My journey to Albany was slow, easy, and uneventful; I spared Warlock
because of his added burdens, though he would gladly have galloped the
entire distance, for the poor fellow was bitterly ashamed of playing
pack-horse and evinced the greatest desire to finish and have done
with it as soon as convenient.
His mortification was particularly to be noticed when he met other
horses: he would turn his head away when he passed a pretty mare, he
would hang his head when gay riders cantered past, and, when he met a
peddler's horse, he actually shuddered.
But Warlock need not have taken it so to heart: he was the peer of any
horse we met, which truly is no great recommendation, for the people
of Albany do exhibit the most sorry horseflesh I have ever seen, and
so Sir William had always said, laughing frequently at the patroons'
nags until Sir Peter Warren wrote him to be careful else he might
offend the entire town.
As for Albany itself I found it very large, though smaller than New
York or Boston, they said, and I marvelled to see so many troops in
various bright uniforms hitherto unfamiliar to me. The people
themselves were somewhat stupid, being full o' Dutch blood and
foodstuffs, and appeared somewhat mean in their dealings with
strangers, though they call this penny-clipping thrift. Still, gentle
blood never yet warmed at the prospect of under-feeding a stranger to
save a shilling, and I found myself out of touch with those honest
burghers of Albany who crowded the sleepy tap-room of the "Half-Moon
Tavern" where I lodged.
I had no great difficulty in finding Peter Weaver, or in recommending
myself to his good offices. He informed me that my uncle, Sir Terence
Cardigan, was dying o' drink in Ireland, and wished me to go to him.
I politely declined, and told him why. He was a pleasant, kindly,
over-fed man, somewhat given to long and pointless discourse, yet a
gentleman in bearing and a courteous friend. In his care I deposited
my childish treasures for safe-keeping, taking with me only three
extra articles, namely, my silver-gray clothes with underwear
befitting, Sir William's leather book, and the knot of ribbon from
Silver Heels's sleeve.
In Albany I bought a ring of plain gold to fit half-way on my little
finger, judging Silver Heels's finger to be of that roundness. I also
purchased a razor, though I had no present use for such an article.
Still, I could not tell how soon my cheeks might require it, and it
would not do to be caught unawares.
I stayed but one day in Albany, paying dearly for bait at the
"Half-Moon Tavern," but my joy in my freedom and my happiness in
expectancy left no room for rancour against these stolid, thrifty
people who, after all, were but following the instincts of their
breed.
Sir William was the most liberal man I had ever known, always cautious
in condemnation, though he unknowingly did poor Cresap injustice; but
I have often heard him say that to choose between the Dutch and the
French for thrift and ferocity was totally beyond his power.
What I have seen of the Dutch or of those in whose veins runs Dutch
blood confirms this. Since the Spaniards perpetrated their crimes in
the New World, no people have ever been guilty of such shocking savagery
towards the Indians as have the Dutch. Placid, honest in their own
fashion, cleanly, sober, almost passionless, they yet have, deep
within them, a ferocity and malignity scarcely conceivable--scarcely
credible unless one has read that early history of their occupation
here, of which little of the truth now remains on record.
The Albany people appear to have little sympathy to spare for
unfortunate Boston. However, of that I cannot speak with authority,
seeing that the whole town is soldier-ridden, and Tories everywhere
holding forth in tap-room and marketplace. Besides, a company of
Colonel John Butler's irregulars and a body of ne'er-do-well Onondagas
were camped across the river, and their behaviour to the country
people is drunken and scandalous.
Before I left Albany to set out on the Boston high-road, I visited Mr.
Livingston's house, knowing that such a courtesy I owed for Sir
William's sake, yet scarcely pleased at the prospect of again meeting
Mrs. Hamilton. However, I had my journey for my pains, Mr. Livingston
being lately deceased, and Mrs. Hamilton having left the day before to
visit in Boston. Thus free of further obligation, Warlock and I took
the Boston road at dawn; and how the dear fellow did gallop, though he
carried but a buckskin dragoon without company or colours or
commission to bear arms!
The first two days of my travel were almost without incident, lovely,
calm October days through which sunlit clouds sailed out of the west,
and the wild ducks drifted southward like floating banners in the sky.
