PIERRE’S SECRET
Good humored little Pierre was ducked for his offense in the
coffee-house. He was taken before the magistrates who sat in the great
room in the Stadt Huys, and they tried him legally for unbecoming
conduct towards a member of the upper class. Against this charge there
was very little Pierre could offer in defense. In vain he pleaded that
he had seen indirectly and meant to empty the rum upon Kirstoffel. The
charge was immediately changed by the grave Dutch magistrates to
drunkenness in order that there should be no mistake. Pierre perforce
gave way to the inevitable. Through the influence of Van Volkenberg who
had not yet recovered from his anger, Pierre was sentenced to the
ducking stool. The indignity of this punishment was particularly galling
to Pierre because it was commonly reserved for scolding wives and
spinster crones whose tongues were too long for their mouths.
“I’ll go to the pillory, your honor,” he said piteously, “or ride the
pinch-back horse a week of market days; but to be ducked like a woman!
And they say there are great fish in the bay who will nibble my toes.
Your honor, I was only a little drunk.”
But the magistrates’ hearts could not be softened away from duty. They
were bringing the culprit out of the Stadt Huys at the very moment that
the dominie and I were returning from our visit to the fort. We met them
with half the town flocking at their heels and clamoring for the sport
to come. Pierre, slightly sobered by his experience at the court-room,
had plucked up a small amount of dignity. He walked erect as if he had
made up his mind to take his punishment like a man. I looked at him
closely and believed that there was more stuff to the fellow than at
first appeared. His face wore a look of dogged resentment; such a look
as I should not care to see in the face of an enemy.
The ducking-stool, which was attached to a low, wheeled platform, was
soon pushed to the edge of the water. Pierre was securely bound into the
chair so that he could move neither hand nor foot, and then he was swung
out in mid air over the water. The magistrate mounted on a platform
near. He took out of his pocket a string about a yard long with a small
iron ball attached to the end of it. He held one end of the string in
his hand and set the ball to swinging like a pendulum.
“Let him go down,” he cried.
At this command Pierre was soused into the water. The crowd gave a cheer
and fell to counting the swings of the pendulum. At first there were not
many voices, but the number grew with the seconds. At twenty they
sounded like a dull roar. At thirty the people were clapping their hands
and stamping their feet and yelling like mad.
“Thirty-eight,” rumbled the mob. “Thirty-nine, forty.”
“Fetch up,” shouted the magistrate.
Pierre was lifted out of the water, dripping and snorting from his forty
seconds beneath the surface.
“Have you had enough?” asked the magistrate.
“No,” answered Pierre defiantly.
“Dip him again.”
Once more he was mercilessly ducked into the cold water. The pendulum
was again set in motion. The crowd fell into its boisterous count. I
looked around in dismay.
“Is there nothing we can do?” I asked the dominie.
“Nothing,” answered a strange voice over my shoulder.
I whirled about to see who had spoken, and stood face to face with
Patroon Van Volkenberg. He was no longer the anger-tossed man I had seen
in the coffee-house. He was now cool and collected. A sinister smile
scarcely ruffled his calm features. But when he spoke to me his voice
bit like a cold wind.
“No, Monsieur Le Bourse—you see I know your name—no, there is nothing
you can do. But we shall meet again.”
He turned away instantly and was swallowed in the crowd. There was no
mistaking the expression of his fierce eyes. I recalled the warning Earl
Bellamont had given me and I clinched my fists.
At that moment Pierre was ducked for the third time. When he came up the
magistrate put the usual question.
“Have you had enough?”
Pierre’s head dropped forward upon his breast.
“Yes, yes,” shouted all. “He nods yes.”
They unbound him and stood him on his feet. He fell full length upon the
ground, unconscious and half drowned. At that moment the report of a
cannon boomed over the city.
“A ship, a ship!” shouted a hundred voices.
This signal, fired from the Battery, was the way of announcing the
arrival of a vessel in the port. The crowd forgot all about Pierre and
his helpless condition. In two minutes the square was vacant save for
three men: Pierre, the dominie, and myself.
Pierre was not long in regaining consciousness. He was, however, too
weak to walk alone. I lifted him in my arms and was about to carry him
away when we met Lady Marmaduke in her chair. She bade the negro
carriers set her down, and inquired what was the matter.
“Good lack! Little Pierre ducked for being drunk! You naughty fellow.
How often have I told you not to do that or I should never speak you
well again to sweet Annetje Dorn?” She paused; her face clouded and grew
hard and bitter. I heard her mutter the name of the patroon. “Here, put
him in my chair,” she said at last. “I will attend to him.” She got in
herself after he was comfortably stowed away, and then left us alone
upon the Slip.
