great sweetness. "I am sure that you have been a good friend to them.
Some knowledge of your difficulties had reached us before we left home;
but, as you know, intercourse is now much interrupted, and we were often
uncertain of what had passed at such a distance. We hear nothing from
home, either," she added mournfully. "We are in great distress of mind;
you could see that I was not very cheerful.... I fear in my heart that
poor Madam Wallingford will die."
"Madam Wallingford!" repeated the captain. "You cannot mean that she is
here!" he exclaimed, with blank astonishment. His tone was full of
reproach, and even resentment. "Poor lady! I own that I have had her
in my thoughts, and could not but pity her natural distress," he added,
with some restraint, and then burst forth into excited speech: "There is
no need that they should make a tool of you,--you who are a Patriot and
Hamilton's own sister! This is arrant foolishness!"
He sprang to his feet, and stood before Miss Hamilton, with his eyes
fixed angrily upon her face. "If I could tell you everything! Oh, I am
outdone with this!" he cried, with a gesture of contempt.
"Captain Paul Jones," she said, rising quickly to confront him, "I beg
you to tell me everything. I cannot believe that Roger Wallingford is a
traitor, and I love his mother almost as if she were my own. I came to
England with her of my own wish and free will, and because it was my
right to come. Will you tell me plainly what has happened, and why you
do not take his part?"
The captain's quick change from such deep sympathy as he had shown for
her tears to a complete scorn of their cause could only give a sad shock
to Mary Hamilton's heart. He was no helper, after all. There came a
dizzy bewilderment like a veil over her mind; it seemed as if she felt
the final blow of Fate. She had not known how far she had spent her
strength, or how her very homesickness had weakened her that day.
"I fear it is true enough that he betrayed us at Whitehaven," said Paul
Jones slowly, and not unmindful of her piteous look. "I could not bring
myself to doubt him at first; indeed, I was all for him. I believe that
I trusted him above every man on board. I was his champion until I
found he had been meddling with my papers,--my most secret dispatches,
too; yes, I have proof of this! And since then some of the stolen pages
have found their way into our enemies' hands. He has not only betrayed
me, but his country too; and worst of all in men's eyes, he has sinned
against the code of honor. Yet there is one thing I will and must
remember: 't is never the meanest men who serve their chosen cause as
spies. The pity is that where success may be illustrious, the business
asks completest sacrifice, and failure is the blackest disgrace. 'Tis
Wallingford's reward. I loved him once, and now I could stand at the
gallows and see him hanged! Perhaps he would say that he acted from
high motives,--'t is ever a spy's excuse; but I trusted him, and he
would have ruined me."
"I do not believe that he is guilty," declared Mary Hamilton, with
perfect calmness, though she had drawn back in horror as she heard the
last words and saw such blazing anger in Paul Jones's eyes. "You must
look elsewhere for your enemy," she insisted,--"for some other man whose
character would not forbid such acts as these. If Roger Wallingford has
broken his oath of allegiance, my faith in character is done; I have
known him all my life, and I can answer for him. Believe me, there is
some mistake." Her eyes did not fall; as the captain held them straight
and answerable with his own she met the challenge of his look, and there
came a beautiful glow of pity and gentleness upon her face.
The captain gave a long sigh.
"I am sure that you are mistaken," she said again, quietly, since he did
not speak. "We are now in great trouble, and even despair, about Mr.
Wallingford, and have been able to get no word from him. We have his
pardon in hand; it would make you wonder if I told you how it came to
us. Your lieutenant was left most cruelly wounded on the shore at
Whitehaven, and was like to die on the long journey to Plymouth jail
where they sent him. How he has lived through all his sufferings I do
not know. I have seen the Mill Prison, myself; they would not even let
us speak with those who knew him among our poor captives. The night
before we reached the prison he had escaped; there were some men shot
down who were of his party. We can get no trace of him at all. Whether
he is dead on the great moors, or still alive and wandering in distress,
no one can tell. This does not look as if he were a spy for England; it
were easy to give himself up, and to prove such a simple thing, if only
to be spared such misery. I am afraid that his mother will soon fade out
of life, now that, after all these weeks, she believes him dead. She
thought he would return with us, when she saw us ride away to Plymouth,
and the disappointment was more than she could bear."
