Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  I stopped short. It was quite true that I was not expected at Mr. Foxcroft’s before noon, and it was now but ten o’clock or a little after.

  “I can’t sit still in that tavern,” I said. “Let us walk, Jack. Two hours are quickly past. Come, step beside me — and mind those ribbons! Jack! I am mad with happiness!”

  “Then let us drink to it,” suggested Mount, but I jerked him to my side, and scarcely knowing what to do or where to go, started on, with the vague idea of circling the city in a triumphal march.

  I shall never forget my first glimpse of the city by daylight: its brick houses streaked with sea-fog, its bare wooden wharves glimmering in the sunshine, as Mount and I passed through Lyna Street and out along the water by Lee’s ship-yard and Waldo’s Wharf.

  Northward across the misty water the roofs and steeples of Charlestown reddened in the sun; to the west the cannon on Corps Hill glittered, pointing seaward over the Northwest Water Mill. From somewhere in the city came the beating of drums and the faint squealing of fifes; the lion banner of England flapped from Beacon Hill; white tents crowned the summit of Valley Acre; the ashes of the beacon smoked.

  In the northwestern portion of the city the quiet of death reigned; there was not a sign of life in the streets; the wooden houses were closed and darkened; the ship-yards and wharves deserted; not a living soul was to be seen abroad. Mount’s noiseless moccasined tread awoke no echoes, but my smart heels clattered as we turned southeast through squalid 398 Hawkins Street, through Sudbury, Hanover, Wings Lane, Dock Square, by the Town Dock, and then south, past the Long Wharf and Battery Marsh, above which, on Fort Hill, another British flag rippled against the blue sky.

  “The damned rag flies high to-day,” muttered Mount.

  “Are you not done with cursing it?” I said, impatiently. “This is no day for bitterness.”

  “It’s a slave’s flag,” retorted Mount— “parry that!”

  “It flew for centuries above free men; let that plead for it!” I answered.

  There was an inn on Milk Street, near Bishop’s Alley, and the first open house we had encountered. Mount, before I could prevent him, had nosed out the tap-room, and I followed perforce, although I knew well enough that it was an ill-advised proceeding, the place being full of British soldiery and Mount in a quarrelsome mood.

  The soldiers eyed Mount and his nosegay askance, and Mount cocked his fox-skin cap and ruffled it offensively, outstaring the most insolent of them. But presently, to my relief, the soldiers left without accepting the opportunity for a quarrel, and Mount, somewhat dejected, refilled his glass and emptied it, with a disagreeable laugh. Then we went out by way of Winter Street to the Mall, Jack bearing my nosegay as though it had been a hostile ensign to flaunt before all England.

  There seemed to be many people abroad on Common Street; the shops were open all along Treamount and King streets, and the Boston citizens went about their affairs as soberly and quietly as though the city were not choking to death with England’s heavy fist at its throat.

  As for the Boston people, they resembled our good townsmen of Tryon County somewhat, though their clothes were of a more elegant cut, and even the snuffiest of them wore lace and buckles. Their limbs and features, however, appeared long and thin, a characteristic I had already noticed in New England folk.

  Through the double rows of trees I could see the tents of the marines pitched on the Mall, and beyond them a park of artillery and some low redoubts. Soldiers were passing everywhere: here a company marching to the drum across 399 the Common, black gaiters twinkling; there a squadron of Light Horse, in blue and silver, riding, two abreast, to their barracks on George Street. Anon comes a company of red-necked Highlanders, bagpipes squawling, and it made me think of Johnson Hall to see their bare shins passing, sporrans a-swing, and the crawling whine of their pipes in my ears.

  I looked at my watch; it was eleven o’clock. Mount and I leaned back against the railing of the south burying-ground, watching the busy life of the camp on the Common. I had never before seen so many soldiers together, nor such a brilliant variety of uniforms. The towns-people, too, lingered to watch the soldiers, some sullenly, some indifferently, some in open enjoyment. These latter were doubtless Tories, for in their faces one could not mistake the expression of sneering triumph. Also many of them talked to the soldiers, which earned them unconcealed scowls from passing citizens.

