I began these chronicles with a homily upon the pregnancy of chance that gives the simplest of our acts ofttimes far-reaching and appalling consequences. It is clear that I had never become the Spoiled Horn and vexed my parents' lives had not a widow woman burned her batch of scones, and though perhaps the pair of shoes in the chest bequeathed to me by my Uncle Andrew were without the magic influence he and I gave credit for, it is probable that I had made a different flight from Scotland had they not led me in the way of Daniel Risk. And even now their influence was not ended. During the months I had spent at soldiering the red shoes reposed among my baggage; even when I had changed from the uniform of the Regiment d'Auvergne upon the frontier of Holland, and made myself again a common citizen of Europe, I had some freit (as we say of a superstition) against resuming the shoes that had led me previously into divers perils. But the day we left Helvoet in the Hollands Deep hoy, I was so hurried in my departure that the red shoes were the only ones I could lay hands on. As luck would have it, when I entered Dunkerque for the last time in my history some days after, I was wearing the same leather as on the first day of my arrival there, and the fact led, by a singularity of circumstances, to my final severance from many of those: companions--some of them pleasant and unforgetable--I had made acquaintance with in France. It was thus that the thing happened. When we entered Dunkerque, the priest, Kilbride, and I went to an inn upon the sea front. Having breakfasted I was deputed to go forth and call upon Thurot, explain our circumstances, take his counsel, and return to the hoy where my two friends would return to wait for me. He was out when I reached his lodging, but his Swiss--a different one from what he had before when I was there--informed me that his master was expected back at any moment, and invited me to step in and wait for him. I availed myself of the opportunity. Our voyage along the coast had been delayed by contrary winds, so that now it was the Sabbath; the town was by-ordinary still (though indeed Sabbath nor Saturday made much difference, as a rule, on the gaiety of Dunkerque), and wearied by the sea travel that had just concluded I fell fast asleep in Captain Thurot's chair. I was wakened by a loud knocking at the outer door, not the first, as it may be remembered, that called me forth from dreams to new twists of fortune, and I started to my feet to meet my host. What was my chagrin to hear the Prince's voice in converse with him on the stair!