THE LAST OF THE PATROON
It was past two o’clock in the morning when I finished my consultation
with the Earl. Small wonder that he walked up and down the room at his
wits’ end what to do. Captain Kidd by this time had lifted anchor and
had set sail with the lawless crew that was destined for a time to stain
the name of my patron. Nor could Bellamont foresee that he was to come
out of this malicious attack with his honor unsullied and his respect
undiminished. But a still greater danger pressed close at hand. There
was but one small company of soldiers inside the fort who were loyal to
the governor; all the rest belonged to the patroon. They outnumbered us
three to one or perhaps more. We were in the enemy’s hands, and what
were we to do?
Louis, I found, had not warned the Earl at all. We learned later that he
had come to the fort, but had been refused admission. Whereupon he
dispatched a forged letter northward on his own account to recall the
troops. But of this we knew nothing at the time. The troops were not at
hand to help us, nor did they return in time to be of any help. We had
to plan for the instant.
At last it was arranged between us that the few faithful men in the fort
should be roused at once. As soon as they had taken possession of the
armory, which they could easily do, as almost everyone was asleep, and
the guard for the night had been chosen from the loyal company—after
they had got possession of the armory they were to waken the members of
the Red Band one by one and throw them into irons. Why make a short
story long? All this was accomplished with success. By four in the
morning every man was securely bound and the fort saved.
“But what does this unfinished sentence mean?” said the Earl, who held
Louis’s paper in his hand. “Van Ramm breaks off suddenly, after speaking
of something else.”
Then for the first time in many hours I remembered that the patroon had
spoken of a meeting that night in the neighborhood of Webber’s tavern.
“Your Excellency,” I cried, “it must have been of great importance from
his manner. Let me set out at once. It may not be too late. Perchance
the patroon was not well enough to go, and has put off the meeting till
the morning. The man, whoever he is, may have remained all night at the
tavern.”
A party of three horsemen was at once got ready, and Bellamont insisted
on going with us himself. It was just daylight when we reached the inn.
“Yes,” answered the host, in reply to our questions. “There was a
stranger here last night, and he had a great spell of impatience, but he
would not stir from the room, and he stayed all night, and he is up
stairs now asleep. Shall I call him, your Excellency?”
“No,” replied Bellamont. “Let us go up to his room.”
When we knocked the stranger refused to open the door. We made short
work of that and soon the door was beaten down. We all stood agog at
what we saw within. The man had not retired. He was fully dressed and
the bed had not been slept in.
“Body of me!” exclaimed the host. “Look at his head. What is that he has
in his hands?”
What we saw was a silver crucifix and a close shaven head. The man was a
Jesuit priest.
“What are you doing here?” asked the Earl, as soon as his first
astonishment had worn off a bit.
“Body of me,” cried the host; “you’ll be hanged. That is our law.”
The priest turned a trifle pale at this, but he was no coward—that I
could see at the first glance.
“St. Jacques protect me,” he said in a calm voice, crossing himself.
“Stop that twiddle-twoddle,” interrupted the host, at the same time
catching the priest roughly by the shoulder.
“You know the laws of the province?” asked the Earl, sternly.
“Yes, I know them,” he replied, proudly. “The agent of Christ is worthy
of death in this province if he adhere to the one true faith. Yes, Sir
Tyrant, I know your laws.”
“Do you call the governor names?” yelled the host in a rage. “Down on
your knees in an instant; you’ll hang in the air in an hour.”
The priest looked at the host grimly, and then he smiled.
“Pardon me, your honor, I mistook you. I thought he was the governor. If
you are he, however—”
“Take that for your impudence,” cried the host.
He had unbuckled his leather belt and struck the priest with it across
the face. It was all done so quickly that we could hardly see how it
happened; but when I looked again, the landlord was lying on the floor
with a bloody nose and the priest was rubbing his knuckles which ached
with the sting of the blow he had given him.
“That will do,” said Bellamont with dignity. “What is your name?”
“Jacques.”
That was the word Louis had uttered in the patroon’s study. It had
brought on the blow that killed him.
“What are you doing here?”
“My instructions are secret, sir.”
“We’ll draw your secrets out,” whined the host, who was getting upon his
feet slowly, and holding his handkerchief to his nose. Bellamont
commanded him to be still, and continued talking with the priest.
“Father Jacques, how much you know of what concerns me, I am not aware;
but this much I know of you; you came here last night expecting to meet
Patroon Van Volkenberg, who is now under the displeasure of the
government. You know the laws of this province. If you will disclose
your secrets I will give you your life. Choose.”
“I refuse,” answered the priest without a moment’s hesitation.
I could have grasped his hand, for I knew what it was to look death in
the face. But that grim sight did not stir him visibly. He was a man,
and a brave one, for all we had against him.
“If you refuse,” said the Earl, “I must search you and the room for
papers.”