In the yellow sunlight of the fields the quails were whistling, the
heath-hens thundered through the copse, the crested partridge, with
French ruff spread, stepped dainty as a game-cock through the briers,
with his breathless menace: "Quhit! Quhit! Quhit!"
Once, riding on a treeless stretch of sandy road under the hot sun, a
vast company of wild pigeons began to pass high overhead, thousands on
thousands, thicker and ever thicker, till as far as the eye could
reach from east to west they covered the sky in millions and millions,
while the sun went out as in a thunder-cloud, and the air whistled and
rang with their wings.
Their passage lasted some twenty minutes; a fine flight, truly, yet in
Tryon County, near Fonda's Bush, Sir William and I had marked greater
flights, lasting more than an hour.
This and Warlock's narrow escape from being bitten by one of those red
snakes which pilot the rattlesnake and go blind in September were the
only two noteworthy incidents of the first two days' journey on the
Boston highway.
On the third day Warlock cast both hind shoes, and I was obliged to
lead him very carefully, mile after mile, until, towards sundown, I
entered a little village, where in a smithy a forge reddened the
fading daylight.
The smith, a gruff man, gave me news of Boston, that the Port Bill
was starving the poor and driving all decent people towards open
rebellion. As for himself, he said that he meant to march at the first
drum-beat and carry his hammer if firelocks were lacking.
He spoke sullenly and with a peculiar defiance, doubtless suspicious
of me in spite of my buckskins. I told him that I knew little
concerning the wrongs of Boston, but that if any man disturbed my
native country, the insolence touched me as closely as though my own
door-yard had been trampled. Whereat he laughed and gave me a brawny,
blackened fist to shake. So I rode away in the dusk.
To make up for the delay in travelling afoot all day, I determined to
keep on until midnight, Warlock being fit and ready without effort; so
I munched a quarter of bread to stay my stomach and trotted on,
pondering over the past, which already seemed years behind me.
The moon came up, but was soon frosted by silvery shoals of clouds.
Then a great black bank pushed up from the west, covering moon and
stars in sombre gloom, touched now and again by the dull flicker of
lightning. The storm was far off, for I could hear no thunder, though
the increasing stillness of the air warned me to seek the first
shelter offered.
The district through which I was passing was well populated, and I
expected every moment to see some light shining across the road from
possibly hospitable windows. So I kept a keen outlook on every side,
while the fields and woods through which I passed grew ominously
silent, and that delicate perfume which arises from storm-threatened
herbage filled my nostrils.
After a while, far away, the low muttering of thunder sounded, setting
the air vibrating, and I cast Warlock free at a hand-gallop.
Imperceptibly the dark silence around turned into sound; a low,
monotonous murmur filled my ears. It rained.
Careless of my rifle, having of course no need for it on such a
populous highway, I let the priming take care of itself and urged
Warlock forward towards two spots of light which might come from
windows very far away, or from the lamps of a post-chaise near at
hand.
Reining in, I was beginning to wonder which it might be, and had
finally decided on the distant cottage, when my horse reared
violently, almost falling on his back with me, and at the same moment
I knew that somebody had seized his bridle.
"Stand and deliver!" came a calm voice from the darkness. I already
had my rifle raised, but my thumb on the pan gave me warning that the
priming was soaking wet.
"Dismount," came the voice, a trifle sharply.
I felt for the bridle, which had been jerked from my hands; it was
gone. I gave one furious glance at the lights ahead, which I now saw
came from a post-chaise standing in the road close by. Could I summon
help from that? Or had the chaise also been stopped as I was now?
Certainly I had run on a nest of highwaymen.
"How many have you?" I asked, choking with indignation. "I'll give
three of you merry gentlemen a chance at me if you will allow me one
dry priming!"
There was a dead silence. The unseen hand that held my horse's head
fell away, and the animal snorted and tossed his mane. Again, not
knowing what to expect, I cautiously felt around until I found the
bridle, and noiselessly began to work it back over Warlock's head.
"Now for it!" I thought, gathering to launch the horse like a
battering-ram into the unknown ahead.
But just as I drew my light hatchet from my belt and lifted the
bridle, I almost dropped from the saddle to hear a meek and pleading
voice I knew call me by name.
"Jack Mount!" I exclaimed, incredulous even yet.
