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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mistress Nell, by George C. Hazelton, Jr.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mistress Nell
+ A Merry Tale of a Merry Time
+
+Author: George C. Hazelton, Jr.
+
+Release Date: February 23, 2010 [EBook #31370]
+[This file last updated: February 10, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISTRESS NELL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+MISTRESS NELL
+
+
+
+
+ The Illustrations Shown in this Edition are Reproductions of
+ Scenes from the Photo-Play of "Mistress Nell," Produced and
+ Copyrighted by the Famous Players Film Company, Adolf Zukor,
+ President, to whom the Publishers Desire to Express their
+ Thanks and Appreciation for Permission to use the Pictures.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Nell Gwyn the King's Favorite.]
+
+
+
+
+MISTRESS NELL
+
+A MERRY TALE OF A MERRY TIME
+
+(T'wixt Fact and Fancy)
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE C. HAZELTON, Jr.
+
+Author of the Play
+
+"Let not poor Nelly starve."
+
+ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY
+
+PRODUCED AND COPYRIGHTED BY THE FAMOUS PLAYERS FILM COMPANY,
+ADOLPH ZUKOR, PRESIDENT.
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1901, by Charles Scribner's Sons
+
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+A WORD
+
+It is the vogue to dramatize successful novels. The author of the
+present Nell Gwyn story has pursued the contrary course. His "merry"
+play of the same name was written and produced before he undertook to
+compose this tale, suggested by the same historic sources.
+
+A word of tribute is gratefully given to the _comedienne_, Miss
+Crosman, whose courage and exquisite art introduced the "Mistress Nell"
+of the play to the public.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I 1
+
+ "And once Nell Gwyn, a frail young sprite,
+ Looked kindly when I met her;
+ I shook my head perhaps--but quite
+ Forgot to quite forget her."
+
+CHAPTER II 10
+
+ It's near your cue, Mistress Nell!
+
+CHAPTER III 41
+
+ He took them from Castlemaine's hand
+ yo throw to you.
+
+CHAPTER IV 62
+
+ Flowers and Music feed naught but Love.
+
+CHAPTER V 87
+
+ It was never treason to steal a King's kisses.
+
+CHAPTER VI 101
+
+ Softly on tiptoe;
+ Here Nell doth lie.
+
+CHAPTER VII 111
+
+ Come down!
+ Come up!
+
+CHAPTER VIII 126
+
+ "And the man that is drunk is as
+ great as a king."
+
+CHAPTER IX 142
+
+ Three chickens!
+
+CHAPTER X 168
+
+ Arrest him yourself!
+
+CHAPTER XI 182
+
+ In the field, men; at court, women!
+
+CHAPTER XII 195
+
+ Beau Adair is my name.
+
+CHAPTER XIII 232
+
+ For the glory of England?
+
+CHAPTER XIV 240
+
+ He loves me! He loves me!
+
+CHAPTER XV 259
+
+ I come, my love; I come.
+
+CHAPTER XVI 276
+
+ Ods-pitikins, my own reflection!
+
+CHAPTER XVII 290
+
+ The day will be so happy; for I've seen
+ you at the dawn.
+
+
+
+
+MISTRESS NELL
+
+A MERRY TALE OF A MERRY TIME
+
+
+
+
+MISTRESS NELL
+
+
+ "And once Nell Gwyn, a frail young sprite,
+ Look'd kindly when I met her;
+ I shook my head perhaps--but quite
+ Forgot to quite forget her."
+
+
+It was a merry time in merry old England; for King Charles II. was on
+the throne.
+
+Not that the wines were better or the ladies fairer in his day, but the
+renaissance of carelessness and good-living had set in. True Roundheads
+again sought quiet abodes in which to worship in their gray and sombre
+way. Cromwell, their uncrowned king, was dead; and there was no place
+for his followers at court or in tavern. Even the austere and Catholic
+smile of brother James of York, one day to be the ruler of the land,
+could not cast a gloom over the assemblies at Whitehall. There were
+those to laugh merrily at the King's wit, and at the players' wit. There
+were those in abundance to enjoy to-day--to-day only,--to drink to the
+glorious joys of to-day, with no care for the morrow.
+
+It was, indeed, merry old England; for, when the King has no cares, and
+assumes no cares, the people likewise have no cares. The state may be
+rent, the court a nest of intrigue, King and Parliament at odds, the
+treasury bankrupt: but what care they; for the King cares not. Is not
+the day prosperous? Are not the taverns in remotest London filled with
+roistering spirits who drink and sing to their hearts' content of their
+deeds in the wars just done? Can they not steal when hungry and demand
+when dry?
+
+Aye, the worldly ones are cavaliers now--for a cavalier is King--e'en
+though the sword once followed Cromwell and the gay cloak and the big
+flying plume do not quite hide the not-yet-discarded cuirass of an
+Ironside.
+
+Cockpits and theatres! It is the Restoration! The maypole is up again at
+Maypole Lane, and the milk-maids bedecked with garlands dance to the
+tunes of the fiddle. Boys no longer serve for heroines at the play, as
+was the misfortune in Shakespeare's day. The air is full of hilarity and
+joy.
+
+Let us too for a little hour forget responsibility and fall in with the
+spirit of the times; while we tipple and toast, and vainly boast: "The
+King! Long live the King!"
+
+Old Drury Lane was alive as the sun was setting, on the day of our visit
+to London Town, with loungers and loafers; busy-bodies and hawkers;
+traffickers of sweets and other petty wares; swaggering soldiers,
+roistering by, stopping forsooth to throw kisses to inviting eyes at the
+windows above.
+
+As we turn into Little Russell Street from the Lane, passing many chairs
+richly made, awaiting their fair occupants, we come upon the main
+entrance to the King's House. Not an imposing or spacious structure to
+be sure, it nevertheless was suited to the managerial purposes of the
+day, which were, as now, to spend as little and get as much as may be.
+The pit was barely protected from the weather by a glazed cupola; so
+that the audience could not always hear the sweetest song to a finish
+without a drenching, or dwell upon the shapeliness of the prettiest
+ankle, that revealed itself in the dance by means of candles set on
+cressets, which in those days sadly served the purposes of foot-lights.
+
+It was Dryden's night. His play was on--"The Conquest of Granada." The
+best of London were there; for a first night then was as attractive as a
+first night now. In the balcony were draped boxes, in which lovely gowns
+were seen--lovely hair and lovely gems; but the fair faces were often
+masked.
+
+The King sat listless in the royal box, watching the people and the play
+or passing pretty compliments with the fair favourites by his side,
+diverted, perchance, by the ill-begotten quarrel of some fellow with a
+saucy orange-wench over the cost of her golden wares. The true gallants
+preferred being robbed to haggling--for the shame of it.
+
+A knowing one in the crowd was heard to say: "'Tis Castlemaine to the
+King's left."
+
+"No, 'tis Madame Carwell; curse her," snarled a more vulgar companion.
+
+"Madame Querouaille, knave, Duchess of Portsmouth," irritably exclaimed
+a handsome gallant, himself stumbling somewhat over the French name,
+though making a bold play for it, as he passed toward his box, pushing
+the fellow aside. He added a moment later, but so that no one heard:
+"Portsmouth is far from here."
+
+It was the Duke of Buckingham--the great Duke of Buckingham, in the pit
+of the King's House! Truly, we see strange things in these strange
+times! Indeed, William Penn himself did not hesitate to gossip with the
+orange-wenches, unless Pepys lied--and Pepys never lied.
+
+"What said he?" asked a stander-by, a butcher, who, with apron on and
+sleeves to elbow, had hastily left his stall at one of the afternoon and
+still stood with mouth agape and fingers widespread waiting for the
+play. Before, however, his sooty companion could answer, they were
+jostled far apart.
+
+The crowd struggled for places in eager expectation, amid banter none
+too virtuous, whistlings and jostlings. The time for the play had
+arrived. "Nell! Nell! Nell!" was on every lip.
+
+And who was "Nell"?
+
+From amidst the players, lords and coxcombs crowded on the stage stepped
+forth Nell Gwyn--the prettiest rogue in merry England.
+
+A cheer went up from every throat; for the little vixen who stood before
+them had long reigned in the hearts of Drury Lane and the habitues of
+the King's House.
+
+Yea, all eyes were upon the pretty, witty Nell; the one-time
+orange-girl; now queen of the theatre, and the idol of the Lane. Her
+curls were flowing and her big eyes dancing beneath a huge hat--more,
+indeed, a canopy than a hat--so large that the audience screamed with
+delight at the incongruity of it and the pretty face beneath.
+
+This pace in foolery had been set at the Duke's House, but Nell out-did
+them, with her broad-brimmed hat as large as a cart-wheel and her quaint
+waist-belt; for was not her hat larger by half than that at the rival
+house and her waist-belt quainter?
+
+As she came forward to speak the prologue, her laugh too was merrier and
+more roguish:
+
+ _"This jest was first of the other house's making,
+ And, five times tried, has never fail'd of taking;_
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ _This is that hat, whose very sight did win ye
+ To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye,_
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ _I'll write a play, says one, for I have got
+ A broad-brimm'd hat, and waist-belt, towards a plot.
+ Says the other, I have one more large than that,
+ Thus they out-write each other with a hat!
+ The brims still grew with every play they writ;
+ And grew so large, they cover'd all the wit.
+ Hat was the play; 't was language, wit, and tale:
+ Like them that find meat, drink, and cloth in ale."_
+
+The King leaned well out over the box-rail, his dark eyes intent upon
+Nell's face.
+
+A fair hand, however, was placed impatiently upon his shoulder and drew
+him gently back. "Lest you fall, my liege."
+
+"Thanks, Castlemaine," he replied, kindly but knowingly. "You are always
+thoughtful."
+
+The play went on. The actors came and went. Hart appeared in Oriental
+robes as Almanzor--a dress which mayhap had served its purposes for
+Othello, and mayhap had not; for cast-off court-dresses, without regard
+to fitness, were the players' favourite costumes in those days, the
+richness more than the style mattering.
+
+With mighty force, he read from the centre of the stage, with elocution
+true and syllable precise, Dryden's ponderous lines. The King nodded
+approvingly to the poet. The poet glowed with pride at the patronage of
+the King. The old-time audience were enchanted. Dryden sat with a
+triumphant smile as he dwelt upon his poetic lines and heard the
+cherished syllables receive rounds of applause from the Londoners.
+
+Was it the thought, dear Dryden; or was it Nell's pretty ways that
+bewitched the most of it? Nell's laugh still echoes in the world; but
+where are your plays, dear Dryden?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+ _It's near your cue, Mistress Nell!_
+
+
+The greenroom of the King's House was scarcely a prepossessing place or
+inviting. A door led to the stage; another to the street. On the
+remaining doors might have been deciphered from the Old English of a
+scene-artist's daub "Mistress Gwyn" and "Mr. Hart." These doors led
+respectively to the tiring-room of the sweet sprite who had but now set
+the pit wild with a hat over a sparkling eye and to that of the
+actor-manager of the House. A rough table, a few chairs, a mirror which
+had evidently seen better days in some grand mansion and a large
+throne-chair which might equally well have satisfied the royalty of
+Macbeth or Christopher Sly--its royalty, forsooth, being in its size,
+for thus only could it lord-it over its mates--stood in the corner. Old
+armour hung upon the wall, grim in the light of candles fixed in
+braziers. Rushes were strewn about the floor.
+
+Ah! Pepys, Pepys, was it here that you recalled "specially kissing of
+Nell"? Mayhap; for we read in your book: "I kissed her, and so did my
+wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is." Be that as it may, however, you
+must have found Nell's lips very agreeable; for a great wit has
+suggested that it was well that Mrs. Pepys was present on the occasion.
+
+On great play-nights, however, this most unroyal room assumed the
+proportions of royalty. Gallants and even lords sought entrance here and
+elbowed their way about; and none dared say them nay. They forced a way
+even upon the stage during the play, though not so commonly as before
+the Restoration, yet still too much; and the players played as best they
+could, and where best they could. _Billets-doux_ passed, sweet
+words were said,--all in this dilapidated, unpretentious, candle-lighted
+room.
+
+At the moment of which we speak, the greenroom was deserted save for a
+lad of twelve or fourteen years, who stood before the mirror, posing to
+his personal satisfaction and occasionally delivering bits from
+"Hamlet." He was none other than "Dick," the call-boy of the King's
+House.
+
+The lad struck a final attitude, his brow clouded. He assumed what
+seemed to him the proper pose for the royal Dane. His meditations and
+his pose, however, were broken in upon by the sudden entrance of Manager
+Hart, flushed and in an unusual state of excitement.
+
+"Where is my dagger, Dick?" he exclaimed, pacing the room.
+
+The boy came to himself but slowly.
+
+"What are you doing? Get my dagger, boy," wildly reiterated the irate
+manager. "Don't you see there will be a stage-wait?" He cast an anxious
+glance in the direction of the door which led to the stage.
+
+"Where did you leave it, sir?" asked the lad, finally realizing that it
+would be wise not to trifle at such a time.
+
+"Never mind where I left it. Get it, get it; do you hear! Nell's on the
+stage already." Hart rushed to the door and looked off in an increasing
+state of excitement.
+
+"Why, you've got your dagger on, sir," hesitatingly suggested the lad,
+as he caught the gleam of a small scimiter among the folds of Almanzor's
+tunic.
+
+Hart's face flushed.
+
+"Devil take you, boy," he exclaimed; "you are too stupid ever to make an
+actor!"
+
+With this speech, the manager strode out of the greenroom toward the
+stage.
+
+Poor Dick sank back in an attitude of resignation. "How long, O Rome,
+must I endure this bondage?" he said, sadly.
+
+He again observed his boyish figure in the mirror, and the pretty face
+brightened as he realized that there might still be hope in life,
+despite Manager Hart's assertion that he would never be able to act. His
+features slowly sank into a set expression of tremendous gloom, such as
+he thought should characterize his conception of himself as Hamlet when
+in days to come the mantles of Burbage and of Betterton should be his
+and Manager Hart must bow to him. He stood transfixed before the glass
+in a day-dream, forgetful of his ills. His pretty lips moved, and one
+close by might have heard again, "To be or not to be" in well-modulated
+phrase.
+
+"Ah, boy; here!"
+
+Dick started.
+
+It was a richly dressed gallant, in old-rose with royal orders, who had
+entered the room quietly but authoritatively from the street--the same
+lordly personage we observed in the pit. His manner was that of one
+accustomed to be obeyed and quickly too. The lad knew him and bowed low.
+
+"Tell Mistress Nell, Buckingham would speak with her. Lively, lad;
+lively," he said.
+
+"She is on the stage, my lord," replied Dick, respectfully.
+
+"Gad, I thought otherwise and stepped about from my box. Here; put these
+flowers in her tiring-room."
+
+The boy took the beautiful bouquet of white roses. "Yes, my lord," he
+replied, and turned to do the bidding.
+
+"Flowers strewn in ladies' ways oft' lead to princely favours," muttered
+his lordship, thoughtfully, as he removed his gloves and vainly adjusted
+his hat and sword. "Portsmouth at Dover told me that."
+
+It was apparent from his face that much passed before his mind, in that
+little second, of days when, at Dover Castle not long since, he had been
+a part--and no small part--of the intrigue well planned by Louis of
+France, and well executed by the Duchess of Orleans assisted by the fair
+Louise, now Duchess of Portsmouth, in which his own purse and power had
+waxed mightily. Whatever his lordship thought, however, it was gone like
+the panorama before a drowning brain.
+
+He stopped the lad as he was entering Nell's tiring-room, with an
+exclamation. The boy returned.
+
+"You gave Mistress Nell my note bidding her to supper?" he asked,
+questioningly.
+
+"I did, my lord," answered Dick.
+
+"'Sheart, a madrigal worthy of Bacchus! She smiled delightedly?"
+continued his lordship, in a jocular mood.
+
+"No, my lord; quite serious."
+
+His lordship's face changed slightly. "Read it eagerly?" he ventured,
+where he might have commanded, further to draw out the lad.
+
+"Yes, my lord," added Dick, respectfully, "after a time." The boy's lids
+dropped to avoid revealing his amused recollection of the incident; and
+his lordship's quick eye noted it.
+
+"Good!" he exclaimed, with an assumed triumphant air. "She folded it
+carefully and placed it in her bosom next her heart?"
+
+"She threw it on the floor, my lord!" meekly answered Dick, hiding his
+face in the flowers to avoid revealing disrespect.
+
+"My _billet-doux_ upon the floor!" angrily exclaimed his lordship.
+"Plague on't, she said something, made some answer, boy?" The diplomat
+was growing earnest despite himself, as diplomats often do in the cause
+of women.
+
+Dick trembled.
+
+"She said your dinners made amends for your company, my lord," he said,
+meekly.
+
+Buckingham's eyes snapped; but he was too clever to reveal his feelings
+further to a call-boy, whom he dismissed with a wave of the hand. He
+then swaggered to the table and complacently exclaimed: "The rogue!
+Nelly, Nelly, your lips shall pay tribute for that. Rosy impudence!
+Buckingham's dinners make amends for his company? Minx!" He threw
+himself into a chair, filled with deep reflections of supper and wine,
+wit and beauty, rather than state-craft.
+
+Thus lost in selfish reflection, he did not observe, or, if he did,
+cared not for, the frail figure and sweet face of one who cautiously
+tiptoed into the greenroom. It was Orange Moll, whose sad countenance
+and tattered garments betokened a sadder story. Her place was in the
+pit, with her back to the stage, vending her oranges to artisans, girls
+with vizards or foolish gallants. She had no right behind the scenes.
+
+"I am 'most afraid to enter here without Nell," she thought,
+faint-heartedly, as she glanced about the room and her eyes fell upon
+the great Lord Buckingham.
+
+"Oranges? Will you have my oranges? Only sixpence, my lord," she
+ventured at length, then hesitatingly advanced and offered her wares;
+but his lordship's thoughts were far away.
+
+"What shall we have for supper?" was his sole concern. "I think Nelly
+would like spiced tongue." Instantly his hands and eyes were raised in
+mock invocation of the intervention of the Powers that Be, and so
+suddenly that Moll drew back. "Ye Gods," he exclaimed aloud, "she has
+enough of that already! Ah, the vintage of----"
+
+It was more habit than courage which brought to Moll's trembling lips
+the familiar orange-cry, which again interrupted him: "Oranges; only
+sixpence. Here is one picked for you, my lord."
+
+Buckingham's eyes flashed with anger; he was not wont to have his way,
+much less his pleasure, disturbed by the lowly. "Oh, hang you, you
+disturb me. I am thinking; don't you perceive I am thinking? Begone!"
+
+"Only sixpence, my lord; I have not sold one to-night," pleaded the
+girl, sadly.
+
+His lordship rose irritably. "I have no pauper's pence," he exclaimed.
+"Out of my way! Ragbag!" He pushed the girl roughly aside and crossed
+the room.
+
+At the same instant, there was confusion at the stage-door, the climax
+of which was the re-entrance of Hart into the greenroom.
+
+"How can a man play when he trembles for his life lest he step upon a
+lord?" cried the angry manager. "They should be horsewhipped off the
+stage, and"--his eyes falling upon Buckingham--"out of the greenroom."
+
+"Ah, Hart," began his lordship, with a patronizing air, "why is Nelly so
+long? I desire to see her."
+
+Hart's lips trembled, but he controlled his passion. "Indeed? His
+Majesty and the good folk in front would doubtless gladly await your
+interview with Mistress Eleanor Gwyn. Shall I announce your will, my
+lord, unto his Majesty and stop the play?"
+
+"You grow ironical, friend Hart," replied his lordship.
+
+"Not so," said the actor, bowing low; "I am your lordship's most
+obedient servant."
+
+Buckingham's lip curled and his eyes revealed that he would have said
+more, but the room was meantime filling with players from the stage,
+some exchanging compliments, some strutting before the glass, and he
+would not so degrade his dignity before them. Dick, foil in hand even in
+the manager's room, was testing the steel's strength to his utmost, in
+boyish fashion.
+
+This confusion lent Moll courage, and forth came again the cry:
+"Oranges? Will you have my oranges? Only sixpence, sir."
+
+She boldly offered her wares to Almanzor, but started and paled when
+the hero turned and revealed Manager Hart.
+
+"What are you doing here, you little imp? Back to the pit, where you
+belong." The manager's voice was full of meaning.
+
+"Nell told me I might come here, sir," said the girl, faintly excusing
+herself.
+
+Hart's temper got the better of him. To admit before all that Nell ruled
+the theatre was an affront to his managerial dignity which he could not
+brook.
+
+"Oh, Nell did, did she?" he almost shrieked, as he angrily paced the
+room like some caged beast, gesticulating wildly.
+
+The actors gathered in groups and looked askant.
+
+"Gadso," he continued, "who is manager, I should like to know! Nell
+would introduce her whole trade here if she could. Every orange-peddler
+in London will set up a stand in the greenroom at the King's, next we
+know. Out with you! This is a temple of art, not a marketplace. Out with
+you!"
+
+He seized Moll roughly in his anger and almost hurled her out at the
+door. He would have done so, indeed, had not Nell entered at this moment
+from the stage. Her eye caught the situation at a glance.
+
+"Oh, blood, Iago, blood!" she exclaimed, mock-heroically, then burst
+into the merriest laugh that one could care to hear. "How now, a tragedy
+in the greenroom! What lamb is being sacrificed?"
+
+Hart stood confused; the players whispered in expectation; and an amused
+smile played upon the features of my Lord Buckingham at the manager's
+discomfiture. Finally Hart found his tongue.
+
+"An old comrade of yours at orange-vending before you lost the art of
+acting," he suggested, with a glance at Moll.
+
+[Illustration: "ENEMIES TO THE KING--BEWARE!"]
+"By association with you, Jack?" replied the witch of the theatre in a
+way which bespoke more answers that wisdom best not bring forth.
+
+Nell's whole heart went out to the subject of the controversy. Poor
+little tattered Orange Moll! She was carried back in an instant to her
+own bitter life and bitter struggles when an orange-girl. Throwing an
+arm about the child, she kissed away the tears with, "What is the
+matter, dear Moll?"
+
+"They are all mocking me, and sent me back to the pit," replied the
+girl, hysterically.
+
+"Shame on you all," said Nell; and the eyes that were so full of comedy
+revealed tragic fire.
+
+"Fy, fy," pleaded Hart; "I'll be charitable to-morrow, Nell, after this
+strain is off--but a first night--"
+
+"You need charity yourself?" suggested Nell; and she burst into a merry
+laugh, in which many joined.
+
+Buckingham instantly took up the gauntlet for a bold play, for a _coup
+d'etat_ in flattery. "Pshaw!" he cried, waving aside the players in a
+princely fashion. "When Nell plays, we have no time to munch oranges.
+Let the wench bawl in the street."
+
+Poor Moll's tears flowed again with each harsh word. Nell was not so
+easily affected.
+
+"Odso, my lord! It is a pity your lordship is not a player. Then the
+orange-trade would flourish," she said.
+
+Buckingham bowed, amused and curious. "Say you so, i' faith! Pray, why,
+mad minx?"
+
+"Your lordship would make such a good mark for the peel," retorted Nell,
+tossing a bit of orange-peel in his face, to the infinite delight of
+Hart and his fellow-players.
+
+"Devil!" angrily exclaimed his lordship as he realized the insult. "I
+would kill a man for this; a woman, I can only love." His hand left his
+sword-hilt; and he bowed low to the vixen of the theatre, picked from
+the floor the bit of peel which had fallen, kissed it, tossed it over
+his shoulder and turned away.
+
+Nell was not done, however; her revenge was incomplete. "There! dry your
+eyes, Moll," she exclaimed. "Give me your basket, child. You shall be
+avenged still further."
+
+The greenroom had now filled from the stage and the tiring-rooms; and
+all gathered gleefully about to see what next the impish Nell would do,
+for avenged she would be they all knew, though the course of her
+vengeance none could guess.
+
+The manager, catching at the probable outcome when Nell seized from
+Moll's trembling arm the basket heaped with golden fruit, gave the first
+warning: "Great Heavens! Flee for your lives! I'faith, here comes the
+veteran robber at such traffic."
+
+There was a sudden rush for the stage, but Nell cried: "Guard the door,
+Moll; don't let a rascal out. I'll do the rest."
+
+It was not Moll's strength, however, which kept the greenroom filled,
+but expectation of Nell. All gathered about with the suspense of a
+drama; for Nell herself was a whole play as she stood in the centre of
+that little group of lords and players, dressed for Almahyde, Dryden's
+heroine, with a basket of oranges on her dimpled arm. What a pretty
+picture she was too--prettier here even than on the stage! The nearer,
+the prettier! A band of roses, one end of which formed a garland falling
+to the floor, circled and bound in her curls. What a figure in her
+Oriental garb, hiding and revealing. Indeed, the greenroom seemed
+bewitched by her cry: "Oranges, will you have my oranges?"
+
+She lifted the basket high and offered the fruit in her enchanting
+old-time way, a way which had won for her the place of first actress in
+England. Could it not now dispose of Moll's wares and make the child
+happy? Almahyde's royal train was caught up most unroyally, revealing
+two dainty ankles; and she laughed and danced and disposed of her wares
+all in a breath. Listen and love:
+
+ _Sweet as love-lips, dearest mine,
+ Picked by Spanish maids divine,
+ Black-eyed beauties, who, like Eve,
+ With golden fruit their loves deceive!
+ Buy oranges; buy oranges!_
+
+ _Close your eyes, when these you taste;
+ Think your arm about her waist:
+ Thus with sixpence may you win
+ Happiness unstained with sin.
+ Buy oranges; buy oranges!_
+
+ _As the luscious fruit you sip,
+ You will wager 'tis her lip;
+ Nothing sweeter since the rise
+ Of wickedness in Paradise.
+ Buy oranges; buy oranges!_
+
+There were cries of "Brava!" "Another jig!" and "Hurrah for Nelly!" It
+was one of those bits of acting behind the scenes which are so rare and
+exquisite and which the audience never see.
+
+"Marry, gallants, deny me after that, if you dare"; and Nell's little
+foot came down firmly in the last step of a triumphant jig, indicating a
+determination that Moll's oranges should be sold and quickly too.
+
+"Last act! All ready for the last act," rang out in Dick's familiar
+voice from the stage-door as she ended. It was well some one thought of
+the play and of the audience in waiting.
+
+Many of the players hastily departed to take up their cues; but not so
+Nell. Her eyes were upon the lordly Buckingham, who was endeavouring to
+effect a crafty exit.
+
+"Not so fast, my lord," she said as she caught his handsome cloak and
+drew him back into the room. "I want you with me." She looked coyly into
+his lordship's face as though he were the one man in all the world she
+loved, and her curls and cheek almost nestled against his rich cloak. "A
+dozen, did you say? What a heart you have, my lord. A bountiful heart!"
+
+Buckingham was dazed; his eyes sought Nell, then looked aghast at the
+oranges she would force upon him. The impudence of it!
+
+"A dozen!" he exclaimed in awe. "'Slife, Nelly; what would I do with a
+dozen oranges?"
+
+"Pay for them, in sooth," promptly replied the vixen. "I never give a
+lord credit."
+
+The player-folk gathered closer to watch the scene; for there was
+evidently more fun brewing, and that too at the expense of a very royal
+gentleman.
+
+"A player talk of credit!" replied his lordship, quite ironically, as he
+straightened up proudly for a wit-encounter. "What would become of the
+mummers, if the lords did not fill their empty pockets?" he said,
+crushingly.
+
+"What would become of the lords, if the players' brains did not try to
+fill their empty skulls with wits?" quickly retorted Nell.
+
+"If you were a man, sweet Nelly, I should answer: 'The lords first had
+fools at court; then supplanted them with players!'"
+
+"And, being a woman, I do answer," replied the irrepressible Nell,
+"'--and played the fools themselves, my lord!'"
+
+The players tried to smother their feelings; but the retort was too apt,
+and the greenroom rang with laughter.
+
+Buckingham turned fiercely upon them; but their faces were instantly
+mummified.
+
+"Gad, I would sooner face the Dutch fleet, Nelly. Up go my hands, fair
+robber," he said. He had decided to succumb for the present. In his
+finger-tips glistened a golden guinea.
+
+Nell eyed the coin dubiously.
+
+"Nay, keep this and your wares too," added his lordship, in hope of
+peace, as he placed it in her hand.
+
+"Do you think me a beggar?" replied Nell, indignantly. "Take your
+possessions, every one--every orange." She filled his hands and arms to
+overflowing with her golden wares.
+
+His lordship winced, but stood subdued.
+
+"What am I to do with them?" he asked, falteringly.
+
+"Eat them; eat them," promptly and forcefully retorted the quondam
+orange-vender.
+
+"All?" asked his lordship.
+
+"All!" replied her ladyship.
+
+"Damme, I cannot hold a dozen," he exclaimed, aghast.
+
+"A chair! A chair!" cried Nell. "Would your lordship stand at the feast
+of gold?"
+
+Before Buckingham had time to reflect upon the outrage to his dignity,
+Nell forced him into a chair, to the great glee of the by-standers,
+especially of Manager Hart, who chuckled to an actor by his side:
+"She'll pluck his fine feathers; curse his arrogance."
+
+"Your knees together, my lord! What, have they never united in prayer?"
+gleefully laughed Nell as she further humbled his lordship by forcing
+his knees together to form a lap upon which to pile more oranges.
+
+Buckingham did not relish the scene; but he was clever enough to humour
+the vixen, both from fear of her tongue and from hope of favours as well
+as words from her rosy lips.
+
+"They'll unite to hold _thee_, wench," he suggested, with a sickly
+laugh, as he observed his knees well laden with oranges. "I trow not,"
+retorted Nell; "they can scarce hold their own. There!" and she
+roguishly capped the pyramid which burdened his lordship's knees with
+the largest in her basket.
+
+"I'll barter these back for my change, sweet Nell," he pleaded.
+
+"What change?" quickly cried the merry imp of Satan.
+
+"I gave you a golden guinea," answered his lordship, woefully.
+
+"I gave you a golden dozen, my lord!" replied Nell, gleefully.
+
+"Oranges, who will have my oranges?"
+
+She was done with Buckingham and had turned about for other prey.
+
+Hart could not allow the opportunity to escape without a shot at his
+hated lordship.
+
+"Fleeced," he whispered grimly over his lordship's shoulder, with a
+merry chuckle.
+
+Buckingham rose angrily.
+
+"A plague on the wench and her dealings," he said. His oranges rolled
+far and wide over the floor of the greenroom.
+
+"You should be proud, my lord, to be robbed by so fair a hand,"
+continued Hart, consolingly. "'Tis an honour, I assure you; we all envy
+you."
+
+Buckingham did not relish the consolation.
+
+"'Tis an old saw, Master Hart," he replied: "'He laughs best who laughs
+last.'"
+
+As he spoke, Nell's orange-cry rang out again above the confusion and
+the fun. She was still at it. Moll was finding vengeance and money,
+indeed, though she dwelt upon her accumulating possessions through
+eyelashes dim with tears.
+
+"It's near your cue, Mistress Nell," cried out the watchful Dick at the
+stage-door.
+
+"Six oranges left; see me sell them, Moll," cried the unheeding vender.
+
+"It's near your cue, Mistress Nell!" again shouted the call-boy, in
+anxious tones.
+
+"Marry, my cue will await my coming, pretty one," laughed Nell.
+
+The boy was not so sure of that. "Oh, don't be late, Mistress Nell," he
+pleaded. "I'll buy the oranges rather than have you make a stage-wait."
+
+"Dear heart," replied Nell, touched by the lad's solicitude. "Keep your
+pennies, Dick, and you and I will have a lark with them some fine day.
+Six oranges, left; going--going--" She sprang into the throne-chair,
+placed one of the smallest feet in England impudently on one of its arms
+and proceeded to vend her remaining wares from on high, to the huge
+satisfaction of her admirers.
+
+The situation was growing serious. Nell was not to be trifled with. The
+actors stood breathless. Hart grew wild as he realized the difficulty
+and the fact that she was uncontrollable. King and Parliament, he well
+knew, could not move her from her whimsical purpose, much less the
+manager of the King's.
+
+"What are you doing, Nell?" he pleaded, wildly. "You will ruin the first
+night. His Majesty in front, too! Dryden will never forgive us if
+'Granada' goes wrong through our fault."
+
+"Heyday! What care I for 'Granada'?" and Nell swung the basket of
+oranges high in air and calmly awaited bids. "Not a step on the stage
+till the basket is empty."
+
+It was Buckingham's turn now. "Here's music for our manager," he
+chuckled. "Our deepest sympathy, friend Hart."
+
+This was more than Hart could bear. The manager of the King's House was
+forced into profanity. "Damn your sympathy," exclaimed he; and few would
+criticise him for it. He apologized as quickly, however, and turned to
+Nell. "There goes your scene, Nell. I'll buy your oranges, when you come
+off," he continued to plead, in desperation, scarcely less fearful of
+offending her than of offending the great Lord Buckingham.
+
+"Now or never," calmly replied the vender from her chair-top.
+
+"The devil take the women," muttered Hart, frantically, as he rushed
+headlong into his tiring-room.
+
+"Marry, Heaven defend," laughed Nell; "for he's got the men already."
+She sprang lightly from the chair to the floor.
+
+Hart was back on the instant, well out of breath but purse in hand.
+
+"Here, here," he exclaimed. "Never mind the oranges, wench. The audience
+will be waiting."
+
+"Faith and troth, and is not Nell worth waiting for?" she cried, her
+eyes shining radiantly. Indeed, the audience would have gladly waited,
+could they have but seen her pretty, winsome way! "These are
+yours--all--all!" she continued, as she gleefully emptied the basket of
+its remaining fruit over Prince Almanzor's head.
+
+Hart protested vainly.
+
+Then rushing back to Moll, Nell threw both arms about the girl
+triumphantly. "There, Moll," she said, "is your basket and all the
+trophies"; and she gave Moll the basket with the glittering coins
+jangling in it.
+
+"Your cue--your cue is spoken, Mistress Nell," shrieked Dick from the
+stage-door.
+
+Nell heeded not. Her eyes happening upon an orange which had fallen near
+the throne-chair, she caught it up eagerly and hurled it at Manager
+Hart.
+
+"Forsooth, here's another orange, Master Manager."
+
+He succeeded in catching it despite his excitement.
+
+"Your cue--your cue--Mistress Nell!" came from every throat as one.
+
+Nell tossed back her head indifferently. "Let them wait; let them wait,"
+she said, defiantly.
+
+The stage-beauty crossed leisurely to the glass and carelessly arranged
+her drapery and the band of roses encircling her hair.
+
+Then the hoyden was gone. In an instant, Nell was transformed into the
+princess, Almahyde. The room had been filled with breathless suspense;
+but what seemed to the players an endless period of time was but a
+minute. Nell turned to the manager, and with all the suavity of a
+princess of tragedy kissed her hand tantalizingly to him and said: "Now,
+Jack, I'll teach you how to act."
+
+She passed out, and, in a moment, rounds of applause from the
+amphitheatre filled the room. She was right; the audience would wait for
+her.
+
+A moment later, the greenroom was deserted except for Manager Hart and
+Lord Buckingham. Hart had thrown the call-boy almost bodily through the
+door that led to the stage, thus venting his anger upon the unoffending
+lad, who had been unfortunate enough to happen in his way ill betimes.
+He now stood vainly contemplating himself before the glass and awaiting
+his cue. Buckingham leaned upon a chair-top, uncertain as to his course.
+
+"Damme! She shall rue this work," he muttered at length. "A man might as
+well make love to a wind-mill. I forgot to tell her how her gown becomes
+her. That is a careless thing to forget." The reflection forthwith
+determined his course. "Nelly, Nelly, Nelly," he called as he quickly
+crossed the room after the departed Nell, "you are divine to-night. Your
+gown is simply--"
+
+The manager's voice stayed him at the stage-door. "My lord, come back;
+my lord--"
+
+Buckingham's hand had gone so far, indeed, as to push open the door. He
+stood entranced as he looked out upon the object of his adoration upon
+the stage. "Perfection!" he exclaimed. "Your eyes--"
+
+"My lord, my lord, you forget--"
+
+Buckingham turned indignantly at the voice which dared to interrupt him
+in the midst of his rhapsody.
