“To-morrow she goes to Oxford with the queen.  She is not happy, Ramsay.  She says she feels like a caged bird.  Ramsay, why did she love that north land where the wicked Frenchman took her?”

“I don’t know, Rebecca.  She once said it was strong and pure and free.”

“Did you see her oft, Ramsay?”

“No, Rebecca; only at dinner on Sundays.”

“And—­and—­all the officers were there on the Sabbath?”

“All the officers were there!”

She sat silent, eyes downcast, thinking.

“Ramsay?”

“Well?”

“Hortense will be marrying some grand courtier.”

“May he be worthy of her.”

“I think many ask her.”

“And what does Mistress Hortense say?”

“I think,” answers Rebecca meditatively, “from the quantity of love-verse writ, she must keep saying—­No.”

Then Lady Kirke turns to bid us all go to the Duke’s Theatre, where the king’s suite would appear that night.  Rebecca, of course, would not go.  Her father would be expecting her when he came home, she said.  So Pierre Radisson and I escorted Lady Kirke and her daughter to the play, riding in one of those ponderous coaches, with four belaced footmen clinging behind and postillions before.  At the entrance to the playhouse was a great concourse of crowding people, masked ladies, courtiers with pages carrying torches for the return after dark, merchants with linkmen, work folk with lanterns, noblemen elbowing tradesmen from the wall, tradesmen elbowing mechanics; all pushing and jostling and cracking their jokes with a freedom of speech that would have cost dear in Boston Town.  The beaux, I mind, had ready-writ love-verses sticking out of pockets thick as bailiffs’ yellow papers; so that a gallant could have stocked his own munitions by picking up the missives dropped at the feet of disdainfuls.  Of the play, I recall nothing but that some favourite of the king, Mary Davies, or the famous Nell, or some such an one, danced a monstrous bold jig.  Indeed, our grand people, taking their cue from the courtiers’ boxes, affected a mighty contempt for the play, except when a naughty jade on the boards stepped high, or blew a kiss to some dandy among the noted folk.  For aught I could make out, they did not come to hear, but to be heard; the ladies chattering and ogling; the gallants stalking from box to box and pit to gallery, waving their scented handkerchiefs, striking a pose where the greater part of the audience could see the flash of beringed fingers, or taking a pinch of snuff with a snap of the lid to call attention to its gold-work and naked goddesses.

“Drat these tradespeople, kinsman!” says Lady Kirke, as a fat townsman and his wife pushed past us, “drat these tradespeople!” says she as we were taking our place in one of the boxes, “’tis monstrous gracious of the king to come among them at all!”

Methought her memory of Sir John’s career had been suddenly clipped short; but Pierre Radisson only smiled solemnly.  Some jokes, like dessert, are best taken cold, not hot.