The Mississippi Bubble | Page 3

their nightly party.
"I have not been in London a fortnight since my escape," said the man with the brand. "I was none the less once a good servant of Louis in New France, for that I found many a new tribe and many a bale of furs that else had never come to the Mountain for the robbery of the lying officers who claim the robe of Louis. I was a soldier for the king as well as a traveler of the forest. Was I not with the Le Moynes and the band that crossed the icy North and destroyed your robbing English fur posts on the Bay of Hudson? I fought there and helped blow down your barriers. I packed my own robe on my back, and walked for the king, till the raquette thongs cut my ankles to the bone. For what? When I came back to the settlements at Quebec I was seized for a coureur de bois, a free trader. I was herded like a criminal into a French ship, sent over seas to a French prison, branded with a French iron, and set like a brute to pull without reason at a bar of wood in the king's galleys--the king's hell!"
"And yet you are a Frenchman," sneered Wilson.
"Yet am I not a Frenchman," cried the other. "Nor am I an Englishman. I am no man of a world of galleys and brands. I am a man of America!"
"'Tis true what he says," spoke Pembroke. "'Tis said the minister of Louis was feared to keep these men in the galleys, lest their fellows in New France should become too bitter, and should join the savages in their inroads on the starving settlements of Quebec and Montr��al."
"True," exclaimed Du Mesne. "The coureurs care naught for the law and little for the king. As for a ruler, we have discovered that a man makes a most excellent sovereign for himself."
"And excellent said," cried Castleton.
"None of ye know the West," went on the coureur. "Your Virginia, we know well of it--a collection of beggars, prostitutes and thieves. Your New England--a lot of cod-fishing, starving snivelers, who are most concerned how to keep life in their bodies from year to year. New France herself, sitting ever on the edge of an icy death, with naught but bickerings at Quebec and naught but reluctant compliance from Paris--what hath she to hope? I tell ye, gentlemen, 'tis beyond, in the land of the Messasebe, where I shall for my part seek out my home; and no man shall set iron on my soul again."
He spoke bitterly. The group about him, half amused, half cynical and all ignorant, as were their kind at this time of the reign of William, were none the less impressed and thoughtful. Yet once more the sneering voice of Wilson broke in.
"A strange land, my friend," said he, "monstrous strange. Your unicorns are great, and your women are little. Methinks to give thy tale proportion thou shouldst have shown shoon somewhat larger."
"Peace! Beau," said Castleton, quickly. "As for the size of the human foot--gad! I'll lay a roll of louis d'or that there's one dame here in London town can wear this slipper of New France."
"Done!" cried Wilson. "Name the one."
"None other than the pretty Lawrence whom thou hast had under thine ancient wing for the past two seasons."
The face of Wilson gathered into a sudden frown at this speech. "What doth it matter"--he began.
"Have done, fellows!" cried Pembroke with some asperity. "Lay wagers more fit at best, and let us have no more of this thumb-biting. Gad! the first we know, we'll be up for fighting among ourselves, and we all know how the new court doth look on that."
"Come away," laughed Castleton, gaily. "I'm for a pint of ale and an apple; and then beware! 'Tis always my fortune, when I come to this country drink, to win like a very countryman. I need revenge upon Lady Betty and her lap-dog. I've lost since ever I saw them last."
CHAPTER II
AT SADLER'S WELLS
Sadler's Wells, on this mild and cheery spring morning, was a scene of fashion and of folly. Hither came the elite of London, after the custom of the day, to seek remedy in the reputed qualities of the springs for the weariness and lassitude resultant upon the long season of polite dissipations which society demanded of her votaries. Bewigged dandies, their long coats of colors well displayed as they strutted about in the open, paid court there, as they did within the city gates, to the powdered and painted beauties who sat in their couches waiting for their servants to bring out to them the draft of which they craved healing for crow's-feet and hollow eyes. Here and there traveling merchants called their wares, jugglers