CHAPTER XVII 290

The day will be so happy; for I've seen

you at the dawn.

MISTRESS NELL

A MERRY TALE OF A MERRY TIME

MISTRESS NELL

"And once Nell Gwyn, a frail young sprite,

Look'd kindly when I met her;

I shook my head perhaps--but quite

Forgot to quite forget her."

It was a merry time in merry old England; for King Charles II. was on

the throne.

Not that the wines were better or the ladies fairer in his day, but the

renaissance of carelessness and good-living had set in. True Roundheads

again sought quiet abodes in which to worship in their gray and sombre

way. Cromwell, their uncrowned king, was dead; and there was no place

for his followers at court or in tavern. Even the austere and Catholic

smile of brother James of York, one day to be the ruler of the land,

could not cast a gloom over the assemblies at Whitehall. There were

those to laugh merrily at the King's wit, and at the players' wit. There

were those in abundance to enjoy to-day--to-day only,--to drink to the

glorious joys of to-day, with no care for the morrow.

It was, indeed, merry old England; for, when the King has no cares, and

assumes no cares, the people likewise have no cares. The state may be

rent, the court a nest of intrigue, King and Parliament at odds, the

treasury bankrupt: but what care they; for the King cares not. Is not

the day prosperous? Are not the taverns in remotest London filled with

roistering spirits who drink and sing to their hearts' content of their

deeds in the wars just done? Can they not steal when hungry and demand

when dry?

Aye, the worldly ones are cavaliers now--for a cavalier is King--e'en

though the sword once followed Cromwell and the gay cloak and the big

flying plume do not quite hide the not-yet-discarded cuirass of an

Ironside.

Cockpits and theatres! It is the Restoration! The maypole is up again at

Maypole Lane, and the milk-maids bedecked with garlands dance to the

tunes of the fiddle. Boys no longer serve for heroines at the play, as

was the misfortune in Shakespeare's day. The air is full of hilarity and

joy.

Let us too for a little hour forget responsibility and fall in with the

spirit of the times; while we tipple and toast, and vainly boast: "The

King! Long live the King!"

Old Drury Lane was alive as the sun was setting, on the day of our visit

to London Town, with loungers and loafers; busy-bodies and hawkers;

traffickers of sweets and other petty wares; swaggering soldiers,

roistering by, stopping forsooth to throw kisses to inviting eyes at the

windows above.

As we turn into Little Russell Street from the Lane, passing many chairs

richly made, awaiting their fair occupants, we come upon the main

entrance to the King's House. Not an imposing or spacious structure to

be sure, it nevertheless was suited to the managerial purposes of the

day, which were, as now, to spend as little and get as much as may be.

The pit was barely protected from the weather by a glazed cupola; so

that the audience could not always hear the sweetest song to a finish

without a drenching, or dwell upon the shapeliness of the prettiest

ankle, that revealed itself in the dance by means of candles set on

cressets, which in those days sadly served the purposes of foot-lights.

It was Dryden's night. His play was on--"The Conquest of Granada." The

best of London were there; for a first night then was as attractive as a

first night now. In the balcony were draped boxes, in which lovely gowns

were seen--lovely hair and lovely gems; but the fair faces were often

masked.

The King sat listless in the royal box, watching the people and the play

or passing pretty compliments with the fair favourites by his side,

diverted, perchance, by the ill-begotten quarrel of some fellow with a

saucy orange-wench over the cost of her golden wares. The true gallants

preferred being robbed to haggling--for the shame of it.

A knowing one in the crowd was heard to say: "'Tis Castlemaine to the

King's left."

"No, 'tis Madame Carwell; curse her," snarled a more vulgar companion.

"Madame Querouaille, knave, Duchess of Portsmouth," irritably exclaimed

a handsome gallant, himself stumbling somewhat over the French name,

though making a bold play for it, as he passed toward his box, pushing

the fellow aside. He added a moment later, but so that no one heard:

"Portsmouth is far from here."

It was the Duke of Buckingham--the great Duke of Buckingham, in the pit

of the King's House! Truly, we see strange things in these strange

times! Indeed, William Penn himself did not hesitate to gossip with the

orange-wenches, unless Pepys lied--and Pepys never lied.

"What said he?" asked a stander-by, a butcher, who, with apron on and

sleeves to elbow, had hastily left his stall at one of the afternoon and

still stood with mouth agape and fingers widespread waiting for the

play. Before, however, his sooty companion could answer, they were

jostled far apart.

The crowd struggled for places in eager expectation, amid banter none

too virtuous, whistlings and jostlings. The time for the play had

arrived. "Nell! Nell! Nell!" was on every lip.

And who was "Nell"?

From amidst the players, lords and coxcombs crowded on the stage stepped

forth Nell Gwyn--the prettiest rogue in merry England.

A cheer went up from every throat; for the little vixen who stood before

them had long reigned in the hearts of Drury Lane and the habitues of

the King's House.

Yea, all eyes were upon the pretty, witty Nell; the one-time

orange-girl; now queen of the theatre, and the idol of the Lane. Her

curls were flowing and her big eyes dancing beneath a huge hat--more,

indeed, a canopy than a hat--so large that the audience screamed with

delight at the incongruity of it and the pretty face beneath.

This pace in foolery had been set at the Duke's House, but Nell out-did

them, with her broad-brimmed hat as large as a cart-wheel and her quaint

waist-belt; for was not her hat larger by half than that at the rival

house and her waist-belt quainter?

As she came forward to speak the prologue, her laugh too was merrier and

more roguish:

_"This jest was first of the other house's making,

And, five times tried, has never fail'd of taking;_

* * * * *

_This is that hat, whose very sight did win ye

To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye,_

* * * * *

_I'll write a play, says one, for I have got

A broad-brimm'd hat, and waist-belt, towards a plot.

Says the other, I have one more large than that,

Thus they out-write each other with a hat!

The brims still grew with every play they writ;

And grew so large, they cover'd all the wit.

Hat was the play; 't was language, wit, and tale:

Like them that find meat, drink, and cloth in ale."_

The King leaned well out over the box-rail, his dark eyes intent upon

Nell's face.

A fair hand, however, was placed impatiently upon his shoulder and drew

him gently back. "Lest you fall, my liege."

"Thanks, Castlemaine," he replied, kindly but knowingly. "You are always

thoughtful."

The play went on. The actors came and went. Hart appeared in Oriental

robes as Almanzor--a dress which mayhap had served its purposes for

Othello, and mayhap had not; for cast-off court-dresses, without regard

to fitness, were the players' favourite costumes in those days, the

richness more than the style mattering.

With mighty force, he read from the centre of the stage, with elocution

true and syllable precise, Dryden's ponderous lines. The King nodded

approvingly to the poet. The poet glowed with pride at the patronage of

the King. The old-time audience were enchanted. Dryden sat with a

triumphant smile as he dwelt upon his poetic lines and heard the

cherished syllables receive rounds of applause from the Londoners.

Was it the thought, dear Dryden; or was it Nell's pretty ways that

bewitched the most of it? Nell's laugh still echoes in the world; but

where are your plays, dear Dryden?

CHAPTER II

_It's near your cue, Mistress Nell!_

The greenroom of the King's House was scarcely a prepossessing place or

inviting. A door led to the stage; another to the street. On the

remaining doors might have been deciphered from the Old English of a

scene-artist's daub "Mistress Gwyn" and "Mr. Hart." These doors led

respectively to the tiring-room of the sweet sprite who had but now set

the pit wild with a hat over a sparkling eye and to that of the

actor-manager of the House. A rough table, a few chairs, a mirror which

had evidently seen better days in some grand mansion and a large

throne-chair which might equally well have satisfied the royalty of

Macbeth or Christopher Sly--its royalty, forsooth, being in its size,

for thus only could it lord-it over its mates--stood in the corner. Old

armour hung upon the wall, grim in the light of candles fixed in

braziers. Rushes were strewn about the floor.

Ah! Pepys, Pepys, was it here that you recalled "specially kissing of

Nell"? Mayhap; for we read in your book: "I kissed her, and so did my

wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is." Be that as it may, however, you

must have found Nell's lips very agreeable; for a great wit has

suggested that it was well that Mrs. Pepys was present on the occasion.

On great play-nights, however, this most unroyal room assumed the

proportions of royalty. Gallants and even lords sought entrance here and

elbowed their way about; and none dared say them nay. They forced a way

even upon the stage during the play, though not so commonly as before

the Restoration, yet still too much; and the players played as best they

could, and where best they could. _Billets-doux_ passed, sweet

words were said,--all in this dilapidated, unpretentious, candle-lighted

room.

At the moment of which we speak, the greenroom was deserted save for a

lad of twelve or fourteen years, who stood before the mirror, posing to

his personal satisfaction and occasionally delivering bits from

"Hamlet." He was none other than "Dick," the call-boy of the King's

House.

The lad struck a final attitude, his brow clouded. He assumed what

seemed to him the proper pose for the royal Dane. His meditations and

his pose, however, were broken in upon by the sudden entrance of Manager

Hart, flushed and in an unusual state of excitement.

"Where is my dagger, Dick?" he exclaimed, pacing the room.

The boy came to himself but slowly.

"What are you doing? Get my dagger, boy," wildly reiterated the irate

manager. "Don't you see there will be a stage-wait?" He cast an anxious

glance in the direction of the door which led to the stage.

"Where did you leave it, sir?" asked the lad, finally realizing that it

would be wise not to trifle at such a time.

"Never mind where I left it. Get it, get it; do you hear! Nell's on the

stage already." Hart rushed to the door and looked off in an increasing

state of excitement.

"Why, you've got your dagger on, sir," hesitatingly suggested the lad,

as he caught the gleam of a small scimiter among the folds of Almanzor's

tunic.

Hart's face flushed.

"Devil take you, boy," he exclaimed; "you are too stupid ever to make an

actor!"

With this speech, the manager strode out of the greenroom toward the

stage.

Poor Dick sank back in an attitude of resignation. "How long, O Rome,

must I endure this bondage?" he said, sadly.

He again observed his boyish figure in the mirror, and the pretty face

brightened as he realized that there might still be hope in life,

despite Manager Hart's assertion that he would never be able to act. His

features slowly sank into a set expression of tremendous gloom, such as

he thought should characterize his conception of himself as Hamlet when

in days to come the mantles of Burbage and of Betterton should be his

and Manager Hart must bow to him. He stood transfixed before the glass

in a day-dream, forgetful of his ills. His pretty lips moved, and one

close by might have heard again, "To be or not to be" in well-modulated

phrase.

"Ah, boy; here!"

Dick started.

It was a richly dressed gallant, in old-rose with royal orders, who had

entered the room quietly but authoritatively from the street--the same

lordly personage we observed in the pit. His manner was that of one

accustomed to be obeyed and quickly too. The lad knew him and bowed low.

"Tell Mistress Nell, Buckingham would speak with her. Lively, lad;

lively," he said.

"She is on the stage, my lord," replied Dick, respectfully.

"Gad, I thought otherwise and stepped about from my box. Here; put these

flowers in her tiring-room."

The boy took the beautiful bouquet of white roses. "Yes, my lord," he

replied, and turned to do the bidding.

"Flowers strewn in ladies' ways oft' lead to princely favours," muttered

his lordship, thoughtfully, as he removed his gloves and vainly adjusted

his hat and sword. "Portsmouth at Dover told me that."

It was apparent from his face that much passed before his mind, in that

little second, of days when, at Dover Castle not long since, he had been

a part--and no small part--of the intrigue well planned by Louis of

France, and well executed by the Duchess of Orleans assisted by the fair

Louise, now Duchess of Portsmouth, in which his own purse and power had

waxed mightily. Whatever his lordship thought, however, it was gone like

the panorama before a drowning brain.

He stopped the lad as he was entering Nell's tiring-room, with an

exclamation. The boy returned.

