It was nearly ten o'clock; a freezing rain still swept the black
Boston streets, with now and again a volley of hail, rattling on
closed shutters and swinging shop-signs.
In the dark mews behind the "Wild Goose Tavern" had gathered a shadowy
company of horsemen, unfortunate patriots who had not been quick
enough to leave the city before the troops shut its landward gates.
Caught by the Governor's malignant move, separated from their
companies of Minute Men, these half-score gentlemen had met at the
"Wild Goose" to consult how best they might leave the city and join
their comrades at Lexington and Concord.
Some were for riding to the Neck and making a dash across the
causeway; some wanted boats, among the latter, Jack Mount, who
naturally desired to rid the town of his person as speedily as might
be.
"There's a hempen neck-cloth to fit my pipes in Queen Street," he
said, plaintively, "and I desire it not, having no mind for flummery.
Let us find a flat-boat, in God's name, and get us to Charlestown with
our horses while the rain endures."
"Ay," replied an officer of Roxbury Minute Men, "but what if our
horses neigh in mid-stream?"
"The _Somerset_ ran out her deck-guns at sunset," added another. "What
if she turned her swivel on us?"
"And how if they swept us off the causeway with a chain-shot?" asked
Mount.
"What think you, Mr. Cardigan?" demanded an officer of Sudbury
militia, leaning forward in his wet saddle to pat the dripping neck of
his roan.
"I only know that I shall ride this night to Lexington," I said,
impatiently, "and I am at your service, gentlemen, by land or sea.
Pray you, decide quickly while the rain favours us."
"Is there a man among us dare demand a pass of the Governor?" asked
the Sudbury officer, abruptly. "By Heaven, gentlemen, it is death by
land or by sea if we make to force the lines this night!"
"And it is death to me if I stay here cackling," muttered Mount, as we
caught the distant gallop of dragoons through stony Wiltshire Street.
We sat moodily in our saddles, huddled together in the darkness and
rain, listening to the sound of the horses' feet on the pavement.
"I'd give a thousand guineas if I were on the Charlestown shore with
Revere," muttered an officer.
"The Governor might sell you a pass for ten," observed another,
sneeringly. "It will cost him a penny to keep his pretty bird o'
paradise in plumes."
"If John Hancock were here he would get us a pass from Mrs. Hamilton,"
remarked the Sudbury officer.
There was a silence, then one or two men laughed.
"Is Mrs. Hamilton at Province House?" I asked, not understanding the
careless handling of her name among these gentlemen.
Again came laughter.
"It is easy to see that you have been in prison," observed the Sudbury
officer. "Mrs. Hamilton rules at Province House, and leads Tommy Gage
by the nose--"
"By the _left hand_," interrupted another, maliciously.
"You mean that Mrs. Hamilton is--is--" I began.
"Town scandal," said the officer.
"It may be a lie," observed a young man mounted on a powerful gray.
"It is a lie," I said, with an ugly emphasis.
"Is that remark addressed to me, sir?" demanded the Sudbury officer,
sharply.
"And to company, also," I replied.
"Gentlemen!" cried the Roxbury officer, "are we to have quarrels among
us at such a time?"
"Certainly," said I, "if you or your company affront me. Tattle is
dirty work for a gentleman's tongue, and the sooner that tongue is
stopped with honest mud the better."
"I've called a gentleman out for less than that," said an old officer,
dryly.
"I am at your service," I replied, disgusted.
"And I'm with you, lad," said Mount, walking up to my stirrup. "I have
no stomach for those who wink at a woman's name."
"I also," said the young man on the gray, gravely.
A constrained silence followed, broken by the Sudbury officer.
"Hats off to the beautiful Mrs. Hamilton, gentlemen! Cardigan is
right, by God! If we stand not for our women, who will?"
And he stretched out his hand in the rain. I took it; others offered
me their hands.
"I ride to Province House," I said, briefly. "Jack, fetch a cloak to
hide your buckskins and wait me here. Gentlemen, I wish you fortune in
your journey."
As I rode out into Cambridge Street, thunder boomed in the east, and I
saw the forked lightning racing through inky heavens, veining the
storm with jewelled signs.
"God writes on heaven's wall!" I said, aloud.
A strange exultation stirred me; the dark world lay free and wide
before me, and I would ride it, now, from end to end, till Silver
Heels was mine and Butler's soul had dropped back into that pit from
whence it had crawled to hide within his demon's body.
In Hillier's Lane I put Warlock to a gallop, but drew bridle in muddy
Sudbury Street, where, from the darkness, a strident voice called on
me to halt.
"Who comes there?" repeated the voice. I heard the trample of horsemen
and the clink of sabres striking stirrups.
"Coureur-de-bois for Province House!" I answered, calmly. A chafing
temper began to heat my blood; I gathered my bridle and dropped one
hand on my hatchet.
"On whose affairs ride you?" demanded the spectral dragoon, laying his
horse broadside across mine.
"On my own affairs!" I cried, angrily; "pull out there!--do you hear
me, fellow?"
A lanthorn was lifted to my face.
"Let the forest wild-cat go," muttered an officer, riding back to the
picket as I crowded my horse against the dragoon who had hailed me.
Without giving them a glance I pushed through the cluster of horsemen,
and heard them cursing my insolence as I wheeled into School Street
and cantered along Governor's Alley.
There were torches lighted in the mews; an hostler took Warlock; I
swung out of the saddle and stepped back to a shelter from the storm.
Through the rain, up Marlborough Street, down School Street, and along
Cornhill, drove the coaches and carriages of the Tory quality, all
stopping at the brilliantly lighted mansion, where, as an hostler
informed me, the Governor was giving a play and a supper to the
wealthy Tory families of Boston and to all the officers of the British
regiments quartered in the city. I knew the latter statement was
false.
I stood for a while in the rain among the throng of poor who had come
to wait there, in patience, on the chance of a scrap from the
servants' quarters after the servants had picked the bones their
surfeited masters would scarcely deign to lick.
