"Mr. Freake," he piped, laying an imploring hand on the merchant's arm, "you will not be too hard on my foolish son?"

It was the old rascal Earl of Ridgeley. I had not seen him since the trial, when I was but a lad. In the meantime vice had eaten out of him such manliness as had ever been in him. Rascaldom was still stamped on him, but he was now in a state of abject terror. He and his son were indeed, as Jane puts it to this day, two to a pair.

"Your lordships will be pleased to wait on me in the room yonder," said Master Freake, in his grave, decisive way, "and I will tell you my will on the matter."

He bowed ironically towards the door. Their unlordly lordships went off together, and he followed and closed the door behind him. Dot sensibly hustled off the lackey, and so we were alone together.

As ever, I had my full reward. She turned to me, took my hands in hers, and whispered, "My splendid Oliver!"

"What, madam?" said I, laughing lest I should do otherwise and most unbecomingly. "In a red beard?"

"You look like a Cossack!" she declared, laughing in her turn.

So, in the way we had, we kept ourselves at arm's length from each other and dropped at once into our old footing.

Then, bit by bit, and unwillingly, and mainly in answers to my questions, she told a tale that made my heart bound within me. This is the mere skeleton of it, for I have no skill to give body and soul to such devotion.

The Colonel brought the news of my capture by Brocton, pieced together from the stories of my men, who got back unhurt, and of one of Brocton's dragoons who was luckily taken prisoner in order to be questioned. Margaret had immediately started on horseback for London, with one English servant in attendance, going by Appleby to evade the Duke's army, and across the mountains to Darlington. There she had travelled flying post down the great north road, getting to London in five days thirteen hours after her start from Penrith.

Master Freake had started back with her within five hours of her arrival. They travelled post through Leicester and Derby, and then on over ground that was familiar. No wonder I had thought her near, since she had passed within fifty paces of me as I shambled about dreaming of her. Part of the five hours' delay in London was taken up by a visit paid by Master Freake to the Earl of Ridgeley. He had gone forth stern and resolute. What had happened she did not know, but as they sped north the Earl sped north a mile behind them, as if they were dragging him along by his heart-strings. At Carlisle, now in the hands of the Duke, they drew blank, for Brocton was unaccountably absent from military duty. Fortunately Margaret, from the window of her room, saw the sergeant ride by. Dot was sent on his track and learned that Brocton was here, the house being a hunting-lodge belonging to a crony of his who was an officer in the Cumberland militia. They had ridden out that morning to see him, at which point her tale linked up with mine and ended.

"I am greatly indebted to you, Margaret," said I, very lamely, slipping out her name at unawares.

"Nonsense!" she cried. "May I not do as much as your pet ghostie did for you without being a miracle? Do not you dare, sir, to offer me a pinnerfull of guineas!"

She looked at me with a merry twinkle in her eyes, and I feel sure I knew what she was thinking of. But Nance Lousely was a simple country maiden, such as I was born and bred amongst, and at that time I had no vile red stubble, rough as a horse-comb, on my chin.

We were interrupted by the lackey, who came with Mr. Dot Gibson's respects to his honour, and would his honour like the refreshment of a shave and a bath as both were at his service? Like master, like man. This resplendent person was for the nonce humility's self. I went with him and was made clean and comfortable, and my rags trimmed a little.

This was preliminary to being summoned by Master Freake to a discussion with their lordships, with whom was Margaret, aloof and icy.

"At the 'Ring o' Bells,'" began Master Freake, addressing me, "you took from my lord Brocton's sergeant, now dead, a bundle of papers?"

"Yes, sir."

"Among them a letter addressed simply, 'To His Royal Highness'?"

"That is so, sir."

"You gave that letter to me, unopened, in the presence of Mistress Waynflete?"

"I did," said I, and Margaret nodded agreement.

"Several attempts have been made to recover the letter from you?"

"At least three such attempts were made by the late sergeant, and two by my lord Brocton," I replied.

"Their lordships' urgent need of recovering the letter is thus proven, and the Court will attach due weight to the facts," said Master Freake. Brocton turned white as a sheet, and the old rogue shook as a dead leaf shakes on its twig before the wind strips it off. There was in them none of the family pride which keeps the great families agoing.

"I opened the letter. I mastered its contents. I still have it," continued Master Freake, every sentence, like the crash of a sledge-hammer, making these craven bystanders shake at the knees. "It is deposited, sealed up again, with a sure friend, who has instructions, unless I claim it in person on or before the last day of this year, to deliver it in person to the King. At present no one knows its contents except my lord Brocton who wrote it, and I who read it."

"Thank God!" ejaculated the rascal old earl fervently.

"Egad," thought I to myself. "It's the Ridgeley estates no less."

"We will call it, for the purposes of our discussion," said Master Freake soothingly, "a letter about certain lands."

"Yes! Yes! Certainly! A letter about lands! So it was!" cried the Earl eagerly, and Brocton began to look less like a coward on the scaffold.

"Would you prefer any other designation or description, my lords?" inquired Master Freake.

"I'm quite satisfied, my good Master Freake," babbled the Earl.

"What lands?" I burst out, unable to hold in my curiosity any longer.

"The lands known as the Upper Hanyards in the county of Staffordshire," replied Master Freake.

"Well I'm ——," cried I, in amazement, but pulling up in time, and Margaret's blue eyes were as wide open as mine.

"You are, Master Oliver Wheatman," said Master Freake, "the future, rightful owner of the ancient estate of your family in all its former amplitude; and all arrearages of rents and incomings as from the thirteenth of April, one thousand seven hundred and thirty-two, with compound interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum, together with a compensation for disturbance and vexation caused to you and yours, provisionally fixed in the sum of two thousand pounds. The Earl of Ridgeley, smitten to the heart by the remembrance of his roguery and knavery, has agreed to make this full restitution. Am I right, my lord?"

"Absolutely, Master Freake, if you please," whined the rascal old earl. "My God, I'm a ruined man!"

"Well, my lord," said Master Freake, "if you lose your lands and moneys, and I will not bate an acre or a guinea of the full tale, you and your son will at least retain what, as I see, you both value more highly. The restitution is to be made by you to me personally, so that we can avoid quibbles about Oliver's legal position, he being a rebel confessed, and the day after he is inlawed I will in my turn convey the property in both kinds to him. When the restitution has been fully and legally made, without speck or flaw in title, and passed as such by my lawyers, the letter will be returned to you sealed as now, and of course I shall be rigidly silent on the matter. Your lordships," he ended coldly, "may start for London at once to see to the matter."

The old earl started for the door eagerly, calling down on his son dire and foul curses. Brocton looked poisonously at me before following, and I knew I had not done with him yet.

"I've got you your lands, Oliver, but there has been no time to get you pardoned. The King was at Windsor; every moment was precious; and there was no use, in the temper of the town, in dealing with underlings. It will not do to run any risk of your being retaken, for Cumberland loves blood-letting, and is no friend of mine. We shall take you to a little fishing village on the Solway and get you a cast over to Dublin, whither my good ship, 'Merchant of London,' Jonadab Kilroot, Master, outward bound for the Americas, will pick you up. When we all meet again in London, in a few months, you will be pardoned. Margaret and I must now follow her father. The Stuart cause is smashed to pieces."

