twitch of relaxation, he 
 knew, and he was sped ! 
 
 Now, whether from the depth of his own need, or
 
 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 227 
 
 whether the spirit of the master were hovering over 
 a beloved scholar in his dire extremity who shall 
 say ? certain it was that the very tones of Saviolo 
 were now recalling to Wyatt's brain a favourite axiom 
 of the fence-school : 
 
 "Chi para, busca . . . chi tira, tocca! . . . He 
 who parries but seeks . . . he who thrusts, reaches !" 
 
 It was to the youth as if a flame had been lit in his 
 soul. Why wait in anguish to parry a coming secret 
 thrust, when he could still himself strike? Up he 
 sprang, brain and eye, wrist and nimble feet, in mag- 
 nificent concert. To his dying day, Dick swore that, 
 for the instant, he saw in the dark, even to the dread- 
 ful grin on the face opposite to him. His ear, strained 
 to the same marvel of keenness, caught the sound of a 
 catching breath not his own. Exultant, he thrust ; 
 out went Saviolo 's favourite botta lunga sopramano 
 with point reverse ! 
 
 It was on the very dart of Todescan's stroke, which 
 was even then leaping out like a bolt from ambush. 
 Todescan's own pass, the fierce jerky binding, the 
 incredible turn of the wrist inwards, the infallible 
 estocade that was to have driven the point irredeem- 
 ably under the armpit, and let free the overweening 
 soul that dared oppose him in earnest, Todescan's 
 own great thrust Yes, but one splinter of a sec-
 
 228 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 ond too late ! There was a sinister grating of steel 
 upon steel, and the edge of the menacing blade glided, 
 harmless, by Wyatt's side. But the Englishman's 
 rapier, driven straight, heart-high, went home. 
 Todescan, caught on the start of his own lunge, 
 actually ran upon the point. 
 
 At any other moment, the horrible ease with which 
 his steel traversed living flesh would have sickened 
 Dick Wyatt. But there was nothing now but 
 fierce leaping triumph in his blood The great 
 gaunt figure had stopped dead-short ! A broken 
 curse, a groan ending in a long sigh ; and the Provost 
 of Geneva fell at the feet of the bewildered London 
 apprentice, whose bright blade was now black to 
 within a foot of the hilt. 
 
 "Master Vincent Saviolo have thanks!" cried 
 the youth in his soul, and waved the victorious 
 weapon at the stars. Even as he did so, a drop fall- 
 ing from it glittered, a dreadful red, in the light of the 
 quick-match. "My God!" he called out, upon a 
 new thought ; flung the good sword from him, and 
 was down on his knees, tearing like one possessed 
 at the last inch of the burning rope. 
 
 The urgency of the peril for he had no mind to 
 see the fruits of his great combat thrown away 
 lent a desperate sureness to his effort. In another
 
 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 229 
 
 instant he had sprung up again, and was stamping 
 the last spark under foot. Then he stood and 
 breathed deeply, feeling dazed, almost as in a dream. 
 
 Hemmed in by the rumours, this little square under 
 the bastion was still wrapped in stillness a still- 
 ness that suddenly grew awful to Dick as he thought 
 of the dead body. It was the first time he had 
 sped a soul: in the cant of rufflers, this was "his 
 first man." Yonder black heap: that was he who 
 had been Todescan a name Dick had never spoken 
 but with bated breath. 
 
 The sight of torches bobbing at some far depth of 
 the wall-lane, the sound of running steps and voices 
 uplifted, startled him from his mood. With a sud- 
 den vividness he saw his own peril. To be found 
 alone with the corpse of the honoured Provost, near 
 the tell-tale petard and the remains of the quick- 
 match he, a stranger just arrived in the city, with- 
 out a single friend, without even speech to explain or 
 defend himself his doom as a spy, traitor, and 
 murderer would be trebly sealed. He hastily picked 
 up his rapier, and made a wild-cat spring up the steps 
 that led to the battlements ; reaching the black shelter 
 of the platform only just in time to escape notice. 
 
 There, although prudence urged a noiseless
 
 230 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 
 
 flight along the walls to some farther quarter of 
 the town where he might mix with the throng, he was 
 fain to sit down and gather strength; for shaking 
 knees and labouring heart refused service. He 
 dropped on the sill of an empty gun-embrasure, and 
 hearkened. The steps and voices were drawing 
 near the dark spot where the body lay. Outwards, 
 beyond the moat, stretched the fields under the star- 
 light. Frogs were croaking with strange persistence 
 for the time of year. All at once the lane below him 
 was filled with new sounds, exclamations, hurried 
 steps, a clang as of a falling pike. Impelled by a 
 desperate curiosity, he crept back to the edge of the 
 platform, and looked down. 
 
 Luridly illumined by the glare of torches, he could 
 see, clustered together, a party of dishevelled, anx- 
 ious-faced burghers a score or so of them 
 armed with harquebuss or halbert. One rushed, 
 cursing, from the petard at the postern to the body of 
 Todescan. Another was shaking his fist as to some 
 unseen enemy. Dick was preparing to crawl away 
 to some safer hiding-place, when it was borne in upon 
 him, to his utter astonishment, that the unknown 
 slayer of the Town Provost was already vindicated. 
 Little French had he, true ; but his wits were sharp- 
 ened by danger and deed, and by his knowledge
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 231 
 
 of the truth in this matter. One, who seemed to be 
 the leader of the party, was speaking, emphasising 
 his words by vindictive thumps of his clenched hand 
 on his palm : 
 
 "He sent us to the Bastion de Rive. . . . There 
 was no enemy there ! That was his treachery ! 
 Todescan has betrayed us, but God has avenged!" 
 
 And deep-mouthed came the words: "Todescan, 
 the traitor!" 
 
 Dick Wyatt straightened himself with a long sigh 
 of relief. Yet he deemed it still best play to withdraw 
 unseen from the neighbourhood of these hard-pressed, 
 excited men. Stealthily he wiped his blade; and, 
 in disgust, flung the bloody kerchief over the wall 
 into the ditch. 
 
 Instantly he was struck by the singular cessation 
 of the obtrusive frog-croaking. He paused a mo- 
 ment, wondering. Then, as though the throwing 
 of a kerchief had been an expected signal from the 
 darkness without, a muffled call came up the wall. 
 
 "Eh sei tu, alia fin fine, Espingola! ... E 
 pronto?" 
 
 At once one of these words evoked the memory 
 of old Strongitharm : "A corporal in Piedmont, they 
 called Espingola . . ."had said the veteran. Dick 
 thrust his head through the embrasure and peered
 
 232 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 
 
 into the moat. Yonder, in sooth, huddled at the 
 foot of the rampart in their black armour, darker 
 shadows upon the gloom lay a party of the Sav- 
 oyards. 
 
 Boyish, Dick forgot his wise resolution; all 
 thoughts of safety, of self-preservation evaporated. 
 He sheathed his rapier and rushed back boldly to the 
 platform's edge. 
 
 "Ho, there, my men!" he shouted in sturdy 
 English ; "the enemy is yonder ! " 
 
 All torches were lifted, all heads looked up in 
 astonishment. He pointed and waved vehemently, 
 and summoned a scrap of their language to his 
 tongue : 
 
 "L'ennemi! 1'ennemi, la! . . . la!" 
 
 Rapidly the burghers ran up and lined the parapet. 
 Those outside who had expected a secret ally to 
 beckon from the breach were confronted by defend- 
 ers. Stealth and silence were of no further avail 
 the Savoyards upsprang. The harquebusade began. 
 
 The story of the Escalade of Geneva was soon to be- 
 come matter of history. Widespread in all Protestant 
 countries was to be the bitter tale of that night-surprise
 
 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 233 
 
 of the Free City, treacherously planned in the midst 
 of proclaimed peace. And all who heard of it knew 
 how nigh the vile plan came to fruition ; how narrow, 
 for one panting hour, remained the margin between 
 victorious repulse and annihilation; what nameless 
 orgies of blood, lust, and rapine were, by the Duke's 
 explicit orders, to follow on the shout of " Ville prise ! 
 Ville gagne !" 
 
 Once, indeed, that cry of terror was actually raised, 
 to strike ice-cold to many an innocent heart. And no 
 doubt it would have been justified had all the con- 
 certed measures of assailants without and of con- 
 federates within come to their expected issue : among 
 which the most pregnant was the blowing up of the 
 little, forgotten postern under the Bastion de 1'Oye ! 
 
 But as yet Dick Wyatt knew naught of all this. 
 By the light of one of those street fires that had 
 been kindled, wherever possible, until the opening of 
 the blessed eye of day, he was sullenly attending to 
 sundry slight wounds that now had begun to stiffen 
 and smart. A morose depression gathered upon him. 
 
 A hand was clapped on his shoulder : 
 
 "Why, Dick Wyatt and hast also come to 
 Geneva!" 
 
 He had not heard the beloved tongue from a true 
 English mouth, these weary months. His heart
 
 234 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 
 
 leaped. He sprang up. Oh, marvel. . . . No 
 less a man than Master Beckett ! Master Beckett, 
 torn in attire and powder-stained; mocking, yet 
 with a tender gleam in the eye. Their hands met. 
 
 " I have looked for thee, Dick, among the dead, the 
 maimed, and the sound, and here art thou at last !" 
 
 "How now yet you knew me not here ?" 
 
 " Nay, an hour ago I never dreamt of Dick Wyatt. 
 But down yonder, at the Tertasse gate, where the 
 Spaniard and the Italian were made at last to choose 
 between jump the wall again or take our steel, there 
 was one burgher a tall one, by the Mass, but yet 
 he owed something to the timely help of my rapier 
 ' Gran mercy ! ' saith he, ' you English are rude escri- 
 meurs' (thus they call a fencer, Dick) ; 'we left one 
 on the Bastion de 1'Oye. He hath little French, but 
 he drummed right heartily on the black harness of the 
 Savoyard.' 'An Englishman?' say I; and, there 
 being no more work to do, I looked for him who had 
 little French, lest he want succour or friendly word. 
 But never thinking of thee ! What make you from 
 Lombard Street, Dick Wyatt?" 
 
 "Ay; and what make you in Geneva from the 
 Temple, Master Beckett?" 
 
 The retort was made smiling. Gone was melan- 
 choly; gone, too, was the rivalry that had burned
 
 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 235 
 
 sore in each heart against the other. They stood, 
 eye in the eye. Presently they both laughed : the 
 same thought was in their minds. 
 
 "So! in truth they did speak of another English- 
 man," said Dick. 
 
 " They spoke, say'st thou ? Who spoke ? " 
 
 "In Todescan's fence-room," said Wyatt gravely. 
 
 Master Beckett mused a moment. "When came 
 you to Geneva, friend Dick?" he asked. 
 
 "Yesterday, at nightfall." 
 
 A great astonishment writ itself upon the Templar's 
 countenance. 
 
 "Last night ! Plague on thee, Dick !" he went on 
 banteringly as he marked the other's enigmatic smile, 
 "but thou wast in monstrous haste ! Well come. 
 'Tis fair time to go crack a quart for a morning 
 draught; or so at least 'twould be in London. 
 Todescan?" he chuckled. "I have news for thee, 
 Dick. But come." 
 
 Arm in arm they made their way to the nearest 
 tavern ; and there, seated at a retired table, with a 
 stoup of warm wine and a white loaf between them, 
 resumed converse. 
 
 On his peregrination, in pursuance of the strenu- 
 ous scheme of sword-education suggested by Captain
 
 236 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 
 
 Strongitharm three months ago (and how far it now 
 seemed !), the Templar had made many stages. 
 The first had been at Antwerp, where the Sieur 
 Gerard Thibault directed a Spanish Academy 
 of the highest philosophic flight. 
 
 The next had been Cologne : city chiefly notable, 
 in his memory's eye, not for a Minster and the bones 
 of eleven thousand Virgins, but for a certain low- 
 ceiled, stone-floored righting room, at the back of 
 the Rheinthorgasse, conducted by one Heinrich-of- 
 the-Great-Feet a den which rang lustily to the 
 clang of long sword and short and to raucous 
 jovial voices, from the earliest break of fast to the 
 last evening can. 
 
 Another had been in the Strasburg timberhouse 
 of Joachim, giant of the blade, whose method of 
 sword converse was essentially rhythmic and re- 
 quired for its perfect mastery the lilt of fife and tabor. 
 
 A fourth was spent at Mainz, where Eisenkopf 
 once Capoferro of Bologna had transplanted the 
 latest fruits of the southern foyning arts. And the 
 last at Lyons: there the veteran Petit- Jean, exile 
 from Paris, reigned in provincial prosperity and still 
 retained about his name the glamour of one who 
 had imparted fabulous fencing skill and judgment 
 to the late Henri de Valois.
 
