| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Road to Paris
Author: Stephens, Robert Neilson, 1867-1906
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Road to Paris" ***
THE ROAD TO PARIS
BY
R. N. STEPHENS
[Illustration]
Works of
ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS
An Enemy to the King
(Sixth Thousand)
The Continental Dragoon
(Fifth Thousand)
The Road to Paris
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY, Publishers
(Incorporated)
196 Summer St., Boston, Mass.
THE ROAD TO PARIS
[Illustration: "A WILD THRUST BETRAYED THAT HIS EYE WAS NO
LONGER TRUE."
(_See page 536._)]
THE ROAD TO PARIS
A Story of Adventure
BY
ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS
AUTHOR OF
"AN ENEMY TO THE KING"
"THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON," ETC.
Illustrated by
H. C. EDWARDS
"Hark how the drums beat up again
For all true soldiers, gentlemen;
Then let us 'list and march away
Over the hills and far away."
--_Old Song._
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
1898
_Copyright, 1898_
By L. C. Page and Company
(INCORPORATED)
_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U.S.A.
"_D'Artagnan ... touched the earth, moistened with the evening
dew, with the ends of his fingers, crossed himself as if at the
holy-water vessel of a church, and retook alone--ever alone--the
road to Paris._"
--THE VISCOUNT OF BRAGELONNE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION ix
I. A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 1
II. "OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY" 21
III. AT THE SIGN OF THE GEORGE 50
IV. OF A BROKEN SABBATH AND BROKEN
HEADS 72
V. FROM BROADWAY TO BUNKER HILL 92
VI. THE WIND OF CIRCUMSTANCE 118
VII. THE MARCH THROUGH MAINE 150
VIII. WITHIN THE WALLS OF QUEBEC 175
IX. THE INCIDENTS OF A SNOWY NIGHT 201
X. "BY FLOOD AND FIELD" 227
XI. THREE WHIMSICAL GENTLEMEN AND A
BEAUTIFUL LADY 257
XII. THE DEVIL TO PAY AT THE PELICAN INN 288
XIII. "UP AND DOWN IN LONDON TOWN" 323
XIV. "FAIR STOOD THE WIND FOR FRANCE" 352
XV. AN ELOPEMENT FROM A DILIGENCE 376
XVI. PASTORAL AND TRAGEDY 401
XVII. "STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON
MAKE" 426
XVIII. DICK GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN
SHOOTING 452
XIX. THE FAVOR OF A PRINCE 474
XX. THE HONOR OF A LADY-IN-WAITING 499
XXI. "THE ROAD TO PARIS" 524
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
"A WILD THRUST BETRAYED THAT HIS EYE WAS NO
LONGER TRUE" _Frontispiece_
"THE NEWCOMER WAS APPARENTLY ABOUT FORTY
YEARS OLD" 36
"IT WAS THE MAN SENT BY ARNOLD" 223
"BEARING THE SWOONING FORM OF AMABEL" 294
"'OH, YOU HAVE A VISITOR! MON DIEU, SILVIUS!'" 431
"FREDERICK II. RECOILED A STEP OR TWO" 518
INTRODUCTION.
"With our company of riflemen that marched in Arnold's army through the
Maine wilderness to attack Quebec, there was a sergeant's wife, a large
and sturdy woman, no common camp-follower, but decent and respected, who
one day, when the troops started to wade through a freezing pond, of
which they broke the thin ice coating with the butts of their guns,
calmly lifted her skirts above her waist and strode in, and so kept the
greater part of her clothes dry in crossing. Not a man of us made a
jest, or even grinned, so natural was her action in the circumstances. I
have often used this instance to show that what the world calls modesty
is a matter of time and place, and I now hold that too much modesty is
out of time and place when a man who has had more than a fair share of
remarkable experiences undertakes a true relation of the extraordinary
adventures that have befallen him. So, if the narrative on which I am
setting out be marred by any affectation, it will not be the affectation
of modesty.
"When I was a boy in our valley behind the Blue Mountains of
Pennsylvania, I used to read the 'True Travels, Adventures, and
Observations of Captain John Smith, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and
America, from 1593 to 1629,' and wonder whether I should ever have any
travels or adventures of my own to make a book of. When, afterwards, I
did go a travelling, and adventures did come thick and fast upon me, I
was too much engrossed in the travels and adventures themselves to give
a thought as to what matter they might be for narration. Not till this
breathing-place came in my life, did my boyhood dreams return to my
mind, and did I realize that my part in battle and imprisonment, danger
and escape, love and intrigue, would make a book that might be worth
fireside reading. That book I now begin, and shall probably finish it if
I be not interrupted by untimely death or by some new call to scenes of
enterprise and turmoil,--for it is no retired veteran, but a man early
in his twenties, that here tries whether with pen and ink he can make as
fair a show as he has already made with implements less peaceful."
The foregoing lines constitute the first two paragraphs of a book
entitled "The Travels and Adventures of Richard Wetheral, in America,
England, France, and Germany, in the years 1775, 1776, 1777, and 1778,"
of which it happens, by strange circumstance, that I possess the only
copy. The title-page shows that it was published by (or "printed for")
J. Robson, Bookseller, in New Bond Street, London, in 1785. The three
brown 16mo volumes first caught my glance when they lay with a heap of
ragged books on a board before a second-hand shop in Twenty-sixth
Street, there being attached to the board a weather-beaten square of
pasteboard, bearing the legend, "Your choice for ten cents." Not until I
had paid the dealer thirty cents and separated the three volumes forever
from their musty companions, which were mostly of a theological
character, did I discover, by parting a blank leaf from the adjacent
cover, to which it had long been sticking, that the book was a treasure,
for which the dealer would have charged me as many dollars as I had paid
cents, had he anticipated my discovery. The long-concealed page bore on
its brown-spotted surface an inscription, in eighteenth century
handwriting, turned yellow by age, signed by the author of the book, and
to the effect that he had caused his true narrative to be published
without his wife's knowledge, thinking this book might afford her a
pleasant surprise, but that the surprise with which she first perused it
was so far from pleasant, she had forthwith, in the name of modesty,
demanded its immediate suppression, which was at once accomplished by
her indulgent husband, who had preserved only this one copy for the
benefit of posterity. When I asked the bookseller how he had come by
the copy, he told me, after an investigation, that he had bought it with
a lot of religious books from the servant of a very old lady recently
deceased. The dealer had thought, from the company in which it came,
that the "travels and adventures" were those of some clergyman of a
hundred years ago, and he had placed the three much dilapidated volumes
among the ten-cent rubbish accordingly.
In giving this astonishing record of eighteenth century vicissitudes to
the world, I have two reasons for making myself the historian, and not
presenting the hero's book in his own correct and straightforward
English. The first reason is, the public has been so satiated recently
with novels told in the first person singular, that even a genuine
autobiography must at this time be swallowed, if at all, with some
nausea. The second reason is that the hero, writing only of his own
doings and his own witnessings and in his own day, necessarily omitted
many details, obtainable by me from other sources, and useful not only
for filling in the background of his narrative, but also that they throw
light on some points that were not quite clear to himself.
THE ROAD TO PARIS.
CHAPTER I.
A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS.
In the Jacobite army that followed Prince Charlie and shared defeat with
him at Culloden in 1746, were some who escaped hanging at Carlisle or
elsewhere by fleeing to Scottish ports and obtaining passage over the
water. A few, like the Young Chevalier himself, fled to the continent of
Europe; but some crossed the ocean and made new lives for themselves in
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other provinces. Two of these refugees,
tarrying not in the thickly settled strip of country along the Atlantic
coast, but pushing at once to the backwoods of Pennsylvania, were Hugh
Mercer, the young surgeon destined to die gloriously as an American
general thirty years later, and Alexander Wetheral, one of the few
Englishmen who had rallied to the Stuart standard at its last unfurling.
From Philadelphia, where they disembarked from the vessel that had
brought them from Leith, straight westward through Lancaster and across
the Susquehanna, the two young men made a journey which, thanks to the
privations they had to endure, was a good first lesson in the school of
wilderness life.
They arrived one evening at the wigwams of a Shawnee village on the
verge of a beaver pond, and were received in so friendly a manner by the
Indians that Wetheral decided to live for a time among them. Mercer,
joined by some other enterprising newcomers from the old country, went
farther westward; but the two friends were destined to meet often again.
Wetheral built himself a hut near the Indian village and indulged to the
full his love of hunting, fishing, and roaming the silent forest. Often
he saw other white men, for already the Scotch and Irish and English had
begun to build their cabins and to clear small fields on both sides of
the Susquehanna, across which river there were ferries at a few
infantile settlements. By 1750 so many other English and Scotch, some of
the men having their wives with them, had put up log cabins near
Wetheral's, and had cleared ground for farming all around, that the
settlement merited a name, and took that of Carlisle. The Indians,
succumbing to the inevitable, betook themselves elsewhere.
Wetheral, with all his love for the free life of the woods, welcomed
civilization, for he was of gentle birth and of what passed in those
days as good education, and had a taste for learning. His life was now
more diversified. He not only hunted and fished, but also cultivated a
few acres, and during a part of each year he did the duties of
schoolmaster to the settlement,--for the Scotch-Irish, like the Puritans
of New England, went in for book-learning. He sent the skins obtained by
him in the chase to Philadelphia by pack-horse, and sometimes, for the
sake of variety, accompanied them, passing, on the way, through the belt
of country industriously tilled by the growing German Protestant
population, and through that occupied by Quakers and other English, in
the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia. In his own neighborhood the
people of the best manners and information were Presbyterians, and in
course of time he came to count himself as one of them, less from
religious ideas than from a natural wish to associate himself with the
respectable and lettered element; for, much as he loved the roaming life
of the hunter, he was repelled by the coarseness and violence and ill
living of a certain class of nomadic frontiersmen who doubtless had good
reason to keep their distance from politer communities.
He was one of the Pennsylvanians who went as pioneers in Braddock's
fatal expedition, and on that he saw Colonel Washington. He marched with
his old friend, Hugh Mercer, in the battalion of three hundred men
under Col. John Armstrong, of Carlisle, in 1756, from Fort Shirley to
the Indian town of Kittanning, which the troops destroyed after killing
most of its hostile inhabitants. During a part of that year and of the
next, he served in the provincial garrison at Fort Augusta, far north
from Carlisle, and east of the Susquehanna.
Returning home when his period of enlistment was up, he stopped at the
large house of a prosperous English settler possessing part of a fine
island in the Susquehanna, fell in love with one of the settler's
daughters, prolonged his visit two weeks, proposed marriage to the
daughter, was accepted, spoke to her father, was by him violently
rejected and subsequently ejected, ran away with the girl, or rather
paddled away, for the means of locomotion in this elopement was an
Indian canoe, and was married in the settlement of Paxton, near John
Harris's ferry, by the Reverend John Elder.
As the young wife, who was kind of heart and wise of head, desired to be
near the roof whence she had fled, that a reconciliation might be the
more easily attempted, Wetheral traded off his field and cabin at
Carlisle, returned northward across the Kitocktinning mountains to the
neighborhood of his wife's former home, built a log house of two rooms
and a loft, near the left bank of the Juniata, a few miles above that
river's junction with the Susquehanna, and there, in the month of
April, 1758, he became the father of Richard Wetheral, the hero of this
book.
The child's arrival was aided by his maternal grandmother, who had
already melted towards the young couple, although her husband still held
out against them. The surgeon whom Mr. Wetheral had summoned from Fort
Hunter, which the settlers were garrisoning because of signs of an
Indian outbreak, arrived too late to do more than pronounce the boy a
healthy specimen and predict the speedy recovery of the mother, who was
indeed of sturdy stock. The household whose different members the
observant infant soon began to discriminate consisted of the father,
whose dauntless and hearty character has already been slightly
indicated; the mother, who was comely and strong in nature as in face
and form; a younger sister of the mother's, and a raw but ready youth
hired by the father to aid in working the little rude farm and in
protecting the family from any of the now rampant Indians who might
threaten it. For Mr. Wetheral's house was so near Fort Hunter that he
chose to stay and occupy it rather than to take refuge within the
stockade of the fort, which latter course was followed by many settlers
of the near-by valleys when the Indian alarm came in the month of our
hero's birth.
But the Wetherals were not molested by any of the Indians that roamed
the woods in small parties, in quest of the scalps of palefaces, during
the spring and summer of 1758. Often, though, there came news by horse
and canoe, and carried from settlement to settlement, from farm-cabin to
farm-cabin, of frequent depredations: how in York County Robert Buck was
killed and scalped at Jamieson's house and all the rest of its dwellers
were carried away; how, near at home, in Sherman's Valley, a woman was
horribly killed and scalped; how, in July, Captain Craig, riding about
seven miles from Harris's Ferry, was suddenly struck in the face by a
tomahawk thrown from ambush, put spurs to his horse and fled from his
yelling savage assailants, escaping by sheer speed of his animal, the
blood flowing from the huge gash cut in his cheek by the well-aimed
hatchet; how fared the soldiers who set off in search and pursuit of the
red-faced enemy, and who were none other than the hardiest of the
settlers themselves, accustomed to shoot Indians or bear, to burn out
rattlesnake nests, or to farm the ill-cleared land, as occasion might
require.
Thus the talk to which Dick Wetheral (for it was early settled that he
should be called Richard, a favorite name in his mother's family) became
accustomed, as soon as he knew what any talk meant, was of frightful
perils and daring achievements. Such talk continued throughout all his
childhood, though after 1758 the Indians were peaceful towards central
Pennsylvania until 1763.
The boy early showed an adventurous disposition. His first explorations,
conducted on all-fours, were confined to the two rooms on the ground
floor of the house, but at that stage of his career a journey to the end
of the kitchen from the extremity of the other apartment, which served
as parlor and principal bedroom, was one of length and incident. New
territory was opened to him to roam, on that eventful day when his aunt
carried him up the ladder to the loft, which was divided by a partition
into two rude sleeping-chambers, and in which he derived as great joy
from being set at large as Alexander would have drawn from the discovery
of a new world to conquer.
When the boy was in his second year, his world underwent a vast
enlargement. This came about through his father's building a house to
which the original log cabin of his birth became merely the rear wing.
The new structure, made of logs covered with rough-sawn planks, destined
to be annually whitewashed, provided two rooms on the ground floor, and
two bed-chambers overhead. One of these lower rooms communicated by a
door with the original log building, of which the ground floor was
transformed, by the removal of the partition, into one large kitchen.
From the new parlor a flight of stairs led to the room above, whence a
low door and a few descending steps gave entrance to the old loft, so
that the young explorer, by dint of long exertion, could reach the
second story unaided. And now his days were full of experiences. From
his favorite spot near the kitchen fireplace, to the farthest corner of
the spare bedroom down-stairs, by way of the parlor (which was
invariably called "the room"), was a trip sufficient for ordinary days.
But in times of extraordinary energy and ambition, the crawling Dick
would make the grand tour up the stairs and through the four
second-story apartments, which seemed countless in number, and each a
whole province in itself. So long ago was yesterday from to-day, at that
time of his life, that this immense journey was full of novelty to him
at each repetition, the adventures of one journey having been forgotten
before another could be undertaken. And these adventures were as
numerous as befell Christian in his Pilgrim's Progress. There were dark
corners, queer-looking articles of furniture seemingly with life and
expression, shadows of strange shapes, that made the young traveller
pause and hold his breath and half turn back, until reassured by the
sound of his aunt's voice calling to the chickens in the kitchen yard,
his father or the hired man sharpening his sickle or calling to the
plow-horse in the field beyond, or--most welcome and reassuring of
all--his mother singing at her work in the rooms below.
What a great evening was that when the little indoor explorer found a
fellow traveller! Dick was already in bed and asleep, having retired
somewhat against his will, as he would have preferred to remain up until
his father's return from a horseback journey on business down the river.
When he was awakened by his mother, on whose face he saw a smile that
promised something pleasant, he blinked once or twice in the
candle-light, and looked eagerly around. He saw his father standing near
his mother, and between the two a great black head whose long jaws were
open in a kind of merry grin of good-fellowship, and from between whose
white teeth protruded a red tongue that evinced an impulse to meet the
wondering Dickie's face half way. The boy gazed for a moment, then threw
out his hands towards the beaming face of the newcomer, and screamed
with gleeful laughter. A moment later the dog was licking the
youngster's face, while Dick, still laughing, was burying his fingers in
the animal's shaggy black coat. Thereafter, the boy Dick was attended on
all his expeditions by the dog Rover, and never were two more devoted
comrades. The dog was a mixture of Scotch collie and black spaniel, and,
though in size between those two breeds, looked a huge animal from the
view-point of two years. If Dick required less than the usual grown-up
assistance in learning to walk, it was because Rover was of just the
size to serve as a support.
Dick now began to make excursions outdoors. Of course he had already
spent much time in the open air, but always under the eye of some member
of the household. His previous travels from the house had, by this
guardianship, been robbed of the zest of adventure. The first trips
abroad that he made independently were clandestine. Thus, one afternoon
when the men were in the fields, and his aunt was busy tracing figures
in the fresh sand that had been laid on the parlor floor, he availed
himself of his mother's preoccupation over her spinning-wheel to sally
forth from the kitchen door with no other company than Rover. His
mother, humming a tune while she span, did not at first notice the
silence in that part of the kitchen where Dick's presence was usually
manifest to the ear. At last, the bark of Rover, coming with a note of
alarm from a distance of several rods beyond the kitchen door, roused
her to a sense of the boy's absence. With wildly beating heart she ran
out, and towards the sound, which came from beyond the fruit-trees and
wild grapevines that bounded the kitchen yard. She soon saw that Rover's
call for help had reason. Little Dick was leaning over the edge of a
deep spring, staring with amusement at his own image in the clear
shaded water. Who knows but the nymphs of the spring would have drawn
him in, as Hylas was drawn, had not the mother arrived at that moment,
for the boy was reaching out to grasp the face in the water when she
caught him by the waist?
Another time, it was not the warning bark of Rover, but the merest
accident, that rescued the boy from a situation as perilous. His aunt,
going into the little barn near the house, to look for eggs, saw him
sitting directly under one of the plow-horses in a stall, watching with
interest the movements of the animal's fore-feet, as they regularly
pawed the ground. On being taken back to the house, little Dick was made
to understand that solitary expeditions were forbidden, and in so sharp
a manner that thereafter he rarely violated orders. He was carefully
watched against the recurrence of temptation to travel. A constant
source of terror to the mother, on Dick's account, was the nearness of
the river, whose bed lay a few rods to the south, not far from the foot
of a steep bank which fell from the piece of ground on which the house
stood. This piece of ground was surrounded by a rude fence, and the boy
spent many a longing quarter of an hour in looking through the rails at
the river that flowed gently, with constant murmur, below. Between the
river and the bank ran what some called a road, what may have formerly
been an Indian trail, and what in Dick's time was really but a rough
path for horses. It led from the farms farther back up the river, behind
the azure mountains at the west, down to the more thickly settled
country beyond the mountains at the east, and afar it joined the road to
Lancaster and Philadelphia.
The boy's parents early taught him his letters, for the elder Wetheral
had brought a few books with his meagre baggage from the old country,
and had since acquired, from some of the settlers of the best class, a
few more, two by dying bequest, two by gift, and four or five by
purchase and trade. With the contents of some of these, Dick first
became acquainted through his father's reading aloud on Sundays and
rainy days, before the kitchen fire. One of these was Capt. John Smith's
account of his marvellous achievements. Strangely enough, or rather
naturally enough, the parts of this book that most interested Dick were
not where Smith told of his adventures with Indians in America, but
where he related his doings in Europe; for Indians and primitive
surroundings were familiar matters to Dick, whereas accounts of the old
world had for him all that charm which a boy reared in the midst of
civilization finds in pictures of wilderness life. A few of the books
were illustrated with prints, which the boy studied by the hour. One of
these books was an odd volume of a history of the world, and contained
mainly that part which related to France. It had crude engravings of two
or three palaces, a few kings, three or four queens, a Catholic killing
a Huguenot in front of the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, a royal
hunt, and the Pont Neuf, backed by the towers of Notre Dame and flanked
by buildings along the Seine. These rough pictures, thanks to some
mysterious cause or other, exercised on little Dick a potent
fascination.
"Who is that?" he asked his mother one day, pointing to a wood-cut that
purported to portray a human being, as he lay sprawling on the floor,
his favorite book opened out before him.
"That is a king," replied his mother, looking down from her sewing. The
mother and the boy were alone in the kitchen.
"King David?"
"No; a king of France."
"King George?"
"No; King George is king of England, where your father came from, and
your grandfather, and of America, where we are. France is another
country."
"Where does this king live?" pointing to the wood-cut.
"He is dead now. He died long ago. He lived in a city called Paris, in
the country called France."
"Is that a house?" The boy had turned to a supposed picture of the
Louvre.
"Yes, a great, big house, a palace they call it, because it belongs to
the king."
"Did it belong to that king?"
"Yes, I think so. It is in the city where I told you that king lived,
Paris."
"Is this house in that city, too?" He indicated a building in the
picture that showed the Pont Neuf.
"Yes." The mother laid down her sewing and stooped beside the boy. "And
so is this house in Paris. And this. And this, too. All these houses are
in Paris."
"Do all these people live there, the pretty ladies and soldiers?"
"They all did, I suppose."
"How many houses are there in Paris?"
"Oh, a great many thousand."
"More than there are in Carlisle?"
"Oh, yes! A hundred times more."
"Where is Paris?"
"Oh, very, very far away."
"Which way?"
"Why, that way, I think." She pointed towards the east. "Your father can
tell you exactly, when he comes in."
"How far away is it? As far as Carlisle?"
"Much farther than that. Your father can tell you."
"As far as Lancaster?"
"Oh, farther. Farther than Philadelphia. Away across land and water."
"As far away as the farthest mountains yonder, the blue ones against the
sky?" He had risen from the floor, and he pointed eastward through the
open kitchen doorway.
"Oh, yes. If you went clear across those mountains, you wouldn't be near
Paris yet."
"But if I went on and on, far enough, I'd get to Paris at last, wouldn't
I?"
"Yes, at last," said the mother, smiling, and drawing the boy to her and
kissing him, impelled by the mere thought of the separation his query
suggested to the fancy.
When she returned to her sewing, he continued looking for awhile towards
the distant east, then resumed his study of the pictures. At supper that
evening he made his father laugh by asking which way a body should go,
to get to Paris. His mother explained how his curiosity had been
aroused. His father, laughing again, and winking at the mother, said:
"Why, boy, a body would have to start by the road that goes down the
river to your grandfather's, that's certain. And if a body travelled
long enough, and never lost his way, yes, he would surely get to Paris
at the end."
"Would he be very tired when he got there?"
"Very tired, indeed, if he didn't rest several times on the way,"
replied Wetheral, Senior, keeping up the joke.
The next afternoon Dick's mother, having baked some cakes of a kind that
she knew her husband liked hot, sent some of them by the boy to the two
men in the field, which was not far from the house but was partly hidden
therefrom by the barn and out-buildings and some fruit-trees. Dick,
being now four years old, had often gone to the fields with his aunt or
mother when water or food had been carried out to the men at work, and
as the way did not lie near the river, there seemed no risk in sending
him now alone. When, after due time, he did not return to the house, the
two women supposed the men had kept him with them in the field. But this
was not the case. Mr. Wetheral and the hired man, having seen little
Dick tripping back towards the house, ate the cakes in the shade of a
tree and returned with sickles to their attack on the wheat, with no
thought of the boy but that he was now safe home. When they returned in
the evening for supper, their surprise in not finding him there was
reciprocated by that of the women at his not coming back with the men.
The dog, which had accompanied him to the field and from it, also was
missing. The men immediately started in search.
The boy by this time was some distance away. He had crawled through the
fence, near the barn, descended the declivity to the horse-path by the
river, turned his face eastward, and trudged resolutely on with Rover at
his heels. It was some time before he would admit to himself that he was
becoming a little tired, and that the stones and twigs in the way were
bruising his bare feet perceptibly. At last he conceded himself a short
rest, and, following Rover's example, leaned over where the bank was low
and the river shallow, and drank. He was soon up again and going
forward, forgetful of his former fatigue, and heedless that the sun
behind him was nearing the horizon. So long a time is a day to a child!
In the afternoon the doings of the morning are of the dim past, or are
forgotten, while the evening is yet far away, and countless things may
be done before the night comes. He could surely reach those farthest
blue mountains in an hour or so, and a little walking thereafter must
bring him to this strange, wonderful Paris, so entirely different from
his own home and from his grandfather's place down the river. He would
have to pass his grandfather's place, by the way, on his walk, and it
never occurred to him how long a time it would take him to reach merely
his grandfather's, so vague was his recollection of his former visits
there. He could see Paris, the king and the palaces and the soldiers and
the beautiful ladies and the great bridge, and return home by
supper-time; and he would have so many things to tell that his father
and mother would make his punishment a light one, or might even forget
to punish him at all.
He came to a place where the path divided. After a moment's hesitation,
he took the wider branch, which carried him from the riverside, straight
into the unbroken woods. Presently this path ended abruptly, so that
there was nothing before him but thick undergrowth. Rather than retrace
his steps to reach the branch that he had rejected, which must be the
one he ought to have taken, he started to reach it directly through the
woods, moving towards where he thought it should be. He made his way
cautiously, lest he might tread on some rattlesnake or other serpent,
which could not be as easily seen in the dimness of the forest as in the
path by the river. That dimness increased apace, and still he had not
found the path. At last the boy paused, perplexed and a little appalled.
The chill of evening came on. He was very tired now. He began to think
of Indians, bears, and other savage things with whose existence in the
neighborhood he was well acquainted, and of monsters of which he had
heard from his parents, such as giants, lions, and other horrible
things. Wherever his view lost itself in the dark arches of the trees,
he imagined mysterious and frightful creatures were concealed, ready to
appear at any moment. He summoned heart, and trudged on again. Finally
it became so dark that he feared to proceed lest he might, at any step,
land in a nest of snakes. Rover stopped close beside him, and looked in
his face, as if for counsel. He put his arm around the dog's neck, and
the two together sank down on some mossy turf at the foot of a tree.
Rover curled up with his chin on the boy's shoulder, and Dick lay with
his head on the dog's shaggy side. Dick would have cried, had his
impulse ruled, but he was already too proud to make such an exhibition
of weakness in the presence of Rover. Thus they lay while night fell.
Now and then Rover raised his head a little and listened. The boy was
too much overcome by his situation to think of what might ultimately
befall. He could only wish, with an intensity as keen as could be
endured, that he was home by his mother's side in the candle-lit
kitchen, and nestle closer to the dog. The insects of the forest kept up
an ear-piercing chorus of chirps, whirrs, and calls. At last reality
melted imperceptibly into dreams, in which the boy was again toiling
forward on the road to Paris. A terrible noise broke in upon his dream.
Starting up, he found it was only the barking of Rover, a bark of
eagerness and joy rather than of alarm or threat. A faint light
approached slowly through the trees. It resolved itself at last into a
lantern, and the huge dark object beside it became a man, who called
out, as he came rapidly nearer:
"Dick, lad, are you there with the dog?"
A minute later the boy was in the arms of his father, who was striding
back towards the path, while Rover ran yelping gleefully before and
behind and on every side.
How short was the journey back to the house, compared with that which
Dick had made from it in the afternoon! Almost before Dick had finished
his explanation to his father, in somewhat incoherent speeches and a
rather unsteady voice, they beheld the kitchen's open door, in which the
mother stood waiting. She caught the boy in her arms, covered his face
with kisses and tears, and declared he should never go out of her sight
again.
"But I'll go some day, when I'm grown up," said little Dick, as he sat
filling himself with supper a half-hour later. "I didn't know the road
to Paris was so long."
And he didn't know his road to Paris should one day be taken with no
thought of its leading him there, and how very roundabout that road
should be.
CHAPTER II.
"OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY."
The next time Dick went far from home was when the hired man, John
Campbell, took him past his grandfather's island, and thence on down the
Susquehanna and into Sherman's Valley, whither Campbell was bent on a
courting expedition. During his visit at the house of Campbell's
friends, Dick attended the burning out of a snake-nest, an occasion that
was participated in by settlers from all the country round. The nest was
in a pile of rocks in some woods that a farmer intended to transform
into a field for cultivation. Here rattlesnakes and copperheads throve
and multiplied. Men with axes and sickles cleared a circle around the
rock-pile, at some distance from it, and then set fire to the wood
within. When the flame reached the snakes, for which there was no
escape, their writhing was a novel sight. Dick, who at first enjoyed the
spectacle as only a young boy can enjoy scenes of wholesale slaughter,
at last came to being sorry for the victims, because they had no fair
fighting chance. The loathsome odor that soon arose drove him away, so
that he lost most of the rum-drinking and other jollification that
followed the snake-burning.
Snakes, though he could pity those attacked with fire and at a
disadvantage, were Dick's abomination. Their abundance was a chief
reason why he dared not gratify his taste for roaming far from the
house. As yet, when he came on one suddenly, he would act the
woman,--that is to say, he would run in great fright, or sometimes stand
still in greater, till help came or the snake fled of its own accord. It
was several years before he had the courage, on hearing the shriek of
some snake-affrighted harvesting woman in the fields, to vie with the
men in running to her rescue. For a long time he envied the readiness
with which his father, if confronted by a snake while reaping, would
club it to death and then, sticking the point of the sickle through its
head, hold it up for the other harvesters to see.
But there was a long season when the settlers need have no fear of
rattlers and copperheads, nor of Indians, either; that was the winter.
Dick was allowed to walk abroad a little more freely then, for the very
reason that the cold was sure to bring him soon back again to the vast
fireplace. There were other reasons than those of weather, why that
fireplace was a magnet to Dick. There, in the time of little work, when
the world outside was white and wind-swept, Dick's father would sit and
read to the household, or tell of his fights and dangers on both sides
of the ocean. There, when the cider went round, was great flow of joke
and story and song. For Dick's father, though a man of strict standards
of behavior, and outwardly stanch to his adopted sect, which in his
neighborhood stood for decency and education, was a man of lively wit
and of jocular turn of mind. Dick's mother, though of a severely
Presbyterian family, and humbly religious, was of too kindly and
cheerful a nature to be soured by piety, and too rich with the health of
this pleasant earth to be constantly thinking of another world. She had
sensibility and emotion, with the common sense and strength to control
them. Her younger sister partook of the prevalent lightness of heart.
Campbell, the hired man, whose raw stolidity was tempered by a certain
taciturn jocoseness, contributed to the household mirth by the stupid
wonder with which he listened to the others, the queer comments he
sometimes made, and the snores with which he often punctuated the
general conversation when he slumbered in his seat in the fireplace.
Dick's place was opposite Campbell's, and when he sat there in the
evening he could look up and see the stars through the top of the
chimney. Rover's spot was at Dick's feet, whence in his dreams he would
echo the snores of Campbell.
The father would tell of his share in Prince Charlie's defeat at
Culloden, of his own escape and Dr. Hugh Mercer's to the Scottish port
whence they had sailed; of that fatal march of Braddock's army towards
Fort Duquesne, and the fearful death that blazed out from the seemingly
empty woods around, and the conduct of the young Virginia colonel,
Washington, and the night burial of the mistaken English general by
torchlight in the dismal forest; of the march of resolute John
Armstrong, the Scottish Covenanter, of Carlisle, to Kittanning, in 1756;
the destruction of the Indian town, the slaughter of the Indian chiefs,
and the wounding of nearly all Armstrong's officers; how Wetheral's
friend, Mercer, a captain in the expedition, wounded and separated from
his men, wandering for weeks alone in the forest, living on roots and
berries, once repulsing starvation by eating a rattlesnake, at last came
upon waters that led to the Potomac, and so reached Fort Cumberland.
Wetheral told of George Croghan, the Indian trader, who had figured in
Braddock's campaign; and of Captain Jack, called also the Black Hunter,
the Black Rifle, and the Wild Hunter of Juniata, who with his band of
hunters scourged the Indians in revenge for his wife and children slain
and his cabin burnt while he was away hunting; and of other border
heroes, whose names have not lived as long.
In Wetheral's earlier reminiscences, the name that oftenest reached
Dick's ears, and most agreeably impressed them, was that of Tom
MacAlister, a former fellow Jacobite, whom Wetheral had thought killed
at Culloden, but who had turned up, to his great surprise and joy, a
sergeant in Braddock's army in America, in 1755. Surviving Braddock's
defeat, he had retreated with the remnant of the British army, and since
then Wetheral had neither seen nor heard of him. Of all the characters
that figured in his father's stories, Dick made MacAlister his favorite.
This was not only on account of the warlike deeds he had done, or the
jests he had perpetrated, or the comical scrapes he had figured in, or
the pithy sayings that Wetheral quoted from him, or the fact that he had
served as a soldier in many lands, but also for a circumstance connected
with Dick's early acquired love of song. When Dick would express a
liking for some particular one of the many tunes his father whistled or
sang, the father would say to the mother:
"You ought to hear Tom MacAlister play that on his fiddle or pipe,
Betty!"
And when the boy, pleased with the words of some ballad of which his
father had remembered but a part, would eagerly demand the rest, the
father would usually say:
"I don't know it, Dickie, lad. If Tom MacAlister were here, he could
sing it all for you."
Thus Dick came to think of this Tom MacAlister, whom he had never seen,
and could with little reason expect ever to see, as the source, of at
least the repository, of all the songs that ever were written, and all
the tunes that ever were composed. Dick dearly loved the sound of a
fiddle, and whenever there was a wedding anywhere in the sparsely
settled neighborhood he would beg his parents to take him behind one of
them on horseback, or to let him go with John Campbell, that he might
enjoy the scraping of the fiddles, while the rustic guests danced, and
made merry with rum, hard cider, and peach brandy.
If he could only hear Tom MacAlister play the pipe or fiddle! If he
could but once see that hero in the flesh, touch the hands that had
performed so many acts of valor, behold the face that had been turned
towards so many foes, hear the voice that had uttered so much wisdom,
sung so many ballads, and could tell so many true tales of marvellous
experience! To Dick, this much-talked-of Tom, who might no longer be
among the living, was as a hero of legend, a Jack the Giant Killer, a
Mr. Greatheart, a Robinson Crusoe.
Some of the songs sung by Dick's father, and by his mother, too, who had
picked up most of her tunes from her husband, were Jacobite ballads.
One snowy day, in Dick's fifth winter, his father, mending a bridle
beside the fire, was heard by Dick to sing in a low voice:
"'There was a wind, it cam to me,
Over the south, an' over the sea,
An' it has blawn my corn and hay,
Over the hills an' far away.'"
Dick looked up from where he was sitting, by the legs of a skillet under
which some brands were burning.
"Is that the tune it means when it says about Tom that was a piper's
son, all the tune that he could play was 'Over the hills and far away?'"
he asked.
"I don't know, son. There are a great many songs of 'Over the hills and
far away.' Tom MacAlister used to sing them all."
Dick studied a moment, then asked:
"Who was Tom MacAlister's father?"
"A Highland man, and I've heard Tom say he was a great player on the
bagpipe."
"Why, then," cried Dick, "maybe he was the Tom that was a piper's son!"
"I shouldn't doubt it in the least," replied Wetheral, with a wink and a
smile at his wife.
But Dick's face, after glowing for a moment with the exultation of so
great a literary discovery, soon fell.
"No," he said; "because Tom MacAlister could play hundreds and hundreds
of other tunes, and Tom that was a piper's son could play only 'Over the
hills and far away.'"
"Ay," said the father, "but then, you see, that song might have been
about Tom MacAlister before he had learned any other tune than the one.
I think he told me once that for a very long time he couldn't play any
other."
Mrs. Wetheral smilingly shook her head in hopeless disapproval of the
jocular deceit practised by her husband on little Dick; but the boy was
too taken up with his discovery to observe her movement, and so from
that day, to him, Tom MacAlister and Tom who was a piper's son were one
and the same Tom.
But there came a time when neither singing nor fiddling was in season,
and when reminiscences of past dangers in foreign lands gave way to
fears of imminent dangers at home. This was in the spring of 1763, when
Dick was five years old, but possessed of such strength and endurance as
would be marvellous in a boy of that age nowadays. Almost as soon as the
woods and fields were green again, and the orchards white and pink with
fruit-blossoms, came news, from every side, of Indian surprises and
alarms. The Pennsylvania tribes, such as the Delawares and Shawnees,
once friendly to the English settlers, but rendered contemptuous of them
by Braddock's defeat, had not ceased ravages against them, even after
Wolfe's victory at Quebec in 1759 had made the English masters of the
continent. It seemed now, in 1763, as if the redskins had mustered their
strength for a decisive series of revengeful blows against the
colonists. In from the west and down from the north they came, unseen,
unheard, penetrating the whole frontier in small parties, striking
without warning, often where least expected, destroying by rifle-ball,
knife, tomahawk, and fire. No one knew when a painted band, armed for
slaughter, might not suddenly appear as if by magic from the apparently
solitary wilderness around. No settler's family could go to bed at night
with the assurance that they might not be aroused before dawn by smoke
and flames or by the unearthly shrieks of savages. Most of the settlers
in the valleys south of the Juniata fled across the mountains to
Carlisle. Some from the vicinity of the Wetherals took refuge in Fort
Hunter, which consisted of a rectangular stockade, with a log blockhouse
rising from the corner, and with cabins inside to serve indifferently as
barracks for the Provincial soldiers and as temporary lodgings for the
people of both sexes and every age who took refuge there.
Dick's grandfather, deciding to remain in his large and strong house on
his island in the Susquehanna, invited the Wetherals thither, actuated
in part, perhaps, by the consideration that his son-in-law would prove a
notable addition to the home garrison. Wetheral accepted, for the sake
of his family, although the reconciliation between himself and his
stiff-necked father-in-law had never been more than merely formal. The
Wetherals had no sooner joined the large family in the island mansion
than there came word, by terrified refugees, of killings and burnings on
the Juniata, quite near, as distances between neighbors then went, to
Wetheral's house. Later came similar tidings up from Sherman's Valley.
Houses of those who had fled were burnt, and, as summer advanced, a
great deal of their grain was destroyed. When harvest-time came, several
of the men who had fled returned in parties, well armed, to get in their
crops. A party, strong in numbers, would go from farm to farm, taking in
each harvest as rapidly, and bestowing it as securely, as possible.
At a certain time in July, one such party of reapers was working on the
farm of William White, who lived not far from Dick's grandfather. This
party had been reinforced by some of the men now at the latter's place,
one of whom was John Campbell. The nearness of White's house, the large
force of men there, and the fact that the Indians were thought to have
gone out of the neighborhood, had enabled Dick to get permission to go
with Campbell to this reaping, at which there was a famous fiddler from
Tuscarora, of whom the boy had often heard. On Saturday evening, after
the work was done, Dick revelled to his heart's content in the scraping
of this frontier virtuoso. The reapers made merry so late that night,
that they were quite willing to observe the ensuing Sabbath by resting
most vigorously.
All the warm sunny morning, they lay on the floor of the principal room.
Dick alone showed any disposition towards activity. While the men
slumbered, or turned heavily over on the floor, or stared drowsily at
the wooden ceiling, or stretched and yawned, Dick amused himself by
climbing up the ladder to the loft overhead.
He had reached the round next to the top one, and was about to thrust
his head up through the opening into the loft, when he heard a slight
creak from the door of the room below. He looked in time to see it swing
open, and three painted, naked, feather-crowned bodies appear in the
doorway, each one behind a rifle whose muzzle was instantly turned
towards some sleeper on the floor. Terrified into dumbness, Dick's gaze
involuntarily turned towards the window opposite the door. The oiled
paper that had served instead of glass had been swiftly and silently
cut away with a knife, and three savage heads appeared above the window
base, each shining eye directed along a different rifle-barrel towards
one of the prostrate reapers.
Dick opened his mouth to cry out, but he could emit no sound. Before he
could form a thought, the six rifles blazed forth in concert, and an
instant later the room below was filled with smoke, shouts of pain, and
furious curses. A terrible chorus of piercing war-screams from outside
the house showed that the redskins who had crept up so silently were in
large number. Dick tarried no longer, but sprang up into the loft and
ran wildly to a little window at the end of it. He supposed that he had
been seen and would be followed up the ladder.
He thrust out his head and looked down. This little window was over the
one through which three of the savages had fired into the room
down-stairs. He saw three other Indians aiming in through the lower
window, while the first three were reloading their rifles. Others were
shrieking their war-whoop and brandishing the knives and tomahawks with
which they were to complete the work begun with the rifles. Up from the
ladder hatchway, amidst the noise of heavy bodies falling and of the men
rushing to their arms and yelling and swearing, came the sound of
another volley, fired probably through the doorway. Dick drew his head
in and waited with wildly beating heart, wondering what to do, and
fearing to look back towards the hatchway lest he might see savages
rushing up after him, with gleaming knives and upraised tomahawks. But
none came. The noise from the room below indicated that knives,
tomahawks, and guns had business enough down there.
After what seemed a space of several minutes, Dick cautiously looked
again out of the window. He saw now but one savage, and that one soon
disappeared through the lower window, into the room where his fellows
were completing the slaughter of the unprepared reapers. The hideous
shrieks of triumph that came up through the hatchway told clearly enough
that victory was with the attacking party, and that the scalping-knife
was already in use.
Suddenly Dick's blood turned cold. A sound of sharp, eager grunting,
detached from the general hubbub below, arose immediately beneath the
hatchway. A red hand appeared through the opening, grasping the loft
floor against which the ladder rested.
The little window at which Dick stood was neither glazed nor papered. He
went out through it, feet first; hung for a moment by his fingers to the
ledge, then dropped to the ground below, fell on his side, scrambled to
his feet, turned his back to the house of shrieking slaughter, and ran
across the field towards the nearest woods. Though the direction in
which he went took him farther from his grandfather's, he nevertheless
did not stop or turn, on reaching the woods, but ran straight on, as
fast as the irregularities of the ground would let him, and for once
with reckless disregard of possible snakes, his only thought being to
put the greatest distance between himself and the yelling murderers
behind him.
After a long run, he stopped for lack of breath, and began to consider
his situation, as well as the rapid beating of his heart would allow him
to do. He regretted that he had not taken Rover with him to White's,--if
he had done so, he might now have at least the comfort of the dog's
society. At last he decided to make for his grandfather's, by a détour
which would take him far from the house where the savages were now
holding their carnival of blood. This détour required several hours, as
his bare feet suffered from contact with stones, thorns roots, and the
rough bark of fallen branches. Finally, on hearing a sound as of a
horse's foot crunching into stony soil, a little to the left and ahead,
he stopped and stood still. The sound continued. Could it be that he was
near a bridle-path and that this sound indicated some solitary
traveller? As yet he could see nothing moving through the thick forest.
While he waited, a slighter sound close at hand, that of an instant's
movement among bushes, suddenly drew his glance. From a mass of laurel
near the ground, gleamed a pair of eyes directly at him, on a level with
his own. He started back, thinking they might belong to a wildcat or
some other crouching animal.
Instantly the owner of the eyes swiftly rose, and stood erect from the
bush,--a naked Shawnee, daubed yellow, and carrying knife and tomahawk.
Dick turned and ran, casting back one look, in which he saw the Indian
hurl the tomahawk after him. The boy fell forward on his face just in
time to feel the wind of the hatchet instead of the hatchet itself,
which cleft the air directly over his head and lodged in a tree-trunk in
front of him. The Indian, abandoning his intention of remaining in the
bush, for which he had doubtless had his own reason, now glided after
Dick, who had not half risen when he felt the Shawnee's fingers grasp
his long hair, and saw the knife describe a rapid circle in the air in
preparation for its descent upon his scalp. The boy cast one despairing
look up towards the Indian's implacable face.
The stillness of the woods was suddenly broken by a loud detonation.
Something dug into the Indian's breast, a horrible grimace distorted his
face, a fearful cry came from his throat, his knife-blow went wide, and
he leaped clear over Dick, retaining some of the boy's hair in his
clutch as he went. The next moment he lay sprawling, face downward,
some feet away. He stiffened convulsively, and never moved again.
Dick looked towards the direction whence the shot had come. In a little
opening among the trees he saw a horse standing; on its back a tall,
gaunt, brown-faced stranger, from whose rifle-muzzle a little smoke was
still curling. The newcomer was apparently about forty years old; wore
an old cocked hat, a time-worn blue coat, whose long skirts spread out
over the horse's rump, a red waistcoat, patched green breeches, and
great jack-boots that had known much service. His long brown hair was
tied in a queue, and, besides his rifle, he carried before him an
immense pistol. A long, projecting chin gave a grotesque turn to his
features, whose grimness was otherwise modified by amiable gray eyes.
"Sure, sonny," he called out to the astonished and staring Dick, "it's
the part of Providence I played towards ye that time; in return for
whilk favor, tell me now the way to one Alexander Wetheral's house, if
ye ken it."
Not sufficiently learned in dialects to note the stranger's mixture of
Scotch and Irish with the King's English, Dick eagerly proffered his
services and said that Alexander Wetheral was his father.
"What, lad! Gie's your hand, then, and it's in front of me ye shall ride
hame this day. It's a glad man your father 'ull be, when he sees ye
bringing in Tom MacAlister as a recruit, and no such raw one, neither!"
[Illustration: "THE NEWCOMER WAS APPARENTLY ABOUT FORTY YEARS OLD."]
Dick almost fell off the horse, to whose shoulders the stranger had
lifted him.
Such was his first meeting with Tom that was a piper's son.
The two reached Dick's grandfather's without molestation, and the
newcomer was duly welcomed. Lack of occupation in Europe, and the desire
to be always enlarging his experiences, had brought him again to the New
World, and in search of his early friend.
He had immediate opportunity to employ his courage and prowess. A few
days after Dick's adventure, there came to his grandfather's house a
settler named Dodds, with an account of how the same Indians who had
shot the reapers at White's had thereupon gone to Robert Campbell's on
the Tuscarora Creek, found Dodds and other reapers there resting
themselves, and first made their presence known by a sudden deadly
volley of rifle-balls. In the smoke and confusion, Dodds had made,
unseen, for the chimney, which he had ascended by great muscular
exertion while the massacre was proceeding in the room below. He had
dropped from the roof and fled to Sherman's Valley, where he had given
the alarm, which he was now engaged in spreading.
Dick's father and grandfather, with all the aroused settlers who could
be summoned, speedily organized a party to make war on the savage
invaders. In the expedition this force made, MacAlister was in his
element. He was one of the detachment of twelve who overtook twenty-five
Indians at Nicholson's house and killed several, at the cost of five of
the white men. The chasing of Indians, and the fleeing from them,
continued all summer. William Anderson was killed at his own house,
depredations were committed at Collins's, Graham's house was burnt, and
in September five white men were killed in a battle at Buffalo Creek.
Finally a hundred volunteers, including Wetheral and MacAlister, went up
the Susquehanna to Muncy, encountered two companies of Indians that were
coming down the river, killed their chief, Snake, and drove the others
back from the frontier. In the fall, the Wetherals, with their guest,
went back to their own house, but not at the first waning of summer. Too
many settlers, deceived by the earliest signs of winter, had in times
past returned to their houses, thinking themselves safe from further
Indian ravage; but, with the brief later season of warm weather, the
Indians had reappeared for final strokes, and hence that fatal season
received the name of Indian summer.
Tom MacAlister, impelled by his friendship for Wetheral, and by the
charm that he found in the still wilderness, took the place formerly
occupied in the household by John Campbell, who had been killed at
White's. If not in the field, at least at the fireside and in the
dooryard, he was a vast improvement upon his heavy-witted predecessor.
With a fiddle, bought from a settler, Tom soon verified all the
assertions Wetheral had made about his musical ability.
As 1763 was the last year of general Indian outbreaks in the
neighborhood, the arts of peace thereafter had full opportunity to
thrive in the Wetheral household. From childhood to pronounced boyhood,
and then to sturdy youth, Dick Wetheral grew, to the constant
accompaniment of Tom MacAlister's fiddle. Dick became, in time, a fairly
capable tiller of the soil, an excellent horseman, a good hunter, a
comparatively lucky fisherman. He was a straight shot at a distant wild
turkey, a quick one at a running deer, and a cool one at a threatening
bear. He was a great reader, not for improvement, but for amusement and
because books gave him other worlds to contemplate. When he had read and
re-read all the volumes of his father's little stock, he took means to
learn who else owned books in the neighborhood. The owners were few and
far between, and fewer still were the books possessed by any one of
them. But what books there were, Dick hunted down, taking many a long
ride in the quest, buying a volume when he could, or trading for it, or
borrowing it.
Thus he made the acquaintance of Fielding's novels, and one or two of
Smollett's, and of Shakespeare's plays, and from all these he acquired
standards of gentlemanly conduct and manners, and ideals of feminine
beauty and charm, which standards and ideals kept him alike from close
association with the raw youths of the neighborhood, and from succumbing
to the primitive attractions of any of the farmers' daughters. Slowly
and imperceptibly, by his reading and his thoughts, he was, if not
fitting himself for a vastly different world from the one about him, at
least unfitting himself for the latter. One cause of his strong
attachment to Tom MacAlister, after he had come to regard that worthy in
a more accurate light, and no longer idealized him as the half mythical
hero of his childhood, was that Tom represented the great world of
cities and courts.
Tom was the son of a Scotch father and an Irish mother, and one of the
two had a sufficient streak of English blood to account for Tom's length
of chin. To his mixed ancestry was due his unique intermingling of
brogues and accents. It was a question which was the greater, the
severity of his visage or the drollery of his disposition. It was looked
upon as a caprice of nature that a man of so sanctimonious an aspect
should on occasion swear so hard, and that he who could drink so
enormously of liquor should retain such meagreness of body. He advocated
strict morality, though he admitted having himself been a sad lapser
from virtue. He testified frankly to having broken "all the ten
commandments and half a dozen more." He had been a great patron of the
playhouses, could perform conjuring tricks, and was able to oppose a
card-cheat with the latter's own weapons. As for religion, wherever he
was, he took that, as he took the staple drink, "of the country," a
practice which, he said, gave him in turn the benefit of all faiths, and
saved him from a deal of inconvenience where piety ran strong. He had
fought in 1743 with George II. against the French at Dettingen; "been
out" with the Young Chevalier in 1745; followed Braddock to defeat in
1755; served under Frederick of Prussia, at Prague, Rossbach, and
elsewhere; and had been under Prince Ferdinand, at Minden, in 1759. The
disbandment of his regiment at the end of the Seven Years' War had put
his services out of demand.
In winter evenings, before the flaming logs in the great chimney-place,
when Tom was not recounting adventures he had experienced, or some he
had imagined, or playing the fiddle, or taking huge gulps of hard cider
or hot "kill-devil," he was singing songs; and of these the favorite in
his list was one or other of the versions of "Over the hills and far
away." First, there was the song with which Dick had been familiar since
his infancy, and which for a long time he thought alluded to MacAlister
himself, beginning thus:
"Tom he was a piper's son,
He learnt to play when he was young,
And all the tune that he could play
Was 'Over the hills and far away,'
Over the hills and a great way off,
And the wind will blow my top-knot off."
Then there was the one which, when it was sung by Tom, Dick took to be a
bit of veritable autobiography:
"When I was young and had no sense,
I bought a fiddle for eighteen pence,
And the only tune that it would play
Was 'Over the hills and far away.'"
But what was the song itself to which these verses alluded? Tom knew and
sang several, but was cloudy as to which was the particular one. That
mattered little, however, as all went to the same tune. There was one
artfully contrived to lure recruits to the king's service, thus:
"Hark how the drums beat up again
For all true soldiers, gentlemen;
Then let us 'list and march away
Over the hills and far away."
Then there was one that Tom had heard at the play, sung by a gay captain
and a dare-devil recruiting sergeant, and of which the latter half would
fill Dick's head with longings and visions:
"Our 'prentice Tom may now refuse
To wipe his scoundrel master's shoes,
For now he's free to sing and play,
Over the hills and far away.
"We shall lead more happy lives
By getting rid of brats and wives
That scold and brawl both night and day,
Over the hills and far away.
"Over the hills, and over the main,
To Flanders, Portugal, or Spain;
The king commands, and we'll obey,
Over the hills and far away.
"Courage, boys, it is one to ten,
But we return all gentlemen;
While conq'ring colors we display,
Over the hills and far away."
And there was a duet, which Tom had heard at the opera in London, and
which he sang, imitating the respective voices of the highwayman and the
adoring Polly.
The tune took a lasting possession of Dick, and the sweet-sounding
recurrent line exercised upon him a witchery that increased as he grew.
He chose for his bedroom the rear apartment of the loft over the
kitchen, because its window looked towards the east, and his first
glance at dawn, his latest at night, was towards the farthest hill-tops.
There were hills to the west, too, a great many more of them; mountain
ranges, from the straight ridge of the Tuscaroras, to the farthest
Alleghanies; but Dick's heart looked not in that direction, where he
knew there was but savage wilderness all the thousands of miles to the
Pacific Ocean. Towards the east, where the live world was, he longed to
wing. Strangely enough, so had circumstance directed, he never, till he
was seventeen years old, travelled as far as to the farthest mountains
in sight southward or eastward. His father had turned his back on the
Old World, thrown his interests heart and soul with those of the new
land, built up a well-provided home on the outer verge of civilization,
joined irrevocably the advance guard of the westward march of men. What
little business he had with towns could be done through the pack-horse
men and wagoners. So Dick had only his imagination on which to call for
an idea of the level country towards the sea. What was behind the hills?
How he envied the birds he saw flying towards that distant azure band
that backed the green hills nearer! Should it ever be his lot to follow
them?
At seventeen Dick was a strong, lithe youth, five feet eleven inches
tall, and destined to grow no taller; with a thoughtful, somewhat eager
face, whose sharpness of feature and alertness of expression had some
suggestion of the fox, but with no indication of that animal's vices;
brown hair that fell back to its queue from a wide and open brow; and
blue eyes both steady and keen. Such was his appearance one sunny spring
morning when he started from the house to join the men in the field,
from which the sound of his father's "whoa," and of Tom MacAlister's
chirping to the plow-horses, could be heard through the blossoming
fruit-trees in which the birds were twittering. He returned his mother's
smile through the open kitchen window, at which she stood kneading the
dough for the week's baking. As he went towards the lane which ran up in
front of the house from the so-called road, he could hear her voice
while she half unconsciously sang at her work:
"'Over the hills, and over the main,
To Flanders, Portugal, or Spain;
The king commands, and we'll obey,
Over the hills and far away.'"
He took up the tune and hummed it, and, though the cheerful solitude
around him seemed ineffably sweet, he sighed as he followed with his
eyes the course of a tiny white cloud towards the high blue eastern
horizon. It was Saturday, next to the last day of April, 1775.
As he leaped over the rail fence, from the houseyard to the lane, he saw
a horse turn into the latter from the road. He recognized the rider, a
good-looking young man, one of the few in the neighborhood with whom
Dick was intimate.
"Good morning, M'Cleland," said Dick, heartily. "Where from?"
"From Hunter's Mill, and I can stay only a moment to give you the news,
if you haven't heard it." He stopped his horse.
"What news?" queried Dick, wondering whether it might be of another
Indian war, like that of Lord Dunmore's in Western Virginia the
preceding year; or whether there had been a renewal of the old feud
between the Pennsylvanians and the Connecticut settlers up in the
Wyoming Valley; or whether the English government had repealed or
reinforced the Boston Port Bill. These were matters in which Dick and
M'Cleland had both taken interest,--especially the last one, for nowhere
had the difference between King and colonies, which quarrel had been
growing ever since the passage of the Stamp Act ten years before, been
more thoroughly discussed than in the Wetheral household, and nowhere
was the feeling for resistance to the King more ardent.
"Great news," said M'Cleland, controlling his voice with difficulty,
while his eyes sparkled with excitement. "On the nineteenth the King's
troops marched out from Boston to take some ammunition the people had
stored at Concord. At Lexington they met a company of minutemen, and
there were shots and bloodshed. The whole country around rose and killed
God knows how many of the regulars on their way back to Boston. When the
messengers left Cambridge, there was an army of Massachusetts men
besieging the King's soldiers in Boston. There's no doubt about it. At
Hunter's Mill I saw the man who met at Paxton the rider that talked in
Philadelphia with the messenger from Cambridge, who had affidavits from
Massachusetts citizens. Tell your people. I'm off up the river. Get up!"
Dick never went any farther towards the field. He called in his father
and Tom, and there was a long discussion of the situation. Wetheral said
that Pennsylvania would be organizing troops, in due time, to back up
Massachusetts, and that the only course was to wait and join such a
force. But Dick would not hear of waiting. "Now is the time men are
needed!" was his answer to every counsel. First make for the scene of
war; it would be time to join the Pennsylvania forces when these should
arrive there. The father gave in, at last, and the mother had nothing to
oppose to the inevitable but the protest of silent tears. To her, the
whole matter was as lightning from a clear sky. It was settled; the boy
should go, the father should stay. The mother had a day in which to get
Dick's things ready. As for Tom MacAlister, who was subject to no man's
will but his own, his first hearing of the news had set him preparing
for departure. As he tied his own horse to the fence rail the next day,
to wait for Dick, he bethought him how of old his motto had been always
"up and away again," and he marvelled that he had remained twelve years
contented in one place.
It was not yet Sunday noon when Dick, who it was decided should share
with Tom the use of the latter's horse on the journey to Cambridge,
according to the custom known as "riding and tying," mounted for the
first stage. He wore a cocked hat, a blue cloth coat altered from one
his father had brought from England, a linsey shirt, an old figured
waistcoat, gray breeches, worsted stockings, home-made shoes, and
buckskin leggings; carried a rifle, a blanket, and a change of shirts;
and had two gold pieces, long saved by his mother against the time of
his setting up for himself. Tom MacAlister was dressed and armed exactly
as at Dick's first meeting with him, his clothes having been temporarily
supplanted by homespun during his years of farm service.
There was a lump in Dick's throat when he put his arms around his
mother's neck, and felt against his cheek the tear she had striven to
hold back. The last embrace taken, he gave his horse the word rather
huskily, and followed Tom MacAlister, who was already striding down the
lane. Turning into the road, Dick looked back, and saw his father, his
mother, his aunt, and Rover, the last-named now feeble and far beyond
the age ordinarily attained by dogkind, standing together by the fence.
His father waved an awkward military salute, his mother forced a smile
into her face, and the old dog made two or three steps to follow, as in
the past, then stopped and looked somewhat surprised and hurt that Dick
did not call him. One swift glance from the puzzled dog to his mother's
wistful face, and Dick's home in the Pennsylvania valley passed from his
sight forever. He cleared his throat, swallowed down the lump in it, and
turned his eyes forward towards the east. Tom MacAlister's grim face
wore a look of quiet elation, and he could be heard softly whistling, as
he trudged on, the tune of "Over the hills and far away."
CHAPTER III.
AT THE SIGN OF THE GEORGE.
As they proceeded, Dick laughingly alluded to the time when, at the age
of four, he had started out on this same road, thinking it would take
him to Paris in a few hours.
"And wha kens," said MacAlister, in all seriousness, "but this same road
may yet lead ye there, or to Chiney, for that matter? Him that sets out
on a journey knowing where 'twill land him is a wiser man nor you and
me, my son!"
Presently MacAlister fell behind, and was soon lost to sight as Dick
rode on. By and by Dick dismounted, tied the horse to a tree by the
path, and went on afoot. When he had walked about an hour, he was
overtaken and passed by MacAlister, on the horse, which Tom, on coming
up to it, had untied and mounted. Walking on alone, Dick in due time
found the horse tied at the path's side, and mounted to overtake and
pass Tom in turn. He caught up to his comrade at the place where, it had
been decided, they should cross the Juniata, which they did on
horseback together, partly by fording and partly by swimming the horse.
Proceeding as before, and not losing the time to cross to the island for
a visit to Dick's grandfather when they reached the Susquehanna, they
came at nightfall to the house of a farmer on the west bank of that
river, and lodged there. At early dawn they were on their way again, and
just as the sun rose Dick reached the crest of the farthest mountains
southeast of his home. Who could describe his feelings as he looked for
the first time over the fair wooded country that rolled afar towards the
purple and golden east? Did his mother, at this moment, looking towards
the farthest azure line, know he was there at last, and that he saw what
the birds had seen that he had so often envied when they flew eastward?
"Get up!" he cried, and urged his horse down the eastern mountainside
towards his future.
Riding and tying, the two comrades came to Harris's ferry-house, whence
they crossed the Susquehanna in a scow, to the small collection of low
buildings--stone residence, old storehouse for skins, blockhouse for
defence, and others--which then constituted Harrisburg. While they were
crossing, the ferryman at the pole entertained them with anecdotes of
the parents of the John Harris of that day,--how they were sturdy
Yorkshire people; how the wife Esther once in time of necessity rode all
the way to Philadelphia in one day on the same horse; how she was once
up the river on a trading trip to Big Island, and heard of her husband's
illness and came down in a bark canoe in a day and a night; how she was
a good trader, and could write, and had boxed the ears of many an Indian
chief when he was drunk; how she could swim as well as a man and handle
firearms as well as any hunter; how she worked at the building of her
brick house five miles up the Susquehanna; how she once ran up-stairs
and took from a cask of powder a lighted candle that her maid had
mistakenly stuck in the bung-hole; how the then present John Harris was
the first white child born thereabouts and was taken to Philadelphia to
be baptized in Christ's Church. Dick would have liked to see the inside
of the church at Paxton, three miles from Harrisburg, because one of his
acquaintances, having got a girl into trouble, had made public
confession before the congregation there, praying in the usual formula:
"For my own game,
Have done this shame,
Pray restore me to my lands again."
He would have liked, also, to seek out some member of the gang of
"Paxton Boys" that had killed the Conestogo Indians in Lancaster County,
in 1764, and get the other side of that story, which was generally
accepted as one of unwarranted massacre of friendly natives. But the
impulse to press forward overcame the other, and the travellers, having
followed the left bank of the Susquehanna, by the road which had been in
existence from Harris's since 1736, lodged on the second night of their
journey at a wooden tavern in the village of Middletown. The next
morning they turned directly eastward, their backs towards the
Susquehanna, and proceeded on the road to Lancaster. They now entered
the band of country settled by German Protestants, whose fertile farms
gave the slightly undulating land a soft and smiling appearance.
At noon, dining at a rude log hostelry, more farmhouse than tavern, they
were invited to drink by two thin, middle-aged, merry fellows, in brown
cloth coats and cocked hats, who said they were Philadelphia merchants
returning from a view of some interior land which they intended to
purchase for the purpose of developing trade. They invited Tom and Dick
to drink with them, laughed so boisterously at Tom's sage jokes, and
expressed so much admiration of Dick's intelligence and book-learning,
that when all four left the tavern to proceed eastward, Dick and Tom,
seeing that the two jolly merchants were afoot, took counsel together
and agreed to share with them the use of the horse. This generous idea
was engendered by a hint that one of the merchants made in jest. The
horse was a huge animal and could easily bear any two of four such thin
men as were those concerned. Lots were cast to determine which two
should be the pair to mount first. One of the two merchants held the
straws, and as a result of the drawing he and his companion got on the
horse together and started. A turn in the road hid them from view in
half a minute. Dick and MacAlister were about to follow afoot, when they
were reminded by the tavern-keeper that the drinks taken at the
merchants' invitation were yet to be paid for.
"Bedad," said Tom, "our friends were so busy laughing at my tale of the
ensign's wife at the battle of Minden, they forgot to settle the score."
Dick, who had been provided with sufficient silver to see him to
Philadelphia, besides his two gold pieces, speedily paid the bill, and
the two comrades resumed their journey. After several minutes of
silence, Tom expressed some belated surprise at the fact that two
substantial merchants should be travelling afoot. Dick replied that
there must be some interesting reason for so unusual a circumstance.
"Ay," said Tom, "we'll speer them when we catch up to them." The two
trudged on. By and by Dick began to look, each time the road made a
turn, for the horse standing at the side of the way, accordingly to
agreement. An hour had passed since the tavern had been left behind.
Another hour followed. At last Dick broke the silence:
"Is it likely our friends may have lost their way?"
Tom MacAlister drew a deep breath and replied:
"Devil a bit is it them that's lost their way! It's us that's lost our
horse."
"Why, what do you mean? Two such worthy Philadelphia merchants!"
"Philadelphia nothing! I'll warrant they do be a pair of rascals from
the Connecticut settlement in the Wyoming Valley, turned out of the
community for such-like tricks as they've played on us new-born babes.
That's the effect on me of twelve years' residence in the wilderness. My
son, it's time we throwed off our state of innocence and braced
ourselves to meet the mickle deviltry of the world. Richard, lad, I tell
it to ye now, though ye'll no mind it till ye've had it pounded into ye
by sore experience, your fellow man is kittle cattle, and your fellow
woman more so!"
They might have had to walk all the way to Lancaster but that they were
overtaken by a train of pack-horses from Carlisle, and paid the
pack-driver to shift the horses' loads and give them the use of one of
the animals. At evening they arrived at Lancaster, which then had some
thousands of inhabitants and was to Dick quite a busy and town-like
place. He saw the prison where the Indian chief Murhancellin had been
confined on being apprehended by Captain Jack's hunters for the murder
of three Juniata men the previous year. Dick went to see the barracks,
the Episcopal and German churches, and a house where some of the famous
Lancaster stockings were made. He gazed with wonder and hidden
disapproval at the long beards of the Omish men, and enjoyed the bustle
of horses and wagons before the excellent tavern where he and Tom passed
the night. The next morning the two got seats in one of the huge covered
wagons engaged in the trade between Philadelphia and the interior. They
dined at the Duke of Cumberland Tavern, and put up at evening at the
sign of the Ship, thirty-five miles from Philadelphia. This distance was
covered the next day, and a little before sunset, the wagon having
crossed the picturesque Schuylkill by the Middle Ferry and passed under
beautiful trees down the High Street road, through the Governor's Woods
and by brick kilns and verdant commons, and across little water-courses
spanned by wooden bridges, Dick set his eyes on Philadelphia, whose
spires and dormer windows reflected the level sun rays, and whose trim
brick and wooden houses rose among leafy gardens. The town then had
about thirty thousand people, and lay close along the Delaware, its
built-up portion extending at the widest part about seven or eight
streets from the river, not counting the alleys and by-streets. As the
wagon lumbered down High Street, which was then popularly (as it is now
officially) known as Market Street, Dick kept his emotions to himself,
satisfying his curiosity without betraying it, and in no outward way
disclosing how novel to him was the actual sight, which neither excelled
nor fell short of the scene he had so often imagined, much as it
differed from it in general appearance. At Fourth Street, as the wagon
continued east, the houses began to be quite close together. At Third,
the markets began, and ran thence down the middle of the street towards
the Delaware. The wagon, with its eight horses, stopped for some reason
at the Indian King Tavern, near Third Street, whereupon Tom and Dick,
having settled with the wagoner, and not intending to lodge at that inn,
proceeded afoot down Market Street, a part of which was paved with
stones and had a narrow sidewalk for foot-passengers. This last-named
convenience was one that even some of the first cities of Europe then
lacked.
The animation of the streets quite put to shame Dick's recollections of
the little bustle at Lancaster. The rifles and baggage of the two did
not attract much attention among the citizens and tradespeople, in those
days of much hunting, and especially at a time when there was already
talk of new military companies forming, when the provincial militia was
drilling and recruiting, and when men were coming to town to offer the
colonies their services in the event of general revolt. Delegates were
already arriving from other colonies to attend the Second Continental
Congress, which was to meet on the tenth.
As the two comrades approached the London Coffee House, at Front and
Market Streets, they saw three well-dressed citizens issue from the door
and greet with the utmost respect a stocky old gentleman who had just
turned in from Front Street, and whose face was both venerable and
worldly, kind and shrewd, while his plain brown coat took nothing from
his look of distinction, and his walking-stick seemed quite unnecessary
to one whose vigor was still that of youth. He cordially responded to
the three gentlemen, the first of whom detained him for the purpose of
introducing the third. The name by which the old gentleman was addressed
startled Dick for the moment out of his self-possession, and he stopped
and stared with unfeigned curiosity and pleasure. It was his first sight
of a world-famous man, and the writer of Poor Richard's Almanac, whose
proverbs every Pennsylvanian knew by heart, the celebrated philosopher,
the wise agent of the provinces, who had just returned from London, lost
nothing in Dick's admiration from the youth's visual inspection of his
face and person.
While Doctor Franklin stood talking with the three, Dick and Tom went on
past Front and Water Streets, turned down along the wharves, and
presently arrived at their recommended destination, the Crooked Billet
Inn, which stood at the end of an alley on a wharf above Chestnut
Street. The two engaged lodging for the night, bestowed their
belongings, and went for supper to Pegg Mullen's Beefsteak House, at the
southeast corner of Water Street and Mullen's Alley. Having devoured one
of the steaks for which that house was famous, and as it was not yet
dark, Dick proposed a walk about the city. But Tom demurred as to
himself, and said in a low tone, turning his eye towards a party of
young gentlemen who sat at a near-by table:
"Go and see the sights, lad, and ye'll meet me at the Crooked Billet
some time before the hour of setting out, the morning. I've other fish
to fry, for a private purpose of my own. And should ye see me in company
with yon roisterers, mind to call me captain or not at all, for I'm bent
on introducing myself to their acquaintance, and that'll require me
belonging to the quality."
Dick looked at the group indicated, which consisted of a handsome,
insolent-looking young man of about twenty-five and three gay dogs of
the same age, whose loud conversation had dealt exclusively with cards
and other implements of fortune. With no hope or wish of fathoming
MacAlister's designs, Dick paid the bill (for his friend was almost
without money), and left the eating-house. He first inspected parts of
Water and Front Streets, where many rich merchants lived over their
shops; then viewed the handsomer residences in South Second Street; saw
the City Tavern and some of the well-dressed people resorting there;
looked at Carpenter's Hall, where the Congress had met the preceding
year; walked out to the State House, crossed Chestnut Street therefrom,
to drink at the sign of the Coach and Horses, the old rough-dashed
tavern nestling amidst great walnut-trees; loitered on the bridge to
look down at Dock Creek each time he crossed that stream. When, at dusk,
the street lamps were lighted (for, thanks to Franklin, Philadelphia had
long possessed the best street lamps in the world), the town assumed
what to Dick was a fairylike appearance. Of the people he saw in the
streets, perhaps a third wore the broadbrims of the Quakers. A few of
the faces were of the German type, but most were of the unmistakable
English character, and from such of these as were not Quaker a trained
observer might easily have picked out a Church of England person or a
Dissenter at sight. On first entering the city Dick had been struck with
the prettiness of the young women, but now that night had fallen and he
had returned to the vicinity of the river, the few of the fair that he
saw abroad were of rather bedraggled appearance.
As he walked along the wharves, listening to the lap of the tide against
the piles and vessels, he heard a sharp scream of mingled pain and
anger, in a feminine voice. Looking quickly towards the wharf whence it
came, he saw, in the light from the corner of a small warehouse, a young
woman recoiling from the blow of a sailor who was about to strike her
again. She dodged the second blow, and the sailor made ready to deliver
a third, but before he could do so Dick's fist landed on the side of his
head and he dropped to the wharf, dazed and limp. Dick then took off his
hat to the woman, who was a slender creature of about twenty, dressed
with a cheap attempt at gaiety. With quite attractive large eyes, she
quickly viewed Dick from head to foot.
"Rely on my protection, madam," said he, tingling with exultation at
having had so early an opportunity to figure as a rescuer of assailed
womankind.
"I am afraid he will follow me," said the girl, in a low tone, glancing
at the sailor, after her examination of Dick's appearance.
"He will do so at his peril, if you'll accept my arm to the place
where you are going," said Dick, with great gallantry and inward
self-applause.
The girl took the proffered arm, cast a final look at the sailor, who
was foggily trying to get on his legs, and led Dick off at a rapid gait.
They had turned into an alley towards Water Street before the sailor had
fully regained his senses. Up Water Street the girl went, giving Dick
the opportunity to see, by a window light or a street lamp here and
there, that her features, though pale, were well formed. For beauty they
lacked only something in expression. After passing several streets, the
girl turned into another alley that led towards the river, stopped at a
mean two-story wooden house half way down, and asked her preserver to
come in and accept some refreshment. He did so with alacrity, and found
himself in a small room beneath the rafters, the floor bare, the single
window broken in most of its small panes, a tumble-down bed taking up
half the apartment, a broken wooden chair beside a dressing-table, the
whole lighted by a single tallow candle that the girl obtained
down-stairs. Without consulting her guest, she called to some invisible
person below for brandy and water, with two tumblers. Dick sat on the
chair, his hostess on the bed, both in silence, till the liquor was
brought by a fat, red-faced woman with unkempt hair, who grinned amiably
at Dick, and departed only after several suggestive looks at the brandy.
Her fishing for an invitation to partake was all in vain, being
unobserved by the inexperienced Dick.
When he was alone with the heroine of his first adventure, and the
brandy had been tasted, Dick undertook to overcome her reticence, being
sure that she had some story of unmerited misfortune to tell. She soon
gratified him with a tale as harrowing as might have been found anywhere
in fiction. She was the daughter of people of quality who had lost their
all through the schemes of designing persons, and her only weapon
against starvation was her needle. She had that evening delivered some
sewing to the wife of a sea-captain on his vessel, which was to sail
that night, and it was on her return therefrom that she had been
accosted by the sailor, whose blows were elicited by the repulse she had
given him. Her face became more animated as she talked, and Dick began
to think her fascinating. Brandy was called for and served repeatedly,
and at last the red-faced woman who brought it said she was going to bed
and could serve no more that night, and her bill was ten shillings. Dick
promptly paid, forgetting that he was the invited guest, and not
neglecting the occasion to show in a careless way how much money he
carried. The girl then told him that, as he would certainly find his
tavern closed should he return to it at so late an hour, she would, in
spite of appearances and on account of his character and his services to
her, share her own poor accommodations with him for the rest of the
night. As Dick was now in a state in which he would have solicited this
favor had it not been offered, he readily accepted.
When he awoke, at dawn, he found himself alone. Taking up his waistcoat
to put it on, he noticed that a certain inner pocket did not bulge as
usually. A swift investigation disclosed that all his money had
disappeared, silver as well as gold. There was not a sign of his hostess
left in the bare, squalid room. He hastened down the steep, narrow
stairs, and met, in the entry below, the red-faced servitor, of whom he
inquired the whereabouts of the girl. The fat woman professed entire
ignorance of all occurrences since she had left the young people the
night before. From that moment to this, she said, she had slept like a
top, and from her reply Dick learned that she was the proprietress of
the house, and that the unfortunate daughter of people of quality was a
new lodger, of whom she knew nothing. A theory formed itself in Dick's
mind, and he hastened from the house to the Crooked Billet, where he was
astonished to find Tom MacAlister just arrived from a night, like
Dick's, passed elsewhere than at that inn. Dick rapidly recounted his
adventure to Tom, over a morning glass at the bar, and ended his
narration with the words:
"Do you know what her disappearance means?"
"What?" grunted Tom.
"It means that my robbers have carried her away in order to silence all
evidence of their crime! Or, maybe, the sailor tracked us and procured a
gang to abduct her, and robbed me in doing so, either in revenge or to
pay his accomplices!"
"Huh! Ye're ower fu' of them there things ye read in the novel-books,
Dickie, lad."
