The House of Egremont

IT was at the inn of Michot that Bess Lukens had heard the dreadful news about Dicky Egremont. She had gone to St. Germains to spend the Sunday with her friend, Madame Michot. Saturday evening was now the one gay evening in the week at the inn, when it recovered some of its pristine splendor. The common room was quite full, punch was brewing, and there was an occasional burst of song.

“But it is not what it was five years ago,” sighed Madame Michot to Bess, who sat by her on the little platform by the large door, with the writing-table and the grille, looking into the great room.

Madame Michot, taking advantage of Bess’s presence to look after the kitchen administration, left her to preside at the bureau. Bess, who was, as usual, very handsomely dressed, looked quite regal in Madame Michot’s great chair, on her improvised throne.

She found some of her acquaintances among those who came to pay their score,—more paid in cash than in the old days,—and each of the gentlemen passed Mademoiselle Luccheni a compliment, which Bess returned in kind. Many inquired how the merry war progressed between the Abbé d’Albret and herself; at which Bess showed all her rosy dimples and white teeth, and replied that she understood the Abbé was ailing,—going into a decline, fretted thereto by Mademoiselle Luccheni. The evening was far spent, when the door opened, and François Delaunay, looking as neat and as pious as usual, entered.

A chorus of welcome greeted him; gentlemen inquiring how the Duchess did; and was he out on parole; and what time was he obliged to report; and other remarks indicating his condition of servitude. To all this, François replied good-naturedly, and then turned to greet Bess.

“Sit you down there,” said Bess, pointing to a footstool which François placed on the step of the platform, bringing his head on a level with Bess’s waist, “and I’ll let you see, Mr. François,” she continued, “that I can look the duchess as well as that old Beaumanoir woman,—no offence meant. How is she?”

François shook his head dolefully.

“Very gay. Plays incessantly, and will have me to play and drink. She complained of me to-night that I had never been really drunk since I had lived in her house; and when I would have spent the evening quietly, with my books and my writing-book, she fairly drove me out of the house, to have some adventures and come back and tell her. So I came to the inn of Michot.”

“I am afraid,” said Bess, shaking her head solemnly, “by what she said about your never being drunk, that she suspects the game you have been practising on her, playing drunk.”

“I suspect she does, too. Oh,” cried François, in a burst of confidence, “if I were but free and independent, if I had but a thousand francs a year, I would lead the life I desire,—books and science, and, perhaps, take orders.”

“Poor François!” replied Bess, laughing. “I have known men affect pious to gull their patrons; but never saw I before a man who had to affect to be dissolute.”

“’Tis all due to your King Charles the Second. But for him, I could have lived in peace with my aunt; but the effort to make myself appear like that dissipated King, whom I detest and despise, is killing to me.” And then François went into the common room.

Some one started a Jacobite song, “Awa’, Whigs, awa’!” and there was a rousing chorus, at which Bess, on her dais, stood up, and her rich and powerful soprano could be heard ringing like a bird above the masculine voices. Presently a stranger entered, who seemed to have news; and in a few moments François Delaunay left the group which surrounded the new-comer, and coming out of the room to Bess, said, with a pale face,—

“There is very desperate news about Richard Egremont. He went to England three weeks ago, was apprehended, and now lies in Newgate gaol under sentence of death. Such is the news brought from London.”

Bess remained silent for a moment.

“They’ll hang him, sure,” she said. “They hanged Sir John Fenwick and the rest; and Dicky,—Mr. Egremont, I mean,—being a Jesuit, will have no chance for his life.”

Then, after a moment, she continued: “If I were there, with money, I might help him. It a’n’t so hard to get out of Newgate—” She stopped at this, and François said,—

“If I had the money I would give it you; but, alas!” He turned out his pockets, showing a few crowns.

“I have some money at Paris, but there’s no knowing how much might be needed; we might have to charter a vessel to bring him back. I wonder,” she continued, an idea striking her, “if that old woman—”

“The Duchess? She is a free and liberal woman—sometimes,” replied François.

“You come with me,” was Bess’s sudden response, seizing her hood and cloak, and calling for Jacques to take her place.

In two minutes she was walking rapidly through the quiet streets, and then through the forest, black and still, François finding difficulty in keeping up with her. It was little more than ten o’clock at night when they reached the château de Beaumanoir, a mile from the edge of the forest; but all was dark in the building, except a single window. François led Bess through a small door, and then she demanded of a sleepy porter to be shown Madame do Beaumanoir’s room.

“But Madame the Duchess is in bed. I dare not,” replied the man.

“Very well,” replied Bess, coolly, and making a dash for the stairs at her right; “I can find my way without any of you stupid lackeys.”

She had no difficulty, once in the corridor, in marking Madame de Beaumanoir’s room; and when she knocked loudly at the door, a maid appeared.

“I want to see your mistress, this moment,” cried Bess, in agitation.

