VIII
IN WHICH I TASTE THE QUALITY OF MERCY
Two ways there be to fetch a stunned man to his senses, as they willtell you who have seen the rack applied: one is to slack the tension onthe cracking joints and minister cordials to the victim; the other togive the straining winch a crueller twist. It was not the gentler way mycaptors took, as you would guess; and when I came to know and see andfeel again a pair of them were kicking me alive, and I was sore andaching from their buffetings.
How long a time came in between my futile dash for liberty and thisharsh preface to their dragging of me back to the manor house, I couldnot tell. It must have been an hour or more, for now a gibbous moon hungpale above the tree-tops, and all around were bivouac fires and horsestethered to show that in the interval a troop had come and camped.
The scene within the great fore-room of the house had been shifted, too.A sentry was pacing back and forth before the door--a Hessian grenadierby the size and shako of him; and when the two trooper bailiffs thrustme in, and I had winked and blinked my eyes accustomed to thecandle-light, I saw the table had been swept of its bottles and glasses,and around it, sitting as in council, were some half-score officers ofthe British light-horse with their colonel at the head.
As it chanced, this was my first sight near at hand Of that Britishcommander whose name in after years the patriot mothers spoke to frighttheir children. He did not look a monster. As I recall him now, he was ashort, square-bodied man, younger by some years than myself, and yetwith an old campaigner's head well set upon aggressive shoulders. Hiseyes were black and ferrety; and his face, well seasoned by the Carolinasun, was swart as any Arab's. A man, I thought, who could begentle-harsh or harsh-revengeful, as the mood should prompt; who couldmake well-turned courtier compliments to a lady and damn a trooper inthe self-same breath.
This was that Colonel Banastre Tarleton who gave no quarter tosurrendered men; and when I looked into the sloe-black eyes I saw inthem for me a waiting gibbet.
"So!" he rapped out, when I was haled before him. "You're the spyingrebel captain, eh? Are you alive enough to hang?"
His lack of courtesy rasped so sorely that I must needs give place towrath and answer sharply that there was small doubt of it, since I couldstand and curse him.
He scowled at that and cursed me back again as heartily as anyfishwife. Then suddenly he changed his tune.
"They tell me you were in the service once and left it honorably. I amloath to hang a man who has worn the colors. Would it please you best todie a soldier's death, Captain Ireton?"
I said it would, most surely.
He said I should have the boon if I would tell him what an officer onthe Baron de Kalb's staff should know: the strength of the Continentals,the general's designs and dispositions, and I know not what besides. Ithink it was my laugh that made him stop short and damn me roundly inthe midst.
"By God, I'll make you laugh another tune!" he swore. "You rebels areall of a piece, and clemency is wasted on you!"
"Your mercy comes too dear; you set too high a price upon it, ColonelTarleton. If, for the mere swapping of a rope for a bullet, I could bethe poor caitiff your offer implies, hanging would be too good for me."
"If that is your last word--But stay; I'll give you an hour to think itover."
"It needs not an hour nor a minute," I replied. "If I knew aught aboutthe Continental army--which I do not--I'd see you hanged in your ownstirrup-leather before I'd tell you, Colonel Tarleton. Moreover, Imarvel greatly--"
"At what?" he cut in rudely.
"At your informant's lack of invention. He might have brought mestraight from General Washington's headquarters while he was about it.'Twould be no greater lie than that he told you."
He heard me through, then fell to cursing me afresh, and would besending an aide-de-camp hot-foot for Falconnet.
While the messenger was going and coming there was a chance for me tolook around like a poor trapped animal in a pitfall, loath to diewithout a struggle, yet seeing not how any less inglorious end shouldoffer. The eye-search went for little of encouragement; there was nochance either to fight or fly. But apart from this, the probing of theshadows revealed a thing that set me suddenly in a fever, first of rage,and then of apprehension.
As I have said, this gathering-room of our old house was in size like anancient banquet hall. It had a gable to itself in breadth and height,and at the farther end there was a flight of some few steps to reach theolder portion of the house beyond. The upper end of this low stairpierced the thick wall of the older house, and in the shadows of theniche thus formed I saw my lady Margery.
She was standing as one who looks and listens; and my rage-fit blazedout upon the descrying of a shadowy figure of a man behind her; a man Iguessed in jealous wrath to be the baronet--a reasonless suspicion,since the volunteer captain would certainly have made his presence knownwhen his colonel had called for him. But while my heart was yet afire mylady moved aside as if to have a better sight of us below; and then Isaw it was the priest behind her.
While I was watching her, and we were waiting yet upon theaide-de-camp's return, there was a stir without, and when it reached thedoor the sentry challenged. Some confab followed, and I overheard enoughto tell me that a scouting party had come in, bringing a prisoner. Thecolonel bade me stand aside, and passed the word to fetch the prisonerbefore him. When the thing was done I set my teeth upon a groan. For itwas Richard Jennifer.
Luckily, he did not single me out among the bystanders, being fresh comefrom the night without to the glare of candle-light within; and whilethe swart-faced colonel plied him with questions I had a chance to lookhim up and down. Though his arm was still in its sling, he was seeminglythe better of his wound. There was a glow of health and strengthreturning in cheek and eye, and I thought him handsomer than ever whattime he stood forth boldly and fronted down the bullying colonel.
Knowing the Jennifer stock and its fine scorn of subterfuge, I feared itwould go hard with Richard; and so, indeed, it had gone, lacking a wordin season from an enemy. When Tarleton would have made him choosebetween the taking of the king's oath and captivity in the hulks atCharleston, a burly Hessian captain at the table spoke the word inseason.