At first, as the coaches dashed up and the chairs jogged into the
gateway, a few squalid watchers in the crowd fought to open the
carriage-doors, hoping for a coin flung to them for their pains; but
the sentinels soon put a finish to this, driving the ragged rabble
savagely, with thrusts of their musket-butts, out into Marlborough
Street. Under the gate-lanthorn's smeared reflections I saw the poor
things huddled in a half-circle, pinched and chattering and white with
hunger, soaked to the bone with the icy rain, yet lingering, God knows
why, for a brief glimpse of My Lady in pink silk and powder, picking
her way from her carriage across the puddles, while My Lord minced at
her side and the footman ran behind to cover them both with a
glistening umbrella.
The stony street echoed with the clatter of shod horses, the rattle of
wheels, the shouts of footmen, and the bawling of chair-bearers.
Once, when the wind sharpened, shifted, and blew the slanting rain
from the north, a warm odour of roasted butcher's meats came to us,
and I could hear a hollow sound rising from the throng, which was like
a groan.
In the Province House fiddlers were fiddling; it was chill enough in
the street, but it was doubtless over-hot within, for servants came
and threw open the windows and we could hear the fiddles plainly and
the sweet confusion of voices and a young girl's laughter.
A hoarse cry broke out, wrung from the very vitals of the wretches
around me.
"Silence!" shouted the officer of the gate-guard, striding out in his
long rain-cloak and glaring about him, with tasselled stick upraised.
The rain powdered his gilded French hat and laced vest, and he stepped
back hastily under shelter.
There was perfect quiet for an instant, then a movement near me, a
mutter, a quick surging of people, a cry: "Give room! Back there! Bear
him up!"
A voice broke out, "He is starving; the smell o' meat sickens him!"
Two men staggered past, supporting a mere lad, whose deathly face hung
on his rain-soaked cotton shirt.
"He has the spotted sickness!" muttered a chair-bearer near me; "it's
death to take his breath! Let me pass!"
"The pest!" cried another, shrinking back, and stumbling away in a
panic.
The officer watched the scene for a moment, then his heavy, inflamed
face darkened.
"Back there! Be off, I say!" he bawled. "Ye stinking beggars, d'ye
mean to poison us all with the pest? Turn out the gate-guard! Drive
those filthy whelps up Cornhill!" he shouted to the corporal of the
guard.
The soldiers came tumbling out of the gate-lodge, but before they
could move on the throng another officer hurried up, and I heard him
sharply recalling the soldiers and rebuking the officer who had given
the order.
"No, no, that will not do," he said. "The town would flame if you
drive the citizens from their own streets. Let them stand there. What
harm are they doing?"
"The lout yonder fell down with the spotted pest," remonstrated the
first officer. "Faugh! The rabble's rotten with scurvy or some filthy
abomination--"
"They'll harm no one but themselves," replied the other in a sad
voice, which sounded strangely familiar to me, so familiar that I
involuntarily stepped out into the lighted space under the gate and
peered at him through the rain, shielding my eyes with my hands.
The officer was Mr. Bevan.
Should I speak to him? Should I count on his friendship for me to get
me an audience with the Governor? Here was a chance; he could vouch
for me; so could Mrs. Hamilton.
As I hesitated somebody beside me clutched my elbow, and I swung
around instantly, one hand on my hunting-knife.
The next moment Saul Shemuel almost rolled at my feet in an ecstasy of
humble delight, sniffling, writhing, breathing hard, and clawing at my
sleeve in his transports at sight of me.
I seized his arm, drew him along the wall, and into the dusky mews.
Impatient, yet touched, I suffered his mauling, demanding what news he
might have, and he, beside himself with joy and excitement, could
scarce find breath to pant out the news which concerned me. "I haf
seen Foxcroft," he gasped. "Mr. Foxcroft he hass come to-day on dot
_Pomona_ frigate to Scarlet's Wharf, twelve weeks from Queenstown,
sir. It wass printed in dot _Efening Gazette_, all apout Foxcroft how
he iss come from Sir Peter Warren to make some troubles for Sir John
Johnson mit dot money he took from Miss Warren, sir!"
"Foxcroft! Here?" I stammered.
"Yess, sir; I ran mit my legs to Queen Street, und I told him how you
wass in dot prison come, und he run mit his legs to Province House,
but too late, for we hear dot bell ring und dose guns shooting. Und I
said, 'Gott of Isaac, I bet you Jack Mount he hass run avay!' Und Mr.
Foxcroft he sees some dragoon soldiers come into Cornhill, calling
out: 'Dose highwaymens is gone! Vatch 'em by dot Mall!' So Mr.
Foxcroft he comes to Province House mit me, sir, und he iss gone in to
make some troubles mit Governor Gage apout Sir John Johnson und dot
money of Miss Warren! Ach, here iss Mr. Foxcroft, now, sir--"
I turned to confront a stout, florid gentleman, swathed in a
riding-cloak, whose little, angry eyes snapped as he cried: "Governor
Gage is a meddling ass! I care not who listens to me, and, I repeat,
he is a meddlesome ass! Sir Peter Warren shall hear of this, damme! Am
I a free agent, damme? I take it that I am a free agent, yet I may not
leave this town to-night for lack of a pass. But I'll go! They shall
not stop me! No, damme if they shall!"
The hostlers were all staring at him; I stepped towards him, eagerly,
but the peppery and inflamed barrister waved me off.
"Damme, sir!" he bawled; "who the devil are you, sir? Take your hands
from me, sir! I wish to go to my client in Lexington, and this Tory
peacock will give me no pass! I will not suffer this outrage; I will
appeal to--"
I gave him a jerk that shook the breath from his body, whispering in
his ear: "Be silent, in Heaven's name, sir! I am Michael Cardigan!"
At first, in his passion, astonishment, and incredulity, he found no
voice to answer me; but as Shemuel eagerly vouched for me, Mr.
Foxcroft's fury and suspicion subsided.
"You? Cardigan?" he repeated. "Well, where the devil have you been,
sir, and what the devil have you been about, sir? Eh? Answer me that,
now!"
"I've been in prison, under sentence of death," I replied. "Where have
_you_ been, sir, to leave your client, Miss Warren, at the mercy of
Walter Butler?"
At that he took fire, and, with trembling fist quivering towards
heaven, he justified his absence in warm terms.
"I've been in England, sir, that's where I've been!" he cried. "I've
been there to find out why your blackguard of a kinsman, Sir John
Johnson, should rob my client of her property. And I've found out that
your blackguard Sir John has not only robbed her of her means, but of
the very name she has a right to! That's what I've done, sir. And if
it does not please you, you may go to the devil!"