"By George, this proves that real life is sometimes very like the
novels! I hope this affair will end like them. We must find the girl,
Tom; we must rescue her!"
"Be jabers, we maun be spry about it, then, for the New York stage-coach
starts from the sign of the George in an hour."
"Come, then! But I won't leave Philadelphia till I've found her, though
we have to wait for another day's stage-coach. Come, Tom, for God's sake
don't be so slow!"
Tom indeed walked so deliberately from the Crooked Billet that Dick had
to accelerate his progress by tugging at his arm. Dick hurried him up
along the wharves, without the slightest plan of action formed. "Bide a
wee," said Tom, presently; "sure, there's no arriving anywhere till
ye've laid out your line of march. Come wi' me into yon tavern, and
we'll plan a campaign in decency and order." Dick saw the good sense of
this, and turned with Tom up an alley towards a wretched-looking place,
of which the use was indicated alike by its dirty sign and by the sounds
of drunken merriment issuing from its windows. As Dick and Tom entered,
they saw by whom those sounds were produced,--a sailor and a young woman
drinking together in great good-fellowship at a table. Dick recognized
both,--the sailor whom he had knocked down the night before, the girl in
whose defence he had knocked him down. Both looked up as he entered, and
the girl burst out laughing in a jeering, drunken fashion. "That's him,"
she said to her companion, who thereupon began to bellow mirthfully to
himself, regarding Dick with mingled curiosity and amusement.
"Wha might your friends be?" queried MacAlister of Dick.
"Come away," said Dick, a little huskily; and when the two were out in
the alley, whither the derisive shouts of the pair inside followed them,
he added, "If the stage goes in an hour, we'd better be taking our
things to the sign of the George."
"But your money? 'Twas a canny quantity of coin ye had in the bit pocket
there."
"Damn the money! I couldn't prove anything, and I want to get away from
here. But--by the lord, how can we go on without money?"
"Whist, lad! If some folk choose to spend the nicht a-losing of their
coin, there's others knows how to tell a different tale the morning. Do
ye mind the braw soldier-looking lad I proposed to thrust my company
on, in the beefsteak house? If I didn't introduce myself as Captain
MacAlister, retired on half pay from his Majesty's army, and if I didn't
pile up a bonny pile of yellow boys through handling the cards wi' him
and his pals in his room at the George all nicht, then I'm seven kinds
of a liar, and may all my days be Fridays! Oh, Dickie, lad, a knowledge
of the cards, ye'll find, comes in handy at mony a place in the journey
through this wicked, greedy, grasping world!" And old Tom made one of
his pockets jingle as he finished.
The two travellers returned to the Crooked Billet, paid for the lodging
they had not used, got their weapons and baggage, and went to Second
Street and thereon north to Arch, at the southwest corner of which the
sign of St. George battling with the dragon hung before the fine and
famous inn where the stage-coaches departed and arrived. The "Flying
Machine" was already drawn up before the entrance, the horses snorting
and pawing in impatience to start. Dick and Tom saw their belongings
safely stowed in the coach, which was a flat-roofed vehicle simple and
plain in shape, and loitered before the inn, watching the hostlers and
enjoying the fine spring sunshine, while MacAlister gave Dick a further
description of the card-playing young man from whom much of the money
had been won.
"I took the more joy in winning," added Tom, "for because the young buck
showed himsel' sic a masterfu', overbearing de'il and ill-natured loser,
not at all like his friend wi' the French name, who dropped his round
shiners like a gentleman. And mind here, now, take heed to call me
captain should they fa' in wi' us on the way to New York, for, frae the
talk of them, I conjecture that them and the Frenchman's sister start
the morning hame-bound for Quebec, on their ain horses."
"Do they come from Quebec?"
"Ay, on business for the Frenchman and his sister, wha, it seems, cam'
in for the proceeds of some estate in this town, them being of English
bluid on the mother's side. That I gathered frae the Frenchman's talk
wi' a man of the law wha called while his hot-headed friend and
me and the others were at the cards. Ah, now I mind the friend's
name,--Blagdon, Lieutenant Blagdon; for, bechune you and me, he's a
King's officer on leave of absence frae Quebec, only he keeps it quiet
just now, lest the mob might throw a stane or two his way."
"Then what's he doing here?"
"Bearing company to the Frenchman and his sister. It's like there's
summat bechune him and the girl, though devil a bit could I find that
out, wi' all my speering. But come, lad, while we ha' our choice of
seats."
They entered the coach, where they were soon joined by other passengers.
While Dick was watching the driver on the front seat take up lines and
whip, three horses were brought from the yard, and at the same time two
young gentlemen and a young lady came out of the inn and stood ready to
mount. Dick did not observe them until his attention was called from the
driver by some low-spoken words of MacAlister's:
"That's a sour-faced return for a friendly salutation! 'Tis the English
lieutenant that gave me a scowl for my bow. Sure, the French Canadian
has more civility."
By this time the three were mounted. Dick at once recognized the
robust but surly-looking young man on the right as the arrogant talker
of the beefsteak house, and the rather slight but good-looking and
well-mannered youth on the left as one of the other's companions there.
The lady between the two was partly concealed from Dick's view by the
English officer, until with a crack of the driver's whip the stage-coach
pulled out, when, by looking back, he had a full sight of her. The sight
caused his lips to part and himself to throw all his consciousness into
his eyes alone.
Catherine de St. Valier, daughter of a younger branch of the noble
French Canadian family of that name, was then in her seventeenth year,
tall and well developed for her age, in carriage erect without
stiffness, her face oval in shape with chin full but not too sharp or
too strong, nose straight and delicate, dainty ears, forehead about
whose sides hair of dark brown fell in curves but left the middle
uncovered, brows finely arched and high above the eyes, which were of a
piercing black and never too wide open, full red lips, complexion pale
but clear, with a very faint touch of red in each cheek, her countenance
dignified and made doubly interesting by a slight frown ever present
save when she smiled, which was rarely and then naturally and with no
gush of overpowering sweetness. The slightly thrown-back attitude of her
head was no affectation, but was a family characteristic, possessed also
by her brother.
"What is it, lad?" whispered MacAlister, catching Dick's arm. "Sure,
ye'll be leaving that head of yours behind ye in the road if ye bean't
carefu'!"
"Sure," Dick murmured, as he drew his head in, "I think I've left this
heart of mine back yonder under the sign of the George."
Tom gave a low whistle. "Weel, weel," he then said, "it 'ull soon catch
up, for this Flying Machine, as they call it, is no match for them
Virginia pacers the Canadian folk is mounted on."
This prediction was soon fulfilled. Ere the stage-coach had passed the
outskirts of the city, a little above Vine Street, the three riders had
cantered by at a gait that promised soon to take them far ahead.
"Nay, don't be cast down," quoth Tom. "We're like to run across them on
the journey, and they'll have to wait in New York for their baggage,
which goes by wagon. I mind now, frae the gentlemen's talk, they'll go
up the Hudson by sloop till Albany, then by horse again to Montreal, and
then by the St. Lawrence to Quebec. What a pity they don't be bound for
Boston,--eh, lad! But whist, Dickie! The sea do be full of good fish,
and it's mony a sonsie face ye'll be drawing deep breaths about, now
ye're over the hills and far away,--and ganging furder every turn of the
coach-wheels."
CHAPTER IV.
OF A BROKEN SABBATH AND BROKEN HEADS.
In those days the tri-weekly stage-coaches made the trip from
Philadelphia to New York in the unprecedented time of two days, passing
Bristol and several other thriving Pennsylvania villages, taking ferry
over the Delaware River to Trenton, which then consisted mainly of two
straggling streets and their rustic tributaries; bowling through New
Jersey woods and farms and hamlets, and crossing ferries and marshes to
Paulus Hook, where the passengers alighted and boarded the ferry-boat
for the city whose fort, spires, and snug houses adorned the
southernmost point of the hilly island of Manhattan. Several times,
during the first day of their trip, Dick and MacAlister had brief sights
of the three Canadians, who sometimes fell behind the stage-coach, and
as often overtook and passed it again. Dick nursed a hope of meeting the
party at dinner, or at the tavern where the coach should stop for the
night, yet he inwardly trembled at thought of such a meeting, knowing
how awkward and abashed he should feel in the presence of that girl.
His hopes, however, were disappointed, for, though the riders stopped
where the stage did, they ate in private rooms, and the only one of the
party who came into the bar or public dining-room anywhere was the
English lieutenant, Blagdon, who ignored MacAlister, and bestowed on
Dick only a look of disdain.
On the second morning the Canadians, as before, started with the stage
and were soon out of sight ahead. Dick kept a lookout forward, while
MacAlister engaged in talk with the other passengers, with whom his
narrative powers had by this time made him highly popular. For a long
time Dick was rewarded with no glimpse of the scarlet riding-habit his
eyes so wistfully sought. But at last, at a turn of the road, it came
into view against the green of the woods. Strangely, though, it was not
on horseback. The two young gentlemen stood beside the girl in the road,
and not one of their three animals was to be seen. All this was quickly
noticed by the others in the stage-coach, who uttered prompt expressions
of wonder, while the driver whipped up his four horses.
When the coach came up, Lieutenant Blagdon hailed the driver, who
immediately stopped.
"We are in a predicament," began the young lieutenant, in an annoyed and
embarrassed manner. "Half an hour ago, as we were riding by these
woods, several wild-looking ruffians rushed out from these bushes on
either side of the road, with pistols and fowling-pieces, which they
aimed at us, and demanded our money and horses. We were so completely
taken by surprise, our anxiety for this lady's safety was so great, we
could not have drawn our pistols before they could have brought us
down,--in short, we had to yield up our horses and what little money we
carried, and the robbers made off by the lane yonder, leaving us here."
From the passengers came cries of "Outrage!" "See the authorities!" and
"Alarm the county!" When others had had their say, Tom MacAlister was
for organizing a pursuing party of the passengers, and was seconded by a
reverend-looking gentleman, who asked if one of the robbers was not
blind of an eye.
"The affair was so quickly over, I for one did not notice any
peculiarities of appearance among them," answered Blagdon.
The young Frenchman, standing with his sister at the edge of the road,
now spoke, in perfectly good English: "One of them called another Fagan,
in ordering him to keep quiet; and said 'That's right, Jonathan,' to one
who said we shouldn't delay in hope of assistance, as they would shoot
us at the first sound of wheels or horses coming this way."
"That makes it certain," said the clerical-looking man; "they are the
Pine Robbers, as we call them in our part of Monmouth County, where they
are a great curse. It is surprising, though, that they should venture so
far inland and from their burrows in the sand-hills by the swamps near
the coast. I can be of use in tracking them, as I live at Shrewsbury,
which is not far from the swamps they inhabit and the groggeries they
resort to."
But the officer, learning from further talk that proper steps for the
recovery of the property might require several days, and yet fail, said
the attempt was not to be thought of; that the horses were the only
considerable loss, as his party had relied on money to be taken up in
New York, and that therefore they could do no more than take places in
the stage-coach for that city.
As the inside places were all filled, and one of them would be required
for the girl, Dick was out in the road in an instant, blushingly
blundering out to the Frenchman an offer of his seat to the lady, with
the declaration that he would ride outside,--which in those days meant
on the flat roof of the coach. The Frenchman bowed thanks and held out
his hand to lead his sister to the coach; but she stood reluctant, and
said:
"But the portrait, Gerard!" As she spoke her eyes became moist.
"I fear we must lose it, Catherine," said Gerard, sadly.
"If I can be of any service," said Dick, speaking as calmly as his
heartbeats would let him, and meeting with hot cheeks the first look the
girl's fine eyes ever cast upon him.
"I thank you," said Gerard, "but I fear nothing can be done. My sister
speaks of a miniature portrait of our mother, who is dead. One of the
robbers, the one called Jonathan, seeing the chain by which it was
suspended from her neck, tore it from her and carried it away."
"I will try to recover it, sir," said Dick, bowing to the girl while he
addressed the brother. Hearing a derisive "Huh!" behind him, Dick turned
and saw Blagdon viewing him with a contemptuous smile, which was assumed
to cover the chagrin caused by Dick's undertaking a task the officer
himself had shirked. Dick reddened more deeply, with anger, but said
nothing and went to the coach for his rifle and baggage. MacAlister,
always accepting whatever enterprise turned up for him, promptly got
out, with his own belongings, as also did the reverend gentleman, who
explained that he had intended leaving the coach at the next village, to
go thence by horse to his home at Shrewsbury. The vacant places were
taken by the Canadians, accounts were settled with the driver, Gerard de
St. Valier courteously thanked Dick again, giving him a New York
address but begging him to reconsider so desperate a project, Catherine
sent back one grateful but hopeless look, the driver cracked his whip,
the coach rolled off, and the three men were left alone in the
forest-bordered road.
After a brief consultation, in which it came out that the clerical
gentleman was the Reverend Mr. McKnight, the Presbyterian pastor of
Shrewsbury, it was decided that the three should go back to the last
village passed, which was nearer than the next one ahead, hire horses
there, then return, and make for Shrewsbury by way, first, of the lane
down which the robbers were said to have fled. They would stop at
Freehold, report the robbery to the county authorities, and call for the
services of sheriff and constable in hunting down the malefactors.
"If the loss were merely of money and horses," said the pastor, as the
three trudged along with their baggage on their backs, "I should not
stir far in the matter, seeing that the losers are apparently well
supplied with this world's goods. But the young lady's sorrow at the
loss of the keepsake was too much for me. It will be a kind of miracle
if we get it back. The man Fagan is a desperate rascal, and so, for that
matter, are Jonathan West and all the others. The man whom those young
people heard giving orders to the rest was doubtless Fenton, who
learned the blacksmith's trade at Freehold and was an excellent workman
at it before he took to crime. These men will stop at nothing. When they
are not at refuge in their sand-caves on the edges of swamps, among the
brush, they are plundering, burning, and killing, by night, or spending
their ill-gotten money at some low groggery in the pines. They will rob
anything, from a poor tailor's shop to a wagon carrying grain to mill,
and, though it doesn't sound like Christian charity to say so, they
ought to be hanging now in chains from trees, as they probably will be
some day."
At the village, so much time was lost in obtaining horses, that it was
dark before the three arrived at Freehold, and therefore they put up for
the night at the tavern next the court-house, which abode of justice was
of wood, clapboarded with shingles, and had a peaked roof. In the tavern
it was learned that Fenton and his gang had been seen passing two miles
east of the court-house, that afternoon, going towards Shrewsbury, three
on horseback, the others in a wagon. Mr. McKnight visited a justice of
the peace, the sheriff, and the constable; but, as it was now Saturday
night, those useful officers would not think of budging before Monday.
Dick feared that if a day were lost, even though the miniature should be
recovered, the Canadians would have left New York before he could arrive
there to restore it to them. Accordingly, the next morning, the three
men set out alone towards Shrewsbury, the clergyman having stipulated
that his share in the enterprise should be kept secret, lest his act
might serve the undiscriminating as an example of Sabbath-breaking.
"I am clear in my conscience on that score," said the minister to Tom
and Dick, "and, having put my hand to the plow in this business, I will
not turn back. I can guide you to a rough drinking-place in the woods,
where it is most likely the ruffians will be found. To counterbalance
their superior numbers, we must use strategy, and we have in our favor
the fact that most of them are likely by this time to be helpless with
liquor."
"'Oh, that men should put into their mouths an enemy to steal away their
brains!'" misquoted Tom, who thought it proper that he should speak
piously in the presence of the minister.
"It is fortunate for us if they have done so, in this case," said the
clergyman, with a smile. A moment later he sighed pensively. "My
congregation will be disappointed this morning. I was expected to arrive
home last night and to preach to-day. I have my sermon in my pocket."
"What is the text, sir, if I may be so bold?" asked Tom.
"Leviticus, sixth chapter, fourth verse: 'Then it shall be, because he
hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took
violently away.'"
"By the powers," cried Tom, forgetting himself, "ye're like to get more
results putting that text into action the morning than by holding forth
on it frae your ain pulpit!"
Under the pastor's guidance, the party turned presently from the road
into the pine forest, through which their horses passed freely by reason
of the complete absence of undergrowth. MacAlister and Dick had left
their baggage at Freehold, and Mr. McKnight's was so light as to
encumber him little. Dick and Tom had their rifles, while the minister
carried Tom's pistol. They proceeded in silence some miles, now and then
emerging on clear places, skirting swamps, and advancing over ground
that became more and more sandy. At last, in the midst of woods, the
minister held his finger to his lips, and all three stopped. From a
distance came the sound of a coarse voice singing in maudlin tones a
tuneless song. The three dismounted, tied their horses to trees, and
walked cautiously forward in single file, Mr. McKnight leading. A low,
one-story log building came into view among the trees. At one end of it,
under a shed roof, stood four horses and a wagon. The bawling of the
song came through a small, unglazed window, of which the oiled paper was
torn.
"They take their pleasure in security now," whispered the minister,
halting a moment, "because the officers of justice will not break the
Sabbath to attack them. On other days they would not be so unguarded. I
will look through the window, and see how the land lies; then we shall
decide what to do."
He led the way to the groggery and applied his eye to a slit in the
oiled paper, while Dick and Tom stood on either side. In a moment, the
preacher crouched down beneath the window, and, motioning Tom and Dick
to do likewise, whispered:
"There has evidently been a fight. Fagan and another are lying on the
floor with their heads bound in bloody rags. Another is lying near them,
dead drunk, as his position shows. Jonathan West is sitting on the
floor, also drunk; it is he who is singing. Fenton and Burke are playing
cards, Fenton's back towards the door, Burke facing it. The keeper of
the place is lying asleep on the bar, and his wife is behind it paring
potatoes. If we are speedy, two of us shall have only Fenton and Burke
and the woman to deal with, while one goes through West's clothes in
search of the miniature."
"Then let us go in at once," said Dick.
"Softly," quoth the minister; "let us all understand what each is to do.
You, lad, perhaps should search West--"
"Nay," put in Tom; "trust me for that. I've plied my fingers on the
battle-field, and can do the thing so quick I can tak' my ain fu' share
of the fighting, too."
"You are right," said the pastor. "The door is unbarred. Let us all
three burst in at once. You, lad, who look the strongest, deal with
Fenton, the man sitting with his back to the door. Strike him down with
the butt of your rifle, and be ready to shoot if he attempts to rise. I
shall take care of the other card-player. You, Captain MacAlister,
search Jonathan West for the portrait, and keep your eye on the woman
behind the bar. If I am not mistaken, she will prove the worst foe of
all."
At MacAlister's suggestion, he and Dick each looked through the slit to
get a view of the chosen field of battle. Then the three stepped softly
around to the door. Each grasped his weapon tightly, and the minister
pushed the door open. All made a move to rush in,--but started back on
being confronted by Fenton and Burke, who stood, each with pistol
raised, doubtless put suddenly on their guard by the sound of footsteps.
Old Tom was the first to recover from surprise. He made a swift lunge at
Burke, which caught that person in the neck, almost breaking it, and
sent him flying back into the room. Tom leaped after him, and was
followed by the minister. Fenton turned to shoot the latter with his
pistol, and Dick availed himself of this movement to bring down his
rifle-butt heavily on the rascal's unkempt head. Fenton did not fall,
but, after staggering a moment, during which Dick reversed his weapon,
turned to shoot the latter, uttering a savage curse the while; he thus
opened his mouth wide, and Dick thrust the muzzle of the rifle therein,
and forced Fenton rapidly backward into the groggery, to the very
farthest corner thereof, pinning him therein with the rifle-muzzle in
his mouth. "Drop the pistol, or I'll fire," cried Dick; and Fenton,
perceiving his disadvantage, did so. Dick kicked the pistol towards the
minister, who picked it up. The gentle McKnight had been raining blows
on the head of Burke, who now succumbed and lay without protest, leaving
the minister free to draw the woman's attention from Tom. She had run
around the bar and threatened with her knife the deft-fingered
MacAlister while the latter was going through West's clothes, an
operation preceded by a quieting blow on the robber's skull from Tom's
rifle-butt. Of the four prostrate men, the drunkest one slept on through
the fray, the two gory-headed rascals opened their eyes and looked on
with apathy, while the proprietor got down off the bar and looked around
for some weapon with which to take a hand. At this moment Dick, who
continued to hold the ferocious but speechless Fenton against the wall,
felt something smooth slipped into his left hand, heard from Tom the
words, "'Tis yours to guard, lad," saw at an instant's glance that it
was the miniature portrait of a woman, and thrust it into his waistcoat
pocket. The proprietor of the place had now picked up a fowling-piece
from a corner and was aiming it at Dick. It was knocked up by
MacAlister, who then fell on its holder and was in a fair way to beat
out his brains, when the woman, having seen her spouse in danger,
abandoned her contest with the minister, and bounded panther-like at
Tom. She lodged the point of her knife in his cheek, and drew it out for
a second blow, whereupon the minister, putting a pistol in each of his
coat-pockets, ran up behind her, caught her by the long hair, and
dragged her out of the house. He did not stop until she was on her back
on the ground. Before she could rise, Tom had sent her husband reeling
with a final blow, and had come to aid the minister, knowing that the
latter had more than a match in the woman. Tom placed his feet on her
hair, which was lying about her head, and, digging his heels into the
sandy earth, put the muzzle of his rifle against her forehead, and told
her it was his custom, as a soldier, to make short work of cutthroat
she-devils of camp-following buzzards. So she lay still, glaring and
panting. Mr. McKnight reëntered the groggery, aimed both his pistols at
Fenton, and told Dick to release that worthy and back out of the place
with rifle kept ready to shoot. Dick obeyed, and backed out side by side
with the minister. A minute later, the three thief-hunters were running
for their horses. They mounted, and made their way back to the place
where they had turned into the pines from the road.
"And won't ye stand in danger of retaliation from the devils?" queried
MacAlister, as Mr. McKnight turned to take leave.
"I think they were so drunk, and the thing was so quickly done, they did
not know me from a stranger like yourselves. They would not suspect a
minister of such work on a Sabbath day."
"Begorra, if more such work was done by ministers on Sabbath days, more
of the wicked would get punishment in this world! By the Lord, 'twas a
fine illustration ye gave of the penalties that follow wrong-doing, and
none the waur for that ye thumped a rascal's head instead of the pulpit,
and made the way of the transgressor hard instead of merely saying it
was."
"That's the grandest minister I ever saw, and the only sermon I never
went to sleep at," said MacAlister to Dick, as the two rode back towards
Freehold, Mr. McKnight having taken his way towards Shrewsbury after a
friendly farewell and a tender of his compliments to the young lady to
whom Dick was to restore the miniature.
That night they slept at the village where they had hired their horses.
They had to lose another day in waiting till the stage-coach came
along, and so it was Tuesday morning when they found themselves again on
a "Flying Machine" bound for New York. This time MacAlister's face was
tied up in cloths, the wound in his cheek being not serious, but vastly
inconvenient for the time being. "Another war-scar, bedad!" quoth he. "A
mark of the battle of Shrewsbury Pines."
The greater part of the journey was dampened by a series of April
showers, but when they arrived at Paulus Hook and descended from the
coach, the sun reappeared for a brief display before setting. As they
crossed in the ferry to New York, that English-Dutch-Huguenot seaport
town, in the midst of its hills and trees, seemed to smile upon them.
Looking out towards the bay, with its backing of green heights, Dick got
his first hint of the ocean beyond, and was deeply stirred thereat. In
those days a beach ran at the foot of bluffs that were crowned by
gardens and other grounds behind the spacious residences on the west
side of Broadway. There was no commerce along the North River, all the
Dutch Hudson sloops and the New Jersey boats rounding the point to make
landing in the East River. Dick's gaze, coming in from the bay, past the
green islands, close at hand, rested successively on the fort whose
walls rose from sloping green banks, the governor's garden, the water
ends of crooked streets, the little forest of masts in the East River,
the tiny village of Brooklyn nestling at the foot of the heights on Long
Island, and finally on the ferry landing-place, on which he and Tom
presently set foot. On the recommendation of a fellow passenger on the
ferry, they took lodgings in a small tavern near the Whitehall slip.
During supper Dick was absent-minded and perturbed. He was all afire to
return the miniature to Miss de St. Valier. Tom advised him to wait till
the next day, as it was now quite late. But Dick was fearful the
Canadian party might depart before he could see them. Moreover, the
prospect of again beholding the entrancing Catherine and receiving
thanks from her own lips, although a delicious one, was also
disquieting, and Dick was anxious to face the interview at the earliest
possible moment. He therefore put himself and his clothes into the best
possible appearance, and, while Tom sought the Coffee House, found the
way to the boarding-house in Queen Street at which Gerard de St. Valier
had told him the party would stay. At the door, where he inquired with
much concealed trepidation, a black servant told him the Canadians had
left. His heart sank, but rose again a moment later, when the mistress
of the house, Mrs. Carroll, having overheard, told him the St. Valiers
and Lieutenant Blagdon had gone to the King's Arms Tavern for their last
night in New York, intending to take sloop the next morning for Albany.
It was now dark, the street lamps having been lighted for some time, and
Dick decided that, after all, the morning would be the more suitable
time for approaching the Canadians. Being very tired and desiring to
rise early, he went to bed, and dreamt of the eyes of Miss de St.
Valier.
The next morning he made a hasty breakfast, and was already on the way
to the King's Arms when it occurred to him that he might make himself
ridiculous by intruding on the peerless Catherine too early. He
therefore walked about the town awhile, viewing the markets near the
East River; then going up Broad Street from the Exchange to the City
Hall of that day; then admiring the marble image of William Pitt in a
Roman toga, at Wall and William Streets; the great dry goods shops in
William Street, up to Maiden Lane; the fine broad red and yellow brick
residences, some with many windows, double-pitched and tile-covered
roofs, balustrades and gardens, in William Street, Queen Street, Hanover
Square, and elsewhere: finally crossing to the Broadway, and beholding
the leaden statue of King George, in the Bowling Green or parade-ground
before the fort. At last he entered the King's Arms, which was next but
one to the fine Kennedy house at the foot of the west side of Broadway,
both facing the Bowling Green and fort. In the public room he saw Tom,
who sat reading the New York _Gazette_, and who now merely winked at
him, being of no mind to figure with him in the restoration of the
portrait. Dick put on a bold face and asked the man in charge to
announce him to Mr. and Miss de St. Valier.
"And, pray, what do you desire of them?" queried an insolent voice at
Dick's elbow. He looked around and encountered Lieutenant Blagdon, who
stood eyeing him with a manifest resentment that betrayed an uneasy
divination of Dick's purpose.
Dick was on the point of answering hotly, but contented himself with a
defiant look and the quiet reply:
"I wish to restore the portrait of which Miss de St. Valier was robbed
while in your company last Saturday."
Blagdon's wrath was now mingled with chagrin, at the confirmation of his
fear that another had accomplished for the lady the task he had not
offered to undertake. After a moment's pause, controlling his
expression, he said:
"Miss de St. Valier and her brother left New York yesterday. As I sail
after them on the next Albany sloop, you can give me the portrait. I'll
carry it to them."
Dick looked the other in the face for a moment in surprise, then said,
with a contempt as genuine as the lieutenant's was affected:
"You lie, you know they are still here."
"What!" gasped Blagdon, and turned to an Irish officer in whose company
he was,--for there were still a few British troops in New York, the last
of them not leaving the barracks in Chambers Street for Boston until
June 6th. "By God, did you hear that?" And with great fury, Blagdon, who
was himself unarmed, grasped the other officer's sword, drew it from the
sheath, and would have thrust it into Dick's breast, had not the
Pennsylvanian quickly leaped aside. Furious in turn, at so sudden and
violent an onslaught, Dick caught the sword with both hands near the
guard, wrenched it from Blagdon, and struck the latter heavily on the
head with the hilt. The lieutenant fell, leaving a curse unfinished, and
lay quite motionless on the floor.
After a moment, during which every one in the room stood startled, the
Irish officer stooped over Blagdon, felt his head and chest, and said,
looking up:
"He's done for! The blow has killed him!"
Dick heard a whisper in his ear, "Run for your life, lad!" and felt
himself pushed aside by old Tom, who gave no sign of knowing him, and
the seeming purpose of whose violent movement was to get a look at the
prostrate man.
Mechanically, as in a dream, Dick took the hint and sped out of the
tavern. As he issued forth, a picture of the Bowling Green with its
statue and locust-trees, the green and gray fort and the one linden and
two apple-trees that stood on the city side thereof, was imprinted
lastingly on his memory, heedless as he was of it at the time. Still
holding the officer's sword, and with no course determined on, he ran up
the Broadway. He had not gone far, when he heard a shout behind him,
doubtless from some witness of the blow, "Murder! Murder! Stop that
man!" On he went, while the hue and cry gathered behind him. Up the
roughly paved Broadway, steering wide alike of the house-stoops at the
side and the gutter in the middle, he ran. Once, as he neared Trinity
Church, he glanced back. The pursuing crowd behind him now looked a
multitude, and at its head, crying "Stop that man!" louder than any
other, but giving him a quick gesture to hasten on, was Tom MacAlister.
CHAPTER V.
FROM BROADWAY TO BUNKER HILL.
Despite the circumstances, Dick had a brief feeling of mirth at the
ludicrous appearance of his comrade, who led the chase with such
well-simulated zeal and a face still circumscribed by the white cloth
used to keep in place the bandage on his cheek. Determined to resist
capture to the last, now that he had adopted the course of flight, Dick
plunged forward and on past Trinity Church. Broadway was not then a
business street, and the few people whom Dick passed or who emerged from
the residences or cross streets did not know what was the matter until
it was too late to head him off, so great a start he had of his
pursuers. Before he had reached St. Paul's Church, he looked back again,
whereupon Tom, with his hand before his body so that the pursuers behind
him could not see it, motioned to turn off into the next cross street.
Dick obeyed, and was thus for a time lost to the sight of the party in
chase. Presently the loud voice of Tom showed that he, too, had deviated
into the cross street. Dick turned his head and saw that Tom was the
only one who had yet done so. MacAlister now violently gesticulated to
the effect that Dick should turn into some yard or other hiding-place.
Dick immediately ran through the open gateway of what proved to be a
yard used as a repository for tan. He took refuge behind a high pile of
this article, and sank to the ground, breathless and half-exhausted.
There was no one else in the tan-yard. As he lay panting, he heard Tom
stride by, still hoarsely bawling, "Stop that man!" The direction taken
by the voice indicated that its owner had turned from this street into
another, and soon the sound of the crowd running by was evidence that
they had seen Tom make this last turn and had supposed he was still on
the trail of the hunted man. Their voices and footsteps died out
presently, and Dick was left to ponder on the situation.
He dared not venture out of the yard, lest he be seen by one of those
who had engaged in the chase. He knew that Tom, having led the hue and
cry on a false track, would at the proper time come back for him.
Therefore he could only wait. Meanwhile, as he was led to consider by
the approaching voices of some boys at play, what if he should be
discovered in the tan-yard? Swiftly choosing the remotest and highest
pile of tan, he crouched behind it, hastily scooped out a hole with both
hands, backed into this extemporized burrow, laid Blagdon's sword
beside him, and then, with his hollowed palms, drew in after him
sufficient of the previously removed tan to conceal himself from any but
the most minute observer. Thus buried in the tan, with barely enough
space open about his head to admit a little dim light and a small
quantity of dusty air, he made himself as comfortable as might be. By
and by his ears told him that the small boys had entered the tan-yard;
then that they were having a sham battle, playing that the tan-pile next
his own was Ticonderoga. History was soon reversed, and the English
drove the French from Ticonderoga, whereupon the French properly fell
back to Quebec, which was no other place than the tan-pile in which Dick
lay entombed. He felt the tan shift above him, and saw it slide down
before him and cut off more of his meagre supply of light and air, while
the shouts of Quebec's defenders came to him from overhead. Finally the
English charged Quebec and tumbled the French back from the heights, an
operation that resulted in Dick's having a series of heavy weights
alight on his head, a foot thrust into his eye, his opening entirely
closed up, and himself almost choked. Regardless of consequences, he
thrust his head out through the tan, and saw, to his unexpected joy,
that the last small warrior was scurrying away from behind Quebec. After
awhile the boys left the tan-yard, and Dick found some relief in a
change of position, though he did not emerge from his cave. Now and
then, as the day advanced, he could hear steps and voices of people
passing the tan-yard, and would lie close in fear that some of them
would turn in. He amused himself by imagining what would follow should
the tan in which he lay be loaded on some cart or wagon. So passed an
interminable day, beautiful outside with New York's incomparable
sunshine, but to Dick an age of numbness and pain, due to his long
retention of each cramped position he assumed; of hunger and thirst, of
alarms and conjectures, and of frequent thoughts of the man he had
felled, thoughts which he invariably put from him in his horror of
regarding himself as a slayer. At nightfall he came out of his hole, but
remained behind the tan-pile, listening for a familiar step. At last it
came, cautious but unmistakable. Dick rose, saw a gaunt form in the
gateway, and bounded towards him.
"Whist, lad!" said Tom, grasping Dick's offered hand. "Sure ye sprung up
like a ghaist. The coast is clear now, though eyes will be kept open for
ye in the city and about, for mony a day to come. Let us sit down and
wait a minute or two, till it do be just a wee bit darker. 'Twas a grand
chase I led them, mon, was it not, now?"
"'Twas the best trick I ever saw played. But where did you pass the
day?"
"Why," said Tom, as he sat on a tan-pile, "that's just it. If ony of
them had caught up wi' me, 'twould have come out sure what joke I'd
played them, for, ye see, they'd 'a' found out I was crying 'Stop' at
naething at all. So, for your ain skin's sake, I had to keep well ahead
until I had got out of the town, and then lose myself frae the ither
shouting devils, which I did by turning into the woods at a bend of the
road."
"You had the devil's own endurance to outrun them all," put in Dick.
"Why, ye see, when I got near blowed, I found ither legs than my ain to
help me out. In front of a tavern, ayont yonder, a horse was whinneying
as I came up. All I had to do was to jerk the knot of his halter and
jump on, and who could say me nay when it was chasing a law-breaker I
was, in the interests of justice? And that's how I got away frae the
chasing mob. What was there to do but spend the day in the woods, safe
out of sight and ken of man? For, d'ye mind, if I had come back into the
town, and gone to the tavern for my clothes, why, seeing that news and
descriptions must have been all about by then, as word of mouth goes
nowadays, I'd have been held for complicity in your escape, and then
who'd have come to let you out of your ain hole,--for I ken you maun hae
lodged in one of them tan-piles the day. Nay, nay, lad, never thrust
yourself in the way of forcible detention; that's a rule of mine! We'll
let our shirts and blankets and guns rot in the tavern, and gang on our
way rejoicing."
"But Blagdon,--do you think he is dead?"
"Devil a bit! He'll have come to before they were done chasing his
murderer, and the time he'll spend nursing a bloody head will enable him
to reflect on his sins. But, for a' that, we'll be ganging our way, for
murderous assault is nane sic a pleasant charge to face, however
innocent ye be, when the other side has money and great friends and
ye're a penniless stranger. Besides that, this Blagdon will have the
backing of the soldiery and the lieutenant-governor, and the tavern
people will naturally swear to onything on his side, even to attempted
robbery or the like. Come, Dickie boy, that sword ye retain, as your
proper spoils of war, is worth in money all we leave behind at the
tavern."
The two friends went from the tan-yard and by obscure streets to the
Bowery lane, and followed that till it became the Boston highroad, along
which they then proceeded northward through the country. When they had
passed a few suburban mansions, some fields and swamps and wooded hills,
Tom said, "Whist a bit!" and turned aside into a little copse. In a
moment he emerged, leading a large horse.
"This will save expense of transportation, lad," said he, as he came
into the road; "and moreover 'twill further compensate us for the loss
of our guns and baggage. Bedad, 'twas a lucky blow ye struck that there
lieutenant, to make me lead a chase in front of the tavern where the
good horse here called my attention by a loving whinney."
"What?" cried Dick. "You don't mean to say you are going to keep the
horse you found at the tavern!"
"And wha better should keep him? Do ye see what horse it is? Lad,
there's the hand of Providence in all this! Sure, your eyes ain't used
to starlight if ye couldn't make out auld Robin at the first glance."
Dick stood in joyful amazement. The horse was indeed the one that had
disappeared beneath the self-styled merchants with whom Dick and Tom had
agreed to ride and tie, on the road to Lancaster. The comrades now went
on in the darkness, taking turns at riding, but keeping together and
holding the horse to a slow pace. Dick felt in his pocket the miniature
whose restoration he had failed to effect. When, now, might he hope to
place it in the hands of the charming Canadian girl? He put the
question, but in other words, to his companion, as they rode by the dark
Murray mansion and began to descend towards Turtle Creek.
"If there is war," he added, "there's little chance of my getting to
Quebec for many a day to come."
"Don't presume to read the future, lad!" said MacAlister. "Wha kens what
turn of the wind of circumstance may blaw ye to Quebec? The older ye
grow in the ways of this precarious world, the less ye'll pretend to say
what to-morrow will bring forth. 'He started east and he landed west,'
as the auld song says."
It was near dawn when they passed the Blue Bell Tavern, but, hungry and
tired as both were, Tom advised that there be no stopping till they
should have left the island of Manhattan behind. "When ye're an auld
hand at the business of this warld," said he, "ye'll no tak' ae chance
in a hundred, of trusting yersel', e'en for the time being, in the arms
of justice. Law and justice, my son, are fearfu' things for an honest
man to have aught to do wi'. I'd rather trust my case to the decision of
auld Nick himsel', putting it to him in my ain way, man to man, and
perhaps over a good glass of spirits or two, than to ae judge or jury in
Christendom."
Giving Hyatt's Tavern also the go-by, they crossed the Harlem by the
Farmers' Bridge and continued on the Boston post-road; presently took
the left, where the road forked, and so arrived betimes at East Chester,
which stood invitingly in its pleasant valley, its church tower and
belfry rising among the locust-trees. At the tavern there Tom casually
threw off a brief story to account for having ridden all night, and the
two speedily possessed themselves of a stiff drink, a hot breakfast, and
a clean bed. In the afternoon, being anxious to get out of the province
of New York, lest some extraordinary effort might be made to detain
them, they again took horse, passed through the Huguenot village of New
Rochelle, stopped later at Mamaroneck to rest the horse, crossed the
Byram River to Connecticut at evening, and put up, before night was well
advanced, at Stamford, which wound irregularly along an undulating and
stony road. When they took the road for Norwalk the next morning, they
were thoroughly refreshed, and Dick, having got all the tan-dust out of
his ears, nostrils, and pores, was able to enjoy fully the beauty of
Long Island Sound where it was visible beyond the coves that here and
there indented to the road. That day and the next two days were
uneventful. Between Norwalk and Fairfield they met a courier from the
Massachusetts Committee of Safety to the Continental Congress. He
tarried no longer than to tell them the New England army was increasing
daily and holding the King's troops tight in Boston. At Stratford and
Milford the tavern talk was all of the war; of how the Connecticut
troops already started would acquit themselves, and how many more would
be needed; how this village farmer or that would behave when faced by a
British grenadier; of what steps the Continental Congress would take,
what dark plots the Tories might be weaving in New York, and what might
occur should the British war-vessels bombard the coast towns.
In New Haven, which they entered on a bright, sunny forenoon, a newly
formed company was awkwardly drilling on the green, in sight of the
churches and the college building. While the horse rested, Dick got into
conversation with a young gentleman who stood watching the crude
manoeuvres. Learning that he was Mr. Timothy Dwight, a tutor at the
college, Dick obtained the favor of a view of the college library, and
had the delightful sensation of handling copies of Newton's works and
Sir Richard Steele's, presented by those authors themselves. The scenes
of military preparation witnessed here and at Brentford increased Dick's
eagerness to be at the scene of action. Riding on Sunday through
Seabrooke and to New London, he and Tom had difficulty, by reason of the
strict observance of the day, in obtaining tavern accommodations. But,
as Tom remarked, the rule of not letting the left hand know what the
right one does may work both ways and concern the receiving as well as
the giving of money, and their coin at last found takers. At New London,
where the New York and Boston stage-coach was resting over Sunday, they
learned from its passengers that both the British and the provincials
had barriers on Boston Neck, that the provincials barred Charlestown
Neck as well, and that no one could come out of Boston without a pass
from General Gage, while the American army allowed no one to enter
Boston without a permit. The _Connecticut Gazette_ was full of war
tidings. All these signs of the times made Dick glow with delightful
anticipation. The two comrades crossed the Thames, by ferry, to Groton,
the next morning, and in the forenoon they passed by fair green slopes
and blossoming orchards to the village of Stonington, which lay drowsily
on a point of land that jutted out into a beautifully surrounded bay.
While they drank a pot of ale together at the tavern, they left the
horse Robin tied by the trough in the roadway, where he was viewed with
some admiration by two or three villagers and a well-dressed gentleman
who appeared to be a stranger in the place. Drinking rum and water, near
MacAlister and Dick, sat a sea-captain, who, after overhearing a part of
their talk, asked them why, inasmuch as they were in haste to reach
Cambridge, they did not take passage on his schooner, which was about to
sail that afternoon and would land at some port near Boston within the
territory under the provincials' control. Not waiting for their answer,
he asked them to drink with him, toasted the Continental Congress so
heartily, damned the King and Parliament so valiantly, and proved so
stout a patriot and jolly companion, that Dick, allured also by the
prospect of a sea-voyage, soon declared that for his part he would
prefer going by the schooner, and Tom offered no objection. When the
bargain had been made, a mild, pale-eyed old farmer came in, called Tom
and Dick aside, and asked if they would sell him their horse, or trade
it for another, as he was in need of just such an animal for his farm
work. He made so good an offer that Tom, foreseeing little use for the
horse on his joining the army, consented after very little haggling;
whereupon the farmer went home to get the coin from his strong-box.
"Whist!" said Tom to Dick, with sparkling eyes and a grim smile. "'Tis
the intervention of Providence again. No sooner do we plan to go by sea
than this honest farmer offers to take our horse off our hands, and
names a price I'd nae be sic a fool to ask, mysel'. 'Tis a sin and shame
to profit by sic innocence!"
They rejoined the sea-captain, whose convivial society made time so
rapid that the farmer was soon back with the money, which he emptied
from a stocking to the table. Tom rattled each piece and found it good,
then went out and untied the horse and placed the halter in the farmer's
hands,--saddle and bridle having gone into the bargain. Tom then
returned to the tavern, where he and Dick had dinner with the
sea-captain. When, after dinner, all three set forth to go aboard the
schooner, they saw the horse Robin being ridden up and down the road by
the well-dressed strange gentleman, who was apparently trying the
animal. The sea-captain saluted the rider as an acquaintance and asked
him when he was going back to Providence. In the short conversation that
ensued, it came out that the gentleman had just bought the horse from
the farmer who had owned him. "When I came here this morning, I had no
intention of buying a horse, though I really needed one," the gentleman
added. "I saw this beast in front of the tavern yonder, and said to the
farmer, who I didn't then know was the owner, that I would give so much
for it. I went about my business then, and when I got back, there was
the owner, offering me the horse at the price I had named."
"Begging your pardon," queried Tom MacAlister, with a queer look, "might
I inquire without offence what that price was?"
"Certainly," replied the Providence gentleman, and he mentioned an
amount once and a half as large as that for which the innocent farmer
had bought the horse from Tom.
Dick looked up at the sky, while MacAlister heaved a deep sigh, shook
his head dismally, and walked towards the schooner.
It was already laden, and the crew were busy with ropes and sails, under
the direction of the mate. The gentle lap of the waves, the creak of the
timbers, the straining of the ropes, and the flapping of canvas, had
their due effect on Dick in the lazy, sunny afternoon. When they had
cast off, and the little wharf and still town and green slopes swiftly
receded, while the creaking schooner sped under a light wind towards the
open ocean, Dick felt as in a kind of joyous dream. When that green
cape, the "Watch Hill" of the Indians, in fact and name, had been some
time passed, the wind changed both in quarter and force, and the mate
opined possible sudden bad weather from the east. Dick felt inward
threats of seasickness, but repressed them. Tom, the piper's son, showed
no sign of the slightest qualm. At nightfall, having feasted his stomach
with fresh-caught codfish, for he had promptly taken on a sea appetite,
and his eyes on the far-reaching billows, Dick retired with Tom to a
bunk beneath the hatches, and soon slept. When he awoke, he was in
pitchy darkness.
"Whist!" said a voice in his ear. "What do ye think, lad? For why did I
pinch ye then? Because, sticking my head out the hatchway for a taste of
air, I heard the rascal captain prattling with the scoundrel mate. This
vessel's bound straight for Boston, lad, and their cursed intention is
to hand us ower to General Gage for a pair of treasonable rebels! How
d'ye like that, now?"
"Let's scuttle his damned vessel first!" quoth Dick.
"Softly, Dickie boy! Aiblins it 'ull come to that, and aiblins we'll
find ither means. Devil a bit let him know we've spied their dirty
trick, mind! Providence is mostly our friend,--saving in the matter of
horses."
So the two kept their own counsel. Going on deck at dawn, they found the
captain so sharing the mate's fears of a bad blow,--that he had decided
to put back to Block Island. MacAlister sent Dick the faintest hint of a
wink. When the old harbor in the east side of that green rolling island
whose Indian name was Manisses was made, MacAlister said he and his
friend would like to go ashore to stretch their legs a bit. The captain,
doubtless deeming it not yet wise to arouse their suspicions, called a
fisherman's boat, which landed them from the schooner's place of
anchorage. They walked up from the landing to some fishermen's shingle
houses, well back from the beach, and speedily closed a bargain with a
sea-browned islander to take them to the mainland in his smack.
The fisherman, allured by the large price offered, and having less to
risk than the captain of the laden schooner, promptly embarked, under
the astonished eyes of the anchored captain, whom Tom gravely saluted
by placing thumb to nose and wiggling his fingers. The captain replied
by vociferously hoping to God the gale would blow the two travellers to
hell. The gale, however, continued to remain in abeyance, though the sky
was filled with clouds and the sea had an unaccountable choppy look and
feel. Tom, having questioned the fisherman regarding localities, now
proposed that the latter should take them to Newport, and doubled his
offer of pay. Induced by greed and by the confidence born of previous
good luck in all weathers at sea, the islander consented, regardless of
the capricious behavior of his sail and the sudden ominous quiverings of
his boat. Yet the storm held off.
Making clever use of the wind when it was brisk, the skipper had his
boat at evening off the precipitous southern coast of the island on
which Newport lies. As he was about to tack, in order to round the point
and so reach the town, which then occupied only a spot on the island's
western side, the storm came, almost without a moment's warning, and
bringing with it a pelting deluge of rain. Before the mariner could
regain any kind of mastery of his little craft, it had been dashed close
to the corrugated land. Dick and Tom escaped being thrown out of the
boat only by grasping its timbers and holding on with all strength. The
vessel was tossed about, for a time, like a cork. Once it seemed in the
act of hurling itself into a gaping chasm which rent the rough sea-wall
from the height of forty feet to unknown depths,--a cleft as wide as a
man is tall, and cut back into the land a hundred and fifty feet. But
the boat fell short of these grinning jaws and in another minute was far
away from them.
From the time when the storm first broke upon them to the time when, by
some strange freak of wind and sea, the smack was riding in a broad bay
east of the threatening sea-wall,--a direction therefrom exactly
opposite to that which the elements seemingly ought to have borne
it,--no one aboard spoke a word. But now the skipper, whose nasal voice
and distinct New England enunciation easily cut through the tumult of
wind and water, briefly expressed his intention of letting the sea carry
the boat straight towards the smooth beach ahead, there being one chance
of safety therein. Tom and Dick awaited the issue with more of curiosity
than of aught else, MacAlister looking exceedingly grim, as always in
times of peril, and Dick, as always in similar times, wearing a kind of
droll smile, as if the joke were on his courage for having got into such
a plight. Before either's senses had caught up to the passing
occurrence, there was a sudden tremendous shock underneath them, a
grinding through some gritty yielding substance, a rolling away of the
sea from the nearly overturned boat; and they found themselves high on
the beach, out of reach of the next wave, that rushed angrily in as if
to clutch them back again.
"'Twas the big brother did it," shouted the skipper, starting to draw
his craft farther up on the beach, and motioning for the aid of the
others.
"What's the big brother?" shouted Dick.
"The third wave. It be always the highest. We'll make the rest of the
voyage to Newport in these here craft," and he pointed down to his
boots.
They moved off through the rain accordingly, and, after a walk of a mile
and a half, arrived at the town, then a busy seaport with a goodly
commerce and a lively trade to the African coast. "For a cold wetting
outside, a hot wetting inside," said Tom, heading for the first tavern
sign; and the three rain-soaked voyagers promptly put his prescription
to the test, taking it in the shape of a steaming punch of kill-devil,
and looking the while through the tavern windows at the rain pouring
down upon the wharves and the vessels safe in harbor.
Next day's weather deterred the two travellers from taking the sloop
through Narragansett Bay for Providence, but they arrived at that town
on the 18th, and lodged in a tavern in the street that ran at the hill's
foot on the eastern side of the Cove, occupying a room that looked up
towards the street crossing the hillside and towards the college on the
summit beyond. Leaving Providence the next day, and going afoot with a
newly recruited body of troops bound for the provincial camp outside
Boston, they passed through Attleboro and other places where the signs
of war's proximity were increasingly plentiful, lodged for the night at
Walpole, and on the evening of May 20th reached the outskirts of the
camp of Rhode Island troops at Jamaica Plain.
Dick thrilled as his eyes ranged over the field dotted with tents, and
as they rested on the muskets and cannon,--for the Rhode Island men had
a train of artillery, and were well equipped, though as yet an
insubordinate lot. Wishing to be nearer the heart of affairs, Dick
hastened on to Roxbury, followed by the unobjecting MacAlister, and
there found several Massachusetts and Connecticut regiments quartered in
tents, log and earth huts, barns, taverns, and private houses. So well
did MacAlister know what steps to take, that on the following Monday the
two were accepted as volunteers, and quartered with Maxwell's company in
Prescott's regiment; were comfortably lodged in a dispossessed horse's
stall, and had traded off Dick's Irish officer's sword for a fiddle,
with two fowling-pieces thrown into the bargain.
On the previous day, Sunday, which was the day after that of the arrival
of Dick and Tom, a vessel had taken some British troops to Grape Island,
in Boston Harbor, to get the hay there stored. An alarm of bells and
guns had brought out the people of Weymouth, Hingham, and other towns,
and they had landed on the island with three companies sent by General
Thomas from Roxbury, driven the British away, burnt the hay, and taken
off a number of cattle. This un-Sabbath-like exploit was the talk of the
camp on Monday, and Dick deplored his not having heard of it in time to
have sought a part in it.
Captain Maxwell's men proved excellent hosts, and, though not on its
rolls, Dick and Tom shared the company's service and experiences in
every way. Colonel Prescott's regiment was soon ordered to Cambridge,
where was stationed the centre of the New England army, consisting of
fifteen Massachusetts and several Connecticut regiments, one of the
latter being General Putnam's. Here were the headquarters of General
Ward, the commander-in-chief, in a fine wooden residence near Harvard
College, and here was Colonel Gridley, the chief engineer, with most of
the artillery. Here were also most of the Yankees' fortifications, these
being yet in process of construction, and consisting mainly of
breastworks in Cambridge and on the road near the base of Prospect
Hill. Further north and northeast was the army's left wing, consisting
mainly of Colonels Stark's and Reed's New Hampshire regiments, and
stationed at Medford, Chelsea, and near Charlestown Neck.
It was the lot of Dick and MacAlister, as participants in the fortunes
of Maxwell's company, to occupy part of a log hut near Cambridge Common
and in sight of the college, and to have no share in the enterprises of
May 27th and 30th, in which American detachments went to Noddle's
Island, near Chelsea, and drove off sheep, cattle, and horses, on the
first occasion killing and wounding several British marines and
capturing twelve swivels and four four-pounders from a British schooner.
There was a skilful removal of sheep and cattle from Pettick's Island
also, on May 31st; and on the night of June 2d Major Greaton took from
Deer Island eight hundred sheep and a lot of cattle, and captured a
man-of-war's barge and four or five prisoners. Dick pined and chafed
that circumstance kept him out of all these interesting proceedings, but
Tom the Fiddler (a name promptly bestowed on him by Prescott's men)
consoled him with many a "Whist, man, bide a wee; there'll be bigger
business a-brewing!"
So Dick bided, with eager anticipations, although, in his inexperience,
heeding the grumbling of others, he thought the conviviality between
certain American and British officers on the man-of-war _Lively_, on
the occasion of an exchange of prisoners, June 6th, did not look much
like war. He was better pleased at the derision with which the raw
troops received General Gage's proclamation of June 12th, which somehow
promptly found its way into camp. In that document the British commander
pronounced those in arms and their abettors to be rebels and traitors,
and offered pardon to such as should lay down their arms, excepting
Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Continually there came exciting rumors
that the British intended to sally out of Boston to attack their
besiegers. But Dick did not know what the American commanders knew, on
June 13th,--that General Gage intended to take possession of Dorchester
Heights on the 18th; hence it was with surprise and a keen thrill that,
on Friday evening, the 16th, he obeyed the order to fall in, and marched
beside MacAlister with the company to Cambridge Common.
There he found that Maxwell's men were part of a detachment which
included other companies of Prescott's regiment, a part of Bridge's, a
part of Frye's, and a number of Connecticut troops under Captain
Knowlton, of Putnam's regiment. There was also some artillery, with
Colonel Gridley himself. And there stood the tall, powerful figure of
Colonel Prescott, wearing a long blue coat, his strong, stern face
shaded by the slightly turned up brim of a great round hat. The air was
charged with expectation, with a sense of great events at hand. The
force paraded on the Common, and then stood with heads bared and hands
resting on the guns, while a venerable-looking gentleman, whom a
whispering comrade named to Dick as President Langdon of Harvard
College, raised his hand heavenward and uttered a tremulous prayer for
the aid of the Lord of Hosts. There was a period of waiting, during
which the colonel consulted quietly with Gridley and the other officers,
while the suppressed excitement of the men made some appear moody and
abstracted, some nervous and sharp in their whispered speeches, others
extraordinarily calm in tone, others oddly jocular. Dick was one of the
last, in mood and countenance, but was so filled with emotion that he
dared not trust himself to speak. Tom was placidly grim and patient,
keeping his wits about him and exhibiting no change in tone or manner.
The fallen darkness gave the human figures, the distant trees and
scattered houses, the rolling landscape, a mysterious look. At last, at
nine o'clock, in low, quick tone, the order was given to march.
First went two sergeants, carrying dark lanterns; then strode Colonel
Prescott, at the head of the detachment. Behind the infantry and the
cannon, the shovels and other tools were borne, with which to make
entrenchments. Keeping strict silence, as they had been ordered, the
men trailed past Inman's Woods, Prospect Hill, and Cobble Hill, crossed
a level space (another common), and halted at Charlestown Neck. Here, in
the darkness, General Putnam rode up, and they were joined by other
officers also.
Presently Captain Nutting's company and a few Connecticut men separated
from the detachment and marched to the lower part of Charlestown, to act
there as a guard. The main force was soon on the march again, and
followed the road over a smooth round hill (the real Bunker's Hill), at
the base of which it halted again. Prescott gathered the officers around
him, and quietly made known the orders he had come to carry out.
Watching the group alertly, Dick saw the officers look or point, now at
the hill just crossed, now at the hill ahead, as if discussing which to
use for the purpose in hand. Finally the men were marched to the hill
ahead, from which Boston on its hills and hillsides could be seen
sleeping, across the wide mouth of the Charles River.
As soon as the men halted, Colonel Gridley began to move rapidly about
the summit of the hill, marking out lines and angles in the earth as he
did so. Guns were stacked by all but certain designated men, of whom
Dick and Tom were two, who remained under arms. Spades were distributed
to the others, who were soon turning up the earth along the lines
traced by Colonel Gridley. As General Putnam started to ride back over
the road they had followed, Captain Maxwell received an order from
Colonel Prescott, and in turn gave the word of march to a party of his
men, in which were numbered Dick and Tom.
This little force followed the captain down into Charlestown, whose
commodious houses among the trees were now deserted. When the party
neared the Old Ferry, which led to Boston, the men were assigned to
different posts along the shore, to watch the motions of the enemy, on
their men-of-war in the river and in Boston opposite, during the night.
With what delicious feelings did Dick pace the shore, to the sound of
the lapping water, in sight of the dark looming vessels of the foe, in
hearing of the British sentinel's voice who passed the "All's well" on
to his comrade! Twice during the night Colonel Prescott came down with
another officer to see what might be seen from the shore. It was almost
dawn when Tom and Dick were marched back to the hill, where the men had
been doing beaver work in the night.
A great change had been made in the appearance of the hill. Mounds of
earth six feet high now enclosed the crest on three sides and most of
the fourth. A rough breastwork had been thrown up as if in continuation
of one of the sides of this redoubt. On the inner side of these works
rough platforms of wood and earth were being made, and Dick and Tom were
now assigned to aid in this duty, the rule of the night having been that
men should dig and mount guard alternately. Dawn came, calm and clear,
while the men were working at the spades. As both mounted a pile of
earth, to level it, Dick took the opportunity to look down over the
parapet, towards Boston. At that instant there came a flash of fire and
a belch of smoke from the port-hole of a vessel in the river, a sullen
boom, and a spattering of earth and dust in the near hillside.
"Bedad," said old Tom, looking down towards the man-of-war, "that
vessel's called the _Lively_; and frae the way she says good morning I'm
thinking we're like to have a lively day of it!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE WIND OF CIRCUMSTANCE.
It was a fine, clear morning, promising a hot day. Looking across the
earthwork, Dick could see people on the housetops and hills of Boston
and the near-by country, attracted by the sound of the _Lively's_ firing
and by the news that the Yankees had fortified the hill. Dick and
MacAlister were presently relieved, whereupon they rested at their
rifles, while others went on working at the platforms. The firing from
the river ceased, but the calm which followed was so like that which
precedes a storm, that Dick was not even startled at the louder booming
that soon arose, from a hill-battery in Boston as well as from the
war-vessels in the river. The men around Dick made jokes about the
enemy's fire, and about what fate might befall one another within a few
hours. The prevalent spirit accorded with the half tragic, half comical
feeling that thrilled Dick's breast and showed in his face.
There came a slight shock and a general sensation when the word went
around that one of the British cannon balls had struck and killed Asa
Pollard, of Stickney's company in Bridge's regiment; and there followed
some ado over the matter of his burial, Colonel Prescott commanding that
he be buried immediately, a chaplain insisting on performing a service
over the body, and Prescott thereupon ordering dispersed the crowd of
men that gathered to hear the service. At this a number of men
rebelliously left the hill. To shame the timid and encourage the brave,
Prescott stepped to the top of the parapet and walked calmly around
thereupon, coolly giving orders, in perfect heedlessness of the balls
that plowed the hillside near at hand. A captain did likewise, and
thereupon the men took to cheering defiantly at each notable specimen of
British marksmanship.
Keyed up to the pitch of recklessness, the men could laugh at the
British fire, but the intense heat of the sun, the fatigue of their
labors, and the hunger and thirst due to the neglect of many to bring
provisions, were foes not as easily disdained. Thanks to Dick's respect
for orders, and to Tom's wisdom of experience, these two had enough to
eat and drink; but many, as they perspired or lay exhausted, growled or
cursed, and thought war a useless, uncomfortable business.
During the morning, while the men worked with the spades, or waited idly
and wondered when, if ever, their first shot would be fired, there were
frequent consultations of the officers, frequent despatchings of
messengers from the hill, or from one part of the hill to another,
frequent signs that seemed to promise action but brought none. There was
a moment of interest for Dick when he became aware, first by sound, and
then by sight, that the cannon in a corner of the redoubt had begun to
reply to the British fire, which had gained in severity and in the
number of its sources.
At about eleven o'clock the men were ordered to cease work on the
entrenchments, and their tools were piled in the rear. General Putnam
now rode up, evidently from Cambridge, and had some discussion with
Prescott, and, apparently as a result thereof, a large party took up the
tools and started off towards Charlestown Neck. Some of this party
stopped at the next hill, to which Putnam rode, and there they began to
throw up breastworks under his orders. Thus the morning passed, in
tedious expectancy.
The burning noon found Dick and Tom again at the parapet, which was now
manned with waiting musket-men. Dick's wandering gaze rested on two
war-ships that were moving up the river towards those already firing.
"Begorra, there's a thing or two doing, yonder in the town," said
MacAlister, with a slight revival from a tone of languor. Dick looked
across to Boston. Through some streets and towards the wharves, trailed
a long, wide line of scarlet, flashing at countless points where the
sunlight fell on polished metal. The line was of British regiments,
doubtless coming to attack the Yankee redoubt.
An oppressive silence fell for a moment on Dick and all his comrades,
while their eyes glistened; then, simultaneously, they raised a wild,
half hysterical cheer, and many a man grasped his weapon tighter, and
sent towards the scarlet line afar an unconscious smile of defiant
welcome.
The thunder of the British batteries and ships all at once swelled to
tremendous volume. The fields by the river, below the redoubt, were
deluged with cannon-shot. "To hinder us frae ganging doon to stop their
landing," explained MacAlister to Dick. Scarlet troops could be seen
moving in Boston towards different wharves, from which at last they
crowded into barges, a few of them hauling field-pieces along with them.
Dick thrilled at the fine sight when the barges were rowed out into the
river and towards a point of land eastward from the hill on which the
Yankee army waited. Passing between the belching vessels and the river's
mouth, and as the wind drove the cannon smoke westward, the barges with
their loads of scarlet and steel stood out clear in the sunlight.
It was one o'clock when the barges huddled together at the point, and
the red-coated troops filed ashore, and began to form in lines, now on
the same side of the river with the colonials who had defied them. Dick
admired the precision of the three lines in which they formed, the
patience with which they waited while their officers consulted and while
the barges went back apparently for more troops, the matter-of-fact
manner in which many of them ate their dinners while they stood.
He was drawn from this sight presently by a cheer from his own comrades,
which heralded the arrival of some teams with provisions and barrels of
beer. While he was partaking of the consequent good cheer, there was
another outburst of enthusiasm, this time over the arrival of Doctor
Warren, recently made a general, and General Pomeroy, who both came to
serve for the day in the ranks, as volunteers. Soon General Putnam rode
back again to the redoubt.
Now the British were seen beginning a movement from the point, and along
the Mystic River, which ran by the hill's northern base as the Charles
ran by its southern one. Some artillery and some Connecticut troops,
detached to oppose this movement, went down the hill and began to
construct a kind of breastwork of a pair of stone and rail fences and
some fresh-cut hay that lay in the fields. But Dick had no attention for
this business, or for the reinforcements that began to arrive over
Charlestown Neck in the fire of the British ships and batteries. All his
powers of sight were for the well-drilled enemy, who had ceased to move
along the Mystic, and now stood near the point.
At about three o'clock the British barges came back from Boston on their
second trip, and, landing short of the point, disembarked their troops
at a place much nearer the redoubt than the first force was. "It's them
we'll be having dealings wi'," said MacAlister, nodding towards the new
arrivals. "There's a regiment that we'll ken the name of later, and a
battalion of marines, not to speak of them companies of light infantry
and grenadiers. Whist, lad, it's like we'll hae the worth of our
labors."
While Dick waited, with his eyes on the force at the foot of the hill,
in front of him, he was vaguely conscious that things were doing
elsewhere; that the field-pieces of the British right wing--the force
first landed--were conversing with the Yankees' cannon; that parties
were being sent out from the redoubt to flank the enemy and were doing a
little futile skirmishing; and that the roars of cannon were more
deafening, the balls raining more thickly and incessantly on the
hillside from the ships and the Boston batteries. At last the British
left wing--the newly landed force, of which Tom had spoken--began to
march towards the redoubt. This left wing had meanwhile been augmented
by some of the regiments that had crossed the river on the first trip of
the barges.
"They're coming, boy," said old Tom. "It's a general movement of both
divisions. They are the best troops in the world, son, dour devils every
ane of them, and they mane to tak' this hill as sure as we mane to hould
it. It's a grand disputation ye're like to see this day, lad!"
Colonel Prescott strode around the platform, instructing the men upon it
how to fire, the men behind it how to hand loaded guns to the first, how
to reload, how to take the places of the disabled. "Remember," said he,
"wait for the word before you fire. Mind you put every grain of powder
to good use; there's none for wasting. Aim at their waist-bands, and
bring down their officers. That musket must be lower, man, when you come
to fire. You, there, with your finger ready to pull, wait for the word,
I tell you!"
Warfare and orders were different with the Yankee army on the hill, from
what they were with the disciplined soldiers marching up to the attack.
Dick was dimly aware of flashes from British artillery posted near some
brick-kilns near the hill's foot, but all his thoughts were on the
infantry, as yet distant but steadily approaching, with a precision
that was proof against marshy ground, tall grass, stone or rail fences,
and other impediments. On they came, at a steady walk, to the beating of
their own drums, marching in silence, looking neither to right nor to
left, outwardly as calm as if on parade, showing in their faces no
complaint against the heat nor any fear of the fate that might await
them, men patient, machine-like in response to orders, their scarlet
coats blazing in the sun, their steel bayonets flashing, men perfectly
groomed, lifted to disdain of death by the sense of comradeship and of
the occasion's bigness and by devotion to the sun-lit flag that
fluttered slightly in the faint breeze,--so they came, their faces fixed
with a mild curiosity on the redoubt, and it seemed to Dick that, coming
in fashion so orderly and businesslike, they could not in possibility be
turned back or stayed. Thrilled with admiration, "By the Lord," he said
to MacAlister, "that's the way to march to one's death! Who could be
afraid to face all hell, either marching with them, or waiting here to
fight against them?"
"Bedad, ye've got the feeling, lad!" Tom answered. "When great matters
do be brewing, a man's ain life is sic a wee sma' thing, he'll no haggle
over it!"
The British left wing approached in long files, its right composed of
tall-capped grenadiers, who came towards the breastwork north of the
redoubt, its centre consisting of several regiments of ordinary foot,
its extreme left being made up of marines, whose commander's figure was
recognized by one of Dick's comrades as that of Major Pitcairn, who had
called on the rebels on Lexington Common to disperse. When the redcoats
were still at a considerable distance, they deployed into line and fired
at the Yankees' works, all in unison, as if each was part of a great
machine. In his admiration of their movement, and of the quiet and easy
manner in which the marching officers had ordered it, Dick heeded not
the whizz of bullets overhead. On some of his comrades the strain was
too great to resist, and they impulsively fired their pieces at the
approaching scarlet lines. Prescott's voice rose in loud reproof of
these, and some of the officers ran along the top of the parapet,
kicking up the guns of men who were taking aim.
On came the enemy, firing at regular intervals in obedience to slight
gestures of their officers. And now they were so near that man might be
distinguished from man, each by his face, though all the countenances
had in common the impassive, obedient, patient, unquestioning look of
British veterans. With the Yankees the tension of inward excitement was
such that Dick and most of his comrades would not trust their voices to
speak; but some grumbled nervously, or even growled as in ordinary
moods. "Bean't we ever going to give it to them?" demanded one, and "Air
we going to let them walk right into the fort, 'thout our moving a
finger?" queried another. It began to look to Dick as if the enemy were
indeed dangerously near, and he glanced at Tom MacAlister, who was
motionlessly breasting the parapet, gun-butt against shoulder, eye
following out the barrel, finger bent to pull at the word. Presently all
growlings ceased, and nothing was heard but the roar of the cannon, the
throbbing beat of the enemy's drums, and the singing of the bullets in
the air. Then the powerful voice of Prescott rang out in the single
word, "Fire!"
There was flash, a crack, a belch of smoke, along the whole redoubt;
and, when the smoke rose, Dick got an indistinct impression of great
gaps in the scarlet lines, of red-coated soldiers lying on the ground in
various positions, some writhing and grimacing, some perfectly still,
some pierced and bleeding, some without visible wound. Those still afoot
were looking astonished and were trying to retain or recover the regular
formation of their lines. Some of them fired back at the redoubt. Dick
mechanically grasped the loaded gun handed to him by a man behind the
platform, and as mechanically relinquished his own emptied weapon to the
same man; in another moment he was blazing away again at a scarlet coat.
Then he himself reloaded, and fired a third time; and after that he saw
the broken scarlet lines in front of him roll back down the hill, in a
kind of disorderly order, many of the redcoats falling behind and
plunging presently to the earth.
"We have actually driven them back!" was his thought, and he bounded to
the top of the parapet, thrown forward by an irresistible impulse to
give chase; but he was stayed by the hindering grasp of Tom MacAlister
upon the seat of his breeches. He looked around in surprise, for several
men had leaped over the parapet, with a cheer, to follow the fleeing
foe. But officers leaped after these men and vehemently ordered them
back into the redoubt. "They're beaten!" cried Dick, ecstatically.
"Maybe," quoth old Tom; "but it'll no be them, I'm a-thinkin', if they
stay so!"
All the world knows they did not stay so; that the rest of that hot,
eventful afternoon, until the termination of the fight, had nothing in
it to give Dick an impression different from those he had already
received; that the British re-formed by the shore, charged up the hill a
second time, and were a second time driven back by the deadly American
marksmanship; that to aid their second attempt they set fire to
Charlestown, but, the smoke being driven westward, failed to accomplish
their purpose thereby; that the British cannon did a little more work
this second time; that the British soldiers were somewhat impeded in
their charge by the bodies of dead and wounded comrades they had to step
over; that their officers had to do some threatening and sword-pricking
and striking to persuade them forward; that their second retreat was in
greater disorder than their first, and left the ground covered more
thickly with dead and wounded; that they waited a long time before they
began their third attack; that on the American side there was much
bungling in attempts to bring on reinforcements that arrived over
Charlestown Neck; that many of the cowardly and the disgruntled slunk
away; that in each charge the occurrences at the redoubt were similar to
those at the breastwork and at the stone and rail fence; that the second
attack left the Americans with very little ammunition. The few artillery
cartridges that contained all the powder at hand were opened, and the
powder was given out to the men with instructions to make every kernel
of it tell.
"If they're driven back once more, they can't be rallied again," said
Colonel Prescott; and his men cheered and replied, "We're ready for
them!" The few men with bayonets were placed at points the enemy would
probably attempt to scale. It was seen that the British boats had been
sent back to Boston,--so that the British troops would not have them to
flee to, as old Tom divined,--also that the British had received
reinforcements from the vessels.
When they advanced in column to the third attack, they came without
knapsacks, and their whole movement was concentrated upon the redoubt
and breastwork, while their artillery was sent ahead and so placed as to
enfilade the Americans in flank. The red lines were but twenty yards
away when Prescott gave the order to fire. The columns wavered at the
volley, but recovered form in a moment, and sprang forward with fixed
bayonets, without firing in return. Dick, knowing he had fired his last
round, and following Tom's example, turned his weapon around to use it
as a club. He was now at the southeastern corner of the redoubt.
The British surged up to the southern side, like a tidal wave, their
front line being lifted by the men behind. A red-coated officer set foot
on the parapet, cried out "The day is ours!" and fell, pierced by the
last bullet of some Yankee inside the redoubt. The whole first rank that
mounted the parapet was shot down, but there was no powder left for the
ranks that followed. Dick brought down his rifle-butt with all his
strength on the head of the nearest redcoat. Before he could raise his
weapon, he felt in his leg the violent thrust of a British bayonet. He
made a wild movement to clutch it, but it was drawn out of him by its
owner's hand. Dick fell forward on one knee, and a moment later toppled
over the parapet and fell outside the redoubt, upon the quivering body
of a dying redcoat, by whose advancing comrades he was soon trodden into
insensibility.
When he opened his eyes again it was late in the evening. The mêlée was
over. He lay on some hay on the hillside, with a number of other men,
some wounded, some apparently whole, all under guard of sentries who
paced on every side. He soon perceived that the men under guard were of
the Yankee army, while those who guarded them were British, and, as he
presently recognized the redoubt not far away, he knew that the British
had won the day and that he was a prisoner. Before night a surgeon came
and examined his wound, had it washed and tied up by an assistant, and
pronounced it of no consequence. Dick passed the night in exhaustion,
pain, and thirst, on his bed of hay on the hillside.
The next day, while the British were fitting the redoubt for their own
service, and also beginning new works, Dick and his fellow prisoners
were marched down to the river, conveyed by boat to Boston, and led
through certain streets of that town, some of which were curved, some
crooked, some steeply ascending, some flanked by closely built
rough-cast houses with projecting upper stories, some by commodious
brick or wooden residences in the midst of fine gardens; and so into a
stone jail that stood with its walled yard on the south side of the
way. At one side of the entrance, within this prison, was a guard-room,
into which each prisoner was taken for his name to be entered in the
records. Dick was the last to be directed thither. When he had been duly
registered by the proper officer, he turned to follow the guard to the
cell assigned him.
"So we've got you at last," came, in a slightly Irish accent, from a
British officer, who appeared to be in some authority at the prison, but
whom Dick had not before observed closely. "Faith, we'll take care you
shall stay with us awhile, and we'll not give you a chance to murder
English officers, either, as you tried to murder Lieutenant Blagdon in
New York. What have you done with my sword, you spalpeen?"
Dick recognized the officer in whose company Blagdon had been at the
time of the occurrence in the King's Arms Tavern. He would have made an
answer, although the other's question did not in its tone imply
expectation of one; but the guard hurried him away, in obedience to a
sudden gesture of the Irishman.
"At least," thought Dick, "though that man, as Blagdon's friend, counts
himself my enemy, he has done me the service of informing me that
Blagdon is not dead. '_Tried_ to murder Blagdon,' he said. Tom the
piper's son was right. And, thinking of Tom, I wonder where he is now.
Evidently not a prisoner, for our lot seems to comprise all that were
taken. Killed? I can't think that! Does he know what has become of me, I
wonder? Shall I ever see him again?"
Having been conducted up a narrow stairway, he was led along a corridor
and ushered into a large, bare apartment whose wooden door opened
thereupon. But if this apartment was bare as to its wooden walls and
floor and ceiling, it was far from empty, being occupied already by half
a score of men, some of whom were of the party of prisoners that had
come with Dick. The guard now closed the door and fastened it on the
outside, Dick having been the last prisoner lodged.
Dick and his roommates had of floor space barely sufficient for all to
lie down at once, and of light they had only what came from a single
window, which looked across the jail-yard to some rear out-buildings and
gardens appertaining to houses in the street beyond. The unpainted wood
that encased the cell was interrupted only by the window and in certain
places where the inside of the stone outer wall of the prison was
visible. There were in the cell two large wooden pails, which were
removed and returned once a day.
Regularly each day the door opened to admit men who brought water, bread
or biscuit, and sometimes porridge or stew or other food; and the
prisoners were now and then taken, singly or in small parties, to walk
in the yard. They were made by their guards to suppose themselves
recognized not as prisoners of war but as rebels or traitors, and to
consider the slightest acts of consideration towards them as unmerited
privileges. As the days passed, it became manifest that Dick received
fewer such privileges than fell to any of his fellow prisoners. He
promptly attributed this to the influence of the Irish officer.
Did that officer, Dick asked himself, know the story of the miniature?
Probably not, or he would have made some attempt, on Blagdon's behalf,
to obtain it. Such an attempt would doubtless have failed, however, as
was shown in the search made of Dick's person on his capture, a search
which had not disclosed the picture. For Dick, to be ready against the
chance of war, had encased the keepsake in a tight-fitting silken bag,
which he had then concealed in his plentiful back hair, fastening it by
means of tiny cords entwined with locks of hair and with the ribbons
that tied his queue. There it remained during his imprisonment.
