De Courval went on, ruefully glancing
at his clothes, and far from dreaming that he was some day to be
indebted to the gentleman they had left.

The little party, thus directed, turned into Mulberry Street, or, as men
called it, Arch, and, with his mother, De Courval entered a cleanly
front room under the sign of St. Tammany. There was a barred tap in one
corner, maids in cap and apron moving about, many men seated at tables,
with long pipes called churchwardens, drinking ale or port wine. Some
looked up, and De Courval heard a man say, "More French beggars." He
flushed, bit his lip, and turned to a portly man in a white jacket, who
was, as it seemed, the landlord. The mother shrank from the rude looks
and said a few words in French.

The host turned sharply as she spoke, and De Courval asked if he could
have two rooms. The landlord had none.

"Then may my mother sit down while I inquire without?"

A man rose and offered his chair as he said civilly: "Oeller's Tavern
might suit you. It is the French house--a hotel, they call it. You will
get no welcome here."

"Thank you," said De Courval, hearing comments on their muddy garments
and the damned French. He would have had a dozen quarrels on his hands
had he been alone. His mother had declined the seat, and as he followed
her out, he lingered on the step to speak to his guide. They were at
once forgotten, but he heard behind him scraps of talk, the freely used
oaths of the day, curses of the demagogue Jefferson and the man
Washington, who was neither for one party nor for the other. He listened
with amazement and restrained anger.

He had fallen in with a group of middle-class men, Federalists in name,
clamorous for war with Jacobin France, and angry at their nominal
leader, who stood like a rock against the double storm of opinion which
was eager for him to side with our old ally France or to conciliate
England. It was long before De Courval understood the strife of parties,
felt most in the cities, or knew that back of the mischievous diversity
of opinion in and out of the cabinet was our one safeguard--the belief
of the people in a single man and in his absolute good sense and
integrity. Young De Courval could not have known that the thoughtless
violence of party classed all French together, and as yet did not
realize that the _emigre_ was generally the most deadly foe of the
present rule in France.

Looking anxiously at his mother, they set out again up Mulber