Audrey

It was yet warm and bright in the street, the dust thick, the air heavy

with the odors of the May. Haward and MacLean walked in silence, each as

to the other, one as to the world at large. Now and again the Virginian

must stop to bow profoundly to curtsying ladies, or to take snuff with

some portly Councilor or less stately Burgess who, coming from the

Capitol, chanced to overtake them. When he paused his storekeeper paused

also, but, having no notice taken of him beyond a glance to discern his

quality, needed neither a supple back nor a ready smile.

Haward lodged upon Palace Street, in a square brick house, lived in by an

ancient couple who could remember Puritan rule in Virginia, who had served

Sir William Berkeley, and had witnessed the burning of Jamestown by Bacon.

There was a grassy yard to the house, and the path to the door lay through

an alley of lilacs, purple and white. The door was open, and Haward and

MacLean, entering, crossed the hall, and going into a large, low room,

into which the late sunshine was streaming, found the negro Juba setting

cakes and wine upon the table.

"This gentleman hath a broken head, Juba," said the master. "Bring water

and linen, and bind it up for him."

As he spoke he laid aside hat and rapier, and motioned MacLean to a seat

by the window. The latter obeyed the gesture in silence, and in silence

submitted to the ministrations of the negro. Haward, sitting at the table,

waited until the wound had been dressed; then with a wave of the hand

dismissed the black.

"You would take nothing at my hands the other day," he said to the grim

figure at the window. "Change your mind, my friend,--or my foe,--and come

sit and drink with me."

MacLean reared himself from his seat, and went stiffly over to the table.

"I have eaten and drunken with an enemy before to-day," he said. "Once I

met Ewin Mor Mackinnon upon a mountain side. He had oatcake in his

sporran, and I a flask of usquebaugh. We couched in the heather, and ate

and drank together, and then we rose and fought. I should have slain him

but that a dozen Mackinnons came up the glen, and he turned and fled to

them for cover. Here I am in an alien land; a thousand fiery crosses would

not bring one clansman to my side; I cannot fight my foe. Wherefore, then,

should I take favors at his hands?"

"Why should you be my foe?" demanded Haward. "Look you, now! There was a

time, I suppose, when I was an insolent youngster like any one of those

who lately set upon you; but now I call myself a philosopher and man of a

world for whose opinions I care not overmuch. My coat is of fine cloth,

and my shirt of holland; your shirt is lockram, and you wear no coat at

all: ergo, saith a world of pretty fellows, we are beings of separate

planets. 'As the cloth is, the man is,'--to which doctrine I am at times

heretic. I have some store of yellow metal, and spend my days in ridding

myself of it,--a feat which you have accomplished. A goodly number of

acres is also counted unto me, but in the end my holding and your holding

will measure the same. I walk a level road; you have met with your

precipice, and, bruised by the fall, you move along stony ways; but

through the same gateway we go at last. Fate, not I, put you here. Why

should you hate me who am of your order?"