CHAPTER IX.

IN ONE ORCHARD AND SEVERAL LANES.

In the orchard father and son looked askance at each other.

"My dear lad," said Sir Matthew, "my dear lad-" and stopped abashed by the dear lad's angry eyes. Jack Dane laughed:

"Is there more to say than a goodbye, sir?"

Sir Matthew licked his lips. "Dear lad, you apprehend the matter amiss -nay, consider. My brother harbored rebels, rebels, Jack-"

"Poor hunted devils, and so would any man!"

"Jack!" cried his father aghast. "Dear lad, they were rebels against the King. It was my duty to seize them. To let them escape were treason. And I am in the Commission. Ah, lad it was grievous to uncover his fault. Pray you may never know such pain. I"

"Oh, must you cover it with cant? Is it not enough to find you here in his own garden on the morning of his hanging?"

"Nay, dear lad. You mistake. You misjudge. He has not been hanged." "What, sir?"

"I procured that he should be beheaded. I have been very urgent with my Lord Sunderland. My Lord has been much my friend, and has saved us the shame of a hanging."

Jack Dane broke out in a bitter laugh. "I misjudged indeed! I never thought to hear a man boast that he only beheaded his brother. Nay, say no more. You'll not better that. God be with you, sir! I pray to God I may never see your face again. "Tis enough to know I am your son." He cocked his hat and strode away.

"I have but a few hours to live,--" said Sir Matthew, sighing plaintively. But his son was gone, and the sad reflection saddened none but Sir Matthew himself. He was left in his Aceldama exceeding sorrowful.

Sir Matthew quoted to himself concerning Jeshurun, who waxed fat and kicked. Sure, 'twas the boy's comfortable estate had bred this wanton insolence. Nay, he had not dared defy his father but that he knew himself provided. The impious boy must mean to claim his mother's Kentish manors. Oh, sharper than a serpent's tooth! Sir Matthew sought to persuade himself that he might hold those manors still, but repeating the clauses of the settlement (he knew them by heart) found no hope. Sir Matthew inquired of Heaven why he was curst with an impious son and then cast a balance. Gain Bourne Manor and the table money of a wicked boy. Loss Dunton and Westerham. A poor hundred pounds by the year was all he had gained by the grievous mournful duty of killing his brother. Such in this world (Sir Matthew reflected) is the reward of stainless virtue. He had been much advantaged in his morality by friendship with my Lord Sunderland.

His unnatural son was riding away through the park, and twice in a theatrical manner he laughed loud. He appeared to himself a character from a tragedy, and pulled his hat over his brows, in which picturesque array he was startled by a gay:

"Holà, cousin!" and saw galloping down upon him a roan mare and a girl in gray. Behind her a cloud of brown hair hung upon the wind. Jack Dane halted. "Why, cousin!" cried the girl. "Oh cousin, you picture of woe! Come for a gallop with me."

"Nay, Nell, I have no leisure now," said Jack, with solemnity. The girl reined up by his side and looked at his gloomy face and laughed.

"No leisure!" she mimicked solemnly. "Oh, alack! And is it in Heaven you are needed, Mr. Dane? To sober their joys, sir?"

"I have no heart to jest, Nell. Goodbye." He held out his hand.

"Faith, I crave your divinity's pardon!" the girl cried, and bowed and drew away. But he held out his hand still, and while she looked defiance at his eyes she saw they were gloomy. So she came again and gave him her hand. Jack Dane held it a moment.

"Some folks," said the girl modestly, "would kiss it." Jack Dane obeyed. "Good-bye, little girl," said he. "Till

-?"

jeu, bowing. "I knew your uncle and honored him." Jack Dane flushed.

"Pray favor us, sir," says Mr. Healy, waving his hand to the dinner.

"I wish to say, Mr. Healy, that if you desire to meet me in any other causeI carry a sword, sir," said Jack Dane majestically. Mr. Healy shook his

head.

"Faith, I will have no quarrel with you at all, sir. I spoke for the sake of the dead."