“I am afraid it is impossible; madame is in her bed, with the curtains drawn,” replied the woman, civilly enough.

Bess wasted no words on her, as she had wasted none on the lackey, and with one strong arm thrusting the maid aside, she entered the anteroom, and marched through to the bedroom, where a night-light burned by a great green and gold bed. The maid, recovering herself, dashed after her; but Bess waved her back, and seizing the bed-curtain, drew it back. As she did so, Madame de Beaumanoir, who was in the bed, uttered a piercing shriek, and disappeared under the bedclothes. This conduct, so astonishing on Madame de Beaumanoir’s part, staggered Bess; but she held her ground stoutly.

The maid then began adding her screams to Madame de Beaumanoir’s,—

“Go away! go away! Madame wishes you to leave the room at once! For God’s sake, go!”

Bess, more and more amazed, still declined to budge. Madame de Beaumanoir, under the bedclothes, continued to emit shrieks; but the maid, ceasing her noise, ran to a chiffonier, and taking from it a wig and a set of Paris teeth, returned to the bed, motioning frantically to Bess, upon whom light began to break.

“I will go into the anteroom for five minutes,” she said, loftily; “but I shall return at the end of that time, as I am compelled to see Madame the Duchess.”

With this, she marched out. Five minutes later, when she came back into the bedroom, Madame de Beaumanoir was sitting up majestically in bed, a full set of very white teeth in her mouth, her cheeks reddened, and a wig on her head, though in the haste of preparation, the maid had clapped the wig on before removing the nightcap. But Madame de Beaumanoir, serenely unconscious, and with her stateliest air, said:

“Pray, pardon my agitation; but I was much alarmed at having my bed-curtains pulled open, and seeing a stranger at my bedside.”

Bess, in the midst of her distress, could not but smile, but she only said,—

“I did not know I was so alarming. However,” she added, gravely, “your Ladyship’s Grace must know that only something of the most pressing nature would induce me to rouse you at this hour. It is to tell you the desperate news concerning D— I mean Mr. Richard Egremont, the Jesuit priest. He is now in Newgate prison under sentence of death. I take horses for Paris this night on my way to London to see if he can be saved. I know that hateful prison well, and if I have money enough I may be able to get him out of that place and out of England. I have some money in Paris,—a thousand livres,—but I know not if that will be enough. You once told me—that day upon the terrace long ago—that if I wanted a service to come to you. Now I come to you to redeem that promise. I want more money—much money—all the money you can lay your hands on to-night—to help me save Mr. Richard Egremont from the gallows. If I live I will pay it back, whether I can save his life or no.”

Madame de Beaumanoir looked at Bess, as she deliberately uttered this.

“I know a good deal about you, Lukens,” she said, condescendingly; “you want some money immediately. You shall have all that I can command at this moment. I scarcely know young Egremont, but I know his cousin, Mr. Roger Egremont, and I knew all that family in days past.”

She motioned to the maid, who brought her a dressing-case; from it she took some gold and notes.

“Here,” she said, “are about twelve hundred livres. Take them and try to save the poor lad. I cannot bear the thought of a good-looking Englishman being hanged. There are too few of them anyway. François shall take you to Paris to-night.”

Bess put the money into the pocket of her gown, and then, stooping over, surprised Madame de Beaumanoir very much by giving her a rousing smack of a kiss on either cheek. And then, running out, she called loudly,—

“Mr. François! Mr. François! you are to take me to Paris to-night!”

An hour after midnight the sober house of Papa Mazet was knocked up by Bess, with François, and when the sunrise of a July morning was gilding the spires of Paris, Bess, with François still for an escort, was well out of Paris on the road to Calais.

On the afternoon of the second day Bess Lukens touched her native soil again after an absence of more than seven years.

She felt no thrill of joy, or of any other emotion, when she looked about her on the shore at Dover. She had been a miserable creature in England; all her early associations with her own country were repugnant to her. The passionate attachment which Dicky Egremont felt for his own land was a mystery to Bess Lukens.

“Now, Mr. Roger may well love Egremont; but Dicky, without an acre of ground, a stick or a stone in England—why can’t the boy rest quiet in France?” For nothing could ever make Bess believe Dicky to be aught but a boy still.

Bess’s knowledge of the humble class to which she belonged was complete, and she knew perfectly well how to achieve success with innkeepers, post-boys, and the like. So she inaugurated her journey to London by walking up boldly to the first decent inn she saw, and asking for the landlord, and demanding, first, dinner, and afterward horses for London. At the same time she offered some French gold in exchange for English money.

The landlord looked at her keenly, but Bess, handsomely dressed and perfectly calm and composed, was entirely at her ease.

“How did you come by this, mistress?” asked the innkeeper, turning over the gold.

“’Tis none of your business, sir,” tartly replied Bess. “If you don’t want to change it, there’s other inns, I reckon, in Dover; and if you change it, don’t you go for to playing me any tricks in the exchange. I know to a farthing what I ought to have, and I’ll have it if there is law in the land.”