  “Well,” said Mount, “have you seen enough of the lobster-backs? The sight of them,” he continued, raising his voice, “sours my stomach, and I care not who knows it.”

  Several people near us looked at him.

  “Keep quiet!” I said, sharply. “I have no desire to spend the day in the provost cell yonder. Can you not remember what this day means to me?”

  Mount shrugged his broad shoulders, lighted his pipe, and sat down on the grass under a tall elm.

  “Sit beside me, lad,” he said, “and I’ll tell you all about these gay birds, and how to know them by their plumage. Mark! Yonder comes an officer in black and scarlet, wearing a single gold epaulette and a gold gorget, with the royal arms in gold on his white baldric. That’s the royal artillery, Mr. Cardigan. That gay old buck beside him is a colonel of foot. He’s all scarlet trimmed up with yellow and white. Most of them wear white breeches and black gaiters. There! That fellow in blue and silver, with orange cuffs and top-boots, is a trooper of Light Horse. See the steel head-piece with its roll of bear-skin and the orange plume on the left side. Some of ’em wear red cuffs and plumes, but you can tell them by their laced blue vests and jack-boots, and the officers by white baldrics and two silver epaulettes.”

  “What is that fellow there with the bear-skin cap and white plume and tassels?” I asked, with a pretence of interest which in my anxiety and excitement I could not feel. The splendid uniform which I pointed out glittered in stripes of silver and pale blue embroidery over a scarlet coat.

  “That lad is a drummer of the Grenadiers,” said Mount. “The soldier beside him with the green facings and green-and-gold stock is one of the Twenty-fourth Foot — a sergeant by his baldric and cross-spear. Oh, they’re gay and godless, as the Weasel would say—”

  He paused and looked down. The slightest tremor twitched his underlip. I laid my hand lightly on his shoulder.

  “Ay, ay,” he said, “I’m lost without him — I don’t know what to do — I don’t know. I see him in my sleep; he comes in dreams o’ the woods. I wake laughing at his dry jests, and find my face twisted wi’ tears. There’s never a leaf stirs on a bough but I listen for Cade’s padded footfall behind me; there’s never a free wind blows but I hark for his voice a-calling me back to the sweet green forest and the spice o’ the birch camp-fire. Lad! lad! He’s dead and buried these long weeks, and I am but a weird-hound on a spectre trail, dogging his wraith.”

  We sat there on the grass watching the marines drilling; the artillery trotted clanking past for exercise at the Fox Hill redoubt, and presently we heard the dull boom-booming of their cannon along the west shore of the bay.

  “They even shoot at the rebel fishes,” sneered Mount, raising his voice for the benefit of his neighbours.

  I sprang to my feet impatiently, adjusted my sword, and dusted the skirts of my coat.

  “It’s not half-past eleven yet,” observed Mount.

  “I don’t care,” I muttered; “I shall go to Queen Street now. Come, Jack! I cannot endure this delay, I tell you.”

  He did not answer.

  “Come, Jack,” I repeated, turning around to summon him. “What are you staring at, man?”

  As I spoke a roughly clad man pushed in between me and Mount, swinging a knobbed stick; another man followed, 401 then another. Mount had leaped to his feet and backed up to my side.

  “It’s Billy Bishop’s gang!” he said, thickly. “Leave me, lad, or they’ll take us both!”

  Before I could comprehend what was on foot, half a dozen men suddenly surrounded Mount, and silently began to close in
on him.

  “Go!” muttered Mount, fiercely, pushing me violently from him.

  “No, you don’t!” said a cool voice at my elbow; “we want the Weasel, too, for all his fine clothes!”

  The next instant a man in a red neck-cloth had seized my hands in a grip of iron, and, ere I knew what had happened, he clapped the gyves on one of my wrists. With a cry of rage and amazement I tore at my manacled hand, and, partly helpless as I was, I sprang at the fellow. He struck me a fierce blow with his cudgel, and ran around the edge of the swaying knot of human figures which was slowly bearing Mount to the ground.

  Then Mount rose, hurling the pack from him, and striking right and left with his huge arms. I saw the nosegay fly into a shower of blossoms, and the silken ribbons flutter down under the trampling feet.