* * * * *

Late that night I stood with Margaret on the end of a jetty in a little fishing village on the Cumberland coast. Master Freake was giving final instructions to the owner of a herring-buss that was creaking noisily against the side of the jetty under the swell of the tide. Dot was busily handing to one of her crew of two certain packages for my use.

We stood together, and she had linked her arm in mine. We who had been so close together for a month were now to have an ocean put between us. Not that that mattered to me, already separated from her by something wider than the Atlantic, a lonely unnamed grave away there in Staffordshire.

Suddenly she called to Dot, and he, as knowing just what she wanted, brought her a box. She loosed her arm from mine and took it from him, and when I would in turn have relieved her of it, she gently refused.

"Oliver," she said, in quiet, firm tones, "you met me when I was in grave danger and immediately, like the gallant gentleman you are, left mother and home to do me service."

"It was the privilege of my life, madam," I said earnestly.

"You have sweetened your service by so regarding it, giving greatly when you gave. And, sir, that service put me in your debt. You see that?"

"It is like you to say so. What of it?"

"The time came when you were in danger, and I, in my turn, left my father and rode hard to save you. I am not boasting, you understand, sir. I am merely stating a fact. I rendered service for service, like for like, did I not, sir?"

"You did, madam, and did it splendidly," said I.

"Then, sir, when we meet again," she said, and she was now speaking very clearly and sweetly, looking me full in the eyes, potent in all her beauty and queenliness, "when we meet again, we meet on level terms."

"Are you ready, lad?" called Master Freake.

"Coming, sir!" I cried, almost glad at heart of the escape.

"One moment, Oliver!" said Margaret. "So anxious to be rid of me? Nay, I jest of course! I've a little present for you here, Oliver. It will, I hope, make you think of me at times."

"It will not," I replied, smiling. "It will make me think oftener of you, that's all."

She handed me the box, and we walked up to the boat.

The half-moon was bright in an unclouded sky, and it showed me tears on Margaret's cheeks, as I bent to clasp and kiss her hand. Then I said good-bye to Master Freake and Dot, and was helped into the boat.

So we parted, and I set my face toward the New World. For ten weary months there is nothing to be said that belongs of right and necessity to my story.

Except this: The first thing I did when I was alone in my cabin on the good ship, the "Merchant of London," was to open Margaret's box. It contained a full supply of books wherefrom to learn "the only language one can love in," and on the fly-leaf of a sumptuous "Dante" she had written, "From Margaret to Oliver."



CHAPTER XXV

I SETTLE MY ACCOUNT WITH MY LORD BROCTON

Of how I fared the seas with Jonadab Kilroot, master of the stolid barque, "Merchant of London," I say nothing, or as good as nothing. Master Kilroot was a noisy, bulky man, with a whiff of the tar-barrel ever about him and a heart as stout as a ship's biscuit. He feared God always, and drubbed his men whenever it was necessary; in his estimation the office of sea-captain was the most important under heaven, and Master John Freake the greatest man on earth.

The ship remained at anchor in Dublin harbour while tailors and tradesmen of all sorts fitted me out, for Master Freake had given me guineas enough for a horse-load. I did very well, for Dublin is a vice-regal city, with a Parliament of its own and reasonable society, so that the modes and fashions are not more than a year or so behind London, which did not matter to a man going to the Americas.

From Dublin I wrote home. I had laid one strict injunction on Margaret. She was not to go to the Hanyards, or write there, or allow anyone else to do either. I would not suffer her to know, or to run any chance of knowing, about Jack. She was greatly troubled over the matter, but I was so decided that she consented to my demand. It cost me a world of pains to write. I wrote, rewrote, and tore up scores of letters. Finally I merely sent them word that I was going to America to wait till the trouble was blown over, and that I should be with them again as soon as possible. I gave them no address. It was cowardly, but I could not bring myself to it. The nightmare that haunted me was my going home, home to our Kate, the sweetest sister man ever had, with her young heart wrapped for ever in widow's weeds. I used to dream that I rode up to the yard-gate on Sultan, and every time, in my dream, the Hanyards looked so desolate and woebegone, as if the very barns and byres were mourning for the dear dead lad who had played amongst them, that I pulled Sultan round and spurred him away till he flew like the wind, and I woke up in a cold sweat.

On a Wednesday morning in the middle of February the "Merchant of London" swung into Boston Harbour on a full tide and was moored fast by the Long Wharf. Master Kilroot hurried me ashore to the house of the great Boston merchant, Mr. Peter Faneuil, to whom I carried a letter from Master Freake. It was enough. My friend's protecting arm reached across the Atlantic, and if it were part of my plan to tell at length of my doings in the New World, I should have much to say about this worthy merchant of Boston. He was earnest and assiduous in his kindness, and so far as my exile was pleasant he made it so.

Mr. Faneuil was urgent that I should take up my abode with him, but this I gratefully declined, and he thereon recommended me to lodge with the widow of a ship-captain who had been drowned in his service. So I took lodging with her at her house in Brattles Street, and she made me very comfortable. She had a daughter, a pretty frolic lass of nine, who promoted me uncle the first day, and one negro slave, who was the autocrat of the establishment till my coming put his nose out of joint, as we say in Staffordshire.

Master Kilroot unshipped most of his inward cargo and sailed away for Carolina and Virginia to get rice and tobacco. Then he would come back here to make up his return cargo with dried fish, to be exchanged at Lisbon for wine for England. This was his ordinary round of trade, and a very profitable traffic it was.

When he had left, I settled down to make my exile profitable. By a great slice of luck there was at this time in Boston an Italian, one Signor Zandra, who gave lessons in his native tongue openly and in the art of dancing secretly. The wealth of the town was growing apace; there was a leisured class, and, speaking generally, the Bostonians were alert of mind and desirous of knowledge above any other set of men I have ever lived among. In the near-by town of Cambridge there was a vigorous little university with more than a hundred students. Moreover, there was a rising political spirit which gave me a keen interest in the men who breathed the quick vital air of this vigorous new England. In many respects I found myself back in the times of Smite-and-spare-not Wheatman, captain of horse in the army of the Lord-General. The genuine, if somewhat narrow, piety of the Bostoneers reminded me of him, and still more their healthy critical attitude towards rulers in general and kings in particular. They had the old Puritan stuff in them too, for some eight months before they had captured Louisberg from the French, a famous military exploit which the great Lord-General would have gloried in.

My days were all twins to each other. Every morning, after breakfast, I went abroad and always the same way: past the quaint Town House, down King Street, and so on to the Long Wharf to see if a ship had come in from England, and to ask the captain thereof if he had brought a letter for one Oliver Wheatman at Mr. Peter Faneuil's. I got no letter and no news. Then, always a little sad in heart, I strolled back, and looked in at Wilkins' book-shop, where some of the town notables were always to be found, and where, one May morning, as I was higgling over the purchase of a fine Virgil, I made the acquaintance of a remarkable young gentleman, Mr. Sam Adams, a genius by birth, a maltster by trade, and a politician by choice. We would discuss books together in Master Wilkins', or slip out to a retired inn called "The Two Palaverers" and discuss politics over a glass of wine and a pipe of tobacco. I liked him so much that I was afraid to tell him I had been fighting for the Stuarts, and was content to pass in the role Mr. Faneuil had assigned to me of an ingenuous young English gentleman who had come out to study colonial matters on the spot before entering Parliament. Our talk over, I went on to Signor Zandra's and worked at Italian for two hours. Most days I took him back to my lodging for dinner and read and talked Italian with him for another hour or two. The rest of the day I gave to reading, exercising, and, thanks to the good merchant, to the best society in Boston.