+
+"You forget--your oranges, my lord," mildly suggested Hart, as he
+pointed to the fruit scattered upon the floor.
+
+Buckingham's face crimsoned. "Plague on't! They are sour, Master Hart."
+With a glance of contempt, he turned on his heel and left the room.
+
+A triumphant smile played upon the manager's face. He felt that he had
+annoyed his lordship without his intention being apparent. "A good exit,
+on my honour," he muttered, as he stood contemplating the door through
+which Buckingham had passed; "but, by Heaven, he shall better it unless
+he takes his eyes from Nell. Great men believe themselves resistless
+with the fair; more often, the fair are resistless with great men."
+
+He took a final look at himself in the glass, adjusted his scimiter;
+and, well satisfied with himself and the conceit of his epigram unheard
+save by himself, he also departed, to take up his cue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+ _He took them from Castlemaine's hand to throw to you._
+
+
+The greenroom seemed like some old forest rent by a storm. Its
+furniture, which was none too regular at best, either in carving or
+arrangement, had the irregularity which comes only with a tempest, human
+or divine. The table, it is true, still stood on its four oaken legs;
+but even it was well awry. The chairs were scattered here and there,
+some resting upon their backs. To add to all this, oranges in confusion
+were strewn broadcast upon the floor.
+
+A storm in fact had visited the greenroom. The storm was Nell.
+
+In the midst of the confusion, a jolly old face peeped cautiously in at
+the door which led to the street. At the sound of Manager Hart's
+thunderous tones coming from the stage, however, it as promptly
+disappeared, only to return when the apparent danger ceased. It was a
+rare old figure and a rare old dress and a rare old man. Yet, not an old
+man either. His face was red; for he was a tavern spirit, well known and
+well beloved,--a lover of good ale! Across his back hung a fiddle which
+too had the appearance of being the worse for wear, if fiddles can ever
+be said to be the worse for wear.
+
+The intruder took off his dilapidated hat, hugged his fiddle closely
+under his arm and looked about the room, more cautiously than
+respectfully.
+
+"Oons, here is a scattering of props; a warfare of the orange-wenches!"
+he exclaimed. "A wise head comes into battle after the last shot is
+fired."
+
+He proceeded forthwith to fill his pockets, of which there seemed to be
+an abundance of infinite depth, with oranges. This done, he calmly made
+a hole in the next orange which came to his hand and began to suck it
+loudly and persistently, boy-fashion, meanwhile smacking his lips. His
+face was one wreath of unctuous smiles. "There is but one way to eat an
+orange," he chuckled; "that's through a hole."
+
+At this moment, Hart's voice was heard again upon the stage, and the
+new-comer to the greenroom liked to have dropped his orange. "Odsbud,
+that's one of Master Hart's love-tones," he thought. "I must see Nell
+before he sees me, or it will be farewell Strings." He hastened to
+Nell's tiring-room and rapped lightly on the door. "Mistress Nell!
+Mistress Nell!" he called.
+
+The door opened, but it was not Nell. Her maid pointed toward the stage.
+Strings--for Strings was his name, or at least none knew him by a
+better--accordingly hobbled across the room--for the wars too had left
+their mark on him--and peeped off in the direction indicated.
+
+"Gad," he exclaimed, gleefully clapping his hands, "there she goes on
+the stage as a Moorish princess."
+
+There was a storm of applause without.
+
+"Bravo, Nelly, bravo!" he continued. "She's caught the lads in the pit.
+They worship Nell out there." The old fellow straightened up as if he
+felt a personal pride in the audience for evincing such good taste.
+
+"Oons! Jack Hart struts about like a young game-cock at his first
+fight," he observed. He broke into an infectious laugh, which would have
+been a fine basso for Nell's laugh.
+
+From the manager, his eye turned toward the place which he himself had
+once occupied among the musicians. He began to dance up and down with
+both feet, his knees well bent, boy-fashion, and to clap his hands
+wildly. "Look ye, little Tompkins got my old place with the fiddle.
+Whack, de-doodle-de-do! Whack, de-doodle, de-doodle-de-do!" he cried,
+giving grotesque imitations to his own great glee of his successor as
+leader of the orchestra.
+
+Then, shaking his head, confident of his own superiority with the bow,
+he turned back into the greenroom and, with his mouth half full of
+orange, uttered the droll dictum: "It will take more than catgut and
+horse-hair to make you a fiddler, Tommy, my boy."
+
+Thus Strings stood blandly sucking his orange with personal satisfaction
+in the centre of the room, when Dick entered from the stage. The
+call-boy paused as if he could not believe his eyes. He looked and
+looked again.
+
+"Heigh-ho!" he exclaimed at last, and then rushed across the room to
+greet the old fiddler. "Why, Strings, I thought we would never see you
+again; how fares it with you?"
+
+Strings placed the orange which he had been eating and which he knew
+full well was none of his own well behind him; and, assuming an
+unconcerned and serious air, he replied: "Odd! A little the worse for
+wear, Dickey, me and the old fiddle, but still smiling with the world."
+There was a bit of a twinkle in his eye as he spoke.
+
+Dick, ever mindful of the welfare and appearance of the theatre,
+unhooked from the wall a huge shield, which mayhap had served some
+favourite knight of yore, and, using it as a tray, proceeded to gather
+the scattered fruit.
+
+"Have an orange?" he inquired of Strings, who still stood in a
+reflective mood in the centre of the room, as he rested in his labours
+by him.
+
+"How; do they belong to you?" demanded Strings.
+
+"Oh, no," admitted Dick, "but--"
+
+The fiddler instantly assumed an air of injured innocence.
+
+"How dare you," he cried, "offer me what don't belong to you?" He turned
+upon the boy almost ferociously at the bare thought. "Honesty is the
+best policy," he continued, seriously. "I have tried both, lad"; and, in
+his eagerness to impress upon the boy the seriousness of taking that
+which does not belong to you, he gestured inadvertently with the hand
+which till now had held the stolen orange well behind him.
+
+[Illustration: A FRIEND EVEN UNTO HER WORST ENEMY.]
+Dick's eye fell upon it, and so did Strings's. There was a moment's
+awkwardness, and then both burst into a peal of joyous laughter.
+
+"Oh, well, egad,--I _will_ join you, Dick," said Strings, with more
+patronage still than apology. He seated himself upon the table and began
+anew to suck his orange in philosophic fashion.
+
+"But, mind you, lad; never again offer that which is not your own, for
+there you are twice cursed," he discoursed pompously. "You make him who
+receives guilty of your larceny. Oons, my old wound." He winced from
+pain. "He becomes an accomplice in your crime. So says the King's law.
+Hush, lad, I am devouring the evidence of your guilt."
+
+The boy by this time had placed the shield of oranges in the corner of
+the room and had returned to listen to Strings's discourse. "You speak
+with the learning of a solicitor," he said, as he looked respectfully
+into the old fiddler's face.
+
+Strings met the glance with due dignity.
+
+"Marry, I've often been in the presence of a judge," he replied, with
+great solemnity. His face reflected the ups and downs in his career as
+he made the confession.
+
+"Is that where you have been, Strings, all these long days?" asked Dick,
+innocently.
+
+"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Strings, with sadly retrospective
+countenance. "Travelling, lad--contemplating the world, from the King's
+highways. Take note, my boy,--a prosperous man! I came into the world
+without a rag that I could call my own, and now I have an abundance.
+Saith the philosopher: Some men are born to rags, some achieve rags and
+some have rags thrust upon them."
+
+"I wish you were back with us, Strings," said the boy, sympathetically,
+as he put a hand upon Strings's broad shoulder and looked admiringly up
+into his face.
+
+"I wish so myself," replied the fiddler. "Thrice a day, I grow lonesome
+here." A weather-beaten hand indicated the spot where good dinners
+should be.
+
+"They haven't all forgot you, Strings," continued his companion,
+consolingly.
+
+"Right, lad!" said Strings, musingly, as he lifted the old viol close
+against his cheek and tenderly picked it. "The old fiddle is true to me
+yet, though there is but one string left to its dear old neck." There
+was a sob in his voice as he spoke. "I tell you, a fiddle's human, Dick!
+It laughs at my jokes alone now; it weeps at my sorrows." He sighed
+deeply and the tears glistened in his eyes. "The fiddle is the only
+friend left me and the little ones at home now, my lad."
+
+"--And Dick!" the boy suggested, somewhat hurt. He too was weeping.
+"It's a shame; that's what it is!" he broke out, indignantly. "Tompkins
+can't play the music like you used to, Strings."
+
+"Oons!" exclaimed the fiddler, the humour in his nature bubbling again
+to the surface. "It's only now and then the Lord has time to make a
+fiddler, Dickey, my boy."
+
+As he spoke, the greenroom shook with the rounds of applause from the
+pit and galleries without.
+
+"Hurrah!" he shouted, following Dick to the stage-door--his own sorrows
+melting before the sunshine of his joy at the success of his favourite.
+"Nell has caught them with the epilogue." He danced gleefully about,
+entering heartily into the applause and totally forgetful of the fact
+that he was on dangerous ground.
+
+Dick was more watchful. "Manager Hart's coming!" he exclaimed in
+startled voice, fearful for the welfare of his friend.
+
+Strings collapsed. "Oh, Lord, let me be gone," he said, as he remembered
+the bitter quarrel he had had with the manager of the King's House,
+which ended in the employment of Tompkins. He did not yearn for another
+interview; for Hart had forbidden him the theatre on pain of whipping.
+
+"Where can you hide?" whispered Dick, woefully, as the manager's voice
+indicated that he was approaching the greenroom, and that too in far
+from the best of humour.
+
+"Behind Richard's throne-chair! It has held sinners before now," added
+the fiddler as he glided well out of sight.
+
+Dick was more cautious. In a twinkling, he was out of the door which led
+to the street.
+
+The greenroom walls looked grim in the sputtering candle-light, but they
+had naught to say.
+
+The door from the stage opened, and in came Nell. There was something
+sadly beautiful and pathetic in her face. She had enjoyed but now one of
+the grandest triumphs known to the theatre, and yet she seemed oblivious
+to the applause and bravas, to the lights and to the royalty.
+
+A large bouquet of flowers was in her arms--a bouquet of red roses. Her
+lips touched them reverently. Her eyes, however, were far away in a
+dream of the past.
+
+"From the hand of the King of England!" she mused softly to herself.
+"The King? How like his face to the youthful cavalier, who weary and
+worn reined in his steed a summer's day, now long ago, and took a gourd
+of water from my hand. Could he have been the King? Pooh, pooh! I dream
+again."
+
+She turned away, as from herself, with a heart-heavy laugh. The manager
+entered from the stage.
+
+"See, Jack, my flowers," she said, again in an ecstasy of happiness.
+"Are they not exquisite?"
+
+"He took them from Castlemaine's hand to throw to you," snarled Hart,
+jealously.
+
+"The sweeter, then!" and Nell broke into a tantalizing laugh. "Mayhap he
+was teaching the player-king to do likewise, Jack," she added,
+roguishly, as she arranged the flowers in a vase.
+
+"I am in no mood for wit-thrusts," replied Hart as he fretfully paced
+the room. "You played that scene like an icicle."
+
+"In sooth, your acting froze me," slyly retorted Nell, kindly but
+pointedly. She took the sweetest roses from the bunch, kissed them and
+arranged them in her bosom.
+
+This did not improve Hart's temper.
+
+Strings seized the opportunity to escape from his hiding-place to the
+stage.
+
+"I say, you completely ruined my work," said Hart. "The audience were
+rightly displeased."
+
+"With you, perhaps," suggested Nell. "I did not observe the feeling."
+
+Hart could no longer control himself. "You vilely read those glorious
+lines:
+
+ _"See how the gazing People crowd the Place;
+ All gaping to be fill'd with my Disgrace.
+ That Shout, like the hoarse Peals of Vultures rings,
+ When, over fighting Fields they beat their wings."_
+
+"And how should I read them, dear master?" she asked demurely of her
+vainglorious preceptor.
+
+"Like I read them, in sooth," replied he, well convinced that his
+reading could not be bettered.
+
+"Like you read them, in sooth," replied Nell, meekly. She took the floor
+and repeated the lines with the precise action and trick of voice which
+Hart had used. Every "r" was well trilled; "gaping" was pronounced with
+an anaconda-look, as though she were about to swallow the theatre,
+audience and all; and, as she spoke the line, "When, over fighting
+Fields they beat their wings," she raised her arms and shoulders in
+imitation of some barn-yard fowl vainly essaying flight and swept across
+the room, the picture of grace in ungracefulness.
+
+"'Tis monstrous!" exclaimed Hart, bitterly, as he realized the travesty.
+"You cannot act and never could. I was a fool to engage you."
+
+Nell was back by the vase, toying with the flowers. "London applauds my
+acting," she suggested, indifferently.
+
+"London applauds the face and figure; not the art," replied Hart.
+
+"London is wise; for the art is in the face and figure, Master Jack. You
+told me so yourself," she added, sharply, pointing her finger at her
+adversary in quick condemnation. She turned away triumphant.
+
+"I was a fool like the rest," replied Hart, visibly irritated that he
+could not get the better of the argument.
+
+"Come, don't be angry," said Nell. Her manner had changed; for her heart
+had made her fearful lest her tongue had been unkind. "Mayhap Almahyde
+is the last part Nell will ever play." She looked thoughtfully into the
+bunch of roses. Did she see a prophecy there?
+
+He approached the table where she stood. "Your head is turned by the
+flowers," he said, bitterly. "An honest motive, no doubt, prompted the
+royal gift."
+
+Nell turned sharply upon him. Her lips trembled, but one word only came
+to them--"Jack!"
+
+Hart's eyes fell under the rebuke; for he knew that only anger prompted
+what he had said. He would have struck another for the same words.
+
+"Pardon, Nell," he said, softly. "My heart rebukes my tongue. I love
+you!"
+
+Nell stepped back to the mirror, contemplating herself, bedecked as she
+was with the flowers. In an instant she forgot all, and replied
+playfully to Hart's confession of love: "Of course, you do. How could
+you help it? So do others."
+
+"I love you better than the rest," he added, vehemently, "better than my
+life." He tried to put his arms about her.
+
+Nell, however, was by him like a flash.
+
+"Not so fast, dear sir," she said, coyly; and she tiptoed across the
+room and ensconced herself high in the throne-chair.
+
+Hart followed and knelt below her, adoring.
+
+"Admit that I can act--a little--just a little--dear Hart, or tell me no
+more of love." She spoke with the half-amused, half-indifferent air of a
+beautiful princess to some servant-suitor; and she was, indeed, most
+lovable as she leaned back in the great throne-chair. She seemed a queen
+and the theatre her realm. Her beautiful arms shone white in the
+flickering candle-light. Her sceptre was a rose which the King of
+England had given her.
+
+Hart stepped back and looked upon the picture. "By heaven, Nell," he
+cried, "I spoke in anger. You are the most marvellous actress in the
+world. Nature, art and genius crown your work."
+
+Nell smiled at his vehemence. "I begin to think that you have taste most
+excellent," she said.
+
+Hart sprang to her side, filled with hope. As the stage-lover he ne'er
+spoke in tenderer tones. "Sweet Nell, when I found you in the pit, a
+ragged orange-girl, I saw the sparkle in your eye, the bright
+intelligence, the magic genius, which artists love. I claimed you for my
+art, which is the art of arts--for it embraces all. I had the theatre. I
+gave it you. You captured the Lane--then London. You captured my soul as
+well, and held it slave."
+
+"Did I do all that, dear Jack?" she asked, wistfully.
+
+"And more," said Hart, rapturously. "You captured my years to come, my
+hope, ambition, love--all. All centred in your heart and eyes, sweet
+Nell, from the hour I first beheld you."
+
+Nell's look was far away. "Is love so beautiful?" she murmured softly.
+Her eye fell upon her sceptre-rose. "Yea, I begin to think it is." She
+mused a moment, until the silence seemed to awaken her. She looked into
+Hart's eyes again, sadly but firmly, then spoke as with an effort: "You
+paint the picture well, dear Jack. Paint on." Her hand waved
+commandingly.
+
+"I could not paint ill with such a model," said he, his voice full of
+adoration.
+
+"Well said," she replied; "and by my troth, I have relented like you,
+dear Jack. I admit you too can act--and marvellously well." She took his
+trembling hand and descended from the throne. He tried once again to
+embrace her, but she avoided him as before.
+
+"Is't true?" he asked, eagerly, without observing the hidden meaning in
+her voice.
+
+"'Tis true, indeed--with proper emphasis and proper art and proper
+intonation." She crossed the room, Hart following her.
+
+"I scarce can live for joy," he breathed.
+
+Nell leaned back upon the table and looked knowingly and deeply into
+Hart's eyes. Her voice grew very low, but clear and full of meaning.
+
+"In faith," she said, "I trow and sadly speak but true; for I am sad at
+times--yea--very sad--when I observe, with all my woman's wiles and
+arts, I cannot act the hypocrite like men."
+
+"What mean you, darling cynic?" asked he, jocosely.
+
+"Darling!" she cried, repeating the word, with a peculiar look. "To tell
+two girls within the hour you love each to the death would be in me
+hypocrisy, I admit, beyond my art; but you men can do such things with
+conscience clear."
+
+Hart turned away his face. "She's found me out," he thought.
+
+"Nell, I never loved the Spanish dancing-girl. You know I love but you."
+
+"Oh, ho!" laughed Nell. "Then why did you tell her so?--to break her
+heart or mine?"
+
+The manager stood confused. He scarce knew what to say.
+
+"You are cruel, Nell," he pleaded, fretfully. "You never loved me,
+never."
+
+"Did I ever say I did?"
+
+Hart shook his head sadly.
+
+"Come, don't pout, Jack. An armistice in this, my friend, for you were
+my friend in the old days when I needed one, and I love you for that."
+She placed her hands kindly on the manager's shoulders, then turned and
+began to arrange anew the gift-flowers in the vase.
+
+"I'll win your life's love, Nell, in spite of you," he said,
+determinedly.
+
+She turned her honest eyes upon him. "Nay, do not try; believe me, do
+not try," she said softly.
+
+"Nell, you do not mean--?" His voice faltered.
+
+"You must not love me," she said, firmly; "believe me, you must not."
+
+"I must not love you!" His voice scarcely breathed the words.
+
+"There, there; we are growing sentimental, Jack,--and at our age," she
+replied. She laughed gaily and started for her tiring-room.
+
+He followed her.
+
+"Sup with me, Nell," he pleaded. "No word of this, I promise you."
+
+"Heyday, I'll see how good you are, Jack," she answered, cordially.
+
+"My second bid to sup to-night," she thought. "Who sets the better
+feast?"
+
+The tiring-room door was open; and the little candles danced gleefully
+about the make-up mirror, for even candles seemed happy when Nell came
+near. The maid stood ready to assist her to a gown and wrap, that she
+might leave the theatre.
+
+Nell turned. Hart still stood waiting. The spirit of kindness
+o'er-mastered her.
+
+"Your hand, friend, your hand," she said, taking the manager's hand.
+"When next you try to win a woman's love, don't throw away her
+confidence; for you will never get it back again entire."
+
+Hart bowed his head under the rebuke; and she entered her room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+ _Flowers and Music feed naught but Love._
+
+
+The manager stood a moment looking through the half-closed door at Nell.
+There was a strange mingling of contending forces at work in his nature.
+To be sure, he had trifled with the affections of the Spanish
+dancing-girl, a new arrival from Madrid and one of the latest
+attractions of the King's House; but it was his pride, when he
+discovered that Nell's sharp eyes had found him out, that suffered, not
+his conscience. Was he not the fascinating actor-manager of the House?
+Could he prevent the ladies loving him? Must he be accused of not loving
+Nell, simply because his charms had edified the shapely new-comer?
+Nell's rebuke had depressed him, but there was a smouldering fire
+within. "'Slife!" he muttered. "If I do not steal my way into Nell's
+heart, I'll abandon the rouge-box and till the soil."
+
+As he approached his tiring-room, he bethought him that it would be well
+first to have an oversight of the theatre. He turned accordingly and
+pulled open the door that led to the stage.
+
+As he did so, a figure fell into the greenroom, grasping devotedly a
+violin, lest his fall might injure it. Strings had been biding his time,
+waiting an opportunity to see Nell, and had fallen asleep behind the
+door.
+
+"How now, dog!" exclaimed the manager when he saw who the intruder was.
+
+Strings hastened to his feet and hobbled across the room.
+
+"I told you not to set foot here again," shouted Hart, following him
+virulently.
+
+Strings bowed meekly. "I thought the King's House in need of a player;
+so I came back, sir," said he.
+
+Hart was instantly beside himself. "Zounds!" he stormed. "I have had
+enough impudence to contend with to-night. Begone; or up you go for a
+vagrant."
+
+"I called on Mistress Gwyn, sir," explained Strings.
+
+"Mistress Gwyn does not receive drunkards," fiercely retorted Hart; and
+he started hastily to the stage-door and called loudly for his force of
+men to put the fiddler out.
+
+Nell's door was still ajar. She had removed the roses from her hair and
+dress. She caught at once her name. Indeed, there was little that went
+on which Nell did not see or hear, even though walls intervened. "Who
+takes my name in vain?" she called. Her head popped through the opening
+left by the door, and she scanned the room.
+
+As her eye fell upon the old fiddler, who had often played songs and
+dances for her in days gone by, a cry of joy came from her lips. She
+rushed into the greenroom and threw both arms about Strings's neck. "My
+old comrade, as I live," she cried, dancing about him. "I am joyed to
+see you, Strings!"
+
+Turning, she saw the manager eying them with fiery glances. She knew the
+situation and the feeling. "Jack, is it not good to have Strings back?"
+she asked, sweetly.
+
+Hart's face grew livid with anger. He could see the merry devil dancing
+in her eye and on her tongue. He knew the hoyden well. "Gad, I will
+resign management." He turned on his heel, entered his tiring-room and
+closed the door, none too gently. He feared to tarry longer, lest he
+might say too much.
+
+Nell broke into a merry laugh; and the fiddler chuckled.
+
+"You desert me these days, Strings," she said, as she leaned against the
+table and fondly eyed the wayfarer of the tattered garments and
+convivial spirits.
+
+"I don't love your lackey-in-waiting, Mistress Nell," said he, with a
+wink in the direction of the departed manager.
+
+"Poor Jack. Never mind him," she said, with a roguish laugh, though with
+no touch of malice in it, for there was devil without malice in Nell's
+soul.
+
+As she again sought the eyes of the fiddler, her face grew thoughtful.
+She spoke--hesitated--and then spoke again, as if the thought gave her
+pain. "Have you kept your word to me, Strings, and stopped--drinking?"
+she asked. The last word fell faintly, tremblingly, from her
+lips--almost inaudibly.
+
+"Mistress Nell, I--I--" Strings's eyes fell quickly.
+
+Nell's arm was lovingly about him in an instant. "There, there; don't
+tell me, Strings. Try again, and come and see me often." There was a
+delicacy in her voice and way more beautiful than the finest acting. The
+words had hurt her more than him. She changed her manner in an instant.
+
+Not so with Strings. The tears were in his eyes. "Mistress Nell, you are
+so good to me," he said; "and I am such a wretch."
+
+"So you are, Strings," and she laughed merrily.
+
+"I have taught my little ones at home who it is that keeps the wolf from
+our door," he continued.
+
+"Not a word of that!" she exclaimed, reprovingly. "Poor old fellow!" Her
+eyes grew big and bright as she reflected on the days she had visited
+the fiddler's home and on the happiness her gifts had brought his
+children. For her, giving was better than receiving. The feeling sprang
+from the fulness of her own joy at seeing those about her happy, and not
+from the teachings of priests or prelates. Dame Nature was her sole
+preceptor in this.
+
+"I'll bring the babes another sugar plum to-morrow. I haven't a farthing
+to-night. Moll ran away with the earnings, and there is no one left to
+rob," she said.
+
+"Heyday," and she ran lightly to the vase and caught up the flowers.
+"Take the flowers to the bright eyes, to make them brighter." They would
+at least add cheerfulness to the room where Strings lived until she
+could bring something better.
+
+As she looked at the roses, she began to realize how dear they were
+becoming to herself, for they were the King's gift; and her heart beat
+quickly and she touched the great red petals lovingly with her lips.
+
+Strings took the flowers awkwardly; and, as he did so, something fell
+upon the floor. He knelt and picked it up, in his eagerness letting the
+roses fall.
+
+"A ring among the flowers, Mistress Nell," he cried.
+
+"A ring!" she exclaimed, taking the jewel quickly. Her lips pressed the
+setting. "Bless his heart! A ring from his finger," she continued half
+aloud. "Is it not handsome, Strings?" Her eyes sparkled brightly and
+there was a triumphant smile upon her lips.
+
+The fiddler's face, however, was grave; his eyes were on the floor.
+
+"How many have rings like that, while others starve," he mused,
+seriously.
+
+Nell held the jewel at arm's length and watched its varying brightness
+in the candle-light. "We can moralize, now we have the ring," she said,
+by way of rejoinder, then broke into a ringing laugh at her own
+way-of-the-world philosophizing. "Bless the giver!" she added, in a mood
+of rhapsody.
+
+She turned, only again to observe the sad countenance of Strings.
+"Alack-a-day! Why do you not take the nosegay?" she asked, wonderingly;
+for she herself was so very happy that she could not see why Strings too
+should not be so.
+
+"It will not feed my little ones, Mistress Nell," he answered, sadly.
+
+Nell's heart was touched in an instant. "Too true!" she said,
+sympathetically, falling on her knee and lovingly gathering up the
+roses. "Flowers and Music feed naught but Love, and often then Love goes
+hungry--very hungry." Her voice was so sweet and tender that it seemed
+as though the old viol had caught the notes.
+
+"Last night, Mistress Nell," said Strings, "the old fiddle played its
+sweetest melody for them, but they cried as if their tiny hearts would
+break. They were starving, and I had nothing but music for them."
+
+"Starving!" Nell listened to the word as though at first she did not
+realize its meaning. "What can I send?" she cried, looking about in vain
+and into her tiring-room.
+
+Her eyes fell suddenly upon the rich jewel upon her finger. "No, no; I
+cannot think of that," she thought.
+
+Then the word "starving" came back to her again with all its force.
+"Starving!" Her imagination pictured all its horrors. "Starving" seemed
+written on every wall and on the ceiling. It pierced her heart and
+brain. "Yes, I will," she exclaimed, wildly. "Here, Strings, old fellow,
+take the ring to the babes, to cut their teeth on."
+
+Strings stood aghast. "No, Mistress Nell; it is a present. You must
+not," he protested.
+
+"There are others where that came from," generously laughed Nell.
+
+"You must not; you are too kind," he continued, firmly.
+
+[Illustration: NELL PREVENTS A QUARREL.]
+"Pooh, pooh! I insist," said Nell as she forced the jewel upon him. "It
+will make a pretty mouthful; and, besides, I do not want my jewels to
+outshine me."
+
+Strings would have followed her and insisted upon her taking back the
+beautiful gift, but Nell was gone in an instant and her door closed.
+
+"To cut their teeth on!" he repeated as he placed the jewelled ring
+wonderingly upon his bow-finger and watched it sparkle and laugh in the
+light as he pretended to play a tune. "She is always joking like that;
+Heaven reward her."
+
+He stood lost in the realization of sudden affluence.
+
+Buckingham entered the room from the stage-door. His eyes were full of
+excitement. "The audience are wild over Nell, simply wild," he exclaimed
+in his enthusiasm, unconscious of the fact that he had an auditor, who
+was equally oblivious of his lordship's presence. "Gad," he continued,
+rapturously, half aloud, half to himself, "when they are stumbling home
+through London fog, the great _comedienne_ will be playing o'er the
+love-scenes with Buckingham in a cosy corner of an inn. She will not
+dare deny my bid to supper, with all her impudence. _Un petit
+souper!_" He broke into a laugh. "Tis well Old Rowley was too engaged
+to look twice at Nelly's eyes," he thought. "His Majesty shall never
+meet the wench at arm's length, an I can help it."
+
+He observed or rather became aware for the first time that there was
+another occupant of the room.
+
+"Ah, sirrah," he called, without noting the character of his companion,
+"inform Mistress Nell, Buckingham is waiting."
+
+Strings looked up. He seemed to have grown a foot in contemplation of
+his sudden wealth. Indeed, each particular tatter on his back seemed to
+have assumed an independent air.
+
+"Inform her yourself!" he declared; and his manner might well have
+become the dress of Buckingham. "Lord Strings is not your lackey this
+season."
+
+Buckingham gazed at him in astonishment, followed by amusement. "Lord
+Strings!" he observed. "Lord Rags!"
+
+Strings approached his lordship with a familiar, princely air. "How does
+that look on my bow-finger, my lord?" and he flourished his hand wearing
+the ring where Buckingham could well observe it.
+
+His lordship started. "The King's ring!" he would have exclaimed, had
+not the diplomat in his nature restrained him. "A fine stone!" he said
+merely. "How came you by it?"
+
+"Nell gave it to me," Strings answered.
+
+Buckingham nearly revealed himself in his astonishment. "Nell!" he
+muttered; and his face grew black as he wondered if his Majesty had
+out-generalled him. "Damme," he observed aloud, inspecting the ring
+closely, "I have taken a fancy to this gem."
+
+"So have I," ejaculated Strings, as he avoided his lordship and strutted
+across the room.
+
+"I'll give you fifty guineas for it," said Buckingham, following him
+more eagerly than the driver of a good bargain is wont.
+
+Strings stood nonplussed. "Fifty guineas!" he exclaimed, aghast. This
+was more money than the fiddler had ever thought existed. "Now?" he
+asked, wonderingly.
+
+"Now," replied his lordship, who proceeded at once to produce the
+glittering coins and toss them temptingly before the fiddler's eyes.
+
+"Oons, Nell surely meant me to sell it," he cried as he eagerly seized
+the gold and fed his eyes upon it. "Odsbud, I always did love yellow."
+He tossed some of the coins in the air and caught them with the
+dexterity of a juggler.
+
+Buckingham grew impatient. He desired a delivery. "Give me the ring," he
+demanded.
+
+Strings looked once more at the glittering gold; and visions of the
+plenty which it insured to his little home, to say nothing of a flagon
+or two of good brown ale which could be had by himself and his boon
+comrades without disparagement to the dinners of the little ones, came
+before him. If he had ever possessed moral courage, it was gone upon the
+instant. "Done!" he exclaimed. "Oons, fifty guineas!" and he handed the
+ring to Buckingham.
+
+The fiddler was still absorbed in his possessions, whispering again and
+again to the round bits of yellow: "My little bright-eyes will not go to
+bed hungry to-night!" when Manager Hart entered proudly from his
+tiring-room, dressed to leave the theatre.
+
+Buckingham nodded significantly. "Not a word of this," he said,
+indicating the ring, which he had quickly transferred to his own finger,
+turning the jewel so that it could not be observed.
+
+"'Sdeath, you still here?" said Hart, sharply, as his eyes fell upon the
+fiddler.
+
+Strings straightened up and puffed with the pomposity and pride of a
+landed proprietor. He shook his newly acquired possessions until the
+clinking of the gold was plainly audible to the manager.
+
+"Still here, Master Hart, negotiating. When you are pressed for coin,
+call on me, Master Hart. I run the Exchequer," he said, patronizingly.
+It was humorous to see his air of sweeping condescension toward the tall
+and dignified manager of the theatre who easily overtopped him by a
+head.
+
+"Gold!" exclaimed Hart, as he observed the glitter of the guineas in the
+candle-light. His eyes turned quickly and suspiciously upon the lordly
+Buckingham.
+
+There was nothing, however, in his lordship's face to indicate that he
+was aware even of the existence of the fiddler or of his gold. He sat by
+the table, leaning carelessly upon it, his face filled with an
+expression of supreme satisfaction. He had the attitude of one who was
+waiting for somebody or something and confidently expected not to be
+disappointed.
+
+"Sup with me, Hart," continued Strings, with the air of a boon comrade.
+"Sup with me--venison, capons, and--Epsom water."
+
+"Thank you, I am engaged to supper," replied Hart, contemptuously,
+brushing his cloak where it had been touched by the fiddler, as if his
+fingers had contaminated it.
+
+The insult clearly observable in the manager's tone, however, had no
+effect whatever upon Strings. He tossed his head proudly and said
+indifferently: "Oh, very well. Strings will sup with Strings. My coach,
+my coach, I say. Drive me to my bonnie babes!"
+
+He pushed open the door with a lordly air and passed out; and, for some
+seconds, they heard a mingling of repeated demands for the coach and a
+strain of music which sounded like "Away dull care; prythee away from
+me."
+
+Buckingham had observed the fiddler's tilt with the manager and the
+royal exit of the ragged fellow with much amusement. "A merry wag! Who
+is that?" he asked, as Strings's voice grew faint in the entry-way.
+
+Hart was strutting actor-fashion before the mirror, arranging his curls
+to hang gracefully over his forehead and tilting now and again the big
+plumed hat. "A knave of fortune, it seems," he answered coolly and still
+suspiciously.
+
+"Family?" asked Buckingham, indifferently.
+
+"Twins, I warrant," replied Hart, in an irritated tone.
+
+Buckingham chuckled softly.
+
+"No wonder he's tattered and gray," he declared, humorously
+philosophizing upon Hart's reply, though it was evident that Hart
+himself was too much chafed by the presence of his lordship in the
+greenroom after the play to know what he really had said.
+
+An ominous coolness now pervaded the atmosphere. Buckingham sat by the
+table, impatiently tapping the floor with his boot, his eyes growing
+dark at the delay. Hart still plumed himself before the mirror. His
+dress was rich; his sword was well balanced, a Damascus blade; his cloak
+hung gracefully; his big black hat and plumes were jaunty. He had, too,
+vigour in his step. With it all, however, he was a social outcast, and
+he felt it, while his companion, whose faults of nature were none the
+less glaring than his own, was almost the equal of a king.
+
+There was a tap at Nell's door. It was the call-boy, who had slipped
+unobserved into the room.
+
+"What is it, Dick?" asked Nell, sweetly, as she opened the door slightly
+to inspect her visitor.
+
+"A message,--very important," whispered Dick, softly, as he passed a
+note within.
+
+"Thank you," replied the actress; and the door closed again.
+
+Dick was about to depart, when the alert Buckingham, rising hastily from
+his seat, called him.
+
+"That was Nell's voice?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, my lord. She's dressing," answered Dick. "Good night, Master
+Hart," he added, as he saw the manager.
+
+Hart, however, was not in a good humour and turned sharply upon him.
+Dick vanished.
+
+"She will be out shortly, my lord," the manager observed to Buckingham,
+somewhat coldly. "But it will do you little good," he thought, as he
+reflected upon his conversation with Nell.
+
+Buckingham leaned lazily over the back of a chair and replied
+confidently, knowing that his speech would be no balm to the irate
+manager: "Nell always keeps her engagements religiously with me. We are
+to sup together to-night, Hart."
+
+"Odso!" retorted the other, drawing himself up to his full height. "You
+will be disappointed, methinks."
+
+"I trow not," Buckingham observed, with a smile which made Hart wince.
+"Pepys's wife has him mewed up at home when Nelly plays, and the King is
+tied to other apron-strings." His lordship chuckled as he bethought him
+how cleverly he had managed that his Majesty be under the proper
+influence. "What danger else?" he inquired, cuttingly.
+
+Though the words were mild, the feelings of the two men were at
+white-heat.
+
+"Your lordship's hours are too valuable to waste," politely suggested
+the manager. "I happen to know Mistress Gwyn sups with another
+to-night."
+
+"Another?" sneered his lordship.
+
+"Another!" hotly repeated the actor.
+
+"We shall see, friend Hart," said Buckingham, in a tone no less
+agreeable, with difficulty restraining his feelings.
