The House of Egremont

A WARM July night in 1693—a full moon illuminating a flat, wooded country, with cottages and hamlets flecking the meadows, and villages nestling upon the slight ascents. It is a prosperous-seeming country and well peopled at all times. Now it is like a beehive, with something like eighty thousand men moving over it, and sixty thousand are preparing to contest their way, when they shall have reached a pretty spot, on the prettiest little river in the Low Countries—Landen. It will run with blood to-morrow.

It is almost midnight, the hour when the peasants usually are snoring hard after their day’s work. But on this hot July night no one sleeps, although the windows of the houses are kept dark; the people do not care to reveal to the soldiers the nearness of a house.

The movement is remarkably quiet for such vast numbers of men. The cavalry have clanked and thundered on ahead; the artillery can still be heard lumbering heavily in the advance, but the roads are good, and the flat country makes few echoes. Along the highroad, march steadily many regiments of infantry. It is easy marching, but they have been at it for long hours. The soldiers of the French army were allowed to sing and joke—nay, even to dance—on the march, when there was likely to be fighting at the end of it. But the time for this was past. They could not reach their bivouac before one in the morning, at least, and their minds were on—what think you? Whether they would know the secrets of the other world before another moon should rise? Not at all. It was how much time would they be allowed to sleep before the beat of the drum next morning, and whether their share of those vast quantities of bread which had been baked that week would come up in time.

Lieutenant-General the Duke of Berwick, tired of riding, had dismounted for a few minutes, and leading his horse, walked by the side of an officer, also dismounted and leading his horse. They were among friends and comrades; the marching troops were that celebrated Irish Brigade, which held Irish, English, and Scotch in its ranks, and always gave its enemies trouble when encountered.

Captain Roger Egremont was the other dismounted officer, and he was saying,—

“It wrings my heart to think that to-morrow we shall give many of our own countrymen a mortal breakfast.”

“True enough, and I feel for the humble soldiers, misguided by those who should show them the right. For the officers, men who fight for a usurper, death should be their portion,” replied Berwick. “I hope we shall not be caught napping, as we were at Steinkerque. Do you know, it is the fashion at Paris now, to dress à la Steinkerque—cravats hanging loose, coats half-buttoned, perukes awry.”

“I went into that fight with nothing on but my breeches and shirt. I had a hat, but I lost it in the mêlée, and my shirt was torn straight across the back, and a private soldier stripped a dead man of a coat to cover my nakedness,” said Roger Egremont; on the day of Steinkerque he had won his captaincy.

Berwick, who had a voice in singing like the croak of a frog with the quinsy, began to hum below his breath Captain Ogilvie’s song,—

“I don’t know what brought that song to mind—I have not thought of it since we made that famous journey to Orlamunde, when you sang it to us sometimes—always prefacing, ‘You should have heard my cousin Richard sing.’ I would like to hear something from that unfortunate Princess.”

“I should like to hear that her villain of a husband was dead—or that she was.”

It was the first time Berwick had heard Roger Egremont mention Michelle since the April morning that they had left Monplaisir behind them. Neither said anything more; and presently Berwick, remounting, rode off. Roger continued to trudge by the side of his men.

It was for him as if no more women existed in the world. He made a firm resolve, and held to it surprisingly well, to think as little on Michelle as possible. Any other way, madness lay. It was as if all his illusions had been shattered at once. He saw himself as he truly was,—not a gentleman of fortune, temporarily out of his estate, but as a gentleman adventurer, most unlikely ever to have an estate. He secretly despaired of the restoration of the King, although keeping a bold front. He went his way, calm, not very smiling, but quite unruffled; did his duty as a soldier, and wondered why God should treat him so ill. For you will have known by this time that Roger Egremont was a very human man, and had all the common faults of humanity. One thing he noted with sorrow; he had grown indifferent to life. What mattered it, a few years more or less? He was reckoned extraordinarily brave, and his coolness in danger was remarkable where all men were cool in danger. But, in truth, Roger Egremont had no special objection to quitting a world where he had got more kicks than ha’pence, so far.

He had written several times to Bess Lukens, and had got two laboriously written letters from her. They were fairly well spelled,—as well as those written by some of the ladies of the court, both at St. Germains and Versailles, and had evidently been copied from a rough draft. Bess was well and happy.

Roger had letters from Dicky as often as there was a good opportunity from Paris. Dicky told him the news from England and from St. Germains:—

And then Dicky told him the same story about Madame de Beaumanoir’s return.