Of the thirty prisoners taken by the British in the battle, only a few
were in Dick's cell, the others being confined in other apartments in
the jail. Among Dick's roommates were some citizens of Boston, in
durance for various alleged offences against the royal government. One
was charged with having drawn plans of British fortifications, another
with having given intelligence to the rebels by means of correspondence
smuggled through the lines, another with having had firearms concealed
in his house,--the people having, on unanimous vote of town meeting,
delivered up their weapons on April 27th. A printer was held under the
accusation of having published seditious matter, and one childlike old
gentleman pined in the cell because he was said to have made signals to
the rebels from a church steeple.
This last-mentioned person, a mild, bewigged individual, his features
rendered sharply angular by age, spent his time sitting in a corner of
the cell, his eyes fixed distressedly on vacancy, his lips now and then
opening to utter a childish whimper of protest against his situation.
The printer knew this old gentleman, and gave Dick an account of him. He
was, it appeared, a retired merchant and ship-owner, who, at a time when
people were frequently ascending to roofs to view the doings of the
besieging Yankees, had climbed to a church steeple, on being bantered by
some jocular fellows who had cast doubts on his ability for such
exertion. The gesticulations with which he had called attention to his
success were taken by some prominent Tories to be designed for the
information of the rebels outside the city. Denunciation and
imprisonment had speedily followed. The printer, although he had no
sympathy for the old man, whom he pronounced a rank Tory, said that the
charge was all the more absurd for the very reason of the prisoner's
Toryism, which captivity had not extinguished. When the old gentleman
came out of his state of staring and moaning, as he infrequently did, it
was to deplore articulately the rebellion that had got him into trouble,
and to curse the rebels who were responsible. "Though he has enemies
among the Tories," said the printer, "he has friends among them also,
and it is quite likely he will be released as soon as General Gage takes
time to consider his case."
But July came and went, and the old Tory still lingered in prison,
growing constantly more fretful in his active moments, more trance-like
in his passive ones, more feeble and more attenuated. Meanwhile, Dick
suffered exasperatingly from the heat, confinement, vile air, want of
sleep, and lack of exercise. His wound, slight as it was, was slow in
recovery, because of the bad conditions of his prison life; yet he
scarcely heeded it, so insignificant it was in comparison with the
wounds and other ailments of some of his fellow prisoners. One of these,
in whose thigh a grape-shot had torn a hideous gash that finally became
insupportable to more senses than one, was declared by the surgeon to
require amputation, and the operation was consequently performed in the
prison, little to the sufferer's immediate relief, although he
ultimately recovered. Accounts came, through guards and surgeon's
assistants, of similar operations in the jail, not all of which were as
successful as that performed on Dick's cell-mate.
Fevers and numerous internal disorders assailed Dick and his comrades,
and their cell, in its half light by day and in its black darkness by
night, was the lodging of enfeebled wretches who sat or lay in close
contact on the floor, thrown by pain or restlessness into every
conceivable attitude. Accustomed as he was to outdoor air, and deprived,
as he came to be, of a breath of it, as well as of all exercise, Dick
began early in August to lose vitality with alarming rapidity. He became
as thin and as sharp of feature as the old Tory himself. His exclusion
from the occasional outings in the prison yard became a theme of general
talk in the cell.
One day the surgeon examined Dick's wound, assuming as he did so a kind
of grave frown, and uttering certain ominous ejaculations to himself,
his manifestations having, to Dick's keen intelligence, the appearance
of being put on for a purpose. Later, the same day, through a
good-natured guard, the prisoners received two pieces of news. The first
was that the new commander-in-chief of the rebels, Washington, who had
arrived at Cambridge early in July, had threatened retaliation for any
ill-treatment of American prisoners, and was taking measures that must
eventually result in the exchange of those now in the jail. The second
was that the old Tory's friends were working vigorously on his behalf,
and that an order of release from General Gage might soon be expected.
To every one's surprise, the old gentleman heard this information with
stupid indifference.
The next day, the surgeon returned, accompanied by the Irish officer,
and made another examination of Dick's wound. This done, the surgeon
turned to the officer, and said, in a kind of forced tone and shamefaced
manner, as if he were acting a part he despised, "Amputation will be
necessary in this case, sir."
"Indeed?" said the officer, without even a serious pretence of surprise.
"Then let it be done immediately."
"Immediately, the devil!" cried Dick. "Cut my leg off? Why, there's
nothing the matter with it! I walked on it all the way to this prison!"
"My good man," said the officer, loftily, "you don't know what is best
for you. It's our duty to care for you, even against your own will.
Don't double up your fists! You'll only hurt yourself by resisting. We
shall use force, for your own welfare, if need be." The officer left
the cell, and the surgeon briefly told Dick to be ready to be taken
down-stairs in half an hour, by which time preparations would be made
for the operation in the room used for such purposes; then he followed
the officer.
Before Dick could recover from his bewilderment, or his comrades could
offer other than expressions of indignant amazement, the cell door again
opened, and the friendly guard came in and whispered to the printer that
some of the Tory's friends were down-stairs with a coach and with an
order for the old gentleman's release. The guard had been sent up-stairs
to break the news to the Tory and to make him so presentable, if
possible, that his friends might not have too much cause to complain of
the effects upon him of his imprisonment. The guard, knowing the old
gentleman's state, preferred to entrust the news-breaking to the
superior delicacy and tact of the printer, and, having easily engaged
the latter to perform it, went from the cell to wait in the corridor.
The printer, glancing at the old man and supposing him to be asleep,
rapidly confided to his fellow prisoners what the guard had said, and
then stepped over to the Tory and shook him gently by the shoulder.
After a pause, he repeated the shaking, then stooped closer to the old
man and grasped his body. A moment later, the printer turned to the
expectant prisoners, and said in a loud whisper, "By God, I think
they're too late with their damned release! If I know anything, the old
man's dead!"
Meanwhile, the Tory's friends, three gentlemen of middle age, sat
down-stairs in the guard-room, talking with the Irish officer, who
explained that the prisoner would take a few minutes to make his toilet.
When ten minutes had passed, the officer went to the corridor, and
called up the dim stairway, "Mr. Follansbee's friends are impatient to
see him," a speech meant as a signal for the guard to conduct the old
gentleman down-stairs. The officer then stood at the side of the
stair-foot, while the three gentlemen waited just within the guard-room
door, opposite the officer.
In a minute the guard appeared at the head of the stairs, followed by
two armed comrades, and supporting by the arm a bent, trembling, heavily
wigged, sharp-featured, blinking person, whose clothes, of rich texture,
were the same the old Tory had worn into the prison, but were now sadly
soiled.
Slowly and painfully their wearer descended from step to step, in the
half light of the stairs and corridor. When he reached the foot, the
Irish officer stepped back to make more room for the Tory's three
friends. These now came from the guard-room, and stood with half
smiling, half shocked faces, to give the old man greeting. When he
reached the lowest step, they held out their hands to him, but, to
their astonishment, as the guard let go his arm, he darted forth between
two of them, strode past the sentries at the outer prison door, and,
ignoring the waiting coach, plunged down the street with an alacrity
miraculous in one so enfeebled, and turned off at right angles into the
first street that ran southward.
"His imprisonment has crazed him!" cried one of the three gentlemen.
"Hell and damnation!" cried the Irish officer, rushing up the stairs and
motioning the guard to follow. Entering the cell, he stepped over the
prostrate bodies of several prisoners to a figure that lay motionless in
a corner. The clothes on this figure were Dick Wetheral's, but the face
was that of the dead old Tory. With a curse, and a gesture of threat at
the prisoners in the cell, the officer bounded back to the door,
fastened it, and leaped down the stairs to order a pursuit.
At about the same moment, Dick, tossing the old man's wig back towards
the prison from which he ran, thus conversed jubilantly and defiantly
with himself:
"Cut my leg off, eh? Not if it and its comrade serve me properly to-day!
The printer was right,--'twould have been a shame to waste that order of
release on a dead man!"
As he ran, he divested himself of the old Tory's cumbersome coat,
throwing it over a gate into an alley-way between two houses, and he
also mentally justified his apparent selfishness in consenting to be the
one who should use the opportunity of escape. As the printer and others
had argued, in the few moments available for discussion, Dick's leg was
at stake, he had been singled out for the harshest treatment, there was
an evident intention to persecute the life out of him, and the others
might be presently exchanged, which Dick could not hope to be as long as
the machinations of his enemy could hinder.
When the vital resources called forth by excitement were used up, and
Dick fell back to his weakened and wounded condition, his gait became a
walk. Fortunately, until that time, his way had been mainly through a
deserted street, so that his running had attracted no attention.
Reaching a more populous thoroughfare, on which he saw more soldiers
than citizens, he proceeded southwestwardly in a preoccupied manner, his
coatless condition being easily accounted for by the heat of the season.
At last he sat down to rest on the steps of a large brick church, at a
corner where the street opened to a great, green, hilly, partly wooded
space, which he knew, from previous description and from the military
tents now upon it, to be the Common.
While he was viewing the scene, and gaining breath, and wondering how he
should ever get out of the town, he became conscious of a hurried
movement of men, at some distance back on his own route. Standing on the
highest church step to look, he saw a squad of soldiers led by an
officer whom he took to be the Irishman. Other people about had noticed
this movement, which was rapidly nearing.
To get out of the way inconspicuously, Dick descended from the church
steps, and started at a walk up the steep street that ran by the side of
the church and which bounded the end of the Common. As he tugged up the
hill, he knew by cries and footsteps that the soldiers were making good
speed towards the corner he had left; and just as he reached the top of
the hill he heard a shout from the foot of it.
"Stop that rebel!" were the words, and the voice was that of the Irish
officer. Dick turned into the street that went along the upper side of
the Common, and thence he bounded through the first open gate on the
right-hand side, into a flowery garden before a broad residence whose
wide door, flanked by glass panels and surmounted by a great fan-light,
gaped hospitably from a spacious vine-embowered porch. As he made for
this porch, for the time hidden from his pursuers on the up-hill street
by the trees at the corner of the Common, a young lady came idly from
the door. She first halted at the approaching cry, "Stop that rebel,"
and then stepped back in surprise as Dick, tripping on the steps that
led up to the porch, fell prone at her feet.
"Dear me, what's the matter?" she said, breathlessly; then quickly
stooped and picked up something from near Dick's head.
"That belongs to me!" he said, hoarsely, rising to his knees, and
reaching out for it greedily. It was the precious miniature, which had
in some manner worked from its fastenings in Dick's queue.
"Who are you?" asked the girl, who was slender, blue-eyed, and fair,
still retaining the portrait.
"Stop that rebel!" came the cry from around the corner of the Common.
Dick's mind worked quickly. "I'm the man they're hunting," he said.
The girl frowned, murmured the word "rebel," and looked down at him with
an expression of dislike. From this he knew she was a Tory, hence
friendly to his pursuers and at bitter enmity with his cause.
She looked mechanically at the portrait, which had escaped from its
silken bag. "Is this a lady who is waiting for you to come back from the
fighting?" she asked, with sudden softness of tone and countenance.
"Yes," lied Dick, promptly; "as you also doubtless wait for some one!"
The girl blushed, and looked sympathetically at the portrait, then at
Dick.
"Stop that rebel!" The voice had turned the corner of the Common, but
its owner was still concealed from view by the trees and bushes of the
garden. "The open gate yonder," it added; "search that place!"
"Sit down," quickly whispered the girl to Dick, handing him the
portrait. "There,--under that bench!"
Dick obeyed, from lack of other choice, at the same time losing hope,
for the space beneath the bench was open to the view of any one entering
the porch.
A moment later he felt and saw himself closed in from sight, by the
skirts and petticoat of the young lady, who had taken her seat on the
bench immediately over him.
In this novel hiding-place he lay, half stifled, while the girl politely
answered the questions of the Irish officer, whom she directed to a rear
alley, whither, she said, the fugitive must have betaken himself; and
when the last soldier had gone from the premises she blushingly arose
and faced her equally flushed guest, who stammered the thanks he could
better look than speak. Not waiting for talk, she immediately conducted
him to the garret of the house, where he passed the rest of the day, and
the ensuing night, on a pile of old bedclothes behind some barrels.
Next afternoon, she brought him a pass obtained from Major Urquhart, the
town-major, permitting one Dorothy Morrill to pass the barriers at
Boston Neck. She gave Dick a maid-servant's frock and cap, showed him
how to put up his hair in feminine fashion, and led him out of the house
and grounds by a back way while the family sat at supper.
"'Tis all for the sake of the lady who is waiting for you," were her
last words, and Dick, bowing low so as to avoid her eyes, took the way
she had described, to Boston Neck. In the streets he was chucked under
the chin by certain jocular soldiers, which demonstrations he took as
evidence of the excellence of his disguise.
His heart was in his mouth when he showed his pass to the sergeant of
the guard, at the gate in the barriers, for failure at the last moment
is a sickening thing. But he was passed through without special
question, and went on his way rejoicing to Roxbury, past the George
Tavern, and so to the American lines, where, taking off his woman's garb
before the astonished sentries, he was recognized by one of General
Thomas's officers, and allowed to proceed through Brookline to
Cambridge.
There he found things greatly changed since he had been taken prisoner,
as he had found them at Roxbury also. The camps were larger, better
equipped, and more orderly. Everywhere manifest was the presence of the
new commander-in-chief, whose headquarters were at Cambridge, where the
army's centre lay. Best of all, to Dick, companies of riflemen had
arrived from Virginia and Pennsylvania, one from his own county,
Cumberland. He knew its captain, Hendricks, by reputation, and, learning
from Captain Maxwell that Tom MacAlister had regularly joined this
organization, he hastened to follow the last-named hero's example, much
to the said hero's unconcealed delight, although not to his surprise,
for nothing ever surprised him. Dick found him quartered on Prospect
Hill, in a hut of boards, brush, stones, and turf, and just returned
from a day spent with a rifle in picking off British soldiers in Boston.
Dick was warmly welcomed by Captain Hendricks, and speedily mustered in.
He doffed his prison-worn clothes for a rifleman's suit, which had
belonged to a man who had died in camp; renewed acquaintance with his
friend, M'Cleland, who was now a lieutenant in the company, and with
Lieutenant Simpson and others from his own part of the country; and
passed his days, like the other riflemen, on the hills, blazing away at
British soldiers afar in the town, even bringing down a redcoat near the
camp on the Common now and then.
He counted as a great event his first sight of Washington, as the
commander-in-chief rode along the lines when the regiments were
assembled for morning prayers. The large, soldierly figure, the mien of
dignity and simplicity, the self-contained countenance, quite equalled
all Dick's previously formed impressions of the Virginia hero, and would
have done so without aid of the buff-faced blue coat over the buff
underdress, the epaulettes, the small sword, and the great, warlike
cocked hat with its black cockade.
On a fine September morning, the 8th of the month, Dick and Tom took
note of these general orders of the commander-in-chief: "The detachment
going under the command of Colonel Arnold, to be forthwith taken off the
roll of duty and to march this evening to Cambridge Common, where tents
and everything necessary are provided for their reception. The rifle
company at Roxbury and those from Prospect Hill, to march early
to-morrow morning, to join the above detachment. Such officers and men
as are taken from General Green's brigade, for the above detachment, are
to attend the muster of their respective regiments to-morrow morning, at
seven o'clock, upon Prospect Hill; when the muster is finished, they are
forthwith to rejoin the detachment at Cambridge."
"And what do ye think of that, now, sonny," said old Tom, softly. "Do ye
mind a word I spoke to ye once, about the wind o' circumstance?"
"Why, what do you mean?" queried Dick.
"Nothing," said the piper's son, "only that order includes us, and maybe
it's well ye keep it guid hauld of the bit picture, for this detachment
will be bound for nane ither place than Quebec, lad!"
Quebec! Dick reached back and clutched the portrait, which had been
restored to its former hiding-place; and only in a vague, distant way he
heard the next ensuing words of MacAlister:
"It's ever over more hills and farther away, boy; and wha kens but the
road will lead to Paris yet, afore all's said and done?"
CHAPTER VII.
THE MARCH THROUGH MAINE.
It was on Monday morning, September 11th, that Dick and Tom marched with
their fellow riflemen from Prospect Hill, bound first for Newburyport,
thence by sea for the mouth of the Kennebec River, and thence through
the Maine wilderness into Canada and to Quebec.
The little army of 1,100 men, consisting of the two Pennsylvania rifle
companies,--one from Cumberland County and one from Lancaster
County,--Captain Morgan's company of Virginia riflemen, and two
divisions of New England infantry, set forth in gay spirits. Its
commander, Col. Benedict Arnold, of Connecticut, had recently arrived in
Cambridge from his achievement with Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, his
deeds on Lake Champlain, and his capture of St. John's. He was a short,
stout, ruddy, handsome man, with a face complacent but resolute. His
soldiers admired his bravery, and the most ungovernable of them yielded
to his great persuasiveness.
Dick found himself more immediately under the command of Capt. Daniel
Morgan, who led the division composed of all three rifle companies; a
large, strong man, whose usually severe mien softened on occasion into a
singularly kindly one; a rigid disciplinarian, impetuous yet sagacious,
easily aroused but soon calmed. Dick's own captain, William Hendricks,
was tall and noble-looking, gentle and heroic in face and heart. The two
lieutenants, John M'Cleland and Michael Simpson, were both old
acquaintances of Dick's, the former being notable for his openness of
character, the latter for his gaiety and his skill as a singer. Sergeant
Grier was a faithful, reliable man, whose stout and intrepid wife
accompanied him on the campaign and without difficulty kept the respect
of the soldiers. The Lancaster company's captain, Matthew Smith, was
soldierly and good-looking, but unlettered and turbulent. Two of his
best men were a pair of adventurous youths no older than
Dick,--Archibald Steele and John Joseph Henry.
Of the two New England divisions, one was under Lieutenant-Colonel
Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island, the other under Lieutenant-Colonel
Enos, of Connecticut. But Dick, on the march, came little in contact
with the Yankee troops.
Sleeping by the way on the first night of the expedition, the army
reached the little town of Newburyport on Tuesday, and camped here
several days, completing its equipment. It was joined here by several
volunteers, including two young men named Aaron Burr and Matthew Ogden,
and Colonel Arnold attached these two to his staff. On Monday afternoon,
September 18th, the army embarked on ten transports, which set sail in
the evening, and which, under a fair, strong breeze, reached the mouth
of the Kennebec at dawn. Continuing on the transports a short distance
up this river, to Gardiner, the army left them at Colonel Colborn's
ship-yard, and proceeded in two hundred bateaux to Fort Western,--on
whose site the city of Augusta was later built,--reaching that place on
Saturday, September 23d, having camped by the river during the nights.
Here Colonel Arnold sent forward a pioneer party to explore the river
and to blaze a way through the wilderness at each place where boats
could not navigate and where the men would have to go by land. Dick
openly envied the lucky fellows selected for this duty,--Steele, Henry,
four more of Smith's men, and three of Morgan's. As, from the camp on a
pine-clad slope, he watched them set out, he would have given much for a
place in one of their two light birch-bark canoes, each of which was
partly laden with pork, meal, and biscuit.
"Hoot toot, lad!" said MacAlister, divining the boy's feelings. "It's
work enough ye're like to have, whether ye gang before or behint, ere
ye set eyes on the inside of Quebec town!"
It was Dick's lot not to go behind. The rifle companies constituted the
van of the army, and set out from Fort Western in their bateaux a day in
advance of the second division, Greene's, which in turn by a day
preceded Eno's division, the third and last. This order was to be
maintained until the army should have gone some way up the Kennebec,
marched to that stream's branch, the Dead River, proceeded thereon, and
made thence to the Chaudiere, where all should unite for the advance on
Quebec. Colonel Arnold waited at Fort Western till the last division was
off, then took a canoe, with Indians at the paddles, passed the third
and second divisions, and overtook the advance at Norridgewock Falls, in
the country of the moose deer.
Dick now found himself in a wilderness more solitary and picturesque
than his own Pennsylvania forests. The last cabin of white settlers had
been left behind. Civilized habitation would not again be seen until the
army should reach the French settlements in Canada. The river, pursuing
a turbulent way among rocks and over cataracts, was set amidst solitudes
of fir-trees, hemlocks, birch, and other species, and these crowned the
eminences that rose now gently, and now abruptly, on every hand. Within
sound of the eternal tumult of Norridgewock Falls, were the ruins of a
deserted Indian village, and as Dick lay at night under his blanket on
his bed of evergreen branches, listening to the noise of the waterfall,
and of MacAlister's snoring, he would look through his tent opening and
imagine the ghosts of bygone red men, or that of the good French priest,
Father Ralle, who had come to this village in 1698, and been killed when
a party from Massachusetts suddenly attacked the place in 1724.
It was the task of Dick and his fellow riflemen to open the way, remove
impediments from the streams, learn the fords, explore the portages or
carrying-places where, the waters not being navigable, the boats had to
be carried over land, and free these last of obstructions. For this work
their attire was more suitable than was such garb as Dick had discarded
on joining them; it consisted of hunting-cap, flannel shirt, cloth or
buckskin breeches, buckskin leggings, moccasins, and outside
hunting-shirt of brown linsey-woolsey, with a belt in which a knife and
a tomahawk were carried. Each of Morgan's men wore on his cap a
front-piece inscribed with the words, "Liberty or Death." This ever
present reminder to the men, of the cause for which they toiled and
suffered, came not amiss. It was not from the rifle companies that the
desertions occurred, which united with swamp-fever and fatigue to
reduce the army to fewer than a thousand able men before October 13th.
Dick soon realized the truth of old Tom's prediction concerning hard
work. At the times when some of the men marched along the river banks,
while some forced the bad and heavy bateaux, with their loads of
provisions and other supplies, up the rapid stream, the lot of the
former, struggling through thickets and swamps and over rocks, was no
worse than the lot of the latter, wading and pushing against the
current, which oftentimes upset or swamped their boats, and damaged
provisions, arms, and ammunition. More than once a whole day was spent
in getting around some single cataract, the men unloading the cargoes,
carrying them--and sometimes the boats also--on their shoulders, then
relaunching and reloading for another tug against the swift stream.
Before the Great Portage, from the Kennebec to the Dead River, had been
traversed, Dick was inured to the life of an amphibious being, as well
as to that of some swamp-infesting animal or of some inhabitant of the
underbrush. His breeches and leggings were torn almost from his legs by
thickets, which spared not the skin under them, and below the hips he
was thoroughly water-soaked. But he still slept and ate well, there
being at this time plenty of trout and salmon in the ponds and streams,
with which to eke out the diet of pork, meal-cakes, and biscuit. As yet
the weather, though cold at night, caused no suffering to a youth of
Dick's hardiness, or to a veteran as well seasoned as MacAlister.
"I prophesy that will be the langest fifteen mile ye'll often gang
over," said Old Tom, when he and Dick came to a halt at last on the bank
of the Dead River, having put behind them the Great Portage and its
three intervening lakelets, after days of dragging and pushing of boats
over a rough ridge, and through ponds and bogs. "I gather from offeecial
sources," continued the Fiddler, "that we're like to reach the Chaudiere
River in eight or ten days, though I hae my doots, seeing it's mony a
mile up this river we'll be ganging, and then over God knows what kind
of country after that. Weel, weel, lad, it's Quebec or nothing now, if
ye hauld out, for devil a bit will ony mon of us gang willingly back
over the road we've come by!"
So jubilant were the men at having overcome the difficulties of the
great carrying-place, that they whistled and jested as they launched
their boats on the sluggish waters of the Dead River. They acted as if
the end of their journey were in sight. Colonel Arnold had already sent
an Indian messenger to General Schuyler, whose army from the province of
New York had in August started under Montgomery from Ticonderoga to
enter Canada below Montreal and eventually unite with Arnold's force
before Quebec. The colonel thought to receive an answer to this letter
on arriving at the Chaudiere.
"It's a blithe lot of men, true for ye, wi' their whistling and
capering," said old Tom, in an undertone, as he and Dick stood
recovering their breath after much pulling and shoving of boats. "All
looks weel and bonny the day, but ye maun put nae trust in appearances.
Do ye moind, ayont Curritunk, afore we left the Kennebec, how ye steppit
sae merrily on the green moss that seemed to cover level ground for sae
lang a stretch, and how ye found 'twas rotten bog beneath the surface,
and full of them snags that tripped ye up and cut your feet in the
devil's ain way? Mony's the mon like that,--and woman, too!"
Up the Dead River for eighty-three miles the army proceeded, the
riflemen still leading. Seventeen times they had to unload their boats
and carry the loads past places that were not navigable. On this part of
the journey the men were assailed by rains and cold weather. Lieutenant
M'Cleland, more fragile in body than in spirit, was one of many whose
constitutions began to yield to these assaults. With a cold in the
lungs, he toiled on, performing his duties and refusing aid, until his
increasing weakness compelled him to relinquish the former and accept
the latter, on his comrades' insistence and his captain's orders. When
the chosen route departed from the Dead River, to cross a mountain,
M'Cleland was placed on a litter and so carried forward.
"If I can only hold out till we enter Quebec!" he said from his litter,
one bleak, drizzling day, while Captain Hendricks, Dick, MacAlister, and
others bore him up the wooded mountain-side,--for the captain took his
turn at the litter with the others.
Captain Hendricks cheerily said there could be no doubt of that, and
Lieutenant Simpson, who happened to be walking immediately behind the
litter, predicted that the sufferer would begin to mend as soon as the
troops should reach the Chaudiere, and reminded him, for the tenth time,
that a boat was being carried across the mountain purposely to take him
down that river while his comrades should march along the banks.
The lieutenant brightened up at this reassurance that he was not to be
left behind,--as more than one ailing man had necessarily been,--and,
turning his eyes to Dick, said:
"Do you remember the morning, Dick, when I galloped up to your house
with the news of the beginning of this business? How long ago that
seems, and how far away!" His voice had sunk, and he was silent and
thoughtful for a moment. Then he resumed, with as much cheerfulness as
his weakened state would allow him to show, "We didn't imagine
ourselves, that morning, marching into Quebec together, as we shall be
before many a day!"
Dick's answer was prevented by a fit of coughing on M'Cleland's part,
after which the sufferer closed his eyes and went into a feverish doze.
Old Tom glanced down at him, and for a moment looked grimmer than
usually.
Before starting to cross this mountain, which was one of the great
snow-covered chain running northeastwardly, Colonel Arnold and the first
division had camped at the base to rest. The tents had been flooded by
heavy rains and by sudden torrents from the mountains. The inundation
had upset several boats, destroyed provisions, and dampened the spirits
as well as the bodies of the men. Rations were shortened, and the
dejecting news went round that there remained a journey of twelve or
fifteen days in a wilderness devoid of supplies. After consulting with
the officers on the ground, Arnold sent orders back to Colonel Greene
and Colonel Enos to bring forward as many men as they could furnish with
fifteen days' provisions, and to send the rest of their forces back to
Norridgewock. These orders despatched, Arnold and the riflemen started
on their march across the mountain.
Drenched with rain at the outset, they were soon chilled by wintry
winds, and presently impeded by snow and ice. But at last the crest of
the mountain no longer crossed the bleak sky ahead. Valleys, set with
icy streams and frozen lakes, came into view, their sombreness not
lessened by the color of their dark evergreens. The down-hill and
cross-country march of the scantily fed men brought them at last to Lake
Megantic, the source of the Chaudiere. Here they met a courier whom
Colonel Arnold had sent ahead to the valley of the Chaudiere to sound
the French _habitans_, whose humble farms would be the first human
abodes reached in Canada. This emissary said that the peasants would
give the American army a hospitable reception. Colonel Arnold thereupon
chose to precede the army down the Chaudiere, with a foraging party,
that he might obtain and send back supplies and also have provisions
collected for the army's use on its arrival at the habitations. He
therefore caused the little remaining food to be given out equally to
the companies, ordered them to follow as best they could to the
Chaudiere settlements, and set out with a birch canoe and five bateaux.
In the colonel's party was Archibald Steele, with whose pioneer force
the riflemen had reunited at the Dead River, and whom Dick, compelled as
before to remain behind with the main advance, again had reason to envy.
"Whist, lad!" quoth old Tom. "The post of honor, ye'll find, is back
where the starving will be. There'll be low spirits henceforth, I'm
thinking, and waurk for the fiddle, hearting up the men when they've
leetle dourness left to fa' back on and it's devil a bit of difference
whether they live or die. Lord, Lord! It's a gang of living ghaists we
are, Dickie. Wi' the clothes of us torn to flinders by the stanes and
briars, and wi' nowt left to our shoes but the tops, we'd do fine to
scare away the crows from the corn fields in a ceevilized country. Sure,
the wind is like to pull the tatters frae our backs, and make us a
shocking sight to the ladies when we march in triumph into Quebec!"
"If we ever get to Quebec," said a soldier, dismally, who had overheard
Tom's last words.
"We'll get to Quebec!" said Dick, positively; and he involuntarily put
back his hand and felt his queue.
Dick now went to speak to his friend M'Cleland, who had been placed in a
boat, which was to be navigated across the lake and down the Chaudiere
by Sergeant Grier and several others.
"Mind you land him safe!" called out the sergeant's buxom wife, as the
boat moved off; and the sergeant replied he would do his best.
"I'm afraid the poor lieutenant finds it a long way to Quebec," said
Mrs. Grier, taking place in the line of riflemen as it started for the
Chaudiere by land.
"It's a lang way for some more of us," replied Tom MacAlister, who
marched behind her. "There's that puir blind Shafer, the drummer in the
Lancaster company. Look at him now, yonder. It's ten to one he can't see
a dozen foot ahead of his nose, yet he's always in his place, next man
to one ahint Captain Smith,--except when he fa's into a bog, through
lack of eyesight. It must be the sense of hearing keeps him sae straight
after the heels of young Henry afore him. Sure, if every man was like
him, Captain Morgan would never have to look black and curse inside
because of stragglers from the camp."
"It's a sin," said Mrs. Grier, "the tricks the men play on him, stealing
his cakes away from under his very eyes. Och! there he goes now,
tumbling off the log into the gully, drum and all! You're right,
MacAlister,--the way to Quebec is a long one to Shafer, the drummer."
"Yet I'd wager a pound or two, if I had it," said Tom, "the puir, blind,
naked, hungry body will be beating his drum at Quebec, when mony a stout
rascal that laughs at him now will be sleeping here in these gullies wi'
the bitter wind for bed-covering."
The troops came presently to a pond, which would require so wide a
detour to skirt, that the far shorter way was to cross it. Trying the
ice that covered it, the men found that too thin to bear their weight.
With dogged resignation, they began to break the ice with their guns,
and waded in. Mrs. Grier raised her skirts above her waist and followed
the man ahead, through the chilling water, to the opposite shore. Dick
and Tom waded immediately after her. No one offered either smile or
comment. On the tired troops marched, in Indian file, hungry, shivering,
aching, each man feeling that the next step might be his last.
When they reached the Chaudiere, many of the riflemen did not wait for
the order to halt, but exhaustedly sank to the frosty ground in line.
Tom, always respecting discipline, trudged on till the word came,
followed through force of example by Dick; and then these two also
dropped in their places.
"Chaudiere," said MacAlister, glancing down that stream. "That means
caldron, and frae the look of things down yonder I won't gainsay the
fitness of the name. It's unco' wild navigation we're like to have, down
that there boiling torrent, I'm thinking!"
And so it proved, when an attempt was made to launch boats. Every one
that was put into the river was stove in by rocks, on being hurled
forward by the rapids. But Captain Morgan persisted, until he had lost
all of his boats. The ammunition, arms, and other equipments were
thereupon taken up by the men, who proceeded along the banks of the
turbulent stream.
It happened that Dick and Tom were at the front of the division, when
they turned the corner of a projecting rock, and came unexpectedly on a
group that stood around a fire, beside which a man was lying. It
required but a glance to inform Dick that this group consisted of
Sergeant Grier's party and that the man on the ground was Lieutenant
M'Cleland. The sight of a damaged boat, and of a rock near the verge of
a cataract, told the story,--that the boat had lodged on the rock, and
that the men had managed to bring the feeble lieutenant ashore in time
to save him from speedy death. In a moment Dick was kneeling at his
side, whither he was soon followed by Captain Hendricks and Lieutenant
Simpson.
"It was a foolish thing to let you go by the river," said Hendricks to
the prostrate man, whose breath came in quick, feeble movements, and
whose weather-browned features had an ashy pallor.
"We'll carry you on as we did over the mountain,--all the way to
Quebec," said Dick, pressing M'Cleland's hand.
But the lieutenant merely smiled faintly, took on a look of drowsy
resignation, essayed to shake his head, and whispered the word,
"Farewell!" Dick had to yield the hand he held, and his place by his
friend's side, that his captain and certain of his comrades might clasp
the hand once ere it should be cold. Even as Dick was thinking of the
sunny April morning when his friend had ridden up, all life and
animation, with the news of Lexington, the soldier sighed his last
farewell.
When the troops took up their march and left the dead man there, as they
had left many another in those bleak wilds, Dick had a moment of
heart-sickness, when all seemed dark before him, and when he wished that
he and M'Cleland might be back in their Pennsylvania valley, and that
there had never been a war.
"Heart up, lad!" came over his shoulder, softly, the voice of old Tom.
"It's mony a friend ye'll leave cauld by the wayside ere ye come to lie
there cauld yoursel'. Ye'll learn to keep looking forward, as ye gang
over the hills and far away. Sae hauld up your head, and swallow your
Adam's apple, and fasten your mind's eye on Quebec!"
And Dick braced himself and did so.
By the 29th of October the last mouthful of meat was eaten and the last
biscuit gone. A little flour remained, and this was divided equally,
each man receiving five pounds. This they boiled in kettles of water,
without salt, into what they called a bleary, subsequently eating it out
of the wooden bowls around each one of which several half-numb fellows
sat or lay at meals. At such times, those who were not reduced to a
state of wretched apathy or speechless despair, discussed the
probabilities of their ever receiving food from Colonel Arnold's advance
party, or of their perishing in the chill wilderness. Many were the
growlers and foreboders of evil.
"Bedad," said Tom MacAlister, after two or three of these had been
having their say, "ye put me in mind of the complaining children of
Israel, though it's far waur than them ye be, for they had forty years
in the wilderness afore ivver they set sight on the Promised Land."
"Ay," replied one of the malcontents, "but the Lord sent them manna from
heaven, whereas he sends us only rain and snow and wind. And who can say
for certain when we shall catch sight of our Moses again, eh, boys?"
Suspicions like this, real or pretended, that their leader had deserted
or even betrayed them, were plentiful among these troops, as they were,
indeed, throughout the American armies during most of the war for
independence. It was by making men forget these thoughts, or ashamed of
them, that the example of uncomplaining endurance set by Dick, and the
soldierly conduct and musical performances of old Tom, were of great use
to the officers in holding the troops to their weary task. At night an
immense fire was made, and, while the men lay around it to warm their
bodies, MacAlister fiddled and Lieutenant Simpson sang for them. The
lieutenant had a rich, manly voice, and as many songs at command as Tom
had tunes,--songs of war, comic songs, songs of love,--and his voice and
that of Tom's fiddle, rising above the crackling of the fire, made
sounds unwonted in that wintry wilderness accustomed only to the murmur
of waters and the howling of winds.
The last pinch of flour found its way into the pot and thence into some
half famished stomach. The men's lives now depended entirely on the
arrival of supplies from Colonel Arnold's foraging party before
starvation could complete its work. After going a day unfed, MacAlister
and Dick boiled their leather cartouch-boxes in the pot, drank the
broth, and afterward chewed up the leather. The next day they discussed
the advisability of following the example of some of the other riflemen,
who had boiled their moccasins and leggings. Wandering through the camp,
while off duty, they came to a startled halt, at sight of a number of
men actually eating some roasted meat. Partaking speedily of this feast,
on invitation, Dick, not recognizing the flavor of the flesh, asked what
it was.
"Whist, lad," said old Tom, tearing the meat from a bone with his teeth,
"be content with what Providence sends, and discipline your curiosity.
Ye'll no relish your supper the better for speering."
But the men's talk soon disclosed that the meat was of Captain
Dearborn's Newfoundland dog, which had been an army pet. Dick ate no
more that evening, but the next day, drawn irresistibly to the same
mess, he accepted a ladleful of greenish broth, which, the men told him,
had been made of the dog's bones, these having been pounded up for the
purpose.
"He's all gone now, poor fellow," said one of the men; "even the insides
of him, and Lord knows when we'll eat next!"
On the march, the troops came to a place where the Chaudiere swept a
smooth beach, through which protruded parts of sand-roots. At sight of
these, many of the men broke madly from the file, dug out the roots with
their fingers, and ravenously ate them on the spot.
Captain Morgan, sharing without exemption the sufferings of the men, was
no less severe against insubordination during this starving time than he
had formerly been. His rigid yet fair rule, and the kindly and tactful
authority of Hendricks, kept the men moving along towards the distant
goal, however listlessly and hopelessly some of them went. As for the
Lancaster company, if Captain Smith was unduly boisterous, his men had
before them such examples of unquenchable spirit as young Henry, and of
unwearying patience as Shafer, the half blind drummer. But it was, on
the whole, a despairing band of haggard and half naked men that moved
at crawling pace along the rocky Chaudiere.
"The farther we march, the farther away seems the Promised Land,"
muttered the man whom old Tom had once likened to the murmuring children
of Israel.
MacAlister, who had begun to limp, for the once made no answer, and
Dick, toiling heavily along behind him, had to clench his teeth and
think of the girl in Quebec, to keep from succumbing to the general
despair.
Suddenly, from the tree-hidden distance in front, came a sound that made
every man's head go up in eager, half-incredulous joy. It was the lowing
of cattle.
The troops pushed rapidly forward, every ear and eye alert. When a clear
space was reached, and a few men of Colonel Arnold's party, with some
Canadians and Indians, were seen coming up the river with a herd of
cattle, several of the soldiers shrieked wildly, others laughed like
lunatics, many wept like women, and some rushed forward and threw their
arms around the great brown necks of the cattle. Dick smiled and cheered
and waved his hat, and old Tom's face warmed for a moment into a
gratified grin. In after years both often used to say that the
joyfullest sight of their lives was that of these cattle coming up the
river on that wintry day in the wilderness.
While they ate, around their camp-fire, they heard how Arnold's party
had fared, how three of its boats had been dashed to pieces on the way
down the Chaudiere, the cargoes lost, the crews put in great peril of
their lives, one boat-load of men nearly thrown over a cataract; how the
party was cordially received at Sertigan, the nearest French settlement,
whose first house Arnold had reached on the night of October 30th, and
how he had started provisions back towards the army early the next
morning.
It was two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, November 4th, when the
riflemen, having swiftly waded mid-deep through a wide stream that
flowed from the east, came in sight of the first house they beheld in
Canada, a small, squat, wooden building, which, with its barn and little
outhouses, had a look of snugness and comfort all the greater for the
bleak surroundings. The men rushed forward to it joyfully, and found
that Colonel Arnold had laid in a great quantity of food.
Stared at curiously by the wool-clad Canadian family of seven persons,
the famished troops ate voraciously, cramming their throats with boiled
beef, hot bread, and boiled or roasted potatoes. Warned by MacAlister,
Dick restrained his appetite and fed but moderately. Within a few hours
he realized the value of old Tom's admonition, for many of the men
sickened from the sudden repletion and some died of it. The army now had
not only supplies but also a reinforcement, which consisted of the
Abenaqui chief, Natanis, with his brother, Sebatis, and several of his
tribe, all these Indians having distantly accompanied the troops,
unseen, from the Dead River. They had feared that, in the wilderness,
the army might receive them as enemies. These allies were welcomed as
compensating slightly for the defection of the entire third division,
which, through the misunderstanding or disobedience of Enos, had gone
back in its entirety, with the medicine-chest and a large stock of
provisions, when Arnold had ordered its incapacitated men returned to
Norridgewock.
The army made a halt at the French settlements, while Colonel Arnold
distributed among the Canadians a printed manifesto furnished him by
General Washington, of which the purpose was to enlist Canadians to the
cause of the revolted colonies. On the 7th of November the two
divisions, now together and numbering only six hundred men, were four
leagues from the St. Lawrence. Hope and expectation had reawakened.
Around the camp-fire that night there were conjectures as to how and
when the attack on Quebec would be made; as to how it was at present
garrisoned and fortified; as to what the army from New York, under
Schuyler and Montgomery, must have done by this time in the vicinity of
Montreal; as to when Colonel Arnold should receive replies to the
messages he had sent by Indians to those commanders; as to when the two
armies would unite; as to which side would be taken by the different
elements of Canada's population,--the old French aristocracy, the
Catholic priesthood, the French peasants, the few British and Irish
immigrants who had come in since the English had taken the country from
the French. Thus far, the humble _habitans_, at least, had given the
Americans kindly welcome, calling them _nos pauvres frères_ and refusing
payment for lodging and food in their little farmhouses. Again and again
was told the story of Wolfe's victory in '59, and it was questioned
whether the American commanders would ascend to the Heights of Abraham
to attack, as he had done, or would assail the city on some other side.
Arnold's boldly outlined, resolute countenance, with the fire in the
eyes, and the look of inward planning, had the prophetic aspect of
victory, and throughout the little army confidence grew apace.
Lieutenant Simpson's voice and Tom MacAlister's fiddle now sounded out
blithely. Even the cold was less heeded. A deeply thrilling expectancy
glowed in Dick, making him view things about him as in a kind of dream.
"Sure, the Promised Land seems to be coming into sight, after all," said
old Tom, to the grumbler who marched ahead of him. The army had broken
camp and was marching towards the St. Lawrence.
"Who said it wasn't?" queried the other; but he added, a moment later,
"Though we haven't set foot on it yet, and as for what's in sight, all I
can see ahead is woods, with a parcel of ragged walking corpses trailing
through."
They were, indeed, a procession of sorry-looking creatures. Unkempt,
ill-shaven, limping from footsoreness, bending forward from the habit
induced by fatigue, sunken of cheek, haggard of eye and feature, half
naked, many of them barefoot, bearing their rifles and baggage as heavy
burdens, they were an army more fitted to appall by their ghastly aspect
than by military formidableness. So they plodded through the forest.
On Thursday, November 9th, blinking their eyes at the sudden light as
they emerged from the shades, Dick and MacAlister stepped out in file
from the woods, presently came to a halt, drawn up in line with the
little army, and stood staring in a kind of stupid wonder at the scene
before them,--first a clear space sloping gradually, next a wide river
flowing tranquilly, a few vessels moored in the river, then some houses
and walls massed irregularly at the base of high cliffs, and finally, at
the top of these cliffs, a huddle of fortifications, towers, spires, and
roofs, and, over all else, the flag of England.
"'Tis Quebec, lad!" said old Tom, in a singularly dry tone, little above
a whisper; "the Promised Land!"
Dick made no answer, but stood gazing with moistened eyes, unable to
speak for the emotion that stirred within him.
CHAPTER VIII.
WITHIN THE WALLS OF QUEBEC.
To be in front of Quebec was one thing, but to be inside of it was
another. Dick could only bide in patience, depending on the doings of
those in authority, and on circumstance, for his hoped-for entrance into
the city and meeting with Catherine de St. Valier.
There was neither any visible sign of the army from the province of New
York, nor any news from it. Dick was promptly assigned to duty with a
party sent to look for boats, that the army might at the chosen time
cross from Point Levi, near which it camped, to the Quebec side of the
river. Neither Dick nor any of his comrades found craft of any kind;
instead, they got, from the _habitans_, the information that the British
at Quebec had recently removed or destroyed all the boats about Point
Levi. So the coming of the American army had been expected! The
inference from this fact, and from the non-arrival of word from the New
York army, was that Arnold's Indian messengers had betrayed his purpose
to the enemy in Quebec, and time proved this conclusion true. There was
naught to do but remain at Point Levi and search the riverside afar for
boats.
In a short time this quest resulted in the assembling of forty birch
canoes, obtained from Canadians and Indians, with forty Indians to
navigate them. But now came windy, stormy weather, in which the
roughness of the river made impossible a crossing in such fragile craft.
During this period of discomfort in the camp, intelligence began to
come, through the inhabitants, of the state of affairs in Quebec.
General Carleton, the governor, was away, up the St. Lawrence, perhaps
directing movements against the army from New York, somewhere in the
vicinity of Montreal. But the defences were being strengthened and the
garrison reinforced, under the direction of the lieutenant-governor,
Caramhe, and of the veteran Colonel Maclean, who had returned from Sorel
with the Royal Highland Emigrants, three hundred Scotchmen enlisted by
him at Quebec. Recruits had come also from Nova Scotia and elsewhere.
Quebec had observed the colonial troops camped between woods and river,
and the military and official people despised and laughed at them. The
merchants and business folk disliked Governor Carleton for his
affiliation exclusively with the official and military classes and the
old French aristocracy, but would nevertheless stand stanchly for
English rule and the defence of the city. The French seigneurs,
reconciled to the treaty of 1763, had no reason to desire a change of
government, and it was likely that the priesthood, the artisans, and the
peasants would be neutral save when favoring the winning side.
Such reports helped to furnish camp talk, and Dick was as interested in
it as any one was, but the walled town that loomed high across the wide
river had for him another interest. He would stand gazing at it by the
hour, wondering in what part of it she was, and what would be the manner
of his first sight of her. When he saw young Burr, of Arnold's staff,
set forth in a sledge, and in a priest's disguise, from a friendly
monastery, at a distance from the camp, with a guide, Dick promptly
guessed the mission, the bearing of word from Arnold to the New York
army; and for once Dick did not envy another a task of peril, for Dick
preferred now to remain near Quebec.
Four days after the army's arrival at Point Levi, there came at last a
messenger from General Montgomery, whom Schuyler's illness had left in
supreme command of the expedition from New York Province. His news set
the camp cheering. The town of St. John's, which the British had retaken
after Arnold's capture of it, had fallen to Montgomery on the 3d of
November, after a siege of seven weeks. The New York general was to have
proceeded thence to Montreal, capture that town, and come down the river
to join Arnold. On top of these inspiriting tidings, came the joyfully
exciting orders to make ready for an immediate crossing of the river.
At about ten o'clock that night, Monday, November 13th, the troops
paraded noiselessly on the beach near a mill at Point Levi. Dick's heart
exulted as he found himself still in the van when the riflemen, directed
in the gloom by the low-spoken orders of Morgan, stepped into the canoes
that awaited them at the edge of the dark river. Silently, at the word,
each boat pushed off, the Indians dipped their paddles, and the men
found themselves in the swift current. Dick looked over the shoulder of
old Tom towards the distant frowning heights, and recalled the story of
how Wolfe, traversing the same river towards those same heights, on that
fateful night sixteen years before, to find death and immortal fame on
the morrow, had recited some lines from Gray's "Elegy in a Country
Churchyard" and said he would rather be their author than take Quebec.
Dick's emotion on realizing that he was where great history had been
made, mingled presently with the one image that dominated his mind
whenever his eyes or thoughts were on Quebec.
But now and then an incident occurred to disturb his contemplations.
The canoe behind him upset, and there was excitement, with loss of time,
in rescuing its occupants, some of whom had to cross the river half
submerged in the chill water, each holding to the stern of a canoe.
Dick's boat, overcrowded, spilt a few of its passengers without entirely
overturning, but no man was lost. The course lay between two of the
enemy's war-vessels, a frigate and a sloop, yet the riflemen passed
undiscovered. The transit seemed interminable, much to Dick's wonder,
for from Point Levi the opposite shore had not appeared to be half as
far as it was.
At last the canoe glided along the shore of Wolfe's Cove, at the base of
a steep ascent a mile and a half from the town, and Dick leaped ashore
after Lieutenant Simpson, on the spot where the English general had
landed on that September night in '59. The little landing-place was soon
thronged with the dark figures of the men from the first boats, and
Dick, ere he had taken time to look around, was stealthily scurrying up
the slanting path, one of a party quickly sent in different directions
by Morgan to reconnoitre the town's approaches.
Clambering up the way by which Wolfe's army had ascended, he looked back
and saw the dark river dotted in a long line with the boats of the
crossing army. The continued silence testified either to the skill or
good luck of his comrades, or to the blindness of the watches on the
British vessels and on the guard-boats that patrolled the river.
Reaching the top of the precipice and standing at last on the Plains of
Abraham, Dick made sure that the head of the ascent was unguarded, and
he thereupon, in obedience to his orders, descended back to the
landing-place, and reported. More of the army had now arrived, and in an
uninhabited house at the Cove a fire had been made, at which Dick went
to warm himself and found old Tom.
At four o'clock in the morning, a sudden angry booming in the river
proclaimed that the British had discovered the boats then crossing. But
the bark was not followed by a bite, and at last the entire army was
safe on land at the Cove. The men were in eager expectation of an
immediate attack, which Captain Morgan openly showed himself to favor;
but Colonel Arnold probably supposed from the firing that the garrison
would be on the alert, and so, with guards set, the troops passed the
night, as best they could, at the Cove.
On Tuesday the gaunt army marched up the precipice and stood where
Wolfe's regiments had formed on the day they took Quebec from France.
Far in front lay the town, behind its walls and bastions, and by them
cut off upon its promontory. Old Tom knew the place from description,
and pointed out, to Dick, Cape Diamond at the right, and the citadel
crowning that height; at the left, close to a bastion, the open gate of
St. John's, where Montcalm fell; between these two, the St. Louis Gate,
the towers of churches, and the roofs of official residences. The
soldiers waited, while the officers held council.
Suddenly, from the wall-encircled city, came the sound of drums beating
to arms, and soon the walls became thronged with troops and citizens. At
the same time the gate of St. John's was closed. Colonel Arnold
thereupon marched his men towards the town and paraded them within a
hundred yards of the walls, ordering them to give three cheers, which
they did heartily, Dick tingling with the expectation of battle.
But the enemy stayed behind his walls, even though presently the
Americans fired a few taunting volleys at him; and, after awhile, their
demonstration being answered from the ramparts by a large piece of
artillery, they marched back to a safe distance and encamped. That
evening Colonel Arnold sent a flag, demanding surrender, but the
Highlanders guarding the city gate fired on it. Then ensued more days of
waiting.
The officers quartered in some now abandoned country residences and
farmhouses, and many of the men were lodged in peasants' cottages and
barns. During these days of inaction, riflemen were sent to the
suburbs, outside the walls, to annoy the enemy, as they had annoyed him
in Boston from the hills about Cambridge. While engaged in this, in the
suburb of St. John's, Dick and MacAlister, by crawling away betimes on
knees and elbows, narrowly escaped the capture that befell one of the
Virginians who lay concealed with them in a thicket, a party of the
enemy having made a sortie from the gate.
When they got back to camp, they learned that fresh news had come from
Montgomery,--that Montreal had capitulated to him on the 12th, but that
Governor Carleton had contrived to elude him and was supposed to have
fled down the river, bound for Quebec. Orders were now given to be in
readiness to march, it having been decided to retire up the river to
Point aux Trembles, to await Montgomery at greater distance from the
enemy. Dick's heart fell at thought of going, even for a short time and
a score of miles, further from Quebec. Before he had time to brood over
the matter, he was summoned to wait on Captain Hendricks, whom he found
sitting with Colonel Arnold and Captain Morgan at a table in the chief
room of a stone farmhouse. Hendricks returned his salute with a friendly
look, Morgan with an approving one, and Arnold with a pleasant but
piercing gaze and the words: "How would you like to go into Quebec, and
learn the exact strength of each battery there and of each force of men
in the garrison?"
When Dick grasped the full sense of this question, which he was delayed
in doing by his mental notice of the present harmony between Arnold and
Morgan after an open quarrel over the short allowance of flour to the
riflemen, he waited a moment for breath, then answered:
"I should be delighted, sir!"
"It is necessary," Arnold went on, "that we have information more
reliable than the reports we are getting from the inhabitants, for no
two of these reports agree. There is a method just now by which a shrewd
man may easily enter the city, without arousing suspicion there. This
method requires that our man shall play a part. I am told you have
ability in that direction."
Dick recalled his Boston escapes, and bowed.
"Here," said Arnold, handing Dick a sealed missive from the table, "is a
letter from General Carleton, who is now somewhere up the river, to
Colonel Maclean in Quebec. The messenger who carried it has fallen into
our hands. It was so carelessly sealed that we were able to open and
refasten it without seeming to have broken the wax. You are to personate
the messenger, carry the letter to Colonel Maclean, get the information
we want, and send it in a way I shall tell you of,--for you will
probably be kept in the city, and any failure in your own attempt to
get away might keep your information from reaching us. After that, you
may escape when you best can. You understand, your report to me is not
to be put to the risk that your body will doubtless undergo in getting
back from the enemy."
"I understand."
"As General Carleton's message doesn't contain any description of the
bearer, but merely tells Maclean to enroll him into service, you may
assume what character you please. The messenger was a Tory hunter, from
the province of New York, dressed much like you. So it may be well to
pretend that character, wearing your own clothes. Captain Hendricks
tells me you know enough of Montreal and the intervening country, from
description, to answer knowingly if you should be questioned about it.
Sit yonder, and read this letter from General Montgomery to me, and this
copy of General Carleton's message to Colonel Maclean. They will let you
know how matters were at Montreal, and with General Carleton, when the
messenger left."
Dick glanced down at the papers pushed towards him, and resumed heed of
Arnold's instructions, which continued while the speaker now and then
jotted down a word or two on a piece of paper:
"You will leave the camp with this pass, on the side farthest from the
town, so it may appear you are going to reconnoitre up the river; for
your destination must of course be a secret, lest some informant of the
enemy's might follow and expose you. You will go around the camp by
land, and reach the city after dark. The letter you carry will get you
admittance without delay. Once within the walls, obtain the information
as you are best able to. Put it in writing, and take it to a woman
called Mère Frappeur, who keeps a wine shop in the upper town, near the
Palace Gate. She is an Irish woman, the widow of a French fish-monger,
and she has a boat in which she sometimes goes fishing herself. When you
meet her, if no one else is about, whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,'--do you
know the tune?"
Dick, who had heard Tom fiddle it a thousand times, softly whistled the
opening part. Arnold nodded, and went on:
"If you look at her in such a manner as to show that the tune is a
signal, she will soon come to an understanding with you. You will ask
her, in my name, to take your written message, in her boat, at night,
close to the shore immediately on this side of the British stockade near
the foot of Cape Diamond. There she will whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,'
and will be answered with the same tune by a man whom I shall have in
waiting there each night, from to-morrow. She will give him the message
and afterwards report to you. When you are sure the information is safe
in that man's hands, you may escape and report to me, when you find
opportunity or create it. I have made some notes here, that you will fix
in mind before you start; but destroy that paper and my pass, as soon as
you are clear of the camp, so that you will carry no papers to Quebec
other than General Carleton's letter."
Dick took the sheet handed to him, and read the words: "Strength of each
battery,--number men in each force,--Mère Frappeur,--wine shop near
Palace Gate,--Molly, my Treasure,--boat,--each night,--shore this side
stockade near foot Cape Diamond." While the three officers discussed in
low tones at one end of the table, Dick sat at the other end, and
memorized every circumstance mentioned in the letters of Montgomery and
Carleton. He then rose, and, being noticed by Colonel Arnold, returned
those two letters, and took his leave, retaining the pass, Arnold's
brief notes, and the genuine letter from Carleton to Maclean. He was
followed from the room by the kindly smile of Captain Hendricks.
It was now almost nightfall. Dick returned to his quarters, in a barn
loft, put from his pockets and attire whatever might betray him, and saw
with satisfaction that his clothes, now mended by old Tom and
replenished from the stock of a dead comrade, no longer bore striking
evidence of his march through Maine. He assured himself for the
thousandth time that the miniature was still in its hiding-place; made a
hasty supper with his mess on the barn floor below; called MacAlister
aside and told of his coming absence on reconnoitring duty; shook the
old fellow's hand, and was gone.
"Guid luck, and a merry meeting in this waurld or some ither!" was old
Tom's farewell.
Dick tore up his pass as soon as it had been honored at last by the
outermost picket; for in his zeal to respect his commander's every wish
he was determined to make so wide a detour in rounding the camp that he
could not possibly come near another sentry. The night was well advanced
when he strode finally between the colonial army and the frowning city.
Skulking past Mount's Tavern, giving a wide berth to every farmhouse or
suburban residence that might perchance shelter some American force on
special duty, he stood at last between the suburb of St. Louis and that
of St. John's, and hesitated as to which gate to approach. He chose that
of St. John's, and, hastening up to it with an air of importance and
fatigue, was challenged at some distance by a sentry on the wall. His
prompt account of himself got him speedily through the wicket, and soon
a guard officer was escorting him to Colonel Maclean, who was for the
time quartered in a house near the bastion of La Potasse, in order to be
close to the barracks and St. John's Gate.
Maclean sat in a room on a level with the street, holding vigil with
some officers. Dick faced him across a table on which were a candelabra,
writing materials, and a great mass of papers. The British commander,
Scotchiest of the Scotch, was rugged, frowning, and sharp-speaking, but
seemed to have a solid substratum of good-nature. He read Carleton's
letter in silence, then scrutinized Dick with gray eyes as hard as
granite, and pelted him with a succession of gruff questions, to which
Dick replied with quiet readiness and a steady return of look. The
questions were all on matters covered by the letter, which, Dick could
easily see, the sagacious Scot did not suspect of having been opened.
Dick's answers evidently convinced the colonel that the letter had not
changed bearers since leaving General Carleton's hand. For the colonel's
address was a little less gruff, when he presently asked:
"What is your name, my guid mon?"
"Tammas MacAlister," replied Dick, under a prompt inspiration, and
added, in imitation of the Fiddler's manner of speech, "Ye maun hae
kenned my fayther, and his fayther afore him, that baith piped ahint the
heels of Charlie Stuart in '45, though the present generation is loyal,
soul and body, to the powers that be. I oft heard them tell of the
Macleans, and what a grand family they are,--begging your pardon."
"I dare say," answered the colonel, his face having lost its rigor.
"Though I don't mind at the moment, I maun hae kenned your forebears in
days lang syne. 'Tis strange I didn't heed your Scottish tongue sooner.
Ye're the build and face of a true Caledonian, and ye'll mak' a braw
recruit for the Royal Emigrants. Captain, let MacAlister mess and
quarter with your company for the time being, and see that he reports to
me to-morrow at ten o'clock." The officer addressed sent an attendant
for a sergeant, in whose charge Dick was placed, and by whom he was soon
assigned to a bunk in the adjacent barracks, his mind in a whirl of
emotions, thoughts, and plans, all regarding his military mission and
his intended visit to Catherine de St. Valier.
The next morning, at breakfast, Dick studied carefully each man of the
mess. Pretending to a previous knowledge acquired through a seafaring
uncle, he asked an old Quebec man whether there were any St. Valiers
still in the city. He soon learned that Gerard and Catherine were the
last of their branch of the family, that it was an impoverished branch,
and that they were now living with their unmarried uncle in the latter's
house in Palace Street, near the street that led from the St. John's
Gate.
Dick next, observing that a certain prating corporal affected expert
knowledge of the town's defences, and had a truly Scotch tenacity of
assertion, lured him subtly into an argument regarding the present state
of Quebec as compared with that in Wolfe's time; and thus elicited, as
to the disposition of artillery, a statement so exact and full that, to
be relied on, it required only to agree with some report from another
source. Dick secretly assigned each section of a piece of biscuit to
represent some particular post named by the corporal, and on that
section he made tiny finger-nail scratches equal in number to the cannon
said to be at the post. Being under orders to remain with the sergeant,
he found, by using his eyes skilfully while about the barracks, that the
corporal's account was correct as far as concerned certain guns in the
vicinity of St. John's Gate.
During the morning there came to the barracks a barber who had customers
among soldiers stationed at different parts of the town. Now that the
troops remained near their posts when off duty, ready to respond in case
of sudden attack, this practitioner, instead of keeping shop as usually,
made the rounds to visit the customers who could not visit him. Dick was
shaved by him, and, during the operation, led him to discourse upon
those parts of the city to which duty called him. The observant barber
incidentally let fall numerous bits of information that confirmed, if
they did not augment, certain details of the knowing corporal's
disclosures.
This barber and the corporal had the knack possessed by small boys and
dogs, of nosing into every opening whence anything might be seen, and
had come by far more and far other information than they were properly
entitled to possess. Dick had begun the day with the knowledge, won in
his own experience, that in every score of people there are two or three
such investigating persons. Keen observation had enabled him to single
out the two such from the host of men he met in the barracks, and by the
closest attention he had picked out, from the chaff of their talk, the
few grains that were to his purpose. It was not, therefore, mere good
luck that had brought him so promptly a better approximate account of
the city's heavy armament than he could have obtained in hours of
suspicious loitering around the various batteries.
At ten o'clock he reported to Colonel Maclean at the latter's temporary
headquarters. He had to give an account of his supposed journey from
Montreal and of how he had contrived to pass the American camp. Maclean
said it would be useless to send him back with a message to General
Carleton, as the latter's whereabouts would doubtless remain unknown
until his arrival at Quebec, which might occur at any time. He proposed,
therefore, that Dick should enlist in the Royal Highland Emigrants.
Dick, who had borne in mind from the first that his task must be done
ere the arrival of Carleton, as the governor would know him from the
genuine messenger, replied that to serve in the Emigrants was the
ambition of his life. The colonel asked Dick what soldiering he had
seen. Dick replied, "Nane, afore the fighting between the Lakes and
Montreal. But, considering the stock I'm of, I should tak' well to the
profession, seeing that I hae done weel at most things I've put a hand
to, from the rifle to the quill pen." At the last words, the colonel
looked at the mass of papers on his table, as Dick had designed he
should do, and said, "If ye have skill at pen waurk, there's a task of
copying ye might set to, before we mak' a Royal Emigrant of ye. My
secretary is more useful at the new fortifications these times, having
the gift of construction in works as well as in words; yet I'm sore
wishful for a copy of these letters, for my ain keeping."
Dick repressed his elation, and it was soon arranged that he should
forthwith write out a copy of some correspondence that the colonel set
before him. Maclean then left the office, to make his usual rounds, and
Dick was left alone with an adjutant, a door-attendant, and two guards
at the entrance. The adjutant sat writing at one side of the table,
Dick at the opposite side, both using ink from the same receptacle.
To his disappointment, Dick found the correspondence to concern a bygone
question of misappropriated supplies, and hence to be of no value as
information for his commander. While he wrote, his eye ranged the table,
at intervals, and took in every visible bit of writing thereon, making
note of such sheets, wholly or partly in view, as contained matter
arranged in columns. He acquainted himself with the exact location of
three such sheets among the countless others that encumbered the table.
He then waited the opportunity that would come with the adjutant's
departure from the room.
But the adjutant, whose work was behind, through his having accepted
more than his regular duties, continued to write. Shortly after noon,
the colonel returned, with some of his staff, and had dinner in the
adjoining room. Dick was sent to dine with his mess. He made short work
of dinner, and hastened back, hoping he might arrive at the office table
before the adjutant, who was to have dined with the colonel's staff. But
Dick found the adjutant already at work, an odor of wine about him
telling that he had finished his dinner. The colonel and the other
officers presently went out, as they had done in the forenoon. The
afternoon passed on as the forenoon had, with the difference that,
outside the window, snow began to fall. Dick utilized some of the time
by transcribing, on a bare sheet of paper, the statement he had recorded
on his piece of biscuit, which he now set before him on the table as if
intending presently to eat it. He then adroitly slipped the sheet of
paper from the table to his lap and thrust it carefully beneath his
jacket with his left hand while continuing to write with the other.
When the gray afternoon began to darken, Dick resolved on a desperate
measure. As if his hunting-knife galled him, he took it from his belt
and placed it on the table, with its point thrust under the inkstand. A
few minutes later, as if to remove it out of the way of his paper, he
lifted it suddenly in such manner that it overturned the inkstand,
deluging one of the adjutant's hands with ink. That officer arose with
an expression of disgust, darted an angry look at Dick, called the
attendant to mop up the ink, and went into a closet to wash his hand.
Dick, with a pretence of rescuing the papers from the spreading pool of
ink, swiftly grasped the three sheets he had singled out and placed
them, each on top of a different pile, within range of his eye. The
adjutant, returning to his delayed work, did not notice what
rearrangement Dick had made of the papers. While the two wrote silently
on, Dick scanned the farthest of the three papers. He soon saw that it
was a list of provisions, and of trivial consequence. The next one of
the three turned out to be a statement of arms needed to complete the
equipment of a certain militia company. Dick turned his eye, with
diminishing hopes, to the third and last. This is what he saw there, and
copied in feverish haste, with trembling fingers:
In garrison at Quebec, November 17th.
70 Royal Fusileers.
230 Royal Emigrants.
22 Artillery, fire-workers, etc.
330 British militia.
543 Canadians.
400 Seamen.
50 Masters and men of vessels.
35 Marines.
120 Artificers.
------
1800
The copy of this return, deluged with sand in Dick's impatience to dry
the ink, followed the artillery account to concealment, and Dick,
casting a peculiar smile across the table at the busily writing
adjutant, went on copying the colonel's correspondence.
Presently candles were lighted by the attendant. Then in came Colonel
Maclean, shaking off the snow and blustering at the cold, and
accompanied by two officers, one of whom said, hastening to the
fireplace:
"I'll wager this is the kind of weather they've been waiting for,
though, to be sure, one never knows when they may melt away in the
night, as--who the devil's that?"
The colonel turned to look where the speaker did, but saw only a flying
figure that darted through the door, plunged past the guards, and was
gone in the falling snow and gathering gloom. The figure was Dick's, for
the man who had spoken was Lieutenant Blagdon.
Dick had been minded for an instant to stay and outface him. But on the
heels of that impulse had come the thought that Blagdon knew sufficient
that differed from the name and nationality and other particulars Dick
had given Maclean, to prove the imposture, and that the word of a
well-known British officer would of course be taken against Dick's.
Hence the timely bolt for the street.
He had turned naturally in the direction that led towards Palace Street,
at which thoroughfare he arrived without having attracted attention, his
rapid pace being that which a soldier might use in carrying a hurried
order. He knew Palace Street by its width and the rich appearance of its
houses. Not looking back to see whether a pursuit had yet been started,
he turned leftward and hastened on, now changing his gait from a run to
a rapid stride. Duty required that he should first make safe his
information by finding Mère Frappeur and entrusting it to her. He asked
an artisan where her wine shop was, but the artisan was French and shook
his head in sign of not understanding. A short distance farther on, Dick
picked out an English face among the snow-pelted passers-by, and
repeated his question.
"About the fifth or sixth house in the second little street to the
right," replied the Englishman, who had the look of a merchant's clerk;
"the street that turns off beyond the St. Valier house,--the house with
the large garden."
The St. Valier house! Dick would have to pass it, then, on his way to
Mère Frappeur's wine shop! He sprang forward, barely taking time to
thank his informant, and ran plump into a begowned priest, who, thrown
from his balance, uttered a rapid series of words, as to which Dick did
not know whether they were Latin ejaculations or French execrations.
Dick was further impeded on his way by having to make room for a squad
of soldiers, and to pass round a sledge that had come to a standstill
where streets crossed. He now cast a look backward, from a slight
eminence, and saw a half dozen troops turn into Palace Street where he
had turned into it. One of them carried a lantern, held close to the
snow. Dick knew what that meant,--they were tracing him by his
footprints in the snow. He blamed himself now for having, in his desire
to avoid collisions, kept so clear of other walkers.
At last he reached the street indicated by his informant. He readily
recognized, by its location and the great garden in whose midst it was
set, the St. Valier residence. Through the half-open gate in the wall,
he saw a light in the two windows at one side of the wide front door;
and the momentary sound of confused voices told him that a numerous
assemblage was within. He turned into the little street that ran by the
long side wall of the garden. Presently he passed a smaller gate, which
also stood open and which led to the rear of the grounds. Just across
the street from this gate, there was a crowd looking excitedly in
through the open door of a narrow one-story house, in whose lighted
window appeared the inscription, "C. Frappeur, Vins."
"The wine shop," thought Dick, and, as he ran across the street towards
the crowd, he asked himself how he should go about transacting his
business with Mère Frappeur in the presence of so many people and in the
brief time before the arrival of the troops on his track. He edged into
the crowd and elbowed his way towards the door, but so great was the
curiosity of the people to see what was within, that he had considerable
strife to enter the shop. The crowd resented his forcible passage, and
jabbered noisily in French. The throng in the shop was as great as that
without. Dick laboriously pushed his way to the front. "What the devil
are you doing?" quoth the first English voice that Dick had heard
here,--that of a burly subaltern of militia.
"I must see Mère Frappeur," cried Dick.
"See her, then," replied the subaltern, shoving Dick forward, and
pointing to a bench, on which she lay,--a priest at her head, a surgeon
at her feet. Mère Frappeur was dead from the accidental discharge of a
militia captain's pistol, whose owner had been getting drunk in her wine
shop.
It took Dick a few seconds to comprehend the truth and to consider what
next to do. He turned and struggled out of the shop and through the
crowd in the street. As he came finally free of contact, he glanced
towards Palace Street, and saw the soldiers with the lantern, coming
around the corner of the St. Valier garden. He dashed immediately
through the gate in the side wall, crossed an open space between
snow-covered evergreens, and bounded up a half dozen steps to the rear
porch of the St. Valier mansion. From this porch a large door led into
the house. Dick boldly gave four quick, loud knocks. As the lantern's
light appeared at the gateway in the side wall, the door of the house
gaped wide, and Dick stepped at once into a dim, spacious hallway, which
led to several rooms and a staircase. While the servant closed the way
behind Dick, and looked inquiringly at him, a door near the farther end
of the hallway opened, admitting from a brilliant parlor a noise of
merry conversation, and then a woman, who stopped in the centre of the
hall, and looked at Dick with the surprise due to his sudden intrusion.
It was Catherine de St. Valier.
CHAPTER IX.
THE INCIDENTS OF A SNOWY NIGHT.
There was a moment's pause, while Dick hastily tore open the silken bag
in his queue and took therefrom the miniature. Then he advanced to her,
bowing low, his hunting-cap in one hand, the portrait held out in the
other. She glanced at the miniature curiously, then uttered a low
exclamation of pleasure, her face suddenly assuming a faint but joyous
smile, and took the portrait, her fingers touching his as she did so.
"When I said I would get it back for you, in New Jersey," quoth Dick,
while she looked affectionately at the miniature, "I didn't think to
take so long a time."
She now looked from the portrait to him. "Then you are the young
gentleman who left the stage-coach, to go after the robbers?" she said,
in a tone showing that she had not recognized him at first.
Dick bowed. "I would have returned it to you in New York, but--something
hindered me." In contemplating the fine lines of her face, and the dark
lustre of her eyes, Dick heeded not the possibility that his seekers
might even now be on the porch.
"How can I thank you, sir?" she said, her look and tone having, from the
circumstances, a tenderness such as she had not before evinced to any
man. Perhaps this very exception in Dick's favor, though due to the
occasion, separated him at once and forever in her mind from all other
men, and made it natural that he, on whom she had scarcely even looked,
should acquire in an instant a first place in her thoughts.
Dick had read enough to be able to make such fine speeches as were
seriously affected and seriously taken in those days. He answered:
"By permitting me to worship you."
She looked at him a moment, at loss for a reply, but not disapprovingly.
Before she could speak, there came a loud pounding at the rear door. The
old servant, who had locked it after Dick's entrance, now returned to it
to open it again.
"I think that is a party of troops in search of me," said Dick, quietly,
to Catherine. "I came to Quebec on a secret mission for the United
Colonies, and I have been discovered."
"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Catherine, suddenly showing deep concern. "Don't
open the door, Antoine! Do you mean, sir," turning to Dick, "that, if
you were caught, you would be--"
"Hanged, probably," said Dick, seeing out of the corner of his eye that
the servant had stepped aside from the door without unlocking it.
The knock was repeated, more loudly. Catherine looked distressed and
perplexed.
"They will be let in, eventually," she said, in a whisper, "for my uncle
will hear them, and come to see what is the matter. You must hide till
they go!"
"They will search the house," replied Dick.
She stood thinking, for a few seconds. "There is one room they shall not
enter," she said. "Come!"
She went swiftly up the wide staircase, Dick following at her elbow. At
the first landing, which was visible from the front part of the hall,
she pushed back a door, whereupon Dick, obeying her look, stepped into a
chamber that had a window at the farther end, as could be known by the
faint whiteness there, and by the sound of snowflakes pelting the panes.
Dick stopped at the threshold to say, "But the servant?"
"He is faithful to me," she whispered from the landing. At that moment
the knocking again sounded, this time with angry violence. There came
from the parlor a young gentleman whom Dick, looking through the chamber
doorway and down the first flight of stairs, recognized as Catherine's
brother, and who said to the servant:
"What is that knocking, Antoine? My uncle wonders why you don't go to
the door."
"I have been busy elsewhere, Monsieur Gerard," said the old servant; and
then he could be heard turning the lock.
A moment later there came the sound of men rushing in, and then the
voice of Lieutenant Blagdon, saying, loudly and angrily:
"What the devil has come over this house, Gerard, that it opens so
easily to rebel spies, and stays closed all night against the King's
troops?"
Before the astonished Gerard could reply, another gentleman appeared
from the parlor, attracted by the noisy arrival of Blagdon and the
troops. He appeared to be about sixty, but he carried his tall figure
stiffly erect, and his eyes were bright and keen. He held a hand of
playing cards, and his face still wore a smile, which was rather that of
heartless gaiety than of kindly merriment. Behind him, in the doorway,
appeared other gentlemen and a few ladies, these last standing on their
toes to see what was the disturbance.
"What is going on, Lieutenant Blagdon?" demanded the old gentleman.
"A very remarkable thing, Monsieur de St. Valier," replied Blagdon. "A
rebel spy, who was discovered at Colonel Maclean's quarters, seems to
have found a refuge in your house."
"What!" cried the old gentleman, whom Dick now understood to be
Catherine's uncle. "My house shelter a rebel! You seem to be walking in
your sleep, Lieutenant Blagdon, under the delusion of some ridiculous
dream!"
"I implied no knowledge on your part, Monsieur de St. Valier, when I
said the fellow had got into your house. We followed his track in the
snow, and though we lost it for a moment in a crowd, before the wine
shop yonder, we soon came on the same footprint, which led through the
snow to your porch. The same feet left marks of snow on the porch, to
your very door, and there are no marks leading away from it. Moreover, I
know the man, and have reason to think he would have come to this house
while in Quebec."
At this point Catherine hastened down the stairs, at first nonchalantly,
but, on approaching the foot, assuming a look of wonderment at the scene
in the hall.
"Why, what has happened, Gerard? What is it, uncle?" she asked.
"And now," cried Blagdon, excitedly, "I know the man has been here since
I left Miss de St. Valier an hour ago!" Catherine saw, as did her
brother, that Blagdon's eyes were fixed balefully on the miniature,
which she had thoughtlessly retained in her hand.
"What man?" queried Catherine, turning red.
"The man who brought you back that portrait, which you didn't have an
hour ago," cried Blagdon, half mad with jealousy. "Sure proof the man
must have entered this house since he left Colonel Maclean's quarters,
where he had been all day!"