"You gave Mistress Nell my note bidding her to supper?" he asked,

questioningly.

"I did, my lord," answered Dick.

"'Sheart, a madrigal worthy of Bacchus! She smiled delightedly?"

continued his lordship, in a jocular mood.

"No, my lord; quite serious."

His lordship's face changed slightly. "Read it eagerly?" he ventured,

where he might have commanded, further to draw out the lad.

"Yes, my lord," added Dick, respectfully, "after a time." The boy's lids

dropped to avoid revealing his amused recollection of the incident; and

his lordship's quick eye noted it.

"Good!" he exclaimed, with an assumed triumphant air. "She folded it

carefully and placed it in her bosom next her heart?"

"She threw it on the floor, my lord!" meekly answered Dick, hiding his

face in the flowers to avoid revealing disrespect.

"My _billet-doux_ upon the floor!" angrily exclaimed his lordship.

"Plague on't, she said something, made some answer, boy?" The diplomat

was growing earnest despite himself, as diplomats often do in the cause

of women.

Dick trembled.

"She said your dinners made amends for your company, my lord," he said,

meekly.

Buckingham's eyes snapped; but he was too clever to reveal his feelings

further to a call-boy, whom he dismissed with a wave of the hand. He

then swaggered to the table and complacently exclaimed: "The rogue!

Nelly, Nelly, your lips shall pay tribute for that. Rosy impudence!

Buckingham's dinners make amends for his company? Minx!" He threw

himself into a chair, filled with deep reflections of supper and wine,

wit and beauty, rather than state-craft.

Thus lost in selfish reflection, he did not observe, or, if he did,

cared not for, the frail figure and sweet face of one who cautiously

tiptoed into the greenroom. It was Orange Moll, whose sad countenance

and tattered garments betokened a sadder story. Her place was in the

pit, with her back to the stage, vending her oranges to artisans, girls

with vizards or foolish gallants. She had no right behind the scenes.

"I am 'most afraid to enter here without Nell," she thought,

faint-heartedly, as she glanced about the room and her eyes fell upon

the great Lord Buckingham.

"Oranges? Will you have my oranges? Only sixpence, my lord," she

ventured at length, then hesitatingly advanced and offered her wares;

but his lordship's thoughts were far away.

"What shall we have for supper?" was his sole concern. "I think Nelly

would like spiced tongue." Instantly his hands and eyes were raised in

mock invocation of the intervention of the Powers that Be, and so

suddenly that Moll drew back. "Ye Gods," he exclaimed aloud, "she has

enough of that already! Ah, the vintage of----"

It was more habit than courage which brought to Moll's trembling lips

the familiar orange-cry, which again interrupted him: "Oranges; only

sixpence. Here is one picked for you, my lord."

Buckingham's eyes flashed with anger; he was not wont to have his way,

much less his pleasure, disturbed by the lowly. "Oh, hang you, you

disturb me. I am thinking; don't you perceive I am thinking? Begone!"

"Only sixpence, my lord; I have not sold one to-night," pleaded the

girl, sadly.

His lordship rose irritably. "I have no pauper's pence," he exclaimed.

"Out of my way! Ragbag!" He pushed the girl roughly aside and crossed

the room.

At the same instant, there was confusion at the stage-door, the climax

of which was the re-entrance of Hart into the greenroom.

"How can a man play when he trembles for his life lest he step upon a

lord?" cried the angry manager. "They should be horsewhipped off the

stage, and"--his eyes falling upon Buckingham--"out of the greenroom."

"Ah, Hart," began his lordship, with a patronizing air, "why is Nelly so

long? I desire to see her."

Hart's lips trembled, but he controlled his passion. "Indeed? His

Majesty and the good folk in front would doubtless gladly await your

interview with Mistress Eleanor Gwyn. Shall I announce your will, my

lord, unto his Majesty and stop the play?"

"You grow ironical, friend Hart," replied his lordship.

"Not so," said the actor, bowing low; "I am your lordship's most

obedient servant."

Buckingham's lip curled and his eyes revealed that he would have said

more, but the room was meantime filling with players from the stage,

some exchanging compliments, some strutting before the glass, and he

would not so degrade his dignity before them. Dick, foil in hand even in

the manager's room, was testing the steel's strength to his utmost, in

boyish fashion.

This confusion lent Moll courage, and forth came again the cry:

"Oranges? Will you have my oranges? Only sixpence, sir."

She boldly offered her wares to Almanzor, but started and paled when

the hero turned and revealed Manager Hart.

"What are you doing here, you little imp? Back to the pit, where you

belong." The manager's voice was full of meaning.

"Nell told me I might come here, sir," said the girl, faintly excusing

herself.

Hart's temper got the better of him. To admit before all that Nell ruled

the theatre was an affront to his managerial dignity which he could not

brook.

"Oh, Nell did, did she?" he almost shrieked, as he angrily paced the

room like some caged beast, gesticulating wildly.

The actors gathered in groups and looked askant.

"Gadso," he continued, "who is manager, I should like to know! Nell

would introduce her whole trade here if she could. Every orange-peddler

in London will set up a stand in the greenroom at the King's, next we

know. Out with you! This is a temple of art, not a marketplace. Out with

you!"

He seized Moll roughly in his anger and almost hurled her out at the

door. He would have done so, indeed, had not Nell entered at this moment

from the stage. Her eye caught the situation at a glance.

"Oh, blood, Iago, blood!" she exclaimed, mock-heroically, then burst

into the merriest laugh that one could care to hear. "How now, a tragedy

in the greenroom! What lamb is being sacrificed?"

Hart stood confused; the players whispered in expectation; and an amused

smile played upon the features of my Lord Buckingham at the manager's

discomfiture. Finally Hart found his tongue.

"An old comrade of yours at orange-vending before you lost the art of

acting," he suggested, with a glance at Moll.

[Illustration: "ENEMIES TO THE KING--BEWARE!"]

"By association with you, Jack?" replied the witch of the theatre in a

way which bespoke more answers that wisdom best not bring forth.

Nell's whole heart went out to the subject of the controversy. Poor

little tattered Orange Moll! She was carried back in an instant to her

own bitter life and bitter struggles when an orange-girl. Throwing an

arm about the child, she kissed away the tears with, "What is the

matter, dear Moll?"

"They are all mocking me, and sent me back to the pit," replied the

girl, hysterically.

"Shame on you all," said Nell; and the eyes that were so full of comedy

revealed tragic fire.

"Fy, fy," pleaded Hart; "I'll be charitable to-morrow, Nell, after this

strain is off--but a first night--"

"You need charity yourself?" suggested Nell; and she burst into a merry

laugh, in which many joined.

Buckingham instantly took up the gauntlet for a bold play, for a _coup

d'etat_ in flattery. "Pshaw!" he cried, waving aside the players in a

princely fashion. "When Nell plays, we have no time to munch oranges.

Let the wench bawl in the street."

Poor Moll's tears flowed again with each harsh word. Nell was not so

easily affected.

"Odso, my lord! It is a pity your lordship is not a player. Then the

orange-trade would flourish," she said.

Buckingham bowed, amused and curious. "Say you so, i' faith! Pray, why,

mad minx?"

"Your lordship would make such a good mark for the peel," retorted Nell,

tossing a bit of orange-peel in his face, to the infinite delight of

Hart and his fellow-players.

"Devil!" angrily exclaimed his lordship as he realized the insult. "I

would kill a man for this; a woman, I can only love." His hand left his

sword-hilt; and he bowed low to the vixen of the theatre, picked from

the floor the bit of peel which had fallen, kissed it, tossed it over

his shoulder and turned away.

Nell was not done, however; her revenge was incomplete. "There! dry your

eyes, Moll," she exclaimed. "Give me your basket, child. You shall be

avenged still further."

The greenroom had now filled from the stage and the tiring-rooms; and

all gathered gleefully about to see what next the impish Nell would do,

for avenged she would be they all knew, though the course of her

vengeance none could guess.

The manager, catching at the probable outcome when Nell seized from

Moll's trembling arm the basket heaped with golden fruit, gave the first

warning: "Great Heavens! Flee for your lives! I'faith, here comes the

veteran robber at such traffic."

There was a sudden rush for the stage, but Nell cried: "Guard the door,

Moll; don't let a rascal out. I'll do the rest."

It was not Moll's strength, however, which kept the greenroom filled,

but expectation of Nell. All gathered about with the suspense of a

drama; for Nell herself was a whole play as she stood in the centre of

that little group of lords and players, dressed for Almahyde, Dryden's

heroine, with a basket of oranges on her dimpled arm. What a pretty

picture she was too--prettier here even than on the stage! The nearer,

the prettier! A band of roses, one end of which formed a garland falling

to the floor, circled and bound in her curls. What a figure in her

Oriental garb, hiding and revealing. Indeed, the greenroom seemed

bewitched by her cry: "Oranges, will you have my oranges?"

She lifted the basket high and offered the fruit in her enchanting

old-time way, a way which had won for her the place of first actress in

England. Could it not now dispose of Moll's wares and make the child

happy? Almahyde's royal train was caught up most unroyally, revealing

two dainty ankles; and she laughed and danced and disposed of her wares

all in a breath. Listen and love:

_Sweet as love-lips, dearest mine,

Picked by Spanish maids divine,

Black-eyed beauties, who, like Eve,

With golden fruit their loves deceive!

Buy oranges; buy oranges!_

_Close your eyes, when these you taste;

Think your arm about her waist:

Thus with sixpence may you win

Happiness unstained with sin.

Buy oranges; buy oranges!_

_As the luscious fruit you sip,

You will wager 'tis her lip;

Nothing sweeter since the rise

Of wickedness in Paradise.

Buy oranges; buy oranges!_

There were cries of "Brava!" "Another jig!" and "Hurrah for Nelly!" It

was one of those bits of acting behind the scenes which are so rare and

exquisite and which the audience never see.

"Marry, gallants, deny me after that, if you dare"; and Nell's little

foot came down firmly in the last step of a triumphant jig, indicating a

determination that Moll's oranges should be sold and quickly too.

"Last act! All ready for the last act," rang out in Dick's familiar

voice from the stage-door as she ended. It was well some one thought of

the play and of the audience in waiting.

Many of the players hastily departed to take up their cues; but not so

Nell. Her eyes were upon the lordly Buckingham, who was endeavouring to

effect a crafty exit.

"Not so fast, my lord," she said as she caught his handsome cloak and

drew him back into the room. "I want you with me." She looked coyly into

his lordship's face as though he were the one man in all the world she

loved, and her curls and cheek almost nestled against his rich cloak. "A

dozen, did you say? What a heart you have, my lord. A bountiful heart!"

Buckingham was dazed; his eyes sought Nell, then looked aghast at the

oranges she would force upon him. The impudence of it!

"A dozen!" he exclaimed in awe. "'Slife, Nelly; what would I do with a

dozen oranges?"

"Pay for them, in sooth," promptly replied the vixen. "I never give a

lord credit."

The player-folk gathered closer to watch the scene; for there was

evidently more fun brewing, and that too at the expense of a very royal

gentleman.

"A player talk of credit!" replied his lordship, quite ironically, as he

straightened up proudly for a wit-encounter. "What would become of the

mummers, if the lords did not fill their empty pockets?" he said,

crushingly.

"What would become of the lords, if the players' brains did not try to

fill their empty skulls with wits?" quickly retorted Nell.

"If you were a man, sweet Nelly, I should answer: 'The lords first had

fools at court; then supplanted them with players!'"

"And, being a woman, I do answer," replied the irrepressible Nell,

"'--and played the fools themselves, my lord!'"

The players tried to smother their feelings; but the retort was too apt,

and the greenroom rang with laughter.

Buckingham turned fiercely upon them; but their faces were instantly

mummified.

"Gad, I would sooner face the Dutch fleet, Nelly. Up go my hands, fair

robber," he said. He had decided to succumb for the present. In his

finger-tips glistened a golden guinea.