His impudence and oaths I scarcely noted, such a fierce happiness was
surging through me to the very bones. I could have hugged the choleric
barrister as he stood there, affronting me at every breath; I fairly
beamed upon him when he bade me go to the devil, and, to his
amazement, I seized his fat hands and thanked him so gratefully that
the defiance died on his lips and he stared at me open-mouthed.
"My dear sir, my dear, dear friend," I cried, "I will get you your
pass to clear the Neck to-night, and we will go together to find my
cousin, Miss Warren. Wait me here, sir; I will leave Boston this night
or my name is not Cardigan!"
Then bidding Shemuel keep an eye on Warlock, I hurried around to the
gate-house, where the rabble still slunk, watching the lighted windows
with famished eyes.
The clouds in mid-heaven had caked into snowy jets of fleece, and now
the full moon of April flooded the soaked pavements with pools of
silver.
The sentry halted me as I entered the court-yard, but when I asked for
Mr. Bevan, he called to a comrade to take my message. The next moment
Bevan stepped out into the moonlight.
"What is it, my man? Can I serve you?" he said, pleasantly, peering at
me.
"Do you not know me, Mr. Bevan?" I asked.
"Cardigan!" he stammered, "is that you, Cardigan--"
He was close to me at a stride, both hands on my shoulders, his
kindly, troubled eyes full of wonder and pity. Perhaps I appeared to
him somewhat haggard and careworn, and then the rain had chilled and
pinched me.
"I am not in want," I said, trying to smile.
"But--but why are you not among the guests at Province House?" he
asked, quickly. "The son of Captain Cardigan needs no friend at court,
I fancy."
He linked his gilded sleeve in my arm and drew me past the
guard-house, and ere I could protest, I found myself inside the
cloak-room among a company of old beaux and young fops, all in the
hands of footmen and body-servants who were busily dusting the
hair-powder from silken shoulders, smoothing out laces, hanging hats
and cloaks to dry, and polishing sword-hilts for their languid,
insolent-eyed masters.
"Can we not find a quiet corner hereabouts?" I asked. "I came to
demand a pass for Lexington. Will you use your privilege with the
Governor, Bevan?"
"A pass!" he exclaimed, stopping short in his tracks.
"To Lexington," I repeated.
"To-night?"
"Yes."
He raised his honest, perplexed eyes to me.
"I must have a pass; it concerns the welfare of Miss Warren," I began,
then hesitated, remembering that I was also to take Jack Mount in my
company, whose business in Lexington was very different from mine.
"Cardigan," he said, with troubled eyes on me, "I cannot lend myself
to such a service, even for Miss Warren's sake, unless you first give
me your word of honour that your journey concerns only Miss Warren's
welfare."
My heart sank; I could not betray the comrade who counted on me. Jack
Mount must get free o' Boston as well as I. But how could I lie to
Bevan or requite his courtesy with treachery? Yet honour forbade me to
leave Jack Mount, even for Silver Heels's sake.
"Pass or no pass, I go this night," I said, sullenly.
"Hush!" he said; "don't talk here."
He led me through the card-rooms, where a score of old bucks and
purple-necked officers sat, all playing picquet in owlish silence,
then through a partition, where a fountain sprayed beds of tall ferns,
out into a lamp-illumined circular alcove, hung with China silks, and
bowered deep in flowers and tiny, blossoming trees no higher than
one's knee-buckle.
"The Chinese alcove," he observed. "Nobody will disturb us here, I
fancy. You have heard of the Chinese alcove, Cardigan? There is the
door to the famous golden gallery."
I glanced at the gilded door in the corner, half-hidden by Chinese
drapery. I had heard that the Governor's sweetheart dwelt here.
Bevan reached up and pulled a velvet cord. Presently a servant brought
us a silver bowl of steaming punch made with tea and fruit in the
Regent's fashion.
"I drink no tea," I said, shortly.
"I suppose not," observed Bevan, laughing, and commanded the servant
to fetch me a bowl without tea.
"Your courtesy to a rebel is extraordinary," I said, after an
interval.
"Oh, I'm half rebel myself," he laughed. "I'd be in my shirt-sleeves
out Middlesex way, drilling yokels--Minute Men, I believe--were it not
that--that--oh, well, I'll wear the red jacket as long as I live and
let the future weed out the goats from the sheep."
"It's different with you," I said. "You are English bred."
"Ay, and the red o' the uniform has dyed my flesh to the bone," he
replied.
"You mean that you will fight--us?" I asked.
"Tooth and nail, my dear fellow," he said, gayly; "foot, horse, and
dragoons! But what can I do to serve you--first?"
I tasted a glass of punch, then set it down impatiently. "I tell you I
must ride to Lexington," I said, firmly, "and I mean to take friends
if I choose--"
"Tell me no more, Cardigan," he broke in, "else I must refuse you what
little service I may render. You know as well as I why the gates on
the Neck are closed to-night. If you do not know, listen to me. The
rebels have been storing war materials. Last October we gave their
spokesmen full warning that we could no longer tolerate the collecting
of arms and ammunition. We sent expeditions into the country to
destroy what stores they had gathered."
He hesitated; a perplexed smile passed over his face. "You know
perfectly well," he said, "that we have good reasons for closing the
city gates to-night. I cannot give you a pass. Yet, for Miss Warren's
sake"--he lifted his hat as he spoke--"I have done what I could in
honour. Now I must leave you."
"What have you done?" I asked, angrily.
"I have conducted you to the Chinese alcove, my friend."
"The ante-chamber of the Governor's mistress," I retorted. "Am I to
find my pass here among these flowers and blossoms?"
He looked down at the glasses on the table beside us, stirred the
contents of his own, and nodded.
"What do you mean?" I demanded, hotly.
"I mean, Cardigan, that, except the Governor, there is only one
person to-night in Boston who can secure you a pass for Lexington. If
she chooses to do so, it is not my affair."
"If _who_ chooses to do so?"
"She."
"Who?"
"Wait and--ask her," he said, gravely.
He was gone, wading waist-deep in flowers, ere I could compose my mind
to think or protest, leaving me speechless; standing by the table.
