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