Nell eyed the coin dubiously.

"Nay, keep this and your wares too," added his lordship, in hope of

peace, as he placed it in her hand.

"Do you think me a beggar?" replied Nell, indignantly. "Take your

possessions, every one--every orange." She filled his hands and arms to

overflowing with her golden wares.

His lordship winced, but stood subdued.

"What am I to do with them?" he asked, falteringly.

"Eat them; eat them," promptly and forcefully retorted the quondam

orange-vender.

"All?" asked his lordship.

"All!" replied her ladyship.

"Damme, I cannot hold a dozen," he exclaimed, aghast.

"A chair! A chair!" cried Nell. "Would your lordship stand at the feast

of gold?"

Before Buckingham had time to reflect upon the outrage to his dignity,

Nell forced him into a chair, to the great glee of the by-standers,

especially of Manager Hart, who chuckled to an actor by his side:

"She'll pluck his fine feathers; curse his arrogance."

"Your knees together, my lord! What, have they never united in prayer?"

gleefully laughed Nell as she further humbled his lordship by forcing

his knees together to form a lap upon which to pile more oranges.

Buckingham did not relish the scene; but he was clever enough to humour

the vixen, both from fear of her tongue and from hope of favours as well

as words from her rosy lips.

"They'll unite to hold _thee_, wench," he suggested, with a sickly

laugh, as he observed his knees well laden with oranges. "I trow not,"

retorted Nell; "they can scarce hold their own. There!" and she

roguishly capped the pyramid which burdened his lordship's knees with

the largest in her basket.

"I'll barter these back for my change, sweet Nell," he pleaded.

"What change?" quickly cried the merry imp of Satan.

"I gave you a golden guinea," answered his lordship, woefully.

"I gave you a golden dozen, my lord!" replied Nell, gleefully.

"Oranges, who will have my oranges?"

She was done with Buckingham and had turned about for other prey.

Hart could not allow the opportunity to escape without a shot at his

hated lordship.

"Fleeced," he whispered grimly over his lordship's shoulder, with a

merry chuckle.

Buckingham rose angrily.

"A plague on the wench and her dealings," he said. His oranges rolled

far and wide over the floor of the greenroom.

"You should be proud, my lord, to be robbed by so fair a hand,"

continued Hart, consolingly. "'Tis an honour, I assure you; we all envy

you."

Buckingham did not relish the consolation.

"'Tis an old saw, Master Hart," he replied: "'He laughs best who laughs

last.'"

As he spoke, Nell's orange-cry rang out again above the confusion and

the fun. She was still at it. Moll was finding vengeance and money,

indeed, though she dwelt upon her accumulating possessions through

eyelashes dim with tears.

"It's near your cue, Mistress Nell," cried out the watchful Dick at the

stage-door.

"Six oranges left; see me sell them, Moll," cried the unheeding vender.

"It's near your cue, Mistress Nell!" again shouted the call-boy, in

anxious tones.

"Marry, my cue will await my coming, pretty one," laughed Nell.

The boy was not so sure of that. "Oh, don't be late, Mistress Nell," he

pleaded. "I'll buy the oranges rather than have you make a stage-wait."

"Dear heart," replied Nell, touched by the lad's solicitude. "Keep your

pennies, Dick, and you and I will have a lark with them some fine day.

Six oranges, left; going--going--" She sprang into the throne-chair,

placed one of the smallest feet in England impudently on one of its arms

and proceeded to vend her remaining wares from on high, to the huge

satisfaction of her admirers.

The situation was growing serious. Nell was not to be trifled with. The

actors stood breathless. Hart grew wild as he realized the difficulty

and the fact that she was uncontrollable. King and Parliament, he well

knew, could not move her from her whimsical purpose, much less the

manager of the King's.

"What are you doing, Nell?" he pleaded, wildly. "You will ruin the first

night. His Majesty in front, too! Dryden will never forgive us if

'Granada' goes wrong through our fault."

"Heyday! What care I for 'Granada'?" and Nell swung the basket of

oranges high in air and calmly awaited bids. "Not a step on the stage

till the basket is empty."

It was Buckingham's turn now. "Here's music for our manager," he

chuckled. "Our deepest sympathy, friend Hart."

This was more than Hart could bear. The manager of the King's House was

forced into profanity. "Damn your sympathy," exclaimed he; and few would

criticise him for it. He apologized as quickly, however, and turned to

Nell. "There goes your scene, Nell. I'll buy your oranges, when you come

off," he continued to plead, in desperation, scarcely less fearful of

offending her than of offending the great Lord Buckingham.

"Now or never," calmly replied the vender from her chair-top.

"The devil take the women," muttered Hart, frantically, as he rushed

headlong into his tiring-room.

"Marry, Heaven defend," laughed Nell; "for he's got the men already."

She sprang lightly from the chair to the floor.

Hart was back on the instant, well out of breath but purse in hand.

"Here, here," he exclaimed. "Never mind the oranges, wench. The audience

will be waiting."

"Faith and troth, and is not Nell worth waiting for?" she cried, her

eyes shining radiantly. Indeed, the audience would have gladly waited,

could they have but seen her pretty, winsome way! "These are

yours--all--all!" she continued, as she gleefully emptied the basket of

its remaining fruit over Prince Almanzor's head.

Hart protested vainly.

Then rushing back to Moll, Nell threw both arms about the girl

triumphantly. "There, Moll," she said, "is your basket and all the

trophies"; and she gave Moll the basket with the glittering coins

jangling in it.

"Your cue--your cue is spoken, Mistress Nell," shrieked Dick from the

stage-door.

Nell heeded not. Her eyes happening upon an orange which had fallen near

the throne-chair, she caught it up eagerly and hurled it at Manager

Hart.

"Forsooth, here's another orange, Master Manager."

He succeeded in catching it despite his excitement.

"Your cue--your cue--Mistress Nell!" came from every throat as one.

Nell tossed back her head indifferently. "Let them wait; let them wait,"

she said, defiantly.

The stage-beauty crossed leisurely to the glass and carelessly arranged

her drapery and the band of roses encircling her hair.

Then the hoyden was gone. In an instant, Nell was transformed into the

princess, Almahyde. The room had been filled with breathless suspense;

but what seemed to the players an endless period of time was but a

minute. Nell turned to the manager, and with all the suavity of a

princess of tragedy kissed her hand tantalizingly to him and said: "Now,

Jack, I'll teach you how to act."

She passed out, and, in a moment, rounds of applause from the

amphitheatre filled the room. She was right; the audience would wait for

her.

A moment later, the greenroom was deserted except for Manager Hart and

Lord Buckingham. Hart had thrown the call-boy almost bodily through the

door that led to the stage, thus venting his anger upon the unoffending

lad, who had been unfortunate enough to happen in his way ill betimes.

He now stood vainly contemplating himself before the glass and awaiting

his cue. Buckingham leaned upon a chair-top, uncertain as to his course.

"Damme! She shall rue this work," he muttered at length. "A man might as

well make love to a wind-mill. I forgot to tell her how her gown becomes

her. That is a careless thing to forget." The reflection forthwith

determined his course. "Nelly, Nelly, Nelly," he called as he quickly

crossed the room after the departed Nell, "you are divine to-night. Your

gown is simply--"

The manager's voice stayed him at the stage-door. "My lord, come back;

my lord--"

Buckingham's hand had gone so far, indeed, as to push open the door. He

stood entranced as he looked out upon the object of his adoration upon

the stage. "Perfection!" he exclaimed. "Your eyes--"

"My lord, my lord, you forget--"

Buckingham turned indignantly at the voice which dared to interrupt him

in the midst of his rhapsody.

"You forget--your oranges, my lord," mildly suggested Hart, as he

pointed to the fruit scattered upon the floor.

Buckingham's face crimsoned. "Plague on't! They are sour, Master Hart."

With a glance of contempt, he turned on his heel and left the room.

A triumphant smile played upon the manager's face. He felt that he had

annoyed his lordship without his intention being apparent. "A good exit,

on my honour," he muttered, as he stood contemplating the door through

which Buckingham had passed; "but, by Heaven, he shall better it unless

he takes his eyes from Nell. Great men believe themselves resistless

with the fair; more often, the fair are resistless with great men."

He took a final look at himself in the glass, adjusted his scimiter;

and, well satisfied with himself and the conceit of his epigram unheard

save by himself, he also departed, to take up his cue.

CHAPTER III

_He took them from Castlemaine's hand to throw to you._

The greenroom seemed like some old forest rent by a storm. Its

furniture, which was none too regular at best, either in carving or

arrangement, had the irregularity which comes only with a tempest, human

or divine. The table, it is true, still stood on its four oaken legs;

but even it was well awry. The chairs were scattered here and there,

some resting upon their backs. To add to all this, oranges in confusion

were strewn broadcast upon the floor.

A storm in fact had visited the greenroom. The storm was Nell.

In the midst of the confusion, a jolly old face peeped cautiously in at

the door which led to the street. At the sound of Manager Hart's

thunderous tones coming from the stage, however, it as promptly

disappeared, only to return when the apparent danger ceased. It was a

rare old figure and a rare old dress and a rare old man. Yet, not an old

man either. His face was red; for he was a tavern spirit, well known and

well beloved,--a lover of good ale! Across his back hung a fiddle which

too had the appearance of being the worse for wear, if fiddles can ever

be said to be the worse for wear.

The intruder took off his dilapidated hat, hugged his fiddle closely

under his arm and looked about the room, more cautiously than

respectfully.

"Oons, here is a scattering of props; a warfare of the orange-wenches!"

he exclaimed. "A wise head comes into battle after the last shot is

fired."

He proceeded forthwith to fill his pockets, of which there seemed to be

an abundance of infinite depth, with oranges. This done, he calmly made

a hole in the next orange which came to his hand and began to suck it

loudly and persistently, boy-fashion, meanwhile smacking his lips. His

face was one wreath of unctuous smiles. "There is but one way to eat an

orange," he chuckled; "that's through a hole."

At this moment, Hart's voice was heard again upon the stage, and the

new-comer to the greenroom liked to have dropped his orange. "Odsbud,

that's one of Master Hart's love-tones," he thought. "I must see Nell

before he sees me, or it will be farewell Strings." He hastened to

Nell's tiring-room and rapped lightly on the door. "Mistress Nell!

Mistress Nell!" he called.

The door opened, but it was not Nell. Her maid pointed toward the stage.

Strings--for Strings was his name, or at least none knew him by a

better--accordingly hobbled across the room--for the wars too had left

their mark on him--and peeped off in the direction indicated.

"Gad," he exclaimed, gleefully clapping his hands, "there she goes on

the stage as a Moorish princess."

There was a storm of applause without.

"Bravo, Nelly, bravo!" he continued. "She's caught the lads in the pit.

They worship Nell out there." The old fellow straightened up as if he

felt a personal pride in the audience for evincing such good taste.

"Oons! Jack Hart struts about like a young game-cock at his first

fight," he observed. He broke into an infectious laugh, which would have

been a fine basso for Nell's laugh.

From the manager, his eye turned toward the place which he himself had

once occupied among the musicians. He began to dance up and down with

both feet, his knees well bent, boy-fashion, and to clap his hands

wildly. "Look ye, little Tompkins got my old place with the fiddle.

Whack, de-doodle-de-do! Whack, de-doodle, de-doodle-de-do!" he cried,

giving grotesque imitations to his own great glee of his successor as

leader of the orchestra.

Then, shaking his head, confident of his own superiority with the bow,

he turned back into the greenroom and, with his mouth half full of

orange, uttered the droll dictum: "It will take more than catgut and

horse-hair to make you a fiddler, Tommy, my boy."

Thus Strings stood blandly sucking his orange with personal satisfaction

in the centre of the room, when Dick entered from the stage. The

call-boy paused as if he could not believe his eyes. He looked and

looked again.

