THE winter of 1695-96 was balmy and mild, and the smugglers—known as “owlers”—between France and England were very lively. The great ladies of London actually had the felicity of seeing, in the secrecy of milliners’ back parlors, some dolls dressed in Paris, so as to show the very latest fashions. Also, if one were very discreet and had much money, certain French laces, silks, and perfumes could be bought on the sly. Every smuggler did a good business that winter except one, which lay sluggishly at anchor at a little fishing village near Calais, during the whole month of January. Dark nights came, but the “owler” moved not. The people in the little town thought the captain had lost all enterprise, but it was none of their affair; smuggling was too common for the movements of a single “owler” to excite remark in a little fishing village.

At last, one night, two gentlemen arrived in a travelling-chaise. One of them was a very tall man, with long, delicate fingers like the royal house of Stuart, and he was evidently a soldier. He had with him, however, no attendant. The other person’s status it was difficult to discover, except in one particular—he was evidently a gentleman. He had a very fresh complexion, a pleasant eye, and when he smiled there were dimples in his cheek like a girl’s. He was plainly, even commonly dressed, in old clothes, but was scrupulously neat; and he carried a fiddle-case. Yet he was treated upon a footing of perfect equality by the tall gentleman. The two ate together, and even slept together in the one room which a fisherman’s family could spare them. Two days after they arrived, came a vessel from England bringing despatches, and that night, just as the moon was going down, the two gentlemen went aboard the “owler,” her anchor was picked up, and her nose was turned toward England.

They were barely three hours at sea when they were landed at Dover, where they both took the London coach, but at different points. Nor did the tall gentleman bow, when the younger one with the fresh face, and the dimples, and the fiddle-case, mounted the top of the coach. Indeed, his manners changed excessively, for he said angrily to the young man who had slept in the same room with him the night before, “Have a care, my man. You are crowding your betters.”

“I humbly beg pardon, sir,” replied the young man, touching his hat, “but I am a stranger in these parts, and indeed, not much used to the road anyhow.”

The two travelled all the way to London in company, and scarce exchanged a word with each other. But at certain stages, when they were for a time the only passengers, there was evidently intelligence between them.

It was late at night before they reached the great, smoky city—wrapped in blackness, a river dark as the Styx flowing sluggishly, and great piles of buildings frowning down upon it. London after dark in 1696, was a city of dreadful night. The stopping place of the coach was at the Cock tavern in Bow Street.

The tall gentleman had a small portmanteau, which he himself handled, to the disgust of the tavern porters. The younger man had a little bag, such as might belong to a man who carried a fiddle-case. The porters did not think it worth their while to offer their services to this person.

The two departed from the inn without waiting for supper, the gentleman merely saying he had engaged lodgings elsewhere, while the fiddler alleged that he must look for a cheaper place to sleep. Although they went in opposite directions, within fifteen minutes they were walking up and down a narrow street together, in the shadow of a church porch.

“I hope, my Lord Duke,” said the younger man, who was Dicky Egremont, “that you and Sir John Fenwick and the other gentlemen engaged in this effort to restore the King will understand exactly how I am placed. My services and my life are at the disposal of our rightful King; that I consider the duty of a Christian and a loyal subject. Nay, more. As I am a priest, and without domestic ties, my life is not to me what it is to a layman,—to you, my Lord Duke, for example, with a young wife. Therefore, if there be any extra hazardous duty, it is clear that I am the man to take the risk. I am no hero, but I hope I am an honorable man, and capable of doing my duty.”

“I have not the least doubt of it, Mr. Egremont,” replied Berwick, warmly; “and your coming to England at this time, when there is a price upon the head of every member of the Society of Jesus is proof enough of your courage.”