“Just her way,” said the dominie. “She’ll take care of him and nurse him
and feed him up as if he were her own child. She is good to every one,
friend or slave, it makes no matter which.”
I accompanied the dominie as far as the door of his house, where I left
him in order to continue my way to the Ferry-House. It was in this quiet
ordinary that the governor had advised me to seek temporary lodgings. I
reached the place without difficulty and was surprised to find that it
was the very house before which Lady Marmaduke had halted her coach when
I heard her speak to the people and bid them to stand fast by the Earl
of Bellamont.
I went in and made the necessary arrangements to stay there that night,
and then sat down to eat my dinner and to think over the events of the
day. By the time I was ready to rise from the table the hand of the
clock was close upon the stroke of two. This was the time set for
Bromm’s proclamation concerning my sister. I betook myself to the square
before the Stadt Huys, where I walked up and down in momentary
expectation of the crier. The public excitement of the morning was
somewhat abated; but a fair crowd had gathered by the time Bromm
appeared, marching behind two drummers, who beat a sober rap-tap suited
to the aged man’s deliberate step. Bromm mounted the platform near the
public scaffold and began to read his proclamation. It was short, simply
requesting in the name of the governor any information concerning the
whereabouts of Ruth Le Bourse. At the first reading no one came forward
to volunteer any information. The drums beat again and Bromm read the
proclamation a second time. Just as he finished, some one touched my arm
from behind. It was Van Volkenberg at my elbow for the second time that
day. He smiled as before, the same cutting smile of contempt. He spoke
but a word or two before he vanished in the cover of the crowd; but he
had said enough to rouse my anger.
“Good luck, Monsieur Le Bourse; but, as I said before, we shall meet
again. Beware of the Red Band.”
That was all he said. His words were nothing but a mere threat. But he
had done something that set every drop of blood in my body to tingling
with hot anger. I should have followed him had he not disappeared
instantly. From the moment I had first laid eyes on this man in the
Jacobite Coffee-House I had taken an unaccountable dislike to him. Even
when I advanced to meet him in the tap-room, I had kept the silver
button hid in my closed hand as if I were unwilling to acknowledge my
claim upon him. Now I understood what had given birth to my unreasonable
antipathy. As he turned away after speaking the above words, Van
Volkenberg made the sign of the cross. The patroon was a Catholic. How I
thanked God I had received no favor from him! Instantly, as one sees the
landscape at night when the lightning flashes, there lay before me that
scene in Paris of the black robed priest who years before had caught my
sister by the arm, and whom I had struck down upon the spot as he
deserved. In quick succession there passed before my mind’s eye our
flight to La Rochelle, my ten years of fruitless search, the Mariner’s
Rest at Bristol, our last separation—finally the public flogging I had
received in Maryland. All these troubles had been brought upon me by
Catholics. A Catholic was once more threatening my peace of mind,
telling me to beware. I little knew then how much greater cause I had to
hate the patroon for wrongs already done to me and mine. I thought only
of the present instant. I felt that we two were fated to—God knows what!
I gripped my hands together and wished that I could hurry time.
Bromm repeated the proclamation again, but received no response. He
marched back to the fort and soon the crowd drifted into smaller groups.
I returned to the Ferry-House to nurse my disappointment alone, hoping
also that some word would come from the Earl concerning news received at
the fort. I found Pierre sitting alone in a corner of the public room
when I entered the Ferry-House.
“Well,” I said. “Have you recovered?”
“Quite,” he answered; then he blew out his lips with an explosive
shiver. “Ow, it was cold! But I was in great luck.”
“Luck, Pierre, to be ducked?”
“No, not to be nibbled. There are great fish in the bay.” He leaned
forward and continued in a low confidential voice. “Lady Marmaduke gave
me such a dinner. You cannot imagine it. There was wine right out of
France. Do you think if I should happen to be ducked again she would
happen to come along?”
I could not forbear to laugh and Pierre smiled too. His face, however,
soon changed, and his jovial expression was replaced by the hard look
that I had seen in his face when he walked to the place of his
punishment.
“I came here for a purpose, Monsieur Le Bourse, but—” He stopped and
looked about him as if fearful of being overheard. His lips almost
touched my ear as he said, “I don’t mind the ducking. I have been ducked
before. It was the man who did it. I shall have my revenge. Are we
together on that?”
He put out his hand and I clasped it.
“I thought so,” he continued. “But you do not know the half.”
Again he manifested some fear of being overheard. He said that the
patroon was too great a man to be talked about in a public place like
this. Would I walk a short distance into the country, beyond the Wall?