  For a moment I caught Mount’s eye, as he stood like a deeply breathing bull at bay, then swinging the steel manacle which was locked on my right wrist, I beat my way to Mount’s side, and faced the thief-taker and his bailiffs.

  They rushed us against the fence of the burying-ground, bruising us with their heavy cudgels, and knocking the war-hatchet from Mount’s fist. I had my sword out, but could not use it, the manacles on my wrist clogging the guard and confusing me. In the uproar around us I heard cries of: “Death to the highwaymen!” “Kill the rogues!” A vast crowd was surging up on all sides; soldiers drew their hangers and pushed their way to the side of the baffled bailiffs.

  “Give up, Jack Mount!” cried the stout man with the red neck-cloth— “give up, in the King’s name! It’s all over with you now! I’ve run you from Johnstown on a broad trail, God wot! and I want your brush and pads, old fox!”

  Mount displayed his broad knife coolly. The sunlight played over the blade of the murderous weapon; the crowd around us broke into a swelling roar.

  Suddenly a soldier struck heavily at Mount with his hanger, but Mount sent the sword whirling with the broad, short blade in his hand.

  “If you’ll let this gentleman go, I’ll give up,” said Mount, sullenly. “Answer me, Billy Bishop!”

  “Come, come,” said Bishop, in a bantering voice, “we know all about this gentleman, Jack. Don’t you worry; we’ll take care he has a view of the Roxbury Cross-road as well as you!”

  The taunt of the cross-roads gallows transformed Mount into a demon. He hurled his huge bulk at the solid mass of people; I followed, making what play I could with my small-sword, but in a moment I was down in the dust, blood pouring from my face, groping blindly for the enemies who were already clapping the irons on my other wrist.

  Through the roar and tumult of frantic voices I was dragged into a stony street, crushed into the pit of a crowd, which hurried me on resistlessly. White, excited faces looked into mine; hundreds of clinched fists tossed above the dense masses on either side. Again and again I plunged at those who drove me, but they thrust me onward. Far ahead in the throng I saw the head and shoulders of Jack Mount overtopping them all.

  The mob halted at a cross-street to allow a cavalcade of horsemen to pass. Above the heads of the people I could see the cavalry riding, sabres bared, the riders glancing curiously down at the rabble and its prisoners. A coach passed, escorted by dragoons; a gentleman looked out to seek the reason of the uproar. From his coach window his head leaned so close to me that I could have touched it. The gentleman was Walter Butler.

  “A thief, sir,” cried a bailiff; “taken by Bishop on the Mall. Would your lordship be pleased to see his comrade, the notorious Jack Mount?”

  “Drive on,” said Butler, impassively. Then the crowd began to hoot and jeer as the bailiffs pushed me forward once more through the dust of Cornhill up Queen Street.

  And so, crushed by the awful disgrace which had fallen on me, writhing, resisting, dishevelled, I was forced into the Court-house on Queen Street, across the yard, and into the gates of the prison, which crashed behind me, drowning the roars of the people in my stunned ears.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  I was taken, in company with Jack Mount, on Monday morning, the 29th of October, 1774, without warrant or process, without a shadow of legal right, without the faintest justification or excuse, save that I had been seen conversing with Mount on the Mall, and had resisted the thief-taker Bishop and his filthy gang of bailiffs.

  From the 29th of October until the 15th day of December, chained ankle to ankle, wrist to wrist, and wearing a steel collar from which chains hung and were riveted to the rings on my legs, I lay in that vile iron cage known as the “Pirates’ Chapel,” in company with Mount and eight sullen, cursing ruffians, taken in piracy off the Virginia capes by his Majesty’s ship Hebe, consort of the frigate Asia.

  During those six weeks not a moment passed in which I despaired, not an hour dragged out its chain of minutes but I believed it must be the hour for my delivery from this hideous injustice.