A minute passed; through the thickets of sweet-smelling blossoms the
candles flamed like those slender witch-lights that dance over
nature's gardens, where bergamot and cardinal robe our dim woods in
crimson glory under the October stars.
"What does he mean by leaving me here?" I muttered, pacing to and fro
through the fragrant, flowering lane. Then, as I stood still,
listening, far away I heard a glass door close with a crystalline
clash; there came the rustle of brocade sweeping like a breeze along
the passage; the door of the golden gallery swung outward; a figure
all silk and lace stood poised on the step above me, screened to the
knees behind the flowers.
"Where is the forest-runner who desires a pass to Lexington?" she
began; then, perceiving my lank, dark form against the candle-light,
she laughed a sweet, contented little laugh and bade me approach.
I saw that exquisite, indolent head bending towards me, the smiling
eyes seeking my features, the jewels ablaze at her throat.
"Marie Hamilton!" I stammered.
All her neck and face flamed, then whitened to the hue of death as she
stepped swiftly towards me, her brocade sweeping through the flowers
with a sound like the wind tearing silken petals. Suddenly she stood
still, clearing her startled eyes with one jewelled hand; her knees
fell a-trembling; she swayed and caught at the stiff, golden curtains,
half tearing them from the wall.
Into a carved chair, all glittering with dragon's wings, she fell, a
crumpled heap of lace and jewels, and buried her face in her hands,
pressing her fingers into the plump skin.
I watched her miserably; she twisted her white hands before her face;
her quivering mouth, her delicate body bent and writhing, all these
told me what no words could tell, and her agonized silence shouted her
shame to the midnight skies of heaven.
In the hush that followed, the door of the golden gallery swung idly
back and forth with a deadened, muffled beat like the noise of great
wings flapping.
"Michael," she said, at last.
"Yes," I whispered, in hopeless grief.
Presently she sat up, wearily, one hand on her pale, smooth brow. I
could not meet her eyes; I bent my head.
"Oh, God, what punishment is mine!" she sobbed.
She dropped her hands, clasped them, and looked wildly at me through
her tears.
"If I am what I am, it was because I had lost you," she said. "I had
eaten my heart out--you never came--I never thought you cared--I never
thought you cared!" she wailed, twisting her interlocked fingers in
helpless agony. "I had loved you so long; I tried to make you
understand it, but you would not. I was mortally hurt--I said bitter
things--but my heart was yours, Michael, yours for the asking, and so
was I; you had only to take me; I would have gone with you from the
first word you spoke to me in Johnson Hall--I would have followed
you--from the first glance you gave me. Wrong? What is wrong? Love? It
is _never_ wrong! I would have died for a touch of your lips; I did
almost die when you kissed me there, using me so shamelessly with your
boyish cruelty! You went away in the night; I searched Johnstown, and
I listened and questioned until I believed you had gone to Pittsburg.
And I followed you, madly jealous of Felicity, crazed at the thought
that she, too, was going to Pitt to be near you. But you were not at
Fort Pitt; I waited, and I was calm because I believed that Felicity
meant to wed with Dunmore. Then Harrod sent in his list of killed--my
husband was among the dead. I went back to Albany. I meant to come to
Boston to sell my house: I needed money. You found me there on the
road that night; I could have died from happiness, but you would not
understand me, Michael!" she ended, piteously.
I kept my eyes on the floor.
"And now, since you have been in Boston, all these long months," she
cried, "I have not seen you; I could not find you, nor could I find
anybody who had ever seen you. God knows I did not think to see you
here since I, destitute, utterly desperate, caring nothing for life,
took--this--shameful--step--"
She covered her hot face with her hands.
"Can you believe I love you still?" she sobbed.
I could endure no more; already I had stumbled through the flowery
hedge towards the door, blindly forcing a path amid the blossoms which
threw out a hundred tendrils to bar my way.
Once I looked back. She lay in the glittering chair, eyes following
me. The next step, and a great bunch of roses blotted her face from my
sight.
Through the card-room I hurried, aware of people around me, yet seeing
nothing; down the stairway, jostled by people who were descending or
mounting, and at last into the cloak-room and out through the
court-yard, which was now bright with moonlight shining in the puddles
of rain.
Shemuel came from the mews to meet me, leading Warlock. Mr. Foxcroft
stalked behind him.
"Where is the pass?" he demanded. "Did you procure the pass, sir?
What! Empty-handed! Now, by Heaven!" he cried, in a towering fury,
"this Tory Governor presumes too far!"
"Be silent!" I said, sharply; "do you wish to have us all arrested? I
shall go to Lexington to-night, I tell you, pass or no pass; and,
before I go, you shall tell me where I may find Miss Warren."
"A mile out of Lexington on the Bedford Road," he replied. "How can
you pass the Neck guard, without the Governor's leave, sir?"
"I will show you," said I, "if you choose to accompany me."
"You mean to ride for it?" he asked, excitedly.
I was silent.
"And risk a chain-shot from their twenty-four-pounders?" he
persisted.
"Mr. Foxcroft," I said, "you may do as you please, but there is
nothing under the moon, yonder, which can keep me from going to
Lexington. Have you a horse stabled here? No? Can you hire one? Then
hire him, in Heaven's name, and get into your saddle if you mean to go
with me. Shemuel, find a good horse for Mr. Foxcroft, and another for
Jack Mount. You must pay for them; I have no money. It is half-past
ten o'clock; I will wait ten minutes."
Shemuel scurried back into the mews; Foxcroft followed, and in a
moment his portly figure was lost to sight in the dusky alley.
I looked up at the lighted windows of Province House, wondering how on
earth I was to go to Lexington. Music was sounding from the ballroom;
I looked out across the dark city; the moon hung over the bay; the
rigging of a war-ship rose black against the silvery disk.
Instinctively I turned my eyes towards the steeple of the Old North
Meeting-House. The steeple was dark; the troops had not yet started.
Musing there in the moonlight, hands clasped on the pommel of my
saddle, the dull thunder of hoofs from the stable aroused me, and
presently Mr. Foxcroft came clattering out of the mews, followed by
Shemuel, also mounted, a grotesque lump of a shape, crouched on the
saddle, his flat, three-cornered hat crammed over his great ears, his
nose buried in his neck-cloth. He led a third horse behind him.
