“Sink me!” cried Lord Dunmore. “Sink me now, Mr. Cardigan; you should know that I have privileges, sir. I will have you to know that I have privileges, sir! Crib me! but I will assert my rights!”
“Your — what?” I replied, contemptuously.
“My rights! My privilege to defend Miss Warren — my rights, sir! I stand upon them, crib me, if I don’t!”
“Shame on you!” cried Lady Shelton, panting angrily at me. “Shame on you — you mannerless, roving, blustering, hectoring rebel! — you — you boy! Oh, I’m all of a twitter! Sir Timerson, I’m all of a twitter!—”
“Oh tally!” broke in Dunmore, peeping at me through his quizzing-glass. “The lad’s moon-mad! A guinea to a china orange that the lad’s moon-mad. You may see it in his eyes, Sir Timerson. You may see he’s non compos — eh, Sir Timerson? Sink me if he isn’t!”
How I controlled myself I scarcely know, but I strove to remember that a hand raised to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, meant the ruin of my plans for the night. As I stood staring at the wizened macaroni, aching to take his sword, break it, and spank him with the fragments, I saw Jack Mount and the Weasel cautiously reconnoitring the situation from the hill’s edge.
Ere I could motion them away they had made up their minds that I was in distress, and now they came swaggering into our circle, thumbs hooked in their shirts, saluting poor Silver Heels with a flourish that drew a thin scream from Lady Shelton.
“Trouble with this old scratch-wig?” inquired Mount, nodding his head sideways towards Lord Dunmore.
“Damme!” gasped Dunmore. “Do you know who I am, you beast?”
“I know you’re a ruddled old hunks,” said Mount, carelessly. “Who may the other guinea wig-stand be, Mr. Cardigan?”
As he spoke he looked across at Sir Timerson Chank, then suddenly his eyes grew big as saucers and a low whistle escaped his lips.
“Gad!” he exclaimed. “It’s the magistrate or I’m a codfish!”
“Fellow!” roared Sir Timerson, his face purpling with passion. “Fellow! Thunder and Mars! Lord Dunmore, this is Jack Mount, the highwayman!”
For an instant Dunmore stood transfixed, then he screamed out: “Close the gates! Close the gates, Sir Timerson! He shall not escape, damme! No, he shall not escape! Call the constables, Sir Timerson; call the constables!”
Mount had paled a little, but now as Sir Timerson began to bellow for a constable, his colour came back and he stepped forward, laying a heavy hand on the horrified magistrate’s shoulder.
“Come now; come now,” he said; “stop that bawling, or I’ll put your head between your knees and truss you up like a basted capon!” And he gave him a slight shake which dislodged Sir Timerson’s forty-guinea wig.
“You Tory hangman,” said Mount, scowling, “if I ever took a penny from you it was to help drive you and your thieving crew out of the land! Do you hear that? Now go and howl for your thief-takers, and take his Lordship, here, with you to squall for his precious constables!” And he gave Sir Timerson a shove over the grassy slope.
Lady Shelton shrieked as Sir Timerson went wabbling down the hill, but Mount turned fiercely on Dunmore and shook his huge fist under his nose.
“Hunt me down if you dare!” he growled. “Move a finger to molest me and the people shall know how you stop public runners and scalp them, too! Oho! Now you scare, eh? Out o’ my way, you toothless toad!”
Dunmore shrank back, almost toppling down the hill, which he hurriedly descended and made off after Sir Timerson towards the pavilion.
“Come,” said I, “that will do for the present, Jack. Look yonder! Your friend, the magistrate, is toddling fast to trap you. You should be starting if you mean to get out of this scrape a free man.”
“Pooh!” replied Mount, swaggering. “I’ve time to dine if I chose, but I’m not hungry. Come, Cade; we needs must kick some planks out of that stockade below us, if they guard the gates. But we have time to stroll.”
The Weasel did not appear to hear him, and stood staring at Silver Heels with an expression so strange that it was almost terrifying. For a moment I feared he had gone stark mad.
“Cade!” repeated Mount. “What is the matter, Cade? What do you see? Not another fat magistrate? Cade! What on earth troubles you, old friend?” And he stepped quickly to the Weasel’s side, I following.
“Cade!” he cried, shaking his comrade’s arm.
