THE UNEXPECTED.
Peyton's somewhat elate exit from the parlor was followed by a moment
of silence and inertia on the part of the three who remained there.
But Elizabeth's chagrin was speedily translated into anger against
Major Colden.
"Why didn't you fight him?" she demanded of that gentleman, who was
flinching inwardly, but who maintained a pale and haughty exterior.
"What was the use?" he replied. "He's reserved for the gallows. If my
two men were here! Why not send your servants after him? Sam is a
powerful fellow, and Williams is shrewd and strong."
Elizabeth ignored Colden's reply, and answered her own question,
thus:
"It was because you remembered the time he disarmed you, three years
ago."
"You may think so, if you choose," he replied, in the patient manner
of one who quietly endures unjust reproaches when self-defence is
useless.
"You will find refreshments in the dining-room," said Elizabeth,
coldly. "Sam will show you to your room."
"I would rather remain with you," he replied.
"I would rather be alone with my aunt a while."
A deep sigh expressed his dejecting sense of how futile it would be to
oppose her.
"As you will," he then said, and, bowing gravely, left the parlor.
Elizabeth's feelings now burst out.
"Oh," she exclaimed to her aunt, "what a chicken-hearted copy of a
man! And he calls himself a soldier! I wonder where he found the
spirit to volunteer!"
"From you, my dear," replied Miss Sally. "Didn't you urge him to take
a commission?"
"And that rebel fellow had the best of it all through," Elizabeth went
on. "I was to see him laid low by his rival, as my crowning revenge!
How he swaggered out! with what a look of triumph in his eye!
And--aunt Sally! He won't come back! I shall never see him again!"
"Why, child, do you wish to?"
"Of course not! But I can't have him go away with the laugh on his
side! He made me ridiculous after my trying to stab him with my love
for the other man. _Such_ another man! Oh, the rebel must come back!"
"But he isn't likely to," said Miss Sally.
"Oh, what shall I do?" wailed the niece.
"Elizabeth, I'll wager you're still in love with him!"
"I'm not! I hate him!--Well, what if I am? He loved me, I'm sure, the
last time he said it. But, good heavens, he's going farther away every
instant!"
She clasped her hands, and, for once, looked at her aunt for help,
like a distressed child on the verge of weeping.
"Why don't you call him back?" said Miss Sally.
"I? Not if I die for want of seeing him!--I know! I _will_ send the
servants after him." And she started for the door, but stopped at her
aunt's comment:
"But that will be as bad as calling him yourself."
"Not at all, you empty pate!" cried Elizabeth, who had become, in a
moment, all action. "While he's going around by the road, Williams and
Sam shall cut across the garden, lie in wait, and take him by
surprise. He has no weapon but a broken sword, and they can make him
prisoner. They shall bring him back here bound, and he'll think he's
to be turned over to the British after all!"
"But what then?"
"Why, he shall be left alone here, well guarded, for half an hour,
and then I'll happen in, give him an opportunity to make love again,
and I can yield gracefully! Don't you see?"
"Then you _do_ love him?" said the aunt.
"I don't know. However, I don't love Jack Colden. Not a word to him,
of this! I'm going to give orders to the men."
As she entered the hall, she met Colden, who was coming from the
dining-room with Mr. Valentine. The major had limited his refreshments
to two glasses of brandy and water, swallowed in quick succession. Mr.
Valentine, who was smoking his pipe, held Colden fraternally by the
arm.
"What, Elizabeth, are you still angry?" said Colden, stopping as she
passed.
"Excuse me, I have something to see to," said the girl, coolly,
hurrying away from him.
He made a slight movement to follow her, but old Valentine drew him
into the parlor, saying:
"Come, major, you'll see the lady enough after she's married to you. I
was just going to say, the last lot of tobacco I got--"
"Oh, damn your tobacco!" said the other, jerking his arm from the old
man's tremulous grasp.
"Damn my tobacco?" echoed Mr. Valentine, quite stupefied.
"Yes. I've matters more important on my mind just now."
"The deuce!" cried the old man. "What could be more important than
tobacco?"
And he stood looking into the fire, muttering to himself between
furious puffs.
Colden sought comfort of Miss Sally. "Was ever a woman as unreasonable
as Elizabeth?" he said to her. "She'd have had me lower myself to meet
that rebel vagabond as one gentleman meets another."
But Miss Sally was not going to betray her own disappointment by
showing a change from her oft-expressed opinion of the rebel
captain,--particularly in the presence of Mr. Valentine. So she
answered:
"You met him so once, three years ago."
"I had a less scrupulous sense of propriety then," replied Colden,
raging inwardly.
"But, as he's a rebel and deserter," pursued Miss Sally, "was it not
your duty as a soldier to take him, just now?"
"I'd have done so, had my men been here," growled the major.
"Elizabeth ought to've had her servants hold him. I had half a mind to
order them, in the King's name, but I never can bring myself to oppose
her, she's so masterful! By George, though, I'll have him yet! My two
fellows will soon come up. They shall give chase. He will leave tracks
in the snow."
