The House of Egremont

BEING a changed man since last he was free, Roger Egremont had to learn himself all over, as it were. He had been stupidly surprised, at his first coming to St. Germains, that men had time for anything but preparing to return to England. He came, in time, to the melancholy belief, like the rest of his compatriots, that they would do no more fighting for James II. The next blow they struck would be for James III.; and he was a child not yet five years old! Nor did this sad conviction bring them to moroseness and despair, but rather to dancing, drinking, and fiddling. For men circumstanced as they were must seek forgetfulness, or else die of chagrin and weariness. So there was perpetual merry-making going on,—a masque, or a ball with a couple of fiddlers to make music, followed by a scant supper, or a holiday in the woods, and the ever gay inn of Michot. There was a general invitation to Versailles, and often special ones to Marly, given by the French King to the exiles of St. Germains; and as these people were full of gratitude towards him for his generosity to their master, King James, they sometimes went. But it was a costly business in carriages and fees and the like, and money was a scarce commodity, from the palace of St. Germains down to the humblest abode of exiles there. So the crowds of them stayed tolerably close to the village, which they had invaded in such numbers as to make a populous town. Roger Egremont was in the thick of all that was going on; and if sometimes, as he lingered under the quiet stars, returning from an evening of revelling, or walked in the dusky autumn twilight through the leafless alleys of the forest of St. Germains, he thought dismally of the future, and saw that no headway was being made toward a restoration, he presently shook off his uneasy feelings, whistled a lively air, and tried to be as unthinking as the rest. At all events, it was much better than Newgate; that was Roger’s everlasting consolation.

After the first dazzling delight of his freedom, he had returned to books. Once more they became the chief pleasure of his life. But he turned to them with altered feelings. Two years ago, they had been all in all. Now he had human companionships and friendships. Some of them, like that of the Duke of Berwick, Roger esteemed as a liberal education. He did not see Dicky very often, who had returned to studying, and his cousin Hilary was no more at St. Germains. His cousins of the Sandhills he did not desire to see, after a certain encounter with two of them in the courtyard of the palace one autumn evening. There they were, Giles and Edward Egremont, reeling about the courtyard, arm in arm, roaring drunk, and bawling and hiccuping for the King. The Queen came to the window, saw these two poor tipsy gentlemen, and turned away sorrowfully. Roger, who was leaning out of a window in the Hall of Guards, ran down and collaring the two of them, carried them off to the inn, where, both of them tumbling into Roger’s bed, they were soon snoring. By night they had sobered up enough to appear in the common room, where cards were produced, and as Dicky had said of the Sandhills Egremonts long ago, they gambled the shirts off their backs. They lost all their money, and actually wished to pledge their swords and coats, but could find no takers. Roger was no ascetic, and was not above cards and dice and a bowl of good liquor himself, as far as a gentleman might go in those days—which was considerably beyond what the present day allows. But he was no such man at cards and drink as his cousins, and was glad enough to pack them off to Paris, with all the money he could lay his hands on, as an inducement for them to go. There was another cousin of his, Anthony Egremont, who was a gloomy, fanatical man, not given to free living, but almost as offensive as his brothers, in his own morose, disagreeable way, to Roger. It was a misery to Roger that he could not pension these people off, and so get rid of the sight of their follies and improprieties. He was a man of a free and open hand, and one of his greatest pleasures, during the little while he had enjoyed his estate, was to give generously. He had done so, not only to Hugo and to little Dicky, but to scores of other persons. And how easy and pleasant it was, when money was plentiful, and his giving in no way stinted himself, to play the prince! He had given Dicky a fine bay filly, as good a horse as there was in England, but he had half a dozen equally as good standing in his stables. Roger could not get over a certain lordly habit of mind which accorded ill with the pittance from the King on which he had to live. The King’s manner of giving it was calculated to teach Roger the vanity of earthly wishes. He would be sent for to the royal closet privately, once a month, when the King would gently put a little packet in his hand, with some words of fatherly good-will; and this poor, unsuccessful King had so much of dignity in his sorrows, so much of gentleness toward his enemies, that Roger would be overwhelmed with the majestic picture of a good man bearing misfortune nobly. Had James Stuart been half the king in England he was in France, he might have kept his throne, and not a tithe of the people who followed him into poverty and exile, and remained with him, would have followed his successors under the same circumstances.