Roger Egremont was indulging himself in thinking of these things as he tramped along, still leading his tired horse. Mile after mile was passed; before him an endless black line of marching men, an endless black line behind him. As the clock tolled one in a village steeple the order to halt came. The bivouac was in open field, and in half an hour the men had eaten such provision as was made for them, and rolled in their blankets were sleeping soundly. So slept Roger Egremont. One of the compensations of the soldier’s life was that he could always eat soldier’s fare with a relish, and slept like an infant. He remembered those sleepless nights in Newgate, and was thankful he was spared that horror.

At four o’clock in the morning he was up and shaving—for he had privately promised himself never to be caught again as at Steinkerque—and he put a fresh white cockade in his hat. At half-past four, when the men were munching their breakfasts, and the soft, sweet dawn of a July morning overspread the land, Roger caught sight of a brilliant group of general officers riding along that silvery brook of Landen, which was to be of a dreadful color before night. He recognized the commanding-general,—that gay, ugly, dissolute, brave old Maréchal de Luxembourg,—who sent so many standards to Paris that he was called “le tapissier de Notre Dame;” who, when he heard that William of Orange had spoken of him coarsely, as “that old hunchback,” retorted by saying, “What does he know about it? he never saw my back;” and who ended his merry old life so piously and composedly that the stern and scrupulous Père Bourdaloue said: “I should not wish to live like the Maréchal de Luxembourg, but I should wish to die like him.”

And then the sound of fife and drum and bugle rent the blue air; great bodies of men assumed form and shape and motion, and the Irish brigade, led by Lieutenant-General the Duke of Berwick, plunged into the crystal stream, and rushed over woods and fields and briery thickets, toward the village of Neerwinden,—rushed, as they ever did, to glory or the grave.

The Irish brigade wore red coats, by order of their King, James Stuart, and they longed to be at arm’s-length with other grim red-coats, who filled the trenches that encompassed the village, swarmed in the houses and gardens, and whose cannon bristled on every coign of vantage. These red-coats owned William of Orange for their King. They had Germans, many thousands of them, on their side; but the men of the Irish brigade counted themselves cheated and swindled and chicaned when they had only to fight the Germans and the Dutch. And there were Frenchmen fighting in line with the Irish brigade. But those Whig red-coats reckoned not with them; they were not the Irish brigade. So those fellow-countrymen rushed together with the greatest longing, saying in their hearts, “My brother, how art thou?” and then stabbing that brother if the brother did not succeed in stabbing first.

On one side of these eager men who followed Berwick as he showed them the way toward their enemies, was the brigade of Rubantel, on the other that of Montchevreuil,—French, both,—but the centre brigade never saw them after the brook was crossed. Up the wooded incline rushed the Irish brigade and the foot-guards; through brake and thicket they dashed, the tall figure of the Duke of Berwick on his powerful bay charger ever in the van. On they plunge to Neerwinden, but in their impetuous charge they have far outstripped their supports on the right and the left. Roger Egremont, on foot, at the head of his company, tumbling out a squad of gunners from a trench, turned to see a blazing line of red-coats falling upon the Irish brigade on all sides. Rubantel and Montchevreuil are not in sight, but a thunder of guns, and a ceaseless rattle and crash of musketry, off amid the woods and ravines that lie between the river and the village, show where they are. They have been stopped for a time by great masses of English, Dutch, and Germans,—horse, foot, and artillery,—but are holding their own so stubbornly that Dutch William says, between his clenched teeth,—

“This insolent nation!”

And that merry old hunchbacked warrior, the Maréchal de Luxembourg, who has always beaten William of Orange whenever they have been matched, sits perched on his horse, watching the struggle from a hill, and holding in his hand ten regiments of horse ready to support “the insolent nation” when they really want it.

But meanwhile the English are closing in upon Berwick’s incomparable brigade. Roger sees, just before him, a little walled-in garden on the outskirts of the village, with a stout oaken door at the back. He re-forms his men, and making a rush for the garden, a soldier climbs nimbly over the wall, unbars the gate, and Roger and his men scamper in, just in time to lock and bar the gate behind them. The wall is high and spiked, and opposite the oaken door is an open iron-work gate looking on to the street, where can be seen men fighting furiously, English and French in confusion, riderless horses plunging, and no one clearly understanding what has happened, or what he has to do, only to fight, to fight, to fight.