The Weasel turned a ghastly face.
“Who is she?” he motioned, with his lips.
“Do you mean Miss Warren?” I asked, astonished.
“A ghost,” he muttered, shivering in every limb.
Presently he began to move towards Silver Heels, and Mount and I drew him back by the shoulders.
“Cade! Cade!” cried Mount, anxiously. “Don’t look like that, for God’s sake!”
“For God’s sake,” repeated Renard, trembling.
His eyes were dim with tears. Mount leaned over to me and whispered: “He is mad!” But the Weasel heard him and looked up slowly.
“No, no,” he said; “a little wrong in the head, Jack, only a little wrong. I thought I saw my wife, Jack, or her ghost — ay, her ghost — the ghost of her youth and mine—”
A spasm shook him; he hid his face in his hands a moment, then scoured out the tears with his withered fingers.
“Ask the young lady’s pardon for me,” he muttered; “I have frightened her.”
I walked over to Silver Heels, who stood beside Lady Shelton, amazed at the scenes which had passed so swiftly before her eyes, and I drew her aside, mechanically asking pardon from the petrified dowager.
“He is a little mad,” I said; “he thought he saw in you the ghost of his lost wife. Sorrow has touched his brain, I think, but he is very gentle and means no harm. Speak to him, Silver Heels. I owe my life to those two men.”
She stood looking at them a moment, then, laying her hand on my arm, she went slowly across to Mount and Renard.
They uncovered as she came up; the Weasel’s face grew dead and fixed, but the pathos in his eyes was indescribable.
“If you are Mr. Cardigan’s friends, you must be mine, too,” said Silver Heels, sweetly. “All you have done for him, you have done for me.”
Fascinated, Mount gaped at her, tongue-tied, clutching his coon-skin cap to his breast. But the fibre of the two men showed the difference of their grain in a startling form, for, into Renard’s shrunken frame came something that straightened him and changed him; he lifted his head with a peculiar dignity almost venerable, and, stepping forward, took Silver Heels’s small hand in his with a delicate grace that any man might envy. Then he bent and touched her fingers with his lips.
“An old man’s devotion, my child,” he said. “You have your mother’s eyes.”
“My — my mother’s eyes?” faltered Silver Heels, glancing fearfully at me.
“Yes — your mother’s eyes — and all of her. I knew her, child.”
“My — mother?”
He touched her hand with his lips again, slowly.
“I am a little troubled in my head sometimes,” he said, gravely. “Do you fear me?”
“N — no,” murmured Silver Heels.
Their eyes met in silence.
Presently I took Silver Heels by the hand and led her back to Lady Shelton.
“Madam,” I said, “if aught of harm comes to these two men, through Lord Dunmore, betwixt this hour and the same hour to-morrow, there is not a hole on earth into which he can creep for mercy. Tell this to my Lord Dunmore, and bid him stay away. I speak in no heat, madam; I mean what I say. For as surely as I stand here now, that hour in which Lord Dunmore and Sir Timerson start to hunt us down, they die. Pray you, madam, so inform those gentlemen.”
Then I turned to Silver Heels, who impulsively stretched out both hands. The next moment I rejoined Mount and Renard, and we passed rapidly through the grove and down the hill to the stockade, where Mount drove out a plank with his huge shoulder, and we
were free of Roanoke Plain.
CHAPTER XVII
At ten o’clock that night I sat in the coffee-room of the “Virginia Arms,” outwardly cool enough, I trust, but terribly excited nevertheless, and scarce able to touch the food on my plate.
Heretofore, although I have always dreaded physical pain, I may truthfully say that the prospect of it had never deterred me from facing necessary danger; and I can also maintain that, until the present moment, the possibility of disaster to me or mine had never terrified me beforehand.
Now it was different; I seemed to be utterly unable to contemplate with philosophy the chance of misfortune to Silver Heels, through failure of my plans or accident to my proper person. It was, I think, responsibility and not cowardice that frightened me; for who was there to take care of Silver Heels if anything happened to me?
One by one I counted and discounted the dangers I ran: first, arrest at any moment as an accomplice of the notorious Jack Mount; second, assassination by Dunmore’s agents; third, assassination by Butler’s company; fourth, arrest and imprisonment as a suspected rebel and open advocate of sedition; fifth, danger from the Cayugas after our escape from Fort Pitt.