Whenever Roger Egremont went abroad, it was with the hope of meeting Mademoiselle d’Orantia. His eyes, as keen as they were bright, kept a continual lookout for her. Sometimes he met her at the château; occasionally he went to Madame de Beaumanoir’s rare routs, and each one of these meetings was a distinct epoch to Roger Egremont.

Oftenest they met walking upon the terrace in the afternoon, with great crowds of people sunning themselves in the mild autumn light, and looking down upon the meadows, green even at the fall of the leaf. Michelle would on those occasions, generally be walking with Madame de Beaumanoir, who never failed to snatch Roger, and who paid him the highest compliment she could command, by saying,—

“He’s the most delicious, impudent fellow I have seen since Charles the Second’s time. François, do you model yourself upon this young man, and you will be a man of spirit yet.”

Roger always fell an easy prey to the old lady at these times, for the sake of a word with Michelle. He would drop behind and say to her,—

“How sweet are the meadows to-day, mademoiselle. There is good grass there now, both for horses and cattle.”

At this, Michelle would smile,—a lovely smile that began in her eyes and ended on her lips, showing a faint, elusive dimple in her creamy cheek, not like the dimples in Bess Lukens’s rosy face. Roger’s conversation about grass for man and beast was certainly unlike that of most gentlemen who live at court. Yet was he so far from a rustic that he knew more of books than any man at St. Germains. Michelle was wise enough to see that nothing escaped Roger Egremont’s watchful eye,—neither the growth of the grass in the meadow nor the politics of Europe. Their conversation always drifted to books, and they had a standing quarrel as to the relative merits of Shakespeare and Molière.

“But your Molière was a thief; he stole from Terence, from Plautus, from almost every one of the Roman dramatists,” Roger would say, with a sarcastic smile, to Michelle.

“As for your mighty Shakespeare,” that young lady would cry scornfully, “he stole from the whole world. I myself have read stories writ long before he was born, out of which I am certain he made his plays!”

Once, in one of these pleasant wrangles, as they leaned over the parapet of the terrace, on a cold, bright December afternoon, Roger poured out to her the story of his life at Newgate, and how ignorant he was when he went into that gloomy place. They were as much alone as if they had been in the depths of the forest, although all about them were crowds of people. The King of France with his great suite was on the terrace that day, gravely promenading with the Queen of England, and a mob of well dressed persons followed them.

Madame de Beaumanoir, with her coach drawn up at the end of the terrace, sat within it muffled in furs. The coach-door was open, and ladies and gentlemen stopped and spoke to her, and lingered to hear François read aloud some very profane verses, which caused the poor young man to shudder visibly. But Madame de Beaumanoir would by no means let him off, and she cackled with delight at his sufferings. Michelle, who did not care for the class of literature which Madame de Beaumanoir affected, spying Roger strolling along alone, shot him a glance that brought him instantly to her side. She would walk about a little, she said, if Mr. Egremont would escort her. Mr. Egremont, coloring very deeply with pleasure, handed her out of the coach. Presently they were leaning together over the iron railings, and looking down upon the river, that glittered like steel in the bright December afternoon.

As usual, they fell upon books, not the wild romances upon which the court ladies fed, but something quite different. And then, won by the sympathy in her dark eyes, Roger poured out his tale, how he could scarcely read and write when he went to Newgate.

“And,” he said, looking down like a school-boy under her clear gaze, “at first, for a time, I made a beast of myself with drink and gambling and low company,—far worse than my cousins, the Egremonts of the Sandhills have done here. You know, mademoiselle, they are reprobates.”

“I thought, Mr. Egremont, you would let none abuse your relations,” said Michelle, smiling.