Roger Egremont, wiping the blood from his sword, glances about him, prepared to defend himself at the first assault made upon him, which will be in half a minute. The iron gate is secured like the oaken door, and sharpshooters are posted there, with their muskets carefully adjusted at the openings in the grille. But every man in the company of Egremont is a sharpshooter for that time. And in the middle of the mossy garden is a charming little summer-house, covered with rich red roses in full bloom. They will be redder next year, for they will be watered with blood.

“My lads,” cries Roger, “we are safe as in a fortress here; we may sit down and laugh, for all the harm those rascal Whigs can do us. See, we have a summer-house to lie down and rest ourselves in when we get tired of picking ’em off through the gate and over the top of the wall. See, yonder high house, without a loophole in the wall, protects us on that side. We sha’n’t see any more fun to-day, I am fearing;” of which speech part was true and part was a lie,—they being in very imminent danger every moment. Nevertheless, the men, some of whom were from Devonshire, huzzaed loudly.

The huzza was interrupted by a yell from the outside, and the long rolling of the English drums. A torrent of red-coats poured into the narrow street, moving steadily forward like fate. Roger at the same moment saw Berwick, on his great bay horse, appear as if out of the ground, and at the same moment with a shout the English soldiers recognized him. Roger saw him tear the white cockade from his hat, dig the spurs into his horse, and leaping a low wall in his path, make off at full speed.

“He is safe, at all events,” cried Roger. This, too, was a lie, for he caught a perfect view of Berwick, as dashing on, he rode straight into the arms of his uncle, Brigadier Churchill, was unhorsed, tall man and tall horse going down together, and when they rose, Berwick was winded and staggering, and the uncle held the nephew by the collar—all of which Roger saw.

Meanwhile, the red-coats in the garden have their hands full. They are plainly seen through the grille, and the English foot-soldiers try every means to dislodge them. The Whigs try climbing the wall—their opponents within the garden shouting to them menacingly,—

“Come on, ye toads, and have at ye!”

And then pitching the wounded back to be trampled upon by others, the red-coats rush at the iron gate and try to tear it down; but they only leave a rampart of their bodies still further to protect those inside. The battle rages all around them,—in the village, in the fields behind, in the plain beyond,—but the company of Egremont is besieged in the walled garden. There is no artillery at hand to dislodge them; it is man to man, fusil to fusil, countryman to countryman, the scarlet coat to the scarlet coat. It is hard work, but the men complain of nothing but want of drink.

“Never mind, my lads,” says Roger, smiling, “the other fellows are as thirsty as we, and they are not so comfortable as we, safe in a pleasant garden on this broiling day, with a cool summer-house to rest in when we are tired; nor as easy in their minds, for we live or die as becomes honest men.”

Hours pass, the roar of battle never ceasing, and the steady thunder of eighty great guns concentrated upon the French centre knowing no pause or rest. The company of Egremont had been holding its own since eight o’clock in the morning. The tide has surged back and forth, but never has it receded far enough to let them escape, or advanced near enough to overwhelm them. Some poor fellows lie stark on the mossy ground; a dozen wounded men are stretched in the little summer-house,—they want nothing but victory and water.

Roger Egremont, with a great gash over his forehead, his head tied up in a handkerchief, with his white cockade pinned to it, has borrowed a fusil from a soldier and is taking a shot through the iron gate at the men struggling in the village street. His red coat is torn open,—it is cruelly hot, and he has worked hard since daylight,—and his white shirt has some bloodstains on it. Opposite is a tall stone house for which both sides have fought desperately, the French being in possession. Suddenly, through the uproar comes the sharp blare of a fife playing “Les Folies en Espagne.”

“That’s a French tune, my lads,” shouts Roger; and then comes a rush of white cockades and the splendid uniforms, now bedraggled, of the household troops of Louis le Grand; and presently that frightful thunder of the English, Dutch, and German batteries which had never ceased its dreadful clangor since noon, began to falter, and when at last the iron gate was opened and the company of Egremont marched out in good order with their bayonets screwed into their muskets, and found the other scarlet coats retreating grimly, and in a manner not to be hurried, the field of Neerwinden was won. The Maréchal de Luxembourg had seen the back of William of Orange that day, but had not shown his own.

