Emerson Hough

“ Mary Connynge stood, her eyes glancing from one to the other of the men before her. She had seen them both proved brave men, strong of arm, undaunted of heart, both gallant gentlemen. God, who makes the Mary Connynges of this earth, only can tell whether or not there arose in the heart of this savage woman, this woman at bay, scorned, rebuked, mastered, this one question: Which? If Mary Connynge hated John Law, or if she loved him—ah! how must have pulsed her heart in agony, or in bitterness, as she took into her hand those lots which were the arbiters of life and death! ”

“ More than one giant form was outlined in the broad stream, vessels tall and ghost-like in the gloom, shadowy, suggestive, bearing imprint and promise of far lands across the sea.
Here was the initial point of England's greatness. Here on this heavy stream had her captains taken ship. Thence had sailed her admirals to encompass all the world. In these dark massed shadows, how much might there not be of fate and mystery! Whither might not these vessels carry one! To France, to the far-off Indies, to the new-owned islands, to America with its little half-grown ports. ”

“ My God! 'tis then, it seems to me, a woman would most swiftly fly to the man she loved."
John Law turned slowly toward her, his eyes scanning her closely from top to toe, noting the heaving of her bosom, the sparkling of her gold-colored eye, now darkened and half ready to dissolve in tears. He stood as though he were a judge, weighing the evidence before him, calmly, dispassionately.
"Would you do so much as that, Mary Connynge?" asked John Law.
"I, sir?" she replied. "Then why am I here to-night myself? But, God pity me, what have I said? There is nothing but misfortune in all my life!" ”

“ If you could but believe that there is none on earth values these less than my brother. Under all this he has yet greater dreams. His ambition is to awaken an old world and to build a new one. By heaven! Lady Catharine, I am asked to speak for my brother, and so I shall! These are his ambitions. First of all, Lady Catharine, you. Second, America. Third, a people for America—a people who may hope! Oh, I admit all the folly of his life. He played deep, yet 'twas but to forget you. He drank, but 'twas to forget you. Foolish he was, as are all men. Now he succeeds, and finds he can not forget you. ”

“ You, who scouted her, who left her, who took up with the lewdest woman in all Great Britain, as it now appears—you who would consort with this creature—"
"In this matter," said John Law, simply, "you are not my prisoner, and I beg you to speak frankly. It shall be man and man between us."
"How you could have stooped to such baseness is what mortal man can never understand," resumed Sir Arthur, bitterly. "Good God! to abandon a woman like that so heartlessly—"
"Sir Arthur," said John Law, his voice trembling, "I do myself the very great pleasure of telling you that you lie!" ”

“ There was no triumph in his gaze. Perhaps John Law had prescience of the future.
"Oh, sir, I had far liefer I had never seen you," cried Catharine Knollys, bending a head from whose eyes there dropped sudden tears.
"Ah, dear heart, say anything but that!"
"'Tis a hard way a woman must travel at best in this world," murmured the Lady Catharine, with wisdom all unsuited to her youth. "But I can not understand. I had thought that the coming of a lover was a joyous thing, a time of happiness alone." ”

“ Has my friend become constable? Is Sir Arthur a spy? Because, look you, this is not London, nor yet New France, nor Albany. This is Messasebe! This is my valley. I rule here. Now, if kings, or constables, or even spies, wish to find John Law—why, here is John Law. Now watch your people, and go you carefully here, else that may follow which will be ill extinguished."
Pembroke flung down his sword upon the ground in front of him.
"You are lucky, Mr. Law," said he, "lucky as ever. But surely, never was man so eminently deserving of death as yourself." ”

“ Paris, city of delights, Paris drunk with gold, mad with the delirium of excesses, Paris with no aim except joy, no method but extravagance, held within her gilded gates one citadel of sensuality which remained ever an object of mystery, a source of curiosity even in that dissipated and pleasure-sated city. In the Palais Royal, back of the regally beautiful gardens, back of the noble rows of trees, beyond the gates of iron and the guards in uniform, lived France's regent, in a city of libertines the prince of libertines. ”

