HOW LOVERS ARE CONVINCED
Nothing is more impossible than to predict what one's emotions will be
in any given crisis. If any one had told Christopher Neville that lying
in a shed under accusation of murder, believed guilty by his lady love,
cast off by his friend, his most acute sensation would be envy of the
tobacco which the sentry was smoking outside the door, he would have
laughed the prophet to scorn; yet so it was.
The nervous strain, added to the cold of the tobacco-house, was more
than he could bear, and beyond any spiritual help he craved physical
stimulant, something to make "a man of him" again, to give him back
that courage and coolness which had never yet deserted him, but which
he felt now slipping away fast.
At length he felt shame at such loss of manhood, and began to take
himself to task.
"Come, now, Christopher Neville, thou sourfaced son of ill fortune!" he
said aloud, as if talking to another person, "state thy woes, one by
one, and I will combat them with what heart I may. Begin then!--What
first?"
"I am in prison."
"Where many a better man has been before thee. In a palace thou mightst
be in worse company."
"I am cold."
"Walk about!"
"I am hungry."
"Pull down yonder tobacco-leaf and chew it."
"My friends have forsaken me."
"So did Job's."
"My sweetheart has turned the cold shoulder to me."
"Then do thou turn thy back full to her. Use thy reason, man alive!
Hast thou lived to nigh forty years, to be hurt like a boy by a woman's
inconstancy? Laugh at her, revile her if thou wilt, rip out round
oaths; but, an thou be not quite demented, put not thy courage beneath
the foot of her scorn!"
"But I love her."
"Ah, poor fool! There thou hast me. Thou knowst well I have no balm in
my box to medicine that hurt. Yet what can't be cured, may be forgot,
for a while at least. Wine would do it. Perchance tobacco may--Curse
that guard! How good his pipe smells!--I would I had one."
Neville had never yet failed of a benefit for lack of asking, so now he
set up a tattoo with his fists on the wall.
"What's wanted within there?" came gruffly from the guard.
"What would you want if you'd been shut up in this cold hole for a
night and a day?"
"I might _want_ ortolans and pheasants and a bottle of old Madeira; but
if I was a murderer, and as good as a dead man myself, I shouldn't look
to get them--not in _this_ world."
Neville kept his temper. It was all he had left.
"Maybe not; but if you saw a fellow outside, with a pipe in his mouth
and a tobacco pouch in his pocket, and another pipe bulging out at the
breast of his jerkin, it's likely you'd count on his taking pity on the
poor devil locked up inside, and giving him a bit smoke."
The guard weakened visibly. Neville could see through the crack that
he half turned and put his hand irresolutely to his pocket. Then he
straightened himself more rigidly.
"How do I know but you want to set the tobacco-house afire? And then
off you'd be, and 'tis I must answer for you to the Governor--a just
man, but hard on one that fails in his duty."
"Come, then," called Neville more cheerfully, feeling his point half
won; "why not come in and smoke with me? Then you can keep an eye on
me and the tobacco together, and it will be a comfort to me to have
speech of a fellow mortal instead of being tormented by my cursed
unpleasant thoughts."
Truth to tell, the guard was nearly as weary of solitude as his
prisoner. This walking up and down in the dusk from one pine-tree
to another was not lively work, and besides, there was a compelling
magnetism in Neville's voice that had charmed stronger men than the
guard, Philpotts.
Slowly, and with a certain reluctance to yield characteristic of
Englishmen, and quite independent of the value of the thing conceded,
he drew the heavy bolt and entered.
The interior of the shed, for it was scarcely more, was dismal enough
in the half light. The long tobacco leaves hanging from the beams
suggested mourner's weeds, and waved ominously in the wind as the door
was opened. Daylight still peeped in through the chinks. By its help
Neville studied the heavy outlines of the guard's figure clad in a sad
colored campaign coat lined with blue and surmounted by a montero cap
which shaded a pock-marked face, a typical English face, square cut,
obstinate, with persistence and loyalty writ large all over it.