Occasionally, when I knew for certain that no ship would clear for home for two or three days, I made little shooting journeys inland, but in the main this is how I spent my days, filling them with work and distraction so as not to have idle hours for idler thinking. Spring passed, summer came and went, and the leaves were turning from gold to brown when one morning, as I was at breakfast, Mr. Faneuil's man came in with a letter. It was from Master Freake, summoning me home as all was put right. It contained a few lines from Margaret, written in Italian. A ship was sailing for London that day, and I went on her.

* * * * *

Jonadab Kilroot had found his way across the Atlantic into Boston Harbour much more easily than I was finding mine across London to Master Freake's house in Queen Anne's Gate. It was after nine at night, at which late hour, of course, I did not intend to arouse the inmates, but I meant to find the place so that I could stand outside and imagine Margaret within, perchance dreaming of me. At last I observed that men with torches were clearly being used as guides through this black maze of streets, and I stopped one such and offered him a guinea to do his office for me. He was a lean, shabby, hungry-looking man, who might be forty by the look of him. He stared vacantly at me for a few seconds, and then hurriedly led the way, holding his link high over his head.

This trouble over, another began, which put me in a towering rage. A gaudy young gentleman bumped into me and, though it was clearly his fault, I apologized and passed on, leaving him hopping about on one foot and nursing the other, which I had trodden on. He swore at me worse than a boatswain at a lubber, and but for the exquisite pain I had caused him I should have gone into the matter with him. I found my linkman leaning against a post and laughing heartily.

"Never you mind, sir. He'll not take the wall of you again in a hurry."

"Take the wall?" I said.

"Done on purpose, sir, to pick a quarrel with you. The young sparks do it for a game."

Not much farther on, we met a sedan, with an elegant young lady in it, and an elegant gentleman walking along by her close up to the chains, she being in the roadway. There was ample room for me to pass between him and the wall, which was also the courteous thing to do; but as soon as my linkman had passed him, he shot clean in my way. I gave him all the wall he wanted and more, bumping his head against it till he apologized humbly through his rattling teeth. The lady shrieked viciously at me, and one of her chairmen, my back being turned, pulled out his pole and came to attack me. My man, however, very dexterously pushed the link in his face as he was straddling over the chains, and he dropped the pole and spat and spluttered tremendously. I stepped across to the lady and apologized for detaining her, and then my man and I went on, easy victors.

Arrived at Queen Anne's Gate, another surprise awaited me. Master Freake's windows were ablaze with light, and the door was being held open by a man in handsome livery to admit an exquisite gentleman and a more exquisite lady who had just arrived there in chairs. I gave my man his guinea, and after dousing his link in a great iron extinguisher at the side of the door, he sped happily away. After watching the arrival of three or four more chairs and one carriage, I summoned up all my resolution and gave a feeble rat-tat with the massive iron lion's-head which served as knocker.

The man in livery opened to me, and I was inside before he could observe that I was an intruder. True, I was in my best clothes—my Sunday clothes, as I should have called them at home—and they were none so bad; but they had been made in Boston, where fashions ranged on the sober side. Here I looked like a sparrow in a flight of bull-finches.

"Can I see Master Freake?" said I.

"No," said he, with uncompromising promptness.

"Is he at home?"

"No," he retorted.

"This is his house, I think?"

"It is," he assented.

"Then I suppose all these people are coming to see you—and cook," said I gravely.

The sarcasm might have got through his thick skin perhaps but for the intervention of another liveried gentleman, who briefly asserted that I was "off my head," and proposed a muster of forces to throw me out. My own feeling distinctly was that I was on my head, not off it; but his suggestion interested me, as I do not take readily to being thrown out of anything or anywhere. Luckily, a fresh arrival took their attention off me for a minute or two, and while I was standing aside to admire the lady, who should come statelily down the grand staircase into the hall but Dot Gibson. He too was in livery, but of a grave, genteel sort.

"Hello, Dot," said I, accosting him quietly.

It bounced all the gravity out of him. He shook my outstretched hand vigorously, and then apologized for doing so, saying he was so glad to see me. "Jorkins, you great ass," cried he to the first servant, "what do you mean by keeping his honour waiting?"

Jorkins looked apprehensively at Dot and the suggester of violence looked apprehensively at Jorkins; but Dot was too full to bother with them, and went on: "Mr. Freake will be delighted, sir, and so will Miss Waynflete. They're always talking of you. Come along, sir! Allow me to precede you."

He took me upstairs into the library, and left me there alone. In a few seconds Master Freake burst in on me.

"My dear lad," he cried, wringing my hand heartily, "welcome—a thousand times welcome!"

"Thank you, sir. I'm glad to be back," was all I could say.

He put a hand on each shoulder and stood at arm's length to examine me.

"And we're glad to have you back, looking as fit and brown as a bronze gladiator. Come along to your room! It's been ready for you this three months, for that silly Margaret set to work on it the very day we sent off your letter."

"How is Mistress Waynflete, sir?"

"You'll see in five minutes if you'll only bestir yourself. The wits say that there's no need for George to furnish the town with a new queen as I have provided it with an empress."

He hurried me off to my room, as he called it, and it was so grand that I crept about it on tiptoe for fear of damaging something. There was everything a young man could want except clothes, and Master Freake laughingly assured me that they (meaning Margaret and himself) had puzzled for hours to see if they could manage them, but had given it up in despair.

"I declared you'd pine and get thin," he said, "and she vowed you'd get lazy and fat."

I felt very doltish and unready as I followed him to the drawing-room. It was very clear to me that no meeting on level terms was in front of me, and when I got into a large, brilliant room where some dozen splendid ladies and as many elegant, easy-mannered gentlemen were assembled, I felt inclined to turn tail.

"Empress." It was the exact word. Master Freake put his arm in mine and led me towards her. She was sitting throned in one corner of a roomy, cushioned sofa, with half a dozen young men—the least of them an earl, I thought bitterly—bending round her as the brethren's sheaves bent round Joseph's. And, as if she were not overpowering enough of herself, everything that consummate skill and the nicest artistry could do to enhance her beauty had been done. Juno banqueting with the gods had not looked more superb. "On level terms," I whispered to myself mockingly, as Master Freake led me on, for one of the circling sheaves, with whom she was exchanging easy, lightsome banter, was my finely chiselled acquaintance, the Marquess of Tiverton.

Except that she cut a quip in two when she saw who it was that Master Freake was bringing, Margaret gave no sign of surprise. She neither paled nor reddened, nor gushed nor faltered. Empress-like she simply added me to her train.

"I bring you an old friend, Margaret," said Master Freake, for whom, as I saw, the worshippers round the idol made way respectfully.

"And my old friend is very welcome, sir," she answered, holding out her hand. I bowed over it and kissed it. I thought that it trembled a little as it lay in mine, but it is at least probable that I was the source of what fluttering there was.

"I trust you have had a good voyage, Mr. Wheatman?" she questioned easily.

"Excellent, madam," I replied, with imitative lightness of tone. "It was like rowing on a river."

For a moment her eyes steadied and darkened, then she said with a smile, "That being so, even I, who am no sailor, should have enjoyed it along with you."