+
+He threw himself impatiently into a big arm-chair, which he had swung
+around angrily, so that its back was to the manager.
+
+The insult was more than Hart could bear. He also seized a chair, and
+vented his vengeance upon it. Almost hurled from its place, it fell back
+to back with Buckingham's.
+
+"We shall see, my lord," he said as he likewise angrily took his seat
+and folded his arms.
+
+It was like "The Schism" of Vibert.
+
+It is difficult to tell what would have been the result, had the place
+been different. Each knew that Nell was just beyond her door; each
+hesitated; and each, with bitterness in his heart, held on to himself.
+They sat like sphinxes.
+
+Suddenly, Nell's door slightly opened. She was dressed to leave the
+theatre. In her hand she held a note.
+
+"A fair message, on my honour! Worth reading twice or even thrice," she
+roguishly exclaimed unto her maid as she directed her to hold a candle
+nearer that she might once again spell out its words. "'To England's
+idol, the divine Eleanor Gwyn.' A holy apt beginning, by the mass! 'My
+coach awaits you at the stage-door. We will toast you to-night at
+Whitehall.'"
+
+Nell's eyes seemed to drink in the words, and it was her heart which
+said: "Long live his Majesty."
+
+She took the King's roses in her arms; the Duke's roses, she tossed upon
+the floor.
+
+The manager awoke as from a trance. "You will not believe me," he said
+to Buckingham, confidently. "Here comes the arbiter of your woes, my
+lord." He arose quickly.
+
+"It will not be hard, methinks, sir, to decide between a coronet and a
+player's tinsel crown," observed his princely rival, with a sneer, as he
+too arose and assumed an attitude of waiting.
+
+"Have a care, my lord. I may forget--" Hart's fingers played upon his
+sword-hilt.
+
+"Your occupation, sir?" jeered Buckingham.
+
+"Aye; my former occupation of a soldier"; and Hart's sword sprang from
+its scabbard, with a dexterity that proved that he had not forgotten the
+trick of war.
+
+Buckingham too would have drawn, but a merry voice stayed him.
+
+"How now, gentlemen?" sprang from Nell's rosy lips, as she came between
+them, a picture of roguish beauty.
+
+Hart's pose in an instant was that of apology. "Pardon, Nell," he
+exclaimed, lifting his hat and bowing in courtly fashion. "A small
+difference of opinion; naught else."
+
+"Between friends," replied Nell, reprovingly.
+
+"By the Gods," cried Buckingham,--and his hat too was in the air and his
+knee too was bent before the theatre-queen,--"the rewards are worth more
+than word-combats."
+
+"Pshaw!" said Nell, as she hugged the King's roses tighter in her arms.
+"True Englishmen fight shoulder to shoulder, not face to face."
+
+"In this case," replied his lordship, with the air of a conqueror, "the
+booty cannot be amicably distributed."
+
+"Oh, ho!" cried Nell. "Brave generals, quarrelling over the spoils.
+Pooh! There is no girl worth fighting for--that is, not over one!
+Buckingham! Jack! For shame! What coquette kindles this hot blood?"
+
+"The fairest maid in England," said Hart, with all the earnestness of
+conviction, and with all the courtesy of the theatre, which teaches
+courtesy.
+
+"The dearest girl in all this world," said Buckingham as quickly; for he
+too must bow if he would win.
+
+"How stupid!" lisped Nell, with a look of baby-innocence. "You must mean
+me! Who else could answer the description? A quarrel over poor me! This
+is delicious. I love a fight. Out with your swords and to't like men! To
+the victor! Come, name the quarrel."
+
+"This player--" began his lordship, hotly. He caught the quick gleam in
+Nell's eyes and hesitated. "I mean," he substituted, apologetically,
+"Master Hart--labours under the misapprehension that you sup with him
+to-night."
+
+"Nell," asserted the manager, defensively, "it is his lordship who
+suffers from the delusion that the first actress of England sups with
+him to-night."
+
+"My arm and coach are yours, madame," pleaded his lordship, as he
+gallantly offered an arm.
+
+"Pardon, my lord; Nell, my arm!" said Hart.
+
+"Heyday!" cried the witch, bewitchingly. "Was ever maid so nobly
+squired? This is an embarrassment of riches." She looked longingly at
+the two attending gallants. There was something in her voice that might
+be mockery or that might be love. Only the devil in her eyes could tell.
+
+"Gentlemen, you tear my heart-strings," she continued. "How can I choose
+between such loves? To-night, I sup at Whitehall!" and she darted
+quickly toward the door.
+
+"Whitehall!" the rivals cried, aghast.
+
+"Aye, Whitehall--_with the King_!"
+
+There was a wild, hilarious laugh, and she was gone.
+
+[Illustration: MISTRESS NELL IS TOLD OF THE KING'S DANGER.]
+Buckingham and Hart stood looking into each other's face. They heard the
+sound of coach-wheels rapidly departing in the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+ _It was never treason to steal a King's kisses._
+
+
+A year and more had flown.
+
+It was one of those glorious moon-lit nights in the early fall when
+there is a crispness in the air which lends an edge to life.
+
+St. James's Park was particularly beautiful. The giant oaks with their
+hundreds of years of story written in their rings lifted high their
+spreading branches, laden with leaves, which shimmered in the light. The
+historic old park seemed to be made up of patches of day and night. In
+the open, one might read in the mellow glow of the harvest-moon; in the
+shade of one of its oaks, a thief might safely hide.
+
+Facing on the park, there stood a house of Elizabethan architecture.
+Along its wrinkled, ivy-mantled wall ran a terrace-like balustrade,
+where one might walk and enjoy the night without fear.
+
+The house was well defined by the rays of the moon, which seemed to
+dance upon it in a halo of mirth; and from the park, below the terrace,
+came the soft notes of a violin, tenderly picked.
+
+None other than Strings was sitting astride of a low branch of an oak,
+looking up at a window, like some guardian spirit from the devil-land,
+singing in his quaintly unctuous way:
+
+ _"Four and twenty fiddlers all in a row,
+ And there was fiddle-fiddle, and twice fiddle-fiddle."_
+
+"How's that for a serenade to Mistress Nell?" he asked himself as he
+secured a firm footing on the ground and slung his fiddle over his back.
+"She don't know it's for her, but the old viol and old Strings know." He
+came to a stand-still and winced. "Oons, my old wound again," he said,
+with a sharp cry, followed as quickly by a laugh. His eyes still
+wandered along the balustrade, as eagerly as some young Romeo at the
+balcony of his Juliet. "I wish she'd walk her terrace to-night," he
+sighed, "where we could see her--the lovely lady!"
+
+His rhapsody was suddenly broken in upon by the approach of some one
+down the path. He glided into the shadow of an oak and none too quickly.
+
+From the obscurity of the trees, into the open, a chair was swiftly
+borne, by the side of which ran a pretty page of tender years, yet well
+schooled in courtly wisdom. The lovely occupant leaned forward and
+motioned to the chairmen, who obediently rested and assisted her to
+alight.
+
+"Retire beneath the shadow of the trees," she whispered. "Have a care;
+no noise."
+
+The chairmen withdrew quietly, but within convenient distance, to await
+her bidding.
+
+Strings's heart quite stopped beating. "The Duchess of Portsmouth at
+Mistress Nell's!" he said, almost aloud in his excitement. "Then the
+devil must be to pay!" and he slipped well behind the oak-trunk again.
+
+Portsmouth's eyes snapped with French fire as she glanced up at Nell's
+terrace. Then she turned to the page by her side. "His Majesty came this
+path before?" she asked, with quick, French accent.
+
+"Yes, your grace," replied the page.
+
+"And up this trellis?"
+
+"Yes, your grace."
+
+"Again to-night?"
+
+"I cannot tell, your grace," replied the lad. "I followed as you bade
+me; but the King's legs were so long, you see, I lost him."
+
+Portsmouth smiled. "Softly, pretty one," she said. "Watch if he comes
+and warn me; for we may have passed him."
+
+The lad ran gaily down the path to perform her bidding.
+
+"State-business!" she muttered, as she reflected bitterly upon the
+King's late excuses to her. "_Mon Dieu_, does he think me a country
+wench? I was schooled at Louis's court." Her eyes searched the house
+from various points of advantage. "A light!" she exclaimed, as a candle
+burned brightly from a window, like a spark of gold set in the silver of
+the night. "Would I had an invisible cloak." She tiptoed about a corner
+of the wall--woman-like, to see if she could see, not Nell, but Charles.
+
+Scarcely had she disappeared when a second figure started up in the
+moonlight, and a gallant figure, too. It was the Duke of Buckingham.
+"Not a mouse stirring," he reflected, glancing at the terrace. "Fair
+minx, you will not long refuse Buckingham's overtures. Come, Nelly, thy
+King is already half stolen away by Portsmouth of France, and Portsmouth
+of France is our dear ally in the great cause and shall be more so."
+
+To his astonishment, as he drew nearer, he observed a lady, richly
+dressed, gliding between himself and the terrace. He rubbed his eyes to
+see that he was not dreaming. She was there, however, and a pretty
+armful, too.
+
+"Nell," he chuckled, as he stole up behind her.
+
+Portsmouth meanwhile had learned that the window was too high to allow
+her to gain a view within the dwelling. She started--observing, more by
+intuition than by sight, that she was watched--and drew her veil closely
+about her handsome features.
+
+"Nelly, Nelly," laughed Buckingham, "I have thee, wench. Come, a
+kiss!--a kiss! Nay, love; it was never treason to steal a King's
+kisses."
+
+He seized her by the arm and was about to kiss her when she turned and
+threw back her veil.
+
+"Buckingham!" she said, suavely.
+
+"Portsmouth!" he exclaimed, awestruck.
+
+He gathered himself together, however, in an instant, and added, as if
+nothing in the world had happened: "An unexpected pleasure, your grace."
+
+"Yes," said she, with a pretty shrug. "I did not know I was so honoured,
+my lord."
+
+"Or you would not have refused the little kiss?" he asked, suggestively.
+
+"You called me 'Nelly,' my lord. I do not respond to that name."
+
+"Damme, I was never good at names, Louise," said he, with mock-apology,
+"especially by moonlight."
+
+"Buz, buz!" she answered, with a knowing gesture and a knowing look.
+Then, pointing toward the terrace, she added: "A pretty nest! A pretty
+bird within, I warrant. Her name?"
+
+"Ignorance well feigned," he thought. He replied, however, most
+graciously: "Nell Gwyn."
+
+"Oh, ho! The King's favourite, who has more power, they say, than great
+statesmen--like my lord."
+
+Her speech was well defined to draw out his lordship; but he was wary.
+
+"Unless my lord is guided by my lady, as formerly," he replied,
+diplomatically.
+
+A look of suspicion crept into Portsmouth's face: but it was not visible
+for want of contrast; for all things have a perverted look by the light
+of the moon.
+
+She had known Buckingham well at Dover. Their interests there had been
+one in securing privileges from England for her French King. Both had
+been well rewarded too for their pains. There were no proofs, however,
+of this; and where his lordship stood to-day, and which cause he would
+espouse, she did not know. His eyes at Dover had fallen fondly upon her,
+but men's eyes fall fondly upon many women, and she would not trust too
+much until she knew more.
+
+"My chairmen have set me down at the wrong door-step," she said, most
+sweetly. "My lord longs for his kiss. _Au revoir!_"
+
+She bowed and turned to depart.
+
+Buckingham was alert in an instant. He knew not when the opportunity
+might come again to deal so happily with Louis's emissary and the place
+and time of meeting had its advantages.
+
+"Prythee stay, Duchess. I left the merry hunters, returning from
+Hounslow Heath, all in Portsmouth's interest," he said. "Is this to be
+my thanks?"
+
+She approached him earnestly. "My lord must explain. I am stupid in
+fitting English facts to English words."
+
+"Have you forgotten Dover?" he asked, intensely, but subdued in voice,
+"and my pledges sworn to?--the treaty at the Castle?--the Duchess of
+Orleans?--the Grand Monarch?"
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed Portsmouth, clutching his arm and looking cautiously
+about.
+
+"If my services to you there were known," he continued, excitedly, "and
+to the great cause--the first step in making England pensioner of France
+and Holland the vassal of Louis--my head would pay the penalty. Can you
+not trust me still?"
+
+"You are on strange ground to-night," suggested Portsmouth, tossing her
+head impatiently to indicate the terrace, as she tried to fathom the
+real man.
+
+"I thought the King might pass this way, and came to see," hastily
+explained his lordship, observing that she was reflecting upon the
+incongruity of his friendship for her and of his visit to Madame Gwyn.
+
+"And if he did?" she asked, dubiously, not seeing the connection.
+
+"I have a plan to make his visits less frequent, Louise,--for your sweet
+sake and mine."
+
+The man was becoming master. He had pleased her, and she was beginning
+to believe.
+
+"Yes?" she said, in a way which might mean anything, but certainly that
+she was listening, and intently listening too.
+
+"You have servants you can trust?" he asked.
+
+"I have," she replied as quickly; and she gloried in the thought that
+some at least were as faithful as Louis's court afforded.
+
+"They must watch Nell's terrace here, night and day," he almost
+commanded in his eagerness, "who comes out, who goes in and the hour.
+She may forget her royal lover; and--well--we shall have witnesses in
+waiting. We owe this kindness--to his Majesty."
+
+Portsmouth shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "_Mon Dieu!_" she
+said. "My servants have watched, my lord, already. The despatches would
+have been signed and Louis's army on the march against the Dutch but for
+this vulgar player-girl, whom I have never seen. The King forgets all
+else."
+
+The beautiful Duchess was piqued, indeed, that the English King should
+be so swayed. She felt that it was a personal disgrace--an insult to her
+charms and to her culture. She felt that the court knew it and laughed,
+and she feared that Louis soon would know. Nell Gwyn! How she hated
+her--scarce less than she loved Louis and her France.
+
+"Be of good cheer," suggested Buckingham, soothingly; and he half
+embraced her. "My messenger shall await your signal, to carry the news
+to Louis and his army."
+
+"There is no news," replied she, and turned upon him bitterly. "Charles
+evades me. Promise after promise to sup with me broken. I expected him
+to-night. My spies warned me he would not come; that he is hereabouts
+again. I followed myself to see. I have the papers with me always. If I
+can but see the King alone, it will not take long to dethrone this
+up-start queen; wine, sweet words--England's sign-manual."
+
+There was a confident smile on her lips as she reflected upon her
+personal powers, which had led Louis XIV. of France to entrust a great
+mission to her. His lordship saw his growing advantage. He would make
+the most of it.
+
+"In the last event you have the ball!" he suggested, hopefully.
+
+"Aye, and we shall be prepared," she cried. "But Louis is impatient to
+strike the blow for Empire unhampered by British sympathy for the Dutch,
+and the ball is--"
+
+"A fortnight off," interrupted Buckingham, with a smile.
+
+"And my messenger should be gone to-night," she continued, irritably.
+She approached him and whispered cautiously: "I have to-day received
+another note from Bouillon. Louis relies upon me to win from Charles his
+consent to the withdrawal of the British troops from Holland. This will
+insure the fall of Luxembourg--the key to our success. You see,
+Buckingham, I must not fail. England's debasement shall be won."
+
+There was a whistle down the path.
+
+"Some one comes!" she exclaimed. "My chair!"
+
+The page, who had given the signal, came running to her. Her chairmen
+too were prompt.
+
+"Join me," she whispered to Buckingham, as he assisted her to her seat
+within.
+
+"Later, Louise, later," he replied. "I must back to the neighbouring
+inn, before the huntsmen miss me."
+
+Portsmouth waved to the chairmen, who moved silently away among the
+trees.
+
+Buckingham stood looking after them, laughing.
+
+"King Charles, a French girl from Louis's court will give me the keys to
+England's heart and her best honours," he muttered.
+
+He glanced once again quickly at the windows of the house, and then,
+with altered purpose, swaggered away down a side path. He was well
+pleased with his thoughts, well pleased with his chance interview with
+the beautiful Duchess and well pleased with himself. His brain wove and
+wove moonbeam webs of intrigue as he passed through the light and shadow
+of the night, wherein he would lend a helping hand to France and secure
+gold and power for his pains. He had no qualms of conscience; for must
+not his estates be kept, his dignity maintained? His purpose was clear.
+He would bring Portsmouth and the King closer together: and what England
+lost, he would gain--and, therefore, England; for was not he himself a
+part of England, and a great part?
+
+Then too he must and would have Nell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+ Softly on tiptoe;
+ Here Nell doth lie.
+
+
+As often happens in life, when one suitor departs, another suitor
+knocks; and so it happened on this glorious night. The belated suitor
+was none other than Charles, the Stuart King. He seemed in the moonlight
+the picture of royalty, of romance, of dignity, of carelessness, of
+indifference--the royal vagabond of wit, of humour and of love. A
+well-thumbed "Hudibras" bulged from his pocket. He was alone, save for
+some pretty spaniels that played about him. He heeded them not. His
+thoughts were of Nell.
+
+"Methought I heard voices tuned to love," he mused, as he glanced about.
+"What knave has spied out the secret of her bower? Ho, Rosamond, my
+Rosamond! Why came I here again to-night? What is there in this girl,
+this Nell? And yet her eyes, how like the pretty maid's who passed me
+the cup that day at the cottage where we rested. Have I lived really to
+love--I, Solomon's rival in the entertainment of the fair,--to have my
+heart-strings torn by this roguish player?"
+
+His reflections were broken in upon by the hunters' song in the
+distance. The music was so in harmony with the night that the forest
+seemed enchanted.
+
+"Hush; music!" he exclaimed, softly, as he lent himself reluctantly to
+the spell, which pervaded everything as in a fairyland. "Odds, moonlight
+was once for me as well the light for revels, bacchanals and frolics;
+yet now I linger another evening by Nell's terrace, mooning like a lover
+o'er the memory of her eyes and entranced by the hunters' song."
+
+[Illustration: THE KING PROFESSES HIS LOVE FOR NELL.]
+The singers were approaching. The King stepped quickly beneath the
+trellis, in an angle of the wall, and waited. Their song grew richer, as
+melodious as the night, but it struck a discord in his soul. He was
+thinking of a pair of eyes.
+
+"Cease those discordant jangles," he exclaimed impatiently to himself;
+"cease, I say! No song except for Nell! Nell! Pour forth your sweetest
+melody for Nell!"
+
+The hunters stopped as by intuition before the terrace. A goodly company
+they were, indeed; there were James and Rochester and others of the
+court returning from the day's hunt. There was Buckingham too, who had
+rejoined them as they left the inn. The music died away.
+
+"Whose voice was that?" asked James, as he caught the sound of the
+King's impatient exclamation from the corner of the wall.
+
+"Some dreamer of the night," laughed Buckingham. "Yon love-sick fellow,
+methinks," he continued, pointing to a figure, well aloof beneath the
+trees, who was watching the scene most jealously. It was none other than
+Hart, who rarely failed to have an eye on Nell's terrace and who
+instantly stole away in the darkness.
+
+"This is the home of Eleanor Gwyn we are passing," said Rochester,
+superfluously; for all knew full well that it was Nelly's terrace.
+
+"The love-lorn seer is wise," cried the Duke of York, quite forgetting
+his frigid self as he bethought him of Nell, and becoming quite
+lover-like, as he, sighing, said: "It were well to make peace with
+Nelly. Sing, hunters, sing!"
+
+The command was quickly obeyed and the voices well attuned; for none
+were there but worshipped Nelly.
+
+ Hail to the moonbeams'
+ Crystal spray,
+ Nestling in Heaven
+ All the day,
+ Falling by night-time,
+ Silvery showers,
+ Twining with love-rhyme
+ Nell's fair bowers.
+
+ Sing, hunters, sing,
+ Gently carolling,
+ Here lies our hart--
+ Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.
+
+ Hail to the King's oaks,
+ Sentries blest,
+ Spreading their branches,
+ Guarding her rest,
+ Telling the breezes,
+ Hastening by:
+ "Softly on tiptoe;
+ Here Nell doth lie."
+
+ Sing, hunters, sing,
+ Gently carolling,
+ Here lies our hart--
+ Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.
+
+The King heard the serenade to the end, then stepped gaily from his
+hiding-place.
+
+"Brother James under Nelly's window!" he said, with a merry laugh.
+
+"The King!" exclaimed James, in startled accents, as he realized the
+presence of his Majesty and the awkward position in which he and his
+followers were placed.
+
+"The King!" repeated the courtiers. Hats were off and knees were bent
+respectfully.
+
+"Brother," saluted Charles, as he embraced the Duke of York
+good-naturedly.
+
+Buckingham withdrew a few steps. He was the most disturbed at the
+presence of the King at Nelly's bower. "As I feared," he thought. "Devil
+take his Majesty's meandering heart."
+
+"Odsfish," laughed Charles, "we must guard our Nelly, or James and his
+saintly followers will rob her bower by moonlight."
+
+The Duke of York assumed a devout and dignified mien. "Sire," he
+attempted to explain, but was interrupted quickly by his Majesty.
+
+"No apologies, pious brother. God never damned a man for a little
+irregular pleasure."
+
+There was a tittering among the courtiers as the King's words fell upon
+their ears.
+
+James continued to apologize. "In faith, we were simply passing--" he
+said.
+
+Again he was interrupted by his Majesty, who was in the best of humour
+and much pleased at the discomfiture of his over-religious brother.
+
+"Lorenzo too was simply passing," he observed, "but the fair Jessica and
+some odd ducats stuck to his girdle; and the Jew will still be tearing
+his hair long after we are dust. Ah, Buckingham, they tell me you too
+have a taste for roguish Nelly. Have a care!"
+
+The King strode across to Buckingham as he spoke; and while there was
+humour in his tone, there was injunction also.
+
+Buckingham was too great a courtier not to see and feel it. He bowed
+respectfully, replying to his Majesty, "Sire, I would not presume to
+follow the King's eyes, however much I admire their taste."
+
+"'T'is well," replied his Majesty, pointedly, "lest they lead thee
+abroad on a sleeveless mission."
+
+Others had travelled upon such missions; Buckingham knew it well.
+
+"But what does your Majesty here to-night, if we dare ask?" questioned
+James, who had just bethought him how to turn the tables upon the King.
+
+Charles looked at his brother quizzically. "Humph!" he exclaimed, in his
+peculiar way. "Feeding my ducks in yonder pond." His staff swept
+indefinitely toward the park.
+
+"Hunting with us were nobler business, Sire," suggested James,
+decisively.
+
+"Not so," replied the King, quite seriously. "My way--I learn to
+legislate for ducks."
+
+"'T'were wiser," preached York, "to study your subjects' needs."
+
+The King's eyes twinkled. "I go among them," he said, "and learn their
+needs, while you are praying, brother."
+
+At this sally, Rochester became convulsed, though he hid it well; for
+Rochester was not as pious as brother James.
+
+York, feeling that the sympathy was against him, grew more earnest
+still. "I wish your Majesty would have more care," he pleaded. "'Tis a
+crime against yourself, a crime against the state, a crime against the
+cavaliers who fought and died for you, to walk these paths alone in such
+uncertain times. Perchance, 'tis courting lurking murder!"
+
+"No kind of danger, James," answered the King, with equal seriousness,
+laying a hand kindly on his brother's shoulder; "for I am sure no man in
+England would take away my life to make you King."
+
+There was general laughter from the assembled party; for all dared
+laugh, even at the expense of the Duke of York, when the jest was of the
+King's making. Indeed, not to laugh at a king's jest has been in every
+age, in or out of statutes, the greatest crime. Fortunately, King
+Charles's wit warranted its observation.
+
+James himself grew mellow under the influence of the gaiety, and almost
+affectionately replied, "God grant it be ever so, brother." He then
+turned the thought. "We heard but now an ambassador from Morocco's court
+is lately landed. He brings your Majesty two lions and thirty
+ostriches."
+
+"Odsfish, but he is kind," replied the King, reflecting on the gift. "I
+know of nothing more proper to send by way of return than a flock of
+geese."
+
+His brow arched quizzically, as he glanced over the circle of inert
+courtiers ranged about him. "Methinks I can count them out at
+Whitehall," he thought.
+
+"He seeks an audience to-night. Will you grant it, Sire?" besought
+James.
+
+"'Sheart!" replied the King. "Most cheerfully, I'll lead you from
+Nelly's terrace, brother. Hey! Tune up your throats. On to the palace."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+ Come down!
+ Come up!
+
+
+The music died away among the old oaks in the park. Before its final
+notes were lost on the air, however, hasty steps and a chatter of
+women's voices came from the house. The door leading to the terrace was
+thrown quickly open, and Nell appeared. Her eyes had the bewildered look
+of one who has been suddenly awakened from a sleep gilded with a
+delightful dream.
+
+She had, indeed, been dreaming--dreaming of the King and of his coming.
+As she lay upon her couch, where she had thrown herself after the
+evening meal, she had seemed to hear his serenade.
+
+Then the music ceased and she started up and rubbed her eyes. It was
+only to see the moonlight falling through the latticed windows on to the
+floor of her dainty chamber. She was alone and she bethought herself
+sadly that dreams go by contraries.
+
+Once again, however, the hunters' song had arisen on her startled
+ear--and had died away in sweet cadences in the distance. It was not a
+dream!
+
+As she rushed out upon the terrace, she called Moll reprovingly; and, in
+an instant, Moll was at her side. The faithful girl had already seen the
+hunters and had started a search for Nell; but the revellers had gone
+before she could find her.
+
+"What is it, dear Nell?" asked her companion, well out of breath.
+
+"Why did you not call me, cruel girl?" answered Nell, impatiently. "To
+miss seeing so many handsome cavaliers! Where is my kerchief?"
+
+Nell leaned over the balustrade and waved wildly to the departing
+hunters. A pretty picture she was too, in her white flowing gown,
+silvered by the moonlight.
+
+"See, see," she exclaimed to Moll, with wild enthusiasm, "some one waves
+back. It may be he, sweet mouse. Heigh-ho! Why don't you wave, Moll?"
+
+Before Moll could answer, a rich bugle-horn rang out across the park.
+
+"The hunters' horn!" cried Nell, gleefully. "Oh, I wish I were a
+man--except when one is with me"; and she threw both arms about Moll,
+for the want of one better to embrace. She was in her varying mood,
+which was one 'twixt the laughter of the lip and the tear in the eye.
+
+"I have lost my brother!" ejaculated some one; but she heard him not.
+
+This laconic speech came from none other than the King, who in a
+bantering mood had returned.
+
+"I went one side a tree and pious James t'other; and here I am by
+Nelly's terrace once again," he muttered. "Oh, ho! wench!" His eyes had
+caught sight of Nell upon the terrace.
+
+He stepped back quickly into the shadow and watched her playfully.
+
+Nell looked longingly out into the night, and sighed heavily. She was at
+her wit's end. The evening was waning, and the King, as she thought, had
+not come.
+
+"Why do you sigh?" asked Moll, consolingly.
+
+"I was only looking down the path, dear heart," replied Nell, sadly.
+
+"He will come," hopefully suggested Moll, whose little heart sympathized
+deeply with her benefactress.
+
+"Nay, sweet," said Nell, and she shook her curls while the moonbeams
+danced among them, "he is as false as yonder moon--as changeable of
+face."
+
+She withdrew her eyes from the path and they fell upon the King. His
+Majesty's curiosity had quite over-mastered him, and he had
+inadvertently stepped well into the light. The novelty of hearing
+himself derided by such pretty lips was a delicious experience, indeed.
+
+"The King!" she cried, in joyous surprise.
+
+Moll's diplomatic effort to escape at the sight of his Majesty was not
+half quick enough for Nell, who forthwith forced her companion into the
+house, and closed the door sharply behind her, much to the delight of
+the humour-loving King.
+
+Nell then turned to the balustrade and, somewhat confused, looked down
+at his Majesty, who now stood below, calmly gazing up at her, an amused
+expression on his face.
+
+"Pardon, your Majesty," she explained, falteringly, "I did not see you."
+
+"You overlooked me merely," slyly suggested Charles, swinging his stick
+in the direction of the departed hunters.
+
+"I'faith, I thought it was you waved answer, Sire," quickly replied
+Nell, whose confusion was gone and who was now mistress of the situation
+and of herself.
+
+"No, Nell; I hunt alone for my hart."
+
+"You hunt the right park, Sire."
+
+"Yea, a good preserve, truly," observed the King. "I find my game, as I
+expected, flirting, waving kerchiefs, making eyes and throwing kisses to
+the latest passer-by."
+
+"I was encouraging the soldiers, my liege. That is every woman's duty to
+her country."
+
+"And her country_men_," said he, smiling. "You are very loyal,
+Nell. Come down!" It was irritating, indeed, to be kept so at arm's
+length.
+
+She gazed down at him with impish sweetness--down at the King of
+England!
+
+"Come up!" she said, leaning over the balustrade.
+
+"Nay; come down if you love me," pleaded the King.
+
+"Nay; come up if you love me," said Nell, enticingly.
+
+"Egad! I am too old to climb," exclaimed the Merry Monarch.
+
+"Egad! I am too young yet for the downward path, your Majesty," retorted
+Nell.
+
+The King shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
+
+"You will fall if we give you time," he said.
+
+"To the King's level?" she asked, slyly, then answered herself:
+"Mayhap."
+
+Thus they stood like knights after the first tilt. Charles looked up at
+Nell, and Nell looked down at Charles. There was a moment's silence.
+Nell broke it.
+
+"I am surprised you happen this way, Sire."
+
+"With such eyes to lure me?" asked the King, and he asked earnestly too.
+
+"Tush," answered Nell, coyly, "your tongue will lead you to perdition,
+Sire."
+
+"No fear!" replied he, dryly. "I knelt in church with brother James but
+yesterday."
+
+"In sooth, quite true!" said Nell, approvingly, as she leaned back
+against the door and raised her eyes innocently toward the moon. "I sat
+in the next pew, Sire, afraid to move for fear I might awake your
+Majesty."
+
+The King chuckled softly to himself. Nell picked one of the flowers that
+grew upon the balustrade.
+
+"Ah, you come a long-forgotten path to-night," she said abruptly.
+
+The King was alert in an instant. He felt that he had placed himself in
+a false light. He loved the witch above despite himself.
+
+"I saw thee twa evenings ago, lass," he hastily asserted, in good Scotch
+accents, somewhat impatiently.
+
+"And is not that a long time, Sire," questioned Nell, "or did Portsmouth
+make it fly?"
+
+"Portsmouth!" exclaimed Charles. He turned his face away. "Can it be my
+conscience pricks me?" he thought. "You know more of her than I, sweet
+Nell," he then asserted, with open manner.
+
+"Marry, I know her not at all and never saw her," said Nell. "I shall
+feel better when I do," she thought.
+
+"It were well for England's peace you have not met," laughed Charles.
+
+"Faith and troth," said Nell, "I am happy to know our King has lost his
+heart."
+
+"Odso! And why?" asked Charles; and he gazed at Nell in his curious
+uncertain way, as he thought it was never possible to tell quite what
+she meant or what she next would think or say or do.
+
+"We feared he had not one to lose," she slyly suggested. "It gives us
+hope."
+
+"To have it in another's hand as you allege?" asked Charles.
+
+"Marry, truly!" answered Nell, decisively. "The Duchess may find it more
+than she can hold and toss it over."
+
+"How now, wench!" exclaimed the King, with assumption of wounded
+dignity. "My heart a ball for women to bat about!"
+
+"Sire, two women often play at rackets even with a king's heart," softly
+suggested Nell.
+
+"Odsfish," cried the King, with hands and eyes raised in mock
+supplication. "Heaven help me then."
+
+Again the hunters' horn rang clearly on the night.
+
+"The horn! The horn!" said Nell, with forced indifference. "They call
+you, Sire."
+
+There was a triumphantly bewitching look in her eyes, however, as she
+realized the discomfiture of the King. He was annoyed, indeed. His
+manner plainly betokened his desire to stay and his irritation at the
+interruption.
+
+"'Tis so!" he said at last, resignedly. "The King is lost."
+
+The horn sounded clearer. The hunters were returning.
+
+"Again--nearer!" exclaimed Charles, fretfully. His mind reverted to his
+pious brother; and he laughed as he continued: "Poor brother James and
+his ostriches!"
+
+He could almost touch Nell's finger-tips.
+
+"Farewell, sweet," he said; "I must help them find his Majesty or they
+will swarm here like bees. Yet I must see my Nell again to-night. You
+have bewitched me, wench. Sup with me within the hour--at--Ye Blue Boar
+Inn. Can you find the place?"
+
+There was mischief in Nell's voice as she leaned upon the balustrade.
+She dropped a flower; he caught it.
+
+"Sire, I can always find a rendezvous," she answered.
+
+"You're the biggest rogue in England," laughed Charles.
+
+"Of a _subject_, perhaps, Sire," replied Nell, pointedly.
+
+"That is treason, sly wench," rejoined the King; but his voice grew
+tender as he added: "but treason of the tongue and not the heart. Adieu!
+Let that seal thy lips, until we meet."
+
+He threw a kiss to the waiting lips upon the balcony.
+
+"Alack-a-day," sighed Nell, sadly, as she caught the kiss. "Some one may
+break the seal, my liege; who knows?"
+
+"How now?" questioned Charles, jealously.
+
+Nell hugged herself as she saw his fitful mood; for beneath mock
+jealousy she thought she saw the germ of true jealousy. She laughed
+wistfully as she explained: "It were better to come up and seal them
+tighter, Sire."
+
+"Minx!" he chuckled, and tossed another kiss.
+
+The horn again echoed through the woods. He started.
+
+"Now we'll despatch the affairs of England, brother; then we'll sup with
+pretty Nelly. Poor brother James! Heaven bless him and his ostriches."
+
+He turned and strode quickly through the trees and down the path; but,
+as he went, ever and anon he called: "Ye Blue Boar Inn, within the
+hour!"
+
+Each time from the balcony in Nell's sweet voice came back--"Ye Blue
+Boar Inn, within the hour! I will not fail you, Sire!"
+
+Then she too disappeared. There was again a slamming of doors and much
+confusion within the house. There were calls and sounds of running feet.
+
+The door below the terrace opened suddenly, and Nell appeared breathless
+upon the lawn--at her heels the constant Moll. Nell ran some steps down
+the path, peering vainly through the woods after the departing King. Her
+bosom rose and fell in agitation.
+
+"Oh, Moll, Moll, Moll!" she exclaimed, fearfully. "He has been at
+Portsmouth's since high noon. I could see it in his eyes." Her own eyes
+snapped as she thought of the hated French rival, whom she had not yet
+seen, but whose relation to the royal household, as she thought, gave
+her the King's ear almost at will.
+
+She walked nervously back and forth, then turned quickly upon her
+companion, asking her, who knew nothing, a hundred questions, all in one
+little breath. "What is she? How looks she? What is her charm, her
+fascination, the magic of her art? Is she short, tall, fat, lean, joyous
+or sombre? I must know."
+
+"Oh, Nell, what will you do?" cried Moll in fearful accents as she
+watched her beautiful mistress standing passion-swayed before her like a
+queen in the moonlight, the little toe of her slipper nervously beating
+the sward as she general-like marshalled her wits for the battle.
+
+"See her, see her,--from top to toe!" Nell at length exclaimed. "Oh,
+there will be sport, sweet mouse. France again against England--the
+stake, a King!"
+
+She glanced in the direction of the house and cried joyously as she saw
+Strings hobbling toward her.
+
+"Heaven ever gave me a man in waiting," she said, gleefully. "Poor
+fellow, he limps from youthful, war-met wounds. Comrade, are you still
+strong enough for service?"
+
+"To the death for you, Mistress Nell!" he faithfully replied.
+
+"You know the Duchess of Portsmouth, and where she lives?" artfully
+inquired Nell.
+
+"Portsmouth!" he repeated, excitedly. "She was here but now, peeping at
+your windows."
+
+Nell stood aghast. Her face grew pale, and her lips trembled.
+
+"Here, here!" she exclaimed, incredulously. "The imported hussy!"
+
+She turned hotly upon Strings, as she had upon poor Moll, with an array
+of questions which almost paralyzed the old fiddler's wits. "How looks
+she? What colour eyes? Does her lip arch? How many inches span her
+waist?"