 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 237 
 
 From each of these men he had purchased the 
 secret of one or more indefeasible pass (else logic 
 was a fool) ; of one or more universal parry or 
 countercheck which none could circumvent (save, 
 of course, by unholy compact with the Fiend). 
 And all this at the expense of much vigour and toil, 
 and eke much good English gold. For, if invaluable 
 tuition of this kind was expensive already to the 
 native, lessons to a foreigner, given perforce in 
 strenuous dumbshow and with great waste of 
 expletives, commanded fairly enough, in faith, at 
 least a double price. But Beckett regretted none 
 of it. It had been rich food to his folly. 
 
 During the long rides from town to town he 
 would rehearse in his mind the tale of his gains 
 even as a merchant counting up the safe delivery 
 of his argosies : 
 
 "The pass of el dagatin, from Thibault Ah, 
 Dick Wyatt, sweet lad, how wilt thou stare when 
 thy long punta sopramano (in which, faith, thou 
 dost excel) finds vacancy . . . the open door . . . 
 thin air ... and then : one-two and the back edge 
 of my rapier next on the nape of thy neck ! Rare ! 
 'Twill exactly suit thy long punta. By my hilts, 
 I'll retain it for thee. 
 
 . "And 'twill be feast to see the lad face the
 
 238 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 
 
 Ochsenstiern and Linksaisenport of Maistre Joachim, 
 yet never divine the hook till the bait is gulped. . . . 
 
 . . . "Ha! the punta d'Alicormo no more to 
 be parried than a bolt from the crossbow ! . . . 
 Yes, that was full worth the ringing pieces that went 
 from mine into the pouch of that brisk knave of 
 Mainz. . . . 
 
 ..." But, a plague on't, that the most conclusive 
 of all la bolte de Nevers, Petit- Jean's most precious 
 secret thrust and the dearest to purchase, only to be 
 imparted on oath of secrecy lest it should be used 
 against its father should be of no avail in courteous 
 bout ! " 
 
 Never a night had passed since the wandering 
 scholar's departure from Lyons, that, in the solitude 
 of his inn chamber, this deadly botte de Nevers 
 the nimble return of point between the brows, 
 sudden death-bolt from the blue had not been 
 practised for an hour against a chalk mark on 
 the panel. A foyne, already legendary among 
 swordsmen, one which none who had ever faced 
 the ferocious Nevers ever lived to learn for them- 
 selves : Beckett had it in his hands, in full mastery 
 . . . and yet it could not be tried in courtesy, for it 
 forgave not ! It was a foyne to dream of but 
 not one to use against friend Wyatt. . . . No, a
 
 The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 239 
 
 plague on it . . . ! In this land of aliens, he 
 thought on his rival countryman with almost a 
 touch of tenderness. 
 
 And thus Beckett, musing along foreign roads 
 upon that contest which was to take place next 
 year on the 'Friars' scaffold, under her Grace's 
 own eyes, would fall (with heaven knows what 
 freaks of pronunciation over the fantastic jargon) 
 to the tale of his other purchases in the fencing 
 market, all of which, not being wipes or pokes at the 
 face, could and should be served up as nuts for 
 Master Dick Wyatt's skill to crack : Item, Ochsen- 
 stiern; item, Botta di Pigliafilo . . . ; item, Volta 
 di Cinghiare; item, Estramasson de Manchette; 
 item, the Passepied de Demi volte; item No, 
 that was the last ! Do what he would he could not 
 remember the sequence of steps and pauses and 
 feints which made (according to Capoferro) of the 
 divine imbrochintre data becca the most absolutely- 
 not-to-be-parried thrust at a man's doublet ! 
 
 "'Twas venturesome of thee, Dick, to come seek 
 knowledge so far," quoth Beckett. 
 
 "You came as far, methinks," was the good- 
 humoured retort. Dick Wyatt had never felt him- 
 self a match for his rival in words. But at this game
 
 240 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 
 
 of friendly mockery he knew that he held to-day the 
 highest card in reserve. 
 
 "Ay, so," said the Templar lightly. "But with 
 me the enterprise was less. I have a gift of tongues 
 and friends in the university. 'Twas easy. 
 But since start you did, 'twas a fault not to have 
 started sooner I do assure you," he added with 
 meaning. "I left on this quest it comes nigh three 
 months since." 
 
 And then, with gusto, did he relate the story of his 
 long pilgrimage of fence. Marvellous to Dick's hear- 
 ing were the names falling sonorously from his tongue ; 
 every master mentioned by Captain Strongitharm, and 
 some others to boot. But it was anent his stay in this 
 very city that he waxed most eloquent. Todescan, 
 traitor or no, had proved, beyond compare, the arch- 
 master, the demigod of the blade ! 
 
 "Ay, Dick, 'twas pity thou earnest not sooner! 
 Canst scarce, now, learn the thunderbolt of Todes- 
 can," Master Beckett waxed enthusiastic, "this in- 
 visible, sudden death that laughs at plate or gorget ! 
 Canst, indeed, never learn it save, of course, from 
 me, when the time is ripe." 
 
 "Save from you, Master Beckett?" 
 
 "Yes, Diccon, save from me. The secret died to- 
 night : Todescan was killed on the walls !"
 
 241 
 
 Master Beckett, not unnaturally, attributed to dis- 
 appointment the silence in which his rival received 
 the news. 
 
 Dick Wyatt was reflectively rubbing his chin. 
 For one brief instant he had burned to cap, by an 
 obvious, crushing retort, his friend's ill-concealed 
 exultation. But he now resolutely folded his lips 
 upon his secret, telling himself that, in Beckett's own 
 phrase, the time was not yet ripe. Since they were yet 
 to meet in friendly contest of skill, he would reserve 
 the story of the momentous duel until the moment 
 of victory. For, of a surety, on the day of trial he 
 would meet again this "thunderbolt" of Todescan; 
 and how could he doubt now that he must prove 
 victorious on the lesser as on the greater issue? 
 
 Assuming all the air of one who feels he has been 
 checkmated, he changed the drift of the talk. 
 
 VI 
 
 Some three months later, on the very morning of 
 their return to London, Dick and Master Beckett 
 together sought the Bolt-in-Tun for their nooning- 
 cup. They passed through its portals this time, 
 with never one of your elaborate tricks of courtesy 
 as to precedence, but the taller with his arm on the 
 other's shoulder and they found the old place
 
 242 The Great Todescarfs Secret Thrust 
 
 humming, even as on the day when last they had seen 
 it, with the talk of a death. But a death of far other 
 importance even than that of Master Vincent. Eng- 
 land's great Queen had passed away: ill filled was 
 her place by a little ungainly Scot. 
 
 The comrades were greeted with a shout. 'Twas 
 six months since they had been seen in Ludgate. 
 Queries assailed them on every side; but by tacit 
 agreement they kept their own counsel. True gen- 
 tlemen, whose prowess was so soon to be tested in 
 loyal public contest, they had no mind for boasting 
 of knowledge lately acquired, after the fashion of your 
 tavern-haunting gull. But at length so much leaked 
 out : they had been preparing, each after his own 
 fancy, for the great day of my Lord of Pembroke's 
 prize-playing in honour of Saviolo's memory. 
 
 It was Beckett who dropped the information a 
 trifle loftily, perhaps, from the height of his travelled 
 experience. He thought to impress his stay-at- 
 home friends. The announcement was met, first, 
 by silence, in which eyebrows were raised and glances 
 exchanged ; then out broke a hubbub banter, 
 mockery, condolence. Poor lads ! These long six 
 months preparing ! And here was one who knew, 
 from knowledge certain, that public prize-playing 
 would never more be seen in merry England !
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 243 
 
 The one who knew (from Whitehall, he) spake : 
 His new Majesty loathed swordsmen's shows, and 
 forbade them. The King could not look on a blade 
 without shudder. Nay, if he had to knight a man, 
 he must needs avert his eyes so doing. . . . 
 
 Dick and the Templar stared at each other. Were 
 the friendly rivals glad or sorry ? They scarce knew. 
 Dick took a deep breath. 
 
 And now, from the head of the table his place 
 by rights it seemed to have become up spoke Cap- 
 tain Strongitharm. From the moment he had recog- 
 nised the young men, he had remained watching and 
 listening in unwonted silence. His single eye was 
 more commanding than ever. He tapped the table 
 with his two fingers, and there fell a stillness in the 
 room. He spoke of rulers and of her who was gone ; 
 of Mary of Scotland, and of sundry instances he had 
 known, at home and abroad, of men (like the new 
 King James, her son) frightened for life before their 
 birth by a woman's terror. Then, from Jamie's 
 horror of a drawn blade, came he to talk of fight and 
 prize-playing and the like, thence to his darling 
 theme: the great masters of the sword, alive or 
 dead. 
 
 "Ay, young masters, you may have had your 
 snippets of travel ; but had ye known the tall men, the
 
 244 The Great T odes can's Secret Thrust 
 
 great days ! . . . There was Cavalcabo, mark you, 
 the mighty Italian ; but he is dust. Now, the near- 
 est to him in subtility was Eisenkopf (of Mainz, in 
 the Palatinate). He, for all his High Dutch name, 
 was from the south also. Capoferro was he. Now, 
 this Eisenkopf had a certain thrust he called ' Piglia- 
 filo.'" 
 
 "I know the trick," said Master Beckett over his 
 can. 
 
 Captain Strongitharm raised an eyebrow. 
 
 "Yet to my mind," he went on unheedingly, 
 "ne'er so great a man at the rapier that is, for the 
 single duello as Petit- Jean, in Paris. He it was 
 devised the 'Botte de Nevers.'" 
 
 "Ay," from Beckett again. "Petty John taught 
 it well. But he teaches at Lyons now." 
 
 The Captain's eye rolled a little redly upon the fair, 
 cool youth. It was scarce wholesome for one of 
 so few years to know so much, to be so sure of speech. 
 The boy must be set down. 
 
 "Ha ! but only when a man has measured blades 
 with Thibault of Antwerp Thibault, the heritor 
 of Carranza's own science, all by mathematical logic, 
 squares, and tangents to the circumference" he 
 kept his eye severely upon the Templar, as the young 
 man showed signs of opening his mouth again "or
 
 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 245 
 
 eke with Meister Joachim of Strasburg-on-the-Rhine. 
 ... I mind me of a plaguy round-cut he would 
 engineer on your extended arm, that he had chris- 
 tened 'Estramasson de Manchette.' It would do 
 for you, by neat rapier-slicing, what the Spanish 
 dog's halbert did for this hand, at the palisado of 
 Pamplona." 
 
 "Saving your experience, good captain," inter- 
 rupted Beckett demurely, "you mistake: 'Estra- 
 masson' is the Sieur Thibault's own device, by rule 
 geometrical. I have practised both with him and 
 with Master Joachim." 
 
 The veteran's gathering testiness exploded. He 
 rapped out a parcel of rare outlandish oaths, and 
 spluttered the name of Todescan: Todescan, to 
 his mind the very angel the very devil of the 
 sword. Who had not faced Todescan of Geneva 
 knew naught of finality in fencing. Todescan's 
 noted thrust 
 
 And here, at last, was Master Beckett's moment 
 to insert (with pardonable pride) the story of his ac- 
 quired gains in far Geneva. He parted his lips to 
 speak, his brown eyes sparkling, his frank smile 
 flashing. 
 
 But, subtly, in a delicate, insinuating voice that 
 dropped into the brief moment of silence allowed
 
 246 The Great Todescari's Secret Thrust 
 
 by Captain Strongitharm's pause for breath, Dick 
 Wyatt forestalled him : 
 
 "Todescan, ay ... of Geneva. And his noted 
 thrust, at the armpit, on a binding of the blade, thus." 
 He made a spiral movement with his extended wrist, 
 and glanced for one instant slily at Beckett's amazed 
 face. "I met that thrust ... ay, Captain Strong- 
 itharm, with Master Vincent's own punta riversa." 
 
 There was a murmur of amazement. But some- 
 thing portentous, something at once secret and 
 triumphant about the speaker, held his audience, 
 even the captain of many tales, hanging upon the 
 coming phrase. It came simply : 
 
 " Todescan and I were alone together one night, 
 under the stars ... a memorable night for Geneva." 
 
 Beckett sprang to his feet, to bend eagerly across 
 the table. For a moment Dick Wyatt met his com- 
 rade's glance; then he modestly dropped his own, 
 and, in that gentle voice of his, said : 
 
 " 'Twas then I killed him."
 
 POMONA
 
 VI 
 
 POMONA 
 
 THE orchard was on a hill, the farmhouse lay at 
 the foot. There was a long field, in spring a palace 
 of cowslips, between the orchard and the house. 
 
 This September dawn Pomona came through it 
 and left a dark track of green along the dew-be- 
 pearled grass. Little swathes of mist hung over the 
 cowslip field, but up in the orchard the air was 
 already clear. It was sweet with the scent of the 
 ripe fruit, and the tart, clean autumn pungency left 
 by the light frost. 
 
 Pomona shifted the empty basket that she had 
 borne on her head to the ground and began to fill 
 it with rosy-cheeked apples. Some she shook from 
 the laden boughs, some she picked up from the 
 sward where they had fallen from the tree ; but she 
 chose only the best and ripest. 
 