This was how we met. Whether on level terms or not, who shall decide?

"I say, Mr. Wheatman," broke in the pleasant voice of the Marquess, "you don't happen to have any venison-pasty on you, I suppose? I've got some rattling good snuff, and I'll give you a pinch for a plateful, as I did up in Staffordshire. I vow, Miss Waynflete, it makes me hungry to see him."

This speech caused much laughter, and Margaret said it was fortunate supper was ready. She then introduced me to the company around, and when this was done, Master Freake fetched me to renew the acquaintance of Sir James Blount and his lady, so that I was soon full of talk and merriment.

Supper and talk, wine and talk, basset and talk—so the time went by till long after midnight. Then one by one the guests dropped off. The Marquess lingered longest, and on going, pledged me to call on him next morning.

"At last," said Margaret. "Beauty sleep is out of the question to-night, Oliver, so tell us everything about everything. It's glorious to have you back."

It is not my purpose to dwell on my life in London. After a few days it became one long agony because of, but not by means of, Margaret. She did her best for me, and was all patience, kindness, and graciousness, and was plainly bent on living on level terms with me according to her promise and prophecy. It only required a day or two to show me that she had many a man of rank and wealth in thrall. As wealth went then, the Marquess of Tiverton was, by his own fault and foolishness, a poorish man, but he was lost in love of her, and he was only one of the many exquisites who were for ever in and out of Master Freake's fine mansion. It did not become a Wheatman of the Hanyards to cringe or be abashed in any company, and with the best of them I kept on terms of ease and intimacy. I dressed as well, and perchance looked as well, as they did, and if my accomplishments differed from theirs they differed for the better in Margaret's eyes, which were the only eyes that mattered.

Brief as I intend to be, I must set down a few jottings on things that belong to the texture of my story. To begin with, the Colonel, though pardoned, was still in France, looking after his affairs there, for before starting to join the Prince he had wisely shifted all his fortune over to Paris.

Davie Ogilvie had got clear away after Culloden, and his sweet Ishbel, though taken after the battle, had been permitted to join him there. It was a great comfort to know they were safe, for there were sad relics of my escapade in London—the row of ghastly, grinning heads over Temple Bar.

Soon after my arrival, Master Freake had sent for his lawyers and delivered to me in full possession the Upper Hanyards and the huge tale of guineas which the rascal old earl had disgorged as the price of the letter. Master Freake kept a rigid silence over the contents of that famous document "about lands," and I had no wish to know. It was worth a thousand acres and near ten thousand guineas to the Earl. I was satisfied if he was. I put my guineas in a bank of Master Freake's choosing. What a dowry I could have given Kate if—

My Lord Brocton was in town. I saw him several times, in the street or at the play, but took no notice of him. He was said to be eagerly hunting after a lady of meagre attractions but enormous fortune. Twice when I saw him he had with him the fellow I had bumped against the wall, a notorious shark and swashbuckler, by name and rank Sir Patrick Gee. Tiverton, who had his own reasons for being interested in Brocton, told me they were hand and glove together.

In a little while a month may be, a change came over the relation in which Margaret and I stood to each other. We both fought against it but in vain. We could not travel on parallel lines, we two. We must either converge or diverge, and fate had given me no choice.

I used to pretend I was going out, to ride or lounge with the Marquess or some other acquaintance, and then slip upstairs to the quiet old library, bury myself in a windowed recess cut off by curtains, and try to forget it all in a book. Fool-like I thought I could solve my problem so. The Hanyards was calling me and I dared not go. I should leave Margaret, and I could not leave her.

Why, I asked myself a thousand times, was I so poor a cur compared with Donald? He had done what I had done, and he had seen his way at once and followed it. He would not live, having, in all innocence and with the most urgent of all reasons, killed his friend. Not that I felt that his solution was my solution. My duty was to leave Margaret and to go to Kate, to help her, to the best of my ability, to live down her sorrow, and to show by my life and conduct that I would pay the price. And here I was, hovering moth-like round the flame.

Then again I would say that I would wait till the inevitable had happened, and Margaret was married to Tiverton. Anything to put it off, that was really all I was capable of.

To me, in my recess, Margaret came one morning.

"I thought you'd gone out, Oliver," she began.

"No," said I. "I altered my mind, and thought I'd like reading better."

"You puzzle me. Are you quite well?"

"As fit as a fiddle," said I cheerily, and rose to give her my seat, for the recess would only hold one.

"You're not to move, sir."

She fetched a couple of cushions, flung them by the window, and curled up on them. I wished she wouldn't, for she made a glorious picture.

"Now, sir, I am going to have it out with you," she said severely and smilingly. I smiled back, and pulled myself together.

"I hope 'it' is not a very serious 'it,' madam," I replied.

"It may be. Does your head ever trouble you?"

"My head ever trouble me?" I gasped, taken aback.

"Yes, your head, sir. When you fell down those stairs you received a very serious wound on the head. It gaped open so that I could have laid a finger in the hole. Are you sure it doesn't trouble you, Oliver? Blows on the head are dreadful things, you know."

"Look at it," said I, popping my head down, and very glad of the chance.

Her beautiful fingers parted my thick, short, bristly hair and found the spot.

"There's nothing wrong with the skull, is there?" I asked.

"No," very doubtfully. "It's healed splendidly."

"Now, madam," said I, "talk to me in Italian!"

It was the first time, by chance, that I had thought of it.

For ten minutes she questioned and cross-questioned me in Italian on all sorts of subjects, and I came out of the ordeal pretty well—thanks to Signor Zandra.

"Point one," said I in English. "The outside of my head is all right. Point two: are you satisfied with the inside?"

For a full minute she gazed in silence at her feet, twisting them about swiftly and somewhat forgetfully. It was trying, almost merciless, for she was very beautiful.

"Yes," she said at length, but without looking at me. "You've done marvellously well."

"In the only language one can love in," I said bitterly.

The words had no apparent effect. She still stared at her twinkling feet. Suddenly she lifted her eyes up to mine and said, almost sharply, "Then what did happen to you between the Hanyards and Leek to change you?"

It was clean, swift hitting, and made me gasp, but I managed to escape.

"Madam," said I, "I set out with you from the Hanyards to serve you and for no other purpose whatsoever. In my opinion, speaking in all modesty, I served you as well after Leek as before it. At least, I tried to."

She leaped up, and, with great sweeps of her arm, flung the cushions into the library. She said briefly, "And you succeeded, sir!" Then she left me. swiftly and passionately, without another word or look.

After this, the gap between us became obvious.

Meanwhile the Marquess of Tiverton was doing his best to give me a competent knowledge of the Court-end of the town. He had a spacious mansion in Bloomsbury Square, but this was now let to a great nabob, and he himself lived in close-shorn splendour in a small house in St. James's. Here I saw much of him, for commonly I would stroll round late in the forenoon and rout him out of bed. By an odd turn we took to each other greatly, and while he drank chocolate in bed or trifled with his breakfast we had many talks on the few subjects that mattered to him.

Our favourite theme was Margaret, whom he outspokenly worshipped. He rhapsodized over her in great stretches, calling me to testify with him to her divineness, and rating me soundly if, in the bitterness of my heart, I was a little laggard in my devotions. And, at irregular intervals, like Selah in the Psalms, he would intone dolefully, "And I can't marry her!"

It was no use my protesting that an unmarried man could marry any woman he liked if she would have him.