Should any of these things befall me, as well they might, what in the world would become of Silver Heels? Small wonder I found no heart to eat, though this totally new condition of mind parched me with a thirst so persistent that my host, James Rolfe, was obliged to caution me and bring me to my senses ere I had dulled them hopelessly in his brown home-brew.
The post-chaise, loaded and ready for a three weeks’ journey, stood in the mews with the four strong horses harnessed, 294 and Jack Mount at their heads. He and the Weasel were to ride as post-boys, with Shemuel and I in front.
It lacked an hour yet of the time appointed, and it was the suspense of that hour’s waiting which set every nerve in my body aching. If we could only have gone somewhere else to wait! — but where could we go and find safety from warrants in this little town where every patriot inn was known? Certainly it was better for us to endure the strain here among sympathizers, where we could count on our host and on his guests and on every servant from stable to kitchen.
The arms and ammunition which the Weasel had purchased were now properly stowed in the post-chaise. Rifles and pistols had been primed and loaded, powder-horns replenished, flint and ball fitted, and pans oiled.
Again and again I went out into the mews, leaving my food untasted, only to find Mount standing quietly at the horses’ heads and the Weasel pacing up and down, plunged in reverie.
At last Shemuel appeared, slinking past the lighted inn windows and into the mews, where we waited in the starlight, rubbing his hands and peering about with alert obsequiousness and an apparent inability to appreciate the tension that I, for one, quivered under.
“I haff sold all my goots,” he remarked, cheerfully; “my packets I haff stored mit my friends at dose ‘Bear and Cubs.’ I puy me Delaware paskets in Baltimore — eh, Jack?”
“Here are your pistols,” I said; “do you know how to use them?”
“Ach yess,” he replied, with a sly smile at Mount, who grunted, and said:
“Shemmy is just as handy with pistols as he is with his needles. No fear, Mr. Cardigan,” and looking around, he motioned the peddler to his side.
“I hear that the Monongahela is in flood,” he said. “Is the wooden bridge all right, Shemmy?”
Shemuel did not know and went away to inquire, returning presently from the stables with the information that heavy storms had swept the southern mountains and the Monongahela was over its banks, but the dam below the bridge had gone out, leaving the wooden structure safe.
“Then there won’t be a ford for twenty miles,” muttered Mount, “and I’m glad of it. Shemmy, just borrow four new axes of Rolfe, will you? And, say, just shove them into the boot!”
Again Shemuel disappeared, and after a short absence came trotting back with the bundle of brand-new axes on his shoulder.
“Are they ground?” asked Mount.
“You can shave mit them,” said Shemuel, running his dirty thumb along the edges. Then he shoved them into the boot and looked cunningly up at me.
The slow minutes dragged on. Hands clasped behind me, I walked up and down the muddy alley, twisting my interlocked fingers until every nail throbbed. Mount smoked a cob-pipe and watched me; Renard stood apart, staring up at the stars, immersed in thought; Shemuel pattered silently among the restive horses, thumbing the harness and poking his prying fingers into axle and unlighted coach-lamp.
Up and down I walked, heart beating heavily, watching the mouth of the alley for a lurking spy, or a file of soldiers, or Heaven knows what phantoms, which fancy conjured in my excited brain. But I saw nothing to alarm us, and was about to recommence an examination of the new rifle which Renard had bought me, when we were all startled by a rattle of hoofs filling the square with quick echoes.
Instantly every man there reached for his rifle; the alley itself suddenly resounded with the clattering hoof-strokes of a hard-ridden horse. There was a rush, a shadow, and a breathless shout from the horseman: “Express — ho! Stand back! I pass! I pass!”
“It’s an express,” muttered Mount, lowering his long rifle to lean on it and watch the dark rider pull his frantic horse to its haunches and fling the bridle on the snorting creature’s neck, while he turned in his stirrups and searched his wallet by the glow of the opening kitchen door.
Rolfe, in his shirt-sleeves and apron, came out of the door, holding his hands up for the packets.
“Three for you, Jimmy,” said the bareheaded express-rider, passing the letters over. “Draw me a pot o’ beer, for Heaven’s sake.”
“Where is your mate?” asked Rolfe, anxiously.
