The doom trail E-Book

Arthur D. Howden Smith

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

O my reader, rest a while at our Council Fire before you set your feet upon the long trail which leads into the dim regions of Ta-de, which is—or was—Yesterday.
See, we will sprinkle tobacco leaves upon the flames and on the spirals of the smoke ascending upward our words shall be carried to the ears of Ha-wen-ne-yu, the Great Spirit.
Behold, O my reader, we give you a White Belt in token that our words are straight.
That which has been is no more. We of the Ho-de-no-san-nee, the People of the Long House, are scattered so that only Ga-oh, the Old Man of the Winds, can tell where the remnants dwell. The Long House, where our women sowed and reaped and our warriors hunted, is the spoil of the white man. His roads have wiped out the trails stamped by our war parties in the days of our power. His towns have replaced our villages. He has chased the wild things into the recesses of the Adirondack hills.

Leseprobe

THE DOOM TRAIL

BY

ARTHUR D. HOWDEN SMITH

Author of "Spears of Destiny," "The Audacious Adventures of Miles McConaughy," "The Wastrel," etc.

1921

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385740474

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I The Fray in Mincing Lane II Small Talk and Mulled Ale III Before the Lords of Trade IV Five Berths on the New Venture V The Fifth Passenger VI The Opening of Hostilities VII A Truce VIII I Hear First of the Doom Trail IX The Governor in Council X The Red Death XI Ta-Wan-Ne-Ars Understands XII Into the Wilderness XIII The Trailers XIV Along the Great Trail XV Joncaire is Hospitable XVI Trapped XVII La Vierge Du Bois XVIII The Mistress of the False Faces XIX The Moon Feast XX The Argosy of Furs XXI A Scout of Three XXII Red Death and Black Death XXIII Governor Burnet is Defied XXIV An Appeal to the Long House XXV The Council of the Roy-an-ehs XXVI The Evil Wood XXVII Ga-Ha-No's Sacrifice XXVIII The Might at the Long House XXIX The Barring of the Doom Trail XXX Pearl Street to Hudson's River

PROLOGUE

O my reader, rest a while at our Council Fire before you set your feet upon the long trail which leads into the dim regions of Ta-de, which is—or was—Yesterday.

See, we will sprinkle tobacco leaves upon the flames and on the spirals of the smoke ascending upward our words shall be carried to the ears of Ha-wen-ne-yu, the Great Spirit.

Behold, O my reader, we give you a White Belt in token that our words are straight.

That which has been is no more. We of the Ho-de-no-san-nee, the People of the Long House, are scattered so that only Ga-oh, the Old Man of the Winds, can tell where the remnants dwell. The Long House, where our women sowed and reaped and our warriors hunted, is the spoil of the white man. His roads have wiped out the trails stamped by our war parties in the days of our power. His towns have replaced our villages. He has chased the wild things into the recesses of the Adirondack hills.

The Great League itself, which Da-ga-no-we-da and Ha-yo-wont-ha, the Founders, intended should live for all time, is no more than a memory locked in our breasts. The Council Fire which they kindled no longer burns at Onondaga. Gone is the Ho-yar-na-go-war, the Council of the Roy-an-ehs, whose word was supreme from the shores of the Great Lakes to the lands of the Wa-sa-seh-o-no, whom the white men call the Sioux, and the O-ya-da-ga-o-no, whom the white men name the Cherokees. The Seneca Wolves have abandoned their watch at the Western Door of the Long House which opens upon the Thunder Waters of Jagara; the Mohawk Wolves no longer guard the Eastern Door by the shores of the Ska-neh-ta-de, which the white men have renamed the Hudson.

It is meet that we should mourn. But hear us, O my reader, hear us further.

Once we were a nation. Once we were strong. Once even the white man feared us. Once it was for us to say who should rule the land outside the Long House, Frenchman or Englishman. The white men were weak then. They clamored for our aid. We chose the side of the Englishman. He triumphed.

Remember, O my reader, but for us you might not have been here to sit by our Council Fire to-night. Black Robe and de Veulle, Murray and Joncaire, would have won the struggle; the French King would have become master. All that has come to pass would never have been. The unfolding years would have told another story. But the People of the Long House cast their fortunes with Governor Burnet, who in our tongue was called Ga-en-gwa-ra-go, and Ormerod, whom the Keepers of the Faith renamed O-te-ti-ani. It was Ta-wan-ne-ars and the warriors of the Eight Clans who helped O-te-ti-ani and Corlaer, the Dutchman with the fat belly, to break down the barriers of "The Doom Trail" and overcome the "Keepers of the Trail."

Remember that, O my reader. This tale which follows is true talk. It was as it is written.

Na-ho!

THE DOOM TRAIL

I THE FRAY IN MINCING LANE

"Watch! Ho, watch!"

The words rang through the misty darkness of the narrow street. I gathered my cloak around me and skulked closer to the nearest house-wall. Could it be possible the Bow Street runners had picked up my trail again?

And a new worry assailed me. Did the cry come from in front or behind! The fog that mantled London, and which so far had stood my friend, now served to muffle the source of this sudden alarm. Which way should I turn?

"Watch! Curse the sleepy varlets!"

The houses past which I had been feeling my way came to an end. An alley branched off to the right and from its entrance echoed the click of steel—music after my own heart. The blood coursed faster in my veins. No, this could be no trap such as had awaited me ever since I had stepped from the smuggler's small boat. Here was sword-play, a welcome change from the plotting and intrigue which had sickened me.