Terrible were the losses of the Irish brigade, and Berwick was a prisoner. It was known that after the battle he had marched with the English foot as far as Sichen, being treated with great affection by his uncle, the Brigadier Churchill, who declared to him that his other uncle, the Duke of Marlborough, took much pride in so promising a nephew. Nor were the Whig red-coats a whit behind in respect for so gallant an enemy. Nevertheless, as soon as he fell into the hands of his half-sister’s husband, William of Orange, it was given out that he was to be shut up in the Tower of London, and tried as a prisoner of state, instead of being paroled as a prisoner of war—and that meant a trip to Tyburn, with the block and the headsman awaiting him. The news was very disquieting to the whole French nation, and infuriating to the great brigade which felt itself honored in having had him for a commander. The Maréchal de Luxembourg, however, bade everybody to be easy about Lieutenant-General the Duke of Berwick. The Maréchal held the winning card. Among the prisoners taken by him was the Duke of Ormond. Whatever befell one Duke should befall the other. This intimation, when conveyed in due time to William of Orange, acted like a charm. Berwick was paroled within a week.

It was now August. The Maréchal de Luxembourg had fixed his headquarters at the gay little town of Nivelle, which was the gayer for that reason, and at Nivelle Berwick reported himself.

On the evening of his arrival he sought out Roger Egremont. Roger was found, sitting in his tent, studying maps by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle. He was delighted to see Berwick again.

“I had meant to go to see you as soon as the high mightinesses were disposed of,” cried Roger, as they gripped each other’s hands.

“I have seen other high mightinesses,” said Berwick. “I have seen my half-sister’s husband, the Prince of Orange. I will say of him that although I shall have no cause to bless his memory, I cannot deny him the faculties of a great man, nor, if he were not a usurper, of a great king. Our encounter after Neerwinden was not unlike the one you had at Egremont. The Prince, when I was presented to him, paid me a long compliment. This I returned by a low bow. He then regarded me steadfastly for a space. I looked him in the eye. He put on his hat. I put on mine. The interview ended.”

Roger laughed very heartily at this—he still had some laughter left in him. It is only your mean-spirited rascal who cannot laugh. God leaves laughter and tears as a solace to the honest people.

War, in those days, was full of gallantry, and the gay old Maréchal de Luxembourg was never without the presence of ladies at his headquarters, except when he was actually burning powder; and the ladies of the neighboring towns and châteaux had reason to remember the merry old gentleman gratefully. While he was doing all he could to send their husbands, fathers, and brothers into another world, he was eager to make this one pleasant to these fair ones. Some stern moralists, Berwick among them, rather complained of the Maréchal’s habit of turning his camp into a resort for the ladies.

Nivelle, during those August days, was certainly gay enough. Roger Egremont heard much of it, and saw many pretty women fluttering about, in coaches, on horseback, on pillions; but women no longer interested him. He had begun to study very seriously the great game of war, and had little thought for anything else. He did not even read as ravenously as he once had done, and one night, passing an abandoned campfire, he threw into it his little volume of Ronsard’s poems. He did it deliberately; he had tried once or twice before to burn the little book up, but his resolution had failed him at the last moment. The book, however, nestling close to his breast, spoke always of Michelle; it called her name softly to him, in the quiet moments before he was sinking to sleep, and made him dream of her. It talked to him of her as he went his way those summer days, in the pleasant Low Country, and as it would not be silenced he burned it up.

The fighting was over for the season in September. Armies in those days killed many men,—nearly twelve thousand dead men marked the day of Neerwinden,—and they could not keep this up the year round. In the winter most of the officers took turns in getting leave to visit Paris. Not so Roger Egremont. He was in a condition generally esteemed happy,—the place where he was, was the place where he most desired to be.

In the spring of 1694, more fighting; in the summer, more fighting still,—in Flanders, in Italy, on the Rhine, on the coasts of France,—everywhere arms resounded. In the winter all was peace, and the gallants fled to Paris. This year of 1694, Roger Egremont, conscious that he was growing to be a mere campaigner, that books and women, to whom every gentleman should be devoted, had lost their charm for him, determined to go to St. Germains for a while. He longed to see Dicky. He was willing to see Bess Lukens, whom he truly believed to be his best friend, but he was just as happy without seeing her. Bess felt something for him which he could not return. Roger Egremont, however, would not admit this openly, even to himself, being of a chivalrous nature, but he showed his instinctive knowledge of it by a certain discomfort he always felt in Bess’s presence.

He arrived at St. Germains in December, and remained a month. He went straight toward his old lodging at the inn of Michot, and as he passed through the orchard, coming to it from the river way, on a pleasant winter day, who should come running toward him but Bess Lukens! He had not seen her for two years, and was forced to see that she had improved in certain ways. There could be no improvement in her beauty or dress. She had ever a natural taste to set off her looks to the best advantage. However she had gained propriety of manner; she was more like a lady. But, alas! nothing could make Bess Lukens a lady. She was as unaffectedly glad to see Roger as ever, and the joy that sent the blood into her clear skin and filled her red-brown eyes with rapture was the same. Her voice, however, was softened, her manner gentler.

