LI
IN WHICH THE GOOD CAUSE GAINS A CONVERT
Which one of you, my dears, faring across the frontier of the shadowland of dreams into the no less mysterious country of the real, can notrecall the struggle of the waking senses to knot up the gossamerfilament of the night's fantasies with the coarser web of reality?
For a time, longer or shorter as the dream thread holds, the vagaries ofthe night are shuttled into the warp of life. But presently comes themaster-weaver Reason to point out this or that fantastic pattern; to bidthe ear listen to the measured clacking of the day-loom, and the eye tomark that the web of reality has grown never an inch for all theshuttlings of the sleeping-time. Whereupon, full-blood consciousnessregains her sway, and you sigh, gladly or sorrowfully, and say, "DearGod, 'twas but a dream I dreamed!"
Some such awakening came to me on a day whereof I knew not the name orits number in the calendar.
I was lying in bed in my old room at Appleby Hundred. The armoredsoldier was glowering down upon me from his frame over the chimneypiece; the great blackened clothes-press loomed darkly in its corner;the show of curious china filled the shelves where my boyhood books hadrested; and there was the same faint smell of lavender in the bed linenthat once--was it yesterday or months ago?--had minded me of my mother.
When I sought to move me on the pillows the dream seemed more than everdream-sure. The pain of a sword wound was grinding at my shoulder, and Iwas bandaged stiff as I had been that other day.
So I said, as you have said in like awakenings, "Dear God,'twas but adream!" and saying it, would turn my head to see if Mistress Margerywere sitting where I last remembered her.
She was there, in very deed and truth, deep in the hollow of the greatchair of Indian wickerwork; and as before, the soft graying of theevening sky was mirrored in her eyes.
I sighed, and there was a catching of the breath at the bottom of it.Truly, the wondrous dream had had its agonies, but there were alsobeatitudes to tip the scale the other way. For I had dreamed thissweet-faced watcher was my wife--in name, at least.
'Twas while I looked, minding not the eye-ache the effort cost, that sherose and came softly to the bedside. She said no word, but, as once inthe dream-time, she laid a cool palm on my forehead. Weak as I was--andsurely King David was not weaker when he wrote his bones were gone towater--the old love-madness of that other day came to thrill me at hertouch, and I made as if I would take her hand and press it to my lips.
"Nay, sir," she said, with a swift return to sick-room discipline, "youmust not stir; you have been sorely hurt."
"Aye," said I; "I do remember; 'twas in a duel with one FrancisFalconnet. He said he would make you his--"
Now the soft palm was laid on my lips, and I kissed it till she snatchedit away.
"_Ma foi!_" she cried; "I think you are in a hopeful way to recover now,Captain Ireton. I do protest I shall go and send old Anthony to sit withyou."
"Anthony?" said I; "he was in the dream, too, putting up the chain onthe hall door."
"Ah, _mon Dieu_!" she said softly, as if to herself, "he is wanderingyet." At which, as if to try to help me: "'Twas no dream; you did seehim putting on the chain."
"Did I? I made sure I dreamed it. But tell me another thing; was it notyesterday that I met Sir Francis Falconnet under the oaks in the woodfield and got this pair of redhot pincers in my shoulder?"
She turned away, and if I ever saw a tear there was one trembling in hereyelashes.
"'Twas three full weeks ago," she said. "And it was not in the woodfield--'twas in the wine cellar. Never tell me you do not remember; I--Icould never--ah, Mother of Sorrows! that would be worse than all."
Here was a curious coil, but I could break one strand of it, at least,and so I did.
"I remember well enough," I hastened to say. "But being here, and seeingyou there in the great chair, carried me back to that other time, makingall the interval stand as a dream. Have I been ailing?"
"You have been terribly near to death, Monsieur John; so near thatDoctor Carew has twice given you over."
"No," said I; "there was no fear of that. I am like that man in the oldGerman folk tale who made a compact with the Evil One, selling therebyhis chance to die. Death would not take me as a gift, Mistress Margery;I have tried him too often."
"Hush!" she said; "'tis an ill thing to jest about. Why should you wantto die?"
"Rather ask why I should choose to live. But this is beside the mark.You should have let me die, dear lady; but since you did not, we muste'en make the best of it."
She faced me with a smile that struggled with some deeper stirring ofthe heart; I knew not what.
