the Park and Spring Gardens for to behold the court ladies and gallants in all their bravery, and resorted to the New Exchange and divers other places of public assembly, which pleased the two gentlewomen mightily. And meeting one day with my lord Duke of London (Dorothy's ancient servant) and his Duchess (that was formerly my Lady Barbary1 Harrington, of the Duchess of York's household), they bade us to an assembly at their house, where was many fine clothes and very pretty dancing, and so many persons of quality as I never saw, but among all the ladies not one that could compare with Dorothy, nor came near to do so. And moreover, my old lady Duchess (widow to my own noble patron, and she that had aforetime hindered him from doing any kindness to Dorothy, as he had purposed) was so much taken with my dear love, both with respect to her beauty and her breeding, as nothing would serve but she must come down to our wedding, though in the month of February, and this she did, diverting the country people mightily with her great coach and her London apparel and manners. being thus honoured with the presence of so great a lady, we were married on the fourth day of the month under very happy auspices, our friends filling the church, and testifying extraordinary great kindness towards us on the occasion of that happy event, the which (and I do most heartily thank God therefore) I have never found cause once to regret, nor my wife neither, as she assures me. And this though we have passed through certain trials, whereof one (that hath been the cause of the composing this book), was most heavy and grievous, as I shall show in due time. 1 Barbara. And 320 CHAPTER XIX. OF CERTAIN ANCIENT FRIENDS OF MINE THAT WERE 'Twas ever a merry jest of mine with Mrs Skipwith and Mrs Sternhold that I had done well to hurry on my marriage, so as it took place when it did, for but two or three days later come the news of the death of his majesty King Charles, so that all our festivities was broke up, and had we not been already married, we had been forced in all seemliness to have put it off. But this necessity happily escaped, we did take up our abode at Ellswether with great happiness and contentment, and cared, I fear (and may God forgive us for't), only too little for public events, considering but our own good fortune. And in this way that year-viz., 1685-passed away, the tidings of the troubles in the West Country and in France reaching us but distantly as rumours, my wife being busied with her household economy and I with the managing my estate, and each of us with the other, for in Dorothy I did continue to discern fresh excellences, such as commended her to me more and more the longer I knew her, and not the least of these in my eyes, the kindness and forbearance that she did continually maintain and increase towards me, her unworthy spouse. Now as time went on, we did engage together in a very weighty enterprise, namely, the writing that book of mine whereby my name (if remembered at all) is now known to the world of polite letters. In so great a work as this I durst not trust my own judgment, but read to my wife all that I had wrote, and took her counsel thereupon, and so made her (says she) near as learned as myself in all that hath respect to the Indies. For it had long seemed to me that there was a prodigious lack of a book that should set forth plainly, yet in full, all that was to be known touching the East that might prove of service either to gentlemen proceeding thither or to persons interested in the matter in England. And this object I flatter myself that my work aforesaid, 'An Inquiry into the Present State of East India,' hath attained, for not only doth it treat at length of the manners of the Indians, whether Moors, Gentues, Parsies, or Black Jews, but it hath also a considerable account of all the Europe garrisons and factories, whether English, Dutch, French, or Portuguese, beside the Mogul Empire and the Moorish kingdoms only now destroyed, and likewise of the Moratty power. And this book we did inscribe, as was only meet, to my lord Duke of London, son to him that had done so much to embark me upon my Indian enterprise, and prefaced it with a neat dedicatory epistle in Latin, full of conceits after the classical style, which gave my wife and me a world of pains to write. Now this book, being in due course printed, brought upon me so much notice, and so many letters from several ingenious and erudite persons (many of 'em making me very handsome compliments both upon my style and matter) as filled my wife with pride, and made my name to be known even at the court, where his majesty King James II. was pleased to commend the work very prettily. And this, as I can't but think, determined my lord Duke of London, that was lord lieutenant of the county at that time, to place me upon the commission of the peace for Northamptonshire. And in all these matters the time did pass so quickly away that 'twas three years after our marriage before I had either leisure or desire to give more than a passing thought to my former friends. that I had known in the Indies, and this only because an unlooked-for accident did restore them suddenly to my mind. And the chief of these friends were, as you may well guess, Madam Heliodora and her spouse. Yet must you not believe that we had quite forgot them, for we were wont often to wonder how they had fared in those troubles that followed the undoing of that famous Edict that made sure to the Protestants of France their liberties, called after the city of Nantes. But on making inquiries concerning 'em of such of the fugitives as we had acquaintance with, and also of those that knew more of the great number of them than we were able to attain to, we could not find any that were come out of their neighbourhood. And this being so, we were content to hope that the persecution had not reached their province, and that they remained unmolested, and so satisfied ourselves with sending such help as we could furnish to the great company of these poor people, and sought no more for news from Galampré. But a period was put to our comfortable security one evening in the month of April 1688, when, as my wife and I was sitting in the parlour talking by the firelight, there come in Miles and says to me, "If you please, sir, Mr Duss is returned from the town, and would be glad to speak with your honour." "Bid him come hither," says I, and laughed to myself, as I often did, to think of the esteem wherein Loll Duss was held by our servants and country-people, they verily conceiving him, as I believe, to be a prince in his own MADAM HELIODORA'S ARRIVAL. 323 country, from all he told 'em touching the wearing of cotton stuffs every day and the like (though indeed calicut and muslin is as common with the Indosthans as linen and woollen with us). The villagers all called him the 'Squire's black gentleman, though indeed he was but little blacker than themselves; and now that the maids had left off to hollow and run away if they chanced to meet him in the passages, the other servants did all take a pride in the air of distinction that he shed upon the household. These thoughts being in my mind, he came in, wearing a laced suit of my livery and a great turbant of cambric, very neat, and saluting us after the Indian fashion (which I always had him use, it having so much more noble an air than the customary bowings of our servants), awaited my pleasure. 'Well, Loll Duss," says I, "what is't?" Master," says he, "at the inn in the town is the Ferringhee lord that come from Agra to Surat with your honour, and his lady, that are come from London in my Lady Harmarthwaite's coach, going on a visit to her ladyship. But the Ferringhee lord was took very sick on his journey, so as they was forced to tarry at the inn, and the gentleman physician from the town hath been attending upon him, so that he is by now somewhat eased." "The viscount and Madam Heliodora here!" says I, and was so much astonished at the news that I could say no more, but only looked at my wife, who answered Loll Duss for me "Is my lord viscount very sick, Loll Duss, or will he and his lady continue their journey to-morrow?" "The Ferringhee lord is somewhat amended, mistress," says Loll Duss; "but I heard say at the inn that he must needs abide there some two or three days." "Perhaps 'twould be well for me to go see whether I can be of any service, my dear?" says I. |