ROGER REPAYS HIS MASTER.
A mile or more beyond the spot where Gilbert Potter had been waylaid,
there was a lonely tavern, called the “Drovers' Inn.” Here he
dismounted, more for his horse's sake than his own, although he was
sore, weary, and sick of heart. After having carefully groomed Roger
with his own hands, and commended him to the special attentions of
the ostler, he entered the warm public room, wherein three or four
storm-bound drovers were gathered around the roaring fire of hickory
logs.
The men kindly made way for the pale, dripping, wretched-looking
stranger; and the landlord, with a shrewd glance and a suggestion
of “Something hot, I reckon?” began mixing a compound proper for the
occasion. Laying aside his wet cloak, which was sent to the kitchen
to be more speedily dried, Gilbert presently sat in a cloud of his
own steaming garments, and felt the warmth of the potent liquor in his
chilly blood.
All at once, it occurred to him that the highwayman had not touched his
person. There was not only some loose silver in his pockets, but Mark
Deane's money-belt was still around his waist. So much, at least, was
rescued, and he began to pluck up a little courage. Should he continue
his journey to Chester, explain the misfortune to the holder of his
mortgage, and give notice to the County Sheriff of this new act of
robbery? Then the thought came into his mind that in that case he might
be detained a day or two, in order to make depositions, or comply with
some unknown legal form. In the mean time the news would spread over
the country, no doubt with many exaggerations, and might possibly
reach Kennett--even the ears of his mother. That reflection decided his
course. She must first hear the truth from his mouth; he would try to
give her cheer and encouragement, though he felt none himself; then,
calling his friends together, he would hunt Sandy Flash like a wild
beast until they had tracked him to his lair.
“Unlucky weather for ye, it seems?” remarked the curious landlord,
who, seated in a corner of the fireplace, had for full ten minutes been
watching Gilbert's knitted brows, gloomy, brooding eyes, and compressed
lips.
“Weather?” he exclaimed, bitterly. “It's not the weather. Landlord, will
you have a chance of sending to Chester to-morrow?”
“I'm going, if it clears up,” said one of the drovers.
“Then, my friend,” Gilbert continued, “will you take a letter from me to
the Sheriff?”
“If it's nothing out of the way,” the man replied.
“It's in the proper course of law--if there is any law to protect us.
Not a mile and a half from here, landlord, I have been waylaid and
robbed on the public road!”
There was a general exclamation of surprise, and Gilbert's story, which
he had suddenly decided to relate, in order that the people of the
neighborhood might be put upon their guard, was listened to with an
interest only less than the terror which it inspired. The landlady
rushed into the bar-room, followed by the red-faced kitchen wench, and
both interrupted the recital with cries of “Dear, dear!” and “Lord save
us!” The landlord, meanwhile, had prepared another tumbler of hot and
hot, and brought it forward, saying,--
“You need it, the Lord knows, and it shall cost you nothing.”
“What I most need now,” Gilbert said, “is pen, ink, and paper, to
write out my account. Then I suppose you can get me up a cold check,
[Footnote: A local term, in use at the time, signifying a “lunch.”] for
I must start homewards soon.”
“Not 'a cold check' after all that drenching and mishandling!” the
landlord exclaimed. “We'll have a hot supper in half an hour, and you
shall stay, and welcome. Wife, bring down one of Liddy's pens, the
schoolmaster made for her, and put a little vinegar into th' ink-bottle;
it's most dried up!”
In a few minutes the necessary materials for a letter, all of the rudest
kind, were supplied, and the landlord and drovers hovered around as
Gilbert began to write, assisting him with the most extraordinary
suggestions.
“I'd threaten,” said a drover, “to write straight to General Washington,
unless they promise to catch the scoundrel in no time!”
“And don't forget the knife and pistol!” cried the landlord.
“And say the Tory farmers' houses ought to be searched!”
“And give his marks, to a hair!”
Amid all this confusion, Gilbert managed to write a brief, but
sufficiently circumstantial account of the robbery, calling upon the
County authorities to do their part in effecting the capture of
Sandy Flash. He offered his services and those of the Kennett troop,
announcing that he should immediately start upon the hunt, and expected
to be seconded by the law.
When the letter had been sealed and addressed, the drovers--some of whom
carried money with them, and had agreed to travel in company, for better
protection--eagerly took charge of it, promising to back the delivery
with very energetic demands for assistance.
Night had fallen, and the rain fell with it, in renewed torrents. The
dreary, universal hum of the storm rose again, making all accidental
sounds of life impertinent, in contrast with its deep, tremendous
monotone. The windows shivered, the walls sweat and streamed, and the
wild wet blew in under the doors, as if besieging that refuge of warm,
red fire-light.