"Heigh-ho!" he exclaimed at last, and then rushed across the room to

greet the old fiddler. "Why, Strings, I thought we would never see you

again; how fares it with you?"

Strings placed the orange which he had been eating and which he knew

full well was none of his own well behind him; and, assuming an

unconcerned and serious air, he replied: "Odd! A little the worse for

wear, Dickey, me and the old fiddle, but still smiling with the world."

There was a bit of a twinkle in his eye as he spoke.

Dick, ever mindful of the welfare and appearance of the theatre,

unhooked from the wall a huge shield, which mayhap had served some

favourite knight of yore, and, using it as a tray, proceeded to gather

the scattered fruit.

"Have an orange?" he inquired of Strings, who still stood in a

reflective mood in the centre of the room, as he rested in his labours

by him.

"How; do they belong to you?" demanded Strings.

"Oh, no," admitted Dick, "but--"

The fiddler instantly assumed an air of injured innocence.

"How dare you," he cried, "offer me what don't belong to you?" He turned

upon the boy almost ferociously at the bare thought. "Honesty is the

best policy," he continued, seriously. "I have tried both, lad"; and, in

his eagerness to impress upon the boy the seriousness of taking that

which does not belong to you, he gestured inadvertently with the hand

which till now had held the stolen orange well behind him.

[Illustration: A FRIEND EVEN UNTO HER WORST ENEMY.]

Dick's eye fell upon it, and so did Strings's. There was a moment's

awkwardness, and then both burst into a peal of joyous laughter.

"Oh, well, egad,--I _will_ join you, Dick," said Strings, with more

patronage still than apology. He seated himself upon the table and began

anew to suck his orange in philosophic fashion.

"But, mind you, lad; never again offer that which is not your own, for

there you are twice cursed," he discoursed pompously. "You make him who

receives guilty of your larceny. Oons, my old wound." He winced from

pain. "He becomes an accomplice in your crime. So says the King's law.

Hush, lad, I am devouring the evidence of your guilt."

The boy by this time had placed the shield of oranges in the corner of

the room and had returned to listen to Strings's discourse. "You speak

with the learning of a solicitor," he said, as he looked respectfully

into the old fiddler's face.

Strings met the glance with due dignity.

"Marry, I've often been in the presence of a judge," he replied, with

great solemnity. His face reflected the ups and downs in his career as

he made the confession.

"Is that where you have been, Strings, all these long days?" asked Dick,

innocently.

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Strings, with sadly retrospective

countenance. "Travelling, lad--contemplating the world, from the King's

highways. Take note, my boy,--a prosperous man! I came into the world

without a rag that I could call my own, and now I have an abundance.

Saith the philosopher: Some men are born to rags, some achieve rags and

some have rags thrust upon them."

"I wish you were back with us, Strings," said the boy, sympathetically,

as he put a hand upon Strings's broad shoulder and looked admiringly up

into his face.

"I wish so myself," replied the fiddler. "Thrice a day, I grow lonesome

here." A weather-beaten hand indicated the spot where good dinners

should be.

"They haven't all forgot you, Strings," continued his companion,

consolingly.

"Right, lad!" said Strings, musingly, as he lifted the old viol close

against his cheek and tenderly picked it. "The old fiddle is true to me

yet, though there is but one string left to its dear old neck." There

was a sob in his voice as he spoke. "I tell you, a fiddle's human, Dick!

It laughs at my jokes alone now; it weeps at my sorrows." He sighed

deeply and the tears glistened in his eyes. "The fiddle is the only

friend left me and the little ones at home now, my lad."

"--And Dick!" the boy suggested, somewhat hurt. He too was weeping.

"It's a shame; that's what it is!" he broke out, indignantly. "Tompkins

can't play the music like you used to, Strings."

"Oons!" exclaimed the fiddler, the humour in his nature bubbling again

to the surface. "It's only now and then the Lord has time to make a

fiddler, Dickey, my boy."

As he spoke, the greenroom shook with the rounds of applause from the

pit and galleries without.

"Hurrah!" he shouted, following Dick to the stage-door--his own sorrows

melting before the sunshine of his joy at the success of his favourite.

"Nell has caught them with the epilogue." He danced gleefully about,

entering heartily into the applause and totally forgetful of the fact

that he was on dangerous ground.

Dick was more watchful. "Manager Hart's coming!" he exclaimed in

startled voice, fearful for the welfare of his friend.

Strings collapsed. "Oh, Lord, let me be gone," he said, as he remembered

the bitter quarrel he had had with the manager of the King's House,

which ended in the employment of Tompkins. He did not yearn for another

interview; for Hart had forbidden him the theatre on pain of whipping.

"Where can you hide?" whispered Dick, woefully, as the manager's voice

indicated that he was approaching the greenroom, and that too in far

from the best of humour.

"Behind Richard's throne-chair! It has held sinners before now," added

the fiddler as he glided well out of sight.

Dick was more cautious. In a twinkling, he was out of the door which led

to the street.

The greenroom walls looked grim in the sputtering candle-light, but they

had naught to say.

The door from the stage opened, and in came Nell. There was something

sadly beautiful and pathetic in her face. She had enjoyed but now one of

the grandest triumphs known to the theatre, and yet she seemed oblivious

to the applause and bravas, to the lights and to the royalty.

A large bouquet of flowers was in her arms--a bouquet of red roses. Her

lips touched them reverently. Her eyes, however, were far away in a

dream of the past.

"From the hand of the King of England!" she mused softly to herself.

"The King? How like his face to the youthful cavalier, who weary and

worn reined in his steed a summer's day, now long ago, and took a gourd

of water from my hand. Could he have been the King? Pooh, pooh! I dream

again."

She turned away, as from herself, with a heart-heavy laugh. The manager

entered from the stage.

"See, Jack, my flowers," she said, again in an ecstasy of happiness.

"Are they not exquisite?"

"He took them from Castlemaine's hand to throw to you," snarled Hart,

jealously.

"The sweeter, then!" and Nell broke into a tantalizing laugh. "Mayhap he

was teaching the player-king to do likewise, Jack," she added,

roguishly, as she arranged the flowers in a vase.

"I am in no mood for wit-thrusts," replied Hart as he fretfully paced

the room. "You played that scene like an icicle."

"In sooth, your acting froze me," slyly retorted Nell, kindly but

pointedly. She took the sweetest roses from the bunch, kissed them and

arranged them in her bosom.

This did not improve Hart's temper.

Strings seized the opportunity to escape from his hiding-place to the

stage.

"I say, you completely ruined my work," said Hart. "The audience were

rightly displeased."

"With you, perhaps," suggested Nell. "I did not observe the feeling."

Hart could no longer control himself. "You vilely read those glorious

lines:

_"See how the gazing People crowd the Place;

All gaping to be fill'd with my Disgrace.

That Shout, like the hoarse Peals of Vultures rings,

When, over fighting Fields they beat their wings."_

"And how should I read them, dear master?" she asked demurely of her

vainglorious preceptor.

"Like I read them, in sooth," replied he, well convinced that his

reading could not be bettered.

"Like you read them, in sooth," replied Nell, meekly. She took the floor

and repeated the lines with the precise action and trick of voice which

Hart had used. Every "r" was well trilled; "gaping" was pronounced with

an anaconda-look, as though she were about to swallow the theatre,

audience and all; and, as she spoke the line, "When, over fighting

Fields they beat their wings," she raised her arms and shoulders in

imitation of some barn-yard fowl vainly essaying flight and swept across

the room, the picture of grace in ungracefulness.

"'Tis monstrous!" exclaimed Hart, bitterly, as he realized the travesty.

"You cannot act and never could. I was a fool to engage you."

Nell was back by the vase, toying with the flowers. "London applauds my

acting," she suggested, indifferently.

"London applauds the face and figure; not the art," replied Hart.

"London is wise; for the art is in the face and figure, Master Jack. You

told me so yourself," she added, sharply, pointing her finger at her

adversary in quick condemnation. She turned away triumphant.

"I was a fool like the rest," replied Hart, visibly irritated that he

could not get the better of the argument.

"Come, don't be angry," said Nell. Her manner had changed; for her heart

had made her fearful lest her tongue had been unkind. "Mayhap Almahyde

is the last part Nell will ever play." She looked thoughtfully into the

bunch of roses. Did she see a prophecy there?

He approached the table where she stood. "Your head is turned by the

flowers," he said, bitterly. "An honest motive, no doubt, prompted the

royal gift."

Nell turned sharply upon him. Her lips trembled, but one word only came

to them--"Jack!"

Hart's eyes fell under the rebuke; for he knew that only anger prompted

what he had said. He would have struck another for the same words.

"Pardon, Nell," he said, softly. "My heart rebukes my tongue. I love

you!"

Nell stepped back to the mirror, contemplating herself, bedecked as she

was with the flowers. In an instant she forgot all, and replied

playfully to Hart's confession of love: "Of course, you do. How could

you help it? So do others."

"I love you better than the rest," he added, vehemently, "better than my

life." He tried to put his arms about her.

Nell, however, was by him like a flash.

"Not so fast, dear sir," she said, coyly; and she tiptoed across the

room and ensconced herself high in the throne-chair.

Hart followed and knelt below her, adoring.

"Admit that I can act--a little--just a little--dear Hart, or tell me no

more of love." She spoke with the half-amused, half-indifferent air of a

beautiful princess to some servant-suitor; and she was, indeed, most

lovable as she leaned back in the great throne-chair. She seemed a queen

and the theatre her realm. Her beautiful arms shone white in the

flickering candle-light. Her sceptre was a rose which the King of

England had given her.

Hart stepped back and looked upon the picture. "By heaven, Nell," he

cried, "I spoke in anger. You are the most marvellous actress in the

world. Nature, art and genius crown your work."

Nell smiled at his vehemence. "I begin to think that you have taste most

excellent," she said.

Hart sprang to her side, filled with hope. As the stage-lover he ne'er

spoke in tenderer tones. "Sweet Nell, when I found you in the pit, a

ragged orange-girl, I saw the sparkle in your eye, the bright

intelligence, the magic genius, which artists love. I claimed you for my

art, which is the art of arts--for it embraces all. I had the theatre. I

gave it you. You captured the Lane--then London. You captured my soul as

well, and held it slave."

"Did I do all that, dear Jack?" she asked, wistfully.

"And more," said Hart, rapturously. "You captured my years to come, my

hope, ambition, love--all. All centred in your heart and eyes, sweet

Nell, from the hour I first beheld you."

Nell's look was far away. "Is love so beautiful?" she murmured softly.

Her eye fell upon her sceptre-rose. "Yea, I begin to think it is." She

mused a moment, until the silence seemed to awaken her. She looked into

Hart's eyes again, sadly but firmly, then spoke as with an effort: "You

paint the picture well, dear Jack. Paint on." Her hand waved

commandingly.

"I could not paint ill with such a model," said he, his voice full of

adoration.

"Well said," she replied; "and by my troth, I have relented like you,

dear Jack. I admit you too can act--and marvellously well." She took his

trembling hand and descended from the throne. He tried once again to

embrace her, but she avoided him as before.

"Is't true?" he asked, eagerly, without observing the hidden meaning in

her voice.

"'Tis true, indeed--with proper emphasis and proper art and proper

intonation." She crossed the room, Hart following her.

"I scarce can live for joy," he breathed.

Nell leaned back upon the table and looked knowingly and deeply into

Hart's eyes. Her voice grew very low, but clear and full of meaning.

"In faith," she said, "I trow and sadly speak but true; for I am sad at

times--yea--very sad--when I observe, with all my woman's wiles and

arts, I cannot act the hypocrite like men."

"What mean you, darling cynic?" asked he, jocosely.

"Darling!" she cried, repeating the word, with a peculiar look. "To tell

two girls within the hour you love each to the death would be in me

hypocrisy, I admit, beyond my art; but you men can do such things with

conscience clear."