"You are wrong, Lieutenant Blagdon," said Catherine, quietly. "Though
you didn't know it an hour ago, I have had my mother's portrait since
yesterday, as I meant to tell my uncle when I should see fit. It was
handed to Gerard in the street by a man who did not wait for any
words,--is it not so, Gerard?"
Dick, looking down from the darkness of the landing, saw Gerard bow in
confirmation, and knew that the understanding between brother and sister
was complete. He saw, also, Blagdon shake his head, with a derisively
incredulous laugh.
"If any one came in by that door," said the elder St. Valier, "the
servant should know it. You were here, Antoine. Did you admit any one?"
"Lieutenant Blagdon and the soldiers," replied Antoine.
"But Antoine could not have been minding his business," said Blagdon,
"for we had to knock several times before he let us in."
"But," put in Antoine, "the door was locked before I admitted monsieur
and the troops. Monsieur must have heard me unlock it. Does not that
show that no one could have come in before monsieur, even if I were not
at my place?"
"It shows merely that the man, after coming in, himself locked the
door," said Blagdon. "He doubtless found it unlocked when he arrived.
I'll wager Antoine will not take oath the door was locked at the time
the man must have entered."
"Well, well," said Monsieur de St. Valier, "the question can be easily
settled. I certainly don't wish to have a rebel spy lodged in my house.
Let your troops search the place, lieutenant!"
"Thank you, monsieur," said Blagdon, his eyes flashing triumph; while
Dick stepped back into the chamber from his doorway at the landing. Dick
dared not close the door after him, lest its creak or the noise of its
latch might attract the attention of the people in the hallway below.
Dick had seen that some of these guests were British officers, availing
themselves of a brief relief from duty.
"Neither Lieutenant Blagdon nor any other man shall search _my_
chamber!" said Catherine, with a pretence of that capricious
determination which a woman may show without visible reason and yet not
excite suspicion. She ascended the short flight of stairs with dignity,
and stood on the landing, her back to the door. She had the superior
sense to leave the door ajar, so that her action seemed the result, not
of solicitude regarding some person in the chamber, but of a whimsical
antagonism aroused by the manner in which Blagdon had spoken to her.
Blagdon gave some instructions, in a low voice, to an under officer. The
latter, whom Antoine accompanied in obedience to a gesture from Monsieur
de St. Valier, led four men into the rooms opening on the hall, while
Blagdon and two of the troops remained where they were, as a guard to
the great doors at the hall's either end. The searching party next went
below stairs. During these operations Monsieur de St. Valier laughed and
chatted with his guests, who stood grouped at either side of the parlor
doorway, while Gerard remained at the stair-foot, apart from the others,
watching his sister and listening for any sign from the searching
troops. These presently came empty-handed from the lower regions, and
hurried up-stairs, passing Catherine and her doorway as they went. After
several minutes they returned, disappointed of their prey. Every room
but Catherine's had now been looked through, the searchers having
doubtless been ordered by Blagdon to leave that one exempt. He had
probably hoped that the fugitive might be found elsewhere, and that his
own duty and inclination might thus be fulfilled without further direct
conflict with Catherine. He now braced himself for such contest,--a
contest doubly difficult from the fact that he was in love with her and
desired her love in return.
"Search that room!" he commanded the under officer, indicating
Catherine's.
Dick, in the darkness beyond the threshold, ran to the window at the
chamber's further end, and tried to open it; but it would not yield to
his strongest pressure. Not able in the darkness to learn how it was
fastened, he despaired of finding exit by means of it. So he returned to
his place near the open door, outside of which stood Catherine, who
dared not communicate with him in the gaze of the people below.
Meanwhile Catherine had capped Blagdon's order with the words:
"Whoever tries to enter this room must first deal with my brother and
myself!"
"Right, sister!" cried Gerard, at the foot of the stairs. "He will have
to pass over my body!"
Blagdon's men hesitated. Monsieur de St. Valier looked puzzled and
annoyed. Little as he loved his niece and nephew, it would not do,
before his guests, either to take a stand against Catherine or to risk
the possible disclosure that she was really concealing a rebel in her
chamber. So he remained silent and motionless, though manifestly ill at
ease within. The guests waited curiously for developments.
"Miss de St. Valier betrays the truth," said Blagdon. "Her unwillingness
to have the room examined shows that the man is there."
"Mlle. de St. Valier," replied Gerard, "is not accustomed to having her
chamber invaded by men!"
"She has apparently made no difficulty of admitting to it the favored
man!" cried Blagdon, in a voice evidently designed to be heard by Dick.
The lieutenant had been suddenly inspired with the thought that such a
spirited youth as Dick, being in love with the girl, would himself come
forth to resent an insult offered her. Dick, indeed, now back from the
window, heard the words, and, grasping his hunting-knife, would have
bounded to the landing; but at that instant came Catherine's prompt
reply, also uttered for his ears:
"If a man were there, Lieutenant Blagdon, he would be wiser than to be
tricked out, for your purposes, by any insult of yours!"
Dick took the hint, and stayed where he was.
"He would not have to avenge the insult," cried Gerard. "That shall be
my business. I look to you for reparation, Lieutenant Blagdon!"
"As you please," said Blagdon. "I shall have time presently. But now I
am serving the King. The rebel, I perceive, is content to leave such
matters to other hands. 'Tis what one might expect of a fellow that
hides behind petticoats. But petticoats sha'n't protect him any longer.
To that room, men,--"
But Catherine's voice rose louder than the lieutenant's, interrupting
the order. "Why, lieutenant," she cried, with pretended irony, "if a spy
were in the room, do you think he would not have escaped through the
window by this time?"
Dick knew these words also were intended for him. She was not aware he
had tried the window in vain. He held his knife the tighter, and awaited
events.
"That was meant for his hearing!" cried Blagdon. "Saunders, take Jarvis
and MacDonald outside and guard the window of that room. Make haste, or
the rascal may drop from it before you get there." The subaltern and two
men hurried out by the rear door. Blagdon, who now had four men left,
cast a quick glance at the officers visible among the guests, to see if
they were commenting on his previous negligence in not having placed
guards outside before entering the house, a negligence due to his
impatience and to his certainty that the fugitive was within. "Now, men,
you first two seize any one who attempts to interfere, and you others
follow me!"
He started for the stairs, but at the foot he encountered Gerard, who
held the way so well for a few seconds, with body and both arms, that no
one could pass him, the rear soldiers being obstructed by the scuffle
between Gerard on one side and Blagdon and one of his men on the other.
Catherine saw that this unequal contest must soon end in her brother's
being thrown down or dragged aside. She shrank at the thought that,
unless she could obtain other interposition, her own person would next
have to serve as barrier, in which case Dick would certainly appear, for
she had heard no sound of the window being opened.
"Gentlemen," she cried to the officers in the hallway, "you've heard
Lieutenant Blagdon's accusation against me. Well, if you permit, he may
enter my room to search, provided he enters alone."
"But I don't permit!" cried one of the officers, running to the side of
the staircase, whence he stepped up to the outer end of a stair and then
leaped with agility over the baluster, landing above the scrimmage at
the foot. "By gad, I won't stand idly by and see such an indignity
committed against a lady!" And he drew his sword, which, being in
uniform and ready for any sudden call to duty, he wore.
"Nor I!" came from three or four more mouths, and in a few moments every
officer present, having followed the leader's mode of passage, stood
with drawn weapon on the stairs, between Catherine and Blagdon's party.
"I say, this is not fair play!" cried one of the officers, seeing Gerard
at last held down on his back by two of the soldiers. Thereupon there
was a swift charge of the officers down the stairs, each impelled to
risk court martial by the desire to stand well in the esteem of a
beautiful woman. Those were gallant days! Men were willing to chance
anything for a grateful glance from a pair of lovely eyes,--that is to
say, some men were,--and women were content to be the kind of women for
whom men would take the chance.
The result of this movement was that Blagdon and his men were hurled
backward to the front door, and Gerard, whom the officers leaped over in
rescuing him, rose to a sitting posture and regained his breath. Blagdon
stood defeated, at a loss. There came a knock on the front door. At St.
Valier's gesture, Antoine opened it, and in walked Colonel Maclean and a
member of his staff. The colonel, who had come on invitation, to join
Monsieur de St. Valier's guests at dinner, looked around in surprise.
"Colonel," spoke up Blagdon, yet half breathless, "there is resistance
here. The spy has been tracked to this house and to that room. These
gentlemen have hindered me and my men from going to take him."
"We consider," explained one of the officers, "that Miss de St. Valier's
chamber ought not to be entered without her consent, especially when she
herself stands in the way, and when violence would have to be used
against her in order to pass."
"Hoot toot!" said the colonel. "Do you mean that the young lady refuses,
then? It must be because the matter was gone about in a way displeasing
to the sex. I'm sure she won't object to my taking just a peep inside
her nest, seeing how matters lie." Maclean did not use Scotch words save
when speaking to Scotchmen. "I didn't notice the outside of this house
guarded, when I came in," he added, turning to Blagdon.
"There are guards beneath the window of that room," replied the
lieutenant, "where 'tis certain the man is hid."
"Well," said the colonel, half playfully, "to save the lady's proper
feelings, which she has full right to indulge, I'll go alone into the
room. You'll not mind the intrusion of a gray-headed colonel, who comes
in the cause of the King and of Quebec, my dear young lady, I'm sure."
And he started up the stairs.
"Will you not take my word, colonel?" asked Catherine, in a low,
unsteady voice.
"Why, yes," he answered; "but, as a matter of form, duty requires I
should take a glimpse. You there with the lantern, and the next man,
follow me."
Maclean and the two soldiers chosen left all the others--St. Valier and
his guests, Blagdon and the two remaining privates, Maclean's staff
officer and Gerard--huddled well to the front of the hall, in that part
whence they could see the landing before Catherine's door. Catherine
suddenly disappeared into her room. "Go behind the door," she whispered
to Dick as she passed him. He did so. Maclean entered the chamber,
followed closely by his two men. By the light of the lantern, the
colonel could see that Catherine was standing before a door that had the
look of communicating with a closet in the side of the room. Her
attitude and expression were of a desperate determination to protect
that door from being entered.
"So that's where the spy is?" quoth Maclean, quickly. Dick saw the ruse,
and stood ready to profit by the one chance it gave him against ten.
"For God's sake, colonel, don't open this door!" cried Catherine. "I
give you my word, the spy is not behind it!"
"Madam, I must!" said Maclean, gravely. "Your own conduct shows you have
some one concealed there. 'Tis your kind heart makes you wish to save
the life of a hunted man, but perhaps many lives of loyal subjects
depend on his capture. I beg you, stand aside, madam."
"I will not stand aside! While I have the strength, I will protect this
door!" said Catherine.
Completely deceived by her solicitude over the door behind which Dick
was not, the colonel, with as much gentleness as he could use, caught
her in his arms and drew her from before that door, she resisting and
protesting with the ejaculations, "For the sake of heaven! Take my word!
There's no one there! Believe me! Don't open, I beg!" He then threw wide
the door, and peered through the opening.
"Why!" he said, "there's a stairway here. Men, follow me down the
steps!" He strode through the newly opened doorway, the two men at his
heels. Catherine instantly flung the door shut upon them, and locked it.
"Across the landing," she whispered loudly to Dick; "window at the other
side of the house--no guards there!"
"I love you!" he whispered back, having emerged from behind his door.
"Shall we meet again?"
"God knows! Perhaps! Good night!" she said.
He seized her hand, in the darkness, and pressed it to his lips; then
dashed through the doorway, across the landing, up the little flight of
stairs at his left, into the first room ahead whose door he ran against,
then to a window, which at once gave way to the force he brought to bear
against it. He stepped out to the roof of the porch in front of the
house, slid down a corner-post, ran through the yet open gateway to
Palace Street, hastened leftward to the first intersecting street, and
turned, again leftward, into that street, which led him towards the
wall-crowned precipice that overlooked the St. Lawrence.
Meanwhile, the people in the hallway had caught the momentary view of
his figure as it leaped across the landing, but they, in their ignorance
of what had passed in Catherine's room, and in the unlikelihood of the
fugitive's eluding Maclean without any outcry or pursuit on the latter's
part, had supposed the flying apparition to be that of one of Maclean's
men, despatched by the colonel on some business to them unknown. Dick
had not remained a sufficient time in sight for his rifleman's attire to
be distinguished in the half-darkness of the landing. So they waited for
some appearance from Catherine's chamber.
Catherine remained standing in her room. Very soon a noise at its inner
door told that Maclean had returned from his false quest, which had
taken him only to an unused and bolted outer door originally designed to
give a side entrance to the room, that apartment having been formerly
devoted to the purposes of an office. She did not heed Maclean's efforts
to open the door, which she had locked on her side. These efforts soon
became extremely violent, and at last resulted in the breaking of the
door, and in the appearance of the now irate colonel, followed by his
men with the lantern.
"Why, miss," said he, "somebody locked that door behind me!"
"Yes," replied Catherine, lightly, affecting a triumphant smile of
pleased revenge; "I did! You wouldn't take my word that nobody was
behind it, and I thought I'd punish you!"
With which she left the room and went serenely down-stairs, followed by
the somewhat mystified and crestfallen colonel, who had left his two men
to make fast the broken door.
"The young lady was right. No one was there," said Maclean, gruffly, and
went immediately to Monsieur de St. Valier, who gave a deep breath of
relief and returned to the parlor, whither his guests accompanied him.
Blagdon, to be at a distance from Catherine and Gerard, who stood
talking together at the stair-foot, went with his two men to the rear of
the hall, to wait for the two who had been up-stairs with Maclean. Thus
it happened that, of the people in the hall who had seen the figure
cross the landing, none but Gerard saw the two privates reappear
presently from Catherine's room; and, as Blagdon was in no mood for
questions when those two rejoined him, the impression was not corrected
that the flying figure had been one of them. Blagdon forthwith led his
four men, with the three who had been put on guard beneath the window,
to the barracks, dismissed them, and repaired to a drinking-place.
Catherine and Gerard went back to their uncle's guests; but the sister,
bearing up against the exhaustion caused by the scene she had passed
through, showed an abstraction not entirely to be attributed to
happiness at the recovery of her mother's portrait.
Dick plodded on through the snow, past near and distant churches,
monasteries, seminaries, gardens, fine houses, and mean houses, keeping
a frequent lookout behind him, and up and down what streets he crossed,
and came eventually to the low rampart near the grand battery, from
which the precipice fell steeply to the narrow strip of the lower town
that lay between the cliff's base and the St. Lawrence.
This rampart, which could avail mainly to shield the batteries that
commanded the shipping in the St. Lawrence, was easy of ascent from the
inside, as it could not be expected that any one would attempt leaving
the upper town by the almost perpendicular precipice of more than two
hundred feet. Yet such was the wild intention that Dick had formed. The
attempt, on the part of a fugitive, seemed the more preposterous for the
fact that, should he accomplish the almost impossible feat of safely
descending the cliff, he would but find himself in the lower town, which
was defended at either end and closely guarded along its river
edge,--unless, indeed, he should traverse the face of the cliff
diagonally, so as to arrive at the base outside the southern barrier of
the lower town. As all the world knows, the walls of Quebec encircled
the upper town on its high promontory, while the lower town, lying
against that promontory's foot, needed no other defence on one side than
the promontory itself. It was neither practicable nor necessary that a
wall should run down the promontory's side; hence a man, finding himself
on the steep declivity between the upper and the lower town, had a way
of exit open to him, provided he could traverse obliquely the face of
the cliff and could avoid observation from above or below. This way of
escape recommended itself to Dick because the city gates would by this
time be watched for him, and because it would bring him directly to the
place where Arnold's man would be waiting to receive the report that was
to have been brought by Mère Frappeur in her boat.
Dick knew the rampart overlooking the St. Lawrence would be the least
guarded, as the British force was too small for the proper manning of
the many and large defences. Slinking at a distance past the right flank
of the grand battery, whose overworked sentries were shivering in the
snow, he found a place where a platform enabled him to mount easily the
rampart. Across this rampart he crawled, on hands and knees, making out
through the falling flakes a single sentry who paced several rods away.
Looking over the outer edge of the rampart, his head turned giddy, for a
moment, at sight of the precipice falling sheer almost three hundred
feet to the narrow fringe of houses and the gloomy river below.
But he chose a spot where there was ample footing at the rampart's base,
turned about, backed from the rampart, hung for a moment by his fingers,
and dropped to the chosen place, his fall softened by what snow had
lodged there. He immediately turned his face towards his distant
destination, and peered through the flake-filled darkness for what
projections and indentations of the cliff might serve his progress. He
thanked his stars for the evidence soon afforded him that his adopted
mode of escape was within possibility, perilous though it might be; and
then for the falling snow, which shielded him from sight, and for the
snow already fallen, which now and then helped him to adhere to the
cliff, for the irregularities of the precipice were such that the snow's
lodgment had endured here and there on its steep face. These
irregularities gave him footing, and so enabled him to proceed.
Many times he slipped, tearing his clothes and scraping his skin, but
each time he kept his wits and availed himself of the first
stopping-place that offered. The descent was a work of hours, so
cautiously did he have to proceed, so carefully to pick out his next
footing, so often to rest and regain his breath. At last he passed above
the blockhouse and battery which together constituted the inner barrier
of this end of the lower town. In the light from the blockhouse he could
see a sentry pacing from the cliff's foot towards the wharf by the swift
river.
Some minutes more of effort brought Dick past the top of a stockade,
which formed the outer barrier. The exultation of success almost
intoxicated him. He let himself slide down what remained of the cliff,
heedless alike of the sharp projections and of the Canadian militia
housed behind the stockade. As he stood, at last, in the narrow way
between river and cliff, restraining an impulse to shout with glee, he
took the two sheets of paper, containing his report, from beneath his
hunting-shirt, and started forward, loudly whistling "Molly, my
Treasure."
Suddenly, from over the top of the stockade, a shot was fired. Dick felt
a sting, in the vicinity of the bayonet-wound received at Bunker Hill,
and fell forward on his hands and knees. A gate in the stockade was
thrown open, and two soldiers strode forth, lowering their faces to
avoid the falling snow. At the same moment, a tall form sprang out from
the shadow of a broken rock in front of Dick, completed the whistled
passage of music suddenly cut off by Dick's fall, and said:
"Ye're nae woman in a boat, but ye're a braw whistler, and I'll tak'
your papers!"
[Illustration: "IT WAS THE MAN SENT BY ARNOLD."]
It was the man sent by Arnold,--old Tom MacAlister.
"Take them, Tom, and away with them quick, for God's sake!" cried Dick,
handing them to him.
"But ye're hurt, lad!" cried Tom, thrusting the papers deep into an
inner pocket.
"The devil I am!" lied Dick. "Only slipped on the snow. You save those
papers, or all my work will go for naught! I'll get my wind and follow!
Go, Tom! The papers first, don't you understand? I'll have my breath
before those fellows can nab me!" And Dick raised one knee, as if
already about to rise.
"Vera weel, lad!" said old Tom, compliantly, and plunged forward to
round the point of Cape Diamond and follow the shore up the river. The
sight of his gaunt figure, swiftly receding in the snow and night,
between river and cliffs, was the last glimpse Dick had of Tom, the
piper's son, for many a long day.
Dick was not entirely sure he might not indeed elude the two soldiers
from the stockade, and overtake Tom. He got up and found he could
proceed limpingly. But the soldiers, only a few yards from him when he
rose, shortened the intervening distance so speedily that Dick saw they
must catch him in a few seconds. He made to grasp his hunting-knife. It
was gone, having been displaced from his belt at some contact with the
cliff in his descent.
The idea of capture now became intolerable to him. A kind of madness
arose in him, making him determined, at any cost, not to fall into the
hands of the two enemies at his heels. When he felt himself almost
within grasp of the foremost, he wheeled aside, and plunged head
foremost into the swift, icy current of the St. Lawrence. While the
water gurgled in his ears, he jubilantly pictured to himself the two men
standing baffled on the shore and cursing the luck that had robbed them
of their prey.
Soon rising to the surface, Dick struck out at random, using both arms
and the unwounded leg. Whither would this swim in the dark lead him? He
scarcely cared, now that he had accomplished his two missions; his one
wish was that it should not diminish his triumph by delivering him up
eventually to the foe. All at once something black loomed up before
him,--a vessel whose lights he had not taken to be so near, and whose
size he could not immediately make out.
As he turned to swim away from it, he heard a voice call out immediately
over him, "Man in the river!" He pulled away, but with a constantly
weakening stroke. He heard other cries, became vaguely aware that a
boat was being sent after him, and presently, when strength and sense
were about deserting him, he felt himself caught by the back of his
hunting-shirt and drawn, by several hands, from the water to the boat.
He was too little conscious to answer the few questions that were asked
him on the way back to the vessel. But as they landed him on the deck,
he experienced a return of consciousness and of power to plan. He knew
the vessel was a British one, but its people must be unacquainted with
his face; hence he dared raise one last, desperate hope of completing
his escape. As he stood on the deck, surrounded by the crew that had
brought him from the water, he was approached by two officers, one of
whom ordered him to stand forward, while the other remained a little
aloof in dignified immovability.
"I beg you will put me ashore, sir," said Dick, somewhat excitedly, to
the officer who had addressed him. "I had just left the stockade yonder,
on a mission for Colonel Maclean. I fell in with a reconnoitring party
of rebels, and escaped by taking to the river. May I be landed
immediately on the other shore, to go on my mission without delay?"
"What papers have you, to show for this account of yourself?" demanded
the officer, scrutinizing Dick.
"I had Colonel Maclean's pass in my hand when I was attacked," said
Dick, with no outward falter; "but I must have let it go in the river. I
had no other papers; the message I carry is a verbal one."
"A message? To whom?"
"To General Carleton," said Dick, on the moment's invention.
"Why, this is fortunate," said the officer, turning to the motionless
gentleman. "General Carleton, this man says he has a verbal message for
you."
Dick stood, for a moment, speechless and staring; then, yielding all at
once to the fatigues of the night, sank in a senseless heap to the
deck.
CHAPTER X.
"BY FLOOD AND FIELD."
The silent officer was indeed Sir Guy Carleton, governor of Canada, who
had eluded the captors of Montreal by disguising himself as a Canadian
voyager and helping six peasants to row him in a small boat with muffled
oars to Three Rivers, where he had boarded the vessel for Quebec. He now
ordered Dick held below, while the vessel proceeded to a mooring-place.
The captain of the vessel, on being hailed by a guard-boat from the
_Lizard_ frigate, announced the arrival of General Carleton, and, in the
ensuing exchange of news, spoke of the man just found in the river. The
guard-boat officer replied that the man must be a Virginia rifleman who
had escaped that evening from the _Adamant_, on which vessel this
rifleman and another, both captured in the suburbs of Quebec, had been
placed with the rebels taken September 24th while attempting a night
attack on Montreal. Dick fulfilled, in his attire, the description of
the escaped Virginian, and was held on Carleton's vessel when the
governor landed, the captain being ordered to hold him for
identification by Mr. Brooke Watson, in whose charge the rebel prisoners
now on the _Adamant_ had been put. As the governor intended that the
_Adamant_ should sail the next day with its prisoners, he caused Mr.
Watson to be summoned from his tavern for the purpose of viewing the new
captive that night. The governor then hastened to the upper town, to
confer with his lieutenant and with Colonel Maclean, and, in the
discussion of important affairs, forgot about Dick; while Maclean, on
his side, had now other matters for thought than the fugitive spy.
Meanwhile, Mr. Watson, the same eminent merchant who afterwards became
lord mayor of London, going rather grumpily from inn comforts to the
vessel, in the snow-storm, stumbled down the hatchway, and beheld Dick
while the latter lay unconscious in a hammock, the whole upper side of
his face concealed by straggling hair. Desirous of getting speedily back
to his lodgings, and glad that his quota of prisoners might be restored
to its full number, the honest merchant cast a brief glance at Dick in
the dim light, unhesitatingly pronounced him to be the missing rascal,
and stumbled back up the stairs to the deck.
Thus, through no kindness of intention on the part of his enemies, Dick
escaped the fate of a spy, and was assigned to that of a rebel under
arms. The next day, having slept well and having had his new wound
cared for by a surgeon, who pronounced it trivial, Dick was put aboard
the _Adamant_, handcuffed, by a guard of soldiers that had in the
meantime received Mr. Watson's orders concerning him, and thrust into a
dark apartment, which was already crowded with shackled prisoners, whose
recumbent bodies took up most of the floor. Dick knew not what
disposition was to be made of him, nor that the _Adamant_, already about
to set sail with its prisoners and with Governor Carleton's despatches,
was bound for England.
"So the minions of tyranny have dragged you back to the den!" rang out a
bold, virile voice, from the inner darkness, and presently a stalwart,
erect figure strode forth, stepping easily over the legs of the
reclining prisoners and planting each foot firmly as it fell. The
speaker was evidently able, from recent habit, to see fairly well in the
darkness. Coming close to Dick, he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, "By
the everlasting, 'tis another man! Brother, I took you first for a
comrade who broke the tyrant's chain yesterday. They removed him from
this cage, to doctor him, for the filthy air had made him sick; but he
broke away and plunged into the river, in the snow-storm. Or else the
guard who brought our supper is a liar. Have you heard anything of his
fate?"
"No, sir," said Dick, wondering what personage was this whose style of
speech was so oratorical, and whose spirit remained so high in this
miserable hole. "I am a newcomer here. I am Richard Wetheral, of
Hendricks's company of riflemen, from the county of Cumberland, province
of Pennsylvania."
"I welcome you to my acquaintance," replied the other, heartily,
thrusting forth his manacled hands and grasping Dick's. "I am Colonel
Ethan Allen."
"What! The captor of Ticonderoga?" cried Dick, remembering how in the
camp at Cambridge the news of that bold feat of a May morning had been
celebrated, and how the name of the Green Mountain leader had become an
every-day word in the colonial army.
"Fortune threw that prize in my way," said the other, with a modesty so
unmistakably pretended that the affectation could only amuse, not
offend. "Fortune was not so kind at Montreal, as you may have heard," he
added, dismally.
"I had heard of your--your bad luck at Montreal," said Dick, leaning
against the oaken wall of the enclosure, "but I little expected the
honor of meeting you in these circumstances."
"Yet in these circumstances we have been--in this very den,
indeed--since ever the army appeared yonder at Point Levi."
"And where were you before that?" asked Dick, eager to hear the story of
so famous a hero from the hero's own lips.
"Why," said the colonel, "we were in more places than one, you may be
sure. After our--bad luck, which was all because I was outrageously
out-numbered and not concerted with, I surrendered, on the promise of
honorable terms, and we were led into the town to be interviewed by
their commandant, General Prescott, God--bless him! When he asked me
whether I was that Colonel Allen who took Ticonderoga, and I told him I
was the very man, he went into a rage and shook his cane over my head
and called me a rebel and several worse names; and when he ordered us
put in irons and sent on board the _Gaspee_ schooner, he swore I should
wear a halter at Tyburn. From the _Gaspee_ I wrote him a letter, telling
him of the notorious friendship and generosity with which I had treated
the officers I took at Ticonderoga, but he paid no attention to my
letter."
"You have the satisfaction of knowing," put in Dick, "that General
Montgomery has captured Montreal and taken Prescott prisoner."
"Huzza!" cried Allen, and there were utterances of jubilation from the
men on the floor. "So the wheel of transitory events has turned that
way! I hope Prescott will remember the treatment we got on the _Gaspee_.
The irons were bad enough, Mr. Wetheral, but the insults were
intolerable. We received the insolence that cowards always show their
betters when in a position to do so,--for cowards they were on that
vessel, as they proved one day by scattering as if a wild beast was
amongst them, when in a fit of anger I twisted a nail from the bar of my
handcuff with my teeth. They said I was a mad savage, a ferocious
animal,--in their mean souls they couldn't conceive the feelings of a
liberty-loving man under restraint. After five or six weeks we were
transferred to an armed vessel lying off Quebec, under Captain McCloud,
who was a gentleman and treated us well. The next day we were put on
board the vessel of Captain Littlejohn, a brave and civil officer; he
ordered my irons taken off and had me sit at his own table. His
subordinates, too, were friendly to us. And then we were brought on the
_Adamant_, and handcuffed again. We are under the charge of a damned
calico merchant by the name of Brooke Watson, who trades between London
and Montreal. He is the man who visited New York and Philadelphia,
pretending to be friendly to the glorious cause of the colonies, and who
returned to Montreal and wrote letters to Gage's people in Boston,
disclosing what he had learned through his make-believe sympathy. This
vessel is a floating nest of Tories, who have taken passage on it. When
we came aboard, we were treated in the most bitter, reviling spirit, by
the officers, crew, guards, and passengers."
Dick was by this time able to make out the speaker's features, as well
as the tall, robust figure on which was solidly set the shapely head
placed upright in a natural attitude of pride and defiance. The full
eyes, nose, and mouth showed sociability and sympathy, as well as
pugnacity and assertiveness. There was in the man's whole expression
such an unconscious look of irrepressibility, his self-vaunting was so
spontaneous, he so evidently took his high-flown phrases seriously, that
even his foibles made him the more engaging.
"I made the devil's own time of it," he went on, with a slight smile of
pleasure at the recollection, "when they first ordered me to this filthy
pen, after my men had already been forced in. I protested quite civilly
with Watson, but he cut my representations short by commanding me to
follow my men. He said the place was good enough for a rebel, and that a
man who deserved hanging had no right to talk of honor and humanity, and
indulged in other such talk. A Tory lieutenant who was looking on said I
ought to have been hanged for my opposition to the province of New York,
in her claim of New Hampshire's lands; and, as if it wasn't enough to
call that rightful opposition a rebellion, he suddenly spat in my face.
I ran at him, and knocked him partly down with both fists, handcuffed
as I am now. He made for the cabin, where he got under the protection of
some guards with fixed bayonets, whom Watson ordered to drive me back to
the den, for I had sprung after the lieutenant. I challenged him to come
out and fight, but the tyrant-loving cur stood shaking with fear. Watson
shouted to the guards to get me into the pen, dead or alive, and the low
brutes surrounded me with their bayonets. I thought I would try flattery
on the rascals, so I said, 'I know you are honest fellows, and are not
the ones to blame; I am only in dispute with a calico merchant, who
doesn't know how to behave towards a gentleman of the military
establishment.' But they paid no heed to my words, and so I was at last
driven into this hole at the point of the bayonet. How we live here, you
will see for yourself, if you remain with us,--as you probably will,
for, by the feel of things, the vessel has cast off."
It was soon plain that the vessel was indeed under way, whence came the
inference that Dick's destination was to be that of the other prisoners,
which they knew was England. Dick's sensations of mind on contemplating
this new shift of the wind of circumstance, this utterly unexpected
breaking away from what had seemed to be his immediate destiny, may be
imagined. As he sat on the floor, while the vessel rocked and strained,
he thought of the home in Pennsylvania, of the army besieging Boston,
of Arnold's troops waiting to attack Quebec, of old Tom, of the girl in
the great house in Palace Street, of all he was being carried from, and
then of the unknown that lay before him. "Over the hills and over the
main," sang a voice within him, and with a patient sigh he resigned
himself to the guidance of fortune.
The den was about twenty-two feet by twenty. The prisoners confined
here, all handcuffed, were thirty-four in number. There were Allen, and
thirty-one of the thirty-eight men who had surrendered with him at
Montreal, the Virginia rifleman taken in the suburb of St. John's, and
Dick Wetheral. Until the day before the end of their voyage,--that is to
say, for more than a month,--they were not allowed to leave their dark
pen, which contained no furniture or utensil other than two tubs. The
experience of prison life that Dick had got in Boston was as nothing to
that which he now endured, although in accommodating himself to the
latter he profited some by the former.
Besides the close confinement, the irons, and the perpetual darkness,
there was the sickening heaving of the vessel, the continual distress of
stomach and adjacent organs, the inevitable fever, and the consequent
raging thirst, which each man's daily gill of rum and small allowance of
fresh water failed to quench. When the prisoners begged for more water
on being served with their regular allowance of salt food, they were
jeered and reviled by their keepers, and by the Tories who then looked
in at them. They were irritated half to madness by vermin of the body.
Some of the men raged, others merely fretted; others lay most of the
while in a kind of stupor, at times broken with despairing groans.
Allen and Dick both kept their wits, and remained of unbroken spirit.
Allen sometimes chafed, but always with a healthy anger, and sometimes
he cursed, but more often he declaimed against tyranny, defied the
oppressor, and predicted the triumph of liberty. Dick bore the torments
of this voyage with a fixed dourness, and, as one annoyance grew upon
another, began to see something ludicrous in the very accumulation of
miseries, so that his face often went from an irrepressible grimace of
inward pain to a peculiar amused smile somewhat akin to that elicited
from him on occasions of peril. Moreover, he comforted himself with the
thought that, for every dejected moment, fate owed him a moment of
exultation, and that the voyage must end some time.
One day the prisoners were unexpectedly ordered to go on deck. They
stumbled awkwardly up into the light of the sun, and drank in gladly the
fresh air of the ocean. Afar in a certain direction, whither all eyes
were turned, they beheld a faint blot of duller color against the
different blues of sky and sea. It was the Land's End of England. The
prisoners, whose faces had become hideously transformed by the growth of
beards during their imprisonment, gazed curiously at the first outlines
of the land they had never seen, yet once had loved as the home of their
fathers.
The next day the vessel made Falmouth harbor, sailing in between the
lofty promontories, of which one on the west side is crowned by
Pendennis Castle, one on the east by the castle of St. Mawes. The news
spread from the port of Falmouth that American prisoners were to be
landed, rebels of marvellous skill with the rifle, and that the chief of
them was the taker of Ticonderoga. Consequently, while the prisoners
were shaving and making themselves presentable, for which the means had
at last been given them, great crowds flocked to the wharf, and to the
housetops and high places along the way to Pendennis Castle, in which
the prisoners were to be confined.
In due time the prisoners, not less curious, but more self-contained
than the spectators, were put ashore, all in their hunters' garb, for
Allen himself, a few days before his attack on Montreal, had laid aside
his usual costume for a Canadian dress,--a short double-breasted
fawn-skin jacket, undervest and breeches of sagathy, worsted stockings,
shoes, and a red worsted cap. Allen assumed his haughtiest, most
scornful, and most belligerent look, as he stepped firmly on English
ground, followed by Dick, who, while he thrilled at knowing himself on
the soil he had learned from his parents to call home, had yet a new and
unaccountable feeling of pride in that he was American.
The crowd so blocked the way in Falmouth--which place reminded him
somewhat of New England sea-towns he had passed through, though it
lacked their look of freshness--that the officers had to draw swords and
force a passage. So the prisoners were led, with guards before and
behind, and between lines of people, many of whom followed on either
side, for about a mile's distance from the town, towards the lofty round
tower, within walled grounds, that crowned the promontory between sea
and harbor. Pendennis Castle rose, a high and gray building of the time
of Henry VIII., within close walls, around which a great space,
containing a parade-ground and here and there some small houses, was in
turn surrounded by lower walls, from which tree-dotted slopes fell in
different degrees of steepness to the water almost entirely environing
the peninsula. At the entrance the prisoners were taken in charge by
Lieutenant Hamilton, the commandant of the castle, and were led through
grounds and gates, corridors and stairways, to an airy room provided
with bunks and straw.
Though their irons were not taken off, the prisoners had here an easy
captivity. They arrived almost on the eve of Christmas, and they were
not forgotten in the beneficent feeling that pervaded England during
Yule-tide. Breakfast and dinner came for Allen every day, with now and
then a bottle of wine, all from Lieutenant Hamilton's table and with
Lieutenant Hamilton's compliments. Dick and the other prisoners,
themselves well fed, got many a crumb from Allen's board, which was
supplied, by a gentleman in the neighborhood, with suppers also. Their
first day or two in the castle having been devoted to a campaign of
extermination against the vermin they had brought from ship, the
prisoners soon recovered spirit and health, in their new surroundings.
With great pleasure they learned that their former keeper-in-chief, the
estimable Watson, had hastened off to London to receive his
compensation.
Allen was often sent for by the commandant, with permission to take the
air on the parade-ground, where many of the Cornwall gentry came to
visit him. This gentle treatment did no more towards weakening his
patriotism than harsh measures had done. For his discourse with those
who came to talk with him was most often upon the cause of the fighting
colonies. He declaimed most high-soundingly on the subject, and Dick,
who was sometimes allowed to accompany him to the parade-ground, would
half amusedly liken him to some would-be Pitt before the House of
Commons or some oratorical Roman hero in a tragedy. Many of his English
hearers would dispute with him, but others would nod hearty agreement,
for there was in England a numerous party that sympathized with the
American revolt. "The conquest of the American colonies is to Great
Britain an eternal impracticability!" he would thunder, rejoicing in
polysyllables.
Some of the visitors came to make sport. Thus, one day:
"What was your former occupation?" asked a sapient gentleman,
quizzingly.
"In my younger days," quoth Allen, ironically, "I studied divinity, but
I'm a conjurer by profession."
"You conjured wrong, then, when you were taken prisoner."
"I know I mistook a figure that time," said Allen, "but I conjured you
out of Ticonderoga."
The tittering of some ladies, for many such were among the visitors,
closed up the inquisitive gentleman's mouth.
Another time, Allen astonished two benevolent clergymen, who had come
expecting to see some sort of untutored savage, by discoursing on moral
philosophy, and by arguing, in approved logical mode, against their
doctrine of Christianity.
There was in the company, one day, an airy youth who claimed to know
that Americans could not bear the smell of powder. Allen, taking the
assertion as a challenge, offered to convince him on the spot that an
American could bear that smell. "I wouldn't put myself on a par with
you," replied the youth. "Then treat the character of the Americans with
respect," demanded Allen. "But you are an Irishman," retorted the young
gentleman. "No, sir, I am a full-blooded Yankee," said Allen, and went
on to use his matchless powers of banter against the other, until the
latter made a confused retreat amidst the laughter of the onlookers.
Another day, a gentleman expressing a desire to do something for him,
Allen replied that he would be obliged for a bowl of punch. The
gentleman sent his servant away, who returned presently with punch and
offered it to Allen. The hero of Ticonderoga refused to take the bowl
from the hand of a servant. The gentleman then handed it himself to
Allen, who proposed that the two should drink together. The gentleman
said he must refuse to drink with a state criminal. Allen thereupon,
with a look of superior indifference, raised the bowl and drank the
whole contents at one long draught, and then gave the bowl back to the
gentleman. The crowd shouted with laughter, in which Allen, quickly
affected by this extraordinary tipple, presently joined; and when he
accompanied Dick back to the cell he was in a state of great jubilation.
There was much conjecture among the prisoners as to their ultimate fate.
Allen told his comrades that a Mr. Temple, from America, had whispered
to him that bets were laid in London that he should be hanged. This
gentleman's information must have been meant as friendly, for it had
been accompanied by a guinea secretly bestowed. But, on the other hand,
it had been hinted on the parade-ground that certain gentlemen intended
to attempt freeing the prisoners by the habeas corpus act, or having
them brought to trial before a magistrate.
"I have a project that should make the government think twice before
stringing any of us up," said Allen one day to Dick. He then obtained
the commandant's permission to write a letter, which he did, addressing
it to the Illustrious Continental Congress, describing his present
state, and requesting that no retaliation be made upon General Prescott
and other English prisoners until it be known how England would treat
himself and his companions.
"But," said Dick, "that letter will surely be opened and sent to the
English authorities, if anywhere."
"That is exactly where I desire it shall go," replied Allen; "and it's
ten to one we shall fare the better in consequence."
The next day the commandant, to whom the letter had been entrusted,
jocularly asked Allen if he thought they were fools in England, and told
him the letter had been sent to Lord North. That its effects were such
as Allen had predicted, was soon shown, but not until after Dick,
suddenly presented with an opportunity, had severed his fortunes from
those of his fellow prisoners in Pendennis Castle.
Some of Allen's visitors came fifty miles to see him. One afternoon,
while he was on the parade-ground, discoursing with several gentlemen
and ladies, and accompanied by Dick, a horse took fright just outside
the outer gateway, at which its rider, who had journeyed far to behold
the famous prisoner, was about to dismount. The scared animal, after a
few wild turns and plunges, galloped madly through the open gateway and
straight for the group surrounding Allen. The people fell back in
confusion, women shrieking, men taken by surprise; visitors, prisoners,
and guards huddled into one disorderly mass. The horse threw its rider,
and reared before the crowd, with fiery eyes and snorting nostrils.
Suddenly a man was seen to rush out from the group, seize the horse's
bridle with both hands together, bring the animal to its fore-knees,
place both hands on the pommel of the saddle, leap astride the horse,
and make it rear again on its hind legs. As if resolved to get the beast
under control at any effort, this volunteer horse-tamer brought its head
sharply around to face the gate, towards which it bolted with such
sudden speed that the two guards there stood back in terror. Once out of
the gate, the animal headed for Falmouth at a furious gallop.
The panic-stricken crowd on the parade-ground now breathed again,
and separated into its three elements,--spectators, guards, and
prisoner,--for, lo and behold, there remained now but one of the two
prisoners! On the ground lay the fallen cap of the other, who had lost
it in his struggle with the horse, and who, now being borne swiftly
towards Falmouth, was none other than Dick Wetheral.
There was some question, with Lieutenant Hamilton and his officers, as
to whether the prisoner intended to escape or merely to conquer the
frightened horse. Hence some time elapsed before finally the alarm-gun
was fired and a searching party sent out. Meanwhile, Dick Wetheral, who
could never afterward recall at exactly what moment his impulse to stop
the horse had turned into the idea of making a dash for liberty, allowed
the horse to run away with him at its best speed. While rapidly
approaching Falmouth, he did a thing that he had often heard old Tom
describe as having been done by certain mountebanks, and which, as his
hands were comparatively small, he had practised with success in
prison,--he folded each hand lengthwise, and, with some painful scraping
of skin at his thumb-joints, worked off his handcuffs, which he then
tossed into a pool of water at the roadside.
He knew it would not be safe for him to enter the town, and, therefore,
as the horse presently calmed of its own accord, Dick dismounted, gave
the animal a smart slap to make it proceed on its way, and hastened down
towards some fishermen's squat houses that lay near the beach on the
outskirts of Falmouth. Noticing several boats drawn up on the sands,
Dick knocked at the first door in his way, and brought forth an old
woman, who, on his asking how he might get some one to row him across
the bay, turned out to be half blind, half deaf, and stupidly
indifferent. While he was making his desires clearer to her, he heard an
ominous boom from the castle.
He knew this to be the alarm-gun, and looked to see what would be its
effect on the old woman, but her unaltered features proved the
genuineness of her deafness. At last Dick elicited that all the
able-bodied men of the hamlet were in the town, at some merrymaking, but
that she could hire a boat to him, which he might row himself, and
which, as he said he would not soon return that way, he might leave in
the care of a certain fisherman at St. Mawes. Dick paid her out of what
money he had kept ever since leaving Arnold's camp, and she thereupon
helped him drag a small boat out into the waves, and steadied it for him
while he clambered aboard.
His first attempts at rowing were wild efforts, for this bay of the
ocean was as different a matter from the smooth Pennsylvania rivers and
creeks, as oars were different from canoe paddles. But difficult arts
are soon acquired when they have to be, and by those who will admit
nothing to be impossible to themselves that is possible to any other.
Dick at last contrived to make some kind of headway, thanks to the
serenity of the weather and to the favoring tide. By the time,
therefore, when the guards from the castle passed the fishing hamlet, on
the track of the horse, Dick was merely an unrecognizable boatman well
out in the bay.
The trip to St. Mawes, a small matter to a practised waterman, was to
Dick one of great persistence and several hours, by reason of his
inexperience, through which he covered twice or thrice the distance to
be traversed. It was dusk when, at last, after many a dubious look at
the castle of St. Mawes that crowned the overlooking hill, he felt the
boat grate violently underneath, sounded with his oar, leaped out into
the water, and dragged the boat up the beach, now aided and now impeded
by the inrolling and receding waves.
He was at the end of the single street of a miserable hamlet lying under
a hill and fronting the sea. No human creature was abroad to see him
land. He therefore, in order to change his appearance as much as
possible from that of an American hunter to that of an English rustic,
did away with his belt and leggings, so that his hunting-shirt, being of
linsey-woolsey, looked something like a countryman's frock, while his
stockings, similar to those of English make, were now in view. He
knocked at one of the huts, ascertained the abode of the man in whose
charge he was to leave the boat, found that person in, gave out that he
was returning to his home near Exeter from a journey in search of a
place in service, was regaled with a frugal and fishy supper for a
consideration, and then set out afoot towards Tregoney, saying he had a
relation there with whom he would pass the night. It was from the man's
own talk that Dick had learned the name and location of this village,
which was eight miles northeastward.
While Dick was plodding along over those eight miles, with no further
plan than to get out of the vicinity of Pendennis Castle, it began to
snow. Passing through two villages on the way, he arrived at Tregoney, a
decent-looking place, about nine o'clock. He stayed there no longer than
to buy an old hat from an aged poor man whose sons worked in the
tin-mines at St. Austel, and from whom Dick, having said that his
former hat had been blown into the Fal by a gust of wind, obtained
information as to the road ahead.
Learning that there was a good inn at Lostwithiel, sixteen miles farther
northeast, he decided to proceed thither. The snow increasing, and Dick
stopping to rest in some sheltered spot in each of three intervening
villages, these sixteen miles were a long business. To a survivor of the
march through Maine, however, the cold and the snow seemed no great
inconvenience.
When he reached Lostwithiel, though, Dick was so fatigued, with his walk
of twenty-four miles and his row across the bay, that he fell asleep
almost as soon as his body was stretched on a bed in one of the inn's
inferior rooms, to which he had been conducted from the kitchen, where
he had found an inn servant already up, despite the fact that the day
soon to dawn was Sunday. This servant was a stout female, whose
impressionability to masculine merits made easy Dick's admittance to the
inn, which might otherwise have rejected such a guest arriving at such
an hour. It was not yet daylight, but dawn was near enough to enable
Dick, before closing his eyes, to receive a vague impression of the open
spire of St. Bartholomew's Church through the falling snow. It made him
think of Quebec, and he drowsily wondered what, at that moment, might be
doing with old Tom, with Captain Hendricks, Simpson, Steele, and the
others of the army far across seas in Canada.
What was doing with them at that moment? It was then a little after six
o'clock in the morning at Lostwithiel, two o'clock the same morning at
Quebec. The morning was that of December 31, 1775. This is what was
occurring at Quebec:
Snow was falling there also, but in a far more violent storm. Wind was
blowing the snow in drifts, and with the snow there was a cutting sleet.
The beginning of the night had been moonlit, but at twelve the sky was
overcast, and then came the storm. This snowfall by night was a thing
for which the Americans had been waiting. Montgomery had at last come up
from Montreal with three hundred men, and joined Arnold at Point aux
Trembles, December 1st. The army had started the next day, amid whirling
flakes, for Quebec; had arrived before the city on the 5th, Montgomery
having found Arnold's men a fine corps, well disciplined. Later, a
breastwork had been thrown up to face the gate of St. Louis; and, by
means of a battery mounted partly on ice and snow, shells had been
thrown into the town, starting fires in several places. But the heavy
guns from Quebec's walls had so dealt with this battery that it had been
removed. Thenceforth, execution from the American side had been done
mainly by mortars and riflemen, placed in the suburb of St. Roque,
outside Palace Gate. It had finally been decided to carry the town by
escalade, and this was to be attempted during the first snow-storm, such
as that which finally came on this night preceding Sunday, December
31st. The plan adopted was that the lower town should be taken first,
Arnold leading an attack on its northern end, Montgomery leading one on
its southern end; demonstrations being made against the upper town at
St. John's Gate and at the Bastion of Cape Diamond, to distract
attention from the attacks below; signal-rockets to be fired in order
that all four movements should be made at the same time.
At midnight the men repaired to quarters from the farms and
drinking-houses whereat they had been scattered. At two, they began
their march, struggling against a biting wind, their faces stung by the
snow horizontally driven, the locks of their guns held under the lappets
of their coats to avoid being wetted by the snow. Old Tom and the other
riflemen were in their usual place in Arnold's division, which was to
enter the lower town at its narrow northern end, passing between the
promontory's foot and the frozen St. Charles River. Through the suburb
and streets of St. Roque, they breasted the snowy darkness; first went
Arnold, at the head of a forlorn hope of twenty-five men, one hundred
yards before the main body; then Captain Lamb and his artillery company,
drawing a field-piece on a sledge; next, a company with ladders and
other scaling implements; then, Morgan and his company, heading the
riflemen; next, the Lancaster company, led, in Captain Smith's absence,
by Steele; then the Cumberland County men, with their own captain, for
Hendricks, though the command of the guard that morning belonged to him,
had got leave to take part in the attack; and last, the New England
troops. The division would have first to pass a battery on a wharf,
which the field-piece was to attack and the forlorn hope scale with
ladders, while Morgan should lead the riflemen around the wharf on the
ice.
Old Tom plodded not far behind Hendricks, the men straggling onward in
single file. As they approached the houses below Palace Gate, which led
from the upper town on their right, there suddenly burst forth a thunder
of cannon, which mingled soon with the alarming clang of all the bells
in the city. "They've spied our intentions," muttered old Tom to the man
ahead, and strode on.
Presently muskets blazed from the ramparts above. Men began to drop here
and there and to writhe in the snow, but their comrades hurried over or
around them. Hendricks's soldiers could not see far ahead, for the
darkness and the blinding snow; nor could they always make out the path
left by Arnold, Lamb, and the riflemen in advance. They could see
nothing of the foe save the flashes of the muskets from the walls
crowning the ascent at their right.
Presently they became aware of some kind of stoppage ahead; it was made
by the artillerymen, whose field-piece had stuck hopelessly in a
snowdrift. The company with the scaling-ladders made as if to stop also;
but Morgan was at their heels, forcing them forward, hastening on his
own company, and swearing terribly in a voice that rivalled the tumult
of bells and cannon. So the riflemen, preceded by the ladder-bearers,
passed on through the opening made for them by the artillery company.
They were nearing the first barrier now; the uproar of the unseen
enemy's fire was more terrific. And now Hendricks's men saw pass a group
that was returning as with reluctance and difficulty,--two men
supporting between them a third, who was so badly wounded in the leg
that he could not stand unaided. It was Colonel Arnold, upheld by Parson
Spring and Mr. Ogden. "Forward, my brave men!" cried Arnold, in a strong
and heartening voice, and the riflemen cheered and passed on.
They soon saw that Morgan had taken command, and, amid the inevitable
crowding together near the barrier, they found themselves in close
company with the forlorn hope, headed now by Arnold's secretary, Oswald,
and with Lamb and his artillerymen, who had left their field-piece in
order to wield muskets and bayonets.
Forward rushed Morgan and the advance companies, right through a
discharge of grape-shot from the two cannon commanding the defile.
Forward, without slackening, upon the battery, some scaling the walls,
some firing through the embrasures; pouring over and through, seizing
the captain and thirty of his men as prisoners, driving the rest of the
guard away, and taking the enemy's dry muskets to use instead of their
own damp ones.
Then Morgan formed his men as he could, and led them on to take the
second barrier. The day was about to dawn now, and, although Morgan's
men knew it not, the false attack planned against St. John's Gate had
failed of being made; the feint against the Bastion of Cape Diamond had
served its purpose to conceal Montgomery's march along the shore of the
St. Lawrence, but Montgomery, while leading his men from the stockade
whence Dick Wetheral had once been fired upon, towards the blockhouse
within, had fallen in death before a discharge of grape-shot, while his
triumphant cry, "Push on, my brave boys, Quebec is ours!" still rang in
the ears of his New Yorkers. Montgomery's men had thereupon retreated,
and thus the British force, warned of the very first movements by a too
early discharge of the signal-rockets, was enabled to concentrate
against the division now between the first and second northern barriers
of the lower town.
Morgan's advance followed a curving course along the sides of houses, to
where the narrow street was crossed, not far up from its mouth, by the
second barrier, which was at least twelve feet high. Meanwhile Morgan
had despatched Captain Dearborn, with a party, to prevent the enemy's
coming from the upper town through Palace Gate and down the promontory's
St. Charles side, which was neither as high nor as steep as the St.
Lawrence side.
Behind the barrier now to be taken, was a platform whence cannon poured
grape-shot, defended by two ranges of musketeers with fixed bayonets.
The enemy fired also from the upper windows of houses beyond. The
Americans speedily upbuilt an elevation to a height approaching that of
the barrier, men falling all the while beneath the fire from the
barrier, the houses beyond, and the walls far above at the right.
Morgan's first lieutenant, Humphreys, climbed this mound to scale the
barrier, but a row of bayonets forced him back.
Seeing the impregnability of the barrier to his present force, and the
rapidity with which that force was depleted by the terrible fire, Morgan
thundered and cursed. Hendricks and Steele were calm, encouraging their
men to patience, and directing them whither to return the enemy's fire.
At last Lieutenant Humphreys fell in the street, dying on the spot.
Then Morgan ordered his men to enter a house close to the barrier, and
fire from the windows.
Into the house and up to the second story rushed Hendricks, Steele, Tom
MacAlister, and many others. Steele ran to the first window and aimed
his gun towards the barrier; but, without firing, he suddenly stepped
back with a sharp cry, and held up one of his hands to look at it,
entrusting his gun wholly to the other. Where three fingers had been,
there were now three crimson stumps. Hendricks and MacAlister took
another window. As Hendricks was about to shoot, a ball tore its way to
his heart; he lowered his rifle, took on a swift look of pain, staggered
a few feet backward, fell with half his body on a bed, and died there
almost instantly. While the hell continued in and about the house, as
the daylight increased, a party of British rushed out from Palace Gate,
captured Dearborn and his men, fell upon the rear of Morgan's party, and
presently, when the dauntless Virginian had had his rage out, received
the surrender of him and his officers and men. "I wonder," thought old
Tom MacAlister, as he marched in the line of prisoners to the great
ruined Franciscan monastery, near the Reguliers, "how the lad Dick would
'a' fared if he'd been wi' us the braw night past? Weel, weel, maybe
it's better he was called away when he was, for, whether he be on the
earth or under, it's little he'd 'a' relished finding out 'twas for
this we marched through Maine and hungered and froze in the snaws of
Canada!"
'Twas for that, had been the planning and the money-spending, the
suffering and the starving, the toils and the bloodshed,--for that, and
for the glory of heroic failure.
CHAPTER XI.
THREE WHIMSICAL GENTLEMEN AND A BEAUTIFUL LADY.
Under the protection of the maid-servant, who was mature and fat, Dick
Wetheral was allowed to slumber till the afternoon. He awoke entirely
refreshed, and, after a curious look through his small window at the
snow-covered little town with its picturesque church spire, he went down
to the kitchen, and in a corner thereof he satisfied a prodigious
appetite; upon which he felt himself in excellent physical condition.
His slight flesh-wound, received at Quebec, had healed on his
sea-voyage, thanks to the persistent health of his blood, and despite
the badness of other circumstances.
He walked but twelve miles that day, arriving after nightfall at
Liskeard, and lodging till morning at an inn near the handsome Gothic
church of St. Martin. When he came to pay his bill he found it took all
his money but a few pence, and thus he set forth, on the first day of
the year 1776, bound eastward, with empty pockets, friendless in a
strange and hostile land, with no fixed intention save the vague one of
eventually returning to fight for his country, with no present plan save
to keep moving on.
Not seeking food once during a journey of seventeen miles, he finally
crossed the Tamer, from Cornwall into Devonshire, and arrived at
Tavistock with less curiosity to view the vestiges of the tenth century
abbey there, than to learn where his dinner was to come from. He had
decided to beg, if necessary; he considered that his own people, as was
the custom of his country, entertained freely every hungry or roofless
man that came to their home in the wilderness, therefore some
hospitality was due him from the world at large; and he reasoned that,
being now among a hostile people, whose government was responsible for
his present situation, he was morally entitled, without reproach, to
whatever he could, in the name of charity, obtain from that people.
Profiting by some of Tom MacAlister's related experiences, he had
bethought himself, on the road, of certain possible methods of
overcoming charity's coyness.
The first door at which he knocked, in Tavistock, was promptly shut in
his face, by a man who blurted out something about rogues and vagabonds,
and ere Dick's civil greeting was finished. At the next house a frowning
old woman was equally inhospitable. But at the third, the cottage of a
serge-weaver, the young girl who opened the door allowed her soft eyes
to rest on Dick before making a move to close it, and Dick improved the
moment to assure her that he was no common rogue and vagabond, but an
honest teller of fortunes by cards, who saw already in her face the
signs of a great surprise in her own immediate future. The girl opened
the door wider, and Dick stepped in with such a courteous bow to the two
other occupants of the room that they rose instinctively to receive him,
blinded to his garb by his gentlemanly bearing. It was meal-time, and
the family at table consisted of father, mother, and the girl who had
opened the door.
Dick lost no time, but asked for a pack of cards, with such a smile, and
so much as if the request were the most natural one possible, that the
mother told the girl where the cards were, and the girl immediately
brought them. Dick began by telling the fortune of the head of the
house, who was so diverted with the prediction of a gift from a dark
man, that Dick's invention was allowed full exercise regarding the
future destiny of each member of the family. The mother then speaking of
a dream she had recently had, Dick promptly offered to interpret it for
her, and its meaning was so favorable that the interpreter was soon in
the way to gorge himself with beef and ale. He then did some card tricks
that Tom had taught him, and, perceiving that a pack of cards would
thereafter be a useful implement to him, eventually won the cards
themselves, on a bet as to the location of a certain one of them. Having
found that his card tricks amused, he resolved to rely on them
thereafter, and not to stoop again to fortune-telling, an old woman's
business adopted by him for the once as most likely means of exciting
the girl's curiosity.
He went from the weaver's house to the inn hard by the church of St.
Eustache, and, obtaining a friendly reception by the conciliating manner
and flattering air with which he accosted the servants, passed the
afternoon in manipulating the cards, to the mystification of kitchen
wenches, ostlers, and tipplers of low degree; winning a few sixpences
from the last named in a fair game of skill. He thus earned a supper in
a kitchen, and a bed in the stable-loft.
The next day he walked twenty-one miles, crossing Dartmoor Forest and
the vast common, doing card tricks for a meal in a farmer's cottage at
each one of two villages, and lodging for the night at Moreton
Hampstead, where his procedure at the inn was in general similar to that
at Tavistock.
In the morning he went on to Exeter, which--with its antique houses, its
splendid cathedral of St. Peter flanked by the old bishop's palace, its
ruined castle of West Saxon kings, its bustling High Street, its bridge
across the Exe, and its busy quay--impressed Dick the more for its being
the first large town of England to greet his eyes. He remained here
many days, going from inn-yard to inn-yard, and, in the poorer quarters,
from house to house; always with an address so polite and amiable that
few resisted or distrusted him. His look and manner were so different
from those of the common wayfarer or mountebank that he found he need
stand in no fear of being dealt with as a vagrant. He added to his
resources some of Tom's old conjuring feats, which he made new by means
of the glib, humorous speeches he was soon able to rattle off. A cause
of his prolonged stay at Exeter was the great snowfall and frost, which
began January 7th, with a high eastern wind, froze the rivers, and put
to shame all recollections of cold weather that dated since the
memorable hard winter of 1739-40. Dick spent most of this time in
entertaining snow-bound travellers of low degree, at the inns, receiving
in payment now a meal, now a share of a bed, now a few small coins.
There were nights, though, when he lodged outside, taking short naps in
some sheltering angle of the cathedral, and rousing himself at intervals
to stir his blood by walking.
On the 2d of February the wind changed and blew from the south. Waiting
a few days more, so as to be less inconvenienced by the thaw, Dick
started northward, passing through a beautiful country partly in sight
of the Exe, dined at Collumpton, and proceeded in the afternoon to
Wellington in Somersetshire, where he lay for the night in an open shed
appertaining to the inn. The next morning, paying for breakfast with the
last of the coins he had earned at Exeter, he went on to the sweet vale
of Taunton Dean, and arrived penniless at the town of Taunton, where a
singular thing befell him.
He had stopped to look into an inn-yard, to see whether the time was
propitious for his obtaining the attention of servants and inferior
guests, and thus for his paving the way to one of his unlicensed
performances, when a post-chaise drove up and let out a richly dressed
young gentleman, with a portmanteau and a gold-headed cane, but not
attended by any private servant.
As he was about to enter the inn, this young gentleman, who was of a
sedate and self-contained demeanor, stopped for a moment, regarded Dick
with a sudden but civil interest, and half perceptibly smiled; he then
passed in, while a menial shouldered his portmanteau and followed.
Dick knew at once the cause of the look of interest and of the smile. He
was still pondering on it when, a few minutes later, the gentleman came
out of the inn, greeted him with most kindly condescension, and said, in
a quiet tone, while making sure by swift side-glances that no one
overheard:
"My good man, I see you, too, have noticed how much we look like each
other."
"In the face, yes," replied Dick; "but not as much in the clothes."
"Quite true," said the gentleman, with an appreciative smile. "I was
just about to speak of that. As I looked at you and noticed the
resemblance between us, I couldn't but think how different everything
would be to me if I were the man in the smock-frock and you were the man
in the velvet coat. And then an odd idea came into my head. Said I to
myself, 'Why shouldn't I try the experiment, and see how it may be to
travel a short way through the world in a smock-frock?' I'm given to
whims, you see, and, moreover, it will be a droll thing for me to
appear, clad like you, at the house where I'm expected to-night. Ha! How
my lord will stare to see me come in! In fine, my good man, I propose
that we shall exchange clothes, and go on our different ways!"
"You mean that, for the clothes I have on, you would give me those you
wear now?" cried Dick, astonished and amused.
"Precisely, with the cane and snuff-box thrown into the bargain."
"But don't you know you can buy in five minutes a suit of clothes like
mine, for a hundredth part of the worth of all you offer me?"
"Yes, I know that, of course. But, you see, it would attract attention,
my buying such clothes--"
"Oh, for that matter, I can buy them for you."
"No, for then they would either be new, in which case my--ah--disguise
would be easier seen through; or they would be second-hand, and then God
knows who might have worn them in the past! Besides, I can afford to pay
for my whims, and it pleases me to think that you, too, who resemble me
so much, would have the benefit of my clothes, as I should have of
yours. Come! Or, rather, wait till I pay in advance for my room, which
I'll occupy but half an hour; then I'll take you to it; we can change
immediately, and go forth to see how differently the world will look at
us."
Convinced, at last, that it was no insane person by whom he should be
profiting, Dick saw no reason for interposing further objections;
indeed, those already put had been offered merely to satisfy his natural
scruples against being on the better side of so uneven a bargain, for
the idea of swaggering awhile in costly raiment had instantly attracted
him. In less than an hour thereafter, he issued from the inn, fully clad
as a gentleman, while his whimsical acquaintance, slinking out as
unobserved as Dick had slunk in, tipped him a friendly farewell and made
off in the opposite direction, shouldering the portmanteau as if he were
a hired porter.
As Dick strutted along the busy street, glancing at the shop-windows,
and in turn glanced at by more than one pair of demure eyes, he suddenly
bethought himself that a gentleman in velvet and lace, with silk
stockings and gold buckles, but without a penny in pocket or in
prospect, was a somewhat anomalous personage. Moreover, the county towns
and country villages were a field far less worth shining in as a
gentleman than were certain fields he now began to think he might soon
visit.
He therefore visited certain dealers in the town, and by dinner-time he
was minus the gold-headed cane and a gold-mounted snuff-box, but was the
richer by a plainer snuff-box; some changes of linen, underclothes,
neck-cloths, and handkerchiefs; a bag in which to carry all his
movables; and a suit of clothes. He chose the last with a view to the
fit only, regardless of the fact that it was a gamekeeper's costume. At
another inn than the one where he had met the stranger, Dick doffed his
fine feathers, put on the gamekeeper's suit, and dined, paying for his
dinner with some money he had over from the proceeds of the cane and
snuff-box.
In the afternoon, carrying his bag of clothes slung by a stick over his
shoulder, he left Taunton behind, presently abandoned the road that went
northward to Bridgewater, and proceeded northeastward, traversing
charming vales, and arriving at night at a village about half-way
between Taunton and Glastonbury. His pack of cards earned his supper and
bed, both in the house of a simple-minded blacksmith.
The next day he passed through Glastonbury, pausing to indulge his
imagination before the ruined abbey in which Kings Arthur and Edgar were
buried, as well as before the rotting cross in the town's centre, and
before the Tor of St. Michael on the hill northeast. He fed nothing but
his imagination at this place, and hastened on to Wells, where he stayed
his stomach further while admiring the magnificent west front of the
Gothic Cathedral, the high square tower and ornate exterior of St.
Cuthbert's Church, and the other fine old buildings.
At the inn, he found, among other travellers, a party of lesser gentry
on whose hands time hung heavily, their business being finished, but
themselves being unwilling to set forth on a Friday. Dick soon
ingratiated himself with these gentlemen, whose thick and empty heads
were already astray with punch, wine, and ale; and he was made not only
a sharer of their good cheer, but the sole occupant of the bed of one
whom he tried to assist thither but who persisted in sleeping on the
floor instead.
Leaving early the next morning, ere his benefactors were awake to eject
him as some presuming plebeian who had availed himself of their
drunkenness, Dick proceeded northeastward towards Bath, his eyes
rejoicing in the beauty of the Mendip hills and the surrounding country.
When he had reached a spot where a short stretch of road before him had
a delightfully secluded appearance, by reason of the trees that
overarched it, and the varied slopes that rose gently on either hand,
those on the left extending in a series of shapely hills to a far
western horizon, he began to think of breakfast. A little way ahead, a
vine-grown wall, broken by high gate-posts, marked the roadside boundary
of a small, sloping park, belonging to a country-seat whose towers and
chimneys rose among the trees some distance within. As Dick lay down his
bag to rest, there came from a small door in the wall a gamekeeper, who
immediately raised the fowling-piece he carried, and fired at a hawk
that circled over a copse at Dick's right. The shot missed, and the
gamekeeper reloaded. But when he was ready for a second shot, he
shouldered his gun, evidently thinking the bird out of range, although
it remained over the copse.
"I'll bring that bird down for you, if you let me," called out Dick, on
the impulse of the moment, just as if he had been in his own country.
In reply, the gamekeeper stared in amazement. Dick repeated his offer.
Then the gamekeeper found words, and wrathfully ordered Dick from the
premises, calling him a vagabond, a poacher, and worse. Dick was about
to close the fellow's mouth with a blow, when a loud voice, one that
shifted between a bellow and a whine, came from the direction of the
great gate:
"What's amiss, Perkins? Hold the damned rascal! I'll make a jailbird of
him, that I will! What is it, Perkins? Highway robbery? I'll have him
up, the next assizes!"
By this time, the speaker, having got out of a coach just as it was
being driven through the gate, had come up to where Dick and the
gamekeeper stood. He was a large, pot-bellied man, with coarse features,
red face, and bloodshot eyes; a man of about forty, showing in his
movements a disability due to a dissolute life, and dressed with a
richness that did not avail to soften the impression of grossness he
produced.
"The rascal had the impudence of offering to shoot that hawk, sir," said
the gamekeeper, looking wroth at the outrage.
"What hawk?" queried the threatening gentleman, looking, and presently
sighting the only one in view. "That hawk? Odd's life! If the rogue can
shoot that hawk at this distance, I'm his humble servant, that I am! And
let him only speak, and the place of under-keeper shall be his, damn me
twice over if it sha'n't! D'ye hear that, rascal?"
Philosophically ignoring the last word, Dick replied, "If Mr. Perkins
will hand me the gun, I'll show you how we shoot in" (he was going to
say "America," but checked himself) "the county I came from."
"Give him the gun, Perkins, give him the gun!" ordered the gentleman,
eagerly, responding to anything that appealed to his love of shooting,
and already preparing to jeer in case of Dick's failure.
Dick took the gun, aimed carefully, fired; the bird fell into the copse.
Whereupon the gentleman, forgetting former threats, impulsively
applauded, pronounced Dick a marvel, and, taking it from his garb that
he was a gamekeeper, began a brief catechising that resulted in Dick's
being forthwith installed as Mr. Perkins's assistant, in a lodge at the
farther end of Mr. Bullcott's woods,--for Bullcott was the name of the
country squire whose favor Dick's marksmanship had so quickly won.
Dick's face, and the straight account of himself that he had invented on
the spot, served in lieu of a written "character" with the impulsive and
unthinking Squire Bullcott; as subsequently his adaptiveness, quickness
of perception, and conciliating manner enabled him to acquire Perkins's
tolerance, and to learn the duties of his post so soon that no one
discovered he had never filled a similar one before.
In this situation Dick spent the rest of February, all of March, and
great part of April; having little company other than that of Perkins
and the dogs; rarely seeing his master, who made frequent journeys from
home; and not once beholding the Squire's wife, who, said Perkins, was
usually ailing and mostly kept her room. He might have had the smiles of
any of the maid-servants of Bullcott Hall, but he would never accept
amatory favors from low sources as a supposed equal, though he might
willingly enough, in his own proper character of gentleman, condescend
on occasion to kiss a handsome wench.
One sweet, blossomy day in April, while following the course of a little
rivulet, Dick emerged from the woods to a field at whose farther end was
a barn, before which stood a large wagon whence a party of strolling
players were moving their accessories into the building, for the purpose
of giving a series of performances there. By the brookside, at a place
hidden from her fellow Thespians by some bushes, knelt one of the women
of the company, a rather pretty girl, washing clothes. Standing near
this girl, with his back towards Dick, was a man who seemed, from his
attitude and gestures, to be pressing on her some sort of invitation,
which she apparently chose to ignore. This man presently stooped by her
side, and made to put his arms around her, whereupon she gave him a
vigorous slap in the face with the wet undergarment she then held.
The man persisting in his attempt to embrace her, and the girl
resisting without fear but with repugnance, Dick ran forward, cuffed the
man on the side of the head, and announced the intention of throwing him
into the brook if he did not immediately let go the lady. The man let
go, but only in order to spring to his feet and turn, with clenched
fists, upon Dick, disclosing to the latter the furious face of Squire
Bullcott.
The Squire, whose wrath instantly doubled upon his seeing that his
interfering assailant was his own under gamekeeper, could only roar,
sputter, and whine, incoherently, and look as if about to explode. He
was deterred from instantly laying hands on Dick by the attitude of
defence into which the latter had promptly thrown himself. When Mr.
Bullcott had used up his breath in calling Dick vile names, and
threatening him with everything from a cudgel to a gibbet, Dick
explained that he could not stand by and see any man force his caresses
on a lady against her will.
"Lady!" bellowed the Squire. "Why, she's a miserable ---- of a vagabond
play-actress! Why, you fool, I'll warrant she can't begin to count the
men who have had her!"
"I don't stand up for the woman's virtue," said Dick. "I know nothing
about that." He perceived that a man who would ever testify with due
effect to the virtue of a good woman, must not assert, by oath or
blows, a belief in that of a bad or doubtful woman. "But every woman has
the right to say who sha'n't have her favors," he went on, "and that
girl was resolved you shouldn't have hers!"
"Well, by God, we'll see! I'll have the whole rabble locked up, I will!
They shan't give any of their nasty plays where I have jurisdiction!
I'll drive them off, and you, too! No, I won't, I'll have you up at the
assizes. I'll see you hanged for murderous assault; that I will!"
With which, the girl having already fled to her comrades, and voices
being heard to approach, the worthy magistrate plunged into cover of the
woods in one direction, while Dick sought similar concealment in
another.
Knowing that time had come to resume his travels, Dick hastened to his
lodge, and there, the better to avoid arrest on the Squire's order, he
put on the fine suit given him by the strange gentleman at Taunton. With
all his other clothes in his bag, he then started for the road. As he
was passing through the woods, he first heard and then saw Mr. Perkins
leading towards the abandoned lodge a pair of ugly fellows armed with
bludgeons. Unseen by this party, Dick made a detour that led him
eventually to the road, but to a part thereof that necessitated his
passing the great gate of the Hall in order to continue his journey
northward.
As he was musing on the peculiar appearance he must make in the road,
that of a gaily dressed gentleman travelling afoot and carrying a bag,
he saw Squire Bullcott come forth on horseback, attended by two
stalwart, raw-looking servants. The Squire stared at him, in
bewilderment, a moment, then cried out to his servants:
"'Tis the very same! The same damned rogue! I know the rascal in spite
of his clothes! Stop him, Curry, and hold him fast! Down off your
horses, both of you, or he'll get safe away!"
"I dare you to stop me now!" cried Dick, going straight up to Bullcott
and looking him in the face. "I'm a gentleman, and one of your betters,
though I did amuse myself by playing gamekeeper to an ignorant brute!"
The Squire glared for a moment in speechless fury, and then, gathering
breath and saliva, spat with great force in Dick's face.
The two servants were now dismounted. Mr. Bullcott, enraged to the point
of preferring immediate revenge rather than the slow operation of the
law, ordered them to use their whips on Dick. They fell upon him
together, at the moment when he was blinded by the handkerchief with
which he had instantly begun to cleanse his visage of Bullcott's
disgusting marks.
Maddened by the blows that rained upon his face, neck, arms, and
wrists, Dick struck out wildly at his brawny assailants. At a certain
violent rush on his part, they fell back. The Squire seized that moment
as an opportune one for riding his horse at Dick, and the latter,
leaping aside to avoid the heavy hoofs, tripped on a stone and fell flat
in the road, knocking the breath out of his body.
Bullcott now, leaning from his horse, wielded his own whip on Dick's
head and back, accompanying the castigation with vengeful oaths and vile
epithets. Then, ordering his men to bestow each a final kick on the
prostrate body, the worthy gentleman rode off about his business, which,
it eventually appeared, was to cause the ejection of the strolling
players from the barn before which their merry-andrew had already begun
to collect a crowd around his wagon.
Kicked into insensibility, Dick was at last abandoned by the two
servants, and he lay in the road until, fifteen minutes later, there
came up from the direction of Wells a post-chaise, from which a
hearty-looking young gentleman, having ordered the postilion to stop,
got out for the sole purpose of examining the prostrate body in the way.
He stooped beside Dick, called his valet to bring some brandy, and
gently raised Dick's head.
"Who is it?" murmured Dick, summoned out of a wild and painful dream,
and resting his blue eyes on the rubicund, cheerful, somewhat impudent
face of the young gentleman.
"Who is it?" repeated the latter, blithely. "That's a good one! Here's a
gentleman who has fallen among thieves and been left half dead, and the
first thing he wants of the Good Samaritan is to know who the Good
Samaritan is! Swallow this brandy, sir, and the Good Samaritan will
introduce himself."
"You are certainly the Good Samaritan," moaned Dick, after a reviving
gulp from the flask held by the valet; "but I haven't fallen among
thieves. I fell in only with the most damned boorish scoundrel that ever
disgraced the name of gentleman, and I swear I won't rest till I've paid
him back what he and his rascal menials did me here, blow for blow, and
kick for kick."
"Quite right!" said the other, gaily. "But, in the meantime, what is to
be done for you? Can I take you to your house? Do you live hereabouts?"
"No, my home is--quite--far--away," replied Dick, relapsing into a
dreamy condition.
The other gently shook him back to full consciousness. "Then where may I
take you? Whither were you bound? Towards Bath?"
"Yes, towards Bath," said Dick, on a moment's impulse.