“This beats the Lammas flood o' '68,” said the landlord, as he led the
way to supper. “I was a young man at the time, and remember it well.
Half the dams on Brandywine went that night.”
After a bountiful meal, Gilbert completely dried his garments and
prepared to set out on his return, resisting the kindly persuasion of
the host and hostess that he should stay all night. A restless, feverish
energy filled his frame. He felt that he could not sleep, that to wait
idly would be simple misery, and that only in motion towards the set
aim of his fierce, excited desires, could he bear his disappointment and
shame. But the rain still came down with a volume which threatened
soon to exhaust the cisterns of the air, and in that hope he compelled
himself to wait a little.
Towards nine o'clock the great deluge seemed to slacken. The wind arose,
and there were signs of its shifting, erelong, to the northwest, which
would bring clear weather in a few hours. The night was dark, but not
pitchy; a dull phosphoric gleam overspread the under surface of the
sky. The woods were full of noises, and every gully at the roadside gave
token, by its stony rattle, of the rain-born streams.
With his face towards home and his back to the storm, Gilbert rode into
the night. The highway was but a streak of less palpable darkness; the
hills on either hand scarcely detached themselves from the low, black
ceiling of sky behind them. Sometimes the light of a farm-house window
sparkled faintly, like a glow-worm, but whether far or near, he could
not tell; he only knew how blest must be the owner, sitting with wife
and children around his secure hearthstone,--how wretched his own life,
cast adrift in the darkness,--wife, home, and future, things of doubt!
He had lost more than money; and his wretchedness will not seem unmanly
when we remember the steady strain and struggle of his previous life.
As there is nothing more stimulating to human patience, and courage,
and energy, than the certain prospect of relief at the end, so there is
nothing more depressing than to see that relief suddenly snatched away,
and the same round of toil thrust again under one's feet! This is the
fate of Tantalus and Sisyphus in one.
Not alone the money; a year, or two years, of labor would no doubt
replace what he had lost. But he had seen, in imagination, his mother's
feverish anxiety at an end; household help procured, to lighten her
over-heavy toil; the possibility of her release from some terrible
obligation brought nearer, as he hoped and trusted, and with it the
strongest barrier broken down which rose between him and Martha Deane.
All these things which he had, as it were, held in his hand, had been
stolen from him, and the loss was bitter because it struck down to
the roots of the sweetest and strongest fibres of his heart. The night
veiled his face, but if some hotter drops than those of the storm were
shaken from his cheek, they left no stain upon his manhood.
The sense of outrage, of personal indignity, which no man can appreciate
who has not himself been violently plundered, added its sting to
his miserable mood. He thirsted to avenge the wrong; Barton's words
involuntarily came back to him,--“I'll know no peace till the villain
has been strung up!” Barton! How came Sandy Flash to know that Barton
intended to send money by him? Had not Barton himself declared that
the matter should be kept secret? Was there some complicity between
the latter and Sandy Flash? Yet, on the other hand, it seemed that the
highwayman believed that he was robbing Gilbert of Barton's money. Here
was an enigma which he could not solve.
All at once, a hideous solution presented itself. Was it possible that
Barton's money was to be only _apparently_ stolen--in reality returned
to him privately, afterwards? Possibly the rest of the plunder divided
between the two confederates? Gilbert was not in a charitable mood;
the human race was much more depraved, in his view, than twelve hours
before; and the inference which he would have rejected as monstrous,
that very morning, now assumed a possible existence. One thing, at
least, was certain; he would exact an explanation, and if none should be
furnished, he would make public the evidence in his hands.
The black, dreary night seemed interminable. He could only guess, here
and there, at a landmark, and was forced to rely more upon Roger's
instinct of the road than upon the guidance of his senses. Towards
midnight, as he judged, by the solitary crow of a cock, the rain almost
entirely ceased. The wind began to blow, sharp and keen, and the hard
vault of the sky to lift a little. He fancied that the hills on his
right had fallen away, and that the horizon was suddenly depressed
towards the north. Roger's feet began to splash in constantly deepening
water, and presently a roar, distinct from that of the wind, filled the
air.
It was the Brandywine. The stream had overflowed its broad
meadow-bottoms, and was running high and fierce beyond its main channel.
The turbid waters made a dim, dusky gleam around him; soon the fences
disappeared, and the flood reached to his horse's belly. But he knew
that the ford could be distinguished by the break in the fringe of
timber; moreover, that the creek-bank was a little higher than the
meadows behind it, and so far, at least, he might venture. The ford was
not more than twenty yards across, and he could trust Roger to swim that
distance.
