Audrey

MacLean sat down, and drew his wineglass toward Mm. "It is the heat," he

said. "Last night, in the store, I felt that I was stifling; and I left

it, and lay on the bare ground without. A star shot down the sky, and I

wished that a wind as swift and strong would rise and sweep the land out

to sea. When the day comes that I die, I wish to die a fierce death. It is

best to die in battle, for then the mind is raised, and you taste all life

in the moment before you go. If a man achieves not that, then struggle

with earth or air or the waves of the sea is desirable. Driving sleet,

armies of the snow, night and trackless mountains, the leap of the

torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies lie in wait, wind on the sea with the

black reef and the charging breakers,--it is well to dash one's force

against the force of these, and to die after fighting. But in this cursed

land of warmth and ease a man dies like a dog that is old and hath lain

winter and summer upon the hearthstone." He drank his wine, and glanced

again at Haward. "I did not know that you were here," he said. "Saunderson

told me that you were going to Westover."

"I was,--I am," answered Haward briefly. Presently he roused himself from

the brown study into which he had fallen.

"'Tis the heat, as you say. It enervates. For my part, I am willing that

your wind should arise. But it will not blow to-night. There is not a

breath; the river is like glass." He raised the wine to his lips, and

drank deeply. "Come," he said, laughing. "What did you at the store

to-day? And does Mistress Truelove despair of your conversion to thee

and thou, and peace with all mankind? Hast procured an enemy to fill the

place I have vacated? I trust he's no scurvy foe."

"I will take your questions in order," answered the other sententiously.

"This morning I sold a deal of fine china to a parcel of fine ladies who

came by water from Jamestown, and were mightily concerned to know whether

your worship was gone to Westover, or had instead (as 't was reported)

shut yourself up in Fair View house. And this afternoon came over in a

periagua, from the other side, a very young gentleman with money in hand

to buy a silver-fringed glove. 'They are sold in pairs,' said I. 'Fellow,

I require but one,' said he. 'If Dick Allen, who hath slandered me to

Mistress Betty Cocke, dareth to appear at the merrymaking at Colonel

Harrison's to-night, his cheek and this glove shall come together!'