+
+Strings looked cautiously about, then whispered in Nell's ear. He might
+as well have talked to all London; for Nell, in her excitement, repeated
+his words at the top of her voice.
+
+"You overheard? Great Heavens! Drug the King and win the rights of
+England while he is in his cups? Bouillon--the army--Louis--the Dutch! A
+conspiracy!"
+
+"Oh, dear; oh, dear," came from Moll's trembling lips.
+
+Nell's wits were like lightning playing with the clouds. Her plans were
+formed at once.
+
+"Fly, fly, comrade," she commanded Strings. "Overtake her chair. Tell
+the Duchess that her beloved Charles--she will understand--entreats her
+to sup at Ye Blue Boar Inn, within the hour. Nay, she will be glad
+enough to come. Say he awaits her alone. Run, run, good Strings, and you
+shall have a hospital to nurse these wounds, as big as Noah's ark; and
+the King shall build it for the message."
+
+Strings hastened down the path, fired by Nell's inspiration, with almost
+the eagerness of a boy.
+
+"Run, run!" cried Nell, in ecstasy, as she looked after him and dwelt
+gleefully upon the outcome of her plans.
+
+He disappeared through the trees.
+
+"Heigh-ho!" she said, with a light-hearted step. "Now, Moll, we'll get
+our first sight of the enemy."
+
+She darted into the house, dragging poor Moll after her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+ _"And the man that is drunk is as great as a king."_
+
+
+An old English inn! What spot on earth is more hospitable, even though
+its floor be bare and its tables wooden? There is a homely atmosphere
+about it, with its cobwebbed rafters, its dingy windows, its big
+fireplace, where the rough logs crackle, and its musty ale. It has ever
+been a home for the belated traveller, where the viands, steaming hot,
+have filled his soul with joy. Oh, the Southdown mutton and the roasts
+of beef!
+
+If England has given us naught else, she should be beloved for her
+wealth of inns, with their jolly landlords and their pert bar-maids and
+their lawns for the game of bowls. May our children's children find them
+still unchanged.
+
+In a quaint corner of London, there stood such an inn, in the days of
+which we speak; and it lives in our story. When it was built, no one
+knew and none cared. Tradition said that it had been a rendezvous for
+convivial spirits for ages that had gone. A sign hung from the door, on
+which was a boar's head; and under it, in Old English lettering, might
+have been deciphered, if the reader had the wit to read, "Ye Blue Boar
+Inn."
+
+It was the evening of a certain day, known to us all, in the reign of
+good King Charles. Three yesty spirits sat convivially enjoying the
+warmth of the fire upon the huge hearth. A keg was braced in the centre
+of the room. One of the merry crew--none other, indeed, than Swallow, a
+constable to the King--sat astride the cask, Don Quixote-like. In place
+of the dauntless lance, he was armed with a sturdy mug of good old ale.
+He sang gaily to a tune of his own, turning ever and anon for
+approbation to Buzzard, another spirit of like guild, who sat in a
+semi-maudlin condition by the table, and also to the moon-faced landlord
+of the inn, who encouraged the joviality of his guests--not forgetting
+to count the cups which they demolished.
+
+Swallow sang:
+
+ _"Here's a health unto his Majesty, with a fa, la, fa,
+ Conversion to his enemies with a fa, la, fa,
+ And he that will not pledge his health,
+ I wish him neither wit nor wealth,
+ Nor yet a rope to hang himself--
+ With a fa, la, fa,
+ With a fa, la, fa."_
+
+The song ended in a triumphant wave of glory. The singer turned toward
+the fellow, Buzzard, and demanded indignantly:
+
+"Why don't ye sing, knave, to the tune of the spigot?"
+
+"My gullet's dry, Master Constable," stupidly explained his companion,
+as he too buried his face in the ale.
+
+"Odsbud, thou knowest not the art, thou clod," retorted the constable,
+wisely.
+
+"Nay; I can sing as well as any man," answered Buzzard, indignantly, "an
+I know when to go up and when to come down." He pointed stupidly,
+contrary to the phrase, first to the floor and then to the ceiling.
+
+The landlord chuckled merrily, imitating him. "When to go up and when to
+come down!" he repeated with the same idiotic drawl and contradictory
+gesture.
+
+"Go to, simple," replied Swallow, with tremendous condescension of
+manner. "Thy mother gave thee a gullet but no ear. Pass the schnapps."
+
+He arose and staggered to the table.
+
+"Good Master Constable, how singest thou?" sheepishly inquired Buzzard,
+as he filled Swallow's tankard for the twentieth time.
+
+"Marry, by main force, thou jack-pudding; how else?" demanded Swallow,
+pompously. He reseated himself with much effort astride the cask. "Oh,
+bury me here," he continued, looking into the foaming mug, and then
+buried his face deep in the ale.
+
+His companions were well pleased with the toast; for each repeated it
+after him, each in his turn emphasizing the "me" and the "here"--"Oh,
+bury _me here!"_ "Oh, bury _me here!_"--Buzzard in a voice
+many tones deeper than that of Swallow and the landlord in a voice many
+tones deeper than that of Buzzard. Indeed, the guttural tones of the
+landlord bespoke the grave-yard.
+
+The three faces were lost in the foam; the three sets of lips smacked in
+unison; and the world might have wagged as it would for these three
+jolly topers but for a woman's voice, calling sharply from the kitchen:
+
+"Jenkins, love!"
+
+"Body o' me!" exclaimed the landlord, almost dropping his empty tankard.
+"Coming, coming, my dear!" and he departed hastily.
+
+The constable poked Buzzard in the ribs; Buzzard poked the constable in
+the ribs.
+
+"Jenkins, love!" they exclaimed in one breath as the landlord returned,
+much to his discomfiture; and their eyes twinkled and wrinkled as they
+poked fun at the taverner.
+
+"Body o' me! Thou sly dog!" said the constable, as he continued to twit
+him. "Whence came the saucy wench in the kitchen, landlord? A dimpled
+cook, eh?"
+
+The landlord's face grew serious with offended dignity as he attempted
+to explain.
+
+"'Tis my wife, Master Constable," he said.
+
+"Marry, the new one?" inquired Swallow.
+
+"'Tis not the old one, Master Swallow," replied the old hypocrite,
+wiping away a forced tear. "Poor soul, she's gone, I know not where."
+
+"I' faith, I trow she's still cooking, landlord," consolingly replied
+the constable, with tearful mien, pointing slyly downward for the
+benefit of Buzzard and steadying himself with difficulty on the cask.
+
+"Bless Matilde," said the landlord as he wiped his eyes again, "I had a
+hard time to fill her place."
+
+"Yea, truly," chuckled Swallow in Buzzard's ear, between draughts,
+"three long months from grave to altar."
+
+"A good soul, a good soul, Master Swallow," continued the landlord, with
+the appearance of deep affliction.
+
+"And a better cook, landlord," said Swallow, sadly. "Odsbud, she knew a
+gooseberry tart. Patch your old wife's soul to your new wife's face, and
+you'll be a happy man, landlord. Here's a drop to her."
+
+"Thank ye, Master Constable," replied the landlord, much affected. He
+looked well to the filling of the flagon in his hand, again wiped a tear
+from his eye and took a deep draught to the pledge of
+
+"The old one!"
+
+Swallow, with equal reverence, and with some diplomacy, placed his
+flagon to his lips with the pledge of
+
+"The new one!"
+
+Buzzard, who had not been heard from for some time, roused sufficiently
+to realize the situation, and broke out noisily on his part with
+
+"The next one!"
+
+A startled expression pervaded the landlord's face as he realized the
+meaning of Buzzard's words. He glanced woefully toward the kitchen-door,
+lest the new wife might have overheard.
+
+"Peace, Buzzard!" Swallow hastened to command, reprovingly. "Would ye
+raise a man's dead wife? Learn discretion from thy elders, an thou
+hop'st to be a married man."
+
+"Marry, I do not hope," declared Buzzard, striking the table with his
+clenched hand. He had no time for matrimony while the cups were
+overflowing.
+
+There was a quick, imperative knock at the door. The constable, Buzzard
+and the landlord, all started up in confusion and fear.
+
+"Thieves," stammered Swallow, faintly, from behind the cask, from which
+he had dismounted at the first sign of danger. "They are making off with
+thy tit-bit-of-a-wife, landlord."
+
+"Be there thieves in the neighbourhood, Master Constable?" whispered the
+landlord, in consternation.
+
+"Why should his Majesty's constable be here else?" said Swallow,
+reaching for a pike, which trembled in his hand as if he had the ague.
+"The country about's o'er-run with them; and I warrant 'tis thy new
+wife's blue eyes they are after." He steadied himself with the pike and
+took a deep draught of ale to steady his courage as well.
+
+Buzzard started to crawl beneath the table, but the wary constable
+caught him by his belt and made a shield for the nonce of his trembling
+body.
+
+The landlord's eyes bulged from their sockets as if a spirit from the
+nether regions had confronted him. The corners of his mouth, which
+ascended in harmony with his moon-face, twitched nervously. "Mercy me,
+sayest thou so?" he asked.
+
+[Illustration: MISTRESS NELL FINDS HAPPINESS.]
+"And in thine ear," continued Swallow, consolingly, "and if thou see'st
+Old Rowley within a ten league, put thy new huswife's face under lock
+and key and Constable Swallow on the door to guard thy treasure."
+
+It was not quite clear, however, what the constable meant; for "Old
+Rowley" was the name of the King's favourite racehorse, of Newmarket
+fame, and had also come to be the nickname of the King himself. Charles
+assumed it good-naturedly. Assuredly, neither might be expected as a
+visitor to Ye Blue Boar.
+
+There came a more spirited knock at the door. The constable sought a
+niche in the fireplace, whence he endeavoured to exclude Buzzard, who
+was loath to be excluded.
+
+"Pass the Dutch-courage, good landlord," entreated Swallow, in a hoarse
+whisper.
+
+The landlord started boldly toward the door, but his courage failed him.
+"Go thou, Master Constable," he exclaimed.
+
+"Go thou thyself," wisely commanded Swallow, with the appearance of much
+bravery, though one eye twitched nervously in the direction of the
+kitchen-door in the rear, as a possible means of exit. "There's no need
+of his Majesty's constable till the battery be complete. There must be
+an action and intent, saith the law."
+
+"Old Rowley!" muttered the landlord, fearfully. "Good Master
+Constable--" he pleaded. His face, which was usually like a roast of
+beef, grew livid with fear.
+
+Swallow, however, gave him no encouragement, and the landlord once more
+started for the door.
+
+On the way his eye lighted on a full cask which was propped up in the
+corner. Instinct was strong in him, even in death. It had been tapped,
+and it would be unsafe to leave it even for an instant within reach of
+such guests. He stopped and quickly replaced the spigot with a plug.
+
+There was a third knock at the door--louder than before.
+
+"Anon, anon!" he called, hastily turning and catching up the half-filled
+flagon from the table. He disappeared in the entry-way.
+
+The brave representatives of the King's law craned their necks, but they
+could hear nothing. As the silence continued, courage was gradually
+restored to them; and, with the return of courage, came the desire for
+further drink.
+
+Swallow again seized his pike and staggered toward the entry-way to
+impress his companion with his bravery.
+
+Buzzard caught the spirit of the action. "Marry, I'd be a constable,
+too, an it were to sit by the fire and guard a pretty wench," he said.
+His face glowed in anticipation of such happiness as he glanced through
+the half-open door to the kitchen, where the landlord's wife reigned.
+
+"Egad, thou a constable!" ejaculated Swallow, contemptuously, throwing a
+withering glance in the direction of his comrade. "Thou ignoramamus! Old
+Rowley wants naught but brave men and sober men like me to guard the
+law. Thou art a drunken Roundhead. One of Old Noll's vile ruffians. I
+can tell it by the wart on thy nose, knave."
+
+"Nay, Master Constable," explained Buzzard, with an injured look at the
+mention of the wart, "it will soon away. Mother says, when I was a rosy
+babe, Master Wart was all in all; now I'm a man, Master Nose is crowding
+Neighbour Wart."
+
+Swallow put his hands on his knees and laughed deeply. He contemplated
+the nose and person of his companion with a curious air and grew mellow
+with patronage.
+
+"Thy fool's pate is not so dull," he said, half aloud, as he lighted a
+long pipe and puffed violently. "Thy wit would crack a quarter-staff.
+'Sbud, would'st be my _posse?_
+
+This was, indeed, a concession on the part of the constable, who was
+over-weighted with the dignity of the law which he upheld.
+
+"Would'st be at my command," he continued, "to execute the King's
+_Statu quos_ on rogues?"
+
+"Marry, Constable Buzzard!" exclaimed the toper, gleefully. "Nay, and I
+would!"
+
+"Marry, 'Constable' Buzzard!" replied Swallow, with tremendous
+indignation at the assumption of the fellow. "Nay, and thou would'st
+not, ass! By my patron saint--"
+
+As the constable spoke, Buzzard's eye, with a leer, lighted on the cask
+in the corner. He bethought him that it had a vent-hole even though the
+landlord had removed the spigot. He tiptoed unsteadily across the room,
+and proceeded with much difficulty to insert a straw in the small
+opening. He had thus already added materially to his maudlin condition,
+before Swallow discovered, with consternation and anger, the temporary
+advantage which the newly appointed _posse_ had secured.
+
+The cunning constable held carefully on to his tongue, however. He
+quietly produced a knife and staggered in his turn to the cask,
+unobserved by the unsuspecting Buzzard, whose eyes were tightly closed
+in the realization of a dream of his highest earthly bliss.
+
+In an instant, the straw was clipped mid-way and the constable was
+enjoying the contents of the cask through the lower half, while Buzzard
+slowly awakened to the fact that his dream of bliss had vanished and
+that he was sucking a bit of straw which yielded naught.
+
+"Here, knave," commanded Swallow, between breaths, pushing the other
+roughly aside, "thou hast had enough for a _posse_. Fill my mug,
+thou ignoranshibus."
+
+Buzzard staggered toward the table to perform the bidding. "The flagon's
+empty, Master Constable," he replied, and forthwith loudly called out,
+"Landlord! Landlord!"
+
+The constable dropped his straw and raised himself with difficulty to
+his full height, one hand firmly resting on the cask.
+
+"Silence, fool of a _posse_" he commanded, when he had poised
+himself; "look ye, I have other eggs on the spit. To thy knee, sirrah;
+to thy knee, knave!"
+
+Buzzard with difficulty and with many groans unsuspectingly obeyed the
+command. Swallow lifted the cask which not long since he had been riding
+and which had not as yet been tapped upon the shoulder of his kneeling
+companion. There was another groan.
+
+"'Tis too heavy, good Master Constable," cried Buzzard, in sore
+distress.
+
+"Thou clodhopper'" yelled Swallow, unsympathetically. "An thou cannot
+master a cask of wine, thou wilt never master the King's law. To the
+kitchen with thee; and keep thy eyes shut, thou knave of a
+_posse_." The constable made a dive for his pike and lantern, and
+enforced his authority by punctuating his remarks with jabs of the pike
+from behind at his powerless friend, who could scarce keep his legs
+under the weight of the cask.
+
+As Buzzard tottered through the kitchen-door and made his exit, the
+constable, finding his orders faithfully obeyed, steadied himself with
+the pike to secure a good start; and then, with long staggering strides,
+he himself made his way after the _posse_, singing loudly to his
+heart's content:
+
+ _"Good store of good claret supplies everything
+ And the man that is drunk is as great as a king."_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+ _Three chickens!_
+
+
+The door opened quickly, and in came King Charles; but who would have
+known him? The royal monarch had assumed the mien and garb of a ragged
+cavalier.
+
+His eyes swept the inn quickly and approvingly. He turned upon the
+landlord, who followed him with dubious glances.
+
+"Cook the chickens to a turn; and, mark you, have the turbot and sauce
+hot, and plenty of wine," he said. "Look to't; the vintage I named,
+Master Landlord. I know the bouquet and sparkle and the ripple o'er the
+palate."
+
+"Who is to pay for all this, sir?" asked the landlord, aghast at the
+order.
+
+"Insolent!" replied Charles. "I command it, sirrah."
+
+"Pardon, sir," humbly suggested the landlord; "guineas, and not words,
+command here."
+
+"Odso!" muttered the King, remembering his disguise. "My temper will
+reveal me. Never fear, landlord," he boasted loudly. "You shall be paid,
+amply paid. I will pledge myself you shall be paid."
+
+"Pardon, sir," falteringly repeated the landlord, rubbing his hands
+together graciously; "but the order is a costly one and you--"
+
+"Do not look flourishing?" said Charles, as he laughingly finished the
+sentence, glancing somewhat dubiously himself at his own dress. "Never
+judge a man by his rags. Plague on't, though; I would not become my own
+creditor upon inspection. Take courage, good Master Landlord; England's
+debt is in my pocket."
+
+"How many to supper, sir?" asked the landlord, fearful lest he might
+offend.
+
+"Two! Two! Only two!" decisively exclaimed Charles. "A man is an
+extravagant fool who dines more. The third is expensive and in the way.
+Eh, landlord?"
+
+The King winked gaily at the landlord, who grinned in response and
+dropped his eyes more respectfully.
+
+"Two, sir," acquiesced the landlord.
+
+"Aye, mine host, thou art favoured beyond thy kind," laughed Charles,
+knowingly, as he dwelt upon the joys of a feast incognito alone with
+Nell. "A belated goddess would sup at thy hostelry." The landlord's eyes
+grew big with astonishment. "I will return. Obey her every wish, dost
+hear, her every wish, and leave the bill religiously to me." Charles
+swaggered gaily up the steps to the entry-way and out the door.
+
+The moon-face of the inn-keeper grew slowly serious. He could not
+reconcile the shabby, road-bespattered garments of the strange cavalier
+with his princely commands.
+
+"Body o' me!" he muttered, lighting one by one the candles in the room,
+till the rafters fairly glowed in expectation of the feast.
+"Roundhead-beggar, on my life! Turbot and capons and the best vintage!
+The King could not have better than this rogue. Marry, he shall have the
+best in the larder; but Constable Swallow shall toast his feet in the
+kitchen, with a mug of musty ale to make him linger."
+
+The corners of the mouth in the moon-face ascended in a chuckle.
+
+"His ragged lordship'll settle the bill very religiously," he thought,
+"or sleep off his swollen Roundhead behind the bars."
+
+He passed into the kitchen and gave the order for the repast. As he
+returned, there was a tap at the door; and he hastened to the window.
+
+"Bless me, a petticoat!" he cried. "Well, he's told the truth for once.
+She's veiled. Ashamed of her face or ashamed of him."
+
+He opened the door and ushered in a lady dressed in white; across her
+face and eyes was thrown a scarf of lace.
+
+"Not here?" questioned the new-comer, glancing eagerly about the room and
+peeping into every nook and corner without the asking, to the
+astonishment of the inn-keeper.
+
+"Not here?" she asked herself again, excitedly. "Tell me, tell me, is
+this Ye Blue Boar Inn?"
+
+"Yes, lady--" replied the landlord, graciously.
+
+"Good, good! Has she been here? Have you seen her?"
+
+"Who, the goddess?" asked the landlord, stupidly.
+
+"The goddess!" retorted Nell, for it was none other, with humorous irony
+of lip. "How can you so belie the Duchess?" She laughed merrily at the
+thought.
+
+There was a second knock; and the landlord again hastened to the window.
+
+"'Tis she; 'tis she!" exclaimed Nell, excitedly. "Haste ye, man; I am in
+waiting! What has she on? How is she dressed?"
+
+"Body o' me!" exclaimed the landlord, in awe, as he craned his neck at
+the sash. "'Tis a lady of quality."
+
+"Bad quality," ejaculated Nell.
+
+"She has come in a chair of silver," cried the landlord.
+
+"My chair shall be of beaten gold, then," thought Nell, with a twinkle
+of the eye. "Charles, you must raise the taxes."
+
+"Mercy me, the great lady's coming in," continued the landlord, beside
+himself in his excitement.
+
+"She shall be welcome, most welcome, landlord," observed Nell promptly.
+
+"Body o' me! What shall I say?" asked the landlord, in trembling
+accents.
+
+"Faith and troth," replied Nell, coming to his rescue, "I will do the
+parlez-vousing with her ladyship. Haste thee, thou grinning fat man."
+She glided quickly into a corner of the old fireplace, where she could
+not be observed so readily.
+
+The Duchess of Portsmouth entered, with all the haughty grandeur of a
+queen. She glanced about contemptuously, and her lip could be seen to
+curl, even through the veil which partially hid her face.
+
+"This _bourgeois_ place," she said, "to sup with the King! It
+cannot be! _Garcon!_"
+
+"What a voice," reflected Nell, in her hiding-place, "in which to sigh,
+'I love you.'"
+
+"Barbarous place!" exclaimed Portsmouth. "His Majesty must have lost
+his wits."
+
+She smiled complacently, however, as she reflected that the King might
+consent even within these walls and that his sign-manual, if so secured,
+would be as binding as if given in a palace.
+
+"_Garcon!_" again she called, irritably.
+
+Nell was meanwhile inspecting her rival from top to toe. Nothing escaped
+her quick eye. "I'll wager her complexion needs a veil," she muttered,
+with vixenish glee. "That gown is an insult to her native France."
+
+"_Garcon_; answer me," commanded Portsmouth, fretfully.
+
+The landlord had danced about her grace in such anxiety to please that
+he had displeased. He had not learned the courtier's art of being ever
+present, yet never in the way.
+
+"Yes, your ladyship," he stupidly repeated again and again. "What would
+your ladyship?"
+
+"Did a prince leave commands for supper?" she asked, impatiently.
+
+"No, your ladyship," he replied, obsequiously. "A ragged rogue ordered a
+banquet and then ran away, your ladyship."
+
+"How, sirrah?" she questioned, angrily, though the poor landlord had
+meant no discourtesy.
+
+"If he knew his guests, he would ne'er return," softly laughed Nell.
+
+"_Parbleu_," continued Portsmouth, in her French, impatient way,
+now quite incensed by the stupidity of the landlord, "a cavalier would
+meet me at Ye Blue Boar Inn; so said the messenger."
+
+She suddenly caught sight of Nell, whose biting curiosity had led her
+from her hiding-place. "This is not the rendezvous," she reflected
+quickly. "We were to sup alone."
+
+The landlord still bowed and still uttered the meaningless phrase: "Yes,
+your ladyship."
+
+The Duchess was at the end of her patience. "_Mon Dieu_," she
+exclaimed, "do you know nothing, sirrah?"
+
+The moon-face beamed. The head bowed and bowed and bowed; the hands were
+rubbed together graciously.
+
+"Good lack, I know not; a supper for a king was ordered by a ragged
+Roundhead," he replied. "Here are two petticoats, your ladyship. When I
+know which petticoat is which petticoat, your ladyship, I will serve the
+dinner."
+
+The tavern-keeper sidled toward the kitchen-door. As he went out, he
+muttered, judiciously low: "I wouldn't give a ha'penny for the choice."
+
+"Beggar!" snapped Portsmouth. "Musty place, musty furniture, musty
+_garcon_, musty everything!"
+
+She stood aloof in the centre of the room as if fearful lest she might
+be contaminated by her surroundings.
+
+Nell approached her respectfully.
+
+"You may like it better after supper, madame," she suggested, mildly. "A
+good spread, sparkling wine and most congenial company have cast a halo
+o'er more time-begrimed rafters than these."
+
+"Who are you, madame?" inquired the Duchess, haughtily.
+
+"A fellow-passenger on the earth," gently replied Nell, "and a lover of
+good company, and--some wine."
+
+"Yes?" said the Duchess, in a way that only a woman can ask and answer a
+question with a "yes" and with a look such as only a woman can give
+another woman when she asks and answers that little question with a
+"yes."
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+The Duchess continued: "Perhaps you have seen the cavalier I await."
+
+"Marry, not I," replied Nell, promptly; and she bethought her that she
+had kept a pretty sharp lookout for him, too.
+
+"Is this a proper place for a lady to visit?" pompously inquired the
+Duchess.
+
+"You raise the first doubt," said Nell quickly.
+
+"Madame!" exclaimed Portsmouth, interrupting her, with fiery
+indignation.
+
+"I say, you are the first to question the propriety of the place,"
+explained Nell, apologetically, though she delighted inwardly at the
+intended shot which she had given her grace.
+
+"I came by appointment," continued the Duchess; "but it seems I was
+misled. _Garcon_, my chair!"
+
+The Duchess made a move toward the door, but Nell's words stopped her.
+
+"Be patient, Duchess! He is too gallant to desert you."
+
+"She knows me!" thought Portsmouth. She turned sharply upon the
+stranger. "I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, madame."
+
+"Such is my loss, not yours," replied Nell, suavely.
+
+"Remove your veil," commanded the Duchess; and her eyes flashed through
+her own.
+
+"I dare not before the beauty of Versailles," continued Nell, sweetly.
+"Remove yours first. Then I may take mine off unseen."
+
+"Do I know you?" suspiciously inquired Portsmouth.
+
+"I fear not," said Nell, meekly, and she courtesied low. "I am but an
+humble player--called Nell Gwyn."
+
+The Duchess raised herself to her full height.
+
+"Nell Gwyn!" she hissed, and she fairly tore off her veil.
+
+"Your grace's most humble servant," said Nell, again courtesying low and
+gracefully removing her veil.
+
+"This is a trap," exclaimed the Duchess, as she realized the situation.
+
+"Heaven bless the brain that set it then," sweetly suggested Nell.
+
+"Your own, minx," snapped Portsmouth. "I'll not look at the hussy!" she
+muttered. She crossed the room and seated herself upon the bench, back
+to Nell.
+
+"Your grace would be more kind if you knew my joy at seeing you."
+
+"And why?" asked the Duchess, ironically.
+
+"I would emulate your warmth and amiability," tenderly responded Nell.
+
+"Yes?" said Portsmouth; but how much again there was in her little
+"yes," accented as it was with a French shrug.
+
+"I adore a beautiful woman," continued Nell, "especially when I know her
+to be--"
+
+"A successful rival?" triumphantly asked the Duchess.
+
+"A rival!" exclaimed Nell, in well-feigned astonishment, still toying
+with the Duchess's temper. "Is the poor actress so honoured in a
+duchess's thought? Your grace is generous."
+
+If all the angels had united, they could not have made her speech more
+sweet or her manner more enticing.
+
+"I presumed you might conceive it so," replied Portsmouth, with mocking,
+condescending mien.
+
+Nell approached her timidly and spoke softly, lovingly, subserviently.
+
+"A rival to the great Duchess of Portsmouth!" she said. "Perish the
+thought! It is with trepidation I look upon your glorious face, madame;
+a figure that would tempt St. Anthony; a foot so small it makes us swear
+the gods have lent invisible wings to waft you to your conquest. Nay, do
+not turn your rosy lip in scorn; I am in earnest, so in earnest, that,
+were I but a man, I would bow me down your constant slave--unless
+perchance you should grow fat."
+
+The turn was delicious: Nell's face was a study; and so was
+Portsmouth's.
+
+The Duchess sprang to her feet, realizing fully for the first time that
+she had been trapped and trifled with. "Hussy! Beware your own lacings,"
+she angrily exclaimed, turning now full face upon her adversary.
+
+Nell was leaning against the table across the room, quietly observing
+Portsmouth upon the word-wrack. Her whole manner had changed. She
+watched with evident delight the play of discomfiture, mingled with
+contempt, upon the beautiful Duchess's face.
+
+"_Me_ fat!" she derisively laughed. "Be sure I shall never grow too
+much so. And have not the stars said I shall ne'er grow old?"
+
+"Your stars are falser than yourself," tartly snapped the Duchess.
+
+"Mayhap," said Nell, still gleeful; "but mark you this truth: I shall
+reign queen of Love and Laughter while I live, and die with the first
+wrinkle."
+
+She was interrupted by his Majesty, who, unsuspecting, swaggered into
+the room in buoyant spirits.
+
+"The King!" exclaimed Nell, as she slyly glanced over her shoulder.
+
+The King looked at one woman and then at the other in dismay and horror.
+
+"Scylla and Charybdis!" he muttered, nervously, glancing about for means
+of escape. "All my patron-saints protect me!"
+
+Nell was by his side in an instant.
+
+"Good even' to your Majesty," she roguishly exclaimed. "How can I ever
+thank you, Sire, for inviting the Duchess to sup with me! I have been
+eager to meet her ladyship."
+
+"Ods-pitikins," he thought, "a loophole for me."
+
+"Well,--you see--" he said, "a little surprise, Nelly,--a little
+surprise--for me." The last two words were not audible to his hearers.
+He looked at the beautiful rivals an instant, then ventured, "I hoped to
+be in time to introduce you, ladies."
+
+"Oh, your Majesty," asserted Nell, consolingly, "we are already quite
+well acquainted. I knew her grace through her veil."
+
+"No doubt on't," observed the King, knowingly.
+
+"Yes, Sire," said the Duchess, haughtily, casting a frigid glance at
+Nell, "I warrant we understand each other perfectly."
+
+"Better and better," said Charles, with a sickly laugh.
+
+His Majesty saw rocks and shoals ahead, and his wits could find no
+channel of escape. He turned in dire distress upon Nell, who stood
+aloof. She looked up into his face with the innocence of a babe in every
+feature.
+
+"Minx, this is your work!" he whispered.
+
+"Yes, Sire!" she answered, mock-reprovingly, bending quite to the floor
+as she courtesied low.
+
+"'Yes, Sire.' Baggage!" he exclaimed good-naturedly despite himself.
+
+As he turned away, praying Heaven to see him out of the difficulty, he
+observed the landlord, who had just entered with bread and cups,
+muttering some dubious invocations to himself. He clutched at this piece
+of human stupidity--like a drowning man clutching at a straw: "Ah,
+landlord, bring in what we live for; and haste ye, sirrah. The wine! The
+wine!"
+
+"It is ready, sir," obsequiously replied the landlord, who had just
+sense enough in his dull cranium to reflect also, by way of complement,
+"So is Constable Swallow."
+
+"Good news, good news!" cried Charles; and he tossed his plumed hat upon
+the sideboard, preparatory to the feast. "D'ye hear, my fair and loving
+friends? Come, it is impolite to keep the capons waiting. My arms; my
+arms!"
+
+The King stepped gallantly between the ladies, making a bold play for
+peace. The Duchess took one arm formally. Nell seized the remaining arm
+and almost hugged his Majesty, nestling her head affectionately against
+his shoulder. Charles observed the decorum of due dignity. He was
+impartial to a fault; for he realized that there only lay his salvation.
+
+The phalanx approached the feast in solemn march. The King tossed his
+head proudly and observed: "Who would not play the thorn with two such
+buds to blush on either side?"
+
+There was a halt. The Duchess looked coldly at the table, then coldly at
+the King, then more coldly at Nell. The King looked at each inquiringly.
+
+"I thought your Majesty ordered supper for three," she said. "It is set
+for two."
+
+"Odsfish, for two!" cried Charles, glancing, anxiously, for the first
+time at the collation.
+
+Nell had taken her place at the feast, regardless of formality. She was
+looking out for herself, irrespective of King or Duchess. She believed
+that a dinner, like the grave, renders all equal.
+
+"Egad!" she exclaimed, as she dwelt upon the force of the Duchess's
+observation. "Our host is teaching us the virtues of economy."
+
+The unsuspecting landlord re-entered at this moment, wine in hand, which
+he proceeded to place upon the table.
+
+"What do you mean, knave, by this treachery!" almost shrieked the King
+at sight of him. "Another plate, dost hear; another plate, dog!"
+
+"Bless me," explained the landlord, in confusion, "you said supper for
+two, sir; that a man was a fool who dined more; that the third was
+expensive and in the way."
+
+"Villain!" cried Charles, in a hopeless effort to suppress the fellow,
+"I said two-two--beside myself. I never count myself in the presence of
+these ladies."
+
+The landlord beat a hasty retreat.
+
+The Duchess smiled a chilling smile, and asked complacently:
+
+"Which one of us did you expect, Sire?"
+
+"Yes, which did you expect, Sire?" laughed Nell.
+
+"Oh, my head," groaned Charles; "well, well,--you see--Duchess, the
+matter lies in this wise--"
+
+"Let me help your Majesty," generously interrupted Nell. "Her ladyship
+is ill at figures. You see, Charles and I are one, and you make two,
+Duchess."
+
+"I spoke to the King," haughtily replied the Duchess, not deigning to
+glance at Nell.
+
+The King placed his hands upon his forehead in bewilderment.
+
+"This is a question for the Prime Minister and sages of the realm in
+council."
+
+"There are but two chairs, Sire," continued Portsmouth, coldly.
+
+"Two chairs!" exclaimed the Merry Monarch, aghast, as he saw the breach
+hopelessly widening. "I am lost."
+
+"That is serious, Sire," said Nell, sadly; and then her eye twinkled as
+she suggested, "but perhaps we might make out with one, for the
+Duchess's sake. I am so little."
+
+She turned her head and laughed gaily, while she watched the Duchess's
+face out of the corner of her eye.
+
+"'Sheart," sighed the King, "I have construed grave controversies of
+state in my time, but ne'er drew the line yet betwixt black eyes and
+blue, brunette and blonde, when both were present. Another chair,
+landlord! Come, my sweethearts; eat, drink and forget."
+
+The King threw himself carelessly into a chair in the hope that, in meat
+and drink, he might find peace.
+
+"Aye," acquiesced Nell, who was already at work, irrespective of
+ceremony, "eat, drink and forget! I prefer to quarrel after supper."
+
+"I do not," said the Duchess, who still stood indignant in the centre of
+the room.
+
+Nell could scarce speak, for her mouthful; but she replied gaily, with a
+French shrug, in imitation of the Duchess:
+
+"Oh, very well! I have a solution. Let's play sphinx, Sire."
+
+Charles looked up hopefully.
+
+"Anything for peace," he exclaimed. "How is't?"
+
+"Why," explained Nell, with the philosophical air of a learned doctor,
+"some years before you and I thought much about the ways and means of
+this wicked world, your Majesty, the Sphinx spent her leisure asking
+people riddles; and if they could not answer, she ate them alive. Give
+me some of that turbot. Don't stand on ceremony, Sire; for the Duchess
+is waiting."
+
+The King hastened to refill Nell's plate.
+
+"Thank you," laughed the vixen; "that will do for now. Let the Duchess
+propound a riddle from the depths of her subtle brain; and if I do not
+fathom it upon the instant, Sire, 't is the Duchess's--not
+Nell's--evening with the King."
+
+"Odsfish, a great stake!" cried Charles. He arose with a serio-comic
+air, much pleased at the turn things were taking.
+
+"Don't be too confident, madame," ironically suggested the Duchess; "you
+are cleverer in making riddles than in solving them."
+
+As she spoke, the room was suddenly filled with savoury odour. The
+moon-faced landlord had again appeared, flourishing a platter containing
+two finely roasted chickens. His face glowed with pride and ale.
+
+"The court's famished," exclaimed Charles, as he greeted the inn-keeper;
+"proceed!"
+
+"Two capons! I have it," triumphantly thought Portsmouth, as she
+reflected upon a riddle she had once heard in far-off France. It could
+not be known in England. Nothing so clever could be known in England.
+She looked contemptuously at Nell, and then at the two chickens, as she
+propounded it.
+
+"Let your wits find then three capons on this plate."
+
+"Three chickens!" cried Charles, in wonderment, closely scrutinizing the
+two fowl upon the plate and then looking up inquiringly at the Duchess.
+"There are but two."
+
+Nell only gurgled.
+
+"Another glass, landlord, and I'll see four," she said. "Here's to you
+two, and to me too." She drank gaily to her toast.
+
+"That is not the answer, madame," coldly retorted the Duchess.
+
+"Are we come to blows over two innocent chickens?" asked Charles,
+somewhat concerned still for the outcome. "Bring on your witnesses."
+"This is one chicken, your Majesty," declared the Duchess. "Another's
+two; and two and one make three."