The faithful animal pressed bravely on, but Gilbert soon noticed that he
seemed at fault. The swift water had forced him out of the road, and he
stopped, from time to time, as if anxious and uneasy. The timber could
now be discerned, only a short distance in advance, and in a few minutes
they would gain the bank.
What was that? A strange rustling, hissing sound, as of cattle trampling
through dry reeds,--a sound which quivered and shook, even in the breath
of the hurrying wind! Roger snorted, stood still, and trembled in every
limb; and a sensation of awe and terror struck a chill through Gilbert's
heart. The sound drew swiftly nearer, and became a wild, seething roar,
filling the whole breadth of the valley.
“Great God!” cried Gilbert, “the dam!--the dam has given way!” He turned
Roger's head, gave him the rein, struck, spurred, cheered, and shouted.
The brave beast struggled through the impeding flood, but the advance
wave of the coming inundation already touched his side. He staggered;
a line of churning foam bore down upon them, the terrible roar was all
around and over them, and horse and rider were whirled away.
What happened during the first few seconds, Gilbert could never
distinctly recall. Now they were whelmed in the water, now riding its
careering tide, torn through the tops of brushwood, jostled by
floating logs and timbers of the dam-breast, but always, as it seemed,
remorselessly held in the heart of the tumult and the ruin.
He saw, at last, that they had fallen behind the furious onset of the
flood, but Roger was still swimming with it, desperately throwing up his
head from time to time, and snorting the water from his nostrils. All
his efforts to gain a foothold failed; his strength was nearly spent,
and unless some help should come in a few minutes, it would come in
vain. And in the darkness, and the rapidity with which they were borne
along, how should help come?
All at once, Roger's course stopped. He became an obstacle to the flood,
which pressed him against some other obstacle below, and rushed over
horse and rider. Thrusting out his hand, Gilbert felt the rough bark
of a tree. Leaning towards it and clasping the log in his arms, he drew
himself from the saddle, while Roger, freed from his burden, struggled
into the current and instantly disappeared.
As nearly as Gilbert could ascertain, several timbers, thrown over
each other, had lodged, probably upon a rocky islet in the stream, the
uppermost one projecting slantingly out of the flood. It required all
his strength to resist the current which sucked, and whirled, and tugged
at his body, and to climb high enough to escape its force, without
overbalancing his support. At last, though still half immerged, he found
himself comparatively safe for a time, yet as far as ever from a final
rescue.
He must await the dawn, and an eternity of endurance lay in those few
hours. Meantime, perhaps, the creek would fall, for the rain had ceased,
and there were outlines of moving cloud in the sky. It was the night
which made his situation so terrible, by concealing the chances of
escape. At first, he thought most of Roger. Was his brave horse drowned,
or had he safely gained the bank below? Then, as the desperate moments
went by, and the chill of exposure and the fatigue of exertion began to
creep over him, his mind reverted, with a bitter sweetness, a mixture
of bliss and agony, to the two beloved women to whom his life
belonged,--the life which, alas! he could not now call his own, to give.
He tried to fix his thoughts on Death, to commend his soul to Divine
Mercy; but every prayer shaped itself into an appeal that he might once
more see the dear faces and bear the dear voices. In the great shadow of
the fate which hung over him, the loss of his property became as dust in
the balance, and his recent despair smote him with shame. He no longer
fiercely protested against the injuries of fortune, but entreated pardon
and pity for the sake of his love.
The clouds rolled into distincter masses, and the northwest wind still
hunted them across the sky, until there came, first a tiny rift for a
star, then a gap for a whole constellation, and finally a broad burst of
moonlight. Gilbert now saw that the timber to which he clung was lodged
nearly in the centre of the channel, as the water swept with equal force
on either side of him. Beyond the banks there was a wooded hill on the
left; on the right an overflowed meadow. He was too weak and benumbed
to trust himself to the flood, but he imagined that it was beginning to
subside, and therein lay his only hope.
Yet a new danger now assailed him, from the increasing cold. There was
already a sting of frost, a breath of ice, in the wind. In another hour
the sky was nearly swept bare of clouds, and he could note the lapse of
the night by the sinking of the moon. But he was by this time hardly
in a condition to note anything more. He had thrown himself, face
downwards, on the top of the log, his arms mechanically clasping it,
while his mind sank into a state of torpid, passive suffering, growing
nearer to the dreamy indifference which precedes death. His cloak had
been torn away in the first rush of the inundation, and the wet coat
began to stiffen in the wind, from the ice gathering over it.