The bitter memory of that morning at the Mill Prison was like a sword in
Mary's heart, and she stopped; she had spoken quickly, and was now
trembling from head to foot. "I thought, when I saw your face, that you
would know how to help us find him," she said sorrowfully, under her
breath.
"If I have been wrong," exclaimed the captain, "if I have been wrong, I
should give my life to make amends! But all the proofs were there. I
even found a bit of one of my own papers among his effects,--'t was in a
book he had been reading. But I hid the matter from every one on board;
I could not bear they should know it. Dickson's word was their mainstay
at first; but that counted worse than nothing to me, till there were
other matters which fully upheld his account."
"Dickson has always been a man mistrusted and reproached," protested
Miss Hamilton, with indignation. "There is a man for you whose
character would not forbid such treachery! You must know, too, that he
has a deep hatred for the Wallingfords, and would spare no pains to
revenge himself."
The captain stood doubtful and dismayed. "I have gone over this sad
matter by day and by night," he said; "I do not see where I could be
mistaken. I went to the bottom of my evidence without regard to
Dickson, and I found proof enough. I hate that man, and distrust him,
yet I can find little fault with his service on the ship; and when I
have been surest of catching him in a lie, he always proves to have told
the exact truth, and wears a martyr's air, and is full of his cursed
cant and talk of piety. Alas, I know not what can be done at this late
day."
"Did you never think that Dickson could put many a proof like your bit
of paper where your eyes alone could fall upon it?" asked Mary. "I
remember well that he has tried more than once to cast blame upon others
when he himself was the sinner. He has plenty of ability; 't is his bad
use of it that one may always fear."
The captain moved restlessly, as if conscious of her accusation. "Many
believed Wallingford to be a Tory on the ship," he answered. "They were
jealous and suspicious of his presence; but Dickson, who has warped
Simpson's honest mind against me, may also have set his energies to
this. If we could only find Wallingford! If we could only hear his own
story of that night! In all this time he should have sent some word to
me, if he were innocent. If I were free, I'd soon know what they
learned from him in the prison; he must have spoken openly with some of
the Portsmouth men who are there. What can we do?" the speaker ended,
in a different tone altogether, making a direct appeal to Mary. "If I
have fallen a dupe to such a man as Dickson in this matter, I shall
never recover from the shame. You would never forgive me. Alas, how
can I ask the question that my heart prompts! You are most unhappy,"
said Paul Jones, with exquisite compassion. "Is it because of
Wallingford alone? Oh, Mary, is there no hope for me? You have had my
letters? You cannot but remember how we parted!"
She looked at him imploringly.
"Tell me," said the captain. "I must ask a question that is very hard
for me. I believe that you love this unfortunate officer, and desire
his safety beyond everything else. Is it not true?"
Mary waited only a moment before she spoke.
"Yes, it is true," she said then. "I know now that we have always
belonged to each other."
"Alas for my own happiness!" said the captain, looking at her. "I
thought when we parted that last night"-- He groaned, his words
faltering. "Oh, that I had only spoken! Glory has been a jealous
mistress to me, and I dared not speak; I feared 't would cost me all her
favor, if my thoughts were all for you. It seems a lifetime ago. I
could throw my hope of glory down at your feet now, if it were any use.
I can do nothing without love. Oh, Mary, must you tell me that it is
too late?"
The captain's voice made poignant outcry to the listener's heart. The
air seemed to quiver in strange waves, and the walls of the abbey seemed
to sway unsteadily. The strong, determined soul before her was pleading
for an impossible happiness. Even better than he could know, she knew
that he lacked a woman's constant love and upholding, and that, with all
his noble powers, his life tended toward ruin and disappointment. She
stood there, white and wistful; her compassionate heart was shaken with
pity for his loneliness.
There was a change on the man's dark face; he took one step toward her,
and then was conscious of a strange separation between them. Mary did
not move, she did not speak; she stood there as a ghost might stand by
night to pity the troubles of men. She knew, with a woman's foresight,
the difference it would make if she could only stand with love and
patience by his side.