Boldness is the best diplomacy in the world sometimes, and Bess Lukens was always master of this sort of diplomacy. The innkeeper, who would probably have had her arrested had she shown the smallest timidity, was himself somewhat awed by Bess’s lofty tone and commanding manner, and proceeded to change the money. Bess watched him narrowly, pounced upon a couple of worn sixpences, threw them out, and then demanded that the horses should be made ready while she ate.

The innkeeper very obsequiously followed her commands, but his curiosity tempted him to say, in the presence of the postilions, just as Bess was starting, “I should think, ma’am, you’d be afeerd to go the journey to London alone.”

“Afraid of what?” demanded Bess, her foot on the step of the chaise, and turning back with her bright eyes full of scorn. “Afraid of what? Of these two post-boys? La! I could wallop ’em both together;” which seemed true, as both postilions were considerably smaller than she was. “And afraid of highwaymen? Not me. I’d say, ‘Take my money: it’s not much, for most of what I have is in the bank at London; but just let me go my way,’—which they would.” Bess’s money, however, was mostly in notes, and those were very artfully concealed in her stockings.

And so saying, she stepped into the chaise, and was soon bowling along rapidly to London.

Her thoughts on the way were anxious, but not wholly gloomy. She relied on her money and on her knowledge of the prison to get Dicky out. And she knew him to be so intelligent and so familiar with England that once out of prison he could escape detection almost anywhere, and as soon as the hubbub of his disappearance had quieted down, it would be easy enough to smuggle him across the water. The whole of the day was consumed in the journey, and it was past nightfall on a soft July night when her chaise rolled under the dark and forbidding archway of Newgate she so well remembered. It seemed darker and blacker to her than ever, and the grimy lantern that swung overhead was like a sinister eye in an evil face.

There was a main door, which was bolted and barred, but a little way off was a small door, opening, as it were, into a cellar. Bess went straight to this little door, and beat a thundering rat-tat-tat upon it. In a moment it was opened, showing her a dismal little room, in which sat Diggory Hutchinson, looking not a day older than he was when he so awkwardly sued for Bess’s favor, seven years before.

“You don’t know me, Diggory,” said Bess with a bright smile, walking forward into the light from a couple of tallow candles.

Truly, Diggory knew her, and yet did not know her. Was this modish creature, with her silk mantle, her embroidered hood, her fan at her side, and a jewel in her stomacher, old Tim Lukens’s niece? Diggory tried to reconstruct her as he remembered her,—in her coarse stuff gown, and clumsy shoes, with her shapely arms showing below her short sleeves. But it was vain. There were two Bess Lukenses, and to this one he was stranger, and was a little afraid of her.

“Come, man,” cried Bess, “I am here on important business, and I want you to keep it quiet. Are there any Jesuit gentlemen here?”

“Yes,” answered Diggory, still disconcerted. “Mr. Richard Egremont,—a cousin to him as was Mr. Roger Egremont, that you remembers.”

“That’s all I want to know,” replied Bess, cheerfully, surprised that she should have found her man so easily, and found him alive. “Now, like a good man, don’t go rousing the place. I know you need not. I know how Newgate is conducted, bad luck to it, and you won’t be for getting me in any trouble, now, will you? That’s a good Diggory.”

She had stepped up close to Diggory, and had put one strong, well-shaped hand upon his arm, and looked into his eyes with a frank, compelling gaze. Many men and women stronger and better than poor Diggory Hutchinson had succumbed to the natural charm of that glance and that touch, so he only said,—

“I’ll not be getting you in any trouble if you don’t get into it yourself.”

“Of course, Diggory,” continued Bess, in a wheedling voice. “You’ll not turn me in the street this time of night. Sure, you’ll let me sleep in a cell, without telling anybody, and if you will agree to let me stay I’ll tell you what I came for.”

“In course,” replied Diggory, still very much puzzled. Not having seen Bess during the period of her metamorphosis, he was naturally the more struck with the change. She was so exquisitely handsome, and so well dressed, and in addition to her old good-naturedly hectoring way, she had a subtle note of command in her voice, and a pleasant look of authority in her eye. Diggory was at a loss to know what had turned Bess Lukens into this dazzling creature.

“You must know, my good Diggory,” said Bess, in a condescending tone, “that I have been in France these last seven years, and I have spoke so much French that if I fall into it now and then, you’ll not be surprised. I am one of the singers at the King’s Opera in Paris.”

“I remembers,” said Diggory, “thou wert always a-singing and a-trilling. You always made a mighty noise.”

Bess smiled with the air of a gracious princess on Diggory. “Singing is well paid, my good lad, if one can sing well enough.”

“Are you married, Bess?” asked Diggory, after a pause.