"The same, Mr. Cardigan, out at heels and elbows, lad, and trimming
the highway for a purse-proud Tory. Are you offended?"
"Offended!" I repeated, hysterically. "Oh no, of course not!" And I
burst into a shout of uncontrollable laughter.
He did not join in. As for me, I lay on my horse's neck, weak from the
reaction of my own laughter, utterly unable to find enough breath in
my body to utter another sound.
"Oh, you can laugh," he said, in a hurt voice. "But I have
accomplished a certain business yonder which has nigh frightened me to
death--that's all."
"What business?" I asked, weakly.
"Oh, you may well ask. Hell's whippet! I lay here for the fat bailiff
o' Grafton, who should travel to Hadley this night with Tory funds,
and--I stopped a lady in that post-chaise yonder, and she's fainted at
sight o' me. That's all."
"Fainted?" I repeated. "Where are her post-boys? Where's her footman?
Where's her maid? Is she alone, Jack?"
"Ay," he responded, gloomily; "the men and the maid ran off. Trust
those Dutch patrooners for that sort o' patroonery! If I'd only had
Cade with me--"
"But--where's the Weasel?"
"I wish I knew," he said, earnestly. "He left me at Johnstown--went
away--vanished like a hermit-bird. Oh, I am certainly an unhappy man
and a bungling one at that. You can laugh if you like, but it's
killing me. I wish you would come over to that cursed post-chaise and
see what can be done for the lady. You know about ladies, don't you?"
"I don't know what to do when they faint," I replied.
"There's ways and ways," he responded. "Some say to shake them, but I
can't bring myself to that; some say to pat their chins and say
'chuck-a-bunny!' but I have no skill for that either. Do you think--if
we could get her out o' the chaise--and let her be rained on--"
"No, no," I said, controlling a violent desire to laugh. "I'll calm
her, Jack. Perhaps she has recovered."
As we advanced through the rain in the dim radiance of the
chaise-lamps, I looked curiously at Mount, and he up at me.
"Lord," he murmured, "how you have changed, lad!"
"You, too," I said, for he was haggard and dirty and truly enough in
rags. No marvel that the lady had fainted at first sight o' him, let
alone his pistol thrust through the chaise-window.
"Poor old Jack," I said, softened by his misery. "Why did you desert
me after you had saved my life? I owe you so much that it were a
charity to aid me discharge the debt--or as much of it as I may."
"Ho!" he muttered. "'Twas no debt, lad, and I'm but a pottle-pot after
all. Now, by the ring-tailed coon o' Canada, I care not what befalls
me, for Cade's gone--or dead--and I've the heart of a chipmunk left to
face the devil."
"Soft," I whispered; "the lady's astir in her chaise. Wait you here,
Jack! So!--I dismount. Touch not the horse; he bites at raggedness;
he'll stand; so--o, Warlock. Wait, my beauty! So--o."
And I advanced to the chaise-window, cap in hand.
"Madam," I began, very gently, striving to make her out in the dim
light of the chaise; "I perceive some accident has befallen your
carriage. Pray, believe me at your disposal and humbly anxious to
serve you, and if there be aught wherein I may--"
"Michael Cardigan!" came a startled voice, and I froze dumb in
astonishment. For there, hood thrown back, and earnest, pale face
swiftly leaning into the lamp-rays, I beheld Marie Hamilton.
We stared at each other for a moment, then her lovely face flushed and
she thrust both hands towards me, laughing and crying at the same
moment.
"Oh, the romance of life!" she cried. "I have had such a fright, my
wits ache with the shock! A highwayman, Michael, _grand Dieu!_--here
in the rain, pulling the horses up short, and it was, 'Ho! Stand and
deliver!'--with pistol pushed in my face, and I to faint--pretence to
gain a wink o' time to think--not frightened, but vexed and all on the
qui vive to hide my jewels. Then comes the great booby, aghast to see
me fainted, a-muttering excuse that he meant no harm, and I lying
perdu, still as a mouse, for I had no mind to let him know I heard
him. But under my lids I perceived him, a great, ragged, handsome
rascal, badly scared, for I gathered from his stammering that he was
waiting for another chaise bound for Hadley.
