GILBERT ON THE ROAD TO CHESTER.
Being now fully prepared to undertake his journey to Chester, Gilbert
remembered his promise to Alfred Barton. As the subject had not again
been mentioned between them,--probably owing to the excitement produced
by Sandy Flash's visit to Kennett Square, and its consequences,--he felt
bound to inform Barton of his speedy departure, and to renew his offer
of service.
He found the latter in the field, assisting Giles, who was hauling home
the sheaves of corn-fodder in a harvest-wagon. The first meeting of
the two men did not seem to be quite agreeable to either. Gilbert's
suspicions had been aroused, although he could give them no definite
form, and Barton shrank from any reference to what had now become a very
sore topic.
“Giles,” said the latter, after a moment of evident embarrassment, “I
guess you may drive home with that load, and pitch it off; I'll wait for
you here.”
When the rustling wain had reached a convenient distance, Gilbert
began,--
“I only wanted to say that I'm going to Chester tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes!” Barton exclaimed, “about that money? I suppose you want all
o' yours?”
“It's as I expected. But you said you could borrow elsewhere, and send
it by me.”
“The fact is,” said Barton, “that I've both borrowed and sent. I'm
obliged to you, all the same, Gilbert; the will's as good as the deed,
you know; but I got the money from--well, from a friend, who was about
going down on his own business, and so that stone killed both my birds.
I ought to ha' sent you word, by rights.”
“Is your _friend_,” Gilbert asked, “a safe and trusty man?”
“Safe enough, I guess--a little wild, at times, maybe; but he's not such
a fool as to lose what he'd never have a chance of getting again.”
“Then,” said Gilbert, “it's hardly likely that he's the same friend you
took such a fancy to, at the Hammer-and-Trowel, last spring?”
Alfred Barton started as if he had been shot, and a deep color spread
over his face. His lower jaw slackened and his eyes moved uneasily from
side to side.
“Who--who do you mean?” he stammered.
The more evident his embarrassment became, the more Gilbert was
confirmed in his suspicion that there was some secret understanding
between the two men. The thing seemed incredible, but the same point,
he remembered had occurred to Martha Deane's mind, when she so readily
explained the other circumstances.
“Barton,” he said, sternly, “you know very well whom I mean. What became
of your friend Fortune? Didn't you see him at the tavern, last Monday
morning?”
“Y-yes--oh, yes! I know who he is _now_, the damned scoundrel! I'd give
a hundred dollars to see him dance upon nothing!”
He clenched his fists, and uttered a number of other oaths, which
need not be repeated. His rage seemed so real that Gilbert was again
staggered. Looking at the heavy, vulgar face before him,--the small,
restless eyes, the large sensuous mouth, the forehead whose very extent,
in contradiction to ordinary laws, expressed imbecility rather than
intellect, it was impossible to associate great cunning and shrewdness
with such a physiognomy. Every line, at that moment, expressed pain and
exasperation. But Gilbert felt bound to go a step further.
“Barton,” he said, “didn't you know who Fortune was, on that day?”
“N-no--no! On that _day_--NO! Blast me if I did!”
“Not before you left him?”
“Well, I'll admit that a suspicion of it came to me at the very last
moment--too late to be of any use. But come, damme! that's all over, and
what's the good o' talking? _You_ tried your best to catch the fellow,
too, but he was too much for you! 'T isn't such an easy job, eh?”
This sort of swagger was Alfred Barton's only refuge, when he was driven
into a corner. Though some color still lingered in his face, he spread
his shoulders with a bold, almost defiant air, and met Gilbert's eye
with a steady gaze. The latter was not prepared to carry his examination
further, although he was still far from being satisfied.
“Come, come, Gilbert!” Barton presently resumed, “I mean no offence. You
showed yourself to be true blue, and you led the hunt as well as any
man could ha' done; but the very thought o' the fellow makes me mad, and
I'll know no peace till he's strung up. If I was your age, now! A man
seems to lose his spirit as he gets on in years, and I'm only sorry you
weren't made captain at the start, instead o' me. You _shall_ be, from
this time on; I won't take it again!”
“One thing I'll promise you,” said Gilbert, with a meaning look, “that I
won't let him walk into the bar-room of the Unicorn, without hindrance.”
“I'll bet you won't!” Barton exclaimed. “All _I'm_ afraid of is, that he
won't try it again.”
“We'll see; this highway-robbery must have an end. I must now be going.
Good-bye!”
“Good-bye, Gilbert; take care o' yourself!” said Barton, in a very good
humor, now that the uncomfortable interview was over. “And, I say,” he
added, “remember that I stand ready to do you a good turn, whenever I
can!”
