It was yet warm and bright in the street, the dust thick, the air heavy
with the odors of the May. Haward and MacLean walked in silence, each as
to the other, one as to the world at large. Now and again the Virginian
must stop to bow profoundly to curtsying ladies, or to take snuff with
some portly Councilor or less stately Burgess who, coming from the
Capitol, chanced to overtake them. When he paused his storekeeper paused
also, but, having no notice taken of him beyond a glance to discern his
quality, needed neither a supple back nor a ready smile.
Haward lodged upon Palace Street, in a square brick house, lived in by an
ancient couple who could remember Puritan rule in Virginia, who had served
Sir William Berkeley, and had witnessed the burning of Jamestown by Bacon.
There was a grassy yard to the house, and the path to the door lay through
an alley of lilacs, purple and white. The door was open, and Haward and
MacLean, entering, crossed the hall, and going into a large, low room,
into which the late sunshine was streaming, found the negro Juba setting
cakes and wine upon the table.
"This gentleman hath a broken head, Juba," said the master. "Bring water
and linen, and bind it up for him."
As he spoke he laid aside hat and rapier, and motioned MacLean to a seat
by the window. The latter obeyed the gesture in silence, and in silence
submitted to the ministrations of the negro. Haward, sitting at the table,
waited until the wound had been dressed; then with a wave of the hand
dismissed the black.
"You would take nothing at my hands the other day," he said to the grim
figure at the window. "Change your mind, my friend,--or my foe,--and come
sit and drink with me."
MacLean reared himself from his seat, and went stiffly over to the table.
"I have eaten and drunken with an enemy before to-day," he said. "Once I
met Ewin Mor Mackinnon upon a mountain side. He had oatcake in his
sporran, and I a flask of usquebaugh. We couched in the heather, and ate
and drank together, and then we rose and fought. I should have slain him
but that a dozen Mackinnons came up the glen, and he turned and fled to
them for cover. Here I am in an alien land; a thousand fiery crosses would
not bring one clansman to my side; I cannot fight my foe. Wherefore, then,
should I take favors at his hands?"
"Why should you be my foe?" demanded Haward. "Look you, now! There was a
time, I suppose, when I was an insolent youngster like any one of those
who lately set upon you; but now I call myself a philosopher and man of a
world for whose opinions I care not overmuch. My coat is of fine cloth,
and my shirt of holland; your shirt is lockram, and you wear no coat at
all: ergo, saith a world of pretty fellows, we are beings of separate
planets. 'As the cloth is, the man is,'--to which doctrine I am at times
heretic. I have some store of yellow metal, and spend my days in ridding
myself of it,--a feat which you have accomplished. A goodly number of
acres is also counted unto me, but in the end my holding and your holding
will measure the same. I walk a level road; you have met with your
precipice, and, bruised by the fall, you move along stony ways; but
through the same gateway we go at last. Fate, not I, put you here. Why
should you hate me who am of your order?"