“Yes——­”

“You mind I told her—­I warned the saucy miss to give more heed to the men—­to remember what it might mean to us——­”

“Yes,” adds Madame Radisson, “and she said she hated the court——­”

“Faugh!” laughs Lady Kirke, fussing and fuming and shifting her place like a peacock with ruffled plumage, “pride before the fall—­I’ll warrant, you men spoiled her in the north!  Very fine, forsooth, when a pauper wench from no one knows where may slight the first ladies of the land!”

“Madame,” said I, “you are missing the play!”

“Master Stanhope,” said she, “the play must be marvellous moving!  Where is your colour of a moment ago?”

I had no response to her railing.  It was as if that look of Hortense had come from across the chasm that separated the old order from the new.  In the wilderness she was in distress, I her helper.  Here she was of the court and I—­a common trader.  Such fools does pride make of us, and so prone are we to doubt another’s faith!

“One slight was enough,” Lady Kirke was vowing with a toss of her head; and we none of us gave another look to the royal boxes that night, though all about the wits were cracking their jokes against M. Radisson’s “Medusa locks,” or “the king’s idol, with feet of clay and face of brass,” thereby meaning M. Radisson’s moccasins and swarth skin.  At the door we were awaiting M. Radisson’s return when the royal company came out.  I turned suddenly and met Hortense’s eyes blazing with a hauteur that forbade recognition.  Beside her in lover-like pose lolled that milliners’ dummy whom we had seen humbled in the morning.

Then, promising to rejoin Pierre Radisson at the Fur Company’s offices, I made my adieux to the Kirkes and flung out among those wild revellers who scoured London streets of a dark night.

[1] The old expression which the law compelled before throwing slops in mid-street.

CHAPTER XXV

JACK BATTLE AGAIN

The higher one’s hopes mount the farther they have to fall; and I, who had mounted to stars with Hortense, was pushed to the gutter by the king’s dragoons making way for the royal equipage.  There was a crackling of whips among the king’s postillions.  A yeoman thrust the crowd back with his pike.  The carriages rolled past.  The flash of a linkman’s torch revealed Hortense sitting languid and scornful between the foreign countess and that milliner’s dummy of a lieutenant.  Then the royal carriages were lost in the darkness, and the streets thronged by a rabble of singing, shouting, hilarious revellers.

Different generations have different ways of taking their pleasure, and the youth of King Charles’s day were alternately bullies on the street and dandies at the feet of my lady disdainful.  At the approach of the shouting, night-watchmen threw down their lanterns and took to their heels.  Street-sweeps tossed their brooms in mid-road with cries of “The Scowerers!  The Scowerers!” Hucksters fled into the dark of side lanes.  Shopkeepers shot their door-bolts.  Householders blew out lights.  Fruit-venders made off without their baskets, and small urchins shrieked the alarm of “Baby-eaters!  Baby-eaters!”