"Pardon my not rising," said Neville, as if he were receiving a
courtier. "The cold and dampness of this place have given me the rheum
to such extent that each bone in my body hath its own particular pain.
If I kneel my knees ache, if I sit my hips ache, if I bend my back
aches."
"Marry," interrupted the jailer, with a coarse laugh; "'tis well you
are to try hanging, which will rest them all."
"You have a very pretty wit, jailer, and so keen one would say it had
been sharpened on an English whetstone. The French have no gift for
such rapier thrusts."
"Oh, to Hell with the French!"
"Hell must be crammed full of foreigners. We English are always sending
them there."
"No doubt you'll know soon."
"Very likely. If I do, I'll send you word--and by the way, so that I
may not forget, what is your name?"
"Philpotts."
"Ah! Related to Robert Philpot of Kent?"
"No; no such fine folk in our line. Besides, my name is Philpotts."
"One _l_ and two _t's_?"
"That same," replied the guard laconically, having no mind to be drawn
into too friendly intercourse.
"A droll name!"
"None too droll for many an honest man to bear it."
"Pardon me, I doubt not the honesty; but I question whether there be
many Philpottses floating round the world. I never knew but one, and he
lived in Somerset."
"Somerset?"
"Ay, in a little village on the coast between the Mendip hills and the
river Axe."
A look of recollection stole into the dull gray eyes, but still the
shrewd self-restraint lingered.
"How did the village lie, and what is its name?"
"Its name is Regis, and it lies like a baby in a cradle, snugly tucked
away in the dip of the hills; and there is a brook close beside it that
comes tumbling over the rocks to lose itself in the Axe."
Philpotts nodded unconscious assent.
"Oh," continued Neville, "but I would like to see that river Axe once
more! I do remember a famous pool where the fish leaped to the hook in
the spring in a fashion to make a man's blood sing."
"Did ye know Philpotts, then?"
"Ay."
"What mought his first name ha' been?"
"James--James Philpotts. He had a farm of my father, and he and I were
wont to go a-fishing together in the Axe, and one cold day he fell in.
He couldn't swim, if I remember; and how like a drowned rat he did look
when he got out!"
At the memory, in spite of all his troubles, Neville laughed aloud.
Philpotts slowly laid down his pipe, and propped it against a board,
determined, before yielding to emotion, to attend to the safety of the
tobacco-house. Then striding over to Neville he seized his hand in his
own two brawny ones with a grip that made the other man wince.
"Swim? no, that he couldn't, and it's his life and all he owes to you,
sir, and he bade me look out for you in the New World and pay back the
service an ever I got the chance; but 'twas the name misled me,--'Jack
Neville,' says my brother; 'Christopher Neville,' says the Governor in
the manor-house yesterday."
"Ay, my name is Christopher; but as I had a cousin who bore the same,
and who was often at Frome for months at a time, the family were wont
to call me 'Jack,' after my father."
"So--thou--art--the son of Master John Neville of Frome House?"
The words came hard, as if forced out.
Philpotts stood looking at the prisoner till slowly the mouth began to
work, two tears slipped out from his eyelids and slid down his nose.
He put up the sleeve of his jerkin to wipe them off, and then, fairly
overcome, leaned against his arm on the post in the corner and fell to
sobbing aloud.
"Forgive me blubbering, sir; but, oh, to see you in this sorry case,
and me a-guarding you that should be helping you to escape. Shame on
them that shut up an innocent man and planned his ruin!"
"An innocent man?" queried Neville; "why, 'tis not five minutes since
that I was a murderer unfit to share an honest man's pipe."
"God ha' mercy on my blind stupidity! I see not how I could ha' looked
in your face and not seen that 'twas na' in those eyes to look on a man
to murder him nor in that mouth to swear falsely."
"Not so fast, Philpotts! Many a saint has had the ill luck to look like
a pirate, and I was thrown in with a man in Algiers that I would have
shared my last crust with, and he stole my wallet and made off with it
in the night."