When she ran toward him under the bare trees of the orchard, he would have been quite justified, by the manners of the day, in giving this handsome lass a rousing smack on the cheek. Instead, he kissed her hand as if she had been a court lady, which ought to have pleased Bess, but did not.

“And I need not ask you how you are, dear Bess. I see for myself happiness and prosperity writ in your face,” he said to her warmly.

“I have prospered truly,” replied Bess, “and I have come to St. Germains now to sing in the chapel for the good Queen. Whenever I have the honor to sing before any great French people, I come out to St. Germains and take my place in the chapel choir, to sing for my own King and Queen; and I tell you, as should not, Roger, that the singers all leave me the solo parts. But you are changed—and yet—”

“Improved?” asked Roger, smiling.

“No; I cannot think anything an improvement on the first friend I ever had,—the first gentleman who ever spoke a decent word to me. You have become a soldier, though.”

“Yes; I am now Major Egremont. One or two more campaigns, and I shall be a lieutenant-colonel.”

“And have you seen Mr. Dicky?”

“Not yet. I am but just come. I slept last night at Verneuil.”

“You should see him—a personable lad. And why should I call him a lad? he is every day of three-and-twenty, and will soon be ordained a popish priest. He has it in his head to go back to England, and you ought to dissuade him; indeed you should, Roger, because you know that means death.”

“Not I, Bess. My cousin Dicky is a man, and to dissuade a man from his duty because he may have to die for it, is no way of mine.”

Bess remained silent—she had no true idea of noblesse oblige. Poor Bess was not a lady,—the blood of the Lukens family did not run in the channels of the Egremonts. She thought Roger a little hard-hearted.

“Anyway,” she cried aggressively, “he is far too good for a popish priest, and a great deal too handsome.”

“Take care, my dear,” responded Roger, laughing, “I may yet be a popish priest myself. Remember Monsieur La Trappe, who was a soldier.”

“There’s no danger for you,” coolly said Bess. And then they were at the inn door, and Madame Michot came forth, bustling, to meet them; and lame Jacques, who admired Bess as a star far above him, limped forward, and they were all very glad to see each other once more.

Madame Michot could give Roger his old garret for a month. As for the inn itself, it was like its old self only in the winter, when some of the former patrons came back. Some of them would never come back, but slept in Flemish ground, or their bones were bleaching in the passes of the Spanish mountains, or they whitened the plains of Italy, or they took their rest on the banks of the Rhine.

The common room, however, was decently full that evening when Roger ordered his supper. Many of those present he had served with. They had talk of campaigns, past and future, good news from England, where the recent death of Mary of Orange had seriously weakened her husband’s position. The Duke of Berwick was at St. Germains for the winter, where it was reported that he sought favor in the lovely eyes of Honora de Burgh, widow of the brave Sarsfield, killed at Neerwinden, and daughter of Lord Clanricarde. He was in high favor at Marly-le-Roi, and was one of the twenty great nobles whom the Dauphin invited to Choisy to plant trees, to hunt, and to enjoy life as great nobles should. The little Prince of Wales charmed everybody. When he met a private soldier, he always pulled out his little purse and gave what he had in it, “to drink the health of the King, my father.” And the little Princess Louisa, “La Consolatrice,” as her fond father called her, was then nearly three years old, and was an angel. William and Mary had no children; all of the Princess Anne’s were dead or dying, so the exiles told each other, believing the hand of God to be upon Goneril and Regan, while the Queen whom those daughters had displaced had two beautiful infants, so lovely that the greatest queen and empress in the world might envy her those cherubs. This was the talk Roger Egremont heard that night in the common room,—most of it highly agreeable to him. After the usual nightcap of punch and the King’s health had been drunk, and the house was quiet for the night, Roger looked out of the window he knew so well, down upon that familiar scene. A bright December moon illuminated the glorious terrace, the black pile of the old château, the river flowing icy cold through the wintry meadows. It was all very sad to him,—the place was haunted. He wished he had remained at winter quarters in Brabant.

Next day was Sunday, and he went to mass in the chapel. He saw the King, broken and aged, but a King still, enter; the Queen, a queen always; and the two tiny children, the little Prince of Wales gravely leading “La Consolatrice” by the hand. Roger’s heart swelled when he saw these two infants—they were so beautiful.