“Thank you!” responded Gilbert, as he turned Roger's head; but he said
to himself,--“when all other friends fail, I may come to _you_, not
sooner.”
The next morning showed signs that the Indian Summer had reached its
close. All night long the wind had moaned and lamented in the chimneys,
and the sense of dread in the outer atmosphere crept into the house and
weighed upon the slumbering inmates. There was a sound in the forest as
of sobbing Dryads, waiting for the swift death and the frosty tomb. The
blue haze of dreams which had overspread the land changed into an ashy,
livid mist, dragging low, and clinging to the features of the landscape
like a shroud to the limbs of a corpse.
The time, indeed, had come for a change. It was the 2nd of November; and
after a summer and autumn beautiful almost beyond parallel, a sudden
and severe winter was generally anticipated. In this way, even the most
ignorant field-hand recognized the eternal balance of Nature.
Mary Potter, although the day had arrived for which she had so long and
fervently prayed, could not shake off the depressing influence of the
weather. After breakfast, when Gilbert began to make preparations for
the journey, she found herself so agitated that it was with difficulty
she could give him the usual assistance. The money, which was mostly
in silver coin, had been sewed into tight rolls, and was now to be
carefully packed in the saddle-bags: the priming of the pistols was to
be renewed, and the old, shrivelled covers of the holsters so greased,
hammered out, and padded that they would keep the weapons dry in case of
rain. Although Gilbert would reach Chester that evening,--the distance
being not more than twenty-four miles,--the preparations, principally on
account of his errand, were conducted with a grave and solemn sense of
their importance.
When, finally, everything was in readiness,--the saddle-bags so packed
that the precious rolls could not rub or jingle; the dinner of sliced
bread and pork placed over them, in a folded napkin; the pistols,
intended more for show than use, thrust into the antiquated holsters;
and all these deposited and secured on Roger's back,--Gilbert took his
mother's hand, and said,--
“Good-bye, mother! Don't worry, now, if I shouldn't get back until
late to-morrow evening; I can't tell exactly how long the business will
take.”
He had never looked more strong and cheerful. The tears came to Mary
Potter's eyes, but she held them hack by a powerful effort. All she
could say--and her voice trembled in spite of herself--was,--
“Good-bye, my boy! Remember that I've worked, and thought, and prayed,
for you alone,--and that I'd do more--I'd do _all_, if I only could!”
His look said, “I do not forget!” He sat already in the saddle, and was
straightening the folds of his heavy cloak, so that it might protect his
knees. The wind had arisen, and the damp mist was driving down the glen,
mixed with scattered drops of a coming rain-storm. As he rode slowly
away, Mary Potter lifted her eyes to the dense gray of the sky,
darkening from moment to moment, listened to the murmur of the wind
over the wooded hills opposite, and clasped her hands with the appealing
gesture which had now become habitual to her.
“Two days more!” she sighed, as she entered the house,--“two days more
of fear and prayer! Lord forgive me that I am so weak of faith--that I
make myself trouble where I ought to be humble and thankful!”
Gilbert rode slowly, because he feared the contents of his saddle-bags
would be disturbed by much jolting. Proof against wind and weather,
he was not troubled by the atmospheric signs, but rather experienced a
healthy glow and exhilaration of the blood as the mist grew thicker and
beat upon his face like the blown spray of a waterfall. By the time he
had reached the Carson farm, the sky contracted to a low, dark arch of
solid wet, in which there was no positive outline of cloud, and a dull,
universal roar, shorn of all windy sharpness, hummed over the land.
From the hill behind the farm-house, whence he could overlook the
bottom-lands of Redley Creek, and easily descry, on a clear day, the
yellow front of Dr. Deane's house in Kennett Square, he now beheld a dim
twilight chaos, wherein more and more of the distance was blotted out.
Yet still some spell held up the suspended rain, and the drops that fell
seemed to be only the leakage of the airy cisterns before they burst.
The fields on either hand were deserted. The cattle huddled behind the
stacks or crouched disconsolately in fence-corners. Here and there
a farmer made haste to cut and split a supply of wood for his
kitchen-fire, or mended the rude roof on which his pigs depended for
shelter; but all these signs showed how soon he intended to be snugly
housed, to bide out the storm.