"Whom we all honor," said Beaujeu gravely. "In that bond, sir, we are all friends." Jack Dane bowed and sat down. Beaujeu eyed him keenly while Mr. Healy, carving the pheasants, pondered on the unlikeness of kinsmencompared Beaujeu's tall lithe frame and long swordsman's limbs to the square strength of his cousin, Beau

"Oh brave!" the girl laughed, and sat looking after him. "How cross he was!" she murmured, and reflected: "I like him cross. He was never so much a man. I suppose he has quarreled with his father. I should! He is-he is worse than mother." To which flattered parent Mistress Nellie d'Abernon then rode home.

M. de Beaujeu and Mr. Healy had come to their rendezvous. "Ye Red Barne: by J. Ottaway: for man and beast." Mr. Healy read aloud from the sign. "Shall we stop and bait, Beaujeu?" Beaujeu, who was staring at the inscription, shrugged his shoulders.

"I would be the better of a dinner," said Mr. Healy, dismounting, and was surprised that Beaujeu showed no reluctance to enter nor any interest in aught inside. Also relieved.

At dinner Jack Dane found them; and Mr. Healy, rising: "My friend, M. de Beaujeu, a French gentleman of the Imperial service, Mr. Dane."

"At your command, sir," says Beau

light blue eyes half hidden beneath his brow to the open stare of the lad's big, brown eye and his round rosy cheeks. Mr. Healy, an amateur of beauty, ap. proved both, and began to eat and talk for three. He expounded that M. de Beaujeu and himself having made some small fortune in foreign wars (which he described elaborately) were come to spend it in England.

"Gad, sir, I wish you joy of your choice," said Jack Dane, and essayed a laugh of sarcasm. "We are like to be very merry under King James. Merry! Good luck to you, gentlemen!" He lay back and drained his glass. Beaujeu and Mr. Healy exchanged a glance.

"Sure, merry is what we hope to be," says the innocent Mr. Healy.

"It is, henceforth, my endeavor," said M. de Beaujeu. And Jack Dane wondered if they were laughing at him, but could see no joke.

Since by a strange chance they were all going to London, they rode together. The swift November twilight was falling before they had come nearer the

town than Brentford. As they lumbered through the narrow muddy lane beyond Turnham Green Mr. Healy's quick eye caught a glimpse of a horse's head and shoulders and a rider lurking at a cross way.

"And will you be a gentleman of the road?" said he, nodding at the vision. The other two peered through the shadows.

"Why, damme, 'tis Tom Wharton or his double the devil!" cried Jack Dane, as they came nearer. "Here, Wharton!" he shouted. But at the word the horse was reined back, the rider hidden behind the hedge, and when they came to the mouth of the lane horse and rider were vanished.

"Sure, 'tis a very elusive gentleman. Did you say his name was Wharton?" says Mr. Healy,

"No. The devil," said Jack, frowning; and wondering (as M. de Beaujeu was wondering) what could bring Mr. Wharton to Turnham Green of a November evening.

"Begad, then, he need not have cut me," says Mr. Healy. “But-oh, ma'am, your servant!" He reined back in a hurry to give place to a lady on horse. back, who swept round a bend in the road. She was masked, she was cloaked in black, and her horse was black. M. de Beaujeu also pulled his horse out of the way, begged a million pardous for jostling her; and the mysterious lady, bowing, passed on. "Sable on sable," says Mr. Healy, "'tis mighty bad heraldry, but duly fit for the devil's mistress." Jack Dane, beholding now an explanation of the presence of Mr. Wharton, laughed. For other reasons M. de Beaujeu also laughed. Upon the bridle of that black steed he had beheld an initial-"S."

They came past the twinkling lights of Kensington village and my Lord Nottingham's new mansion, and on down the gloomiest of tree-shadowed highways, with weird shadows a-dance

before them on the mud. Where the houses met them at last by St. James's Church, and the smell of the sea-coal smoke, "Mr. Dane, we are lodged in Essex Street, in the Strand. Do you come by our way?" says M. de Beaujeu.