I cast my cloak back over my shoulder and drew my sword from its sheath, as I ran over the uneven cobbles which paved the alley. Dimly I saw before me a confused huddle of figures that tussled and stamped about in the ghostly mirk of the fog.

"Hold, friend," I shouted.

"Make haste," panted a voice from the middle of the group. "Ha, you scoundrel! You pinked me then."

One man against a gang of assassins! So that was the story. It savored more of Paris than of the staid London of merchants and shop-keepers over which the Hanoverian exercised his stolid sway.

But I had scant time for philosophy. A figure detached itself from the central swarm and came lunging at me with cutlass aswing. I parried his blade and touched him in the shoulder. He bellowed for aid.

"This is no fat alderman, bullies. He wields a swift point. To me, a brace of ye."

They were on me in an instant, my first assailant in front, an assassin on either hand, slashing with hangers and cutlasses that knew no tricks of fence, but only downright force. Their former prey was left with one to handle.

"Get to his rear, one of you, fools," snarled the ruffian in command whilst he pounded at my guard.

But I backed into a handy doorway and barely managed to fend them off. And all the while the real object of their attack continued his appeals for the watch.

'Twas this which spoiled the fray for me. I could not but wonder, as I dodged and parried and thrust, what would happen if his cries should be heard and the watch appear. Would they know me? Or perchance should I have the opportunity to slip quietly away?

I stole a glance about me. Several windows had gone up along the street, and nightcapped heads protruded to add their clamor to that of my friend.

Surely— Aye, they had done it. The ruffian on my left leaped back with ear aslant toward the alley entrance.

"Quick, bullies," he yelled. "'Tis the watch!"

With a celerity that was almost uncanny they disengaged their blades and melted into the fog. Their footfalls dwindled around the corner as I detected the clumping footfalls of the approaching guardians of London's peace.

This brought me to my senses. I sheathed my sword and ran across the roadway, glancing to right and left for the best route of escape. But I reckoned without the other participant in our brawl.

"Be at ease, my master," he said in a voice which had a good thick Dorset burr in it—I liked him from that moment. It sounded so homelike; I could fairly see the rolling fields, the water meadows, the copses, all the scenes that had meant so much to me in boyhood, even the sprawling roofs and chimney stacks of Foxcroft House itself.

"I have reasons not to be at ease," I answered dryly, and would have passed him, but he clutched my arm.

"We have seen an end to the rascals," he strove to reassure me. "'Tis only the watch you hear. Hark to the jingling of their staves."

"I know that full well, my friend," I answered him, goose-flesh rising on my neck as the jingling staves and clumping feet drew nearer; and my thoughts fastened upon the dungeons of the Tower about which we had heard frequent tales at St. Germain. "But I happen to have pressing reasons for avoiding the watch."

My friend pursed his lips in a low whistle.

"So sets the wind in that quarter! Yet you came fast to my help against those cut-purses a moment back."

I laughed. The watch were all but in the alley's mouth. 'Twas idle to think of running now. Indeed, to have done so would have been to banish whatever slight chance I might have had.

"Oh, I am no highwayman," I said.

"Well, whatever you may be, you aided Robert Juggins in his peril, and 'twill be a sore pity if a Worshipful Alderman of the City may not see you through the scrutiny of a band of lazy bench-loafers."

"That is good hearing," I answered.

"Will they have your description?"

"I think not, but if they ask me to account for myself I shall be at fault. I am but lately landed from France, and I have no passport."

He pursed his lips once more in the quaint form of a low whistle.

"I begin to see. Well, my master, we will talk of your plight anon. For the present I have somewhat to say to our gallant rescuers which will put their thoughts upon other matters than young men fresh landed from France without passports to identify themselves by."

He swept a shrewd glance over me from my hat to my heels.

"There is a foreign cut to your wig that I do not like," he commented. "However, we will brazen it out. Here they come."

The watchmen rounded the corner into the alley, lanterns swinging high, staves poised.

"Ho, knaves," proclaimed a pompous voice, "stand and deliver yourselves to us."

"And who may you be?" demanded my friend.

"No friends to brawlers and disturbers of the peace, sirrah," replied the stoutest of the watchmen, stepping to the front of his fellows. "We are the duly constituted and appointed constables and watchmen of his Honor the Worshipful Lord Mayor."

"It would be nearer truth to say that you are the properly constituted and habituated sleepers and time-servers of the city," snapped my companion. "Draw nearer, and examine me."

"Be not rash, captain," quavered one of the watchmen. "He hath the appearance of a most desperate Mohock."

"Nay, sir," adjured the captain of the watch portentously, "do you approach and render yourselves to us. 'Tis not for law-breakers to order the city's watchmen how they shall be apprehended."

"You fool," said my friend very pleasantly, "if you would only trust your eyes you would see a face you have many times seen before this—aye, and shall see again in the morning before the bench of sheriffs when you plead forgiveness for your dilatory performance of the duties entrusted to you."

The watchmen were confused.

"Be cautious, my masters," pleaded the one with the quavering voice. "'Tis like enough a desperate rogue and a strong."

My friend left my side and strode forward toward the captain of the watch, who gave back a pace or two until he felt the stomachs of his followers at his back.

"How now," said he who had called himself Robert Juggins, "hold up that lantern, you, sirrah, with the shaking arm. Look into my face, lazy dogs that you are. Dost know me?"

"'Tis Master Juggins," quoth the quavering voice. "Praise be for that."

"You know me, now!" pressed Master Juggins, poking his finger into the fat figure of the captain.

"Sure, you are Master Juggins," assented that official with sullen reluctance.

