The Mississippi Bubble: How the Star of Good Fortune Rose and Set and Rose Again, by a Woman's Grace, for One John Law of LauristonHough, Emerson
General
The Mississippi Bubble: How the Star of Good Fortune Rose and Set and Rose Again, by a Woman's Grace, for One John Law of Lauriston
Hough, Emerson
Law, John, 1671-1729 -- Fiction
"You do not, then, keep your prisoner bound by other fetters after he
escapes from Newgate?"
"I do nothing unwomanly, and I do nothing, I trust, ignoble. I go to
meet the Knollys fate, whatever it may be."
"Lady Catharine," cried Pembroke, passionately, "I have said I loved
you. Never in my life did I love you as I do now!"
"I like to hear your words," said the girl, frankly. "There shall always
be your corner in my heart--"
"Yet you will do this thing?"
"I will do this thing. I shall not whimper nor repine. I am sending him
away forever, but 'tis needful for his sake. I shall be ready for
whatever fate hath for me."
"Tell me, then," said Pembroke, his face haggard and unhappy, "how am I
to serve you in this matter."
"In this way: To-morrow night call here with your coach. My household,
if they note it, may take your coach for my own, and may perhaps
understand that I go to the rout of my Lady Swearingsham. We shall go,
instead, to Newgate. For the night, Sir Arthur Pembroke shall serve as
coachman. You must drive the carriage to Newgate jail."
"And 'tis there," said Pembroke, slowly, "that the Lady Catharine
Knollys, the dearest woman of all England, would take the man who
honorably loves her--to Newgate, to feloniously set free a felon? Is it
there, then, Lady Catharine, you would go to meet your lover?"
The tall figure of the girl straightened up to its full height. A shade
of color came to her cheeks, but her voice was firm, though tears came
to her eyes as she answered:
"Aye, sir, I would go to Newgate if there were need!"
CHAPTER XVI
THE ESCAPE
On a certain morning a messenger rode in hot haste up to the prison
gate. He bore the livery of Montague. Turnkey after turnkey admitted
him, until finally he stood before the cell of John Law and delivered
into his hand, as he had been commanded, the message that he bore. That
afternoon this same messenger paused at the gate of the house of
Knollys. Here, too, he was admitted promptly. He delivered into the
hands of the Lady Catharine Knollys a certain message. This was of a
Wednesday. On the following Friday it was decreed that the gallows
should do its work. Two more days and there would be an end of "Jessamy"
Law.
That Wednesday night a covered carriage came to the door of the house of
Knollys. Its driver was muffled in such fashion that he could hardly
have been known. There stepped from the house the cloaked figure of a
woman, who entered the carriage and herself pulled shut the door. The
vehicle was soon lost among the darkling streets.
Catharine Knollys had heard the summons of her fate. She now sat
trembling in the carriage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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