Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Emerson Hough's 'The Mississippi Bubble' is a gripping historical thriller set in the early 18th century during the infamous financial scheme in France known as the Mississippi Bubble. The novel combines elements of adventure, mystery, and intrigue, as the protagonist navigates the treacherous world of high finance and political corruption. Hough's writing is characterized by vivid descriptions, complex characters, and a suspenseful plot that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. The historical context of the Mississippi Bubble adds depth and richness to the storyline, offering insights into the economic and social climate of the time period. Hough's attention to detail and meticulous research shine through in his portrayal of this historical event, making the novel both engaging and educational for readers interested in historical fiction. A must-read for fans of thrilling historical narratives and intricate plot twists, 'The Mississippi Bubble' will leave readers eagerly turning the pages until the very end. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 510
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE
(Historical Thriller)
Published by
Books
Table of Contents
Introduction
When the dream of effortless wealth seduces a nation, belief itself becomes the most dangerous currency. Emerson Hough’s The Mississippi Bubble is a historical thriller that distills this volatile mixture of desire, calculation, and risk into a swift, atmospheric tale. Set against the early eighteenth-century world that linked Parisian salons to the distant Mississippi Valley, the novel follows the magnetism of money as it reshapes private loyalties and public life. Hough writes with the brisk assurance of a storyteller attuned to suspense, yet he lingers on the textures of ambition—how numbers promise miracles, how crowds crave certainty, and how a single audacious idea can reorder a kingdom.
First appearing in the early twentieth century, the novel looks back to the French Regency and the speculative fever known to history as the Mississippi scheme, rendering a vast economic episode through the pulse of a personal story. Hough, an American novelist with a keen taste for frontier and historical subjects, shapes the material as a thriller, attentive to danger, pursuit, and the high stakes of reputation. The settings move from gilded rooms where policy is whispered to streets where rumors run faster than coins, and outward toward the imagined riches of a continental interior that Europe was eager to claim.
At the center stands John Law, a Scotsman of formidable intellect and undeniable charm, whose theories about credit and commerce find a rare opening in a kingdom hungry for renewal. Hough introduces him not as a ledger of dates, but as a presence in rooms—calculating, persuasive, and daring in a world where calculation itself feels like sorcery. The narrative tracks the assembling of institutions and concessions that promise to transform paper promises into land-borne prosperity, and it follows the currents of fascination that draw nobles, merchants, and ordinary citizens into the wake of an experiment as seductive as it is untested.
The reading experience is propulsive yet luxuriant in period color, a blend of intrigue, romance, and economic cat-and-mouse. Hough's chapters move with the clipped efficiency of pursuit, but they pause for tactile detail: candlelit negotiations, gaming tables crowded with watchers, and the murmur of markets where information chooses its favorites. Dialogue carries the crackle of competing intellects and ambitions, while the narration widens to show how policies ripple through neighborhoods and across oceans. Without drowning the reader in exposition, the book explains just enough of the machinery to illuminate motives, then returns to the human stakes that make risk irresistible.
Among the novel's abiding themes are the elasticity of value, the seductions of charisma, and the fragile scaffolding of trust on which both markets and governments depend. Hough examines how stories—of empire, of inexhaustible lands, of modern credit—mobilize crowds and justify adventures that might otherwise seem impossible. He is attentive to class and power, showing how access and secrecy shape opportunity, and to conscience, tracing the price extracted by compromise. The book also probes the boundary between calculation and faith, asking why rational people embrace collective dreams, and what happens when a shared illusion hardens into policy, fashion, and law.
That inquiry gives the novel enduring force for contemporary readers, who recognize the rhythms of speculation wherever confidence outruns comprehension. The Mississippi Bubble is not a manual on finance, but its portrait of momentum, leverage, and crowd psychology speaks to cycles that recur in different guises. It shows how innovation can be both remedy and accelerant, how policy can stabilize and destabilize in the same breath, and how narratives of new frontiers—technological or territorial—invite both hope and exploitation. In a world still negotiating credit, trust, and risk at extraordinary speed, Hough's depiction of belief in overdrive remains bracingly relevant.
Approached as a work of narrative art rather than as a chronicle, the book offers a taut, involving passage through an age when paper dreams and human desires converged. Without revealing its later turns, it is fair to say that the tensions it sets in motion—between vision and limit, daring and duty, prosperity and peril—compel to the end. Hough crafts a world alive with calculation and feeling, inviting readers to weigh the costs of enchantment for themselves. The Mississippi Bubble endures because it entertains as it interrogates, making a storied financial episode pulse with the urgency of lived choice.
Synopsis
Emerson Hough’s The Mississippi Bubble is a historical novel centered on the rise of John Law, a gifted Scottish gambler and financial theorist whose bold ideas on credit and currency find their most dramatic trial in France. Opening with Law’s talent for calculation and his perilous brush with the codes of honor that govern his age, the narrative propels him from British and continental gaming rooms toward a grander stage. Hough frames Law as both brilliant and vulnerable, driven by conviction that paper credit can revive national prosperity, and haunted by the risks that accompany any effort to impose new rules on an old order.
Against a Europe adjusting to dynastic change, Law searches for a sovereign willing to convert theory into policy. In Hough’s telling, salons, embassies, and chancelleries become the arenas where reputations are staked, whispers matter, and access to power is everything. France after Louis XIV’s reign, administered under a regency, offers the chance Law needs. The book follows his incremental persuasion of influential figures, the skepticism of traditional financiers, and the first careful experiments that test whether confidence, once organized, can become the engine of commerce rather than a mere byproduct.
The novel’s middle movement traces the creation of a private bank in Paris that issues notes payable in coin—a radical step Hough depicts with close attention to public reaction. As confidence grows, so do ambitions: trade monopolies in the French territories of North America are consolidated, and the Mississippi venture becomes the emblem of a nation’s projected wealth. Shares transform into instruments of hope, and paper promises pass hand to hand with mounting velocity. Hough details how a policy apparatus—edicts, councils, and careful publicity—tries to keep pace with the appetite it has awakened.