"There must be some one to love you as it is in your heart to love," she
told him then. "God bless you and give you such a happiness! You are
sure to find each other in this sad world. I know you will! I know you
will!"
One of the great bells began to ring in the tower, and its vibrations
jarred her strangely; she could hardly hinder herself now from a new
outburst of tears, and could not think clearly any more, and was
trembling with weakness.
"I must go home if I can," she whispered, but her voice was very low.
"I cannot get home alone-- No, no, I must not let you be so kind!"
He placed her gently on the stone bench, and she leaned back heavily
with his arm about her, thankful for some protecting affection in her
brief bewilderment. She could not but hear his pitying, endearing words
as her faintness passed; the poor girl was so breathless and weak that
she could only throw herself upon his mercy. There was even an
unexpected comfort in his presence,--she had been so much alone with
strangers; she forgot everything save that he was a friend of her
happier days. And as for the captain, he had held her in his arms, she
had turned to him with touching readiness in her distress; nothing could
ever rob his heart of the remembrance.
He watched her with solicitude as her color came back, and lingered
until he saw that she was herself again. They must part quickly, for he
could not venture to be seen with her in the open streets.
"You have convinced me that I may have been wrong about Wallingford," he
said impulsively. "I shall now do my best to aid you and to search the
matter out. I shall see you again. Your happiness will always be very
dear to me. I can but thank Heaven for our being here together, though
I have only added something to your pain. Perhaps these troubles may
not be far from their solution, and I shall see you soon in happier
hours."
He kissed her hand and let it go; his old hope went with it; there must
be a quick ending now. A man must always resent pity for himself, but
his heart was full of most tender pity for this overburdened girl.
There had been few moments of any sort of weakness in all the course of
her long bravery,--he was sure enough of that,--and only loved her the
more. She had been the first to show him some higher things: it was not
alone her charm, but her character, her great power of affection, her
perfect friendship, that would make him a nobler lover to his life's
end.
She watched him as he went away down the nave toward the open door; the
poverty of such disguise and the poor sailor's threadbare dress could
not hide a familiar figure, but he was alert no more, and even drooped a
little as he stood for one moment in the doorway. He did not once look
back; there were people in the church now, and his eyes were bent upon
the ground. Then he lifted his head with all the spirit that belonged
to him, stepped out boldly from the shadow into the bright daylight
beyond, and was gone.
The old verger crossed over to speak with Mary; he had learned to know
her by sight, for she came often to the abbey church, and guessed that
she might be one of the exiles from America.
"'T was some poor sailor begging, I misdoubt. There 's a sight o'
beggars stranded in the town. I hope he would not make bold to vex you,
my lady?" asked the dim-eyed old man, fumbling his snuffbox with
trembling hands. "I fell asleep in the chapter room.
"'T was some one I had known at home," Miss Hamilton answered. "He is a
good man." And she smiled a little as she spoke. It would be so easy
to cause a consternation in the town. Her head was steady now, but she
still sat where the captain left her.
"'T is a beautiful monyment,--that one," said the verger, pointing up to
the kneeling figures in their prim ruffs. "'T is as beautiful a
monyment as any here. I 've made bold to notice how you often sits here
to view it. Some o' your Ameriky folks was obsarvin' as their forbears
was all buried in this abbey in ancient times; 't would be sure to make
the owd place a bit homely."
The bells were still chiming, and there were worshipers coming in. Mary
Hamilton slipped away, lest she should meet some acquaintance; she felt
herself shaken as if by a tempest. Paul Jones had gone into fresh
danger when he left her side; his life was spent among risks and
chances. She might have been gentler to him, and sent him away better
comforted.
She walked slowly, and stood still once in the street, startled by the
remembrance of her frank confession of love; the warm color rushed to
her pale face. To have told the captain, when she had never told Roger
himself, or his mother, or any but her own heart! Yet all her sorrows
were lightened by these unconsidered words: the whole world might hear
them now; they were no secret any more.