"Well, by George, that's fortunate! You shall be my travelling
companion the rest of the way. You don't seem to have your own coach at
hand, or any of your servants."
"You are right. I have no coach at hand--or any servants. I have only
the bag in the ditch yonder. You are very kind! I don't like to
intrude."
"Nonsense, my dear sir! 'Tis I who have intruded on your slumbers here.
You'll be company for me on the journey. 'Fore gad, I was dead of ennui,
for some one to talk to, when we came upon you! Get the gentleman's bag,
Wilkins. I must say, sir, your own servant must be a rascal, to have
dropped your things and ridden off as he did, when you were attacked."
Dick saw no reason to correct the impression produced, by his clothes
and other circumstances, on the cordial young gentleman, and he silently
let himself be helped into the chaise, which, his bag having been stowed
away and his rescuers having got in, at once started off towards Bath.
Dick gave no more account of himself, beyond announcing his name and the
fact that he had recently come from travels abroad, than to say that he
had been attacked by the servants of a gentleman whose motive was
personal revenge, and left as the Good Samaritan had found him. The Good
Samaritan turned out to be Lord George Winston, who was given to
letting his private coaches and horses lie idle, and to travelling in
his present modest fashion, in order that he might encounter the more
amusing people and incidents. He was now hastening, in quest of society,
back from his Devonshire estate, whither he had recently hastened in
quest of solitude. He was an exceedingly good-natured, self-satisfied,
talkative youth, one of those happily constituted persons who are not
even their own enemies. Yet he was a man of exceeding animation and wit,
as he showed by countless little jests with which he enlivened the talk
he rattled off to Dick on the journey.
Dick allowed most of the conversation to his lordship, which
circumstance made so agreeable an impression on the latter, that, on
learning Dick had no engagements, he gave an imperative invitation to be
his guest in Bath for a few days, and afterward to bear him company to
London. Dick, philosophically accepting, thus saw his immediate future
paved with roses in advance, ere the increasing bustle of converging
roads, the sound of the Avon flowing beneath its bridge, and the sight
of many roofs and towers told him he was entering the most populous and
fashionable pleasure resort in England.
It was late in the afternoon, when they drove into Bath. The chaise
rattled through the fine streets of splendid stone houses, its own noise
mingling with that of grand coaches and other conveyances. On every
side were finely dressed people, strutting with an air of consequence,
while Dick got a glimpse of a fair face, more or less genuine in color,
in many a carriage and chair. The chaise let out its passengers at the
Three Tuns, where Lord George engaged rooms for the night, and where
Dick carefully repaired all damage to his person and attire, donned
fresh linen, had his hair powdered by a man whom Lord George had caused
to be summoned, dined with his gay companion, and sauntered forth afoot
with him at evening, glowing with the newly stimulated love of pleasure.
At the door of the Pelican Inn, Lord George introduced Dick to a pompous
but good-natured little gentleman named Boswell, who greeted my lord
obsequiously but tarried only so long as to mention that he was on his
way to meet Doctor Johnson at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.
"Does he mean the great Doctor Johnson, the author?" asked Dick, looking
back after him with curiosity.
"Yes," said Lord George; "he is a harmless, conceited Scotchman that
comes to town a few weeks every year and follows at the heels of
Johnson, who treats him as if he were the spaniel he is. 'Tis amusing to
consort now and then with those writing fellows, if you can endure their
vanity. As for Johnson, he says a good thing sometimes, and might be
good company but for his sweating and grunting, his dirty linen and his
beastly way of eating, and his desire of doing all the talking himself."
They went to the Assembly Rooms, where his lordship introduced Dick to
numerous people of both sexes and then sat down to cards; while Dick
looked on, or walked about among the promenaders, the gay talkers, and
the chatting tea-drinkers, and thought he was in a kind of paradise.
The next day Lord George moved with his guest to a floor in a fine house
on the South Parade, where there was comparative quiet from the noise of
wheels. There established, Dick, as he listened to the bells of the
Abbey church,--which sound carried to him a mental vision of the
venerable Cathedral itself, with its fine western front and its
countless windows,--resolved that he would ever after wear the clothes
of a gentleman, as his birth and mind entitled him to do; that his
future way should lie amidst fine surroundings; that he should
thereafter contrive to sip only of the honey of this world.
The two young gentlemen went early to the pump-room; took the hot water
bath in a great tank overlooked by the pump-room windows, in company
with other perspiring folk, who did not look at their best,--
particularly the ladies in their brown linen jackets and petticoats and
their chip hats with handkerchiefs affixed. Then, having dressed and
partaken of the water served by the pumper in the bar, Lord George and
Dick--or rather Mr. Wetheral, for he had now determined to complete the
transformation that his change of clothes had begun--strolled on the
North Parade; after which his lordship played a game of billiards with
an acquaintance he met, while Dick stole away in quest of a certain kind
of shop. This excursion was fruitful, and when Mr. Wetheral rejoined his
friend at the Coffee House his shoes had silver buckles instead of gold
ones, and a small quantity of coin rattled in his previously silent
pocket. For Dick, having watched the cards awhile on the preceding
night, had made up his mind to try a fling at fortune, himself.
Accordingly, when they went to the Rooms that night, it was Mr. Wetheral
that played, and Lord George that sought diversion otherwise, joining
the dancers, for this was one of the two weekly ball-nights. Wetheral
had beginner's luck, of course, and when he retired to bed at twelve his
pockets jingled with an effect almost as pleasant to his ears as that of
the Abbey bells, and he saw himself prospectively the possessor of some
splendid house in the Circus or in Prince's Row.
He imagined, of course, a lovely sharer of the contemplated splendor,
but this fancy did not take a permanent shape in his mind's eye;
sometimes it wore the face of Catherine de St. Valier; then this image
gave way to a kind of collective impression of the many pretty faces he
had already seen in Bath. For so great a change had come in his
surroundings and desires, that Catherine and her snowy Quebec had faded
into a far past and seemed at an immeasurable distance. Reproach him not
too severely! He was nineteen, in England, in spring, as if freshly born
into a new world that appeared all pleasure and beauty; moreover, the
past five months had been so crowded with events and changes that they
trailed out behind him like years instead of months.
His luck at cards continuing, and with it his determination to move
thereafter in polite life, Mr. Wetheral set about acquiring certain
accomplishments necessary to his purpose. There was a fop among Lord
George's acquaintance, given to telling laughable stories, partly in
French. Of this gentleman's Coffee House audience, Dick was the only one
who could not laugh uproariously at these Gallic passages. He thereupon
resolved to learn French, as well as to acquire the more fashionable
styles of dancing, and to improve what rudiments of fencing had been
imparted to him by old Tom MacAlister. Thus he invested a good part of
his nightly winnings in clandestine lessons, taken while Lord George was
making visits, or off with some pleasure-seeking party to Spring
Gardens, or elsewhere engaged.
Wetheral supplemented his French and fencing lessons with private
practice in his rooms, or in some solitary part of the grove by the
Avon, or of King's Mead Fields, or elsewhere. His natural readiness and
his fierce application soon enabled him to read and write easy French
passably well; but when he came to speak in that language to the foppish
little master of ceremonies at the Rooms, he brought confusion on
himself. He made a better show at dancing, though; and a few trials of
the foils with Lord George, on a rainy day, displayed a promise of early
ability to handle a sword in the approved fashion.
One evening in the second week of May, Lord George announced his wish of
starting for London on the morrow, as the fashionable season at Bath
would soon be over. Dick had no sorrow at this, for he had resolved to
continue in London his present way of life, by means of the cards and by
whatever other resources he might find at hand. He was quite ready for
fresh fields, as long as they were of the flowery kind. Desiring,
though, a last survey of the field he was about to leave, Dick sallied
forth alone that night for the Rooms, Lord George having to remain at
his lodgings to write some letters he had postponed to the last moment.
Just as Mr. Wetheral was entering the ballroom, during a cessation of
dancing, and was felicitating himself on the flattering salutations he
got from acquaintances obtained through Lord George,--and several of
these greetings came with melting smiles from fair faces,--he heard a
voice at his side cry out:
"Why, by God, 'tis the rascal gamekeeper masquerading as a gentleman!"
Dick recognized the voice, now bellow and now whimper, ere even he
turned, like a man shot, and saw the face. At sight of the gross,
insolent visage of Squire Bullcott, the memory of the horse-whipping
drove away every other consideration, and Dick, thinking only of
revenge, not of his own possible discomfiture, replied, hotly:
"So 'tis you, Bully Bullcott! I intended to return and pay off my score,
but kind Providence has saved me the trouble by sending you to Bath.
Wait until I meet you in the street, sir!"
"What, you dog!" cried the Squire, whose corpulent body was dressed as
if it were the elegant figure of a beau of twenty-five. "Why, hear the
cur talk, will you that! The low, dirty, mongrel cur, that came starving
along the road, with tongue hanging out and ne'er a kennel to sleep in;
and that I took in and made a gamekeeper of! How in the name of God he
ever came by those clothes he has on, I know not. But you sha'n't play
any of your tricks here, you impostor! I denounce this rascal,
gentlemen! He's not what he pretends to be!"
"Gentlemen," said Dick, to the crowd that had quickly assembled, "there
are many of you here who know me--"
"If there be," said Bullcott, cutting Dick's speech short, "how long
have you known him? Hey? And is there any gentleman here that doesn't
know me?" From the manner in which the Squire glared around, and that of
the gentlemen who amiably nodded in confirmation, it was plain that
Squire Bullcott was a very well-known person at Bath; and from other
tokens it was equally plain that Dick's acquaintances were mentally
recalling that the time since they had first met him was indeed short.
"The fellow is a gamekeeper, I say! A common servant, that I paid wages
to, a month ago, and that my footmen drove off my place, as they shall
drive him out of these Rooms now!" Whereat he strode through the crowd,
which opened for him with the deference due to wealth, and at the door
he called out to his servants, who were waiting with his coach.
Before Mr. Wetheral, who looked in perplexity from one acquaintance to
another, and saw each man fall slightly back or look aside, could arrive
at any course of action, he found himself face to face with the two
low-browed fellows who had obeyed the Squire's behest on a former
memorable occasion. Ere he was fully sensible of their intention, he was
grasped at neck and arm, and the next instant he was being hustled
swiftly to the street. Resisting blindly, and as the nether part of his
person came considerably in the rear in this rapid exit, he made a
ludicrous appearance, as he knew from the shout of laughter that
followed him,--laughter in which, to his unutterable chagrin, the voices
of the ladies mingled, for they had pushed forward among the gentlemen
who had first hastened to the scene.
Once outside, Dick's two burly captors flung him forward into the
street, where he landed on all fours in mire and refuse.
A crowd of servants and rabble quickly gathered around, shouting with
glee. Dick's mood, when he rose, bruised and soiled, was to return and
do battle with the whole assembly in the Rooms. But he knew the futility
of such heroic measures, and that the present was no time in which to
seek retaliation. He contented himself, therefore, with what effective
lunges were necessary in order to break through the street crowd. Having
achieved a passage in one fierce dash, he ran on, at a pace that soon
ended pursuit, until he reached his lodgings. There he made himself
presentable before joining Lord George, to whom he said nothing of the
night's occurrence.
Their early departure, the next morning, alone prevented his lordship
from hearing the news that was now all over Bath; and Dick felt a
decided relief when he saw the city receding in the morning sunshine
while the post-chaise they had taken was bowling merrily towards
Wiltshire. An uneventful day, diversified by many stops for refreshment,
brought them late in the afternoon to Marlboro, where Dick had time,
before nightfall, to ascend by the winding path the famous mount, and to
meditate in the grotto where Thomson had composed "The Seasons," as well
as to stroll through the charming grounds stretching at the rear of the
inn to the Kennet.
As the Bath stage-coach for London drove up, Dick looked furtively from
the inn window to see if it should let out any of those who had
witnessed his humiliation the previous night. Lord George, glancing from
the same window, suddenly exclaimed, "Egad, there's a fine woman!"
Following his lordship's gaze, Dick beheld a slender and graceful lady
emerging from a private coach. Her face, round, soft, childlike, with
clear and gentle blue eyes, instantly captivated Dick. He watched her
while she gave hasty directions to her coachman, and while she stepped
quickly and with downcast look, as if wishing to avoid observation, to
the inn. She was accompanied by another lady, also quite handsome, but
of a somewhat severe and defiant countenance.
Having entered the inn, the two ladies were seen no more while Dick and
Lord George remained at Marlboro, although these candid admirers of
beauty delayed their departure thence till the next day was far
advanced. With sighs of disappointment, they then resumed their journey,
and passed through the forest and on to Hungerford, where they dined and
tarried awhile in the vain hope that yet the lady of the private coach
might overtake them.
Continuing in disappointment, they proceeded into Berkshire and along
the pleasant Kennet to Speenhamland, which, as all the world knows, is
but the northern part of Newbury, the Kennet flowing between under a
stone bridge. They had no sooner made themselves comfortable in the last
two available rooms at the Pelican Inn, than Wetheral happened to look
out into the corridor and see, accidentally glancing from the opposite
chamber at the same moment, the beautiful lady of the private coach.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DEVIL TO PAY AT THE PELICAN INN.
The lady, on seeing herself observed, immediately disappeared, and
closed her door. Dick imparted his discovery to Lord George, who
thereupon sent his man Wilkins to inquire of the servants who the lady
was. Wilkins returned with the information, obtained from an inn maid
who had quizzed the lady's own man-servant, that the lady was Miss
Englefield, Sir Hilary Englefield's sister, returning to her brother's
seat near Reading, to escape the attentions of a very wealthy gentleman
who had pursued her at Bath.
"Why, I know Sir Hilary," cried Lord George. "Wilkins, you will take
this message to Miss Englefield at once. Say to her that I have learned
she is here, and that, supposing she must have heard her brother speak
of me, though I have never had the honor and pleasure of meeting her, I
send my most respectful compliments and will do myself the happiness of
waiting upon her in the public parlor. Make haste, Wilkins! Come,
Wetheral,--damn it, your hair is all right! We shall probably have the
joy of supping with these ladies."
Dick hastened down to the parlor with his lordship and waited in a very
pleasant trepidation. Wilkins soon came with the answer that Miss
Englefield would give herself the honor, etc. "She seemed at first quite
took by surprise, my lord," added Wilkins, "and repeated the name
Englefield after me, as if to make me think there was a mistake and she
wasn't that lady. But she whispered awhile with the other lady, and then
gave me the answer."
"If she is really running away from some obnoxious suitor, she would
quite naturally wish to hide her name," commented Lord George to Dick;
and then a rustle of skirts heralded the entrance of the lady and her
companion themselves.
While introductions were being made, the four people became so grouped
that Wetheral found himself near Miss Englefield, an advantage he was
quite ready to keep when it had come through circumstance, although he
would not with premeditation have competed for it with Lord George. His
lordship, noting the circumstance with a smile partly of reproach and
partly of resignation, accepted with good grace the place of partner to
the other lady, Miss Thorpe, whom Miss Englefield addressed as
Celestine. Thus coupled, the new acquaintances talked of the crowded
state of the inns, the excellence of the weather and roads, the season
at Bath (Dick learned with ineffable relief that Miss Englefield's
departure had occurred before his ejection from the Rooms), and such
matters.
It was agreed presently, on Lord George's proposal, that the four should
sup together in a corner of their own in the dining-room; and Dick there
contrived to retain his post as cavalier to Miss Englefield, with whom
he became more entranced at every commonplace utterance from her dainty
lips, every meaningless glance from her soft eyes, every change of
expression of her girlish face, every insignificant sigh, every
occasionless laugh.
Her manner was generally that of a woman under some kind of anxiety or
suspense, from which she found relief in a half timid, half reckless
abandonment to gaiety; she was like a schoolgirl on some feminine lark,
entirely novel to her, to which some severity had driven her for relief,
yet of which she was constantly in terror.
In the parlor, after supper, Wetheral's supposed travels being
mentioned, he led up to the highly original remark, spoken with a most
meaning look, "But of all women, I'll swear the finest I have seen are
in England,--nay, I must say, _is_ in England!" The charming blush with
which she received this extremely subtle compliment encouraged Dick to
further efforts in the same strain, for the conversation of the two had
now fallen to a tone inaudible to Lord George and Miss Thorpe. These, on
their side, sat at some distance, deep in a masked contest arising from
the haughty Celestine's declared invulnerability to any man's attack,
and from Lord George's complacent conviction that he could make a swift
conquest of any woman without even seriously exerting himself.
This game, between the irresistible and the immovable, enabled Wetheral
and Miss Englefield to proceed unwatched through a flirtation's first
stages, so delicious to the participants, so insipid to third persons.
Silly as their talk was, it derived unutterable charm from the low tones
in which it was spoken, the ardent looks and suppressed agitation of
Dick, the furtive glances and demure blushes of Miss Englefield. At last
the silence of the inn, and the shortened state of the candles, broke up
the reluctant quartette, and the ladies said good night, leaving Dick on
the outer threshold of his paradise, and Lord George at the first
manoeuvre in his campaign against the composure of Celestine.
"By the lord," cried Wetheral in ecstasy, when he and Lord George were
alone together, "did you ever see a more heavenly creature? She's
divine, she's perfect, and her name is Amabel, as lovely as herself! She
told me it, and she told me, too, almost in as many words, that her
affections were not engaged--previously. Amabel! Could any name fit any
woman better?"
"Come, come," said Lord George, "it's bedtime. I must sleep well
to-night, and look my best to-morrow, for I've a conquest to make."
"'Fore gad, I sha'n't sleep at all!" cried Dick. "I've been made a
conquest of!"
But he followed his friend up-stairs, where he found the latter slightly
meditative and absent, a circumstance that would have held his attention
had not his mind been full of other thoughts. Dick looked out of the
window, at the inn garden. It was a perfect night, with a glorious
moonlight. Dick could never go to bed in his present mood. He longed to
walk, to revel in the moonlight, which was all his own, now that the
rest of the world was asleep. If he could but pace beneath her window!
That window also, being in line with his own, looked out on the garden.
Between the two windows was that of the corridor, and beneath this there
was a rear door leading to the garden, which door was flanked by a
vine-clad trellis.
"I'm going for a stroll in the garden," said Dick, suddenly, to Lord
George, who was already in bed. "I sha'n't want a candle to go to bed
by."
He thereupon stepped from his window to the trellis, and descended
thereby to the ground, heedless of the impeding vines. Amabel's window
was already dark, as his own became a moment later. The garden sloped
gently, between a wall and a hedge, to the Kennet, which reflected the
moon between shadows of over-arching boughs. With its small trees, its
bushes and flowers, its solitary bench, and its clear spaces of short
grass, all made beautiful and mysterious by the moonlight, its spring
odors, and the murmur of the stream, the place seemed to Dick like some
Italian garden, and he imagined himself Romeo gazing up at Juliet's
balcony.
In the midst of this fancy, he was rudely brought back to England by the
sound of wheels and horse, and of voices speaking guardedly in very
un-Italian accents, in the inn coach-yard beyond the wall that bounded
one side of the garden. The sounds came to a stop, and the gate of the
wall opened cautiously, whereupon Dick stepped into the shadow of the
trellis flanking the rear doorway. Through the gateway he could see a
rickety coach, of which the door was open and from about which there now
stepped stealthily into the garden four ill-clad, desperate-looking
fellows, one wearing a cloak about his lank body and stifling a cough as
he walked, another carrying a large handkerchief in his hand, two others
awkwardly bearing a ladder.
"'Tis all clear," said the cloaked individual. "Quick work, captain,
now! That's the room." And he pointed to the window of Amabel.
Dick gave a violent start. What could be the purpose, concerning her
chamber, of these birds of ill omen, who, doubtless through the
collusion of some inn servant, had driven so secretly into the
coach-yard at this hour? He decided to wait, that he might, before
interfering, discover their plans.
The two ladder-bearers, at a whisper from the man with the handkerchief,
placed the ladder to the window. The captain--a title which Dick guessed
in this case to indicate a highwayman rather than a gentleman of war or
sea--mounted with agility, and disappeared through the window, followed
by one of the men. The cloaked fellow stood holding the ladder, and the
other went to the gate to keep watch.
Dick, thinking it high time to take a hand, looked about for a weapon,
and, seeing nothing else, finally pulled a stout cross-piece from the
trellis. By this time the expeditious captain had reappeared at the top
of the ladder, bearing the swooning form of Amabel, whose possible
screams he had provided against with the handkerchief. His assistant
followed him down the ladder, to give aid should the nimble captain's
burden prove too heavy.
Dick ran forward with a threatening shout, and brought his extemporized
cudgel down on the skull of the man in the cloak; at the same time there
rose, in the chamber above, loud cries of "Help!" from Celestine, who
had just awakened to what was going on. The sudden rush and noise
took the enemy by surprise. The man attacked by Dick made for the gate,
leaving his cloak in the hands of his assailant, who had mechanically
clutched it. The captain's principal assistant leaped from the ladder,
and followed with all speed to the gate, while the man on watch
scrambled to the seat on the coach and whipped the horses to a gallop.
The captain, seeing himself deserted, dropped Amabel as soon as he
reached the bottom of the ladder, drew a pistol, and made ready for a
fight over her body. But Dick clubbed the pistol from his hand,
whereupon the captain, with merely an ejaculation of annoyance, turned
and fled after his retreating forces.
[Illustration: "BEARING THE SWOONING FORM OF AMABEL."]
Dick picked up the fainting Amabel, and carried her to the garden bench,
whereon he placed her in a sitting attitude, and put the captured cloak
about her, lest in her fragile night-dress she might be chilled.
Meanwhile Celestine's cries had not abated, and suddenly Dick, while
trying to fan Miss Englefield back to recovery with his hat, beheld Lord
George emerge from the gentlemen's window, in night-gown and coat, drop
to the ground, rush up the ladder, and plunge into the chamber whence
the shouts for aid continued to issue. Lord George, in his haste to the
rescue, had not noticed Dick and Amabel in the garden.
At last the tender creature on the bench gently stirred, feebly opened
her eyes, and faintly asked where she was. Dick immediately enlightened
her. She appeared astonished at what had befallen, and murmured,
reflectively, "I shouldn't have thought he would take that way of doing
it," then checked herself as if she had said too much. Dick supposed she
alluded to the rich suitor, and that the attempted abduction was the
work of that person. He could not enough thank heaven for having enabled
him to be her preserver, and he sat by her side, on the bench, while she
remained wrapped in the cloak, apparently too prostrated by the recent
occurrence to return immediately to her chamber.
And now was the time for a romantic love scene, suitable to the youth
and beauty of the two participants, to the charm of the surroundings, to
the May night, the moonlight, the odor of flowers, the ripple of the
stream, and the preceding circumstances of the interview; and doubtless
the conversation was poetic enough to the two who engaged in it, thanks
to all these matters and to the glances, low tones of agitation,
suppressed fervor, tremblings, etc.; but the talk in itself was no more
original or impassioned than this:
"I'm glad you aren't hurt," said she.
"It would be a happiness to carry forever a wound received in such a
cause,--'pon honor, it would!" said he.
"Will they come back, do you think? I sha'n't be able to sleep, the rest
of the night, for fear of them!"
"You have nothing to fear. I shall keep guard under your window all
night."
"Oh, no, sir! You will take cold."
"I cannot. I shall be on fire. My heart will glow with your image, which
has occupied it ever since I saw you before the inn at Marlboro
yesterday."
"Why, did you notice me then? I saw you looking out of the window, and I
said to Celestine, 'What a frank and generous face! If my--if some
person were but like that!'"
"You said that, really,--and meant it,--and mean it still?"
"Why, to be sure, how could I mean it less, after all that has happened
to-night?"
He now plunged deep into ardent love-making, at which she seemed to be
both frightened and, in spite of herself, pleased. Not making any direct
response, she began to sound him as to his character and opinions, his
views on matters pertaining to love and propriety and honorable conduct,
and finally as to whether he would deem a love between a married and a
single person, under any possible circumstances, justifiable. He
declared that, for his part, he would never make love to a married
woman, that he would rob no man, nor injure any in a matter so
sacred,--excepting possibly one man, to whom he owed the keenest of
revenges, Mr. Bullcott, of Bullcott Hall, Somersetshire. At this
declaration, an unaccountable strange look--astonishment mingled with
secret elation--overspread her face. "Why do you look so?" inquired
Dick.
Before she could answer, there came from the ladies' chamber, whence the
cries had for some time ceased to issue, the sound of several slaps and
cuffs in close succession. An instant later the figure of Lord George,
in coat and night-gown, came swiftly through the window and dropped to
the ground.
"Damn all affected prudery!" muttered his lordship, holding his hand to
his cheek, and then clambered up the trellis to his own window.
At the same time, Celestine appeared at the other window, and the
landlord, having first gone to her door and been informed by her that
the garden was full of house-breakers and kidnappers, came from the inn
door, followed by two servants, while a detachment of the town watch,
summoned by another servant, entered by the wall gate from the
coach-yard.
Thus interrupted, Dick had to make explanations, and to hasten Amabel's
return to her chamber by way of the inn door. He then returned to the
garden to carry out his purpose of guarding her window the rest of the
night, and there found one of the watchmen charged with the same duty,
two others having captured the ladder and very carefully carried it off
to preserve as evidence.
Despite what blissful thoughts Dick had to entertain himself with, he
now found it harder to remain awake than it had been when he was on
sentry duty in freezing Canada. Relying at last on the watchman who sat
in the inn doorway, Dick at last succumbed to sleep, on the bench, where
he did not awake till dawn. The watchman also slumbered through the
night, and, had the abductors so elected, they might, with due skill and
caution, have carried off not only the lovely Amabel, but Dick and the
watchman as well.
The watchman was the first to awake; hence Dick, assuming that all was
well, returned to his chamber, refreshed himself with a bath, and put
his clothes in order. By the time this was accomplished, Wilkins having
come to attend the gentlemen, Lord George was up, and in his usual good
humor as to everything but Celestine. Her resistance to his attractions
he pronounced an odious affectation, which he should certainly take out
of the woman, if only for her own sake, for he admitted she had some
good points.
Lord George and Dick had scarcely finished dressing, when there came a
violent knock on the door of their parlor, heralding the boisterous
entrance of a stout, ruddy-faced young gentleman with a decided
fox-hunting look, who thrust out his hand to Lord George, and blurted
out:
"Why, damme, my lord, don't you know me? By gad, you ought to, for
many's the finish we've been in at together, us two!"
"Why, certainly, Sir Hilary! Welcome! Sir Hilary Englefield, Mr.
Wetheral."
Dick bowed, and surveyed critically the brother of Miss Englefield.
"There's the devil to pay somewhere, or else I'm on a wild goose chase,"
went on Sir Hilary, beating his riding-boot with his whip. "A rascal
ensign, as he calls himself, wakes up my house in the middle of the
night, and gives me a letter that he says, being on the way to London,
he agreed to carry from a ragged wench he met at the Pelican here. The
letter turns out to be from a girl that once served in our house but
fell into bad ways and ran off with a damned drunken lawyer. It tells of
a plot of some scoundrel, whom she doesn't name, to have my sister
carried off from this inn last night by the gang of rogues the wench is
travelling with. Well, I up and ride from t'other side of Reading to
Newbury, twenty miles, like the very devil, and when I get here, the inn
people say my sister left the inn yesterday. They tell me another lady
was nearly kidnapped from the room Sis had occupied, but you and another
gentleman prevented. So I said, 'I'll run up and pay my respects to his
lordship,' and, now I've done that, I must be off and look in the other
inns for Sister. I didn't know she was coming back from Bath so soon."
"But," said Lord George, detaining Sir Hilary, "your sister is here. It
was she that Wetheral protected. There must have been some mistake
between you and the inn people. What I say is true, I assure you.
Learning Miss Englefield was here, I made myself known to her, and she
and her friend passed the evening with Wetheral and me."
"Oh, then, the fool of a landlord was fuddled, I dare say. Egad, since
Sis is here, we'll all crack a bottle together. We'll have breakfast
together. My belly aches with emptiness."
"Excellent!" said Lord George. They were now in that one of their two
rooms which served as parlor; it adjoined the bedchamber, which was the
room whose window overlooked the garden. Besides the door between the
two, each room had a door opening to the corridor. "We can have the
table set here in this room, now that you are with us," continued Lord
George, "and be as merry as we please."
"So we shall," cried Sir Hilary; "and, meanwhile, I'll have my horse put
away. I always see with my own eyes how my beasts are cared for." The
baronet then, evidently satisfied at hearing from others of his
sister's safety, ran down-stairs; while Lord George, having sent Wilkins
to order the breakfast, went out to walk for an appetite, Dick remaining
to add some finishing touches to his toilet.
Presently hearing light footfalls and the swish of skirts in the
corridor, and recalling that the ladies had not yet been notified of Sir
Hilary's arrival and of the plan for the breakfast party, Dick hastened
out from his bedchamber, greeted them both, and said, "I have pleasant
news for you, Miss Englefield; your brother, Sir Hilary, has arrived,
and--ah, that is he at the foot of the stairs! He will be up in a
moment."
This announcement had the most astonishing effect on Amabel. She cast a
panic-stricken look around, and then sought refuge through the first
open doorway, which she closed after her, and could be heard turning the
key inside. The door happened to be that of Wetheral and Lord George's
bedchamber.
Sir Hilary, who had not seen this flight, now arrived in the corridor,
and looked first at Celestine, then inquiringly at Wetheral. Surprised
at Sir Hilary's not recognizing his sister's friend, Dick was for a
moment silent; then he proceeded, in some embarrassment, to make the two
acquainted.
"Sir Hilary must often have heard his sister speak of her friend,
Celestine Thorpe," said that lady, who also seemed not entirely at ease.
"Thorpe? Celestine?" repeated Sir Hilary, making the, to him, unusual
effort of searching his memory. "No, I can't say--unless you were the
girl that went to school with Sis, that she got me to write letters to.
I forget that girl's name."
"Why, 'twas Celestine Thorpe," said the lady.
"So 'twas, now I think on't. Well, well, how Sis used to plague me, to
make me answer your letters, to be sure! It seems the girls at your
school had read some novel or such book, Palemia, or Pamelia, or some
name or other, that got you to pestering all your own relations and one
another's with letters. I never used to read yours through, but Sister
would make me answer 'em, ne'ertheless."
At this point Lord George returned, and, on his invitation, the four
went into the parlor of the two gentlemen, Dick hastily closing the door
between parlor and bedchamber, and Miss Thorpe telling the others, with
a look half pleading and half threatening at Dick, that Miss Englefield
would join them soon. Servants now came and laid a table for breakfast,
under Wilkins's direction. Wine being brought, Sir Hilary fell upon it
immediately, pleading his long ride in excuse. Meanwhile Dick, mystified
at the conduct of Amabel, supposed she would now use the opportunity to
go from the bedchamber to the corridor; and wondered how long she would
defer meeting her brother.
Those in the parlor, while the table was being made ready, were grouped
about the window, which looked out from the side of the inn; Miss Thorpe
seated, Lord George at her one elbow, Sir Hilary at the other. The
fox-hunter, repeating frequently his glass of wine, from a bottle on a
near-by side-table, became rapidly more gay and familiar, especially
towards Celestine, whose former characteristics he now proceeded to
recall. At this, Lord George began to show irritation, while the lady's
own composure was far from increased.
"Lord," said the baronet, looking mirthful at the recollection, "what
soft stuff it was, in the letters you used to plague me with! I said to
Sis one day, 'I've heard as how girls at boarding-schools pine for
gentlemen's society and go crazy to be made love to,' I said, 'but I
never fancied one of 'em to have such a coming-on disposition as
Celestine has.' Lord, Lord, 'twas a tender soul!"
This was going beyond the endurance alike of Celestine, whose present
character was so different from that ascribed to the baronet's former
correspondent, and of Lord George, who felt doubly chafed to think that
tenderness denied him had been heaped upon another. Miss Thorpe turned
crimson under his look. Having to vent his anger on some one, his
lordship naturally chose the reminiscent fox-hunter.
"Is it a Berkshire custom, sir," queried Lord George, heatedly, "to
treat the confidence of ladies in this manner?"
Sir Hilary, after a moment of bewilderment, disavowed the least
intention to offend, but his own tone showed a decided resentment of
Lord George's. This fact did not make his lordship's reply any sweeter,
and the upshot of their brief but swift verbal passage was that Sir
Hilary departed in high dudgeon, saying he would find his sister and
start for home at once. Dick slipped quietly into the bedchamber, and,
to his surprise, found Amabel still there.
"Why didn't you go out that way," he whispered, pointing to the corridor
door, "while we were in the parlor?"
"I was afraid of being seen," she answered; "the servants have been
passing to and fro outside the door; so I locked it," and she handed him
the key, which he took thoughtlessly, his own confusion being like that
which had made her take the key from the door after locking it.
"Would it not be best to go out now, while the way is clear," said he,
"and meet your brother, who has gone down-stairs to inquire for you?"
"No, no!" she exclaimed; "I cannot--I dare not! Oh, sir, that gentleman
is _not_ my brother!"
This, then, explained her former flight from Sir Hilary's sight;
explained also why Sir Hilary's description of the letter-writer was so
at variance with the character of Miss Thorpe, who had been forced into
the rôle of his sister's friend by a desire to support Amabel. Little
wonder that Celestine was enraged, or that now, left alone in the parlor
with Lord George, she sought refuge from his sarcastic silence in an
unceremonious retreat to her own chamber! Lord George, with no appetite
for the breakfast, which Wilkins at this moment announced to be ready,
took up his hat, and flung out for another walk. As he passed the
tap-room door, he heard Sir Hilary vociferously declaiming to the
landlord within.
It thus fell out that Dick, looking cautiously in from the other
chamber, saw the parlor deserted, Wilkins having rushed after his
master. Dick instantly beckoned Amabel into the parlor, where it was not
likely Sir Hilary would return. He offered her a chair; but she
preferred to stand, resting one hand on the table, while she explained:
"When we arrived at the inn, we were shown to the room another lady had
vacated a few minutes earlier. As Celestine took pains to learn this
morning, on account of things that have happened since we came here,
that lady was Miss Englefield. When we received Lord George's message,
and found he thought one of us was Miss Englefield, and that he had
never seen her, I thought it would be amusing to keep up the mistake.
Miss Thorpe opposed it, but I longed so to imagine for a time I was
somebody else, I wouldn't listen to her. Of course, after the deception
was begun, she wouldn't betray me. Well, I couldn't endure to be exposed
by others, so I ran from Miss Englefield's brother. You will think me
terribly wicked, won't you, sir?"
"Why, 'twas a most innocent, harmless jest," protested Mr. Wetheral,
gallantly. "If there were any blame, it would belong to Lord George and
me, for our impertinence in having Wilkins inquire who the beautiful
lady was. His informant, it seems, didn't know Miss Englefield had left
and another taken her place. We have now but to send for Miss Thorpe--if
she _is_ Miss Thorpe--"
"Oh, yes, there was no deception as to Celestine's name."
"And as to your own first name?" Dick was slightly apprehensive.
"That was given truly. It is Amabel." Dick was rejoiced.
"Amabel!" he repeated. "Then that is the only name by which at this
moment I know you. 'Tis the loveliest name, and the most fitting one, I
swear! If you would but make it needless, as far as concerns my calling
you by name, that I should ever know any other! If you would but give
me the right to call you by that name alone!"
"Give you the right?" said she in a low voice, and with downcast eyes.
"As how?"
"As by your mere permission."
"After what you know?" Her voice was barely audible, her manner
agitated.
"What do you mean?" asked Dick.
"That I am not the person I pretended to be."
"What difference does that make? Are you any less charming? 'Fore
George, what's in a name,--unless it be Amabel?"
"'Tis not a mere matter of names. You remember what you said last
night--"
"Yes--whatever it was, it all meant that you were adorable, and I mean
that now a thousand times over!" He took her hand, which she did not
withdraw from him.
"But you said something," she went on, in a voice yet lower and more
unsteady, "of married persons and single,--of not injuring a man in a
matter so sacred,--you remember?"
"Why, yes,--I--"
"But you said there might be one exception--"
"Yes, I remember. Squire Bullcott, a Somerset gentleman. I owe him a
very bitter revenge."
"Well, then,--if revenge and--love--both pointed to the same
thing,--what then?"
He looked at her a moment; while she stood crimson, motionless, scarcely
breathing, her eyes averted. Then he let go her hand.
"My God, madam, does it mean that you are--Mr. Bullcott's wife?"
"Yes," and now she spoke with rapidity and more force, "and that I have
endured such treatment from him as I could bear no longer. Insolence,
blows, neglect, imprisonment even, for he is as jealous as he is
faithless, and has tried to hide me from all society, having me guarded
by brutal servants of his own choosing, making me a captive in my own
apartments, and keeping me under lock and key while he pursued his
amours elsewhere. What could I do? I was an only child, without near
relations: my parents died soon after arranging my marriage, which was
against my own wishes. At last I learned, through some careless talk of
my husband's, that Celestine was at Bath. She was my only friend. I
contrived to get a letter to her, and she planned my escape. She waited
at night in a private coach, near Bullcott Hall, while I got out of the
house in the clothes of a chambermaid who was asleep. I ran to a place
she had appointed, and there I found her footman on the park wall, with
a ladder; he helped me across, and to her coach. We took a roundabout
way to the London road, so as to avoid Bath; and when you met us we were
on our way to Celestine's house in Oxfordshire, intending I should keep
concealed there, for I am determined to die rather than go back to my
husband!"
She now stood silent, as if she had placed the situation and herself in
Wetheral's hands, to dispose of as he might choose. Manifestly she had
met very few men, seen nothing of the world; she was still a child,
ready to entrust her whole destiny to the first flatterer whose tender
speeches had won her heart.
Dick was not slow in making up his mind.
"You spoke of love and revenge, madam," said he, gently. "They are
strong passions, and I have been strongly urged by them the last few
moments. But we will resist them,--not for his sake, but for yours--and
mine. Before you start for Oxfordshire, I shall have started for London.
I wish you a pleasant and safe journey, and a long and happy life.
Good-by!"
Before she could answer, there came from the corridor the noise of heavy
feet rushing up the stairs, and the words loudly bellowed:
"I'll find the room, never fear, that will I!"
"My husband!" whispered Amabel, the picture of sudden fright. "If he
finds me here, he will kill me!"
"He'll not do that, I promise you!" said Dick. "But, ne'ertheless, he
mustn't see you!"
For it was indeed this very parlor that the footfalls were approaching.
Dick led the terrified wife back into the bedchamber, and returned
instantly to the parlor, in time to see Squire Bullcott burst in from
the corridor. Dick had not yet closed the bedchamber door, and he now
left it slightly ajar, remembering his experience in the St. Valier
house in Quebec, and thinking by this negligence to disarm suspicion.
The Squire was followed by the two faithful henchmen who had used Dick
violently twice in the past.
At sight of Wetheral, the Squire stood aghast. Dick was near the
bedchamber door. On the floor beside him was an open portmanteau, very
long, in which lay, among clothes, a dress sword of Lord George's. Dick
stooped and took up this pretty weapon, as if merely to examine its
jewelled hilt.
"What, you cur!" cried Bullcott, as soon as he had got breath. "So 'tis
you she ran away with! So you thought to revenge yourself on me by
seducing my wife!"
"Mr. Bullcott is too hasty to vilify that angelic but mistreated lady,"
said Dick, quietly, but with scorn as fine as the edge of the sword he
was feeling.
"Hear the mongrel! He'd come over me with talk like a fine gentleman's
in a play! The base-born impostor! He's got the woman hid somewhere
about!"
"You can see for yourself that you lie!" said Dick, with a swift look
around the parlor.
"She's in that other room," cried Bullcott, truly. "She ain't in her own
chamber, and she _is_ with you. I paid a chambermaid a guinea to tell me
so, and what you pay a guinea for can't be false. Look ye, Curry!" The
Squire whispered a few words to one of his followers, and that one at
once left the room. "Now, Pike, go ahead and knock that rascal down, and
then I'll go in and catch her. I'll show--zounds and blood! Sir Hilary
Englefield!"
It was indeed the voice of the fox-hunting baronet, and as it approached
the parlor door, making a great hullabaloo, it seemed to throw the
formidable Bullcott into a panic.
"Did the knaves that bungled last night's business sell me out to him, I
wonder?" queried Squire Bullcott of his remaining adherent. Dick had a
sudden illumination. 'Twas Squire Bullcott that had persecuted Miss
Englefield at Bath, planned her abduction while his own wife was
availing herself of his absence to run away from him, and nearly
succeeded in kidnapping his own wife by mistake! His present terror of
Sir Hilary, then, arose from the possibility that Sir Hilary had learned
of the Squire's design against that baronet's sister.
But that terror proved ill-grounded. When Sir Hilary bounced into the
parlor, he greeted the now quaking Bullcott with a single friendly word
and bow, showing he knew not yet who had instigated the kidnapping; and
then turned his wrath on Wetheral. The landlord, who had tried to
prevent his entrance, had followed him in, and now made futile efforts
to avoid a scandalous scene.
"What the devil do you mean," cried Sir Hilary to Dick, "by sending me
off on a wild goose chase after my sister, when you have her in that
room? Don't deny it, you scoundrel! Put down that sword, I say! What,
you'd try to run me through, would you? You'd save my sister from being
carried off by some damned hound" (Squire Bullcott, now utterly
astounded, winced at this) "and then reward yourself by trying to ruin
the girl yourself?"
"So it is your sister in that room?" said Dick, standing with his back
to the bedchamber door, and holding his sword in a way that accounted
for the wordy hesitation of his would-be assailants. "The Squire insists
it is his wife. Sure, it can't be both!"
"Damn the Squire!" cried Sir Hilary. "'Tis my sister. She's nowhere
else, and I paid a chambermaid half a guinea, who told me she was here!"
"Don't be so fast about damning the Squire!" put in that worthy, taking
heart and bristling up. "I paid a whole guinea to find out my wife was
there. So it must be she! Besides, didn't the coachman that drove her
send word back to me, from this inn, that she was running away? Didn't
the messenger meet me at Hungerford, where I was--ah--on business? I
tell you what, Sir Hilary, you and my man take that fellow's sword away,
and I'll go in and see my wife!"
"Devil take your wife!" said Sir Hilary. "'Tis my sister. I see her gown
at this moment through the door-crack. I know that gown. There,--she's
moved backed out of sight. Sis, come out!"
"'Pon my word, gentlemen," said Dick, pretending to make light of the
accusations of both, "'tis a very curious honor you are contesting for!
And one of you sees a lady's gown where none exists! I don't know what
to make of you!"
But Bullcott seemed struck by Sir Hilary's asserted recognition of the
dress. "Oh, well," said he, "maybe I'm wrong. Sir Hilary doubtless knows
what inn his sister lodged at last night. Egad, if it turns out to be
her, mayhap some folk won't be so prudish after this!" The Squire
grinned to think the lady who had repulsed him, and whom he had failed
to carry off, might be compromised after all.
"What's that? What d'ye say?" cried Sir Hilary. "So my sister has been
prudish to _you_, you old goat! Well she might! I know your ways;
everybody does! Well, if it comes to that, I don't say it is my sister
in that room! I don't say the landlord wasn't right, and that my sister
didn't leave this inn yesterday. But I do say this, and to you, sir."
Sir Hilary spoke now to Dick. "You see how my sister's good name is at
stake. If the lady in that room isn't she, then my sister is an honest
girl, and doesn't deserve the least doubt against her reputation.
Whoever the lady is, 'tis evident as much can't be said for her.
Therefore, to exonerate an innocent lady, 'tis your duty the guilty one
shall be made to show herself, before all in this room. That's only
fair, sir! Better than two ladies suffer reproach, let the one that
merits it appear and clear the other! Then we shall know whether 'tis my
right or Bullcott's to fight you. For there _is_ one lady in that room,
I'll swear!" Sir Hilary had become quite sober and dignified.
That Sir Hilary's sister should suffer for a moment in her reputation
was, of course, a thought intolerable to Dick. Yet he must save Amabel
at any cost. The actual truth, if he told it, would be taken as a lame
excuse for her presence in the bedchamber. By the pig-headed Squire, the
mere fact that his wife had fled to Dick's room to avoid exposure would
be regarded as evidence of criminality. Yet how could such a plea as Sir
Hilary's be refused?
"Come, sir!" said the baronet.
At that moment a new face appeared in the doorway, that of a young lady
of graceful figure, piquant visage, and very fine gray eyes. These eyes
rested on Sir Hilary alone, thus missing Squire Bullcott, who, at first
sight of the lady, flopped down on all fours behind the breakfast-table,
a movement unnoticed while the general attention was on the newcomer.
"Why, Brother, so you are really here? Wilson saw you ride past the inn
at Thatcham this morning, and we supposed you were coming to the Pelican
to meet me; so I drove back after you."
"Give me a buss, Sis!" cried Sir Hilary, who had already grasped both
her hands and shown every sign of joy. "'Fore gad, you came in good
time! So 'tisn't you in the next room! A thousand pardons, Mr. Wetheral!
But what were you doing at Thatcham, Sis?"
"Why," replied Miss Englefield, "'tis a long story. At this inn,
yesterday afternoon, a maid brought me a letter scrawled by Jenny
Mullen, who used to serve at the Hall. It seems she is now attached to a
gang of rogues that were hired to make trouble for me at this inn last
night. So she warned me in secret to leave quietly. She begged me to say
nothing to the landlord or the watch, lest her companions might be
caught. So I went on and lay at Thatcham, and that is how Wilson
happened to see you galloping hither this morning. Poor Jenny promised
to keep the rascals drinking in the tap-room, so they should not learn
of my departure, and she must have kept her promise."
"Thank the Lord, she must have!" said Sir Hilary. "But how the devil did
they know you were going to lodge here last night?"
"Why, my girl, Sukey, confessed this morning that in Bath she made the
acquaintance of a so-called captain, to whom she told the plan we had
arranged for our journey. It seems from Jenny's letter that the rogues
were to carry me off to a country-seat near Whitchurch in Hampshire;
their employer--odious beast--was to lie last night at Hungerford, and
follow to-day to Whitchurch."
"Zounds! You shall tell me all about it, Sis, on the way home, and we'll
see what's to be done. Come away from this inn! It seems there's been
the devil to pay here, in more matters than one. Good day, sir!" Sir
Hilary thereupon led his sister quickly out, with barely a thought of
the apparent absence of Squire Bullcott, who indeed might have slipped
off while the baronet was engrossed with his sister.
The Squire now rose into view, very red and very much perturbed. He
glanced first at his man and the landlord, who both had been keeping in
the background during Miss Englefield's presence, then at Dick, who
still guarded the bedchamber door.
"Then, since it ain't his sister, by God, it must be my wife!" whined
Bullcott, who, like many another person capable of doing any wrong, was
quick to whimper on supposing himself injured. "I'll expose her, I'll
kill her, that will I! Landlord, send for constables! Oh, the faithless
woman, and the vile seducer! To think a gentleman can't go off to attend
to--a little business, but his wife must take a dirty, low advantage of
his absence, to run off with a base-born rascal! Send for constables,
landlord, to force a way into that room!"
"The landlord well knows," put in Dick, thinking of another ruse of
Catherine de St. Valier's in Quebec, "that there is no lady in this
room. Why, if a lady had been there, don't you suppose she'd have gone
out long ago by the other door" (Dick remembered here that the other
door was locked and the key in his own hand), "or by the window, from
which even a woman could easily descend by the trellis to the garden?"
But the Squire continued to cry for constables, and Dick continued to
detain the landlord by one remark and another. Keeping his ear on the
alert, he presently heard the window in the bedchamber softly open, and
he inferred that Amabel had taken his loud-spoken hint as he himself had
once vainly accepted that of Catherine de St. Valier. By keeping his
sword-point constantly in evidence, he deterred the Squire and the
latter's man from a rush. The landlord, considering this guest was the
friend of a lord, would take no step whatever, and Bullcott chose to
keep his own man with him for protection, so there was none to summon
the minions of the law.
At last Dick, fearing that Miss Thorpe might at any moment enter, and
her presence certify to that of Amabel, said he had played with the
Squire long enough, and would now let the latter scan the bedchamber
from the threshold. Dick, confident that Amabel would have acted
promptly at so important a crisis, supposed she had some time ago
reached the garden, whence she might have gone to her own chamber. He
therefore flung wide the door, and disclosed--Amabel in the centre of
the chamber, and the squire's man, Curry, perched on the window-ledge,
to which he had climbed by the trellis from the garden, whither Bullcott
had sent him to watch the chamber window.
The Squire, almost black with rage, started towards the bedroom. Dick
interposed in time to stay the burly figure's rush. The Squire stepped
back and gathered strength for another effort, growling inarticulately.
"Well, sir," said Dick, with assumed resignation, "I see the jig is up.
The lady has refused to save me by flight. She remains, I see, as
evidence against me. So, it seems, your wife was running away from you,
Squire Bullcott? Well, I can't blame her, though I didn't know that when
I took her into my room by force."
"By force?" gasped the Squire.
"How can I deny it, when the lady herself is here to accuse me?" said
Dick. "You'll admit the temptation was strong,--my door open, the lady
passing in the corridor, no one in sight, a devil of a noise in the
tap-room to drown her screams,--not to mention that I threatened to kill
her if she cried out."
"But why the deuce didn't she cry out when she heard me in this room?"
queried Bullcott, partly addressing the silent Amabel.
"For the rather poor reason," answered Dick, "that in such a case, as I
promised her when I heard you coming, I should have killed, not her, but
you! And now, Squire, you see your wife's reputation remains
untarnished; she is safe out of my hands, and if she can but make good
her escape from yours, she ought to be happy."
"Escape from me? That won't she! She'd run away, would she? Well, now
she'll run back, and stay back! D'ye hear, woman? Oh, some one shall pay
for all this, that shall she! I'll show--"
But the Squire showed only a sudden pallor and shakiness, for again was
heard in the corridor the wrathful voice of Sir Hilary Englefield, this
time coupled with the excited tones of his sister, who was screaming
out dissuasions.
"So 'twas you, Bullcott, hired the rogues to carry off my sister!"
roared the baronet, as he entered, whip in one hand, in the other a
pistol. "I thank God she told me the name before I or you was out of the
town! So you'd go to Whitchurch after her, would you? Well, you'll go,
not after her, but alone; and not to Whitchurch, but to hell; you filthy
old chaser of women! And you shall go with a sore skin, moreover!"
Whereat the furious fox-hunter began to belabor the squire with the
whip, all the witnesses giving him plenty of room. Bullcott bellowed,
whimpered, and cowered, leading the agile baronet a chase around
furniture and over it, deterred from a bolt by the presence of Miss
Englefield's stout man-servant in the corridor doorway. Driven at last
to bay, his face and hands covered with welts, the Squire made a
desperate bound and grasped the whip, wrenched it from the baronet's
hand, and raised it to strike. As the blow was falling, Sir Hilary fired
the pistol. Bullcott fell, an inert mass.
Sir Hilary conferred hastily with Dick, then led away his sister, saw
her and her servants started homeward, and took horse by the Winchester
road for the seaport of Portsmouth. Dick silently led the dazed Amabel
to her own chamber, whence she and Miss Thorpe departed quietly on
their way to Oxfordshire while Bullcott's servants were busy with
preparations for the care of the Squire's body. Dick then immediately
packed up his and Lord George's portmanteaus, and took post-chaise for
London as soon as Lord George and Wilkins returned to the inn, a large
gratuity from Dick to the landlord enabling these four hasty departures
to be made before the town authorities were notified of the killing. The
post-chaise left Speenhamland in the track of Miss Englefield's coach
and Miss Thorpe's, but did not overtake either, all three parties making
the utmost speed. Their three ways diverged at Reading, where Dick and
Lord George made a brief stop in the afternoon, to break their long
fast.
"Egad," quoth Lord George, to whom Dick had recounted all the morning's
incidents, "'twas a merry breakfast party we had at the Pelican in honor
of Sir Hilary's arrival!"
Dick heaved a sigh, eloquent of more than one regret, and was silent.
CHAPTER XIII.
"UP AND DOWN IN LONDON TOWN."
The young gentlemen proceeded the same afternoon to Maidenhead, and
passed the night as guests of Pennyston Powney, Esquire, a friend of
Lord George's, at his fine seat south of that place. The next day they
proceeded slowly, in order to enjoy the beautiful prospects along the
Thames; Dick marking his progress Londonward by each milestone,
beginning at Maidenhead Bridge with the twenty-fifth.
In Buckinghamshire the road became more and more alive with coaches. At
Slough, Dick would have liked to turn southward to Windsor Castle and
Eton College, of which edifices he had enjoyed the splendid view from
Salt Hill; or northward to Stoke Pogis churchyard, where Gray composed
his Elegy and was buried; but his lordship desired to arrive in London
that evening. So Dick was content with what glimpses he got of the high
white Castle, along a good part of the road. Into Middlesex rolled the
chaise, crossing Hounslow Heath and passing there many sheep but no
highwaymen; on by noble parks and residences, to Brentford, Dick
feasting his eyes on what he could see of distant Richmond with its hill
and terrace, and of Kew with its royal gardens and its favorite palace
of George III., then reigning.
The numerous carriages, the stage-coaches with passengers inside and on
top, and the other signs of nearness to a great city, increased as they
bowled through Turnham Green and Hammersmith, whence there were houses
on both sides all the way to Kensington. A great smoky mass ahead had
now resolved itself distinctly into towers, domes, and spires, and, for
watching each feature as it separately disclosed itself, Dick well nigh
missed the verdant charms of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, on the
left. At last they were rattling along Piccadilly, passing Green Park on
the right, and getting a partial view of St. James's and the other
ordinary-looking palaces in that direction. And presently, as Lord
George wished his arrival in London to be for a day unknown, and as his
house in Berkeley Square was occupied by his uncle's family, they turned
through the Haymarket to Charing Cross, and thence into the Strand,
where they were finally set down at the White Hart Inn, near the new
church of St. Mary-le-Strand and the site of the bygone May-pole.
After supper, while his lordship kept indoors, Dick went out
sightseeing; strode blithely up the lamp-lit Strand, with its countless
shops lettered all over with tradesmen's signs; through Temple Bar, and
along Fleet Street, with its taverns, coffee-houses, courts, and
tributary streets; up Ludgate Hill to St. Paul's, which he walked
around; returning over his route, and then making a shorter excursion,
to see the theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden; all this with no
adventure that need here be related.
The next day, his lordship took fine lodgings in Bond Street, near
Hanover Square, and insisted that Dick remain his guest until the latter
should hear from Cumberland,--Dick allowing his lordship to remain under
the belief that the Cumberland from which he came was of England, and
that he had been a great loser of valuables and money by the supposed
defection of his servant at the time he was left for dead in the road.
Dick's second evening in London was passed at Covent Garden Theatre,
where he saw, and was dazzled by, "The Duenna," that brilliant comic
opera of serenading lovers in Seville, by the clever young Mr. Sheridan,
which, first brought out in the previous November, was still the most
popular piece in the company's list. The next day, Sunday, going for
that purpose to the church of St. Clement Danes, Dick saw the great and
bulky Doctor Johnson himself, and was duly impressed.
On Monday he took what he had left of his Bath winnings to a tailor's
shop, and spent the greater part of them for a new black suit for full
dress; and that evening he went with Lord George to a ridotto, in the
vicinity of St. James's, Lord George having previously got tickets.
Not choosing to venture in a minuet, Dick imitated many of the impudent
young beaux of the splendid company, walking through the gaily decorated
room, and staring unreservedly at whatever lady's face, beneath its
cushioned tower of powdered hair, attracted him. By the time the
country-dances had begun, he had made up his mind which one of all the
faces most rivalled the blazing candle-lights themselves. Its possessor
was young, tall, well filled out, and of a dashing and frivolous
countenance. Having learned by observation that the custom in London
differed not from that in Bath, Dick went confidently up and begged to
have the honor of dancing with her.
She flashed on him a quick, all-comprehensive look of scrutiny, then
bowed with a gracious smile, and gave him her hand. During the dance,
Dick made use of every possible occasion to comment jocularly upon
passing incidents and persons, and the lady invariably answered with a
smile or a merry remark, so that Dick was soon vastly pleased with his
partner and himself.
After the dance, having led her to a seat, and as she would have no
refreshments brought, he stood chatting with her. Lord George came up
and greeted both, and continued talking to them familiarly, assuming,
from the fact of her having granted Dick a dance in a public assembly,
that they already knew each other. In the course of the talk, Lord
George frequently addressed Dick by his name, and the lady by hers, so
that, before long, Mr. Wetheral and Miss Mallby were so addressing one
another. It developed, through Lord George's inquiries after her family,
that her father was Sir Charles Mallby, of Kent, whose town house was in
Grosvenor Square.
While the three were talking, Dick noticed an elegantly dressed young
gentleman standing near, who regarded them with a peculiarly sullen
expression.
"Why does that gentleman look at us so sourly?" asked Dick, innocently,
of Lord George.
"La!" said Miss Mallby, smiling, and coloring. "Tis Lord Alderby."
Lord George smiled, and proposed that Dick should come with him to meet
somebody or other; whereupon the two gentlemen, one of them very
reluctantly, left Miss Mallby, who was then immediately joined by the
surly-looking Lord Alderby.
"They've had a lovers' quarrel," explained Lord George to Dick, "which
accounts for her comporting herself so amiably to us. Her gaiety with
other gentlemen this evening has turned Alderby quite green with
jealousy. Now that we have left the way open for him, he'll humiliate
himself as abjectly as he must, for a reconciliation. Egad, what a thing
it is to be the slave of an heiress!"
"Why," said Dick, his spirits suddenly damped, "I flattered myself her
amiability to me was on my own account."
"Oh," said his lordship, with an amused look that escaped Dick, "so
that's how the wind blows! Well, who knows but you are right? She may
have tired of Alderby's sulks. 'Tis a rich prize, by Jove,--the Lord
knows how many thousand a year! We shall certainly call at Grosvenor
Square to-morrow."
What young man can honestly blame Dick for clinging to the belief that
the radiant Miss Mallby's graciousness to him had another cause than the
wish to pique Lord Alderby; or for supposing himself equal to the rôle
of a lord's rival for the love of a great heiress? The romantic notion
that love levels all, was no new one in Dick's time, and had often been
exemplified. To win fortune by marriage was then held to be an entirely
honorable act, calling for no reproach. Dick had no intention of
deceiving the lady. But he would wait until her love was certainly his,
before disclosing who and what he was. Once his, her love would not be
altered by the unimportant circumstances that he was an American and
penniless. Splendid was the future of which Dick dreamed that night,--a
future of fair estates and great city residences, of coaches and
footmen, of fine clothes, card playing, music, and dancing.
He went with Lord George in the latter's coach, the next afternoon, to
the Grosvenor Square house; was graciously received by Miss Mallby's
mother, on his lordship's account; met a great number of young beaux and
a few modish ladies, drank tea, won some money at one of the card
tables, and departed with his friend, having had very little of the
heiress's society to himself.
As they were entering their own coach, they saw Lord Alderby get down
from his; he bowed to Lord George, but bestowed on Dick a swift look of
pretended contempt, though it showed real hostility.
"Miss Mallby must have praised you to Alderby last night," said Lord
George, lightly.
That evening Wetheral and Lord George stayed late at a fashionable
tavern in Pall Mall, their party having increased to a numerous and
merry one. Finally it was joined by no other than Lord Alderby himself,
with whom came a thin, middle-aged Irish gentleman addressed as captain
and wearing a cockade in his hat. Neither of these newcomers had much to
say for awhile. Presently the talk fell upon the American war, and an
argument arose as to whether General Howe's evacuation of Boston was to
be accounted a British defeat. The name of cowards being applied to the
Americans, Dick broke out with the assertion that, to his personal
knowledge, Americans had given as convincing proofs of courage as he had
ever seen or heard of as coming from Englishmen.
"Courage is like many other things," put in Lord Alderby, not looking at
Dick, yet speaking with a quiet sneer; "people are apt to set up as
judges of if, who never practise it themselves."
A surprised silence fell over the company.
"If you mean that remark for me, sir," said Dick, as soon as he could
command his voice, "I am ready to let you judge of my practice, whenever
and wherever you choose!"
"Without knowing very well who you are, sir," replied Lord Alderby, who
was thickly built and below middle height, but all the more arrogant in
his tone for that, "I believe there is a difference in rank between us,
which forbids my giving your courage an opportunity."
"Perhaps there is a difference of courage itself, as well!" snapped out
Dick.
"I take that, gintlemen," put in the Irish captain, who, it was plain,
had been brought in by Lord Alderby for precisely what he now proceeded
to do, "as a reflection on the opinion of ivery man that knows what my
Lord Alderby's courage is. And, as I'm one of thim min, and seeing
there's no difference of rank bechune this gintleman and me, I offer
him here ivery opportunity he may require for the dishplay of courage."
"And I take your offer," cried Dick instantly. "I've no scruples about
difference in rank, and I'm willing to fight anybody, high or low,--even
a hired lickspittle that takes up gentlemen's quarrels for pay! Lord
Alderby can tell you where I lodge; he knows where he can find that
out!"
Lord Alderby indeed found that out,--not from Miss Mallby, but through
his valet, who knew Lord George Winston's. And next day, to Bond Street,
came Captain Delahenty's challenge in regular form. Lord George, who
never concerned himself about his rank, or let it affect his doings,
readily consented to serve Dick in the business; and so, on the
following morning, at dawn, Dick found himself in Hyde Park, about to
undertake his first duel.
He had chosen to fight with swords, the blade being the weapon in whose
use he most desired practice. In his shirt-sleeves, with that acquired
serenity which comes of the mind's forcing itself not to contemplate the
peril at hand, he stood under a tree at one end of a clear space, while
his antagonist, seconded by an old faded beau, emerged from a hackney
coach and got himself ready. The men fought in the centre of the clear
space. Dick began defensively, but he had not parried more than three
of the captain's thrusts, till he perceived that the enemy was shaky
with liquor. Dick therefore waited only until the other's panting
indicated failing wind. Then he suddenly pressed matters, with such
accuracy and persistence that the whole thing was over in a
minute,--Dick putting on his waistcoat and frock, with Lord George's
assistance, and Captain Delahenty on the ground with a wounded shoulder
that the surgeon was pronouncing likely to heal in a month or six weeks.
Dick drove back to Bond Street in great elation, eager for more duels.
Lord Alderby's state of mind towards Dick was not sweetened by this
occurrence, as was shown by his lordship's ill-sustained pretence of
ignoring Dick's presence when next the two were in the same company.
This happened to be in a clubhouse in St. James's Street, Dick's name
having been written down there by Lord George, to whom he had
satisfactorily accounted for his ignorance of London and of London
society. Chance brought Lord Alderby and Dick to the same card table,
and not as partners. His lordship soon had his revenge, and a far
greater one than he thought it to be, for Dick, playing on after first
losses, in the confidence that fortune would serve him as usually, lost
his every guinea. He would have staked the few loose shillings he still
had left, but that the largeness of the bets would have made such a
proposition ridiculous. He went home to Bond Street in a kind of
consternation, faced by the reality that he was a pauper in London, and
that luck had turned against him. Now that he had tasted the life of
pleasure, poverty seemed not again endurable. Yet he braced himself to
consider what was to be done.
Now that he had no money worth mentioning, the hospitality he received
from Lord George was to Dick nothing else than charity. To continue
accepting it would make his situation soon insupportable. He quickly
took his resolution. He must fall back to a lower sphere, where a
shilling was worth something, and recoup himself; that done, he would
emerge again into the world to which Lord George had introduced him.
So, the next morning, pretending he had found at a lawyer's office in
Chancery Lane a letter from his people, Dick told Lord George he must
leave London immediately. Then, having sent for a hackney coach and
taken a very friendly farewell of his lordship, he was driven to the
starting-place of the Manchester stage. Being set down there, he
hastened afoot, with his baggage, in search of cheap lodgings. These he
presently found at a widow's house in George Street, which ran from the
Strand towards the Thames. He engaged a room at sixteen shillings a
week.
The widow had a grown-up son employed by a mercer in the Strand, and
from him Dick learned where to dispose of clothes most profitably, the
son giving the name of a salesman in Monmouth Street, and adding, "Be
sure, tell him 'twas I recommended you to him." Dick parted first with
the new black suit he had so recently bought, and so found himself
comparatively well in fund for his present station.
Not finding his landlady's son a companion to his taste, and not making
any acquaintances in the various coffee-houses, taverns, and
eating-houses that he now frequented in and about Fleet Street and the
Strand, he became afflicted with loneliness. A mere unnoticed mite among
thousands, and utterly ignored by the hastening multitude, he sent his
thoughts from the vast and crowded city, back to the bleak Maine
wilderness, and he had a kind of homesick longing for the hearty
comradeship of the time of freezing and starving there.
One evening, determined to enliven himself and have another fling at
pleasure at any cost, he went to Westminster Bridge afoot, and thence by
boat up the Thames, to Vauxhall. He had no sooner paid his shilling, on
entering the garden, than his spirits began to rise. The sound of the
orchestra and of singers, heard while he passed by the little groves and
the statues, brought back his zest for gay life, and this was redoubled
as he came into the brilliantly lighted space around the orchestra,
where the small boxes on either side were filled with people who sat
eating or drinking at the tables, and where the walks were thronged with
pleasure-seekers of every rank. He sat down on an empty bench in one of
the boxes, thinking to drink a bottle of wine and listen to the music.
Before the waiter had brought the wine, a gaily dressed young woman,
handsome enough in her powder and paint, came with almost a rush to the
vacant place at his side, and said, with a bold smile, "My dear sir, I
can't endure to see so pretty a gentleman drink alone! I'm going to keep
you company."
Dick, having inspected the amiable creature in a glance, was nothing
loath. So the waiter, having brought the wine, was sent for an
additional glass, and then again for eatables. Dick's companion proved
so agreeable that he soon ordered more wine and presently forgot the
music in contemplating her charms, her air of piquant impudence, her
affectations, and the shallow smartness of her talk. He was so
entertained by her that, when the night was late, on arriving with her
at Westminster Bridge, he took a hackney coach and accompanied her
to her lodgings, which, to his astonishment, were in the quite
respectable-looking house of a hosier in High Holborn.
At his frank expression of surprise, she seemed huffed; wondered why
she should not be supposed to live like any other lady, and said it was
nobody's business if she chose now and then to go out for an evening of
pleasure in a free and easy manner. Her ruffled feelings were soon
smoothed down, however, and when Dick left her it was with an
appointment to take her to the next Hampstead Assembly.
This Vauxhall incident cost Dick so much of the money got from the sale
of his new suit that he was soon fain to visit the Monmouth Street
dealer again, this time carrying the gamekeeper's suit and wearing that
bestowed on him by the whimsical gentleman met at Taunton. For both
these suits, the shopkeeper gave him a sum of money and a very plain
blue frock, a worn white waistcoat, and a pair of mended black breeches.
Thus Dick left the shop in vastly different attire from that in which he
had entered it, and when he returned to his lodging the change made his
landlady's son gape with wonder.
Before Dick had made up his mind as to how he should rebuild his
fortunes, he received one afternoon a visitor in a hackney coach, who
was none other than the companionable young lady of Vauxhall, to whom he
had made known his place of residence. Her errand now was to learn why
he had failed to keep his engagement for the Hampstead Assembly. She
did not stay long to reproach him, for no sooner had she taken note of
his cheapened appearance, and made sure that it came from necessity,
than she swept out of his room and back to the coach, on the pretence of
being offended at the broken appointment.
On leaving the house, she was seen by the landlady's son, who came to
Dick presently, with a grin, and remarked that Sukey Green had become a
great lady since she had ceased to walk the Strand of nights. On
inquiring, Dick learned that his visitor was well known by sight to the
landlady's son as having been, not many weeks before, one of the
countless frail damsels infesting the sidewalks of the town after
nightfall. Some turn of fortune had taken her from her rags and a hole
in Butcher Row to the fine clothes and comfortable lodgings she now
possessed, instead of to the Bridewell or the river or a pauper's grave,
as another turn might have done. Perhaps she had but returned to the
condition from which she had fallen.
Dick soon had fallen fortunes of his own to think of. He knew not how to
attempt to make his money multiply; or rather he devised in his mind so
many methods that he could not confine his thoughts to any one of them.
Thus rendered inert by his very versatility, he saw his money go for
mere necessities, and at last he had to seek still cheaper lodgings,
which he found in Green Arbor Court, a place redeemed in his eyes by the
fact that Oliver Goldsmith had once lived there.
It was not a locality designed to increase his cheerfulness. He had a
narrow, bare room, high up in a dirty, squalid house; from his window he
could see old clothes flying from countless windows and lines; and the
sounds most common to his ears were the voices of washerwomen laughing
or quarrelling and of children shouting or squalling. Not far in one
direction was Newgate Prison, and not far in another was that of the
Fleet.
In going to Fleet Street, he had to descend Breakneck Stairs,--which
numbered thirty-two and were in two steep flights and led him to the
edge of Fleet Ditch,--traverse a narrow street, and go through Fleet
Market. This was a route that Dick often took, for he preferred still to
dine in and about Fleet Street, though no longer at the Grecian
Coffee-house or Dick's or the Mitre Tavern, to all which places he
had resorted while lodging in George Street, but at the cheaper
places,--Clifton's Eating-house, in Butcher Row, for one. Sometimes his
meal consisted solely of a pot of beer at the Goat Ale House in Shire
Lane. He fell at last to the down-stairs eating-houses, where his
table-mates were hackney coachmen, servants poorly paid or unemployed,
and poverty-stricken devils and unsuccessful rascals of every sort. It
was here that his fortune took an upward course again.
Appealed to, one day, in a low tavern, to settle a card dispute between
two bloated, sore-faced fellows who had come to the point of accusing
each other of being, one a footpad and the other a grave robber, Dick
acted the umpire to the satisfaction of both, and then went on to do a
few astonishing things with their cards. Others in the tavern gathered
round him, until presently, seeing the crowd and the interest both
increasing, Dick observed that his time was valuable and that he could
not afford to show any more skill for nothing. But the body-stealer
refused to receive the dirty cards handed back to him by Dick, and the
footpad speedily took up a collection, with such a "money-or-your-life"
air that a hatful of greasy coins was soon raised to induce Dick to go
on with his tricks. As many of these tricks were of old Tom's invention,
they differed from those with which the London scamps were familiar.
The footpad and the resurrectionist now persuaded Dick to go to another
tavern, where they opened the way for his apparently extemporaneous
performances, and where they raised good sums for him. He wondered at
first at the zeal with which they worked to enrich him, but he presently
saw that they, pretending to be chance observers, were quietly making
bets with other spectators on the results of certain of his card
manipulations. He thereupon left off, and escaped from this undesired
partnership. But he now engaged an honest, impoverished hack writer,
whom he met in an eating-cellar, to sit at tavern tables with him and
appear an interested observer of his card tricks, enlist the crowd's
attention, and suggest the inevitable passing around of the hat. This
combination continued for a week, during which time the low taverns were
visited in succession, from Whitefriars to St. Catherine's, from
Cripplegate to Southwark. Dick's earnings consisted only of what the
spectators willingly gave for their amusement, but at the week's end
that amount sufficed for the purchase of a good suit of clothes at a
tailor's in the Strand, and for another purpose besides, which Dick,
once more clad like a gentleman, speedily set out upon.
He went boldly back to Pall Mall, ran across several acquaintances to
whom Lord George Winston had made him known, and got one of them to
introduce him to a certain respectable-looking house in Covent Garden;
and in that house, whose interior showed an activity not promised by its
outside, he won at faro an amount that filled every other player at the
table with resentful envy. When he left, he felt himself again a made
man; his pockets were heavy with money.
The night was well advanced when he issued from the gambling-house,
enjoying the relief and the fresh air after the excitement and heat of
the rooms. He walked to the Strand and turned towards Temple Bar,
intending to sup at the Turk's Head Coffee-house. When he reached the
Strand end of Catherine Street, he was accosted, with more than ordinary
importunity, by one of the most miserable-looking of the frail creatures
that walked the street there. As he was in the act of avoiding her, she
called out his name in sudden recognition, and he then knew her as the
gay young woman of High Holborn whom he had met at Vauxhall.
Struck with pity to see in so sad a plight a person recently so
prosperous, he could not but walk along with her to hear her story. She
had lost the means of support that had enabled her to live in a good
neighborhood and flaunt her finery at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and the
Hampstead Assembly. She lodged no longer in High Holborn, nor even in
Butcher's Row; in fact, she knew not where she was to pass that night.
She showed, through all her cast-down demeanor, a decided reawakening of
regard for Dick, and even hinted, after they had talked for some time,
that her loss of favor had arisen from her acceptance of his escort from
Vauxhall. So Dick gave her a few shillings for her immediate
necessities, and told her to call at his lodging in Green Arbor Court on
the morrow, when they would discuss what might be done for her. It was
at her own suggestion that his residence was selected as the place of
meeting.
But, on the morrow, she did not call at the appointed time. So Dick went
out to attend to business of pressing importance, which was no other
than to buy a new black suit and other necessaries. In the afternoon he
went to Pall Mall and renewed acquaintances, saying he had returned to
London the day before yesterday. Pumping a young gentleman whom he knew
to be on close terms with the Mallby family, he learned that the
dazzling heiress was still in town and that a place had been taken for
her for that night's performance at the little theatre in the Haymarket.
Dick hastened to secure a seat as near as possible to the box in which
Miss Mallby was to be.
In the evening, which was that of Wednesday, July 10, attired in his
best, Dick occupied a seat in the pit, in the midst of a crowded
audience, and had the satisfaction of seeing not only the heiress, but
also their Majesties, George III. and Queen Charlotte, who both laughed
immoderately at Mr. Foote as "Lady Pentweazle,"--especially when he
appeared under a vast head-dress filled with feathers, in exaggeration
of the reigning mode.
It was some time before Dick's admiring gaze held the attention of Miss
Mallby, which it caught while she scanned the crowded house from her
box; and some time after that before she recalled who he was. But when
she did recognize him, it was with a smile so radiant that Lord Alderby,
then standing at her side, turned quite red and pale successively, and
glared at Dick with a most deadly expression. In response to a slight
movement of her fan, Dick forced his way to her, between acts, and had a
brief chat about the audience, the weather, his supposed absence from
town, Lord George Winston, and such matters, which in themselves
certainly contained nothing to warrant the mischievous smiles on her
part, and the languishing glances on his, that accompanied the talk.
Any one but Dick and Lord Alderby could have seen that the lady's sole
motive was a desire to keep his lordship jealous. But Dick took all
signs as they appeared on the surface, and when he left the playhouse it
was with a flattering delusion that her hopes of seeing him soon again
were from the heart. He did not observe that Lord Alderby, before
handing Miss Mallby into her coach, pointed him out to a footman and
hurriedly whispered some instructions.
Dick went on air to his room in Green Arbor Court,--for he intended to
retain his lodging there until he should find a residence perfectly to
his taste. He laughed to think of a gentleman of his figure coming home
to Green Arbor Court, and wondered whether such contrast was typical of
any one's else career, as it was of his.