"'Tis a monstrous doleful alternative, _n'est-ce pas_? And I must notlet you talk of doleful things; indeed, I must not let you talk atall--'tis Doctor Carew's order."
So saying, she smoothed the counterpane and straightened my pillows;and after giving me a great spoonful of some cordial that first set apleasant glow alight in me and afterward made me drowsy, she took postagain in the hollow of the big chair and was so sitting when I fellasleep.
This day's awakening was the first of many so nearly of a piece that Ilost the count of them; and sleep, deep and dreamless for the betterpart, stole away the hours till the memory of that inch-by-inch returnto health and strength is itself like the memory of the vaguest ofdreams.
By times when I awoke it was the bluff Doctor Carew bending over me todress my wound; at other times it was Margery come to tempt me with abowl of broth or some other kickshaw from the kitchen. Now and again Iawoke to find Scipio or old Anthony standing watch at my bedside; andonce--but that was after I was up and in my clothes and able to sit anddrowse in the great chair--I opened my eyes to find that my company wasthe master of the house.
He was sitting as I had seen him sit once before, behind a lightedcandle at the little table with a parchment spread out under his bonyhands. He was mumbling over the written words of it when I looked, butat my stirring he gave over and sat back in his chair to cross his thinlegs and match his long fingers by the ends, and wink and blink at me asthough he had but now discovered that he was not alone.
"I give ye good even, Captain Ireton," he said, finally, rasping thegreeting out at me as it had been a curse. "I hope ye've slept well."
I said I had, and thanked him, once for the wish, and again for hiscoming to see me. I know not how it was, but if there had been rancor inmy former thoughts of him 'twas something abated now.
"Ye've had a nearhand escape this time, sir," he said, after a longishpause.
"One more or less of a good many since we were last met together in thisroom, Mr. Stair," I would say.
He muttered something to himself about the devil taking precious goodcare of his own; and I laughed.
"That is as it may be; but my being here this second time a pensioner onyour bounty is by no good will of mine, I do assure you, sir."
He sat nodding at me as if I had said a thing to be most heartily agreedto. But his spoken word belied the nods.
"The ways of Providence are inscrutable--something inscrutable, CaptainIreton. I make no doubt ye are sufficiently thankfu' for all yourmercies."
"Why, as to that, there may be two ways of looking at it. As a soldier,I may justly repine at a fate which ties me here when I should be in thefield."
"Well said, sir; brawly said; 'tis the part of a good soldier to be aywanting to be in the thick o' the fighting. But now that ye're a man ofsubstance, Captain Ireton, ye will be owing other debts to our countrythan the one ye can pay with a hantle o' steel."
"'Our country,' did you say, Mr. Stair?" I asked, feigning a surprisewhich no one knowing him could feel in very truth.
"And what for no? 'Tis the birthland of some--yourself, for example, andthe leal land of adoption for others--your humble servant, to wit. I'vetaken the solemn oath of allegiance to the Congress, I'd have ye toknow."
At this I must needs laugh outright.
"Have you taken it one mo
re time than you have forsworn it, Mr. Stair?"
"Laugh and ye will," he said, quite placably; "ye shall never laugh thepeetriotism out o' me. 'Tis little enough an old man can do, but theprecious cause o' liberty will never have to ask that little twice,Captain Ireton."
Since he would ever be on the winning side, this foreshadowed goodtidings, indeed. So I would ask him straight what news there was.
"Have they not told ye? 'Tis braw news," he chuckled. "Whilst ye were onyour back, General Greene led Lord Cornwallis a fine dance all acrossthe prov--the state, I mean, crooking his finger at him and saying,'Come on, ye led-captain of a tyrant king, and when I'm ready I'll turnand rend ye.' And by the same token, that is juist what he did the otherday at Guilford Court House."
"A victory?" I would ask.
"Well, not precisely that, maybe; they're calling it a drawn battle. ButI'm thinking 'tis Lord Cornwallis that's drawn. He's off to Wilmington,they say, and I'm fain to hope we've seen the last o' him and hisreaving redcoats in these parts."
His words set me in a muse. I could never make out what he would be at,telling me all this. But he had an object, well-defined, and presentlyit showed its head.