The organ pealed out, and voices rose in the anthem. Roger tried to keep his mind fixed on holy things, but he easily distinguished, above the golden tones of the organ and the melody of the other voices, Bess Lukens’s glorious soprano. It was one of those rich and radiant voices, full of color and religious passion. One knew that the singer was young and glowing with life and fire. Roger glanced upward at her. She was standing up to sing, her hood and mantle thrown back. He saw in her face that great and beautiful change which was taking place in her. She was singing, “I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” It was true; and because she had honestly hated iniquity she had passed through it unscathed, and had come from the continual sight of it in a common gaol, to a life of innocence and peace, among honest people like herself.

After mass, Roger attended the King’s levee. It was very full, for the chances of James’s restoration seemed brilliant. The little town was crowded, and what gave great joy to Roger Egremont was that they were chiefly new faces,—persons who thought they saw the rising, once more, of the Jacobite star. Already human nature was asserting itself at St. Germains in quarrels over the coming flesh-pots. Lord Middleton led a party called the Compounders, who wanted a general amnesty; while Lord Melfort led the non-Compounders, who proposed to distribute punishments as well as rewards. The King, with whom Mary of Orange had once been a favorite child, whose impenitent death distressed him greatly, yet sternly refused to have his shabby court wear mourning for her, or to take any outward notice of the death of this despoiler of her father and brother. The King, however, prayed long and often for the soul of his undutiful child.

The château, like all the rest of St. Germains, was haunted to Roger Egremont. He sincerely hoped he should not meet Madame de Beaumanoir that day, and looked about him anxiously on entering the grand saloon. To his relief, she was not there.

In his turn, he made his obeisance to the King and Queen, sitting, not in state, but as the father and mother of a large family. The King greeted him kindly.

“I hear you have earned promotion, Mr. Egremont.”

“Thanks, your Majesty, to the good offices of the Duke of Berwick, who sees to it that no man, however humble, goes without his reward,” replied Roger. The ablest courtier in the world could not have turned a speech better to please the King’s ear, or the Queen’s either for that matter, as she looked chiefly to the half-brother of her child, for that child’s restoration to his father’s throne.

“I should like to see you privately to-morrow morning, that I may know particularly of all my former gentlemen-at-arms,” said the poor King.

Then the Queen spoke—her sweet and thrilling voice, with her beautiful black eyes, being her great charm. “The Duke of Berwick has told us much of you, Mr. Egremont. I hope that you will never go so far away from us that we cannot get you on short notice.”

“I hope so, too, your Majesty; and when your Majesties are returned to England, no one will be a more assiduous courtier than myself.”

Then the little Prince of Wales, walking up fearlessly, without asking permission of his governor, Lord Middleton, twisted his little hand in Roger’s sword-belt, and said, “I know your name. It is Roger Egremont, for the Duke of Berwick told me a story about your fighting for the King, my father, in a garden. Tell me all about it now.”

“If your Royal Highness’s governor will permit,” replied Roger, gravely; and Lord Middleton nodding his head, the little fellow led Roger off to a window-seat, and planting himself between his new friend’s knees, asked all about the battle of Neerwinden, and showed so much intelligence for a little lad that Roger was charmed.

When the levee was dismissed and Roger was rising to go, there passed before him a vision of delicate loveliness which waked him for a moment from that indifference to women which had long possessed him. It was Honora de Burgh, her widow’s robe showing off her pure complexion, her eyes so wonderfully bright and clear; they reminded him of another pair of eyes he had often seen at St. Germains, and never without a thrill. Some one whispered the name of the Irish beauty, and Roger knew it was the woman that Berwick was said to admire so profoundly. Roger looked at her more attentively still. He noticed that she seemed but a frail flower,—the color on her cheek, the light in her eyes was too vivid; the painful thought suddenly occurred to him that she was not destined to outlive her youth. Sad, sad, prescience!

The town was so full of English, Irish, and Scotch that Roger could not pass along the narrow streets without running into his own country people. All were sanguine of being in their native land within three months. William of Orange had not been a kind or a faithful husband, but yet he grieved much at the death of his wife, and his health was said to be breaking. He was credited at St. Germains with having twenty different diseases, each certain of a fatal ending in a short space of time—the wish being father to the thought.