Hart turned away his face. "She's found me out," he thought.

"Nell, I never loved the Spanish dancing-girl. You know I love but you."

"Oh, ho!" laughed Nell. "Then why did you tell her so?--to break her

heart or mine?"

The manager stood confused. He scarce knew what to say.

"You are cruel, Nell," he pleaded, fretfully. "You never loved me,

never."

"Did I ever say I did?"

Hart shook his head sadly.

"Come, don't pout, Jack. An armistice in this, my friend, for you were

my friend in the old days when I needed one, and I love you for that."

She placed her hands kindly on the manager's shoulders, then turned and

began to arrange anew the gift-flowers in the vase.

"I'll win your life's love, Nell, in spite of you," he said,

determinedly.

She turned her honest eyes upon him. "Nay, do not try; believe me, do

not try," she said softly.

"Nell, you do not mean--?" His voice faltered.

"You must not love me," she said, firmly; "believe me, you must not."

"I must not love you!" His voice scarcely breathed the words.

"There, there; we are growing sentimental, Jack,--and at our age," she

replied. She laughed gaily and started for her tiring-room.

He followed her.

"Sup with me, Nell," he pleaded. "No word of this, I promise you."

"Heyday, I'll see how good you are, Jack," she answered, cordially.

"My second bid to sup to-night," she thought. "Who sets the better

feast?"

The tiring-room door was open; and the little candles danced gleefully

about the make-up mirror, for even candles seemed happy when Nell came

near. The maid stood ready to assist her to a gown and wrap, that she

might leave the theatre.

Nell turned. Hart still stood waiting. The spirit of kindness

o'er-mastered her.

"Your hand, friend, your hand," she said, taking the manager's hand.

"When next you try to win a woman's love, don't throw away her

confidence; for you will never get it back again entire."

Hart bowed his head under the rebuke; and she entered her room.

CHAPTER IV

_Flowers and Music feed naught but Love._

The manager stood a moment looking through the half-closed door at Nell.

There was a strange mingling of contending forces at work in his nature.

To be sure, he had trifled with the affections of the Spanish

dancing-girl, a new arrival from Madrid and one of the latest

attractions of the King's House; but it was his pride, when he

discovered that Nell's sharp eyes had found him out, that suffered, not

his conscience. Was he not the fascinating actor-manager of the House?

Could he prevent the ladies loving him? Must he be accused of not loving

Nell, simply because his charms had edified the shapely new-comer?

Nell's rebuke had depressed him, but there was a smouldering fire

within. "'Slife!" he muttered. "If I do not steal my way into Nell's

heart, I'll abandon the rouge-box and till the soil."

As he approached his tiring-room, he bethought him that it would be well

first to have an oversight of the theatre. He turned accordingly and

pulled open the door that led to the stage.

As he did so, a figure fell into the greenroom, grasping devotedly a

violin, lest his fall might injure it. Strings had been biding his time,

waiting an opportunity to see Nell, and had fallen asleep behind the

door.

"How now, dog!" exclaimed the manager when he saw who the intruder was.

Strings hastened to his feet and hobbled across the room.

"I told you not to set foot here again," shouted Hart, following him

virulently.

Strings bowed meekly. "I thought the King's House in need of a player;

so I came back, sir," said he.

Hart was instantly beside himself. "Zounds!" he stormed. "I have had

enough impudence to contend with to-night. Begone; or up you go for a

vagrant."

"I called on Mistress Gwyn, sir," explained Strings.

"Mistress Gwyn does not receive drunkards," fiercely retorted Hart; and

he started hastily to the stage-door and called loudly for his force of

men to put the fiddler out.

Nell's door was still ajar. She had removed the roses from her hair and

dress. She caught at once her name. Indeed, there was little that went

on which Nell did not see or hear, even though walls intervened. "Who

takes my name in vain?" she called. Her head popped through the opening

left by the door, and she scanned the room.

As her eye fell upon the old fiddler, who had often played songs and

dances for her in days gone by, a cry of joy came from her lips. She

rushed into the greenroom and threw both arms about Strings's neck. "My

old comrade, as I live," she cried, dancing about him. "I am joyed to

see you, Strings!"

Turning, she saw the manager eying them with fiery glances. She knew the

situation and the feeling. "Jack, is it not good to have Strings back?"

she asked, sweetly.

Hart's face grew livid with anger. He could see the merry devil dancing

in her eye and on her tongue. He knew the hoyden well. "Gad, I will

resign management." He turned on his heel, entered his tiring-room and

closed the door, none too gently. He feared to tarry longer, lest he

might say too much.

Nell broke into a merry laugh; and the fiddler chuckled.

"You desert me these days, Strings," she said, as she leaned against the

table and fondly eyed the wayfarer of the tattered garments and

convivial spirits.

"I don't love your lackey-in-waiting, Mistress Nell," said he, with a

wink in the direction of the departed manager.

"Poor Jack. Never mind him," she said, with a roguish laugh, though with

no touch of malice in it, for there was devil without malice in Nell's

soul.

As she again sought the eyes of the fiddler, her face grew thoughtful.

She spoke--hesitated--and then spoke again, as if the thought gave her

pain. "Have you kept your word to me, Strings, and stopped--drinking?"

she asked. The last word fell faintly, tremblingly, from her

lips--almost inaudibly.

"Mistress Nell, I--I--" Strings's eyes fell quickly.

Nell's arm was lovingly about him in an instant. "There, there; don't

tell me, Strings. Try again, and come and see me often." There was a

delicacy in her voice and way more beautiful than the finest acting. The

words had hurt her more than him. She changed her manner in an instant.

Not so with Strings. The tears were in his eyes. "Mistress Nell, you are

so good to me," he said; "and I am such a wretch."

"So you are, Strings," and she laughed merrily.

"I have taught my little ones at home who it is that keeps the wolf from

our door," he continued.

"Not a word of that!" she exclaimed, reprovingly. "Poor old fellow!" Her

eyes grew big and bright as she reflected on the days she had visited

the fiddler's home and on the happiness her gifts had brought his

children. For her, giving was better than receiving. The feeling sprang

from the fulness of her own joy at seeing those about her happy, and not

from the teachings of priests or prelates. Dame Nature was her sole

preceptor in this.

"I'll bring the babes another sugar plum to-morrow. I haven't a farthing

to-night. Moll ran away with the earnings, and there is no one left to

rob," she said.

"Heyday," and she ran lightly to the vase and caught up the flowers.

"Take the flowers to the bright eyes, to make them brighter." They would

at least add cheerfulness to the room where Strings lived until she

could bring something better.

As she looked at the roses, she began to realize how dear they were

becoming to herself, for they were the King's gift; and her heart beat

quickly and she touched the great red petals lovingly with her lips.

Strings took the flowers awkwardly; and, as he did so, something fell

upon the floor. He knelt and picked it up, in his eagerness letting the

roses fall.

"A ring among the flowers, Mistress Nell," he cried.

"A ring!" she exclaimed, taking the jewel quickly. Her lips pressed the

setting. "Bless his heart! A ring from his finger," she continued half

aloud. "Is it not handsome, Strings?" Her eyes sparkled brightly and

there was a triumphant smile upon her lips.

The fiddler's face, however, was grave; his eyes were on the floor.

"How many have rings like that, while others starve," he mused,

seriously.

Nell held the jewel at arm's length and watched its varying brightness

in the candle-light. "We can moralize, now we have the ring," she said,

by way of rejoinder, then broke into a ringing laugh at her own

way-of-the-world philosophizing. "Bless the giver!" she added, in a mood

of rhapsody.

She turned, only again to observe the sad countenance of Strings.

"Alack-a-day! Why do you not take the nosegay?" she asked, wonderingly;

for she herself was so very happy that she could not see why Strings too

should not be so.

"It will not feed my little ones, Mistress Nell," he answered, sadly.

Nell's heart was touched in an instant. "Too true!" she said,

sympathetically, falling on her knee and lovingly gathering up the

roses. "Flowers and Music feed naught but Love, and often then Love goes

hungry--very hungry." Her voice was so sweet and tender that it seemed

as though the old viol had caught the notes.

"Last night, Mistress Nell," said Strings, "the old fiddle played its

sweetest melody for them, but they cried as if their tiny hearts would

break. They were starving, and I had nothing but music for them."

"Starving!" Nell listened to the word as though at first she did not

realize its meaning. "What can I send?" she cried, looking about in vain

and into her tiring-room.

Her eyes fell suddenly upon the rich jewel upon her finger. "No, no; I

cannot think of that," she thought.

Then the word "starving" came back to her again with all its force.

"Starving!" Her imagination pictured all its horrors. "Starving" seemed

written on every wall and on the ceiling. It pierced her heart and

brain. "Yes, I will," she exclaimed, wildly. "Here, Strings, old fellow,

take the ring to the babes, to cut their teeth on."

Strings stood aghast. "No, Mistress Nell; it is a present. You must

not," he protested.

"There are others where that came from," generously laughed Nell.

"You must not; you are too kind," he continued, firmly.

[Illustration: NELL PREVENTS A QUARREL.]

"Pooh, pooh! I insist," said Nell as she forced the jewel upon him. "It

will make a pretty mouthful; and, besides, I do not want my jewels to

outshine me."

Strings would have followed her and insisted upon her taking back the

beautiful gift, but Nell was gone in an instant and her door closed.

"To cut their teeth on!" he repeated as he placed the jewelled ring

wonderingly upon his bow-finger and watched it sparkle and laugh in the

light as he pretended to play a tune. "She is always joking like that;

Heaven reward her."

He stood lost in the realization of sudden affluence.

Buckingham entered the room from the stage-door. His eyes were full of

excitement. "The audience are wild over Nell, simply wild," he exclaimed

in his enthusiasm, unconscious of the fact that he had an auditor, who

was equally oblivious of his lordship's presence. "Gad," he continued,

rapturously, half aloud, half to himself, "when they are stumbling home

through London fog, the great _comedienne_ will be playing o'er the

love-scenes with Buckingham in a cosy corner of an inn. She will not

dare deny my bid to supper, with all her impudence. _Un petit

souper!_" He broke into a laugh. "Tis well Old Rowley was too engaged

to look twice at Nelly's eyes," he thought. "His Majesty shall never

meet the wench at arm's length, an I can help it."

He observed or rather became aware for the first time that there was

another occupant of the room.

"Ah, sirrah," he called, without noting the character of his companion,

"inform Mistress Nell, Buckingham is waiting."

Strings looked up. He seemed to have grown a foot in contemplation of

his sudden wealth. Indeed, each particular tatter on his back seemed to

have assumed an independent air.

"Inform her yourself!" he declared; and his manner might well have

become the dress of Buckingham. "Lord Strings is not your lackey this

season."

Buckingham gazed at him in astonishment, followed by amusement. "Lord

Strings!" he observed. "Lord Rags!"

Strings approached his lordship with a familiar, princely air. "How does

that look on my bow-finger, my lord?" and he flourished his hand wearing

the ring where Buckingham could well observe it.

His lordship started. "The King's ring!" he would have exclaimed, had

not the diplomat in his nature restrained him. "A fine stone!" he said

merely. "How came you by it?"

"Nell gave it to me," Strings answered.

Buckingham nearly revealed himself in his astonishment. "Nell!" he

muttered; and his face grew black as he wondered if his Majesty had

out-generalled him. "Damme," he observed aloud, inspecting the ring

closely, "I have taken a fancy to this gem."

"So have I," ejaculated Strings, as he avoided his lordship and strutted

across the room.

"I'll give you fifty guineas for it," said Buckingham, following him

more eagerly than the driver of a good bargain is wont.

Strings stood nonplussed. "Fifty guineas!" he exclaimed, aghast. This

was more money than the fiddler had ever thought existed. "Now?" he

asked, wonderingly.

"Now," replied his lordship, who proceeded at once to produce the

glittering coins and toss them temptingly before the fiddler's eyes.