“But I wish to say,” continued Dicky, “that I am here also to administer the sacraments to those of our religion who have long been deprived of them, especially the poorer people about Egremont. As long as our family was in possession of the estate, the few poor families who are of our religion were protected by the lords of the manor. But now, for near eight years they have been like sheep without a shepherd. I do not think the danger for me very great. In one quarter of Devonshire my name is a safeguard. I think no young gentleman in that county was as great a favorite with the common people as my cousin Roger. None of them would betray me, no matter how hot Protestants they are. If you can communicate with Tom Hawkins the fiddler, at the house of David Hodge, shoemaker, in the village of Egremont, you will find a willing servant of the King.”

“I have the name in my pocket-book, and I will not forget you, Tom Hawkins. And you have mine, Mr. Calthorpe, at the Globe tavern in Hatton Garden. Good-bye. May God prosper you.”

“The same to you, my Lord Duke. Adieu.”

Dicky walked on in the darkness until he reached a place of entertainment of the humbler class, a considerable distance from Bow Street. A few tunes on his fiddle got him a bed and supper,—he had money, but was wary of showing it,—and after playing for the revellers for an hour, he was glad to tumble in to a flock bed and sleep,—the sweetest sleep, he thought, he had had since he had left his native country, now more than nine years before.

There was ever a flame of adventure in the blood of the Egremonts; for Dicky, priest that he was, found himself perfectly happy when, next morning, he trudged out of London toward the sweet country, with his bag on his back, and his fiddle in his hand, albeit he was without a place to lay his head, and it was death for him to be on English soil. It was likewise felony to harbor a Jesuit; therefore Dicky had privately resolved to learn to live out-of-doors, so as to jeopardize as few lives as possible.

He walked on all that day, keeping the highroad to the southward, and stopping at half a dozen houses of entertainment, where he made his darling fiddle sing. He was careful to play only English tunes, or to give English names to the French ones he played, for he had no mind to let any one suspect that he was lately from France. While it was true the body of the people at that time were groaning under the taxation imposed by William’s wars, and were therefore extremely friendly to the Jacobites, yet the superstitious fear of the Jesuits still prevailed. Dicky Egremont, stout Englishman that he was, would have had short shrift had his real calling been known.

It was mild for the season, and being out in God’s free air all day was solid happiness to Dicky, who had been cooped up between walls, with books chiefly for company, during nearly ten whole years. He was so joyous in spirit that he wished to dance and sing as well as play. As he walked along the highroad toward noonday, he saw, down a little lane, some laborer’s cottages. A dozen bare-legged children were playing before the doors. Dicky, who loved children, went toward them, and smiling ran his bow across the strings of his violin. The children stopped, awed for a moment, but when he began to play “Green Sleeves,” and to sing the song as he played, they came about him in open-mouthed delight. Then one little urchin was moved to dance, and Dicky, by way of encouraging the others, began to do the most beautiful steps, playing meanwhile. At that all the little ones fell to dancing, the urchin who had opened the ball seizing the forepaws of a meek-looking dog, and whirling him around madly. Dicky played faster and faster; his fingers wandered into that favorite air he had so often played to Bess Lukens’s singing, “Les Folies en Espagne.” The sweet, rippling music brought the mothers to the cottage doors, who stopped from their daily toil long enough to smile at the merry young fiddler, who had such girlish dimples in his cheeks and who was dancing so gayly, stopping sometimes to prod the impertinent urchin who danced with the dog, when the poor animal was being whirled around too fast and barked piteously.

When the children stopped dancing, and sat down panting, Dicky stopped playing, and only then. A woman came out and very civilly brought him a bowl of milk and some brown bread. Dicky devoured both with the greatest relish. Not all the dainties he had even seen in France tasted like that English bread and milk; it was like that he used to have at Egremont when he was a little lad.

Presently it was time to take the road again; for he was anxious to be in Devonshire as quickly as possible. The children followed him to the highroad, and after he had played them a parting tune he went upon his way. He had scarcely gone a hundred yards, when the boy with the dog came running after him.

“Here, sir,” he said; “my daddy has told me I must get rid of Bold; we can’t feed ’im, and I’ll give ’im to you if you’ll take ’im.”