+
+With much formality and something of the air of a conjurer, she counted
+the first chicken and the second chicken and then recounted the first
+chicken, in such a way as to make it appear that there were three birds
+in all.
+
+The King, who was ill at figures, like all true spendthrifts, sat
+confused by her speech. Nell laughed again. The landlord, who was in and
+out, stopped long enough to enter upon his bill, in rambling characters,
+"3 chickens." This was all his dull ear had comprehended. He then
+piously proceeded on his way.
+
+"Gadso!" exclaimed the King, woefully. "It is too much for me."
+
+"Pooh, pooh, 'tis too simple for you, Sire," laughed Nell. "I solved it
+when a child. Here is my bird; and here is your bird; and our dearest
+Duchess shall sup on her third bird!"
+
+Nell quickly spitted one chicken upon a huge fork and so removed it to
+her own plate. The second chicken, she likewise conveyed to his
+Majesty's. Then, with all the politeness which she only could summon,
+she bowed low and offered the empty platter to the Duchess.
+
+Portsmouth struck it to the board angrily with her gloved hand and
+steadied herself against the table.
+
+"Hussy!" she hissed, and forthwith pretended to grow faint.
+
+Charles was at her elbow in an instant, supporting her.
+
+"Oh,--Sire, I--" she continued, in her efforts to speak.
+
+"What is it?" cried Charles, seriously, endeavouring to assist her. "You
+are pale, Louise."
+
+"I am faint," replied she, with much difficulty. "Pardon my longer
+audience, Sire; I am not well. _Garcon_, my chair. Assist me to the
+door."
+
+The fat landlord made a hasty exit, for him, toward the street, in his
+desire to help the great lady. Charles supported her to the threshold.
+
+"Call a leech, Sire," cried Nell after them, with mock sympathy. "Her
+grace has choked on a chicken-bone."
+
+"Be still, wench," commanded the King. "Do not leave us, Louise; it
+breaks the sport."
+
+"Nay," pleaded Nell also, "do not go because of this little
+merry-making, Duchess. I desire we may become better friends."
+
+Her voice revived the Duchess.
+
+"_Sans doute_, we shall, madame," Portsmouth replied, coldly. "_A
+mon bal! Pas adieu, mais au revoir_."
+
+The great Duchess courtesied low, kissed the King's hand, arose to her
+full height and, with an eye-shot at Nell, took her departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+ _Arrest him yourself!_
+
+
+The King stood at the door, thoughtfully reflecting on the temper of the
+departing Duchess. She was a maid of honour and, more than that, an
+emissary from his brother Louis of France. Gossip said he loved her, but
+it was not true, though he liked her company exceeding well when the
+mood suited. He regretted only the evening's incident, with the harsher
+feeling it was sure to engender.
+
+Nell stood by the fireplace, muttering French phrases in humorous
+imitation of her grace. Observing the King's preoccupation, she tossed a
+_serviette_ merrily at his head.
+
+This brought his Majesty to himself again. He turned, and laughed as he
+saw her; for his brain and heart delighted in her merry-making. He loved
+her.
+
+"What means this vile French?" she asked, with delicious suggestion of
+the shrug, accent and manner of her vanquished rival.
+
+"The Duchess means," explained the King, "that she gives a royal ball--"
+
+"And invites me?" broke in Nell, quickly, placing her elbows upon a cask
+and looking over it impishly at Charles.
+
+"And invites you _not_" said the King, "and so outwits you."
+
+"By her porters' wits and not her own," retorted Nell.
+
+She threw herself into a chair and became oblivious for the moment of
+her surroundings.
+
+"The French hussy! So she gives a ball?" she thought. "Well, well, I'll
+be there! I'll teach her much. Oh, I'll be pretty, too, aye, very
+pretty. No fear yet of rivalry or harm for England."
+
+Charles watched her amusedly, earnestly, lovingly. The vixen had fallen
+unconsciously into imitating again the Duchess's foreign ways, as an
+accompaniment even for her thoughts.
+
+"_Sans doute_, we shall, _madame_" Nell muttered audibly, with
+much gesticulating and a mocking accent. "_A mon bal! Pas adieu, mais
+au revoir_."
+
+The King came closer.
+
+"Are you ill," he asked, "that you do mutter so and wildly act?"
+
+"I was only thinking that, if I were a man," she said, turning toward
+him playfully, "I would love your Duchess to devotion. Her wit is so
+original, her repartee so sturdy. Your Majesty's taste in horses--and
+some women--is excellent."
+
+She crossed the room gaily and threw herself laughing upon the bench.
+The King followed her.
+
+"Heaven help the being, naughty Nell," he said, "who offends thy merry
+tongue; but I love thee for it." He sat down beside her in earnest
+adoration, then caught her lovingly in his arms.
+
+"Love me?" sighed Nell, scarce mindful of the embrace. "Ah, Sire, I am
+but a plaything for the King at best, a caprice, a fancy--naught else."
+
+"Nay, sweet," said Charles, "you have not read this heart."
+
+"I have read it too deeply," replied Nell, with much meaning in her
+voice. "It is this one to-day, that one to-morrow, with King Charles.
+Ah, Sire, your love for the poor player-girl is summed up in three
+little words: 'I amuse you!'"
+
+"Amuse me!" exclaimed Charles, thoughtfully. "Hark ye, Nell! States may
+marry us; they cannot make us love. Ye Gods, the humblest peasant in my
+realm is monarch of a heart of his own choice. Would I were such a
+king!"
+
+"What buxom country lass," asked Nell, sadly but wistfully, "teaches
+your fancy to follow the plough, my truant master?"
+
+"You forget: I too," continued Charles, "have been an outcast, like
+Orange Nell, seeking a crust and bed."
+
+He arose and turned away sadly to suppress his emotion. He was not the
+King of England now: he was a man who had suffered; he was a man among
+men.
+
+"Forgive me, Sire," said Nell, tenderly, as a woman only can speak, "if
+I recall unhappy times."
+
+"Unhappy!" echoed Charles, while Fancy toyed with Recollection. "Nell,
+in those dark days, I learned to read the human heart. God taught me
+then the distinction 'twixt friend and enemy. When a misled rabble had
+dethroned my father, girl, and murdered him before our palace gate, and
+bequeathed the glorious arts and progressive sciences to religious
+bigots and fanatics, to trample under foot and burn--when, if a little
+bird sang overjoyously, they cut out his tongue for daring to be
+merry--in some lonely home by some stranger's hearth, a banished prince,
+called Charles Stuart, oft found an asylum of plenty and repose; and in
+your eyes, my Nell, I read the self-same, loyal, English heart."
+
+There was all the sadness of great music in his speech. Nell fell upon
+her knee, and kissed his hand, reverently.
+
+"My King!" she said; and her voice trembled with passionate love.
+
+He raised her tenderly and kissed her upon the lips.
+
+"My queen," he said; and his voice too trembled with passionate love.
+
+"And Milton says that Paradise is lost," whispered Nell. Her head rested
+on the King's shoulder. She looked up--the picture of perfect
+happiness--into his eyes.
+
+"Not while Nell loves Charles," he said.
+
+"And Charles remembers Nell," her voice answered, softly.
+
+Meanwhile, the rotund landlord had entered unobserved; and a contrast he
+made, indeed, to the endearing words of the lovers as at this instant he
+unceremoniously burst forth in guttural accents with:
+
+"The bill! The bill for supper, sir!"
+
+Nell looked at the King and the King looked at Nell; then both looked at
+the landlord. The lovers' sense of humour was boundless. That was their
+first tie; the second, their hearts.
+
+"The bill!" repeated Nell, smothering a laugh. "Yes, we were just
+speaking of the bill."
+
+"How opportune!" exclaimed Charles, taking the cue. "We feared you would
+forget it, sirrah."
+
+"See that it is right," ejaculated Nell.
+
+The King glanced at the bill indifferently, but still could not fail to
+see "3 chickens" in unschooled hand. His eyes twinkled and he glanced at
+the landlord, but the latter avoided his look with a pretence of
+innocence.
+
+[Illustration: THE DECEPTION.]
+"Gad," said Charles, with a swagger, "what are a few extra shillings to
+Parliament? Here, my man." He placed a hand in a pocket, but found it
+empty. "No; it is in the other pocket." He placed his hand in another,
+only to find it also empty. Then he went through the remaining pockets,
+one by one, turning them each out for inspection--his face assuming an
+air of mirthful hopelessness as he proceeded. He had changed his garb
+for a merry lark, but had neglected to change his purse. "Devil on't,
+I--have--forgotten--Odsfish, where is my treasurer?" he exclaimed at
+last.
+
+"Your treasurer!" shrieked the landlord, who had watched Charles's
+search, with twitching eyes. "Want your treasurer, do ye? Constable
+Swallow'll find him for ye. Constable Swallow! I knew you were a rascal,
+by your face."
+
+Charles laughed.
+
+This exasperated the landlord still further. He began to flutter about
+the room aimlessly, bill in hand. He presented it to Charles and he
+presented it to Nell, who would have none of it; while at intervals he
+called loudly for the constable.
+
+"Peace, my man," entreated Nell; "be still for mercy's sake."
+
+"Good lack, my lady," pleaded the landlord, in despair, "good lack, but
+you would not see a poor man robbed by a vagabond, would ye? Constable
+Swallow!"
+
+The situation was growing serious indeed. The King was mirthful still,
+but Nell was fearful.
+
+"Nell, have you no money to stop this heathen's mouth?" he finally
+ejaculated, as he caught up his bonnet and tossed it jauntily upon his
+head.
+
+"Not a farthing," replied she, sharply. "I was invited to sup, not pay
+the bill."
+
+"If the King knew this rascal," yelled the landlord at the top of his
+voice, pointing to Charles, "he would be behind the bars long ago."
+
+This was too much for his Majesty, who broke into the merriest of
+laughs.
+
+"Verily, I believe you," he admitted. Then he fell to laughing again,
+almost rolling off the bench in his glee.
+
+"Master Constable," wildly repeated the landlord, at the kitchen-door.
+"Let my new wife alone; they are making off with the house."
+
+Nell was filled with consternation.
+
+"He'll raise the neighbourhood, Sire," she whispered to Charles. "Have
+you no money to stop this heathen's mouth?"
+
+"Not even holes in my pockets," calmly replied the Merry Monarch.
+
+"Odsfish, what company am I got into!" sighed Nell. She ran to the
+landlord and seized his arm in her endeavour to quiet him.
+
+The landlord, however, was beside himself. He stood at the kitchen-door
+gesticulating ferociously and still shouting at the top of his voice:
+"Constable Swallow! Help, help; thieves; Constable Swallow!"
+
+Swallow staggered into the room with all his dignity aboard. Tankard in
+hand, he made a dive for the table, and catching it firmly, surveyed the
+scene.
+
+Nell turned to her lover for protection.
+
+"Murder, hic!" ejaculated the constable. "Thieves! What's the
+row?--Hic!"
+
+"Arrest this blackguard," commanded the landlord, nervously, "this
+perfiler of honest men."
+
+"Arrest!--You drunken idiot!" indignantly exclaimed Charles; and his
+sword cut the air before the constable's eyes.
+
+Nell seized his arm. Her woman's intuition showed her the better course.
+
+"You will raise a nest of them," she whispered. "You need your wits,
+Sire; not your sword."
+
+"Nay; come on, I say," cried Charles, fearlessly. "We'll see what his
+Majesty's constables are made of."
+
+"You rogue--_Posse!_" exclaimed Swallow, starting boldly for the
+King, then making a brilliant retreat, calling loudly for help, as the
+rapier tickled him in the ribs.
+
+"You ruffian--_Posse!_" he continued to call, alternately, first to
+one and then to the other; for his fear paralyzed all but his tongue.
+"You outlaw--_Posse commi-ti-titous_--hic!"
+
+Buzzard also now entered from his warm nest in the kitchen, so
+intoxicated that he vented his enthusiasm in song, which in this case
+seemed apt:
+
+ _"The man that is drunk is as great as a king."_
+
+"Another champion of the King's law!" ejaculated Charles, not without a
+shadow of contempt in his voice, once more assuming an attitude of
+defence.
+
+"Oh, Charles!" pleaded Nell, again catching his arm.
+
+"_Posse_, arrest that vagabond," commanded the constable, from a
+point of safety behind the table.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied the obedient Buzzard. "On what charge--hic?"
+
+"He's a law-breaker and a robber!" yelled the watchful landlord.
+
+"He called the law a drunken idiot. Hic--hic!" woefully wailed Swallow.
+"Odsbud, that's treason! Arrest him, _posse_--hic!"
+
+"Knave, I arrest--hic!" asserted Buzzard.
+
+The _posse_ started boldly enough for his game, but was suddenly
+brought to a stand-still in his reeling course by the sharp point of the
+rapier playing about his legs. He made several indignant efforts to
+overcome the obstacle. The point of the blade was none too gentle with
+him, even as he beat a retreat; and his enthusiasm waned.
+
+"Arrest him yourself--hic!" he exclaimed.
+
+Swallow's face grew red with rage. To have his orders disobeyed fired
+him with much more indignation of soul than the escape of the ruffian,
+who was simply defrauding the landlord of a dinner. He turned hotly upon
+the insubordinate _posse_, crying:
+
+"I'll arrest you, you Buzzard--hic!"
+
+"I'll arrest you, you Swallow--hic!" with equal dignity retorted
+Buzzard.
+
+"I'm his Majesty's constable--hic!" hissed Swallow, from lips charged
+with air, bellows-like.
+
+"I'm his Majesty's _posse_--hic!" hissed Buzzard in reply.
+
+The two drunken representatives of the law seized each other angrily.
+The landlord, in despair, endeavoured hopelessly to separate them.
+
+"A wrangle of the generals," laughed Charles. "Now is our time." He
+looked about quickly for an exit.
+
+"Body o' me! The vagabonds'll escape," shouted the landlord.
+
+"Fly, fly!" said Nell. "This way, Charles."
+
+She ran hastily toward the steps leading to the entry-way; the King
+assisted her.
+
+"Stop, thief! Stop, thief!" screamed the landlord. "The bill! The bill!"
+
+"Send it to the Duchess!" replied Nell, gaily, as she and the Merry
+Monarch darted into the night.
+
+The landlord turned in despair, to find the drunken champions of the
+King's law in a struggling heap upon the floor. He raised his foot and
+took out vengeance where vengeance could be found.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+ _In the field, men; at court, women!_
+
+
+It was the evening of Portsmouth's long-awaited _bal masque_. Music
+filled her palace with rhythmic sound. In the gardens, its mellowing
+strains died away among the shrubs and over-hanging boughs. In every
+nook and corner wandered at will the nobility--the richest--the
+greatest--in the land.
+
+None entertain like the French; and the Duchess had, indeed, exhausted
+French art in turning the grand old place into a land of ravishing
+enchantment, with its many lights, its flowers, its works of art. Her
+abode was truly an enlivening scene, with its variety of maskers, bright
+dominoes and vizards.
+
+The King was there and took a merry part in all the sport, although,
+beneath his swaggering abandon, there lurked a vein of sadness. He
+laughed heartily, he danced gaily, he jested with one and all; but his
+manner was assumed. The shrewdest woman's eye could not have seen it;
+though she might have felt it. Brother James too enjoyed the dance,
+despite his piety; and Buckingham, Rochester and a score of courtiers
+beloved by the King entered mirthfully into the scene, applauding the
+Duchess's entertainment heartily.
+
+As the evening wore apace, the merry maskers grew merrier and merrier.
+In a drawing-room adjoining the great ball-room, a robber-band, none
+other than several gallants, whose identity was concealed by silken
+vizards, created huge amusement by endeavouring to steal a kiss from
+Lady Hamilton. She feigned shyness, then haughtiness, then anger; then
+she ran. They were after her and about her in an instant. There were
+cries of "A kiss!" "A kiss!" "This way!" "Make a circle or she'll escape
+us!"
+
+A dozen kisses so were stolen by the eager gallants before my lady broke
+away, stamping her foot in indignation, as she exclaimed:
+
+"Nay, I am very angry, very--"
+
+"That there were no more, wench!" laughed Buckingham. "Marry, 'tis a
+merry night when Portsmouth reigns. Long live the Duchess in the King's
+heart!"
+
+"So you may capture its fairer favourite, friend Buckingham?" suggested
+the King, softly; and there was no hidden meaning in his speech, for the
+King suspected that Buckingham's heart as well was not at Portsmouth's
+and Buckingham knew that the King suspected it.
+
+Buckingham was the prince of courtiers; he bowed low and, saying much
+without saying anything, replied respectfully:
+
+"So I may console her, Sire, that she is out-beautied by France
+to-night."
+
+"Out-beautied! Not bidden, thou mean'st," exclaimed the King, his
+thoughts roving toward Nelly's terrace. Ah, how he longed to be there!
+"The room is close," he fretted. "Come, gallants, to the promenade!"
+
+He was dressed in white and gold; and a princely prince he looked,
+indeed, as the courtiers separated for him to pass out between them.
+
+All followed save Buckingham, whom Portsmouth's eye detained.
+
+She broke into a joyous laugh as she turned from the tapestry-curtains,
+through which she could see his Majesty--the centre of a mirthful scene
+without.
+
+"What say you now, my lord?" she asked, triumphantly, of Buckingham. "I
+am half avenged already, and the articles half signed. The King is here
+despite his Madame Gwyn, and in a playful mood that may be tuned to
+love."
+
+Buckingham's ardour did not kindle as she hoped.
+
+"Merriment is oft but Sadness's mask, Louise," he replied, thoughtfully.
+
+"What meanest thou?" she asked, in her nervous, Gallic way, and as
+quickly, her mind anticipating, answered: "This trifle of the gossips
+that Charles advances the player's whim to found a hospital at Chelsea,
+for broken-down old soldiers? _Ce n'est rien!"_
+
+She broke into a mocking laugh.
+
+"Aye!" replied Buckingham, quietly but significantly. "The orders are
+issued for its building and the people are cheering Nell throughout the
+realm."
+
+"_Ma foi!_" came from the Duchess's contemptuous lips. "And what
+say the rabble of Portsmouth?"
+
+"That she is Louis's pensioner sent here from France--a spy!" he
+answered, quickly and forcefully too. "The hawkers cry it in the
+streets."
+
+"Fools! Fools!" she mused. Then, making sure that no arras had ears, she
+continued: "Before the night is done, thou shalt hear that Luxembourg
+has fallen to the French--Mark!--Luxembourg! Feed the rabble on that, my
+lord. Heaven preserve King Louis!"
+
+The Duke started incredulously. When had Portsmouth seen the King? and
+by what arts had she won the royal consent? A score of questions
+trembled on his lips--and yet were checked before the utterance. Not an
+intimation before of her success had reached his ear, though he had
+advised with the Duchess almost daily since their accidental meeting
+below Nell's terrace. Indeed, in his heart, he had never believed that
+she would be able so to dupe the King. The shadow from the axe which
+fell upon Charles I. still cast its warning gloom athwart the walls of
+Whitehall; and, in the face of the temper of the English people and of
+well-known treaties, the acquiescence of Charles II. in Louis's project
+would be but madness. Luxembourg was the key strategetically to the
+Netherlands and the states beyond. Its fall meant the augmentation of
+the Empire of Louis, the personal ignominy of Charles!
+
+"Luxembourg!" He repeated the word cautiously. "King Charles did not
+consent--"
+
+"Nay," replied the Duchess, in her sweetest way, "but I knew he would;
+and so I sent the message in advance."
+
+"Forgery! 'Twas boldly done, Louise," cried Buckingham, in tones of
+admiration mixed with fear.
+
+"I knew my power, my lord," she said confidently; and her eyes glistened
+with womanly pride as she added: "The consent will come."
+
+Buckingham's eyes--usually so frank--fell; and, for some seconds, he
+stood seemingly lost in abstraction over the revelations made by the
+Duchess. He was, however, playing a deeper game than he appeared to
+play. Apparently in thoughtlessness, he began to toy with a ring which
+hung upon a ribbon about his neck and which till then had been
+cautiously concealed.
+
+"Nay, what have you there?" questioned Portsmouth.
+
+Buckingham's face assumed an expression of surprise. He pretended not to
+comprehend the import of her words.
+
+She pointed to the ring.
+
+He glanced at it as though he regretted it had been seen, then added
+carelessly, apparently to appease but really to whet the Duchess's
+curiosity:
+
+"Merely a ring the King gave Nell."
+
+There was more than curiosity now in Portsmouth's eyes.
+
+"I borrowed it to show it you," continued Buckingham, indifferently,
+then asked, with tantalizing calmness: "Is your mission quite complete?"
+
+With difficulty, the Duchess mastered herself. Without replying, she
+walked slowly toward the table, in troubled thought. The mask of crime
+revealed itself in her beautiful features, as she said, half to herself:
+
+"I have a potion I brought from France."
+
+She was of the Latin race and poison was a heritage.
+
+Buckingham caught the words not meant for him, and realized too well
+their sinister meaning. Poison Nell! His eyes swept the room fearfully
+and he shuddered. He hastened to Portsmouth's side, and in cold whispers
+importuned her:
+
+"For Heaven's mercy, woman, as you love yourself and me--poison is an
+unhealthy diet to administer in England."
+
+The Duchess turned upon him impatiently. The black lines faded slowly
+from her face; but they still were there, beneath the beauty-lines.
+
+"My servants have watched her house without avail," she sneered. "Your
+plan is useless; my plan will work."
+
+"Stay!" pleaded Buckingham, still fearful. "We can ourselves entice some
+adventurous spirit up Nell's terrace, then trap him. So our end is
+reached."
+
+"Aye," replied the Duchess, in milder mood, realizing that she had been
+over-hasty at least in speech, "the minx presumes to love the King, and
+so is honest! But of her later. The treaties! He shall sign
+to-night--to-night, I say."
+
+With a triumphant air, she pointed to the quills and sand upon a table
+in readiness for his signing.
+
+Buckingham smiled approvingly; and in his smile lurked flattery so
+adroit that it pleased the Duchess despite herself.
+
+"Lord Hyde, St. Albans and the rest," said he, "are here to aid the
+cause."
+
+"Bah!" answered Portsmouth, with a shrug. "In the field, men; at court,
+women! This girl has outwitted you all. I must accomplish my mission
+alone. Charles must be Louis's pensioner in full; England the slave of
+France! My fortune--_Le Grand Roi's_ regard--hang upon it."
+
+Buckingham cautioned her with a startled gesture.
+
+"Nay," smiled Portsmouth, complacently, "I may speak frankly, my lord;
+for your head is on the same block still with mine."
+
+"And my heart, Louise," he said, in admiration. "Back to the King! Do
+nothing rash. We will banish thy rival, dear hostess."
+
+He did not add, save in thought, that Nell's banishment, if left to him,
+would be to his own country estate.
+
+There was almost a touch of affection in the Duchess's voice as she
+prepared to join the King.
+
+"Leave all to me, my lord," she said, then courtesied low.
+
+"Yea, all but Nell!" reflected his lordship, as he watched her depart.
+"With this ring, I'll keep thee wedded to jealous interest, and so
+enrich my purse and power. Thou art a great woman, fair France; I half
+love thee myself. But thou knowest only a moiety of my purpose. The
+other half is Nell!"
+
+He stood absorbed in his own thoughts.
+
+The draperies at the further doorway, on which was worked in Gobelin
+tapestry a forest with its grand, imposing oaks, were pushed nervously
+aside. Jack Hart entered, mask in hand, and scanned the room with
+skeptic eye.
+
+"A happy meeting," mused Buckingham, reflecting upon Hart's one-time
+ardour for Mistress Nell and upon the possibility that that ardour, if
+directed by himself, might yet compromise Nell in the King's eyes and
+lead to the realization of his own fond dreams of greater wealth and
+power and, still more sweet, to the possession of his choice among all
+the beauties of the realm.
+
+"It is a sad hour," thought Hart, glancing at the merry dancers through
+the arch, "when all the world, like players, wear masks."
+
+Buckingham assumed an air of bonhomie.
+
+"Whither away, Master Hart?" he called after the player, who started
+perceptibly at his voice. "Let not thy fancy play truant to this gay
+assemblage, to mope in St. James's Park."
+
+"My lord!" exclaimed Hart, hotly. The fire, however, was gone in an
+instant; and he added, evidently under strong constraint: "Pardon; but
+we prefer to change the subject."
+
+"The drift's the same," chuckled the shrewd Buckingham; "we may turn it
+to advantage." He approached the player in a friendly manner. "Be not
+angry," he exclaimed soothingly; "for there's a rift even in the clouds
+of love. Brighter, man; for King Charles was seeking your wits but now."
+
+"He'd have me play court-fool for him?" asked the melancholy mime, who
+had in his nature somewhat of the cynicism of Jaques, without his grand
+imaginings of soul. "There are many off the stage, my lord, in better
+practice." "True, most true," acquiesced Buckingham; "I could point them
+out."
+
+He would have continued in this vein but beyond the door, whence Hart
+had just appeared, leading by a stair-way of cupids to the entrance to
+the palace, arose the sound of many voices in noisy altercation.
+
+"Hark ye, hark!" he exclaimed, in an alarmed tone. "What is't? Confusion
+in the great hallway below. We'll see to't."
+
+He had assumed a certain supervision of the palace for the night. With
+the player as a body-guard, he accordingly made a hasty exit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+ _Beau Adair is my name._
+
+
+The room was not long vacant. The hostess herself returned. She was
+radiant.
+
+As she crossed the threshold, she glanced back proudly at the revellers,
+who, led by his Majesty, were turning night into day with their
+merry-making. She had the right, indeed, to be proud; for the evening,
+though scarce half spent, bespoke a complete triumph for her
+entertainment. This was the more gratifying too, in that she knew that
+there were many at court who did not wish the "imported" Duchess, as
+they called her, or her function well, though they always smiled sweetly
+at each meeting and at each parting and deigned now to feast beyond the
+limit of gentility upon her rich wines and collations.
+
+The _bal masque_, however, as we have seen, was with the Duchess
+but a means to an end. She took from the hand of a pretty page the
+treaties, lately re-drawn by Bouillon, and glanced hastily over the
+parchments to see that her instructions from Louis were covered by their
+words. A smile played on her arching lips as she read and re-read and
+realized how near she was to victory.
+
+"'Tis Portsmouth's night to-night!" she mused. "My great mission to
+England is nearly ended. Dear France, I feel that I was born for thy
+advancement."
+
+She seated herself by the table, where the materials for writing had
+been placed, and further dwelt upon the outcome of the royal agreements,
+their contingencies and triumphs. She could write Charles Rex almost as
+well as the King, she thought, as her eye caught the places left for his
+signature.
+
+"Bouillon never fails me," she muttered. "Drawn by King Charles's
+consent, except perchance some trifling articles which I have had
+interlined for Louis's sake. We need not speak of them. It would be
+troublesome to Charles. A little name and seal will make these papers
+history."
+
+Her reflections were interrupted by the return of Buckingham, who was
+laughing so that he could scarcely speak.
+
+"What is 't?" she asked, petulantly.
+
+"The guard have stayed but now a gallant, Irish youth," replied he, as
+best he could for laughter, "who swore that he had letters to your
+highness. Oh, he swore, indeed; then pleaded; then threatened that he
+would fight them all with single hand. Of course, he won the ladies'
+hearts, as they entered the great hall, by his boyish swagger; but not
+the guards. Your orders were imperative--that none unbidden to the ball
+could enter."
+
+"'Tis well," cried Portsmouth. "None, none! Letters to me! Did he say
+from whom?"
+
+"He said," continued Buckingham, still laughing, "that he was under
+orders of his master to place them only in the Duchess's hands. Oh, he
+is a very lordly youth."
+
+The Duke throughout made a sad attempt at amusing imitations of the
+brogue of the strange, youthful, Irish visitor who, with so much
+importunity, sought a hearing.
+
+Portsmouth reflected a moment and then said: "I will see him,
+Buckingham, but briefly."
+
+Buckingham, not a little surprised, bowed and departed graciously to
+convey the bidding.
+
+The Duchess lost herself again in thought. "His message may have
+import," she reflected. "Louis sends strange messengers ofttimes."
+
+In the midst of her reverie, the tapestry at the door was again pushed
+back, cautiously this time, then eagerly. There entered the prettiest
+spark that ever graced a kingdom or trod a measure.
+
+It was Nell, accoutred as a youth; and a bold play truly she was making.
+Her face revealed that she herself was none too sure of the outcome.
+
+"By my troth," she thought, as she glanced uncomfortably about the great
+room, "I feel as though I were all breeches." She shivered. "It is such
+a little way through these braveries to me."
+
+Her eyes turned involuntarily to the corner where Portsmouth sat, now
+dreaming of far-off France.
+
+"The Duchess!" her lips breathed, almost aloud, in her excitement. "So
+you'd play hostess to his Majesty," she thought, "give a royal ball and
+leave poor Nelly home, would you?"
+
+The Duchess was conscious only of a presence.
+
+"_Garcon!_" she called, without looking up.
+
+Nell jumped a foot.
+
+"That shook me to the boots," she ejaculated, softly.
+
+"_Garcon!_" again called the impatient Duchess.
+
+"Madame," answered Nell, fearfully, the words seeming to stick in her
+fair throat, as she hastily removed her hat and bethought her that she
+must have a care or she would lose her head as well, by forgetting that
+she was an Irishman with a brogue.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Portsmouth, haughtily, as, rising, with surprised
+eyes, she became aware of the presence of a stranger.
+
+Indeed, it is not strange that she was surprised. The youth who stood
+before her was dressed from top to toe in gray--the silver-gray which
+lends a colour to the cheek and piquancy to the form. The dress was of
+the latest cut. The hat had the longest plume. The cloak hung gracefully
+save where the glistening sword broke its falling lines. The boots were
+neat, well rounded and well cut, encasing a jaunty leg. The dress was
+edged with silver.
+
+Ah, the strange youth was a love, indeed, with his bright, sparkling
+eyes, his lips radiant with smiles, his curls falling to his shoulders.
+
+"Well," stammered Nell, in awkward hesitation but in the richest brogue,
+as the Duchess repeated her inquiry, "I'm just I, madame."
+
+The Duchess smiled despite herself.
+
+"You're just you," she said. "That's very clear."
+
+"Yes, that's very clear," reiterated Nell, still fearful of her ground.
+
+"A modest masker, possibly," suggested Portsmouth, observing the youth's
+embarrassment and wishing to assist him.
+
+"Yea, very modest," replied Nell, her speech still stumbling, "almost
+ashamed."
+
+Portsmouth's eyes looked sharply at her.
+
+"She suspects me," thought Nell, and her heart leaped into her throat.
+"I am lost--boots and all."
+
+"Your name?" demanded the Duchess again, impatiently.
+
+For the life of her Nell could not think of it.
+
+"You see," she replied evasively, "I'm in London for the first time in
+my present self, madame, and--"
+
+"Your name and mission, sir?" The tone was imperative.
+
+Nell's wits returned to her.
+
+"Beau Adair is my name," she stammered, "and your service my mission."
+
+It was out, though it had like to have choked her, and Nell was more
+herself again. The worst she had feared was that the Duchess might
+discover her identity and so turn the tables and make her the
+laughing-stock at court. She grew, indeed, quite hopeful as she observed
+a kindly smile play upon the Duchess's lips and caught the observation:
+"Beau Adair! A pretty name, and quite a pretty fellow."
+
+A smile of self-satisfaction and a low bow were Nell's reply.
+
+"Vain coxcomb!" cried Portsmouth, reprovingly, though she was highly
+amused and even pleased with the strange youth's conceit.
+
+"Nay; if I admire not myself," wistfully suggested Nell, in reply, with
+pretence of much modesty, "who will praise poor me in this great
+palace?"
+
+"You are new at court?" asked Portsmouth, doubtingly.
+
+"Quite new," asserted Nell, gaining confidence with each speech. "My
+London tailor made a man of me only to-day."
+
+"A man of you only to-day!" cried the Duchess, in wonderment.
+
+"He assured me, madame," Nell hastened to explain, "that the fashion
+makes the man. He did not like my former fashion. It hid too much that
+was good, he said. I am the bearer of this letter to the great Duchess
+of Portsmouth; that you are she, I know by your royalty."
+
+She bowed with a jaunty, boyish bow, sweeping the floor with her plumed
+hat, as she offered the letter.
+
+"Oh, you are the gentleman," said Portsmouth, recalling her request to
+Buckingham, which for the instant had quite escaped her. She took the
+letter and broke the seal eagerly.
+
+"She does not suspect," thought Nell; and she crossed quickly to the
+curtained arch, leading to the music and the dancing, in the hope that
+she might see the King.
+
+Portsmouth, who was absorbed in the letter, did not observe her.
+
+"From Rochet! Dear Rochet!" mused the Duchess, as she read aloud the
+lines: "'The bearer of this letter is a young gallant, very modest and
+very little versed in the sins of court.'"
+
+"Very little," muttered Nell, with a mischievous wink, still intent upon
+the whereabouts and doings of the King.
+
+"'He is of excellent birth,'" continued the Duchess, reading, "'brave,
+young and to be trusted--_to be trusted_. I commend him to your
+kindness, protection and service, during his stay in town.'"
+
+She reflected a moment intently upon the letter, then looked up quickly.
+Nell returned, somewhat confused, to her side.
+
+"This is a very strong letter, sir," said Portsmouth, with an inquiring
+look.
+
+"Yes, very strong," promptly acquiesced Nell; and she chuckled as she
+recalled that she had written it herself, taking near a fortnight in the
+composition. Her fingers ached at the memory.
+
+"Where did you leave Rochet?" inquired the Duchess, almost
+incredulously.
+
+"Leave Rochet?" thought Nell, aghast. "I knew she would ask me something
+like that."
+
+There was a moment's awkwardness--Nell was on difficult ground. She
+feared lest she might make a misstep which would reveal her identity.
+The Duchess grew impatient. Finally, Nell mustered courage and made a
+bold play for it, as ever true to her brogue.
+
+"Where did I leave Rochet?" she said, as if she had but then realized
+the Duchess's meaning, then boldly answered: "In Cork."
+
+"In Cork!" cried Portsmouth, in blank surprise. "I thought his mission
+took him to Dublin." She eyed the youth closely and wondered if he
+really knew the mission.
+
+"Nay; Cork!" firmly repeated Nell; for she dared not retract, lest she
+awaken suspicion. "I am quite sure it was Cork I left him in."
+
+"Quite sure?" exclaimed the Duchess, her astonishment increasing with
+each confused reply.
+
+"Well, you see, Duchess," said Nell, "we had an adventure. It was dark;
+and we were more solicitous to know whither the way than whence."
+
+The Duchess broke into a merry laugh. The youth had captured her, with
+his wistful, Irish eyes, his brogue and his roguish ways.
+
+"We give a ball to-night," she said, gaily. "You shall stay and see the
+King."
+
+"The King!" cried Nell, feigning fright. "I should tremble so to see the
+King."
+
+"You need not fear," laughed the hostess. "He will not know you."
+
+"I trust not, truly," sighed Nell, with much meaning, as she scanned her
+scanty masculine attire.
+
+"Take my mask," said the Duchess, graciously. "As hostess, I cannot wear
+it."
+
+Nell seized it eagerly. She would be safe with this little band of black
+across her eyes. Even the King would not know her.
+
+"I shall feel more comfortable behind this," she said, naively.
+
+"Did you ever mask?" inquired Portsmouth, gaily.
+
+[Illustration: AS A CAVALIER MISTRESS NELL DECEIVES EVEN THE KING.]
+"Nay, I am too honest to deceive," answered Nell; and her eyes grew so
+round and so big, who would not believe her?
+
+"But you are at court now," laughed the Duchess, patronizingly. "Masking
+is the first sin at court."
+
+"Then I'll begin with the first sin," said Nell, slyly, raising the
+Duchess's fingers to her lips, "and run the gamut."
+
+They passed together into the great ball-room, Nell exercising all her
+arts of fascination--and they were many. The music ceased as they
+entered. The dancers, and more especially the ladies, eyed curiously the
+jaunty figure of the new-comer. There were merry whisperings among them.
