by Howard Pyle
“You are in the right, as usual, good Master Philpotts, and foreseeing that you could not be swayed without the Governor’s order, the Governor’s order I have brought for a half-hour’s talk with the prisoner, you meanwhile to be within call, but not within hearing. See! is’t not writ as I have said?” she asked, holding the paper toward him.
“I am not such a churl as to dispute a lady’s word,” said Philpotts, glad in this chivalrous manner to evade a too severe strain on his powers of reading a written document. “The Governor’s order shall be obeyed,” and swinging back the door he closed it again behind him and resumed his march from the green pine-tree to the brown one, and from the brown tree back again to the green, watching the yellow sun set behind the distant hills. His taciturnity yielded at last to the extent of one exclamation, “By the Lord Harry, what a coil!”
As Elinor Calvert entered she threw back her sable hood, and her pale, beautiful face, surrounded by its golden hair, shone like the moon against the dark setting of the tobacco-hung rafters. Her only ornament was the diamond crescent at her throat, which glistened as a ray of the setting sun struck upon it. Her eyes were full of unshed tears, and her lips trembled so that she could scarcely control them enough to utter the words she had come to speak. Her hands were clenched tightly, as if by that force alone she held to her resolution.
Inside the door she waited for some word of welcome or greeting. She put up her hand to her throat as if to ease the sorrow which was rising and swelling within. By accident her fingers grasped the crescent, and she clung to it as to a talisman. Neville made no step toward her. He stood leaning against the wall, his arms folded before him. It was as if she were the criminal and he the judge. The silence was intolerable to Elinor.
“Speak to me!” she cried at last, stretching out her hands toward him. Her voice betrayed a dry anguish in the throat, and her breath came in quick, short gasps.
“Are you come as Governor Brent’s messenger?”
Elinor shivered as though his tone had more chill in it than the January air, but her own was equally haughty as she answered, —
“I come by permission of my kinsman, who never deserts a friend.”
“No, faith! since when the friend needs help he ceases to be one.”
“Your words are brutal.”
“Perchance. I have not been trained by your Fathers to mean one thing and say another.”
Elinor felt for her hood as though she would have drawn it over her head again and left without another word; then changing her mind, she advanced nearer.
“This is not a kind greeting,” she said, “for one who comes to help you.”
“If I were not past help I might have spoke more kindly.”
“Oh, but you are not past help. And that is what the Governor bade me say, that it is not too late; that he knows Father Mohl pricked you past endurance, and that he will move heaven and earth to get you off if you will but confess, so that no innocent man may suffer.”
Neville bowed with ironical courtesy.
“You will give me an answer to take to him?”
“I have given Governor Brent my answer once.”
“Oh, think! Do not send me away hastily. Think what is before you, — the chains, the prison, the — the scaffold.”
Neville smiled.
“Have you no feeling? How can you smile?”
“Was I smiling? I suppose I was following your words and picturing the scenes you called up, especially the last. I was thinking about the fellows who would make the noose fast and swing me off, fancying, poor fools, that they had killed me. How little they would know that the death came off weeks before, and was dealt by one glance from a pair of purple-gray eyes that said in yonder court-room, ‘I count you guilty.’”
“Stay not to bandy phrases!” interrupted Elinor, swaying a little unsteadily on her feet. “Talk no more of guilt or innocence; but let us look about for another plan of escape since you will not trust Giles Brent. Look, I am near as tall as you. I measured height the evening you stood by me at the fire. You have fair hair, too, like mine. Let us change attire, and you in my cloak shall slip out yonder door.”
“And you?”
“What matter what befalls me? As you say yourself, I have got my death wound already.”
“But your boy — Cecil.”
“There are others who will care for him. Mary Brent loves him as her own, and Giles will look to him for my sake.”
Neville started; he had never thought before of that possibility of Brent’s having once loved Elinor, yet why not, when none could be near her and not feel the magic of that charm before which even now his pride was ebbing fast; but this thought stung him to new haughtiness.
“You and your cousin have been equally at fault in your judgment of me,” he said, dryly. “I am as capable of murdering a priest as of taking shelter behind a woman and leaving her to bear my punishment. If I wished to escape I am not dependent upon your help. There are others, tried and true and firm believers in my innocence, who have offered me freedom, but my honor would not be clear. There is just one way out of the present coil, and that road leads up the scaffold — and down again.”
“No! No! No! I say it shall not be!” cried Elinor, carried beyond herself in a burst of passion. “You must — you shall get away from this horrible place. Come!” she added with a smile, changing suddenly from anger to sweetness— “come! you have oft said there was naught on earth you would not do for my sake. Now what I ask is such a little thing.”
“I have heard of Jesuit methods,” said Neville, as if speaking to himself. “’Twas a shrewd trick when other shifts failed to tempt a man through the woman he loved, the woman who had once loved him.”
“Had loved thee! Would to God the taunt were true! Have not faith and reason grappled with each other through the long midnight hours, one saying, ‘He is innocent, you feel it;’ and the other, ‘He is guilty, you know it’? And at the end, when both fell down conquered by the combat, Love rose up greater than either and took me by the throat and brought me here. Listen, Christopher! If you have done this thing I have done it, for you and I are one. If you are put to death I will end my life by my own hand, and then we shall be together to all eternity; and what matter if the priests call it Hell!”
