London Pride

CONTENTS

_CHAPTER I._ A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM

_CHAPTER II._ WITHIN CONVENT WALLS

_CHAPTER III._ LETTERS FROM HOME

_CHAPTER IV._ THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

_CHAPTER V._ A MINISTERING ANGEL

_CHAPTER VI._ BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD

_CHAPTER VII._ AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION

_CHAPTER VIII._ SUPERIOR TO FASHION

_CHAPTER IX._ IN A PURITAN HOUSE

_CHAPTER X._ THE PRIEST'S HOLE

_CHAPTER XL._ LIGHTER THAN VANITY

_CHAPTER XII._ LADY FAREHAM'S DAY

_CHAPTER XIII._ THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT

_CHAPTER XIV._ THE MILLBANK GHOST

_CHAPTER XV._ FALCON AND DOVE

_CHAPTER XVI._ WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE?

_CHAPTER XVII._ THE MOTIVE--MURDER

_CHAPTER XVIII._ REVELATIONS

_CHAPTER XIX._ DIDO

_CHAPTER XX._ PHILASTER

_CHAPTER XXI._ GOOD-BYE, LONDON

_CHAPTER XXII._ AT THE MANOR MOAT

_CHAPTER XXIII._ PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE

_CHAPTER XXIV._ "QUITE OUT OF FASHION"

_CHAPTER XXV._ HIGH STAKES

_CHAPTER XXVI._ IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH

_CHAPTER XXVII._ BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE

_CHAPTER XXVIII._ IN A DEAD CALM




CHAPTER I.

A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM.


The wind howled across the level fields, and flying showers of sleet
rattled against the old leathern coach as it drove through the thickening
dusk. A bitter winter, this year of the Royal tragedy.

A rainy summer, and a mild rainy autumn had been followed by the hardest
frost this generation had ever known. The Thames was frozen over, and
tempestuous winds had shaken the ships in the Pool, and the steep gable
ends and tall chimney-stacks on London Bridge. A never-to-be-forgotten
winter, which had witnessed the martyrdom of England's King, and the exile
of her chief nobility, while a rabble Parliament rode roughshod over a
cowed people. Gloom and sour visages prevailed, the maypoles were down, the
play-houses were closed, the bear-gardens were empty, the cock-pits were
desolate; and a saddened population, impoverished and depressed by the
sacrifices that had been exacted and the tyranny that had been exercised
in the name of Liberty, were ground under the iron heel of Cromwell's
red-coats.

The pitiless journey from London to Louvain, a journey of many days
and nights, prolonged by accident and difficulty, had been spun out to
uttermost tedium for those two in the heavily moving old leathern coach.
Who and what were they, these wearied travellers, journeying together
silently towards a destination which promised but little of pleasure or
luxury by way of welcome--a destination which meant severance for those
two?

One was Sir John Kirkland, of the Manor Moat, Bucks, a notorious Malignant,
a grey-bearded cavalier, aged by trouble and hard fighting; a soldier and
servant who had sacrificed himself and his fortune for the King, and must
needs begin the world anew now that his master was murdered, his own goods
confiscated, the old family mansion, the house in which his parents died
and his children were born, emptied of all its valuables, and left to the
care of servants, and his master's son a wanderer in a foreign land, with
little hope of ever winning back crown and sceptre.

Sadness was the dominant expression of Sir John's stern, strongly marked
countenance, as he sat staring out at the level landscape through the
unglazed coach window, staring blankly across those wind-swept Flemish
fields where the cattle were clustering in sheltered corners, a monotonous
expanse, crossed by ice-bound dykes that looked black as ink, save where
the last rays of the setting sun touched their iron hue with blood-red
splashes. Pollard willows indicated the edge of one field, gaunt poplars
marked the boundary of another, alike leafless and unbeautiful, standing
darkly out against the dim grey sky. Night was hastening towards the
travellers, narrowing and blotting out that level landscape, field, dyke,
and leafless wood.

Sir John put his head out of the coach window, and looked anxiously along
the straight road,