 A shaft of sunlight broke over the purple hills. 
 It shone on her ruddy hair and on her smooth cheek. 
 
 She straightened herself to look out across the 
 
 249
 
 250 Pomona 
 
 valley at the eastern sky : all sights of Nature were 
 beautiful to her and gave her a joy that, yet, she 
 had never learned to put into words, hardly into 
 thoughts. Now, as she stood gazing, someone saun- 
 tered along the road that skirted the orchard, and 
 catching sight of her, halted and became lost in con- 
 templation of her, even as she of the sunrise pageant. 
 
 As evidently as Pomona in her homespun skirt 
 and bodice belonged to the farmhouse, so did he 
 to the great castle near by. The gentleman had 
 made as elaborate a toilet for his early walk as if 
 he had been bound for St. James's. His riding-coat 
 was of delicate hue, and laces fluttered at his wrists 
 and throat. His black lovelocks hung carefully 
 combed on either shoulder from under his beplumed 
 hat. A rapier swung at his side and, as he stood, 
 he flicked at it with the glove in his bare hand. He 
 had a long, pale face and long eyes with drooping 
 lids and haughty eyebrows ; a small, upturned mous- 
 tache gave a tilt of mockery to grave lips. He 
 looked very young, and yet so sedate and self-pos- 
 sessed and scornful that he might have known the 
 emptiness of the world a hundred years. 
 
 Pomona turned with a start, feeling herself 
 watched. She gazed for a moment in surprise, and 
 a deep blush rose in her cheeks; then, still staring,
 
 Pomona 251 
 
 she made a slow country curtsey. Off went the 
 befeathered hat ; the gentleman returned her salu- 
 tation by a profound bow. Then he leaped the 
 little ditch into the orchard and threaded his way 
 through the trees towards her. She watched him 
 come ; her great eyes were like the eyes of a deer, 
 as shy, as innocent. 
 
 " Good morrow, sir," said she, with another 
 curtsey, and then corrected herself quickly, "good 
 morrow, my lord." For, if he came from the 
 Castle, he was surely a lord. 
 
 "Good morrow, madam," returned he pleasantly. 
 His glance appraised her with open admiration. 
 
 What a glorious creature ! What amber and 
 red on those smooth cheeks; what ruddy radiance 
 in that sun-illumined hair ! What a column of a 
 throat, and how white the skin where the coarse 
 kerchief was parted above the laced bodice ! What 
 lines of bust and hip, of arm and wrist ; generous 
 but perfect ! A goddess ! He glanced at the 
 strong, sunburnt hands; they were ringless. Un- 
 owned then, as yet, this superb nymph. 
 
 His long eyes moved at their pleasure; and she 
 stood waiting in repose, though the colour came 
 and went richly on her rich cheek. Then he 
 bowed again, the hat clasped to his bosom.
 
 252 Pomona 
 
 "Thank you," said he, and replaced his beaver 
 with a turn of the wrist that set all the grey and 
 white plumes rippling round the crown. 
 
 "Sir?" she queried, startled, and on her second 
 thought, "my lord?" 
 
 At this he broke into a smile. When he smiled, his 
 haughty face gained a rare sweetness. 
 
 "Thank you for rising thus early and coming 
 into the orchard and standing in the sun-rays and 
 being, my maid, so beautiful. I little thought to 
 find so fair a vision. 'Twill be a sweet one to carry 
 forth with me ... if it be the last on earth." 
 
 Her wits were never quick to work. She went her 
 country way as a rule as straight and sweetly and 
 unthinkingly as the lilies grow. To question why 
 a noble visitor at the Castle and a visitor it must 
 be, since his countenance was unfamiliar should 
 walk forth at the dawn and speak as if this morn- 
 ing saunter were to death, never entered her head. 
 
 She stammered: "Oh, sir!" to his compliment, 
 and paused, her lip quivering over the inarticulate 
 sense of her own awkwardness. 
 
 "Have you been gathering apples?" quoth he, 
 still smiling on her. 
 
 "Ay, sir," she said, "to make preserve withal"; 
 and faltered yet again, "my lord."
 
 Pomona 253 
 
 "Ay," approved he. "It has a fair sound in 
 your mouth. Would I were your lord ! What is 
 your name?" 
 
 She told him: "Pomona." Whereat he laughed, 
 and repeated it, as if he liked the sound. Then he 
 looked at the east, and behold ! the sun had risen, a 
 full ball of crimson in a swimming sea of rose. The 
 light glimmered upon his pale cheek and on the fine 
 laces of his shirt, redly as if with stains of new 
 blood. 
 
 "I must hence," he said, and his voice had a 
 stern, far-away sound. "Farewell, Pomona! Wilt 
 thou not wish me well?" 
 
 "My lord?" 
 
 "Wilt thou not?" 
 
 "Oh, indeed, my lord, I do." And she was 
 moved on a sudden, she knew not why, and the 
 tears gathered like a mist in her eyes. "With all 
 my heart," she said. 
 
 He made her a final bow, bending till his curls fell 
 over his face. 
 
 "I thank you." 
 
 She watched him walk away from her (in and out 
 the apple trees) with his careless stride ; then leap 
 the little ditch again ; and so on down the road. 
 
 And when he was lost to her sight, she still stood
 
 254 Pomona 
 
 looking at the point where the way dipped and 
 vanished and she had seen the last flutter of the grey 
 feathers. 
 
 After a while she drew a long sigh and passed her 
 hands over her eyes, as if she were awakening from 
 a dream. Then she began mechanically to fill her 
 basket once more. All the ruddiness faded from 
 the sky. The sun swam up into the blue, and a 
 white brilliance laid hold of the dewy valley. Deli- 
 cate gossamer threads floated high above the apple 
 trees, against a vault of ever deeper blue. Some- 
 where from the hidden folds of the land a church 
 bell began to chime. Then all at once Pomona 
 dropped her basket and, while the apples rolled, 
 yellow, green, and red, on every side, she set off 
 running in the direction the gentleman had taken. 
 
 Why she ran, she knew not, but something drove 
 her with a mighty urgency. Her heart beat thickly, 
 and her breath came short, though as a rule there 
 was no maid in the countryside that could run as 
 she. When she came to the foot of the hill, she 
 paused and, there, by the bramble brake where the 
 firwood began, she saw, lying on the lip of the baby 
 stream, a gauntleted grey glove. She turned into 
 the wood. 
 
 The pine needles were soft under her feet. The
 
 Pomona 255 
 
 pine stems grew like the pillars of a church aisle and 
 the air was sweeter with their fragrance than any 
 incense that was ever burned. 
 
 And after but a little way, where the forest aisle 
 widened into a glade, she came on the grand riding- 
 coat tossed in a heap ; across it was flung an empty 
 scabbard. And beyond, outstretched at the foot of 
 a tree ! Pomona stopped short. Now she knew 
 why she had had to run so fast ! 
 
 He lay as if asleep, his head pillowed upon a 
 branching root ; but it was no slumber that held him. 
 His features, whiter than ivory, were strangely sharp- 
 ened and aged, blue shadows were about nostrils 
 and mouth ; the parted lips under the mocking mous- 
 tache were set in a terrible gravity ; they were purple, 
 like dead red roses. Between the long, half-open 
 lids the eyeballs shone silver. It was not now God's 
 lovely sunrise that stained the white cambric of his 
 shirt. From where it had escaped from his relaxed 
 hand a long, keen-bladed sword gleamed among the 
 pine needles. 
 
 Pomona knelt down. She parted the ruffled 
 shirt with a steady hand ; his heart still beat ; but 
 below it was a wound that might well cause death. 
 She sat back on her heels and thought. She could 
 not leave him to call for help, for he might die alone ;
 
 256 Pomona 
 
 neither could she sit useless beside him and watch 
 him go. She took her resolution quickly. She rose, 
 then bending, she braced herself and gathered him 
 into her arms as if he had been a child. He was 
 no taller than she, and slight and lean of build. She 
 was used to burdens; but she had not thought to 
 find him so heavy. She staggered and shifted him 
 for an easier grip ; and then, as his pallid head lay 
 loose and languid against her shoulder, the half-open 
 eyelids fluttered, the upturned eyes rolled and fixed 
 themselves. He looked at her; dark, dark as eter- 
 nity was his gaze. She bent her head his lips 
 were moving. 
 
 "Pomona!" 
 
 It was the merest breath ; but she knew it was her 
 name as surely as if it had been shouted to her. 
 Nearer she bent to him; a flicker as of a smile 
 came upon those purple-tinted lips. 
 
 "Kiss me, Pomona !" 
 
 She kissed him and thought she drew from his 
 cold mouth the last sigh. But now she was strong. 
 She could have gone to the end of the earth with this 
 burden in her arms. 
 
 His black hair, dank and all uncurled, fell over her 
 bare arm. With the movement his wound opened 
 afresh, and, as she pressed him against her she felt
 
 Pomona 257 
 
 his blood soak through her bodice to the skin. Then 
 her soul yearned over him with an indescribable, 
 inarticulate passion of desire to help him, to heal 
 him ! If she could have given her own blood to save 
 him, she would have given it with the joy with which 
 a mother gives life to the babe at her breast. 
 
 Pomona was mistress of herself and of her farm, 
 and lived alone with her servants. Though she 
 was a firm ruler, these latter considered her soft on 
 certain points. They had known her, before this, 
 carry home a calf that had staked itself, a mongrel 
 cur half drowned. But a murdered gentleman, 
 that was beyond everything ! 
 
 "Heavens ha' mercy, mistress," cried Sue, rising 
 to the occasion, while the others gaped and clapped 
 their hands and whispered together. "Shall I 
 fetch old Mall to help you lay him out?" 
 
 "Fool!" panted Pomona, "bring me the Nantes 
 brandy." 
 
 Earl Blantyre awoke from a succession of dreams, 
 in which he had had most varied and curious ex- 
 periences ; known strange horrors and strange sweet- 
 nesses ; flown to more aerial heights than any bird, and 
 sunk to deeper depth than the sea could hold ; fought 
 unending combats ; and lain at peace in tender arms.
 
 258 Pomona 
 
 He awoke. His eyelids were heavy. His hand 
 had grown so weighty that it was as much as he 
 could do to lift it. And yet, as he held it up, he 
 hardly knew it for his own ; 'twas a skeleton thing. 
 There was a sound in his ears which, dimly he recog- 
 nised, had woven into most of his dreams these days, 
 a whirring, soothing sound like the ceaseless beating 
 of moths' wings. As he breathed deeply and with 
 delicious ease, there was a fragrance of herbs in his 
 nostrils. A tag of poetry floated into his mind : 
 
 I know a bank where the wild thyme blows. 
 
 He turned his head and went to sleep again, and 
 dreamt not at all. 
 
 Pomona lighted the lamp and, shading it with 
 her hand, came with soft tread into the guest- 
 chamber. He was still asleep. She set down the 
 light, mended the fire with another log, peeped into 
 the pan of broth simmering on the hob, and then sat 
 to her spinning-wheel once more. Suddenly the 
 wool snapped ; she started to find that he was hold- 
 ing back the curtain with a finger and thumb and 
 had turned his head on the pillow to watch her ; his 
 eyes gleamed in the firelight. She rose and came 
 to him quickly. 
 
 "So you were spinning," he said. His voice was
 
 Pomona 259 
 
 very weak, but how different from those tones of 
 dreadful clearness, of hoarse muttering, with which 
 she had been so sadly familiar ! 
 
 Pomona knelt beside him and put her hand on his 
 forehead, then on his wrist. 
 
 "Thank God! "she said. 
 
 "By all means," he answered, peering at her 
 amusedly. "Natheless, why?" 
 
 "Nay, you must not speak," she bade him, and 
 rose to pour the soup into a bowl. 
 
 He watched her while she stirred and tasted and 
 added salt. He was smiling. When she lifted him, 
 pillows and all, propped against her strong arm, 
 and held the bowl to his lips at a compelling angle, 
 he laughed outright. It was rather a feeble thing 
 in the way of laughs, but to Pomona it was as won- 
 derful and beautiful an achievement as a child's first 
 word in the mother's ear. 
 
 " Drink," she said firmly, while her heart throbbed 
 in joy. 
 
 "Now you must sleep," she added, as she set- 
 tled him with extraordinary art. But sleep was far 
 away from those curious wandering eyes. 
 
 "Bring the light closer and come to the bed 
 again." 
 
 His voice had gained strength from Pomona's
 
 260 Pomona 
 
 fine broth, and it rang in command. Without 
 another word she obeyed him. As she sat down on 
 the little oaken stool, where he could see her, the 
 light fell on her face ; and from behind her the fire 
 shone ruddily in her crown of hair. 
 
 "I remember you now," said he, lifting himself 
 on his elbow. "You stood in the sunrise gathering 
 apples for preserve; you are the nymph of the 
 orchard." 
 
 He fell back with a sigh of satisfaction. "And 
 your name is Pomona," said he. 
 