Roger, after meeting and greeting many acquaintances and friends, returned to the inn. He much desired to see Dicky, and also Berwick. Judging from what he had heard concerning Sarsfield’s beautiful young widow, he had but little doubt that St. Germains was the place to seek Berwick, and not all the blandishments of the French King and Monseigneur combined could keep him long away. But Dicky must be sought in Paris. Bess Lukens, he found, was to return that afternoon, and so he determined to go in the stage-coach with her,—a huge, rumbling vehicle which ran daily at that time between St. Germains and Paris.

At five o’clock they were to start. It was a dull winter afternoon, and the journey promised to be cold and disagreeable. But Roger was glad to get away from St. Germains, and delighted at the prospect of seeing Dicky. He walked with Bess to the street corner where they were to meet the stage. He noticed, as he had done every moment since he had seen her, how great was her improvement in language, in manners, in all externals. But she was the same Bess after all,—warm-hearted, generous, full of courage and quite capable of vindictiveness. A gallant on the seat beside her venturing some impertinent glances at her, Bess turned, coolly surveyed him, and then remarked out aloud, as if talking to herself,

“Of all the monkeys I ever saw, this is the worst. The very dogs in Paris will bark at us if we carry him all the way.”

And this gay gentleman, like others, began by admiring Bess’s blooming beauty, and ended by cursing her saucy tongue.

It was long after dark before they rolled into Paris, and Roger escorted Bess to her own door. The Mazets were delighted to see him, and nothing would do but he must stay to supper. As soon as he accepted their invitation, Bess disappeared into the kitchen. While Papa Mazet was telling with pride of the triumphs of his pet pupil, and his battles on her account with the Abbé d’Albret, who now had charge of the King’s Opera, the song-bird was standing over the batterie de cuisine in the kitchen, preparing a delicious supper, which she presently served with her own hands. After it was over, and it was time for Roger to seek a lodging, he rose to go, thanking Papa Mazet and the old sister for their kindness to his friend. Bess went with him to the door, and held a candle in her hand to light him down the dark street. He heard her sweet, clear voice calling after him, “Good-night, Mr. Roger, and good sleep to you!”

Next day, at an appointed hour, he went to see Dicky at the seminary. They hugged each other as they had done when they were boys, and then spent the afternoon together in the garden of the monastery,—a quaint old place, shut off and screened, in perfect solitude, although in the heart of the great city.

It amazed Roger that Dicky should have changed so little. He seemed exactly like the apple-cheeked boy he had loved and patronized and bullied and hectored over at Egremont in those days, so long, long past. Yet, as Bess Lukens said, Dicky was all of three-and-twenty, and that he was no longer a boy was proved by what he told Roger.

“You must know, Roger,” he said, “that the Superior may let me be ordained before my ten years of study are over. In truth, old boy, I think the Superior knows that I shall never be as learned as most of the men in the Society of Jesus, and that I shall never be more than respectable at books. It is action that will suit me best. And there have come to us many letters and messages from our scattered flocks in England, praying for priests to come to them; and in the present persecution it is useless for any of the Society to go there except an Englishman who can maintain his disguise. So I have urgently prayed the Superior to let me be ordained and go to my native country. I think my precious fiddle will supply me with a disguise. Think, Roger, how delightful it must be to walk through green England, doing one’s duty, and taking one’s pleasure in the fresh fields and the pleasant country lanes, and basking in God’s sun all the while.”

“And playing the fiddle,” assented Roger. “Dick, man, I will not dissuade you. If ’tis your duty to go, it shall not be said that I, the head of our house—such a poor, broken house it is!—shall keep you back. No more would you keep me back from leading the forlorn hope, if I were accorded that honor. You stand a good chance of escape—for not eight years’ residence in France has altered the Devonshire tongue of you.”

“And the poor people about Egremont, most of them, are non-jurors anyway, and much as many of them hate my religion, they love the name of Egremont too well to betray me. So if you hear of me going to England, be not too anxious about me. I have a thousand chances of escape.”

