“He has cut off our trade with the whole world.
“He taxes us without our consent.
“He deprives us of the benefits of trial by jury.
“He transports us beyond the seas for trial for pretended offences.
“He takes away our charters, abolishes our laws, suspends our legislatures.”
Hancock looked up, still holding the paper unrolled.
“Why,” he said, lightly, “this is no King, but a Cæsar amid his prætorians! Faith, I have been reading some history of the tyrants — surely not the history of our beloved monarch, George the Third!”
There was a grim silence. Hancock’s manner changed. He folded the paper, placed it in the bosom of his white waistcoat, and turned soberly to the rows of silent, seated men.
“Yesterday,” he said, “a carpenter was arrested for stealing bread for his little children. May I request, gentlemen, that you send a delegate to the committee which will wait upon the Governor to-morrow to intercede for the starving man?”
Then, with a brief inclination, he turned and left the room ere anybody was aware of his purpose.
The effect of his unexpected appeal was as dramatic as his sudden exit. With one impulse the company rose, grave, pale, tight-lipped; little groups formed on the floor; few words passed; but Hancock had done his work, and every alarm company in Massachusetts would know, ere many hours, that they were to fight one day, not for their honour, but to prevent the King of England from driving them to dishonour, so that their children might not die of want before their eyes.
It was not an orator’s effort that Hancock had accomplished; it was a mere statement of a truth, yet so skilfully timed and so dramatic in execution that it was worth months of oratory before the vast audiences of Faneuil Hall. For he had startled the representatives of hundreds of villages, and set them thinking on that which was closest to them — the danger to the welfare of their own households. Such danger makes panthers of men.
If Hancock was theatrical at moments, the end justified the means; if he was an egotist, he risked his wealth for principle; if he was a dandy, he had the bravery of the true dandy, which clothes all garments with a spotless, shining robe, and covers the face of vanity under a laurelled helmet.
It was late when the servant returned from Mr. Foxcroft, with a curt note from that gentleman, promising to receive me at one o’clock in the afternoon of the day following.
As I stood twisting the letter in my fingers, and staring out into the black city which perhaps sheltered the woman I loved somewhere amid its shadows, Jack Mount came up, peering through the window with restless eyes.
“Cade has never returned to this tavern,” he said, gloomily. “No one here has either seen or heard of him since he and I left last April for Cresap’s camp.”
CHAPTER XXIII
Like a red lamp the sun swung above the smoky east, its round, inflamed lens peering through the smother beneath which Boston lay, blanketed by the thick vapours of the bay.
From my window I could distinguish the shadowy ship-yards close by. Northeast, across Green Lane, lay the Mill Pond, sheeted in mist, separated from the bay by an indented causeway.
On Corps Hill the paling signal-fires went out, one by one; a green light twinkled aloft in the dusky tangle of a war-ship’s rigging; the smoky beacon in its iron basket flared, sank, glimmered, and went out.
Across the street, through the white mist lifting, spectral warehouses loomed, every shutter locked, iron gates dripping rust.
Jack Mount came in, and sat down on the edge of the bed with a silent nod of greeting, clasping his large hands between his knees.
“I have been thinking of that damned thief-taker,” he said, yawning. “If he’s tracked me from Pitt he’s a good dog, and his wife should cast a prime dropper some day.”
A servant brought us a bowl of stirabout and some rusks and salted codfish, and we breakfasted there in my chamber, scarcely speaking. Instead of exultation at my nearness to Silver Heels, a foreboding had weighed on me since first I unclosed my eyes. The depression deepened as I sat brooding by the window where the white sea-fog rolled against the sweating panes. Mount ate in silence; I could scarcely swallow any food. Presently I pushed away my plate, drew paper and ink before me, and fell to composing a letter. From the tap-room below a boy came to bring us our morning cups, and we washed the salty tang from our throats. Mount 391 lighted his yard of clay and lay back, puffing smoke at the smeared window-panes. I wrote slowly, drinking at intervals.
The morning draught refreshed us; and when at length sunshine broke out over the bay, something of our dormant spirits stirred to greet it.