The man bowed without speaking. Not much of a search was needed,
however. We had come in upon him so suddenly that he had had no time for
concealment. A packet of papers lay in full view on the table.
A brief examination of them told the whole story. The fear in the city
of a French invasion proved to be no idle fear; but the invasion was not
to come from the north. That was the mistake and was due to the false
rumors set afloat by the patroon. There was a French fleet a short way
down the coast waiting a chance to pounce upon the city unawares. They
had been in correspondence with the patroon for some time. His ships in
the harbor were to co-operate with the French and his men were to
surrender the fort. In return for this the old powers of the patroons
were to be restored, and Van Volkenberg made governor of the province.
It was a fanciful plan, and, I must confess, within an ace of
succeeding. But they had not reckoned against chance. The odd trick had
fallen to our lot. A week later, all was lost to them; for now we held
the high cards in our own hands.
“It is time we were going,” said the Earl, when we were done with the
papers. The tone of his voice and the brevity of his speech showed how
much he was affected by the narrow escape we had had. “Bring that man
with us.” Then he turned to the prisoner. “Have no fear for your life,
Father Jacques. It is small love I have for you, or sympathy for your
attempt to spoil my government. But I can use you better than to weight
a rope. You shall back to this French fleet of yours and tell them that
the English governor is ready for them; but not till I have seen Van
Volkenberg. Bind him, Le Bourse; we must to the fort in haste.”
We had gone down stairs and were in the tavern doorway when who should
ride up but the man of all men we wanted most at that moment—Van
Volkenberg. He saw us standing there with the priest a prisoner. He took
in the situation at a glance. He shook his fist at me and spat in the
governor’s face.
“Zounds! Dogs!” he cried. “You think you have me. But the fort is mine.
Do you take me there!”
He clapped spurs to his horse and was off like an arrow.
“After him, Le Bourse,” cried the Earl. “You have the best horse. Stop
him alive or dead.”
The patroon had the start of me by five hundred yards. Our horses were
an even match for swiftness, but the patroon rode lighter in body. For
all that, he gained like a snail. He thundered across the Kissing
Bridge. Before the echo of his steps died away the bridge was rocking
beneath me. The city gate stood open. A guard challenged, but he sprang
back to avoid a wide sweep of the patroon’s sword. It was straight away
now along Broadway to the fort. I could hear him shouting at the top of
his voice as he drew near:
“What ho; Van Volkenberg! Men of the Red Band! Open the gate. Van
Volkenberg, Van Volkenberg, Van Volkenberg!”
But the rallying cry of the Red Band was not answered. The patroon
halted before the gate, grinding his teeth in rage.
“What ho!” I cried, from behind, mocking his voice. “Open the gate. Van
Volkenberg! The Red Band is all asleep,” I continued, addressing him.
“They sleep late to-day in irons. Yield, in the name of Bellamont.”
Just as I reached the point where he had stopped, he drew his pistol and
fired. My horse received the ball in his breast and stumbled headlong,
throwing me upon the ground. We were so close, I touched the patroon’s
horse when I went down. For a moment I lay stunned. Then I gradually
heard the clattering of hoofs. I rose with difficulty just in time to
see Van Volkenberg dash down Petticoat Lane and turn northward through
the city.
By this time the rest of our party rode up. They had been so encumbered
with the priest, who had purposely tried to hold them back from joining
in the pursuit, that they were too late to be of any use in stopping the
patroon. When they arrived, he must have been at least through the gate,
or well on his way north to the Hanging Rock.
Lady Marmaduke often used to rail against the Earl because he was
forever on the wait for a better opportunity to turn up. My short
experience of him seemed to prove otherwise. For all that, she was not
so far wrong. I found, when I came to know him better, that he was not
prone to action when he had time for deliberation. But when a thing had
to be done in short order, he did it with a speed and decision that
rivaled the patroon. On the day of Jacques’ arrest, however, Bellamont
was mad with prudence. Both Lady Marmaduke and I urged him with all our
power to capture the patroon at once. Give him a few hours and he might
yet muster a large enough band to endanger the city in its present
state. There were a few men still left at the manor-house, and the ships
in the bay were mostly manned with fighting men.
Bellamont, however, would not agree with us. He was afraid to take
decisive action. “I have still one company,” he said. “They can defend
the fort against a host. But if I send them, or even a part of them to
the Hanging Rock, I shall not be able to guard the prisoners I have
already taken. And a few men can defend the manor-house as well as I can
defend the fort. The manor-house is almost a castle in its position.”
“But,” interrupted Lady Marmaduke, “why not strike before he can get his
defense together. I can fill out your number with twenty armed men of my
own.”
“You are too hasty,” replied the Earl. “Remember the old proverb: Give
the devil rope enough to hang himself. The patroon can never gather head
to harm us now.”
