This much Mike succeeded in making the captain comprehend, though a great deal was lost through the singular confusion that prevailed in the mind of the messenger. Mike, however, had still another communication, which we reserve for the ears of the person to whom it was especially sent.
This news produced a pause in captain Willoughby’s determination. Some of the fire of youth awoke within him, and he debated with himself on the possibility of making a sortie, and of liberating his son, as a step preliminary to victory; or, at least, to a successful retreat. Acquainted with every foot of the ground, which had singular facilities for a step so bold, the project found favour in his eyes each minute, and soon became fixed.
CHAPTER VIII.
--“Another love In its lone woof began to twine;
But, ah! the golden thread was wove
That bound my sister’s heart in mine!”
Willis While the captain and Joyce were digesting their plans, Mike proceeded on an errand of peculiar delicacy with which he had been entrusted by Robert Willoughby. The report that he had returned flew through the dwellings, and many were the hearty greetings and shakings of the hand that the honest fellow had to undergo from the Plinys and Smashes, ere he was at liberty to set about the execution of this trust. The wenches, in particular, having ascertained that Mike had not broken his fast, insisted on his having a comfortable meal, in a sort of servants’ hall, before they would consent to his quitting their sight. As the county Leitrim-man was singularly ready with a knife and fork, he made no very determined opposition, and, in a few minutes, he was hard at work, discussing a cold ham, with the other collaterals of a substantial American breakfast.
The blacks, the Smashes inclusive, had been seriously alarmed at the appearance of the invading party. Between them and the whole family of red-men there existed a sort of innate dislike; an antipathy that originated in colour, and wool, and habits, and was in no degree lessened by apprehensions on the score of scalps.
“How you look, ole Plin, widout wool?” Big Smash had reproachfully remarked, not five minutes before Mike made his appearance in the kitchen, in answer to some apologetic observation of her husband, as to the intentions of the savages being less hostile than he had at first imagined; “why you say dey no murder, and steal and set fire, when you know dey’s Injin! Natur’ be natur’; and dat I hear dominie Woods say t’ree time one Sunday. What’e dominie say often, he mean, and dere no use in saying dey don’t come to do harm.”
As Great Smash was an oracle in her own set, there was no gainsaying her dogmas, and Pliny the elder was obliged to succumb. But the presence of Mike, one who was understood to have been out, near, if not actually in, the enemy’s camp, and a great favourite in the bargain, was a circumstance likely to revive the discourse. In fact, all the negroes crowded into the hall, as soon as the Irishman was seated at table, one or two eager to talk, the rest as eager to listen.
“How near you been to sabbage, Michael?” demanded Big Smash, her two large coal-black eyes seeming to open in a degree proportioned to her interest in the answer.
“I wint as nigh as there was occasion, Smash, and that was nigher than the likes of yer husband there would be thinking of travelling. Maybe ’twas as far as from my plate here to you door; maybe not quite so far. They’re a dhirty set, and I wish to go no nearer.”
“What dey look like, in’e dark?” inquired Little Smash --“Awful as by daylight?”
“It’s not meself that stopped to admire’em. Nick and I had our business forenent us, and when a man is hurried, it isn’t r’asonable to suppose he can kape turning his head about to see sights.”
“What dey do wid Misser Woods?--What sabbage want wid dominie?”
“Sure enough, little one; and the question is of yer own asking. A praist, even though he should be only a heretic, can have no great call for his sarvices, in sich a congregation. And, I don’t think the fellows are blackguards enough to scalp a parson.”
Then followed a flood of incoherent questions that were put by all the blacks in a body, accompanied by divers looks ominous of the most serious disasters, blended with bursts of laughter that broke out of their risible natures in a way to render the medley of sensations as ludicrous as it was strange. Mike soon found answering a task too difficult to be attempted, and he philosophically came to a determination to confine his efforts to masticating.
Notwithstanding the terror that actually prevailed among the blacks, it was not altogether unmixed with a resolution to die with arms in their hands, in preference to yielding to savage clemency. Hatred, in a measure, supplied the place of courage, though both sexes had insensibly imbibed some of that resolution which is the result of habit, and of which a border life is certain to instil more or less into its subjects, in a form suited to border emergencies. Nor was this feeling confined to the men; the two Smashes, in particular, being women capable of achieving acts that would be thought heroic under circumstances likely to arouse their feelings.
“Now, Smashes,” said Mike, when, by his own calculation, he had about three minutes to the termination of his breakfast before him, “ye’ll do what I tells ye, and no questions asked. Ye’ll find the laddies, Missus, and Miss Beuly, and Miss Maud, and ye’ll give my humble respects to’em all--divil the bit, now, will ye be overlooking either of the t’ree, but ye’ll do yer errand genteely and like a laddy yerself--and ye’ll give my jewty and respects to’em all, I tells ye, and say that Michael O’Hearn asks the honour of being allowed to wish’em good morning.”
Little Smash screamed at this message; yet she went, forthwith, and delivered it, making reasonably free with Michael’s manner and gallantry in so doing.
“O’Hearn has something to tell us from Robert” -- said Mrs. Willoughby, who had been made acquainted with the Irishman’s exploits and return; “he must be suffered to come in as soon as he desires.”