Dicky was charmed. A dog—an English dog! He had not owned one since he left England. And a dog would go excellently well with his disguise and would be a friend as well. As for Bold himself, there was nothing imposing about him but his name. Dicky concluded that Bold had not been used to the society of gentlemen; all the same, never was dog more gratefully received.

“Thank you, my little man; and here is a shilling for you. I’ll be good to the dog; that you may depend upon.”

The boy looked at the shilling which Dicky put in his hand, and then, appalled at such munificence, fled away without another word.

Dicky whistled to Bold, who came and licked his hand, and the two instantly agreed upon eternal friendship. But as Dicky walked briskly along, richer by a friend and companion, he bethought himself of his behavior and began to see that he had been singularly imprudent, and his escape from detection was due wholly to the ignorance of his audience. First, he should not have played “Les Folies en Espagne.” Then his dancing had comprised some foreign steps which might have instantly aroused suspicion; and he had so far departed from his assumed character that he had given money, instead of asking it. However, a miss was as good as a mile; and like most men of courage, Dicky troubled himself little about dangers as soon as they were past.

A few days of walking brought him into the Devon country. He had not up to that time dared to make known his character as a priest, but once in Devonshire, he was on familiar ground. He knew the few Catholic families in the county, and he had rightly said the Egremonts had friends enough in that county to protect him, Jesuit though he be.

His first stop was at the house of a Catholic gentleman near Exeter. Here he remained for two weeks in hiding, celebrating mass, instructing and baptizing many adult persons. Although there was danger in having it known that he was in England, it got bruited abroad among the well-wishers of King James; and many persons of Jacobite principles, Protestants as well as Catholics, visited him in secret to know how matters were at St. Germains. The prospects of an uprising in England were glowing. The people objected to the clipped money, which the Whig government had forced upon them, and they demanded to know what had become of the vast sums raised by ruinous taxation. Parliament was forced to prove itself. The speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John Trevor, was convicted of having accepted a bribe, and was expelled from the House. The East India Company was found to have spent fifty thousand pounds, of which ten thousand went into the pocket of William of Orange. He had made a grant of five sixths of the county of Denbigh, the ancient domain of the Prince of Wales, to his Dutch favorite Bentinck. The Parliament obliged him to recall the grant. He had given Lady Orkney a good slice of Ireland; that too the rude “parliament men” as William called them, roughly and coarsely compelled him to restore. They would have done worse, had not William wisely prorogued them.

Meanwhile all these things, especially the forcing foreigners to disgorge the estates of English and Irish gentlemen, were full of encouragement to all the friends of the Egremonts. Dicky discovered it was true that Hugo Egremont, alias Stein, had been unable to alienate an acre of Egremont, much as he desired to do so,—and he was so generally hated and despised in the county, it was said, that he was applying for a permanent foreign appointment; he stood in great favor with the court party.

There was very great activity among the Jacobites assembled in London, and it was desired by the friends of King James in Devonshire to communicate with them. Who so well fitted as this young Egremont, who was quite unknown outside his native county?

Two expeditions to and from London did Dicky and Bold make,—Dicky each time with papers in his pockets enough to have hanged a hundred men. He steadfastly declined to know their contents.

“For, in case I am stopped, I wish to say that I do not know what these letters refer to, nor the names of the persons writing them. That they are meant to help toward the restoration of our lawful King, I know, and never will deny.”

After the second of these journeys, when the Jacobites only needed the word to rise, a thunderbolt fell from the sky. Sir John Fenwick was arrested, and with him Sir John Friend, General Rookwood, and many other gentlemen of condition, all implicated in a plot to abduct William of Orange. One gentleman, known as Mr. Calthorpe, escaped. There was some doubt about his identity, but it was noted that he had long, slender hands, with delicate fingers, like the Stuarts. Dicky Egremont and some others knew who this gentleman was.