“Harm us!” exclaimed Lady Marmaduke in contempt. “Is your own safety all
you have to care for? Had you seen my poor husband as I saw him last
night, the skin nearly cut through by his sharp bones, and too weak to
say a dozen words. No, if you have nothing but harm to fear, I have
revenge to seek. While he lives I shall not rest. I swear before God, if
you will not help me I shall do it alone. Do you suppose I can forget?
My husband stolen away and me mourning him for dead. And well nigh dead
he is. Ah, I have had dreams. I have seen this moment coming. I knew
there was to be a day of reckoning. God’s help! This day Yorke shall see
great deeds. They call me the people’s friend. I shall try the people.
The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Lady Marmaduke strode rapidly out of the room and in a moment she was
gone.
“Follow her, Le Bourse,” said my patron. “She is at her wits’ end. She
has had great wrong. I fear she will do something rash.”
The news of the priest’s arrest had already got abroad, and also the
truth about the French fleet. Although it confirmed their fears the
people felt more at ease, for they knew now what to expect, and had full
confidence in the governor. When I reached the gate of the fort a crowd
of loiterers was gathered about the Marmaduke pump. When my lady
appeared they greeted her with cheers.
“Good friends,” she said.
“Silence there,” cried several. “Lady Marmaduke is speaking.”
In a moment there was silence.
“Good friends, good people, I believe you love me and my house. I have
come to throw myself upon your protection.”
There were more cheers, and cries of: “We will!” “Hear, hear.” “Right or
wrong we’ll follow Lady Marmaduke.”
“But it is right,” she continued, silencing them with her hand. “There
has been a great wrong. The patroon of the Hanging Rock has been trying
to sell the city to the French.”
“Down with the French! Down with the Van Volkenberg! Treason, treason!”
There were some of my own countrymen in the crowd, but they shouted with
the rest. Our French persecutors were not considered as
fellow-countrymen in those days.
“My good friends, do not be rash. Go about the city. Summon those who
love me. Tell them to come to Marmaduke Hall in half an hour. There I
will show you proof.”
“We want no proof. To the Hanging Rock!”
“Stay, friends, stay; do as I bid you. Before Marmaduke Hall in thirty
minutes.”
She stepped into her chair and was carried home. Half an hour later
there was a great crowd before her house. She appeared on the balcony.
“Did you love my husband?” was her first breathless question. “Then
listen to me. We thought him dead. You, I, all of us wore black for
that. It was by his will that I dug the Marmaduke well for the people.
But he was not dead. He has come back to us.”
I shall hear the cheer that followed this fact when I am dead and in my
grave.
“Wait, friends, wait till I show him to you.”
She disappeared, but soon came back, carrying her husband in her arms. A
cry of horror rose when they saw his starved condition. “Do you remember
Sir Evelin, good friends? He used to rival the Earl upon a horse. Where
are the roses in his cheeks?” Sir Evelin dropped his head upon his
wife’s shoulder from very weakness. “See, he cannot even raise his head
to look at you he loved. Can you see this without a tear? Will you stand
by and permit this to go unpunished in a friend to Yorke? How has he
lost his strength? In the prison at Hanging Rock. Now you cry out. The
patroon thought to get this house. We have no children, and our will
leaves it to the city. Van Volkenberg wanted to rob you. He would starve
your wives and children, too. Look upon this poor man and see what the
patroon has done. He plotted to give up the city. He rumored it about
that Frontenac was coming from the north, and all the time he was
plotting for an invasion from the sea. He filled the fort with his Red
Band under the pretense of friendship. The Earl has beaten him there,
but that is not all. Give him two hours, nay, one, and he will lead an
army into the city. Look, look upon my husband. Will you not act for
your wives and children?”
Some mobs are boisterous, others are still. They are the kind most to be
feared. There was no violent outbreak of passion now, only a smothered
growl. Then, at the critical moment, a leader sprang out on the
northward side of the crowd.
“Men of Yorke,” he shouted two or three times, as he ran, “to the
Hanging Rock. Follow me!”
Without a cheer, without a sound save the rumble of their feet, the
people flowed away like a deep and sullen river through its broken
banks. I saw a bitter smile come into my lady’s face as she lifted her
husband and carried him back into the house. Then of a sudden I cried
out like a madman in the middle of the street. That hellish mob was
bound for the manor-house and Miriam was there. For the first time I
stopped to think how headless this mob was like to be. They would not
stop to question when they were once before the house. The least they
could do would be to burn it, even if the patroon could make good its
defense. Then I set out at the top of my speed. It was little I could
do, but if need be, I could die with her, and some chance might come
that would help me to save her. In a moment I found myself mingling with
the silent runners bent on destruction. The crowd swept on in that
terrible stillness. It swirled out at the crossing of streets and jammed
back resistlessly into the narrow ways. It poured through the Land Port
like a flood and across the Kissing Bridge. Still we surged on.