"And is an alderman of the city and a cupmate of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs and the Warden of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Traders to the Western Plantations, on his way home from a meeting of his gild, within the city precincts—aye, in Mincing Lane, under the shadow of Paul's—I say am I to be held up by cut-purses, stabbed in the arm, forced to defend my very life—and then denounced and threatened with arrest by the watchmen paid by the city to protect its citizens?"

Master Juggins stopped perforce for breath.

"How say you, knaves!" he resumed. "Of what use have you been! Did you come at my call! Aye, like the sluggards you are. Have you done aught to run down the thieves and assassins who work under your noses!

"You stand here trying to prove that 'tis I, and not they, who have sought to rob myself. Go to! Ye are worthless, and I shall see that the Sheriffs and the Magistrates at Bow Street know of it."

"But, good Master Juggins," begged the captain, now thoroughly aroused to his plight, "sure you——"

"Sure I will," retorted Master Juggins, who had caught another lungful of breath. "Had it not been for this good citizen here—" he swept an arm in my direction—"it had been a corpse you would have found. So much for your diligence and courage!"

"But we will be after the scoundrels, worshipful Master Alderman," pleaded the captain.

"Aye, we shall be hard on their heels, Master Juggins," assured he of the quavery voice.

"Doubt not our diligence, worthy sir!" appealed a third.

"Can you but give us a description of the knaves!" suggested a fourth.

"Shall I do your work for you!" replied Master Juggins in his delightful Dorset burr. Zounds! How I liked the man with his broad humor, his ready courage and prompt good sense!

"Nay, but——"

"But me no buts. Be about your rounds. And if you see any hang-dog-looking rogues or homeless knaves or masterless men, do you apprehend them for the night and lodge them in the Fleet. In the morning you may let me know what you have done. I will then consider whether your belated efforts may overset your cowardice and laziness in the beginning."

"It shall be as you say, good Master Juggins," assented the captain meekly. "Which way went your assailants?"

"What! More questions?" exploded Master Juggins. "Nay, this is too much."

The watchmen turned in their tracks and herded out of the alley like bewildered cattle, all clumping boots, jingling staffs, waving lanterns and jumbled wits. My savior removed his hat and mopped his brow with a white kerchief.

"So much for that," he remarked cheerfully. "Now——"

But he was interrupted from an unexpected quarter. The captain of the watch returned alone.

"I crave your pardon, Master Juggins," he began.

"You well may," agreed Master Juggins.

"Aye; but, good sir, if you will be so kind——"

"Kind I will not be. What, sirrah, after all the insults I have listened to and being nearly murdered into the bargain?"

"No, but worshipful Master Alderman, do you but bear with me an instant. I have a thought——"

"'Tis impossible," pronounced Master Juggins solemnly.

I felt my heart warm to the man. If he was typical of the London citizens then was I glad to be quit of St. Germain and all its atmosphere of petty intrigues and Jesuitical sophistries.

"Aye, but I have," insisted the captain. "We have been warned to keep a watch for a dangerous malefactor, an enemy of the State, one Ormerod, an emissary of the Pretender who is here on an errand against the Crown."

Juggins favored me with a cursory glance of a somewhat peculiar nature. It was not exactly hostile, and yet much of the friendliness which had characterized his manner was gone.

I felt cold chills running down my back. Would he give me up? What right after all had I to expect better treatment from a total stranger, a man who had nothing to gain from shielding me? My knowledge of the world had been acquired mainly from the life of the French Court, and I may be entitled to forgiveness if I was skeptical of any man's disinterestedness of purpose. 'Twas not the way with those with whom I had been familiar.

"Go on," said Juggins coldly to the watchman, withdrawing his attention from me.

"Why, worshipful sir, there is no more to say. It is just that I thought, the attack being made upon you, a well-known citizen, it might have been——"

"And how should I know this person of whom you speak!"

"Why, sir, that I can not——"

"Be about your duties, sirrah," interrupted Master Juggins, "and pester me no longer."

The captain stumped off to where his faithful band awaited him, the several curious-minded citizens who had listened to the altercation from the vantage-point of their bedroom windows retired to resume their slumbers, and Master Juggins strode back to my side.

"Is your name Ormerod!" he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I am Harry Ormerod, once a captain of foot under the Duke of Berwick; and I formerly had the honor to be chamberlain to the man whom some people call King James the Third."

"You are a Papist?"

"No, sir."

"But you are a rebel, a conspirator against the Crown?"

"I do not expect you to believe me, of course," I answered as lightly as I could, "but I am not a rebel—in spirit or intent, at any rate—and I am not conspiring against the Crown at this moment—although I have done so in the past—and I am at this moment a fugitive from justice."

"Humph," said Master Juggins thoughtfully.

He stood there in the middle of the alley, caressing his shaven chin, heedless of the thin trickle of blood that flowed from the wound in the flesh of his left arm.

"Ormerod," he murmured. "Harry Ormerod. But surely—of course—why, you are Ormerod of Foxcroft in Dorset."

I shook my head sadly.

"No, my friend; if you know that story you must know that I was Ormerod of Foxcroft House."

Master Juggins was suddenly all animation.

"I know it well," he returned. "You and Charles, your elder brother, were both out in the '19. Charles died in Scotland, and you escaped with the remnants of the expedition to France."

"And Foxcroft House was sequestrated to the Crown," I amended bitterly.

"The Hampshire branch have it now," went on Master Juggins. "They toadied it through the Pelhams."

"Yes, —— them!"

