The Heart

It was late when the ball was done, but Mary would have stayed it

out had it not been for Catherine, who almost swooned in the middle

of a dance and had to be revived with aromatic vinegar, and lie for

a while in my Lady Culpeper's bedchamber, with a black woman fanning

her, until she was sufficiently recovered to go home. Mary did not

espy me until, returning from her sister's side to order the sedan

chairs, she jostled against me. Then such a blush of delight and

relief came over her face as made my heart stand still with rapture

and something like fear. "You here, you here, Harry?" she cried, and

stammered and blushed again, and Sir Humphrey and Cicely, who were

pressing up, looked at me jealously.

"I am here at your grandmother's request, Mistress Mary," I said.

Then my Lord Estes came elbowing me aside, and made no more of me

than if I were a black slave, and hoarsely shouting for the sedan

chairs and the bearers, and after him Ralph Drake and half a score

of others, and all cursing at me for a convict tutor and thrusting

at me. Then truly that temper of mine, which I have had some cause

to lament, and yet I know not if it be aught I can help, it being

seemingly as beyond the say of my own will as the recoil of a musket

or the rebound of a ball, sent me forth into the midst of that

gallant throng, and I would not say for certain, but at this late

date I am inclined to believe that I saw Ralph Drake, who came in my

way with a storm of curses, raising himself sorely from a pool of

mud, which must have worked havoc with his velvets, and my Lord

Estes struggling forth from a thorny rose bush at the gate, with

much rending of precious laces. Then I, convict though I was, yet

having, when authorised by the very conditions of my servitude, that

resolution to have my way, that a king's army could not have stopped

me, had the sedan chairs, and the bearers to the fore, and presently

we were set forth on the homeward road, I riding alongside. All the

road was white with moonlight, and when we came alongside Margery

Key's house, as I live, that white cat shot through the door, and

immediately after, I, looking back, saw the old dame herself

standing therein, though it was near morning, and she quavered forth

a blessing after me. "God bless thee, Master Wingfield, in life and

death, and may the fish of the sea come to thy line, may the birds

of the air minister to thee, and all that hath breath of life,

whether it be noxious or guileless, do thy bidding. May even He who

is nameless stand from the path of thy desire, and hold back from

thy face the boughs of prevention whither thou wouldst go." This

said old Margery Key in a strange, chanting-like tone, and withdrew,

and a light flashed out in the next house, and the woman who dwelt

therein screamed, and Mistress Mary, thrusting forth her head from

the chair, called me to come close.