The next day, to his astonishment,--for he supposed the Vauxhall girl to
be the only outside person knowing where he lived,--he received in his
wretched room a visit from a man dressed like a servant but evidently
horrified at the rickety surroundings. This person, being assured by
Dick that the latter was Mr. Richard Wetheral, handed him a letter, and
fled forthwith. The letter, on clean plain paper, and in an ill-formed
but fine feminine hand, read thus:
"HOUNERD SIR:
"I mak bolde to tell you for heavings sak taike outher lodgings
and do not go neer them wch you now live att--tis a qestchun of
life or Deth and sure do not go neer them at nite, this nite above
all--do not waite a minute but take outher wons att wonse--from
Won that noes and wch deesirs you noe harm yr respeckfull an
dutyfull servt."
Dick was completely puzzled. What danger could he be in, through
remaining at his present abode? Who could be his unknown warner? Not the
Vauxhall girl, for she had written her name for him on a card, and this
was not her handwriting. The quality and cleanliness of the paper
indicated a person living in good case,--perhaps a maid-servant in some
fine house. Then he recalled the face of the man who had brought the
letter, and whom, at the moment, he had thought he had seen somewhere
before. Recollecting singly each incident of his life in London, he at
last located the man's face. It was that of a footman at the Mallbys'
house in Grosvenor Square. But what maid-servant in that house could
have noticed Dick? Indeed, what person in that house had done so but
Miss Mallby herself? So the heiress, to avoid discovery in the matter,
might have caused her maid to send the warning. Now what possible danger
to Dick could Miss Mallby be aware of, save one that Lord Alderby might
have threatened or planned? But would Lord Alderby have informed her of
such plans? Perhaps so, in a moment of anger, as men will anticipate the
pleasure of revenge, by announcing that revenge in advance; perhaps not.
If not, one or two of his lordship's servants would probably have been
in his confidence, and thus the cat might have been let out of the bag
to one of Miss Mallby's maids. So Dick concluded that, if he was in any
danger, it must be from Lord Alderby, his only powerful enemy. But he
resolved to disdain the warning, nevertheless, and he went forth to look
in a leisurely way for suitable lodgings, as he had intended to do,
though he would not move into them for two or three days.
But he wasted the day in riding about London, viewing things he had not
seen before. In the evening the whim seized him to go to Ranelagh. It
was not until late at night, when he turned from Fleet Street, through
the market, that he thought of the morning's warning. He felt a
momentary tremor, so dark and deserted was the narrow street leading to
Breakneck Stairs. But he braced himself within, and strode along with
apparent blitheness; yet he could not help thinking that Breakneck
Stairs would be an excellent place for an attack by his enemies. Peering
forward in the darkness, he turned from the border of Fleet Ditch, and
mounted the first steps. At the side of the stairs, there ascended a row
of houses, all now in deep shadow.
He had reached the landing between the two flights, without incident,
when suddenly from the shadow at the side a dark lantern was flashed
upon his face, and out rushed three or four burly figures. "Heave the
spalpeen down the shtairs!" cried a voice from the shadow,--a voice that
Dick instantly recognized as Captain Delahenty's, and from which he knew
the attack was indeed at Lord Alderby's instigation.
The men were armed with bludgeons, and three rushed upon Dick at once.
But he had no mind to make his bed in Fleet Ditch; hence he met the
middle rascal with a violent kick in the belly, and, getting instantly
between the other two, shot out both arms simultaneously, clutching at
their throats. But now the captain and one other man rushed out from
the shadow, and Dick thought all was up.
Suddenly there came a cry from the top of the stairs, "Hold off, that
man belongs to us!" There followed a flashing of other lanterns, and a
scuffle of footsteps down from the top. In another moment, Dick's first
assailants were resisting this new force, who had fallen upon them with
bludgeons. A sharp, quick fight, in which Dick himself took no part
whatever, left the newcomers in possession of the landing and of him,
while Captain Delahenty and his gang were carrying their broken heads
rapidly down the stairs and off towards Fleet Market.
"I thank you for the rescue," said Dick to the stalwart leader of the
victorious party, as that leader held up a lantern before Dick's face.
"You may call it a rescue, if you like," growled the leader, "but some
would rather die in a street brawl than swing at Tyburn. Edward Lawson,
otherwise known as Captain Ted," and the man, who had pronounced these
names in an official manner, waited as if for Dick to answer to them.
"If you mean that you take me for a person of that name," said Dick, "I
have to tell you that you are disappointed."
"Oho!" was the answer. "That game ain't worthy of you, captain! But if
you wish to play it out, you can play it out in Bow Street, and at the
Old Bailey after that. I arrest you, Edward Lawson, commonly called
Captain Ted, on a charge of highway robbery. Here's the warrant, which
God knows I've carried around long enough! You know the usual formality,
captain."
And at this the bewildered Dick unresistingly saw himself seized by
his arms, while another of the constables--for constables these
were--adorned him with a pair of handcuffs. He was then marched back to
Fleet Street--for it appeared he was no common prisoner, for the nearest
roundhouse--and thence, by way of the Strand and other familiar
thoroughfares, to a building in Bow Street, celebrated for the fact that
Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" therein.
But another Fielding presided there now. Dick received free lodging till
morning, and then he was escorted to the court-room close at hand, to
take his turn as one among a crowd of anxious wretches of both sexes,
who stood in a railed enclosure at one side of a vacant space, before
the table at which sat the grave magistrate in all the vestments and
solemnity of his office. To Dick's amazement, he beheld in an opposite
railed space certain faces with which he was acquainted,--those of his
George Street landlady's son, the Monmouth Street shopman to whom he had
sold the clothes, and the Vauxhall girl. Dick wondered what the whole
business meant, and what it would lead to. At last his turn came.
The magistrate glanced at him indifferently, and addressed him coldly,
in a few words whose meaning Dick did not take pains to gather. Then a
clerk at the table read monotonously a long document, wherein it
appeared that a number of people had sworn to certain occurrences,
which, as far as Dick could see, did not concern him in the least;
namely, that Moreton Charteris, gentleman, of Bloomsbury Square, had
been robbed of money, valuables, and wardrobe, early in the previous
February, by a highwayman who had stopped his coach near Turnham Green;
that a woman who had quarrelled at Reading with one Edward Lawson, known
as Captain Ted, knew the said Lawson to have been the robber of Mr.
Charteris, and, on her threatening to inform against him, to have fled
towards Bath in one of the stolen suits of clothes; and that Mr.
Charteris's servant had, in June, recognized one of the stolen suits in
a Monmouth Street shop.
And now the shopkeeper in the witness box identified that suit as the
one so recognized, and Dick as the man who had sold it; and from further
testimony Dick could infer that the servant's discovery had sent Bow
Street runners to the shopman, who had referred them for information
regarding Dick's whereabouts to the landlady's son, who in turn had
sent them to the Vauxhall girl; and that through her treachery they had
learned his place of lodging. In fact, that grateful creature had stood
in wait with the constables at the head of Breakneck Stairs, and
announced, when his first assailants' lantern had lit up his features,
that he was the man the constables wanted. She had, though, kept out of
his sight, from a greater sense of shame than many of her class would
have shown. As for the attack by the Delahenty party, it had been as
great a surprise to the waiting constables as to Dick.
And now Dick was hastily identified by two bold-looking women, as the
aforesaid Edward Lawson, otherwise Captain Ted. He remembered that the
whimsical gentleman met at Taunton had resembled him, and he perceived
now, considering the danger of being betrayed by the woman quarrelled
with, and of being far sought by the Bow Street men, why that gentleman
had taken the caprice of exchanging good clothes for bad. In putting
this and that together, as he stood in the dock, Dick lost track of the
court's proceedings, and it came like a sudden blow when he saw Sir John
Fielding gaze hard upon him, and heard Sir John Fielding commit him, as
Edward Lawson, to the jail of Newgate, there to be kept in custody until
he should be brought forth to stand his trial!
To Newgate, to await trial for highway robbery, the penalty of which
was death by hanging; readily identified as the guilty man by those who
would stick to their oath; unable to prove by any person in England that
he was not that man, for all his acquaintances had been made since the
exchange of clothes,--a pleasant series of thoughts to keep the
adventurous Master Dick company in the hackney coach that rattled
him swiftly away from the Bow Street court to the great, vile,
many-chambered stone cage where such gallows-birds as Master Jack
Sheppard and Monsieur Claude Duval had lodged before him! And if those
thoughts were not enough, there was that of the cart-ride out Holborn to
Tyburn tree, a picturesque ending for a journey over so many hills and
so far away!
CHAPTER XIV.
"FAIR STOOD THE WIND FOR FRANCE."
Was it worth being saved from murder at the hands of Lord Alderby's
hirelings on Breakneck Stairs, to swing a few months later at Tyburn?
Dick asked himself this question in the first few hours during which he
either sat listless in the dim-lit cell shared by him with a half-dozen
foul-mouthed and outwardly reckless rascals, or paced the courtyard upon
which his and other cells opened.
It was not so much the confinement that crushed him, though that was a
terribly galling thing; he had endured closer confinement in Boston, and
on the _Adamant_. But never had he been surrounded by so vile a herd of
beings. He accustomed himself, though, in time, to their crime-stamped
faces, their disgusting talk, and the sodden drunkenness they were
enabled to maintain by means of the liquor smuggled to them by
visitors,--for the courtyard and the cells thronged every day with
visitors of either sex, and of quality similar to that of the prisoners
themselves. Dick was presently able to discriminate among his
jail-mates, and so he found one or two of more gentle stuff.
One of these was a young Frenchman awaiting trial for an assault of
which he declared that he had been the victim and that the complainant
had been the aggressor. In order to converse with this one refined
companion without being understood by their coarse associates, Dick
resumed, with him, the study of French, and, as he now had plenty of
time, he made rapid progress. There were several French books brought
by this tutor's visitors, from which to learn the written language,
and there was the tutor's own speech from which to acquire the
pronunciation.
It will be seen, thus, that Dick had plucked up heart, as it was his
nature to do. He steadfastly refrained from looking into the future, and
he made no provision in regard thereto. A grinning attorney had
benevolently buttonholed him on his first day of imprisonment, and had
proposed to take his case in hand, but, on learning how little money
Dick would have for the luxury of a defence, this person had gone away,
minus grin and benevolence.
Dick had more money than he had offered the shark of the law, but he
needed it in order to pay for quarters and food of a grade above that
which had to be endured by those miserable prisoners who could pay
nothing and who had to live on a penny loaf a day. The court in which
Dick abode was neither the best nor the worst in Newgate; but the best,
where those dwelt who paid most, was loathsome enough as to the company.
To follow the example set by Wetheral himself in his memoirs, and to
make swift work of his Newgate life,--for only in the "Beggar's Opera"
is Newgate life a merry thing to contemplate,--let it be said at once
that a true bill was duly found against him by the grand jury, and that
his trial was set for the September sessions at the Old Bailey Sessions
House, next door to Newgate Prison. As Dick surveyed the long list of
witnesses who would be called for the Crown, and bethought him that he
was without witness or counsel, the vision of Tyburn gallows was for a
moment or two exceedingly vivid before his mind's eye.
It was now about the middle of August, and that same day there came to
Dick another piece of news brought in by visitors,--that on the fourth
day of July the American rebels, in the State House in Philadelphia, had
declared the colonies to be free and independent States. A thrill of joy
and pride brought the tears to Dick's eyes, and the apparition of
Tyburn, the very sense of the Newgate walls and herd around him, gave
way to visions of things far over seas, of people rejoicing in the
cities he had passed through towards Cambridge, of his father rubbing
hands and crying "Well done!" over the news, at home in the Pennsylvania
valley; of the cheers of Washington's men, and the sage comments of old
Tom MacAlister. When he awoke to Newgate and the Tyburn phantom, he
brought his teeth hard together and fretted at fate.
Early in September, sitting idly on a bench at an end of the court, his
ears pricked up at the words, "American prisoner," uttered in course of
talk by a woman who was making a visit to an imprisoned waterman accused
of robbing a passenger.
"They say as 'ow, afore 'e was picked up, off the Lizard, by the ship as
brought 'im 'ere," she went on, "the rebel 'ad got out o' jug, by
jumpink on a 'orse in Pendennis Castle, and ridink away in broad
daylight, afore a multitood o' people."
A prisoner escaped from Pendennis Castle on horseback! Dick instantly
joined in the conversation. "You say a ship picked the man up, off the
Lizard," he put in. "How did they know he was the man who had escaped on
the horse?"
"By 'is clothes, in course," said the woman, "and by the descriptions as
was sent everywhere."
"But you say the ship has brought him to London?"
"Yes. 'E was picked up in a small boat, far hout to sea, a-trying for to
make the French coast. The ship's captain, having put out of Plymouth
on a long voyage,--for this 'appened last February,--'ad no mind to turn
back, and so he took the fellow all the way to the Barbados, and then
brought him 'ome to London. So now he lies at St. Catherine's, on
shipboard, while the Government is making up its mind what to do with
'im."
And thus had fate treated Edward Lawson, otherwise Captain Ted, Dick's
whimsical gentleman of Taunton! To think that a fugitive, in exchanging
himself out of an incriminating suit of clothes to avoid detection,
should exchange himself into the clothes of another fugitive, and be
caught as the latter! Dick laughed to himself, even as he went to beg a
turnkey to inform the governor that he, Dick, had an important
disclosure to make.
The turnkey carried the message, for a consideration, and Dick was
summoned to the governor's room, where it was finally got into the head
of that functionary that Dick claimed to be the American prisoner for
whom the other man had been taken. Dick was sent back to his court, with
no satisfaction; but the next day he was led again into the governor's
room, and confronted with the whimsical gentleman himself, who looked
decidedly the worse for wear. It appeared that the highwayman was glad
to be known, even in his true colors, rather than as a rebel prisoner
who might be charged with treason.
The two were taken by hackney coach to Bow Street, and there the
whimsical gentleman, much to his relief, was identified as Captain Ted,
by the very ladies who had identified Dick as the same person, Justice
Fielding subsequently observing that the resemblance between the two men
was so great as to leave no ground for a charge of perjury against the
identifiers. Captain Ted was then promptly committed to Newgate, on the
evidence of the woman who had first laid information against him. With a
friendly smile and courteous bow to Dick, he was led away.
And now Dick, relieved of the oft-recurring Tyburn vision, was to learn
what disposition was to be made of himself. Standing out from the
prisoners' pen, and in the vacant space before the magistrate's table,
he was addressed at some length by Sir John Fielding. It appeared that
his story, as related to the governor of Newgate the previous day,
having tallied with certain statements made by the other prisoner, had
been considered by no less a personage than the Secretary of State. If
he was one of the American prisoners who had been confined at Pendennis
Castle, the justice said, his treatment ordinarily would have been the
same as theirs,--that is to say, he would have been taken aboard the
_Solebay_ frigate on the 8th of January, and sent back to America as a
prisoner of war, subject to exchange (this was Dick's first intimation
of what had befallen Allen and the others). But he had broken from
custody while he still regarded it as likely that he would be proceeded
against for high treason, and he was therefore to be considered as
having admitted his guilt of high treason. However, it was the desire of
the King to exhibit great clemency to his rebellious American subjects,
even in the most aggravated cases; hence the justice dared presume that
the Crown would not move against the prisoner on the charge of treason
(Dick afterward guessed that the real reason for this self-denial on the
Crown's part lay in the difficulty and expense of getting witnesses to
the alleged treason). The prisoner had, however, been shown to have sold
a stolen suit of clothes; he ought to have known, by the circumstances
in which he had acquired the clothes, even if those circumstances were
as he alleged, that the clothes had been stolen; his not so knowing was
a fault, yet was the fault of no one other than him, hence must be his
fault. The justice was, therefore, compelled, on information sworn by
the Monmouth Street dealer and by Mr. Charteris's servant, to commit the
prisoner for trial on this new charge.
So back to Newgate went Dick, wondering whether matters were improved,
after all. At the September sessions he was haled, upon indictment,
before the bewigged judges and the stolid jury in the Old Bailey;
pleaded not guilty, was tried with great expedition, convicted without
delay, and sentenced (at the end of a solemn speech in which he thought
at first the judge was driving at nothing less than death by hanging
with the next Tyburn batch) to hard labor for three years on the river
Thames. It appeared that the prisoner's general honesty, to which his
George Street landlady's son voluntarily testified, influenced the judge
against a capital sentence. Well, what is three years' hard labor to a
man who has seriously contemplated a gibbet for several weeks past?
The vessel on which Dick found himself, in consequence of this
manifestation of British justice,--which in those benighted days was
almost as dangerous for an honest man to come in contact with as New
York City justice is to-day,--resembled an ordinary lighter, though of
broader gunwale on the larboard side. A floor about three feet wide ran
along the starboard side, for the men to work on, and their duty was to
raise ballast, of which the vessel's capacity was twenty-seven tons, by
means of windlass and davits. The convicts slept aft, where the vessel
was decked in, and the overseer had a cabin in the forecastle.
The men were chained together in pairs, and Dick, to his surprise,
recognized his own comrade as none other than the body-snatcher through
whom he had accidentally come to try his card tricks in London taverns.
This amiable person had been caught while conveying a pauper's body,
wrapped in a sack, by hackney coach, from Shoreditch to St. George's
hospital, for the use of surgeons. He belonged to a gang that worked for
the Resurrectionist, an inhabitant of the Borough, who was a famous
trader to the surgeons.
Dick had to work all day, and to eat nothing but ox-cheek, legs and
shins of beef, and equally coarse food; to drink only water or small
beer, and to wear a mean uniform, which, as autumn wore into winter, ill
protected him from the cold. Yet the hard work kept his blood going by
day, gave him appetite for the food, and made sleep a pleasure. The
fatigues of the day left the convicts no inclination to talk at night.
One day was like another, and the monotony of uninteresting toil was
endurable only for the prospect of freedom at the end of the three
years. Dick had no mind to attempt an escape, for on receiving sentence
he had been told that his term might be abridged for good behavior, that
it would certainly be doubled on a first attempt to escape, and that on
a such second attempt he would be liable to suffer death. So when, in
the fifth month of his durance, he was awakened one night by the
grave-robber, and a general plot to break away was cautiously broached
to him, he resolutely refused to take part or to hear more, and went to
sleep again. He observed, the next few days, that he was narrowly
watched by the other convicts, who doubtless feared he might inform the
overseer; but he had no such intention.
One night in February,--it was between Sunday and Monday,--when the
vessel was moored off Woolwich, Dick was violently awakened by a kind of
tugging at his leg. Throwing out his hand in the darkness to
investigate, he heard a threatening whisper, "If you move or call out,
I'll blow your head off with this pistol! Bill the Blacksmith is taking
off our irons. You can join us if you like, or you can stay here, but
you'll keep quiet!"
The voice was that of the body-stealer, to whom Dick was chained. In
releasing the former, the Blacksmith, working in the darkness, had
necessarily disturbed the chain attached to Dick. Bill the Blacksmith
was a person unknown to Dick. As afterward appeared, he was one of a
rescue party that had come on this dark night to free those prisoners
who were in the plot. Some of the party had got aboard, crawled unseen
within a few feet of the guards, reached the sleeping-place of the
convicts, supplied some of these with weapons, and were now at work
removing their irons.
Dick lay perfectly still. Presently the grave-robber stood up,
unshackled. The chain was still fastened to Dick's leg.
"Well," whispered the grave-robber, "will you stay as you are, or will
you join us?"
To be shortly free of the chafing fetters, able to use his whole body in
a dash for liberty; to seize now what would not be offered to him for
two long and miserable years! The temptation was too strong. "I'll
join," whispered Dick.
"This one, too, Bill," said the grave-robber, and the Blacksmith went to
work on Dick's fetters.
Other skilful hands were employed at the same time on the shackles of
other convicts. The operations went on in the utmost silence. Now and
then, at some sound from without, they would stop for a while. It was
only after he had been awake some time, that Dick could distinguish the
dark forms of the artisans working over the prostrate forms of the
prisoners. Never had he seen such a combination of skill, patience,
persistence, and noiselessness. Pick-locks, burglars, jail-breakers,
all, exercising their abilities this time to free their comrades, were
the men at work; yet Dick could not but admire the manner in which they
went about their business. Doubtless there was a large reward to be
earned, perhaps from some employer of certain of these convicts,--some
such great man as the Resurrectionist, of the Borough, or as Gipsy
George, leader of smugglers; for any one of these rescuers would as
soon turn King's evidence against a comrade as liberate him.
At last all irons were off. Instantly, with the grave-robber at the
head, there was a general rush to the platform on which the men worked.
The surprised guards were either shot at, struck, intimidated, or swept
into the hold, by the advancing convicts. The latter scrambled over the
vessel's side, some dropping into a boat that suddenly unmasked two
lanterns. Another boat, also belonging to the rescue party, now showed a
light a little farther off. For this boat Dick swam, with many others
who had plunged at once into the water, and presently he was hauled
aboard like a hooked shark.
Some of the convicts, as if fearing there would not be room for them on
the boats, struck out for the shore. Dick never knew what became of
them, or of those who crowded into the first boat. The craft in which he
found himself was speedily filled, whereupon the men at the oars, aided
by convicts who had found other oars waiting, pulled rapidly down the
river, the boat's lantern again being darkened. By this time those in
charge of the convict vessel had recovered their senses and begun firing
shots of alarm. Dick made up his mind to get away from his villainous
company at the first opportunity.
Presently the men at the oars were relieved by another force, which
included Dick. Thus, aided by the river's current, and thanks to their
system of alternating at the oars, as well as to the strength derived
from fear of recapture, the desperate crew made incredible speed. As
dawn began to show itself, Dick saw, on the southern bank of the Thames,
a considerable town against a hillside, environed by meadows and fields,
pleasure grounds and country-seats. A high hill near by was crowned by a
windmill. Vessels of every size lay in the harbor. Dick learned from the
talk in the boat that this was Gravesend.
The men rowed straight for a certain sloop, which, it appeared from
their conversation, was engaged in the business of conveying stolen
horses to Dunkirk and other Continental ports. Dick inwardly determined
to follow the fortunes of this rascal boat's crew no longer. Once
alongside the sloop, the convicts proceeded to board it, each man for
himself. The stern of the boat drifted several feet away from the sloop.
Dick, pretending he would leap in his turn, across the intervening
space, purposely missed hold of the sloop, and sank into the water.
Diving some distance, he came up at a spot far from where the attention
of his erstwhile comrades was directed. He then struck out for the
outskirts of Gravesend, and landed a little east of the town, in the
gray of the morning.
Skirting the town, and passing only bare vegetable gardens and
fishermen's houses, he reached the Dover road, and walked on four miles
to Gad's Hill, where Sir John Falstaff had played valorous pranks. Three
miles more of walking brought him to Rochester, with its twelfth century
Cathedral, and its ruined Norman Castle aloft by the Medway. A sailor's
wife, living in a small house in a squalid part of the town, gave him a
breakfast of porridge, while he dried his clothes at her fire.
Knowing he might be detected by his uniform, and finding the woman
good-hearted, Dick offered to exchange the suit he had on for some
worn-out raiment of her husband's, saying that the cloth of his garments
might be made over into clothes for her little son. This exchange being
made in the woman's parlor while she was at work in the kitchen, Dick
proceeded on his way. At Sittingbourne, ten miles farther southeast, he
stopped at a villager's house, on pretence of asking the road, and
received a glass of milk and an egg, which he ate raw. Thus refreshed,
he trudged on seven miles, to Ospringe, where he passed the night under
a sheep-skin, in a cart-house.
The next morning (Tuesday), breakfasting on a pot of ale given him
by an oysterman of Faversham, Dick went on to Canterbury, where,
procuring a pack of cards from an hostler of an inn in High Street,
he fell back on his card tricks for a living, though now with great
aversion. He risked wearing out his welcome at the Canterbury inns and
tap-rooms, for that he so much liked the town; and it was reluctantly
that, on Saturday morning, he left the old Cathedral behind, and set his
face southeastward. Passing the Gothic towers of Lee Priory, he plodded
on, mile after mile, hour after hour, over downs and through villages,
till he stood at last on the hills at whose feet, before him, lay the
town and the harbor of Dover, and from whose top, near the old castle
supposed to have been founded by Julius Cæsar, could be seen, beyond the
ruffled waves of the Channel, the distant coast of France.
Tired and hungry, Dick descended from the cliff and proceeded along
narrow Snaregate Street to a straggling suburb of low-built houses
inhabited by sailors and fishermen. It was late in the afternoon, when
he entered a small tippling-house, where were a number of seafarers
boisterously talking, and called at the bar for a glass of rum. While
drinking, he asked the barman how one might go to France more cheaply
than by the regular packet. He was immediately referred to one of the
fellows drinking at a small table in the room. Thus introduced to this
person, who was a stalwart, sea-browned man of fifty, Dick ingratiated
himself into his liking, drank with him, and presently began his usual
procedure with the cards.
As invariably happened, certain of his spectators offered Dick small
sums to show them how one or other of his most puzzling tricks were
done. As always, Dick refused. But his first acquaintance, under a
curiosity to which Dick had adroitly ministered, persisted hard in
begging to know the secret of a certain sleight. Dick finally replied:
"I shall tell you on the other side of the Channel."
"T'other side of the Channel?" repeated the seafarer. "When shall I see
you there, man?"
"When you shall have taken me there in your fishing-smack."
"So 'tis settled I'm to take you? But the pay?"
"Good Lord! If I show you my card trick, isn't that pay? I call a
miserable passage across the Channel a mighty cheap price for one of my
secrets. But if you will haggle, you shall have all my money into the
bargain,--one shilling, and one sixpence. Well, well, so you don't want
to learn the trick? Good evening, then!"
"Oh, hold! I didn't say no. I don't haggle. I'll take you, lad,
to-morrow night,--when I go a-fishing."
If Dick thought it strange to go fishing by night, particularly Sunday
night, he kept his thoughts to himself. He had heard tales of the
fisherfolk and other worthy people of the coast towns, and was prepared
to be blind to certain signs. As for the readiness with which the
seafarers in the ale-house let him come among them, his own appearance
of poverty had quickly served to establish a fellowship. His winning,
yet confident, manner prevented his being despised for the poverty he
showed. Moreover, his desire to cross the Channel indicated, in a person
of his attire, such motives for absence from England as these men were
of a class to sympathize with. They knew at first glance that he had no
purpose inimical to them, so keen was their scent for a government spy
in any disguise. In fine, Dick had the gift of adapting his demeanor to
the society of a Lord or of a cutthroat, and easily made himself
received without distrust by these wary folk who fished by night.
On Saturday night, that of his arrival at this humble suburb of Dover,
he slept in a corner of the fisherman's loft. All the next day, he lay
quiet indoors, sharing the Sunday life of the fisherman's family, which
included a wife and two huge, awkward sons, respectively sixteen and
eighteen years old. At night, preceded by these sons, the fisherman led
Dick some distance from the town, to a cove, where lay the smack. An
unknown man was already aboard, adjusting sail. The four immediately
joined him, Dick bestowing himself in the stern while the fisherman and
his sons assisted the unknown at the ropes. Few, short, and low were
the words spoken, and very soon the little craft glided out from shore,
upon the easy swell of the Channel. The night was lit by stars only, the
wind was fair, and the heave of the sea was not violent.
Dick noticed that his skipper kept a very keen lookout, seeming to
search the sea ahead for some particular object. He wondered how soon
these nocturnal fishermen would begin to cast lines, and what sort of
fish they would be catching at this season. But presently he drew in all
his thoughts to his own affairs, for he had become unmistakably seasick.
Busy for a long while in seeking relief, his head over the side of the
boat, he gave no heed to the doings or words of the crew.
He was, in time, vaguely aware of a hail from another vessel; of the
fact that this vessel loomed into close view; that his own boat lay to
alongside of it; that the two crews conversed in mixed French and
English; that sundry bales, kegs, ankers, and two or three barrels, were
lowered from the other vessel into the boat, and then that he was shaken
at the shoulder by his conductor, who said, "Come aboard the lugger,
lad, and make haste!"
Surprised but unquestioning, Dick staggered after the fisherman and
clambered from the boat's gunwale, with the crew's help, to the other
vessel. Just as the fisherman was about to follow, one of his sons gave
a low cry. The fisherman uttered a curse, and leaped to his rudder,
while the son who had called out seized a rope and began vigorously
making sail. At the same moment a man on the lugger instantly released
the line by which the Dover smack had been kept alongside, and there was
a general noise of ropes, blocks, and canvas, in quick movement. Before
Dick knew what was the matter the two vessels had parted company, and
the lights of a third appeared, from which came a sharp, mandatory hail.
This, being unanswered, was followed by a flash and a boom and a
splashing up of water,--the last in the wake of the boat from Dover.
That craft showing its heels in fine fashion, and Dick's vessel also
making speed, the former was soon out of sight. The revenue cutter, for
such was the intruder whose advent had caused the two smuggling vessels
to part so suddenly, chose to pursue the English boat, so that the
French lugger to which Dick had been transferred went its way
unhindered.
Dick turned with an inquiring look to the man who seemed in command of
the lugger. The latter, evidently supposing that Dick's solicitude was
in regard to the Dover smack, said in French, "Have no fear, my brother.
Your comrades will carry their fish safe home. Their King's vessels
waste time and powder chasing them. _Mon Dieu_, the bottom of the ocean
must be paved with the cannon-shot the revenue vessels have sent after
the night fishermen in vain!"
Dick, from his long association with the French teacher in Newgate,
could grasp the meaning of this speech after a few moments. He knew from
the words and manner that the Frenchman understood him to be on a good
understanding with the Dover fishermen, and would treat him as one who
deserved well of the vast fraternity of Channel smugglers. It was
comforting to know that his way had thus been made smooth by the Dover
man when the latter had bespoken Dick's passage, for the French smuggler
was as villainous-looking a rascal as Dick had seen in Newgate, and, had
Dick come to him without proper introduction, would doubtless have been
as ready with a hostile knife or belaying-pin as he now was with
deference and amiability. Dick found, without directly asking, that the
lugger was bound for Boulogne.
It was that darkest hour which precedes the dawn, when the vessel
anchored some distance off that port. The skipper and one of the crew
rowed ashore with Dick in a small boat, getting out in the surf, and
dragging the boat after them while they waded to dry beach. They were
now on the sands near the town. The captain took polite leave of Dick,
pointing out the most convenient way to go, and adding, with a grin,
that, as this road was not obstructed by custom-house officers, Dick
would undergo no delay over his baggage. Nothing was said about
passage money. The Dover skipper had evidently provided for Dick's
transportation, which was doubtless a matter of reciprocal favor between
the English and the French smugglers. Dick was sorry the Dover man had
been disappointed, by the interference of the revenue cutter, of the
intended trip to the French coast and of the proposed payment for Dick's
passage. "I'll show him the card trick if ever we meet again," thought
Dick, as he walked towards the town and realized that he was on French
ground; "but, if we never meet, it isn't my fault he was left behind."
Dick entered Boulogne with two sailors whom he happened to overtake, and
to whom he contrived to make known in French his desire of learning the
nearest way to a public house. They led him to the upper town and to the
cabaret for which they were bound. His pockets and stomach were alike
empty, and his teeth were chattering from the cold. He was goaded by his
condition to immediate effort.
As soon as he entered the kitchen, where the sailors promptly sat down
to bread and butter and brandy, Dick proposed he should share free their
loaf, their firkin, and their keg, on condition that any card they might
name should be found on the top of the pack he now held face downward
before him. If the top card should be any other, he should pay for
their breakfast. Of course they jumped at the proposition, and of course
the top card was the one they had named.
An hour later, filled with bread and butter, warmed inside by the brandy
and outside by the kitchen fire, Dick went forth with some thought of
soliciting employment from one of the several British merchants who, as
he had learned at breakfast, dwelt in Boulogne.
In the streets, he felt as if he had been suddenly transported to a new
world. The one night's trip across the Channel, between coasts in sight
of each other, had wrought a greater transformation in his surroundings
than the five weeks' voyage across the Atlantic had produced. The
spareness, alertness, fussiness, and excessive politeness of the people
was as great a contrast to the characteristics of the rubicund Britons
he had been among a day ago, as he could have imagined. The jabbering of
the people, though, was not entirely strange to his ears; he had heard
its like from the _habitans_ of Canada. Nor was the ubiquity of soldiers
and priests new to eyes that had seen Quebec and its environs. Yet the
tall, straight, carefully powdered French soldiers that he saw as he
walked near the fortifications, little resembled the stout, well-fed
English troops he had faced at Bunker Hill.
Now and then he could recognize in the crowd, at a glance, some round,
red, contented-looking English face; and, when two of these passed
together, it was a pleasure to Dick to hear the English words that fell
from either mouth.
As he was approaching one of the best hotels of the place, Dick got a
rear view of a gentleman standing before it, from whose broad back and
solid-looking legs Dick would have sworn him to be an Englishman. Dick
observed that this gentleman was looking at a pretty girl at an upper
window of a house across the street. Himself gazing at the same object,
he bumped heavily against the gentleman in passing.
"Damme," cried the gentleman, in a robust voice, "must you frog-eaters
be always tumbling over people, because you have no footways in your
cursed streets?" And he glared indignantly into the face of Dick, who
had stopped and was inspecting him.
"I don't happen to be a Frenchman, and I agree with you in cursing the
lack of footways," said Dick. "How have you fared since we met--and
parted--at the Pelican at Newbury, Sir Hilary?"
"Eh? Sir Hilary? Pelican? Why, who the devil--By the lord, 'tis the
gentleman that offered to pay the landlord, so we might all get away
betimes! Welcome, sir! By your looks, I can guess you're like some
others of us on this side the Channel,--you've had your own reasons to
try the air of France! Well, by George, you shall keep me company
awhile! You shall come in, and break a bottle with me, sir,--half a
dozen bottles, damme! And after that you shall be my guest. Come in! I
won't hear you say no! God save the King, and huzza for old England!"
And, having capped these patriotic exclamations with a defiant look
around at the French passers-by, the exiled Berkshire fox-hunter caught
hold of Dick, who had not the slightest intention of saying no, and
hustled him cordially into the inn.
CHAPTER XV.
AN ELOPEMENT FROM A DILIGENCE.
It came out, over the Burgundy, that Sir Hilary passed most of his time
in Paris, but often repaired to Calais or Boulogne to be for the while
nearer England. He still remained from his own country because he
dreaded being called on by the law for an account of the killing of Mr.
Bullcott,--not that he feared the outcome as to his bodily safety, but
that such legal proceedings might bring out the name of his sister, and
provide the _Town and Country Magazine_ with a characteristic narrative,
in which every one concerned should figure, the vowels in each name
supplanted by dashes. Bold as he was in many things, the fox-hunter was
timid as to that sort of celebrity.
But the non-existence of any one who would desire to see Squire
Bullcott's removal avenged, promised eventual safety for Sir Hilary's
person; and the general forgetfulness of things past would in time
enable him to return home without risk of reviving interest in the
affair at the Pelican, although he was forever officially branded by
the coroner's verdict as having caused the death of Bullcott under
circumstances to be further determined.
And now, at the fourth bottle, Sir Hilary insisted on repaying Mr.
Wetheral, with interest, for having silenced the landlord of the
Pelican. It seemed that Sir Hilary received plenty of money from his
estate, and, being given to amusements of the country, knew not how to
spend it on the pleasures of Paris. He required that Dick should go
along immediately to a tailor's, and fit himself out handsomely, and
Dick, seeing how much gratification the Englishman really took in this
kind of generosity, made no protest. Nor did he object when the
bountiful Berkshire baronet thrust upon him a well-filled purse. In
those days, gentlemen had not the petty vanity of refusing to put
themselves under obligations to one another. Without any affectation of
pride, they readily accepted favors which they knew they would as
readily bestow were conditions reversed.
So Dick remained Sir Hilary's guest at the hotel that day and night, and
the next morning they took post-horses and rode to Samers, Sir Hilary's
intention being to proceed in a leisurely way, seeing as much country
and drinking as much wine as they could, to Paris. As for Dick,
recalling that memorable afternoon's journey of his childhood, he
considered now that the words of old Tom MacAlister had been those of
an oracle, and that fate designed his road to lead to Paris, whatever
plans he might make for himself.
Moreover, a definite purpose now formed in his mind, which purpose of
itself called him Parisward. In the auberge at Samers, where Sir Hilary
prolonged their stop to try thoroughly the wine of the country, Dick
overheard a conversation between a voluble petit maître and a
short-gowned Capuchin monk, in which the name of Washington instantly
caught his ear. He soon found that the talk was on the American war, and
that the talkers sympathized with the Americans. He learned that a
recent daring blow struck by Washington at Trenton, and another victory,
won at Princeton, had offset the effect of the British occupation of New
York and the British victories connected therewith. He learned, too,
that Franklin, a name spoken with as great honor at this little French
inn as at home, had come to France as an agent of the Americans, and was
now with his fellow agent, Mr. Silas Deane, at the Hotel d'Hambourg, in
the Rue l'Université, in Paris. This news, at which Dick glowed
inwardly, gave him the idea of offering his services to Franklin, to be
used in any way and in any place proposable.
That same day the fellow travellers rode on, over the undulating country
of the Boulonnois, by woods and streams, to Montreuil, where they had
to give their names to a polite guard officer at the gates; leaped from
their horses at the sign of the Crown of France, paid their post, and
took lodging for the night.
Sir Hilary promptly ordered a roasted capon, a fricasseed hare, a wild
duck, a salad, and a flask of Burgundy, the two gentlemen having chosen
a table at a window. While they sat eating, they saw drive up to the inn
a lumbering four-wheeled carriage, which let out a severe, stately,
slender old lady, a demure-looking, black-eyed girl of seventeen, and a
gaunt, gray-haired man-servant, in well-worn livery. Waiting while the
old lady oversaw the removal of several ancient portmanteaus, the girl
looked with indifferent curiosity at the inn. Her eyes, swiftly moving,
met Dick's through the window, and rested a moment,--a moment only, but
time sufficient to give him that sensation which fine eyes, so
encountered, usually produce. The girl soon looked elsewhere, the old
lady led the way into the inn, and the carriage moved off. Dick saw no
more of the black-eyed girl that evening, yet he did not forget that she
was under the same roof with him.
The next morning, at breakfast, Sir Hilary raised the question as to
what means of conveyance they should next take. At that moment, Dick saw
the gray-haired man-servant taking out the ladies' luggage to the Paris
diligence, which great, unshapely vehicle, drawn by gaunt horses, now
stood before the door.
"What conveyance?" echoed Dick. "How can you ask? Why, the diligence, of
course!"
And there was more haste than Sir Hilary saw the need of, in finishing
the breakfast, paying the bill, and getting Sir Hilary's baggage
down-stairs in time to make sure of not being left behind.
Dick and Sir Hilary had been aboard some minutes, before the ladies
appeared. Dick leaped out and gave his hand to them, the old lady first,
to assist them into the diligence. The old lady bowed, but looked
distrustful; the girl said, "Merci, monsieur," in a low but appreciative
voice, and turned her eyes on his for a considerable part of a second.
Dick took a seat where he could get a view of the girl's face without
staring directly at her, and the diligence rumbled off with many a
violent jolt.
"They call these machines turgotines," said Sir Hilary, alluding to the
diligence, and speaking in French purposely to be heard by the other
passengers, "because they were introduced during the ministry of Monseer
Turgot, but if I were Monseer Turgot I shouldn't be proud on that
account."
A Picardy abbé replying with a polite question as to stage-coaches in
England, the conversation soon became general. One of the passengers was
an old lieutenant who had served in Canada, and, through some remark of
his, the American war became the topic,--a topic at that time held in
far greater interest throughout Europe than Dick had imagined it would
be. A difference arising among the passengers as to the relative
situations of Boston and Philadelphia, Dick undertook to set them right;
but his statement was doubted by the majority. Thereupon, the black-eyed
girl, who had of course kept silent hitherto, spoke out in a somewhat
embarrassed manner, confirming Dick's assertion.
"Thanks, mademoiselle!" said Dick, gratefully. "The word of mademoiselle
must be final, ladies and gentlemen,--she is doubtless more recently
from school than any of us."
Mademoiselle smiled slightly, and said no more, the old lady's look
being directed at her in severe rebuke.
The stop for dinner caused a rearrangement of the passengers as to the
places in the diligence. Dick now found himself beside the dark-eyed
girl, at whose other hand, in a corner, sat the old lady. At Dick's
other side was Sir Hilary. The ladies' man-servant was outside. Having
dined heavily, Sir Hilary fell asleep before the coach had gone far.
And, to Dick's unexpected pleasure, the old lady, after several
preliminary nods, followed the fox-hunter's example. The other
passengers became engrossed in the adventures of the lieutenant and the
comic stories of the abbé.
"Have you ever been in America, mademoiselle," said Dick, softly, "that
you are so well informed about its towns?"
"No, monsieur," she answered, in as low a tone as his, "but, as you
said, I am very recently from school. I have often studied the maps at
the convent I left but yesterday."
The conversation thus entered upon continued during the whole afternoon,
and was marked by an uninterrupted progress in mutual acquaintance and
confidence. Under certain conditions, and between congenial persons, a
closer intimacy may be reached in a half day's fellow-travelling than
may otherwise be attained in a lifetime of occasional meetings. By the
time the diligence neared Abbeville la Pucelle, Dick was the young
lady's confidant as to these facts:
She was leaving her convent school to be married in Paris to a Chevalier
of St. Louis, whom she regarded with aversion for the reason that he was
almost old enough to be her grandfather. The marriage had been arranged
by her father, an officer of the regiment of Picardy, whose sister was
the old lady now taking her to Paris. With such antipathy and dread did
the girl look forward to the marriage, that she had almost dared to
meditate rebellion and flight, for she was not closely attached to her
father, whose military duties kept him away from her, and she inherited
from her dead mother a moderate fortune that could not be alienated from
her. But she was under the domination of her aunt, who had helped
arrange the marriage, the girl's father being on service.
"What else can I do?" she asked Dick, helplessly. "I dare not disobey my
aunt, I have not the courage to resist her. I have felt like one half
dead, since I left the convent, and in that condition I shall be led
passively through it all, till I find myself--oh, how can I endure it?"
"You shall not!" said Dick, with impulsive eagerness to play the
chivalrous part. "You must not! I will save you from the intolerable
fate!"
The girl looked at him in wonder. "If you could!" she whispered slowly,
half in despair, half in newly risen hope.
At that moment, the diligence coming to a stop at the post inn at
Abbeville, the aunt showed signs of waking. "Rely on me, I shall not
desert you!" whispered Dick, and then very gallantly stooped and
restored a handkerchief dropped by the aunt in the act of waking.
That evening, while Sir Hilary celebrated in many bumpers the beauty of
the girls of Abbeville, Dick thought over the situation of her whose
eyes made the Abbeville virgins colorless and uninteresting. The only
practicable way for her to avoid the marriage was by physical flight.
She might become a nun, but Dick could not tolerate the idea of so much
charm buried for life in a convent, and she herself had not spoken of
such a refuge. She might have friends or relations who would shelter and
conceal her in her rebellion. But if this were not the case she would
have only the protection and guidance of Dick, and there was but one
condition on which she could accept those with safety to her honor.
Well, Dick was not a man to turn back after having given his assurance;
the girl was certainly charming and amiable, she had a small fortune to
ensure her own comfort, and the thought of her perturbing glances
reserved exclusively for some other man filled Dick with a kind of
chagrin. Moreover, her name was Collette, and she looked the name.
The next day he got no chance to speak to her until the afternoon. Then,
protected as before by the slumbering aunt on one side and the drowsy
baronet on the other, the young people resumed their conversation. Was
she still as much opposed to the marriage as ever? Oh, decidedly, far
more so!--with a little terrified look at Dick. Had she any friends to
whom she might go? None who would not betray her. No refuge whatever in
mind? None whatever. Would she risk her father's displeasure and her
aunt's, provided there were some one to stand between her and that
displeasure? Why, yes, if such a situation were possible,--anything
rather than the marriage. Would she be resigned to a marriage with a
younger gentleman? Why, yes, if--that is to say--if--
"If," said Dick, in low tones, but with all due signs of feeling, "if
the gentleman were an American, carried from his country by the wind of
circumstance, with nothing in the world but the clothes on his back,
a few louis in his pocket, and some land in the wilderness of
Pennsylvania, but with a prospect of honorable employment for his
country on reaching Paris, and with a hand that could be turned to
anything and would ever be devoted to your honor and happiness?"
She raised her eyes, which had been lowered, and in meeting his their
jetty brilliance took a humid softness as she answered, gently, "Is it
of yourself that you speak, monsieur?"
So it was agreed upon, while the diligence rumbled past a gentle
hillside crowned by a fair chateau flanked by oak woods. When they came
in sight of the oak-topped ramparts of Amiens, their plans were
complete. Dick was to have a hired carriage and post-horses ready near
the inn, and Collette was to join him at the inn door as soon as her
aunt and the servant should be abed. Riding all night and part of the
next day, they could defy pursuit, and carry out their purpose at
leisure. Though they should continue towards Paris, there would be no
danger of being overtaken, especially by the diligence, which, because
of bad weather and bad roads, was then making smaller than the usual
daily stages, as any one acquainted with the country traversed will have
seen. Dick preferred not yet to take Sir Hilary into confidence; he knew
where to communicate with the baronet in due time in Paris.
Amiens was a large town with fine streets of well-built houses, and with
a beautiful cathedral containing the head of John the Baptist; but Dick
had no eye for these things on this occasion. At the inn Sir Hilary met
two officers of the regiment of the Prince of Condé, on leave, and was
soon lost in conversation and champagne, so that Dick was free to make
his arrangements.
Fortunately, the purse pressed upon Dick by the baronet in Boulogne was
still nearly full. He obtained a carriage from the diligence company,
and two horses and a postilion from the postman at the inn. Soon after
supper, while he paced before the inn door, in the cold evening, the
cloaked and hooded figure of Collette appeared from within, noiselessly;
whereupon he took her hand, and the pair hastened like ghosts to the
waiting carriage, which rattled away with them a minute later. A
twenty-four-sous piece, handed to the sentinel, caused the city gates,
which had been closed for the night, to fly open, and the jack-booted
postilion was soon swearing and singing, and whipping his horses, in the
open country, on the road to Chantilly. Inside the carriage, the two
young people sat silent, the girl perhaps trembling now and then at
thought of the leap she had taken into the unknown, Dick somewhat
sobered at the responsibility he had so speedily assumed. But he was, as
usual, ready for anything, and often he pressed her hand to reassure
her.
It was the night of Thursday, February 27, 1777. Evening had set in with
increasing cold and a howling wind. Engrossed in their thoughts, Dick
and Collette for two or three hours noticed not that the wind was
constantly gaining in force and fury. Suddenly the carriage stopped,
there was a brief wait, and the door was flung open.
"It is impossible to go farther to-night, monsieur," said the postilion,
thrusting in his head. "One of the horses has cast a shoe and is very
lame."
"But we _must_ go on," said Dick. "It is a matter of life and death."
"It is simply impossible," said the postilion, stubbornly.
"It cannot be impossible. Have I not paid half the post hire in
advance?"
"Monsieur can go on, in the morning. There is an auberge a little
distance ahead, where he and madame can pass the night. I will find a
smith and have the horse shod in time to set out early."
"Are you sure it is the lameness of the horse, that moves you, or a
desire to get indoors from the cold?" queried Dick.
"Monsieur l'Anglois has the privilege of thinking as it may please him.
Will he have me drive to the auberge, or will he remain here in the road
all night?"
"Let him drive to the auberge, for heaven's sake!" whispered Collette,
somewhat terrified.
The auberge, when reached, proved to be a miserable hut of three
apartments,--stable, kitchen, and common sleeping-room. The host and his
wife, visible by light of candle and by kitchen fire, were an
evil-looking pair.
"Oh," said Collette, drawing back from the doorway, "I can never stay
here!"
"There is no other place," said the postilion, with an impudent grin.
"I will find another place," said Dick, beginning to feel ugly towards
the postilion. "I see a light on the hill yonder. It comes from the
window of a chateau. Such a house will not refuse us hospitality, my
Collette! You will drive us to that house, fellow!" And Dick lifted
Mademoiselle Collette into the carriage.
"I will not drive one step!" said the postilion, insolently, with a
careless crack of his whip.
Dick looked at the fellow a moment, strode up to him, wrenched the whip
from his hand by an unexpected movement, and struck him two quick blows
across the face with it.
"Drive us to that house!" said Dick.
The postilion mounted, without a word, and Dick, retaining the whip,
joined Collette inside the carriage.
At the chateau, while Collette remained in the carriage, Dick got out to
speak to the servant who opened the door in response to the postilion's
knock. Dick so framed his message to the master of the house, that the
latter himself came to the door, Dick remaining outside to guard
Collette and the carriage. The master of the house, lighted by the
candles in the entrance-hall, was an elderly gentleman, tall and
slender, with a bright eye and a face at once kindly, distinguished, and
intellectual.
"Monsieur," said Dick, in as good French as he could command, "a
circumstance has made it impossible for me to continue to-night a
journey I began in that carriage a few hours ago. The only inn near at
hand is one where it would be equally impossible for the lady whom I
have the honor to protect, to pass the night. The lady is now in the
carriage, and--"
"Monsieur need say no more," replied the gentleman, in a most courteous
and sympathetic tone. "My house shall be the lady's inn and your own.
There is no hostess yet to welcome her, but fortunately there is a maid,
whom I shall send immediately. As for you, monsieur, when you have seen
the lady cared for, Etienne will show you, if you choose, to the room in
which I shall be at supper. The lady will doubtless prefer to sup in her
own apartment."
"I thank you, monsieur, but we have supped already. I will do myself the
honor to join you, nevertheless, and make myself better acquainted with
so courteous a gentleman."
The gentleman smiled, bowed, and disappeared through an inner door. Dick
returned to Collette.
"A maid will come for you in a moment," said he. "Our host is a most
charming gentleman, both in act and in appearance."
"I did not look out of the carriage to see him," said Collette, taking
Dick's hand and stepping to the ground. "Why, how strange that I should
be a guest at this house! I recognize it now. It is one that I have
often noticed while riding past in the road below. I have always wished
I might live in it."
A maid now appeared at the doorway. Collette took leave of Dick for the
night, saying she desired nothing further and would defer till morning
her meeting with the master of the house. Dick thereupon sent the
shivering postilion, with horses, carriage, and whip, back to the
auberge, and asked Etienne, the servant who had let him in, and who
still stood in the entrance-hall, to show him to the supper table.
In a richly furnished room, softly lighted by wax candles, and warmed by
fragrant fagots in a small fireplace, he found his considerate host
seated at a well-filled table, opposite a round-faced priest, still
under middle age, who beamed with merriment and good nature. Dick
announced his name, and was thereupon introduced to the Abbé Foyard by
the master of the house, who then said:
"Monsieur will pardon me, I am sure, if I adhere--merely for the sake of
habit--to the incognito I am preserving in this neighborhood at present.
I do not wish my name to get abroad as the new purchaser of this
estate."
"My obligations are no less for my not knowing to whom they are due,
monsieur," said Dick, taking the seat to which his host motioned him, at
the table. He would eat nothing, but he would drink some wine, and he
joined in a toast of Burgundy, proposed by the Abbé, with a twinkling
eye, to "Madame la Comtesse that is to be."
From the fact that in the ensuing conversation the Abbé addressed the
master of the house as Monsieur le Comte, Dick soon understood the
toast, the Abbé's look of sly merriment, and the half pleased, half
chiding expression of the Count himself. The bottle went round often,
and the talk became unconstrained. Dick made it known that he was an
American, whereupon he was plied with many questions concerning the war,
and particularly concerning the personality of Washington. The Count
then said he had seen that great philosopher, Franklin, in Paris,
honored by beautiful women and celebrated men, among whom he appeared in
his plain coat, as if the simplicity of the ancient sages had been in
him revived.
"It is in the hope of meeting him," said Dick, "that I am now on the way
to Paris."
"Then you have a pleasure very near at hand," said the Count.
"I trust it is near at hand," said Dick. "It may be delayed by another
matter that must intervene,--also a pleasure."
"You speak and look as if it were a matter of some doubt or difficulty,"
said the Count. "If I can be of assistance--"
"I thank you, monsieur, but it is a matter in which the aid of Monsieur
l'Abbé would be more to the point."
"Command me, monsieur," put in the Abbé. "My aid is for whoever asks
it."
"I begin to understand," said the Count, with a kindly smile. "The lady
in the carriage--"
"Precisely," said Dick. "Monsieur le Comte is very penetrating."
"Oh, no, very stupid, usually," said the Count. "But at present there is
a reason why my perception is keen wherever a love affair or a marriage
is concerned."
"Then it is true, as the toast of Monsieur l'Abbé indicated, that you
also are about to achieve happiness? We have to felicitate each other!"
"Yes, it is true. And so great is my happiness that I would have the
whole world happy at the same time. I was saying this to the Abbé only
an hour ago, and wishing for opportunities to make others similarly
happy, when, behold, the good God grants my wish by sending you to my
door. You would have the aid of the Abbé, you say? Very well. I use the
power I have over the Abbé's actions, through his affection for me, to
compel his aid in your behalf."
"But that is not necessary," said the Abbé. "You know I dote upon
runaway matches. I need not apologize, Monsieur Wetheral,--one can
easily see, by the circumstances, that yours is a runaway match. It is
therefore a love match."
"You are right, Monsieur l'Abbé. The young lady was to have been
sacrificed, according to the custom that prevails everywhere but in my
country. Her horror at the match arranged for her would have distressed
you, gentlemen, if you could have witnessed it."
"I am sure it would have distressed me," said the Count. "But it is now
averted, and need be thought of no more. The Abbé shall perform your
marriage before you leave my roof, under which you are safe from all
pursuit."
"Imagine Monsieur le Comte aiding and abetting a runaway marriage a year
ago!" said the Abbé, with a roguish smile.
"The Abbé is right, young gentleman. A year ago I should no more have
thought of violating a universal custom of our civilization than of
joining a conspiracy against the King. But a year ago I had not loved. I
knew not what it might be for a man to see the woman he loved given into
the possession of another. I now consider love as having first right. It
is to be obeyed against all other considerations. Moreover, if I now do
Love a service in aiding this match of yours, Love will owe me a favor.
It may repay me by--giving me--" The Count ceased talking, and sighed.
"Monsieur le Comte has a strange fancy he does not receive back as much
love as he bestows," explained the Abbé, gently. "He does not allow for
the lady's youth, which makes her naturally shy and undemonstrative in
his presence."
"I am sure there can be no reason for his fancy," said Dick, glancing
with genuine admiration at the singularly noble and gentle countenance
of his host.
"And if there were," said the Abbé, noting that the Count still looked
pensive, "what woman's heart could continue long unsusceptible to such
munificence? What think you of this château, with its princely parks, as
a wedding present, monsieur,--a little surprise, after the jewels, the
house in Paris, and the other trinkets shall have been surveyed? Do you
not think that, if anything be wanting to make the lady's heart respond,
it will be supplied when she is told that she is mistress of this house,
which, as Monsieur le Comte has learned, she has coveted since her
childhood?"
Dick's thought that the Abbé knew less of how women are constituted than
abbés are supposed to know, was suddenly driven out by another
thought,--that it was strange two young ladies should both have coveted
this château since childhood.
"You now understand," said the Count to Dick, "my desire to remain
unknown as the purchaser of this place. I would not have the news reach
her ears and spoil the surprise. And I congratulate myself on being
here, superintending the last alterations, and on having brought the
Abbé with me as company; for that your love match may be somewhat
facilitated through us. Come, Abbé, rejoice with me that we are enabled
to serve love, and to baffle those who would do it violence! What
greater crime can there be than to force a girl to a marriage of
interest? Your rival, monsieur, will deserve his discomfiture! I should
really like to witness his chagrin. To conspire selfishly, with a young
girl's natural protectors, against her happiness! Yes, it pleases me to
think how crestfallen he will be! Monsieur, you have drunk already to my
future countess; let us drink now to the lady whom the Abbé shall unite
to you in this house at whatever time she may select!"
The toast was drunk heartily, and Dick, letting his eyes rove lazily
among the many signs of wealth and luxurious comfort in the room,
inwardly contrasted the possible future of the girl whose fate he was to
take in charge, with that of her whose destiny was to be in the keeping
of the rich and generous Count.
"To think that her house should serve the romantic purpose of a runaway
love match!" said the Count, with a smile. "It will amuse Collette."
Dick turned pale. "Collette!" he echoed. "You said Collette!"
"That is the first name of the lady who is to be my wife," explained
the Count. "Why does it startle you?"
"Oh, because I have heard that name so recently. My own fiancée has a
friend of that name,--a schoolmate, at a convent somewhere near
Montreuil."
"'Tis the very same!" cried the Count, with great pleasure. "To think,
Abbé, that we should be of service to one of her friends! That surely
will delight her!"
"But," faltered Dick, "is it certain? There may be two of that name at
the same convent. The one of whom I speak has left it very recently,
with her aunt--"
"It is she!" said the Count, more and more rejoiced at corroborative
details. "She ought to be at this moment at Abbeville or Amiens, on the
way to Paris to be married. She will pass this house and look up at it,
wishing it were hers, as she has so often done, and never dreaming I am
here making it ready for her! Yes, there can be no doubt, it is the same
Collette,--Mademoiselle de Sarton!"
When Dick was shown to a round chamber in a turret-shaped corner of the
château that night, he asked for pen, ink, and paper, saying he always
wrote his letters late. By the light of a small candelabra, and after
much thought and many beginnings, he composed two documents before he
went to bed.
At earliest dawn he dressed and went down-stairs, told the only servant
he found up that he was going for a short walk, and left with the
servant the two letters, each to be taken to the chamber of its intended
recipient. Then Dick hastened to the auberge where his horses and
postilion had passed the night.
One letter was to Collette, and read as follows:
"MADEMOISELLE:
"You are now in your own house, which you have so long wished to
possess. Its master, the noblest, kindest, and handsomest
gentleman in the world, with boundless will and means to make you
happy, is he from whom I, a worthless adventurer with neither
possessions nor prospects, would have taken you, in my ignorance
and folly. You should thank God for your escape and for giving you
a husband such as Monsieur le Comte, whose years have but added to
his graces and his merits. I have written him to such effect that
he will understand all, and that, when he comes to greet you,
nothing will be necessary on your part but for you to give him
your hand, and offer your brow for the caress which a princess
might be rejoiced and honored to receive."
The other letter was to the Count himself, and, whatever it contained,
there is plentiful record, in the family history of the Counts de
Rollincourt, to show that it accomplished its purpose. By the time the
aunt of Mlle. de Sarton reached the newly bought estate of the Count de
Rollincourt, in mad search of her fugitive niece, servants were in
waiting at the road to conduct her to the château, where her amazement
to find the Count in possession was promptly doubled on seeing Collette
installed as mistress,--for, if the Count's little surprise was spoiled,
his plan of having the Abbé Foyard perform an impromptu marriage was
carried out, after all.
Meanwhile, long before this happy issue of affairs, Dick Wetheral had
roused the cowed postilion and set out on horseback towards Paris,
leaving the carriage to be taken back when the postilion should return.
Dismissing this postilion at the first post, he took new horses, and,
riding all day, despite weather and bad roads, he arrived at evening at
St. Denis, and dismounted at the principal inn,--tired, hungry, and
bespattered with mud. Before going to bed, he sent for a servant to give
his clothes a thorough cleaning, that he might in the morning make his
triumphal entry into Paris in a state of attire befitting so important
an event. When his head rested on the pillow, it was with a pleasant
thrill at the realization that his road, roundabout as it had been, had
indeed led him to the very portals of Paris, and that it would take him
across those portals on the early morrow.
He little knew in what manner he was to cross those portals, how he was
to pass through the city yet see it not, and what a vast loop his road
was to describe, over strange perils and through wild heart-burnings,
ere it should land him in Paris with free feet and open eyes.
CHAPTER XVI.
PASTORAL AND TRAGEDY.
The morrow, March 2d, was Sunday, and with it came a change to soft and
sunny weather. As Dick soon learned, this was a day to bring Parisians
out into the fields; a day on which the people would go to church and
then to pleasure, in their gayest clothes; a day on which a stranger
entering Paris in Dick's circumstances would be out of harmony with the
general picture. Moreover, gladdened by the unexpected foretaste of
spring, St. Denis itself looked charming. Therefore, Dick decided to
postpone the long-anticipated entrance till Monday.
He went in the morning to the famous abbey church where the kings of
France were buried; and after that he walked to the banks of the Seine,
whose waters sparkled in the sunlight or flowed green beneath the trees
along the edge. Doing as he saw some others do, Dick hired a boat, with
a boatman, and started to row up the Seine,--that is to say, southward,
towards St. Ouen and the more immediate environs of Paris.
Keeping to the right or eastern bank of the river, the boat had reached
a place between an island and a terraced park, when it was suddenly run
into by a larger craft, which contained a pleasure party rowing down the
river. Dick's boat was upset, and himself thrown out in such a way that
he had to dive to save his head from collision. He made a few powerful
strokes under water, to put himself clear of the boats, and when he came
to the surface he found that his boatman had been taken aboard by the
pleasure party and was proceeding down the river, the smaller boat in
tow. There was evidently no intention, on any one's part, to pick up
Dick.
"French politeness, in the lower classes, is so thick on the top that
there's none left at bottom," thought Dick, thus abandoned; and then he
struck out for the noble park that rose on the right bank of the river.
Thanks to the evergreens among its trees, and to its grass streaked here
and there with sunshine, this park had even now a verdant appearance,
and it was made inviting by little pavilions and summer-houses here and
there, and by glimpses of a charming château in its midst.
Dick had no sooner clambered ashore and risen to let the water drip from
his clothes, than a slender girl, eleven years old, came out of a
summer-house, carrying a cane, as was the fashion of the time, and
accompanied on one side by a footman who held a parasol over her, and
on the other by a large, bounding black dog. She had an extremely
intelligent face, the hair turning back from a thoughtful forehead. Her
manner and, as Dick soon found out, her speech were those of a woman
twice her age.
"Monsieur has been emulating Leander," said this young lady of eleven,
the instant she was within speaking distance of Dick, one glance of her
fine eyes having enabled her to estimate him to her own satisfaction.
Surprised at such a speech, made with such nonchalance by such a child,
Dick gazed for a moment in silence. She bore his gaze with perfect
sang-froid. So he said, smiling:
"It would be worth while, if mademoiselle were the daughter of Sestos."
"Has monsieur swum all the way from England?" asked the girl, evidently
to show that she recognized his way of speaking French.
"Mademoiselle mistakes, doubtless for the first time in her life," said
Dick. "I am an American, and if I have not swum all the way from
America, I am at least as wet as if I had."
"Monsieur is indeed a veritable rain-storm. Alphonse, show monsieur to a
room where he may dry his clothes. If he went home in them as they are,
he might catch cold,--America is some distance away. You may leave me
alone,--yonder comes Monsieur Marmontel."
The footman, resigning to her the parasol at a gesture, immediately led
Dick, over gravel walks flanked by lime-trees and foliage, to a side
entrance of the handsome house, and thence up-stairs to a chamber, in
which another servant soon started a fire. After taking off his clothes
to dry them, Dick donned a dressing-gown brought him by the footman. The
chamber having been placed entirely at his service, he made use of its
toilet articles to restore his best appearance. This done, and his
clothes dried, he put them on again, and went out the way he had come,
looking around, when he reached the front of the house, for some one to
thank.
"The weather has changed as to monsieur," came a voice from a clump of
shrubs, and the girl stepped into view, attended, as before, by the
footman.
"It is true, mademoiselle. I no longer weep tears of Seine water.
Instead, I smile in my heart with gratitude. May I know to whom my
thanks are due? I am--"
"No, no, do not say who you are! One is far more interesting who remains
unknown, and I am dying to meet an interesting person."
"I am sure mademoiselle would remain interesting, even if I knew her
name."
"No, for as long as you don't know me I shall be just as interesting to
you as your imagination can make me. Besides, the luxury of being
unknown, at St. Ouen, where everybody knows me, is refreshing. It makes
me seem another person."
She had led the way farther from the château while talking, and now she
sat down on a rustic bench, and motioned Alphonse to take away the
parasol. Dick saw no reason for an immediate departure, so he stood
behind the bench, looking now at the girl, now at the large trees on the
terrace.
"Do you know, an idea has come to me," said the girl, when Alphonse had
taken his station some distance away. The dog now came bursting through
some leafless foliage, and stood beside her, receiving her light
caresses while the conversation went on.
"If ideas are as uncommon in France as they are elsewhere," said Dick,
"you will be famous."
"I shall doubtless be famous some day, but not through this idea. It is
not original. The Abbé Raynal and I used to amuse ourselves by means of
it, but I knew all the while that he was the Abbé Raynal, and he knew
that I was Germaine--_mon Dieu_, I nearly spoiled all by telling my
name!"
"Germaine," repeated Dick. "I shall remember that, at least."
"I give you permission to remember it, only on condition that you
promise not to find out who I am, or whose house this is."
"Very well. After all, I like mystery. I promise."
"So much the better. This is the idea. When I was younger, I used to
have a little make-believe theatre, with miniature actors that I cut out
of paper. The Abbé overheard me one day rehearsing them in a little
comedy I had written, and offered to act with me whatever pieces
required only two characters. We began with a piece containing a
shepherd and a shepherdess, and, from acting that, we went a step
farther, and continued to pretend that we were the shepherds, carrying
out the illusion without premeditated speech or action. The Abbé had
done similar things at Sceaux, in the time of the Duchess du Maine."
"I have read of the French nobility having amused themselves in that
way," said Dick.
"Yes, when all the world was reading 'Astrée,' and a hundred years
later, when Watteau and the opera brought shepherds into fashion again,"
replied this youthful prodigy of information. "It was a charming
amusement, was it not? But the trouble was, when we attempted it, that
no amount of imagination could transform the Abbé, with his 'History of
the Two Indies' in mind, into a shepherd. You understand, I knew him so
well. But you, of whom I know nothing, and who have come into my view in
so strange a manner--"
"More like a river god than like a shepherd," commented Dick.
"Oh, shepherds often fell into brooks! Nothing could be more in
character. Well, we are to play that you are a shepherd called--not
Celadon; we sha'n't take our names from d'Urfé,--let me think--"
"Silvius," suggested Dick, remembering the shepherds of Arden, in
Shakespeare.
"Yes, Silvius is a good name. And I shall be Amaryllis."
"And where are the sheep?"
"We shall have to imagine the sheep at present, though I can obtain some
easily enough. Well, you shall come every day in a boat, in the
afternoon, and I will be waiting somewhere near the place at which you
landed this morning."
"And must I come as wet as I was this morning?"
"No. You shall be a dry shepherd hereafter. Come about two o'clock, if
the weather is clear; but remember, I am not to know where you come
from, or whither you go when you leave, any more than you are to know
who I am. Now, that is all settled! Till to-morrow, Silvius!"
"But how am I to get home to-day? Would you have me swim?"
"No. Alphonse will show you out by the gate to-day, and you can go by
land to your lodge,--remember, shepherds dwell in lodges. But after
this you will come in a boat, and leave it at the shore to return by.
So, till to-morrow, Silvius!"
"Till to-morrow, Amaryllis!" said Dick, with a bow not very
shepherd-like. Obedient to a word from the girl, Alphonse, who had
heeded nothing of her talk if he had heard it, conducted Dick past the
house and through more of the park, to a gate, which opened on a
tree-lined avenue. Dick turned to the left, and a walk of about a mile
and a half brought him to St. Denis, where he dined and spent the rest
of the day thinking of his odd adventure.
He found himself looking forward to the next day with pleasure. The
bright face and the expressive eyes seemed to draw him back towards St.
Ouen. He could not get them out of his mind. The knowledge of their
proximity gave the whole neighborhood a new life and charm. He no longer
wished to hasten from that neighborhood. Paris no longer lured him as
with irresistible seductions. He found it now quite easy to tarry at the
very threshold of the city.
"Can it be possible," he thought, "that I am falling in love with this
child?"
He knew not that men twice and thrice his age--great men, whose names
sounded through the world of philosophy and letters--had asked
themselves the same question, regarding the same child.
The next morning, Dick visited one or two small shops in St. Denis, and
added to his meagre supply of linen, handkerchiefs, and hosiery.
Considering the small stock of money he had left, this was a piece of
extravagance, but he counted on immediate employment by Mr. Franklin, on
reaching Paris. Such is the confidence of youth.
In the afternoon he hired a boat, this time without a boatman, and rowed
alone to the appointed landing-place. As soon as he had made his boat
fast, he saw his shepherdess approaching down the terrace, herself
carrying the parasol, the footman standing back within hearing distance.
"Good day, Amaryllis!" he called out.
"Good day, Silvius! Follow me to my lodge." She led the way to a rustic
open summer-house veiled by a clump of trees, the smaller ones forming a
semicircle that enclosed a sunlit, grassy space descending gradually
from the summer-house to a row of shrubs that grew along the river.
"This is my lodge," she said, sitting on the bench that ran around the
inside of the structure.
Dick sat on the step at the entrance, near her feet, and said, glancing
at the clear space before them:
"I see your lodge is situated so that you can sit in it and keep your
sheep in sight while they graze."
"Yes, this spot is their favorite pasture, as you can see."
Dick looked at the invisible sheep dotting the clean sward. "So I
perceive. But let me understand. Is this flock yours alone, or are my
sheep also here?"
"Oh, you have left your flock on your own hillside, and have come up the
stream to see me. Neglectful shepherd!"
"When a shepherd neglects his own sheep, and hies to the lodge of a
neighboring shepherdess, you know what it is a sign of," said Dick.
"It is a sign that he likes to gossip."
"No; it is a sign that Cupid is at work."
Amaryllis blushed ever so slightly, but seemed pleased, and did not lose
her composure. "Well, to be sure, that is what invariably occurs between
shepherds and shepherdesses. I suppose there is no way of getting around
it."
"Not when Amaryllis is the shepherdess, by Jupiter!" said Dick, with
genuine enthusiasm.
So the game went on, and, whether or not it was all fun with Amaryllis,
it soon became half in earnest with Silvius. By a miracle, the balmy
weather, a premature promise of spring, lasted a week. Every day Silvius
came to the tryst, and, when he did not find Amaryllis waiting, he had
not long to wait for her. They strolled along the wooded banks of the
Seine, fancying those banks to be now those of the Lignon, now those of
the Tiber, now those of some Hellenic or Sicilian stream.
Sometimes a dainty luncheon, set out in the lodge or under the trees,
varied the monotony of this shepherd life. Sometimes the conversation
rose far out of the ken of ordinary shepherds, and invaded such subjects
as philosophy and religion, sentiment and the passions, art and letters,
music and the drama. Amaryllis described the acting of LeKain, and
Silvius gave an account of the last appearance of Garrick, which Dick
had witnessed from the first gallery of Drury Lane Theatre the previous
June 10th, when the English actor played "Don Felix" in "The Wonder" and
made a farewell speech that drew tears from himself and his brilliant
audience. But Dick learned far more than he could impart. His week of
make-believe pastoral was an education, and did more to fit him for the
fine world than all his former years had done. Of course that week had
results of the heart as well as of the intellect.
One afternoon, the second Tuesday of their acquaintance, after they had
sat some time at the lodge in silence, Dick gazing pensively at the
green space before him, he let his thought take the form of speech:
"After all, when you are eighteen I shall be only twenty-six."
"That will be seven years from now," she said, lightly. "Seven years is
a very long time."
"So much the better. It gives a man like me time to attain a position
worthy of a woman like you."
"Oh, position, rank, and that sort of thing, what are they, after all?
Have you heard what the Empress of Russia said to Monsieur Diderot? You
know that by devoting himself to the encyclopædia, Monsieur Diderot has
kept himself poor, and his threadbare coat is no affectation. Well,
Catherine II., aware of this, and appreciating the great sacrifice made
in the interest of knowledge, bought Monsieur Diderot's library at a
fine price, and then ordered it left in Paris, and appointed him her
librarian to take care of it. Monsieur Diderot went to St. Petersburg
four years ago, to thank her in person, and while he was there Catherine
and he got into many disputes on questions of philosophy. One day
Diderot hinted that he was at a disadvantage in arguing with the Empress
of all the Russias. 'Nonsense,' said Catherine, 'is there any difference
between men?'"
Dick sighed, perceiving that she had sought to divert him from the topic
he had broached. He rowed back to St. Denis that evening an unmistakably
love-sick youth. He could hardly wait for the next afternoon, that he
might renew the subject at any hazard.
On the morrow, to his dismay, the sky was dark, and chill winds were
blowing. Spring, having thrust her sunny face in at the door too soon,
had been frightened far away, and might never have been present, so
different was to-day's world from yesterday's. Dick resolved,
nevertheless, to make his usual voyage.
Rain had already begun to fall on the agitated surface of the river,
when he landed at the park. He hastened to the lodge and found it empty.
How bleak and utterly forlorn the place now seemed! How disconsolate in
heart was Dick! Well, he ought not to have expected her on such a day.
He gazed with a heavy sigh at the spot where she usually sat.
What was that white thing, lying under a pebble, on that very spot? Dick
seized it eagerly, saw the name "Silvius" written on it, opened it out
hastily with trembling fingers. It was indeed a note, written in a
charming hand, and signed "Amaryllis." His disappointment turned to
gladness,--for the first sight of the beloved's handwriting, addressed
to oneself, is as good as an interview,--and he read:
"For a few days I must be away, yet Silvius will come as usual to
the lodge, will he not? On the day of her return, he will find
Amaryllis waiting. Since I last saw Silvius I have been thinking.
It is true, seven years is not a very long time!"
One knows, without being told, what demonstrations Silvius made over
this letter, how often he re-read it, what other things he did to it,
and where he finally bestowed it as he returned to his boat to row back
to St. Denis. He scarcely knew what he was doing, as he pulled his boat
out into the current, or how disturbed the river was, how heavily the
rain came down. So overjoyed was he by the promise contained in the last
line of the letter, that he was not cognizant of outward circumstances
until he was half-way between St. Ouen and St. Denis. Then he became
aware of the work of wind and water. He saw, moreover, that the day was
as dark as late evening, and that all signs were growing more
threatening every minute.
"The devil!" thought he. "This is not a time for taking chances, now
that such prospects await me. I must guard my life and health, and
achieve great things during those seven years."
He therefore rowed to an old, abandoned landing, which led to a ruined
garden, within whose crumbling walls stood a deserted house of rough
gray stone. On Dick's first row up the river, he had been told by the
boatman that this house had long been unoccupied.
Making his boat fast to a wooden spile, Dick went through the half
unhinged, half opened gate which was partly sunk into the earth, and up
the weed-grown garden walk, to the house. The door yielded to his
pressure, and he passed through a bare, dark, damp, mouldy corridor,
into a room whose windows opened on the garden. Though otherwise empty,
this room contained an old oak table, and several rough wooden chairs.
Dick sat down and waited for the storm to abate.
The doors and windows creaked, the wind sighed through the corridors and
chambers overhead, the rains beat on what glass remained in the
casements. But what was that other sound? Surely it was of the footsteps
of men. Peering through the window, Dick saw forms approaching through
the shrubbery, from a small side gate in the garden wall. These were,
doubtless, the last of a party whose foremost members were already in
the corridor.
The intruders came cautiously, but as if familiar with the place.
Evidently some organized meeting was at hand in this empty house. Dick
noticed the chairs and table anew. What were these men? A social club, a
gang of thieves, or a band of conspirators? In any one of these cases
Dick felt that he would be _de trop_. Manifestly the men were
approaching the room in which he sat. They were already too near the
door for him to escape unseen by the corridor. So he slipped into the
wide, empty fireplace with which the room was provided, and whose rear
was quite in shadow. A moment later three men entered the room.
