THE HEARTS OF CHEVALIERS.
They were about to commence conversation, when footsteps and voices were
heard upon the stairs, and presently Emily and Wentworth, joyous and
smiling, came into the library.
“Here we are again!” cried Wentworth, in his hearty voice, flinging
his hat on the table, and running his hand through his clustering
curls. “Here we are, in the height of felicity. Hallo, who’s that?” he
exclaimed, catching sight of Tugmutton squatting in the corner. “Why, you
ineffable young goblin, what are you doing there?”
Emily, who was laying off her bonnet and shawl, turned quickly in
the direction he was apostrophizing, and laughed half-amusedly and
half-wonderingly at the doleful visage of the boy.
“Why, what’s the matter with you, Charles?” she inquired.
“Well put,” cried Wentworth. “He looks as if he had a bad attack of the
mulligrubs.”
“Now, Richard!” exclaimed Emily. “I do wish that you wouldn’t talk slang.
You artists are perfectly incorrigible in your use of slang.”
“All due to the artistic faculty, Emily dear,” he gaily returned. “Slang
is the picturesque of language, and we must talk picturesquely, or die.
But, conscience alive! Why, Harrington! And you, Muriel! What’s the
matter? You look as if you had a touch of the ebony lamb’s complaint too.”
“Don’t jest, Richard,” said Harrington. “We have had an awful experience
since we saw you.”
“Awful!” exclaimed Wentworth, turning pale. “Why, what’s happened?”
Emily came flying over to them, with her cheeks blanched, and her lips
parted in frightened inquiry.
“What is it?” she cried. “Is anything the matter with Mrs. Eastman?”
“No, Emily; she is well,” replied Harrington. “Richard, the Hungarian
fugitive is safe in the streets of Boston. No hound of Vienna can track
him here. But the American fugitive is not safe here from the Vienna of
the Union. The poor man, whose tale of suffering so moved you—he has been
kidnapped in the streets of our city this evening.”
“My God!” shouted Wentworth, stamping his foot on the floor, and turning
livid.
Emily burst into tears, and dropped into a chair.
“Kidnapped this evening!” pursued the young artist. “Why, you had him
here. How could this happen?”
“Listen, and I will tell you,” replied Harrington.
Wentworth and Emily drew up their chairs, and sat facing their friends.
There was a moment’s silence, and then in a few clear, direct words,
Harrington told them all.
Wentworth sat still and silent till he had finished, and then turned with
a face of wrath upon Tugmutton, who immediately began to cry.
“Hush, Richard!” exclaimed Harrington, stopping Wentworth in the furious
speech he was about to pour upon the miserable squab. “Don’t use one
word of reproach to him. Poor boy! He suffers enough as it is. See,” he
whispered, “it is a loving creature, and you have hurt his poor heart.
Now say something to soothe him.”
Wentworth choked down his rage, and sat still for an instant. Then,
forcing himself to smile, he rose, and went over to Tugmutton, who was
roaring in a muffled undertone of heart-broken grief.
“There, Tuggy, my boy, don’t cry,” he said soothingly, patting him on the
shoulder. “I’m sorry I looked at you so, but I didn’t mean anything.”
“My gosh, Mr. Wentworth, I feel as if the light of other days was fled,”
howled Tugmutton, reminiscent in his anguish of a line from the song he
had picked up somewhere.
Wentworth, mad as he was, felt a strong disposition to laugh.
“Never mind, Tuggy,” he said lightly. “Cheer up. It’ll be all right.”
“If I could on’y see Brudder Baby in my affliction,” sobbed Tugmutton,
“’pears to me, it would be a reviver. But I can’t, an’ I’m wus off than a
bob-tail horse in fly-time.”
“Cheer up, Charles,” said Harrington, “you shall see Brother Baby soon.
Don’t cry.”
“Yes, don’t cry, whatever you do,” said Wentworth, “for crying’s bad for
the liver. Here’s something to remember me by,” and he gave him a half
dollar.