“None but myself, mademoiselle, at all events. I will say this for myself—that as long as I was free and could live like a gentleman, I behaved myself as such. ’Twas nothing but the agony of my untrained mind—the fears and miseries of an ignorant, unlettered man—which drove me to evil ways in Newgate prison. From them, books, under God’s grace, rescued me. Why should I not love books and be forever grateful to them?”

When next they met, it was at an evening levee in the grand saloon at the château at Christmas time. The poor exiles tried to make an English Christmas, as far as they could. Not even evergreens were cheap in France,—where all growing wood is dear,—but they managed to have some holly and cedar to trim the saloon with, and a great Yule log in the fireplace, and a bowl of good liquor flowing. There were healths proposed by the King and Queen, and Berwick gave the health of the Prince of Wales, the little lad standing upon the table and clapping his tiny hands with pleasure; and afterwards there was dancing to a couple of fiddles, and Roger had the heavenly bliss of leading Michelle out and dancing with her. Then, after the dance was over, and Roger had paid her the compliment always observed at St. Germains,—“I hope, madam, I shall have the pleasure of dancing with you one day before his Majesty at the palace of Whitehall,”—they stood together in one of the deep windows, and looked out upon the gardens and terrace and meadows bathed in the white radiance of the December moon. And Michelle, who seemed determined to know all about Roger’s past, said,—

“Is this anything like your English home?”

That was enough; Roger poured out his story of Egremont, the place he loved so well, and then inevitably, he told of Hugo. Roger Egremont, although gifted with that natural eloquence which made men and women listen to him closely when he talked, was yet not one of those talkers whose tongue is tied to no ear but his own. He was keen enough to see that the Princess was deeply interested in what he had to say. In truth, she was more; she observed that he had a good and graceful air in speaking, that he used gestures sparingly, but at the right time, that his voice, although soft, as became a gentleman, was rich and had a ring in it, and that his eyes were full of fire,—in short, all those little points which a woman notes in a man who pleases her; and then, when Roger stopped, with a delicious feeling of having made headway in her regard, she suddenly asked him the most disconcerting, appalling, uncomfortable, awkward, and embarrassing question of his whole life. Also, it was a question upon which Michelle had very accurate, although not very complete knowledge, and her question was directly inspired by the devil.

“And when and where, Mr. Egremont, did you make the acquaintance of that beautiful young woman, Miss Lukens, whom, I understand, you have befriended, and who is studying to sing in the King’s Opera?”

No dog marked for hanging ever had a more shame-faced look than Roger Egremont at these words. Had he been the damnablest of villains, he could not have appeared more of a poltroon. In truth had he been a villain, he would have shown a brazen assurance. Instead of which, he turned very red, shuffled his feet on the floor, looked wildly and foolishly about him, and in short, made the poorest possible figure that a man of sense could. Only one thing was clear to him—that Michelle must be well assured that his relations with Bess Lukens were altogether innocent, else she would never have mentioned her name to him; but that only opened the way to the dreadful thought that Michelle might think him capable of marrying Bess. And he could by no means reveal poor Bess’s secret, that she was the gaoler’s girl—and in short, was ever a gentleman more miserably placed by a single indiscreet question of the lady of his heart? He could only manage to stammer, “I—I—knew Miss Lukens first in Newgate prison;” and then, seeing a look of astonishment in Michelle’s black eyes, a lie which was half a truth, and served the purpose of a truth came to him, like an inspiration from heaven.

“Her uncle was in the prison,” he said boldly. “’Twas through him I first met her. She is the honestest girl alive, and the least likely to grow above her station.” At which the Princess very calmly, and with intent to torture him, told the story of Bess and the coach and Madame de Beaumanoir,—told it so archly that the wretched Roger was forced to laugh.

“And I think,” added the Princess, with sudden haughtiness, “she showed a very great disposition to forget her station on that occasion—not but that she had much provocation,” she added, remembering the Duchess’s behavior on that day.