"Now, sir," panted Foxcroft, "I am prepared to ride to the devil with
you and put this Tory Governor's nose out o' joint!"
"Do you also ride with us, Shemuel?" I asked.
He replied faintly in the affirmative. The little creature was
frightened. His devotion touched me very deeply.
Walking our horses along Common Street, we were almost immediately
accosted by dragoons, who, on learning that our destination was the
"Wild Goose Tavern," cursed us roundly, promising to clean out that
nest of rebels at no distant date. Their officer also began to
harangue us, but I pushed my horse past him and cantered on into the
Mall and out through Green Lane, wheeling into the alley behind the
"Wild Goose."
Of the half-score gentlemen whom I had left there, sitting their
rain-drenched horses, none remained. However, Mount was in the tavern,
and he came at my whistle, explaining that the balance of the company
had chosen to risk crossing the bay under the guns of the _Somerset_,
rather than attempt to force the Neck.
"God go with them!" said I; "here's Shemuel with a horse for you.
We'll ride to the shore and see what can be done."
Mount, who had been busily embracing Shemuel, gave the little Jew a
mighty slap of affection, vaulted into his saddle, passed my rifle to
me, and fell back beside the peddler, while Mr. Foxcroft and I rode
through the Mall once more, down towards the shore, where, in the
darkness, faint flashes through the trees came and went as the waves
of the bay caught the moonlight.
"Is it too far to swim?" I asked Mr. Foxcroft.
"Too far," he replied, with a shiver. "All is marsh beyond; the mud
would smother us ere we landed. That shoal yonder is dry at
low-water."
"Mr. Foxcroft," said I, "we must swim for it somewhere. Could we not
make the Charles River at a pinch?"
"No, nor Stony Brook," he said. "A good swimmer might circle the
floating battery and make his way outside the Neck, but he could not
last, Mr. Cardigan."
We had been slowly approaching the shore while we spoke. For some time
I had fancied I heard sounds in the darkness like the stirring and
movement of a body of men assembling. At first I fancied the swelling
murmur of the tide deceived me, yet at moments it seemed as though I
could distinguish a trampling sound which could not have been the beat
of the ocean's steady squadrons on the beach.
Then, as we came out through the fringe of trees from which the land
fell away to the water's edge, a stirring sight lay spread before us:
below, in the dazzling moonlight, the shore swarmed with soldiers,
teamsters, and boatmen, moving hither and thither along the water's
edge. Companies of grenadiers were marching towards the wooden wharf
at the end of Hollis Street; companies of light infantry and marines
were embarking in the boats which lay rocking along the shore; horses
snorted, gathered in groups, while boatmen poled flat-boats towards a
cove from which already a scow, freighted with horses, was being
pushed out into the bay.
Although there was no talking, save the half-whispered commands of the
officers, the movement of so many boats, the tread of a thousand men,
the stamping and noises of horses, all swelled into a heavy, ceaseless
sound, which mingled with and intensified the murmur of the mounting
tide, stirred to its flood by the silver magic of the rising moon.
Hundreds of soldiers had already embarked; we could distinguish the
dark line of their boats, all strung out as though fastened together,
stem and stern, rising and falling on the glittering surface of the
bay, ever lengthening, as new boats, loaded deep with soldiers, put
out to fall into line and sail bobbing away into the darkness, only to
reappear again under the flood of moonlight.
"Suppose," whispered Mount, "we lead our horses aboard that scow
yonder!"
In another moment, scarcely aware of what I was actually about, I had
dismounted, and was leading Warlock straight down to the shore towards
a cove, where half a dozen boatmen were standing in a scow, resting on
their long sea-poles.
"If they ask questions, knock them into the water!" said Mount,
calmly.
He repeated the instructions to Foxcroft and Shemuel as we filed along
the dim shore past a throng of boatmen, grooms, officers' servants,
and teamsters, and made straight towards the scow that lay a few yards
off shore in the little, shadowy cove.
It was a desperate attempt; had I given myself one minute's
reflection, I should rather have risked a dash across the Neck and a
chain-shot on the causeway. Yet its very audacity was in our favour;
the boatmen, when they saw us leading our horses down to their cove,
hastily lowered a plank bridge from their heavy scow, and Mount coolly
waded out into the water, guiding his horse aboard as calmly as though
it were his own stable, and these Tory boatmen his paid grooms.
I followed with Warlock, who snorted and pawed when the salt water
rose to his fetlocks, but he danced up the plank incline and entered
the boat without coaxing. Shemuel's horse, a sleek, weasel-bellied
animal, with a wicked eye and a bunch o' hackle for a tail, swung
round in the water, slinging the little Jew on his face in the mud,
and then, with a vicious squeal, flung up his heels and cantered off,
scattering a company of marines drawn up a hundred yards down the
shore.
Draggled and dripping, Shemuel, standing knee-deep in salt water,
watched the flight of his horse, but I bade him come aboard at once,
and he did so, casting sidelong glances at the boatmen, who regarded
him with astonishment.
Mr. Foxcroft, meanwhile, had dragged his horse aboard, and Mount
ordered the boatmen to push off at once.
As the men took up their heavy sea-poles, I heard them whispering to
each other that Mount and I must be scouts sent ahead to spy for the
soldiers, and I caught them eying our buckskins curiously as they lay
on their poles, pushing out towards the broad belt of moonlight which
glistened beyond.
The wind whipped our cheeks as we swung clear of the land; the boatmen
presently took to their oars, which I noticed were muffled midway
between blade and handle. The row-locks, also, had been padded with
bunches of wheat-straw and rags.
Now that we were safely afloat, misgivings seized me. I had never
before been on salt water; the black waves which came slapping on our
craft disturbed me; the shadowy hulk of the war-ship which lay athwart
our course loomed up like doom, seeming to watch us with its wicked
little green and red eyes, marking us for destruction.
The wind freshened furiously in my face; the waves came rolling in out
of the darkness, rap! rap! slap! rap! crushing into stinging gusts of
spray, soaking us to the skin.
Far to our left the line of boats floated, undulating across the bay;
the beacon in Boston flared out red as we rounded Fox Hill; the light
on Mount Wh-d-m twinkled.
Presently Mount touched my arm and pointed. High up in the dark haze
above the city two bright lights hung. So we knew that Rolfe was
watching from the belfry of the Old North Meeting-House, and that Paul
had read the twin lamps' message and was now galloping west through
the Middlesex farms.