“No, and I have no mind to be. There is enough trouble in this life to give everybody a plenty, and I don’t want to increase my share of it by marrying. But if I could ever marry anybody, it would be an Englishman. I love the French en masse, that means the whole of ’em, but I am not for marrying any one of ’em.”

Diggory took this as a personal compliment, and grinned, and then Bess, abruptly turning the conversation, said, “And when is Mr. Dicky Egremont to be tried?”

“He don’t need to be tried no more,” calmly replied Diggory. “He were tried and convicted once, and that’s enough. He were resentenced day before yesterday, and he is to be hanged to-morrow morning, by six of the clock.”

At these dreadful words, uttered in the cool and matter-of-fact manner of a prison keeper, Bess started from her chair, clasped her hands, and stood mute and stunned with horror. Diggory, hardened to all the frightful scenes of a gaoler’s life, looked quietly at her face, suddenly grown pallid, at her dilating eyes, at her tall and graceful figure, first rigid with the shock of what she had heard, and then trembling violently.

She could not speak, but motioned him to go on. Diggory, to whom Dicky Egremont was no more and no less than one of many Jesuit gentlemen who had walked calmly into the prison and calmly out again to the gallows, could think of nothing else to say but to repeat:

“He was resentenced o’ Monday, that was day before yesterday; and he is to be hanged o’ Thursday, that’s to-morrow.” Then, seeing in Bess’s wild white face a look of agonized inquiry, he continued, with the best possible intentions,—

“The Jesuit gentlemen, you know, is always quartered afore they’re dead. Ketch, the hangman, wanted me to turn his ’prentice, and was a-going to show me on a calf, but I hadn’t no stomach for it.”

The dingy room swam before Bess, and the two miserable candles danced up and down. A vision passed before her of Dicky, lying on the ground,—she knew all about it, although she had never seen an execution. Diggory, after a pause, spoke again. “Them Jesuits is hard to kill. One of ’em when I was a boy held out for half an hour after he was out open. He set up on the ground and made that papist sign like this here.” Diggory crossed himself. “He were a handsome old man too, and one of the gentry. A duke come to see him afore he was hanged. ’Tis no telling how long they’ll live after they are cut down.” Suddenly Bess’s strong self-control gave way. She uttered a loud and piercing scream; her voice, always clear, melodious, and penetrating, echoed through the stone archways and corridors of the vast building, like the death cry of music itself. Diggory, at this, flew at her, stopping her mouth with his palm, and Bess sunk on a chair.

“Hush! hush!” he cried. “They’ll catch you and I’ll lose my place, I will.”

There was a deep silence afterward. Bess’s mind was in a tumult, while Diggory listened for coming footsteps.

“Nobody’s coming,” he said, after five minutes had passed. “They think it’s some o’ the prisoners. Oftentimes they screams like that,—we don’t take no notice unless they has a regular spell of it.”

“Diggory,” gasped Bess after a while, “you ever had a good heart. Take me to Mr. Egremont’s cell. I know you have a pass-key. Diggory, I will give you this jewel, I swear I will, if you will but let me see Mr. Egremont.”

She unfastened with trembling fingers the brooch from her breast, and pressed it in his hand.

“I don’t want nothing,” said Diggory, bashfully. “I know, and you know, Bess, that it’s worth my place, and maybe something worse, to let you into Mr. Egremont’s cell to-night,—but I’ll do it. Howsomedever, I must go and see the guard first.”

Bess handed him all the gold and paper money she could find in her purse. “Use it all,—and I have more,—only let me see Mr. Egremont this night.”

Diggory went out, closing and locking the door after him. Bess sat trembling with horror. She had been frightened about Dicky,—she feared that he would get himself in trouble, as Roger had done,—but that it would come to this, she had not fully expected. It seemed hours before Diggory returned; in truth it was but little more than twenty minutes.

“Come,” he said, in a low voice, “and don’t make not the least bit of noise.”

Bess rose, and Diggory, blowing out the candles, led the way to the corridor, and then downward to a cellar. For the first time in her life, physical weakness almost overcame Bess Lukens. In their stealthy progress along dark and unused passages and cellars, through dismal corridors and noisome courts, she often had to stop and lean, half fainting, on Diggory. At last they reached a narrow stair, at the top of which was a cell, with a lantern in it, and a stone bench. Here Diggory left Bess, and after a moment another door silently opened, and in walked Dicky Egremont.

He was handcuffed, but otherwise had no fetters or chains,—and was fully dressed in a shabby cassock, and had his beretta on his head, from which his short, curling light hair escaped. Never had Bess seen his pleasant, boyish face more calm and smiling.

“How good this is of you, dear Bess,” he said, and took her hand.

But Bess, albeit mindful of Diggory’s warning to make no noise, was sobbing convulsively, and trying to stifle her sobs in her mantle. She could not speak, but Dicky could, in his usual soft and artless voice.