It was a day of no uncertain promise. Gilbert confessed to himself,
before he reached the Philadelphia road, that he would rather have
chosen another day for the journey; yet the thought of returning was
farthest from his mind. Even when the rain, having created its little
pools and sluices in every hollow of the ground, took courage, and
multiplied its careering drops, and when the wet gusts tore open his
cloak and tugged at his dripping hat, he cheerily shook the moisture
from his cheeks and eyelashes, patted Roger's streaming neck, and
whistled a bar or two of an old carol.
There were pleasant hopes enough to occupy his mind, without dwelling
on these slight external annoyances. He still tried to believe that his
mother's release would be hastened by the independence which lay folded
in his saddle-bags, and the thud of the wet leather against Roger's hide
was a sound to cheer away any momentary foreboding. Then, Martha--dear,
noble girl! She was his; it was but to wait, and waiting must be easy
when the end was certain. He felt, moreover, that in spite of his
unexplained disgrace, he had grown in the respect of his neighbors;
that his persevering integrity was beginning to bring its reward, and
he thanked God very gratefully that he had been saved from adding to his
name any stain of his own making.
In an hour or more the force of the wind somewhat abated, but the sky
seemed to dissolve into a massy flood. The rain rushed down, not in
drops, but in sheets, and in spite of his cloak, he was wet to the skin.
For half an hour he was obliged to halt in the wood between Old Kennett
and Chadd's Ford, and here he made the discovery that with all his care
the holsters were nearly full of water. Brown streams careered down
the long, meadowy hollow on his left, wherein many Hessian soldiers lay
buried. There was money buried with them, the people believed, but no
one cared to dig among the dead at midnight, and many a wild tale of
frighted treasure-seekers recurred to his mind.
At the bottom of the long hill flowed the Brandywine, now rolling swift
and turbid, level with its banks. Roger bravely breasted the flood,
and after a little struggle, reached the opposite side. Then across
the battle-meadow, in the teeth of the storm, along the foot of the low
hill, around the brow of which the entrenchments of the American army
made a clayey streak, until the ill-fated field, sown with grape-shot
and bullets which the farmers turned up every spring with their furrows,
lay behind him. The story of the day was familiar to him, from the
narratives of scores of eye-witnesses, and he thought to himself, as
he rode onward, wet, lashed by the furious rain, yet still of good
cheer,--“Though the fight was lost, the cause was won.”
After leaving the lovely lateral valley which stretches eastward for
two miles, at right angles to the course of the Brandywine, he entered a
rougher and wilder region, more thickly wooded and deeply indented with
abrupt glens. Thus far he had not met with a living soul. Chester was
now not more than eight or ten miles distant, and, as nearly as he could
guess, it was about two o'clock in the afternoon. With the best luck, he
could barely reach his destination by nightfall, for the rain showed no
signs of abating, and there were still several streams to be crossed.
His blood leaped no more so nimbly along his veins; the continued
exposure had at last chilled and benumbed him. Letting the reins fall
upon Roger's neck, he folded himself closely in his wet cloak, and bore
the weather with a grim, patient endurance. The road dropped into a
rough glen, crossed a stony brook, and then wound along the side of
a thickly wooded hill. On his right the bank had been cut away like
a wall; on the left a steep slope of tangled thicket descended to the
stream.
One moment, Gilbert knew that he was riding along this road, Roger
pressing close to the bank for shelter from the wind and rain; the next,
there was a swift and tremendous grip on his collar, Roger slid from
under him, and he was hurled backwards, with great force, upon the
ground. Yet even in the act of falling, he seemed to be conscious that a
figure sprang down upon the road from the bank above.
It was some seconds before the shock, which sent a crash through his
brain and a thousand fiery sparkles into his eyes, passed away. Then
a voice, keen, sharp, and determined, which it seemed that he knew,
exclaimed,--
“Damn the beast! I'll have to shoot him.”
Lifting his head with some difficulty, for he felt weak and giddy, and
propping himself on his arm, he saw Sandy Flash in the road, three
or four paces off, fronting Roger, who had whirled around, and with
levelled ears and fiery eyes, seemed to be meditating an attack.
The robber wore a short overcoat, made entirely of musk-rat skins, which
completely protected the arms in his belt. He had a large hunting-knife
in his left hand, and appeared to be feeling with his right for the
stock of a pistol. It seemed to Gilbert that nothing but the singular
force of his eye held back the horse from rushing upon him.
“Keep as you are, young man!” he cried, without turning his head, “or a
bullet goes into your horse's brain. I know the beast, and don't want to
see him slaughtered. If _you_ don't, order him to be quiet!”