+
+"Who can he be?" asked one, eagerly. "What a pretty fellow!" exclaimed a
+second, in admiration. "I've been eying him," said a third,
+complacently.
+
+The men too caught the infection.
+
+"Who can he be?" inquired Rochester.
+
+"Marry, I'll find out," said Lady Hamilton, with an air of confidence,
+having recovered by this time from the kisses which had been thrust upon
+her and being now ready for a new flirtation.
+
+She approached Adair, artfully, and inquired: "Who art thou, my
+butterfly? Tell me now, e'er I die." Her attitude was a credit to the
+extremes of euphuism.
+
+There was general laughter at her presumptuous and effete pose and
+phrase.
+
+The ladies had gathered about the new hero, like bees about new clover.
+The gallants stood, or sat as wall-flowers in a row, deserted. The King
+too had been abandoned for the lion of the hour and sat disconsolate.
+
+"Peace, jealous ones!" cried Lady Hamilton, reprovingly, then continued,
+with a winning way: "I know thou art Apollo himself, good sir."
+
+Nell smiled complacently, though she felt her mask, to assure herself
+that it was firm.
+
+"Apollo, truly," she said, jauntily, "if thou art his lyre, sweet lady."
+
+Lady Hamilton turned to the Duchess.
+
+"Oh, your grace," she asked, languishingly, "tell us in a breath, tell
+us, who is this dainty beau of the ball?"
+
+"How am I to know my guests," answered Portsmouth, feigning innocence,
+"with their vizors down? Nay, sweet sir, unmask and please the ladies.
+I'faith, who art thou?"
+
+The hostess was delighted. The popularity of the new-comer was lending a
+unique novelty to her entertainment. She was well pleased that she had
+detained Monsieur Adair. She thought she saw a jealous look in the
+King's usually carelessly indifferent gaze when she encouraged the
+affectionate glances of the Irish youth.
+
+"I'faith," laughed Nell, in reply, "I know not, Duchess."
+
+"D'ye hear?" said Portsmouth. "He knows not himself."
+
+"But I have a suspicion, Duchess," sighed Nell.
+
+"Hark ye," laughed Portsmouth, with a very pretty pout, "he has a
+suspicion, ladies."
+
+"Nay, you will tell?" protested Nell, as the ladies gathered closer
+about her in eager expectation.
+
+There was a unison of voices to the contrary.
+
+"Trust us, fair sir," said one. "Oh, we are good at keeping secrets."
+
+"Then, 'twixt you and me, I am--" began Nell; and she hesitated,
+teasingly.
+
+The group about grew more eager, more wild with curiosity.
+
+"Yes, yes--" they exclaimed together.
+
+"I am," said Nell, "the Pied Piper of Hamlin Town."
+
+"The rat-catcher," cried Portsmouth. "Oh, oh, oh!"
+
+There was a lifting of skirts, revealing many high-born insteps, and a
+scramble for chairs, as the ladies reflected upon the long lines of rats
+in the train of the mesmeric Pied Piper.
+
+"Flee, flee!" screamed Lady Hamilton, playfully. "He may pipe us into
+the mountains after the children."
+
+"You fill me with laughter, ladies," said Portsmouth to her guests. "The
+man does not live who can entrap me."
+
+"The woman does," thought Nell, as, mock-heroically, she placed near her
+lips a reed-pipe which she had snatched from a musician in the midst of
+the fun; and, whistling a merry tune which the pipe took no part in, she
+circled about the room, making quite a wizard's exit.
+
+The ladies, heart and soul in the fun, fell into line and followed, as
+if spell-bound by the magic of the Piper.
+
+Charles, James, Rochester and the gallants, who remained, each of whom
+had been in turn deserted by his fair lady, unmasked and looked at one
+another in wonderment. Of one accord, they burst into a peal of
+laughter.
+
+"Sublime audacity," exclaimed Charles. "Who is this curled darling--this
+ball-room Adonis? Ods-pitikins, we are in the sear and yellow leaf."
+
+"Truly, Sire," said James, dryly, "I myself prefer a gathering of men
+only."
+
+"Brother James," forthwith importuned the King, waggishly, "will you
+favour me with your lily-white hand for the next dance? I am driven to
+extremity."
+
+"Pardon, Sire," replied James, quite humorously for him, "I am engaged
+to a handsomer man."
+
+"Odsfish," laughed Charles, "King Charles of England a wall-flower.
+Come, Rochester, my epitaph."
+
+The King threw himself into a chair, in an attitude of hopeless
+resignation, quite delicious.
+
+Rochester perked up with the conceit and humour of the situation. With
+the utmost dignity, and with the quizzical, pinched brow of the
+labouring muse, halting at each line, he said:
+
+ _"Here lies our sovereign lord, the King,
+ Whose word no man relies on;
+ Who never said a foolish thing,
+ And never did a wise one!"_
+
+The post-mortem verse was sufficiently subtle and clever to revive the
+King's drooping spirits; and he joined heartily in the applause.
+
+"The matter," he said, approvingly, "is easily accounted for--my
+discourse is my own, my actions are my Ministry's."
+
+There was a _frou-frou_ of petticoats. The hostess entered gaily.
+
+"The King! The courtiers! Unmasked!" she exclaimed, in coy reproof. "Fy,
+fy, your Majesty! For shame! Gallants! Are you children that I must pair
+you off?"
+
+"We are seeking consolation," suggested Charles, dryly; "for modest
+souls have small chance to-night, Louise."
+
+He nodded significantly in the direction of the great ball-room, where
+the chatter of women's voices betokened the unrivalled popularity of
+Nell.
+
+"When did you turn modest, Sire?" slyly inquired Portsmouth, with a look
+of love.
+
+"When I was out-stripped in audacity by yon Hibernian youth," replied
+the King, seriously. "Who is this peacock you are introducing?"
+
+A peal of laughter from without punctuated the King's speech. It was the
+reward of a wit-thrust from Nell.
+
+"The Piper the maids would now unmask?" queried Portsmouth, rapturously.
+"Marry, 'tis the fascinating Beau Adair of Cork, entertaining the
+ladies. Oh, he is a love, Sire; he does not sulk in corners. See! See!"
+
+She pointed toward the archway, through which Nell was plainly visible.
+She was strutting jauntily back and forth upon the promenade. It is
+unnecessary to say that she was escorted by the assembled fair ones.
+
+As Nell caught the eye of the hostess in the distance, she gaily tossed
+a kiss to her.
+
+"'Sdeath, that I were a woman to hope for one of his languishing
+smiles," observed Buckingham.
+
+"Even the old hens run at his call," sneered the pious James, in
+discontent; for he too had been deserted by his ladylove and even before
+the others.
+
+The King looked at his brother with an air of bantering seriousness, to
+the delight of all assembled.
+
+"Brother James is jealous of the old ones only," he observed. "You know
+his favourites are given him by his priests for penance."
+
+A merry ripple ran through the group.
+
+The hostess took advantage of the King's speech to make a point.
+
+"And you are jealous of the young ones only," she said, slyly, quickly
+adding as a bid for jealousy: "Pooh, pooh! _Le Beau_ had letters to
+me, Sire. Nay, we do not love him very much. We have not as yet had
+time."
+
+"Alas, alas," sighed Charles, with drooping countenance, "that it should
+come to this."
+
+"My liege, I protest--" cried Portsmouth, hastily, fearful lest she
+might have gone too far. "To-night is the first I ever saw the youth. I
+adore you, Sire."
+
+"Not a word!" commanded Charles, with mock-heroic mien. He waved his
+hand imperatively to his followers. "Friends," he continued, "we will
+mix masks and dominoes and to't again to drown our sorrow."
+
+"In the Thames?" inquired James, facetiously for him.
+
+"Tush! In the punch-bowl, pious brother!" protested the Merry Monarch,
+with great dignity. "You know, a very little water will drown even a
+king."
+
+The gallants mixed masks and dominoes in obedience to the royal wish.
+The King, sighing deeply, cast a hopeless glance at Portsmouth, not
+without its tinge of humour. He then sauntered slowly toward the windows
+of the great ball-room, followed subserviently by all the courtiers,
+save Buckingham, who was lost in converse with player Hart.
+
+"Hark ye," suddenly broke off Buckingham, observing the approach of
+Adair and his adorers, "here come again the merry maskers. By Bacchus,
+the little bantam still reigns supreme. The King and his gallants in
+tears. Let us join the mourners, Master Hart."
+
+As the Duke and the player, the former assuming a fraternal air for an
+end of his own, joined the royal group, Nell re-entered gaily, every
+inch the man. She was still surrounded by the ladies, who, fluttering,
+flattering and chattering, hung upon her every word. With one hand she
+toyed with her mask, which she had good-naturedly dropped as none were
+about who knew her. She clapped it, however, quickly to her eyes at
+sight of the King.
+
+"You overwhelm me, my fair ones," she said, with spirit, as she held
+court in the centre of the room. "I assure you, I am not used to such
+attention--from the ladies."
+
+"Our hospitality is beggarly to your deserts," sighed Portsmouth, who
+had joined the bevy, but loud enough for the King to hear.
+
+"You quite o'erpower me, Duchess," answered Nell, modestly, adding for
+the satisfaction of her own sense of humour: "No wonder we men are
+fools, if you women talk like this."
+
+While she was speaking, Lady Hamilton whispered facetiously in
+Portsmouth's ear.
+
+"Beau Adair married!" exclaimed the Duchess, in response. "It cannot be.
+He looks too gay for a married man."
+
+"No confidences, my pretty ones," observed Nell, reprovingly.
+
+The hostess hesitated; then she out with it in a merry strain.
+
+"Lady Hamilton asks after the wife you left at home."
+
+"My wife!" cried Nell, in astonishment; for this phase of her
+masquerading had not presented itself to her before. "Great Heavens, I
+have no wife--I assure you, ladies!"
+
+"So?" observed Portsmouth, her curiosity awakened. "Modest--for a
+bachelor."
+
+"A bachelor!" exclaimed Nell, now fully _en rapport_ with the
+spirit of the situation. "Well,--not exactly a bachelor
+either,--ladies."
+
+"Alack-a-day," sighed Lady Hamilton, with a knowing glance at her
+companions, "neither a bachelor nor a married man!"
+
+"Well, you see--" explained Nell, adroitly, "that might seem a trifle
+queer, but--I'm in mourning--deeply in mourning, ladies."
+
+She drew a kerchief from her dress and feigned bitter tears.
+
+"A widower!" tittered Lady Hamilton, heartlessly. "Our united
+congratulations, sir."
+
+The other ladies one by one sobbed with affected sympathy, wiping their
+eyes tenderly, however, lest they might remove the rich colour from
+their cheeks.
+
+"Mesdames," said Nell, reprovingly, "the memory is sacred. Believe me,
+very sacred."
+
+She fell apparently once again to weeping bitterly.
+
+"The memory is always sacred--with men," observed Portsmouth, for the
+benefit of her guests, not excepting the Irish youth. "Nay, tell us the
+name of the fair one who left you so young. My heart goes out to you,
+dear Beau."
+
+"Kind hostess," replied Nell, assuming her tenderest tones, "the name of
+my departed self is--Nell!"
+
+Hart caught the word. The player was standing near, reflecting on the
+scene and on the honeyed words of the Duke of Buckingham, who was
+preparing the way that he might use him.
+
+"Nell!" he muttered. "Who spoke that name?"
+
+The hostess too was startled.
+
+"Nell!" she exclaimed, with contending emotions. "Strange! Another
+cavalier who graces _mon bal masque_ to-night has lost a loved one
+whose name is Nell. Ah, but she was unworthy of his noble love."
+
+She spoke pointedly at the masked King, who started perceptibly.
+
+"Yes," he thought; for his conscience smote him, "unworthy--he of her."
+
+"Unworthy, truly, if he dances so soon and his own Nell dead," added
+Nell, reflectively, but so that all might hear, more especially Charles.
+
+"Perchance Nell too thinks so," thought he, as he restlessly walked
+away, sighing: "I wish I were with her on the terrace."
+
+"'Sdeath, Duchess," continued Nell abruptly, in assumed horror at the
+sudden thought, "the lady's spirit may visit the ball, to the confusion
+of us all. Such things have been."
+
+"The Nell I mean," said Portsmouth, with a confident smile, "will not
+venture here, e'en in spirit."
+
+Nell assumed a baby-innocence of face.
+
+"She has not been bidden, I presume?" she queried.
+
+"The vixen would not stop for asking," declared Portsmouth, almost
+fiercely.
+
+"Come without asking?" cried Nell, as if she could not believe that
+there could be such people upon the earth. "How ill-bred! Thine ear,
+loved one. My Nell revisits the world again at midnight. The
+rendezvous--St. James's Park."
+
+Hart brushed close enough to the group, in his biting curiosity, to
+catch her half-whisper to Portsmouth. He at once sought a window and
+fresh air, chafing with surprise and indignation at what he had
+overheard.
+
+"St. James's at midnight," he muttered. "'Tis my Nell's abode."
+
+The Duchess herself stood stunned at what appeared to her a possible
+revelation of great import.
+
+"St. James's!" she thought. "Can he mean Madame Gwyn? No, no!"
+
+The look of suspicion which for an instant had clouded her face changed
+to one of merriment, under Adair's magic glance.
+
+"And you would desert me for such a fleshless sprite?" she asked.
+
+"Not so," said Nell, with a winning look; "but, when my better-half
+returns to life, I surely cannot refuse an interview--especially an she
+come from afar."
+
+Nell's eyes arose with an expression of sadness, while her finger
+pointed down--ward in the direction of what she deemed the probable
+abode of her departed "Nell." Her lips twitched in merriment, however,
+despite her efforts to the contrary; and the hostess fell a-laughing.
+
+"Ladies," she cried, as she appealed to one and all, "is not _le
+Beau_ a delight--so different from ordinary men?"
+
+"I am not an ordinary man, I assure you," Nell hastened to declare.
+
+This assertion was acquiesced in by a buzz of pretty compliments from
+the entire bevy of ladies. "Positively charming!" exclaimed one. "A
+perfect love!" said another.
+
+Nell listened resignedly.
+
+"'Sheart," she said, at length, with an air of _ennui_, "I cannot
+help it. 'Tis all part of being a man, you know."
+
+"Would that all men were like you, _le Beau_!" sighed the hostess,
+not forgetting to glance at the King, who again sat disconsolate, in the
+midst of his attendant courtiers, drawn up, as in line of battle,
+against the wall.
+
+"Heaven help us if they were!" slyly suggested Nell.
+
+Rochester, who had been watching the scene in his mischievous, artistic
+way, drew from Portsmouth's compliment to Adair another meaning. He was
+a mixture 'twixt a man of arts and letters and Satan's own--a man after
+the King's own heart. Turning to the King, with no desire to appease the
+mischief done, he said, banteringly:
+
+"Egad, there's a rap at you, Sire. France would make you jealous."
+
+The Duke of Buckingham too, though he appeared asleep, had seen it all.
+
+"And succeeds, methinks," he reflected, glancing approvingly in the
+direction of the Irish youth. "A good ally, i'faith."
+
+Nell, indeed, was using all her arts of fascination to ingratiate
+herself with the Duchess, and making progress, too.
+
+"Your eyes are glorious, fair hostess," she said, in her most gallant
+love-tones, "did I not see my rival in them."
+
+She could not, however, look at Portsmouth for laughter, as she thought:
+"I believe lying goes with the breeches; I never was so proficient
+before."
+
+The compliment aroused the King's sluggish nature.
+
+"I can endure no more, gallants," cried he, with some pretence of anger,
+rising abruptly, followed, of course, in each move and grimace by his
+courtier-apes, in their desire to please. "Are we to be out-done in our
+own realm by this usurper with a brogue? Ha! The fiddlers! Madame, I
+claim the honour of this fair hand for the dance."
+
+At the sound of the music, he had stepped gallantly forward, taking the
+hostess's hand.
+
+"My thanks, gallant masker," replied the Duchess, pretending not to know
+him for flattery's sake, "but I am--"
+
+To her surprise, she had no opportunity to complete the sentence.
+
+"Engaged! Engaged!" interposed Nell, coming unceremoniously between
+them, with swaggering assumption and an eye-shot at the King through the
+portal of her mask. "Forsooth, some other time, strange sir."
+
+The hostess stood horrified.
+
+"Pardon, Sir Masker," she hastened to explain; "but the dance was
+pledged--"
+
+"No apologies, Duchess," replied the King, as he turned away,
+carelessly, with the reflection: "All's one to me at this assemblage."
+
+He crossed the room, turning an instant to look, with a humorous,
+quizzical glance, at Portsmouth. Nell mistook the glance for a jealous
+one and, perking up quickly, caught the royal eye with a challenging
+eye, tapping her sword-hilt meaningly. Had the masks been off, the
+situation would have differed. As it was, the King smiled indifferently.
+The episode did not affect him further than to touch his sense of
+humour. Nell turned triumphantly to her partner.
+
+"Odsbud," she exclaimed, with a delicious, youthful swagger, "we may
+have to measure swords in your behalf, dear hostess. I trow the fellow
+loves you."
+
+"Have a care," whispered the Duchess, nervously. "It is the King."
+
+"What care I for a king?" saucily replied Nell, with a finger-snap. She
+had taken good care, however, to speak very low. "My arm, my arm,
+Duchess!" she continued, with a gallant step. "Places, places; or the
+music will outstrip us."
+
+"Strut on, my pretty bantam," thought Buckingham, whose eyes lost little
+that might be turned to his own advantage; "I like you well."
+
+There was no mending things at this stage by an apology. The Duchess,
+therefore, tactfully turned the affair into one of mirth, in which she
+was quickly joined by her guests. With a merry laugh, she took the Irish
+gallant's proffered arm, and together they led the dance. The King
+picked a lady indifferently from among the maskers.
+
+It was a graceful old English measure. Nell's roguish wits, as well as
+her feet, kept pace with the music. She assured her partner that she had
+never loved a woman in all her life before and followed this with a
+hundred merry jests and sallies, keyed to the merry fiddles, so full of
+blarney that all were set a-laughing. Anon, the gallants drew their
+swords and crossed them in the air, while the ladies tiptoed in and out.
+Nell's blade touched the King's blade. When all was ended the swords
+saluted with a knightly flourish, then tapped the floor.
+
+There was an exultant laugh from one and all, and the dance was done.
+
+Nell hastened to her partner's side. She caught the Duchess's hand and
+kissed it.
+
+"You dance divinely, your grace," she said. "A goddess on tiptoe."
+
+"Oh, Beau Adair!" replied the Duchess, courtseying low; and her eyes
+showed that she was not wholly displeased at the warmth of his youthful
+adoration.
+
+"Oh, Duchess!" said Nell, fondly, acknowledging the salute.
+
+The Duchess hastened to join his Majesty and together they threaded
+their way through many groups.
+
+Nell tossed her head.
+
+"How I love her!" she muttered, veiling the sarcasm under her breath.
+
+She crossed the great room, her head erect. Her confidence was quite
+restored. This had been the most difficult bit of acting she had ever
+done; and how well it had been done!
+
+The other dancers in twos and threes passed from the room in search of
+quiet corners, in which to whisper nothings.
+
+Nell's eyes fell upon Strings, who had had a slight turn for the better
+in the world and who now, in a dress of somewhat substantial green, was
+one of the fiddlers at the Duchess's ball.
+
+"How now, sirrah!" she said, sharply, as she planted herself firmly
+before him to his complete surprise. "I knew you were here."
+
+She placed one of her feet in a devil-may-care fashion upon a
+convenient chair in manly contempt of its upholstery and peeped amusedly
+through her mask at her old friend. He looked at her in blank amazement.
+
+"Gads-bobbs," he exclaimed, in confusion, "the Irish gentleman knows
+me!"
+
+"There's nothing like your old fiddle, Strings," continued Nell, still
+playing with delight upon his consternation. "It fills me with forty
+dancing devils. If you were to play at my wake, I would pick up my
+shroud, and dance my way into Paradise."
+
+"Your lordship has danced to my fiddling before?" he gasped, in utter
+amazement.
+
+"Danced!" gleefully cried Nell. "I have followed your bow through a
+thousand jigs. To the devil with these court-steps. I'm for a jig, jig,
+jig, jig, jig! Oh, I'm for a jig! Tune up, tune up, comrade; and we'll
+have a touch of the old days at the King's House."
+
+"The King's House! Jigs!" exclaimed the fiddler, now beside himself.
+
+"Jigs!" chuckled Nell. "Jigs are my line of business."
+
+ _Oranges, will you have my oranges?
+
+ Sweet as love-lips, dearest mine,
+ Picked by Spanish maids divine,--_
+
+The room had now quite cleared; and, protected by a friendly alcove,
+Nell punctuated the old song with a few happily turned jig-steps.
+Strings looked at her a moment in bewilderment: then his face grew warm
+with smiles; the mystery was explained.
+
+"Mistress Nell, as I live," he cried, joyously, "turned boy!"
+
+"The devil fly away with you, you old idiot! Boy, indeed!" replied Nell,
+indignantly. "I'm a full-grown widower!"
+
+She had removed her mask and was dancing about Strings gleefully.
+
+There was the sound of returning voices.
+
+"Oons, you will be discovered," exclaimed Strings, cautiously.
+
+"Marry, I forgot," whispered Nell, glancing over her shoulder. "You may
+have to help me out o' this scrape, Strings, before the night is done."
+
+"You can count on me, Mistress Nell, with life," he replied, earnestly.
+
+"I believe you!" said Nell, in her sympathetic, hearty way. Her mind
+reverted to the old days when Strings and she were at the King's. "Oh,
+for just one jig with no petticoats to hinder."
+
+Nell, despite herself, had fallen into an old-time jig, with much gusto,
+for her heart was for a frolic always, when Strings, seized her arm in
+consternation, pointing through the archway.
+
+"The King!" she exclaimed.
+
+She clapped her mask to her eyes and near tumbled through the nearest
+arras out of the room in her eagerness to escape, dragging her
+ever-faithful comrade with her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+ _For the glory of England?_
+
+
+The King entered the room with his historic stride. His brow was clouded;
+but it was all humorous pretence, for trifles were not wont to weigh
+heavily upon his Majesty. With him came Portsmouth.
+
+"Can you forgive me, Sire?" she asked. "I had promised the dance to Beau
+Adair. I did not know you, Sire; you masked so cleverly."
+
+"'Sdeath, fair flatterer!" replied the King. "I have lived too long to
+worry o'er the freaks of women."
+
+"The youth knew not to whom he spoke," still pleaded Portsmouth. "His
+introduction here bespeaks his pardon, Sire."
+
+The King looked sardonic, but his laugh had a human ring.
+
+"He is too pretty to kill," he declared, dramatically. "We'll forgive
+him for your sake. And now good night."
+
+"So soon?" asked Portsmouth, anxiously.
+
+"It is late," he replied.
+
+"Not while the King is here," she sighed. "Night comes only when he
+departs."
+
+"Your words are sweet," said Charles, thoughtfully observing her.
+
+She sighed again.
+
+"My thoughts stumble in your speech," she said. "I regret I have not
+English blood within my veins."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"The King would trust and love me then. He does not now. I am French and
+powerless to do him good."
+
+There was a touch of honest sadness in her speech which awakened the
+King's sympathy.
+
+"Nay," he said hastily, to comfort her; "'tis thy fancy. Thy
+entertainment hath made me grateful--to Louis and Louise."
+
+"Think not of Louis and Louise," she said, sadly and reproachfully, "but
+of thy dear self and England's glory. For shame! Ah, Sire, my
+childhood-dreams were of sunny France, where I was born; at
+Versailles--at Fontainebleau among the monarch trees--my early womanhood
+sighed for love. France gave me all but that. It came not till I saw the
+English King!"
+
+The siren of the Nile never looked more bewitchingly beautiful than this
+siren of France as she half reclined upon the couch, playing upon the
+King's heart with a bit of memory. His great nature realized her sorrow
+and encompassed it.
+
+"And am I not good to thee, child?" he asked. He took her hand and
+responded to her eyes, though not with the tenderness of love--the
+tenderness for which she sought.
+
+"You are good to none," she replied, bitterly; "for you are not good to
+Charles."
+
+"You speak enigmas," he said, curious.
+
+"Have you forgotten your promise?" she asked, naively.
+
+"Nay; the passport, pretty one?" he answered, amused at the woman's
+wiles. "All this subterfuge of words for that! There; rest in peace. Thy
+friend hath a path to France at will."
+
+He smiled kindly as he took the passport from his girdle, handed it to
+her and turned to take his leave.
+
+"My thanks are yours. Stay, Sire," she said, hastily; for her mission
+was not yet complete and the night was now well gone. "Passports are
+trifles. Will you not leave the Dutch to Louis and his army? Think!"
+
+She placed her arms about his neck and looked enticingly into his eyes.
+
+"But," he replied, kindly, "my people demand that I intervene and stay
+my brother Louis's aggressive hand."
+
+"Are the people king?" she asked, with coy insinuation. "Do they know
+best for England's good? Nay, Sire, for your good and theirs, I beseech,
+no more royal sympathy for Holland. I speak to avoid entanglements for
+King Charles and to make his reign the greater. I love you, Sire." She
+fell upon her knee. "I speak for the glory of England."
+
+His Majesty was influenced by her beauty and her arts,--what man would
+not be?--but more by the sense of what she said.
+
+"For the glory of England?" he asked himself. "True, my people are
+wrong. 'Tis better we remain aloof. No wars!"
+
+He took the seat by the table, which the Duchess offered him, and
+scanned casually the parchment which she handed to him.
+
+Nell peered between the curtains. Strings was close behind her.
+
+"Bouillon's signature for France," mused the King. "'Tis well! No more
+sympathy for the Dutch, Louise, until Holland sends a beauty to our
+court to outshine France's ambassador."
+
+He looked at Portsmouth, smiled and signed the instrument, which had
+been prepared, as he thought, in accordance with his wishes and
+directions. He then carelessly tossed the sand over the signature to
+blot it.
+
+The fair Duchess's eyes revealed all the things which all the adjectives
+of all the lands ever meant.
+
+"Holland may outshine in beauty, Sire," she said, kneeling by the King's
+side, "but not in sacrifice and love." She kissed his hand fervently.
+
+He sat complacently looking into her eyes, scarce mindful of her
+insinuating arts of love. He was fascinated with her, it is true; but it
+was with her beauty, flattery and sophistry, not her heart.
+
+"I believe thou dost love England and her people's good," he said,
+finally. "Thy words art wise."
+
+Portsmouth leaned fondly over his shoulder.
+
+"One more request," she said, with modest mien, "a very little one,
+Sire."
+
+The King laughed buoyantly.
+
+"Nay, an I stay here," he said, "thy beauty will win my kingdom! What is
+thy little wish, sweet sovereign?"
+
+"No more Parliaments in England, Sire," she said, softly.
+
+"What, woman!" he exclaimed, rising, half-aghast, half-humorous, at the
+suggestion; for he too had an opinion of Parliament.
+
+"To cross the sway of thy great royal state-craft," she continued,
+quickly following up the advantage which her woman's wit taught her she
+had gained. "The people's sufferings from taxation spring from
+Parliament only, Sire."
+
+"'Tis true," agreed Charles, decisively.
+
+Portsmouth half embraced him.
+
+"For the people's good, Sire," she urged, "for my sweetest kiss."
+
+"You are mad," said Charles, yet three-fourths convinced; "my people--"
+
+"Will be richer for my kiss," the Duchess interrupted, wooingly, "and
+their King, by divine right and heritage, will rule untrammelled by
+country clowns, court knaves and foolish lords, who now make up a silly
+Parliament. With such a King, England will be better with no Parliament
+to hinder. Think, Sire, think!"
+
+"I have thought of this before," said Charles, who had often found
+Parliament troublesome and, therefore, useless. "The taxes will be less
+and contention saved."
+
+[Illustration: BETWEEN TWO FIRES]
+"Why hesitate then?" she asked. "This hour's as good for a good deed as
+any."
+
+"For England's sake?" reflected Charles, inquiringly, as he took the
+second parchment from her hands. "Heaven direct my judgment for my
+people's good. I sign."
+
+The treaties which Louis XIV. of France had sent the artful beauty to
+procure lay signed upon her desk.
+
+Nell almost pulled the portieres from their hangings in her excitement.
+
+"I must see those papers," she thought. "There's no good brewing."
+
+Portsmouth threw her arms about the King and kissed him passionately.
+
+"Now, indeed, has England a great King," she said, adding to herself:
+"And that King Louis's slave!"
+
+Charles smiled and took his leave. As he passed through the portal, he
+wiped his lips, good-humouredly muttering: "Portsmouth's kisses and
+Nell's do not mix well."
+
+Portsmouth listened for a moment to his departing footsteps, then
+dropped into the chair by the table and hastily folded and addressed the
+papers.
+
+Her mission was ended!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+ _He loves me! He loves me!_
+
+
+Nell, half draped in the arras, had seen the kiss in reality bestowed by
+Portsmouth but as she thought bestowed by the King. As his Majesty
+departed through the door at the opposite end of the room, the colour
+came and went in her cheeks. She could scarce breathe.
+
+Portsmouth sat unconscious of all but her own grand achievement. She had
+accomplished what shrewd statesmen had failed to bring about; and this
+would be appreciated, she well knew, by Louis.
+
+"'Sdeath!" muttered Nell to herself, hotly, as, with quite a knightly
+bearing, she approached the Duchess. "He kisses her before my very eyes!
+He kisses her! I'll kill the minx!" She half unsheathed her blade.
+"Pshaw! No! No! I am too gallant to kill the sex. I'll do the very manly
+act and simply break her heart. Aye, that is true bravery in breeches."
+
+Her manner changed.
+
+"Your grace!" she said suavely.
+
+"Yes," answered Portsmouth, her eyes still gleaming triumphantly.
+
+"It seems you are partial of your favours?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Such a gift from lips less fair," continued Nell, all in wooing vein,
+"would make a beggar royal."
+
+The hostess was touched with the phrasing of the compliment. She smiled.
+
+"You would be pleased to think me fair?" she coyly asked, with the air
+of one convinced that it could not well be otherwise.
+
+"Fairer than yon false gallant thinks you," cried Nell, with an angry
+toss of the head in the direction of the departed King. "Charles's kiss
+upon her lips?" she thought. "'Tis mine, and I will have it."
+
+In the twinkling of an eye, she threw both arms wildly about the neck of
+the astonished hostess and kissed her forcefully upon the lips. Then,
+with a ringing laugh, tinged with triumph, she stepped back, assuming a
+defiant air.
+
+The Duchess paled with anger. She rose quickly and, turning on the
+pretty youth, exclaimed: "Sir, what do you mean?"
+
+"Tilly-vally!" replied the naughty Nell, in her most winning way. "A
+frown upon that alabaster brow, a pout upon those rosy lips; and all for
+nothing!"
+
+"_Parbleu!_" exclaimed the indignant Duchess. "Your impudence is
+outrageous, sir! We will dispense with your company. Good night!"
+
+"Ods-pitikins!" swaggered Nell, feigning umbrage. "Angry because I
+kissed you! You have no right, madame, to be angry."
+
+"No right?" asked Portsmouth, her feelings tempered by surprise.
+
+"No right," repeated Nell, firmly. "It is I who should be outraged at
+your anger."
+
+"Explain, sir," said the Duchess, haughtily.
+
+Nell stepped toward the lady, and, assuming her most tender tone, with
+wistful, loving eyes, declared:
+
+"Because your grace can have no appreciation of what my temptation was
+to kiss you."
+
+The Duchess's countenance glowed with delight, despite herself.
+
+"I'faith, was there a temptation?" she asked, quite mollified.
+
+"An overwhelming passion," cried Nell, following up her advantage.
+
+"And you were disappointed, sir?" asked Portsmouth suggestively, her
+vanity falling captive to the sweet cajolery.
+
+"I only got yon courtier's kiss," saucily pouted Nell, "so lately
+bestowed on you."
+
+"Do you know whose kiss that was?" inquired the Duchess.
+
+"It seemed familiar," answered Nell, dryly.
+
+"The King's," said Portsmouth, proudly.
+
+"The King's!" cried Nell, opening wide her eyes. "Take back your kiss. I
+would not have it."
+
+"Indeed!" said Portsmouth, smiling.
+
+"'Tis too volatile," charged Nell, decisively. "'Tis here, 'tis there,
+'tis everywhere bestowed. Each rosy tavern-wench with a pretty ankle
+commands it halt. A kiss is the gift of God, the emblem of true love.
+Take back the King's kiss; I do not wish it."
+
+"He does not love the King," thought Portsmouth, ever on the lookout for
+advantage. "A possible ally!"
+
+She turned upon the youth, with humorous, mocking lip, and said
+reprovingly: "A kiss is a kiss the world over, fair sir; and the King's
+kisses are sacred to Portsmouth's lips."
+
+"Zounds," replied Nell, with a wicked wink, "not two hours since, he
+bestowed a kiss on Eleanor Gwyn--"
+
+"Nell Gwyn!" cried the Duchess, interrupting; and she started violently.
+
+"With oaths, mountains high," continued Nell, with pleasurable
+harshness, "that his lips were only for her."
+
+The Duchess stood speechless, quivering from top to toe.
+
+Nell herself swaggered carelessly across the room, muttering
+mischievously, as she watched the Duchess from the corner of her eye:
+"Methinks that speech went home."
+
+"He kissed her in your presence?" gasped Portsmouth, anxiously following
+her.
+
+"I was not far off, dear Duchess," was the quizzical reply.
+
+"You saw the kiss?"
+
+"No," answered Nell, dryly, and she could scarce contain her merriment.
+"I--I--felt the shock."
+
+Before she had finished the sentence, the King appeared in the doorway.
+His troubled spirit had led him to return, to speak further with the
+Duchess regarding the purport of the treaties. He had the good of his
+people at heart, and he was not a little anxious in mind lest he had
+been over-hasty in signing such weighty articles without a more careful
+reading. He stopped short as he beheld, to his surprise, the Irish spark
+Adair in earnest converse with his hostess.
+
+"I hate Nell Gwyn," he overheard the Duchess say.
+
+"Is't possible?" interrogated Nell, with wondering eyes.
+
+The King caught this utterance as well.
+
+"In a passion over Nelly?" reflected he. "I'd sooner face Cromwell's
+soldiers at Boscobel! All hail the oak!"
+
+His Majesty's eye saw with a welcome the spreading branches of the
+monarch of the forest, outlined on the tapestry; and, with a sigh of
+relief, he glided quickly behind it and, joining a group of maskers,
+passed into an anteroom, quite out of ear-shot.
+
+"Most strange!" continued Nell, wonderingly. "Nell told me but yesterday
+that Portsmouth was charming company--but a small eater."
+
+"'Tis false," cried the Duchess, and her brow clouded at the unpleasant
+memory of the meeting at Ye Blue Boar. "I never met the swearing
+orange-wench."
+
+"Ods-pitikins!" acquiesced Nell, woefully. "Nell's oaths are bad enough
+for men."
+
+"Masculine creature!" spitefully ejaculated the Duchess.
+
+"Verily, quite masculine--of late," said Nell, demurely, giving a
+significant tug at her boot-top.
+
+"A vulgar player," continued the indignant Duchess, "loves every lover
+who wears gold lace and tosses coins."
+
+"Nay; 'tis false!" denied Nell, sharply.
+
+The Duchess looked up, surprised.
+
+Nell was all obeisance in an instant.
+
+"Pardon, dear hostess, a thousand pardons," she prayed; "but I have some
+reason to know you misjudge Mistress Nell. With all her myriad faults,
+she never loved but one."
+
+"You seem solicitous for her good name, dear Beau?" suggested
+Portsmouth, suspiciously.
+
+"I am solicitous for the name of all good women," promptly explained
+Nell, who was rarely caught a-napping, "or I would be unworthy of their
+sex--I mean their friendship."
+
+The Duchess seemed satisfied with the explanation.
+
+"Dear Beau, what do the cavaliers see in that horrid creature?" archly
+asked the Duchess, contemptuous of this liking of the stronger sex.