"A man can," he would reply, "but a bankrupt marquess can't. I've got to marry that jade. Pah! She's as lank as a hop-pole and as yellow as a guinea. But what's a marquess to do, Noll? They say she could tie up the neck and armholes of her shift and fill it with diamonds. Damn her! I wish Brocton would snap her up, but he can't. He'll never be more than an earl and I'm a marquess. Curse my luck! Fancy me a marquess! I'm a disgrace to my order and as poor as a crow."

The 'jade' referred to was the nabob's only daughter and heiress, who was, as all the town knew, to make a great match. My Lord Brocton was keenly in pursuit of her, but she inclined to the Marquess, who could have had her and her vast fortune any day for the asking. She was certainly not overdone with charms, but Tiverton in his anger had made her out worse than she was.

The morning after my encounter with Margaret in the recess, Tiverton was more than usually talkative, the fact being not unconnected, I imagine, with an unsuccessful bout at White's the night previous. We got through our usual talk about Margaret and the nabobess, and then he struck out a new line.

"Now if the divine Margaret," he said, "rightly so named as the pearl of great price among women, were only Freake's daughter and heiress, I'd be on my knees before her in a jiffy. They say he made cartfuls of money over that Jacobite business. Everybody here was selling at any price the stocks would fetch, and he was buying right and left on his own terms. He was back here, knowing of the retreat from Derby, over twenty-four hours before the courier came, and the old fox kept the news to himself. He's the first man out of the city to set up house in the Court-end. Old Borrowdell shifted his tabernacle as far west as Hatton Gardens in my father's time, and that was thought pretty big and bold, but here's Freake right in the thick of it, and holds his own like a lion among jackals. Fact is, he's a right-down good fellow. Being a marquess, I ought to despise him, 'stead of which I feel like a worm whenever he comes near me, and that, mark ye, Noll, not because I owe him close on ten thousand. I used to owe a rascal named Blayton quite as much, and every time he came whining round here I either wanted to kick him out or did it. Heigh-ho! I'm in the very devil of a mess but I'll cheat scraggy-neck yet. I'll reform outright, Noll. I'll never touch a card again as long as I live."

"That's the talk!" said I heartily. "Eat something and let's have the horses out for a gallop across Putney Heath."

Next evening, early, being very miserable, I went round to the Blounts, with whom I was very friendly. I forgot myself for a time, it being impossible to think of anything while lying on my back on the hearth, with baby Blount trying to pull my hair out by the roots and cutting a stubborn tooth on my nose. He was a delightful, pitiless, young rascal and would leave anything and anybody to maul me about.

I had, however, for once mistaken my billet, for while thus engaged who should come in with his mother but Margaret?

"Aren't you afraid to trust baby with such an inexperienced nurse?" asked Margaret, smiling at my discomfiture, for I had to lie there till I was rescued from the young dog's clutches.

"Not at all. When he's with a baby, he becomes a baby, which is what they want. He'll make an ideal father, don't you think?" said her ladyship happily.

"I think he will," said Margaret in a very judicial tone, but she coloured as she said it.

While Lady Blount disposed of baby, Margaret beckoned me aside. "Oliver, you'll do me a favour, won't you?" she asked.

"Certainly," said I.

"As I came here in a chair, I saw the Marquess going into White's. I fear he may be gambling again. He easily yields to the temptation, and soon becomes reckless. Will you call in, as if by chance, and coax him out? I would have him saved from himself, and you have great influence over him."

"If he won't come out," said I, smiling, "I'll lug him out!"

I excused myself to Lady Blount and set forth on my errand, willingly enough, since she desired it and I liked him, but all the way I thought of her anxious face as she asked me.

At White's I found Tiverton playing piquet with Brocton. A heap of guineas was by his side, and he was flushed and excited with success. The bout had attracted some attention, for the stakes were running high, and eight or nine men were gathered round the players, among them Sir Patrick Gee. I waited while the hand was played out. Tiverton repiqued his opponent, and joyously raked over to his side of the table four tall piles of guineas.

It was my first meeting with Brocton. Chance and Margaret had brought us together again.

"Egad, Tiverton," said I to the Marquess, who now first observed me, "you had the cards that time with a vengeance. Are you playing on? What about your engagement with me?"

The Marquess coloured slightly at my veiled rebuke. He looked doubtfully at his watch, then at me, and finally at Brocton.

"Have you had enough?" he asked.

"Enough?" cried Brocton. "Since you took up with farmers you've got chicken-hearted at cards. Play on, my lord!"

"I have told you," said I quietly to Brocton, "that his lordship has an engagement with me. That should be enough. If you want your revenge, which is natural, there are other nights available."

"I want my revenge now, and will have it," he said meaningly, "and this is how I serve men who come between me and my revenge." He was shuffling a pack of cards as he spoke, and, with the words, he flung them in my face.

At most of the tables play stopped, and the players there became silently intent on this new game where the stakes ran highest of all. It meant a fight, a fight between an expert swordsman and a man who knew nothing of the craft. To such a fight there could be but one end.

Tiverton was beside himself. "She'll never forgive me!" he muttered, and I looked amusedly at him and whispered, "Who? The nabobess?"

He was the highest in rank there, and as such a court of appeal and a sort of master of the ceremonies.

"My Lord Tiverton," said I aloud, "I am, as you know, a recent arrival in town from the Americas and other outlandish places, and, naturally enough under these circumstances, I am not clear on some points."

"It's clear you've been swiped across the face," broke in Sir Patrick Gee.

"Hold your tongue, sir!" said Tiverton, looking quietly at him. "Proceed, Mr. Wheatman!"

It made me smile again, tight as the corner was, to see the play-acting spirit creeping over him. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

"Therefore, my lord, I should like to ask you a few questions," I continued.

"Certainly, sir," he replied, with great impressiveness, taking snuff in great style while he awaited my questioning.

"Is there any doubt that I am the insulted person?"

"None whatever," he replied. "My Lord Brocton insulted you wantonly and deliberately."

"Then, my lord Marquess, I may be wrong, but I think I have the right of choosing the place, the time, and the weapons."

"Certainly, Mr. Wheatman," he answered.

"Then if I choose to say, 'On the banks of the Susquehanna, ten years hence, with tomahawks,' so it must be?"

A wave of scornful laughter went round the room as the question passed from mouth to mouth. Even the most ardent gamblers left their play to join the circle around us. English even in their vices, they took a fight for granted, but were up in a moment to see some fun.

The Marquess was disconcerted. He obviously felt that I was about to reflect on him in the gravest way; that, in short, I was backing out. He would be tarnished by the dishonour that had driven me out of the world of gentlemen.

"I think," said he, "that would be overstraining the privileges of an insulted gentleman."

"Run away, farmer!" bellowed Sir Patrick raucously.

Tiverton looked disdainfully at him. "You may like to know, my lords and gentlemen," he said, as grandly as if he were reciting a set piece from the stage, "that on the night of his arrival from Boston my friend was rudely insulted in the Strand by a certain person." Here he stopped, whirled round on the hulking scoundrel, and added grimly to him, "I shall finish the story unless you leave the room at once."

Gee thought better of it and slipped off like a disturbed night-prowler.

"Thank you, my lord," said I very humbly, "for your decision. I hope my unavoidable ignorance entitles me to try again."

"Certainly," said he, but with unmistakable uncertainty.