Tugmutton, with a feeling that his liver was in immediate peril, and
touched by Wentworth’s munificence, took the money with a duck of his
head, and immediately knuckled away his tears with his big paws.
“The young devil,” muttered Wentworth, walking back to his chair. “Ought
to have a sound flogging for his mischief, instead of a half dollar; but
that’s Harrington all over, and he just makes a fool of me.”
“What are you saying to yourself, Richard?” asked Harrington, with a wan
smile.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Wentworth, hurriedly. “But now what’s to be done
with Roux?”
“I don’t know,” sadly responded Harrington; “when he hears of his
brother’s capture, I fear it will kill him or drive him crazy.”
“Oh, by Jupiter! but he musn’t hear of it,” replied Wentworth—“at least
not yet a while, till we see if this mischief can’t be remedied someway.
We may get hold of Antony again, you know, for he’s not out of Boston
yet. Meanwhile, you must go up and tell Roux that while he was asleep you
sent Antony off to Worcester.”
“No, Richard,” returned Harrington, “I can’t tell a lie. If I could, how
could I bear to go up, and look into that poor man’s face, and say that?
I can’t do it.”
“You can’t, eh?” returned Wentworth, reddening. “Then I can. Hark you,
Harrington: I may have told fibs in my life, but I can say, with Alfieri,
that I’m a man of as few lies as anybody. Still, when the time comes
for a bouncer, let it be a big one, I say, and handsomely done. In my
judgment, the time has come now, and up-stairs I’m going to do the deed.
After which, if I don’t grab Antony back again, even if I have to go
all the way to Louisiana to do it, then Emily Ames will never be Emily
Wentworth. So!”
And with his handsome face flushed and kindled, Wentworth walked out of
the library and up-stairs to Roux’s room.
“Where’s my brother Ant’ny,” cried Roux, with a wild face, the minute he
saw him. “I waked up, and he’s not here, and I’m afeard of my life for
him.”
“My dear Mr. Roux, don’t be at all alarmed, for Antony is perfectly
safe,” said Wentworth, blandly, with an air of the most perfect smiling
composure.
Roux put his dark hand over his mouth as was his wont, and looked at
Wentworth with a wistful dubiety, as wondering if he spoke the truth. But
there was truth in every lineament of Wentworth’s smiling countenance,
and Roux’s gaze wandered downward to the floor.
“I’ve been mighty skeered, Mr. Wentworth,” he said, timidly. “I was
afeard all wasn’t right somehow.”
“Perfectly right, Mr. Roux,” pursued Wentworth. “You know we were going
to send you up to Worcester on Monday or Tuesday. But we had a chance
this evening to send Antony on by private conveyance, and as we thought
that safer than the cars, we let him go. You were asleep, and as you were
to see him again so soon, we thought we wouldn’t waken you. Tugmutton’s
gone on with him, and to-morrow or next day, you are to follow. I thought
I’d just come up and tell you, lest you should be anxious.”
“I’m very much obleeged to you, Mr. Wentworth,” said Roux, smiling and
bowing, “and I feel mighty relieved to hear this, sir, for I begun to be
proper skeered.”
“Indeed?” said Wentworth, blandly, “I’m sorry. But it’s all right. Good
evening.”
“Good evening, Mr. Wentworth,” returned the joyful Roux, bending himself
double in response to the easy and graceful bow with which Wentworth took
leave.
They were all sitting in silence when he entered the library.
“There,” said he, seating himself with an air of grave satisfaction,
“I’ve told the biggest whopper I ever told in my life, and if you only
knew the virtuous glow and elevation of spirit I feel, you’d all go and
tell one apiece to get your souls in the same condition. I’ve saved poor
Roux from awful suffering, maybe death or madness, and I’d do it again if
it was necessary. I never told a thundering lie before, but now I’ve done
it, and done it well, and, when Sterne’s Accusing Angel bears it up to
Heaven’s Chancery, if the Recording Angel doesn’t drop the biggest tear
upon it his lachrymal glands can furnish, and blot it out forever, then
I trust the Lord will turn him out of office for not understanding his
duty, that’s all. I’m sorry if you blame me, Harrington, but there’s a
happy man up-stairs to balance my side of the ledger.”