Hough renders the Rue Quincampoix, where speculators crowd for news and advantage, as a vivid crossroads of classes and motives. Clerks, nobles, and tradespeople converge in a parade of fortune-making and rumor-mongering. The narrative emphasizes the psychological texture of a boom: the confidence born of early winners, the corrosive envy of those left behind, and the uneasy dependence on the favor of ministers. Court factions watch, some aligning with Law’s innovations, others waiting for a misstep. The friction with legal authorities and defenders of metallic money becomes a steady undertone, hinting at a reckoning even amid triumph.
Interleaved with the financial drama is a personal story that tests Law’s principles in more intimate ways. Hough employs a romantic thread to examine the costs of audacity, the obligations of honor, and the vulnerabilities that genius cannot hedge. Rivalries, personal debts, and questions of trust mirror the markets’ volatile swings, suggesting that the same forces—belief, fear, desire—govern both hearts and ledgers. The result is a portrait of a man who must balance the claims of private loyalty with the imperatives of a public experiment that has pulled an entire nation into its orbit.
As speculation intensifies, the machinery sustaining it shows strain: scarce coin, rising prices, and the difficulty of reconciling paper claims with tangible wealth. Hough tightens the tempo into a thriller of policy gambits and street-level danger, with decisions made under immense pressure and consequences multiplying overnight. Allies demand protection; opponents demand proof; crowds demand redemption. The protagonist navigates edicts and compromises meant to preserve confidence while avoiding panic, even as rumor becomes a force of nature. The threat is not only financial collapse but the social and political backlash that attends broken promises.
Without revealing the novel’s final turns, Hough’s work endures for its analysis of how belief constructs value and how swiftly that belief can curdle. The Mississippi Bubble becomes both a specific historical event and a parable of modern finance, dramatizing innovation’s double edge: its power to unlock energy and its peril when growth outruns governance. Written in the early twentieth century yet set in the early eighteenth, the book links eras through recurring cycles of risk and reward. Its resonance lies in observing that prosperity built on confidence must tend to the human currents that create, sustain, and—when neglected—undo it.
Historical Context
Emerson Hough’s The Mississippi Bubble unfolds during the French Regency following the death of Louis XIV in 1715, when Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, governed as regent for the young Louis XV. Paris serves as the political and financial center, where new institutions—John Law’s Banque Générale (1716), later transformed into the state-backed Banque Royale (1718)—promoted paper money and public debt consolidation. Linked to this banking experiment was the Compagnie d’Occident (“Company of the West”), chartered in 1717 to exploit France’s colony of Louisiana. From court chambers in the Palais-Royal to speculative crowds in Paris streets, the era’s bold monetary innovations shape the novel’s stakes.
A central historical figure is John Law, a Scottish financier born in 1671, noted for mathematical skill and gambling. In 1694 he killed Edward “Beau” Wilson in a duel in London, was convicted of murder, escaped from prison, and spent years on the continent studying banking and trade. His treatise Money and Trade Considered (1705) argued for paper currency issued against land or other assets. After Louis XIV’s death, Law persuaded the Regent to create a private bank in 1716 that issued notes; in 1718 it became the Banque Royale, with notes effectively guaranteed by the French state.
Law’s financial “System” expanded with the Compagnie d’Occident, founded in 1717 and granted a monopoly over French trade in Louisiana and the Mississippi Valley. The company absorbed other chartered firms in 1719 to become the Compagnie des Indes (“Company of the Indies”), controlling trade with Louisiana, Senegal, and parts of Asia, along with tax-farming contracts and the tobacco monopoly. Colonial administrators such as Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville pursued settlement along the lower Mississippi; Bienville founded New Orleans in 1718. Promotional literature promised mines, furs, and fertile lands, encouraging migration and investment that tied Parisian finance to North American imperial ambitions.
In 1719–1720, share issues in the Company of the Indies were coupled with ready credit from Law’s bank, fueling an extraordinary rise in prices. Trading centered on Paris’s Rue Quincampoix, where crowds jostled to buy or sell shares. The government used banknotes to convert and consolidate royal debt, while edicts restricted payments in gold and silver to bolster paper money. A controversial decree of May 1720 sought to reduce the value of notes and shares, provoking unrest and policy reversals. Confidence collapsed later that year; the Banque Royale curtailed redemption, Law lost office, and he departed France amid public turmoil.
The scheme unfolded against a wider Atlantic backdrop. Britain experienced a parallel boom and crash in 1720 with the South Sea Company, which had converted government debt and traded on expectations of Spanish America access. France’s colonial claims in the Mississippi Valley bordered Spanish territories and contested English expansion from the Atlantic seaboard. French posts at Mobile and Biloxi predated New Orleans, and Fort Rosalie was established at Natchez in 1716 to secure the lower river. Diplomacy and trade with Indigenous nations, including the Choctaw, underpinned Louisiana’s survival, while European wars and treaties, notably Utrecht (1713), framed imperial competition.
Parisian society supplied the Mississippi episode with both participants and critics. Aristocrats, officeholders, merchants, and servants speculated side by side, and women invested directly or through agents. The Palais-Royal hosted regency politics, while cafés and salons circulated news, satire, and rumor under a regime of variable censorship. Cardinal Dubois, the Regent’s chief minister, helped manage foreign and domestic policy as financial experimentation accelerated. Policing struggled to contain street crowds and frauds. In the 1720s the monarchy sought to stabilize markets, and by 1724 a formal bourse was authorized in Paris, reflecting efforts to regularize brokerage after the crash.
Emerson Hough, an American journalist and novelist best known for Western subjects, published The Mississippi Bubble in 1902. Writing in the Progressive Era, shortly after the 1893 financial panic and amid scrutiny of trusts under President Theodore Roosevelt, Hough turned to an eighteenth‑century crash to examine speculative capitalism’s risks. His earlier nonfiction The Story of the Cowboy (1897) helped shape frontier imagery, and he often contrasted tangible labor with paper fortunes. By dramatizing French Louisiana—territory later transferred to the United States in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase—Hough linked Old Regime finance to themes familiar to American readers of his time.
The novel reflects its era by anchoring adventure to verifiable events—the founding of the Banque Générale and Banque Royale, the chartering and aggrandizement of the Mississippi company, the Rue Quincampoix frenzy, and the 1720 collapse—while probing the promises and perils of credit. It highlights how state power, monopoly privileges, and speculative psychology can magnify both prosperity and ruin. Hough’s emphasis on Louisiana’s material realities—settlers, trade routes, and contested riverlands—counterposes paper wealth to productive enterprise. Without detailing outcomes for specific characters, the narrative uses the historical bubble to critique euphoria and to question how nations balance innovation, accountability, and restraint.
THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE (Historical Thriller)
BOOK I
CHAPTER I THE RETURNED TRAVELER
CHAPTER II AT SADLER'S WELLS
CHAPTER III JOHN LAW OF LAURISTON
CHAPTER IV THE POINT OF HONOR
CHAPTER V DIVERS EMPLOYMENTS OF JOHN LAW
CHAPTER VI THE RESOLUTION OF MR. LAW
CHAPTER VII TWO MAIDS A-BROIDERING
CHAPTER VIII CATHARINE KNOLLYS
CHAPTER IX IN SEARCH OF THE QUARREL
CHAPTER X THE RUMOR OF THE QUARREL
CHAPTER XI AS CHANCE DECREED
CHAPTER XII FOR FELONY
CHAPTER XIII THE MESSAGE
CHAPTER XIV PRISONERS
CHAPTER XV IF THERE WERE NEED
CHAPTER XVI THE ESCAPE
CHAPTER XVII WHITHER
BOOK II
CHAPTER I THE DOOR OF THE WEST
CHAPTER II THE STORM
CHAPTER III AU LARGE
CHAPTER IV THE PATHWAY OF THE WATERS
CHAPTER V MESSASEBE
CHAPTER VI MAIZE
CHAPTER VII THE BRINK OF CHANGE
CHAPTER VIII TOUS SAUVAGES
CHAPTER IX THE DREAM
CHAPTER X BY THE HILT OF THE SWORD
CHAPTER XI THE IROQUOIS
CHAPTER XII PRISONERS OF THE IROQUOIS
CHAPTER XIII THE SACRIFICE
CHAPTER XIV THE EMBASSY
CHAPTER XV THE GREAT PEACE
BOOK III
CHAPTER I THE GRAND MONARQUE
CHAPTER II EVER SAID SHE NAY
CHAPTER III SEARCH THOU MY HEART
CHAPTER IV THE REGENT'S PROMISE
CHAPTER V A DAY OF MIRACLES
CHAPTER VI THE GREATEST NEED
CHAPTER VII THE MIRACLE UNWROUGHT
CHAPTER VIII THE LITTLE SUPPER OF THE REGENT
CHAPTER IX THE NEWS
CHAPTER X MASTER AND MAN
CHAPTER XI THE BREAKING OF THE BUBBLE
CHAPTER XII THAT WHICH REMAINED
CHAPTER XIII THE QUALITY OF MERCY
TO L.C.H.
BOOK I
ENGLAND
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
THE RETURNED TRAVELER
Table of Contents
"Gentlemen, this is America[1q]!"
The speaker cast upon the cloth-covered table a singular object, whose like none of those present had ever seen. They gathered about and bent over it curiously.
"This is that America," the speaker repeated. "Here you have it, barbaric, wonderful, abounding!"
With sudden gesture he swept his hand among the gold coin that lay on the gaming table. He thrust into the mouth of the object before him a handful of louis d'or[1] and English sovereigns. "There is your America," said he. "It runs over with gold. No man may tell its richness. Its beauty you can not imagine."
"Faith," said Sir Arthur Pembroke, bending over the table with glass in eye, "if the ladies of that land have feet for this sort of shoon, methinks we might well emigrate. Take you the money of it. For me, I would see the dame could wear such shoe as this."
One after another this company of young Englishmen, hard players, hard drinkers, gathered about the table and bent over to examine the little shoe. It was an Indian moccasin, cut after the fashion of the Abenakis, from the skin of the wild buck, fashioned large and full for the spread of the foot, covered deep with the stained quills of the porcupine, and dotted here and there with the precious beads which, to the maker, had more worth than any gold. A little flap came up for cover to the ankle, and a thong fell from its upper edge. It was the ancient foot-covering of the red race of America, made for the slight but effectual protection of the foot, while giving perfect freedom to the tread of the wearer. Light, dainty and graceful, its size was much less than that of the average woman's shoe of that time and place.
"Bah! Pembroke," said Castleton, pushing up the shade above his eyes till it rested on his forehead, "'tis a child's shoe."
"Not so," said the first speaker. "I give you my word 'tis the moccasin of my sweetheart, a princess in her own right, who waits my coming on the Ottawa. And so far from the shoe being too small, I say as a gentleman that she not only wore it so, but in addition used somewhat of grass therein in place of hose."
The earnestness of this speech in no wise prevented the peal of laughter that followed.
"There you have it, Pembroke," cried Castleton. "Would you move to a land where princesses use hay for hosiery?"
"'Tis curious done," said Pembroke, musingly, "none the less."
"And done by her own hand," said the owner of the shoe, with a certain proprietary pride.
Again the laughter broke out. "Do your princesses engage in shoemaking?" asked a third gamester as he pushed into the ring. "Sure it must be a rare land. Prithee, what doth the king in handicraft? Doth he take to saddlery, or, perhaps, smithing?"
"Have done thy jests, Wilson," cried Pembroke. "Mayhap there is somewhat to be learned here of this New World and of our dear cousins, the French. Go on, tell us, Monsieur du Mesne — as I think you call yourself, sir? — tell us more of your new country of ice and snow, of princesses and little shoes."
The original speaker went a bit sullen, what with his wine and the jests of his companions. "I'll tell ye naught," said he. "Go see for yourselves, by leave of Louis."
"Come now," said Pembroke, conciliatingly. "We'll all admit our ignorance. 'Tis little we know of our own province of Virginia, save that Virginia is a land of poverty and tobacco. Wealth — faith, if ye have wealth in your end of the continent, 'tis time we English fought ye for it."
"Methinks you English are having enough to do here close at home," sneered Du Mesne. "I have heard somewhat of Steinkirk, and how ye ran from the half-dressed gentlemen of France."
Dark looks followed this bold speech, which cut but too closely to the quick of English pride. Pembroke quelled the incipient outcry with calmer speech.
"Peace, friends," said he. "'Tis not arms we argue here, after all. We are but students at the feet of Monsieur du Mesne, who hath returned from foreign parts. Prithee, sir, tell us more."