Each took from beneath his cloak a bundle wrapped in cloth, and laid it
on the table, then sat down and waited. Other men arrived, almost
immediately, and the number kept increasing at short intervals until
perhaps fifteen were gathered. Their conversation so far had consisted
of brief remarks about the weather. They now sat in an irregular
semicircle, facing the table. The man who had first entered arose and
opened the bundles. The gray light of the stormy afternoon disclosed the
contents of these bundles as three swords and several pistols.
"Messieurs," said the man who had risen,--an erect, powerful, handsome
man of thirty,--"the hour is almost at hand. That all of us may
participate in the intention, though but one of us may strike the blow,
I am to describe fully the plan agreed upon by the Committee of Three.
As each one of us is potentially the chosen arm of the Brotherhood in
this honorable deed, it behooves each one to attend every detail as if
he were, in fact, already the selected instrument."
The men sat in perfect silence, their eyes fixed upon the speaker, every
attitude being that of breathless attention.
"In this silken bag," continued the orator, producing from beneath his
cloak that which he mentioned, "are a number of beans. One of them is
red, four are black, the others white. As soon as the plan of action
shall have been made known, each man shall draw from the bag a single
bean, in the order in which his name appears on our list. When all have
drawn, and not till then, each man shall disclose his bean to view at
the table. The possessor of the red bean will be God's choice for the
performance of this holy mission. He shall choose one of these swords,
which differ in weight and size, though all have been blessed and
devoted to our righteous purpose. The four who hold black beans shall
guide and guard the chosen instrument, both to protect him, and to
assure the Brotherhood against the consequences of any possible weakness
on his part. The holders of the white beans shall not act in the present
task; but, in the improbable event of its failure, the whole Brotherhood
shall assist the four, if necessary, as avengers against the brother who
will have failed, as spies to seek him out should he hide, as hounds
upon his track should he flee, as executioners to compass his death when
he is brought before us. Is it agreed?"
"Agreed!" said every man, resolutely, with clenched fingers, set teeth,
and gleaming eyes.
"The procedure shall be in this wise," went on the leader. "In an hour,
a carriage will be waiting outside the gate of this garden. The chosen
man, armed with the sword, shall be conducted to it by the four, each
provided with two of these pistols. Two of the four shall enter the
carriage with him, the other two shall take the place of the coachman,
who will be dismissed. The carriage shall set forth at once. The
Committee of Three has provided already for its passage through the
barrier, unhindered by the revenue collectors. The carriage will proceed
through the Faubourg de St. Denis, cross the boulevard, turn into the
Rue Clery, and so continue to the corner of the Rue du Petit Carreau, at
which corner, as we all know, the house is situated. The two gentlemen
of the black bean, in the carriage, shall accompany him of the red bean
to the door, their hands upon their pistols beneath their cloaks. When
the servant responds to their knock, the chosen man shall give the name
of Victor Mayet, and say that he must see Monsieur Necker immediately.
Victor Mayet is a clerk in the General Control Office, and Necker will
suppose he comes on a matter of urgent importance. Necker also will
surely receive him alone. When the man enters, his two comrades shall
return to the carriage, and wait for his reappearance. The man himself
will keep his sword concealed until he is alone with Necker. At that
moment, taking our enemy by surprise, he will thrust his sword into
Necker's body as many times as may be necessary to assure its reaching
a vital spot. So shall fall the haughty bourgeois Protestant, whom the
King in his blindness has raised to the most powerful post in the land,
and would doubtless soon, but for our intervention, raise higher; thus
shall God's holy religion and the nobility of France obtain revenge and
triumph at our hands."
There were murmurs of applause, repressed exclamations of "_Vive le
roi!_" and other signs of intense enthusiasm.
"Then, messieurs, he whose arm shall have struck this glorious blow,
shall hasten back to the carriage, and it shall be driven at once to my
lodgings in the Rue St. Honore, which, though not large enough for such
meetings as this, will serve as a hiding-place for the five gentlemen
until news comes, from other sources than the chosen man himself, of the
death of Necker. When such news comes, the four guards shall release the
happy Instrument of the Brotherhood. Until such news comes, they shall
guard him unremittingly; and, if it turn out that Necker still lives,
the man who ought to have slain him shall die in his place, at the hands
of the four. Thus are we assured against treason, weakness, or bungling,
on the part of him whom God, in the guise of chance, shall elect to do
our Brotherhood and France this service. Messieurs, each of you
remembering that the red bean or a black one may fall to him, are you
still agreed?"
The expressions of assent were as prompt and determined as before.
"Let us proceed at once to the drawing," said the leader.
"Pardon, brother," spoke up another. "It is so dark that, when we come
to show what beans we have drawn, we shall hardly be able to distinguish
the colors."
"Bring the candles, then, from the mantel to the table, and light them,"
said the leader.
Dick's heart underwent a sudden jump. Two men came straight for the
fireplace. Accustomed, now, to the half darkness of the room, both
descried his form vaguely, and at the same moment. "The devil! A spy!"
cried one. The other drew a pistol of his own, and instantly brought it
to bear.
"One moment!" cried Dick, stepping forth. "I am an unintentional
intruder. Rather, it was you that intruded upon me. I had sought shelter
here from the rain, when I heard you coming. Foolishly, thinking this
might be a refuge of thieves, I hid in the fireplace, hoping to remain
unseen till you had gone."
The assembled men, all of whom had risen, looked at Dick and then at one
another.
"I quite believe you, monsieur," said the speaker of the meeting,
courteously, after some moments, "not only because it is my gift to
perceive when a man is telling the truth, but also because a spy would
be sure of discovery in such a hiding-place. Nevertheless, you have
overheard everything that has been said here this afternoon."
"How could I avoid doing so?" said Dick.
"I do not say it was a fault on your part to overhear, monsieur," said
the other, whose authority over his comrades was manifestly so complete
that they left the present matter entirely to him, only waiting with
silent attention to carry out what orders he might give. "But what you
have heard, you would doubtless feel called upon, sooner or later, to
reveal, unless you were entirely of the same mind with us."
Here he paused, but Dick said nothing, for Dick did not choose to risk
certain death by admitting that he would feel so called upon. After a
moment, during which the speaker seemed to read Dick's thoughts, he went
on:
"You might give us an assurance that you would remember nothing of what
has passed here, but how could we let you go, on that assurance,
monsieur? For, if you secretly meant to betray us, you would feel
justified in giving that assurance, for the sake of your life and of
defeating our purpose. Or, you might give your word in all honesty, and
yet at some future time feel justified in breaking it. You can plainly
see, monsieur, that there is nothing for us to do but to kill you on the
spot--"
Dick read the quiet resolution in the speaker's eyes, and the more
impetuous determination in the eyes of the others; considered his
unarmed condition and the utter impossibility of a rush through the line
of stalwart forms that encircled him; and thought of Amaryllis, the
seven years, and the long and brilliant future that seemed about to
burst like a soap-bubble in a moment.
"Or to receive you as a member of our Brotherhood," concluded the
leader, calmly. Used to judging men instantly, he had doubtless
estimated Dick as a gentleman worthy of membership.
Forgetting for the moment what this alternative entailed, seeing only
the unexpected chance of life held out, Dick instantly grasped at the
latter. "Very well, I will join," he said.
But the matter had to be thoroughly considered by the assembly, and
there was a careful discussion of it for half an hour, while Dick sat
silent before the table, on which, in the meantime, candles had been
placed and lighted. During this talk, he began to realize all that he
was taking on himself in joining what was neither more nor less than a
secret society, whose present purpose was assassination. But a man with
his life in his hand must seize the first means of gaining time that
offers, and face each consequence when it occurs. The chances were in
favor of his having nothing to do with the sanguinary affair to be
immediately attempted; and he could probably give the Brotherhood the
slip in the near future. In any case, it was impossible to prevent the
attempt now under way, and the question as to whether he should
eventually expose that attempt, was a river not to be crossed till he
should come to it. Perhaps, after all, this Necker, whose name he knew
only as that of Councillor of Finance and General Director of the Royal
Treasury, was a rascal who merited death, as many public officials did;
certainly the Brotherhood showed a humane disposition in considering an
alternative by which Dick's life might be saved. Perhaps the removal of
their chosen victim, even by death, would benefit humanity,--so little
was Dick acquainted with matters of state.
Well, it was decided to admit him. He had to repeat a long oath after
the leader, kiss one of the swords, which, having been blessed, served
in place of a Bible, and sign his name at the foot of a list that the
secretary produced from a leather bag, which that officer carried to and
from the meetings, and which contained materials for what few records
the society required.
"And now," said the leader, "it is growing late. The carriage will be at
the gate at any moment. Let us draw for the honor that God holds ready
for one of us."
He held the bag in his left hand, and thrust his right hand inside; when
he withdrew the latter, he kept it closed, and passed silently, with the
bag, from man to man; knowing, without reference to the list, in what
order their names stood. Before this, he had put an additional white
bean into the bag, having been provided with several surplus ones. Each
man kept his hand closed on withdrawing it. When the bag reached Dick,
there was only one bean left. He did as the others had done. Then, not a
word being said, the leader laid aside the bag, and all pressed close to
the table, which they quite surrounded. Every right hand was laid out,
palm down, on the bare oak surface. The leader was the first to
disclose.
"A black bean!" he cried. "That is something, at least! Who has the red
one?"
Every eye turned with intense eagerness, from the bean immediately
before it, to the beans right and left,--every eye but Dick Wetheral's,
that is to say, for his remained fastened, with a kind of mild
astonishment, on the palm of his hand, whereon lay a bean that was red.
"Come, brother," the leader was saying, when Dick at last looked up.
"Choose a sword. I hear the carriage at the gate."
Before he had recovered from his bewilderment, Dick was passing through
the rain, towards the gate, clasping one of the swords tightly beneath
his coat. At his right arm was the leader, who carried one of the other
two swords, as well as a pistol in each outer pocket; at the left arm
was a second man, similarly armed. Two other men mounted the coachman's
place.
"Which way, monsieur?" said one of these latter, in joking imitation of
a driver, when Dick and his guards were seated in the dark carriage.
"The road to Paris," said the leader, and drew the coach door after him
with a bang.
CHAPTER XVII.
"STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE."
The chill and rainy afternoon gave way to an evening as rainy and more
chill. The carriage rolled southward, past St. Ouen, and still on. Those
inside spoke not a word. The men on the coachman's seat protected
themselves from the rain with their cloaks as best they could, and
uttered no complaint. Dick could see nothing through the carriage
window, against the dark sky, but the darker forms of trees and
buildings gliding by. He had too much else on his mind to appreciate the
fact that he was at last about to enter Paris, the goal of his
dream-journeys in childhood. At first he was in a kind of stupor, and
felt like one hurled through increasing darkness towards blackest night,
there to meet annihilation. Then his mind began to work, and soon was in
a whirl. Assassination,--he shrank from it with disgust and horror. The
alternative, death,--he recoiled from the idea, as youth and hope ever
must recoil. Was there no middle course? He racked his brain to find
one; he found it not, yet still he racked his brain.
It was quite dark now, and they had passed the outer barrier without
Dick's noting the fact. But the houses, now close together and of
different character from those of the village of La Chapelle, indicated
that the carriage must be in the faubourg, at least. Presently Dick
perceived that they were passing beneath a great arch (it was the Porte
St. Denis, erected under Louis XIV., though Dick knew it not); then that
they turned to the right, and, a minute later, obliquely to the left,
finally proceeding along a slightly narrower street than they had
already traversed. A movement on the part of the man at his right seemed
to indicate that the destination was near at hand. They were indeed in
the Rue Clery, and approaching the Rue du Petit Carreau, although the
dark streets were nameless to Dick. Suddenly he had an idea. He gave a
start, as if he had awakened from a feverish sleep.
"Messieurs," he said, in a half terrified tone, "I have had a remarkable
dream, a wonderfully vivid one, though I have not for a moment lost
sense of my being with you in this carriage."
"It is the time for acts now, not for dreams," said the leader of the
Brotherhood.
"But this dream concerns the act," said Dick, in an awe-stricken manner.
"It was rather a vision than a dream. I felt, and feel now, as if it
were a message from above."
"Let us hear it, then," said the leader.
"I dreamt all had been carried out as planned, up to the moment of my
striking the blow. And then the man caught the sword entering his body,
and broke it in two, though the hilt was still in my hand. He drew the
point from his side, and stood, very little wounded, before me, while I
looked around in vain for another weapon."
"A message from God, perhaps," said the leader, "to put you on your
guard against such an outcome."
"But, monsieur, I had this dream a second time, and then a third, and it
was always precisely the same."
"It warns you to make the first thrust sure and deep, and to give him no
opportunity of grasping your sword."
"I think, rather, it warns me to provide myself with a second sword. My
keenest impression in the dream was of chagrin at finding myself without
a second weapon after the first had become useless."
"You are doubtless right," said the leader. "One to whom a revelation is
given is the best judge of its meaning. Buckle on one of these swords,
in addition to the one you have."
Dick did as he was bid. A moment later the carriage stopped, close to
the wall of a house at the left side of the street,--for Paris had not
footways then, as London had, and coaches went as near the walls as
their drivers pleased to take them.
One of Dick's guards got out, Dick followed, the leader came last. Dick
could see that these two grasped their pistols beneath their cloaks. He
was before a large and imposing house with a rounded façade. Lights
shone through some of the windows. His two guards led him to the door,
and one of them knocked. The time seemed incredibly long till the
servant came.
"Monsieur Victor Mayet, clerk in the General Control Office, begs an
immediate interview with Monsieur Necker, regarding a matter of the
utmost importance," said Dick, with a steadiness that surprised himself.
The servant went away. Another, and seemingly longer, interval ensued.
At last the servant came back and told Dick to follow.
Dick stepped forward, and his two guards returned to the coach. The
servant showed the way up a staircase with a handsome balustrade, and
thence through one of the doors that opened from the corridor, to a rich
and elegant apartment, its ceiling painted with mythological pictures,
its walls decorated with arabesques and medallions. At a magnificently
carved and ornamented desk at the farther end of the room, sat a
gentleman of striking appearance, slender and noble-looking, but haughty
and stiff. The splendid armchair in which he sat was turned sidewise
towards the desk, so that the gentleman, who leaned upon one elbow,
faced Dick as the latter entered. Dick stood at a distance, and bowed
low, the distance being warranted by the singularly cold look of the
gentleman in the chair. It served, in the soft candle-light, to keep
Dick's features vague.
Dick cast a look at the servant, whereupon the gentleman motioned the
latter from the room. Then, his coat still clutched tight over his
swords, Dick said:
"Is it Monsieur Necker I have the honor of addressing?"
"If you are a clerk in the General Control Office you must know that it
is," said the gentleman, in a dry tone.
"But I am not a clerk in the General Control Office," said Dick,
quietly. "I am, through a strange accident, the chosen instrument of a
secret society whose object is to kill you. Don't think I am a madman.
What I say is perfectly true. I have taken an oath that requires me to
make an attempt upon your life. But that obligation, through lack of
foresight, does not forbid my giving you means of defending yourself;
therefore," and here Dick opened wide his coat, and held forth a sword,
"I offer you one of these swords, and beg you to stand on guard. Don't
call for help. If you do that, I must save myself by having at you
immediately. Take the sword, I advise you, for I certainly intend to
attack you."
Monsieur Necker had risen, and he stood looking at Dick in the most
profound astonishment.
[Illustration: "'OH, YOU HAVE A VISITOR! MON DIEU, SILVIUS!'"]
"Why do you keep us waiting, papa?" came a voice from a suddenly opened
doorway, and a moment later a slender figure followed the voice into the
room. "Oh, you have a visitor! _Mon Dieu_, Silvius!"
"_Mon Dieu_, Amaryllis!" Dick's lips went through the motions of these
words, but what he uttered were rather the shadows or ghosts of words
than words themselves. He continued unconsciously to hold out the sword
towards her father, while gazing at her.
"What does it mean, papa?" she asked, in a hushed voice that betokened
vague alarm. "Silvius, what are you doing with those swords?"
Dick's wits returned. "Cannot you see, mademoiselle? I have been chosen
by a certain society to make your father a present of them, in token of
the society's feelings towards him." Whereupon Dick, to show Necker that
everything had been changed by the revelation that he was Germaine's
father, moved courteously to the desk, laid both swords thereon, and
stepped back.
"Leave us alone, my child," said Necker, gently; "and beg your mother
to grant me another half-hour."
"Very well," said the girl, and then, still somewhat puzzled, but with a
parting smile for both Dick and her father, she disappeared through the
doorway.
"And now you will be good enough to explain this scene?" said Necker, in
a tone of authority, having put himself between the swords and Dick.
"All that I said, before the arrival of mademoiselle, was perfectly
true," replied Dick. "But now that I find you are her father, what I
proposed is impossible."
"It is strange you should have known my daughter and not known who her
father was."
"I made her acquaintance at some children's games, and without learning
her name."
"That a youth who amuses himself at children's games should amuse
himself also by belonging to an assassination society, is a novel idea,
to say the least."
"It is a very strange story, monsieur. But if you will take the trouble
to look out into the street, you will see a carriage waiting; with it
are four men who must be already impatient for my return to them. When I
do return, if I tell them you are alive, they will kill me. If I tell
them you are dead, they will guard me closely while they await
confirmation through the public news. When they find that I lied, they
will kill me."
"It begins to appear as if these men ought to be arrested," said Necker,
ringing a bell. He then sat down at the desk and wrote a note, Dick
standing all the while at a respectful distance. A servant entered, and,
in response to a slight gesture from Necker, went close to the latter,
and received some low-spoken instructions, of which Dick caught only the
word "police." The servant then took the note, and hastened from the
room. Throughout this time, Necker had kept an oblique glance on Dick.
Now that he had not only saved Germaine's father on the present occasion
but had also given him warning against future attempts, Dick had no mind
to betray the Brotherhood further. He saw himself between Scylla and
Charybdis. On the one hand was the danger of his being called upon to
figure as a witness against men who had spared his own life, and of
being mistaken by the world as a common informer. On the other hand was
the probability of his being sought and punished with death by the
Brotherhood, for, though four of its members might be arrested, there
remained a dozen others as resolute, to hunt him down wherever he should
take refuge.
Monsieur Necker began to question him, but he refused to disclose the
slightest additional fact regarding the society. "It is enough," said
Dick, "that its purpose is defeated through your being now on your guard
for the future." He gave his name, though, with his St. Denis abode, and
Necker made a note of them.
From the street below came the sound of a pistol-shot, and then of a
carriage rattling off over the stones. Necker flung open a window, and
saw the carriage fleeing in one direction, his own servant in another.
As Dick guessed, his guards had divined the errand of the servant
leaving the house by a side door, and had sought their own safety, after
having vainly tried to stop the messenger with a shot. It was a relief
to Dick to know that the four were thus out of danger of arrest.
Seeing the present futility of questions, Necker took up the matter of
Dick's own future safety from the Brotherhood. The two were in the midst
of this discussion, when the tramp of several men was heard on the
staircase, then in the corridor. Necker's face took on a peculiar light
as the door opened and in came a uniformed official, followed by a squad
of armed men and conducted by the servant who had been sent with the
note.
"A moment, monsieur," said Necker to the officer, whereupon the
newcomers all bowed and stood still. Necker proceeded to fill in the
blank spaces of a document he had meanwhile taken from a drawer in his
desk, and to which a signature and seal were already affixed. He then
held this out to the officer, who advanced to take it.
"You will send four of your men immediately as this gentleman's escort,
to the place mentioned in that order," said Necker, speaking to the
officer, but motioning towards Dick. "As for you and the rest of your
force, remain here,--I shall have work for you."
While the officer, having read the written order, gave it with some
whispered directions to one of his men, Necker addressed Dick thus:
"Young gentleman, you will not have to fear any present danger from this
well-disposed society of which you have spoken. The place to which you
are about to be conducted will be a safe refuge. I feel it is my duty to
provide for your protection in this manner."
"I thank you, monsieur," said Dick, bowing.
The man who now held the written order, politely motioned Dick to go
before him from the room. Preceded by two men, and followed by two, Dick
went down the staircase and out to the rain-beaten street. There the
party waited, while one of the men hastened off on some errand. He soon
returned, sitting beside the driver, on a large carriage. The man in
authority opened the carriage door, sent one comrade inside, then
courteously begged Dick to enter, then followed in turn, and was
finally joined by his remaining comrade. The man with the driver
remained where he was. The man in command thrust his head out and
shouted the destination to the driver, then closed the door. Dick gave a
violent start.
"To the Bastile," was what the man had called out.
Why had Dick not thought of this possibility sooner?--he asked himself.
There were two very obvious reasons, if not more, why Necker should wish
to keep him caged. First, imprisonment might induce him to break his
silence as to the Brotherhood's place of meeting and as to what names
his eye had caught during the signing of his own to the list. Secondly,
his disclosure, with every attendant circumstance, might be suspected of
being a ruse to gain favor, similar to that by which Latude had brought
well-nigh a lifetime of captivity upon himself; for men who devise such
ruses are to be held as dangerous.
Yes, imprisonment was the logical conclusion of this incident. Dick
shuddered as the word "Bastile" repeated itself in his ears. It had a
far more formidable sound than that of Newgate, though, thank heaven, a
far more gentlemanly one. And so Dick was now about to round out his
prison experience, begun in America as a prisoner of war, and resumed
in London as a civil prisoner, by being a prisoner of state in France!
He sighed, and resigned himself to the inevitable. He looked not into
the future. He might be out again in a day, or he might pine in his
cage, purposely forgotten, the rest of his years. Well, well, no reason
to be downcast! "Heart up, lad!" he said within himself, in the language
of old Tom MacAlister; "wha kens the morrow's shift of the wind of
circumstance?"
After a long ride through streets of frowning houses, the carriage
approached an open "place" or square, at one side of which Dick could
make out, through the window, a huge rectangular building whose uniform
towers, bulging out at regular intervals from straight stone walls,
darkened the sky above an outer wall that enclosed the whole edifice.
That end of the building which fronted the square contained two of the
towers. Towards this front the carriage drove, crossing a drawbridge,
and stopping for the man in command to show his order to the guard
officer.
Dick was then driven past the outer guard-house, crossed a second
bridge, a court, and other enclosures, and finally arrived at a second
guard-house, where he was put down and his name entered on the prison
register. He was then given into the charge of a squad of men, and by
these conducted to an interior paved court, to which an iron-grated
gate opened, and which seemed like the bottom of a vast well. This was
the inside of the rectangle bounded by the eight towers and their
connecting walls.
By the light of lanterns, Dick was led through a door at the side, and
thence, through corridors and up steep stairways, to a large cell. The
lantern's light showed a bare stone-floored chamber, with a table, a
stool, a small bed, an empty fireplace, and in the wall an aperture in
whose depths, though it was designed to serve the purpose of a window,
Dick's sight was lost before coming to the outer end. Before he had time
to ask a question, his conductors had closed the door upon him, turned
its heavy lock, and left him alone in the darkness.
He had been searched in the guard-house, but not required to put on
other clothes. Pleased at this, and at his not having been shackled, he
groped his way to the bed, undressed, and fell into a deep sleep. So
ended the, to him, eventful day of Wednesday, March 12, 1777.
He was visited on Thursday by Monsieur Delaunay, the governor of the
Bastile, and on Friday by the lieutenant of police, each accompanied to
the cell door by soldiers. Each tried by questions, vague promises, and
implied threats, to make him speak of the Brotherhood. Their attempts
failing, the governor visited him a week later, thinking imprisonment
might have had effect upon him. The governor spoke incidentally of the
dungeons, nineteen feet below the level of the courtyard, and five feet
below that of the ditch, their only opening being a narrow loophole to
the latter. But Dick only smiled. A fortnight elapsed before the
governor's next appearance, and still Dick was as silent on the one
topic as ever. The hint as to the dungeon was not carried out. Perhaps
the worthy governor received more money for the food of a prisoner in an
upper cell than for that of a prisoner in a dungeon, and consequently
could make more by underfeeding him. The governor now allowed a month to
pass before renewing his persuasions; after that, two months; and then
he came no more.
Meanwhile, Dick had little to complain of. In fact, many an honest and
hard-working man of talent nowadays might envy such a life as the
ordinary prisoner in the Bastile could lead, especially in the reign of
Louis XVI. Such a prisoner's state, in those old days of tyranny and
oppression, was heavenly, compared with that of an innocent man merely
awaiting trial in the prison of a police court in New York City in this
happy age of liberty and humanity.
Dick was allowed to walk, under guard, not only in the interior court,
but also in a small garden on one of the bastions, where the pure air
was sweetened by the perfume of flowers. He was permitted to have books,
some of which were lent him by the governor, the royal intendant, the
surgeon, and other officers, and some of which were bought, at his
request, out of money allowed for his food. Could he have afforded it
out of his own purse, he might have hired a servant, furnished his room
luxuriously, dressed in the height of fashion, eaten of the choicest
delicacies, practised music and participated in concerts got up under
the governor's patronage, kept birds or cats or dogs, and otherwise
brought to himself the world to which he was forbidden from going. The
comforts of the Bastile, however, were at that time accessible to only
about half a dozen prisoners besides Dick. In 1761 there had been only
four. In 1789, when the Bastile was destroyed, there were only seven.
But Dick, who lived in an age when young men of talent did not set upon
leisure the value they give it in this overworking period, pined for the
open. He began to grudge the time lost in captivity, and the fear grew
on him that he was doomed indeed to forgetfulness. Summer came and went.
The flowers in the elevated garden withered. Autumn winds howled around
the towers, and winter snow was lodged on the lofty platforms. The
beginning of December brought Dick, through the lieutenant of the
Bastile garrison, the news that in America the British had taken
Philadelphia, but that their Northern army, under Burgoyne, had
surrendered at Saratoga, and that the glorious victory had been largely
won by his own old commanders, Arnold and Morgan. Such tidings made Dick
eager to be out in the world. At night he would fall asleep, gazing at
the dying embers in his fireplace, and dream of broad fields, boundless
stretches of varied country over which he could speed with bird-like
swiftness, barely touching the ground with his feet. At last he resolved
to uncage himself.
The aperture that served as his cell window was defended by iron bars an
inch thick, so crossing one another that each open space was but two
inches square. There were three such gratings. As Dick was high up in
the tower, the outer end of this aperture was at a great distance from
the earth. Dick turned from this opening in despair, put out his fire,
stooped into the fireplace, and examined the interior of the chimney. It
was not very far from the bottom to the top, but the way was guarded by
several iron bars and spikes, securely fixed in hard cement. They had
the look of being less difficult to unfasten than the bars in the window
seemed. Dick resolved to attack the obstructions in the chimney.
There was no iron in his cell, his scanty furniture being joined by
wooden pegs. The stone of his cell floor was so soft that the first
piece of it he succeeded in detaching crumbled like plaster against the
hard cement of the chimney. What was he to do for an instrument with
which to scrape free the iron bars from the cement in which they were
set? His lucky star sent him an inspiration in the shape of a toothache.
By patiently and painfully forcing aside his gum with a chip of
fire-wood, and by strong exertions of thumb and forefinger, he succeeded
in extracting the tooth after several hours' excruciating pain and
labor. With the tooth itself he hollowed out of a fagot's end a place in
which afterward to set its root, which he then fastened securely in this
handle by means of extemporized wooden wedges. He thus had a scraper, so
adjusted that he could apply his full strength in using it. This he hid
in his bed.
He then unravelled underclothing, handkerchiefs, and cravat, and twisted
the threads into a rope, to which he tied, at intervals of one foot,
small wooden bars to serve as hand-holds and foot-rests. All this work
was done at times when he was least likely to be visited by any official
or attendant of the prison.
He tied a heavy fagot, six inches long, to the end of his rope, and by
dint of much practice he finally managed to throw this end up the
chimney and over one of the iron bars therein. He then swung his rope
about until it was so entangled with the suspended fagot as to remain
fast to the bar when he put his weight on it. Armed with his scraper, he
then mounted by the rope to the iron bar, undid and lowered the rope's
end that had the fagot, thus giving himself a double rope to cling to,
and began work with the scraper on the cement that held one of the other
bars than that over which the rope was thrown. Habit had taught him to
see in the dimmest light, and his fingers to find their way in total
darkness. To his joy he soon found that the hard enamel of his tooth had
effect on the surface of the cement.
With what difficulty and pain he worked, supported by his fragile rope
ladder, compelled to brace himself against the sides of the chimney, and
often to find relief from his cramped position by hanging to the iron
bar, is hardly to be imagined. When he desisted he had to descend by the
double rope, then let go of one end and draw the rope by the other end
over the bar, for the rope also had to be hidden in his bed when not in
use.
When not working in the chimney, Dick made additional rope, for that
purpose unravelling all of his clothing and bedding that would not be
missed by any who might enter his cell. He continued to borrow books,
and as he now asked for such as he was already acquainted with,--either
French works that he knew through translation, or French versions of
English works,--he could talk so well of their contents that the
officers he occasionally met supposed him to pass all his time in
reading. So apparent was his seeming contentment, that no one suspected
him of desiring to escape. But that desire increased daily. It was only
stimulated by the news, in February, that France had recognized the
independence of his country and formed an alliance with it.
In less than eight months after setting to work, he had opened a way
through the chimney. So slender was he, and so supple, that he found he
had not to remove all the bars, for he could wriggle between some of
them and the chimney wall. Those that he did unfasten he replaced
loosely in position after each period of work. He now estimated that he
had nearly two hundred feet of rope, and he had been told correctly that
the towers of the Bastile were nearly two hundred feet high. By the
first of August, 1778, all was ready; and Dick waited only for a dark
and rainy night.
Such a night came on Wednesday, August 5th. Dick had walked in the court
that afternoon, under a steady downpour of the kind that lasts
twenty-four hours or more, and he felt assured of a black sky for the
night. He attached his rope in the usual manner, ascended the chimney,
removed the loosely replaced iron bars, one by one, climbed by the rope
to the highest of the bars he had left fast, squeezed through between
that bar and the chimney wall, attached the rope's end to his waist, and
then laboriously worked his way up the rest of the chimney with arms
and legs, rubbing the skin off elbows and knees in doing so. At last he
emerged from the top of the chimney, and, after resting a minute,
dropped on the flat roof of the tower.
For some time, the darkness and rain hid everything from Dick's sight.
But at last, having meanwhile drawn the full length of rope after him
from the chimney, he could make out vaguely the dark houses and streets
stretching far away below. By sheer force of will, and by confining
every thought and moment to his work, he kept himself from turning giddy
at the height.
The lofty platform of the Bastile was surmounted by ordnance, even as in
the days of the Fronde, when the "great Mademoiselle" had fired the guns
on the soldiers of Turenne. Dick fastened his rope around one of these
cannon, and threw the loose end over the battlement of a corner tower.
He believed that the rope would reach down almost to the fosse, which
separated the prison from the outer wall. This ditch was twenty-five
feet deep, but was usually kept dry. Along the inside of the outer wall
ran a wooden gallery, which was paced by sentinels and was reached from
below by two flights of steps.
It was Dick's plan to drop from the rope's end to the fosse, slink up
the steps under cover of darkness and rain, elude the sentinels, reach
the top of the outer wall, and drop therefrom to the ground outside,
trusting to his lightness and his luck to make this last fall an easy
one. He had obtained his knowledge of his surroundings from a book of
memoirs that he had read in his cell, written by a gentleman who had
been imprisoned in the Bastile under the Regency.
He clambered over the battlement, took a good hold of his slender rope,
or, rather, of one of the wooden rounds knotted to it, and let down his
weight over the outer edge of the battlement, grasping at the same time
the next lower round with his other hand. He had an instant of giddiness
and weakness, at the discovery that the rope swung far out in the air,
the wall being overhung by the battlements. He hardened his muscles and
somewhat overcame this momentary feeling. But his arms trembled as he
cautiously disengaged one hand and sought the next round below.
In this manner, swaying in the air, and feeling sometimes as if the
tower were leaning over upon him, and at other times as if it were
receding so as to leave him quite alone between earth and sky, he
gradually made the descent. It began to seem as if the rope were
endless, as if he were doomed forever to descend towards an earth that
fell back from him as he approached. But at last his feet felt about for
the rope below, in vain. His hands soon confirmed the discovery that he
was at the rope's lower end, to which a stout piece of wood was
attached. Yet he was still far from the fosse; indeed, he saw, with
dismay, that he was a good distance above the level of the outer wall.
To drop from such a height would be suicide. To climb back to the top of
the tower was impossible; his strength was almost gone.
Thanks to the darkness and to the noise of the rain, he had not been
seen by the sentinels. It was a time for desperate expedients. He had
noticed that, whenever the rope swung him close to the tower wall, it
swung back to a corresponding distance outward. He now swung in, and, in
rebounding, struck his feet against the tower in such manner as to
propel him farther outward on the return swing. He next guided himself
so as to swing clear of the rounded surface of the tower and yet so as
to kick the tower in passing, and thus to gain additional space and
force for his pendulum-like movement through the air. Continuing thus,
and describing a greater arc at each swing, he found at last that his
outward swing brought him almost directly above the outer wall. At the
next swing, he let the rope go, with the hope of landing somewhere on
the outer wall, which was so near that the fall would not be
exceptionally dangerous.
Through the air he was hurled, far beyond the outer wall. He had
miscalculated. For an instant he was aware of this, and gave himself up
as a dead man. He knew that no human bones could withstand such a
collision with solid earth as he was about to experience. He
instinctively made himself ready for the shock. It came,--with a splash,
an immersion, a gurgling, and a further descent through muddy water. He
had dropped into the aqueduct of the Fosse St. Antoine.
The ten feet of water then in the aqueduct sufficiently broke his fall,
and he rose to the surface in a state of amazement. As there was no
demonstration from the wall over which he had swung, he inferred that
the sound of the rain had drowned the splash of his contact with the
water. He clambered up the bank, slunk along the outer wall of the
Bastile, and emerged in the square before the Porte St. Antoine.
Westward lay the city proper, eastward the Faubourg St. Antoine, with
highways leading to the open country. The first faint sign of dawn was
appearing, so many hours had Dick been employed in his escape. The rain
was still descending, and the water of the ditch was dripping from his
clothes. He stood still for a moment, gazing at the dark roofs of Paris;
then he turned his back upon them, and looked towards the two streets
that opened before him. He chose that towards the right, and plunged
into it. It led him southeastward.
By full dawn he had passed through some open fields to the country, for
the great circular wall completed under Napoleon had not then been even
authorized. Regaining the highway, he proceeded towards Charenton,
making on this occasion more haste on the road _from_ Paris than he had
ever made on the road thereto.
He was moneyless, hatless, clad in outer garments only, his inner ones
having gone to make rope. As the morning advanced, people on the road
stared at him with curiosity. Near Charenton he stepped aside to let a
post-carriage pass towards Paris. To his surprise, the occupant of the
carriage, having observed him in passing, thrust a good-natured face out
of the window, ordered the postilion to stop, and called to Dick:
"My friend, you look wet!"
"I _am_ wet," replied Dick, who had not moved since the carriage had
gone by.
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" asked the gentleman in the
carriage.
"The same question was on the tip of my tongue," said Dick. "But I have
already answered it." And then he spoke in English. "Good morning, Lord
George!"
"Why, damme if it isn't Wetheral!" Lord George Winston also spoke
English now, and a very pleased and friendly expression came over his
face.
"Yes, it is Wetheral, and in much the same condition as when he first
had the honor of meeting you."
"Egad, so it seems! Come, then, let me play the Good Samaritan again!"
"I don't see how I can refuse you, my lord," said Dick, looking down at
himself.
"Good! Wilkins, open the door for Mr. Wetheral."
"A moment, my lord. Where are you going?"
"To Paris, of course."
"Then I thank you, but I have important business in the opposite
direction."
"Oh, come into the carriage! I shall not be in Paris long. I've come up
from Fontainebleau, to engage a secretary. Then I am going to make a
tour of France and Germany."
"Do you want a secretary? I am sure I should make a good secretary."
"Why, you are a gentleman."
"Do you want an hostler for a secretary, then?"
"Why, if you really wish it, the post is open to you."
"Then I accept it on the spot."
"Then I have no need to go to Paris. Get in, Mr. Secretary."
Dick obeyed with alacrity, Lord George ordered the postilion to turn
around, and soon they were whirling through Charenton, on the road to
Melun, Dick telling Lord George his story, and receiving the latter's
unsolicited promise to back whatever assertions might become necessary
to show that his lordship's secretary was not the man who had escaped
from the Bastile.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DICK GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN SHOOTING.
But Dick's appearance was soon so changed as to remove fear of
recognition, thanks to the equipment with which Lord George provided
him, as advanced payment, out of his lordship's own wardrobe,--an
equipment for a fine gentleman rather than for a secretary. The
transformation was begun at Melun, whence the travellers went speedily
to Fontainebleau, where a barber and hair-dresser completed it. Dick was
then told that his duties would consist in writing letters of travel
that his lordship had promised to send to England. His lordship gave the
name to which these epistles were to be directed. Dick echoed back the
name, in astonishment:
"Miss Celestine Thorpe! Why, it seems to me I've heard--"
"Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfordshire and
renewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,--that is to say,
conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to show
how I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this place
I found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search of
a secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabel
is soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite of
the lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revenges
himself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her green
with jealousy."
Dick sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives of
the people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must have
been by them forgotten. Such is the world!
The next few weeks, passed in leisurely travel from one old town of
France to another, were among the most uneventful and serenely
pleasurable in Dick's life. From the noble forest, great rocks, and
historic château of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its winding
streets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and were
towed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks down
on fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot of
its hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company of
merchants, lawyers, abbés, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women of
different ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined in
the quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectually
disguised Lord George's rank and nationality.
At Auxerre they left the water-coach, and proceeded by a hired
conveyance to Dijon, where they met several English, Irish, and Scotch
gentry at the coffee-house, and were reminded of London by the garden
called Vauxhall, hard by the ramparts. So they went through Burgundy,
drinking the wine, exchanging civilities with the well-fed monks, and
partaking everywhere of the fat of the land. By way of Auxonne, a town
small but fortified, and Dole, with its Roman vestiges, they neared the
Swiss frontier at Besançon, then noted for its university, its hospital,
its large garrison containing among others the regiment of the King, its
perpetual religious processions, its frequent suicides of lovers in the
river Doube, and its soldiers' duels.
Thence they went to Basle, lodging at the inn of the Three Kings, and
dining by a window that looked across the Rhine to smiling plains;
thence past miles of tobacco fields to Strasbourg; thence across the
Rhine and to Rastadt; thence by way of Carlsruhe and Speyer to Mannheim,
whose straight streets, crossing at right angles, reminded Dick of
Philadelphia. Over a flat country where there were few houses but
palaces and peasants' cottages,--for in most small German states the
gentry lived in the capitals and the merchant class in towns,--they went
by carriage to the ecclesiastical capital, Mayence, which swarmed with
priests, many of them rich and gay-looking, and not a few openly tipsy
with Rhenish wine. From there Lord George and his secretary proceeded to
Frankfort, notable for its stately houses covered with red stucco, its
spacious streets, its well-dressed and well-mannered people, its
multitude of Jews.
From the free imperial city they drove to Marburg, in the landgraviate
of Hesse-Cassel, a hilly, well-wooded country, with many fertile valleys
and fields. Its landgrave, Frederick II., was one of the richest and
most powerful of all the German princes, and was then in close relations
with England, which fact gave him a mild interest in Lord George's eyes;
but there was to that fact a circumstance with a different interest for
Dick Wetheral,--it was this Landgrave that sold his troops to England,
and thousands of them were even now in America fighting against Dick's
countrymen.
Pushing on from Marburg as rapidly as the bad roads and the stolid,
smoking German postilion would let them go, the young gentlemen entered
Cassel, then no longer a walled city, on a pleasant autumn evening,
little foreseeing, as they drove in from the southwest and set foot
before the hotel in the round platz near the Landgrave's palace, that in
this capital a very remarkable drama was about to open in the life of
Dick Wetheral.
The next morning Dick stayed in the hotel to write Lord George's
journal up to date, while his lordship went out to visit the English
resident. Before noon Lord George returned.
"Lay aside your pen, my dear fellow," he said to Dick. "We are to dine
at the palace with their highnesses, the Landgrave and Landgravine. Make
haste, you've barely time to change your clothes."
"But I am merely a secretary," objected Dick, who had no desire to enjoy
the hospitality of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.
"So much the more reason why you should see the Landgrave's court, to
write my description of it. Besides, no one will know you are my
secretary as well as my friend."
"But no one is permitted to appear at German courts who isn't noble."
"That rule of etiquette is observed only towards the natives, not
towards strangers, and particularly not towards Englishmen. Come, this
is a gala-day, and we shall go to the masquerade to-night as well. I
must have at least one court dinner and court ball in my journal of
travels, to be in the fashion. To-morrow we shall leave Cassel, which
doesn't interest me, and go by way of Magdeburg to Berlin."
Dick was glad to hear this last intention, for, unlike the Landgrave
Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel, King Frederick I. of Prussia (who was
also Duke of Magdeburg) had shown some favor to the American cause,
having some months ago forbidden the passage of Hessian soldiers through
his dominions to embark for America. So Dick complied the more
cheerfully with Lord George's wish.
Cassel then, as now, was mainly on the west bank of the river Fulda, and
consisted of the "old town," large and irregular, and the "new town,"
where the nobility and the court officers had fine houses. The circular
platz in which the travellers lodged was at the southwestern extremity
of the old town, and by proceeding a short way southwest from the platz,
one reached the winter palace and the new town. A few steps of their
carriage horses brought Lord George and Dick to the palace, then a large
Gothic castle, west of which was the great rectangular open space now
known as the Friedrichsplatz. South of this space, and between the new
town and the Fulda, was a flat-roofed villa, used by the Landgrave as a
summer residence, and surrounded by parks, gardens, an orangery, and a
menagerie. But though September was not yet past, the Landgrave was now
occupying the winter palace.
The guard officer at the palace, to whom Lord George showed his order
for entrance, caused a footman to conduct the visitors into a large
decorated room, where a number of officers stood about in groups,
talking in low tones. One of these, whom Lord George had met in the
forenoon, greeted the two with the utmost courtesy, which seemed like a
compound of French politeness and English gravity. Dick observed that
this officer spoke in French, which indeed was so much the court
language in Germany while Frederick of Prussia set the fashion, that the
use of German was deemed a mark of vulgarity. In France the craze was
for everything English; in Germany for everything French.
From the number of military officers present, it was evident that the
Landgrave had not sent all of his army to serve England in America. Dick
made several acquaintances in a very few minutes. He who had first
approached was Count von Romberg, a captain in the foot-guards. Another
was the Baron von Sungen, lieutenant-colonel of the horse-guards, a
witty, spirited, impulsive, chivalrous man, with a French manner
acquired in Paris. A third--slim, talkative, vain, meddlesome, with
brazen gray eyes and reddish eye-lashes--was Count Mesmer, one of his
highness's chamberlains. These three were young men. Of the older ones
in the assemblage, Dick noticed particularly a bent, wrinkled,
crafty-looking sexagenarian, who, he learned, was Von Rothenstein,
minister of police.
Presently doors were thrown open, and there appeared a robust gentleman
of medium height, looking fewer years than his fifty-eight, and wearing
the Order of the Garter. He came with a firm tread, noticing in a brief
but gracious way the officers, who bowed low to him as he approached. He
had a moment and a word for this one and for that; for General Scliven,
his chief reliance in military affairs; for old Zastrow, who had
commanded at Schweidnitz; for the Prince of Saxe-Gotha, who had a
regiment in Hesse-Cassel's service; and, in due time, for the officious
Count Mesmer, by whom Lord George and Dick had the honor of being made
known to the Landgrave.
His highness expressed, in the French language and in a guttural voice
still full of virility, the pleasure he took in meeting Englishmen.
While Lord George was bowing indifferently, and Dick hypocritically,
other doors opened, and a lady entered, very beautiful and dignified,
large, and somewhat over-plump. Dick knew from the great respect with
which she was received, and from the number of ladies that followed her,
that she must be the Landgravine. A very cold greeting passed between
her and the Landgrave,--for, though it was but five years since
Frederick II. had married, for love, the Princess of Brandenburg-Schwedt,
he already lived estranged from her, as he had lived from his first
wife, a daughter of England's George II.; and as he now lived also from
his son George William, the hereditary prince, who was also Count of
Hanau, and maintained there a little court.
Dick glanced from the Landgravine to her ladies, who looked neither as
piquant as French women, nor as reserved as English women. If what an
ungallant American traveller wrote at that time--that at the German
courts beauty and butter alike were measured by the pound--were true, it
was to be granted that the German ladies had fair skin, radiant
complexion, and something of a classic cast of countenance. But Dick's
gaze fastened upon one face, which had beauty without heaviness; a face
that stood out from the others,--making them and all the world besides
fade into nothingness, while Dick, in doubt whether he was not dreaming,
forgot that any other woman had ever lived. It was the face of Catherine
de St. Valier!
She saw him, looked slightly startled, then took on the faintest flush,
which passed immediately but left him with the happy assurance that he
was recognized. Half-way across the room as he was, he bowed low. She
slightly inclined her head, and hastened to the Landgravine, for whom
she had brought a forgotten handkerchief. She then went swiftly out by
the door at which all the ladies had entered.
The company was already on the way to the dining-parlor, and Dick had to
follow. It was the privilege of Lord George and his friends to dine at
their highnesses' table, where only strangers and such officers as were
not under the rank of colonel were allowed to sit, the lesser guests
eating in an adjoining room, to which the doors were left open. But Dick
took no thought of the honor done him, or of the table-talk, which was
constrained and low-spoken, no voice being raised save when one of their
highnesses addressed some person at a distance. Catherine was not
present. Dick continued to wonder how in the world she had come to be an
inmate of the palace of Cassel. As the dinner lasted two hours, he had
time in which to repeat this question to himself many times. After
dinner he absent-mindedly followed the company back to the room where it
had first assembled. Here he stood in a trance for a quarter of an hour,
and then, the Landgrave having left the apartment, the company broke up.
"Let us hope we sha'n't be so bored at the masquerade to-night," said
Lord George, on the way back to the hotel. "I shall thank God when I
have put this stupid place far behind me."
"Stupid!" echoed Dick. "I find it very interesting. I sha'n't think of
leaving for some time."
"Why, this morning you were glad we were going at once to Berlin!"
"My dear Lord George, if you are determined to go at once to Berlin, I
beg to resign my place as your secretary. I will do my best to find you
another secretary here at Cassel."
"Why, I suppose I can easily find one. But are you serious? One would
suppose you had got some fat appointment in the court or the army, since
this morning."
"I wish I had, God knows,--or even a lean one,--but not in the army. I
would not go to fight against my--against the Americans."
"Oh, you wouldn't be sent to America. We should have to get you into one
of the household battalions,--not as an officer, of course; you know the
officers must be of the nobility, but there are gentlemen in the ranks
of every military body that is attached to a sovereign's person. There
are the body-guards, the foot-guards, the horse-guards, and other such
troops. Doubtless volunteers are very welcome. These German princes have
crimps all over Europe kidnapping men for their armies. Let us speak to
one of the various counts or barons we shall meet to-night."
"No, my lord, I would never serve this Landgrave as a soldier,--nor in
any other post, but for one reason."
His lordship, though puzzled, was too polite to ask what the reason was.
"Very well," said he, after a moment's silence, "we shall see to-morrow.
I shall try to lure away some under-clerk from a brilliant official
career, as my secretary, and to get you in his place,--if you continue
of the same mind."
"My lord, you are destined to be always my Good Samaritan," cried Dick,
his eyes suddenly moist with gratitude. He considered that, in occupying
a civil sinecure under the Landgrave, he would not in reality be serving
that virtual enemy to his country, but would be merely supporting
himself by means of that enemy; that is to say, he would be, in time of
necessity, existing at the expense of the foe, according to the custom
of war. Moreover, his position might enable him to serve his country
directly, by giving him early intelligence of future movements by
Hessian troops, and, perhaps, of future intentions of England.
They drove to a costumer's, obtained dominoes, and, at six o'clock,
returned to the palace, where they found the gentlemen of the court all
in dominoes, the ladies in ordinary ball dress. Card tables had been
set, and the Landgrave played at cavaniolle with a rather talkative
party of about a dozen members, while the Landgravine took a hand at
quadrille with a trio of her own choosing. A number of players occupied
tables in adjoining rooms. Dick helped make up a game at which Captain
von Romberg and two placid, apple-cheeked baronesses were the other
participants, but his eyes roved from his cards, in vain search of
Catherine.
While the games were going on, a gentleman passed around with a hat
containing small tickets. Each lady took one of these, when the hat was
offered her, and then similar tickets were drawn by the gentlemen. Dick
saw that his ticket bore the number twenty-three, and he learned from
the talk of his fellow players that the lady who had drawn the same
number would be his partner at supper and at the dance. Presently an
officer began calling out the numbers, a lady declaring herself at each
number, and a gentleman offering his arm to lead her out to supper.
"I wonder who has twenty-three," said Dick, indifferently, to Lord
George, who had meanwhile rejoined him.
"I can't tell you that," replied his lordship, "but I know who has my
number, seventeen. I happened to see her ticket, when she held it up to
the light. She is that splendid, dark-eyed creature, standing yonder
under the candles."
Dick's glance turned idly towards the indicated place. Suddenly he
became afire.
"My lord," he almost gasped, "be my Good Samaritan once again. Exchange
tickets with me, for heaven's sake!"
"Why, certainly. That gives me back the uncertainty to which this game
entitles me." And the exchange was quickly made.
"Seventeen," was called out, and Dick advanced, with beating heart, to
meet Catherine. She colored again--was it with pleasure?--as she took
his proffered arm. They walked in silence to the supper-room.
At supper there was more ease and animation than there had been at
dinner. This circumstance favored conversation between Dick and his
partner.
"I should not have expected to meet you so far from where I saw you
last," he began, in a low voice.
"Nor I to meet you," she replied, speaking without haste, and with the
gravity that characterized her.
"Oh, my coming here was a very simple matter. Sent to England as a
prisoner, I escaped to France, and there fell in with an English
nobleman, whose travels brought him this way. I am his secretary. It is
not known I am an American."
"My coming here was quite as simple," said she, with a slight smile. "My
brother and I came to France to receive a small bequest left by a cousin
of my mother's. In Paris we met a distant relation,--one of the ladies
of her highness the Landgravine. When she returned to Cassel, she
obtained for me a post as lady-in-waiting. French people are in request
at the German courts."
"And Monsieur Gerard?"
"My brother is in the foot-guards."
"I should like to see him," said Dick, and added, with special
intention, "I suppose he has forgotten me."
"Oh, no, monsieur," she replied, quite artlessly; "we have often talked
of you. Our gratitude for recovering the portrait, and risking your life
to bring it to us--"
"'Twas the opportunity of risking it to serve you, that made my life
worth having," he said, in a tone little above a whisper.
"My brother will be glad to learn that your life was surely saved," she
replied, avoiding Dick's glance.
"And you, who saved it?"
"I, too, of course."
The words were nothing, but the slight blush with which she uttered them
was eloquent.
After supper, all the company put on masks with which they had provided
themselves. The Landgravine was led to the ballroom by her partner, an
owlish colonel, and the other couples followed. Her highness stopped at
the upper end of the room, the second couple stopped immediately below
this, and at last there was a double file extending the length of the
hall. This arrangement seemed to promise a country-dance, but when the
music began, Dick found that a form of minuet was intended. When this
had been walked through, everybody sat down, except the Landgravine, who
then danced with several different gentlemen in succession.
After this there were minuets and country-dances. The company was
augmented by maskers from the town, some in fancy dresses; while several
who belonged to the court, having meanwhile slipped out, returned in
different costume, so as to be really disguised,--for on first entering
the masquerade-room, all were known, notwithstanding their masks.
Everybody was now on a footing, and the maskers mingled promiscuously.
But Dick remained with Catherine, who showed no desire for other
company. He thought himself in the midst of paradise, until suddenly she
said:
"Her highness is retiring. I must go."
"But, mademoiselle, the others are not going!"
"The others are not keepers of her highness's robes," said Catherine.
"But one moment! When may I see you again?"
"How can I say? My hours of duty are long. I am usually free in the
afternoon, from three to five o'clock. On occasions like this, sometimes
I attend her highness, sometimes I may do as I please."
"From three to five, you say. I suppose you remain in the palace then?"
"Except when I visit my brother. I must go now, monsieur. _Au revoir!_"
In a moment she was lost in the crowd. You may be sure much had been
said, between their opening colloquy at supper and their brief dialogue
at parting, to bring about the tacit understanding of a future meeting.
So she was in the habit of going to see her brother! Dick had learned
that the Prussian system was followed in Cassel,--that the troops,
instead of being lodged in barracks, were quartered with citizens. He
walked the next morning to the drill-ground and armory of the
foot-guards, and, happily meeting Captain von Romberg, learned where
Gerard had lodgings. He went immediately to the house, which was in a
street running east from the platz and through the southern extremity of
the old town. It was the house of a glover, whose shop was on the ground
floor. Gerard was out on duty.
Dick, finding that the guardsman occupied the first-floor room towards
the street, immediately hired a corresponding room in an obscure inn
across the way. He waited at the inn door till he saw Gerard, in
military coat and buff cross belt, coming down the street; he then
crossed over, with a preoccupied air, as if going about his business.
Looking up suddenly, as he came face to face with the soldier, Dick
pretended the greatest surprise at recognizing Monsieur de St. Valier.
The recognition was not mutual at first, but, as soon as Dick had
recalled himself to the other, the young Frenchman became instantly
cordial. A minute later the two were sitting in Gerard's room,
expressing wonder at the strange chance that had made Dick a lodger
across the street from Gerard.
They dined together at the table d'hôte of Dick's inn, and then returned
to Gerard's house, where the marvellous coincidence had to be discussed
over again when Gerard's sister called in the afternoon. It was his
custom to receive her in the glover's back parlor, and on this occasion
Dick was of course invited to be present. Not until she had gone back to
the palace, did Dick return to Lord George, who had been mystified at
his absence.
"I have found a secretary," said his lordship, who also had passed a
great part of the day out of the hotel, "in the shape of a clerk at the
French resident's office, who has got into trouble over cards and a
woman and has to seek other pastures. But the vacancy he will leave is
already provided for. I don't know what can be done for you if you are
determined to remain here."
"I shall find something," said Dick; "and, meanwhile, I've taken a room
at a cheaper hotel, where I can live for some time on the money I have.
But I am as grateful to you--"
"As if I had ever really done anything for you," broke in Lord George,
who liked expressions of gratitude to be cut short. He supposed that
Dick's "some time" meant several weeks, whereas it really meant three
days.
The next afternoon there was a review of the first battalion of guards,
in that part of the park which lay between the summer palace and the
menagerie. Lord George remained at Cassel on the pretext of a desire to
see an exhibition of target-shooting that was to be given in connection
with the review, by certain of the guardsmen. Dick guessed that his
lordship's real purpose in tarrying was to make further effort towards
obtaining employment for him.
The two met at Lord George's hotel (Dick having already moved to the inn
opposite the glover's), and rode on hired horses to the reviewing-ground.
It was a fine day, warm and sunny. The Landgrave and his chief officers
were present on horseback. The Landgravine and several ladies were in
carriages, at that side of the park which bordered on the Fulda and at
which was the menagerie. Dick and Lord George took station, with several
other horsemen, near the Landgrave's party. When the shooting at mark
began, Dick found himself near the place where the men stood while
firing. The competitors were drawn up in line, at right angles with the
line formed by the rest of the battalion. This latter line formed the
western side of an imaginary square, the targets were midway in the
south side of the same square, the east side was formed by the menagerie
and the carriages, while the north side began with the line of
marksmen, and was continued eastward by the groups of horsemen. After a
few shots had been fired, Dick observed that the Landgravine and other
ladies had got out of their carriages and were standing at some distance
from them, so as to see better the effect of each shot.
Some one had just called Dick's attention to the fact that Mlle. F----,
the Landgrave's Parisian mistress, was standing within a few feet of the
Landgrave's wife, when suddenly a terrible roar came from the menagerie,
followed a moment later by a great four-footed, striped figure, which
bounded into sight, then crouched and looked around with ferocious
curiosity.
"The tiger has broken out!" an officer exclaimed, while everybody gazed
at the animal as if struck dumb with sudden amazement and alarm.
A man rushed wildly out from the menagerie after the tiger,--he was the
keeper, through whose carelessness the beast had escaped. At this sight
the women began to scream and to run back to the carriages. In a moment
or two, the Landgravine was left alone. She stood looking at the animal
as if fascinated, or as if paralyzed with terror.
The keeper threw himself before the tiger. It felled him with a blow,
drew the blood from his face with its claws, and began to tear his flesh
with its teeth. The women shrieked with horror. The animal looked up,
glided across the body of the man, and made swiftly towards the
Landgravine.
A kind of shuddering moan went up from the whole field. Some officers
dashed forward on their horses, as if to intervene between the
Landgravine and the beast, though the great distance made the attempt a
hopeless one.
As the tiger made its spring, a shot rang out. The beast gave a howl of
pain, dropped sidewise, and lay still, at the Landgravine's feet,
pierced through the brain.
The officers looked around amazed, and saw Dick Wetheral, afoot,
lowering a smoking gun. He had slid from his horse at the tiger's first
appearance, run to the nearest marksman, seized the loaded weapon, and
fired as he had fired at many a running bear in Pennsylvania.
"Who fired?" cried the Landgrave, too deeply moved to say more,--for a
prince does not wish his wife to die a violent death in his presence and
the court's, however estranged he may be from her.
"I took the liberty, your highness," said Dick, handing back the gun to
the guardsman, and approaching the Landgrave.
"You have saved the Landgravine's life," said his highness. "I lack
words in which to express my gratitude. You shall hear from me."
And the Landgrave rode quickly over to the Landgravine, who was being
supported to her carriage.
"You don't need a Good Samaritan any longer. Your fortune is made!" said
Lord George, as Dick remounted.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FAVOR OF A PRINCE.
Dick now seemed to stride towards felicity with seven-league boots. His
famous long shot, decidedly the most remarkable given at that
afternoon's exhibition of shooting, speedily became famous. His place of
abode being learned through Lord George, he was invited to court to
receive the thanks of the Landgravine in person, with a present of a
jewelled watch and a diamond ring. Returning from the palace to his
hotel opposite the glover's, he found awaiting him an equerry with a
superb black horse, a gift from the Landgrave. He had no sooner seen
this animal stabled, and gone to his room, than he was visited by Count
Mesmer, accompanied by a lackey bearing a gold-hilted dress sword,
another token of his highness's gratitude. Mesmer then sounded him as to
his future, in such a manner as to raise suspicion of Lord George's
having dropped a hint in a proper quarter. The next day Dick received an
appointment to a post in the Academy of Arts, which favor was to be
considered a high one, for the Landgrave was a great patron of the arts
and took pride in his museum.
Lord George now departed from Cassel, but Dick did not suffer
loneliness. His intimacy with the St. Valiers increased. He saw Gerard
every day, and Catherine whenever she came to visit her brother. He made
friends among officers and civilians, and he had the constant society of
Rembrandts, Van Dycks, Raphaels, Titians, and other creations of Dutch
and Italian masters. His duties brought him into frequent presence of
the Landgrave, who often visited the picture gallery.
His highness soon showed a pronounced liking for Dick, conversing with
him whenever occasion offered, and regarding his freedom of speech and
opinion with the amused indulgence that one has for a clever child.
People of the court began to see in Dick a possible favorite, and
flattered him in his presence, though hating him in their hearts as a
successful interloper. It annoyed Dick to know that he was liked by a
prince whom every American should hold in enmity; and this annoyance
became disgust when his highness, from discussing the pictures of women,
would often fall to discoursing upon women themselves. But Dick
concealed his feelings, listening in silence to the sovereign's coarse
or jocose remarks upon the sex for which that sovereign's weakness was
notorious.
Now that his future seemed assured, Dick set about carrying matters
forward with Catherine. The first sight of her face, so noble and yet
so girlish, so reserved and yet so sincere, so open and yet--from its
dark eyes and hair--so mysterious, had reawakened in him a passionate
adoration beside which the bygone manifestations of his heart towards
Amabel, Collette, and "Amaryllis" were but feeble flutterings. To him
all other women became insipid when Catherine reappeared on the scene.
Her outward gravity betokened a nature of vast range and unfathomable
depth, a book that could not be read through in a day, a book with new
beauties and dazzling surprises on every page. He felt that she was the
only thing in the universe worth having, and he pressed his suit
accordingly. Gerard proved very amiable by finding numerous reasons for
sudden absence when Catherine called. She had little coquetry, though
much natural reserve; yet, having been secretly disposed in his favor
from the first (heaven knows by what undetectable something in his face
or manner), she dropped her reserve at last before his oft-repeated "I
love you," and, dropping her glance at the same moment, yielded her hand
to his. It is only in plays and novels that confessions of love are
matters of impassioned declamation or witty dialogue.
Dick told the St. Valiers of his parentage and life, omitting only the
episodes of Amabel, Collette, and "Amaryllis." An understanding was
reached that Catherine should become his wife at some future time yet
to be determined. As Dick was really in love, and so would have turned
Mohammedan to possess her, he readily agreed to adopt her religion, as
far as a Voltairean could adopt any,--that is to say, in outer
appearance only. It was urged by both Catherine and Gerard that the
engagement should be kept secret, and Dick, being in mood to grant any
conditions without question, readily consented. This interview, like all
others between Dick and Catherine since the night of the masquerade,
occurred in the back parlor of the glover's house. As usual, Catherine
insisted upon returning alone to the palace, which she always entered by
a private door.
"Why," said Dick, "may not a lady-in-waiting be seen with her affianced
husband and her brother, in the streets? Here are two people soon to be
married to each other, yet I'll wager nobody in Cassel, except Gerard,
knows they are even acquainted with each other."
"We must have patience," she said, with a smile in which there seemed to
be something of sadness. Then, having gravely given him her hand to
kiss, she hastened from the room.
Dick and Gerard celebrated the day with a bottle of wine, after which
Gerard went on duty and Dick to the Academy of Arts, which was a few
steps south of the palace. While there he was sent for by the
Landgrave, who greeted him with a patronizing and approving smile, and
the words:
"I wish you to call immediately on the treasurer and on the chief
equerry, who have orders regarding your conveyance to Düsseldorf. I have
a commission for you to execute at the picture gallery there."
Instead of the look of gratitude and pleasure that the Landgrave had
expected to see on Dick's face, there was one of blank dejection. To
leave Cassel, though for only a week, was not in Dick's plan of
happiness at this time. But the Landgrave's order had to be obeyed, and
Dick mustered up a gratified expression before it was too late.
The next morning he started on his journey, leaving with Gerard a note
for Catherine. The commission was indeed one to be envied; as it was out
of all proportion to Dick's infinitesimal knowledge of art, it was the
greater evidence of the Landgrave's favor. So Dick cheered himself up;
made the acquaintance of the famous collection of that other elderly
connoisseur in art and women, Charles Theodore of Bavaria; attended to
his business, surrounded himself with the vision of Catherine, and
suffused his heart and mind with anticipations of his next meeting with
her.
It was growing dark on a November evening, when Dick reëntered Cassel.
It was past the hour when he might have met Catherine at the glover's
house, but he was so hungry for the sight of her, that he decided to
attend the usual evening assembly at the palace, on the bare possibility
of her being present. He knew that his favor with the Landgrave would
secure him admission on his merely sending in his name. He therefore
drove at once to his inn, dressed and put on the sword given him by the
Landgrave, which custom permitted him to wear at court, and hastened to
the palace. It was a little after seven o'clock, and the reception-rooms
were full.
To Dick's surprise, one of the first persons he saw was Gerard de St.
Valier, in the uniform of a body-guard.
"Why," cried Dick, rushing up to him, and pressing his hand, "you've
been transferred, I see! 'Tis the same as a promotion. We are both in
good luck."
"Yes," said Gerard, in a constrained manner. He then cast a swift look
around, bowed formally, and hastened to another room, making a pretext
of being on duty.
Dick gazed after him in amazement. What meant this coldness, this
evidence of being ill at ease? Such a reception from Gerard cut Dick to
the heart, made a tear start in his eye, and gave him an undefined
foreboding.
While he stood thus, there was near him a movement to either side, and a
general bowing. He became aware of the Landgrave's approach, just in
time to step back from his highness's way. But the Landgrave turned and
greeted him with a kindly smile.
"Back from Düsseldorf so soon?" said Frederick II., in his rich and
deep, but heavy and guttural, voice.
"The feet move swiftly when they return to where the heart is," said
Dick.
The Landgrave, taking this as an expression of attachment to the
sovereign presence, smiled paternally; then said:
"I shall send to hear your report to-morrow. The King of Bavaria has
fine pictures. He used to be as famous for the fine women he kept,
also."
"So I have heard, your highness," replied Dick, with a side glance
towards the Landgravine at the farther end of the room, to see if
Catherine might be among her highness's ladies.
The Landgrave, again misinterpreting, followed Dick's glance. "Ah," said
he, in a low tone, audible to none of those who stood back from him and
Dick at respectful distance, "you are thinking that the court of Cassel
also is not without its fair ones. And you are right, my clear-eyed
Englishman. Like the rest of your race, you will doubtless some day
write your recollections of the court of Cassel. Like the rest, you will
give a page to the mistresses of the sovereign. Well, tell me if you
think any of the ladies that even Louis XIV. delighted to honor, was fit
to buckle the shoes of her whom you see standing beneath the picture of
Diana yonder."
"Whom do you mean, your highness?"
The Landgrave was too absorbed in his subject to heed the note of wild
alarm in Dick's swift question.
"The lady with the black hair and eyes," said the Landgrave, gloating
across the distance.
Dick turned cold. "Why," said he, in what faint voice he could command,
"I thought your highness's favorite was Mademoiselle F----!"
"King David himself changed his mistress now and then," said the
Landgrave.
Mad with grief and humiliation, Dick sprang forward to Catherine de St.
Valier--for she it was whom the Landgrave had pointed out--and said:
"Mademoiselle, is it true,--what I am told?"
She gave a start at first seeing him, then stood for a moment in a kind
of sudden dismay. This gave way to an expression of surprise, as if he
who addressed her were a stranger; and then she turned to hasten from
him.
"Ah!" he cried bitterly, in a voice that drew the attention of the whole
assembly; for, as consternation had stopped his heart, rage now set it
beating fiercely. "It is true, then! Faithless!"
She turned and faced him, with a countenance as pale as death. At that
instant Gerard confronted Dick from out of the throng, with cheeks as
colorless as Catherine's, and cried out:
"Monsieur, it is of my sister that you speak!"
"You know where to find me, Monsieur de St. Valier!"
At Dick's first words to Catherine, the Landgrave, with a sudden
ejaculation and frown, had turned and walked precipitately from the
room. The Landgravine, seeing Gerard's movement, had instantly hastened
out by another door, that her eyes might not be outraged by a scene. It
was the duty of all the guests to follow, and so, as if by magic, while
the two young men stood gazing at each other, with Catherine looking on
as if turned to marble, the three found themselves alone in the assembly
rooms. Gerard was the first to perceive this fact. His face suddenly
lost its look of wrathful challenge, and took on one of deep sorrow and
concern. "_Mon Dieu!_" he moaned. "We are lost! Oh, Dick, why did you
come here? Why didn't you understand?"
"What do you mean? Understand what?" asked Dick, with a sudden fear of
having made a terrible false step.
"That it was for your own sake and ours we pretended not to know you,"
replied Gerard, despairingly. "The Landgrave attributed my sister's
repulses to the fact that she loved another. We have tried to conceal
who that other was, lest the Landgrave should destroy you; we thought
best to keep even our acquaintance with you unknown at court, so
lynx-eyed is that evil old lieutenant of police, Rothenstein. But now
all is out, and your chance of making your fortune is ruined! Even your
life is in peril if you stay in Cassel another hour!"
"Let me understand!" cried Dick. "Repulses, you said?" He turned to
Catherine. "Then it is only in the Landgrave's evil hopes, not in fact,
that you are his--that you--"
"How can you ask?" said Catherine, with a world of patient reproach in
her voice and eyes.
Dick knelt at her feet. "Forgive me!" he said, in a broken voice that
could utter no more.
She held out her hand. He pressed it to his lips.
"And what are we to do now?" he asked, rising.
"You must leave Cassel," said Gerard.
"We must all leave Cassel," said Dick.
"It is impossible for us to do so, at present," replied Gerard, in
despair. "We have no other resource,--no way of living."
"But the bequest you came from America to receive?"
"We were disappointed of that. Our right has been disputed, and the
matter is in the courts."
"Your relations in Quebec, and the estate concerning which you were in
Philadelphia?"
"We quarrelled with our uncle in Quebec, and we would die before we
would go back to his charity. Our share of the Philadelphia estate was a
trifle, and was spent long ago."
"But you must leave Cassel! I shall find a way to provide for us all!"
"You forget," put in Catherine, "that my brother dare not leave without
a discharge from the military service. He would be taken as a deserter,
and shot. Trust me, Wetheral! I can hold the Landgrave aloof. His
caprice will soon pass. You alone are in danger. It is best for us to
stay till all can be properly arranged for our future somewhere else."
"Then if you stay, I stay!" said Dick, quietly. "I will act as if
nothing had occurred, and await the consequences. After all, the
Landgrave alone could have understood my meaning, when my miserable
tongue so unjustly assailed you. The others would think my words merely
the ravings of an unrequited lover. Yes, I will stay and see what comes
of it!"
"Perhaps you are right," said Gerard.
"Thank God, then, we do not have to say farewell!" said Catherine,
resting her eyes tenderly on Dick. "I must hasten to the Landgravine.
Good night! Trust me,--and be on your guard!"
"I trust you," said Dick, kissing her hand again. "But let the Landgrave
take care!"
Dick then took leave of Gerard, whose presence in the palace was a
matter of duty and not of privilege, and hastened to his inn.
The next day, he went at the usual hour to his room at the Academy of
Arts. In the course of the forenoon he received orders to submit in
writing his account of his mission to the Düsseldorf gallery. He was
glad that he did not have to report to the Landgrave in person, for he
had no desire either to meet that sovereign again or to enter the
palace. In the afternoon Catherine came to the glover's house, this time
attended by old Antoine, who had accompanied the St. Valiers from
Quebec. The attendance of a man-servant was part of a lady-in-waiting's
pay, and Catherine had been able to secure Antoine's appointment to her
service in the palace. Hitherto, other duties had been allowed to
prevent his following her to her brother's. Catherine brought the news
that Dick's supposition had proven correct,--the belief in the palace
was that his outburst had been merely a disappointed lover's.
In the evening, while Dick was alone in his room, there came a discreet
knock at his door. Opening, he let in a man cloaked and muffled, who
immediately closed the door in a mysterious and secretive manner. The
visitor then turned back his cloak and disclosed the face of Count
Mesmer, the callous, self-assertive chamberlain. He was unattended.
"Good evening, Count," said Dick, bracing himself for any evil this
visit might portend.
The Count took a chair at one side of a small table on which stood a
lighted candle. Dick sat at the opposite side.
"My friend," began the Count, in a half patronizing, half overbearing
manner, "that was an unwise explosion at the palace last evening."
"What do you mean?" demanded Dick, ruffling up.
"Oh, be calm! I don't blame you, except for bad judgment. You see, I am
one of the few who knew what it all meant. I am a man who keeps his eyes
open. I have not been blind to what has been going on between you and
the beautiful lady-in-waiting. Neither have I been blind to the
intentions of the Landgrave. By knowing that two and two make four, I
understood last night's little scene perfectly."
"Then perhaps you have come to explain it to me!"
"Ach, my young friend, you come too quickly to conclusions! Wait and
listen, and be not sarcastic! Why do I say last night's explosion was
injudicious? Because it could only make matters worse, whereas there
was, unknown to you, a secret way of mending them. Why do I speak of the
Landgrave's intentions? Because he is as certain to carry them out as it
is that this candle burns, if the power shall remain to him. Did any one
ever hear of anything ever standing in a prince's way when he wanted a
particular woman?"
"It is time then for an exception to the rule."
"And if there shall be an exception in this case, what will cause it?"
"The lady herself," said Dick, half inclined to strike the Count's face
across the table.
"The lady herself! Granted that she be a paragon of virtue, do you
suppose that the will of an obscure lady-in-waiting will endure long as
an obstacle to the desires of a Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, whose power
over his subjects is absolute? What becomes of a woman who resists such
power? How long does her life remain tolerable? What happens to those
who support her resistance? Do princes have any pity for those who
oppose their will, and will Frederick II. have any conscience where his
desire to possess a woman is concerned?"
Dick shuddered. He knew what princely consciences were like, and that
the sovereigns of Germany, of whatever title, had over their own people
unlimited authority.
"But," he said, in a slightly husky voice, "you spoke as if there might
be an exception in this case."
"And I asked you what would cause it. You could not tell me. Shall I
tell you? Can I trust you?"
"Certainly."
"Do you give me your word of honor that what I am about to say to you
shall be kept a secret as inviolable as you would have the honor of your
beloved one?"
"Yes,--my word of honor, as a gentleman."
"Then the cause will be this. You know the Landgrave is a Catholic. You
know his subjects are Protestants. You can imagine whether they have in
their hearts forgiven him for forsaking the religion of his fathers. You
know that the hereditary prince has no love--no words, even--for his
father, the Landgrave. You know also the Landgrave's reputation in the
matter of morality, and that he is nearly sixty. Now, suppose a certain
number of the court officers, and of those guards who are on duty about
the palace and the city, should one fine day lock his highness in a
chamber, place soldiers at the door, and declare the hereditary prince
to be Landgrave in his stead."
"Dethrone the Landgrave!"
"It would be merely bringing the Landgrave's son to the throne a few
years sooner than he would reach it in the order of nature. Do you fancy
he would protest long, when despatches arrived at Hanau, inviting him to
Cassel? Remember his feelings towards his father, and that he is already
thirty-five years old. Do you think the people would object to a young
and virtuous sovereign, who is not an apostate? Do you think the army
would hold out in behalf of a Landgrave that hires it out, regiment by
regiment, to another nation? What though the hereditary prince does
likewise with his troops? Would the soldiers not relish a revenge upon
the father, nevertheless? And, if the Landgrave's army should really
stand in the way of all this, has not the hereditary prince the troops
of Hanau, as well as the Hanoverian regiments there? Perhaps you think
other powers would step in to prevent this forced abdication? Then bear
in mind that the hereditary prince is the son of the daughter of an
English king, and that that princess of England was ill-treated by the
Landgrave. It is true, the present Landgravine is a collateral
descendant of the house of Prussia, but, when we consider on what terms
she lives with her husband, do we not find all the more reason why the
King of Prussia should take no hand in the Landgrave's behalf? In fine,
my young friend, when the Landgrave is shorn of his power, we shall
have nothing to fear from him on the score of our sweethearts!"
And Mesmer leaned back in his chair, with a self-laudatory smile, like
an orator who has made his point.
"But," asked Dick, eagerly, leaning forward on the table, to be nearer
the Count, "when is all this to be brought about?"
"First tell me, are you willing to do what you can to help bring it
about?"
"Willing? I am eager! Tell me what I am to do!"