I had forgotten my surroundings, forgotten the dingy cobbles of Mincing Lane, forgotten the strange circumstances under which I had met this strange person who seemed so intimately versed in my family history. My thoughts were back for the moment in the soft green Dorset countryside of my boyhood. I lived over again the brave days at Foxcroft when Charles had been master and I his lieutenant. But the moment passed, the memories faded, and my eyes saw again the drab buildings of the alley and the odd figure of my deliverer—whom I had first delivered.

"And you, sir," I said. "May I ask how it happens you know so much concerning the fortunes of a plain Dorset family?"

He seemed not to hear me, standing there in a brown study, and I spoke to him again sharply.

"Yes, yes; I heard," he answered, almost impatiently. "I was—But this is no place for discussion. Come with me to my house. I live in Holborn, not many minutes' walk from here."

Some trace of my feelings must have been revealed in my attitude—my face he could not have seen in the darkness—for he continued:

"You need not fear me, Master Ormerod. I mean you no harm. I could not do harm to your father's son."

"But you?" I asked. "Who are you, sir?"

He chuckled dryly.

"You know my name," he answered, "and you heard the watch acknowledge my civic dignity. For the rest—if you have spent much time in Dorset you should know a Dorset voice."

"I do that," I assented heartily, "and 'tis grateful to my ears."

"Then be content with that, sir, for a few minutes. Come, let us be on our way. I have reasons for not wishing to invite a second attack upon us."

He set off at a great pace, his head buried in his cloak collar, and I walked beside him, puzzled exceedingly.

II SMALL TALK AND MULLED ALE

Ten minutes later we stopped before a tall, gabled house of brick and timber on the near side of Holborn. My companion produced a key from his person and unlocked a heavy door which opened upon a staircase leading to the second story. The first floor was occupied by a shop. Over the window was hung a small stuffed animal, who seemed to be attempting to climb the front wall as the wind swayed him to and fro.

"Enter, Master Ormerod," said Juggins. "You are right welcome. I hope you have none of the country gentleman's scorn for the home of an honest merchant."

"A beggar must not be a chooser," I answered. "But if I were not indebted to you for my liberty I should still be glad to visit a Dorset man who knows how to fight and who remembers the woods of Foxcroft."

"Well spoken," applauded Juggins as he fastened the door behind us and lit the candle in a lantern which was ready on a shelf in the vestibule at the foot of the stairs. "So I might have expected your father's son to speak."

"That is the second time you have called me 'my father's son,'" I said. "Prithee, Master Juggins, had you acquaintance with my father?"

"Bide, bide," he replied enigmatically. "We shall settle all that anon. After you, sir."

And he ushered me up the stairs, which were hung with the skins of many kinds of animals, some of which I did not even know. At intervals, too, were suspended various savage weapons—bows, arrows and clubs—gaily painted and decorated with feathers.

The stairs gave upon a large hall, similarly decorated, and through this we passed into a comfortable chamber which stretched across the front of the house. At one side blazed a warm fire under a massive chimney-piece; candelabra shed a soft glow over thick rugs and skins, polished furniture and well-filled shelves along the walls.

Master Juggins relieved me of my cloak and hat and motioned to a deep chair in front of the fire.

"Rest yourself, Master Ormerod. Presently we shall have provender for the inner man as well."

"But your arm!" I suggested, pointing to the bloody stains on his coat sleeve. "I am not unskilled in such matters, if——"

"I doubt not, sir; but I have one at hand, I make bold to say, has forgotten more than you ever learned of cures and simples."

He went to the door by which we had entered and clapped his hands.

"Ho, Goody! Art abed after all?"

"Abed! Abed!" answered a thin, old voice that was inexpressibly sweet, with a Dorset burr that made Master Robert's sound like the twang of a Londoner. "The lad is mad! Gadding around at all hours of the night; aye, sparking in his old age, I'll be bound, with never a thought to his granny at home or the worries he pours on her head. Abed! says he. When did I ever feel the sheets, and not knowing he was warm and safe and his posset-cup where it belongs—which is in his stomach! Abed! Didst ever find——"

She stepped into the room, a quaint little figure in hodden-gray, a dainty cap perched on her wispy white hair, her brown eyes gleaming in the candle-light, the criss-crossed wrinkles of her cheeks shining like a network of fine lace. In her hands she held a tray supporting a steaming flagon and divers covered dishes of pewterware.

Juggins favored me with a humorous glance.

"Sure, I grow more troublesome year by year, granny," he said as she paused at sight of me. "Here I am come home later than ever, bringing a guest with me."

But she made no answer, and as I looked closer at her I saw that she had perceived the blood on his sleeve. She tottered in her tracks, and I jumped to take the tray from her hands. But she regained her self-command, waved me away with a nod of her head and stepped quickly across the chamber to a table by the fire.

In an instant she was at Master Juggins' side and had stripped the coat off his arm and shoulder. Then she stepped back with a sigh of relief, and for the second time looked at me.

"'Tis nothing, after all," she said. "But ever since he came back from those years amongst the savages when I had thought him dead a score of times and——"

She broke off to glance swiftly at Juggins' face.

"Who did it! Was it——"

She hesitated, and he answered before she could continue:

"Aye; it was he, granny, or minions hired by him. But enough of that for the present. You have not spoken to our guest. Who think you he is?"

"Whoever he may be, if he helped you in danger, Robert, he is a good lad and we owe him thanks."

She swept me a stately curtsey such as might have graced a court ball at Versailles.

"No, the boot is on the other leg," I protested. "'Tis I who owe gratitude to Master Juggins, for he has taken me in out of the cold and the fog—and worse dangers perhaps."