“ There, rippling and rolling under the breeze, as though itself the arm of some great sea, they saw a majestic flood, whose real nature and whose name each man there knew on the instant and instinctively.
"Messasebe! Messasebe!" broke out the voices of the paddlers.
"Stop the paddles!" cried Du Mesne. "Voilà!"
John Law rose in the bow of the boat and uncovered his head. It was a noble prospect which lay before him. His was the soul of the adventurer, quick to respond to challenge. ”

“ Lady Catharine Knollys, left alone, gazed upon the sleeper. John Law, the failure, lay there, supine, abased, cast-down, undone, shorn utterly of his old arrogance of mind and mien. Fortune, wealth, even the boon of physical well-being—all had fled from him. The pride of a superb manhood had departed from the lines of this limp figure. The cheeks were lined and sunken, the eye, even had the lid not covered it, lacked the late convincing fire. No longer commanding, no longer strong, no longer gay and debonair, he lay, a man whose fate was failure, as he himself had said. ”

“ Look! 'Tis not for me as I am. No man deserves aught for himself. But find in my heart, Lady Catharine, that other self, the man I might have been! Dear heart, I beseech you, look!"
Impulsively, he even tore apart the front of his coat, as though indeed to invite such scrutiny. He stood before her, trembling, choking. The passion of his speech caused the color again to rush to the Lady Catharine's face. For a moment her bosom rose and fell tumultuously, deep answering as of old unto deep, in the ancient, wondrous way.
"Is it the part of manhood to persecute a woman, Mr. Law?" ”

“ Foolish or wise, she was as she was; since, under our frail society, life is as it is.
Only at night, on those nights when she was sleepless on her own couch beneath the roof of Catharine Knollys, did Mary Connynge allow herself to think. Tell, then, ye who may, whether or not she was a mere survival of some forgotten day of the forest and the glade, as she lay with her hands clasped in brief moments of emotion. Surely she hoped, as all women hope who love, that this might endure for her forever. ”

“ Their silks and velvets have blossomed out, even as Paris has blossomed since the death of Louis the Grand. Jabots of lace are shown in full abundance, and so far from the abolishment of jewels from their garb, rubies, sapphires, diamonds sparkle everywhere, from the clasp of the high ruffles of the neck to the buckles of the red-heeled shoes. Powder sparkles on the head coverings of these new gallants of France. ”

“ Tell me, as regent of France, as master of Paris, as guardian of the rights of this young king, as controller of the finances of France, as savior or destroyer of the welfare of these people of France and of that America which is greater than this France—tell me, what will you do, your Grace? What do you suggest as remedy?"
"You devil! you arch fiend!" exclaimed the regent, starting up and laying his hand on his sword. "There is no punishment you do not deserve! ”

“ Back I go to Canada, to America, to the woods and streams. I would see again my ancient Du L'hut, and my comrade Pierre Noir, and Tête Gris, the trapper from the Mistasing—free traders all. Life is there for the living, my comrades. This Old World, small and outworn, no more of it for me."
"And why came you back to this little Old World of ours, an you loved the New World so much?" asked the cynical voice of him who had been called Wilson.
"By the body of God!" cried Du Mesne, "think ye I came of my own free will? Look here, and find your reason." ”

“ England or France, indeed—ah, Monsieur L'as, Monsieur L'as!"
"Your own city of New Orléans, Sire, will lie at the gate of a realm greater than all France. Your Grace will hand to the young king, when he shall come of age, a realm excellently worth the ownership of any king."
"You say rich. In what way?" asked the regent. "We have not had so much of returns after all. Look at Crozat? Look at—"
"Oh fie, Crozat! Your Grace, he solved not the first problem of real commerce. He never dreamed the real richness of America." ”

“ He found the Lady Catharine Knollys changed from a light-hearted girl to a maiden tall, grave, reserved and sad, offering no reproaches, listening to no protestations. Told of Sir Arthur Pembroke's horrible death, she wept with tears which his survivor envied. Told at length of the little child, she sat wide-eyed and silent. Approached with words of remorse, with expostulations, promises, she shrank back in absolute horror, trembling, so that in very pity the wretched young man left her and found his way out into a world suddenly grown old and gray. ”

“ As a man of honor I can not deny them. They shall have every jot and stiver of the property of John Law, even the million or so of good coin which he brought here to Paris with him. The coat on my back, the wheels beneath me, gold enough to pay for the charges of the inns through France—that is all that John Law will take away with him."
The arms of the old servant fell helpless at his side. "Sir, this is madness," he expostulated.
"Not so, Henri," replied Law, leniently. "Madness enough there has been in Paris, it is true, but madness not mine nor of my making. For madness, look you yonder." ”