“How silent is the world outside,” said I, listening to the sea-birds’ mewing, and mending my quill with my hunting-knife.
“Misery breeds silence,” he said.
“Are men starving here around us?” I asked, trying to realize what I had heard.
“Ay, and dying of it. The sun yonder no longer signals breakfast for Boston. Better finish your fish while you may.”
He pulled slowly at his pipe. “If I am right,” he drawled, “it would be close to mid-day now in England — the King’s dinner-hour. His Majesty should be greasing his chin with hot goose-gravy.”
His blue eyes began to shine; the long pipe-stem snapped short between forefinger and thumb; the smoking bowl dropped, and he set his moccasined heel upon it, grinding clay and fire into the stone floor. I watched him for a moment, and then resumed my writing.
“God save the King,” he sneered, “and smear his maw thick with good fat meat! Let the rebel babes o’ Boston die snivelling at their rebel mothers’ dried-up breasts! It’s a merry life, Cardigan. I dreamed last night a naked skeleton rode through Boston streets a-beating a jolly ringadoon on his bones:
“‘Yankee doodle came to town
A-riding on a pony—’
But the pony was all bones, too, like the Pale Horse, and sat Death astride, beating ever the same mad march:
“‘Yankee doodle — doodle — do!
Yankee doodle — dandy!’
’Twas the bay wind shaking the weather-vane — nothing more, lad. Come, shall we steer au large?”
“I must first send my letter,” said I; and began to re-read it:
Boston, October 29, 1774.
“To Mistress Felicity Warren:
“Dear, dear Silver Heels, — Being cured of my hurts and having done with Johnson Hall and my dishonourable kinsman, Sir John Johnson, Bart: I now take my pen in hand to acquaint you that I know all, how that through the mercy of Providence you have been reunited with your honrd parents, long supposed to have been with God, their name and quality I know not nor doubt that it is most honourable. I did think to receive a letter from you ere I left the Hall, yet none came, so I insulted Sir John and took Warlock who is mine of a right and I am come to Boston to pay my respects to yr honrd parents and to acquaint them that I mean to wed you as I love you my honrd cozzen but feel no happiness in as much as a deathly fear hath possessed me for some hours that I am never again to see you, this same haunting dread that all may not be well with you does not subdue and chill those ardent sentiments which of a truth burn as hotly now as they burned that sweet noonday at Roanoke Plain.
“I further acquaint you that my solicitor, Mr. Peter Weaver of Albany, hath news that my uncle, Sir Terence Cardigan, Bart, is at a low ebb of life being close to his Maker through much wine and excesses, and hath sent for me, but I would not stir a peg till I have found you dear Silver Heels to ask you if you do still love that foolish lad who will soon be Sir Michael Cardigan to the world but ever the same Micky to you, though if war comes to us I doubt not that my title and estate will be confiscated in as much as I shall embrace the cause of the colonies and do what harm I may to the soldiers of our King.
“My sweet Silver Heels, this letter is to be delivered to yr solicitor Mr. Thomas Foxcroft and by him instantly into your own hands, there being nothing in it not hon
ourable and proper. I strive in vain to shake off the depression which so weighs down my heart that it is heavy with the dread that all may not be well with you, for I do distrust Sir John his word, and I do despise him heartily and deem it strange that he did conduct you to Boston under pretence of a business affair which he has since refused to discuss with me.
“Dear maid, if yr honourable parents will permit, I shall this day venture to present myself and formally demand your hand in that sweet alliance which even death cannot end but must perforce render immortal for all time.
“Your faithful and obedient
servant and devoted lover
Michael Cardigan.”
The writing of this letter comforted me. I directed it to “Miss Warren, in care of Mr. Thomas Foxcroft, to be delivered 393 immediately,” and summoning a servant, charged him to bear it instantly to Mr. Foxcroft.
“It is but a step to Queen Street,” I said to the lank lad; “so if by chance the young lady herself be living there, you shall wait her pleasure and bring me my answer.” And I gave him three bright shillings fresh struck from the mint that year.