"Poor young gentleman," she said softly. "For you are gentle, young sir. I did not live my youth in gentlefolks' houses for naught, and I can see gentility when it comes before my eyes, old though they be."

"You have not asked his name," suggested Master Juggins.

She looked at us inquiringly.

"'Tis Master Ormerod."

"Ormerod! Not——"

"Aye; Master Harry."

"But he is in France!"

"Nay; he is here."

"But——"

She drew closer, and studied my features under the candles that shone from the mantel-shelf.

"Is he in danger?" she asked breathlessly.

"The watch were after him when he came to my rescue," replied Juggins.

"Yet he came."

She patted my cheek with her hand.

"That was a deed which you need never be shamed of, Master Ormerod, and you shall win free to safety, whatever it may be or wherever, if Robert and I have any wits between us."

"But, granny," protested Juggins, "he is a rebel. He has just landed from France on a mission against the Crown."

"A rebel! Against the Crown?"

Her eyes flared.

"Tut! A likely tale! And what if he has? Is he not an Ormerod? His father's son!"

She wheeled around upon me.

"Your father was Sidney Ormerod!"

"Yes," I assented dazedly.

"Are you in truth a rebel!" she demanded without giving me time to catch my breath.

"Faith, I was one."

"But are you one now!"

"Not in my own heart; but the Bow Street runners think otherwise."

"A fig for them!" she cried. "Men have little enough sense, and when you place 'em in authority they grow imbecile. Sit yourself down again, Master Ormerod, the while I set a bandage about this arm of Robert's, and then you shall have a draft of mulled ale and a dish of deviled bones and thereafterward a bed with sheets that have lain in Dorset lavender. Hath it a welcome sound to you!"

The tears came into my eyes.

"I am happier this night than I have been any time since Charles and I left Foxcroft," I said. "But pray tell me why you two, who are strangers to me, should be so interested in an outcast?"

"He does not know?" exclaimed the little old lady.

"I have told him nothing," said Juggins, smiling.

"Tut, tut," she rebuked him. "Was it well to be tight-mouthed with an Ormerod?"

"I found him in the fog out there—or rather he found me," answered Jugging humorously. "And I did not know he was this side of St. Germain."

"Well, 'tis time enough he knew he was amongst the right sort of friends," the little lady said, her fingers all the time busied in adjusting bandages to the wounded arm. "You are too young, Master Ormerod, to remember old Peter Juggins——"

A light burst upon my addled wits.

"Why, of course!" I cried. "He was steward under my father, and in his father's time before him! But you?"

"Peter was my husband," she said simply. "Robert here is our grandson. As I said, sir, it was all too long ago for you to remember; but when Peter died your father offered his place to Robert. Robert would have none of it. He had the wandering bee in his bonnet. He was young, and he must see the world. He would make his fortune, too. No life as an estate steward for him."

"And wise I was, too, granny," interjected Master Juggins. "Even you will grant that now."

"Be not too elevated by your good fortune," she retorted. "Had you followed your grandfather at Foxcroft your counsel might have restrained Master Harry and his brother from their madness——"

"I wish it might have," I said bitterly, thinking of Charles' lonely grave on a mist-draped hillside in the Scotch Highlands.

"But in that case," Master Juggins gravely pointed out, "you would not have been at hand to rescue me tonight."

"Nor would you have been getting yourself mixed into intrigues which would place you in fear of assassination," she snapped. "Have done with your foolery, Robert. Master Ormerod knows naught of his father's kindness to you."

"He shall have earnest enough of it anon," returned Juggins heartily. "But do you go on, granny. You make a brave tale-teller."

She tweaked him by the ear as if he had been a small lad, gave a final pat to the neat bandage she had fastened over his wound and continued:

"Many a gentleman would have taken in bad part such an answer to an offer made in kindness, Master Ormerod. But not your father. No, after trying all he could by fair means to dissuade Robert from his course, he asked where his fancies drifted, and then supplied him with money for the voyage to the Western Plantations and to enable him to secure a start when he entered the wilderness."

"Granny still has the Londoner's idea of New York Province," explained Juggins humorously. "'Tis a wilderness in the Western Plantations. And in New York, which has grown a fine, thriving town since we wrested it from the Dutch, they regard England as a welcome market for furs over against the side of Europe."

"'Tis north of the Virginias and this side of the French settlements in Canada, is it not!" I asked, more in politeness than in interest.

"Aye, Master Ormerod; and you could drop all of England and Scotland and Wales into it, and then go out and win new lands from the savages if you felt over-crowded."

"Y'are driving beside the point, Robert," declared the little old lady with round displeasure. "Would you seek to belittle the generosity of Master Ormerod's father? No? Then have done."

She turned to me.

"Indeed," she added, "'tis as I have told you, sir; we are greatly indebted to you. All that you see here we owe to your father's kindness. 'Twas that permitted Robert to go overseas and to set himself up as a fur-trader there and afterwards to return and establish his business down-stairs, which hath grown so that it is more than he can handle—aye, and to become in good time, as he has, Warden of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Traders to the Western Plantations. All of it, I say, we owe to you."

"All of it, granny," reaffirmed Master Juggins himself. "Y'have not made it one whit too strong for me. But now, look you, Goody, the hour is late for old folks——"

"You are not so young yourself, Robert," she remarked tartly.

"Nay, granny dear, I do not seek the last word with you," he laughed. "'Tis only that I would find out before we sleep how I may be of aid to Master Ormerod."