I looked round the intent curious circle of faces and then at Brocton. On his face and in his cruel eyes there were the same gloating anticipations that were there when, in Marry-me-quick's cottage, he thought he was bending Margaret to his foul will. You could have heard a card drop in that crowded room.

My time had come to the tick. Stretching myself taut, I said slowly and distinctly, "Here. Now. Fists."

Brocton went limp and ghastly. I strode up to him, took him, unresisted, by the scruff of the neck, and then said curtly, "Open the door, Tiverton."

The willing little Marquess ran delightedly to do my bidding, and I kicked my lord Brocton into the kennel and out of my life.

Next morning I went round to Tiverton's as usual, and while he was at breakfast, and we were starting our usual round of talk, in came Sir James Blount, a stranger at such an hour.

"Have you heard the news?" he asked abruptly.

"What news?" asked Tiverton, rather sour at being cheated out of his morning's consolatory grumble with me.

"Mr. Freake has declared that Miss Waynflete is to be his sole heiress," he replied.

I had to thump Tiverton to prevent him being choked by something that went the wrong way. We had an excited talk about the news, which Sir James had received direct from Master Freake, which settled it as a fact beyond dispute or change. Margaret was now the most desirable match in London from every point of view. Blount went away quite pleased with the stir he had made.

"Henry! Henry!" yelled Tiverton as soon as we were alone, and in came his man hastily. "Henry! What the devil do you mean by putting me into these old rags? Damme! I look like a chairman. Go and get some decent things out, you old rascal! I'm to call on the greatest lady in London town."

He hurried off after his servant, and I heard him singing and shouting over his second toilet. I crept miserably out of the house and made my way to the mews. The ostler saddled my horse, a beautiful chestnut mare which Master Freake had given me, and I rode out of town, deep in thought. Mechanically, I went the way we had intended to go, and found myself at last on the heights that overlook London from the north. Then I pulled up.

The towers of the Abbey stood out nobly against the steel-blue sky. Within their shadow was Master Freake's house where, by now, Tiverton would not have pleaded his love in vain. I saw her there, in the splendid room she always dimmed with her greater splendour, the exquisite Marquess at her feet, happy in possession of the pearl of great price. Over this vision a shadow came, and I saw the house-place at the Hanyards, with our widowed Kate alone in her sorrow. Her flame-red hair was white as snow and tears of blood were on her cheeks. Donald's farewell, Weird mun hae way, boomed in my ears like a dirge. With a sigh that was near of kin to a sob, I pulled the mare round and urged her northwards, northwards and homewards.

In my fear and trembling I shirked everything, doing childishly and more than childishly. I was not on Sultan, and when I rode out of Lichfield I hugged that simple fact to my heart. So much of my dream had at least not come true, and I gave the lie to more of it by leaving the high road and wandering devious ways till, within four or five miles of home, I left even the by-ways and kept to the fields. So keen was I on my little stratagems that I rode over the Upper Hanyards without once recalling the fact that it was now mine as it had been my father's before me. About four o'clock on a December day, just over a year since leaving home, I leaped the mare over a hedge and was at the old gate.

More of the dream was untrue. The winter sun was dropping down to the hill-tops like a great carbuncle set in gold, and the Hanyards was all aglow in its flaming rays. The gate was open, so that I could at least begin by pitching into Joe Braggs for his negligence, and the windows of the house-place shimmered a welcome because of the cheerful blaze within.

Not a soul stirred. I jumped down, threw the reins over the gate-post, and walked stealthily into the yard and up to the window. Still not a soul stirred.

I peeped in.

There was our Kate, leaning lovingly over my chair, pillowed as she had never pillowed it for me, and in the chair was clearly a man, for I could see his stockings and breeches stretching comfortably past her skirts. She laughed merrily at something said, and then stooped and kissed the person in the chair.

This was woman's faith! With a great clatter, I strode into the porch, thrust open the door, and stepped in. There was a shout of delight, a babble of, "It's our Noll! It's our Noll!" and Kate leaped into my arms and rained kisses on me.

The man followed her, slowly and feebly, leaning heavily on a stick. When he turned his face so that the firelight showed him up, my legs sank beneath me and my knees knocked together. It was Jack, dear old Jack, nothing but the shadow of himself, but still Jack right enough, and his hand was in mine.

"Run, Kit!" he cried. "Get some wine! The lad's overcome. God bless you, old Noll, how are you?"

Kate ran off into the parlour, where our wine was stored.

"Jack!"

"Hello, Noll!"

"I thought I'd killed you."

"Was it you?" he asked, all amazed at my self-accusation.

"Yes," I faltered.

"By gom, Noll, you did give me a sock!"

He heard Kate tripping back with the wine, and put his finger on his lips for a warning. And that was the first and last remark Jack Dobson made on the subject.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN

It took me to cure Jack. I administered one dose of medicine and he at once began to fill out and get strong and chesty in a manner almost absurd, whereon there was much twitting of our Kate who, in her old way, rated me soundly in public and crept up to me in private, and kissed me and wept gladly in the most approved maiden-like style.

This was the way of it. I sent Joe Braggs into Stafford the day after I got home to fetch out Master Dobson, and had him alone in my room. True he was as near and grasping as ever, but I saw even this side of him in a new light now, for he had been near and grasping for Jack. He was rather uncertain when we met; glad enough, of course, to see an old friend back again safe and sound, but dubious on the main point.

"Master Dobson," said I, "your Jack desires to wed our Kate."

"So he tells me," said he dolefully, rubbing his thin finger under the edge of his bob-wig to scratch his perplexed head.

"She is an excellent young woman, and a comely," said I, grinning at him.

"Undoubtedly," he conceded.

"But, as the head of the family, Master Dobson, I offer no objection to the proposal." Much it would have mattered if I had, but I always take credit when and while I can.

"It's very kind of you, Ol ... Mr. Wheatman," said he, "but...."

"Yes," said I encouragingly.

"But there's what I may call the material side of the matter to be considered. My son's bride should be suitable from the business point of view."

"I've been considering that point, Master Dobson. It is undoubtedly important. Jack's a careless young dog, and I'm sure our Kate is just the woman he wants from a business point of view. She'll keep an eye on every meg in his pockets."

"Tut, tut!" said he, stirred to action, as I knew he would be. "You mistake me completely. My son will not be wanting in this world's gear and he must have a wife to match."

"I see," said I. "One with something substantial in her pocket."

"Precisely," said he.

"Well, Master Dobson, if our Kate is willing to marry your Jack, a point on which I can offer only a conjecture, she will marry him with five thousand pound in her pocket."

He sat bolt upright and stared at me with his mouth wide open.

We fetched them in, mother coming with them, and the old man there and then gave them his blessing. Kate ran into mother's arms, while Jack wrung my hand and danced for joy. Afterwards he ate the most astonishing dinner imaginable, loudly asseverating that he was as right as nine-pence and sick of slops.

My coming back made a great noise all over our countryside. Of what I had actually done there was no knowledge whatsoever. The tale went that I had been to America and found a goldmine, and come home and bought back the lost Hanyards. Acute sceptics in barbers' shops and market ordinaries advanced the opinion that it must have been a very little goldmine, but they were unable to substitute any other explanation and so fell into contempt. The tale suited me and I never contradicted it. In a world where a man who has travelled to London is a person of consideration and renown, I, who had been to America, was as a god. My first visit to Stafford put the sleepy old town into commotion.

