h I suspect to be not merely
the matrix of the ore, but also the very crude form and materia prima
of all metals--you mark me?--If my recipes, which I had from Doctor Dee,
succeed only half so well as I expect, then I refine out the luna, the
silver, lay it by, and transmute the remaining ores into sol, gold.
Whereupon Peru and Mexico become superfluities, and England the mistress
of the globe. Strange, no doubt; distant, no doubt: but possible, my
dear madam, possible!"

"And what good to you if it be, Mr. Gilbert? If you could find a
philosopher's stone to turn sinners into saints, now--but naught save
God's grace can do that; and that last seems ofttimes over long in
coming." And Mrs. Hawkins sighed.

"But indeed, my dear madam, conceive now.--The Comb Martin mine thus
becomes a gold mine, perhaps inexhaustible; yields me wherewithal to
carry out my North-West patent; meanwhile my brother Humphrey holds
Newfoundland, and builds me fresh ships year by year (for the forests of
pine are boundless) for my China voyage."

"Sir Humphrey has better thoughts in his dear heart than gold, Mr.
Adrian; a very close and gracious walker he has been this seven year. I
wish my Captain John were so too."

"And how do you know I have naught better in my mind's eye than gold?
Or, indeed, what better could I have? Is not gold the Spaniard's
strength--the very mainspring of Antichrist? By gold only, therefore,
can we out-wrestle him. You shake your head, but say, dear madam (for
gold England must have), which is better, to make gold bloodlessly at
home, or take it bloodily abroad?"

"Oh, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Gilbert! is it not written, that those who make
haste to be rich, pierce themselves through with many sorrows? Oh, Mr.
Gilbert! God's blessing is not on it all."

"Not on you, madam? Be sure that brave Captain John Hawkins's star
told me a different tale, when I cast his nativity for him.--Born under
stormy planets, truly, but under right royal and fortunate ones."

"Ah, Mr. Adrian! I am a simple body, and you a great philosopher, but
I hold there is no star for the seaman like the Star of Bethlehem; and
that goes with 'peace on earth and good will to men,' and not with such
arms as that, Mr. Adrian. I can't abide to look upon them."

And she pointed up to one of the bosses of the ribbed oak-roof, on which
was emblazoned the fatal crest which Clarencieux Hervey had granted
years before to her husband, the "Demi-Moor proper, boun