"_Vrai Dieu_, but I did frighten him well, and now he's gone, and I in
a plight with my cowardly post-boys, maid, and footman fled, Lord
knows whither!"
The amazing rapidity of her chatter confounded me, and she held my
hands the while, and laughed and wept enough to turn her eyes to twin
stars, all dewy in the lamp-shine.
"Dear friend," she sighed; "dear, dear friend, what happiness to feel
I owe my life to you!"
"But you don't," I blurted out; "there never was any danger."
"Lord save the boy!" she murmured. "There is no spark o' romance in
him!" And fell a-laughing in that faint, low mockery that I remembered
on that fatal night at Johnson Hall.
"You are mistaken," I said, grimly. "Romance is the breath of my life,
madam. And so I now plead freedom to present to your good graces my
friend, Jack Mount, who lately stopped your coach upon the King's
highway!"
And I caught the abashed giant by his ragged sleeve and dragged him to
the chaise-window, where he plucked off his coon-skin cap and stared
wildly at the astonished lady within.
But it was no easy matter to rout Marie Hamilton. True, she paled a
little, and took one short breath, with her hand to her breast; then,
like sunlight breaking, her bright eyes softened and that sweet, fresh
mouth parted in a smile which spite of me set my own pulse a quickstep
marching.
"I am not angry, sir," she said, mockingly. "All cats are gray at
midnight, and one post-chaise resembles another, Captain Mount--for
surely, by your exploits, you deserve at least that title."
Mount's fascinated eyes grew bigger. His consternation and the wild
appeal in his eyes set me hard a-swallowing my laughter. As for Mrs.
Hamilton, she smiled her sweet, malicious smile, and her melting eyes
were soft with that false mercy which deludes apace and welcomes to
destruction.
"Jack," said I, smothering my laughter, "do you get your legs astride
the leader, there, and play at post-boy to the nearest inn. Zounds,
man! Don't stand there hanging your jaw like a hard-run beagle! Up
into the saddle with you! Gad, you've a ride before you with those
Albany nags a-biting at your shins! Here, give me your rifle."
"And you, Michael," asked Mrs. Hamilton, "will you not share my
carriage, for old time's sake?"
I told her I had my horse and would ride him at her chaise-wheels, and
so left her, somewhat coolly, for I liked not that trailing tail to
her invitation--"for old time's sake."
"What the foul fiend have I to do with 'old time's sake'?" I muttered,
as I slung myself astride o' Warlock and motioned Jack Mount to move
on through the finely falling rain. "'Old time's sake'! Faith, it once
cost me the bitterest day of my life, and might cost me the love of
the sweetest girl in earth or heaven! 'Old time's sake'! Truly, that
is no tune to pipe for me; let others dance to it, not I."
As I rode forward beside her carriage-window, she looked up at me and
made a little gesture of greeting. I bowed in my saddle, stiffly, for
I was now loaded with Mount's rifle as well as my own.
What the deuce is there about Marie Hamilton that stirs the pulse of
every man who sets eyes on her? Even I, loving Silver Heels with my
whole heart and soul, find subtle danger in the eyes of Marie
Hamilton, and shun her faint smile with the instant instinct of an
anchorite.
Perhaps I was an anchorite, all ashamed, for I would not have it said
of me, for vanity.
In a day when the morals of the world were rotten to the core, when
vice was fashion, and fashion marked all England for her own, the
overflow from those same British islands, flooding our land, stained
most of those among us who could claim the right to quality.
I never had been lured by those grosser sins which circumstances
offered--even in our house at Johnstown--and I would make no merit of
my continence, God wot, seeing there was no temptation.
I had been reared among those whose friends and guests often went to
bed too drunk to snuff their candles; cards and dice and high play
were nothing strange to me, and, perhaps from their sheer familiarity,
left me indifferent and without desire.
A titled drab I had never seen; the gentlemen whom I knew discussed
their mistresses over nuts and wine, seeming to think no shame of one
another for the foolishness they called their "fortune." Had it not
been for Sir William's and Aunt Molly's teachings, I might have grown
up to think that wives were wedded chiefly to oblige a friend. But Sir
William and Aunt Molly taught me to abhor that universal vice long
before I could comprehend it. I did not clearly comprehend it yet; but
the thought of it was stale ashes in my mouth, so unattractive had I
pictured what I needs must shun one day.