There were busy groups of people about the taverns and tobacco shops, as
if some new excitement were in the air; it might be that there was news
from America. As Mary passed, she heard one man shout to another that
John Paul Jones, the pirate, had been seen the day before in Bristol
itself. An old sailor, just landed from a long voyage at sea, had known
him as he passed. There was word, too, that the Ranger had lately been
sighted again off Plymouth, and had taken two prizes in the very teeth
of the King's fleet.
*XL*
*THE WATCHER'S LIGHT*
"There's no deep valley but near some great hill."
Late that night Mary Hamilton sat by the window in her sleeping closet,
a quaint little room that led from the stately chamber of Madam
Wallingford. Past midnight, it was still warm out of doors, and the air
strangely lifeless. It had been late before the maid went away and
their dear charge had fallen asleep; so weak and querulous and full of
despair had she been all the long day.
The night taper was flickering in its cup of oil, but the street outside
was brighter than the great room. The waning moon was just rising, and
the watcher leaned back wearily against the shutter, and saw the
opposite roofs slowly growing less dim. There were tall trees near by
in the garden, and a breeze, that Mary could not feel where she sat, was
rustling among the poplar leaves and mulberries. She heard footsteps
coming up the street, and the sound startled her as if she had been
sitting at her window at home, where footsteps at that time of night
might mean a messenger to the house.
The great town of Bristol lay fast asleep; it was only the watchman's
tread that had startled the listener, and for a moment changed her weary
thoughts. The old man went by with his clumsy lantern, but gave no cry
nor told the hour until he was well into the distance.
There was much to think about at the end of this day, which had brought
an unexpected addition to her heart's regret. The remembrance of Paul
Jones, his insistence upon Wallingford's treachery, a sad mystery which
now might never be solved, even the abruptness of the captain's own
declaration of love, and a sense of unreality that came from her own
miserable weakness,--all these things were new burdens for the mind.
She could not but recognize the hero in this man of great distinction,
as he had stood before her, and yet his melancholy exit, with the very
poverty of his dress, had somehow added to the misery of the moment. It
seemed to her now as if they had met each other, that morning, with no
thoughts of victory, but in the very moment of defeat. Their hopes had
been so high when last they talked together. Again there came to her
mind the anxiety of that bright night when she had stood pleading with
Roger Wallingford on the river shore, and had thrown down her challenge
at his feet. How easy and even how happy it all seemed beside these
dreadful days! How little she had known then! How little she had loved
then! Life had been hardly more than a play beside this; it was more
dramatic than real. She had felt a remote insincerity, in those old
days, in even the passionate words of the two men, and a strange
barrier, like a thin wall of glass, was always between her heart and
theirs. Now, indeed, she was face to face with life, she was in the
middle of the great battle; now she loved Roger Wallingford, and her
whole heart was forever his, whether he was somewhere in the world
alive, or whether he lay starved and dead among the furze and heather on
the Devon moors. She saw his white face there, as if she came upon it
in the shadows of her thoughts, and gave a quick cry, such was the
intensity of her grief and passion; and the frail figure stirred under
its coverlet in the great room beyond, with a pitiful low moan like the
faint echo of her own despair.
The sad hour went by, and still this tired girl sat by the window, like
a watcher who did not dare to forget herself in sleep. Her past life
had never been so clearly spread before her, and all the pleasant old
days were but a background for one straight figure: the manly,
fast-growing boy whom she played with and rebuffed on equal terms; the
eager-faced and boyish man whom she had begun to fear a little, and then
to tease, lest she should admire too much. She remembered all his
beautiful reticence and growing seriousness, the piety with which he
served his widowed mother; the pleading voice, that last night of all,
when she had been so slow to answer to his love. It was she herself now
who could plead, and who must have patience! How hard she had been
sometimes, how deaf and blind, how resistant and dull of heart! 'T was
a girl's strange instinct to fly, to hide, to so defeat at first the
dear pursuer of her heart's love!
Again there was a footstep in the street. It was not the old watchman
coming, for presently she heard a man's voice singing a country tune
that she had known at home. He came within sight and crossed the
street, and stood over the way waiting in shadow; now he went on softly
with the song. It was an old Portsmouth ballad that all the river knew;
the very sound of it was like a message:--
"The mermaids they beneath the wave,
The mermaids they o'er my sailor's grave,
The mermaids they at the bottom of the sea,
Are weeping their salt tears for me.