When Roger laid himself down at cockcrow on his bed in the garret at Madame Michot’s, he could not but admit that the evening had not been on the whole bad for him; and then the thought came to him, as it often did, that were he again master of Egremont, with King James come back to his own, the family of this young lady—this penniless, landless Princess—would not reckon him a match for her; and turning and swearing in his bed, and biting the bedclothes in his helpless rage, he at last fell into sleep, to dream of Michelle.

The next time they spoke together was near a month afterward. Roger had ridden forth on Merrylegs, of a chill and misty January afternoon. He did not take the road to Paris, nor yet those beautifully paved highways between St. Germains and Versailles and Marly, where the equipages of the King of France were continually rolling, and royal messengers booted and spurred were riding hot upon some important errand, concerning a siege or a ballet, and ladies in their coaches lumbered along, and beggars swarmed. Rather took he the road toward Verneuil, which led through a wooded country, and was quiet and little frequented.

He felt downcast on that afternoon. Berwick had given him a hint that it might be necessary to disband the corps of gentlemen-at-arms. The French people were not over pleased at the spectacle of a body of troops in France, organized under the flag of England—and besides, the poor King had no money to pay them. But they would be permitted to keep their organization as a company of private soldiers, and fight for King Louis, if so it pleased them. The thought of fighting was by no means displeasing to Roger Egremont, even should he fight with a pike or a halberd in his hand instead of a sword; but it showed to him what he earnestly tried to shut his eyes to,—how far, far off was that return to England, and how long must Hugo Stein, the bastard, keep warm the place of a better man.

Turning these sad thoughts over in his mind, Roger trotted along on Merrylegs,—a good horse, but one which Roger would have mounted his groom upon at Egremont, he thought, no horse being ever so good as those he bred himself upon his own land. The highroad was deserted, except for a solitary cart once in a while, and a jolly beggar or two, making haste toward that beggar’s paradise—Paris. But Roger wished to be more solitary yet, and when some miles from St. Germains turned into a by-road that led through deserted fields and melancholy woods. It was growing toward dusk, and a warm mist was rising and making the cloudy afternoon yet darker. Presently, Merrylegs, having his own sweet will, the reins lying idly on his neck while his master mused, turned into a road little used, and bordered by sombre poplars, gaunt and bare. The way led up to rising ground, with a little hill at the top, where the poplars ended and scattered pines and cedars grew dismally. Roger raised his eyes and surveyed the dull and misty landscape before him,—so lonely, so deserted, a few peasants’ huts in the distance being the only thing that indicated human habitation,—and silhouetted against the dun sky on the hill-top was a figure on horseback; he recognized instantly that graceful head, with a hat and feathers, the slight figure sitting erect, yet easily. It was Michelle—but what was she doing so far away from home and alone? Roger rode rapidly forward, and as the hoofs of Merrylegs were heard nearing her, the Princess turned her head and recognized the new-comer.

Something in her face ever told Roger, on their meeting, that the sight of him was not displeasing to her. To-day, she smiled and opened her eyes wider, like a person roused from sleep, when Roger spoke.

“May I ask, mademoiselle,” he said, “why you are in this desert place, so far from home?”

“By rare good fortune,” she said pleasantly, “I rode afar with my cousin François. His horse cast a shoe about a mile away, and he stopped at a peasant’s cottage, where he found a man able to do some rude smith’s-work, and I came on here, promising to rejoin him. It is good to be away from the crowds of people one encounters in every by-path between Versailles, Marly, and St. Germains.”

“If I am in your way—” began Roger, haughtily.

“Not in the least. You, of all the men at St. Germains, can best understand me. I sat here looking at those poor huts in the distance. I suppose that is where the people dwell who hoot the King’s coach in the darkness, when it passes along the highway at night. Those people have injuries; yet, what are they, and who can mend them?”

“I can tell you their injuries very quickly, mademoiselle, but I cannot tell you how to mend them. They must be mended though some time. Think you those men, with stout legs and strong arms, will continue to labor forever, and to see the fruit of their toil go in great wildernesses of marble and bronze, like Versailles, with heaps of jewels, and thousands of pictures and statues and coaches and horses,—and all for a few? No; let these rustics but once find out how strong they are, and you will see great changes.”

