The Mississippi Bubble Part 10

"Will! Will Law, I say, come out!" called he. "What mad trick is this?

What--"

He saw indeed the face of Will Law inside the carriage, a face pale, melancholy, and yet firm.

"Get you back into the city!" cried Will Law. "This is no place for you, Jack."

"Boy! Are you mad, entirely mad?" cried Law, pus.h.i.+ng his way directly into the carriage and reaching out with an arm of authority for the sword which he saw resting beside his brother against the seat. "No place for me! 'Tis no place for you, for either of us. Turn back. This foolishness must go no further!"

"It must go on now to the end," said Will Law, wearily. "Mr. Wilson's carriage is long past due."

"But you--what do you mean? You've had no hand in this. Even had you--why, boy, you would be spitted in an instant by this fellow."

"And would not that teach you to cease your mad pranks, and use to better purpose the talents G.o.d hath given you? Yours is the better chance, Jack."

"Peace!" cried John Law, tears starting to his eyes. "I'll not argue that. Driver, turn back for home!"

The coachman at the box touched his hat with a puzzled air. "I beg pardon, sir," said he, "but I was under orders of the gentleman inside."

"You were sent for Mr. John Law."

"For Mr. Law--"

"But I am John Law, sirrah!"

"You are both Mr. Law? Well, sir, I scarce know which of you is the proper Mr. Law. But I must say that here comes a coach drove fast enough, and perhaps this is the gentleman I was to wait for, according to the first Mr. Law, sir."

"He is coming, then," cried John Law, angrily. "I'll see into this pretty meeting. If this devil's own fool is to have a crossing of steel, I'll fair accommodate him, and we'll look into the reasons for it later.

Sit ye down! Be quiet, Will, boy, I say!"

Law was a powerful man, over six feet in height. The sports of the Highlands, combined with much fencing and continuous play in the tennis court, indeed his ardent love for every hardy exercise, had given his form alike solid strength and great activity. "Jessamy Law," they called him at home, in compliment of his slender though full and manly form.

Cool and skilful in all the games of his youth, as John Law himself had often calmly stated, in fence he had a knowledge amounting to science, a knowledge based upon the study of first principles. The intricacies of the Italian school were to him an old story. With the single blade he had never yet met his master. Indeed, the thought of successful opposition seemed never to occur to him at all. Certainly at this moment, angered at the impatient insolence of his adversary, the thought of danger was farthest from his mind. Stronger than his brother, he pushed the latter back with one hand, grasping as he did so the small-sword with which the latter was provided. With one leap he sprang from the carriage, leaving Will half dazed and limp within.

Even as he left the carriage step, he found himself confronted with an adversary eager as himself; for at that instant Beau Wilson was hastening from his coach. Vain, weak and pompous in a way, yet lacking not in a certain personal valor, Beau Wilson stopped not for his seconds, tarried not to catch the other's speech, but himself strode madly onward, his point raised slightly, as though he had lost all care and dignity and desired nothing so much as to stab his enemy as swiftly as might be.

It would have mattered nothing now to this Highlander, this fighting Argyll, what had been the reason animating his opponent. It was enough that he saw a weapon bared. Too late, then, to reason with John Law, "Beau" Law of Edinboro', "Jessamy" Law, the best blade and the coolest head in all the schools of arms that taught him fence.

For a moment Law paused and raised his point, whether in query or in salute the onlookers scarce could tell. Sure it was that Wilson was the first to fall into the a.s.sault. Scarce pausing in his stride, he came on blindly, and, raising his own point, lunged straight for his opponent's breast. Sad enough was the fate which impelled him to do this thing.

It was over in an instant. It could not be said that there was an actual encounter. The side step of the young Highlander was soft as that of a panther, as quick, and yet as full of savagery. The whipping over of his wrist, the gliding, twining, clinging of his blade against that of his enemy was so swift that eye could scarce have followed it. The eye of Beau Wilson was too slow to catch it or to guard. He never stopped the _riposte_, and indeed was too late to attempt any guard.

Pierced through the body, Wilson staggered back, clapping his hands against his chest. Over his face there swept a swift series of changes.

Anger faded to chagrin, that to surprise, surprise to fright, and that to gentleness.

"Sir," said he, "you've hit me fair, and very hard. I pray you, some friend, give me an arm."

And so they led him to his carriage, and took him home a corpse. Once more the code of the time had found its victim.

Law turned away from the coach of his smitten opponent, turned away with a face stern and full of trouble. Many things revolved themselves in his mind as he stepped slowly towards the carriage, in which his brother still sat wringing his hands in an agony of perturbation.

"Jack, Jack!" cried Will Law, "Oh, heavens! You have killed him! You have killed a man! What shall we do?"