"Oons, Nell surely meant me to sell it," he cried as he eagerly seized

the gold and fed his eyes upon it. "Odsbud, I always did love yellow."

He tossed some of the coins in the air and caught them with the

dexterity of a juggler.

Buckingham grew impatient. He desired a delivery. "Give me the ring," he

demanded.

Strings looked once more at the glittering gold; and visions of the

plenty which it insured to his little home, to say nothing of a flagon

or two of good brown ale which could be had by himself and his boon

comrades without disparagement to the dinners of the little ones, came

before him. If he had ever possessed moral courage, it was gone upon the

instant. "Done!" he exclaimed. "Oons, fifty guineas!" and he handed the

ring to Buckingham.

The fiddler was still absorbed in his possessions, whispering again and

again to the round bits of yellow: "My little bright-eyes will not go to

bed hungry to-night!" when Manager Hart entered proudly from his

tiring-room, dressed to leave the theatre.

Buckingham nodded significantly. "Not a word of this," he said,

indicating the ring, which he had quickly transferred to his own finger,

turning the jewel so that it could not be observed.

"'Sdeath, you still here?" said Hart, sharply, as his eyes fell upon the

fiddler.

Strings straightened up and puffed with the pomposity and pride of a

landed proprietor. He shook his newly acquired possessions until the

clinking of the gold was plainly audible to the manager.

"Still here, Master Hart, negotiating. When you are pressed for coin,

call on me, Master Hart. I run the Exchequer," he said, patronizingly.

It was humorous to see his air of sweeping condescension toward the tall

and dignified manager of the theatre who easily overtopped him by a

head.

"Gold!" exclaimed Hart, as he observed the glitter of the guineas in the

candle-light. His eyes turned quickly and suspiciously upon the lordly

Buckingham.

There was nothing, however, in his lordship's face to indicate that he

was aware even of the existence of the fiddler or of his gold. He sat by

the table, leaning carelessly upon it, his face filled with an

expression of supreme satisfaction. He had the attitude of one who was

waiting for somebody or something and confidently expected not to be

disappointed.

"Sup with me, Hart," continued Strings, with the air of a boon comrade.

"Sup with me--venison, capons, and--Epsom water."

"Thank you, I am engaged to supper," replied Hart, contemptuously,

brushing his cloak where it had been touched by the fiddler, as if his

fingers had contaminated it.

The insult clearly observable in the manager's tone, however, had no

effect whatever upon Strings. He tossed his head proudly and said

indifferently: "Oh, very well. Strings will sup with Strings. My coach,

my coach, I say. Drive me to my bonnie babes!"

He pushed open the door with a lordly air and passed out; and, for some

seconds, they heard a mingling of repeated demands for the coach and a

strain of music which sounded like "Away dull care; prythee away from

me."

Buckingham had observed the fiddler's tilt with the manager and the

royal exit of the ragged fellow with much amusement. "A merry wag! Who

is that?" he asked, as Strings's voice grew faint in the entry-way.

Hart was strutting actor-fashion before the mirror, arranging his curls

to hang gracefully over his forehead and tilting now and again the big

plumed hat. "A knave of fortune, it seems," he answered coolly and still

suspiciously.

"Family?" asked Buckingham, indifferently.

"Twins, I warrant," replied Hart, in an irritated tone.

Buckingham chuckled softly.

"No wonder he's tattered and gray," he declared, humorously

philosophizing upon Hart's reply, though it was evident that Hart

himself was too much chafed by the presence of his lordship in the

greenroom after the play to know what he really had said.

An ominous coolness now pervaded the atmosphere. Buckingham sat by the

table, impatiently tapping the floor with his boot, his eyes growing

dark at the delay. Hart still plumed himself before the mirror. His

dress was rich; his sword was well balanced, a Damascus blade; his cloak

hung gracefully; his big black hat and plumes were jaunty. He had, too,

vigour in his step. With it all, however, he was a social outcast, and

he felt it, while his companion, whose faults of nature were none the

less glaring than his own, was almost the equal of a king.

There was a tap at Nell's door. It was the call-boy, who had slipped

unobserved into the room.

"What is it, Dick?" asked Nell, sweetly, as she opened the door slightly

to inspect her visitor.

"A message,--very important," whispered Dick, softly, as he passed a

note within.

"Thank you," replied the actress; and the door closed again.

Dick was about to depart, when the alert Buckingham, rising hastily from

his seat, called him.

"That was Nell's voice?" he asked.

"Yes, my lord. She's dressing," answered Dick. "Good night, Master

Hart," he added, as he saw the manager.

Hart, however, was not in a good humour and turned sharply upon him.

Dick vanished.

"She will be out shortly, my lord," the manager observed to Buckingham,

somewhat coldly. "But it will do you little good," he thought, as he

reflected upon his conversation with Nell.

Buckingham leaned lazily over the back of a chair and replied

confidently, knowing that his speech would be no balm to the irate

manager: "Nell always keeps her engagements religiously with me. We are

to sup together to-night, Hart."

"Odso!" retorted the other, drawing himself up to his full height. "You

will be disappointed, methinks."

"I trow not," Buckingham observed, with a smile which made Hart wince.

"Pepys's wife has him mewed up at home when Nelly plays, and the King is

tied to other apron-strings." His lordship chuckled as he bethought him

how cleverly he had managed that his Majesty be under the proper

influence. "What danger else?" he inquired, cuttingly.

Though the words were mild, the feelings of the two men were at

white-heat.

"Your lordship's hours are too valuable to waste," politely suggested

the manager. "I happen to know Mistress Gwyn sups with another

to-night."

"Another?" sneered his lordship.

"Another!" hotly repeated the actor.

"We shall see, friend Hart," said Buckingham, in a tone no less

agreeable, with difficulty restraining his feelings.

He threw himself impatiently into a big arm-chair, which he had swung

around angrily, so that its back was to the manager.

The insult was more than Hart could bear. He also seized a chair, and

vented his vengeance upon it. Almost hurled from its place, it fell back

to back with Buckingham's.

"We shall see, my lord," he said as he likewise angrily took his seat

and folded his arms.

It was like "The Schism" of Vibert.

It is difficult to tell what would have been the result, had the place

been different. Each knew that Nell was just beyond her door; each

hesitated; and each, with bitterness in his heart, held on to himself.

They sat like sphinxes.

Suddenly, Nell's door slightly opened. She was dressed to leave the

theatre. In her hand she held a note.

"A fair message, on my honour! Worth reading twice or even thrice," she

roguishly exclaimed unto her maid as she directed her to hold a candle

nearer that she might once again spell out its words. "'To England's

idol, the divine Eleanor Gwyn.' A holy apt beginning, by the mass! 'My

coach awaits you at the stage-door. We will toast you to-night at

Whitehall.'"

Nell's eyes seemed to drink in the words, and it was her heart which

said: "Long live his Majesty."

She took the King's roses in her arms; the Duke's roses, she tossed upon

the floor.

The manager awoke as from a trance. "You will not believe me," he said

to Buckingham, confidently. "Here comes the arbiter of your woes, my

lord." He arose quickly.

"It will not be hard, methinks, sir, to decide between a coronet and a

player's tinsel crown," observed his princely rival, with a sneer, as he

too arose and assumed an attitude of waiting.

"Have a care, my lord. I may forget--" Hart's fingers played upon his

sword-hilt.

"Your occupation, sir?" jeered Buckingham.

"Aye; my former occupation of a soldier"; and Hart's sword sprang from

its scabbard, with a dexterity that proved that he had not forgotten the

trick of war.

Buckingham too would have drawn, but a merry voice stayed him.

"How now, gentlemen?" sprang from Nell's rosy lips, as she came between

them, a picture of roguish beauty.

Hart's pose in an instant was that of apology. "Pardon, Nell," he

exclaimed, lifting his hat and bowing in courtly fashion. "A small

difference of opinion; naught else."

"Between friends," replied Nell, reprovingly.

"By the Gods," cried Buckingham,--and his hat too was in the air and his

knee too was bent before the theatre-queen,--"the rewards are worth more

than word-combats."

"Pshaw!" said Nell, as she hugged the King's roses tighter in her arms.

"True Englishmen fight shoulder to shoulder, not face to face."

"In this case," replied his lordship, with the air of a conqueror, "the

booty cannot be amicably distributed."

"Oh, ho!" cried Nell. "Brave generals, quarrelling over the spoils.

Pooh! There is no girl worth fighting for--that is, not over one!

Buckingham! Jack! For shame! What coquette kindles this hot blood?"

"The fairest maid in England," said Hart, with all the earnestness of

conviction, and with all the courtesy of the theatre, which teaches

courtesy.

"The dearest girl in all this world," said Buckingham as quickly; for he

too must bow if he would win.

"How stupid!" lisped Nell, with a look of baby-innocence. "You must mean

me! Who else could answer the description? A quarrel over poor me! This

is delicious. I love a fight. Out with your swords and to't like men! To

the victor! Come, name the quarrel."

"This player--" began his lordship, hotly. He caught the quick gleam in

Nell's eyes and hesitated. "I mean," he substituted, apologetically,

"Master Hart--labours under the misapprehension that you sup with him

to-night."

"Nell," asserted the manager, defensively, "it is his lordship who

suffers from the delusion that the first actress of England sups with

him to-night."

"My arm and coach are yours, madame," pleaded his lordship, as he

gallantly offered an arm.

"Pardon, my lord; Nell, my arm!" said Hart.

"Heyday!" cried the witch, bewitchingly. "Was ever maid so nobly

squired? This is an embarrassment of riches." She looked longingly at

the two attending gallants. There was something in her voice that might

be mockery or that might be love. Only the devil in her eyes could tell.

"Gentlemen, you tear my heart-strings," she continued. "How can I choose

between such loves? To-night, I sup at Whitehall!" and she darted

quickly toward the door.

"Whitehall!" the rivals cried, aghast.

"Aye, Whitehall--_with the King_!"

There was a wild, hilarious laugh, and she was gone.

[Illustration: MISTRESS NELL IS TOLD OF THE KING'S DANGER.]

Buckingham and Hart stood looking into each other's face. They heard the

sound of coach-wheels rapidly departing in the street.

CHAPTER V

_It was never treason to steal a King's kisses._

A year and more had flown.

It was one of those glorious moon-lit nights in the early fall when

there is a crispness in the air which lends an edge to life.

St. James's Park was particularly beautiful. The giant oaks with their

hundreds of years of story written in their rings lifted high their

spreading branches, laden with leaves, which shimmered in the light. The

historic old park seemed to be made up of patches of day and night. In

the open, one might read in the mellow glow of the harvest-moon; in the

shade of one of its oaks, a thief might safely hide.

Facing on the park, there stood a house of Elizabethan architecture.

Along its wrinkled, ivy-mantled wall ran a terrace-like balustrade,

where one might walk and enjoy the night without fear.

The house was well defined by the rays of the moon, which seemed to

dance upon it in a halo of mirth; and from the park, below the terrace,

came the soft notes of a violin, tenderly picked.

None other than Strings was sitting astride of a low branch of an oak,

looking up at a window, like some guardian spirit from the devil-land,

singing in his quaintly unctuous way:

_"Four and twenty fiddlers all in a row,

And there was fiddle-fiddle, and twice fiddle-fiddle."_

"How's that for a serenade to Mistress Nell?" he asked himself as he

secured a firm footing on the ground and slung his fiddle over his back.

"She don't know it's for her, but the old viol and old Strings know." He

came to a stand-still and winced. "Oons, my old wound again," he said,

with a sharp cry, followed as quickly by a laugh. His eyes still

wandered along the balustrade, as eagerly as some young Romeo at the

balcony of his Juliet. "I wish she'd walk her terrace to-night," he

sighed, "where we could see her--the lovely lady!"

His rhapsody was suddenly broken in upon by the approach of some one

down the path. He glided into the shadow of an oak and none too quickly.

