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THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE
How the Star of Good Fortune Rose and Set and Rose Again, by a Woman's
Grace, for One John Law of Lauriston
A Novel by
EMERSON HOUGH
The Illustrations by Henry Hutt
1902
[Illustration: (Frontispiece)]
TO
L.C.H.
CONTENTS
BOOK I
CHAPTER
I THE RETURNED TRAVELER
II AT SADLER'S WELLS
III JOHN LAW OF LAURISTON
IV THE POINT OF HONOR
V DIVERS EMPLOYMENTS OF JOHN LAW
VI THE RESOLUTION OF MR. LAW
VII TWO MAIDS A-BROIDERING
VIII CATHARINE KNOLLYS
IX IN SEARCH OF THE QUARREL
X THE RUMOR OF THE QUARREL
XI AS CHANCE DECREED
XII FOR FELONY
XIII THE MESSAGE
XIV PRISONERS
XV IF THERE WERE NEED
XVI THE ESCAPE
XVII WHITHER
BOOK II
I THE DOOR OF THE WEST
II THE STORM
III AU LARGE
IV THE PATHWAY OF THE WATERS
V MESSASEBE
VI MAIZE
VII THE BRINK OF CHANGE
VIII TOUS SAUVAGES
IX THE DREAM
X BY THE HILT OF THE SWORD
XI THE IROQUOIS
XII PRISONERS OF THE IROQUOIS
XIII THE SACRIFICE
XIV THE EMBASSY
XV THE GREAT PEACE
BOOK III
I THE GRAND MONARQUE
II EVER SAID SHE NAY
III SEARCH THOU MY HEART
IV THE REGENT'S PROMISE
V A DAY OF MIRACLES
VI THE GREATEST NEED
VII THE MIRACLE UNWROUGHT
VIII THE LITTLE SUPPER OF THE REGENT
IX THE NEWS
X MASTER AND MAN
XI THE BREAKING OF THE BUBBLE
XII THAT WHICH REMAINED
XIII THE QUALITY OF MERCY
BOOK I
ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
THE RETURNED TRAVELER
"Gentlemen, this is America!"
The speaker cast upon the cloth-covered table a singular object, whose
like none of those present had ever seen. They gathered about and bent
over it curiously.
"This is that America," the speaker repeated. "Here you have it,
barbaric, wonderful, abounding!"
With sudden gesture he swept his hand among the gold coin that lay on
the gaming table. He thrust into the mouth of the object before him a
handful of louis d'or and English sovereigns. "There is your America,"
said he. "It runs over with gold. No man may tell its richness. Its
beauty you can not imagine."
"Faith," said Sir Arthur Pembroke, bending over the table with glass in
eye, "if the ladies of that land have feet for this sort of shoon,
methinks we might well emigrate. Take you the money of it. For me, I
would see the dame could wear such shoe as this."
One after another this company of young Englishmen, hard players, hard
drinkers, gathered about the table and bent over to examine the little
shoe. It was an Indian moccasin, cut after the fashion of the Abenakis,
from the skin of the wild buck, fashioned large and full for the spread
of the foot, covered deep with the stained quills of the porcupine, and
dotted here and there with the precious beads which, to the maker, had
more worth than any gold. A little flap came up for cover to the ankle,
and a thong fell from its upper edge. It was the ancient foot-covering
of the red race of America, made for the slight but effectual protection
of the foot, while giving perfect freedom to the tread of the wearer.
Light, dainty and graceful, its size was much less than that of the
average woman's shoe of that time and place.
"Bah! Pembroke," said Castleton, pushing up the shade above his eyes
till it rested on his forehead, "'tis a child's shoe."
"Not so," said the first speaker. "I give you my word 'tis the moccasin
of my sweetheart, a princess in her own right, who waits my coming on
the Ottawa. And so far from the shoe being too small, I say as a
gentleman that she not only wore it so, but in addition used somewhat
of grass therein in place of hose."
The earnestness of this speech in no wise prevented the peal of laughter
that followed.
"There you have it, Pembroke," cried Castleton. "Would you move to a
land where princesses use hay for hosiery?"
"'Tis curious done," said Pembroke, musingly, "none the less."
"And done by her own hand," said the owner of the shoe, with a certain
proprietary pride.
Again the laughter broke out. "Do your princesses engage in shoemaking?"
asked a third gamester as he pushed into the ring. "Sure it must be a
rare land. Prithee, what doth the king in handicraft? Doth he take to
saddlery, or, perhaps, smithing?"
"Have done thy jests, Wilson," cried Pembroke. "Mayhap there is somewhat
to be learned here of this New World and of our dear cousins, the
French. Go on, tell us, Monsieur du Mesne--as I think you call yourself,
sir?--tell us more of your new country of ice and snow, of princesses
and little shoes."
The original speaker went a bit sullen, what with his wine and the jests
of his companions. "I'll tell ye naught," said he. "Go see for
yourselves, by leave of Louis."
"Come now," said Pembroke, conciliatingly. "We'll all admit our
ignorance. 'Tis little we know of our own province of Virginia, save
that Virginia is a land of poverty and tobacco. Wealth--faith, if ye
have wealth in your end of the continent, 'tis time we English fought ye
for it."
"Methinks you English are having enough to do here close at home,"
sneered Du Mesne. "I have heard somewhat of Steinkirk, and how ye ran
from the half-dressed gentlemen of France."
Dark looks followed this bold speech, which cut but too closely to the
quick of English pride. Pembroke quelled the incipient outcry with
calmer speech.