Law Raised his head and looked his brother in the face, but seemed scarce to hear him. Half mechanically he was fumbling in the side pocket of his coat. He drew forth from it now a peculiar object, at which he gazed intently and half in curiosity, It was the little beaded shoe of the Indian woman, the very object over which this ill-fated quarrel had arisen, and which now seemed so curiously to intermingle itself with his affairs.

"'Twas a slight s.h.i.+eld enough," he said slowly to himself, "yet it served. But for this little piece of hide, methinks there might be two of us going home to-day to take somewhat of rest."

CHAPTER XII

FOR FELONY

Late in the afternoon of the day following the encounter in Bloomsbury Square, a little group of excited loiterers filled the entrance and pa.s.sage way at 59 Bradwell Street, the former lodgings of the two young gentlemen from Scotland. The motley a.s.semblage seemed for the most part to make merry at the expense of a certain messenger boy, who bore a long wicker box, which presently he s.h.i.+fted from his shoulder to a more convenient resting place on the curb.

"Do 'ee but look at un," said one ancient dame. "He! he! Hath a parcel of fine clothes for the tall gentleman was up in third floor! He! he!

Clothes for Mr. Law, indeed!"

"Fine clothes, eh?" cried another, a portly dame of certain years. "Much fine clothes he'll need where he'm gone."

"Yes, indeed, that he will na. Bad luck 'twas to Mary Cullen as took un into her house. Now she's no lodging money for her rooms, and her lodgers be both in Newgate; least ways, one of un."

"Ah now, 'tis a pity for Mary Cullen, she do need the money so much--"

"Shut ye all your mouths, the lot o' you," cried Mary Cullen herself, appearing at the door. "'Tis not she is needing the little money, for she has it right here in the corner of her ap.r.o.n. Every stiver Mary Cullen's young men said they'd pay they paid, like the gentlemen they were. I'll warrant the raggle of ye would do well to make out fine as Mary Cullen hath."

"Oh now, is that true, Mary Cullen?" said a voice. "'Twas said that these two were n.o.ble folk come here for the sport of it."

"What else but true? Do you never know the look of gentry? My fakes, I'll warrant the young gentleman is back within a fortnight. His brother, the younger one, said to me hisself but this very morn, his brother was hinnocent as a child; that he was obliged to strike the other man for fear of his own life. Now, what can judge do but turn un loose? Four sovereigns he gave me this very morn. What else can judge do but turn un free? Tell me that, now!"

"Let's see the fine clothes," said the first old lady to the apprentice boy, reaching out a hand and pulling at the corner of the box-lid. The youth was nothing loath to show, with professional pride, the quality of his burden, and so raised the lid.

"Land save us! 'Tis gentry sure enough they are," cried the inquisitive one. "Do-a look in there! Such clothes and laces, such a brand new wig, such silken hose! Law o' land! Must have cost all of forty crowns. Mary Cullen, right ye are; 'twas quality ye had with ye, even if 'twas but for little while."

"And them gone to prison, him on trial for his life! I saw un ride out this very yesterday, fast as though the devil was behind un, and a finer body of a man never did I look at in my life. What pity 'tis, what pity 'tis!"

"Well," said the apprentice, with a certain superiority in his air. "I dare wait no longer. My master said the gentleman was to have the clothes this very afternoon. So if to prison he be gone, to prison must I go too." Upon which he set off doggedly, and so removed one of the main causes for the a.s.semblage at the curb.

The apprentice was hungry and weary enough before he reached the somber portals, yet his insistence won past gate-keeper and turnkey, one after another, till at length he reached the jailer who adjudged himself fit to pa.s.s upon the stolid demand that the messenger be admitted with the parcel for John Law, Esquire, late of Bradwell Street, marked urgent, and collect fifty sovereigns. The humor of all this appealed to the Jailer mightily.

"Send him along," he said. And the boy came in, much dismayed but still faithful to his trust.

"Please, sir," said the youth, "I would know if ye have John Law, Esquire, in this place; and if so, I would see him. Master said I was not to bring back this parcel till that I had seen John Law, Esquire, and got from him fifty sovereigns. 'Tis for his wedding, sir, and the clothes are of the finest."

The jailer smiled grimly. "Mr. Law gets presents pa.s.sing soon," said he.

"Set down your box. It might be weapons or the like."

"Some clothes," said the apprentice. "Some very fine clothes. They are of our best."

"Ha! ha!" roared the jailer. "Here indeed be a pretty jest. Much need he'll have of fine clothes here. He'll soon take his coat off the rack like the rest, and happen it fits him, very well. Take back your box, boy--or stay, let's have a look in't."