Colden went to the window, and peered out as Peyton himself had done
not long before. The flakes were coming down as thick as ever.
"I don't see my rascals yet!" he muttered. "They've stopped at the
tavern, I'll warrant."
And he continued to gaze eagerly out, impatient that his men should
arrive before the new-fallen snow should cover his enemy's tracks.
Old Mr. Valentine, having exhausted his present stock of mutterings,
now walked over to Miss Sally, who had sat down near the spinet.
"Miss Williams," said he, "this is the first chance I've had to speak
to you alone in a week."
"But we're not alone," said Miss Sally, motioning her head towards
Colden.
"He's nobody," contemptuously replied the octogenarian. "A man that
damns tobacco is nobody. So you may go ahead and speak out. What's
your answer, ma'am?"
"Oh, Mr. Valentine, not now! You must give me time."
"That's what you said before," he complained.
She had, indeed, said it before, scores of times.
"Well, give me more time, then," she replied.
"How much?" asked the old man, in a matter-of-fact way.
"Oh, I don't know! Long enough for me to make up my mind."
Thus far, this conversation had followed in the exact lines of many
that had preceded it, but now Mr. Valentine made a departure from the
customary form.
"I think," said he, "if my other two wives had taken as long as you to
make up their minds, I shouldn't have been twice a widower by now."
"Oh, Mr. Valentine!" said Miss Sally, in a sweetly reproachful way.
"Now you know--"
But he cut her speech off short. "Very likely," said he. "I don't
know. Well, take your time. Only please remember I haven't so very
much time left! Better take me while I'm here to be had! Good night,
ma'am!" And he went to the dining-room to fortify himself for his long
homeward walk through the snow.
In crossing the hall, he saw Cuff on the settle in Sam's place. In the
dining-room he met Molly, who was clearing the table of the supper
that Colden had disdained. He asked her the whereabouts of Williams,
and she replied that the steward and Sam had gone out on some order of
Miss Elizabeth's. Deciding to await Williams's return, the old man sat
down before the dining-room fire, and was soon peacefully snoring.
Elizabeth had gone up-stairs to watch from her darkened window the
issue of the expedition of Williams and Sam, who had gone out by the
kitchen, equipped respectively with rope and pistol. While they were
in the immediate vicinity of the house, she could not see them from
her elevation, but presently she beheld them glide swiftly across a
white open space in the garden, cross a stile, and disappear among the
trees and bushes between the garden and the post-road. Turning her
eyes to the road itself, that lonely highway now called Broadway,[9]
she made out a solitary figure toiling forward through the whirling
whiteness,--and she gave a sigh, the deepest and longest with which
her frame had ever trembled.
Meanwhile Miss Sally remained in the parlor, thinking it best not to
go to Elizabeth unless sent for; while Colden continued to stand at
the window, showing his impatience for the arrival of his two soldiers
in a tense contracting of the brow, in a restless shifting from foot
to foot, and in intermittent stifled curses.
As he kept his eyes on the place where the branch road left the
highway, he did not see that part of the lawn walk which led from the
garden. But suddenly a slight noise drew his look towards the portico
before the east hall.
"Who are these coming?" he cried, startling Miss Sally out of her
musings and her chair.
"Are they your men?" she asked, hastening to join him at the window.
"No, mine are mounted," said he. "Why,--these are Williams and
Sam,--and they are bringing,--yes, it is he! They're bringing him back
a prisoner! She has done it, after all, without consulting me!" And he
strode to the centre of the room, in the utmost elation.
Miss Sally weakened at the imminent prospect of a meeting between the
two enemies in the changed circumstances, and felt the need of her
niece's support.
"I must tell Elizabeth they have him," she said, and ran out to the
east hall, and thence to the dining-room, just in time to avoid seeing
Peyton led in through the outer door, which Cuff had opened at
Williams's call.
The steward and Sam conducted their prisoner immediately into the
parlor. There Colden stood, with a rancorously jubilant smile, to
receive him.
Peyton's wrists were as Williams had tied them. He was without his
hat, which had been knocked off in a brief struggle he had essayed
against his captors in a moment when Sam had lowered the pistol. There
was a little fresh snow on his hair, and more on his shoulders. The
feet of his boots were cased with it. His left arm was held by
Williams, who carried the broken sword, having taken it from the
scabbard at the first opportunity. Peyton's other arm was grasped by
the huge, bony left hand of Sam, who held the cocked pistol in his
right. The two men walked with him to the centre of the parlor, and
stopped.
"By George," said he, turning his face towards Sam, with fire in his
eyes, "had the snow not killed the sound of your sneaking footsteps
till you'd caught my arms behind, I'd have done for the two of you!"
"Good, Williams!" said Colden. "Place him on that chair, and leave him
here with me. But stay in the hall on guard."
"So Miss Elizabeth ordered us, sir," said Williams, dryly, and, with
Sam, conducted Peyton to the chair, on which he sat willingly.
"Of course she did," replied Colden. "Was it not at my suggestion?"
Peyton looked sharply up at the major, who regarded him with the
undisguised pleasure of hate about to be satisfied.