 The girl, her capable work-marked hands lying 
 folded on her knee, sat in absolute stillness ; but her 
 heart was beating stormily under the folds of her 
 kerchief. 
 
 The sick man's beard had grown, close and fine, 
 round chin and cheeks during these long dreams of 
 his. His hair lay in a mass on one shoulder; it 
 had been carefully tied back with a riband ; and in 
 all that black setting the pallor of his countenance 
 seemed deathlike. Yet she knew that he was saved. 
 He lay awhile, gazing at the beflowered ceiling of 
 the great four-post bed ; and by and by his voice 
 came sighing 
 
 "And after that, what hap befell me? Help me 
 to remember."
 
 Pomona 261 
 
 "I found you in the wood," said she slowly. 
 "You were lying wounded." 
 
 He interrupted her with a sharp cry. 
 
 "Enough! I mind me now. Was I alone?" 
 
 "Quite alone, my lord." 
 
 "And my sword?" 
 
 There was a current of evil eagerness running 
 through the feeble voice. 
 
 "Your sword, my lord?" 
 
 "Pshaw! was it clean, child? Bore it no sign 
 upon the blade?" 
 
 "There was blood on it," said Pomona gravely, 
 "to a third of the length." 
 
 The duellist gave a sigh. 
 
 "That is well," said he, and fell once more into 
 silence, striving to knit present and past in his mind. 
 
 After a spell he shifted himself on his pillows so 
 that he again looked on her. 
 
 Then his eyes wandered round the dark panelling, 
 on the polished surface of which the firelight gleamed 
 like rosy flowers. He touched the coarse sheet, the 
 patchwork quilt, then lifted the sleeve of the home- 
 spun shirt that covered his thin arm, and gazed 
 inquiringly from it to the quiet woman. 
 
 "How do I come here? Where am I?" queried 
 he imperiously.
 
 262 Pomona 
 
 "I brought you; you are in my house," she an- 
 swered him. 
 
 "You brought me?" 
 
 "Ay, my lord." 
 
 "You found me wounded," he puzzled, drawing 
 his haughty brows together, "and you brought me 
 here to your house ? How?" 
 
 "I carried you," said Pomona. 
 
 "You carried me!" 
 
 The statement was so amazing, and Lord Blan- 
 tyre's wits were still so weakened, that he turned 
 giddy and was fain to close his eyes and allow the 
 old vagueness to cradle him again for a few minutes. 
 
 Pomona prayed that he might be sleeping ; but, as 
 she was stealthily rising from his bedside, he opened 
 his eyes and held her with them. 
 
 "You carried me, you brought me to your own 
 house? Why?" 
 
 "I wanted to nurse you," said poor Pomona. 
 
 She knew no artifice whereby she could answer, 
 yet conceal the truth. But it was as if her heart 
 were being torn from her bit by bit. 
 
 His eyes, hard and curious, softened; so did the 
 imperious voice. 
 
 "How did you keep them out?" 
 
 " Keep them out ? "
 
 Pomona 263 
 
 She was beautiful, but she was dull. 
 
 "My kinsfolk, from the Castle." 
 
 Pomona stood like a child caught in grave fault. 
 
 "They do not know," she answered at last. 
 
 It was his turn to ejaculate in amazement. "Not 
 know!" 
 
 "I did not want them," said she then, doggedly. 
 " I did not want any fine ladies about, nor physicians 
 with their lancets. When my father was cut with 
 the scythe, they sent a leech from the Castle who 
 blooded him, and he died. I did not want you to 
 die." 
 
 She spoke the last words almost in a whisper, 
 then she waited breathlessly. There came a low 
 sound from the pillows. His laugh, that had been 
 music to her a minute ago, now stabbed her to the 
 heart. She turned, the blood flashing into her 
 cheeks ; yet his face grew quickly grave ; he spoke, 
 his voice was kind. 
 
 "Stay. I want to understand. You carried me, 
 all by yourself, from the wood; is it so?" 
 
 "Ay." 
 
 "And no one knows where I am, or that you 
 found me?" 
 
 "No. I went down to the wood again and brought 
 back your coat and your sword and scabbard and
 
 264 Pomona 
 
 your glove. I forbade my people to speak. None 
 of the great folk know that you are here." 
 
 "And you nursed me?" 
 
 "Ay." 
 
 "Was I long ill?" 
 
 "Fourteen days." 
 
 "I have been near death, have I not?" 
 
 "You have, indeed." 
 
 " And you nursed me ? " he repeated again. "How 
 did you learn such science?" 
 
 "My lord, I have loved and cared for the dumb 
 things all my life. There was the calf that was 
 staked " She stopped; that laugh was torture. 
 
 "Go on, Pomona!" 
 
 "I bathed your wound in cold water over and 
 over till the bleeding stopped ; and then, when the 
 fever came, I knew what brew of herbs would help 
 you. One night I thought that you would die " 
 
 "Go on, Pomona." 
 
 "You could not breathe, no matter how high I 
 laid you on the pillows " 
 
 "Ay! Why dost halt again? What didst thou 
 then?" 
 
 " I held you in my arms," she said. " You seemed 
 to get your breath better that way, and then you 
 slept at last."
 
 Pomona 265 
 
 "While you held me?" he mused. "How long 
 did you hold me in your arms, Pomona?" 
 
 "My lord," she said, "the whole night." 
 
 Upon this he kept silence quite a long time, and 
 she sat down on her stool again and waited. She 
 had nursed him and saved him, and now he would 
 soon be well : she ought surely to rejoice, but (she 
 knew not why) her heart was like lead. Presently 
 he called her ; he would be lifted, shifted, his pillows 
 were hot, his bed-clothes pressed on him. As she 
 bent over him, the fretful expression suddenly was 
 smoothed from his features. 
 
 "I remember now," he said, with a singular gleam 
 in his eyes. " I remember, Pomona ; you kissed me." 
 
 My Lord Blantyre began thereafter to have more 
 consecutive recollections of that time of dreams ; and 
 when the night came, he felt mightily injured, mightily 
 affronted to find that the shadow of the watcher, 
 flung by the rushlight against the wall, belonged to a 
 bent and aged figure, with a grotesque profile, instead 
 of the mild grey angel that had soothed him hitherto. 
 So deep seemed the injury, so cruel the neglect, that 
 the ill-used patient could not find it in him to consent 
 to sleep, but tossed till his bed grew unbearable ; pet- 
 tishly refused to drink from Mall's withered hand ;
 
 266 Pomona 
 
 was quite positive that the pain in his side was very 
 bad again, and that his angry heart beats were due 
 to fever. 
 
 It drew towards midnight. Again Mall brought 
 the cooling drink and offered it patiently. Like 
 an old owl she stood and blinked. Her toothless 
 jaws worked. 
 
 He made an angry gesture of refusal; the cup 
 was dashed from her hand and fell clattering on the 
 boards. She cried out in dismay, and he in fury 
 
 "Out of my sight, you Hecate !" 
 
 Then suddenly Pomona stood beside them. So 
 soft her tread that neither had heard her come. 
 
 "Lord, be good to us! The poor gentleman's 
 mad again," whimpered Mall, as she went down on 
 her knees to mop. 
 
 Pomona was clad in a white wrapper, well 
 starched; the wide sleeves spread out like wings. 
 Her hair hung in one loose plait to her knees. 
 
 "You look like a monstrous beautiful great angel," 
 cried he. Her hand was on his pulse. He was as 
 pleased and soothed as a naughty infant when it is 
 lifted from its cradle and nursed. 
 
 She stood, and seemed encircled by the fragrance 
 of the sacrificed cup ; lavender and thyme and other 
 sweet and wholesome herbs.
 
 Pomona 267 
 
 She thought he wandered, yet his pulse was steady- 
 ing itself under her finger into a very reasonable 
 pace for a convalescent. She looked down at him 
 with puzzled eyes. 
 
 "What is it, my lord?" 
 
 " Prithee," said he. " Though you live so quiet here, 
 my maid, and keep your secrets so well, you would 
 have known, would you not, had there been a death 
 at the Castle?" 
 
 "Surely, my lord," she said, and bent closer to 
 comfort him. "Nay, it must be that you have the 
 fever again, I fear. Nay, all is well with your kins- 
 folk. Mall, haste thee with another cup of the 
 drink. Is the wound painful, my good lord, and 
 how goes it with the breathing?" 
 
 As she bent, he caught her great plait in both his 
 hands and held it so that she could not straighten 
 herself. 
 
 "It would go vastly better," cried he, "I should 
 breathe with infinite more ease, my sweet nurse, and 
 forget that I had ever had a gaping hole to burn the 
 side of me, could you but tell me that there had been 
 even a trifle of sickness at the house beyond. Come, 
 my sword was red, you know ! It was not red for 
 nothing. Was not Master Leech sent for in haste 
 to draw more blood? The excellent physician,
 
 268 Pomona 
 
 thou mindest, who helped thy worthy father so 
 pleasantly from this world." 
 
 She would have drawn from him in soft sorrow 
 and shame, for she understood now, but that his 
 weak fingers plucked her back. Truly there 
 seemed to be a devil in his eyes. Yet she was too 
 tender of him not to humour him, as the mother her 
 spoilt child. 
 
 "Hast heard, Mall, of aught amiss at the Castle?" 
 quoth she, turning her head to address the old woman 
 at the fire. 
 
 "There was a gentleman out hunting with the 
 Lady Julia o' Thursday," answered the crone, "as 
 carried his arm in a sling, I heard tell; though he 
 rode with the best of them." 
 
 "Faugh!" 
 
 Lord Blantyre loosed Pomona's tress and lay 
 back sullenly. He drank the cup when she held it 
 to his lips in the same sullen silence ; but when she 
 shook his pillows and smoothed his sheet and cooed 
 to him in the dear voice of his dream: "Now 
 sleep!" he murmured complainingly : "Not if you 
 leave me." 
 
 Pomona's heart gave a great leap, and a rose- 
 flush grew on her face, lovelier than ever sunrise 
 or fireglow had called there.
 
 Pomona 269 
 
 "I will not leave you, my lord," she replied. Her 
 voice filled the whole room with deep harmony. 
 
 Ke woke in the grey dawn, and there sat Pomona, 
 her eyes dreaming, her hands clasped, her face a 
 little stern in its serene, patient weariness. He 
 cried to her sharply, because of the sharpness with 
 which his heart smote him : 
 
 "Hast sat thus the whole night long?" 
 
 "Surely !" said she. 
 
 "Well, to bed with you then," he bade her im- 
 patiently. "Nay, I want naught. Send one of 
 your wenches to my bell some Sue or Pattie, so it 
 be a young one. And you to bed, to bed !" 
 
 But she would not leave him till she had tested 
 how it stood with him, according to her simple skill. 
 As her hand rested on his brow, "Why Pomona?" 
 queried he. 
 
 "My lord?" 
 
 " Pomona. 'Tis a marvellous fine name, and mar- 
 vellous fitting to a nymph of the orchard. Pomona ! " 
 
 "Indeed," she answered him in her grave way, 
 "Sue or Pattie would better become me. But my 
 mother was book-learned, sir, and town-bred, and 
 had her fancies. She sat much in the orchard the 
 spring that I was born." 
 
 "Ay," he mused. "So thy mother was book-
 
 270 Pomona 
 
 learned and fanciful !" Then briskly he asked her: 
 "Wouldst thou not like to know my name, Pomona? 
 Unless, indeed, you know it already?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Why, what a woman are you ! In spite of apples, 
 no daughter of Eve at all?" 
 
 She still shook her head, and smiling faintly: 
 "To me it could make no difference," she said. 
 
 "Well, now you shall know," he said, "and take 
 it to your maiden dreams. I am Rupert, Earl of 
 Blantyre." 
 
 "What," she cried quickly, "the " she broke 
 off and hesitated. "The great Earl of Blantyre," 
 she pursued then, dropping her eyes: "The King's 
 friend!" 
 
 His laugh rang out somewhat harsh. 
 
 "What so solitary a nymph, so country-hidden, 
 and yet so learned of the gossip of the great 
 world?" 
 
 "People talk," she murmured, crimsoning as in 
 deepest shame. 
 
 "And you know what they call me? No! Not 
 the Great Earl, hypocrite, the Wicked Earl ! You 
 knew it?" 
 
 She bent her head. 
 
 He laughed again. "Why, now, what a night-
 
 Pomona 271 
 
 mare for you ! Here he lies, and oh, Pomona, you 
 have prolonged his infamous career!" 
 
 The Wicked Earl was an angelic patient for two 
 days. On the third he was promoted to the oak 
 settle, wrapped in a garment of the late farmer's, of 
 which he made much kindly mirth. It was a golden 
 day of joy in the lonely farmhouse. 
 
 On the fourth morning, however, he wakened to 
 a mood of seriousness, not to say ill-temper. His 
 first words were to request writing-paper and a quill, 
 ink, and the great seal that hung on his watch-chain. 
 