“You will go with me, Jack?” I asked, as the messenger vanished.
Mount, sprawling by the window, turned his massive head towards me like a sombre-eyed mastiff.
“Daylight is no friend o’ mine,” he said, slowly. “In Boston here they peddle ballads about me and Cade; and some puling quill-mender has writ a book about me, the same bearing a gallows on the cover.”
“Then you had best stay here,” I said; “I can manage very well alone, Jack.”
“Once,” continued Mount, thoughtfully, polishing his hatchet on his buckskin breeches— “once I went strolling on the Neck, yonder, and no thought o’ the highway either, when a large, fat man came a-waddling with two servants, and a pair o’ saddle-bags as fat as the man, every bit.”
He licked his lips and slowly turned his eyes away from mine.
“The moon was knee-high over the salt-grass,” he continued; “the devil’s in the moon when it’s knee-high.”
“So you robbed him,” I added, disgusted. Mount glanced guiltily around the room — anywhere but at me.
“I only asked him what his saddle-bags might weigh,” he muttered, “and the fat fool bawled, ‘Thief! Help!’ If he had not put it in my mind to scotch him! — but the great booby must out with his small-sword and call up his men. So, when he fell a-roaring that he was a King’s magistrate — why — why, I rubbed a pistol under his nose. And would you believe it, lad, the next thing I knew, Cade and I could scarce walk for the weight o’ the half-crowns in our breeches-pockets! It amazes me even yet — it does indeed!”
“You’d best look to your neck, then,” I said, shortly. “Remember Bishop’s buxom daughter on the Philadelphia coach last night. Where the kitten runs the catamount prowls.”
“Oh, I’ll take the air by night,” observed Mount, with perfect good-humour. “The night air o’ Boston is famous medicine for troubles like mine.”
“You will do no more tricks on the highway?” I demanded, suspiciously.
He buried his nose in a pot of beer without replying. An hour passed in silence, save for the continual trotting to and fro of the boy from the tap-room, bearing deep, frothing tankards for Mount.
“Have a care,” I said, at length; “if you drink like that you’ll be out and abroad and into every foolish mischief, as you were in Pittsburg. Be a man, Jack!”
“I’m all salty inside like a split herring,” he said, reaching for a fresh pewter, and blowing the foam till it scattered over the floor like flakes of snow.
Two hours had dragged on towards their finish, and already the clocks in the tavern were tolling the death of another hour, when my lank messenger came breathless to the door with a letter for me, and at the first glance I saw that the writing was the hand of Silver Heels herself.
Mount gaped at me, then one of his rare and delicate instincts moved him to withdraw. I heard him leave the room, but did not heed his going, for I was already deep in the pages of the letter:
“Dear Lad, my old Comrade, — Mr. Foxcroft did summon me to consider your letter of last evening, how it were best to inform you of what you should know.
“Now comes your letter of this morning by your messenger, and leaves me a-tremble to breathe its perfume of the love which I had, days since, resigned.
“For I did write you constantly to Johnstown in care of Sir John, and no answer came save one, from Sir John, saying you cared not to answer me my letters. This cruel insult from Sir John could not have been the truth in light of the letter now folded in my bosom, and softly rustling nestled against my breast.
“But it is plain to me, dear heart, that you as yet know nothing of what great change has come to me. And so, before I dare give you the answer which burns my mouth and thrills this poor body o’ mine which aches for you, I must, for honour’s sake, reveal to you what manner of maid you would now court, and into what desperate conditions I am come; not that I doubt you, Michael, dear soul of chivalry and tender truth!
“Know then, my friend, that I am hopelessly poor in this 395 world’s goods; know, too, that the new name I bear is a name marked for pity or contempt by those few who have not long since forgotten it. It is the death of my pride to say this. Yet I say it.
“My father is old and broken. His faculties have failed; he is like a child who forgets what his tongue utters, even while voicing his harmless desires. His property is gone; he does not know it. He sees around him the shadows of the past; he talks with the dead as though they sat at his elbow.