"Ye're the laird o' the manor, now, Captain Ireton, with none to gainsayye," he went on. "So I've come to give ye an account o' my stewardship.I made no doubt, all along, ye'd come back to your own when ye'd hadyour fling wi' the Old Worldies, and so I've kept tab o' the poor bitland for ye."
"Oh, you have?" said I, being so far out-brazened as to be incapable ofsaying more.
"I have that--every plack and bawbee. 'Tis ten years come Michaelmassince I took over the charge o' Appleby Hundred, and I'm ready toaccount to ye for every season's crop--when ye'll pay down the bitsteward's fee."
"Truly," said I; "you are an honest man, Mr. Stair." Then, to humor himto the top of his bent: "Haphazarding a guess, now; would thisaccounting leave a balance in my favor, or in yours?"
He gave me a look like that of a costermonger weighing and measuring thegullibility of his customer.
"Oh, aye; I'm no saying there mightn't be a bit siller coming to me; afew hundred pounds, more or less--sterling, man, sterling; not Scots,"he added hastily. And then, as if it were best to leave this nail as itwas driven, he changed the subject abruptly. "I've brought ye that lastwill and testament ye signed," handing me the parchment. "No doubtyou'll let it stand; but when the bairns come, ye'll want to be adding acodicil or two."
Leaving the matter of the estate, I thought it high time to cut to themarrow of the bigger bone. So I said: "Let us be frank with each otherin this, Mr. Stair. How much has your daughter told you of the matterbetween us?"
"She's a jade!" he rasped, lapsing for a moment into his real self. Buthe recovered his self-control instantly. "Ye'd no expect a romantic bitlassie wi' French blood in her veins to be confidencing wi' her olddried-up wisp of a father, now, would ye? She's no tell't me everything,I daresay."
"Then I will tell you the plain truth of it," I said. "This marriage wasnever anything more than the form we all agreed it should be at thetime; a makeshift to serve a purpose. If you think I would hold yourdaughter to it--"
"Hut, tut, man! what will ye be havering about! Ye'll never cast thepoor bit lassie off that way! Ye canna, if ye would; her Church willhave a word to say to that."
For all his aping the manner of the ignored father, I shrewdly suspectedthat he knew more about the ins and outs of our affair than he owned to.Nevertheless, I was forced to meet him on his own ground.
"There is no 'casting off' about it, Mr. Stair; and as to the Church,there is good ground for an appeal to Rome. The marriage as it standsis little more than a formal betrothal, as you well know, sound enoughlegally to make Mistress Margery my heir-at-law, mayhap, but stilllacking everything of--"
He could not wait to let me finish.
"Lacking, d'ye say?" he rapped out, wrathfully. "And whose fault isthat, ye cold-blooded stick? Tell me this; did I no bundle ye neck andheels into your own wife's bed-room? And how do you thank me? I'm tosuppose ye quarrel wi' her like the dour-faced imp o' Sawtan that yeare, and presently ye come raging out, swearing most shamefully at a manold enough to be your father!"
'Twas far enough in the retrospect now so that I could smile at it. YetI would not suffer him to bluster me aside.
"It was an ill thing for you to do, none the less, Mr. Stair; the moreas you must have known that Mistress Margery's faith was plighted toRichard Jennifer long before all this came to pass."
"Did I know it?" he shrilled. "That lang-legged jackanapes of a DickieJennifer? Light o' love jade that she is, she never cared the snap of afinger for him."
"You are talking far enough beside the mark now," I retorted. "Yourdaughter loves Richard Jennifer well and truly; and with thisentanglement brushed aside she will marry him when he comes back fromthe wars."
"She will, ye say? And what will become o' the braw acres of Applebythat gait, I'd like to know? But ye're daft, man; clean daft. Didn't Ispeir her giving him his quittance once for all that night when he rodeaway after they had pitten ye to bed? She tell't him flat she lovedanother man."
"Another man?" I echoed. "I--explain yourself, if you please, Mr. Stair.What other man--"
He was at the door by this, and he broke out upon me in such a blast ofcursing as I hope never to hear from the lips of such an old man again.
"Ye cold-blooded, crusty devil!" he quavered, when all his breath wasspent upon the bigger malisons. "Has it never come intil your thicknumbskull that the poor fule lassie is sick wi' love for ye, yedour-faced loon?"
And with that he let himself out and slammed the door behind him, and Iheard him go pottering down the corridor, still cursing me by all thechoice phrases he could lay tongue to.
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