From the obscurity of the trees, into the open, a chair was swiftly

borne, by the side of which ran a pretty page of tender years, yet well

schooled in courtly wisdom. The lovely occupant leaned forward and

motioned to the chairmen, who obediently rested and assisted her to

alight.

"Retire beneath the shadow of the trees," she whispered. "Have a care;

no noise."

The chairmen withdrew quietly, but within convenient distance, to await

her bidding.

Strings's heart quite stopped beating. "The Duchess of Portsmouth at

Mistress Nell's!" he said, almost aloud in his excitement. "Then the

devil must be to pay!" and he slipped well behind the oak-trunk again.

Portsmouth's eyes snapped with French fire as she glanced up at Nell's

terrace. Then she turned to the page by her side. "His Majesty came this

path before?" she asked, with quick, French accent.

"Yes, your grace," replied the page.

"And up this trellis?"

"Yes, your grace."

"Again to-night?"

"I cannot tell, your grace," replied the lad. "I followed as you bade

me; but the King's legs were so long, you see, I lost him."

Portsmouth smiled. "Softly, pretty one," she said. "Watch if he comes

and warn me; for we may have passed him."

The lad ran gaily down the path to perform her bidding.

"State-business!" she muttered, as she reflected bitterly upon the

King's late excuses to her. "_Mon Dieu_, does he think me a country

wench? I was schooled at Louis's court." Her eyes searched the house

from various points of advantage. "A light!" she exclaimed, as a candle

burned brightly from a window, like a spark of gold set in the silver of

the night. "Would I had an invisible cloak." She tiptoed about a corner

of the wall--woman-like, to see if she could see, not Nell, but Charles.

Scarcely had she disappeared when a second figure started up in the

moonlight, and a gallant figure, too. It was the Duke of Buckingham.

"Not a mouse stirring," he reflected, glancing at the terrace. "Fair

minx, you will not long refuse Buckingham's overtures. Come, Nelly, thy

King is already half stolen away by Portsmouth of France, and Portsmouth

of France is our dear ally in the great cause and shall be more so."

To his astonishment, as he drew nearer, he observed a lady, richly

dressed, gliding between himself and the terrace. He rubbed his eyes to

see that he was not dreaming. She was there, however, and a pretty

armful, too.

"Nell," he chuckled, as he stole up behind her.

Portsmouth meanwhile had learned that the window was too high to allow

her to gain a view within the dwelling. She started--observing, more by

intuition than by sight, that she was watched--and drew her veil closely

about her handsome features.

"Nelly, Nelly," laughed Buckingham, "I have thee, wench. Come, a

kiss!--a kiss! Nay, love; it was never treason to steal a King's

kisses."

He seized her by the arm and was about to kiss her when she turned and

threw back her veil.

"Buckingham!" she said, suavely.

"Portsmouth!" he exclaimed, awestruck.

He gathered himself together, however, in an instant, and added, as if

nothing in the world had happened: "An unexpected pleasure, your grace."

"Yes," said she, with a pretty shrug. "I did not know I was so honoured,

my lord."

"Or you would not have refused the little kiss?" he asked, suggestively.

"You called me 'Nelly,' my lord. I do not respond to that name."

"Damme, I was never good at names, Louise," said he, with mock-apology,

"especially by moonlight."

"Buz, buz!" she answered, with a knowing gesture and a knowing look.

Then, pointing toward the terrace, she added: "A pretty nest! A pretty

bird within, I warrant. Her name?"

"Ignorance well feigned," he thought. He replied, however, most

graciously: "Nell Gwyn."

"Oh, ho! The King's favourite, who has more power, they say, than great

statesmen--like my lord."

Her speech was well defined to draw out his lordship; but he was wary.

"Unless my lord is guided by my lady, as formerly," he replied,

diplomatically.

A look of suspicion crept into Portsmouth's face: but it was not visible

for want of contrast; for all things have a perverted look by the light

of the moon.

She had known Buckingham well at Dover. Their interests there had been

one in securing privileges from England for her French King. Both had

been well rewarded too for their pains. There were no proofs, however,

of this; and where his lordship stood to-day, and which cause he would

espouse, she did not know. His eyes at Dover had fallen fondly upon her,

but men's eyes fall fondly upon many women, and she would not trust too

much until she knew more.

"My chairmen have set me down at the wrong door-step," she said, most

sweetly. "My lord longs for his kiss. _Au revoir!_"

She bowed and turned to depart.

Buckingham was alert in an instant. He knew not when the opportunity

might come again to deal so happily with Louis's emissary and the place

and time of meeting had its advantages.

"Prythee stay, Duchess. I left the merry hunters, returning from

Hounslow Heath, all in Portsmouth's interest," he said. "Is this to be

my thanks?"

She approached him earnestly. "My lord must explain. I am stupid in

fitting English facts to English words."

"Have you forgotten Dover?" he asked, intensely, but subdued in voice,

"and my pledges sworn to?--the treaty at the Castle?--the Duchess of

Orleans?--the Grand Monarch?"

"Hush!" exclaimed Portsmouth, clutching his arm and looking cautiously

about.

"If my services to you there were known," he continued, excitedly, "and

to the great cause--the first step in making England pensioner of France

and Holland the vassal of Louis--my head would pay the penalty. Can you

not trust me still?"

"You are on strange ground to-night," suggested Portsmouth, tossing her

head impatiently to indicate the terrace, as she tried to fathom the

real man.

"I thought the King might pass this way, and came to see," hastily

explained his lordship, observing that she was reflecting upon the

incongruity of his friendship for her and of his visit to Madame Gwyn.

"And if he did?" she asked, dubiously, not seeing the connection.

"I have a plan to make his visits less frequent, Louise,--for your sweet

sake and mine."

The man was becoming master. He had pleased her, and she was beginning

to believe.

"Yes?" she said, in a way which might mean anything, but certainly that

she was listening, and intently listening too.

"You have servants you can trust?" he asked.

"I have," she replied as quickly; and she gloried in the thought that

some at least were as faithful as Louis's court afforded.

"They must watch Nell's terrace here, night and day," he almost

commanded in his eagerness, "who comes out, who goes in and the hour.

She may forget her royal lover; and--well--we shall have witnesses in

waiting. We owe this kindness--to his Majesty."

Portsmouth shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "_Mon Dieu!_" she

said. "My servants have watched, my lord, already. The despatches would

have been signed and Louis's army on the march against the Dutch but for

this vulgar player-girl, whom I have never seen. The King forgets all

else."

The beautiful Duchess was piqued, indeed, that the English King should

be so swayed. She felt that it was a personal disgrace--an insult to her

charms and to her culture. She felt that the court knew it and laughed,

and she feared that Louis soon would know. Nell Gwyn! How she hated

her--scarce less than she loved Louis and her France.

"Be of good cheer," suggested Buckingham, soothingly; and he half

embraced her. "My messenger shall await your signal, to carry the news

to Louis and his army."

"There is no news," replied she, and turned upon him bitterly. "Charles

evades me. Promise after promise to sup with me broken. I expected him

to-night. My spies warned me he would not come; that he is hereabouts

again. I followed myself to see. I have the papers with me always. If I

can but see the King alone, it will not take long to dethrone this

up-start queen; wine, sweet words--England's sign-manual."

There was a confident smile on her lips as she reflected upon her

personal powers, which had led Louis XIV. of France to entrust a great

mission to her. His lordship saw his growing advantage. He would make

the most of it.

"In the last event you have the ball!" he suggested, hopefully.

"Aye, and we shall be prepared," she cried. "But Louis is impatient to

strike the blow for Empire unhampered by British sympathy for the Dutch,

and the ball is--"

"A fortnight off," interrupted Buckingham, with a smile.

"And my messenger should be gone to-night," she continued, irritably.

She approached him and whispered cautiously: "I have to-day received

another note from Bouillon. Louis relies upon me to win from Charles his

consent to the withdrawal of the British troops from Holland. This will

insure the fall of Luxembourg--the key to our success. You see,

Buckingham, I must not fail. England's debasement shall be won."

There was a whistle down the path.

"Some one comes!" she exclaimed. "My chair!"

The page, who had given the signal, came running to her. Her chairmen

too were prompt.

"Join me," she whispered to Buckingham, as he assisted her to her seat

within.

"Later, Louise, later," he replied. "I must back to the neighbouring

inn, before the huntsmen miss me."

Portsmouth waved to the chairmen, who moved silently away among the

trees.

Buckingham stood looking after them, laughing.

"King Charles, a French girl from Louis's court will give me the keys to

England's heart and her best honours," he muttered.

He glanced once again quickly at the windows of the house, and then,

with altered purpose, swaggered away down a side path. He was well

pleased with his thoughts, well pleased with his chance interview with

the beautiful Duchess and well pleased with himself. His brain wove and

wove moonbeam webs of intrigue as he passed through the light and shadow

of the night, wherein he would lend a helping hand to France and secure

gold and power for his pains. He had no qualms of conscience; for must

not his estates be kept, his dignity maintained? His purpose was clear.

He would bring Portsmouth and the King closer together: and what England

lost, he would gain--and, therefore, England; for was not he himself a

part of England, and a great part?

Then too he must and would have Nell.

CHAPTER VI

Softly on tiptoe;

Here Nell doth lie.

As often happens in life, when one suitor departs, another suitor

knocks; and so it happened on this glorious night. The belated suitor

was none other than Charles, the Stuart King. He seemed in the moonlight

the picture of royalty, of romance, of dignity, of carelessness, of

indifference--the royal vagabond of wit, of humour and of love. A

well-thumbed "Hudibras" bulged from his pocket. He was alone, save for

some pretty spaniels that played about him. He heeded them not. His

thoughts were of Nell.

"Methought I heard voices tuned to love," he mused, as he glanced about.

"What knave has spied out the secret of her bower? Ho, Rosamond, my

Rosamond! Why came I here again to-night? What is there in this girl,

this Nell? And yet her eyes, how like the pretty maid's who passed me

the cup that day at the cottage where we rested. Have I lived really to

love--I, Solomon's rival in the entertainment of the fair,--to have my

heart-strings torn by this roguish player?"

His reflections were broken in upon by the hunters' song in the

distance. The music was so in harmony with the night that the forest

seemed enchanted.

"Hush; music!" he exclaimed, softly, as he lent himself reluctantly to

the spell, which pervaded everything as in a fairyland. "Odds, moonlight

was once for me as well the light for revels, bacchanals and frolics;

yet now I linger another evening by Nell's terrace, mooning like a lover

o'er the memory of her eyes and entranced by the hunters' song."

[Illustration: THE KING PROFESSES HIS LOVE FOR NELL.]

The singers were approaching. The King stepped quickly beneath the

trellis, in an angle of the wall, and waited. Their song grew richer, as

melodious as the night, but it struck a discord in his soul. He was

thinking of a pair of eyes.

"Cease those discordant jangles," he exclaimed impatiently to himself;

"cease, I say! No song except for Nell! Nell! Pour forth your sweetest

melody for Nell!"

The hunters stopped as by intuition before the terrace. A goodly company

they were, indeed; there were James and Rochester and others of the

court returning from the day's hunt. There was Buckingham too, who had

rejoined them as they left the inn. The music died away.

"Whose voice was that?" asked James, as he caught the sound of the

King's impatient exclamation from the corner of the wall.

"Some dreamer of the night," laughed Buckingham. "Yon love-sick fellow,

methinks," he continued, pointing to a figure, well aloof beneath the

trees, who was watching the scene most jealously. It was none other than

Hart, who rarely failed to have an eye on Nell's terrace and who

instantly stole away in the darkness.

"This is the home of Eleanor Gwyn we are passing," said Rochester,

superfluously; for all knew full well that it was Nelly's terrace.

"The love-lorn seer is wise," cried the Duke of York, quite forgetting

his frigid self as he bethought him of Nell, and becoming quite

lover-like, as he, sighing, said: "It were well to make peace with

Nelly. Sing, hunters, sing!"