“I am not your conscience, Richard,” said Harrington, simply. “There
are some truths that come from hell, and there are some lies that savor
of heaven. I believe such falsehoods as yours to be among the latter. I
sometimes almost wish I could tell them.”
The tears sprang to Richard’s eyes.
“Ah, Harrington,” said he, dejectedly, “it’s all very well for me to
talk, but I feel poorer in spirit, for having said, even at such an
urging, what was not true. You are a nobler man than I, for you would not
lie for the man you would die for. No matter,” he added, recklessly, “I
could not do otherwise.”
Harrington covered his eyes with his hand, and sat silent. Emily, in a
dazed condition, looked slowly from one to the other. But Muriel, after
a moment’s pause, rose from her seat, put her arms around Richard, and
kissed him.
“I kiss away the good sin, dear Raffaello,” she said, with sad
playfulness, caressing his curly head. “The brave and generous good sin.”
She stood by him a minute, with her hands resting on his head, and her
beautiful, exalted face upturned, then noiselessly glided to her seat,
and slowly sank down.
“Now, Harrington, what are we to do?” said Wentworth, drying the tears
from his eyes. “My good sin, as Muriel calls it, staves off Roux’s
trouble for a couple of days, but if we can’t get hold of Antony, it will
be terrible.”
“I have only one thought, and that is a forlorn one,” replied Harrington.
“I am waiting for Mrs. Eastman to return. If her brother does not consent
to liberate this man, or if she cannot bring herself to bear public
action on this matter, I shall go at once to my house, get my pistols,
and search the Soliman for Antony.”
At this astonishing declaration, which Harrington made very quietly, they
all stared. Even Muriel looked amazed. But Harrington, unconscious of
their wondering looks, sat in sad abstraction, brooding on his forlorn
determination.
“That will compromise no one but the captain of the brig,” he said
presently. “A writ of habeas corpus would involve Atkins, but a rescue of
this sort concerns only myself and that captain.”
“But, dear John,” said Emily, with a slight shiver, “there will be men on
board the vessel, and they will never permit this.”
Harrington’s broad nostrils quivered in the marble stillness of his face,
and his blue eyes gleamed.
“It will go hard with any men who step between me and my purpose
to-night,” he said, in a low, quiet voice, which made their blood thrill.
“The strength of ten is in me now, and I will cripple whoever undertakes
to oppose me. If they outnumber these naked hands, I have my pistols. I
will not be balked. If Antony is on board the Soliman, I will take him
away with me, or leave my body beside him. Gladly would I respect the
law and order of society, but it is the day of slavers and traders, and
civilization sleeps.”
“Yes,” impetuously cried Wentworth, “and when civilization sleeps, up,
gentlemen and chevaliers, for it is the hour of chivalry!”
Harrington looked calmly into his glowing and electric face.
“You say well, Richard,” he replied. “When civilization lies inert, and
the organized mass either helps or does not hinder the daily outrage to
humanity, it is time for every gentleman to take upon himself the vow
which bound the antique chevaliers to suffer no injustice, and to succor
the oppressed and helpless. That is the time to try what redress lies in
the individual arm. That is the hour of chivalry.”
There was a long pause, in which a subtle flame of enthusiasm, born from
the colloquy, beat in the veins of all but Harrington. In him there was
no enthusiasm, but cold and sad determination.
“But, John,” said Emily, at length, “you will not go on this desperate
adventure alone?”
“Yes. Alone,” he replied.
“You shall not!” she exclaimed, with flashing eyes and her lit face
aglow, stopping the fiery answer just bursting from the lips of
Wentworth. “Richard shall go with you, and I wish I had twenty lovers to
send on such an errand.”