Yet it was but a mob. A score of Lady Marmaduke’s retainers, armed to
the teeth, had got to the front. The rest were without weapons. What
could they do against the house of the patroon? As they spread out among
the trees in the park a volley of shots were fired at them from the
windows of the manor-house. Three of the foremost men fell dead or
wounded. Then went up their first heartless yell of rage.
Lady Marmaduke’s men stationed themselves behind trees and aimed with
such certainty that they soon silenced the fire from the house. If a
face appeared at a window, a dozen muskets were immediately discharged
at it. Meantime, under this protection, the mob began to attack the
house with stones. The windows were all broken at the first volley. They
fetched a long beam to use as a battering ram, and were getting ready to
beat in the front door. In this crisis, I cast about me for some means
of help. But I was powerless. Once I thought that I saw Miriam for a
moment at one of the windows. She disappeared quickly. Had someone
dragged her back, or had she been hit by one of the marksmen? Such a
thought was torment worse than death. But she might be safe. For all
that I could do nothing to save her.
But what I could not do was nobly done by another. I had drawn back
somewhat so as to go around the edges of the crowd and come at the house
from the rear. I hoped to find some way by which I could get in and help
defend it. I had half accomplished the necessary detour, and had reached
a point where the woods hid the yelling pack from my eyes, when a
horseman came riding towards me like mad.
“Heavens!” I cried. “It is the patroon.”
My first impulse was to stop him. Then I remembered that he of all men
would prevent me from entering the house. And from this meeting I took
some hope. If there was an unwatched passage by which he could get out,
I might enter by the same way.
Suddenly there leaped into my head a damning thought. He rode hard, like
one mad with fear, looking neither to the right nor to the left. “What a
coward,” thought I, “thus to leave his daughter to her fate.” Among all
his crimes, he had ever clung to his one virtue, love of his daughter.
Never, save when his infirmity was upon him, had he shown anything but
the most loving tenderness to her. And now, at the great moment of
peril, he had left her to ride like a coward for his own life.
He passed me so close I could have touched him. Perhaps his conscience
stung him in spite of all, for I heard her name on his lips as he dashed
by me.
“Miriam,” he was saying; “Miriam, I give you all.”
I turned to follow with my eyes this worthless coward who could think of
his daughter and not stay and die with her. Two minutes later he was
fleeing beyond the little patch of woods and within full sight of the
mob. But they were so intent upon their attack that they did not see him
at first.
I listened for their yell of discovery with the tension of a slow
striking bell. It did not come. Then—had the man gone mad? Van
Volkenberg slackened his pace, fell into a walk, then stopped and turned
back towards the mob. What was he going to do? Why did he not continue
his cowardly flight? If he were going to escape, did he not know that
every second was a year of his life? I saw him raise his finger and make
the sign of the cross. Then he put his hands to his mouth like a trumpet
and shouted:
“Ho! Do you seek me? Van Volkenberg?”
What followed I cannot tell. I can hardly bear even to think of it. He
dashed spurs into his horse and fled towards New York. I heard a yell of
joy from the savage mob. A sight of him was like a taste of blood. They
followed out across the open ground. But, as might have been expected,
he gained on them fast and they saw that they would lose him. With that
they turned back. The house, at least, was at their mercy. But as they
turned back, Van Volkenberg turned back also. He rode gallantly, and I
could hear his powerful voice taunting them for cowards.
“Is it the leader of the Red Band you seek? Come on, you scum of Yorke.
Here is a man. Come on, you dogs.”
They were after him again, pell-mell. It was then that I lifted up my
voice and cried with a will: “God save the good patroon!”
I understood it all at last. Within the house was certain death to
everyone. Yet it was he only whom they wanted. He had thus offered
himself to lure them away from the house where his daughter was. He knew
they were incensed against him. They cared not a snap of their fingers
for the rest of his household except as they would do his bidding and
fight against them. They were bent on his destruction and he knew it, so
he had purposely made himself a bait to draw them away from the
neighborhood. This was what his muttering meant when he dashed by me:
“Miriam, I give you all.”
I set out with the rest. He rode ahead and the mob came after him.
Suddenly I heard the crack of a musket. Lady Marmaduke’s men were
getting to the front again. Then another and another. Still the old man
rode bravely at the front, with the mob howling at his heels. At last he
fell. Let us hope the bullet touched his heart and that he was dead
before they reached him. I covered my eyes in horror. They pounced upon
him like curs. Let me not relate the mutilation that followed. That was
a bloody act. Its like for cruelty I have never seen before nor since.
And so he died, a hero. I had had great wrong at his hands; for all that
I bowed my head and breathed a prayer for his soul. He had the great
love that the Bible speaks of. He gave his life for another; and who am
I to call him into judgment?