  From the minute I had entered the “Chapel,” the dull amazement which had fettered mind and body in a strange paralysis gave way to a deadly patience. My benumbed faculties grew clear; every sense became abnormally alert. Calmly I faced the terrible dilemma; I probed its consequences coolly; I understood that while Walter Butler held the Governor’s ear, and while the Governor held the civil power at his own pleasure, and used it as whim or caprice moved him, I could neither hope for a hearing before a magistrate nor dare expect a trial by my countrymen. The soiled hand of England had polluted the ermine of the judges; the bayonets of England cleared the court-rooms; the mocking Governor brooded in Province House, watching the structure of civil rights crumble and collapse, while his judges, his sheriffs, his bailiffs, and his soldiers prowled 405 through the débris of a structure which had been reared by my own people’s martyrdom.

  As for communication with the outside world, with friends, even with hostile relatives, or with the Governor himself, there was no possible chance. Our steel cage was set in the centre of a stone chamber, the barred windows of which opened on a bare stony parade, bounded on the east by Cornhill, on the west by Treamount Street, and on the south by School Street and the dead wall enclosing King’s Chapel. There was not a soul to be seen in the prison or outside save the marine sentinels, the jailers, the warden of the prison, and the eight ruffians who were caged with us, among whom there was but a single Englishman.

  Our cage was bedded with straw like a kennel; our food was brought us three times a day, in earthen bowls. A wooden spoon went with each bowl, otherwise the feed differed nothing from the feed of dogs.

  Mount, in the beginning, had conducted like a madman, passing swiftly up and down his cage, pacing to and fro along the ranks of steel bars, blank fury glaring from his eyes, jaw hanging like the jowl of a committed panther.

  All that first night he stalked the cage, brushing the bars with brow and thigh, and deep in his blue eyes there burned a terrible light, like the livid witch-fires which flare in haunted swamps.

  At first the manacled ruffians who lay about us in the straw watched him doggedly, but as the night wore on and his pacing never ceased, they growled sullen protest. Then he slowly turned on them, baring his white teeth.

  From that moment they gave him room and he ruled the cage as a silent, powerful beast rules, scarcely conscious of the cringing creatures who huddle around his legs, and whose presence cannot invade the solitude of his own fierce misery.

  The light in the stone chamber was cool and gray — clear enough, yet never tinged with sunlight. Night brought thick, troubled shadows creeping around the single candle which dripped from an iron socket riveted to the wall. Then the shades of the jailers fell across the floor as the large lanthorn was set outside in the corridor, and all night long the shuffling tread of the sentry marked the dead march of time.

  For three days, now, I had not touched the broth which was set on the straw beside me; I do not know that I should have made the effort to eat at all, except for an accident. It happened in this manner: one day, towards the middle of December, I had been lying on my belly, trying t
o think out something of that future which I had not yet despaired of. Musing there, nose buried in my arms, I lay almost on the verge of slumber, yet with one eye on the corridor beyond, when I saw distinctly a woman’s face peer through the thick grating which separated the corridor from our stone chamber.

  After a while the face disappeared; I lay still a moment, then touched Mount’s arm.

  He turned his haggard face to me.

  “Bishop’s daughter is in the corridor,” I whispered.

  “Where?” asked Mount, vacantly.

  “Out there behind the grating. She may do something for — for you. If she should, I think we had better try to eat.”

  “Yes,” he said, “we must eat.” And he turned with a snarl on one of the caged wretches behind us who for days had been battening on the food that neither Jack nor I touched.

  The man was in the act of dragging Mount’s bowl and spoon towards his own nest in the straw, but he dropped the food and shrank back as Mount seized it with an oath.

  I also secured my own bowl of bread and broth, and, together, we ate as animals eat, eying the others malevolently and askance.

  That night Mount lay awake, watching the grating. At dawn I awoke to watch, and Mount rolled himself up into a ball of buckskin and slept the first peaceful sleep which had come to him since his taking.

  The day passed in horrible monotony; our straw had become so foul that my head swam with the stench. But towards evening came a jailer and two soldiers, who raked the filthy straw from our cage, mopped the reeking floor, and when it had partly dried, shook us down a bedding of sweet rye-straw, into which we burrowed like dogs.

  That night we heard the noise of hammers overhead, and at first terror seized on all in the cage, for we believed that 407 workmen had come to build gibbets. In the morning, when our jailer arrived to fetch us water, I spoke to him, scarcely expecting a reply, for he had never before paid the faintest attention to questions from any of us.