"Well, mebbe it's because I'm not of the quality and have no book
learning, but when I feel things in my bones I don't question of them;
and now my eyes are open and I see you're innocent, I'm going to help
you out of this hole."
"But the danger--"
"To Hell with the danger! There never was a Philpotts yet was a coward."
"But your farm is well started here."
"Let it go to seed, then. It's little good there is for a Protestant
in this Papist province, anyhow, and I'd not be sorry to be off to
Virginia. I've a boat on the river below. So you see there's nothing
between you and freedom."
"Yes, there is one thing."
"An' what's that, pray?"
As if in answer to the question came a rapid knock at the door outside.
The guard grasped his musket and marched once or twice up and down the
barn to recover his severe military bearing before he drew the door a
crack open.
"Who goes there?"
"It is I, Mistress Calvert, cousin to Governor Brent."
Neville's heart felt as if it were an anvil, and some unseen power were
laying on the hammer-strokes thick and fast. The blood surged to his
face, and then fell back again leaving it white. She had come. Was he
glad or sorry? Pride said, "You are sorry." Love whispered, "You are
glad--do not deny it." Pride answered, "Yes, glad of the chance to make
her sorry."
"I know not how to deny you, Mistress Calvert," came from without in
Philpotts' voice, "but my commands are that none should enter save by
the Governor's orders."
"Uncivil fellow!" Neville instinctively felt for his sword, and would
have made a trial of his strength without it, but that on the instant
he heard that voice, the voice that could make little shivers run from
head to foot.
"You are in the right, as usual, good Master Philpotts, and foreseeing
that you could not be swayed without the Governor's order, the
Governor's order I have brought for a half-hour's talk with the
prisoner, you meanwhile to be within call, but not within hearing. See!
is't not writ as I have said?" she asked, holding the paper toward him.
"I am not such a churl as to dispute a lady's word," said Philpotts,
glad in this chivalrous manner to evade a too severe strain on his
powers of reading a written document. "The Governor's order shall be
obeyed," and swinging back the door he closed it again behind him and
resumed his march from the green pine-tree to the brown one, and from
the brown tree back again to the green, watching the yellow sun set
behind the distant hills. His taciturnity yielded at last to the extent
of one exclamation, "By the Lord Harry, what a coil!"
As Elinor Calvert entered she threw back her sable hood, and her pale,
beautiful face, surrounded by its golden hair, shone like the moon
against the dark setting of the tobacco-hung rafters. Her only ornament
was the diamond crescent at her throat, which glistened as a ray of the
setting sun struck upon it. Her eyes were full of unshed tears, and her
lips trembled so that she could scarcely control them enough to utter
the words she had come to speak. Her hands were clenched tightly, as
if by that force alone she held to her resolution.
Inside the door she waited for some word of welcome or greeting. She
put up her hand to her throat as if to ease the sorrow which was rising
and swelling within. By accident her fingers grasped the crescent, and
she clung to it as to a talisman. Neville made no step toward her. He
stood leaning against the wall, his arms folded before him. It was as
if she were the criminal and he the judge. The silence was intolerable
to Elinor.
"Speak to me!" she cried at last, stretching out her hands toward him.
Her voice betrayed a dry anguish in the throat, and her breath came in
quick, short gasps.
"Are you come as Governor Brent's messenger?"
Elinor shivered as though his tone had more chill in it than the
January air, but her own was equally haughty as she answered,--
"I come by permission of my kinsman, who never deserts a friend."
"No, faith! since when the friend needs help he ceases to be one."
"Your words are brutal."
"Perchance. I have not been trained by your Fathers to mean one thing
and say another."
Elinor felt for her hood as though she would have drawn it over her
head again and left without another word; then changing her mind, she
advanced nearer.
"This is not a kind greeting," she said, "for one who comes to help
you."
"If I were not past help I might have spoke more kindly."