Shemuel, shivering in his wet and muddy garments, crept up beside me
to ask where we were to be landed.
I did not know, nor dared I ask, fearing to awake suspicion. Besides,
we were close under the sprit of a tall, black frigate, so close that
I could see the candles flaring in the battle lanthorns and the dead
bay-weeds hanging from the chains, and I could even read her name, the
_Falcon_.
Then, suddenly, out of the shadow under the black frigate's hulk, a
cockle-shell came dancing towards us, with an officer in the stern,
who played his lanthorn on us and waved his arm.
"Move into line with the ship's boats!" he called out, with many a
strange sea-oath; and our brawny oarsmen pulled northeast once more
towards the long line of boats which now stretched almost across the
bay.
"You land at Phipps's Farm, sir?" inquired a sweating boatman of
Mount.
"Phipps's Farm!" broke in Mr. Foxcroft. "It's in the marshes o'
Lechemere! I'm damned if I'll be landed at Phipps's!"
"Isn't that where the troops land, sir?" asked the boatman, resting
his oar.
Mount shook his head mysteriously.
"We are on special service, lads," he said. "Ask no questions, but put
us ashore at Willis Creek, and tell the colonel to give you a guinea
apiece for me."
At this impudent remark the boatmen began to row with renewed vigour;
the salt spray drove aboard in showers, the wind roared in our ears,
the horses huddled together.
Once more we swung across the line of boats; in the craft just ahead
of us I could see the marines sitting with their muskets on their
knees, right hands covering the flints and pans.
As the distance slowly increased between us and the troop-boats, I
began to breathe more freely. Mount stood by his horse, coolly chewing
a straw from the wadded oar-locks, his fox-skin cap pushed back on his
head, the fluffy tail blowing wildly in the wind.
Slowly the dark shore took shape before us; already I could smell the
land smell, and hear the wind among the reeds.
Oh, the happiness to be free from that prison city, lying there in the
gloom across the water!--the joy to tread free ground once more, to
scent free winds, to move unrestrained across the world again!
Mount, too, was sniffing restlessly at the marsh, wreathed in
sea-mist; I fancied his eyes glowed in the moonlight like the eyes of
a waiting hound.
Something touched my hand; Shemuel came cowering to my side.
"Courage," I whispered.
"I haf done all I could," he said, in a shaking voice.
"I know that, lad," I muttered.
His wet fingers sought mine.
"I shall nefer be safe no more," he whispered.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I don't know. I shall nefer set foot on shore no more. I don't live
long now, Mr. Cardigan."
He was trembling from head to foot as I laid my hand on his shoulder.
The boatmen had dropped their oars and taken to their poles once more;
the tall reeds rustled as our scow drove its square nose into the
shallows and grounded with a grating jar. Startled curlews, round
about us, uttered their querulous cries.
"There's a road swings northwest through the marshes," said Mount,
wading out into the water and leading his horse up through the rushes.
"Follow me, lad. I should know this country from Cobble Hill to
Canada."
Foxcroft had mounted; Jack climbed stiffly into his saddle; I threw
Warlock around in the reeds, prepared to set foot to stirrup, when
Shemuel seized my arm convulsively. A patrol of British light horse,
riding in single file, came picking their way down the shore in the
moonlight.
Mount and Foxcroft saw them and drew bridles; I slung my legs across
Warlock, just as they hailed us.
"Get up behind! Quick!" I whispered to Shemuel, watching the horsemen
riding towards Mount, who was ahead of Foxcroft.
Shemuel's strength appeared to have left his limbs; he struggled to
mount behind me; Warlock, alarmed at his contortions, began to dance
restlessly.
Impatient, I stooped to grasp Shemuel, and I already had him by the
collar when an exclamation and a sudden trampling of horses made me
turn my head just in time to see a British officer seize Jack Mount
and attempt to drag him from his saddle.
Before I could straighten up, the cavalry were upon us; I saw Foxcroft
snap his pistol, wheel, and gallop into the reeds; I saw Jack Mount
fling the officer off and fetch him a cracking blow with the barrel of
his rifle. Two men rode at me; I raised my rifle with one hand,
calling to Shemuel to mount behind me, but the frightened peddler
squirmed out of my clutch and rushed off headlong into the marsh.
A horseman followed him, cursing; the other trooper, mired in the
rushes, struggled to get at me.
I swung my rifle to my cheek; it flashed in the pan; the brute set his
horse at a gallop, and, leaning forward, deliberately shot at the
unarmed peddler. Shemuel dodged, ran a few yards, doubled on the
horseman, and came rushing back towards Mount. He gained a little
hillock of rising ground; he could have escaped into the fringing
willows, but, to my horror, he turned and waved his arms to me,
shouting:
"Ride! Ride! Mr. Cardigan! For Miss Warren's sake, ride, sir!"
"Touch that man and I'll brain you!" I roared at the horseman who had
now drawn his sabre.
Again I tried to shoot the trooper, but the flint sparks died out in
the damp pan. With a groan I rode after him, calling out to Shemuel to
seek cover in the brush, but he only ran about on his hillock, dodging
the infuriated trooper, and calling frantically to me that I must save
myself for Miss Warren's sake.
Then, while my horse was floundering in the marsh, slowly drawing his
mired limbs to firm ground, I saw Shemuel dart towards me with a
shriek, and, ere I could reach him, I saw the trooper bend down from
his saddle and slash the poor, frightened creature's head with one
terrible blow of his heavy sabre.
Down into the mud plunged Shemuel; the trooper's horse trampled and
passed over his body, then swung in a rushing circle and bore down on
me, just as the other rider came splashing at me from the right.
My rifle a third time flashed in the pan; the priming had been wet
with spray. I struck Warlock on the flanks, whirled him head on
against Shemuel's murderer, and, whipping out my war-hatchet, aimed a
furious blow at the fellow's head. The keen hatchet blade sank into
the trooper's shoulder; he tumbled out of his stirrups and landed
heavily among the cat-tails.
Instantly I checked Warlock, poised myself in my stirrups, and
launched the hatchet straight at the other horseman, striking him full
in the chest, but whether with blade-edge, handle, or flat, I know
not, for, as his horse swerved wide, passing me at a tearing gallop,
Mount and Foxcroft flew past, calling out that Shemuel was dead and
that I must follow them for my life.