Gilbert, although he knew every trait of the noble animal's nature
better than those of many a human acquaintance, was both surprised and
touched at the instinct with which he had recognized an enemy, and the
fierce courage with which he stood on the defensive. In that moment of
bewilderment, he thought only of Roger, whose life hung by a thread,
which his silence would instantly snap. He might have seen--had there
been time for reflection--that nothing would have been gained, in any
case, by the animal's death; for, stunned and unarmed as he was, he was
no match for the powerful, wary highwayman.
Obeying the feeling which entirely possessed him, he cried,--“Roger!
Roger, old boy!”
The horse neighed a shrill, glad neigh of recognition, and pricked up
his ears. Sandy Flash stood motionless; he had let go of his pistol, and
concealed the knife in a fold of his coat.
“Quiet, Roger, quiet!” Gilbert again commanded.
The animal understood the tone, if not the words. He seemed completely
reassured, and advanced a step or two nearer. With the utmost swiftness
and dexterity, combined with an astonishing gentleness,--making no
gesture which might excite Roger's suspicion,--Sandy Flash thrust
his hand into the holsters, smiled mockingly, cut the straps of the
saddle-bags with a single movement of his keen-edged knife, tested
the weight of the bags, nodded, grinned, and then, stepping aside, he
allowed the horse to pass him. But he watched every motion of the head
and ears, as he did so.
Roger, however, seemed to think only of his master. Bending down his
head, he snorted warmly into Gilbert's pale face, and then swelled his
sides with a deep breath of satisfaction. Tears of shame, grief, and
rage swam in Gilbert's eyes. “Roger,” he said, “I've lost everything but
you!”
He staggered to his feet and leaned against the bank. The extent of his
loss--the hopelessness of its recovery--the impotence of his burning
desire to avenge the outrage--overwhelmed him. The highwayman still
stood, a few paces off, watching him with a grim curiosity.
With a desperate effort, Gilbert turned towards him. “Sandy Flash,” he
cried, “do you know what you are doing?”
“I rather guess so,”--and the highwayman grinned. “I've done it before,
but never quite so neatly as this time.”
“I've heard it said, to your credit,” Gilbert continued, “that, though
you rob the rich, you sometimes give to the poor. This time you've
robbed a poor man.”
“I've only borrowed a little from one able to spare a good deal more
than I've got,--and the grudge I owe him isn't paid off yet.”
“It is not so!” Gilbert cried. “Every cent has been earned by my own
and my mother's hard work. I was taking it to Chester, to pay off a debt
upon the farm; and the loss and the disappointment will well nigh break
my mother's heart. According to your views of things, you owe me a
grudge, but you are outside of the law, and I did my duty as a lawful
man by trying to shoot you!”
“And I, _bein'_ outside o' the law, as you say, have let you off mighty
easy, young man!” exclaimed Sandy Flash, his eyes shining angrily and
his teeth glittering. “I took you for a fellow o' pluck, not for one
that'd lie, even to the robber they call me! What's all this pitiful
story about Barton's money?”
“Barton's money!”
“Oh--ay! You didn't agree to take some o' his money to Chester?” The
mocking expression on the highwayman's face was perfectly diabolical. He
slung the saddle-bags over his shoulders, and turned to leave.
Gilbert was so amazed that for a moment he knew not what to say. Sandy
Flash took three strides up the road, and then sprang down into the
thicket.
“It is not Barton's money!” Gilbert cried, with a last desperate
appeal,--“it is mine, mine and my mother's!”
A short, insulting laugh was the only answer.
“Sandy Flash!” he cried again, raising his voice almost to a shout, as
the crashing of the robber's steps through the brushwood sounded farther
and farther down the glen, “Sandy Flash! You have plundered a widow's
honest earnings to-day, and a curse goes with such plunder! Hark you! if
never before, you are cursed from this hour forth! I call upon God, in
my mother's name, to mark you!”
There was no sound in reply, except the dull, dreary hum of the wind and
the steady lashing of the rain. The growing darkness of the sky told
of approaching night, and the wild glen, bleak enough before, was now a
scene of utter and hopeless desolation to Gilbert's eyes. He was almost
unmanned, not only by the cruel loss, but also by the stinging sense
of outrage which it had left behind. A mixed feeling of wretched
despondency and shame filled his heart, as he leaned, chill, weary, and
still weak from the shock of his fall, upon Roger's neck.
The faithful animal turned his head from time to time, as if to question
his master's unusual demeanor. There was a look of almost human sympathy
in his large eyes; he was hungry and restless, yet would not move until
the word of command had been given.
“Poor fellow!” said Gilbert, patting his cheek, “we've both fared ill
to-day. But you mustn't suffer any longer for my sake.”
He then mounted and rode onward through the storm.