"Aid?" quoth she. "All that we have in the world is his, if he wants it; aye, the clothes off our backs."

She swept me another curtsey, deeper than ever—just such a one, I fancy, as she made to my mother when she brought her the housekeeper's keys.

"Good night to you, Master Ormerod. And remember, this house, poor though it be for your father's son, is to be your home until you have a better."

I rose and bowed my acknowledgments, but I could not speak. My heart was too full. Here in this bleak, unfriendly London, which had greeted me with suspicion and persecution, I had found friendship and assistance. My fortunes, at ebb an hour before, now seemed about to flow toward a happier future. It was almost too good to believe.

"I have no claim upon you, Master Juggins," I exclaimed as the door closed behind his grandmother. "Remember that. And let me not imperil for one moment two friends of my father, who revere his memory as I had not supposed any did, save myself."

He pushed me down into my chair by the fire.

"There is no question of claim, sir. 'Tis a privilege. Now do you set this glass to your lips. How tastes it?"

"Most excellent. In France they must spice their mulled drinks to make them palatable. No need to add aught to good, ripe English ale."

"You have not lost the tongue of an Englishman, Master Ormerod, and for that let us be thankful. Aye, 'tis a crotchet of mine to drink a posset of ale, fetched from a brewer in Dorset whose ways are known to me, each night before I rest. It settles the digestion—although my friends the savages in North America do protest that naught is necessary upon retiring save a long drink of clear, cold water."

"You have fought hard for the comfort I see around me?" I suggested.

"Aye, but we shall have time anon to speak of that. Do you tell me now of your present plight. Fear not to be frank with me, Master Ormerod. I do not mix in politics. I am none of your red-hot loyalists who would hang a man because he remarks that our worthy King is Hanoverian by birth. But on the other hand I'll have naught to do with these plotters who fume over the exiled Stuarts.

"The Stuarts went, sir, because they over-taxed the forbearance of a long-suffering people. They might have returned ere this, as you know, had they possessed the good sense to appreciate what their whilom people required. But they lacked that good sense, Master Ormerod, and with all deference I say to you they will never return unless they learn that lesson—and abjure Popery—very soon."

I leaned forward in my chair and interrupted him, the words bubbling from my lips.

"I could not have put neater my own feelings, Master Juggins. When I was a lad not yet of age I risked all I had for the Stuart cause. What came of it? A life of exile that might have ruined me, as it has many a better man. My family's estate was sequestrated; my outlawry was proclaimed. I have no place to lay my head, save it be by the bounty of a foreigner.

"Have I secured any moral satisfaction by these sacrifices? At first I thought I had.

"They told me it was all for the Good Cause, the Cause that some day must triumph. The man you call the Pretender—it irks my lips to brand him so, despite how I have suffered in his name—took me by the hand, made me a chamberlain at his trumpery Court. I received a commission to fight under an English prince in foreign wars, mayhap against my own land. 'Tis only accident has averted that so far.

"But when I looked closer I found that I had done nothing for my country. For this prince, whom some men call King and some Pretender, yes. But for my country, nothing."

"This made me think the harder, Master Juggins. At the beginning I had taken zest in the plots and plans which were aimed to bring about his restoration to power.

"But the longer I studied them the more insincere they became. I found my leader a catspaw of foreigners, used to undermine England's prestige. His spies were in the pay of Papists. His aims were not the good of England, but his own aggrandizement, the winning back of my country to the Pope, the furthering of France's ambitions."

Master Juggins reached over and smote me on the knee.

"Hast learned that, lad? Why, then, there's no more loyal Englishman in London!"

"So you think," I answered. "So I think. But hear me out. I brought myself to abandon my friends in France, the only friends I had. I told my feelings to a certain great gentleman who handles affairs at St. Germain. He cursed me for a turncoat, would have ordered his lackeys to flog me from the palace. I left him—in disgrace. The doors of my friends were closed to me. I thought I would make my way to England and begin a new life.

"So I applied to the English ambassador for a passport. He laughed at me. Did I think he was so innocent as to be blinded by such transparent trickery? Nay, the Pretender must seek otherwhere, for means to plant a fresh spy in England. In desperation then I sold a miniature of my mother's——"

Master Juggins held up his hand.

"Where?" he asked eagerly.

"How?" I replied, not understanding.

"Where sold you this miniature? To what dealer!"

"'Twas a Jew named Levy close by the Quai de l'Horloge."

"Good," he said with satisfaction. "It shall be recovered."

"But, Master Juggins——"

"Tush, sir," he brushed my objection aside. "'Tis naught. Some day you shall refund the money, if you wish. But I would not have you lose the miniature. I loved your lady mother, if I may say so."

I pressed his hand, and struggled for words to answer. But he would have none, and insisted that I continue my story.

"So you secured funds?" he said. "And next?"

"I bought passage from a smuggler of Dieppe, who landed me three weeks since in Sussex. I made my way to Dorset, hoping to find old friends who would help me to gain a pardon; but in Dorchester High Street I was recognized by one of my cousins who now hold Foxcroft House, and he raised a hue and cry after me, fearing no doubt that I sought to regain the estate.

"Since then I have been hunted like a beast. My last shilling was spent this morning. Tomorrow, had I escaped so long, I planned to sell my sword, and if all else failed to seek a press-gang."

"Let us thank God you heard my cries," said Juggins earnestly.

He rose from his chair, a stout, square-built man with a shrewd, weather-beaten face and a manner of authority, despite the simplicity of his demeanor and attire.

"I do," I said, "and with no lack of reverence, my friend, I also thank you."

He gave me a keen look.