"Oh, but you are not past help. And that is what the Governor bade me
say, that it is not too late; that he knows Father Mohl pricked you
past endurance, and that he will move heaven and earth to get you off
if you will but confess, so that no innocent man may suffer."
Neville bowed with ironical courtesy.
"You will give me an answer to take to him?"
"I have given Governor Brent my answer once."
"Oh, think! Do not send me away hastily. Think what is before you,--the
chains, the prison, the--the _scaffold_."
Neville smiled.
"Have you no feeling? How _can_ you smile?"
"Was I smiling? I suppose I was following your words and picturing the
scenes you called up, especially the last. I was thinking about the
fellows who would make the noose fast and swing me off, fancying, poor
fools, that they had killed me. How little they would know that the
death came off weeks before, and was dealt by one glance from a pair of
purple-gray eyes that said in yonder court-room, 'I count you guilty.'"
"Stay not to bandy phrases!" interrupted Elinor, swaying a little
unsteadily on her feet. "Talk no more of guilt or innocence; but let us
look about for another plan of escape since you will not trust Giles
Brent. Look, I am near as tall as you. I measured height the evening
you stood by me at the fire. You have fair hair, too, like mine. Let us
change attire, and you in my cloak shall slip out yonder door."
"And you?"
"What matter what befalls me? As you say yourself, I have got my death
wound already."
"But your boy--Cecil."
"There are others who will care for him. Mary Brent loves him as her
own, and Giles will look to him for my sake."
Neville started; he had never thought before of that possibility of
Brent's having once loved Elinor, yet why not, when none could be near
her and not feel the magic of that charm before which even now his
pride was ebbing fast; but this thought stung him to new haughtiness.
"You and your cousin have been equally at fault in your judgment of
me," he said, dryly. "I am as capable of murdering a priest as of
taking shelter behind a woman and leaving her to bear my punishment. If
I wished to escape I am not dependent upon your help. There are others,
tried and true and firm believers in my innocence, who have offered me
freedom, but my honor would not be clear. There is just one way out of
the present coil, and that road leads up the scaffold--and down again."
"No! No! No! I say it shall not be!" cried Elinor, carried beyond
herself in a burst of passion. "You must--you _shall_ get away from
this horrible place. Come!" she added with a smile, changing suddenly
from anger to sweetness--"come! you have oft said there was naught on
earth you would not do for my sake. Now what I ask is such a little
thing."
"I have heard of Jesuit methods," said Neville, as if speaking to
himself. "'Twas a shrewd trick when other shifts failed to tempt a man
through the woman he loved, the woman who had once loved him."
"_Had_ loved thee! Would to God the taunt were true! Have not faith and
reason grappled with each other through the long midnight hours, one
saying, 'He is innocent, you feel it;' and the other, 'He is guilty,
you know it'? And at the end, when both fell down conquered by the
combat, Love rose up greater than either and took me by the throat and
brought me here. Listen, Christopher! If you have done this thing _I_
have done it, for you and I are one. If you are put to death I will end
my life by my own hand, and then we shall be together to all eternity;
and what matter if the priests call it Hell!"
Neville took a step forward. Falling on his knees at her feet he raised
the hem of her dress to his lips and kissed it once, twice, thrice.
"Oh, Elinor! Oh, my darling!" he murmured, "this is love indeed,
perfect love which passeth understanding; but oh, how, how,"--with this
he rose and strode impatiently up and down the floor--"how can you love
me like this and still doubt me? You have known me these many years,
you have seen me go in and out among my fellows, surely not like a
cutthroat and assassin. You have seen me raise my hand to Heaven and
swear in that high presence to my innocence, and still you condemn me.
What in God's name can I do or say more?"
[Illustration]
He fixed his eyes upon Elinor, whose whole frame shook with the force
of the feeling that swayed her. The blood rushed up and overflowed her
face and neck, and her voice sank to a whisper as she leaned toward
him and murmured,--
"I think--I think if you were to take me in your arms and whisper it in
my ear, I--even I--should believe--and be at peace."