“Come,” he said, “you have done me the greatest service in the world by coming to me, and I think you must have run an extra hazard,—and now you sob so you can neither speak nor hear me. ’Tis no way to do.” But Bess could only sob and sob for a while longer, Dicky waiting patiently meanwhile. Presently, under the spell of his composure, she grew calm.

“True,” she whispered, “I have my whole life to cry in,—and only a little while to be with thee. But, oh, Dicky, cannot money get thee out of this? I have a plenty,—my own and Madame de Beaumanoir’s,—and I know this place well,—and Diggory Hutchinson, the turnkey, is my friend.”

“No Bess. ’Tis useless. Perhaps a week ago—but not now. However, ’tis no matter. Better men than I have died as I shall die to-morrow morning. I am no hero,—but I hope I can die as becomes a priest and a gentleman.”

“Tell me all,” said Bess, still trembling convulsively, “that I may take it back to France,—to those that love you,—to poor Roger.”

“Yes,” replied Dicky, his bright eyes moistening a little. “I should like Roger, whom I love best of any person in the world, to know how I came to this pass. Well, to make a long story short, I got the mission to England, although every one of my countrymen in the Society of Jesus was on file as eager to go. I came as a strolling fiddler, and was safe enough for a time. I even lay in the village of Egremont several days and nights. You have no notion, Bess!” cried Dicky, his tone growing animated, “how I liked my fiddler’s life. You see, it was mostly in the open air,—and it was so sweet to be in English fields and woods again, and to be at Egremont!”

There was a kind of rapture in his voice.

“How you and Roger do love Egremont!” sighed Bess,—she had said it many times before.

“Yes, we are simple about it, I think. But, Bess, that last week of freedom was the very happiest of my life. Was it not good of God to give me so much happiness—and the very sort I would have asked—at the very last?”

“No!” cried Bess, in whom nature was ever stronger than grace. “It is not good of God to let you be murdered,—to—”

Bess stopped; something in Dicky’s eye compelled her.

“And then,” said Dicky, resuming where he had left off, “it was so good to play my fiddle as much as I liked. You see, Bess, at the seminary there were more serious things to do; and I never could manage to have the company of my dear fiddle for more than half an hour in the day. The Superior made me play the great organ in church,—but I never loved it like my fiddle. And I played English tunes all the time, except once, at the very last; and I was confused, and played ‘Les Folies en Espagne,’ and that was the beginning of my being discovered.” And then, actually laughing, Dicky said, “Tell that to Madame de Beaumanoir.”

Bess, with tears dropping down her pale face, motioned him to go on.

“As I tell you, I was a whole week in and about Egremont, baptizing and administering the sacraments, and saying mass between midnight and dawn. I grew a beard, and no one knew me. I did not, however, spend every night with the Catholic villagers, for fear it might arouse suspicion. Sometimes I lay at taverns, paying for my supper by my fiddling; and when I stayed with the farmer lads, I was up with the dawn and in the fields, working for my dinner; and at the noontime I would play while the rustics danced,—it did me good to see their simple joyousness, and oftentimes I felt like jumping up and shaking a leg, and fiddling too. And in truth, Bess,” here Dicky blushed, “I actually did it once or twice, from pure joy at finding myself at Egremont once more, with the honest people there, and the sun shining so merrily. I pitied poor Roger when I should have to tell him how sweet the whole place looked. The oak avenue is gone, but I never saw such sward anywhere as at Egremont, nor such delicious air. And such excellent eggs and milk; better, I am sure, than can commonly be found.”

A ghost of a smile appeared upon poor Bess’s face, pale and drenched with tears.

“All went well for a whole week, and on the very next day Hodge, the shoemaker in the village, was to take a load of turnips to Exeter, and I was to meet him on the road, and he was to give me a lift. But then I got a message from some poor people in the next parish, and I had to go to them. I went in the day, and in the night the people assembled at the house of a Catholic farmer, and I baptized several children, and heard confessions and said mass at midnight. All was over, and the people were departing quietly before daybreak, when some of the King’s people passing by suspected something, and entered the house. I barely had time to flee, carrying my fiddle, as that was necessary to my disguise; but they captured my cassock and some other things. It was a dark night, fortunately, and as I escaped through a back lane, although the whole pack were after me, I managed to give them the slip. I thought the safest thing to do was to return to Egremont, that being likely the last place they would look for me,—Sir Hugo being very active in hunting down Catholics.”

“Was that villain there?” cried Bess. “May God punish him!”