+
+"Alack-a-day, we men, you know," replied Nell, boastfully, "well--the
+best of us make mistakes in women."
+
+"Are you mistaken?" questioned Portsmouth, coyly.
+
+"What?" laughed Nell, in high amusement. "I love Nelly? Nay, Duchess,"
+and her voice grew tender, "I adore but one!"
+
+"And she?" asked the hostess, encouraging the youth's apparently
+awakening passion.
+
+"How can you ask?" said Nell, with a deep sigh, looking adoringly into
+Portsmouth's eyes and almost embracing her.
+
+"Do you not fear?" inquired Portsmouth, well pleased.
+
+"Fear what?" questioned Nell.
+
+"My wrath," said Portsmouth.
+
+"Nay, more, thy love!" sighed Nell, meaningly, assuming a true lover's
+dejected visage.
+
+"My love!" cried Portsmouth, curiously.
+
+"Aye," again sighed Nell, more deeply still; "for it is hopeless."
+
+"Try," said the Duchess, almost resting her head upon Nell's shoulder.
+
+"I am doing my best," said Nell, her eyes dancing through wistful
+lashes, as she embraced in earnest the Duchess's graceful figure and
+held it close.
+
+"Do you find it hopeless?" asked Portsmouth, returning the embrace.
+
+"Until you trust me," replied Nell, sadly. She shook her curls, then
+fondly pleaded: "Give me the secrets of your brain and heart, and then
+I'll know you love me."
+
+The hostess smiled and withdrew from the embrace. Nell stood the picture
+of forlorn and hopeless love.
+
+"Nay," laughed Portsmouth, consolingly, "they would sink a ship."
+
+"One would not," still pleaded Nell, determined at all odds to have the
+packet.
+
+"One!" The Duchess's eyes fell unconsciously upon the papers which she
+had bewitched from the King and which lay so near her heart. She started
+first with fear; and then her countenance assumed a thoughtful cast.
+
+There was no time now for delay. The papers must be sent immediately.
+The King might return and retract. Many a battle, she knew, had been
+lost after it had been won.
+
+That night, at the Rainbow Tavern, well out of reach of the town, of
+court spies and gossips, Louis would have a trusted one in waiting. His
+commission was to receive news from various points and transmit it
+secretly to France. It was a ride of but a few hours to him.
+
+She had purposed to send the packet by her messenger in waiting; but he
+had rendered her suspicious by his speech and action in the late
+afternoon, and she questioned whether she would be wise in trusting him.
+Nor was she willing to risk her triumph in the hands of Buckingham's
+courier. It was too dear to her.
+
+Indeed, she was clever enough to know that state-secrets are often safer
+in the custody of a disinterested stranger than in the hands of a
+friend, especially if the stranger be truly a stranger to the court.
+
+She glanced quickly in the direction of Nell, who looked the ideal of
+daring youth, innocent, honest and true to the death.
+
+"Why not?" she thought quickly, as she reflected again upon Rochet's
+words, "to be trusted." "Of Irish descent, no love for the King, young,
+brave, no court ties; none will suspect or stay him."
+
+Her woman's intuition said "yes." She turned upon Nell and asked, not
+without agitation in her voice:
+
+"Can I trust you?"
+
+Nell's sword was out in an instant, glistening in the light, and so
+promptly that the Duchess started. Nell saluted, fell upon one knee and
+said, with all the exuberance of audacious, loving youth:
+
+"My sword and life are yours."
+
+Portsmouth looked deeply into Nell's honest eyes. She was convinced.
+
+"This little packet," said she, in subdued tones, summoning Nell to her
+side, "a family matter merely, must reach the Rainbow Tavern, on the
+Canterbury Road, by sunrise, where one is waiting. You'll find his
+description on the packet."
+
+Nell sheathed her sword.
+
+"I know the place and road," she said, earnestly, as she took the papers
+from the Duchess's hand and placed them carefully in her doublet.
+
+A rustle of the curtains indicated that some one had returned and was
+listening by the arras.
+
+"Hush!" cautioned Portsmouth. "Be true, and you will win my love."
+
+Nell did not reply, save to the glance that accompanied the words.
+Snatching her hat from a chair on which she had tossed it, she started
+eagerly in the direction of the great stairs that led to the hallway
+below, where, an hour since, she had been at first refused admission to
+the palace. Could she but pass again the guards, all would be well; and
+surely there was now no cause for her detention. Yet her heart beat
+tumultuously--faster even than when she presented herself with Rochet's
+letter written by herself.
+
+As she was hastening by the arras, her quick eye, however, recognized
+the King's long plume behind it; and she halted in her course. She was
+alert with a thousand maddening thoughts crowding her brain, all in an
+instant.
+
+"The King returned--an eavesdropper!" she reflected. "Jealous of
+Portsmouth; his eyes follow her. Where are his vows to Nell? I'll defame
+Nell's name, drag her fair honour in the mire; so, Charles, we'll test
+your manliness and love."
+
+She recrossed the room quickly to Portsmouth.
+
+"Madame," she exclaimed, in crisp, nervous tones, loud enough for the
+King's ear, "I have been deceiving, lying to you. I stood here,
+praising, honouring Eleanor Gwyn--an apple rotten to the core!"
+
+"How now?" ejaculated Charles, in an undertone.
+
+His carelessness vanished upon the instant. Where he had waited for the
+single ear of Portsmouth, he became at once an earnest listener.
+
+Nell paused not.
+
+"I had a friend who told me he loved Nell. I loved that friend. God
+knows I loved him."
+
+"Yes, yes!" urged Portsmouth, with eagerness.
+
+"A man of noble name and princely mien," continued Nell, so standing
+that the words went, like arrows, straight to the King's ear and heart,
+"a man of honour, who would have died fighting for Nell's honour--"
+
+"Misled youth," muttered Portsmouth.
+
+Nell seemed not to hear the words.
+
+"Who, had he heard a murmur of disapproval, a shadow cast upon her name,
+would have sealed in death the presumptuous lips which uttered it."
+
+"She betrayed his confidence?" asked Portsmouth, breathlessly.
+
+"Betrayed--and worse!" gesticulated Nell, with the visage of a madman.
+"A woman base, without a spark of kindliness--an adventuress! This is
+the picture of that Eleanor Gwyn! Where is a champion to take up the
+gauntlet for such a Nell?"
+
+As quick as light, the King threw back the arras and came between them.
+The Duchess saw him and cried out in surprise. Nell did not turn--only
+caught a chair-top to save herself from falling.
+
+"Here, thou defamer!" he called, his voice husky with passion. "Thou
+base purveyor of lies, answer me--me, for those words! I am Nell's
+champion! I'll force you to own your slander a lie."
+
+The King was terribly in earnest.
+
+"The guard! The guard!" called Portsmouth, faintly, almost overcome by
+the scene. In her passion that the King so revealed his love for Nell,
+she quite forgot that Adair was the bearer of her packet.
+
+"I want no guard," commanded the King. "An insult to Nell Gwyn is my
+cause alone."
+
+Nell was in an elysium of ecstasy. She realized nothing, saw nothing.
+
+"He loves me! He loves me!" her trembling lips breathed only. "He'll
+fight for Nell."
+
+"Come; draw and defend yourself," angrily cried the King.
+
+Portsmouth screamed and fell upon his arm.
+
+It is doubtful what the result would otherwise have been. True, Nell
+ofttimes had fenced with the King and knew his wrist, but she was no
+swordswoman now. Though she took up in her delirium the King's
+challenge with a wild cry, "Aye, draw and defend yourself!" she realized
+nothing but his confession of love for Nell.
+
+The scene was like a great blur before her eyes.
+
+She rushed upon the King and by him, she scarce knew how. Their swords
+harmlessly clashed; that was all.
+
+The cries had been taken up without.
+
+"The guard! The guard!" "Treason!" "Treason!"
+
+The air was alive with voices.
+
+Nell ran up the steps leading to a French window, which opened upon a
+tiny railed balcony. Below, one story only, lay a soft carpet of
+greensward, shimmering in the moonlight. With her sword, she struck the
+frail sash, which instantly yielded.
+
+Meantime, the room had filled with courtiers, guards and gallants, who
+had rushed in, sword and spear in hand, to guard the King.
+
+As the glass shivered and flew wide, under the point of Nell's blade,
+all eyes turned toward her and all blades quivered threateningly in the
+air.
+
+Buckingham was first to ascend the steps in pursuit. He was
+disarmed--more through the superiority of Nell's position than through
+the dexterity of her wrist.
+
+Then for the first time, she realized her danger. Her eyes staring from
+their sockets, she drew back from her murderous pursuers, and, in
+startled accents, she knew not why, screamed in supplication, with hands
+uplifted:
+
+"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!"
+
+The storm was stayed. All paused to hear what the stranger-youth would
+say. Would he apologize or would he surrender?
+
+The suspense was for but a second, though it seemed an eternity to Nell.
+
+The open window was behind.
+
+With a parting glance at the trembling blades, she turned quickly and
+with reckless daring leaped the balcony.
+
+"T' hell with ye!" was wafted back in a rich brogue defiantly by the
+night.
+
+Astonishment and consternation filled the room; but the bird had flown.
+Some said that the wicked farewell-speech had been Adair's, and some
+said not.
+
+How it all happened, no one could tell, unless it was a miracle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+ _I come, my love; I come._
+
+
+One lonely candle, or to speak more strictly a bit of one, sputtered in
+its silver socket in the cosy drawing-room; and a single moonbeam found
+its way in through the draperies of the window leading to the terrace
+and to St. James's Park.
+
+Moll lay upon a couch asleep; but it was a restless sleep.
+
+The voice of a town-crier resounded faintly across the park: "Midnight;
+and all is well."
+
+She started up and rubbed her eyes in a bewildered way.
+
+"The midnight crier!" she thought; and there was a troubled expression
+in her face. "I have been asleep and the candle's nearly out."
+
+She jumped to her feet and hastily lighted two or three of its more
+substantial mates, of which there was an abundance in the rich
+candelabra about the room.
+
+A cricket in a crevice startled her. She ran to the window and looked
+anxiously out upon the park, then hastened to the door, with equal
+anxiety, lest it might be unlocked. Every shadow was to her feverish
+fancy a spirit of evil or of death.
+
+"I wish Nell would come," she thought. "The ghosts and skeletons fairly
+swarm in this old house at midnight; and I am all alone to-night. It's
+different when Nell's about. The goblins are afraid of her merry laugh.
+Boo! I am cold all over. I am afraid to stand still, and I am afraid to
+move."
+
+She ran again to the window and this time pulled it open. The moonlight
+instantly flooded the room, dimming the candles which she had lighted.
+She saw her shadow, and started back in horror.
+
+"Some one glided behind the old oak in the park," she cried aloud, for
+the company of her voice. "Oh, oh! Nell will be murdered! I begged her
+not to go to Portsmouth's ball. She said she just wanted to peep in and
+pay her respects to the hostess. Moll! You better pray."
+
+She fell upon her knees and reverently lifted her hands and eyes in
+prayer.
+
+Something fell in the room with a heavy thud. She shut her eyes tight
+and prayed harder. The object of her fear was a long gray boot, which
+had been thrown in at the window and had fallen harmlessly by her side.
+It was followed in an instant by its mate, equally harmless yet equally
+dreadful.
+
+A jaunty figure, assisted by a friendly shoulder, then bounded over the
+balustrade and rested with a sigh of relief just within the
+window-opening. It was Nell, returning from the wars; she was pale,
+almost death-like. The evening's excitement, her daring escapade and
+more especially its exciting finish had taken hold of her in earnest.
+Her dainty little self was paying the penalty. She was all of a tremble.
+
+"Safe home at last!" she cried wearily. "Heaven reward you, Strings."
+
+From below the terrace, without the window, responded the fiddler, in
+sympathetic, loving tones: "Good night, Mistress Nell; and good sleep."
+
+"Good night, comrade," answered Nell, as she almost fell into the room,
+calling faintly: "Moll! Moll! What are you doing, Moll?"
+
+Moll closed her eyes tighter and prayed still more fervently.
+
+"Praying for Nell," her trembling lips mechanically replied.
+
+"Humph!" cried Nell, half fainting, throwing herself upon the couch.
+"There's no spirit in this flesh worth praying for. Some wine, some
+wine; and the blessing after."
+
+The command brought Moll to her senses and she realized that it was
+really Nell who had entered thus unceremoniously. She rushed to her for
+safety, like a frightened deer to the lake.
+
+"Nell, dear Nell!" she cried. "You are ill."
+
+"Wine, wine, I say," again fell in peremptory tones from the
+half-reclining Nell.
+
+Moll glanced in dismay at her bootless mistress: her garments all awry;
+her sword ill sheathed; her cloak uncaught from the shoulder and half
+used, petticoat-like, as a covering for her trembling-limbs; her hair
+dishevelled; her cheeks pale; her wild eyes, excitement-strained,
+staring from their sockets.
+
+"You are wounded; you are going to die," she cried. "Moll will be all
+alone in the world again."
+
+Her hands shook more than Nell's as she filled a glass half full of wine
+and passed it to her mistress.
+
+"To the brim, girl, to the brim," commanded Nell, reviving at the
+prospect of the draught. "There!"
+
+She tossed off the drink in gallant fashion: "I tell you, sweetheart, we
+men need lots of stimulating."
+
+"You are all of a tremble," continued Moll.
+
+"Little wonder!" sighed Nell. "These braveries are a trifle chilly,
+sweet mouse. Boo!" She laughed hysterically, while Moll closed the
+window. "You see, I never was a man before, and I had all that lost time
+to make up--acres of oats to scatter in one little night. Open my
+throat; I cannot breathe. Take off my sword. The wars are done, I hope."
+She startled Moll, who was encasing her mistress's pretty feet in a pair
+of dainty shoes, with another wild, hilarious laugh. "Moll," she
+continued, "I was the gayest mad-cap there. The sex were wild for me. I
+knew their weak points of attack, lass. If I had been seeking a mate, I
+could have made my market of them all and started a harem."
+
+She seemed to forget all her dangers past in the recollection.
+
+"Wicked girl," said Moll, pouting reprovingly.
+
+"Oh, I am a jolly roisterer, little one," laughed Nell, in reply, as
+with cavalier-strides she crossed the room. She threw herself upon the
+table and proceeded to boast of her doings for Moll's benefit, swinging
+her feet meanwhile. "I ran the gamut. I had all the paces of the truest
+cavalier. I could tread a measure, swear like one from the wars, crook
+my elbow, lie, gamble, fight--Fight? Did I say fight?"
+
+She hid her curly head in her hands and sobbed spasmodically.
+
+"You have been in danger!" exclaimed Moll, fearfully.
+
+"Danger!" repeated Nell, breaking out afresh. "I taught the King a
+lesson he will dream about, my sweet, though it near cost me my life. He
+loves me, d'ye hear; he loves me, pretty one! Dance, Moll, dance--Dance,
+I say! I could fly for very joy!"
+
+With the tears still wet upon her cheeks, she seized Moll by both hands
+and whirled the astonished girl wildly about the room, until she herself
+reeled for want of breath. Then, catching at a great carved oaken chair,
+she fell into it and cried and laughed alternately.
+
+"Nell, Nell," gasped Moll, as she too struggled for breath; "one minute
+you laugh and then you cry. Have you lost your wits?"
+
+"I only know," exulted Nell, "I made him swear his love for Nell to
+Portsmouth's face. I made him draw his sword for Nell."
+
+"Great Heavens!" exclaimed Moll, aghast. "You did not draw yourself? A
+sword against the King is treason."
+
+"Ods-bodikins, I know not!" answered Nell. "I know not what I did or
+said. I was mad, mad! All I remember is: there was a big noise--a
+million spears and blunderbusses turned upon poor me! Gad! I made a
+pretty target, girl."
+
+"A million spears and blunderbusses!" echoed Moll, her eyes like
+saucers.
+
+"An army, child, an army!" continued Nell, in half-frantic accents. "I
+did not stop to count them. Then, next I knew, I was in my coach, with
+dear old Strings beside me. The horses flew. We alighted at the Chapel,
+tiptoed about several corners to break the scent; then I took off my
+shoes and stole up the back way like a good and faithful husband. Oh, I
+did the whole thing in cavalier-style, sweetheart. But,'twixt us, Moll,"
+and she spoke with a mysterious, confidential air,"--I wouldn't have it
+go further for worlds--Adair is a coward, a monstrous coward! He ran!"
+
+As if to prove the truth of her words, at a sudden, sharp, shrill sound
+from the direction of the park, the sad remnant of Adair clutched Moll
+frantically; and both girls huddled together with startled faces and
+bated breaths.
+
+"Hark! What is that?" whispered Nell.
+
+"The men, perchance, I told you of," answered Moll; "they've spied about
+the house for weeks."
+
+"Nonsense, you little goose," remonstrated Nell, though none too
+bravely; "some of your ex-lovers nailing their bleeding hearts to the
+trees."
+
+"No, no; listen!" exclaimed Moll, frantically, as the noise grew louder.
+"They're in the entry."
+
+"In the entry!" stammered Nell; and she almost collapsed at the thought
+of more adventures. "I wish we were in bed, with our heads under the
+sheet."
+
+"Here is your sword," said Moll, as she brought Nell the sharp weapon,
+held well at arm's length for fear of it.
+
+"Oh, yes, my sword!" exclaimed Nell, perking up--for an instant only. "I
+never thought of my sword; and this is one of the bravest swords I ever
+drew. I am as weak as a woman, Moll."
+
+"Take heart," said Moll, encouraging her from the rear, as Nell
+brandished the glittering blade in the direction of the door. "You know
+you faced an army to-night."
+
+"True," replied Nell, her courage oozing out at her finger-tips, "but
+then I was a man, and had to seem brave, whether I was or no. Who's
+there?" she called faintly. "Who's there? Support me, Moll. Beau Adair
+is on his last legs."
+
+Both stood listening intently and trembling from top to toe.
+
+A score of rich voices, singing harmoniously, broke upon the night.
+
+The startled expression on Nell's face changed instantly to one of
+fearless, roguish merriment. She was her old self again. She tossed the
+sword contemptuously upon the floor, laughing in derision now at her
+companion's fear.
+
+"A serenade! A serenade!" she cried. "Moll--Why, Moll, what feared ye,
+lass? Come!" She ran gaily to the window and peeped out. "Oh, ho,
+masqueraders from the moon. Some merry crew, I'll be bound. I am
+generous. I'll give thee all but one, sweet mouse. The tall knight in
+white for me! I know he's gallant, though his vizor's down. Marry, he is
+their captain, I trow; and none but a captain of men shall be captain of
+my little heart."
+
+"It is Satan and his imps," cried Moll, attempting to draw Nell from the
+window.
+
+"Tush, little one," laughed Nell, reprovingly. "Satan is my warmest
+friend. Besides, they cannot cross the moat. The ramparts are ours. The
+draw-bridge is up."
+
+In a merry mood, she threw a piece of drapery, mantle-like, about
+Adair's shoulders, quite hiding them, and, decapitating a grim old suit
+of armour, placed the helmet on her head. Thus garbed, she threw the
+window quickly open and stepped boldly upon the ledge, within full view
+of the band beneath. As the moonlight gleamed upon her helmet, one might
+have fancied her a goodly knight of yore; and, indeed, she looked quite
+formidable.
+
+"Nell, what are you doing?" called Moll, wildly, from a point of safety.
+"They can see and shoot you."
+
+"Tilly-vally, girl," replied Nell, undaunted now that she could see that
+there was no danger, "we'll parley with the enemy in true feudal style.
+We'll teach them we have a man about the house. Ho, there, strangers of
+the night--breakers of the King's peace and the slumbers of the
+righteous! Brawlers, knaves; would ye raise honest men from their beds
+at such an hour? What means this jargon of tipsy voices? What want ye?"
+
+A chorus of throats without demanded, in muffled accents: "Drink!"
+"Drink!" "Sack!" "Rhenish!"
+
+[Illustration: "I WAS THAT BOY!"]
+"Do ye think this a tavern, knaves?" responded Nell, in a husky, mannish
+voice. "Do ye think this a vintner's? There are no topers here.
+Jackanapes, revellers; away with you, or we'll rouse the citadel and
+train the guns."
+
+Her retort was met with boisterous laughter and mocking cries of "Down
+with the doors!" "Break in the windows!"
+
+This was a move Nell had not anticipated. She jumped from the ledge, or
+rather tumbled into the room, nervously dropping her disguise upon the
+floor.
+
+"Heaven preserve us," she said to Moll, with quite another complexion in
+her tone, "they are coming in! Oh, Moll, Moll, I did not think they
+would dare."
+
+Moll closed the sashes and bolted them, then hugged Nell close.
+
+"Ho, there, within!" came, in a guttural voice, now from without the
+door.
+
+"Yes?" Nell tried to say; but the word scarce went beyond her lips.
+
+Again in guttural tones came a second summons--"Nell! Nell!"
+
+Nell turned to Moll for support and courage, whispering: "Some arrant
+knave calls Nell at this hour." Then, assuming an attitude of bravery,
+with fluttering heart, she answered, as best she could, in a forced
+voice: "Nell's in bed!"
+
+"Yes, Nell's in bed," echoed the constant Moll. "Everybody's in bed.
+Call to-morrow!"
+
+"No trifling, wench!" commanded the voice without, angrily. "Down with
+the door!"
+
+"Stand close, Moll," entreated Nell, as she answered the would-be
+intruder with the question:
+
+"Who are ye? Who are ye?"
+
+"Old Rowley himself!" replied the guttural voice.
+
+This was followed by hoarse laughter from many throats.
+
+"The King--as I thought!" whispered Nell. "Good lack; what shall I do
+with Adair? Plague on't, he'll be mad if I keep him waiting, and madder
+if I let him in. Where are your wits, Moll? Run for my gown; fly--fly!"
+
+Moll hastened to do the bidding.
+
+Nell rushed to the entry-door, in frantic agitation.
+
+"The bolt sticks, Sire," she called, pretending to struggle with the
+door, hoping so to stay his Majesty until she should have time to
+dispose of poor Adair. "How can I get out of these braveries?" she then
+asked herself, tugging awkwardly at one part of the male attire and then
+at another. "I don't know which end of me to begin on first."
+
+Moll re-entered the room with a bundle of pink in her arms, which turned
+out to be a flowing, silken robe, trimmed with lace.
+
+"Here is the first I found," she said breathlessly.
+
+Nell motioned to her nervously to put it upon the couch.
+
+"Help me out of this coat," she pleaded woefully.
+
+Moll took off the coat and then assisted Nell to circumscribe with the
+gown, from heels to head, her stunning figure, neatly encased in Adair's
+habit, which now consisted only of a jaunty shirt of white, gray
+breeches, shoes and stockings.
+
+"Marry, I would I were a fairy with a magic wand; I could befuddle men's
+eyes easier," Nell lamented.
+
+The King knocked again upon the door sharply.
+
+"Patience, my liege," entreated Nell, drawing her gown close about her
+and muttering with personal satisfaction: "There, there; that hides a
+multitude of sins. The girdle, the girdle! Adair will not escape from
+this--if we can but keep him quiet; the rogue has a woman's tongue, and
+it will out, I fear."
+
+She snatched up a mirror and arranged her hair as best she could in the
+dim light, with the cries without resounding in her ears and with Moll
+dancing anxiously about her.
+
+"Down with the door," threatened the King, impatiently. "The ram; the
+battering ram."
+
+"I come, my love; I come," cried Nell, in agitation, fairly running to
+the door to open it, but stopping aghast as her eye caught over her
+shoulder the sad, telltale condition of the room.
+
+"'Sdeath," she called in a stage-whisper to Moll; "under the couch with
+Adair's coat! Patience, Sire," she besought in turn the King. "Help me,
+Moll. How this lock has rusted--in the last few minutes. My sword!" she
+continued breathlessly to Moll. "My boots! My hat! My cloak!"
+
+Moll, in her efforts to make the room presentable, was rushing hither
+and thither, first throwing Adair's coat beneath the couch as Nell
+commanded and firing the other evidences of his guilty presence, one
+behind one door and another behind another.
+
+It was done.
+
+Nell slipped the bolt and calmly took a stand in the centre of the room,
+drawing her flowing gown close about Adair's person. She was quite
+exhausted from the nervous strain, but her actress's art taught her the
+way to hide it. Moll, panting for breath, across the room, feigned
+composure as best she could.
+
+The door opened and in strode the King and his followers.
+
+"Welcome, royal comrades, welcome all!" said Nell, bowing graciously to
+her untimely visitors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+ _Ods-pitikins, my own reflection!_
+
+
+Upon the fine face of the King, as he entered Nell's drawing-room, was
+an expression of nervous bantering, not wholly unmixed with anxiety.
+
+The slanderous Adair and his almost miraculous escape had not long
+weighed upon his Majesty's careless nature.
+
+As he had not met Adair until that night or even heard of him, his heart
+had told him that the Irish roisterer could scarcely be a serious
+obstacle in the way of Nell's perfect faith, if, indeed, he had met Nell
+at all, which he doubted. His command to the guard to follow and
+overtake the youth had been more the command of the ruler than of the
+man. Despite himself, there had been something about the dainty peacock
+he could not help but like; and the bold dash for the window, the
+disarming of the purse-proud Buckingham, who for many reasons displeased
+him, and the leap to the sward below, with the accompanying farewell,
+had especially delighted both his manhood and his sense of humour.
+
+He had, therefore, dismissed Adair from his mind, except as a possible
+subject to banter Nell withal, or as a culprit to punish, if overtaken.
+
+His restless spirit had chafed under the Duchess's lavish
+entertainment--for the best entertainment is dull to the lover whose
+sweetheart is absent--and he had turned instinctively from the ball to
+Nell's terrace, regardless of the hour and scarce noticing his constant
+attendants.
+
+The night was so beautiful that their souls had found vent in song.
+
+This serenade, however, had brought to Nell's window a wide-awake
+fellow, who had revealed himself in saucy talk; and the delighted
+cavaliers, in hope of fun, had charged jeeringly that they had outwitted
+the guard and had found Adair.
+
+It was this that had brought the anxious look to the King's face; and,
+though his better judgment was still unchanged, the sight of the knave
+at the window, together with the suggestions of his merry followers, had
+cast a shadow of doubt for the moment upon his soul, and he had
+reflected that there was much that the Irish youth had said that could
+not be reconciled with that better judgment.
+
+With a careless shrug, he had, therefore, taken up the jest of his
+lawless crew, which coincided with his own intended purpose, and had
+sworn that he would turn the household out of bed without regard to
+pretty protests or formality of warrant. He would raise the question
+forthwith, in jest and earnest, and worry Nell about the boaster.
+
+"Scurvy entertainment," he began, with frowning brow.
+
+"Yea, my liege," explained Nell, winsomely; "you see--I did not expect
+the King so late, and so was unpresentable."
+
+"It is the one you do not expect," replied Charles, dryly, "who always
+causes the trouble, Nell."
+
+"We were in bed, Sire," threw in Moll, thinking to come to the rescue of
+her mistress.
+
+"Marry, truly," said Nell, catching at the cue, "--asleep, Sire, sound
+asleep; and our prayers said."
+
+"Tilly-vally," exclaimed the King, "we might credit thy tongue, wench,
+but for the prayers. No digressions, spider Nell. My sword is in a
+fighting mood. 'Sdeath, call forth the knight-errant who holds thy
+errant heart secure for one short hour!"
+
+"The knight of my heart!" cried Nell. "Ah, Sire, you know his name."
+
+She looked at his Majesty with eyes of unfailing love; but the King was
+true to his jest.
+
+"Yea, marry, I do," laughed Charles, tauntingly, with a wink at his
+companions; "a pretty piece of heraldry, a bold escutcheon, a dainty
+poniard--pale as a lily, and how he did sigh and drop his lids and smirk
+and smirk and dance your latest galliard to surpass De Grammont. Ask
+brother James how he did dance."
+
+"Nay, Sire," hastily interceded the ever-gallant Rochester, "his
+Highness of York has suffered enough."
+
+York frowned at the reference; for he had been robbed of his lady at the
+dance by Adair. He could not forget that. Heedless of his royalty,
+bestowed by man, she, like the others, had followed in the train of the
+Irish spark, who was royal only by nature.
+
+"Hang the coxcomb!" he snarled.
+
+"'Slife, I will," replied Charles, slyly, "an you overtake him,
+brother."
+
+"His back was shapely, Sire," observed Rochester, with quaint humour.
+
+"Yea, and his heels!" cried the King, reflectively. "He had such dainty
+heels--Mercury's wings attached, to waft him on his way."
+
+"This is moonshine madness!" exclaimed Nell, with the blandest of bland
+smiles. "There's none such here. By my troth, I would there were. Nay,
+ask Moll."
+
+Moll did not wait to be asked.
+
+"Not one visitor to-night," she asserted promptly.
+
+"Odso!" cried Charles, in a mocking tone. "Whence came the Jack at the
+window--the brave young challenger--'Would ye raise honest men from
+their beds at such an hour?'"
+
+A burst of laughter followed the King's grave imitation of the
+window-boaster.
+
+"Sire!" sighed Rochester, in like spirit. "'Do you think this a
+vintner's? There are no topers here.'"
+
+Another burst of merry laughter greeted the speaker, as he punctuated
+his words by catching up the wine-cups from the table and clinking them
+gaily.
+
+Nell's face was as solemn as a funeral.
+
+"To your knees, minx," commanded James, grimly, "and crave mercy of your
+prince."
+
+"Faith and troth," pleaded Nell, seriously, "'t was I myself with helmet
+and mantle on. You see, Sire, my menials were guests at Portsmouth's
+ball--to lend respectability."
+
+"Saucy wag," cried the Merry Monarch. "A ball?--A battle--which would
+have killed thee straight!"
+
+"It had liked to," reflected Nell, as she tartly replied: "A war of the
+sex without me? It was stupid, then. The Duchess missed me, I trow."
+
+"Never fear," answered Charles, with difficulty suppressing his mirth;
+"you were bravely championed."
+
+"I am sure of that," said Nell, slyly; "my King was there."
+
+"And a bantam cock," ejaculated Charles, sarcastically, "upon whose lips
+'Nell' hung familiarly."
+
+"Some strange gallant," cried Nell, in ecstasy, "took my part before
+them all? Who was he, Sire? Don't tantalize me so."
+
+She smiled, half serious, half humorous, as she pleaded in her charming
+way.
+
+"A chip from the Blarney Stone," observed the King at length,
+ironically, "surnamed Adair!"
+
+"Adair! Adair!" cried Nell, to the astonishment of all. "We spent our
+youth together. I see him in my mind's eye, Sire, throw down the
+gauntlet in Nell's name and defy the world for her. Fill the cups. We'll
+drink to my new-found hero! Fill! Fill! To Beau Adair, as you love me,
+gallants! Long life to Adair!"
+
+The cups were filled to overflowing and trembled on eager lips in
+response to the hostess's merry toast.
+
+"Stay!" commanded the King, in peremptory tones. "Not a drop to a
+coward!"
+
+"A coward!" cried Nell, aghast. "Adair a coward? I'll never credit it,
+Sire!"
+
+She turned away, lest she reveal her merriment, as she bethought her:
+"He is trembling in my boots now. I can feel him shake."
+
+"Our pledge is Nell, Nell only!" exclaimed the King, his cup high in
+air.
+
+With one accord, the gallants eagerly took up the royal pledge. "Aye,
+aye, Nell!" "Nell!" "We'll drink to Nell!"
+
+"You do me honour, royal gentlemen," bowed Nell, well pleased at the
+King's toast.
+
+She had scarce touched the cup to her lips, however, with a mental
+chuckle, "Poor Adair! Here's a health to the inner man!" when her eye
+fell upon one of Adair's gray boots, which Moll had failed to hide, in
+her excitement, now revealing itself quite plainly in the light of the
+many candles. She caught it adroitly on the tip of her toe and sent it
+whizzing through the air in the direction of poor Moll, who,
+fortunately, caught it in midair and hid it quickly beneath her apron.
+
+The King turned at the sound; but Nell's face was as woefully
+unconcerned as a church-warden's at his hundredth burial.
+
+The wine added further zest to the merry-making and the desire for
+sport.
+
+"Now, fair huswife," continued Charles, his thoughts reverting to Adair,
+"set forth the dish, that we may carve it to our liking. 'Tis a dainty
+bit,--lace, velvet and ruffles."
+
+"Heyday, Sire," responded Nell, evasively, "the larder's empty."
+
+"Devil on't," cried Charles, ferociously; "no mincing, wench. In the
+confusion of the ball, the bird escaped my guard by magic. We know
+whither the flight."
+
+The King assumed a knowing look.
+
+"Escaped the guard?" gasped Nell, in great surprise. "Alas, I trow some
+petticoat has hid him then."
+
+"I'll stake my life upon't," observed James, who had not been heard from
+in some time but who had been observing the scene with decorous dignity.
+
+"Sire, you would not injure Adair," pleaded Nell, now alert, with all
+her arts of fascination. "You are too generous. Blue eyes of heaven, and
+such a smile! Did you mark that young Irishman's smile, Sire?"
+
+Her impudence was so bewitching that the King scarce knew whether it
+were jest or earnest. He sprang to his feet from the couch, where he had
+thrown himself after the toast to Nell, and, with some forcefulness,
+exclaimed:
+
+"Odsfish, this to my teeth, rogue! Guard the doors, gallants; we'd gaze
+upon this paragon."
+
+"And set him pirouetting, Sire," sardonically suggested James.
+
+"Yea, to the tune of these fiddle-sticks," laughed Charles, as he
+unsheathed his rapier. "Search from tile to rafter."
+
+"Aye, aye," echoed the omnipresent Rochester, "from cellar to garret."
+
+Before, however, the command could be obeyed, even in resolution, Nell
+moved uneasily to a curtain which hung in the corner of the room and
+placed herself before it, as if to shield a hidden man.
+
+"Sire," she pleaded fearfully, "spare him, Sire; for my sake, Sire. He
+is not to blame for loving me. He cannot help it. You know that, Sire!"
+
+"Can he really be here?" muttered Charles, with clouding visage. "Saucy
+wench! Hey! My blood is charging full-tilt through my veins. Odsfish,
+we'll try his mettle once again."
+
+"Prythee, Sire," begged Nell, "he is too noble and brave and handsome to
+die. I love his very image."
+
+"Oh, ho!" cried Charles. "A silken blind for the silken bird! Hey, St.
+George for merry England! Come forth, thou picture of cowardice, thou
+vile slanderer."
+
+He grasped Nell by the wrist and fairly dragged her across the room.
+Then, rushing to the curtain, he seized its silken folds and tore it
+completely from its hangings--only to face himself in a large mirror.
+"Ods-pitikins, my own reflection!" he exclaimed, with menacing tone,
+though there was relief as well in his voice. He bent the point of his
+blade against the floor, gazed at himself in the pier-glass and looked
+over his shoulder at Nell, who stood in the midst of his courtiers,
+splitting her sides with laughter, undignified but honest.
+
+"Rogue, rogue," he cried, "I should turn the point on thee for this
+trick; but England would be worse than a Puritan funeral with no Nell.
+Thou shalt suffer anon."
+
+"I defy thee, Sire, and all thy imps of Satan," laughed the vixen, as
+she watched the King sheathe his jewelled sword. "Cast Nell in the
+blackest dungeon, Adair is her fellow-prisoner; outlaw Nell, Adair is
+her brother outlaw; off with Nell's head, off rolls Adair's. Who else
+can boast so true a love!"
+
+"Thou shalt be banished the realm," decided the King, jestingly; for he
+was now convinced that her Adair was but a jest to tease him--a Roland
+for his Oliver.
+
+"Banished!" cried Nell, with bated breath.
+
+"Aye; beyond sea, witch!" answered the King, with pompous austerity.
+"Virginia shall be thy home."
+
+"Good, good!" laughed Nell, gaily. "Sire, the men grow handsome in
+Virginia, and dauntless; and they tell me there are a dearth of women
+there. Oh, banish me at once to--What's the name?"
+
+"Jamestown," suggested York, recalling the one name because of its
+familiar sound.