"Tell ye more — and if I did, would ye believe it? What if I tell ye of great rivers far to the west of the Ottawa; of races as strange to my princess's people as we are to them; of streams whose sands run in gold, where diamonds and sapphires are to be picked up as ye like? If I told ye, would ye believe?"
The martial hearts and adventurous souls of the circle about him began to show in the heightened color and closer crowding of the young men to the table. Silence fell upon the group.
"Ye know nothing, in this old rotten world, of what there is yet to be found in America," cried Du Mesne. "For myself, I have been no farther than the great falls of the Ontoneagrea — a mere trifle of a cataract, gentlemen, into which ye might pitch your tallest English cathedral and sink it beyond its pinnacle with ease. Yet I have spoke with the holy fathers who have journeyed far to the westward, even to the vast Messasebe, which is well known to run into the China sea upon some far-off coast not yet well charted. I have also read the story of Sagean, who was far to the west of that mighty river. Did not the latter see and pursue and kill in fair fight the giant unicorn, fabled of Scripture? Is not that animal known to be a creature of the East, and may we not, therefore, be advised that this new country takes hold upon the storied lands of the East? Why, this holy friar with whom I spoke, fresh back from his voyaging to the cold upper ways of the Northern tribes, who live beyond the far-off channel at Michilimackinac — did he not tell of a river of the name of the Blue Earth, and did he not himself see turquoises and diamonds and emeralds taken in handfuls from this same blue earth? Ah, bah! gentlemen, Europe for you if ye like, but for me, back I go, so soon as I may get proper passage and a connection which will warrant me the voyage. Back I go to Canada, to America, to the woods and streams. I would see again my ancient Du L'hut, and my comrade Pierre Noir, and Tête Gris, the trapper from the Mistasing — free traders all. Life is there for the living, my comrades. This Old World, small and outworn, no more of it for me."
"And why came you back to this little Old World of ours, an you loved the New World so much?" asked the cynical voice of him who had been called Wilson.
"By the body of God!" cried Du Mesne, "think ye I came of my own free will? Look here, and find your reason." He stripped back the opening of his doublet and under waistcoat, and showed upon his broad shoulder the scar of a red tri-point, deep and livid upon his flesh. "Look! There is the fleur-de-lis of France. That is why I came. I have rowed in the galleys, me — me a free man, a man of the woods of New France!"
Murmurs of concern passed among the little group. Castleton rose from his chair and leaned with his hands upon the table, gazing now at the face and now at the bared shoulder of this stranger, who had by chance become a member of their nightly party.
"I have not been in London a fortnight since my escape," said the man with the brand. "I was none the less once a good servant of Louis in New France, for that I found many a new tribe and many a bale of furs that else had never come to the Mountain for the robbery of the lying officers who claim the robe of Louis. I was a soldier for the king as well as a traveler of the forest. Was I not with the Le Moynes and the band that crossed the icy North and destroyed your robbing English fur posts on the Bay of Hudson? I fought there and helped blow down your barriers. I packed my own robe on my back, and walked for the king, till the raquette thongs cut my ankles to the bone. For what? When I came back to the settlements at Quebec I was seized for a coureur de bois, a free trader. I was herded like a criminal into a French ship, sent over seas to a French prison, branded with a French iron, and set like a brute to pull without reason at a bar of wood in the king's galleys — the king's hell!"
"And yet you are a Frenchman," sneered Wilson.
"Yet am I not a Frenchman," cried the other. "Nor am I an Englishman. I am no man of a world of galleys and brands. I am a man of America!"
"'Tis true what he says," spoke Pembroke. "'Tis said the minister of Louis was feared to keep these men in the galleys, lest their fellows in New France should become too bitter, and should join the savages in their inroads on the starving settlements of Quebec and Montréal."
"True," exclaimed Du Mesne. "The coureurs care naught for the law and little for the king. As for a ruler, we have discovered that a man makes a most excellent sovereign for himself."
"And excellent said," cried Castleton.
"None of ye know the West," went on the coureur. "Your Virginia, we know well of it — a collection of beggars, prostitutes and thieves. Your New England — a lot of cod-fishing, starving snivelers, who are most concerned how to keep life in their bodies from year to year. New France herself, sitting ever on the edge of an icy death, with naught but bickerings at Quebec and naught but reluctant compliance from Paris — what hath she to hope? I tell ye, gentlemen, 'tis beyond, in the land of the Messasebe, where I shall for my part seek out my home; and no man shall set iron on my soul again."
He spoke bitterly. The group about him, half amused, half cynical and all ignorant, as were their kind at this time of the reign of William, were none the less impressed and thoughtful. Yet once more the sneering voice of Wilson broke in.
"A strange land, my friend," said he, "monstrous strange. Your unicorns are great, and your women are little. Methinks to give thy tale proportion thou shouldst have shown shoon somewhat larger."
"Peace! Beau," said Castleton, quickly. "As for the size of the human foot — gad! I'll lay a roll of louis d'or that there's one dame here in London town can wear this slipper of New France."
"Done!" cried Wilson. "Name the one."
"None other than the pretty Lawrence whom thou hast had under thine ancient wing for the past two seasons."
The face of Wilson gathered into a sudden frown at this speech. "What doth it matter" — he began.
"Have done, fellows!" cried Pembroke with some asperity. "Lay wagers more fit at best, and let us have no more of this thumb-biting. Gad! the first we know, we'll be up for fighting among ourselves, and we all know how the new court doth look on that."
"Come away," laughed Castleton, gaily. "I'm for a pint of ale and an apple; and then beware! 'Tis always my fortune, when I come to this country drink, to win like a very countryman. I need revenge upon Lady Betty and her lap-dog. I've lost since ever I saw them last."