The failure of the expected uprising was a disappointment to Dicky Egremont, as to all the other friends of King James. But he had come to England upon other work. It was to preach, to pray, to administer the sacraments to the poor,—for it was toward these unfortunate children of the common Father that Dicky Egremont yearned. Truly, the Egremonts had ever been well liked by the humble people. It was with joy, therefore, that he left the house of his friend, near Exeter, to go among the poor and despised of men; but on the very day that he proposed to go in secret to Egremont, news was brought from London that among the persons indicted for an attempt to murder William of Orange, was one Richard Egremont, known to be a Jesuit priest in disguise, who had been active in the matter from the start. Dicky at once disappeared from the neighborhood of Exeter, but within a week was apprehended, together with Bold, his dog, in the village of Egremont, and taken in chains, as became a villain, and would-be regicide, to London, to be tried for his life. And for the second time an Egremont stood in the prisoners’ dock, accused of a capital crime against the person of William of Orange.

The affair for which eleven gentlemen were tried, and nine convicted, was so very like the former one, in which Roger Egremont had been engaged, that it seemed as if the young Jesuit was convicted on evidence offered in his cousin’s case. It was the same story,—a plot to kidnap William of Orange. Only, the statements of the two kinsmen were entirely different. It was well remembered that Roger had coolly avowed his intention, and when asked, in tones of horror, if he contemplated murder, remarked that in a mêlée with pistols and swords, it would not be surprising if some one got hurt, and for his part, had the Prince of Orange refused to submit, he would have had it out with him, and one or the other might have been killed.

Dicky Egremont, on the contrary, swore that he knew nothing of the plot, and was not in the confidence of the conspirators; but that he knew it was a movement for the restoration of King James, and as such he willingly assisted in transmitting information. This was enough, even without his frank avowal that he belonged to the Society of Jesus. It was not even necessary to stretch a point, as in the case of Sir John Fenwick, in whose case but one witness could be found to convict him, instead of the two which the law required. This was promptly remedied by a bill of attainder, and, as his counsel urged, “the whole force of parliament was used to take away the life of a man whom the laws of his country could not condemn.” The prisoners were confined in Newgate gaol. Bold, with an intelligence far beyond his plebeian and mongrel breed, managed to follow his master even to Newgate. The poor animal was so ugly and worthless—except the faithful heart of him—that he was worth no man’s stealing.

The first acquaintance Bold made, after sneaking into Newgate, was Diggory Hutchinson, Bess Lukens’s old admirer. Diggory remembered something about the Jesuit gentleman’s dog having followed him, and on taking Bold to Dicky’s cell, the two companions met with such a rapture of friendship that Diggory’s heart—not a bad one—was touched.

“I can’t let you have him sir,” he said to Dicky, “but I’ll keep him, and fetch him to see you once a day—till—till—” till Dicky was convicted and hanged, was in Diggory’s mind.

Dicky was charmed at the idea of having his dog with him, even for an hour a day, and thanked Diggory most gratefully. Diggory remembered the last Egremont who had inhabited Newgate, and reminded Dicky of it when he brought the prisoner his gaol fare and his dog, on the first day of his imprisonment.

Dicky, on this announcement, was disposed to regard Diggory as more of a friend than ever.

“Do you remember my cousin Roger? Well, they were forced to put him out of gaol; perhaps they will do the same with me,” he said, smiling. The dreadful position in which he found himself had not taken the ruddy color out of his face, nor the laughing light from his eye.

Diggory shook his head; he knew more of the fate which might befall a prisoner in Newgate than Dicky did. It might be thought that a prison turnkey must in time lose all human feeling. Not so. Diggory Hutchinson, whose heart was not bad, performed his duties with the same exactness, and in the same spirit, that the head master of a school does.

After a time he grew sufficiently intimate with Dicky to ask, in a stuttering voice, and with something as near a blush as his complexion would allow,—

“Did you ever hear, sir, or see, a lass by—by—the name o’ Lukens?—Bess Lukens; as some said, followed Mr. Roger Egremont to France.”

“I know her well,” cried Dicky, “and a better girl never lived. She did, in truth, go to France; but she did not follow my cousin or any other man there.” And then he gave Diggory a rosy description of Bess’s condition and success.