"You call me friend. Do you mean the word!"

"Why not?"

"I was your father's servant," he said, and he said it so that the words were at once proud and humble.

I caught his hand in mine.

"You were his friend, too; and who am I, an outlaw without name or fortune, to set myself above a man who has prospered like you through the diligence of his own hands and brains?"

Master Juggins drew a deep breath and wrung my hand hard.

"You'll do, lad," he said. "My help would have been yours on any terms. But you have made it a glad privilege for me to help you. Doubt not we shall find a way.

"Now get you to bed. I shall have somewhat to say to you on the morrow."

III BEFORE THE LORDS OF TRADE

How long I might have slept I know not, but the pallid sun that strove to pierce the fog-reek proclaimed high noon when Master Juggins waked me. He would not listen to my protestations of regret, but directed my attention to the pile of clothes he carried over his arm.

"See, we shall make a 'prentice lad of you," he said. "I have a youth downstairs of about your build, and these are his Sunday clothes."

"But what will he do?" I asked.

"Why, purchase new gear with a right merry heart."

"And must I in truth wear these!" I demanded with some disgust as I felt their coarseness of texture.

"Aye, indeed, Master Harry."

His tone sobered.

"I have been abroad since rising," he continued, "and forgive me if I say 'twas well for you we met last night. Your cousin is come up to London, frantic with fear lest you should succeed in replacing him, and he hath pulled wires right and left, so that all are convinced you are here for no less a purpose than the murder of the King."

I cursed with a fluency conferred by two languages.

"There is no hope of a pardon now," proceeded Juggins. "I am not altogether without influence, and I had hoped— But 'tis doubly hopeless. If you were Scots or Irish, it might be done. But few of the English gentry besides you and Master Charles rose in the '19. You are a marked man, and with your cousin's interest against you 'twill be impossible even to gain a hearing for you."

"There is naught to do, then, save go back to France and the friends who now distrust me," I said bitterly.

"Never say so," remonstrated Master Juggins with energy. "I have an idea of another course which may commend itself to you. Come, don these poor garments, which will none the less cloak you with safety, and join me in granny's morningroom."

The coffee which the old lady poured us in blue-bordered china bowls put new life and hope in me. I settled back in my chair, heedless of my baggy breeches and woolen stockings, and puffed at the long clay pipe which Juggins had filled for me.

Granny Juggins gave me an approving pat on the shoulder.

"That is well, Master Harry. Worry never solved any difficulty. And now I must be going about my duties; but remember that what Robert tells you hath my endorsement."

"And what is that?" I inquired in some curiosity as the door closed behind her.

He smoked in silence for several moments.

"I am resolved to take you fully into my confidence, Master Harry," he began at last, "and I should not do so if I doubted your discretion."

"I shall strive to justify your trust," I said.

"No doubt. 'Tis a delicate matter."

He fell silent again.

"Did it not seem strange to you that such an assault as you saw last night should have been made upon an ordinary merchant?" he asked suddenly.

"I thought they meant robbery."

"Robbery! They never made a demand upon me. They meant murder."

"That is strange," I conceded.

"The truth is, lad," he went on, "I am at grips with a deadly enemy. 'Tis a curious story, concerned with high politics, great spoils of trade, intrigues of Church and State—mayhap the future of a continent. And as it happens Robert Juggins is at the hub of it.

"Do you think you would like to play a hand—on England's behalf and to checkmate the very foreign influences which sickened you of the Jacobite cause? There are reasons why I think you might be of aid to me. I need a strong arm combined with an agile mind, a mind used to French ways and the French tongue."

I would have answered, but he checked me.

"If you accept you must be prepared to fight your old friends, for the enemy I have spoken of is Jacobite at heart and works under cover for the return of the Pretender through the weakening of England and the paramount influence of France. Remember that before you commit yourself.

"You must be prepared for no half-way measures. You have seen how my enemy fights. He does not stop at assassination. If you meet him weakly you will only insure your own death. On the other hand, if your efforts are successful you will have earned gratitude from the Government which should secure your pardon."

"Even as I told you last night, Master Juggins, I am for England now," I answered. "If such a plot as you speak of is under way, then surely 'tis for loyal Englishmen to thwart it. Count me with you, I pray."

"I will," he said quietly. "Now hark to these facts. At the instance of myself and my associates in the Company of Merchant Traders to the Western Plantations, the Provincial Government of New York several years ago secured the royal assent to a law prohibiting the sale of Indian trading-goods to the French in Canada.

"Our object was twofold. The best and cheapest trading-goods are manufactured in England. If we can keep them to ourselves and compel the French to use more costly and less durable goods made on the Continent we shall be able to underbid them with the Indians. So the fur-trade will come more and more into our hands."

"Is that so important?" I asked curiously.

"'Tis all-important, lad."

Juggins leaned forward and tapped me on the knee.

"North America," he went on, "is the richest land in all the world—how rich it is or how vast no man knows. 'Twill require centuries to exploit it. Since first we colonized there we have contended with France, not only for further power, but for the actual right to breath. Our two countries can not agree to divide this domain, limitless though it be. Sooner or later one must oust the other."

"But the fur-trade?" I insisted, my curiosity now fully aroused.

"Aye; the fur-trade is the key to it all. The English settled along the more southerly seaboard, with fertile lands, have devoted themselves mainly to farming. The French in Canada, with an inclement climate, have been driven to spread out their settlements in order to find room for subsistence. The English power is limited, but compact; the French is spread all around us. Both nations supplement their farming by trading with the savages for furs, and these furs are the principal export from New York to England.