"The morning star was shining still,
'T was daybreak over the eastern hill"--
He began the song again, but still more softly, and then stopped.
Mary kept silence; her heart began to beat very fast. She put her hand
on the broad window-sill where the moonlight lay, and the singer saw it
and came out into the street. She saw the Spanish sailor again. What
had brought the captain to find her at this time of night?
She leaned out quickly. "I am here. Can I help you? Is there any
news?" she whispered, as he stood close under the window, looking up.
"You are putting yourself in danger," she warned him anxiously. "I heard
the people saying that you have been seen in Bristol, this morning as I
came home!"
"God be thanked that I have found you awake!" he answered eagerly, and
the moon shone full upon his face, so that she could see it plain. "I
feared that I should have to wait till daylight to see you. I knew no
one to trust with my message, and I must run for open sea. I have
learned something of our mystery at last. Go you to the inn at Old
Passage to-morrow night,--do you hear me?--to the inn at Old Passage,
and wait there till I come. Go at nightfall, and let yourself be
unknown in the house, if you can. I think--I think we may have news
from Wallingford."
She gave a little cry, and leaned far out of the window, speaking
quickly in her excitement, and begging to hear more; but the captain had
vanished to the shadows whence he came. Her heart was beating so fast
and hard now that she could not hear his light footsteps as he hurried
away, running back to the water-side down the echoing, paved street.
*XLI*
*AN OFFERED OPPORTUNITY*
"Neither man nor soldier.
What ignorant and mad malicious traitors!"
"License, they mean, when they cry Liberty."
The Roscoff fishing smack lay in the Severn, above Avon mouth, and it
was broad day when Captain Paul Jones came aboard again, having been
rowed down the river by some young Breton sailors whom he had found
asleep in the bottom of their boat. There would be natural suspicion of
a humble French craft like theirs; but when they had been overhauled in
those waters, a day or two before, the owner of the little vessel, a
sedate person by the name of Dickson, professed himself to be an
Englishman from the Island of Guernsey, with proper sailing papers and
due reverence for King George the Third. His crew, being foreigners,
could answer no decent Bristol questions, and they were allowed to top
their boom for the fishing grounds unmolested, having only put into
harbor for supplies.
The Roscoff lads looked at their true captain with mingled sleepiness
and admiration as he took the steersman's place. He presently opened a
large knotted bundle handkerchief, and gave them a share of the rich
treat of tobacco and early apples within; then, seeing that they kept
their right course, he made a pillow of his arm and fell sound asleep.
As they came under the vessel's side the barking of a little dog on
board waked him again with a start. He looked weary enough as he stood
to give his orders and watch his opportunity to leap from the boat, as
they bobbed about in the choppy sea. All was quiet on deck in the
bright sunlight; only the little French dog kept an anxious lookout.
The captain gave orders to break out their anchor and be off down
channel, and then turned toward the cabin, just as Dickson made his
appearance, yawning, in the low companion way.
Dickson had found such life as this on the fisherman very dull, besides
having a solid resentment of its enforced privations. None of the crew
could speak English save Cooper and Hanscom, who had come to hate him,
and would not speak to him at all except in the exercise of duty. He
knew nothing of the Breton talk, and was a man very fond of idle and
argumentative conversation. The captain had been ashore now for
thirty-six long hours, and his offended colleague stood back, with a
look of surly discontent and no words of welcome, to let the tyrant
pass. The captain took a letter out of his pocket and gave it to him,
with a quick but not unfriendly glance, as if half amused by Dickson's
own expression of alarm as he turned the folded paper and looked at its
unbroken seal. He mumbled something about a tailor's bill, and then
insisted that the letter could not be meant for him. He did not seem to
know what it would be safe to say.
"Come below; I wish to speak with you." The captain spoke impatiently,
as usual, and had the air of a kingbird which dealt with a helpless
crow. "We are in no danger of being overheard. I must speak with you
before you read your letter. I have chanced upon some important
information; I have a new plan on foot."
"Certainly, sir," replied Dickson, looking very sour-tempered, but
putting a most complaisant alacrity into his voice.