Riding there through the fine rain which I could scarcely feel on my
skin, so delicate were the tiny specks of moisture, I thought much on
the smallness of this our world, where a single hour on an unknown
road had given me two companions whom I knew.
God grant the end of my journey would give me her for whose dear sake
the journey had been made!
Thinking such thoughts, lost in a lover's reverie, I rode on, blind to
all save the sweet ghosts I conjured in my brooding, and presently was
roused to find the chaise turning into a tavern-yard, where all was
black save for a lanthorn moving through the darkness.
Mount called; a yawning ostler came with a light, and at the same
instant our host in shirt and apron toddled out to bid us welcome, a
little, fat, toothless, chattering body, whose bald head soon was
powdered with tiny, shining rain-drops.
Mrs. Hamilton gave me her hand to descend; she was as fresh and
fragrant as a violet, and jumped to the ground on tiptoe with a quick
flirt of her petticoat like the twitch of a robin his tail-feathers.
"Mad doings on the road, sir!" said our host, rubbing his little, fat
hands. "Chaise and four stopped by the penny-stile two hours since,
sir. Ay, you may smile, my lady, but the post-boys fought a dreadful
battle with the highwaymen swarming in on every side. You laugh, sir?
But I have these same post-boys here, and the footman, too, to prove
it!"
"But, pray, where is the lady and her maid and the chaise and four?"
asked Mrs. Hamilton, demurely.
"God knows," said the innkeeper, rolling his eyes. "The villains
carried it off with the poor lady inside. Mad work, my lady! Mad
work!"
"Maddening work," said I, wrathfully. "Jack, borrow a post-whip and
warm the breeks of those same post-boys, will you? Lay it on thick,
Jack; I'll take my turn in the morning!"
Mount went away towards the stable, and I quieted the astonished
landlord and sent him to prepare supper, while a servant lighted Mrs.
Hamilton to her chamber. Then I went out to see that Warlock was well
fed and bedded fresh; and I did hear sundry howls from the villain
post-boys in their quarters overhead, where Mount was nothing sparing
of the leather.
Presently he came down the ladder, and laughed sheepishly when he saw
me.
"They're well birched," he said. "It's God's mercy if they sit their
saddles in the morning." Then he took my hands and held them so hard
that I winced.
"Gad, I'm that content to see you, lad!" he repeated again and again.
"And I you, Jack," I said. "It is time, too, else you'd be in some
worse mischief than this night's folly. But I'll take care of you
now," I added, laughing. "Faith, it's turn and turn about, you know.
Come to supper."
"I--I hate to face that lady," he muttered. "No, lad, I'll sup with my
own marrow-bones for company."
"Nonsense!" I insisted, but could not budge him, and soon saw I had my
labour for my pains.
"A mule for obstinacy--a very mule," I muttered.
"I own it; I'm an ass. But this ass knows enough to go to his proper
stall," he said, with a miserable laugh that touched me.
"Have it as you wish, Jack," I said, gently; "but come into my chamber
when you've supped. I'll be there. Lord, what millions of questions I
have to ask!"
"To be sure, to be sure," he murmured, then walked away towards the
kitchen, while I returned to the inn and cleansed me of the stains of
travel.
We supped together, Mrs. Hamilton and I, and found the cheer most
comforting, though there was no wine for her and she sipped, with me,
the new brew of dark October ale.
A barley soup we had, then winter squash and a roast wild duck, with
little quails all 'round, and a dish of pepper-cresses. Lord, how I
did eat, being still gaunt from my long sickness! But she kept pace
with me; a wholesome lass was she, and no frail beauty fed on
syllabubs and suckets. Flesh and blood were her charms, a delicate
ripeness, sweet as the cresses she crunched between her sparkling
teeth. And ever I heard her little feet go tap, tap, tap, under the
lamplit table.
I spoke respectfully of her losses; she dropped her eyes, accepting
the condolence, pinching a cress to shreds the while.
She of course knew nothing of my journey to Pittsburg, nor of any
events there which might have occurred after she had left, when her
husband fell with many another stout frontiersman under Boone and
Harrod.
I told her nothing, save that Felicity was in Boston and that I was
journeying thither to see her.