He had news that should be heard only by me. I was indeed glad to go
with him. We left the city by the Land-Gate, and soon came to a little
bridge over a narrow creek.
“This is the Kissing Bridge,” he said with a forlorn sigh. “Annetje will
never cross the bridge with me. She always makes me walk in front.”
Annetje Dorn, he told me, was his sweetheart. She was a bond servant at
Van Volkenberg manor-house and maid to the patroon’s daughter Miriam.
“Ay, that she is; bond servant to the patroon just like your sister.” He
clapped his hand quickly over his mouth. “Oh, I did not mean to let it
out so soon.”
I gripped him by the arm. “What do you mean?”
“I said that you did not know half of what you have to hate him for,”
replied Pierre fiercely. “Your sister Ruth was bound out in service to
Kilian Van Volkenberg.”
I was now to learn the stuff that was in Pierre. His jolly manner was
but a garment. He cast it aside, and, as we walked along, he spoke to me
with a fierce zeal that I had not suspected in him.
“There are but half a dozen persons in New York who know what happened
to your sister. I dared not speak openly to-day when Bromm was crying
the proclamation, but I knew that my time had come. He set his dogs on
me one night; but he made a mistake. He called me a giggling monkey.
I’ll monkey him. Do you——”
“For God’s sake, Pierre,” I interrupted. “Tell me what you know of my
sister.”
His vague hint that I did not know half of what I had to hate the
patroon for filled me with dread. The earnestness of my voice affected
him. He dropped the side threads of his own affairs and fell into a
direct relation of my sister’s fate. She had arrived safely with Captain
Donaldson and had lived in the city for a short time. Then her money
gave out and she took service with Van Volkenberg, laying the condition,
however, of redeeming herself at any time if I should return.
“I saw her more than once,” said Pierre. “She was a sweet girl. Annetje
boxed my ears once for looking at her. She said that it was rude. God
knows I did not mean it, but she had a winsome face. Every one said
that, Annetje like the rest. Her lot was none too easy at the manor.
They say that Mistress Miriam took great abuse for standing between her
and the patroon.”
“Was she abused by him?” I asked.
“Ay, that she was.”
I was past being angry. My thoughts did not take in the situation at the
manor-house all at once; instead I found myself thinking of the
Mariner’s Rest and of Ruth’s treatment there. Something in Pierre’s face
bade me give up hope, as if a heavy blow had fallen. Suddenly I turned
and caught him by the shoulders with so quick a motion that he uttered a
startled cry.
“Tell me, Pierre. For God’s sake make short work of this. What has
happened to her?”
Instead of answering me, the kind hearted fellow burst into tears. “I
cannot,” he wailed. “Oh, I cannot; it will break your heart.”
“It is past that, Pierre. Is she dead?”
“You have guessed it. God forgive me that I have to say it.”
“Pierre,” said I. “Go over there by the bridge and wait for me till I
come to you. I shall follow you soon.”
When I was next aware of outside things, Pierre stood by my side with
his hand upon my shoulder.
“You said you would come to me soon and you didn’t. That is why I came
back.” He put out his hand kindly. “It is hard work to bear ill news. I
would have spared you if I could.”
We walked silently around the small lake by which we had stopped. I felt
in a daze and was more than once aware of the pressure of Pierre’s hand
as he guided me gently by some obstruction over which I might have
fallen. Under the first weight of this piece of news, I felt only grief
at the death of my beloved sister. It was not until I had in a measure
recovered my self-control that I began to think of the manner in which
she had met her death and of the vague hints about the patroon that
Pierre had dropped. Then, with the pain of comprehension when it comes
too late, I recalled the sneering smile upon the patroon’s face as he
accosted me in the crowd before the Stadt Huys.
“But we shall meet again,” I cried aloud, unconsciously repeating his
words to me. “He knew it when he spoke to me, and he sneered at me.” I
turned upon Pierre. “Tell me further. What had he to do with her death?”
To this question Pierre would give no answer. He could hardly say, he
said. My heart sank, for I saw from his face that he was afraid to tell
the truth.
“Come back with me, Monsieur Le Bourse. Let me take you to Lady
Marmaduke. She knows the whole story. She will tell you.”
Impatient as I was, I was content to wait. The blow that had fallen upon
me was so great that I could scarcely think. A child could have led me.
For the time being I had no will of my own. Pierre took me by the arm
and led me forward. We had nearly reached the bridge on our return when
the clatter of horse hoofs fell upon our ears along the road.
“Hush,” said Pierre. “It is the patroon.”
He drew me back behind some bushes, where we waited in silence the
approach of a numerous armed cavalcade.