Then Dicky had a whole batch of news about Egremont, to which Roger listened thirstily. Hugo Stein was in high favor with the Whig government, who found his knowledge of languages useful in matters requiring a trusty agent on the continent. He was now known as Sir Hugo Egremont, William of Orange having made him a baronet on the last royal birthday. He was much on the seas, between England and the continent. Possibly he did not find England a very agreeable residence; he was in no great favor in Devonshire. The estate did not suffer by these absences. Hugo was as thrifty as any Flemish weaver, and was always increasing his store. He had added several hundred acres of land to Egremont, but, wishing to dispose of some which was of the original estate but not in the entail, he had been infuriated to find that he was not considered competent to make a title. True, the gentleman, who had been very anxious to buy this same land in Roger’s time, was a Jacobite, and as such, might very well doubt the legality of the bestowal of estates which William of Orange so liberally indulged in, yet his reasons were plausible. The “parliament men,” as William of Orange angrily called them, were perpetually meddling with these grants of estates, and some very prudent Whigs were not satisfied with such titles as the new incumbents could give. Sir Hugo had made desperate efforts after this to sell this land, at any sort of a price,—rightly considering that his whole estate was in jeopardy, if he could not alienate an acre,—but he had been totally unsuccessful, and was furiously chagrined thereby.

All this delighted Roger beyond measure, and he indulged himself in calling his half-brother a thief, rogue, rascal, scoundrel, liar, and traitor, and enjoyed it very much.

Then he had to tell Dicky in detail all he had done and seen and heard since last they met, although Dicky had had a pretty full account of it in Roger’s letters.

The short winter afternoon was closing when they parted. Roger’s spirit was always calmed and cheered by Dicky. Here was indeed a single-minded man,—a man who craved not riches, nor glory, nor slothful ease, but who earnestly desired to help his fellow-creatures; a man free from vanity,—Dicky Egremont modestly and humbly owned that he was not a man of books in an order where learning was held in vast esteem,—and who, knowing his own limitations, was the stronger thereby. When Dicky Egremont became Father Egremont, so Roger thought, he would never be a great teacher in the schools of Louvain and Clermont, or St. Omer’s, or Paris, but he would be found ever with the poor and the ignorant and the timid. He was so devoid of fear that he always had his wits about him, so Roger remembered, and therefore, great as would be his danger in venturing into England, yet he would have every chance for his life which coolness and resource could give.

On the Monday Roger returned to St. Germains, Berwick had come from Choisy, where he had been in attendance on Monseigneur, and had already been twice to the inn of Michot to see him. As soon as Roger had seen Merrylegs, who was leading the life of a gentleman in the inn stables, he set off for the château, by way of the terrace. It was quite full of people, and he was stopped every few steps to speak to some one. Presently he saw the Queen approaching with several ladies and gentlemen in attendance. He recognized at once Honora de Burgh, in her black hood and gown, looking as fragile and beautiful as an anemone. And by her side was the tall figure of Berwick—the Pike, he was still called. Roger was passing the Queen with a low reverence, when she stopped him and spoke graciously; and then Berwick, grasping his hand, introduced him to Sarsfield’s beautiful young widow.

“The Duke of Berwick has told me much of you, Major Egremont,” she said,—and her voice was exquisitely sweet, but something in that voice, those eyes which smiled as did her lips, had a foreboding; she looked, as indeed she was, too frail for earth.

She was most gracious to Roger then, and in the evening at the palace. And that night, when Berwick went back with Roger to the inn, the story came out; Berwick, blushing like a girl, told that he was to marry the beautiful young widow in the spring. And he did not, as men commonly do, ask Roger when he meant to do likewise; he had great knowledge of the human heart; he knew that Roger Egremont had once loved, and his love had proved unfortunate. Roger grasped Berwick’s hand, and wished him joy from the very bottom of a faithful heart, and said, with truth, that any man might love that sweet and gracious and lovely flower of a woman, Madame Sarsfield. Berwick asked Roger his plans, and in reply got that Roger had a month’s leave, but thought he would rejoin his regiment in Brabant long before it was out. He had paid his duty to the King; he had seen the only three persons in the world who cared to see him,—his cousin Richard Egremont, his old friend Bess Lukens, and Berwick himself. As for his cousins of the Sandhills, he sincerely hoped he would never clap eyes on any one of them again,—either the gambling, dissolute Edward or the sanctimonious Anthony. As for Madame de Beaumanoir,—at this he halted; the old lady had been so uniformly friendly to him that he felt an ingrate in saying he did not wish to see her, and was glad to hear she was not at St. Germains.

“Tut, man,” cried Berwick with the enthusiasm of a man in love, “you have vapors, like women. You will be asking for an extension of leave within two more days!—that I warrant.”

Nevertheless, before the end of the week, Roger, on Merrylegs, was trotting soberly back to Brabant. He reckoned himself fortunate in one way. No one had mentioned to him the name of the Princess of Orlamunde. He was as certain that she was a miserable woman as he was that he himself was a living man; but he could not bear to have her misery spoken of to him.