"I said the fur-trade was the key. It is so, because neither the French nor we are yet sufficiently powerful to ignore the strength of the Indian tribes. The fur-trade is the source of the savages for securing trade-goods. They will be bound closest to the country which gives them the best terms. If we can deprive the French of the ability to buy their goods as cheaply as we do, then we shall be able to trade to better advantage, with the Indians and so increase their friendship for us. At the same time the volume of the provincial trade will be increased."

"I see," I answered. "But you spoke before of a two-fold object in depriving the French of the right to obtain trade-goods through New York?"

"So I did, and that brings me to the enemy whom I mentioned. Heard you ever in Paris of one Murray—Andrew Murray!"

I shook my head.

"He hath connections with the French, and, too, with the Jacobites; but they would be well covered, no doubt. Murray owns the Provincial Fur Company of New York, which is the largest of all the trading agencies. He hath set himself deliberately to drive out of existence all the independent traders and secure the entire trade for himself. The trade with the French in Canada likewise is in his hands.

"Before the Provincial Government passed the prohibitive law of which I spoke, he carried on this trade openly, and the French traders, helped by a government subsidy, more often than not underbid our traders—using English goods, mind you, for the purpose. And then the French traders would sell their skins in the London market at a lower price than our own traders could afford to charge.

"After the passage of the law, in spite of efforts to enforce it, Murray contrived to build up a clandestine means of shipping goods to Canada, and while the French are more pressed for cheap trade-goods than they were, nevertheless they are better off than they should be, and our traders are put at a disadvantage. Now the time for which the law was passed is expired, and the Provincial Government hath enacted it again. It comes up this afternoon before the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, when Murray will petition for its rejection."

"But surely he will lose," I objected.

Juggins shook his head.

"I fear not. The best we can hope for is a compromise."

"Yet you say he is in alliance with the French and the Jacobites!"

"I say that, Master Harry, but I can not prove it. Remember, even you, who have recently come from St. Germain, had never heard of him. Moreover, he is hand in glove with the Pelhams and all the corrupt officials in Whitehall. He hath buttered many a grasping hand, and if he can secure his operations a few years longer he will have laid the groundwork for England's overthrow in the New World.

"I leave to your imagination the effect upon our people at home of a disastrous war with France at this juncture. King George is scarce settled on his throne, and so good an excuse would pave the way for the Stuarts' return."

"And Murray?"

"So ambitious a man as he must have his object in view. He could ask a dukedom—whatever he willed."

"Yes, that is true," I assented. "'Tis a dangerous plot."

Juggins looked at me keenly.

"You are still desirous to join in thwarting it!"

"More so than ever. But I see not how I can be of service to you."

"If the Lords of Trade have received the orders I expect, then you can be of great service to me and to your country. For myself, I stand in no worse plight than the loss of some small sums of money, which I can do without at need. My interest is impersonal, Master Harry, and 'tis because he knows it to be so that Murray attempted my life last night."

"Let me call him out," I urged impetuously.

Juggins laughed.

"Then would you climb Tower Hill in short order. No, lad, you are an humble 'prentice to Master Robert Juggins."

He rose.

"Come, you shall have your first lesson. You may attend me to the hearing before the Lords of Trade, and you shall carry me a bag of papers rather than a sword."

"But so I shall not aid you," I demurred.

"Aye, but you shall. I wish you to observe what passes at the hearing, and to study Murray. For if he wins his stay, as I fear he will, then it is my purpose to send you to New York for such evidence as will wreck his conspiracy."

"And I will go gladly," I said, a thrill of exultation in my heart at the bare thought of a man's part to play.

"I would I might go with you," sighed Juggins. "But I am old and fat, and granny can ill spare me. No, it calls for youth and strength. But a truce to talk. Let us to Whitehall."

He collected some documents and maps, placed them in a green string-bag and gave it to me to carry.

"And remember," he cautioned me at the door, "do you keep at least two paces behind me. Speak only when I speak to you and hold your head low and your shoulders stooped. Slouch, if you can. If any address you look stupidly at them and mumble an answer. I will explain that you are slow-witted."

But none of the men who stopped Master Juggins during our walk deigned to notice the humble 'prentice lad who followed him. I avoided all scrutiny and reached Whitehall with considerable more self-confidence than I had started with.

The Lords of Trade sat in a lofty chamber of a dirty, gray stone building over against the river. At one end was a dais with a long, closed-in desk across it. Behind this nodded my lords in periwigged majesty, five of them, two fat and pompous, one small and birdlike, one tall and cadaverous and one who looked like nothing at all.

"That is Tom Pelham," whispered Master Juggins, pointing at the last as we took our seats.

But I had already transferred my gaze to an extraordinary creature who stood by a window on the opposite side of the room. It was a black man, squat and enormously broad, whose long, powerful arms reached almost to the floor. He had a square, woolly head, with little, pig-eyes that were studying the people in the room with a kind of animal cunning.

As I watched him, fascinated, his eyes found my face and he surveyed me, apparently without any human interest whatsoever, but as a wild beast might consider a fat stag when too full to care about a kill. He was dressed in a bright-red livery coat with gold lace, and the cocked hat which he held was covered with silver embroidery.

I felt Juggins tugging at my arm.

"Do you see him?" he whispered.

I shuddered involuntarily, whilst the beady, pig-eyes gloated over me.

"I never saw anything so hideous in my life," I answered.

Juggins laughed, as his eyes followed mine.

"No, I meant not the negro. 'Twas Murray I spoke of. He sits several seats farther on."