“You shall hear. I walked and ran the rest of the night, and just as the sun was rising I found myself in the Egremont woods. Oh, how sweet they were! There was so much dew on the grass that it looked like rime, and so many primroses; but I will not say another word about Egremont. Although my beard disguised me well, I thought it best not to stop in our village, but went on further, several miles, to another one. I got my breakfast at the inn, and then asked for work in the fields, which was given me. At noon, when we had dinner,—the poor men and women dividing theirs with me,—I tuned up my fiddle to play to them, when I saw, riding along the highroad, not a stone’s throw from me, Hugo Stein. I thought he was in Germany,—I had heard so,—but it seems he returned unexpectedly only the day before. I was so disconcerted at the sudden sight of him that instead of playing ‘Green Sleeves,’ as I was about to, I found myself playing ‘Les Folies en Espagne,’ which is much played on the continent, but not known here. Sir Hugo stopped his horse, looked at me very hard, then leaping his horse over the hedge he rode at me, saying,—

“‘You are a popish priest in disguise. I know you, Richard Egremont!’

“I laughed, and went on with my fiddling, although at that very moment I knew that I was to die on the gibbet. He then seized me by the collar, saying,—

“‘Come with me. I shall hand you over to the magistrates.’

“I knew all was over then, and putting my fiddle under my arm, I walked along by his side as he again took the road toward Egremont. And to show you, Bess, how hard it is to forgive one’s enemies, and the enemies of those one loves, I could not but think, ‘Oh, had I but a good horse, and sword or pistol in my hand, would I not make you payment for the wrongs you have heaped on us, miserable bastard that you are!’ And in truth, Bess, although I hope I shall have grace given me to-morrow morning to forgive Sir Hugo, I have it not yet.”

“I should think not!” replied Bess, with much simplicity.

“I followed him to Egremont, for Sir Hugo is very active in enforcing the laws against poachers and papists,—he classes them together,—and often detains suspected persons at Egremont until they can be put in Whitford gaol. He took me into the house,—oh, Bess, I thought I could be calm and cool under all things, but when I saw the rooms where I had played when a boy, and thought of Roger, I could scarcely forbear weeping.

“Sir Hugo took me into the little book-room, off the gallery library, the very place I wished to go, as I knew of the ‘priests’ hole;’ but he said to me, smiling, ‘I know what you are looking for. It is closed up. The present owner of Egremont obeys the laws of the realm, and harbors no man against the law.’ I spoke no word, except, looking hard at the place in the wall where it had been, I said, without reflection, ‘God’s will be done.’ He kept me there until the next day,—the last night I was ever to spend under the roof of Egremont,—and the next day, my cassock and other things being found, the country was in an uproar, the Whigs demanding my blood, and others who would have been more merciful were afraid to speak, for fear of being thought implicated in last year’s hanging business. It was considered best, however, to remove me to London nine days ago, as some of the poor people at Egremont were muttering very much, and threatening to attack the Whitford gaol. So I was brought here and resentenced on Monday, before the Court of the King’s Bench, to be hanged, cut down while I was yet alive, and quartered. I was, however, spared that part of the sentence of Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, whose heads and quarters were ordered nailed to Temple Bar.”

A death-like paleness overspread Bess’s usually ruddy face. She was physically so strong, and in her buffet with the world she had acquired so much self-possession that her own agitation actually frightened her. She sat white and silent, and trembling in every limb. Not so Dicky, who was as calm as if the morning’s sun were not the last he was to see. “Now, Bess Lukens,” he said in a cheerful voice, meant to compose her, “listen to what I say, for I charge you with my farewells. I have nothing to give any one but my blessing. First, make my duty to my King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales, and tell them I die their loyal and dutiful subject, as becomes an Egremont. Tell my superiors that I trust in God for grace to die in a manner befitting the Society of Jesus, and I thank them for having sent me here. As for Roger, say to him that I ever loved him best of anybody in the world, and that when I remember my boyhood, friendless but for him, and recall that I never learned from him or saw in him anything but the nicest honor, I cannot express the gratitude that fills my heart. It did my heart good to see how our poor people at Egremont still had him in loving memory, and longed for him to come back. And for you, Bess, the best and truest of friends—”

For the first time Dicky’s musical voice broke. Here was the actual farewell of the dying to the living. “You who have come to me when I expected to see no familiar face. Well, Bess, remember what I often said to you when you sang those sweet songs and anthems to my violin,—pray that we again sing them together in Paradise.”

Bess rose. She had told him little or nothing of what she had meant to say to him. She had not even told him about Madame de Beaumanoir and the money, but she felt herself unequal to more. Her strong body and her strong soul were alike giving way. As she went toward the door, like a sleep-walker, she heard Dicky’s clear, sweet voice calling after her,—

“Good-bye, dear friend; God bless thee forever and ever!”

His manacled hands were uplifted in blessing, his round, boyish face had a new and glorified expression, his eyes were glowing with faith and courage,—Dicky Egremont had grown to the full stature of a man, nay, of a hero.

By sunrise next morning the distance from Newgate prison to Tyburn was crowded with people, mostly on foot, but many on horseback, others in carts and chaises, and some even in coaches. The executions usually took place in the prison, but the execution of a young Jesuit of good family was too interesting an occasion for the citizens of London to be deprived of the full sight,—public executions being public holidays in London town. The drawing and quartering were likely to be highly interesting, and these Jesuit gentlemen had a reputation ever since the time of Queen Elizabeth of dying with much propriety.