"Why, monsieur, across Leicester Fields at least. I rest with Mr. Wharton in the Lincoln's Inn Fields."

Turning they passed again to a country lane, and, skirting the white palings of Leicester Fields, came to the scattered cottages beyond St. Martin's. At the door of one was a splash of color and light. Four footmen on either side held aloft flaring torches. The flames fell on their liveries of scarlet and gold, and a great crimson coach and its four black horses, harnessed with an abundance of glittering brass. As the three came up the door was flung wide. A blaze of clearer, whiter light shot out, and through it came a woman white and dazzling as the light itself. Her dress was white, and whiter still her shoulders and arms. In the little hollow below her neck one big diamond shone with many colored flames. Her dark hair hung in ringlets round her temples. She walked with a strange smooth step that bore her sailing on like a swan upon the waters. Behind her was a handsome, lusty fellow in green velvet and a yellow periwig, smiling, mightily pleased with himself.

He

But Mr. Dane was not pleased. sprang down and thrust forward to her side, leaving in Mr. Healy's ears the sound of a muttered oath. Mr. Healy, hearing also the scrape of hoofs, turned to find that M. de Beaujeu had reined back to the shadow, whence came the sound of his harsh, scornful laugh. "Now, where is the humor?" Mr. Healy inquired of himself.

"La, Mr. Dane!" cried the lady laughing and giving him her hand. "I go to sing to the King. Is he not blessed?"

"Beyond his deserts, ma'am," said Mr. Dane. "Would I were King!" he sighed amorously. And again Mr. Healy heard the laugh of Beaujeu.

"Then Majesty would be better favored," said the lady smiling. "Would he not, my Lord Sherborne?" she turned to her cavalier.

"For the body, ma'am, yes. For the brains-oh, God save us!" and my lord handed her in laughing.

jeu, as the man backed before them into a room hung with blue tapestry.

"D'you know," said Mr. Healy dropping into a chair, "I have not had a house of my own for ten years. And 'tis consoling at last." M. de Beaujeu grunted. At supper Mr. Healy found him morose, and forgave him readily, remembering the work of the morning. But afterwards, as they smoked over the fire, Beaujeu broke twice into a

"Your Majesty-good night!" said my lord. "Go early to bed!" and with that and the laughter of the lady and my lord the carriage rolled away down the hill to Whitehall with the footmen running beside the horses.

"Curse him!" muttered Mr. Dane dramatically. And for the third time Mr. Healy heard the laughter of M. de Beaujeu. Then: "Well, gentlemen, good night to you!" said Mr. Dane sharply turning.

"Oh, good night!" says Mr. Healy. "We'll doubtless be meeting again."

"Doubtless," said Beaujeu; and, with Healy bowing and Beaujeu touching his hat, they rode away from the suddenly unsocial Jack Dane. The lad sat his horse in the darkness, a statue, waiting romantically his lady's return. M. de Beaujeu glancing back once saw him and laughed for the fourth time.

They came out to the filth and stench of the strand by the long arcades of the New Exchange, and went down the steep slope of Essex Street under the jutting windows on either side to the last house built out on arches over the river. Servants swiftly answered Beaujeu's whip-rap and led away their horses. In the narrow hall stood bowing with a candlestick in either hand a sturdy Swiss.

"One has done what one could, monsieur," he said in French. "But, alasin two days!"

"It is well done, Dubois," says Beau

"And where is the humor, Beaujeu?"

Beaujeu stared at him. "Where is it not?" he said, and laughed again. Mr. Healy took out his pipe and opened his eyes.

"I would say you had known days more mirthful," said he.

"By God, not one," said M. de Beaujeu, and laughed again. Mr. Healy shrugged his shoulders and began to smoke once more. More than ever he seemed to himself a man in a fairy tale. "And damnable well 'twill serve our turn," said Beaujeu suddenly. "Good night."