“Do you mean to say our King, the great Louis—” Michelle stopped, offended, but not knowing how to go on.

“I say nothing, mademoiselle, of your King, the great Louis, except that he is not only the most generous king, but the most generous man who ever lived, to those in misfortune; and every man of us at St. Germains—English, Scotch, and Irish—would shed the last drop of our blood for him, for his kindness to our master. But I see that kings and people know little of each other. Our English people knew little of King James, or they would not have turned him out, and less of King William, or they would not have put him in. If I were a king, I should be like your great Henry,—I should wish that every peasant had a fowl in his pot on Sunday. There spoke a great king, nay more, a great man, for he saw the peasant’s rude power, and would stop his mouth with a delicate fowl.”

Michelle sat musing, her chin in her hands. The two horses rubbed noses, and stamped lightly on the soft, damp earth. The mist was rising and enveloping the lonely landscape.

“Yet, after all, the peasant’s lot is not different from that of all humanity.”

“I remember, mademoiselle, the very first time I spoke to you. You told me there were only three great true things,—work, pain, and death. We cannot help death, but we can help work and pain.”

“I do not think so,” she said, gently; “but that by no means releases us from doing our duty. Nay, it only compels us the more. And when we have found what is our duty,—which is not always easy,—we should go to meet it cheerfully, as if it were a friend. I think I have found mine. Yesterday the King sent for me to Marly. He told me something I might do for my country, for him. It involved great pain and loss and disappointment to me; but why should we not go half-way to meet pain, since it searches us out and finds us no matter where we hide,—whether it be in solitude, or in the midst of the greatest court of the greatest king in the world? So I accepted my portion, and will live with it cheerfully, as if it were pleasure.”

What did she mean? Roger’s natural curiosity made him long to know, but natural courtesy restrained him. One thing he had noticed ever since he had been in France, and had seen French people at close quarters: they had different ideas of patriotism, chivalry, and duty from those he had been bred upon. Where he loved his home and his country, they loved their king; where he revered the laws, they revered their sovereign. He was always coming upon some strange anomaly—for so it seemed to this untravelled gentleman—in them. Yet Michelle was only half French, and the lesser half, it seemed to him. She had not the vanity of a Frenchwoman, who is coquettish even as a wit; she was freer than any woman he knew of a desire to shine; she was quite satisfied to be, instead of to do.

“I hope,” he said, diffidently, “that this duty of yours will not take you away from us? Not that our sojourn here is fixed,—we all yearn unspeakably for the day when we shall once more venture our carcasses against the Prince of Orange,—but while we stay—”

“Yes,” answered Michelle; “it will take me away, a long journey, and I know not what I shall find at the end. But I am master of my soul, and nothing shall daunt me.”

The moon, a slender silver bow, suddenly appeared in the eastern sky, the clouds melting away on the horizon, and the mist stealing off magically. There were lights in the peasants’ huts. All at once the scene grew less melancholy.

“Ah!” cried Michelle, with a sudden change in her air, a quick gleam of daring in her eyes, which Roger saw by the faint moonlight, a laugh upon her lips, as she struck her horse smartly with the spur she wore, “we are talking like a couple of death’s heads. After all, one must take chances in life. Anything is better than the dull stagnation of mere fine ladies and gentlemen. We may learn a lesson from the poor players in Monsieur Molière’s play-house at Paris. Think you any one of them would refuse a great part, a chance to be the chief figure in the events passing around them, from a paltry fear of what might befall in the acting? Certainly they would not. Ambition must be a noble quality, especially when it is not for one’s self so much as for one’s country. It makes me thrill from head to foot, Mr. Egremont, to think that I, a mere woman, can serve my King and France.”

She had gathered up the reins as she gave her horse the spur, and she was now going down the hill at a breakneck speed. Something in the recklessness of her manner of speaking, and the way she urged her horse on gave Roger a strange and poignant feeling that she was not so happy in the prospect of that long journey and absence from France at the King’s desire. But all he said was, as they sped onward through the mysterious twilight,—

“Wherever you go, mademoiselle, be it near or far, be it for long or for little, you take with you the everlasting regard of Roger Egremont.”