"Is she not to wed the Earl of Dunmore?" asked Mrs. Hamilton.
"No," said I, quietly.
"La, the capricious beauty!" she murmured. "Sure, she has not thrown
over Dunmore for that foolish dragoon, Kent Bevan?"
"I hope not," said I, maliciously.
"Who knows," she mused; "Mr. Bevan is to serve on Gage's staff this
fall. It looks like a match to me."
"Is Mr. Bevan going to Boston?" I inquired.
"Yes. Are you jealous?" she replied, saucily.
I smiled and shook my head.
"But you once were in love with your cousin," she persisted. "_On aime
sans raison, et sans raison l'on hait! Regardez-moi, monsieur._"
"Your convent breeding in Saint-Sacrement lends to your tongue a
liberty that English schools withhold," I said, reddening.
"Nay, now," she laughed, "do you remember how you played with me at
that state dinner held in Johnson Hall? You rode me down rough-shod,
Michael, and used me shamefully there, under the stairs."
"I'll do the like again if you provoke me," I said, but had not meant
to say it either, being troubled by her eyes.
"The--the like--again? And what was that, pray?"
"You know," I said, sulkily.
"I think you--kissed me--"
"I think I did," said I; "and left you all in tears."
It was brutal, but I meant to make an end.
"Did you believe that those were real tears?" she asked, innocently.
"By Heaven, I know they were," said I, with satisfaction, "and small
vengeance to repay the ill you did me, too."
"What ill?" she asked, opening her eyes in real surprise.
But I was silent and ashamed already. Truly, it had been no fault but
my own that I had taken up the gage she flung at me that night so long
ago.
"But I'll not take it up this time," thought I to myself, cracking
filberts and looking at her askance across the table.
"I do not understand you, Michael," she said, with a faint smile,
ending in a sigh.
"Nor I you, bonnie Marie Hamilton," said I. "Suppose we both cry
quits?"
"Not yet," she said; "I have a little score with you, unsettled."
"What score?" I asked, smiling. "Cannot you appeal to the law to have
it settled?"
"_La loi permet souvent ce que defend l'honneur_," she said, with an
innocent emphasis which left me sitting there, uncertain whether to
laugh or blush. What the mischief did she mean, anyhow?
She picked up a filbert, tasted the kernel, dropped it, clasped her
hands, elbows on the cloth, and gave me a malicious sidelong glance
which still was full of that strange sweetness that ever set me on my
guard, half angry, half bewitched.
"I wish you would let me alone!" I blurted out, like a country yokel
at a quilting.
"I won't," she said.
"Remember what you suffered the first time!" I warned her.
"I do remember."
"Do you--do you dare risk that?" I stammered.
"_Et d'avantage--encore_," she murmured, setting her teeth on her
plump white wrist and watching me uncertainly.
The game was running on too fast for me and my pulse was keeping pace.
"Safely they defy who challenge those in chains," I said, commanding
my voice with an effort. "If that is your revenge, I cry you mercy;
you have won."
After a long silence she raised her eyes, dancing with a mocking light
in each starry pupil.
"I give you joy, Michael," she said, "if, as I take it, these same
chains and fetters that you lately wear are riveted by Cupid."
But I answered nothing, attending her to the door, where she dropped
me what I do believe was the slowest and lowest curtsey ever dropped
by woman.
So I to my own chamber in no amiable frame of mind, and still tingling
with the strange charm of my encounter. Head bent, hands clasped
behind me, I walked the floor, striving to analyze this woman who had
now twice crossed me on the trail of fate, this fair woman whose
bright eyes were a menace and a challenge, and whose sweet, curved
mouth was set there as eternal provocation to saint and sinner.
Thus for the first time in my life I had known what temptation might
have been. Nay, I knew a little more than what it _might have_ been,
and, in the overwhelming flood of loyalty to Silver Heels, I cursed
myself for a man without faith or shred of honour. For I was too
unskilled in combats with the fair temptation to understand that it is
no disgrace to falter, yet not fall.
There came a timid scratching at the door; I opened it and Mount
sidled in, coy as a cat in a dairy with its chin still wet with cream.