“ That this delirious softening of all her senses meant danger, the Lady Catharine could not deny. Yet could aught of earth be wrong when it spelled such happiness, such sweetness—when the sound of a footfall sent her blood going the faster, when the sight of a tall form, the ring of a vibrant tone, caused her limbs to weaken, her throat to choke?
But ah! whence and why this spell, this sorcery—why this sweetness filling all her being, when, after all, duty and seemliness bade it all to end, as end it must, to-day? Thus had the Lady Catharine reflected but the hour before John Law came ”

“ This spot, so wild, so remote, so significant—it was home for these voyageurs as much as any; as much, too, for Law and the woman who lay back, pale-faced and wide-eyed, among the bales in the great canoe.
In time the graceful craft approached the beach, on which the long waves rolled and curled, now gently, now with imposing force. With the water yet half-leg deep, Du Mesne and two of the paddlers sprang bodily overboard and held the boat back from the pebbles, so that its tender shell might not be damaged. ”

“ John Law was in London on no such blind quest as he had himself declared. He was here by the invitation, secret yet none the less obligatory, of Montague, controller of the financial policy of England. And he was to meet, here upon this fair morning, none less than my Lord Somers, keeper of the seals; none less than Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest mathematician of his time; none less than John Locke, the most learned philosopher of the day. ”

“ The door opened, admitting a still greater blaze of light, and there swept into the hall, as though swimming upon the flood of this added brilliance, a figure striking enough to arouse attention even at that time and place, even among the beauties of the court of France. There advanced, calm and stately, with the gliding ease of a perfect carriage, the figure of a woman, slender, with full bright eyes and somber hair—so much might be seen at a glance. Yet the newcomer left somewhat of query in the mind of womankind accustomed to view in detail any costume. ”

“ From time to time, as was well known, Law returned to England. He heard of the Lady Catharine Knollys, as might easily be done in London; heard of her as a young woman kind of heart, soft of speech, with tenderness for every little suffering thing; a beautiful young woman, whose admirers listed scores; but who never yet, even according to the eagerest gossip of the capital, had found a suitor to whom she gave word or thought of love. ”

“ The beseeching gaze of an eye singular in its power rested on the girl, a gaze filled with all the strange, half mandatory pleading of youth and yearning. Once more there came a shift in the tidal currents of the woman's heart. The Lady Catharine slowly became conscious of a delicious helplessness, of a sinking and yielding which she could not resist. Her head lost power to be erect. It slipped forward on a shoulder waiting as by right. Her breath came in soft measure, and unconsciously a hand was raised to touch the cheek pressed down to hers. John Law kissed her once upon the lips. ”

“ The bales and bundles of this bivouac belonged to John Law, bought by gold from the gaming tables of Montréal and Quebec, and ventured in the one great hazard which appealed to him most irresistibly, the hazard of life and fortune in a far land, where he might live unneighbored, and where he might forget. Gambler in England, gambler again in New France, now trading fur-merchant and voyageur, he was, as always, an adventurer. Du Mesne and his hardy crew hailed him already as a new captain of the trails, a new coureur, won from the Old World by the savage witchery of the New. ”

“ At the right of Montague, grave, silent, impassive, now and again turning a contemplative eye about him, sat that great man. Sir Isaac Newton, known then to every nobleman, and now to every schoolboy, of the world. A gem-like mind, keen, clear, hard and brilliant, exact in every facet, and forsooth held in the setting of an iron body. Gentle, unmoved, self-assured, Sir Issac Newton was calm as morn itself as he sat in readiness to give England the benefit of his wisdom. ”

“ He shall not be set free! He shall not go away, to belong, at any time, in any part, to any other woman! Though he die, yet shall he love me to the end; me, Mary Connynge, and no other woman!"
Now, under this same roof of Knollys, separated by but a few yards of space, there lay another woman, thinking also of this convict behind the prison bars. But this was a woman of another and a nobler mold. Into the heart of Catharine Knollys there came no mere mad selfishness of desire, yearn though she did in every fiber of her being since that first time she felt the mastering kiss of love. ”