"You are to broach the matter to your friends whom you can trust, as I
have broached it to mine. There is the lady's brother, St. Valier, of
the body-guards. As he is often on duty in the palace, he will be of the
greatest value to us. He can sound his comrades, and win them over. Then
there is Von Romberg, with whom I have often seen you. He can gain us
men from his battalion. If things are managed rightly, and the blow is
struck at the opportune moment, so that his highness can be held till
word gets to Hanau and back, a few details of the body-guards, and three
or four companies of the foot-guards, can carry the business through. I
will answer for a sufficient number of palace officers."
"But why do you come to me, a foreigner, a man without family or
influence?"
"For many reasons. Because you have much at stake, and will contribute
zeal, which is a most important factor in a conspiracy. Because you have
an ingratiating manner, and can get the ears and confidence of men.
Because your post is one on which no eyes are turned, and you can go
about unobserved, talking to whom you please, without exciting
curiosity."
"I see," said Dick. "Depend upon me, Count. As for what favors this
Landgrave has done me--"
"My dear friend, you earned far greater favors when you saved her
highness's life! And this I tell you,--if you do not strike the
Landgrave, he will strike you! Who knows whether he has not already
taken the initiative against you? Many a first blow is really given in
self-defence. That is your case, I assure you. And now let us talk of
details."
For the next hour this strangely ill-matched pair were deep in the plans
of conspiracy. Then Mesmer hastened back to the palace, so as to be seen
at the card party, from which he feared he might already have been
missed.
* * * * *
Three weeks afterwards,--that is to say, near the end of November,--the
Landgrave and his court went hunting in the great forest a few miles
southeast of Cassel, between that city and Spangenberg.
Now and then, during the chase, some gentleman or other would drop out,
unnoticed, turning his horse into the thick woods. Thus, one by one, a
number of gentlemen finally arrived at a ruined Gothic tower, in the
midst of a thick copse near the road that ran south from Cassel to
Melsungen,--that Melsungen which was thirteen miles south of Cassel.
At intervals, too, horsemen coming from the direction of Cassel, each
one stopping and looking carelessly around to see if he were observed,
would turn leftward from the road, penetrate the copse, and so arrive at
the tower, which was a mere shell of weather-beaten stone, seamed with
irregular crevices, and mantled here and there with wild foliage.
Each newcomer, from either direction, tied his horse to a tree, and
entered the tower, by its high Gothic doorway. The second man who
arrived was challenged by the first, who stood in shadow within the
doorway, with the words, "Who comes?" He replied, "Hesse-Hanau," and,
thus eliciting the word "Welcome" from the first, went into the shadow.
He found that the first man was the chamberlain, Count Mesmer.
"By Heaven," said the second man, gaily, observing the other in a ray of
light that entered through a lofty crack in the tower, "you are
conspiring in character! A scarlet cloak certainly fits the rôle." The
speaker was a young Frenchman, the Viscount de Rougepont, who jested at
all times and places.
"You make a light matter of high treason, Viscount," replied Mesmer, in
a somewhat husky voice.
Before the Frenchman could answer, another man was heard advancing over
the fallen brown leaves outside the tower. The manner of his admission
was the same as that of the Frenchman's. Within a short time, more than
a score of men had thus assembled. Two remained on guard immediately
inside the doorway. The others, soon accustomed to the half darkness of
their meeting-place, proceeded with their business. The secretary, who
was none other than Richard Wetheral, called a roll. There was a
response to every name but that of Von Romberg.
"He has been detained by the sudden illness of a dear friend, but hopes
to join us later in the afternoon. He has authorized me to represent
him," said a young gentleman,--Gerard de St. Valier.
"You did not succeed in winning the Baron von Sungen," said Mesmer,
addressing Wetheral, in a slightly petulant way.
"He repulsed my very first overtures," said Dick, in explanation, "and
bade me, for my own sake, go no farther into the subject with him. I saw
that nothing could move his loyalty. It was prudent to stop where I
did."
"What a pity!" said Mesmer, with some vexation.
"I thought there was no love between you and Von Sungen," put in De
Rougepont.
"What of that?" said Mesmer, quickly. "He could have brought over the
entire horse-guards to us. That is why I say, what a pity he is not with
us!"
"He is playing hard for the Landgrave's favor," said the Frenchman. "He
is dying of love for the Baroness von Lüderwaldt, and wants to marry
her. So does old Rothenstein, the sweet and chaste minister of police.
The Landgrave has the disposal of her hand, and is still undecided
whether to make Von Sungen happy or cause old Rothenstein to snivel with
ecstasy. Hence Von Sungen's unexampled devotion to his sovereign."
"Gentlemen, we can make better use of the little time we have than by
talking court gossip," said Gerard de St. Valier. "As the one who has
been chosen by lot to be your presiding officer, I remind you that our
meeting is for the purpose of making the final assignments for the
action we are to take next Wednesday--"
"Pardon me a moment, monsieur," interrupted one of the conspirators.
"You will remember there are three gentlemen here who have not signed
the compact. They ought to have opportunity to do so, before our plans
are unfolded any farther."
"That is unfortunate," put in the secretary, Wetheral. "It ought to have
been thought of when we accepted Count Mesmer's suggestion to leave our
compact concealed in my room. The roll I called a few minutes ago was
from memory. The three new members may call at my hotel this evening to
sign."
"That appears to be the most practicable plan," said Gerard. "The new
members, nevertheless, ought to take the oath before we proceed any
farther. Let them advance and repeat it after the secretary."
The conspirators were grouped semicircularly at one side of the tower's
paved interior. Gerard and Dick stood out a little from the rest, their
sides towards the doorway, so as to face the others. Three young
officers stepped out from the crowd and stood before Dick, who began to
dictate an oath, which they repeated in portions after him. Every
gentleman present had brought with him a sword, those not in officer's
uniform having small ones, which could be concealed beneath their
cloaks. The three new comrades held their right hands upon the hilts of
their swords in taking the oath. The ceremony required, at its
conclusion, that the whole assembly should raise swords and utter a
final pledge in chorus. The two guards at the door, their attention
drawn despite themselves to the impressive scene within, grasped their
swords as the others did, and moved imperceptibly in from the doorway
as the conclusion was neared.
The three recruits echoed Dick's low-spoken phrases in subdued tones. He
raised the point of his sword aloft in token that they should do
likewise. Up went every sword in the company, flashing back what beams
of light strayed through the openings overhead. Eyes, too, flashed with
feeling, as all lips united in the closing words:
"And to this end we pledge life and honor!"
The light from the doorway was suddenly cut off, and a voice cried:
"Surrender!"
The conspirators turned towards the doorway in amazement. Three soldiers
stood upon the threshold. Behind them was the officer who had called
out. In a moment, a score of bayonets appeared beyond him, from one
side, and troops were seen massing in among the trees. It was plain that
a large force had stolen up with the greatest possible silence. The
conspirators were, in fact, confronted by some dismounted horse-guards
and a company from the battalion of foot then quartered at Melsungen. He
who had demanded their surrender was an officer of the horse-guards.
No one thought of making any pretence of injured innocence. Some looked
around to see if there was any hole by which to crawl from the tower.
Others stood still, and waited for the arresting party to come in and
take them. Mesmer ran farther back into the shadow. Dick saw this
movement, and misinterpreted it.
"He sees a way out of the tower," said Dick to his comrades, and ran
after Mesmer. The Count stumbled in the darkness, and Dick fell over
him. The soldiers at the door, surprised at this movement within, now
entered at a run. The conspirators on whom violent hands were first laid
resisted on impulse. Thus was brought about a brief scrimmage, whose
confusion was increased by the twilight of the place. Two or three men
tumbled over Dick. As soon as he could do so, he rose to his feet,
clutching mechanically the cloak he thought to be his. Being for a
moment out of the hurly-burly, he as mechanically threw this cloak
around him. He then ran to the doorway, which the entrance of the
horse-guards had left unobstructed, although soldiers were drawn up
outside at a short distance from it. As Dick stepped out to the open
air, with some wild notion of making a rush, he saw muskets levelled at
him.
"Not this one!" cried the commander, sharply, raising his cane with a
swift movement to prevent any one's firing. To Dick's further amazement,
the troops, a moment later, made an opening in their lines, for him to
pass through. He did so with alacrity, traversed the rest of the copse,
and ran towards the road from Cassel to Melsungen. He found his
horse--the one given to him by the Landgrave--in the wooded gully where
he had tied it. Mounting, he was soon in the road.
He now heard a shout at the edge of the copse and saw the same officer
who had enabled him to pass. This officer was now violently motioning
him to come back, and shouting orders to the same effect.
But Dick waved an "_au revoir_," and started his horse towards
Melsungen. A few seconds later several musket-shots rang out from the
copse, and he heard the sing of bullets about his head. Looking back, he
saw that a number of foot-soldiers were with the officer, who was
vehemently ordering a pursuit.
"If I were doing that shooting, the man here in my place would be full
of lead by this time," said Dick to himself, as he set his horse
galloping towards Melsungen. "There seems to have been some mistake
about my departure from the tower. Well, it isn't for me to rectify the
errors of the Landgrave's officers!"
And, glancing down at himself, he noticed for the first time that he
wore a cloak of bright scarlet, instead of his own, which was of dark
blue.
CHAPTER XX.
THE HONOR OF A LADY-IN-WAITING.
Dick recalled now his collision with the fallen body of Mesmer, and the
general tumble that had ensued in the tower, and he remembered having
noticed previously the bright color of the Count's cloak. "Doubtless the
Count got mine or some one's else, in the scramble, and so no one is
robbed," thought Dick.
He foresaw that he would be speedily pursued towards Melsungen. He had
not lived in the wilderness of Pennsylvania to be at a disadvantage in
the neighborhood of a German forest, nor had he learned the ways of the
American Indians for nothing. So he very soon rode into the woods at the
left, and, having penetrated to some distance from the road,
deliberately turned northward towards the ruined tower, deeming that to
be the safest place for him to hide while considering the situation. The
captured conspirators once removed from it, the tower would have been
left unguarded, and yet no one would suppose that he would return at
once to a place where he had recently stood in such great danger.
Riding on through the forest, he reached an eminence, from which the
descent on the northeastern side was abrupt and steep. Here, over the
tops of trees that were rooted where the precipice began to be less
steep, he got a view of the country lying east and north, small parts of
which country were clear of woods. Through one of these open spaces,
directly east, a procession of troops, some mounted, some on foot, was
moving towards the southeast. Dick's heart fell at the sight, although
he could have expected nothing better. It was the march of his captured
comrades, under an escort of remounted horse-guards and of a company of
foot, to the prison-fortress of Spangenberg. He counted the prisoners,
whom he could easily distinguish from their guards. All who had met in
the tower that afternoon were there but himself. So Gerard must be among
them. How, Dick asked himself, could their plot have been discovered?
And now he looked northward, towards the tower, which the prisoners must
have left about two hours before. He could make out its dark, round,
stone top in the midst of the thick copse. While he was gazing at it, he
saw two figures on horseback emerge from the copse and proceed across a
clear space towards that part of the forest where the hunt had been in
progress. One figure, stout and erect, Dick instantly knew to be the
Landgrave's; the other, so completely cloaked as to be unrecognizable by
any lines of shape, was that of a woman. The two soon entered the
farther woods by a narrow bridle-path, and were lost to view.
"An assignation," thought Dick. "No sooner does the Landgrave clear the
tower of conspirators than he uses it for a purpose of his own. To-day's
hunt is remarkable for the number of people who have slipped away from
it."
He now pressed on to the tower. At some rods from it, he dismounted and
tied his horse. He then advanced cautiously, to make sure that the place
was deserted. Suddenly he stopped, at sound of a furious gallop on the
road from Cassel to Melsungen. While he listened, the horse's footfalls
came to an abrupt stop. After a few minutes of silence, there arose the
sound of some one treading crisp leaves, and forcing a way through
underbrush. Dick grasped his sword and waited, knowing he would have to
face but one person,--for the galloping had been of a solitary horse.
The newcomer soon appeared on foot, among the trees. It was Captain von
Romberg, in great excitement and alarm.
"You are still here!" he gasped, seizing Dick's hand. "Thank God, I am
in time!"
"In time for what?" asked Dick.
"In time to save you and our comrades. Come, the others are in the
tower, are they not?"
"The others are on their way, under a guard, to Spangenberg."
"My God! Then I am too late! I thought I might give a half-hour's
warning! We have been betrayed!"
"So it is evident. What do you know of it? Come, my dear Count, sit here
on this log, and tell me."
The two sat down together at one side of the doorway, outside the tower.
"I got word from--a certain lady," began Von Romberg, in a half
breathless, heart-broken voice, "to come to her at once, as she was
suddenly at the point of death. This was a short time before I was to
have started for the meeting this afternoon. When I entered her room I
found her perfectly well, but in great trepidation. She said I must not
leave her house till night. When I insisted on going, now that I had
found she was not ill, she broke down, and told me everything. You must
know she is the--she is on close terms with the secretary of
Rothenstein, minister of police. Through this secretary she had learned
that we have all been terribly tricked. Our conspiracy was instigated
with the Landgrave's own authority! It was an idea of old Rothenstein's,
and the villain who carried it out was Mesmer!"
"But,--I don't understand. Why should the Landgrave authorize a
conspiracy against himself?"
"In order to have a reason, in the eyes of his subjects and of other
powers, for removing certain objectionable persons from his way. You are
an Englishman, St. Valier a Frenchman. Without a good pretext he would
not dare have you two imprisoned, lest your governments might call him
to account. Moreover, if he took any arbitrary step against yourself,
the people might think he was secretly angry at you for having saved the
Landgravine's life. And then, this woman told me, there is a lady whose
hatred the Landgrave does not wish to incur, and he would incur it by
causing your destruction; but now it will appear that you have brought
destruction on yourself by plotting high treason."
"What a diabolical scheme!"
"You see, my dear Wetheral, we, who have supposed ourselves to be
conspirators, are the ones who have really been conspired against. All
was perfectly arranged. Even the choice of officers by lot was so
managed by Mesmer, who conducted the drawing, that you and St. Valier
were designated."
"The base-hearted Landgrave would remove both her protectors! But what
proof will there be against us, beyond Mesmer's testimony? And will not
Mesmer's testimony betray the Landgrave's whole design?"
"Mesmer will give no testimony. They have proof sufficient, of the kind
they desire. This very afternoon they found the signed compact in your
room; they knew from Mesmer exactly where it was hidden. Mesmer will not
even appear among the accused. It was part of the plan that he should be
allowed to escape, and to stay out of the country till the others were
disposed of. To that escape and absence, the rest of us would attribute
his not being punished with us,--and not to his having sold us to the
Landgrave. Thus the world was to be kept from knowing the despicable
part this wretch had played. And now mark how little these villains
trust one another. Fearful, I suppose, lest the Landgrave would after
all let him suffer, in order to make sure of his silence, Mesmer
stipulated that he should be allowed to escape at the moment of arrest.
Mesmer once inside a prison, he doubtless thought, the Landgrave might
consider a dungeon--or a grave--the safest place for a man who possessed
the secret of so detestable a transaction. And, to keep his treachery
the more hidden, he provided that the arrest and his apparent escape
should be entrusted to an officer not acquainted with him."
"But how then could the officer know which man was to escape?"
"Mesmer was to be distinguished by a cloak of a particular color," said
Romberg.
"The devil!" cried Dick, smiling despite all circumstances. "And the
cloak happened to be on me at the time of the escape."
"Listen!" said Romberg, abruptly. "Some one is coming."
The sounds of an approach were indeed heard from the side towards the
depths of the forest. The two gentlemen rose, and grasped their swords.
A moment later a man stepped into view, whom they both recognized by
sight. He was a French valet of the Landgrave's.
"Pardon, messieurs!" he exclaimed, after a start of fright at so
suddenly coming upon the two threatening-looking gentlemen. "I have come
here merely to look for a riding-whip dropped by Mademoiselle de St.
Valier a short time ago." And he stepped into the tower, where he began
to search with his feet the paving, which was in comparative darkness.
For a moment Dick's heart was stilled. The blood left his cheeks; power
left his voice. He followed the valet in. "Do you mean to say that
Mademoiselle de St. Valier was here in this tower a short while ago?" he
asked, in a forced voice, when he could speak at all. He remembered the
cloaked lady riding from the copse with the Landgrave.
"Yes, monsieur," replied the lackey, adding in a significant tone, "and
in very excellent company. Ah, here is the whip, and very far back in
the tower, too."
"You rascal!" cried Dick, his energy returning with vehemence, and
seized the valet by arm and neck. "Do you dare say that Mademoiselle de
St. Valier was in this tower alone with the Landgrave? Come into the
light, you miserable cur, that I may see the lie on your villainous
face!" And Dick dragged the fellow from the tower.
"Let me go, monsieur!" whimpered the lackey, wriggling in terror. "_Mon
Dieu_, is it the fault of a poor servant if a lady-in-waiting allows
herself to be seduced by the Landgrave? Don't make an honest man pay for
the sins of a prince's harlot!"
"My God, Romberg, do you hear that?" cried Dick, throwing the valet to
the ground. "And do you _see_ that?" he added, picking up the whip, of
which he now recognized the curiously formed handle, though his last
sight of it had been on that New Jersey road where, three years and a
half ago, he had volunteered to recover her stolen miniature.
Von Romberg, who had begun to understand the situation in a general way,
shook his head sadly, and said, with quiet tenderness, "We must not
expect too much of the sex, my friend."
Dick sank down on the log, dropping the whip, and began to weep like a
child. The wild suspicion had seized him that Catherine might have
favored the prospective marriage to himself either as a cloak for a
liaison with the Landgrave or as a refuge on the possible termination of
such liaison. The valet, making no attempt to recover the whip, now used
his opportunity to rise and dash off through the woods.
Suddenly Dick started up, and faced his kindly, pitying friend.
"I will find out!" he cried. "The thing is too damnable for belief. I'll
not hold a woman guilty till I've seen with my own eyes, or heard from
her own lips. I will go to her as fast as my horse can carry me!"
"But," said Romberg, in great alarm, grasping him with strong arms
around the body, "is she in Cassel?"
"She is in the palace. Don't delay me, Romberg, for God's sake!"
"But they will arrest you. You are guilty of high treason, man. They are
doubtless searching for you now. It is madness and suicide to go to the
palace. My friend, would you throw yourself into the Landgrave's hands?"
For Dick, exerting all his strength, was violently getting the better of
Romberg's hindering embrace.
"I would learn the truth!" he cried. "If that lackey lied, I shall
either escape again or be content to die. I would rather die and know
her pure, than live forever and doubt her honor." And, hurling Romberg
away from him, he was free.
"And what if you find the story true?" called Romberg after him, in a
voice of sympathetic dismay.
"I will kill the Landgrave!" cried Dick, and bounded through the bushes,
towards his horse.
* * * * *
Late that night Catherine de St. Valier sat in her apartment in the
palace, accompanied only by one of the inferior attendants, a girl named
Gretel, who was devoted to her. At one side of the chamber a pair of
curtains concealed the alcove in which the bed was. At the other side
was a door communicating with a corridor. The chamber window overlooked,
at some height, an open space--a kind of small park--at the rear of the
palace. Outside the window was a little balcony, and not far away was
one of a few tall trees that grew in the small park. On a dressing-table
was a candelabrum, with but one of its branches lighted, so that the
interior of the room was dim to the sight. The night had recently
clouded over, and only at intervals could the moon be seen through the
dark window.
Catherine sat on a small couch, her face as pale as death, gazing at the
opposite wall with wide-open eyes, in which grief and horror had given
way to a kind of trance-like stupor. Now and then she would give a
slight start, and a tremor would pass through her body, which was
attired in a loose white gown lightly confined at the waist. At such
moments she would turn her eyes furtively towards the door leading from
the corridor. Near this door sat the maid, Gretel, silently watching
with pitying eyes the half dead lady-in-waiting.
Suddenly the window, which was made of two casements running each from
top to bottom, was flung rudely open, and in from the balcony stepped a
man, who immediately stood still and looked around until his eyes fell
on Catherine.
She rose quickly to her feet, and, with bowed head, said, in a low and
lifeless voice:
"You find me waiting, your highness."
"Highness!" echoed the intruder. "Then you did expect him. It is true.
My God!"
She gazed at him like a woman struck dumb with astonishment, then
staggered to the dressing-table, took up the candle, and moved swiftly
towards him, holding the light so as to illumine his face.
"It is his spirit," she whispered, having made sure that the features
were those of Wetheral. The girl, Gretel, now gently took the light from
Catherine's hand, lest Catherine might, in her half swooning condition,
drop it, and replaced it on the dressing-table.
"It is no spirit, mademoiselle," said Dick, in a broken voice, "but a
living man who might better be dead, for his last hope is killed, his
faith crushed, his heart torn with misery! Oh, my God, my God! Oh,
Catherine, Catherine!" And he fell prostrate on the couch, hiding his
weeping eyes upon his arm, and yielding his body to be shaken by sobs.
Catherine stood looking at him, while her bewildered ideas approached a
definite shape. But, before she could speak, he sprang to his feet, his
grief having been succeeded by a wave of fierce and bitter reproach.
"So I was right when I called you faithless before the whole assembly
that night!" he cried. "So you have fooled me from the first! Oh, was
there ever such cunning? How I have been deceived by your guileless air,
your innocent face, the truthful look of your eyes! Great God, is
anything to be trusted in this world, when a woman who seems so pure and
noble proves to be not only the harlot of a prince but the lying
betrayer of an honest man, who loves her with all his soul? Why have you
nothing to say?" he demanded, with a fresh access of rage. "Haven't you
the grace to defend yourself? Oh, for God's sake, deceive me again! Lie
to me, and I will believe you. Let me have any reason, even the
smallest, to delude myself with the fancy that you are still mine. Deny
these accusations! Deny that you expected the Landgrave here to-night."
"I cannot deny what is true," she said, quietly and sadly.
"Oh, you admit it!" he cried, wounded and enraged beyond all control.
"You brazen Jezebel, I will kill you!" He grasped her by the neck, and,
as she yielded instantly to his movement, forced her to her knees. As he
made to clutch her throat she threw back her head, disclosing the white
and delicate skin on which he formerly would not have inflicted the
tiniest scratch for the world. "Oh, I cannot," he sobbed, pressing his
lips against the tender throat, and breaking down completely. "Oh,
Catherine, Catherine!" He raised her, and stood with his arms enfolding
her. But, after a moment, he released her and stepped back, saying,
plaintively, "To think that you are not mine to embrace! To think that
you are the Landgrave's!"
"The Landgrave's!" she echoed. "No, not yet the Landgrave's, for you are
not dead, and I am still a living woman."
"What do you mean?" asked Dick, startled into a kind of wild hope.
"He told me you were dead,--that you had been shot while trying to
escape--"
"Who told you, Catherine? What do you mean? Tell me, quickly." He took
her hand, and made her sit beside him on the couch.
"The Landgrave told me,--and Von Rothenstein, and others who were
there. You see, I was at the hunt, with the Landgravine. We all heard of
the terrible conspiracy, and of the arrests; and, while we were talking
about it in the forest, the prisoners were taken by, where we could see
them all,--the conspirators, arrested for high treason. And one of them
was Gerard, my brother Gerard."
"And the whole court saw them led past?"
"Yes, with Gerard, my dear brother. When I was told that these men were
going to prison and would surely be put to death--oh, it was terrible to
think of,--my brother, little Gerard, as we used to call him, my mother
and I. _Mon Dieu_, I would give my life to save him, and so I rode in
search of the Landgrave, to beg that he would save Gerard. Some of the
officers told me where to find him,--in the tower where the conspirators
had been caught. I went there, and begged him on my knees for Gerard's
life. He sent away the Count von Rothenstein and the others who were
there, and listened to me. At last he said there was a way in which I
might save Gerard, though my brother was one of the officers of the band
and deserved death even more than the others did. I said I would give my
life to save Gerard's,--for I knew that you, my love, would not blame me
for that. But the Landgrave said it was not my life he wished, it was--"
"I understand!"
"I would not consent to that, even to save my brother. When the
Landgrave became more urgent, and began to speak of my duty as a sister,
I said that what he asked was not mine to give, that I was pledged to
another. And then he told me you were dead, that you had been shot while
trying to escape when the conspirators were captured. For a time I could
not speak. He called back the minister of police and the others, and
asked them to assure me that you had been killed. When I could no longer
doubt, something seemed to have died within me. I felt that I was no
longer a living woman, that my life had gone out at the news that you
were dead."
"My poor beloved!"
"Then the Landgrave sent away the others, and spoke again of Gerard,
saying that one of whose treason there was so much proof would certainly
be condemned, and that only an arbitrary order of the sovereign could
cause him to be released. The thought came to me that it was no longer a
living woman that the Landgrave demanded for my brother's life, that I
was no more Catherine de St. Valier, and that if I should consent to
save Gerard it would be giving the Landgrave not myself but a soulless
corpse. Oh, do you not understand?"
"Yes, yes, _I_ understand. _I_ can imagine all you felt!"
"It was agreed that a messenger of the Landgrave should go with Antoine
to Spangenberg, with everything necessary for Gerard's release and his
flight to France. The Landgrave was not to present himself before me
until he could bring proofs, with Antoine as an eye-witness, of Gerard's
departure from Spangenberg. I was waiting for him when you came in by
the window. So distracted I was, that, for the moment, I supposed the
Landgrave had taken that way of entrance for the sake of greater
secrecy."
"It was I, who, for the sake of secrecy, chose that way," said Dick. "I
was shot at in escaping from the tower, but they were not my countrymen
behind the muskets! I went back to the tower, and saw the Landgrave
riding away, alone with a lady. While I was at the tower, a lackey came
to seek the lady's riding-whip. When he said the lady was you, and when
I saw it was your whip he found, I was mad with jealousy and doubt,
grief and fear, and I should have died had I not come to find out the
truth. A friend, who had tried to hold me back, followed and overtook me
outside the city, persuaded me to enter Cassel with caution, and offered
me his aid. We left our horses in the woods outside the city, obtained a
boat from a peasant, rowed down the Fulda after dark, and thus got into
Cassel without crossing the bridge or meeting the guard. Romberg waited
at the river while I hastened to the palace. I had learned from Gerard
which was your window,--and, thank God, one can approach it without
passing near the guards at the palace doors. I climbed yonder tree--as I
have climbed many a tree in America--and swung by a branch to the
balcony." He had risen to point out the tree, and she had followed him.
"Thank God you came in time,--that I knew before it was too late!" she
said, turning her eyes up to his with a grave and tender gaze.
"Thank God you still are mine!" he replied, clasping her again in his
arms, and pressing a kiss upon her lips.
There came a cautious knock on the door. Catherine gave a start.
"The Landgrave," she whispered, "coming to the appointment!"
She gazed up at Dick, in questioning silence. Gretel, who evidently
understood the situation, cast an inquiring look at Catherine, and stood
as, if awaiting orders. No one in the room moved.
The knock was repeated. Dick had now made up his mind. "He brings proof
of Gerard's safety?" he whispered, interrogatively.
"Yes, or he would not be here," replied Catherine, under her breath.
Dick motioned Gretel to come close to him. "Open the door, in a moment,"
he said to the girl, "but do it in a fumbling way, so as to delay him
as long as possible." Dick then led Catherine quickly into the alcove,
the curtains closing behind them.
There was a third knock, a little louder and more insistent. But Gretel
could now be heard at the door, which she first locked and then
unlocked, in order to carry out Dick's instructions. When she finally
opened it, the Landgrave stepped swiftly in, retaining the noiseless
tread he had used in the corridor. His triumphant, expectant face, when
he saw only Gretel in the room, took on a look of sharp disappointment.
"The devil!" he said, in a kind of quick growl. "No one here?"
The maid, not knowing what to say, pretended to be absorbed in fastening
the door, which she had promptly closed.
Noticing the curtained alcove, the Landgrave started towards it; but he
had not crossed the room when Catherine appeared, instantly letting the
curtains fall to behind her.
"At last, mademoiselle," said the Landgrave, joyfully, putting forth his
hand to grasp her own.
But she stood back aloof, and said, "The proofs of my brother's release,
your highness?"
His highness received this temporary rebuff with resignation. "Be sure,
I have brought them," he said. "Have the maid call your man-servant, who
is in the corridor, arrived this minute from Spangenberg."
[Illustration: "FREDERICK II. RECOILED A STEP OR TWO."]
Gretel opened the door and called softly, "Antoine!" Immediately the
old servant entered, bowing with a grave deference that was full of
dignity. He wore riding-boots, and carried in one hand his hat and whip,
in the other a folded piece of paper, which he now held out to
Catherine. She took it to the candle-light, and read the few lines
hastily scribbled in pencil. It was a message from Gerard, and told of
his release.
"You saw him safe out of the prison?" she then asked Antoine.
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"On a good horse, and provided with money?" she continued, quoting from
the letter.
"Yes, mademoiselle, with my own eyes; and well out of the town, with a
passport to assure his not being stopped anywhere on the road."
"Then wait in the corridor, Antoine. Will you, too, Gretel, wait there?"
The Landgrave looked surprised at these orders, but, before he could put
his disapprobation into more than a frown, the two servants had left the
room. Catherine stepped at once to the door, locked it, withdrew the
key, and started towards the alcove. The Landgrave's frown gave way to a
smile of eager gratification, and he made to grasp her in his arms as
she passed him. But she eluded his embrace, and ran towards the alcove.
With a look of amused enlightenment, as if he thought her flight a mere
trick of coquetry, he ran after her; but his arms, again extended in the
hope of clasping her, closed on nothing as the curtains fell behind her.
His highness laughed, and, pressing forward, opened the curtains to
follow her.
And, instead of the woman he had thought himself about to possess, he
saw, standing where the curtains met, that woman's lover, the man he had
tried to destroy, the man he had reported dead, the man for whom his
soldiers were even now scouring the roads in the vicinity of his
capital.
The look on that man's face added nothing to the Landgrave's pleasure at
the unexpected meeting.
Frederick II. recoiled a step or two, and stood for a moment as if
petrified, his jaw moving spasmodically without producing any speech.
Dick stepped out from between the curtains, keeping his eyes fixed on
the Landgrave's. Catherine now stood looking forth from the alcove,
affrightedly watching for what terrible thing might next occur.
The Landgrave recovered himself, and made for the door.
"You forget it is locked," said Dick. "It is true, you might call for
help, but if you did I should kill you. Do not look incredulous. I know
that ordinarily you are a sovereign prince, with a people and an army
behind you, and that I am a hunted man, the least powerful in your
dominion. But at this moment we are on fairer terms, with just what
powers nature gave us, except that I have a sword and you have not. So
now it is the weaker man that is my subject, the stronger man that is
your prince!"
The Landgrave looked at the door, Dick's sword, then at Catherine.
"Treachery!" he said, in a voice deprived of strength by his feelings.
"For this I freed your brother, mademoiselle, trusting you implicitly.
It seems one needs more assurance than the honor of a lady-in-waiting!"
"Your highness may recall," said Dick, "that her promise was made on
your assurance that a certain person was dead. Did that lie, and the
plot by which her brother was tricked into his peril, comport with the
honor of a sovereign prince? But this is wasting time and talk.
Mademoiselle de St. Valier and I intend to leave this palace unhindered
and unpursued. It rests with you as to the state in which you shall be
left behind."
The Landgrave looked bewildered. It seemed incredible that a ruling
prince should be so helplessly placed, in his own palace, but a second
glance assured him that this was no dream,--that the locked door, the
sword in Dick's hand, and the expression on Dick's face, were very
actual facts.
"Mademoiselle de St. Valier shall never go," his highness said at last.
"As for you, I will let you pass out free. I cannot forget the service
you rendered the Landgravine."
Dick gave a short laugh of derision. "Can I not get it through your
thick skull," he said, "that I am the one in position to offer terms?
You sovereign princes of Germany, we are told, have absolute power, but
you seem to be very stupid. In my country, we are quicker to grasp a
situation. It is a country, too, that has recently declared all men to
be, in their rights, created equal. So you see that, to me, the blood of
a prince is no more sacred than another man's!"
At this moment there came from the door one of those creaking or
straining sounds that seem to occur unaccountably.
The Landgrave gave a start of elation, as if this sound betokened an
interruption. But Dick instantly flashed his sword before the
Landgrave's eyes, and said:
"If any one breaks in while I am here, he will find something stretched
on the floor, and to-morrow the people will cry 'Long live the
Landgrave!' for your son. You see that each moment we lose is as
dangerous to you as to me, because it brings the possibility of
interruption."
The noise at the door proved to signify nothing; whereupon the
Landgrave, who had given a shudder at Dick's picture of the possible
morrow, now showed as much relief as he had first shown pleasure.
"Then what do you request?" asked the Landgrave, trying to conceal, by
his best pretence of dignity, his inward rage and chagrin.
"I request nothing," said Dick. "I demand nothing. I merely offer to
leave without harming you, on condition that you will not give any alarm
of our departure, or orders for our pursuit."
"Very well, I agree," said the Landgrave, with a readiness that made
Dick laugh again.
"Of course you do, for you think you can break the condition, and have
us stopped by your guards before we are out of the city, or even out of
the palace. I must provide against that."
"I give you my word of honor, neither to leave this room nor to make any
alarm, till daybreak."
"It seems, one needs better assurance than the honor of a sovereign
prince," said Dick, imitating the Landgrave's own words with a slight
alteration. He then took from his pocket a phial given him at the
riverside by Romberg, who had provided himself, on hearing of the trick
played on the conspirators, with means of self-destruction in case of
capture. Dick quickly took up a pitcher of water from the table, poured
some of it into a glass, uncorked the phial with his teeth, and dropped
a small portion of the liquid into the water. Meanwhile, Catherine,
foreseeing Dick's plans, put on a hooded cloak, and gathered up her
purse and what small things of value she desired to retain.
"Drink this," said Dick to the Landgrave, from whom he had not for an
instant taken his eyes.
"What do you mean?" said the Landgrave, turning pale.
"To make it easier for you to keep your princely word, your highness!
Don't be afraid. It takes more than this quantity to kill a man. What is
here will merely enable you to pass the few hours till daybreak in
sleep. It would be a pity so great a prince should suffer from insomnia
or ennui during that length of time! Drink, man! I am becoming a little
bored with this place, myself."
An impatient movement of the sword--which weapon Dick had so managed as
to check every one of his highness's numerous impulses to rush upon
him--ended Frederick's hesitation. He petulantly drank the contents of
the glass, and handed it back to Dick, who motioned him to put it on the
table and to go to the couch.
"Call Antoine," said Dick to Catherine, following the Landgrave close to
the couch on which the latter dropped.
Noiselessly Catherine unlocked the door and let in the two servants.
Gretel, as soon as she saw what was up, begged to be taken along, and
found a cloak for herself in the room. Antoine, at Dick's whispered
direction, took coverings from the bed in the alcove, and knotted them
together so as to form a means of descent from the balcony. Meanwhile,
Catherine had relocked the door and possessed herself of the phial,
which Dick had placed on the table.
"Come," said Dick, taking Catherine's hand and leading the way towards
the open window, when at last the Landgrave slept. "Put out the light,
Antoine, and let us hasten. In a few hours, that old snoring rascal will
be a prince again!"
CHAPTER XXI.
"THE ROAD TO PARIS."
Dick descended first, then came Catherine, Gretel next, Antoine last.
While the four were speeding, in the darkness, from the open grounds of
the palace, Antoine bethought him that he had not yet dismissed the
horse on which he had come from Spangenberg. He therefore went and got
the animal, in sight of the guards at one of the doors, who supposed he
had left the palace by another exit. He then rode boldly out of the
town, crossing the bridge to take the Melsungen road. As he not only
knew the password for all guards and patrols, but was also known to have
been riding on the Landgrave's business, he was not detained a moment on
the bridge. He rode on to a place that Dick had named as a rendezvous.
Meanwhile, Dick and the two women joined Romberg at the riverside,
silently got aboard the boat, and rowed up the Fulda to a point some
distance out of the city. Here they disembarked and found the two horses
where the gentlemen had left them. In a few minutes they, too, were
pressing forward on the Melsungen road, Catherine mounted behind Dick,
Gretel behind Romberg.
"What road is this?" asked Catherine, whose sense of locality and
direction had been confused by the darkness and the haste.
"It leads first to Melsungen," said Dick, "but for us it is merely the
first stage of the road to Paris; we shall not stop, except to eat and
sleep and change horses, till we arrive there."
Dick felt certain he could now return to Paris without incurring danger
there. He would make himself known at once to the American
commissioners, and so establish connections that would not allow of his
being imprisoned again without inquiry. As a citizen of a country now
France's ally in war, he would have little, if anything, to fear from
Necker, as long as he should act prudently. As for the secret
Brotherhood, perhaps it no longer existed. Now that he had not four
armed men at his elbows, he felt he could take care of himself. But he
trusted most to the likelihood of his being unrecognized after such a
lapse of time.
Meanwhile, he was yet several days' journey from Paris, and far from
being out of the dominion of his friend, Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel.
When the four riders, on the two horses, neared the place where Antoine
was to have waited, they heard a horse coming towards them from ahead,
and soon the dark figure that loomed up on its back proved to be his.
"Monsieur," he said to Dick, "there is a body of horsemen approaching
from the direction of Melsungen. They must be the troops that the
Landgrave sent in search of you after your escape yesterday." Antoine
had been informed of recent occurrences by the messenger whom he had
accompanied to Spangenberg.
"Shall we turn back and take the by-road we passed awhile ago?" asked
Dick, of Romberg, who was better acquainted with the country.
"It is the only thing to do," said Romberg, suiting action to the word
by turning his horse.
When the party had moved a few rods back towards Cassel, there came from
the direction of the city a sullen boom, breaking with startling effect
the silence of the night.
"The alarm-gun," said Romberg, checking his horse.
"That is fired for deserters, is it not?" said Dick, following his
example.
"But deserters might have robbed gentlemen, and taken their clothes and
horses, with which to escape," said Romberg. "That gun warns the country
to look out for fugitives of any kind."
"The Landgrave must have awakened too soon and given the alarm," said
Dick. "I let him off with too small a dose."
At that instant there was heard a distant hollow sound like thunder, but
less uneven.
"Horsemen galloping over the bridge at Cassel," said Romberg.
"A pursuing party, without any doubt," said Dick. "Hang my
thoughtlessness! The guards saw which way Antoine came. Well, we must
reach the by-road before they do."
"That is impossible," said Romberg. "We should meet them before we
arrived there."
"But if we wait here they will be upon us in a few minutes. And, if we
resume our way towards Melsungen, we shall meet the party that Antoine
discovered. Hark, I can hear that party now!"
Romberg looked around, scanning the dark country on both sides of the
road. Here the land was quite clear of trees, and every object was now
and then made visible by the appearance of the moon through cloud-rifts.
"There is a ruined abbey, at the head of that short lane," said Romberg.
"Perhaps if we should hide there till these two parties meet,--"
"As neither party would have come upon us on the way," said Dick, "they
might suppose we had taken some other road, after all. Come, then. 'Tis
our only chance."
The three horses were instantly turned into the lane. The abbey was now
used as a barn. The wide door was barred on the outside with a piece of
wood, merely to keep it from being opened by the wind. The men
dismounted and led the horses into the dark interior, which smelled of
hay and grain. They closed the door, but there was no way of bolting it
on the inside. The women now dismounted, and the party stood in silence,
trusting that their horses would not in any way betray their presence.
As fate would have it, the two forces of horsemen--the one commanded by
the officer who had let Dick escape, the other by the Baron von
Sungen--met near the mouth of the lane leading to the barn. Torches were
lighted, and the two leaders conferred for some time. Then Von Sungen,
who was not only the superior in rank but was also the more recently
from Cassel and had the Landgrave's latest orders, got off his horse,
seized a torch from one of the bearers, and started up the lane,
followed afoot by six of his men.
The gentlemen in the barn saw this movement through chinks of the door.
"It is Von Sungen," said Romberg. "He must have a strong personal
interest in your capture, that he should come to search with his own
eyes."
He and Dick drew their swords. Antoine held ready a pistol, which he had
carried in his saddle-bag on his Spangenberg journey.
Von Sungen's concern seemed indeed very great, for so rapidly he strode
that he reached the barn a dozen feet ahead of his men. He opened the
door, and thrust in his head, preceding it with his torch.
Before any one could make a movement, the attention of all was drawn by
Catherine, who said to Dick and Romberg:
"Flee for your lives, gentlemen! Don't heed me. I shall be dead before
he can lay a hand upon me."
And she held to her lips the phial that Dick had left on her table in
the palace.
Dick ran to grasp her hand, and Von Sungen cried out to her, in the
utmost alarm, "For God's sake, not that, mademoiselle!" He, too, would
have rushed in to prevent her, but his breast was menaced by the sword
of Romberg.
Meanwhile the dismounted men who had accompanied Von Sungen from the
road, had halted at a respectful distance from him, and they now stood
awaiting orders, which he was too much occupied with Catherine's
movements to give. The men could not see the inside of the barn, or hear
what was said there.
"Oho!" said Romberg to Von Sungen. "Your interest in mademoiselle's
welfare betrays you. You have orders to take her back alive."
"You have the gift of second sight, my dear Romberg," said Von Sungen,
watching Catherine, who still held the phial to her lips, although
Dick's hand upon her wrist could have dashed it from her at any moment.
"Then," said she to Von Sungen, "the instant your men approach, I will
take this poison, I swear!"
"Therefore, Baron," put in Dick, "to prevent accident, you would better
order your men away, while we discuss matters."
"If your frame of mind is for discussion, I am quite willing to do
that," said Von Sungen, who himself feared that some sudden movement of
his men might precipitate Catherine's threatened action. He turned and
spoke a few words to the six, who thereupon faced about and marched back
to the road, where the two mounted forces waited. Only Von Sungen as yet
knew who were in the barn. He had given his followers the impression
that his talk was with peasants who might put him on the track of the
fugitives.
"And now, mademoiselle and messieurs," said Von Sungen, "will you listen
to reason? You cannot fail to see how impossible is your escape from
this place, with all those horse-guards watching from the road. Even if
you could kill me--"
"We have no desire to do that," said Dick. "God knows there are few
enough kind hearts and cheerful faces in the world, as it is. But we are
as determined to escape, or all to die together, as you probably are to
capture us."
Von Sungen here stepped into the barn, but the look on Catherine's face
promptly checked him from going any nearer to her.
"My orders are," he said, "to bring back Monsieur Wetheral and
Mademoiselle de St. Valier, both alive, if possible; or, if need be, the
gentleman dead, but the lady alive in any event. Nothing was said of
Captain von Romberg."
"Nevertheless," put in that gentleman, "Captain von Romberg joins his
fate with theirs, until all are safe or dead."
"You are sure to fail of carrying out your orders, Baron," said
Catherine. "I will never go back to Cassel alive."
"Not even if I take on myself the risk of letting Monsieur Wetheral go
free? In that case you will save his life, as well as that of Captain
von Romberg, who seems determined to die with his friend. Moreover, you
will be saving your own life as well," said Von Sungen.
"A man of honor like the Baron von Sungen," said Dick, with the gentlest
shade of scorn and reproach, "must have a very strong motive for
proposing that two other men of honor should accept their lives on the
terms given."
"It is true," replied Von Sungen, "I have a large stake in this night's
business,--as great a one as yours, monsieur."
"How can that be possible?" said Dick.
"I will prove it to you," said Von Sungen. "I infer that you love this
lady, and that your greatest wish is to preserve her from the purposes
of the Landgrave. Well, I love a lady, and my dearest desire is to save
her from a marriage that would be for her a degradation as great as any
woman could feel in becoming the Landgrave's favorite. Don't tell me,
monsieur, that marriage would lessen the horror of a virtuous woman's
union with old Rothenstein. Well, the Baroness's hand is at the disposal
of the Landgrave. He has hesitated whether to favor Rothenstein or yield
to my entreaties. To-night, when his highness sent me to seek you, he
said, 'Bring Mademoiselle de St. Valier back alive, and you shall marry
the Baroness von Lüderwaldt when you please. Come back without
mademoiselle alive, and Rothenstein shall marry your Baroness
to-morrow.'"
"My poor Von Sungen!" said Dick, his ready imagination putting himself
for the moment in the place of the other, with whom his own case enabled
him perfectly to sympathize.
"Well, monsieur," said Von Sungen, "it seems that both of us must lose
our sweethearts and our lives, for if mademoiselle will not save your
life, and enable me to save my sweetheart, I will kill myself. I would
no more live to see her wedded to that vile old wretch, Rothenstein,
than you would live to see your beloved possessed by the Landgrave. But,
mademoiselle, will you not save your lover's life in spite of himself?"
"I will not go back to the Landgrave," she said, with calm resolution.
Her agreement for the saving of her brother had been made on the belief
that her lover was dead, and before she had experienced the horrible
emotions that came with a later conception of what that agreement would
require of her.
The Baron sighed in despair. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation:
"Ach! Since for each of us it is all or death, let at least one of us
have all! You must admit, our stakes are equal or nearly so. I repeat, I
should suffer as much from the Baroness's marriage to Rothenstein as you
would from mademoiselle's falling into the hands of the Landgrave. So
let us appeal to chance. If you win the throw, you shall both go free,
you and the lady; I will go back without her, and take the consequences.
But if I win, the lady shall go back with me."
"You consider," said Dick, with a faint smile, "that even chances are
preferable to the certainty of mademoiselle's taking the poison."
"Good God, monsieur, do you not consider likewise? Come. If you lose,
you can at least die, as I shall do if I lose. It is the honor and
happiness of your sweetheart against the self-respect and happiness of
mine, the life and happiness of yourself against the life and happiness
of myself. Why, if you lose, mademoiselle, too, can die, if she wishes,
after I have taken her back to the Landgrave. So you are no worse off
for abandoning your position of certain destruction for us all, and for
allowing chance to save one of us for happiness."
"The issue is too important to leave to chance," said Dick, quietly.
"Let us determine it by skill."
"Very well; but what game of skill have we here the means of playing?"
"There is a game of skill that gentlemen play with swords," said Dick.
"Excellent!" cried Von Sungen, understanding. "And the game in our case
has this advantage, it can be so played that the loser need not survive
his loss. Let it be a duel to the death, monsieur, so that the
unfortunate one shall not be under the necessity of killing himself."
"Agreed," said Dick.
"But I will not consent," cried Catherine. "Even if you fight and lose,
I will not go back to the Landgrave; I will take the poison."
"In this cause I cannot possibly lose," said Dick, pressing her hand.
"Give your consent, dearest."
She looked at his calm eyes, his unmoved countenance, his steady hands,
and said, after a moment:
"Very well."
"Then, Baron," said Dick, "you may take measures, regarding the troops
out there, to enable us to depart unhindered when you are dead."
"If I send them away--" Von Sungen began, but paused.
"We give you our word of honor, we will not escape from you otherwise
than by my killing you in this fight," said Dick.
"Captain von Romberg will not interfere?" said the Baron.
"Not unless to prevent the intrusion of some possible third party,"
answered Romberg.
"I will return in a minute," then said Von Sungen. "You may wish to have
a light while I am gone," and he handed his torch to Antoine.
He walked down the lane to the waiting horsemen, and ordered the second
in command to lead the two forces back to a certain junction of roads.
"I am making some inquiries," he added, "that may help us in this
search. Meanwhile, keep close watch on the by-road till I join you."
The troops, puzzled but not permitted to question, rode off in the
direction of Cassel. Von Sungen, who had taken from one of them a second
torch, now strode back to the barn with it. He found Dick ready for the
contest, for which the barn floor presented a sufficient arena. The
baron handed the second torch to Romberg, and silently made his
preparations. The four who were to be spectators moved to where Antoine
had already led the horses, at one end of the barn floor. The torches
threw an uneven red light on the scene, leaving the surroundings, here
obscure, and there entirely lost in shadow.
Dick and Von Sungen faced each other, without the least hatred, indeed
with great esteem, but each determined to kill the other. The swords
clashed. The advantage in duelling experience lay strongly with Von
Sungen. Dick had fought only one duel, but he had recently resumed
practice with the foils under a French fencing-master at Cassel.
Moreover, Von Sungen was still fully under the excitement with which he
had started on the pursuit, while with Dick this incident had been
immediately preceded by so many scenes of danger that he could now face
anything with calmness. So he fought cautiously, at first only guarding
against the other's impetuous attack.
Finally the Baron's exertions began to tell upon him, and a wild thrust
betrayed either that his eye was no longer true, or that his brain had
lost perfect control of his arm. Dick felt it was now but a matter of
time that the Baron should lay himself open to a decisive lunge.
Suddenly the barn door was flung open from the outside, and two men
stepped unceremoniously in, armed with swords and pistols, and the
second one bearing a torch.
"Aha!" cried the first, flashing up his sword. "I thought you might be
in danger!" And he ran to the aid of Von Sungen.
"Curse you for meddling against orders!" cried the Baron, enraged at
this assistance. "Don't interfere, I command you!"
And the fight went on, between Von Sungen and Wetheral. The Baron's
officer, who had come back with one of the horse-guards,--on what
pretext was never known,--stepped aside, amazed. But in a few moments
this officer whispered something to the horse-guard with him, and the
latter started for the door. By this time Romberg and Antoine had both
run past the fighters and neared the door. Antoine, unwilling to make a
noise by firing a shot, thrust his torch into the departing soldier's
face, and then felled the suddenly blinded man to the floor with a blow
of his pistol. The interfering officer, with a fierce oath, instantly
ran his sword through Antoine's body, drawing it immediately out to
defend himself against Romberg, who had lost time in finding a place for
his torch. The old servant fell dead across the soldier he had knocked
senseless, and the torches of the two blazed up from the ground. Romberg
and the officer now had a rapid exchange of thrusts, the two being
evenly matched. But a sharp cry, from a few feet away, drew for an
instant the attention of the officer, and Romberg's sword, piercing his
lung, stretched him on the floor near the other two prostrate bodies.
The cry that the officer had heard was the death cry of Von Sungen, who
now lay silent and motionless at Dick's feet.
"Poor Baroness von Lüderwaldt!" said Dick, gently, wiping his sword with
a wisp of hay.
Catherine seized Dick's hand, and pressed it in silence, then ran over
towards Antoine.
"He is quite dead," said Romberg, rising from a brief examination of the
old servant's body.
Catherine gazed at the prostrate figure a moment, with sorrowful but
tearless face, and then allowed Dick to lead her to a horse.
When Dick and Romberg, having assisted Catherine to mount, went to help
Gretel, the girl refused, saying she had thought to be of assistance to
mademoiselle, but had found herself only an encumbrance. Therefore, in
order that the flight should be no more delayed on her account, she
would not accompany the fugitives further, but would walk to her home
near Homberg, where she would be safe from the inquiries of the
Landgrave and his officers. As the girl's resolution was not to be
overcome, and as time was precious, the three went forth without her,
there being now a horse for each. Catherine rode on a man's saddle, of
which the gentlemen hastily readjusted the stirrups so that she might
sit in feminine fashion. In leaving the barn, the men put out the
torches, and Dick possessed himself of old Antoine's loaded pistol, as
well as of his cloak, in place of which he left the scarlet one.
The fugitives avoided, by a détour through fields, the bridge that
crossed to Melsungen; and they continued southward along the right bank
of the Fulda. Now and then they stopped to rest their horses. Dawn found
them suffering from fatigue, but they rode on. At a farmhouse they
stopped and fed their horses, also refreshing themselves with milk and
eggs. At noon they arrived at the town of Fulda, having covered the
sixty miles from Cassel, without change of horses and over bad roads, in
eleven hours.
On entering Fulda they gave the officer of the guard false names and a
prepared story. They learned that a close watch was being kept for an
officer in a scarlet cloak; so Dick was thankful for having exchanged
with poor Antoine. The search begun yesterday had, thus, evidently
extended as far as to Fulda. With the discovery of Von Sungen's fate,
new parties would be sent in every direction. Dick was loath to lose
time, but the fatigue of all three was so great that dinner and a few
hours of sleep were taken at the inn at Fulda. Four o'clock in the
afternoon saw the fugitives again on the road.
The shortest route to France was by way of Frankfort, for which city
they now made, intending to travel by night, and to give a wide berth to
whatever walled towns might lie in the way. Fortunately, their horses
were of a stock characterized by great endurance.
They had been about two hours out of Fulda, when they saw a horseman
galloping up behind them. As this cavalier himself looked back
frequently, it appeared more likely that he feared pursuit than that he
was to be feared as a pursuer. When he was quite near, Romberg cried
out:
"By God's thunder, it is the traitor, Mesmer! So they have let him
escape, after all!"
"Escape?" said Dick, with a grim kind of smile. "Do you call his falling
into our hands an escape?" And Dick turned to go and meet the newcomer.
But Catherine caught his arm, so that he had to rein up to avoid
dragging her from her horse.
"Let this be my affair," said Romberg, and immediately rode towards
Mesmer, drawing his sword as he did so.
Mesmer suddenly recognized the two gentlemen and divined Romberg's
purpose. Bringing his horse to an abrupt stop, he drew a pistol, with
which he had in some way provided himself, and fired straight at Romberg
as the latter came up. Romberg instantly tumbled from the horse to the
road, and lay still, retaining his sword in the rigid grasp of death.
Dick gave a cry of grief and wrath, tore his arm from Catherine's hold,
and galloped towards Mesmer, drawing his own pistol and firing as he
went. A shriek cleft the air, and the traitor rolled on the earth, close
to the body that he himself had bereft of life a moment ago.
Dick quickly ascertained that both were dead, then remounted his horse,
seized the bridle of Catherine's, and spurred forward. Not a word passed
for some time, both indulging in silence the emotions produced by this
latest swift tragedy. Presently Dick said, "If we should report to the
next town's authorities that those two bodies are back there in the
road, we should doubtless be detained, and all would be lost. So I shall
merely tell the first honest-looking man we meet, where the bodies lie
and whose they are. My poor Romberg!"
This plan Dick soon carried out, and, as in this case his judgment of a
face was correct, the two bodies were subjected neither to robbery nor
to final consignment to unknown graves.
At nightfall Dick and Catherine gave their horses rest and food at a
village hostelry, and then resumed their journey, pretending they had
little farther to go. But they rode all night, making what battle they
could against fatigue, and what defence their cloaks enabled them to
maintain against the cold.
They entered Frankfort a few minutes after the gates were opened for the
day. As this was a free city, it seemed likely that they were out of
danger, although it might turn out that the Landgrave's arm could reach
them here, through his resident, as the arm of Frederick of Prussia had
reached Voltaire twenty-five years before. But it was absolutely
necessary that they should have sleep, so Dick took the risk of riding
at once to the inn called the Emperor, and ordering rooms and breakfast.
As they dropped into chairs in the dining-parlor, more dead than alive,
they heard an exclamation of surprise from a man they had vaguely
perceived across the table. Both, looking up at the same moment,
recognized Gerard de St. Valier.
This meeting revived the worn-out energies of Dick and Catherine, and
explanations were quickly made. Gerard, having been released from
Spangenberg some hours before the other two had left Cassel, and having
taken at Melsungen a shorter route than that by way of Fulda, had
arrived in Frankfort late the previous night. And, a few minutes after
his arrival, a great event had occurred. He had met at this inn a
lawyer's clerk, on the way from Paris to Cassel, with papers awarding
at last to the St. Valiers the bequest that had been disputed in the
courts. This news made the future look rosy. It assured the St. Valiers
of a moderate competency, and would make it possible for Dick to marry
Catherine without fear of her being tied to destitution through any
failure of his own to find fortune.
It was agreed to remain at the Emperor until noon, that some hours of
sleep might be had. Then the three were to start Parisward on their
horses, this mode of travel--no longer a common one for ladies--being
retained because it was by far the most rapid.
When Dick and Catherine reappeared from their rooms, at the time set for
taking horse again, they met Gerard, whose face wore a look of
disquietude.
"I have paid the bills, and the horses are ready," he said to Dick, in a
low tone. "Let us lose no time in getting out of the city and territory
of Frankfort."
"What is the matter?" asked Dick.
"In the street, awhile ago, I saw Wedeker, who always bears the
Landgrave's important despatches, ride up, on a foaming horse, to a
house that he almost broke his way into, he was in so great a hurry. I
asked a passer-by what house it was. It was that of the Landgrave's
Frankfort resident. Wedeker is doubtless straight from Cassel, with
orders to have you held in Frankfort; and in a very short time, if the
resident can have his way with the authorities, the city guard will be
on the hunt for us."
"Let us go, then. This running away from authorities seems to have
become a fixed habit of mine," said Dick, giving his hand to Catherine.
In a few minutes the three fugitives rode westward through the Mainz
gate, Dick giving a sigh of relief as they emerged to the open suburb
bordering the river Main.
"Evidently no orders concerning us have yet reached the gates," he said,
looking back at the stolid guard they had just passed.
"We are not yet out of the territory appertaining to the city of
Frankfort," said Gerard.
"And if we get out of it," said Dick, "we shall have to look out for
this Wedeker, I suppose, until the last foot of German soil is behind
us."
"Probably," replied Gerard, "but we have the start of Wedeker, and, as
the local authorities will nowhere send their troops or police out of
their own territory, he must travel alone much of the time. If he should
come up to us alone, between one town and another--"
"Some one else would subsequently have the honor of carrying the
Landgrave's important despatches," put in Dick. "We ought to have taken
fresh horses, Gerard. Catherine's and mine are almost run out. They
have done incredible service already."
A quarter of an hour later Catherine's mount staggered, stumbled, and
lay panting on its side. Its rider slid from the saddle in time to
escape injury.
Gerard and Dick came to a quick stop. "My beast is fresh," said Gerard.
"You'd best ride behind me."
Dick got off his own horse, and assisted Catherine upon Gerard's. Then
he remounted his own; but he had no sooner done so than the animal sank
under him, the last bit of strength having passed from its trembling
limbs.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Dick. "I imagine your beast is hardly fresh
enough to carry three, Gerard?"
Gerard laughed, in spite of this setback, at the droll manner in which
Dick asked this question.
Then Dick turned his eyes back towards Frankfort, took on a peculiar
smile, and said, in the coolest and mildest of voices:
"It is a pity,--because I see a number of soldiers or police riding out
of the gate we rode through a few minutes ago."
Gerard looked around, and turned pale. "My God!" said he. "It is the
city guard! And don't you recognize Wedeker by his uniform, with the
officer at their head?"
Dick heaved a gentle sigh, then looked at his empty pistol and his
sword. "This is an occasion for horses, not for weapons," he said, with
his former quietness. "To think that, after all the flying, the
fighting, and the killing, a man should be nabbed at last, merely for
want of a fresh horse. Why do you wait, Gerard? You can easily escape
with Catherine. You must save her."
"And leave you? Never!"
"Well said, my brother," whispered Catherine.
"I see yonder a kind of country inn, to judge from the horse-shed near
it," said Dick, indicating a low building a short distance ahead on
their road.
He started towards it afoot, followed by the two who were mounted. When
he reached the shed, he saw therein, to his amazement, two horses. A
peasant was in the act of giving them grain.
"Whose animals are these, my friend?" queried Dick.
"They belong to a soldier, mein herr, who arrived last night with the
black, and won the gray from another guest, at cards."
"And where is this fortunate person to be found?"
"In the house, mein herr; in the first room at the head of the stairs."
"I'll go and try to make a bargain with him," said Dick.
"No," said Gerard, "let me go. I am now better able to make bargains
than you are." And he leaped off his horse and ran to the house. He
desired that he, not Dick, should be at the expense of the purchase.
Dick stood waiting beside Catherine, looking now into her anxious eyes
with a reassuring smile, now towards the distant troops that were
steadily drawing nearer on the road.
Soon Gerard reappeared from the house, with a dejected face. "The fellow
refuses to sell," he said. "He sat playing a violin, and blamed me for
interrupting his music. I think we should be justified in taking one of
his horses, in spite of him."
"You cannot do that, mein herr," said the peasant, looking towards the
inn, from which came the sounds of men gambling and drinking.
"What sort of a man is this horse-owner?" asked Dick, not as if with any
hope, but as if duty required the last possible effort.
"A gaunt rascal," said Gerard, "who began to answer me in French, and
then veered into a kind of Scotch-English, with an Irish phrase or two."
A strange, wondering look came over Dick's face. "Let me try," he said,
in a barely audible voice, and made hastily for the house.
He flung open the door, rushed up the rickety stairs, and stopped before
a chamber at their head. From within came the sound of a fiddle scraping
out the tune of "Over the hills and far away."
Dick burst into the room, crying out, "Tom MacAlister, dear old Tom, _I_
am the man that wants to buy your horse!"
* * * * *
"'Tis no sic a vast warld, they that do a mickle travelling will
discover," said MacAlister, as he and the three fugitives cantered
westward towards Mayence, having left the Frankfort territory, and,
consequently, the Frankfort city guard, far behind them.
The two St. Valiers rode one of Tom's horses, which were both stronger
and fresher than the animal on which Gerard had come out of Frankfort.
The latter beast now carried MacAlister, who had nothing to fear from
being overtaken, and whose second horse was ridden by Wetheral. The
piper's son had not expressed any great surprise at seeing Dick, a fact
explained by him in the words already quoted.
"I mak' nae doot your ain presence in these parts was brought aboot in
the most likely way," he continued; "and, sure, there's devil a bit
extraordinary in my being here."
He then gave account of his movements since the attack on Quebec.
Exchanged, with Morgan and the other prisoners, he served under that
gallant commander in the glorious campaign of Saratoga. His term of
enlistment expiring on the very day of Burgoyne's surrender, he
voluntarily accompanied the troops that escorted the defeated British
and Hessian army to Boston. In that town he met a Virginia Scotchman,
whose people he had known in Scotland. This man, who had added the name
of Jones to that of John Paul, held the rank of captain in the newly
projected navy of the United States of America, and was on the very eve
of sailing from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in a vessel called the
_Ranger_. Love of diversity impelled Tom to ship for the cruise across
the Atlantic. Sailing November 1, 1777, the _Ranger_ captured two
prizes, sent them to the port of Malaga, and arrived on the second of
December at Nantes, in the harbor of which Captain Jones caused the new
flag of the United States to receive its first salute in European
waters, as its white stars set in blue and its red and white stripes
fluttered high above the _Ranger's_ deck. MacAlister accompanied Jones
to Paris, where he grew weary of inaction while the captain was trying,
with the aid of the American commissioners, to obtain a certain fine
frigate for the new navy. So Tom, in whom a returning inclination for
some more European service had begun to assert itself, started for
Germany, with a thought of finding employment in the war that Frederick
of Prussia had been conducting against Austria, since the first of the
present year of 1778, over the Bavarian succession.
"But now that I've met you," MacAlister said to Dick, "it's devil an
inch further I'll gang eastward. Sure, 'tis nae self-sacrifice to turn
aboot and trot back to Paris, for that war has been plodding along sin'
'most a year agone, and never a battle yet, for whilk I should think the
King of Prussia, auld as he is, would be ashamed,--as nae doot he is.
Weel, weel, so 'tis the young lady of Quebec ye are, miss! Sure, Dickie,
lad, do ye mind what I tauld ye once, aboot the wind of circumstance?"
"Ay, Tom, but if we had left all to the wind of circumstance, we should
not be this moment riding free towards Paris."
"No more ye should, lad. 'Tis one part circumstance, and three parts
wark and fight, that lands a man safe and sound in the snug harbors of
this warld."
They tarried briefly at Mayence, keeping the while an eye on the gate by
which Wedeker would enter if he should continue his efforts. But, if
Wedeker entered at all, it was after the four travellers had departed
from the city of priests and were on their way to Birkenfeld.
From Birkenfeld they went to Metz, where they disposed of their horses
and hired a coach and four to convey them onward by easy stages. Once on
French ground, they breathed with perfect freedom.
"And when ye do get to Paris, lad," asked Tom, "what then? If ye have a
mind to serve your country in the way of sea-fighting, we can do nae
better than seek out Captain Jones."
"I think," was the answer, "after I see Paris,--for I never have seen
it, though I have passed through it,--I would like to have a look at my
own country again. But it is for others to say."
"No," said Catherine, gently. "It is for you to say. Is it not, Gerard?"
"When my affairs in France are settled," replied Gerard, "I am sure the
other side of the Atlantic will be good enough for me."
Verdun, Châlons, Épernay, one after another, were left behind; then
Meaux, and, at last, one cold but sunny afternoon late in December, the
coach rolled through a faubourg, passed under an arch, and rumbled along
the Rue St. Martin, whence it was to take its passengers to a hotel in
the Rue St. Honore. But, at Dick's desire, the coachman drove first to
the Pont Neuf, and there stopped. Through the right-hand window the four
passengers could see the Louvre and the Tuileries, as well as the
buildings at the opposite side of the Seine; through the left-hand
window they could see, above the mass of roofs and spires, the towers of
Notre Dame, flashing back the horizontal sun-rays.
"It is like in the picture-book," said Dick, softly,--for his fancy had
long since transfigured the stiff engravings he had studied in his
childhood. Then he turned and looked at the friendly faces within the
coach,--Gerard's, old Tom's; last of all, the face beside him, whose
dark eyes met his.
"Do you know, I was always sure," he said, "that the road to Paris was
to be my road to happiness."
THE END.
_SELECTIONS FROM
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S
LIST OF NEW FICTION._
[Illustration]
Selections from
L. C. Page and Company's
List of New Fiction.
=An Enemy to the King.=
From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire.
By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS. Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry IV.,
and on the field with Henry of Navarre.
=The Continental Dragoon.=
A Romance of Philipse Manor House, in 1778. By ROBERT NEILSON
STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King." Illustrated by H. C.
Edwards.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and
around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the
time of the story was the central point of the so-called "neutral
territory" between the two armies.
=Muriella; or, Le Selve.=
By OUIDA. Illustrated by M. B. Prendergast.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
This is the latest work from the pen of the brilliant author of
"Under Two Flags," "Moths," etc., etc. It is the story of the
love and sacrifice of a young peasant girl, told in the absorbing
style peculiar to the author.
=The Road to Paris.=
By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King," "The
Continental Dragoon," etc. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
An historical romance, being an account of the life of an
American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family
early settled in the colony of Pennsylvania. The scene shifts
from the unsettled forests of the then West to Philadelphia, New
York, London, Paris, and, in fact, wherever a love of adventure
and a roving fancy can lead a soldier of fortune. The story is
written in Mr. Stephens's best style, and is of absorbing
interest.
=Rose à Charlitte.=
An Acadien Romance. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful
Joe," etc. Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
1 vol., library 12 mo, cloth =$1.50=
In this novel, the scene of which is laid principally in the land
of Evangeline, Marshall Saunders has made a departure from the
style of her earlier successes. The historical and descriptive
setting of the novel is accurate, the plot is well conceived and
executed, the characters are drawn with a firm and delightful
touch, and the fortunes of the heroine, Rose à Charlitte, a
descendant of an old Acadien family, will be followed with
eagerness by the author's host of admirers.
=Bobbie McDuff.=
By CLINTON ROSS, author of "The Scarlet Coat," "Zuleika," etc.
Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst.
1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=
Clinton Ross is well known as one of the most promising of recent
American writers of fiction, and in the description of the
adventures of his latest hero, Bobbie McDuff, he has repeated his
earlier successes. Mr. Ross has made good use of the wealth of
material at his command. New York furnishes him the hero, sunny
Italy a heroine, grim Russia the villain of the story, while the
requirements of the exciting plot shift the scene from Paris to
New York, and back again to a remote, almost feudal villa on the
southern coast of Italy.
=In Kings' Houses.=
A Romance of the Reign of Queen Anne. By JULIA C. R. DORR, author
of "A Cathedral Pilgrimage," etc. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
Mrs. Dorr's poems and travel sketches have earned for her a
distinct place in American literature, and her romance, "In
Kings' Houses," is written with all the charm of her earlier
works. The story deals with one of the most romantic episodes in
English history. Queen Anne, the last of the reigning Stuarts, is
described with a strong, yet sympathetic touch, and the young
Duke of Gloster, the "little lady," and the hero of the tale,
Robin Sandys, are delightful characterizations.
=Sons of Adversity.=
A Romance of Queen Elizabeth's Time. By L. COPE CONFORD, author of
"Captain Jacobus," etc. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
A tale of adventure on land and sea at the time when Protestant
England and Catholic Spain were struggling for naval supremacy.
Spanish conspiracies against the peace of good Queen Bess, a
vivid description of the raise of the Spanish siege of Leyden by
the combined Dutch and English forces, sea fights, the recovery
of stolen treasure, are all skilfully woven elements in a plot of
unusual strength.
=The Count of Nideck.=
From the French of Erckman-Chatrian, translated and adapted by
RALPH BROWNING FISKE. Illustrated by Victor A. Searles.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
A romance of the Black Forest, woven around the mysterious legend
of the Wehr Wolf. The plot has to do with the later German feudal
times, is brisk in action, and moves spiritedly from start to
finish. Mr. Fiske deserves a great deal of credit for the
excellence of his work. No more interesting romance has appeared
recently.
=The Making of a Saint.=
By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. Illustrated by Gilbert James.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
"The Making of a Saint" is a romance of Mediæval Italy, the scene
being laid in the 15th century. It relates the life of a young
leader of Free Companions who, at the close of one of the many
petty Italian wars, returns to his native city. There he becomes
involved in its politics, intrigues, and feuds, and finally joins
an uprising of the townspeople against their lord. None can
resent the frankness and apparent brutality of the scenes through
which the hero and his companions of both sexes are made to pass,
and many will yield ungrudging praise to the author's vital
handling of the truth. In the characters are mirrored the life of
the Italy of their day. The book will confirm Mr. Maugham's
reputation as a strong and original writer.
=Omar the Tentmaker.=
A Romance of Old Persia. By NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. Illustrated by F.
T. Merrill.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
Mr. Dole's study of Persian literature and history admirably
equips him to enter into the life and spirit of the time of the
romance, and the hosts of admirers of the inimitable quatrains of
Omar Khayyam, made famous by Fitzgerald, will be deeply
interested in a tale based on authentic facts in the career of
the famous Persian poet. The three chief characters are Omar
Khayyam, Nizam-ul-Mulk, the generous and high-minded Vizier of
the Tartar Sultan Malik Shah of Mero, and Hassan ibu Sabbah, the
ambitious and revengeful founder of the sect of the Assassins.
The scene is laid partly at Naishapur, in the Province of
Khorasan, which about the period of the First Crusade was at its
acme of civilization and refinement, and partly in the mountain
fortress of Alamut, south of the Caspian Sea, where the
Ismailians under Hassan established themselves towards the close
of the 11th century. Human nature is always the same, and the
passions of love and ambition, of religion and fanaticism, of
friendship and jealousy, are admirably contrasted in the fortunes
of these three able and remarkable characters as well as in those
of the minor personages of the story.
=Captain Fracasse.=
A new translation from the French by Gautier. Illustrated by
Victor A. Searles.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
This famous romance has been out of print for some time, and a
new translation is sure to appeal to its many admirers, who have
never yet had any edition worthy of the story.
=The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore.=
A farcical novel. By HAL GODFREY. Illustrated by Etheldred B.
Barry.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
A fanciful, laughable tale of two maiden sisters of uncertain age
who are induced, by their natural longing for a return to youth
and its blessings, to pay a large sum for a mystical water which
possesses the value of setting backwards the hands of time. No
more delightfully fresh and original book has appeared since
"Vice Versa" charmed an amused world. It is well written, drawn
to the life, and full of the most enjoyable humor.
=Midst the Wild Carpathians.=
By MAURUS JOKAI, author of "Black Diamonds," "The Lion of Janina,"
etc. Authorized translation by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated by J.
W. Kennedy.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
A thrilling, historical, Hungarian novel, in which the
extraordinary dramatic and descriptive powers of the great Magyar
writer have full play. As a picture of feudal life in Hungary it
has never been surpassed for fidelity and vividness. The
translation is exceedingly well done.
=The Golden Dog.=
A Romance of Quebec. By WILLIAM KIRBY. New authorized edition.
Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the time
of Louis XV. and Mme. de Pompadour, when the French colonies were
making their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the
fairest jewels in the colonial diadem of France.
=Bijli the Dancer.=
By JAMES BLYTHE PATTON. Illustrated by Horace Van Rinth.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
A novel of Modern India. The fortunes of the heroine, an Indian
Naucht girl, are told with a vigor, pathos, and a wealth of
poetic sympathy that makes the book admirable from first to last.
="To Arms!"=
Being Some Passages from the Early Life of Allan Oliphant,
Chirurgeon, Written by Himself, and now Set Forth for the First
Time. By ANDREW BALFOUR. Illustrated by F. W. Glover.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
A romance dealing with an interesting phase of Scottish and
English history, the Jacobite Insurrection of 1715, which will
appeal strongly to the great number of admirers of historical
fiction. The story is splendidly told, the magic circle which the
author draws about the reader compelling a complete forgetfulness
of prosaic nineteenth century life.
=Friendship and Folly.=
A novel. By MARIA LOUISE POOLE, author of "In a Dike Shanty," etc.
Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=
An extremely well-written story of modern life. The interest
centres in the development of the character of the heroine, a New
England girl, whose high-strung temperament is in constant revolt
against the confining limitations of nineteenth century
surroundings. The reader's interest is held to the end, and the
book will take high rank among American psychological novels.
=A Hypocritical Romance= and other stories.
By CAROLINE TICKNOR. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=
Miss Ticknor, well known as one of the most promising of the
younger school of American writers, has never done better work
than in the majority of these clever stories, written in a
delightful comedy vein.
=Cross Trails.=
By VICTOR WAITE. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=
A Spanish-American novel of unusual interest, a brilliant,
dashing, and stirring story, teeming with humanity and life. Mr.
Waite is to be congratulated upon the strength with which he has
drawn his characters.
=A Mad Madonna= and other stories.
By L. CLARKSON WHITELOCK, with eight half-tone
illustrations. 1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=
A half dozen remarkable psychological stories, delicate in color
and conception. Each of the six has a touch of the supernatural,
a quick suggestion, a vivid intensity, and a dreamy realism that
is matchless in its forceful execution.
=On the Point.=
A Summer Idyl. By NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, author of "Not Angels
Quite," with dainty half-tone illustrations as chapter headings.
1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=
A bright and clever story of a summer on the coast of Maine,
fresh, breezy, and readable from the first to the last page. The
narrative describes the summer outing of a Mr. Merrithew and his
family. The characters are all honest, pleasant people, whom we
are glad to know. We part from them with the same regret with
which we leave a congenial party of friends.
=Cavalleria Rusticana; or, Under the Shadow of Etna.=
Translated from the Italian of Giovanni Verga, by
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. Illustrated by Etheldred
B. Barry. 1 vol., 16mo, cloth =$0.50=
Giovanni Verga stands at present as unquestionably the most
prominent of the Italian novelists. His supremacy in the domain
of the short story and in the wider range of the romance is
recognized both at home and abroad. The present volume contains a
selection from the most dramatic and characteristic of his
Sicilian tales. Verga is himself a native of Sicily, and his
knowledge of that wonderful country, with its poetic and yet
superstitious peasantry, is absolute. Such pathos, humor,
variety, and dramatic quality are rarely met in a single volume.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Alternate and archaic spellings have been retained.
page 411, "postillion" changed to "postilion" (I will not drive
one step!" said the postillion,)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Road to Paris" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.