It was a hazy July morning, the blue mist lying low along the river front, and a pallid sun shining dimly out of a gray sky. The green spaces in Hyde Park were full of a tumultuous crowd, laughing, talking, eating, and all tending toward Tyburn. Some wished to secure the best places so as to see the tortures to be inflicted on the young gentleman; others were willing to forego that in order to watch the bearing of the condemned on his tedious way in the cart from Newgate to Tyburn.

Among those earliest on the ground at Tyburn was Bess Lukens. She was attired altogether in black, and her tall and handsome figure and her striking beauty were intensified by her sombre dress. Her clear complexion was pale; and her face, although full of keen sorrow, was calm. All that was most earthly in her beauty was refined away, and her bearing was perfectly quiet, dignified, and lofty. By her side stood Diggory Hutchinson, in his holiday clothes. He was by no means so composed as Bess Lukens, but looked about him anxiously, and seemed nervous, though not irresolute. The multitude about the scaffold speedily recognized the fact that the tall, pale, handsome young woman, in her black gown and hood, was one near to the condemned. The crowd looked at her curiously and not unsympathetically; nor did they press upon her, so that she stood in a little ring of people, as it were, with Diggory close behind her. She bore the scrutiny of many eyes without flinching, and, indeed, was unconscious of it. Whispers began to be circulated about her as the crowds were increased by thousands, who began to pour, like a mighty river, from all quarters of the town into the Tyburn district. Some said, “She is his sister;” others, “She was in love with him;” and others again, “She tried to rescue him;” but Bess remained calm and unnoticing. At last one man, more callous and curious than the most, came up to her and said:—

“You seem to be mightily consarned, miss. Maybe you knowed the condemned.”

“I know him well,” replied Bess, in her clear, penetrating voice.

“Is it true,” asked the man, emboldened by her reply, “that he is of a high family?”

“As true as the Gospels,” replied Bess. “It takes men born and bred like Mr. Richard Egremont to come back here to England, when he thinks it is his duty, although the gallows beckons to him. Common people like you and me a’n’t equal to it.”

At this a laugh went around, much to poor Bess’s discomfiture, who looked about with sad and anxious eyes, wondering what she had said to provoke a laugh.

The man, a respectable-looking tradesman, nettled by her words, replied tartly:—

“Look a-here, mistress. If you are so monstrous fond of this here traitor and Jesuit as is about to get his deserts, maybe you are in the same boat with him; maybe you’d be better off in prison than free!”

“If you think I can be frightened you don’t know me,” replied Bess, still composed. “I am not afraid to say that I am a friend to Mr. Richard Egremont; as true a gentleman and as loyal an Englishman as ever stepped; only, they won’t let him practise his religion here. And there’s a plenty of people here as feels sorry for him, and knows he a’n’t deserving of his fate. But you are all cowards, and afraid you’ll be taken up if you speak your minds, and so you keep as still as mice. But I am not afraid.”

At that Diggory said to Bess, in a low voice,—

“For God’s sake, Bess, hold thy tongue, or we may both find ourselves in gaol!”

“Why?” asked Bess, quietly. “I’m a freeborn Briton. I can speak my mind, can’t I, if I say no evil of the powers? And I tell you, Diggory Hutchinson, that nothing on earth can make me say anything but the truth when I am asked about Mr. Richard Egremont!”

Then there was a faint and distant roar,—the sound of many voices. The victim was approaching; and that menacing shout, ever growing nearer and louder, was a cry for blood.

The man who had questioned Bess then began again:

“But I say, mistress—”

“Hold your tongue!” cried a woman near to him. “Have you no heart in your body, man, that you can keep tormenting this poor soul as is in trouble enough, God knows?”

The man slunk off at this, and the people near Bess kept a respectful silence.

The roar swelled deeper and louder and nearer, as the streets leading from the Newgate quarter became black with approaching people. The howl for blood echoed to the heavens and again to the earth beneath; and when it seemed to fill the universe, the crowd parted, showing the cart, and in it Dicky Egremont and one of his gaolers.

Bess Lukens’s keen eyes sought Dicky’s face, thinking it would be strange and glorified, as she had seen it the night before; but instead he looked exactly the same pleasant-faced, boyish Dicky she had seen playing the fiddle in Madame Michot’s garden, singing Jacobite songs and laughing with her and Roger at St. Germains. His face had its usual ruddy hue; his few days of confinement had not robbed him of either flesh or color. He was seen to be pleasantly conversing with his companion, Ketch, who sat on the bench beside him. He wore his cassock and beretta; his hands were tied together behind him.

As he came into full view, something like a groan and shudder went around among a part of the crowd,—he was so young, so fresh-colored, so full of life. He turned around, and his eyes fell upon the gallows and all the other gruesome preparations for his death, but he did not show so much as by the flicker of an eyelash the least fear or shrinking.