CHAPTER II
AT SADLER'S WELLS
Table of Contents
Sadler's Wells[2], on this mild and cheery spring morning, was a scene of fashion and of folly[2q]. Hither came the élite of London, after the custom of the day, to seek remedy in the reputed qualities of the springs for the weariness and lassitude resultant upon the long season of polite dissipations which society demanded of her votaries. Bewigged dandies, their long coats of colors well displayed as they strutted about in the open, paid court there, as they did within the city gates, to the powdered and painted beauties who sat in their couches waiting for their servants to bring out to them the draft of which they craved healing for crow's-feet and hollow eyes. Here and there traveling merchants called their wares, jugglers spread their carpets, bear dancers gave their little spectacles, and jockeys conferred as to the merits of horse or hound. Hawk-nosed Jews passed among the vehicles, cursed or kicked by the young gallants who stood about, hat in hand, at the steps of their idols' carriages.
"Buy my silks, pretty lady, buy my silks! Fresh from the Turkey walk on the Exchange, and cheaper than you can buy their like in all the city — buy my silks, lady!" Thus the peddler with his little pack of finery.
"My philter, lady," cried the gipsy woman, who had left her donkey cart outside the line. "My philter! 'Twill keep-a your eyes bright and your cheeks red for ay. Secret of the Pharaohs, lady; and but a shilling!"
"Have ye a parrot, ma'am? Have ye never a parrot to keep ye free and give ye laughter every hour? Buy my parrot, lady. Just from the Gold Coast. He'll talk ye Spanish, Flemish or good city tongue. Buy my parrot at ten crowns, and so cheap, lady!" So spoke the ear-ringed sailor, who might never have seen a salter water than the Thames.
"Powder-puffs for the face, lady," whispered a lean and weazen-faced hawker, slipping among the crowd with secrecy. "See my puff, made from the foot of English hares. Rubs out all wrinkles, lady, and keeps ye young as when ye were a lass. But a shilling, a shilling. See!" And with the pretense of secrecy the seller would sidle up to a carriage of some dame, slip to her the hare's foot and take the shilling with an air as though no one could see what none could fail to notice.
Above these mingled cries of the hangers-on of this crowd of nobility and gentles rose the blare of crude music, and cries far off and confused. Above it all shone the May sun, brighter here than lower toward the Thames. In the edge of London town it was, all this little pageant, and from the residence squares below and far to the westward came the carriages and the riders, gathering at the spot which for the hour was the designated rendezvous of capricious fashion. No matter if the tower at the drinking curb was crowded, so that inmates of the coaches could not find way among the others. There was at least magic in the morning, even if one might not drink at the chalybeate spring. Cheeks did indeed grow rosy, and eyes brightened under the challenge not only of the dawn but of the ardent eyes that gazed impertinently bold or reproachfully imploring.
Far-reaching was the line of the gentility, to whose flanks clung the rabble of trade. Back upon the white road came yet other carriages, saluted by those departing. Low hedges of English green reached out into the distance, blending ultimately at the edge of the pleasant sky. Merry enough it was, and gladsome, this spring day; for be sure the really ill did not brave the long morning ride to test the virtue of the waters of Sadler's Wells. It was for the most part the young, the lively, the full-blooded, perhaps the wearied, but none the less the vital and stirring natures which met in the decreed assemblage.
Back of Sadler's little court the country came creeping close up to the town. There were fields not so far away on these long highways. Wandering and rambling roads ran off to the westward and to the north, leading toward the straight old Roman road which once upon a time ran down to London town. Ill-kept enough were some of the lanes, with their hedges and shrubs overhanging the highways, if such the paths could be called which came braiding down toward the south. One needed not to go far outward beyond Sadler's Wells of a night-time to find adventure, or to lose a purse.
It was on one of these less crowded highways that there was this morning enacted a curious little drama. The sun was still young and not too strong for comfort, and as it rose back of the square of Sadler's it cast a shadow from a hedge which ran angling toward the southeast. Its rays, therefore, did not disturb the slumbers of two young men who were lying beneath the shelter of the hedge. Strange enough must have been the conclusions of the sun could it have looked over the barrier and peered into the faces of these youths. Evidently they were of good breeding and some station, albeit their garb was not of the latest fashion. The gray hose and the clumsy shoes plainly bespoke some northern residence. The wig of each lacked the latest turn, perhaps the collar of the coat was not all it should have been. There was but one coat visible, for the other, rolled up as a pillow, served to support the heads of both. The elder of the two was the one who had sacrificed his covering. The other was more restless in his attitude, and though thus the warmer for a coat, was more in need of comfort. A white bandage covered his wrist, and the linen was stained red. Yet the two slept on, well into the morn, well into the rout of Sadler's Wells. Evidently they were weary.
The elder man was the taller of the two; as he lay on the bank beneath the hedge, he might even in that posture have been seen to own a figure of great strength and beauty. His face, bold of outline, with well curved, wide jaw and strong cheek bones, was shaded by the tangled mat of his wig, tousled in his sleep. His hands, long and graceful, lay idly at his side, though one rested lightly on the hilt of the sword which lay near him. The ruffles of his shirt were torn, and, indeed, had almost disappeared. By study one might have recognized them in the bandage about the hand of the other. Somewhat disheveled was this youth, yet his young, strong body, slender and shapely, seemed even in its rest strangely full of power and confidence.
The younger man was in some fashion an epitome of the other, and it had needed little argument to show the two were brothers. But why should two brothers, well-clad and apparently well-to-do, probably brothers from a country far to the north, be thus lying like common vagabonds beneath an English hedge?
Far down the roadway there rose a cloud of dust, which came steadily nearer, following the only vehicle in sight, probably the only one which had passed that morning. As this little dust-cloud came slowly nearer it might have been seen to rise from the wheels of a richly-built and well-appointed coach. Four dark horses obeyed the reins handled by a solemn-visaged lackey on the box, and there was a goodly footman at the back. Within the coach were two passengers such as might have set Sadler's Wells by the ears. They sat on the same seat, as equals, and their heads lay close together, as confidantes. The tongues of both ran fast and free. Long gloves covered the arms of these beauties, and their costumes showed them to be of station. The crinoline of the two filled all the body of the ample coach from seat to seat, and the folds of their figured muslins, flowing out over this ample outline, gave to the face of each a daintiness of contour and feature which was not ill relieved by the high head-dress of ribbons and bepowdered hair. Of the two ladies, one, even in despite of her crinoline, might have been seen to be of noble and queenly figure; the towering head-dress did not fully disguise the wealth of red-bronze hair. Tall and well-rounded, vigorous and young, not yet twenty, adored by many suitors, the Lady Catharine Knollys had rarely looked better than she did this morning as she drove out to Sadler's, for Providence alone knew what fault of a superb vital energy. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and every gesture betokened rather the grand young creature that she was than the valetudinarian going forth for healing. Her cheek, turned now and again, showed a clear-cut and untouched soundness that meant naught but health. It showed also the one blemish upon a beauty which was toasted in the court as faultless. Upon the left cheek there was a mouche, excessive in its size. Strangers might have commented on it. Really it covered a deep-stained birth-mark, the one blur upon a peerless beauty. Yet even this might be forgotten, as it was now.