 Pomona stood by while he wrote ; helped him with 
 paper and wax. She saw into how deep a frown his 
 brows were contracted, and her heart seemed alto- 
 gether to fail her. She expected the end; it was 
 coming swiftly, and not as she had expected it. 
 
 "May I trespass on your kindness so far as to 
 send a horseman with this letter to the Castle?" 
 said he very formally. 
 
 She took it from him with her country curtsey. 
 
 "You will be leaving us, my lord?" 
 
 He glanced at her through his drooping lids. 
 
 "Can I trespass for ever on your hospitality?" 
 
 She went forth with the letter quickly, without 
 another word.
 
 272 Pomona 
 
 It was but little after noon when there came a 
 great clatter into the simple farmyard that was wont 
 to echo to no brisker sounds than the lumbering 
 progress of the teamsters and their wagon, or the 
 patient steps of Pomona's dairy-cows. A great 
 coach with four horses and running footmen had 
 drawn up before the farm-porch. A man in dark 
 livery, with a sleek, secret face, slipped down from 
 the rumble, reached for a valise, and disappeared 
 round the house. The coach door opened, and the 
 Lady Julia Majendie descended, followed by no less 
 a person than my Lord Majendie himself, who was 
 seldom known to leave his library, much less to ac- 
 company his daughter out driving. His presence 
 marked a great occasion. And with them was a very 
 fine lady a stranger to any of the farm a little 
 lady with dark hair in ringlets, and high plumes to a 
 great hat, and a dress that shone with as many pale 
 colours as a pigeon's breast. She sniffed ; and 
 "Oh!" cried she in very high, loud tones, pressing 
 a vinaigrette to her nose, "can my poor brother be 
 in such a place, and yet alive?" 
 
 "Hush, madam ! " said Lord Majendie, somewhat 
 testily, for Pomona stood in the door. "I am sure 
 we owe naught but gratitude to this young woman." 
 
 He was a gaunt, snuffy, untidy old man, in a dilapi-
 
 Pomona 273 
 
 dated wig, but his eyes were shrewd and kindly 
 behind the large, gold-rimmed spectacles. He 
 peered at Pomona, pale and beautiful. 
 
 Lady Julia had evidently inherited her father's 
 short sight, for she, too, was staring through an eye- 
 glass. She carried it on a gold chain, and when she 
 lifted it to one eye, her small, fair face took an air of 
 indescribable impertinence. 
 
 She interrupted father and friend, coming to the 
 front with a scarcely perceptible movement of 
 pointed elbows : 
 
 "Bring us instantly to Lord Blantyre." 
 
 "This way, an it please you," said Pomona. 
 
 She led them in, and there in the great kitchen, 
 well within the glow from the deep hearth, propped 
 on patchwork cushions, wrapped in blue homespun, 
 lay the invalid. 
 
 The ladies were picking their steps across the 
 flags with a great parade of lifting silken skirts ; the 
 worthy old scholar, Lord Majendie, was following, 
 with an expression of benign, childlike interest, but 
 all three seemed struck by the same amazement, 
 almost amounting to consternation. Lord Blantyre 
 lifted his pallid, black-bearded countenance and 
 looked at them with a gaze of uncompromising ill- 
 humor.
 
 274 Pomona 
 
 "Good Lord, brother!" exclaimed the little lady 
 with the ringlets, at last. She made a faint lurch 
 against Lady Julia. 
 
 " If your sisterly feelings are too much for you, and 
 you are contemplating a swoon, pray be kind enough 
 to accomplish it elsewhere, Alethea," said Lord 
 Blantyre. 
 
 "Oh, my excellent young friend! Oh, my dear 
 lord ! Tut, tut, tut ! I should hardly have known 
 you," ejaculated the old man. "You must tell us 
 how this has come about; we must get you home. 
 Tush ! you must not speak. I see you are yet but 
 weakly. My good young woman, this has been a 
 terrible business nay, I have no doubt he does 
 your nursing infinite credit ; but why not have let 
 us know? Tut, tut!" 
 
 Before Pomona could speak, and, indeed, as she 
 had no excuse to offer, the words were slow in 
 coming her patient intervened curtly 
 
 "I would not permit her to tell you," quoth he. 
 
 She glanced at him startled ; his eyes were averted. 
 
 "Oh, my lord! this is cruel hearing for us," 
 minced Lady Julia. 
 
 She might have spoken to the wall for all the effect 
 her smile and ogle produced on him. She turned 
 her glass upon Pomona then and ran it up and
 
 Pomona 275 
 
 down her till the poor girl felt herself so coarse, so 
 common, so ugly, that she could have wished herself 
 dead. 
 
 "Pray, Lord Majendie," said Blantyre, "is 
 Colonel Craven yet with you?" 
 
 Lady Alethea tossed her head, flushed, and shot a 
 look, half defiance, half fear, at her brother. 
 
 He propped himself up on his elbow, turned and 
 surveyed her with a sneering smile. 
 
 "How pale and wasted art thou, my fair Alethea ! 
 Hast been nursing the wounded hero and pining with 
 his pangs? or is't, perchance, all fond fraternal 
 anguish concerning my unworthy self? Oh, see you, 
 I know what an uproar you made about me all over 
 the countryside, what a hue and cry for the lost 
 brother." 
 
 "A plague on it, Julia!" said Lord Majendie, 
 scratching his wig perplexedly and addressing his 
 daughter in a loud whisper, "what ails the fellow? 
 Does he wander, think you?" 
 
 But Lady Alethea seemed to find a meaning in 
 the sick man's words, for she tossed her head once 
 more and answered sharply : 
 
 "No, brother, I made no hue and cry for you, for 
 'tis not the first time it has been your pleasure to play 
 truant and leave your loving friends all without news-
 
 276 Pomona 
 
 How was I to know that you were more sorely hurt 
 than Colonel Craven ? He left you, he told us, stand- 
 ing by a tree laughing at his pierced arm. You 
 are not wont to come out of these affairs so ill." 
 
 That they were of the same blood could not be 
 doubted, for it was the very same sneer that sat on 
 both their mouths. 
 
 "And pray, since we must bandy words," she went 
 on, gaining yet more boldness, "why did you thus 
 keep me wilfully in suspense?" 
 
 "Because," said he sweetly, "I was too ill for 
 thy nursing, my Alethea." 
 
 "I presume," said she, "you had a nurse to your 
 fancy?" 
 
 Her black eyes rolled flashing on Pomona. The 
 Earl made no reply. 
 
 " Let me assure your lordship," put in his would-be 
 host here quickly, "that Colonel Craven is gone." 
 
 " 'Tis well then," replied Blantyre ceremoniously, 
 "and I will, with your permission, this very night 
 avail myself of your hospitality for a few days ; but 
 you will, I fear, have to send a litter for me. To 
 sit in a coach is yet beyond me." 
 
 And while the good-natured nobleman instantly 
 promised compliance, Lord Blantyre, waving away 
 further discourse with a gesture, went on wearily :
 
 Pomona 277 
 
 "Let me beg of you now not to remain here or 
 keep these ladies in surroundings so little suited to 
 their gentility. And the sooner, my good lord, you 
 can despatch that litter, the sooner shall you have 
 the joy of my company. Farewell, fair Julia, for but 
 a brief space. I trust that you and Colonel Craven 
 enjoyed the chase the other day. We shall meet 
 soon again, sister; pray you bear up against our 
 present parting." 
 
 Both the ladies swept him such very fine curtsies 
 that the homely kitchen seemed full of the rustle of 
 silk. Lady Julia Majendie had a little fixed smile 
 on her lips. 
 
 The farm servants were all watching at the windows 
 to see the great ladies get into their coach, to see it 
 wheel about with the four horses clattering and cur- 
 vetting. Pomona and Lord Blantyre were alone. 
 She stood, her back against the wall, her head held 
 high, not in pride, for Pomona knew no pride, but 
 with the natural carriage of her perfect strength and 
 balance. Her eyes looked forth, grieving yet untear- 
 ful, her mouth was set into lines of patient endurance. 
 He regarded her darkly. 
 
 "I go this evening, Pomona." 
 
 "Ay, my lord." 
 
 The tall wooden clock ticked off a heavy minute.
 
 278 Pomona 
 
 "Is my man here?" asked Lord Blantyre. "Bid 
 him come to me, then, to help me to my room." 
 
 His lordship's toilet was a lengthy proceeding, for 
 neither his strength nor his temper was equal to the 
 strain. But it was at length accomplished, and per- 
 fumed, shaven, clothed once again in fine linen and 
 silk damask, wrapped in a great, furred cloak, Lord 
 Blantyre sat in the wooden armchair and drank the 
 cordial that Pomona had prepared him. 
 
 He was panting with his exertions, his heart was 
 fluttering, but Pomona's recipes were cunning; in 
 a little while he felt his pulses calm down and a glow 
 of power return to him ; and with the help of his cane 
 and his servant he was able to advance towards the 
 door. 
 
 "The young woman is outside, waiting to take 
 leave of your lordship," volunteered the sleek Craik. 
 
 His master halted and fixed him with an arro- 
 gant eye. 
 
 "The young woman of the farm," explained the 
 valet glibly, "and knowing your lordship likes me 
 to see to these details, I have brought a purse of gold 
 twenty pieces, my lord." 
 
 He stretched out his hand and chinked the silken 
 bag as he spoke. 
 
 "For whom is that?" asked Lord Blantyre.
 
 Pomona 279 
 
 The man stared. 
 
 "For the young woman, my lord." 
 
 Lord Blantyre steadied himself with the hand that 
 gripped the speaker's arm; then, lifting the cane 
 with the other, struck the fellow across the knuckles 
 so sharply that with a howl he let the purse fall. 
 
 "Pick it up," said the Wicked Earl; "put it into 
 your pocket ; and remember, for the future, that the 
 servant who presumes to know his master's business 
 least understands his own." 
 
 The litter was brought to the door of his chamber 
 and they carried him out through the kitchen to the 
 porch; and there, where Pomona stood waiting, he 
 bade them halt and set it down. She leaned towards 
 him to look on him, she told herself, for the last time. 
 Her heart contracted to see him so wan and ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 " Good-bye, Pomona," said he, gazing up into her 
 sorrowful eyes, distended in the evening dimness. 
 He had seen a deer look at him thus, in the dusk, 
 out of a thicket. 
 
 " Good-bye, my lord," said she. 
 
 "Ah, Pomona," said he, "I made a sweeter jour- 
 ney the day I came here!" 
 
 And without another word to her he signed to the 
 men, and they buckled to their task again.
 
 280 Pomona 
 
 Her heart shuddered as she watched the slow pro- 
 cession pass into the shadows. They might have 
 been bearing a coffin. With the instinct of her inar- 
 ticulate grief she went to seek the last memory of him 
 in his room. By the light of a flaring tallow candle, 
 she found Lord Blantyre's man re-packing his mas- 
 ter's valise. He looked offensively at her as she 
 entered. 
 
 "Young woman," said he, shaking his head, "you 
 have taken a very great liberty." 
 
 Then picking up the coarse white shift and sur- 
 veying it with an air of intense disgust, " 'Tis a won- 
 der," quoth he, "his lordship didn't die of this." 
 
 "I fear, my fair Julia, that, fondly as I should love 
 it, I shall never call you sister." 
 
 Julia turned at the fleer and flung a glance of acute 
 anger at her friend. 
 
 "If you had not been yourself so determined to 
 have the nursing of Colonel Craven's wound, my 
 dearest' Alethea," responded she sweetly, "the 
 friendly desire of your heart might be in a better way 
 of accomplishment. And oh!" she fanned her- 
 self and tittered, "I pity you, my poor Alethea, I do 
 indeed, when I think of those wasted attentions." 
 
 Lady Alethea had her feelings less under control
 
 Pomona 281 
 
 than her cool-blooded friend. Her dark cheek em- 
 purpled, her full lips trembled. 
 
 "My woman tells me," proceeded Julia, "that the 
 creature Craik, your brother's man, hath no doubt 
 of my lord Blantyre's infatuation. ' Pomona ! ' he 
 will call in his sleep. Pomona ! 'Tis the wench's 
 name. I wish you joy of your sister-in-law, in good 
 sooth ! " 
 
 Lady Alethea wheeled upon her with an eye of 
 fire. 
 
 "Need my brother wed the woman because he 
 calls upon her name?" she mocked. 
 
 "If I know my lord your brother, he might well 
 wed her even because he need not . . ." smiled the 
 other. "Now you are warned. 'Tis none of my 
 concern, I thank my Providence ! You will be saved 
 the wage of a dairymaid, at least." 
 
 Alethea's waving colour, her flurried breath, bore 
 witness to discomposure. 
 
 "My Lord Blantyre," pursued Lady Julia relent- 
 lessly, "has ever taken pleasure in astonishing the 
 world." 
 
 Lady Alethea clenched her hands. 
 
 "Your father rules here: let him transport the 
 slut!" 
 