With this reply, Little Smash terminated her mission.
“And now, laddies and gentlemen,” said Mike, with gravity, as he rose to quit the servants’ hall, “my blessing and good wishes be wid ye. A hearty male have I had at yer hands and yer cookery, and good thanks it desarves. As for the Injins, jist set yer hearts at rest, as not one of ye will be scalp’d the day, seeing that the savages are all to be forenent the mill this morning, houlding a great council, as I knows from Nick himself. A comfortable time, then, ye may all enjoy, wid yer heads on yer shoulters, and yer wool on yer heads.”
Mike’s grin, as he retreated, showed that he meant to be facetious, having all the pleasantry that attends a full stomach uppermost in his animal nature at that precise moment. A shout rewarded this sally, and the parties separated with mutual good humour and good feeling. In this state of mind, the county Leitrim-man was ushered into the presence of the ladies. A few words of preliminary explanations were sufficient to put Mike in the proper train, when he came at once to his subject.
“The majjor is no way down-hearted,” he said, “and he ordered me to give his jewty and riverence, and obligations, to his honoured mother and his sisters. ‘Tell’em, Mike,’ says he, says the majjor, ‘that I feels for’em, all the same as if I was their own fader; and tell’em,’ says he, ‘to keep up their spirits, and all will come right in the ind. This is a throublesome wor-r-ld, but they that does their jewties to God and man, and the church, will not fail, in the long run, to wor-r-k their way t’rough purgatory even, into paradise.”’
“Surely my son -- my dear Robert -- never sent us such a message as this, Michael?”
“Every syllable of it, and a quantity moor that has slipped my memory,” answered the Irishman, who was inventing, but who fancied he was committing a very pious fraud -- “’Twould have done the Missuses heart good to have listened to the majjor, who spoke more in the charackter of a praist, like, than in that of a souldier.”
All three of the ladies looked a little abashed, though there was a gleam of humour about the mouth of Maud, that showed she was not very far from apprec
iating the Irishman’s report at its just value. As for Mrs. Willoughby and Beulah, less acquainted with Mike’s habits, they did not so readily penetrate his manner of substituting his own desultory thoughts for the ideas of others.
“As I am better acquainted with Mike’s language, dear mother” -- whispered Maud -- “perhaps it will be well if I take him into the library and question him a little between ourselves about what actually passed. Depend on it, I shall get the truth.”
“Do, my child, for it really pains me to hear Robert so much misrepresented -- and, as Evert must now begin to have ideas, I really do not like that his uncle should be so placed before the dear little fellow’s mind.”
Maud did not even smile at this proof of a grandmother’s weakness, though she felt and saw all its absurdity. Heart was ever so much uppermost with the excellent matron, that it was not easy for those she loved to regard anything but her virtues; and least of all did her daughter presume to indulge in even a thought that was ludicrous at her expense. Profiting by the assent, therefore, Maud quietly made a motion for Mike to follow, and proceeded at once to the room she had named.
Not a word was exchanged between the parties until both were in the library, when Maud carefully closed the door, her face pale as marble, and stood looking inquiringly at her companion. The reader will understand that, Mr. Woods and Joyce excepted, not a soul at the Hut, out of the limits of the Willoughby connection, knew anything of our heroine’s actual relation to the captain and his family. It is true, some of the oldest of the blacks had once some vague notions on the subject; but their recollections had become obscured by time, and habit was truly second nature with all of the light-hearted race.
“That was mighty injanious of you, Miss Maud!” Mike commenced, giving one of his expressive grins again, and fairly winking. “It shows how fri’nds wants no spache but their own minds. Barrin’ mistakes and crass-accidents, I’m sartain that Michael O’Hearn can make himself understood any day by Miss Maud Willoughby, an’ niver a word said.”
“Your success then, Mike, will be greater at dumb-show than it always is with your tongue,” answered the young lady, the blood slowly returning to her cheek, the accidental use of the name of Willoughby removing the apprehension of anything immediately embarrassing; “what have you to tell me that you suppose I have anticipated?”
“Sure, the like o’yees needn’t be tould, Miss Maud, that the majjor bad me spake to ye by yerself, and say a word that was not to be overheerd by any one else.”
“This is singular--extraordinary even--but let me know more, though the messenger be altogether so much out of the common way!”
“I t’ought ye’d say that, when ye come to know me. Is it meself that’s a messenger? and where is there another that can carry news widout spilling any by the way? Nick’s a cr’ature, I allows; but the majjor know’d a million times bhetter than to trust an Injin wid sich a jewty. As for Joel, and that set of vagabonds, we’ll grind’em all in the mill, before we’ve done wid’em. Let’em look for no favours, if they wishes no disapp’intment.”
Maud sickened at the thought of having any of those sacred feelings connected with Robert Willoughby that she had so long cherished in her inmost heart, rudely probed by so unskilful a hand; though her last conversation with the young soldier had told so much, even while it left so much unsaid, that she could almost kneel and implore Mike to be explicit. The reserve of a woman, notwithstanding, taught her how to preserve her sex’s decorum, and to maintain appearances.
