"Dicon, I am going to London to try my luck there. But, as I have ofttimes heard, fortunes are as easily lost there as won, wherefore it may be that I shall become a beggar instead of growing in wealth and greatness."
"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Dick in passionate protest.
"Well, Heaven watches over the undeserving as well as the virtuous, so there is e'en hope for me," answered Grey with his winning smile. "But look ye here, Dicon. You have been a faithful rogue, and have served me well, and I hope we may company together many a long day yet. But inasmuch as there are uncertainties in life, and we are going forth into a new world, where perchance I may sink rather than swim, I desire to give you six months' wage in advance, whilst I have my pockets lined with gold, so that should any untoward chance befall me, as it has befallen better men than myself, I shall not have to turn you adrift unrewarded, nor will you, if you can be a wise varlet, and husband your resources, be thrown on the world without some means of support."
Dick seemed about to protest, but either the look on his master's face or some idea which had entered his own head held him silent. He took the coins without counting them, and producing a greasy leathern pouch, such as sailors often carry with them, he dropped the gold pieces into it one by one, tied it up, and fastened it safely in an inner pocket.
"That pouch stuck by me when I lost everything else in the world, and well-nigh my own life," said the fellow with a grin. "My mother did give it me when I first went to sea, and she told me as a wise witch woman had given it her. She thought 'twas the caul of a child; and like enough it be, for salt water never hurts it, and I was the only one saved of all the crew that went down off the Spanish coast. I'd sooner part with the gold pieces than with the pouch that holds them."
They both rode on with thoughtful faces after this brief interlude. Grey was turning over a dozen different schemes in his mind; but all were vague and chimerical. Now and again he looked at an amethyst ring upon his finger, and it came over him that the shortest cut to fortune might be to present himself as a suppliant for favour at the feet of the great Duchess of Marlborough, who was said to rule the Queen with a rod of iron, and whose known devotion to her husband would be certain to raise high in her favour any person who had rendered him so timely a service as that which Grey had been able to offer on the day of Ramillies.
But then, again, it seemed to Grey that to claim reward for that chance service, which had cost him nothing, was little better than playing the beggar or the sycophant. There was in his nature a strong strain of chivalrous romance – of love of adventure for its own sake, without thought of reward or favour. That encounter with the great Duke, the interview which had followed, the consciousness that he had done his country a notable service that day – all these things were very sweet to him, forming an episode pleasant to look back upon. If he now presented himself on the strength of it as a petitioner for place or favour, at once the whole thing would be vulgarized – he would be lowered in his own estimation, sinking to the level of one of the crowd of greedy flatterers and place-hunters who thronged the antechambers of the rich and great, and fawned upon them for the crumbs of patronage which they were able to dispense as the price of this homage.
Grey had seen this sort of thing at foreign courts, and his soul had sickened at it. Doubtless, in this great world of London it was the same. As a baronet, a young man of parts, with an attractive person, and, at present, a well-filled purse, he might not improbably please the fancy of the Duchess, and obtain some post in her household or about the Court that would give him a chance at least to rise. But the more he thought of this the less he liked the idea, and at last he flung it from him in scorn.
"I would sooner live in Grub Street, and drive a quill!" he said half aloud. "I could praise a hero with my pen, but I cannot fawn and flatter with my lips. And methinks I am not fit for the life of a place-man: I have been too long mine own master. Surely there are ways by which a man may rise in the world without abasing himself in his own esteem first. I will go to London, and look about me with open eyes. There are the world of politics, the world of art and literature, and the theatre of war, if other spheres should fail. Surely there must be a place for me somewhere; but I will not choose the latter if I can help it. I fear not death on mine own account; but I desire to live, and to grow rich, that I may square matters with yonder villain, and avenge upon him my father's untimely death!"
For that his father had been in some sort done to death by his false kinsman, Grey did not now doubt, though whether he would be able to bring that crime home to him later, he could not at present surmise. Much might be possible to a man with friends in high places; but these would have to be found and won ere any step could be taken.
Grey often felt within himself the stirrings of ambition. He had shown promise of something akin to genius in his Oxford days, and there had not been lacking those among his companions and tutors who had declared that he could win fame and fortune through academic laurels. But Grey had then turned a deaf ear to such propositions. He desired to travel and see the world, and he had done this with much zest. But the muse within had not been altogether silent, and he had many times covered sheets of paper with flowing stanzas or stately sonnets, which bore witness to the fire that burned within. His pencil, too, was not without cunning; and his study of the treasures of many an art gallery, many a foreign church, had given him knowledge and culture beyond what the average gallant of the day could boast. The double strand in his nature was very marked – a reckless love of adventure, and a delicate appreciation of the beautiful. Often he longed after the days of the early troubadours, when the two walked hand in hand. He pondered these matters in his busy brain as he rode onward in the sunny brightness of the June morning, and found it in his heart to wish that he was not thus possessed by such conflicting passions. He felt he would have had a better chance of success had his bent in any one direction been more decided.
They pulled up at the quaint old inn at Edgeware, and rode into the courtyard, where lackeys and hostlers were making merry together, and where some handsome horses were being groomed down, prior to being put into the cumbersome but very handsome coach that stood beneath the protecting galleries which ran round the court. The lackeys wore a livery of snuff-coloured cloth, with a quantity of gold lace about it. The panels of the coach were snuff-coloured, and there was much heavy gilding about it, which was being polished with great zeal by the servants of the inn. It was plainly the equipage of some person of quality, and had evidently put up there for the night, but was likely to be wanted shortly for the road again.
Grey dismounted, and leaving Dick in charge of the horses, made his way in through the low-browed entrance, along a sanded passage, and so to the public room, the door of which stood open. As a boy he had known this house, and it still seemed familiar to him, though it had changed hands since he had been there last, and his face was not known to mine host.
"Your pardon, sir," spoke this functionary, bustling forward on his entrance, "but this room is bespoke for my Lord Sandford. If you are wanting a meal, it shall be quickly served elsewhere – "
But at that moment a rollicking voice from the foot of the adjacent staircase broke in upon the excuses of the host.
"Gadzooks, man, but it shall be nothing of the sort. Set a cover for the gentleman at my table. Gosh! is a man so enamoured of his own company that he must needs drive all the world away? – Come in, sir, come in, and take pot-luck with me. – Landlord, see you give us of your best, or I'll spit you on your own jack! I've a great thirst on me, mind you; and let the dishes be done to a turn. – Take a seat in the window, sir; the air blows fresh and pleasant, but it will be infernally hot ere noon. I must be off and away in good time. In London streets you can find shade; but these country roads – hang them all! – get like What's-his-name's fiery furnace seven times heated if they don't chance to run through forest land!"
The speaker was a young man of perhaps seven-and-twenty, though reckless dissipation had traced lines in his face which should not so early have been there. He was dressed according to the most extravagant fashion of the day, with an immense curled wig, that hung half-way down his back; a coat of velvet, richly laced, the sleeves so short that the spotless