The moon was low in the west, and there was a pale glimmer of the coming
dawn in the sky, when Gilbert Potter suddenly raised his head. Above
the noise of the water and the whistle of the wind, he heard a familiar
sound,--the shrill, sharp neigh of a horse. Lifting himself, with great
exertion, to a sitting posture, he saw two men, on horseback, in the
flooded meadow, a little below him. They stopped, seemed to consult, and
presently drew nearer.
Gilbert tried to shout, but the muscles of his throat were stiff, and
his lungs refused to act. The horse neighed again. This time there was
no mistake; it was Roger that he heard! Voice came to him, and he cried
aloud,--a hoarse, strange, unnatural cry.
The horsemen heard it, and rapidly pushed up the bank, until they
reached a point directly opposite to him. The prospect of escape brought
a thrill of life to his frame; he looked around and saw that the flood
had indeed fallen.
“We have no rope,” he heard one of the men say. “How shall we reach
him?”
“There is no time to get one, now,” the other answered. “My horse is
stronger than yours. I'll go into the creek just below, where it's
broader and not so deep, and work my way up to him.”
“But one horse can't carry both.”
“His will follow, be sure, when it sees me.”
As the last speaker moved away, Gilbert saw a led horse plunging
through the water, beside the other. It was a difficult and dangerous
undertaking. The horseman and the loose horse entered the main stream
below, where its divided channel met and broadened, but it was still
above the saddle-girths, and very swift. Sometimes the animals plunged,
losing their foothold; nevertheless, they gallantly breasted the
current, and inch by inch worked their way to a point about six feet
below Gilbert. It seemed impossible to approach nearer.
“Can you swim?” asked the man.
Gilbert shook his head. “Throw me the end of Roger's bridle!” he then
cried.
The man unbuckled the bridle and threw it, keeping the end of the rein
in his hand. Gilbert tried to grasp it, but his hands were too numb. He
managed, however, to get one arm and his head through the opening, and
relaxed his hold on the log.
A plunge, and the man had him by the collar. He felt himself lifted by a
strong arm and laid across Roger's saddle. With his failing strength and
stiff limbs, it was no slight task to get into place, and the return,
though less laborious to the horses, was equally dangerous, because
Gilbert was scarcely able to support himself without help.
“You're safe now,” said the man, when they reached the bank, “but it's a
downright mercy of God that you're alive!”
The other horseman joined them, and they rode slowly across the flooded
meadow. They had both thrown their cloaks around Gilbert, and carefully
steadied him in the saddle, one on each side. He was too much exhausted
to ask how they had found him, or whither they were taking him,--too
numb for curiosity, almost for gratitude.
“Here's your saviour!” said one of the men, patting Roger's shoulder.
“It was all along of him that we found you. Want to know how?
Well--about three o'clock it was, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little
later, my wife woke me up. 'Do you hear that?' she says. I listened and
heard a horse in the lane before the door, neighing,--I can't tell you
exactly how it was,--like as if he'd call up the house. 'T was rather
queer, I thought, so I got up and looked out of window, and it seemed to
me he had a saddle on. He stamped, and pawed, and then he gave another
yell, and stamped again. Says I to my wife, 'There's something wrong
here,' and I dressed and went out. When he saw me, he acted the
strangest you ever saw; thinks I, if ever an animal wanted to speak,
that animal does. When I tried to catch him, he shot off, run down the
lane a bit, and then came back as strangely acting as ever. I went into
the house and woke up my brother, here, and we saddled our horses and
started. Away went yours ahead, stopping every minute to look round and
see if we followed. When we came to the water, I kind o' hesitated, but
't was no use; the horse would have us go on, and on, till we found you.
I never heard tell of the like of it, in my born days!”
Gilbert did not speak, but two large tears slowly gathered in his eyes,
and rolled down his cheeks. The men saw his emotion, and respected it.
In the light of the cold, keen dawn, they reached a snug farm-house, a
mile from the Brandywine. The men lifted Gilbert from the saddle, and
would have carried him immediately into the house, but he first leaned
upon Roger's neck, took the faithful creature's head in his arms, and
kissed it.
The good housewife was already up, and anxiously awaiting the return of
her husband and his brother. A cheery fire crackled on the hearth, and
the coffee-pot was simmering beside it. When Gilbert had been partially
revived by the warmth, the men conducted him into an adjoining bed-room,
undressed him, and rubbed his limbs with whiskey. Then, a large bowl of
coffee having been administered, he was placed in bed, covered with half
a dozen blankets, and the curtains were drawn over the windows. In a few
minutes he was plunged in a slumber almost as profound as that of the
death from which he had been so miraculously delivered.