“If major Willoughby desired you to communicate anything to me, in particular,” she said, with seeming composure, “I am ready to hear it.”
“Divil the word did he desire, Miss Maud, for everything was in whispers between us, but jist what I’m about to repait. And here’s my stick, that Nick tould me to kape as a reminderer; it’s far bhetter for me than a book, as I can’t read a syllable. ‘And now, Mike,’ says the majjor, says he, ‘conthrive to see phratty Miss Maud by herself--”
“Pretty Miss Maud!” interrupted the young lady, involuntarily.
“Och! it’s meself that says that, and sure there’s plenty of r’ason for it; so we’ll agree it’s all right and proper-- “phratty Miss Maud by herself, letting no mortal else know what you are about. That was the majjor’s.”
“It is very extraordinary! -- Perhaps it will be better, Michael, if you tell me nothing but what is strictly the major’s. A message should be delivered as nearly like the words that were actually sent as possible.”
“Wor-r-ds! -- And it isn’t wor-r-ds at all, that I have to give ye.”
“If not a message in words, in what else can it be? -- Not in sticks, surely.”
“In that”--cried Mike, exultingly--“and, I’ll warrant, when the trut’ comes out, that very little bit of silver will be found as good as forty Injin scalps.”
Although Mike put a small silver snuff-box that Maud at once recognised as Robert Willoughby’s property into the young lady’s hand, nothing was more apparent than the circumstance that he was profoundly ignorant of the true meaning of what he was doing. The box was very beautiful, and his mother and Beulah had often laughed at the major for using an article that was then deemed de rigueur for a man of extreme ton, when all his friends knew he never touched snuff. So far from using the stimulant, indeed, he never would show how the box was opened, a secret spring existing; and he even manifested or betrayed shyness on the subject of suffering either of his sisters to search for the means of doing so.
The moment Maud saw the box, her heart beat tumultuously. She had a presentiment that her fate was about to be decided. Still, she had sufficient self-command to make an effort to learn all her companion had to communicate.
“Major Willoughby gave you this box,” she said, her voice trembling in spite of herself. “Did he send any message with it? Recollect yourself; the words may be very important.”
“Is it the wor-r-ds? Well, it’s little of them that passed between us, barrin’ that the Injins was so near by, that it was whisper we did, and not a bit else.”
“Still there must have been some message.”
“Ye are as wise as a sarpent, Miss Maud, as Father O’Loony used to tell us all of a Sunday! Was it wor-r-ds!-- ‘Give that to Miss Maud,’ says the majjor, says he, ‘and tell her she is now misthress of my sacret.”
“Did he say this, Michael? -- For heaven’s sake, be certain of what you tell me.”
“Irish Mike -- Masser want you in monstrous hurry,” cried the youngest of the three black men, thrusting his glistening face into the door, announcing the object of the intrusion, and disappearing almost in the same instant.
“Do not leave me, O’Hearn,” said Maud, nearly gasping for breath, “do not leave me without an assurance there is no mistake.”
“Divil bur-r-n me if I’d brought the box, or the message, or anything like it, phretty Miss Maud, had I t’ought it would have done this har-r-m.”
“Michael O’Hearn,” called the serjeant from the court, in his most authoritative military manner, and that on a key that would not brook denial.
Mike did not dare delay; in half a minute Maud found herself standing alone, in the centre of the library, holding the well-known snuff-box of Robert Willoughby in her little hand. The renowned caskets of Portia had scarcely excited more curiosity in their way than this little silver box of the major’s had created in the mind of Maud. In addition to his playful evasions about letting her and Beulah pry into its mysteries, he had once said to herself, in a grave and feeling manner, “When you get at the contents of this box, dear girl, you will learn the great secret of my life.” These words had made a deep impression at the time -- it was in his visit of the past year -- but they had been temporarily forgotten in the variety of events and stronger sensations that had succeeded. Mike’s message, accompanied by the box itself, however, recalled them, and Maud fancied that the major, considering himself to be in some dangerous emergency, had sent her the bauble in ord
er that she might learn what that secret was. Possibly he meant her to communicate it to others. Persons in our heroine’s situation feel, more than they reason; and it is possible Maud might have come to some other conclusion had she been at leisure, or in a state of mind to examine all the circumstances in a more logical manner.
Now she was in possession of this long-coveted box -- coveted at least so far as a look into its contents were concerned--Maud not only found herself ignorant of the secret by which it was opened, but she had scruples about using the means, even had she been in possession of them. At first she thought of carrying the thing to Beulah, and of asking if she knew any way of getting at the spring; then she shrunk from the exposure that might possibly attend such a step. The more she reflected, the more she felt convinced that Robert Willoughby would not have sent her that particular box, unless it were connected with herself, in some way more than common; and ever since the conversation in the painting-room she had seen glimmerings of the truth, in relation to his feelings. These glimmerings too, had aided her in better understanding her own heart, and all her sentiments revolted at the thought of having a witness to any explanation that might relate to the subject. In every event she determined, after a few minutes of thought, not to speak of the message, or the present, to a living soul.
Wyandotte; or, the Hutted Knoll . . . Volume 2 Page 12