Neville took a step forward. Falling on his knees at her feet he raised the hem of her dress to his lips and kissed it once, twice, thrice.
“Oh, Elinor! Oh, my darling!” he murmured, “this is love indeed, perfect love which passeth understanding; but oh, how, how,” — with this he rose and strode impatiently up and down the floor— “how can you love me like this and still doubt me? You have known me these many years, you have seen me go in and out among my fellows, surely not like a cutthroat and assassin. You have seen me raise my hand to Heaven and swear in that high presence to my innocence, and still you condemn me. What in God’s name can I do or say more?”
He fixed his eyes upon Elinor, whose whole frame shook with the force of the feeling that swayed her. The blood rushed up and overflowed her face and neck, and her voice sank to a whisper as she leaned toward him and murmured, —
“I think — I think if you were to take me in your arms and whisper it in my ear, I — even I — should believe — and be at peace.”
CHAPTER XIII. A CHANGE OF VENUE
FOR AN HOUR after Elinor had left him Neville sat staring into the gathering dusk as if it had been the gate of Paradise. The swaying of the tobacco leaves in the night wind was as the rustle of angel’s wings, and the light of heaven itself seemed to fall round him like a halo. For him life had been lived out, and looking back he pronounced it worth while. The years of suffering, of waiting, of toil and danger threatening to end in ignominious death were weighed in the balance against the minutes when he had held Elinor Calvert close to his heart, and lo the years flew up light as thistledown, not worthy to be compared with the weight of glory of those transcendent moments when they stood together, he and sh
e, cheek to cheek, heart to heart, no word said, because all was understood, and they two alone in the round world of a kiss.
Philpotts was quite disappointed when he came in with the lantern to find his prisoner so cheerful.
“I ha’ brought summat to comfort you; but ye are smiling as if ye’d been bid to the King’s ball.”
“Eh! What?” asked Neville, dreamily still.
“I’m saying you might from your looks ha’ been to court, or knighted over again, or summat like that.”
“There’s more knighting than comes from the King’s hand, my good Philpotts.”
“H’m?” said Philpotts, uncomprehending.
“Nothing,” answered Neville.
“I’m glad to see you’re not giving in beaten.”
“A man, Philpotts, is never beaten till he has said in his heart, ‘I am beaten.’”
“That’s right. Keep up your heart, and your heart’ll keep you up in spite of Fate.”
“Pooh! Show me Fate and I will show you the will of a man; but what have you there in your hand?”
“Oh, ye may well ask. ’Tis no slight honor, I can tell you, to get a letter from Mistress Margaret Brent. I know ’tis from her, for the boy that brought it bade me say so; twice he said it, and bade me not forget, as if that were likely.”
Neville reached out his hand for the letter, and bending near the lantern broke the seal and read, —
“I am sure, sir, you will be glad to know that there are those who believe in your innocence and will do all they can to establish it. My position is a delicate one, for I can neither thwart those in power, nor openly act against them; but what I can do I will, and meanwhile should you by any chance reach Kent Island you may find a refuge and a shelter.”
The note had neither beginning nor end.
“I thank you!” said Neville aloud, as if the writer of the note were near; and may not souls draw near as well as bodies?
Philpotts hearing his voice turned back.
“Was it good news?” he asked.
“The best.”
“Will it help ye?”
“Ay, on the scaffold itself.”
“Never be talking so much of what’s far off. There’s no luck in prophesying ill things. Was ever any one in your family hung?”
“No; none rose so high,” said Neville, with bitter humor.
“Still another sending for thee. ’Twas brought by Mistress Calvert’s son while his mother was within. I wonder does the child think we mean to starve you.” As he spoke he drew out a loaf of bread.
“He said you were not to wait till morning, but eat it all to-night.”
Neville smiled, a sweet, wholesome, human smile.
“Give it me,” he said, and broke off a great chunk. To his surprise he found the loaf hollow, and inside was Cecil’s knife wrapped round with a bit of paper on which was scrawled in a childish hand, —
“I crep out of bed to get this Loaf. I was afraid of bars tho you say they cum not into houses. I dug out the Bred with my nife and thru the crums out at the Windo so Mother sh’d not see them. I hope you will stab your jalor, and jump out your Windo too. Sum day you shal cum to Robin Hood’s Barn. You may keep the Nife.
Calvert.”
“Here, Philpotts,” said Neville, handing over the knife, “this is for you; but with your leave I will keep the note,” and he folded it and laid it next his heart, as though it had been written by his own son.
“Why not keep it yoursel’, Master?”
“I have no use for it.”
“I can find one.”
“Still harping on escape? Every one seems to know me for a coward.”
“No son of Master John Neville was ever that; yet I do beg of you, sir, see, on my knees, to quit this prison now, this hour, for who knows what the next may bring forth!”
“My kind jailor, my good friend, get up from those honorable knees of yours which bend before adversity as most men’s to prosperity.”