The cart was now driven up close, the sheriff’s men closed around it, and the gaoler, getting out himself, prepared to aid the prisoner to descend. But Dicky, always agile, jumped lightly out of the cart, hampered as he was.

The crowd pressed closer about the roped-off space, and among them was Bess Lukens. As she caught Dicky’s eyes, he gave her a glance of recognition, but forbore to speak or bow, or in any way indicate that he knew her. But poor Bess cried out loudly,—

“God bless and help thee, Mr. Egremont!”

“I trust He will,” answered Dicky, simply.

The people who frequented executions liked to have their excitement spun out, and the best part of the show was to them the last words of the condemned. No officers of the law would have dared to balk a London mob of the pleasure of hearing a victim in his own defence; and so, when a ribald voice shouted out, “Come now, Master Jesuit, tell us how you come to be here,” an instant hush fell upon the assembled multitudes.

“My friends,” said Dicky,—his voice ever the sweetest and clearest, with something in it of the freshness of the larks and blackbirds at Egremont,—“I came here because it was my duty. I will not say how I came.”

At this, the woman who had rebuked Bess’s tormentor suddenly burst into tears and interrupted him by crying out,—

“It was a shame to send thee here, poor boy.”

“I was not sent,” said Dicky; “it was by favor that I came. Every Englishman in the Society of Jesus wished to come in my place. This is our native country, and we love her, although she persecutes us. And I call God to witness, and you, His creatures, to believe that I die joyfully for my King, James Stuart, and for my religion. I was offered my life if I would abjure both, but no true man can barter his honor and his conscience for his life. I ask those of you who have mercy in your hearts to pray of God that I be delivered of my sins, and also, as no man of the Society of Jesus who has fallen under the executioner’s hand has died other than as a man and a Jesuit should die, so pray that an Egremont be not the first to do otherwise. For although at this hour I am about to face the great God before whom gentle and simple are alike, yet I would not die unworthy of my ancestors. And if it be a sin to think of such things at such a time, I humbly ask pardon of God for that, along with my other offences. I pardon all those who have brought me to this, as I hope to be pardoned, and I thank God that after much tribulation His grace has enabled me to say that from my heart.”

As Dicky finished speaking, there was a silence, a silence that was like that of the grave, among all those vast multitudes of people who filled the open space, choked the streets, and made the roofs and windows black with humanity. And in the midst of it the hangman, dressed in red, appeared upon the scaffold so strangely and quickly that he seemed like a spectre. As soon as Dicky saw this scarlet-clad and masked figure, he walked steadily up the rickety steps of the gallows and turned to have his hands untied. This the hangman did, and then went through the usual form of asking pardon of the condemned.

“I pardon thee freely, my friend,” replied Dicky, “and give thee the only thing I have left which will be of service to thee.”

He took from the pocket of his rusty cassock a fine silk handkerchief, which he handed the hangman, at the same time saying a word to him in a whisper.

The hangman then removed the cassock, and Dicky took off the beretta which had covered his fair hair. The hangman rolled the cassock and beretta into a bundle, and then threw them carelessly behind him. They fell almost at the feet of Diggory Hutchinson, who quickly seized the parcel, and hid it under his cloak without being seen.

Dicky then stood in his black breeches and stockings and his white shirt, the graceful lines of his young figure silhouetted against the morning sky. The delicacy of his hands and feet, his girlish red and white complexion, were singularly striking.

He had no crucifix, but he clasped his hands and prayed silently for the space of a minute. Then, raising his head, he looked about him, smiling. The sun, which had been shining hazily, now suddenly blazed out in splendor, and all the earth was bathed in the golden glory.

As Dicky’s intrepid eyes lighted upon Bess Lukens, standing pressed against the rope, she cried out in her musical, high-pitched voice,—

“God bless thee!” to which Dicky called back, “God bless thee!”

Then, making the sign of the cross, he turned to the hangman.

There was a breathless silence. A few women sobbed and shrieked, and a few men, racked with emotions strange to them, swore furiously, having no other mode of expression. They saw the young figure drawn up; there were a few convulsive movements, and all was still.

The crowd, mostly bloodthirsty, began to yell, “Cut him down! Cut the Jesuit down! He’ll be dead before he is quartered!” The hangman was long in doing this, but presently Dicky Egremont lay upon the ground livid and panting; no groan escaped him.

The executioner then produced his instrument,—a butcher’s knife sharpened like a razor. He plunged it into the quivering young body before him. There was no cry, but a stifled exclamation, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” The butcher did his horrid work; the more bloody-minded in the multitude crowding about him to dip their handkerchiefs in the young Jesuit’s blood, and to tear off strips from his gory clothing. But Dicky Egremont felt but one pang; the Lord Jesus had received his spirit.