 " Nay," said Julia. She placed her hand upon the
 
 282 Pomona 
 
 heaving shoulder and looked at her friend with a 
 singular light in her pale yet brilliant eyes. "Do 
 you think to break a man of a fancy by such measures ? 
 'Twould be as good as forging the ring. Nay, my 
 sweet, I can better help thee ay, and give thee an 
 hour's sport besides." 
 
 And as Alethea raised questioning eyes, Julia 
 shook her silver-fair ringlets and laughed again. 
 
 "Leave it to me," quoth she. 
 
 "Will Mistress Pomona favor the Lady Julia 
 Majendie with her company at the castle?" 
 
 This was the message carried to the farmhouse by 
 a mounted servant. He had a pillion behind him 
 on the stout palfrey and his orders were, he said, to 
 bring Mistress Pomona back with him. 
 
 Pomona came running out, with the harvest sun- 
 shine on her copper hair; her cheek was drained of 
 blood. 
 
 "Is my lord ill again?" she queried breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 The man shook his head; either he was dull or 
 well drilled. 
 
 Pomona mounted behind him without a second's 
 more delay ; just as she was, bareheaded ; her apron 
 stained with apple juice and her sleeves rolled up
 
 Pomona 283 
 
 above her elbows. She had no thought for herself, 
 and only spoke to bid the servant hurry. 
 
 For a fortnight she had heard no word of her 
 patient. In her simple heart she could conceive no 
 other reason for being summoned now than because, 
 once more, he needed her nursing. 
 
 But when she reached the Castle and was passed 
 with mocking ceremony from servant to servant, the 
 anxious questions died on her lips ; and when she was 
 ushered, at length, into a vast bedchamber, hung with 
 green silk, gold fringed, and was greeted by Lady 
 Julia, all in green herself, like a mermaid, smiling 
 sweetly at her from between her pale ringlets, she was 
 so bewildered that she forgot even to curtsey. She 
 never heeded how the tirewoman, who had last 
 received her, tittered as she closed the door. 
 
 " A fair morning to you, mistress," said Lady Julia. 
 "I am sensible of your kindness in coming to my 
 hasty invitation." 
 
 "Madam!" faltered Pomona, and remembered 
 her reverence; "I am ever at your service, honour- 
 able madam. I hope my lord is not sick again." 
 
 "My father?" mocked the mermaid, running 
 her white hand through her curls. But Pomona 
 neither understood nor practised the wiles of women. 
 
 "I meant my Lord Blantyre," she said.
 
 284 Pomona 
 
 " Oh, the Lord Earl, your patient ! Nay, it goes 
 better with him. Oh, he has been sadly, sadly. We 
 have had a sore and anxious time ; such a wound 
 as his, neglected " she shook her ringlets. 
 
 Pomona's lip suddenly trembled, she caught it be- 
 tween her teeth to steady it. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Julia, interrupting herself and turning 
 on her chair, "here comes the Lady Alethea." 
 
 Alethea entered, mincing on high-heeled shoes, her 
 cherry lips pursed, her dark eyes dancing as if a pair 
 of mischievous sprites had taken lodging there. She 
 gazed at Pomona, so large, so work-stained, so in- 
 congruous a figure in the great, luxurious room. 
 Her nostrils dilated. She looked as wicked as a 
 kid. 
 
 "My brother," said she, addressing her friend, 
 though she kept staring at Pomona, "has heard of 
 this wench's arrival. He would speak with her." 
 
 " I will go with you, even now," said Pomona. 
 
 Both the ladies shrieked; so did the maid who 
 had followed Lady Alethea into the room. 
 
 "My good creature! In that attire?" 
 
 "My brother, so fastidious, so suffering!" 
 
 "And she," cried the tirewoman, taking up the 
 note, "still with the stench of the saucepan about 
 her ! Positively, madam, the room reeks."
 
 Pomona 285 
 
 If Pomona carried any savours beyond those of 
 lavender and the herbs she loved, it was of good, 
 sweet apples and fragrant, burnt sugar. But she 
 stood in her humiliation and felt herself more unfit 
 for all the high company than the beasts of her farm- 
 yard. 
 
 " You must not take it unkindly, child," said Lady 
 Julia, with her cruel little laugh and her soft voice ; 
 "but my Lord Blantyre, you see, hath ever a great 
 distaste of all that is homely and uncomely. He hath 
 suffered extraordinarily in that respect of late. We 
 must humour him." 
 
 Truly Pomona was punished. She marvelled now 
 at herself, remembering what her presumption had 
 been. 
 
 "I will go home, madam, if you permit me." 
 
 Again the ladies cried out. To thwart the invalid 
 'twas impossible. Was the girl mad ? Nay, she 
 would do as they bid ? 'Twas well, then. Lady 
 Julia, so kind was she, would help to clothe her in 
 some better apparel and make her fit to present her- 
 self. The while the Lady Alethea would return to 
 her post of assiduous nurse and inform his lordship 
 of Pomona's speedy attendance. 
 
 Pomona gave herself into their hands. 
 
 Lord Blantyre lay on a couch in the sunshine. A
 
 286 Pomona 
 
 fountain played merrily to his right; to his left his 
 sister sat demurely at embroidery. In spite of her 
 ladyship's melancholy account, the patient seemed to 
 have gained marvellously in strength. But he was 
 in no better humour with the world than on the last 
 day of his stay at the farm. 
 
 He tossed and fretted among his rich cushions. 
 
 " She tarries," he said, irritably, for the twentieth 
 time. "You are all in league to plague me. Why 
 did you tell me she was coming?" 
 
 "My good brother," answered the fair embroider- 
 ess, tilting her head to fling him the family sneer, 
 "I pray you curb your impatience, for yonder comes 
 your siren." 
 
 Here was Julia indeed undulating towards them, 
 and after her Pomona ! 
 
 Lord Blantyre sat up suddenly and stared. Then 
 he fell back on his cushions and shot a look at Alethea 
 before which she quailed. 
 
 Stumbling in high heels that tripped her at every 
 step, she who had been wont to move free as a god- 
 dess ; scarce able to breathe in the laced bodice that 
 pressed her form out of all its natural shapeliness, and 
 left so much of her throat bare that the white skin was 
 all crimson in shame down to the borrowed kerchief ; 
 her artless, bewildered face raddled with white and
 
 Pomona 287 
 
 red, her noble head scarcely recognisable through the 
 bunching curls that sat so strangely each side of it 
 what Pomona was this ? 
 
 "Here is your kind nurse," fluted Lady Julia. 
 "She had a fancy to bedizen herself for your eyes. 
 I thought 'twould please you, my lord, if I humoured 
 the creature." 
 
 "Everyone is to be humoured here," thought poor 
 Pomona vaguely. 
 
 "Come to his lordship, child," bade Julia, her 
 tones tripped up with laughter. 
 
 Pomona tottered yet a pace or two and then halted. 
 Taller even than the tall Lady Julia, the lines of her 
 generous womanhood took up the silken skirt to ab- 
 surd brevity, exposing the awkward, twisting feet. 
 Nymph no longer was she, but a huge painted pup- 
 pet. Only the eyes were unchanged, Pomona's 
 roe-deer eyes, grieving and wondering, shifting from 
 side to side in dumb pleading. Truly this was an 
 excellent jest of Lady Julia Majendie's ! 
 
 It was strange that Lady Alethea, bending closer 
 and closer over her work, should have no laughter 
 left after that single glance from her brother's eyes ; 
 and that Lord Blantyre himself should show such 
 lack of humorous appreciation. There was a heavy 
 silence. Pomona tried to draw a breath to relieve
 
 288 Pomona 
 
 her bursting anguish, but in vain she was held as 
 in a vice. Her heart fluttered ; she felt as if she must 
 die. 
 
 "Pomona," said Lord Blantyre suddenly, "come 
 closer." 
 
 He reached and caught up his sister's scissors 
 from her knee, and leaning forward, snipped the 
 laces that strained across the fine scarlet satin of 
 Pomona's cruel bodice. 
 
 "Now breathe," ordered he. 
 
 And while the other two were staring, unable to 
 credit their eyes, Pomona's prison fell apart ; and, 
 over her heaving bosom, her thick white shift took its 
 own noble folds. 
 
 Then the woman in her awoke and revolted. She 
 flung from her feet the high-heeled shoes and, with 
 frenzied hands tearing down her mockery of a head- 
 dress, she ran to the fountain and began to dash the 
 paint from her face. The tears streamed down her 
 cheeks as she laved them. 
 
 "Sweet and gentle ladies," said the Wicked Earl 
 his tones cut the air like a fine blade "I thank 
 you for your most excellent demonstration of the 
 superiority of your high breeding. May I beg you 
 both to retire upon your triumph, and leave me to 
 deal with this poor, inferior wretch, since you have
 
 Pomona 289 
 
 now most certainly convinced me that she can never 
 aspire to such gentility as yours?" 
 
 Alethea rose, and scattering her silks on one side, 
 her embroidery on the other, walked straight away 
 down the terrace, without casting a look behind her. 
 Julia ran after her with skipping step, caught her 
 under the arm, and the laughter of her malice rang 
 out long after she herself had disappeared. 
 
 "Pomona," said Lord Blantyre. 
 
 Often he had called to her, in feverish complaint, 
 or anger, or pettishly like a child, but never in such 
 a tone as this. She came to him, as she had always 
 come ; and then she stood in shame before him, her 
 long hair streaming, the tears rolling down her cheeks, 
 her hands folded at her throat, her shapely feet 
 gripping the ground in Julia Majendie's green silk 
 stockings. Slowly his gaze enveloped her. All at 
 once he smiled ; and then, meeting her grieving eyes, 
 he grew grave again, and suddenly his haughty face 
 was broken up by tenderness. He caught one drip- 
 ping twist of hair and pulled her towards him after 
 his gentle, cruel fashion. She fell on her knees be- 
 side him and hid her face in his cushions. 
 
 "Kiss me, Pomona," said he. 
 
 "Oh, my lord," she said, "spare me; I am only a 
 poor girl ! "
 
 290 Pomona 
 
 Many a time she had dreamed since the morning 
 in the orchard that she was carrying that bleeding 
 body, her lips on the dying roses of his lips ; but never, 
 in her humility, had she, even in her sleep, thought 
 of herself as in his arms. This was no dream, yet 
 so he clasped her. 
 
 He bent his dark head over her radiant hair, his 
 voice dropped words sweeter than honey, more heal- 
 ing than balm, into her heart, that was still so bruised 
 that it could scarce beat to joy. 
 
 "When I first beheld you in the orchard, I was sorry 
 that I might have to die, Pomona, because you were 
 in life. You carried me in your arms, and kept my 
 soul from passing by the touch of your lips. When 
 the fever burnt me, you brought me coolness you 
 lifted me and gave me breath. All night you held 
 me. Patient, strong Pomona! You bore with all 
 my humours. You came to me in the night from your 
 sleep, all in white like an angel, your bare feet on the 
 boards. Oh, my gentle nurse, my humble love, my 
 mate, my wife!" 
 
 She raised her head to gaze at him. Yet she took 
 the wonder, like a child, not disclaiming, not ques- 
 tioning. 
 
 "Oh!" she said, with a deep, soft sigh. 
 
 He fondly pushed the tangled hair from her brow.
 
 Pomona 291 
 
 " And shall a man make shift with sham and hollow 
 artifice, when he can possess truth itself ? They put 
 paint on your cheeks, my Pomona, and tricked you 
 out in gauds : and behold, I saw how great was the 
 true woman beside the painted doll !" 
 
 He kissed her lips ; and then he cried : 
 
 " Oh, Golden Apple, how is the taste of thee sweet 
 and pure!" 
 
 And after a silence he said to her faintly, for he 
 was still weak for such rapture : - 
 
 "Lift me, my love, and let me lie awhile against 
 your woman's heart, for never have I drawn such 
 sweet breath as in your arms."
 
 THE MIRROR OF THE FAITHFUL 
 HEART
 
 VII 
 
 THE MIRROR OF THE FAITHFUL HEART 
 
 HAIL, rain, or snow, Sir Peter Coverdale waited 
 upon Lady Barbara Ogle precisely at four o'clock 
 of the afternoon every weekday, partook of a dish of 
 tea, and joined her in a game of tric-trac. On the 
 stroke of half-past five the grey mare was led round 
 under the portico and Sir Peter jogged gently back to 
 his solitary home. Each Sunday he made his ap- 
 pearance at Ogle Hall an hour earlier ; but the grey 
 mare had her Sabbath rest, and a more ancient 
 quadruped his weekly outing to convey Sir Peter to 
 the repast which Lady Barbara dispensed with 
 stately amiability to himself, the parson and his lady. 
 
 Every quarter-day he went over in state to pay her 
 the rent of certain woods, hired for his coverts (for 
 tradition's sake merely ; Sir Peter, over and above all 
 things scholar and dilettante, cared little for shooting 
 and less for the chase), attired as became the seasons, 
 and bringing the offering of an appropriate posy. 
 