He regarded me doubtfully, but sat down when bidden and began to
complain:
"Now, if you are minded to chide me for taking the road, I'm going out
again. I can't bear any more, lad, that I can't!--what with Cade gone
and me in rags, and stopping Councillor Bullock near Johnstown with
pockets bare of aught but a cursed sixpence and that crooked as Lady
Shelton's legs--and now I must needs fright a lady into a faint like a
bad boy with a jack-o'-lanthorn--"
"What on earth is the matter with you?" I broke in, peevishly. "I'm
not finding fault, Jack. If you mean to spend your life in endeavours
to impoverish every Tory magistrate in America, it's your affair, and
I can't help it, though you must know as well as I that there's a
carpenter's tree and a rope at the end of your frolic."
"No, there isn't," he said, hastily. "I'm done with the highway save
to pat it smooth with my feet. Lord, lad, it's not for the money, but
for sport. And soon there'll be fighting enough to fill my stomach;
mark me, the crocus that buds white this spring will wither red as
blood ere its fouled petals fall!"
"War?" I asked, thrilling to hear him.
He rose and gazed at me most earnestly.
"Ay, surely, surely in the spring. Gad! Boston is that surfeited with
redcoats now that when they cram down more next spring she can but
throw them up to keep her health. Wait! Boston is sick in bone and
body, but in the spring she takes her purge. Oh, I know," he cried,
with a strange, prophetic stare in his eyes; "I have word from
Shemuel. Now he's off to Boston with the news from Cresap. And I tell
you, lad, that the first half-moon of April will start a devil loose
in this broad land that state or clergy cannot exorcise!
"Not a devil," he corrected himself, slowly, "no, not a thing from
hell, but that same swift angel sent to chasten worlds with fire.
Dunmore will burn, and Butler. As for the rest, the honest, the
rascals, the witless, the soulless, thieves, poltroons, usurers, and
the vast army of well-meaning loyal fools, they will be cleared out o'
this our world-wide temple whose roof is the sky and whose pillars are
our high pines!--cleared out, scoured out, uprooted, driven forth like
those same money-changers in the temple scourged by Christ,--and God
is witness I, a sinner, mean no blasphemy, spite of all the sweating
load o' guilt I bear."
"Where got you such phrases, Jack?" I asked. "It is not Jack Mount who
speaks to me like a crazed preacher in the South who shouts the slaves
around him to repent."
Mount looked at me; the dazed, fanatic light in his eyes faded slowly.
"I have a book here," he muttered, "a book I purchased in Johnstown of
a man who sold many to patriots. Doubtless grief for Cade and my
privations and my conning this same book while starving make me
light-headed yet."
"What book is that?" I asked.
"_The Rights of Man._"
"I, also, would be glad to read it."
"Read, lad. 'Tis fodder for King George's cattle--such as we. And the
little calves our wenches cast, they, too, shall feed on it, though
they cannot utter moo! for their own mothers' milk!"
"Jack, Jack," I cried, "you are strangely changed! I do not know you
in this bitter mood, and your mouth full o' words that burn your silly
lips. Wake to life, man! Gay! Gay! Jack! A pest on books and those who
write 'em! I have ever despised your printed stuff, and damme if I'll
sit and hear it through your lips!"
But it was like rousing a man from a sleeping-draught, for the book
had so bewitched his senses in these long weeks he had wandered alone
that I had all I could do to drag him out of his strange, dreamy
enthusiasms, back into his old, guileless, sunny, open-hearted self.
And I feel sure that I could not have succeeded at all had not the
shock of his encounter with Mrs. Hamilton on the highway first scared
him back to partial common-sense. Added to this my entreaties, and he
became docile, and then, little by little, dropped his preacher's mad
harangue to talk like a reasonable creature and wag his tongue
unlarded with his garbled metaphors and his half-baked parables which
no doubt no simple forest-runner could digest on the raw printed page.
I pitied him sincerely. Truly, a little learning makes one wondrous
kind.
I put the book in my shirt-front, meaning to be of those who ride and
read, even as Jack was of those others who both read and run.
"Why did you desert me, Jack?" I asked, sitting chin on hand to watch
him smoke the pipe which no kind fate had filled for him since he left
Johnstown.