+
+"Yea, brother James," said Nell, fearlessly mimicking his brusque
+accent, "Jamestown."
+
+"Savages, wild men, cannibals," scowled Charles.
+
+"Cannibals!" cried Nell. "Marry, I should love to be a cannibal. Are
+there cannibals in Jamestown, brother James? Banish me, Sire; banish me
+to Jamestown of all places. Up with the sails, my merry men; give me the
+helm! Adair will sail in the same good ship, I trow."
+
+"Adair! I trow thou wert best at home, cannibal Nelly," determined the
+King.
+
+"Then set all the men in Britain to watch me, Sire," said Nell; "for,
+from now on, I'll need it."
+
+The King shook his finger warningly at her, then leaned carelessly
+against the window.
+
+"Ho there!" he cried out suddenly. "A night disturbance, a drunken
+brawl, beneath our very ears! Fellow-saints, what mean my subjects from
+their beds this hour of night? Their sovereign does the revelling for
+the realm. James, Rochester and all, see to 't!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+ _The day will be so happy; for I've seen you at the dawn._
+
+
+The room was quickly cleared, the King's courtiers jostling one another
+in their efforts to carry out the royal bidding.
+
+Charles turned with a merry laugh and seized Nell in his arms almost
+fiercely.
+
+"A subterfuge!" he cried eagerly. "Nell, quick; one kiss!"
+
+"Nay; you question my constancy to-night," said Nell, sadly, as she
+looked into his eyes, with the look of perfect love. "You do not trust
+me."
+
+"I do, sweet Nell," protested the King, earnestly.
+
+"You bring me Portsmouth's lips," said Nell, with sad reproof.
+
+"I left her dance for you," replied the King, drawing her closer to him.
+
+"At near sunrise, Sire," sighed Nell, reprovingly, as she drew back the
+curtain and revealed the first gray streaks of the breaking light of
+day.
+
+"Nay, do not tantalize me, Nell," besought the King, throwing himself
+upon the couch. "I am sad to-night."
+
+The woman's forgiving heart was touched with sympathy. Her eyes sought
+his sadly beautiful face. She ran to him, fell upon her knees and kissed
+his hand tenderly.
+
+"Tantalize my King!" she cried. "The day will be so happy; for I've seen
+you at the dawn." There was all the emotional fervour and pathetic
+tenderness which the great composer has compressed into the love-music
+of "Tristan and Isolde" in her voice.
+
+"My crown is heavy, Nell," he continued. "Heaven gives us crowns, but
+not the eye to see the ending of our deeds."
+
+"God sees them," said Nell. "Ah, Sire, I thank the Maker of the world
+for giving a crown to one whom I respect and love."
+
+"And I curse it," cried the King, with earnest eyes; "for 'tis the only
+barrier to our united love. It is the sparkling spider in the centre of
+a great web of intrigue and infamy."
+
+"You make me bold to speak. Cut the web, Sire, which binds thy crown to
+France. There is the only danger."
+
+"Thou art wrong, Nelly, wrong!" He spoke in deep, firm accents. "I have
+decided otherwise."
+
+He rose abruptly, his brow clouded with thought. She took his hand
+tenderly.
+
+"Then, change your mind, Sire," she pleaded; "for I can prove--"
+
+"What, girl?" he asked eagerly, his curiosity awakened by her manner.
+
+Nell did not respond. To continue would reveal Adair, and she could not
+think of that.
+
+"What, I say?" again asked Charles, impatiently.
+
+"To-morrow, Sire," laughed Nell, evasively.
+
+"Aye, to-morrow and to-morrow!" petulantly repeated the King.
+
+He was about to demand a direct reply but was stayed by the sound of a
+struggle without.
+
+It befell in the nick of time for Nell, as all things, indeed, in life
+seemed to befall in the nick of time for her. The impious huswives shook
+their heads and attributed it to the evil influence; the pious huswives
+asserted it was providential; Nell herself laughingly declared it was
+her lucky star.
+
+"Ho, without there!" Charles cried, impatiently--almost angrily--at the
+interruption. "Whence comes this noisy riot?"
+
+James, Rochester and the others unceremoniously re-entered.
+
+"Pardon, Sire," explained the Duke of York; "the guard caught but now an
+armed ruffian prowling by the house. They report they stayed him on
+suspicion of his looks and insolence."
+
+"Adair! Adair! My life upon't!" laughed the King, ever ready for sport.
+"Set him before us."
+
+An officer of the guard departed quickly to bring in the offender. The
+courtiers took up the King's cry most readily; and there was a general
+cackle of "Adair!" "Adair!" "A trial!" "Sire!" "Bring in the coward!"
+
+Nell stood in the midst of the scene, the picture of demure innocence.
+
+"They've caught Adair!" she whispered to Moll, mischievously.
+
+"Aye, gallants," cried the Merry Monarch, approvingly, "we'll form a
+Court of Inquiry. This table shall be our bench, on which we'll hem and
+haw and puff and look judicial. Odsfish, we will teach Radamanthus and
+Judge Jeffreys ways of terrorizing."
+
+He sprang upon the table, which creaked somewhat beneath the royal
+burden, and assumed the austere, frowning brow of worldly justice.
+
+"_Oyer, oyer_, all ye who have grievances--" cried the garrulous
+Rochester in the husky tones of the crier, who most generally assumes
+that he is the whole court and oftentimes should be.
+
+"Mistress Nell," commanded the royal judge, summoning Nell to the bar,
+"thou shalt be counsel for the prisoner; Adair's life hangs upon thy
+skill to outwit the law."
+
+"Or bribe the judge, Sire?" suggested Nell, demurely.
+
+"Not with thy traitor lips," retorted Charles, with the injured dignity
+of a petty justice about to commit a flash of true wit for contempt of
+court.
+
+"Traitor lips?" cried Nell, sadly. "By my troth, I never kissed Adair. I
+confess, I tried, your Majesty; but I could not."
+
+"Have a care," replied the King, in a tone which indicated that the
+fires of suspicion still smouldered in his breast; "I am growing
+jealous."
+
+Nell fell upon one knee and stretched forth her arms suppliantly.
+
+"Adair is in such a tight place, Sire, he can scarcely breathe," she
+pleaded, with the zeal of a barrister hard-working for his first fee in
+her voice, "much less speak for himself. Mercy!"
+
+"We will have justice; not mercy," replied the court, with a sly wink at
+Rochester. "Guilty or not guilty, wench?"
+
+"Not guilty, Sire! Did you ever see the man who was?"
+
+The King laughed despite himself, followed by his ever-aping courtiers.
+
+"I'll plead for the Crown," asserted the grim James, with great
+vehemence, "to rid the realm of this dancing-Jack."
+
+"Thou hast cause, brother," laughed the King. "Rochester, thou shalt sit
+by us here."
+
+Rochester sprang, with a contented chuckle, into a chair on the opposite
+side of the table to that upon which his Majesty was holding his
+mock-court and seated himself upon its high back, so poised as not to
+fall. From this lofty bench, with a queer gurgle, to say nothing of a
+swelling of the chest, and with an approving glance from his Majesty, he
+added his mite to the all-inspiring dignity of the revellers' court.
+
+"Judge Rochester!" continued the King, slapping him with his glove,
+across the table. "Judge--of good ale. We'll confer with the cups,
+imbibe the statutes and drink in the law. Set the rascal before us."
+
+In obedience to the command, a man well muffled with a cloak was forced
+into the room, a guard at either arm.
+
+Behind them, taking advantage of the open door to appease their
+curiosity, crowded many hangers-on of courtdom, among whom was Strings,
+who had met the revellers some distance from the house and had returned
+with them.
+
+"Hold off your hands, knaves," commanded the prisoner, who was none
+other than Hart, the player, indignant at the detention.
+
+"Silence, rogue!" commanded the King. "Thy name?"
+
+"Sire!" cried Hart, throwing off his mantle and glancing for the first
+time at the judge's face. He sank immediately upon one knee, bowing
+respectfully.
+
+"Jack Hart!" cried one and all, craning their necks in surprise and
+expectation.
+
+"'Slife, a spy upon our merry-making!" exclaimed the displeased monarch.
+"What means this prowling, sir?"
+
+"Pardon, pardon, my reply, your Majesty," humbly importuned the player.
+"Blinded by passion, I might say that I should regret."
+
+"Your strange behaviour and stranger looks have meaning, sir," cried the
+King, impatiently. "Out with it! These are too dangerous times to
+withhold your thoughts from your King."
+
+"No need for commands, Sire," entreated Hart. "The words are trembling
+on my lips and will out themselves in spite of me. At Portsmouth's ball,
+an hour past, I o'erheard that fop Adair boast to-night a midnight
+rendezvous here with Nell."
+
+Nell placed her hands upon her heart.
+
+"This--my old friend," she reflected sadly.
+
+"Our jest turned earnest," cried Charles. "Well? Well?" he questioned,
+in peremptory tones.
+
+"I could not believe my ears, Sire," the prisoner continued, faltering.
+"I watched to refute the lie--"
+
+"Yes--yes--" exhorted the King, in expectation.
+
+"I cannot go on."
+
+"Knave, I command!"
+
+"I saw Adair enter this abode at midnight." Hart's head fell, full of
+shame, upon his breast.
+
+"'Sblood," muttered the King, scarce mindful that his words might be
+audible to those about him, "my heart stands still as if't were knifed.
+My pretty golden-head, my bonnie Nell!" He turned sharply toward the
+player. "Your words are false, false, sir! Kind Heaven, they must be."
+
+"Pardon, Sire," pleaded Hart; "I know not what I do or say. Only love
+for Nell led me to this spot."
+
+"Love!" cried Nell, with the irony of sadness. "Oh, inhuman, to spy out
+my ways, resort to mean device, involve my honour, and call the motive
+love!"
+
+"You are cruel, cruel, Nell," sobbed Hart; and he turned away his eyes.
+He could not look at her.
+
+"Love!" continued Nell, bitterly. "True love would come alone, filled
+with gentle admonition. I pity you, friend Hart, that God has made you
+thus!"
+
+"No more, no more!" Hart quite broke beneath the strain.
+
+"Dost hear, dost hear?" cried Charles, in ecstasy, deeply affected by
+Nell's exposition of true love. "Sir, you are the second to-night to
+belie the dearest name in England. You shall answer well to me."
+
+"Ask the lady, Sire," pleaded Hart, in desperation. "I'll stake my life
+upon her reply."
+
+"Nell?--Nell?" questioned the King; for he could scarce refuse to accept
+her word when a player had placed unquestioned faith in it.
+
+Nell hid her face in her silken kerchief and burst into seeming
+spasmodic sobs of grief. "Sire!" was all the response the King could
+hear. He trembled violently and his face grew white. He did not know
+that Nell's tears were merry laughs.
+
+"Her tears convict her," exclaimed Hart, triumphantly.
+
+"I'll not believe it," cried the King.
+
+Nell became more hysterical. She sobbed and sobbed, as though her heart
+would break, her face buried in her hands and her flying curls falling
+over and hiding all.
+
+"Adair's sides are aching," she chuckled, in apparent convulsions of
+sorrow. "He's laughing through Nell's tears."
+
+Meanwhile, Moll had been standing by the window; and, though she was
+watching eagerly the exciting scene within the room, she could not fail
+to note the sound of galloping horses and the rattling of a heavy coach
+on the roadway without.
+
+"A coach and six at break-neck speed," she cried, "have landed at the
+door. A cavalier alights."
+
+"Time some one arrived," thought Nell, as she glanced at herself in the
+mirror, to see that Adair was well hidden, and to arrange her curls, to
+bewitch the new arrivals, whosoever they might be.
+
+As the cavalier dashed up the path, in the moonlight, Moll recognized
+the Duke of Buckingham, and at once announced his name.
+
+"Ods-pitikins!" exclaimed Charles, angrily. "No leisure for Buckingham
+now. We have other business."
+
+He had scarce spoken, however, when Buckingham, unceremoniously and
+almost breathless, entered the room.
+
+"How now?" cried the King, fiercely, as the Duke fell on his knee before
+him; for his temper had been wrought to a high pitch.
+
+"Pardon, your Majesty," besought his lordship, in nervous accents. "My
+mission will excuse my haste and interruption. Your ear I crave one
+moment. Sire, I am told Nell has to-night secreted in this house a
+lover!"
+
+"Another one!" whispered Nell to Moll.
+
+"'Tis hearsay," cried the King, now at fever-heat, "the give-and-take of
+gossips! I'll none of it."
+
+"My witness, Sire!" answered Buckingham.
+
+He turned toward the door; and there, to the astonishment of all, stood
+the Duchess of Portsmouth, who had followed him from the coach, a lace
+mantilla, caught up in her excitement, protecting her shapely shoulders
+and head.
+
+As the assembled courtiers looked upon the beautiful rivals, standing,
+as they did, face to face before the King, and realized the situation,
+their faces grew grave, indeed.
+
+The suspense became intense.
+
+"The day of reckoning's come," thought Nell, as she met with burning
+glances the Duchess's eyes.
+
+"Speak, your grace," exhorted Buckingham. "The King attends you."
+
+"Nay, before all, my lord?" protested Portsmouth, with pretended
+delicacy. "I could not do Madame Gwyn so much injustice."
+
+"If your speech concerns me," observed Nell, mildly, "out with it
+boldly. My friends will consider the source."
+
+"Speak, and quickly!" commanded Charles.
+
+"I would rather lose my tongue," still protested the Duchess, "than
+speak such words of any one; but my duty to your Majesty--"
+
+"No preludes," interrupted the King; and he meant it, too. He was done
+with trifling, and the Duchess saw it.
+
+"My servants," she said, with a virtuous look, "passing this abode by
+chance, this very night, saw at a questionable hour a strange cavalier
+entering the boudoir of Madame Gwyn!"
+
+"She would make my honour the price of her revenge," thought Nell, her
+eyes flashing. "She shall rue those words, or Adair's head and mine are
+one for naught."
+
+"What say you to this, Nell?" asked the King, the words choking in his
+throat.
+
+"Sire,--I--I--" answered Nell, evasively. "There's some mistake or
+knavery!"
+
+"She hesitates," interpolated the Duchess, eagerly.
+
+"You change colour, wench," cried Charles, his heart, indeed, again upon
+the rack. "Ho, without there! Search the house."
+
+An officer entered quickly to obey the mandate.
+
+"Stay, Sire," exclaimed Nell, raising herself to her full height, her
+hot, trembling lips compressed, her cheeks aflame. "My oath, I have not
+seen Adair's face this night."
+
+Her words fell upon the assemblage like thunder from a June-day sky. The
+King's face brightened. The Duchess's countenance grew pale as death.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ Adair!" she gasped in startled accents to Lord
+Buckingham, attendant at her side. "Could it be he my servants saw? The
+packet! Fool! Why did I give it him?"
+
+Buckingham trembled violently. He was even more startled than
+Portsmouth; for he had more to lose. England was his home and France was
+hers.
+
+"The scales are turning against us," he whispered. "Throw in this ring
+for safety. Nell's gift to Adair; you understand."
+
+He slipped, unobserved, upon the Duchess's finger the jewelled ring the
+King had given to Almahyde among the roses at the performance of
+"Granada."
+
+"Yes! Yes! 'Tis my only chance," she answered, catching at his meaning;
+for her wits were of the sharpest in intrigue and cunning, and she
+possessed the boldness too to execute her plans.
+
+She approached the King, with the confident air possessed by great women
+who have been bred at court.
+
+"Your Majesty recognizes this ring?" she asked in mildest accents.
+
+"The one I gave to Nell!" answered the astonished King.
+
+"The one Adair this night gave to me," said Portsmouth, calmly.
+
+"'Tis false!" cried Nell, who could restrain her tongue no longer. "I
+gave that ring to dear old Strings."
+
+"A rare jewel to bestow upon a fiddler," said the Duchess,
+sarcastically.
+
+"It is true," said Strings, who had wormed his way through the group at
+mention of his name and now stood the meek central figure at the strange
+hearing. "My little ones were starving, Sire; and Nell gave me the
+ring--all she had. They could not eat the gold; so I sold it to the Duke
+of Buckingham!"
+
+"We are lost," whispered Buckingham to Portsmouth, scarce audibly.
+
+"Coward!" sneered the Duchess, contemptuously. "I am not ready to sail
+for France so soon."
+
+The King stood irresolute. Events had transpired so quickly that he
+scarce knew what it was best to do. His troubled spirit longed for a
+further hearing, while his heart demanded the ending of the scene with a
+peremptory word.
+
+Before he could decide upon his course, the Duchess had swept across the
+room, with queenly grace.
+
+"Our hostess will pardon my eyes for wandering," she said, undaunted;
+"but her abode is filled with pleasant surprises. Sire, here is a piece
+of handiwork."
+
+She knelt by the couch, and drew from under it a coat of gray, one
+sleeve of which had caught her eye.
+
+Nell looked at Moll with reproving glances.
+
+"Marry, 'tis Strings's, of course," continued Portsmouth, dangling the
+coat before the wondering eyes of all. "The lace, the ruffle, becomes
+his complexion. He fits everything here so beautifully."
+
+As she turned the garment slowly about, she caught sight of a package of
+papers protruding from its inner pocket, sealed with her own seal. For
+the first time, the significance of the colour of the coat came home to
+her.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_," she cried, "Adair's coat.--The packet!"
+
+Her fingers sought the papers eagerly; but Nell's eye and hand were too
+quick for her.
+
+"Not so fast, dear Duchess," said Nell, sweetly, passing the little
+packet to his Majesty. "Our King must read these papers--and between the
+lines as well."
+
+"Enough of this!" commanded Charles. "What is it?"
+
+"Some papers, Sire," said Nell, pointedly, "given for a kiss and taken
+with a kiss. I have not had time to read them."
+
+"Some family papers, Sire," asserted the Duchess, with assumed
+indifference, "stolen from my house."
+
+She would have taken them from his Majesty, so great, indeed, was her
+boldness; but Nell again stayed her.
+
+"Aye, stolen," said Nell, sharply; "but by the hostess herself--from her
+unsuspecting, royal guest. There, Sire, stands the only thief!" She
+pointed accusingly at Portsmouth.
+
+"My signature!" cried Charles, as he ran his eye down a parchment. "The
+treaties! No more Parliaments for England. I agreed to that."
+
+"I agree to that myself," said Nell, roguishly. "England's King is too
+great to need Parliaments. The King should have a confidential adviser,
+however--not French," and she cast a defiant glance at Portsmouth, "but
+English. Read on; read on."
+
+She placed her pretty cheek as near as possible to the King's as she
+followed the letters over his shoulder.
+
+"A note to Bouillon!" he said, perusing the parchments further. "Charles
+consents to the fall of Luxembourg. I did not sign all this. I see it
+all: Louis's ambition to rule the world, England's King debased by
+promises won and royal contracts made with a clever woman--forgery mixed
+with truth. Sweet Heaven, what have I done!"
+
+"The papers have not gone, Sire," blandly remarked Nell.
+
+"Thanks to you, my Nell," said Charles. He addressed Portsmouth sharply:
+"Madame, your coach awaits you."
+
+"But, Sire," replied the Duchess, who was brave to the last, "Madame
+Gwyn has yet Adair to answer for!"
+
+"Adair will answer for himself!" cried Nell, triumphantly.
+
+She threw aside the pink gown and stood as Adair before the astonished
+eyes of all.
+
+"At your service," she said, bowing sweetly to the Duchess.
+
+"A player's trick!" cried Portsmouth, haughtily, as a parting shot of
+contempt.
+
+"Yes, Portsmouth," replied Nell, still in sweetest accents, "to show
+where lies the true and where the false."
+
+"You are a witch," hissed Portsmouth.
+
+[Illustration: "ONCE MORE YOU HAVE SAVED ME."]
+"You are the King's true love," exclaimed the Merry Monarch. "To my
+arms, Nell, to my arms; for you first taught me the meaning of true
+love! Buckingham, you forget your courtesy. Her grace wishes to be
+escorted to her coach."
+
+"_Bon voyage_, madame," said Nell, demurely, as the Duchess took
+Buckingham's arm and departed.
+
+The King's eyes fell upon the player, Hart, who was still in custody.
+
+"Away with this wretch!" he cried, incensed at his conduct. "I am not
+done with him."
+
+"Forgive him, Sire," interceded Nell. "He took his cue from Heaven, and
+good has come of it."
+
+"True, Nell," said the King, mercifully. Then he turned to Hart: "You
+are free; but henceforth act the knave only on the stage." Hart bowed
+with shame and withdrew.
+
+"Sire, Sire," exclaimed Strings, forgetting his decorum in his
+eagerness.
+
+"Well, Strings?" inquired the King, good-humouredly; for there was now
+no cloud in his sky.
+
+"Let me play the exit for the villains?" he pleaded unctuously. "The old
+fiddle is just bursting with tunes."
+
+"You shall, Strings," replied his Majesty, "and on a Cremona. From
+to-day, you lead the royal orchestra."
+
+"Odsbud," cried Strings, gleefully, "I can offer Jack Hart an
+engagement."
+
+"Just retribution, Strings," laughed Nell, happily. "Can you do as much
+for Nell, and forgive her, Sire?"
+
+"It is I who should ask your pardon, Nell," exclaimed the King,
+ecstatically, throwing both arms passionately about her. "You are
+Charles's queen; you should be England's."
+
+_So the story ends, as all good stories should, in a perfect, unbroken
+dream of love._
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+Spoken by Miss Crosman for the first time in New York at the Bijou
+Theatre on the evening of October 9, 1900:
+
+ _Good friends, before we end the play,
+ I beg you all a moment stay:
+ I warn my sex, by Nell's affair,
+ Against a rascal called Adair!_
+
+ _If lovers' hearts you'd truly scan,
+ Odsfish, perk up, and be a man!_
+
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS
+
+Original, sincere and courageous--often amusing--the kind that are
+making theatrical history.
+
+MADAME X. By Alexandre Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated with
+scenes from the play.
+
+A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not
+forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final
+influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success.
+
+THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.
+
+An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and
+love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast
+and gorgeous properties.
+
+THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace.
+
+A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary
+power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the
+warm underglow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic
+spectacle.
+
+TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard
+Chandler Christy.
+
+A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University
+student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of
+those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the
+season.
+
+YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F. R. Gruger
+and Henry Raleigh.
+
+A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of
+which is just on the safe side of a State's prison offense. As
+"Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," it is probably the most amusing expose of
+money manipulation ever seen on the stage.
+
+THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe.
+
+Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary
+adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of "A Gentleman
+of Leisure," it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers.
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S DRAMATIZED NOVELS
+
+THE KIND THAT ARE MAKING THEATRICAL HISTORY
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+WITHIN THE LAW. By Bayard Veiller & Marvin Dana Illustrated by Wm.
+Charles Cooke.
+
+This is a novelization of the immensely successful play which ran for
+two years in New York and Chicago.
+
+The plot of this powerful novel is of a young woman's revenge directed
+against her employer who allowed her to be sent to prison for three
+years on a charge of theft, of which she was innocent.
+
+WHAT HAPPENED TO MARY. By Robert Carlton Brown. Illustrated with scenes
+from the play.
+
+This is a narrative of a young and innocent country girl who is suddenly
+thrown into the very heart of New York, "the land of her dreams," where
+she is exposed to all sorts of temptations and dangers.
+
+The story of Mary is being told in moving pictures and played in
+theatres all over the world.
+
+THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM. By David Belasco, Illustrated by John Rae.
+
+This is a novelization of the popular play in which David War, field, as
+Old Peter Grimm, scored such a remarkable success.
+
+The story is spectacular and extremely pathetic but withal, powerful,
+both as a book and as a play.
+
+THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.
+
+This novel is an intense, glowing epic of the great desert, sunlit
+barbaric, with its marvelous atmosphere of vastness and loneliness.
+
+It is a book of rapturous beauty, vivid in word painting. The play has
+been staged with magnificent cast and gorgeous properties.
+
+BEN HUR. A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace.
+
+The whole world has placed this famous Religious-Historical Romance on a
+height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached. The
+clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect
+reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere
+of the arena have kept their deep fascination. A tremendous dramatic
+success.
+
+BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. By George Broadhurst and Arthur Hornblow.
+Illustrated with scenes from the play.
+
+A stupendous arraignment of modern marriage which has created an
+interest on the stage that is almost unparalleled. The scenes are laid
+in New York, and deal with conditions among both the rich and poor.
+
+The interest of the story turns on the day-by-day developments which
+show the young wife the price she has paid.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+TITLES SELECTED FROM
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST
+
+RE-ISSUES OF THE GREAT LITERARY SUCCESSES OF THE TIME
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+BEN HUR. A Tale of the Christ. By General Lew Wallace
+
+This famous Religious-Historical Romance with its mighty story,
+brilliant pageantry, thrilling action and deep religious reverence,
+hardly requires an outline. The whole world has placed "Ben-Hur" on a
+height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached. The
+clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect
+reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere
+of the arena have kept their deep fascination.
+
+THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By General Lew Wallace
+
+A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, showing, with vivid
+imagination, the possible forces behind the internal decay of the Empire
+that hastened the fall of Constantinople.
+
+The foreground figure is the person known to all as the Wandering Jew,
+at this time appearing as the Prince of India, with vast stores of
+wealth, and is supposed to have instigated many wars and fomented the
+Crusades.
+
+Mohammed's love for the Princess Irene is beautifully wrought into the
+story, and the book as a whole is a marvelous work both historically and
+romantically.
+
+THE FAIR GOD. By General Lew Wallace. A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico.
+With Eight Illustrations by Eric Pape.
+
+All the annals of conquest have nothing more brilliantly daring and
+dramatic than the drama played in Mexico by Cortes. As a dazzling
+picture of Mexico and the Montezumas it leaves nothing to be desired.
+
+The artist has caught with rare enthusiasm the spirit of the Spanish
+conquerors of Mexico, its beauty and glory and romance.
+
+TARRY THOU TILL I COME or, Salathiel, the Wandering Jew. By George
+Croly. With twenty illustrations by T. de Thulstrup
+
+A historical novel, dealing with the momentous events that occurred,
+chiefly in Palestine, from the time of the Crucifixion to the,
+destruction of Jerusalem.
+
+The book, as a story, is replete with Oriental charm and richness and
+the character drawing is marvelous. No other novel ever written has
+portrayed with such vividness the events that convulsed Rome and
+destroyed Jerusalem in the early days of Christanity.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF WESTERN LIFE
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, By Zane Grey. Illustrated by Douglas Duer.
+
+In this picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago, we are
+permitted to see the unscrupulous methods employed by the invisible hand
+of the Mormon Church to break the will of those refusing to conform to
+its rule.
+
+FRIAR TUCK, By Robert Alexander Wason. Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood.
+
+Happy Hawkins tells us, in his humorous way, how Friar Tuck lived among
+the Cowboys, how he adjusted their quarrels and love affairs and how he
+fought with them and for them when occasion required.
+
+THE SKY PILOT, By Ralph Connor.
+
+Illustrated by Louis Rhead.
+
+There is no novel, dealing with the rough existence of cowboys, so
+charming in the telling, abounding as it does with the freshest and the
+truest pathos.
+
+THE EMIGRANT TRAIL, By Geraldine Bonner. Colored frontispiece by John
+Rae.
+
+The book relates the adventures of a party on its overland pilgrimage,
+and the birth and growth of the absorbing love of two strong men for a
+charming heroine.
+
+THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER, By A. M. Chisholm.
+
+Illustrated by Frank Tenney Johnson.
+
+This is a strong, virile novel with the lumber industry for its central
+theme and a love story full of interest as a sort of subplot.
+
+A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP, By Harold Bindloss.
+
+A story of Canadian prairies in which the hero is stirred, through the
+influence of his love for a woman, to settle down to the heroic business
+of pioneer farming.
+
+JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, By Harriet T. Comstock.
+
+Illustrated by John Cassel.
+
+A story of the deep woods that shows the power of love at work among its
+primitive dwellers. It is a tensely moving study of the human heart and
+its aspirations that unfolds itself through thrilling situations and
+dramatic developments.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+THE NOVELS OF STEWART EDWARD WHITE
+
+THE RULES OF THE GAME. Illustrated by Lajaren A. Killer
+
+The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes
+into the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes into the
+romance of his life.
+
+ARIZONA NIGHTS. Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.
+
+A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the
+ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece.
+
+THE BLAZED TRAIL. With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty.
+
+A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who
+blazed his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.
+
+THE CLAIM JUMPERS. A Romance.
+
+The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills
+has a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than one.
+
+CONJUROR'S HOUSE. Illustrated Theatrical Edition.
+
+Dramatized under the title of "The Call of the North."
+
+Conjuror's House is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is
+the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on
+this forbidden land.
+
+THE MAGIC FOREST. A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated.
+
+The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life is
+treated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and open
+air. Based on fact.
+
+THE RIVERMAN. Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood.
+
+The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between
+honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the
+other.
+
+THE SILENT PLACES. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin.
+
+The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion,
+and masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct
+of the Indian, are all finely drawn in this story.
+
+THE WESTERNERS.
+
+A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best American
+novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has done
+in recent years.
+
+THE MYSTERY. In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+JOHN FOX, JR'S.
+
+STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
+
+THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.
+
+Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree
+that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine
+lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he
+finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the
+_foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant,
+and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a
+madder chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine."
+
+THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME
+
+Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
+
+This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It
+is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often
+springs the flower of civilization.
+
+"Chad," the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he
+came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood,
+seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and
+mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming waif,
+by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the
+mountains.
+
+A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.
+
+Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
+
+The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland the lair of
+moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the
+heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two
+impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's"
+charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the
+love making of the mountaineers.
+
+Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of
+Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
+
+THE HARVESTER
+
+Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who
+draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the
+book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man, with his
+sure grip on life, his superb optimism, and his almost miraculous
+knowledge of nature secrets, it would be notable. But when the Girl
+comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole sound, healthy,
+large outdoor being realizes that this is the highest point of life
+which has come to him--there begins a romance, troubled and interrupted,
+yet of the rarest idyllic quality.
+
+FRECKLES. Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford
+
+Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he
+takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great
+Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to
+the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The
+Angel" are full of real sentiment,
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
+
+Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.
+
+The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of
+the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness
+towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of
+her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and
+unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
+
+It is an inspiring story of a life worth while and the rich beauties of
+the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages.
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.
+
+Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. Design and decorations by Ralph
+Fletcher Seymour.
+
+The scene of this charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central
+Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender
+self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return,
+and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is
+brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos
+and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster. Illustrated by C. D.
+Williams.
+
+One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been
+written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable
+and thoroughly human.
+
+JUST PATTY, By Jean Webster. Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.
+
+Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious
+mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention which
+is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows.
+
+THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, By Eleanor Gates. With four full page
+illustrations.
+
+This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate children
+whose early days are passed in the companionship of a governess, seldom
+seeing either parent, and famishing for natural love and tenderness. A
+charming play as dramatized by the author.
+
+REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM, By Kate Douglas Wiggin.
+
+One of the most beautiful studies of childhood--Rebecca's artistic,
+unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand out midst a circle of
+austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal
+dramatic record.
+
+NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. Illustrated by F. C.
+Yohn.
+
+Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that
+carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday.
+
+REBECCA MARY, By Annie Hamilton Donnell. Illustrated by Elizabeth
+Shippen Green.
+
+This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque
+little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a
+pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing.
+
+EMMY LOU: Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin, Illustrated by
+Charles Louis Hinton.
+
+Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real. She
+is; just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book is
+wonderfully human.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+THE NOVELS OF CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.
+
+JEWEL: A Chapter in Her Life. Illustrated by Maude and Genevieve
+Cowles.
+
+A sweet, dainty story, breathing the doctrine of love and patience; and
+sweet nature and cheerfulness.
+
+JEWEL'S STORY BOOK. Illustrated by Albert Schmitt.
+
+A sequel to "Jewel" and equally enjoyable.
+
+CLEVER BETSY. Illustrated by Rose O'Neill.
+
+The "Clever Betsy" was a boat--named for the unyielding spinster whom
+the captain hoped to marry. Through the two Betsys a clever group of
+people are introduced to the reader.
+
+SWEET CLOVER: A Romance of the White City.
+
+A story of Chicago at the time of the World's Fair. A sweet human story
+that touches the heart.
+
+THE OPENED SHUTTERS. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.
+
+A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this
+romance. A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize,
+by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the
+blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love. A
+delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all.
+
+THE RIGHT PRINCESS.
+
+An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a
+stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve
+in her interesting home. How types so widely apart react on each other's
+lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in
+sentiment.
+
+THE LEAVEN OF LOVE. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.
+
+At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and beautiful
+but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of living--of
+tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy. The story hinges
+upon the change wrought in the soul of the blase woman by this glimpse
+into a cheery life.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS TRACY'S
+
+CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur
+whose identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery.
+
+THE STOWAWAY GIRL. Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.
+
+A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating
+officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas.
+
+THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS.
+
+Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of
+cannibals, desperate fighting and a tender romance.
+
+THE MESSAGE. Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.
+
+A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a
+buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops.
+
+THE PILLAR OF LIGHT.
+
+The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with
+exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants.
+
+THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE. With illustrations by James Montgomery
+Flagg.
+
+The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars
+of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba.
+
+A SON OF THE IMMORTALS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a
+pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne.
+
+THE WINGS OF THE MORNING.
+
+A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_ with modern setting and a
+very pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only
+survivors of a wreck, and have many thrilling adventures en their desert
+island.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+B. M. Bower's Novels
+
+Thrilling Western Romances
+
+Large 12 mos. Handsomely bound in cloth. Illustrated
+
+CHIP, OF THE FLYING U
+
+A breezy wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Della
+Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil
+Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very
+amusing. A clever, realistic story of the American Cow-puncher.
+
+THE HAPPY FAMILY
+
+A lively and amusing story, dealing with the adventures of eighteen
+jovial, big hearted Montana cowboys. Foremost amongst them, we find
+Ananias Green, known as Andy, whose imaginative powers cause many lively
+and exciting adventures.
+
+HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT
+
+A realistic story of the plains, describing a gay party of Easterners
+who exchange a cottage at Newport for the rough homeliness of a Montana
+ranch-house. The merry-hearted cowboys, the fascinating Beatrice, and
+the effusive Sir Redmond, become living, breathing personalities.
+
+THE RANGE DWELLERS
+
+Here are everyday, genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited
+action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet
+courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining story, without a dull
+page.
+
+THE LURE OF DIM TRAILS
+
+A vivid portrayal of the experience of an Eastern author, among the
+cowboys of the West, in search of "local color" for a new novel. "Bud"
+Thurston learns many a lesson while following "the lure of the dim
+trails" but the hardest, and probably the most welcome, is that of love.
+
+THE LONESOME TRAIL
+
+"Weary" Davidson leaves the ranch for Portland, where conventional city
+life palls on him. A little branch of sage brush, pungent with the
+atmosphere of the prairie, and the recollection of a pair of large brown
+eyes soon compel his return. A wholesome love story.
+
+THE LONG SHADOW
+
+A vigorous Western story, sparkling with the free, outdoor, life a
+mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of
+life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story from start to
+finish.
+
+Ask for a complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction
+
+Grosset & Dunlap, 526 West 26th St., New York
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS OF SOUTHERN LIFE
+
+By THOMAS DIXON, JR.
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+THE LEOPARD'S SPOTS: A Story of the White Man's Burden,
+1865-1900. With illustrations by C. D. Williams.
+
+A tale of the South about the dramatic events of Destruction,
+Reconstruction and Upbuilding. The work is able and eloquent and the
+verifiable events of history are followed closely in the development of
+a story full of struggle.
+
+THE CLANSMAN. With illustrations by Arthur I. Keller.
+
+While not connected with it in any way, this is a companion volume to
+the author's "epoch-making" story _The Leopard's Spots_. It is a
+novel with a great deal to it, and which very properly is going to
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+COMRADES. Illustrations by C. D. Williams.
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