The command was quickly obeyed and the voices well attuned; for none

were there but worshipped Nelly.

Hail to the moonbeams'

Crystal spray,

Nestling in Heaven

All the day,

Falling by night-time,

Silvery showers,

Twining with love-rhyme

Nell's fair bowers.

Sing, hunters, sing,

Gently carolling,

Here lies our hart--

Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

Hail to the King's oaks,

Sentries blest,

Spreading their branches,

Guarding her rest,

Telling the breezes,

Hastening by:

"Softly on tiptoe;

Here Nell doth lie."

Sing, hunters, sing,

Gently carolling,

Here lies our hart--

Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

The King heard the serenade to the end, then stepped gaily from his

hiding-place.

"Brother James under Nelly's window!" he said, with a merry laugh.

"The King!" exclaimed James, in startled accents, as he realized the

presence of his Majesty and the awkward position in which he and his

followers were placed.

"The King!" repeated the courtiers. Hats were off and knees were bent

respectfully.

"Brother," saluted Charles, as he embraced the Duke of York

good-naturedly.

Buckingham withdrew a few steps. He was the most disturbed at the

presence of the King at Nelly's bower. "As I feared," he thought. "Devil

take his Majesty's meandering heart."

"Odsfish," laughed Charles, "we must guard our Nelly, or James and his

saintly followers will rob her bower by moonlight."

The Duke of York assumed a devout and dignified mien. "Sire," he

attempted to explain, but was interrupted quickly by his Majesty.

"No apologies, pious brother. God never damned a man for a little

irregular pleasure."

There was a tittering among the courtiers as the King's words fell upon

their ears.

James continued to apologize. "In faith, we were simply passing--" he

said.

Again he was interrupted by his Majesty, who was in the best of humour

and much pleased at the discomfiture of his over-religious brother.

"Lorenzo too was simply passing," he observed, "but the fair Jessica and

some odd ducats stuck to his girdle; and the Jew will still be tearing

his hair long after we are dust. Ah, Buckingham, they tell me you too

have a taste for roguish Nelly. Have a care!"

The King strode across to Buckingham as he spoke; and while there was

humour in his tone, there was injunction also.

Buckingham was too great a courtier not to see and feel it. He bowed

respectfully, replying to his Majesty, "Sire, I would not presume to

follow the King's eyes, however much I admire their taste."

"'T'is well," replied his Majesty, pointedly, "lest they lead thee

abroad on a sleeveless mission."

Others had travelled upon such missions; Buckingham knew it well.

"But what does your Majesty here to-night, if we dare ask?" questioned

James, who had just bethought him how to turn the tables upon the King.

Charles looked at his brother quizzically. "Humph!" he exclaimed, in his

peculiar way. "Feeding my ducks in yonder pond." His staff swept

indefinitely toward the park.

"Hunting with us were nobler business, Sire," suggested James,

decisively.

"Not so," replied the King, quite seriously. "My way--I learn to

legislate for ducks."

"'T'were wiser," preached York, "to study your subjects' needs."

The King's eyes twinkled. "I go among them," he said, "and learn their

needs, while you are praying, brother."

At this sally, Rochester became convulsed, though he hid it well; for

Rochester was not as pious as brother James.

York, feeling that the sympathy was against him, grew more earnest

still. "I wish your Majesty would have more care," he pleaded. "'Tis a

crime against yourself, a crime against the state, a crime against the

cavaliers who fought and died for you, to walk these paths alone in such

uncertain times. Perchance, 'tis courting lurking murder!"

"No kind of danger, James," answered the King, with equal seriousness,

laying a hand kindly on his brother's shoulder; "for I am sure no man in

England would take away my life to make you King."

There was general laughter from the assembled party; for all dared

laugh, even at the expense of the Duke of York, when the jest was of the

King's making. Indeed, not to laugh at a king's jest has been in every

age, in or out of statutes, the greatest crime. Fortunately, King

Charles's wit warranted its observation.

James himself grew mellow under the influence of the gaiety, and almost

affectionately replied, "God grant it be ever so, brother." He then

turned the thought. "We heard but now an ambassador from Morocco's court

is lately landed. He brings your Majesty two lions and thirty

ostriches."

"Odsfish, but he is kind," replied the King, reflecting on the gift. "I

know of nothing more proper to send by way of return than a flock of

geese."

His brow arched quizzically, as he glanced over the circle of inert

courtiers ranged about him. "Methinks I can count them out at

Whitehall," he thought.

"He seeks an audience to-night. Will you grant it, Sire?" besought

James.

"'Sheart!" replied the King. "Most cheerfully, I'll lead you from

Nelly's terrace, brother. Hey! Tune up your throats. On to the palace."

CHAPTER VII

Come down!

Come up!

The music died away among the old oaks in the park. Before its final

notes were lost on the air, however, hasty steps and a chatter of

women's voices came from the house. The door leading to the terrace was

thrown quickly open, and Nell appeared. Her eyes had the bewildered look

of one who has been suddenly awakened from a sleep gilded with a

delightful dream.

She had, indeed, been dreaming--dreaming of the King and of his coming.

As she lay upon her couch, where she had thrown herself after the

evening meal, she had seemed to hear his serenade.

Then the music ceased and she started up and rubbed her eyes. It was

only to see the moonlight falling through the latticed windows on to the

floor of her dainty chamber. She was alone and she bethought herself

sadly that dreams go by contraries.

Once again, however, the hunters' song had arisen on her startled

ear--and had died away in sweet cadences in the distance. It was not a

dream!

As she rushed out upon the terrace, she called Moll reprovingly; and, in

an instant, Moll was at her side. The faithful girl had already seen the

hunters and had started a search for Nell; but the revellers had gone

before she could find her.

"What is it, dear Nell?" asked her companion, well out of breath.

"Why did you not call me, cruel girl?" answered Nell, impatiently. "To

miss seeing so many handsome cavaliers! Where is my kerchief?"

Nell leaned over the balustrade and waved wildly to the departing

hunters. A pretty picture she was too, in her white flowing gown,

silvered by the moonlight.

"See, see," she exclaimed to Moll, with wild enthusiasm, "some one waves

back. It may be he, sweet mouse. Heigh-ho! Why don't you wave, Moll?"

Before Moll could answer, a rich bugle-horn rang out across the park.

"The hunters' horn!" cried Nell, gleefully. "Oh, I wish I were a

man--except when one is with me"; and she threw both arms about Moll,

for the want of one better to embrace. She was in her varying mood,

which was one 'twixt the laughter of the lip and the tear in the eye.

"I have lost my brother!" ejaculated some one; but she heard him not.

This laconic speech came from none other than the King, who in a

bantering mood had returned.

"I went one side a tree and pious James t'other; and here I am by

Nelly's terrace once again," he muttered. "Oh, ho! wench!" His eyes had

caught sight of Nell upon the terrace.

He stepped back quickly into the shadow and watched her playfully.

Nell looked longingly out into the night, and sighed heavily. She was at

her wit's end. The evening was waning, and the King, as she thought, had

not come.

"Why do you sigh?" asked Moll, consolingly.

"I was only looking down the path, dear heart," replied Nell, sadly.

"He will come," hopefully suggested Moll, whose little heart sympathized

deeply with her benefactress.

"Nay, sweet," said Nell, and she shook her curls while the moonbeams

danced among them, "he is as false as yonder moon--as changeable of

face."

She withdrew her eyes from the path and they fell upon the King. His

Majesty's curiosity had quite over-mastered him, and he had

inadvertently stepped well into the light. The novelty of hearing

himself derided by such pretty lips was a delicious experience, indeed.

"The King!" she cried, in joyous surprise.

Moll's diplomatic effort to escape at the sight of his Majesty was not

half quick enough for Nell, who forthwith forced her companion into the

house, and closed the door sharply behind her, much to the delight of

the humour-loving King.

Nell then turned to the balustrade and, somewhat confused, looked down

at his Majesty, who now stood below, calmly gazing up at her, an amused

expression on his face.

"Pardon, your Majesty," she explained, falteringly, "I did not see you."

"You overlooked me merely," slyly suggested Charles, swinging his stick

in the direction of the departed hunters.

"I'faith, I thought it was you waved answer, Sire," quickly replied

Nell, whose confusion was gone and who was now mistress of the situation

and of herself.

"No, Nell; I hunt alone for my hart."

"You hunt the right park, Sire."

"Yea, a good preserve, truly," observed the King. "I find my game, as I

expected, flirting, waving kerchiefs, making eyes and throwing kisses to

the latest passer-by."

"I was encouraging the soldiers, my liege. That is every woman's duty to

her country."

"And her country_men_," said he, smiling. "You are very loyal,

Nell. Come down!" It was irritating, indeed, to be kept so at arm's

length.

She gazed down at him with impish sweetness--down at the King of

England!

"Come up!" she said, leaning over the balustrade.

"Nay; come down if you love me," pleaded the King.

"Nay; come up if you love me," said Nell, enticingly.

"Egad! I am too old to climb," exclaimed the Merry Monarch.

"Egad! I am too young yet for the downward path, your Majesty," retorted

Nell.

The King shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

"You will fall if we give you time," he said.

"To the King's level?" she asked, slyly, then answered herself:

"Mayhap."

Thus they stood like knights after the first tilt. Charles looked up at

Nell, and Nell looked down at Charles. There was a moment's silence.

Nell broke it.

"I am surprised you happen this way, Sire."

"With such eyes to lure me?" asked the King, and he asked earnestly too.

"Tush," answered Nell, coyly, "your tongue will lead you to perdition,

Sire."

"No fear!" replied he, dryly. "I knelt in church with brother James but

yesterday."

"In sooth, quite true!" said Nell, approvingly, as she leaned back

against the door and raised her eyes innocently toward the moon. "I sat

in the next pew, Sire, afraid to move for fear I might awake your

Majesty."

The King chuckled softly to himself. Nell picked one of the flowers that

grew upon the balustrade.

"Ah, you come a long-forgotten path to-night," she said abruptly.

The King was alert in an instant. He felt that he had placed himself in

a false light. He loved the witch above despite himself.

"I saw thee twa evenings ago, lass," he hastily asserted, in good Scotch

accents, somewhat impatiently.

"And is not that a long time, Sire," questioned Nell, "or did Portsmouth

make it fly?"

"Portsmouth!" exclaimed Charles. He turned his face away. "Can it be my

conscience pricks me?" he thought. "You know more of her than I, sweet

Nell," he then asserted, with open manner.

"Marry, I know her not at all and never saw her," said Nell. "I shall

feel better when I do," she thought.

"It were well for England's peace you have not met," laughed Charles.

"Faith and troth," said Nell, "I am happy to know our King has lost his

heart."

"Odso! And why?" asked Charles; and he gazed at Nell in his curious

uncertain way, as he thought it was never possible to tell quite what

she meant or what she next would think or say or do.

"We feared he had not one to lose," she slyly suggested. "It gives us

hope."

"To have it in another's hand as you allege?" asked Charles.

"Marry, truly!" answered Nell, decisively. "The Duchess may find it more

than she can hold and toss it over."

"How now, wench!" exclaimed the King, with assumption of wounded

dignity. "My heart a ball for women to bat about!"

"Sire, two women often play at rackets even with a king's heart," softly

suggested Nell.

"Odsfish," cried the King, with hands and eyes raised in mock

supplication. "Heaven help me then."

Again the hunters' horn rang clearly on the night.

"The horn! The horn!" said Nell, with forced indifference. "They call

you, Sire."

There was a triumphantly bewitching look in her eyes, however, as she

realized the discomfiture of the King. He was annoyed, indeed. His

manner plainly betokened his desire to stay and his irritation at the

interruption.

"'Tis so!" he said at last, resignedly. "The King is lost."

The horn sounded clearer. The hunters were returning.