 Sir Peter would then propose marriage to Lady 
 
 295
 
 296 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 
 
 Barbara, who had been for ten years the object of his 
 declared affections, for ten previous that of his secret 
 ardours. Every quarter-day Lady Barbara was over- 
 come by surprise, shed a few tears, scolded a little, 
 smiled a little, gave him a determined refusal and her 
 hand to kiss. 
 
 " 'When last I died (and, dear, I die 
 As often as from thee I go), 
 
 I can remember yet that I 
 Something did say, and something did bestow." 
 
 The singing words of old Donne might have been 
 penned to fit the case. 
 
 They parted better friends than ever, but if the 
 gentleman rode home at a slow pace, his fine old head 
 sunk sadly on his breast, it might be observed that the 
 lady, on the other hand, went about the house all the 
 evening even more briskly than ever ; that she sniffed 
 complacently at a posy in her kerchief, and was un- 
 wontedly lenient to the maids. 
 
 Lady Barbara was a widow. Squire Ogle had 
 left her no children, but a comfortable estate, which 
 she managed with prudence, energy, and enjoyment. 
 
 Lady Barbara was fair ; she was plump ; she 
 was quite thirty-nine. Sir Peter's name was very
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 297 
 
 old, so was his house. He was lean and melancholy, 
 fond of the poets, and indeed of all his library 
 (which smelt good of old leathers, was brown and 
 dimly flecked with gold, with an air of russet antique 
 dignity, and which he unconsciously matched very 
 well in his brown suit and dim gilt buttons). His 
 estate touched the Ogle boundaries. He had a suffi- 
 cient competence to feel that with proper pride he 
 might aspire to the hand of his rich and fair neigh- 
 bour. He was a bachelor, and he had loved but her. 
 
 Upon a certain Michaelmas Sir Peter might have 
 been seen ambulating his neglected garden in search 
 of the quarterly posy. His russet suit had been care- 
 fully brushed, his ample locks, all silvered already 
 though they were, had been on the contrary most hand- 
 somely powdered. His heart fluttered as he picked 
 his nosegay, autumn blossoms, as fragrant yet and 
 tender, if with as little hold on life, as his own 
 delicate passion. 
 
 There was a bloom as of the purple on the grape, 
 as of the gold on the apple, over the land as he rode 
 along the familiar road. The mild air was full of the 
 tart savour of the fading leaf, the sweetness of the 
 hoarded stack. The yellow sunlight lay very gently 
 upon the world.
 
 298 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 
 
 He found Lady Barbara on the garden terrace; 
 'twas her favourite seat in fitting weather. But even 
 before he had had time to make his first bow, be- 
 fore he could lift his hand to offer the posy and 
 this demanded an exquisite flourish, for it should in- 
 dicate his heart before reaching her taper fingers 
 he perceived that something unusual had happened. 
 Lady Barbara was flustered. There was a wonder- 
 ful grandeur of silk and brocade about her, of fine 
 gophered rnuslin and delicate lace. 
 
 For one unreasonable instant his old heart gave a 
 leap. Was this Michaelmas Day to be the day of all 
 days to him at last? But the next moment he told 
 himself with sorry humour that he was but the appro- 
 priate goose. His uplifted hand fell stiffly by his 
 side. Alas! Elderly lover though he was, he had 
 all the intuitions of the devoted heart. Not he had 
 anything to say to the unwonted flowering of his be- 
 loved's attire, to the unwonted rose upon her fine, 
 smooth cheek. She had no thought for him to-day ; 
 nay, he was not even sure that he was welcome. 
 
 " La ! " she cried. " Sir Peter ! (Where lags that 
 wench with the tay?) A fine afternoon, Sir Peter. 
 I fear you must excuse me from our game to-day. 
 I am expecting a visitor." 
 
 Expecting a visitor ! Not have their tric-trac !
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 299 
 
 Such untoward occurrences had interrupted their 
 existences but once these ten years, when Lady Bar- 
 bara had had the influenza. 
 
 Sir Peter slipped the nosegay to his left hand, while 
 he pulled a little bag from his waistcoat pocket with 
 the right. It was his pleasure to present his debt to 
 the lady every quarter in the form of gold pieces en- 
 closed in a charming little reticule of coloured taffety, 
 constructed for him by his housekeeper and tied with 
 gold thread. These dainty receptacles, after being 
 duly emptied of their prosaic contents, Lady Barbara 
 was given to fill with lavender and to dispose about 
 her cupboards and presses. There were not yet 
 enough for every drawer, and perhaps that was the 
 reason she still refused Sir Peter. 
 
 Usually he took a poetic pleasure in the discharg- 
 ing of his obligation, but this afternoon the flurry of 
 her air in which he had no share, the elegance that 
 put him at such a distance troubled him. He drew 
 forth the little bag and held it out without a word. 
 '1 was of purple silk, embroidered in silver roses. 
 It had appeared to him vastly tasteful but an hour 
 ago. 
 
 "What's that?" she cried, looking at it as it lay 
 in the pale hollow of his trembling old hand. 
 
 "My debt," said he gravely; he that had generally
 
 300 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 
 
 so apt a quotation to lead up to his own most poetic 
 declaration. 
 
 " What ! " cried she sharply. " 'Tis never Quarter 
 Day. If I had not clean forgotten ! 
 
 "The fact is, Sir Peter, I have been quite upset 
 I vow the wenches have forgotten the tay ; but they 
 are prodigious busy. 'Twas quite unexpected. 
 You must want your cup." 
 
 "Nay," said he, "never mind the tay." 
 
 She accepted his suggestion without seeming to 
 hear it, after the fashion of housekeepers who do not 
 wish to press their servants. 
 
 " I received a despatch from my cousin Damory this 
 morning. Pray, have you heard me mention my 
 cousin, the Lord Earl of Damory? He proposes to 
 lie the night at Ogle Hall. He will perchance stay 
 longer. I know not. We have not met," she said, 
 playing with the little purple bag in a manner that 
 showed how far away her thoughts were, for she was 
 a woman careful over money, "we have not met for 
 I know not how many years." 
 
 She looked down and a tremulous blushing 
 emotion transfigured her comely face as the 
 autumn will, now and again, wear an air of 
 spring. 
 
 "I see it all," said Sir Peter, and groped blindly
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 301 
 
 for his hat where he had set it on the balustrade. 
 "You you once loved each other." 
 
 "He remembers me still, it seems," faltered the 
 lady. "It was long, long ago; before even I met 
 my pocr Ogle, but there are things the heart cannot 
 forget." 
 
 "I understand," said Sir Peter, and clapped 
 his three-cornered hat over his own poor heart. 
 
 "We went our ways," said Lady Barbara, com- 
 placent in her reminiscences. "I fear he has led a 
 sad, wild life since he, too, was widowed, but his 
 letter is vastly flattering he writes with great feel- 
 ing." 
 
 The lady turned coy. " I could read you a phrase 
 or two." 
 
 She dived with two white fingers under her ca- 
 pacious kerchief. The letter was in her bosom. 
 There are things flesh and blood cannot bear, be it 
 turned of sixty. 
 
 "Madam," said Sir Peter, bowing low, "you are 
 busy. I will intrude no longer." 
 
 He turned and left her, and she raised no sound to 
 call him back. 
 
 Thus did it come about that on that Michaelmas 
 Day Sir Peter Coverdale neither proposed for the 
 Lady Barbara nor presented his love token.
 
 302 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 
 
 The following day Sir Peter was fully determined 
 not to ride over to Ogle Hall. He lingered unwontedly 
 over his dinner, though he had but a poor appetite ; 
 and when the time drew near for departing sat him- 
 self down before the fire in his library and opened a 
 volume of Jeremy Taylor as if he meant not to 
 budge for a month. But he had artfully remembered 
 to forget to counter-order the mare, and when she 
 came with stiff prancings to the door (for it was a 
 frosty and exhilarating afternoon) it seemed unreason- 
 able that he should not at least take a turn in the park. 
 
 After this no one will be surprised to hear that it 
 was but shortly after the usual hour that he trotted 
 under the granite portico of Lady Barbara's house, 
 with its spreading shell canopy and fluted pilasters. 
 
 He was gathering himself together with a very 
 solemn countenance before dismounting, when the 
 door was flung open and one of the apple-faced foot- 
 men ran out. 
 
 "My lady bid me watch for you, Sir Peter," said 
 he with a grin of cordial welcome. A very trim little 
 maid seized hold of the gentleman in the hall. 
 
 "Her ladyship is in the blue parlour," quoth she, 
 and tripped before him to the door. 
 
 "Bodes not this cheerful bustle ill for me?" 
 thought Sir Peter. He looked round darkly as he
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 303 
 
 entered, but her ladyship was alone. A tea-tray of 
 very agreeable brilliance was laid before the fire. The 
 urn was hissing. 
 
 "One minute," said Lady Barbara, uplifting a 
 taper ringer to arrest him, and thereupon she poured 
 the bubbling water into the melon-shaped tea-pot, 
 and the whole air was filled with fragrance. 
 
 "You must want your Bohea this cold day," 
 said Lady Barbara sweetly. 
 
 She came forward to greet him, and he saw behind 
 her the tric-trac board temptingly displayed between 
 two arm-chairs. 
 
 "She is a true woman," said the dejected swain to 
 himself. "She thinks by these things to soften the 
 blow !" He looked at her long and tenderly as he 
 took her hand. She was changed again since yester- 
 day. Where was the youthful exuberance of curls, 
 and the little fly-away pink bow that had sat so 
 coquettishly in the midst of them? Where was the 
 rose-flowered brocade; where the velvet bands and 
 the diamond buckles, the swelling magnificence of 
 paniers, the rich torsades of lace? 
 
 "Her incomparable heart mourns over my grief," 
 he reflected, gently shaking his powdered head ; then 
 to the fell presentiment of his forthcoming loss of her 
 broke into some lines from his favourite Donne :
 
 304 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 
 
 " If yet I have not all thy love, 
 
 Dear, I shall never have it all; 
 I cannot breathe one other sigh to move, 
 Nor can entreat one other sigh to fall " 
 
 "Tis a vastly pretty rhyme," said she, "but, Sir 
 Peter, your Bohea will be past drinking." 
 
 " Your visitor?" he queried; and cup and saucer 
 rattled in his hand as he took it from her. 
 
 "Oh," she said airily. "My lord Damory, mean 
 you? He came but "for the night, you know. He's 
 on his way to Bath Hot-wells. Is your tay agreeable, 
 Sir Peter?" 
 
 "Your ladyship hinted he might remain." 
 
 "He did not remain," said Lady Barbara firmly. 
 
 She sat down with some abruptness in her armchair, 
 and looked with steady eye past the tremulous, eager 
 figure of her elderly lover out of the window. 
 
 "He did not remain," she said. 
 
 Sir Peter could hardly draw a breath, so uncertain 
 was he whether it should be one of rapture or 
 agony. 
 
 "Sit down," said Lady Barbara sharply, "and 
 drink your cup, man." 
 
 Then, with a sudden change of mood, her bright, 
 handsome face softening in a very womanly way, she 
 leant over to him and laid her fingers on his wrist.
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 305 
 
 "Sir Peter," she said, "my kind friend, I have been 
 an old fool." 
 
 Sir Peter was so startled that he well nigh dropped 
 the delicate china. His lean frame shook violently 
 as he first laid the cup carefully out of his reach and 
 then turned his wrinkled countenance, grey with emo- 
 tion, upon Lady Barbara. Had other lips but hers 
 spoken such blasphemy . . . ! 
 
 " Yes," said she, nodding, " an old fool. Here have 
 I been years and years dreaming about Cousin Dam- 
 ory and the time when we were young folks together, 
 forgetting that as the years and the years go by, other 
 things go by too." 
 
 "Other things, my most honoured friend?" 
 
 "Ay, Sir Peter ! Youth and looks, man ! Looks, 
 beauty, charm!" 
 
 He gave a groan of utter repudiation and horror ; 
 and she laughed. A comfortable, hearty laugh was 
 hers, even though it held just then a little quaver in it 
 as of tears. 
 
 "I deny it," said Sir Peter, so exceedingly agitated 
 that the powder flew in scented mists about his head. 
 "I deny it, absolutely and totally." 
 
 "Alack ! I've looked in the mirror, my good sir," 
 said the lady ; and she winked sternly as she spoke, 
 for there was a moisture in her blue eyes which she
 
 306 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 
 
 was determined they should not shed. "Cousin 
 Damory was obliging enough to hold the mirror for 
 me last night. And I looked in ... and I saw what 
 I was." 
 
 "Your Cousin Damory, ma'am!" he ejaculated, 
 and rose jerkily to his feet. "Lady Barbara, I have 
 no hesitation in saying it, with all due respect to your 
 ladyship's family, that man is a villain." 
 
 "You saw how I prinked myself out for him last 
 night. Mallay and I and the maids thought I made 
 a vastly fine show. 'Twas my birthday brocade, 
 and had been thought to become me." She cast a 
 somewhat wistful glance at him. 
 