She turned her face away from him as he spoke, and had he not at that very moment caught her horse by the bit, and almost thrown him upon his haunches, Michelle would have been in a ditch which yawned before them, and of which the bridge was gone. She was an accomplished horsewoman, and quickly recovered herself; but her narrow escape from accident did not make her prudent. Rather did she ride faster and more recklessly. Roger determined that Merrylegs should keep up with her, if he had to buy another horse the next day. They passed, at a sweeping gallop, the cottage where François’s horse was standing. The poor youth was just putting his foot into the stirrup, and he had hard work to catch up with them, so hard were they riding.

“We shall find Madame de Beaumanoir much displeased with us,” he cried, panting, as he followed after them, belaboring his poor beast.

“No, no,” cried Michelle, turning her head, and letting her horse follow his own lead, except for a restraining hand laid upon her bridle by Roger. “Tell her that you were drinking at a wayside tavern, or studying some ribald verses of Villon, or any other form of—of—gayety, and she will forgive you.”

It seemed as if the recklessness in Roger’s blood had communicated itself to Michelle. Never before had Roger seen her so full of wild spirits. Their horses kept up a rattling pace, and, good rider though she was, she would have come to grief more than once, but for Roger’s watchful eyes and ever-ready hand. When they slackened their pace a little, to blow their horses, she laughed and talked with a heedless gayety quite new in her, and even sang the song that Dicky Egremont liked so much, about

“Amis, passons-le gaîment!”

“Poor François,” she said, laughing, “he and I should exchange identities. I should be the man. I love to ride thus, far and fast by night; I fear nothing.”

“Because nothing has ever befallen you, mademoiselle,” answered Roger. “’Twould make me very unhappy to know that you rode thus alone by night. No road is safe after dark. The beggars by day are foot-pads by night.”

“Well, then, if they stopped me, I should tell them plainly that I carried neither money nor valuables with me when I rode.”

“But they might take your horse—”

“Let them try.”

“And insult you—”

“I should talk to them so that they would be enchanted. For, look you, like yourself, I believe the vulgar have souls.”

It was eight o’clock at night before they parted at a turning in the forest, Michelle going with François to the château, and Roger to the castle.

“Good-bye, Mr. Egremont,” she said, catching his hand in her little one, and holding it fast, “I shall not forget this ride.”

“Nor shall I, as long as I live,” replied Roger, in a tone that spoke all he felt, and François coming up then, they cried out, “Adieu,” gayly, and Merrylegs’s hoofs were soon clattering over the stony streets of St. Germains.

Roger threw his bridle to the groom waiting at the entrance to the castle, and swaggered into the guard-room. He felt exhilarated, excited. Three hours of the company of Mademoiselle d’Orantia had acted upon him like wine. Berwick was standing by the fireplace, in which the oak logs blazed redly,—the gentlemen pensioners of King James would do much for him, but they would not economize in fuel.

“What good thing has befallen you, Mr. Roger Egremont?” called out Berwick, as Roger advanced to the fireplace, holding the bare blade of his sword in his hand, and nervously bending it until the point and hilt were close together.

“The greatest good in the world,—the free, unrestrained company of the charmingest woman on earth for three whole hours;” and then, seeing laughter and misunderstanding in the faces of those about him, he turned a scowling front toward them, and said in a loud voice,—

“I met Mademoiselle d’Orantia out riding, and came home in her company.”

At which there was an instant change. No one spoke or thought lightly of the Princess Michelle.

It was supper time, and the gentlemen of the King’s guard had a very jolly mess-room adjoining the Hall of Guards. But Roger was in no mood for the company of the gentlemen who had just laughed at him, and was pleased when Berwick said to him,—

“Come, go with me to the inn, where we can have supper. I have something to tell you.”

Roger, again putting on his cloak and hat, went forth into the night. When they had traversed the terrace, and were going down the hillside toward Madame Michot’s, Berwick spoke.