"_Verdammt!_ mine Colonel; I vill know dis Mr. Yennifer. He is a praveyoong schalavags, and he is not gone out mit der rebels. Give him to mefor mine plunders."
The colonel laughed and showed his teeth. Having one man to hang hecould afford to be lenient with another.
"What will you do with him, Captain Lauswoulter? By the look of him he'dmake but indifferent sausage-meat."
"Vat shall I do mit him? I shall make him mine best bows and send himhome, py Gott! Ve did had some liddle troubles mit der cards, and venmine foot was slipped on dis _verdammt_ grease-grass, he did not run met'rough so like he might."
"Oh; an affair of honor? Well, we'll count that in his favor. Take himaway, Trelawny, and quarter yourself and twenty men upon him at JenniferHouse. You have your parole, Mr. Jennifer; but by the Lord, if you breakit by so much as a wink or a nod, Trelawny will hang you to your ownridge-pole."
Given a hearing, Jennifer would have spoiled it all by swearing hotly hehad given no parole, but at the word the colonel roared him down like abull of Bashan, and in the hubbub my brave lad was hustled out.
Though I was full to bursting with my news there was nothing I could do;and when it was fairly over and he was gone, I was right glad he had notseen me. For I knew well his steel-true loyalty, and that at sight of mein trouble he would have lost his slender chance of guarded liberty,and with it my last hope of sending word across the mountains; though,as for that, the hope was well-nigh dead at any rate.
While Jennifer's guard and quota were mounting at the door theaide-de-camp returned, and that without the baronet. I caught but hereand there a word of his report; enough to gather that the captain-knightwas not yet in from posting out the sentries.
I made no doubt his absence was designed. He would have Marge
ry believethat he had spared me honorably as an enemy wounded, and so had left meto the tender mercies of his colonel, well assured that Tarleton wouldnot spare me. And this the colonel did not mean to do, as I was now tohear in brief.
"You put a bold front on, Captain Ireton, but 'tis to no purpose, thistime," he began. "'Tis charged against you that you rode here from thebaron's camp with your commission in your pocket, and came and wentwithin our lines like any other spy. You are a soldier, sir, and youknow that's hanging. Yet I will hear you if you've anything to say."
I made so sure that I should hang in any case that it seemed foolish toanswer, and so I saved my breath. Withal he was the terror of ourSouthland, this tyrant colonel gave me time to consider; and while hewaited, grim and silent, the candles on the table guttered and ran down,and the dim light failed till I could no longer see the face of her Iloved framed in the archway of the stair.
I thought it hard that I had seen my last of her sweet face thus throughthickening shadows, as a dream might fade. Nevertheless, I would be gladthat I had seen her thus, since otherwise, I thought, I must have gonewithout this last or any other sight of her.
It was while I was still straining my eyes for one more glimpse of her,and while the court room silence deepened dense upon us like theshadows, that Colonel Tarleton signed to those who guarded me. A handwas laid upon my shoulder, but when I would have turned to go with thema woman's cry cut sharp into the stillness. Then, before any one couldsay a word or think a thought, my dauntless little lady stood beside me,her eyes alight and all her glorious beauty heightened in a blaze ofgenerous emotion.
"For shame! Colonel Tarleton," she cried. "Do you come thus into myfather's house and take a wounded guest and hang him? You say he is aspy, but that he can not be, for he has lain abed in this same house amonth or more. You shall not hang him!"
At this there was a mighty stir about the table, as you may guess; andsome would smile, and some would snuff the candles for a better sight ofher sweet face. And through it all, the while my heart went near tobursting at this fresh proof of her most fearless loyalty, I ground myteeth in wrath that all those men should look their fill and say by winkand nod and covert smile that this were somewhat more than hostessloyalty.
But it was the colonel's mocking smile that lashed me sharpest; hissmile and what he said; and yet not that so much as what he left to beinferred.
"Ha! How is this, Mistress Margery? Do you keep open house for theking's enemies? That spells treason, my dear young lady, and hath anugly look for you, besides."
"It should have no look at all, save that of hospitality, sir," shecountered, bravely. "Surely I may plead for justice to a wounded man whowas, and is, my father's guest?"
"And yet he is a spy, and spies must hang."
"He is no spy."
The colonel's bow made but a mock of true politeness.
"You should not make me contradict a lady, Mistress Margery. 'Tisevident you have not all his confidence. He was captured red-handed inthe act at yonder window, listening to that which he may never know andlive to prate about. Besides, he killed a sentry for his chance tolisten, and for that I'd hang him if he were my own father's guest."
So much he said as mild as if he had not left his reading of the law tofigure in our annals as King George's butcher. Then in a sudden gust ofrage he turned upon the priest, cursing him brutally and threateningvengeance for his bringing of the lady to the court room.
My brave one stood a moment, shocked as she had warrant for. Then,before the priest or I or any one could stop her, she ran to throwherself upon her knees at Colonel Tarleton's feet--to kneel and pleadfor me as I would gladly have died a thousand deaths rather than haveher plead; for life for me, or if not that, at least for some briefrespite that the priest might shrive me.
And in the end she won the respite, though I did think it far too dearlybought. When he granted it the colonel lifted her and took her hand,bowing low over it with courtly deference. "For your sake, MistressMargery, it shall be put off till morning," he said; then gave theorder: At dawn they would march me out and hang me, and I would best beready. For later than the sunrise of a new day the king himself mightnot delay my taking off.
"You know too much, my cursing Captain," was his parting word. "Were itnot for Mistress Margery and my promise, you should not keep the breathto tell it over night."
The Master of Appleby Page 10