Harrington looked at her with a faint color on his melancholy
countenance. As for Wentworth, he sank back in his chair, flushed and
throbbing with boundless pride in Emily.
“Emily,” said Harrington, “think! You yourself suggested the danger of
this expedition, and there is danger, for if we are opposed, it will be
by sailors, who are not slow to handle knives in a quarrel. Now think
coolly. It would be dreadful if Richard were brought home to you dead.”
She looked at him with a paling countenance, proud, though the tears
gathered in her lustrous eyes.
“If he died in trying to save a poor man from a life worse than the worst
death,” she answered with a quivering lip, “I would think of him as gone
to our Savior’s rest, and bear my sorrow like a joy till I died and found
him with God. Say no more, Harrington. He shall go with you.”
“That I will,” cried Wentworth, as springing to his feet, and leaping to
the large fauteuil in which sat Emily, he threw himself by her side, and
clasped her in his arms. “Ay, marry will I go, and wo to the nautical
mind that shall conceive the idea of assaulting me, after the speech I
have heard from you, Emily, for on that depraved and abandoned sailor
will I execute, with Berserker fury, all that Bagasse has taught me, and
I swear it by this kiss!”
And with a kiss on her carnation mouth, that brought the rich blood to
her face like fire, he sprang up gaily with an exulting countenance, and
flung himself into his chair.
“Bravo!” cried Muriel, with a flash of her usual gaiety, “Cupid and Mars
in arms! Richard,” she added more seriously, “you have my thanks. And
you, too, flower of Episcopalians, bright battle-rose of womankind. Yes,
John, you must take Richard with you.”
“I will, I will,” he impetuously cried. “Oh, why should I despond when
there are hearts like these! Would to God, that I could sow the world
with such as you, Emily; with such as you, Richard! Yes, Richard, you
shall go. And you, Muriel,” he added, sinking into mournful playfulness,
“you, too, give me leave of what may prove eternal absence from you.”
“Not eternal,” she answered, with a radiant smile; “not in the worst
event eternal. Go, then, and even were it eternal, still go!”
A vapor of fire mounted to his brain, and his heart beat thick and fast.
He did not reply, but sat motionless, with his eyes covered by his hand,
and all his being pulsing in solemn sweetness.
“Hark!” whispered Muriel, “she is coming. I hear her step on the stairs.”
Her ear must have been fine indeed, for listening they could hear nothing.
“No, I am not mistaken,” she said, seeing their incredulous faces. “Well
I know that soft, slow step. She is coming, and she has failed. Oh,
Lemuel Atkins, I pity you!”
There was a moment’s pause, and then the library door swung slowly open,
and with a face severe and ashen, and a decrepit step, Mrs. Eastman came
in. They all rose.
“I have seen him,” she said, in a low, frigid, desolate voice. “I
have told him everything. I have knelt to him in supplication.
Useless—useless. He refused me.”
“What did he say, mother?” murmured Muriel.
“Do not ask me,” she replied. “I am heart-sick. Ask me nothing. I told
him that it was in our house the man had found shelter. And he said he
was glad to hear it, for it was a guaranty that he would not be disturbed
in the execution of his purpose. He has a power of attorney from Lafitte,
he told me, to act as his agent in the matter, and if we presumed to
interfere further, he said, he would immediately bring the case before a
Commissioner, and have the man returned by law. That was all.”
They remained silent a little while, looking with pity on the frozen
desolation of her still and pallid features.
“Mother,” said Muriel, “what shall we do? Are you willing to let us act
publicly in this matter now?”
“Do not ask me,” she faltered! “Give me a little time to think. I am
going to my chamber. Don’t disturb me. I want to be alone. I will think,
and to-morrow I will let you know.”
They stood with bowed heads, touched by the solemn winter of her sorrow,
and she feebly glided from the room. Emily, after a moment’s hesitation,
followed her.
“Ah, me, I fear the case is hopeless,” sighed Muriel. “Everything depends
now on your success in finding Antony on board the Soliman.”