Diggory went away very thoughtful.

Within two weeks the trial of the conspirators began, and among the nine men convicted was “Richard Egremont, some time of the parish of Egremont and county of Devon, by profession a popish priest and of the Jesuit order.” Sir John Fenwick was sentenced to be beheaded, but Richard Egremont, Sir John Friend, and Sir William Perkins,—the last two wealthy London merchants,—were sentenced to be hanged, to be cut down while still alive, to be quartered, and their heads and dismembered bodies to be displayed at Temple Bar.

This sentence was pronounced in Westminster Hall, at dusk on a spring evening. It was received in silence. When the young priest rose, however, in spite of their grotesque fear of his order, a wave of pity swept over the assembled audience. He was so young and boyish looking,—he had never looked his twenty-six years less than at that moment. Having listened with perfect composure to his sentence, the young priest asked permission to speak. Chief Justice Holt, noted for his mildness toward prisoners, and who had, seven years before, ordered the chains struck from the limbs of Roger Egremont, readily gave permission, saying,—

“A man in your condition, sir, should ever be allowed to make such justification as he can, no matter how clearly he may have transgressed the laws of the land.”

“I humbly thank your lordship,” replied Dicky; “I desire only to say, on the word of a priest, a gentleman, and an Egremont, that those who turned King’s evidence, and swore that I was concerned in any scheme to murder, swore falsely. But that I did all I could, which was but the carrying of some letters back and forth, to assist in the restoration of King James, I own; nor have I any apologies to make. And I shall suffer death cheerfully, my conscience being clear.”

The prisoners were at once removed, to be hanged the next day but one. Dicky, handcuffed to a constable, like his fellow-prisoners, was led down the gloomy stairs, between lines of curious persons; some denouncing him, others pitying his youth and supposed misguided conduct. Arrived at the great door leading into the street, he was put into a hackney coach, with another constable on the other side of him.

The night had fallen, and with it had come a death-like fog, which wrapped the great city. The coachman could but feel his way along the dismal streets, faintly lighted at a few points by oil lamps. Dicky was perfectly composed and cheerful, and was talking of Egremont with the constable to whom he was handcuffed, when suddenly a scuffling of hoofs was heard, the coach started off violently, rocking from side to side, cries arose,—the horses had bolted.

“Keep cool, sir,” said the man on his left to Dicky; to which Dicky replied, smiling,—

“Keep cool yourself, my man. I am to die on the day after to-morrow, anyhow; surely there is no occasion for me to be alarmed.”

The horses were now tearing along the stony street. At a sharp turn there was a cry, and a dark object whirled from the box on to the ground. It was the coachman. The horses, now quite free from restraint, rushed on madly, and the next thing came a shock, a crash, shrieks, the trampling of many horses; the hackney coach had dashed full into a chariot and six, with several gentlemen inside of it. Dicky felt a violent blow on the head, a sudden wrench, a falling to the ground. There was a plunging of horses, groans and cries of pain, many persons running together, some one calling for a lantern. In the midst of it he felt himself free from his companion. He scrambled to his feet and staggered instinctively out of the mêlée. He found himself leaning against the corner of a wall. There was much confusion; one person in the chariot was killed, and one of the constables was shrieking with pain. Dicky recognized the man’s voice. A crowd had collected in two minutes; and then the cry arose,—

“Where is the prisoner?”

That one word restored to Dicky Egremont his strength and his senses. He turned instantly, and fled through the darkness.

He ran until he was breathless, and then, stopping for a moment to listen, heard not a step behind him, and looking before him he saw that he was on the very brink of the black river. Looming up before him were ghostly hulks and shadowy masts and spars of ships, with lanterns twinkling feebly. He looked about him, and seeing not a soul in sight, fell upon his knees, crying,—

“I thank Thee, O my Father, for Thy protection so far; but if Thou hast ordained that I should suffer death for Thy sake, I ardently accept Thy will.”

Then, rising to his feet, he walked rapidly on, keeping close to the river bank. He met few persons, and those he easily concealed himself from in the dense and overhanging fog.