"Faith, I hung about with Cade, doing no harm, sitting in the sun to
wait for news from you. Mr. Duncan, a kind officer, gave us news and
made us welcome on the benches in front of the guard-house. And
Mistress Warren would have us to eat with her--only I was ashamed. But
Cade went and supped with her.
"Lad, Sir John Johnson is not a gentleman I should grow too fond of.
His courtesy is a shallow spring, I'm thinking, dry at the first
taste, and over-sour to suit my teeth."
"What did Sir John do?" I asked, growing red. "Surely he thanked you
and Cade for saving his kinsman's life; surely he made you welcome at
the Hall, Jack?"
"Surely, he did nothing of the kind," grunted Mount, puffing his pipe.
"Sir John sent word to the guard that we had best find quarters in
Johnstown taverns and not set the hounds barking in his kennels."
It was like a blow in the face to me. Jack saw it and laughed.
"It's not your fault," he said; "show me two eggs and I'll name two
birds, but I won't swear they'll fight alike. If he's your kin, it's
to be borne, lad, and that's all there is to it."
I set my teeth and swallowed my shame.
"So we went to Rideup's old camp," he continued; "a fair inn where a
man may drink to whom he pleases and no questions asked nor any yokel
to bawl 'God save the King!' or turn your ale sour with Tory whining.
And there I lay and--tippled, lad. I'll not deny it, no! Like a fish
in sweet water my gills did open and shut while the ale flowed into
me, day and night perdu.
"Cade never drank. God! how that man changed--since he saw your sweet
Mistress Warren there on the hillock at Roanoke Plain! Mad, lad, quite
mad. But such a dear, good comrade--I--I can scarce speak o' him but I
wink with tears."
The great fellow dug one fist into his eyes, and then the other,
replacing his pipe in his mouth with an unmistakable snivel.
"Quite mad, Mr. Cardigan. He thought he saw his little daughter in
Miss Warren, without offence to any one in all the world and least of
all to you, and he waited all day to see her come out to the
guard-house and give the news of your sick-bed to your Lieutenant
Duncan. So one day, when you were surely out of danger and ready to
fatten, comes Cade to the tavern and bids me good-bye, talking wildly
of his lost daughter, and I, Heaven help me, lay abed with my head
like a top all humming for the ale I'd had, and thinking nothing of
what he said save that his madness grew apace.
"And that night he went away while I slept in my cups. When he came
not I hunted the town for him as I had never hunted trail in all my
life before. And I warrant you I left no stone unturned in that same
town. I was half-crazy; I could not think he'd left me there of his
own free will. Many a fight I had with the soldiers, many a bruise and
broken head I left behind me ere I shook my moccasins free o' dust in
Johnstown streets. They'll tell you, and that fat, purple-pitted
councillor--Bullock, I mean--why, he would have me jailed for a matter
of damaging his Tory constable. So I gave him a fright on the highway
and left your Tryon County for a quieter one. That's all, lad."
What he had told me of Cade Renard troubled me. If Felicity had been
strangely lost to her own family, and had been restored, doubtless she
was now happy and full of wonder for the dear, amazing chance that had
brought to her those honoured parents she had so long deemed to be
with God. Yet she must be shy and over-sensitive also, having been
brought up to believe she had no nearer kin than Sir Peter Warren. And
now that he, after all, was no kin to her, nor she to us, if a mad
forest-runner like Cade Renard should come to vex her with his luny
fancies, it might hurt her or seem like reproach and mockery for her
new parents.
"Do you think Cade followed Miss Warren to Boston?" I asked.
"My journey is to find that out," he said. "Ah, lad, a noble mind was
wrecked in Renard's head. _I_ know--others know nothing. What fate
sent him like a wild thing to the forests, I only know, as you know,
nothing but what he has told us both. If his madness has waxed so
fiercely since he saw Miss Warren, it may be a sign that the end is
near. I do not know. I miss him, and I must look for him while I can
move these clumsy feet of mine."
My candle was burning very low now. Mount laid his pipe in the
candle-pan, rose, shook himself, and said good-night.
"Good-night," I said, and sat down to light another candle. This done,
I did undress me, and so would have been in bed had I not chanced to
open the book he left me, thinking to glance it over and forget it.
But sunrise found me poring over its pages, while the candle, a pool
o' wax, hardened in the candle-stick beside me.