“You have a fine taste for adventure, my game-chick; so let me tell you where I have spoken a good word for you. To-day the King sent for me, and told me that the King of France wanted my services upon a journey; and the King wished me to oblige his French Majesty. I went at once to Marly, where I was introduced into the King’s cabinet, or, rather, into Madame de Maintenon’s cabinet—devil take the old woman. There she sat, with her everlasting embroidery, listening, listening, listening,—that woman has made her fortune by listening. And the journey is this,—to accompany Madame de Beaumanoir and Mademoiselle the Princess d’Orantia, to the principality of Orlamunde on the Rhine. They go there for a purpose connected with the alliance between France and Bavaria. I am unable to tell you more at present.”

“Mademoiselle is the King’s ambassador,” cried Roger. “I know he thinks highly of her abilities.”

“You have it,” dryly answered Berwick. “But it would never do to have it known how or why she goes until she is there. Instantly our friend the Prince of Orange, and all the Dutchmen in Holland would be on the alert to circumvent her. Now, you must know, although Orlamunde is but a little principality, yet there are to be found two admirable and easily defended places on its territory for crossing the Rhine. What the King wishes, and what the Elector Palatine wants, is to have those places secretly fortified; and this we cannot do without the consent of the Prince. Now, this is worth a journey there, and by two ladies, escorted by their own servants, and with their kinsman, François Delaunay, would occasion no remark, especially as there is some sort of relationship between Madame de Beaumanoir and the princes of Orlamunde. I am not supposed to be going with them. Oh, no! I go only to the frontier upon military business; once there, I go where I like. The King wants a soldier to explain to the Prince what must be done at those places on the Rhine. I told his Majesty I would go, and on his asking me what company I would take, I asked for you.”

Roger remained silent, too dazed, too enraptured to speak. To make a long journey in company with Michelle—that was all his charmed fancy could understand. He was roused from his dream in Paradise by Berwick continuing,—

“I had another reason for this. The gentlemen-at-arms must be dismissed; so our King told me this day, with tears in his eyes. They will keep their organization, and fight in the next campaign as private soldiers, so that you will have a chance to see fighting. But, my poor Roger, I know that your purse is ill lined; and this journey into Orlamunde will give you something wherewith to keep out the cold until you come into your own again.”

“My Lord Duke,” said Roger, grasping his friend’s hand in the darkness, “I think you the truest, most generous friend that ever lived. I will go with you to Orlamunde; and, after that, I will face the devil himself, if only in your company, for I am assured you fear him not!”

At the inn of Michot, the news had got abroad of the disbandment of the gentlemen-at-arms. It meant beggary to most of them; yet they met it as men of courage and adventure meet misfortune, boldly grasping it by the hand, as if it were an old acquaintance, and toasting it with drink and song. Afar off, as Berwick and Roger traversed the way down to the valley, they could hear a roaring chorus, and the thumping of tankards upon the table in the common room, from whose windows the red light gleamed. Since they could not fight the Whigs, they could at least abuse them, and shout in chorus their favorite song,—

By the time Roger and Berwick had reached the doorway, the tune had changed. This time it was in honor of the poor King who could no longer give them their meagre pay.

Several Scotch gentlemen among the brave boys were very drunk, and an Irishman and a Yorkshireman were rapidly coming to fisticuffs when Berwick appeared. Respect ever followed his entrance; the acknowledged son of their King, although a bastard, was so worthy in himself that none failed to do him honor. The two gentlemen who were disputing shook hands, wept maudlin tears, and each called himself a villain for quarrelling with the other. The Scotch gentlemen quieted down. The company became not less merry, but more orderly; Berwick was no killjoy. They made a night of it; poor human nature requires some solace, and these unfortunate gentlemen had but little. Roger Egremont did not reach his garret until two o’clock. He stood looking out upon the quiet stars before he threw himself into his bed. He began to think he should never see Egremont again, and it tortured him; and then he thought of the journey with Michelle, and his pain was turned to a joy so keen, so penetrating, so agitating, that it was more painful than pain itself.