The companion of the Lady Catharine in her coach was a young woman, scarce so tall and more slender. The heavy hoop concealed much of the grace of figure which was her portion, but the poise of the upper body, free from the seat-back and erect with youthful strength as yet unspared, showed easily that here, too, was but an indifferent subject for Sadler's. Dark, where her companion was fair, and with the glossy texture of her own somber locks showing in the individual roll which ran back into the absurd fontange of false hair and falser powder, Mary Connynge made good foil for her bosom friend; though honesty must admit that neither had yet much concern for foils, since both had their full meed of gallants. Much seen together, they were commonly known, as the Morning and Eve, sometimes as Aurora and Eve. Never did daughter of the original Eve have deeper feminine guile than Mary Connynge. Soft of speech — as her friend, the Lady Catharine, was impulsive, — slow, suave, amber-eyed and innocent of visage, this young English woman, with no dower save that of beauty and of wit, had not failed of a sensation at the capital whither she had come as guest of the Lady Catharine. Three captains and a squire, to say nothing of a gouty colonel, had already fallen victims, and had heard their fate in her low, soft tones, which could whisper a fashionable oath in the accent of a hymn, and say "no" so sweetly that one could only beg to hear the word again. It was perhaps of some such incident that these two young maids of old London conversed as they trundled slowly out toward the suburb of the city.
"'Twould have killed you, Lady Kitty; sure 'twould have been your end to hear him speak! He walked the floor upon his knees, and clasped his hands, and followed me about like a dog in a spectacle. Lord! but I feared he would have thrown over the tabouret with his great feet. And help me, if I think not he had tears in his eyes!"
"My friend," said Lady Kitty, solemnly, "you must have better care of your conduct. I'll not have my father's old friend abused in his own house." At which they both burst into laughter. Youth, the blithely cruel, had its own way in this old coach upon the ancient dusty road, as it has ever had.
But now serious affairs gained the attention of these two fairs. "Tell me, sweetheart," said Lady Catharine, "what think you of the fancy of my new dresser? He insists ever that the mode in Paris favors a deep bow, placed high upon the left side of the 'tower.' Montespan, of the French court, is said to have given the fashion. She hurried at her toilet, and placed the bow there for fault of better care. Hence, so must we if we are to live in town. So says my new hair-dresser from Paris. 'Tis to Paris we must go for the modes."
"I am not so sure," began Mary Connynge, "as to this arrangement. Now I am much disposed to believe — " but what she was disposed to believe at that time was not said, then or ever afterward, for at that moment there happened matters which ended their little talk; matters which divided their two lives, and which, in the end, drove them as far apart as two continents could carry them.
"O Gemini!" called out Mary Connynge, as the coachman for a moment slackened his pace. "Look! We shall be robbed!"
The driver irresolutely pulled up his horses. From under the shade of the hedge there arose two men, of whom the taller now stood erect and came toward the carriage.
"'Tis no robber," said Lady Catharine Knollys, her eyes fastened on the tall figure which came forward.
"Save us," said Mary Connynge, "what a pretty man!"
CHAPTER III
JOHN LAW OF LAURISTON
Table of Contents
Unconsciously the coachman obeyed the unvoiced command of this man, who stepped out from the shelter of the hedge. Travel-stained, just awakened from sleep, disheveled, with dress disordered, there was none the less abundant boldness in his mien as he came forward, yet withal the grace and deference of the courtier. It was a good figure he made as he stepped down from the bank and came forward, hat in hand, the sun, now rising to the top of the hedge, lighting up his face and showing his bold profile, his open and straight blue eye.
"Ladies," he said, as he reached the road, "I crave your pardon humbly. This, I think, is the coach of my Lord, the Earl of Banbury. Mayhap this is the Lady Catharine Knollys to whom I speak?"
The lady addressed still gazed at him, though she drew up with dignity.
"You have quite the advantage of us," said she. She glanced uneasily at the coachman, but the order to go forward did not quite leave her lips.
"I am not aware — I do not know — ," she began, afraid of her adventure now it had come, after the way of all dreaming maids who prate of men and conquests.
"I should be dull of eye did I not see the Knollys arms," said the stranger, smiling and bowing low. "And I should be ill advised of the families of England did I not know that the daughter of Knollys, the sister of the Earl of Banbury, is the Lady Catharine, and most charming also. This I might say, though 'tis true I never was in London or in England until now."
The speech, given with all respectfulness, did not fail of flattery. Again the order to drive on remained unspoken. This speaker, whose foot was now close to the carriage step, and whose head, gravely bowed as he saluted the occupants of the vehicle, presented so striking a type of manly attractiveness, even that first moment cast some spell upon the woman whom he sought to interest. The eyes of the Lady Catharine Knollys did not turn from him. As though it were another person, she heard herself murmur, "And you, sir?"
"I am John Law of Lauriston[3], Scotland, Madam, and entirely at your service. That is my brother Will, yonder by the bank." He smiled, and the younger man came forward, hesitatingly, and not with the address of his brother, though yet with the breeding of a gentleman.
The eyes of Mary Connynge took in both men with the same look, but her eyes, as did those of the Lady Catharine, became most concerned with the first speaker.
"My brother and I are on our first journey to London," continued he, with a gay laugh which did not consort fully with the plight in which he showed. "We started by coach, as gentlemen; and now we come on foot, like laborers or thieves. 'Twas my own fault. Yesterday I must needs quit the Edinboro' stage. Last night our chaise was stopped, and we were asked to hand our money to a pair of evil fellows who had made prey of us. In short — you see — we fared ill enough. Lost in the dark, we made what shift we could along this road, where we both are strangers. At last, not able to pay for better quarters even had we found them, we lay down to sleep. I have slept far worse. And 'tis a lovely morning. Madam, I thank you for this happy beginning of the day."