He became conscious of pain in his left wrist, and realized that it was badly wrenched and skinned where it had been dragged through the handcuff. But there was no blood to betray him. He pulled the sleeve of his body-coat down over it, and walked on. When he had gone, he judged, at least three miles down the river, he stopped. There were still vessels to be seen, but they were not thickly clustered as higher up. There were some houses scattered about,—one of them, a small, tumble-down place, quite uninhabited, with its door wide open. He entered it, closed the door as well as he could, looked about him and saw that the decaying windows were fast, and then, after giving thanks, he lay down upon the bare floor, and in two minutes had fallen into that sweet sleep which had ever been the portion of his brave and innocent spirit.

He did not waken until he heard, in the far distance, the chiming of a church clock at nine o’clock in the morning. It was still dark; the fog lay black and heavy over city and river. He peered out of a broken window and saw that he was in a lonely place, with no houses very near. He was ravenously hungry, but he dared not go forth for food.

He spent the day in alternately watching and sleeping. He had neither money, food, nor weapon—was ever fugitive worse provided for flight? Yet his courage did not falter. Truly, there was no cowardice in the Egremont blood.

Toward night of this first day, hunger drove him forth. There were a few scattered houses with cultivated fields along the river bank, and one of these tilled spots was a turnip field. Dicky made for this field in the half darkness, and ate his fill and crammed his pockets with turnips. Then he ran back as fast as his legs would carry him to the deserted house.

In all the waking hours since he had found himself without handcuffs, his mind had been working on the problem of escape. The river before him seemed the only natural and feasible highroad for him. There were many vessels moving about, and at anchor. In particular, there lay, immediately in front of the deserted house, a heavy lugger, such as was used in those days for voyaging between England and the continent. And balancing his slender chances for escape, Dicky thought if he could get on board that vessel it might be well for him. They were always ready to ship a likely young man. Dicky was well-made and active, though short; only, he knew nothing of a sailor’s work, and his injured wrist might betray him.

With this plan in view, Dicky lay down on the bare floor and slept easily and soundly that second night. Luckily, the weather was extremely mild, and the discipline he had known at Clermont and at Paris—to live on meagre fare, to lie on a hard bed, to rise before daylight—stood him in good stead.

He waked at five o’clock, the hour at which he had always been accustomed to rise while at the seminary. The first thought which had occurred to him was that it was the day on which the nine Jacobite gentlemen with whom he had been tried would mount the scaffold. Dicky Egremont wondered at the providence of God which had suffered him alone of them all to escape; him to whom death would be less bitter than to men who left families behind them, whose estates were likely to be sequestrated, their children certain to sink into poverty. Dicky Egremont would have reckoned himself the happiest man on earth could he have exchanged places with any one of those unfortunate gentlemen, and would have gone cheerfully to his death to have spared an agonized wife and weeping children the loss of a husband and father. But God had decreed otherwise; and Dicky, falling upon his knees, prayed long and earnestly for his unfortunate fellow-prisoners, who were to suffer that day.

As soon as it was light he glanced out and saw the lugger still lying at anchor, with no signs of leaving. He spent that second day in prayer, and having but one means of mortification, he ate no turnips that day, and so went fasting.

The day grew foggy, and it was not until the stars were out in the evening that he saw any indications of leaving. Then a boat passed back and forth from the shore, and presently, coming shoreward, stopped as if waiting for some one. And in the dusky April evening, Dicky saw a figure, evidently a seafaring man, walking toward the place where the boat waited.

Dicky surmised that this man was the skipper, and going out of the house, made for him and accosted him boldly but civilly.

“Sir,” he said, “are you in want of hands on your vessel?”

“I always am,” replied the captain; and then, his practised eye seeing that Dicky was a gentleman, he asked, “What straits have brought you to this pass?” At the very first word the skipper spoke, Dicky’s heart bounded with joy. The Devonshire burr ran through all his speech.