"Peace, friends," said he. "'Tis not arms we argue here, after all. We
are but students at the feet of Monsieur du Mesne, who hath returned
from foreign parts. Prithee, sir, tell us more."
"Tell ye more--and if I did, would ye believe it? What if I tell ye of
great rivers far to the west of the Ottawa; of races as strange to my
princess's people as we are to them; of streams whose sands run in gold,
where diamonds and sapphires are to be picked up as ye like? If I told
ye, would ye believe?"
The martial hearts and adventurous souls of the circle about him began
to show in the heightened color and closer crowding of the young men to
the table. Silence fell upon the group.
"Ye know nothing, in this old rotten world, of what there is yet to be
found in America," cried Du Mesne. "For myself, I have been no farther
than the great falls of the Ontoneagrea--a mere trifle of a cataract,
gentlemen, into which ye might pitch your tallest English cathedral and
sink it beyond its pinnacle with ease. Yet I have spoke with the holy
fathers who have journeyed far to the westward, even to the vast
Messasebe, which is well known to run into the China sea upon some
far-off coast not yet well charted. I have also read the story of
Sagean, who was far to the west of that mighty river. Did not the latter
see and pursue and kill in fair fight the giant unicorn, fabled of
Scripture? Is not that animal known to be a creature of the East, and
may we not, therefore, be advised that this new country takes hold upon
the storied lands of the East? Why, this holy friar with whom I spoke,
fresh back from his voyaging to the cold upper ways of the Northern
tribes, who live beyond the far-off channel at Michilimackinac--did he
not tell of a river of the name of the Blue Earth, and did he not
himself see turquoises and diamonds and emeralds taken in handfuls from
this same blue earth? Ah, bah! gentlemen, Europe for you if ye like, but
for me, back I go, so soon as I may get proper passage and a connection
which will warrant me the voyage. 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." He stripped back the opening of
his doublet and under waistcoat, and showed upon his broad shoulder the
scar of a red tri-point, deep and livid upon his flesh. "Look! There is
the fleur-de-lis of France. That is why I came. I have rowed in the
galleys, me--me a free man, a man of the woods of New France!"
Murmurs of concern passed among the little group. Castleton rose from
his chair and leaned with his hands upon the table, gazing now at the
face and now at the bared shoulder of this stranger, who had by chance
become a member of their nightly party.
"I have not been in London a fortnight since my escape," said the man
with the brand. "I was none the less once a good servant of Louis in New
France, for that I found many a new tribe and many a bale of furs that
else had never come to the Mountain for the robbery of the lying
officers who claim the robe of Louis. I was a soldier for the king as
well as a traveler of the forest. Was I not with the Le Moynes and the
band that crossed the icy North and destroyed your robbing English fur
posts on the Bay of Hudson? I fought there and helped blow down your
barriers. I packed my own robe on my back, and walked for the king, till
the _raquette_ thongs cut my ankles to the bone. For what? When I came
back to the settlements at Quebec I was seized for a _coureur de bois_,
a free trader. I was herded like a criminal into a French ship, sent
over seas to a French prison, branded with a French iron, and set like a
brute to pull without reason at a bar of wood in the king's galleys--the
king's hell!"
"And yet you are a Frenchman," sneered Wilson.
"Yet am I not a Frenchman," cried the other. "Nor am I an Englishman. I
am no man of a world of galleys and brands. I am a man of America!"
"'Tis true what he says," spoke Pembroke. "'Tis said the minister of
Louis was feared to keep these men in the galleys, lest their fellows in
New France should become too bitter, and should join the savages in
their inroads on the starving settlements of Quebec and Montréal."
"True," exclaimed Du Mesne. "The _coureurs_ care naught for the law and
little for the king. As for a ruler, we have discovered that a man makes
a most excellent sovereign for himself."
"And excellent said," cried Castleton.
"None of ye know the West," went on the _coureur_. "Your Virginia, we
know well of it--a collection of beggars, prostitutes and thieves. Your
New England--a lot of cod-fishing, starving snivelers, who are most
concerned how to keep life in their bodies from year to year. New France
herself, sitting ever on the edge of an icy death, with naught but
bickerings at Quebec and naught but reluctant compliance from
Paris--what hath she to hope? I tell ye, gentlemen, 'tis beyond, in the
land of the Messasebe, where I shall for my part seek out my home; and
no man shall set iron on my soul again."
He spoke bitterly. The group about him, half amused, half cynical and
all ignorant, as were their kind at this time of the reign of William,
were none the less impressed and thoughtful. Yet once more the sneering
voice of Wilson broke in.
"A strange land, my friend," said he, "monstrous strange. Your unicorns
are great, and your women are little. Methinks to give thy tale
proportion thou shouldst have shown shoon somewhat larger."
"Peace! Beau," said Castleton, quickly. "As for the size of the human
foot--gad! I'll lay a roll of louis d'or that there's one dame here in
London town can wear this slipper of New France."
"Done!" cried Wilson. "Name the one."
"None other than the pretty Lawrence whom thou hast had under thine
ancient wing for the past two seasons."
The face of Wilson gathered into a sudden frown at this speech. "What
doth it matter"--he began.
"Have done, fellows!" cried Pembroke with some asperity. "Lay wagers
more fit at best, and let us have no more of this thumb-biting. Gad! the
first we know, we'll be up for fighting among ourselves, and we all know
how the new court doth look on that."
"Come away," laughed Castleton, gaily. "I'm for a pint of ale and an
apple; and then beware! 'Tis always my fortune, when I come to this
country drink, to win like a very countryman. I need revenge upon Lady
Betty and her lap-dog. I've lost since ever I saw them last."