Mary Connynge pointed to the bandage on the younger man's arm, speaking a low word to her companion.
"True," said the Lady Catharine, "you are injured, sir; you did not come off whole."
"Oh, we would hardly suffer the fellows to rob us without making some argument over it," said the first speaker. "Indeed, I think we are the better off hereabouts for a brace of footpads gone to their account. I made them my duties as we came away. Will, here, was pricked a trifle, but you see we have done very well."
The face of Will Law hardly offered complete proof of this assertion. He had slept ill enough, and in the morning light his face showed gaunt and pale. Here, then, was a situation most inopportune; the coach of two ladies, unattended, stopped by two strangers, who certainly could not claim introduction by either friend or reputation.
"I did but wish to ask some advice of the roads hereabout," said the elder brother, turning his eyes full upon those of the Lady Catharine. "As you see, we are in ill plight to get forward to the city. If you will be so good as to tell me which way to take, I shall remember it most gratefully. Once in the city, we should do better, for the rascals have not taken certain papers, letters which I bear to gentlemen in the city — Sir Arthur Pembroke I may name as one — a friend of my father's, who hath had some dealings with him in the handling of moneys. I have also word for others, and make sure that, once we have got into town, we shall soon mend our fortune."
Lady Catharine looked at Mary Connynge and the latter in turn gazed at her. "There could be no harm," said each to the other with her eyes. "Surely it is our duty to take them in with us; at least the one who is wounded."
Will Law had said nothing, though he had come forward to the road, and, bowing, stood uncovered. Now he leaned against the flank of one of the horses, in a tremor of vertigo which seized him as he stood. It was perhaps the paleness of his face that gave determination to the issue.
"William," called the Lady Catharine Knollys, "open the door for Mr. Law of Lauriston!"
The footman sprang to the ground and held open the door. Therefore, into the coach stepped John Law and his brother, late of Edinboro', sometime robbed and afoot, but now to come into London in circumstances which surely might have been far worse.
John Law entered the coach with the dignity and grace of a gentleman born. He bowed gravely as he took his seat beside his brother, facing the ladies. Will Law sank back into the corner, not averse to rest. The eyes of the two young women did not linger more upon the wounded man than upon his brother. He, in turn, looked straight into their eyes, courteously, respectfully, gravely, yet fearlessly and calmly, as though he knew what power and possibilities were his. Enigma and autocrat alike, Beau Law of Edinboro', one of the handsomest and properest men ever bred on any soil, was surely a picture of vigorous young manhood, as he rode toward Sadler's Wells, with two of the beauties of the hour, and in a coach and four which might have been his own.
Now all the sweet spring morning came on apace, and from the fields and little gardens came the breath of flowers. The sky was blue. The languor of springtime pulsed through the veins of those young creatures, those engines of life, of passion and desire. Neither of the two women saw the torn garb of the man before them. They saw but the curve of the strong chest beneath. They heard, and the one heard and felt as keenly as the other, the voice of the young man, musical and rich, touching some deep-seated and vibrating heart-string. So in the merry month of May, with the birds singing in the trees, and the scent of the flowers wafted coolly to their senses, they came on apace to the throng at Sadler's Wells. There it was that John Law, finding in a pocket a coin that had been overlooked, reached out to a vender and bought a rose. He offered his flower with a deep inclination of the body to the Lady Catharine.
It was at this moment that Mary Connynge first began to hate her friend, the Lady Catharine Knollys.
CHAPTER IV
THE POINT OF HONOR
Table of Contents
"Tell me, friend Castleton," said Pembroke, banteringly, "art still adhering to thy country drink of lamb's-wool? Methinks burnt ale and toasted apple might better be replaced in thy case by a beaker of stronger waters. You lose, and still you lose."
"May a plague take it!" cried Castleton. "I've had no luck these four days. 'Tis that cursed lap-dog of the duchess. Ugh! I saw it in my dreams last night."
"Gad! your own fortune in love must be ill enough, Sir Arthur," said Beau Wilson, as he pushed back his chair during this little lull in the play of the evening.
"And tell me why, Beau?"
"Because of us all who have met here at the Green Lion these last months, not one hath ever had so steady a run of luck. Sure some fairy hath befriended thee. Sept et le va[4], sept et le va — I'll hear it in my ears to-night, even as Castleton sees the lap-dog. Man, you play as though you read the pack quite through."
"Ah, then, you admit that there is some such thing as a talisman. I'll not deny that I have had one these last three evenings, but I feared to tell ye all, lest I might be waylaid and robbed of my good-luck charm."
"Tell us, tell us, man, what it is!" cried Castleton. "Sept et le va has not been made in this room before for many a month, yet here thou comest with the run of sept et le va thrice in as many hours."
"Well, then," continued Pembroke, still smiling, "I'll make a small confession. Here is my charm. Salute it!"
He cast on the table the Indian moccasin which had been shown the same party at the Green Lion a few evenings before. Eager hands reached for it.
"Treachery!" cried Castleton. "I bid Du Mesne four pounds for the shoe myself."
"Oh ho!" said Pembroke, "so you too were after it. Well, the long purse won, as it doth ever. I secretly gave our wandering wood ranger, ex-galley slave of France, the neat sum of twenty-five pounds for this little shoe. Poor fellow, he liked ill enough to part with it; but he said, very sensibly, that the twenty-five pounds would take him back to Canada, and once there, he could not only get many such shoes, but see the maid who made this one for him, or, rather, made it for herself. As for me, the price was cheap. You could not replace it in all the Exchange for any money. Moreover, to show my canniness, I've won back its cost a score of times this very night."
He laughingly extended his hand for the moccasin, which Wilson was examining closely.
"'Tis clever made," said the latter. "And what a tale the owner of it carried. If half he says be true, we do ill to bide here in old England. Let us take ship and follow Monsieur du Mesne."
"'Twould be a long chase, mayhap," said Pembroke, reflectively. Yet each of the men at that little table in the gaming room of the Green Lion coffee-house ceased in his fingering the cards, and gazed upon this product of another world.