Every night around the fire in the house-place I told them of my adventures. Jack, the sly fox, sat among his cushions, which he had not been fool enough to discard along with his slops, with Kate on a low stool at his knees. The vicar sat by mother's side on the settle. I drew a chair close to her, so that her hand could clasp mine as I talked, and very helpful I found it, for she understood in silence and in silence comforted me. Jane laid supper, taking a long time over it, for between journeys to and from the kitchen she would stand behind the settle and listen wide-eyed to a spell of my talk. Every night the vicar said grace, adding, in his simple, apostolic way, a special thanksgiving to the good God who had brought the young lad safe home again, through perils by sea and perils by land, and out of the very hands of evil men who had compassed him about to destroy him. Then, after supper, I escorted the good man home and came back through the moonlit lanes; and every night, without fail, I went and stood on the very spot where the gaff had slipped out of my collar, and I had turned round to see Margaret.

The only discontented person in our little circle was Joe Braggs, who had caught the dace that caught the jack, and so started me out of my jog-trot yeoman's round into the great world of life and adventure. Joe had done well while I had been away; our fields had yielded fruitfully under his care as bailiff; and, having had a favourable harvest, we were much money in hand on the year's working. I had thanked him heartily, confirmed him as my bailiff now that I was back, and given him fifty guineas, a sum which to him was wealth untold. Still the rascal was not satisfied, and went about with a bear on his back, as Jane had it, so that I was greatly tempted to clip his ear for him.

The day before Christmas, he was busy all morning under Jane's garrulous command, getting in bunches of holly and other evergreens from the hedgerows. His last journey had been to one of the farms on the Upper Hanyards in quest of mistletoe, which grew abundantly there in an ancient orchard. On getting back he had held a sprig over Jane's head for a certain familiar and laudable purpose, and had been rewarded with a smack that sounded like the dropping of an empty milk-pail. A little later I found him glowering in a cowhouse, and had it out with him.

"Look here, Joe, my lad," said I, "tell me straight what's the matter with you or I'll break your head."

"What d'ye want to come back 'ere for, upsettin' Jin like this'n?" he blurted.

"What the blazes have I done to upset Jin?" I asked.

"Why didna y' bring 'er back wi' ye, then?"

"Who's her, you jolt-head?" I demanded angrily.

"That leddy o' yourn. Jin's that upset 'er wunna luk at me, an' we wor gettin' on fine."

It was no use talking to Joe. I explained that she was a great lady and was to marry a marquess, that is a much more important person than an earl. He knew what an earl was, for of course he had heard of the 'Yurl,' meaning that old rascal Ridgeley. A marquess, however, was outside his ken, and the information was wasted.

"Why didna y' marry 'er y'rsel', Master Noll, and bring 'er back 'ere, then Jin wud 'a' bin all rate?"

"I couldn't," said I.

"Did y' ask 'er?"

"No."

"More fule yow," said he bitterly. "She'd 'a' 'ad y', rate enough. Jin says so, an' 'er knows."

What could be done with such a silly fellow? I left off discussing and took him indoors with me. In front of Jane I pledged him in a mug of ale and told him he was one of the best lads breathing, and I was greatly beholden to him. In front of him I kissed Jane under the mistletoe and told her that, bonny lass as she was, she was lucky to have the best lad in Staffordshire. I left them in the kitchen, and heard no more crashes. Later on, Joe whistled his three tunes with admirable skill and intolerable persistency while, under Jane's orders, he took in charge the boiling of the Christmas puddings in a vast iron pot hung over the kitchen fire.

It was growing dark. Everybody was happy. Mother was out and round the village with her Christmas gifts, attended by one of our men and a cart packed with good things. Nothing could have made her happier. Jack and Kate were in the house-place busy with all sorts of housewiferies, in which he was as interested as she. Joe and Jane were in the kitchen, as merry as grigs. I went into my own room, across the passage from the parlour, sacrosanct to me, my books and my belongings.

There, too, was the great jack, set up to the very life by the skilful hand of Master Whatcot. He appeared to be cleaving a bunch of reeds to pounce on a dace, just as he had done once too often on that memorable day. Brothers of the angle had made pilgrimages to see him from thirty miles round, and it was an added charm to fancy that the monster had been caught in a spot where Izaak Walton had fished as a boy, he having been born and bred in these parts. My jack is a famous jack, for the curious reader will find an account of him, with his dimensions and catching weight exactly given, in Master Joshua Spindler's folio volume entitled "Rudimenta Piscatoria, or the Whole Art of Angling set forth in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son," London, 1751. No one who has yet seen him has seen a bigger, though most of them have heard of one.

I lit my candles, got my pipe going, and drew my chair near the fire to read and smoke. It was, however, early days yet for me to read for long. Moreover, by habit I had picked up my Virgil, and it was as yet impossible for me to feel the tips of my fingers in the teeth-marks without thinking of the poor wretch who had made them. I could see in exactest detail his dead body lying in the road and Swift Nicks beside it, pitching the bag of guineas up and down in the air, and smiling gleefully and yet wistfully at me. From that grim event, whether my mind travelled backwards or forwards, it traversed scenes such as few men are privileged, or fated, to pass through.

It was, again, too soon for me to realize the full effect of my experiences on myself. I was not moody, as in the days aforetime. I neither loathed my lot nor cursed my destiny. I had seen warfare and bloodshed, I had had my heart wrung and my nerves racked, and now the peaceful meadows winding along the river and stretching up to the purple hills were dear to eyes from which the scales had fallen. This was the life and labour on which the world was based, and it was worthy of any man. I had seen Death the Harvester at work, and he was a less alluring figure than Joe Braggs with a flashing sickle in his hand and a swathe of golden grain under his arm.

I should never be really alone again. I had company of which I should never tire as I sat here with my memories. Margaret was rarely absent from my mind, and every memory of her was a blessing and an inspiration. I did not regret my love, foolish and vain as it had been. The thing that really mattered was that Jack was alive. I could now look back on everything without bitterness. If Margaret came for me now, to call me forth to another hard round of struggle and adventure, I should be off with her like a shot. She had made a splendid companion. She would make a splendid marchioness. Some day, when the pain would not be unendurable, I would go to London and steal another peep at those matchless eyes and that tower of golden, gleaming hair.

I did not hear the door open, but I heard mother's calm voice, gently reproving Jane for an unseemly giggle. A pair of arms crept round my neck, and slim white fingers cupped my chin. Kate did not know that it was I who had so nearly sent her sweetheart to an untimely grave, for Jack had sternly forbidden me to mention the subject to anyone, and, as I have said, it might never have happened so far as he was concerned. Therefore Kate, always a loving and attentive sister, was now more loving and attentive than ever because she knew in her heart that, though I had gained much in my wanderings, I had lost the one thing she had found in the quiet sickroom where, during long weary months, she had lured Jack back to life. It was always her task to fetch me from my books and my thoughts to the beloved circle in the house-place, when, as now, she had prepared a dish of tea for us.

The soft resolute hands raised my chin, and I gasped as I looked into Margaret's eyes.

She lightly held me down, and, as if we had only parted five minutes before in the house-place, began to speak, quietly but rapidly.

"Oliver, do you remember waking me in the barn?"

I nodded. I was too amazed to speak, and there was that in her eyes which made me tremble.