It was two hours past noon when he awoke, and he no sooner fully
comprehended the situation and learned how the time had sped, than he
insisted on rising, although still sore, weak, and feverish. The good
farmer's wife had kept a huge portion of dinner hot before the fire,
and he knew that without compelling a show of appetite, he would not be
considered sufficiently recovered to leave. He had but one desire,--to
return home. So recently plucked from the jaws of Death, his life still
seemed to be an uncertain possession.
Finally Roger was led forth, quiet and submissive as of old,--having
forgotten his good deed as soon as it had been accomplished,--and
Gilbert, wrapped in the farmer's cloak, retraced his way to the main
road. As he looked across the meadow, which told of the inundation in
its sweep of bent, muddy grass, and saw, between the creekbank trees,
the lodged timber to which he had clung, the recollection of the night
impressed him like a frightful dream. It was a bright, sharp, wintry
day,--the most violent contrast to that which had preceded it. The hills
on either side, whose outlines he could barely guess in the darkness,
now stood out from the air with a hard, painful distinctness; the sky
was an arch of cold, steel-tinted crystal; and the north wind blew with
a shrill, endless whistle through the naked woods.
As he climbed the long hill west of Chadd's Ford, Gilbert noticed how
the meadow on his right had been torn by the flood gathered from the
fields above. In one place a Hessian skull had been snapped from the
buried skeleton, and was rolled to light, among the mud and pebbles.
Not far off, something was moving among the bushes, and he involuntarily
drew rein.
The form stopped, appeared to crouch down for a moment, then suddenly
rose and strode forth upon the grass. It was a woman, wearing a man's
flannel jacket, and carrying a long, pointed staff in her hand. As she
approached with rapid strides, he recognized Deb. Smith.
“Deborah!” he cried, “what are you doing here?”
She set her pole to the ground and vaulted over the high picket-fence,
like an athlete.
“Well,” she said, “if I'd ha' been shy o' you, Mr. Gilbert, you wouldn't
ha' seen me. I'm not one of them as goes prowlin' around among dead
bodies' bones at midnight; what I want, I looks for in the daytime.”
“Bones?” he asked. “You're surely not digging up the Hessians?”
“Not exackly; but, you see, the rain's turned out a few, and some on
'em, folks says, was buried with lots o' goold platted up in their
pig-tails. I know o' one man that dug up two or three to git their
teeth, (to sell to the tooth-doctors, you know,) and when he took hold
o' the pig-tail to lift the head by, the hair come off in his hand, and
out rattled ten good goolden guineas. Now, if any money's washed out,
there's no harm in a body's pickin' of it up, as I see.”
“What luck have you had?” asked Gilbert.
“Nothin' to speak of; a few buttons, and a thing or two. But I say, Mr.
Gilbert, what luck ha' _you_ had?” She had been keenly and curiously
inspecting his face.
“Deborah!” he exclaimed, “you're a false prophet! You told me that,
whatever happened, I was safe from Sandy Flash.”
“Eh?”
There was a shrill tone of surprise and curiosity in this exclamation.
“You ought to know Sandy Flash better, before you prophesy in his name,”
Gilbert repeated, in a stern voice.
“Oh, Mr. Gilbert, tell me what you mean?” She grasped his leg with one
hand, while she twisted the other in Roger's mane, as if to hold both
horse and rider until the words were explained.
Thereupon he related to her in a brief, fierce way, all that had
befallen him. Her face grew red and her eyes flashed; she shook her fist
and swore under her breath, from time to time, while he spoke.
“You'll be righted, Mr. Gilbert!” she then cried, “you'll be righted,
never fear! Leave it to me! Haven't I always kep' my word to you? You're
believin' I lied the last time, and no wonder; but I'll prove the truth
o' my words yet--may the Devil git my soul, if I don't!”
“Don't think that I blame you, Deborah,” he said. “You were too sure of
my good luck, because you wished me to have it--that's all.”
“Thank ye for that! But it isn't enough for me. When I promise a thing,
I have power to keep my promise. Ax me no more questions; bide quiet
awhile, and if the money isn't back in your pocket by New-Year, I give
ye leave to curse me, and kick me, and spit upon me!”
Gilbert smiled sadly and incredulously, and rode onward. He made haste
to reach home, for a dull pain began to throb in his head, and chill
shudders ran over his body. He longed to have the worst over which yet
awaited him, and gain a little rest for body, brain, and heart.