“Everything,” replied Harrington. “Yet, Muriel, on reflection, it is,
perhaps, as well that we should not seek a public redress. For if the
writ of habeas corpus failed in its execution, as it probably would, Mr.
Atkins would at once get out a warrant for Antony, and then he would be
lost, indeed. Yes, lost—but by the Eternal God!” he vehemently cried,
lifting his arms to heaven, “never should he, never shall any fugitive,
be taken from Boston without a desperate effort to prevent it. I have
seen one slave dragged hence, and that sent my brains to my hands. Never
while I live will I see another. The hour that sees the next man haled
before a Commissioner, will see me burst into their court-room, armed to
the teeth, and I will take him from them, if I have to do it through a
lane of corpses, or leave my body beside him. Then, if I live, let them
try me for treason, and if I die, let them put a traitor’s stone upon my
grave!”
His arms fell heavily, and he strode away toward the door.
“Think, Muriel,” he cried, turning suddenly, “think of the baseness of
this uncle of yours. To refuse his own sister the man her charity had
sheltered! If he had found refuge in the house of a stranger, I could
conceive it; but to take him from here! And she knelt to him. Knelt
to him in her agony, and he could deny her! Oh, avarice, avarice! His
wretched cotton-trade is affected, and to that he sacrifices the ties
of blood, the feelings of a sister, honor, pity, charity, manhood,
everything. Let me not think of it. Come, Richard, come; let us try our
fortune.”
At that moment Emily returned.
“I have prevailed upon Mrs. Eastman,” she said, “to sleep with me
to-night. I could not bear to think of her being alone in this
affliction.”
“Kind Emily,” said Muriel, fondly embracing her. “You anticipated me.
Alas! poor mother! But, come, Emily, say good bye to Richard, for he is
going.”
Emily ran to Wentworth’s arms, and kissed him.
“You’ll come back safe, I know,” she said, cheerfully.
“That I will,” he returned, with a gay laugh; “and wo to the man of the
tarry trowsers who interferes with my safe return.”
“Adieu, Muriel,” said Harrington, embracing and kissing her. “We will not
part forever,” he added, with a sad smile, “for I feel that I am to come
back again.”
“So do I,” she replied. “Good bye. We will wait tea for you, gentlemen.”
They departed, and Muriel and Emily sat down, under the eyes of the
silent Tugmutton, to await their return.
In two hours they came back disconsolate, for they had not found Antony.
They had found the Soliman lying at Long Wharf, and had boarded her.
Nobody happened to be in the vessel but a stupid sailor, half drunk,
who, when Harrington told him, very simply, that he came to look for
a man hidden on board, imagined that he was a policeman, and got him
a lantern. With this Harrington and Wentworth searched every hole and
corner of the vessel, but Antony was not there. In fact, Bangham had him
tied hand and foot, and stowed away in the back room of a low boozing
ken on Commercial street, whose landlord was a friend of the captain’s.
On leaving the vessel, the young men found the sailor lying in a sottish
sleep, and as they were certain that he would remember nothing on the
morrow of his visitors, they left him without buying his secrecy, as they
had intended, and returned with heavy hearts to Temple street.
“And so,” said Harrington, concluding his narration, “as there is nothing
more to be done till to-morrow, if then, let us try to forget it all as
much as we can. The Soliman sails on Tuesday night, the sailor told us.
I shall not abandon the hope of finding the man on board of her till she
has gone.”
He took a revolver from his breast pocket as he ended, and laid it on the
mantel, then wearily sat down.
“Come,” said Muriel, “let us go to tea. We shall all feel better for a
little refreshment. Come, Charles.”
Tugmutton, whose grief had not injured his appetite, which was not the
case with the others, bounced up nimbly, and followed them.
After tea, the doleful Puck was charged not to go near his father, and
was provided with a separate room. Slowly and sadly the evening deepened
on, till at last the hour of slumber spread its dove’s wings over all
their sorrows.