"I was dreaming," she said, and I nodded again and remembered how she had flushed like the dawn.

"Because you are the greatest goose of a man that ever lived, I am going to tell you my dream. I dreamed that you were carrying me across the Pearl Brook, and as you carried me the brook got wider and wider—you had made it as wide as you could, you know—until it seemed as if we should never get across it. And you would not put me down, though I begged you to do so, but carried me on and on. You grew tired and weary, and your face went white and drawn, as I find it now, but you would not let me go. Was it not a curious dream, Oliver?"

Again I nodded.

"Why can't you speak, Oliver? Anything would make it less hard. Then, because you were so weary, and so good to me, and so faithful, and long-enduring, I did in my dream ... in my dream, you mark ... something very un-maidenly ... and immediately we were both on the other side; and I awoke as you put me down at last and found you by my side, having, in your knightly unselfishness, ruined your hat to give me a drink of milk. And because you are the best man on earth, and also a blind silly goose, Oliver, and I must take some risk or lose my all, I am going ... to do the unmaidenly thing I did in my dream ... and ... you ... must not misjudge me, Oliver."

She stopped, smiled as only Margaret can, and bent her head until a loose coil of amber hair fell on my face Then she brushed it aside and, after a little gasping cry, kissed me on the lips.



EPILOGUE

THE LITTLE JACK

AT THE HANYARDS STAFFORDSHIRE August 9th, 1757

Margaret and I had a hot dispute this morning. True she went away, singing happily, to rebuild the masses of yellow hair that had fallen all over her shoulders and mine, for the dreadful stuff seems to tumble down if I look at it, but still we had disputed, and vigorously, too. The plain fact is she had sniffed at Aristotle.

The trouble arose out of this story of mine which I have been busy writing for the last twenty months. It has been hard work, for I was new to the business, and had to learn how to do it, but it has been a pleasant task and a labour of love. Now we disputed about it. I said it was finished. She said it wasn't. I said I ought to know. She replied not necessarily, since I was such a great goose. Then I loaded my big gun and thought to blow her clean out of the water.

"My dear Margaret," said I, "Aristotle lays it down that every work of art has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning of our story was the catching of the great jack, the middle of it was the fight at the 'Red Bull,' and the end of it was the kiss you gave me. You see, dear, how exactly I have done what Aristotle says I ought to do."

"Bother Aristotle! What does he know about us?" It was here that she sniffed, not figuratively but actually. That is to say she held up her nose, on pretence of looking at me, and audibly ... well, sniffed. There's no other word for it. Then she cried triumphantly, "What is the use, Noll, of telling our story and not saying a single word about the most important people in it?"

To this question I made no reply. I was beaten. Aristotle, had he been in my place, would have been beaten too. If we had been in town I would have run round to Mr. Johnson's and asked him to assist me, but I feel sure he would have been as helpless as I was. There was no reply, so I contented myself with playing with her gorgeous hair till it was all a-tumble to the floor.

Bother Aristotle! I must do as Margaret bids.

* * * * *

The Colonel and Master Freake were in the house-place when, at last, that memorable Christmas Eve, I proudly took my Margaret there.

"Sir," said I to the former, before he had ceased his hearty handshake, "I love Margaret dearly and Margaret loves me. May we be married?"

"You young dog! What d'ye say to that, John?" he said.

"Nothing is nearer to my heart," said the great merchant of London, giving me his hand in turn.

"Nor to mine, so that settles it," cried the Colonel, fishing out his snuff-box, while I led Margaret up to mother.

We spent a happy Christmas as lovers, and were married on New Year's Day by the vicar.

Jack and Kate were married in the spring, by which time he was as well and strong as ever. For years I feared lest his severe wound should have left some permanent source of weakness, but happily my fears were ill-founded. Jack, having had enough of soldiering, took to business at Master Freake's suggestion. He has developed all his father's shrewdness while retaining all his own boyish charm. He is now Master Freake's right hand, in the great London house of Freake & Dobson. Kate is Kate still, ardent, busy, level-headed, and loving, and the happy mother of three girls and a boy. Jack and I are as twins to one another.

In the summer after our wedding, Margaret and I went our journey over again. We saw Cherry-Cheeks, and made sure that Sim should have not only a good wife but a good business of his own to keep her on. We found out sweet Nance Lousely, and filled her pinner full of guineas after all, and left her tearful and happy. We knelt together by a simple grave in the Catholic burial-ground at Leek, and on the top of Shap we stood, with tears in our eyes, beside the great stone that marked the resting-place of Donald and his chief.

I did become a Parliament man, as Master Faneuil had said I should, and am a strong supporter of Mr. Pitt. We spend part of each year in London, where the Marquess is our great friend. He married the nabobess after all, and she loved him well enough to make it her business to reform him. He vows she is the finest woman in England, with a head on her shoulders as good as Mr. Freake's. She makes a good marchioness, too, for she always had sense, and has developed dignity.

But most of our time we spend at the Hanyards, which I have made into a fine house by careful changes. Master Joe Braggs and Mistress Jane Braggs are our loyal, willing servants and our friends, and are as happy as sandboys together. They have now quite a large family.

To-day we are all together again for a long stay at the Hanyards. The Archdeacon of Lichfield, once our beloved vicar, is with us, simple, fatherly, and learned as of old. I can see his white head when I lift mine up from my writing. He is sunning himself in the garden and talking with mother, who turns her eyes now and again to look at the road, for Kate and Jack are coming in from Stafford with their children.

All these are familiar names, but it is fit that the record should be given before I go back to Margaret's sniff at Aristotle. For while I was busying myself with her hair, who should come in sight, walking through the orchard from the river, but the Colonel and Master Freake. They stopped to join mother and the Archdeacon in their talk, and we, looking at them, were proud and happy in the knowledge of their love for us.

Then there was a great clatter and chattering and excited shouting without. Margaret had left the door of my study open, and in raced the most important people in our story. They had a tale too big for coherent talk, and they gabbled away, one after the other or both together, to tell us all about it.

It was Oliver who had done it. He held up with a pride that made him splutter a little jack about fourteen inches long, which he had just caught. They say he is his father over again. At any rate, he will fish morning, noon, and night, if he can coax one of us elders to go with him to take care of him.

There he stood, the fish dangling at arm's length, telling his mother exactly how he had done it. I do not pretend to be impartial, but a finer boy than mine is not to be found. He drops the fish to the floor to rush into his mother's arms to be kissed and praised.

I am busy, too; busy as I love best of all to be. For on my knee, her arms round my neck and her great mane of glorious wheat-coloured hair tickling my face, is the dearest little creature on God's earth, my other Margaret. If you want to see me when I am intensely proud and happy, you must see me with her at my side walking in the Park or down the Green Gate at Stafford, with all eyes turning on her because of her surpassing childish beauty.

"I helped him catch it, daddy," she says, lifting up her face to be kissed.

So does history repeat itself, and it is settled at once that Noll's jack is to be put by Master Whatcot in the same case as dad's, for all the world to know that he is as good a fisherman as his father before him. Joe is to send it to Stafford at once, and the two rush off eagerly to give it to him, leaving us alone.

To the glowing beauty of her maidenhood Margaret has added the serene beauty of motherhood. That is all the change I can see in her, as I put my arms round her and draw her to me.

When she could speak she said happily, "Well done fisherman!"

THE END