"Oh, good night to you," cried Healy, staring at the shut door. Then took off his wig and scratched his head. "Will you tell me now," says he to his pipe, "am I real?"

CHAPTER X.

MR. WHARTON

On the next night Mr. Wharton had a little party of Whigs: Mr. Edward Russell, the Earl of Twyford, the Earl of Laleham, and Mr. Jack Dane-and Mr. Wharton zealously passed the wine and they debated gravely, thus:

"Tom Wharton, you rogue, who's the woman in the black mask?" cried the Earl of Twyford.

"Which of 'em?" says Wharton coolly. "Here? Or in Mulberry Garden? Or the fat dame of Fetter Lane? Or――"

"Fie! Think of Jack Dane's moralities. Grafton saw you by Turnham Green."

Mr. Wharton laughed easily. “Oh, that!" He shook his head. "Find your own women, Harry. Mine are dear."

The Earl of Twyford drank a bumper, and, turning up his eyes to heaven: "Now, Tom Wharton," says he piously, "no more loose stories. Jack Dane shall give us a discourse on true love. Silence for the man who knows an honest woman!"

"Whose fault is it you don't, Harry?" said Jack Dane.

"Egad, I never could tell! And, of -course, if I had met your flamehe paused.

"The better for you," said Jack quietly.

"And the worse for her," growled Mr. Russell. Jack Dane flushed, and "Twyford and Wharton seeing it, struck in together to keep the peace:

"But I say, Tom Wharton, to come to business

-of

"But, Harry, what is this tale

They both stopped, laughing at each other, and the large and stolid Earl of Laleham broke in deep-voiced: "Now you are choking, here is my chance. Wharton, have you heard about Wind.sor Races?"

Mr. Russell growled. The wine was bright in his eyes. "We'll not beat "Black James' at Windsor Races, gentlemen," he said sharply. Mr. Wharton jerked a nod at him and laughed.

"Ned o' the Scowls," said he. "Be damned to politics! Here's to 'Careless,' gentlemen-a curst good mare if I say it! And a curst good toast for good fellows! 'Careless!" They drank that in bumpers.

The wine went round and round. Louder and looser grew the talk. The flood of Burgundy washed away Mr. Russell's politics and his sneers, and he grew feebly jovial over the empty bot

tles. Mr. Wharton's Whigs debated noisily of horses and women, with Mr. Wharton loudest and loosest of all. The night was old when Russell and Laleham and Twyford lurched off arm in arm, Mr. Wharton bidding them good-night in a view halloa! from the door. Coming back, he found that Mr. Dane was fallen asleep with his head on the table. Mr. Wharton shook him vigorously and in vain. Mr. Wharton leant back against the wall and regarded him austerely:

"Do-you-know," says he slowly and very distinctly, "you are a sad sot?" Mr. Dane snored. A servant came in and touched Mr. Wharton's arm.

"Pardon, sir. The gentleman you was to see-I do not know if you will see him?" Mr. Wharton stared.

"Damme, I think I will see two of him," says he. "Put Mr. Dane to bed." And off he went.

So regard Mr. Wharton holding on by the table with his wig awry and a leer on his ugly flushed face while his guest bows to him. "You are my M. de Beaujeu?" says Mr. Wharton, with penetrating clarity of speech.

"I am, Mr. Wharton. But that is not my name."

"Oh, the devil!" said Mr. Wharton, and sat down and stared at him. "Are you a plot? If you are good-night! Plots always upset me."

"When sober?" M. de Beaujeu permitted himself a sneer. Mr. Wharton straightened his wig.

"I am," says he modestly, "as drunk as I can ever get but I am sober enough for you, Mr. An-Anonymous."

"Nor I am not that neither," said Beaujeu, smiling.

"Then what are you?" Mr. Wharton roared angrily.

"On your honor to keep it secret 'Beaujeu began.

"No, damme, no!" cried Mr. Wharton in haste. "I am not so drunk that I'll