“Hiram? Full of war-arrows t’other side o’ Crown Gap. Here’s his pouch.”
“Scalped?” asked Rolfe, in a low voice.
“I reckon he is. He never knowed nothing after the third arrow. Them Wyandottes done it.”
A tap-boy hurried out with the brimming pewter, and the shadowy rider emptied it at a gulp.
“‘Nother, Jim,” he said, stolidly.
“There’s blood onto your jaw,” said Rolfe, gloomily.
“Ay, they drew blood. I lost my hat” — here he swore fiercely— “and it ain’t even paid for, Jim!”
“You orter be glad you got through, Ben Prince,” said Rolfe, grimly.
“I am — drat that boy! where’s my beer? Oh, there you are, are you? Gimme the pot and quit gaping. Hain’t you never seed a express before?”
An admiring circle of hostlers and kitchen wenches laughed hysterically. The post-rider swaggered in his saddle and stretched out his feet contentedly.
“Life ain’t all skittles,” he observed; “but beer is beer the round world round!” and he drained the pot and tossed it dripping to an honoured scullion.
“News o’ Boston?” asked Rolfe, meaningly.
“Plenty! Plenty! Port Bill in force; Tommy Gage on top; Sam Adams lying low; more redcoats landed, more on the way, more to come; rich poorer; poor starving; that’s all!”
He gathered his bridle and winked at a coy kitchen-maid.
“Your beau has went to Johnstown, Sairy,” he said; “I seen him a-training hay-foot, straw-foot, with old Sir Billy’s Tryon County milish. That reminds me, Jim” — turning to Rolfe— “I’ve a packet for a certain Michael Cardigan, somewhere to be hunted up south o’ Crown Gap—”
“Right here!” said Rolfe, promptly, and the express passed the letter to him. Then, with a careless, “See you later!” he wheeled his horse short and galloped back along the alley, which rang with shouts of “Good luck! Good luck! There’s bed and bait for you here, Benny!”
The crowd on the steps flocked back into the kitchen, the 297 door closed, then opened to let out Rolfe, who advanced towards me, letter in one hand, flaring candle in the other.
“Light the coach-lamps,” I whispered, and, taking the candle and letter
, sat down on a pile of pine timber to read what Sir William had sent me:
“Dear Lad, — By runners from the Cayuga, I know how gallantly you have conducted. Dearer than son you are to me, prouder am I than any parent. If what we had hoped and prayed for has failed — as I can no longer doubt — it is so ordained, and we struggle in vain. Nitor in adversum; nisi Dominus, frustra!
“I am holding the Mohawks back by their very throats, but mischief brews at the Upper Castle, whither Joseph (Thayendanegea) has gone with the belts from me.
“Red Jacket’s conduct condemns me to uneasiness. He is an orator; the foul murder of Logan is his text. I need say no more, save that I still hold the Mohawks back.
“Colonel John Butler, his conduct concerns me, and I needs must view it with grief and alarm. His dishonoured son, Walter Butler, is still absent; the elder Butler has retired to the lakes, where I am informed he is gathering Tory malecontents and foolish young Onondagas, for what ultimate purpose I can only imagine.
“A most deadly and bitter feeling runs flood in Johnstown; nightly outrages are reported to me, and I fear that the so-called patriots are quite as blameworthy as are the loyalists. Whig and Tory hate and wait.
“Dear lad, the sands of my life are running very swiftly. I am so tired, so tired! Come when you can; I have much to talk over ere these same sands run out, leaving a voided glass in the sunlight. If you, by hazard, pass through Fort Pitt, you will accompany Felicity on her return hither, which return I have instantly commanded her by this express. I have received a singular letter from my Lord Dunmore, which has astonished me. My answer to him I delay until Felicity returns. Doubtless she will travel hither by way of Richmond. The escort, which Lord Dunmore must furnish, will, on their return journey, take with them my reply to his Lordship.
“If this letter reaches you in time, come back with Felicity; if not, come by the safe route through Richmond. Overtake her if you can do so.
“Your Aunt Molly is well and sweetly anxious to see you safe home. Esk and Peter do flourish — yet I like not Peter’s haunting the public houses where things are uttered to poison young minds. I have trounced him soundly seven times, and mean to continue.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 112