“You are a Devonshire man, I see,” said Dicky, coolly; “so am I. Take me aboard and I will tell you that which will make you willing to let me work my passage to wherever you are bound.”

“You are right; I am Devon born and bred,” replied the skipper. “We sail with the tide for Antwerp. Where is your passage money?”

“Do you think I would have asked to earn my passage had I money in my pocket? My friend, I am a gentleman of your own county. If you take me to Antwerp, I give you the word of a gentleman that you shall have, within a month, the best rate you ever had for a passenger in your life.”

The skipper motioned him into the boat. Arrived on board, he dared not ask for anything to eat in spite of the hunger that gnawed him like a wolf. He waited, therefore, with such patience as he could, while the anchor was hove; and, a fresh breeze rising, in half an hour they were moving slowly down the river, stealing past mansions and farmsteads and low-lying houses, by the faint gleam of the stars.

When they were well on their way, the captain leaving the deck for a few minutes, supper was served in a stuffy little cabin by a ragged cabin boy. By that time Dicky was too faint to eat ravenously.

“I have seen that to-day,” said the skipper, “which might spoil any man’s supper. I have seen the heads and quarters of two London citizens, Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins nailed up at Temple Bar. They were hanged to-day.”

“God rest their souls,” said Dicky after a moment. And catching the man’s eye fixed on him meaningly, he saw that he was known. He turned up his sleeve and showing his bruised arm, said,—

“I am Richard Egremont, who was to have been hanged this day, but God willed it otherwise. I am of that Devonshire family which has seen its estates given to bastards and strangers, and we have been forced to eat the bread of exile for more than seven years. Now give me up, if you choose.”

“I do not choose,” replied the man, after a moment. “Not all of us in England like our new King and our new taxes. I be no Papist, but I will betray no gentleman because he is a Papist or even a Popish priest. And though I be not often in late years in Devon, yet, I have heard of Mr. Roger Egremont being turned out for his father’s by-blow, and a shame I think it. So eat and sleep in peace, Mr. Egremont, and when I return to England I’ll swear I never saw or heard of you.”

“I thank you for an honest man, worthy of Devon—the best county in our England, the best people—”

“They have not treated you and your trade over well,” dryly remarked the skipper.

“They are blinded by prejudice and have been evilly taught things about us which are not true; but we English in the Society of Jesus fight for the privilege of coming here, albeit we risk our necks by it; and I tell you, my friend, though I be glad to get out of England now, I propose to return some day, and having escaped with my life once, I shall make that a claim to come again. And now tell me the mournful story of those unhappy gentlemen who died under the hangman’s hands to-day.”

The skipper told the story with that calm brutality with which a common mind, however good, relates horrors. He spared not one detail of the hanging or quartering.

“There was much murmuring on the part of the crowd, and it was openly said that the reason the King is so hot after Sir John Fenwick, who is not yet apprehended, and for whose conviction the whole power of the crown was used, when it was found impossible to convict him under the law, is because Sir John laughed at the King’s being beaten by the old hunchback, as he called Marshal Luxembourg, in the Low Counties. The gentlemen who suffered to-day all died bravely, and called the people to witness that they died for their King.”

Dicky remained silent for some time, and then, rising, said,

“I must have a last glimpse of my country. Though she drives me away from her, like a cruel mother, yet will I love her,—and will take no other for a step-mother.”

He went on deck, and remained as long as he could catch a glimpse of the shadowy shores, past which they glided. Then, kneeling down, he prayed earnestly for his country, and a part of his prayer was that he might soon return.

Within two days they made Antwerp. Dicky was not suffered to land without money, and when the skipper pressed half a dozen gold-pieces upon him, Dicky, with that strange loyalty which an exile always feels for the land from which he has been driven forth, said, with tears in his eyes,—

“There are not in the world such good hearts and open purses as in Devonshire.”