Up the shore we crashed through the rushes, driving straight out into
the marsh, our horses floundering, and the light horsemen firing their
pistols at us from the firmer ground above.
A ball grazed Warlock; his neck was wet with blood.
"They'll murder us all here!" cried Foxcroft; "charge them, in God's
name!"
Mount heard him and bore to the left; I followed; knee to knee we
lifted our crazed horses out of the marsh and hurled them into the
little patrol of light horse, bursting upon them ere they could wheel
to meet us.
In the moonlight their sabres flashed before our eyes, but no lunging
point found its billet of flesh, though their blades rang out on our
rifle-barrels; then we were on them, among them, plunging through
them, and pounding away northward over a hard gravel road.
They discharged their pistols at us; a few of them followed us, but
all pursuit ceased below Prospect Hill; we galloped, unmolested, into
the old Charlestown and West Cambridge Road, and flew onward through
the night.
In lonely stretches of road, which ran rivers of moonlight, I could
see Mount riding, head on his breast, square jaw set, and I knew he
was brooding on Shemuel's dismal end.
The swift murder of the little peddler shocked me terribly; Shemuel's
strange premonition of his own approaching death fairly made me shiver
in my stirrups as I rode. Like a doomed man the Jew had gone to his
end, with what courage God had lent him. He had been a friend to me.
For all his squalid weakness of limb, his natural fear of pain, his
physical cowardice, he had not swerved from the service of his
country, nor had he faltered or betrayed the confidence of men whose
peril imperilled himself. Nothing save his fidelity to us had forced
him to leave the city with us; nothing save the innate love of liberty
in his grotesque and dirty body had lured this errant child of Israel
to risk his life in bearing messages for those who watched the
weighted hours creep on towards that bloody dawn already gathering
under the edges of the sleeping world.
Now, as we rode, from behind us the sound of bells came quavering
across dim meadows; out of the blue night bells answered; we heard the
reports of guns, the distant clamour of a horn blowing persistently
from some hidden hamlet.
"The alarm!" panted Foxcroft, at my elbow, as we pounded on. "Hurrah!
Hurrah! The country lives!"
"Jack!" I called, through the rushing wind, "the whole land is awaking
behind us! Do you hear? Our country lives!"
"And England dies!" cried Mount, passionately. With both hands
uplifted, and bridle flung across his horse's neck, he galloped in the
lead. On his huge horse, towering up in the saddle, he swept on
through the night, a gigantic incarnation of our people militant, a
colossal shape embodying all that we had striven for and suffered for
from the hour when the first pioneer died at the stake.
On he swept astride his rushing horse, the fox-tail on his cap
streaming, the thrums on his sleeves blowing like ripe grain; and ever
he tossed his arms towards the sky and shook his glittering rifle
above his head, till the moonshine played on it like lightning.
"Ring! Ring out your bells!" we shouted, as we tore through a sleeping
village; and behind us we could see candle-light break out from the
dark houses, and, ere the volleying echoes of our horses' hoofs struck
the last spark from the village streets, the meeting-house bell began
swinging, warning the distant farms that the splendid hour had come.
And now, unexpectedly, we encountered a check in our course. Full in
the yellow moonlight, on a little hill over which our road lay, we
caught sight of a body of horsemen drawn up, and we knew, by the moon
shining on their gorgets, that we had before us a company of dragoons
with their officers.
At a word from Jack I dismounted and pulled the rails from the road
fence on our right. Through the aperture we filed, out into a field of
young winter wheat well sprouted, and then west, as quietly as we
might, with watchful eyes on the dragoons.
But the British horsemen had also turned, and were now trotting along
parallel to our course, which manoeuvre drove us off eastward again
across the meadows, deep starred with dandelions. For us to alarm
Lexington was now impossible. We could already see the liberty-pole on
the hill and make out where the village lay, by a gilt weather-vane
shining in the moonlight above the trees. But there were no lights to
be seen in Lexington, and we dared not ride through the dark town, not
knowing but that it might be swarming with dragoons.
Still, if it were impossible for us to alarm Lexington, we could ride
on across the fields and gain the Bedford Road.
Mr. Foxcroft undertook to pilot us. As I rode by his side I could
scarce believe that, yonder, close at hand in the darkness, Silver
Heels slept, nor doubted that I was near. My heart began a-drumming.
"You are sure she is there?" I asked, plucking Foxcroft's sleeve.
"Unless Captain Butler has prevailed," he said, grimly.
I choked and trembled in my saddle.
"Do you--do you believe she would listen to him?" I muttered.
"Do you?" he asked, turning on me.
We forced our horses through a belt of tasselled willows fringing a
little thread of a meadow stream. The dew showered our faces like a
flurry of rain. My cheeks were burning.
"How far is it? Are we near her house?" I asked again and again. I
strove to realize that I was nearing Silver Heels; I could not, nor
was I able to understand that I should ever again see her.
In moments of my imprisonment I had believed devoutly that I should
live to see her; yet since my deliverance from that cage of stones I
had not dared assure myself that I should find her; I had not given
myself time to think of the chances that might favour me or of the
possibilities of failure. Dormant among my bitter memories lay that
vile threat of Walter Butler; I dared not stir it up to examine it; I
let it lie quiet, afraid to rouse it. By what hellish art could he, my
mortal enemy, inspire aught but hatred in the woman who had loved me
and who must have known how I had suffered at his hands?
Yet, if he had not lied to me, she had at least given him an audience.
But his boast that she had consented to fix a day to wed with him I
believed not, deeming it but a foolish attempt at cruelty on a man
who, truly enough, at that time, seemed doomed to die upon the gibbet
behind Queen Street court-house.
We now came to a stony pasture in which cattle lay, turning their
heavy heads in the dim light to watch us. I dismounted to let down the
bars. In vain I looked for a house; there were no lights to be seen.
Foxcroft moved slowly; I nearly rode him down in my rising anxiety,
now almost beyond control.
At length, however, he discovered a narrow, overgrown lane, lined with
hazel, and we turned into it, single file, leading our horses. The
lane conducted us to an orchard, all silvery in the moonbeams, and
now, through the long rows of trees, I saw the moon shining on the
portico of a white mansion.