“His house is an empty shell; his lands have grown into thickets; his estate is lost to him through taxes long unpaid. Yet everywhere the phantoms of dead scenes surround him; ghosts walk with him through spectral domains, ride with him to hounds, carry his colours to victory on the race-course, sit with him at table, pour water for him which, in his wrapped eyes, bubbles like wine.
“Believe me, dear friend, it is pitiful and sad — sad past all I have ever known.
“For me, too, it is so strange, so hopeless, that, even after these long days, it is still an untrue dream from which I seem too weary and stunned to rouse and drive the gray vision from me.
“Long ago, in a distant year of sunlight, I remember a child called Silver Heels, whose mad desire for rank and power crammed her silly head, till, of a sweet May day, love came to her. Love drove her to folly; love reclaimed her; love lies still in her heart, watching for you with tireless eyes.
“Dear heart, would you take me? Even after all you now know? Do you want me, Michael? — me? — when all the world lies before you?
“I once most wickedly said that if I had been humbly born, I would not for my pride’s sake wed with you. It is not true, Michael; I will wed with you. But, if after what you have learned, you care no longer to wed me, do not write me; do not come to give me reasons.
“Mr. Foxcroft attends me. We will await you at his house, at noon, and if you come — as, God help me I believe you will — then I shall teach you what a maid’s love can mean. Oh, to have you again, as I held you those long days on the trail; but you were too near death to know it! — too close to death to hear all I promised you if only you would live!
“Felicity.”
“Mount!” I cried, all of a-tremble, “I shall wed this noon! Get me a parson, man!” And I began tearing off my buckskins and flinging them right and left, shouting for Jack the while, and dressing in my finest linen and my silver-gray velvet.
Now choking with the tears that I could not crush back, now smiling at the sunlight which yellowed the white walls of my chamber, I shouted at intervals for Mount, until the tap-boy came to say that Mount had gone out. So I bade the tap-boy hasten forth and buy me a large nosegay with streamers, and fetch it to me instantly; and then returned to my toilet with a feverish haste that defeated its own purpose.
At last, however, I hung my sword, dusted the hair-powder from frill an
d ruffle, buckled shoon and knees, and shook out the long soft lace over my cuffs. Then I found the ring I had bought in Albany, and placed it in my silver-webbed waistcoat with its flowered flaps of orange silk.
The inn clocks chimed for ten as the lad brought me a huge nosegay all fluttering with white silken streamers.
“Where is my companion?” I asked, red as a poppy under his grins.
“Below, sir,” replied the lad, hesitating.
“Drunk?” I demanded, angrily.
“Tolerable,” said the lad.
With that I seized my nosegay, set my small French hat on my head, and went down the side stairway to the street.
Mount, swaggering on the tap-room porch, spied me and rubbed his startled eyes. But I seized him by the painted cape of his fox-trimmed hunting-shirt, and jerked him to and fro savagely.
“Idiot! Tippler! Pottle-pot!” I cried, in a rage. “I’m to be married — d’ye hear? Married! Married! Get me a parson! Take my nosegay! So! Now walk behind me as if you knew what decent folk are accustomed to do at a sudden wedding!”
“How can I get you a parson if I’m to march here behind you, bearing this nosegay?” he remonstrated, sidling away towards the tavern again.
“You stay where you are!” I said; then I called a servant and bade him find a parson to go instantly to the house of Thomas Foxcroft in Queen Street, and there await my coming.
Mount, almost sobered, through sheer astonishment, regarded me wildly.
“Jack, old friend,” I said, in a burst of happiness, “I’ve found her, and she will be my wife by noon! Give me joy, Jack! — and mind that nosegay, idiot! Hold it aloft, else the streamers will trail in the dust! Now, then! Follow me! Gingerly, idiot, gingerly!”
And away I marched, scarce knowing what I did in my excitement, but turning now and again to see that Mount followed, bearing the nosegay with proper care.
“If you are to be wedded at noon,” he said, timidly, as we were hurrying through Cambridge Street, “what are we going to do until then — walk the streets like this? Lord, what a fool I feel!”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 123