Pembroke was first to break the silence, and as he heard a footfall at the door, he called out:
"Ho, fellow! Go fetch me another bottle of Spanish, and do not forget this time the brandy and water which I told thee to bring half an hour ago."
The step came nearer, and as it did not retreat, but entered the room, Pembroke called out again: "Make haste, man, and go on!"
The footsteps paused, and Pembroke looked up, as one does when a strange presence comes into the room. He saw, standing near the door, a tall and comely young man, whose carriage betokened him not ill-born. The stranger advanced and bowed gravely. "Pardon me, sir," he said, "but I fear I am awkward in thus intruding. The man showed me up the stair and bade me enter. He said that I should find here Sir Arthur Pembroke, upon whom I bear letters from friends of his in the North."
"Sir," said Pembroke, rising and advancing, "you are very welcome, and I ask pardon for my unwitting speech."
"I come at this hour and at this place," said the newcomer, "for reasons which may seem good a little later. My name is John Law, of Edinboro', sir."
All those present arose.
"Sir," responded Pembroke, "I am delighted to have your name. I know of the acquaintance between your father and my own. These are friends of mine, and I am delighted to name ye to each other. Mr. Charles Castleton; Mr. Edward Wilson. We are all here to kill the ancient enemy, Time. 'Tis an hour of night when one gains an appetite for one thing or another, cards or cold joint. I know not why we should not have a bit of both?"
"With your permission, I shall be glad to join ye at either," said John Law. "I have still the appetite of a traveler — in faith, rather a better appetite than most travelers may claim, for I swear I've had no more to eat the last day and night than could be purchased for a pair of shillings."
Pembroke raised his eyebrows, scarce knowing whether to be amused at this speech or nettled by its cool assurance.
"Some ill fortune?" — he began politely.
"There is no such thing as ill fortune," quoth John Law[3q]. "We fail always of our own fault. Forsooth I must explore Roman roads by night. England hath builded better, and the footpads have the Roman ways. My brother Will — he waiteth below, if ye please, good friends, and is quite as hungry as myself, besides having a pricked finger to boot — and I lost what little we had about us, and we came through with scarce a good shirt between the two."
A peal of laughter greeted him as he pulled apart the lapels of his coat and showed ruffles torn and disfigured. The speaker smiled gravely.
"To-morrow," said he, "I must seek me out a goldsmith and a haberdasher, if you will be so good as to name such to me."
"Sir," said Sir Arthur Pembroke, "in this plight you must allow me." He extended a purse which he drew from his pocket. "I beg you, help yourself."
"Thank you, no," replied John Law. "I shall ask you only to show me the goldsmith in the morning, him upon whom I hold certain credits. I make no doubt that then I shall be quite fit again. I have never in my life borrowed a coin. Besides, I should feel that I had offended my good angel did I ask it to help me out of mine own folly. If we have but a bit of this cold joint, and a place for my brother Will to sit in comfort as we play, I shall beg to hope, my friends, that I shall be allowed to stake this trifle against a little of the money that I see here; which, I take it, is subject to the fortunes of war."
He tossed on the board a ring, which carried in its setting a diamond of size and brilliance.
"This fellow hath a cool assurance enough," muttered Beau Wilson to his neighbor as he leaned toward him at the table.
Pembroke, always good-natured, laughed at the effrontery of the newcomer.
"You say very well; it is there for the fortune of war," said he. "It is all yours, if you can win it; but I warn you, beware, for I shall have your jewel and your letters of credit too, if ye keep not sharp watch."
"Yes," said Castleton, "Pembroke hath warrant for such speech. The man who can make sept et le va thrice in one evening is hard company for his friends."
John Law leaned back comfortably in his chair.
"I make no doubt," said he, "that I shall make trente et le va, here at this table, this very evening."
Smiles and good-natured sneerings met this calm speech.
"Trente et le va — it hath not come out in the history of London play for the past four seasons!" cried Wilson. "I'll lay you any odds that you're not within eye-sight of trente et le va these next five evenings, if you favor us with your company."
"Be easy with me, good friends," said John. Law, calmly. "I am not yet in condition for individual wagers, as my jewel is my fortune, till to-morrow at least. But if ye choose to make the play at Lands-knecht[5], I will plunge at the bank to the best of my capital. Then, if I win, I shall be blithe to lay ye what ye like."
The young Englishmen sat looking at their guest with some curiosity. His strange assurance daunted them.
"Surely this is a week of wonders," said Beau Wilson, with scarce covered sarcasm in his tone. "First we have a wild man from Canada, with his fairy stories of gold and gems, and now we have another gentleman who apparently hath fathomed as well how to gain sudden wealth at will, and yet keep closer home."
Law took snuff calmly. "I am not romancing, gentlemen," said he. "With me play is not a hazard, but a science. I ought really not to lay on even terms with you. As I have said, there is no such thing as chance. There are such things as recurrences, such things as laws that govern all happenings."
Laughter arose again at this, though it did not disturb the newcomer, nor did the cries of derision which followed his announcement of his system.
"Many a man hath come to London town with a system of play," cried Pembroke. "Tell us, Mr. Law, what and where shall we send thee when we have won thy last sixpence?"
"Good sir," said Law, "let us first of all have the joint."
"I humbly crave a pardon, sir," said Pembroke. "In this new sort of discourse I had forgot thine appetite. We shall mend that at once. Here, Simon! Go fetch up Mr. Law's brother, who waits below, and fetch two covers and a bit to eat. Some of thy new Java berry, too, and make haste! We have much yet to do."
"That have ye, if ye are to see the bottom of my purse more than once," said Law gaily. "See! 'tis quite empty now. I make ye all my solemn promise that 'twill not be empty again for twenty years. After that — well, the old Highland soothsayer, who dreamed for me, always told me to forswear play after I was forty, and never to go too near running water. Of the latter I was born with a horror. For play, I was born with a gift. Thus I foresee that this little feat which you mention is sure to be mine this very night. You all say that trente has not come up for many months. Well, 'tis due, and due to-night. The cards never fail me when I need."
"By my faith," cried Wilson, "ye have a pretty way about you up in Scotland!"
John Law saw the veiled ill feeling, and replied at once:
"True, we have a pretty way. We had it at Killiecrankie not so long ago; and when the clans fight among themselves, we need still prettier ways."