"Is that the house?" I whispered.
Foxcroft nodded.
We led our horses through a weedy garden up to the pillared portico.
Even in the moonlight I could see the neglect and decay that lay over
house and grounds. In the pale light clusters of yellow jonquils
peeped from the tangle about the doorsteps; an owl left a hemlock tree
with a whistle of broad wings and wheeled upward, squealing fiercely.
And now, as I leaped to the porch, I became aware of a light in the
house. It streamed from a chink in the wooden shutters which were
closed over the window to the right of the door.
Foxcroft saw it; so did Mount; we tied our hard-blown horses to the
fluted wooden pillars, and, stepping to the door, rapped heavily.
The hard beating of my heart echoed the rapping; intense silence
followed.
After a long time, pattering, uncertain steps sounded inside the
hallway; a light, dim at first, grew brighter above the fanlight over
the door.
The door opened to its full width; the candle flared in the draught of
night wind, smoked, flickered, then burned steadily. A little, old man
stood in the hallway; his huge shadow wavered beside him on the wall.
It was the Weasel!
The cuffs of his coat, guiltless of lace, were too large for his
shrunken arms; his faded flowered waistcoat hung on his thin body like
a sack; yet his hair was curled and powdered over his sunken forehead.
On his colourless, wasted face a senile smile flickered; he laid his
withered hand on his breast and bowed to us, advancing to the
threshold.
With a gesture he welcomed us; he did not speak, but stood there
smiling his aged smile, expectant, silent, the pattern of threadbare
courtesy, the living spectre of hospitality.
"Cade!" whispered Mount, with ashy lips; "Cade, old friend! How came
you here?"
The Weasel's meaningless eyes turned on Mount; there was no light of
recognition in them.
"You are welcome, sir," said Renard, in the ghost of his old voice. "I
pray you enter, gentlemen; we keep open house, ah yes!--an old custom
in our family, gentlemen--you are welcome to Cambridge Hall, believe
me, most welcome."
The thin, garrulous chatter awoke petulant echoes through the silent
hall; he raised his childish voice and called out the names of
servants, long dead. The hollow house replied in echoes; the
candle-flame burned steadily.
"My servants are doubtless in their hall," he said, without
embarrassment; "that the office of hospitality devolves on me I must
count most fortunate. Pray, gentlemen, follow. The grooms will take
your horses to the stables."
Leading us into a room, where were a few chairs set close to a small,
shabby card-table, he begged us to be seated with a kindly smile, then
seated himself, and fell a-babbling of ancient days, and of people
long since in their graves, of his kennels and stables, of the days
when the world was younger, and hearts simpler, and true men loved
their King.
Nor could we check him, for he would smile and talk of the fleet in
the downs, and the fete to be given in Boston town when Sir Peter
Warren and his old sea-dogs landed to dine at Province House. And all
the while Jack Mount sat staring with tear-smeared eyes, and lips
a-quiver, and great fists clasped convulsively; and Foxcroft leaned,
elbow on knee, keen eyes watching the little madman who sat serenely
babbling of a household and a wife and a life that existed only in his
stricken brain.
His wines he brought us in cracked glasses--clear water from a spring
that was older than human woe, but, like his hospitality, unfailing.
At intervals he spoke to empty space, as though servants waited at his
back; and it was the "Blue Room" for Mr. Foxcroft, and the "South
Chamber" for "you, sir, Captain Mount, I believe, of his Majesty's
Grenadiers?" Oh, it was heart-breaking to see the agony in Mount's
eyes and the ghastly by-play of the little, withered man, the light of
whose mind had gone out, leaving a stricken body to be directed by the
spirit of a child.
Never shall I forget that candle-lit scene as I saw it: Mount, dumb
with grief, sitting there in his buckskins, rifle on knee and fox-skin
cap twisted in his great brown hands; Foxcroft, his black smalls
splashed with clay, his heavy, red face set in careworn lines; and the
little, shabby Weasel, in his mended finery, shrunken fingers
interlocked on his knee, smiling vacantly at us over a cracked glass
of spring-water, and dispensing hospitality with a mild benevolence
which was truly ghastly in its unconscious irony.
"What in God's name is he doing here?" I whispered to Foxcroft.
"Quiet," motioned Foxcroft, turning his head to listen. I, too, had
caught the sound of a light footfall on the stair. Instinctively we
all rose; the Weasel, muttering and smiling, ambled to the dark entry.
Then, out of the wavering shadows, into the candle-light, stepped a
young girl, whose clear hazel eyes met ours with perfect composure.
Her face was deadly white; her fingers rested in the Weasel's withered
palm; she saluted us with a slow, deep reverence, then raised her
steady eyes to mine.
"Silver Heels! Silver Heels!" I whispered.
Her eyes closed for a moment and she quivered from head to foot.
"My daughter, gentlemen," said the Weasel, tenderly; bending, he
touched her fingers with his shrivelled lips, smiling to himself.
Her gray eyes never left mine; I stepped forward; she gave a little
gasp as I took her hand.
"Who is this young man?" said the Weasel, mildly. "He is not Captain
Butler, dear--or my memory fails--ay," he babbled on, "it fails me
strangely now, and I had best sit quiet while younger heads think for
me. Yet, this young man is not Captain Butler, dear?"
"No, father."
In the silence I heard my heart beat heavily. A minute passed; the
Weasel peered at me with his dim eyes and clasped his daughter's hand
closely.
"Silver Heels! Silver Heels!" I cried, with a sob.
"Do you want me--now?" she whispered.
I caught her fiercely in my arms; she hung to me with closed eyes and
every limb a-tremble.
And, as I stood there, with my arms around her, and her face against
mine, far away I heard the measured gallop of a horse on the highway,
nearer, nearer, turning now close outside the house, and now
thundering up to the porch.
Instantly Jack Mount glided from the room; Foxcroft, listening,
silently drew his pistol; I reached out for my rifle which leaned
against the chair, and, striking the butt heavily against the floor,
glanced at the pan. The rifle had primed itself.
Then I turned smiling to Silver Heels.
"Do you know who is coming?" I asked.
"Yes."
I stepped to the centre of the room; the door opened gently; a
motionless shape stood there in the moonlight, the shape of my enemy,
Walter Butler.