Williams handed the broken sword to Colden, saying, "This was the only
weapon he had, sir. We grabbed him before he could use it. We ran out
behind him from the roadside, and he couldn't hear us for the snow."
"Ay, or the pair of you couldn't have taken me!" said Peyton, with hot
scorn and defiant gameness.
Colden, with the piece of sword, motioned Williams to go from the
room.
"Leave the door ajar a little," he added, "so you can hear if I
call."
Peyton uttered a short laugh of derision at this piece of prudence.
The steward and Sam withdrew to the hall, where Sam remained, while
Williams went in search of Elizabeth for further orders. As soon as
she had assured herself, by watching and listening, that Peyton was
safe in the parlor, she had stolen quietly down-stairs to the
dining-room, where she had met her aunt, with whom the steward now
found her sitting. She told him to get the duck-gun, make sure it was
loaded and primed, and to wait with Sam on the settle in the hall. She
then requested her aunt to remain in the dining-room, silently
returned to the hall, and took station by the door leading from the
parlor,--the door which Williams, at Colden's command, had left
slightly ajar. Her original plan, she felt, might have to be altered
by reason of Colden's having obtruded his hand into the game, a
possibility she had not, in roughly sketching that plan, taken into
account. It was in order to have the guidance of circumstance, that
she now put herself in the way of hearing, unseen, what might pass
between the two men. Meanwhile, through the snow-storm, Colden's two
soldiers, who had indeed tarried at the tavern for the heating up of
their interiors, were blasphemously urging their sleepy horses towards
the manor-house.
In the parlor, the two enemies were facing each other, Peyton on his
chair, his tied wrists behind him, Colden standing at some distance
from him, holding the broken sword. As soon as they were alone, Peyton
uttered another one-syllabled laugh, and said:
"The hospitality of this house beats my recollection. One is always
coming back to it."
"You'll not come back the next time you leave it!" said Major Colden,
his eyes glittering with gratified rancor.
"And when shall that time be?" asked Peyton, airily.
"As soon as two of my men arrive, whom I outrode on my way hither
to-night. They attended me out of New York. I shall be generous and
give them over to you, to attend you _into_ New York."
"Thanks for the escort!"
"'Tis the only kind you rebels ever have, when you enter New York,"
sneered the major.
"We shall enter it with an escort of our own choosing some day! And a
sorry day that for you Tories and refugees, my dear gentleman!"
"But if that day ever comes, _you'll_ have been rotting underground a
long time,--and thanks to _me_, don't forget that!"
"Thanks to _her_, you coward!" cried Peyton. "'Twas she that sent her
servants after me! You didn't dare try taking me, alone!"
"Bah!" said Colden, hotly, "I might have pistolled you here
to-night"--and he placed his hand on the fire-arm in his belt--"but
for the presence of the ladies!"
"Was it the ladies' presence," retorted Peyton, contemptuously, "or
the fact that you're a devilish bad shot?"
Neither man heard the door moved farther open, or saw Elizabeth step
through the aperture to the inner side of the threshold, where she
stopped and watched. Peyton's back was towards her, and Colden's rage
at the last words was too intense to permit his eyes to rove from its
object.
"Damn you!" cried the major. "I'd show you how bad a shot I am, but
that I'd rather wait and see you on the gallows!"
"Will _she_ come to see me there, I wonder?" said Peyton, half
thoughtfully. "She ought to, for it's her work sends me there, not
yours! 'Twill not be _your_ revenge when they string me up, my jolly
friend!"
Taunted beyond all self-control, the Tory yelled:
"Not mine, eh? Then I'll have mine now, you dog!"
With that, he strode forward and struck Harry a fierce blow across the
face with the flat side of Harry's own broken sword.
Harry merely blinked his eyes, and did not flinch. He turned pale,
then red, and in a moment, first clearing his voice of a slight
huskiness, said, quietly:
"That blow I charge against you both,--the lady as well as you!"
Colden had stepped back some distance after delivering the blow.
Something in Harry's answer seemed to infuriate still further the
devil awakened in the Tory's body, for he cried out:
"The lady as well as me,--yes! And this, too!"
And he advanced on Peyton, to strike a second time.
"Stop! How dare you?"
The cry was Elizabeth's. It startled Colden so that he loosened his
hold of the broken sword before he could deliver the blow. At that
instant, she caught his arm in her one hand, the sword-guard in her
other. She tore the weapon from his grasp, and faced him with a
countenance as furious as his own.
"What do you mean?" he cried.
For answer she struck him in the face with the flat of the sword, as
he had struck Peyton. "You sneak!" she said.
He recoiled, and stood staring, a ghastly image of bewilderment and
consternation. After a moment he turned livid.
"Ah! I see now!" he gasped. "You love him!"
"Yes!" came the answer, prompt and decided.
He gazed at her with such an expression as a painter of hell might
put into the face of a lost soul, and he said, faintly, in a kind of
articulate moan:
"I might have known!"
Suddenly there came from the outer night the exclamation, quick and
distinct:
"Whoa!"