One afternoon, about a month afterward, Bess Lukens determined to hire a coach, and take the air. Not that she had ever learned to enjoy herself in a coach, or that the motion ever failed to turn her brilliant complexion into a sickly green, and to make her feel a horrible coach-sickness which is only a trifle less than seasickness. But she considered it due to her altered position, she being now a regularly engaged singer at the King’s Opera, under the Abbé d’Albret; and also as a mark of respectability, as well as prosperity. Her old friend Mamma Mazet, now grown very feeble, was asked to accompany her, but the old lady having declined, Bess, set forth alone in the coach; she wore a silk sack, and a hat with feathers in it. She drove out of Paris, and for a mile or two along that beautifully paved road which led to Versailles. There was sure to be much good company seen on this road, and on this joyous May afternoon there were coaches, chaises, and cavaliers in plenty. Bess had some acquaintances in this gay throng. Her beauty and her voice had made her well known in that idle society, which concerned itself chiefly with personal affairs. But the reputation she had acquired and which she carefully fostered of never having a civil word in return for a compliment from a gentleman, kept her from being over popular. The afternoon was bright and balmy, and the motion of the coach affecting her less than usual, she remained out until nearly sunset. Returning by way of the unfinished gate of St. Martin, she caught sight of a familiar figure sitting on a pile of rubbish left by the builders. It was Richard Egremont,—but looking so ill that Bess was alarmed when she saw him. His usually round, fresh face was haggard, and his short and somewhat stocky figure was but skin and bone. When Bess saw him she stopped the coach, and called out to him joyfully. Dicky, however, made no reply, but looked at her with strange, lack-lustre eyes. Bess, jumping out of the coach, went up to him and caught his hand,—it was burning with fever.

“Why, Mr. Egremont!” she cried; “how glad I am to see you back again, and alive! We were in great misery here for some weeks, knowing you to have been caught, and thinking you would be hanged. But the good God saved your life.”

“I think,” said Dicky, with a look of wandering in his eyes, “that I did wrong to return. I am going back to England to-morrow. I was very well treated while I was there,—not in prison a day—not a day. If I had but my fiddle now—”

Bess looked at him hard, then catching him by his arm proceeded to drag him toward the coach.

“What are you going to do with me?” feebly asked Dicky.

“Take you home, put you to bed, and send for an apothecary,” replied Bess, literally shoving him into the coach.

“But—but—my superiors—” he faltered vaguely; to which Bess made a brief and comprehensive reply.

“Drat your superiors!” she said. “Drive home, coachman, as quickly as you can.”

Bess was as good as her word. Papa Mazet was not at home, but Mamma Mazet assisted Bess in undressing Dicky and putting him to bed; and when the apothecary came, he looked very solemn indeed, and said that the young gentleman might recover, and he might not. And this he said every day for six weeks, when Dicky lay raving with fever, or stupid from its effects.

On a certain calm, bright June morning he waked up quite himself. The birds were singing in the trees, in the old garden back of the house, on which his windows opened. He thought at first they were singing “Les Folies en Espagne,” but presently perceived they were not. And by his bedside sat Bess Lukens, as fresh as a rose; toil and sleeplessness left no mark upon her strong frame. Dicky, gathering his wits together, and surmising all that had happened since that faint remembrance of Bess carrying him off by force, said, in a weak voice, but oh, how full of gratitude and affection,—

“Bess Lukens, how good art thou to me—and to all the Egremonts! God bless thee!”

He had never called her Bess before, and his simple words went to the very heart of her. That she, Red Bess, the gaoler’s girl, should have the proud Egremonts acknowledge her goodness to them! It pleased her honest and simple heart more than any praise on earth, except—well, Roger’s was always excepted. So she answered, patting his thin hand, and calling him Dicky for the first time,—

“Thou art a good lad, Dicky Egremont; I care not if thou art a popish priest,”—at which Dicky laughed feebly,—“and I hope you will have sense enough to keep out of England, where you will surely be hanged if you venture again.” A gleam of light appeared in Dicky’s sunken eyes.

“I shall return to England as soon as I am allowed,” he said; “and as for hanging—’tis not a painful death, I believe. An English hangman is sure to do the job properly.”