 "You were you were adorable !" said he. 
 
 "Cousin Damory," she began again, "Cousin 
 Damory, my excellent friend, has, it seems, an empty 
 exchequer. He was good enough to remember some 
 early passages of tenderness between us, with the 
 view of replenishing the said exchequer from the good 
 estates of Ogle Hall unfortunately, Cousin Damory 
 also found my wine vastly to his liking, and you 
 learned gentlemen have a proverb, I believe, in the 
 Latin, 'In Vino Veritas.'" 
 
 Sir Peter could not speak. He was hanging on her 
 words as if each of them were as the breath of life 
 to him. His quivering hands hovered in the air.
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 307 
 
 "Well," said the lady, " 'twas well enough at first. 
 But O, Sir Peter, how is my poor cousin changed ! 
 Heavens ! how coarse hath he grown ; how red in the 
 face, how bulky in the figure !" 
 
 The old scholar's innocent grey eyes swept his 
 own attenuated limbs with quick complacency, and 
 for the first time since the yesternoon he smiled. 
 
 " 'Twas but now and again that by a look, a ges- 
 ture, I could trace the handsome youth I had loved." 
 
 Sir Peter's smile faded. 
 
 "All went well enough at supper. My lord was 
 good enough to praise the provender. But when I 
 retired, leaving him with the young man, his secre- 
 tary, who travels with him, it was then, O Sir Peter, 
 that my eyes were opened !" 
 
 "Then?" echoed Sir Peter breathlessly. 
 
 "Then," said Lady Barbara. "Hearing that two 
 or three more bottles of wine had been sent for in 
 succession, and that my lord's voice was waxing very 
 loud, I I " she hesitated, and lifting the hem of 
 her purple and black-flowered apron, pleated it be- 
 tween her white fingers. 
 
 "You you overheard ?" faltered Sir Peter. 
 
 The lady dropped her apron, smoothed it firmly 
 over her knee, and looked up at the anxious face that 
 was bent over her.
 
 308 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 
 
 "Sir Peter," she said, "I listened. And a very 
 fortunate thing it was, too," she proceeded briskly. 
 "For, if it hurt my pride, it saved my pocket. And 
 something else, too: my self-respect. . . . 'What 
 d'ye think of my Coz?' Lord Damory says, bawling 
 to his young man. 'Ye'd never believe, Jenkins, 
 that that old woman was once the prettiest girl in 
 Hampshire ! '" 
 
 "Oh ! oh !" cried Sir Peter, as if in pain. "The 
 drunken ruffian, madam, knew not what he said." 
 
 "Nay," she made answer. "The wine but loosed 
 his tongue. Not indeed that I am one who would cast 
 shame to a gentleman for an extra bottle of an even- 
 ing. 'Tis gentlemen's way, I know," said the widow, 
 with a sigh of leniency to the convivial ghost of the 
 departed squire. "But cousin Damory was a trifle 
 indiscreet in his cups, as you will hear. ' I remember 
 her,' he shouts, 'as slender as a willow wand. I 
 could compass her waist with my hand' (we were 
 cousins, you must mind, Sir Peter). 'Lord!' says 
 he, 'she's run to fat' (excuse that I should repeat his 
 coarseness). 'I'll have to take both arms to her,' 
 he says." 
 
 Sir Peter Coverdale clasped his hands and wrung 
 them in the extremity of his emotion. "Oh !" cried 
 he. "Oh! madam, how is it possible that anyone
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 309 
 
 could be so brutish, so afflicted by Heaven with crass 
 stupidity, to behold without awe and admiration 
 those noble, those majestic, those goddess-like pro- 
 portions, before which the immature charms of girl- 
 hood, however beautiful," he laid his hand upon his 
 heart and bowed, as if to some sweet vision of Lady 
 Barbara's youth, "must sink into utter insignifi- 
 cance, as the lesser nymphs before Juno herself." 
 
 "Why, why!" laughed the lady, and her laugh 
 rang without any hint of tears this time. "Only 
 that my vanity was so well disposed of last night, Sir 
 Peter, I vow you'd make me vain. But hark to this : 
 'Did you see her double chin?' asked his lordship, 
 'and, plump as she is, the wrinkles about her eyes? 
 But, Gad, she wags her curls and ogles one as if she 
 were half her age. The widow Ogle,' says he, tis 
 a proper name ! ' ' 
 
 "Tell me no more," ejaculated Sir Peter, lifting up 
 both his hands sternly ; his fine old "face was flushed 
 to his powdered hair. "It it upsets me, ma'am. 
 I I can't bear it. Wrinkles! Dare the sacrilegious 
 miscreant so allude to those lines which kindly mirth 
 and tender sympathy for others have writ around 
 your beautiful orbs? If I could describe to you, 
 Lady Barbara, how infinitely I consider they increase 
 the charm of your countenance, I fear you might
 
 310 The Minor of the Faithful Heart 
 
 chide me for offending that exquisite modesty which, 
 like a veil of gossamer, softens but cannot conceal the 
 brightness of your other virtues." 
 
 Lady Barbara smiled, but by reason no doubt of 
 the modesty so belauded by her adorer, proceeded 
 as if she had not heard. 
 
 " ' But she's rich,' his lordship was good enough to 
 add. 'So, Jenkins, we'll swallow her, fat and all, 
 and she'll do better than a young one, for I'll not 
 have to stay at home and keep the sparks away.'" 
 
 Slowly, for elasticity of action had long departed 
 from him, and he was much shaken by emotion, 
 Sir Peter went down upon his knees before Lady 
 Barbara. 
 
 "Most beloved and more lovely lady," said he, 
 "yonder depraved and besotted idiot held no mir- 
 ror at all for your gaze, but rather the stagnant 
 pool of his own evil soul, into which your divine eyes 
 should never have looked. Look now into the mirror 
 of my faithful heart and behold yourself, yourself 
 in beauty, which age cannot touch, which my poor 
 words can never express. 
 
 "By five's religion, I must here confess it, 
 The most I love when I the least express it," 
 
 quoted Sir Peter from his favourite poet. 
 
 "Ohi Sir Peter, Sir Peter," said the lady,
 
 The Mirror of the Faithful Heart 311 
 
 laughing and crying together, and holding out both 
 her hands. Sir Peter took them, hardly daring to 
 believe the fact, into his. 
 
 "Cousin Damory offered me his coronet this morn- 
 ing," said Lady Barbara, with apparent irrelevance, 
 after a pause. "And thereafter, I fear, he departed 
 somewhat hurriedly." 
 
 Sir Peter could not speak, but he kissed the white 
 hands, one after another. 
 
 "Have you any objection to my lips, Sir Peter?" 
 said Lady Barbara. 
 
 She was a downright dame; and, young as she 
 was still fain to believe herself, with Sir Peter she 
 could afford to waste no more time on shilly-shally.
 
 THE LATEST NEW NOVELS 
 
 By Mr. F. MARION CRAWFORD 
 Arethusa 
 
 "An enthralling story ... it would be hard to find a more engrossing 
 story." Record-Herald, Chicago. 
 
 " ' Arethusa' is full of the brilliant life and color of the Oriental city. . . . 
 This romance is a fine example of the art of story-telling by a master." 
 San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 Illustrated by Gertrude Demain Hammond. Cloth, $1.50 
 
 The Little City of Hope 
 
 Is a delightfully human story of an inventor and his son ; of their somewhat 
 lonely life in the village where living is cheap. It is altogether natural and 
 charming. 
 
 By Miss ZONA GALE 
 
 The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre 
 
 A happier pair than these lovers of seventy-odd furthering all the romances 
 within reach, could hardly be found. The whole idea of the book is be- 
 witchingly original, " reposeful, sweet, and sunny," says the Tribune. 
 
 Cloth, $1.50 
 
 By Mr. MARK LEE LUTHER 
 
 The Crucible 
 
 Is a study of a struggle against odds which approaches the heroic and 
 which carries the reader's sympathy through every page. 
 
 Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50 
 
 By MERWTN-WEBSTER 
 
 Comrade John 
 
 Has all the vivid genuineness of " Calumet K " by the same authors. Its 
 picture of the curious power wielded by a false religious teacher over a 
 young girl of the type least likely to discriminate between saint and charla- 
 tan will make the book notable among new novels. 
 
 With Frontispiece in colors. Cloth, $f.yo 
 
 By Miss ELIZABETH ROBINS 
 The Convert 
 
 Is London life in the present day, by the author of " A Dark Lantern," etc. 
 Miss Robins's work is notable for her exceptional insight and clear, discrim- 
 inating expression. 
 
 Cloth, $1.50 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOBK
 
 OTHER FICTION BY 
 
 AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE 
 
 Each in decorated cloth cover, $1.50 
 
 "My Merry Rockhurst" 
 
 " In the eight stories of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are here 
 gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the fragrant 
 charm of those books, like The Pride ofjennico, in which they first showed 
 an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances. 
 " It is not the romance of mere intrigue and sword-play that the authors 
 make their leading motive. . . . The book is absorbing, and it is, into 
 the bargain, as spontaneous in feeling as it is artistic in execution." New 
 York Tribune. 
 
 The Pride of Jennico 
 
 It is a story of brisk adventure and eager love amid unaccustomed scenes ; 
 and it is told with such freshness and sincerity and breezy vigor of word 
 and sentiment as to captivate all readers, whether critical or careless. 
 " This lively story has a half-historic flavor which adds to its interest . . . 
 told with an intensity of style which almost takes away the breath of the 
 reader." Boston Transcript. 
 
 Young April 
 
 It is a delightful story of a runaway month, when the young Duke, care- 
 fully reared in every punctilio of his position, escapes into an atmosphere 
 of freedom, youth, and an April love, that knows nothing of lords. At the 
 end it is a very grave young Duke who comes into his title, because 
 "noblesse oblige" and yet one who sometimes wears with all his quiet 
 dignity a gently reminiscent smile. 
 
 "If Youth But Knew" 
 
 This novel is totally different both as to the story and the method of telling 
 it, from The Pride of Jennico, yet possesses the same atmosphere of pure 
 romance. Few novelists have the characteristic gift of a radiant freshness 
 that makes a strong appeal to those who love to find a heroine piquant and 
 bewitching, a hero manly and strong. In sympathy with the story are the 
 delightful illustrations by Launcelot Speed, done directly under the authors' 
 supervision. 
 
 " One of the most spirited, moving, colorful, and fairly enchanting novels 
 written in many a day a book that moves one to be optimistic of the 
 quality of modern fiction." Republic (St. Louis). 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHEBS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOKE
 
 Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S NOVELS 
 
 Each, doth, gilt tops and titles, $1.50 
 
 The Celebrity. An Episode 
 
 " No such piece of inimitable comedy in a literary way has appeared for 
 years. ... It is the purest, keenest fun." Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 Richard Carvel illustrated 
 
 "... In breadth of canvas, massing of dramatic effect, depth of feeling, and 
 rare wholesomeness of spirit, it has seldom, if ever, been surpassed by an 
 American romance." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 The Crossing Illustrated 
 
 "The Crossing is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting 
 adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both in 
 detail and in spirit." The Dial. 
 
 The Crisis Illustrated 
 
 " It is a charming love story, and never loses its interest . . . The intense 
 political bitterness, the intense patriotism of both parties, are shown under - 
 standingly." Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia. 
 
 Coniston Illustrated 
 
 " Coniston has a lighter, gayer spirit, and a deeper, tenderer touch than 
 Mr. Churchill has ever achieved before. ... It is one of the truest and finest 
 transcripts of modern American life thus far achieved in our fiction." 
 Chicago Record-Herald, 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 Mr. ROBERT HERRICK'S NOVELS 
 
 Cloth, extra, gilt tops, each, $1.50 
 
 The Gospel of Freedom 
 
 " A novel that may truly be called the greatest study of social life, in a 
 broad and very much up-to-date sense, that has ever been contributed to 
 American fiction." Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 The Web of Life 
 
 " It is strong in that it faithfully depicts many phases of American life, and 
 uses them to strengthen a web of fiction, which is most artistically wrought 
 out." Buffalo Express. 
 
 The Real World 
 
 " The title of the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to 
 the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man 
 who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession 
 of his will only such battles bite into the consciousness." Chicago 
 Tribune. 
 
 The Common Lot 
 
 " It grips the reader tremendously. ... It is the drama of a human soul 
 the reader watches . . . the finest study of human motive that has appeared 
 for many a day." The World To-day. 
 
 The Memoirs of an American Gtizen. illustrated 
 
 with about fifty drawings by F. B. Masters 
 
 " Mr. Herrick's book is a book among many, and he comes nearer to 
 reflecting a certain kind of recognizable, contemporaneous American spirit 
 than anybody has yet done." New York Times. 
 
 " Intensely absorbing as a story, it is also a crisp, vigorous document of 
 startling significance. More than any other writer to-day he is giving us 
 the American novel." New York Globe. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHEES, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOBS
 
 A 000137829 8