“Your promise first!”
“Never to that you do propose; but here’s my hand, and it’s proud I am to offer it; and now, good-night, for it is well with me in body and soul, and I would fain try to fall asleep to see if I can conjure up again in my dreams certain visions which have made me happier than ever I was in my life before.”
Philpotts thought Neville’s troubles had driven him mad, and withdrew to his own corner, muttering curses on those that had unhinged this noble mind; but Neville lay still in such bliss as only angels and lovers know, till sleep came softly and kissed his eyelids.
The long slumber somewhat tarnished the glory of Neville’s mood, and when he awoke at the turn of morning he was conscious of a reactionary depression of soul.
Say what we will of the gloom of gathering night, it is as nothing to the grimness of the gray dawn. Night swallows up detail. The facts of one’s life seen in midnight hours may look tragic; but they are large and vague, with somewhat of the vastness of eternity. In the morning they stand out in all their bare, shabby pettiness, and we shrink back appalled from the tasks of the coming day.
As Neville woke he felt a hand upon his breast, and looking up saw Philpotts standing over him with a grave face.
“They’ve come for you, Master Neville.”
“‘They?’ Who?”
“They are come by the Governor’s orders to fetch you away, belike to St. Mary’s for trial. Oh, sir, but you’d best have heeded my offer last night and got away while there was time!”
“My good Philpotts, when milk is spilled it is spilled, and there’s no good in thinking what fine puddings it would have made. You’ve done your best for me, like a man. Now go away and forget the whole business. Plant your cabbages in the spring, and water them not with any tears for me!”
“Me go away! Not me, sir! And by good luck it’s orders that I’m to be one of the escort to St. Mary’s. That is, if ’tis to St. Mary’s we’re bound; but the orders are sealed, or some flummery like that they talked about, as the paper’s not to be opened till we’re out in the river.”
“Ah! You make me feel like a State character. My importance is rising. Where are the gentlemen? We must not keep them waiting.”
A rattle at the door showed that the visitors were growing impatient, and as Neville stepped toward it two men flung it open and entered hastily. One was tall, the other short. Both wore long cloaks and hats pulled rather low over their faces, as though they felt little pride in this charge of their prisoner. In truth, Neville even in his short stay in the colony had made the reputation of a gentleman and a brave man, and there were many that grieved for him, and wondered whether the knife alone were evidence enough to hang a man upon. Moreover, despite the wise and liberal rule of the Lord Proprietor, the Papist-Protestant feeling ran high throughout the length and breadth of Maryland, and the Protestants were ready to a man to swear to Neville’s innocence for no other reason than his religion.
This alone might have been enough to make Giles Brent wish the trial to take place at Kent Island, where enough force could be brought to bear to keep the peace while the trial proceeded.
“There is one favor I am fain to ask at your hands, gentlemen,” said Neville, as he took up his hat.
“Any favor consistent with the Governor’s wish and the good of the Commonwealth we will be pleased to grant.”
“I have a sister at the Manor, a sister who would cry her pretty eyes out if her brother had the ill manners to take his departure without a word of farewell. May not our course take me past her window, that I may at least wave a good-bye?”
The smaller man, he of the purple cloak and broad, drooping purple hat, moved as if he were in favor of granting the petition; but the other spoke with some sternness, —
“We have no time for such courtesies as farewells spoken or wafted from finger-tips. Our orders are to set forward with all speed and to be aboard the ketch before sunrise.”
“As you will. Poor little Peggy!” he murmured to himself
. “So end all her plans of escape. On the whole I am glad. Now she will cease pestering me to save myself.”
“I fear,” said the larger man, “that we must ask you to submit to having your arms bound. ’Tis an indignity we would gladly spare you, but the Governor’s orders—”
“Spare me at least your apologies. On with the ropes!”
Five minutes later the door was flung open and the four men took the road. Neville in the lead with the tall stranger, Philpotts and the other following close behind. In his zeal to keep up with the great strides of Philpotts, the smaller man tripped over his sword and well-nigh fell down the steep pine-needle carpeted path slippery with hoar frost. The larger man looked back annoyed. Neville smiled at his discomfiture.
“Faith, Brent despatched a boy to do a man’s work. Were’t not for Philpotts I could, an it pleased me, make short work of you and yonder stripling.”
“Ay, but it is for Philpotts; moreover, yonder stripling is marvellous handy aboard the boat, as you will see when we shake out the sails.”
Neville spoke no more, but tramped along, looking well to his footsteps, for he too found the ground wet and slippery with its thin glazing of ice. The treacherous Southern winter was in one of its relenting moods, and the morning air, even now before the sun was fully risen, held a hint of spring. The green pines sent forth their sweet odor, and a bird fluttered up and flapped his bright wings full in Neville’s face.
It was a morning to give a man courage for meeting life or for leaving it. Neville had faced danger and death too often to be wholly absorbed in his own fate, and now interwoven with his dull web of despair was a bright thread of enjoyment of the scene around him.
Never will any romancer truly tell the story of a man’s inner life till he takes cognizance of the many trains of thought, gay and sombre, that can slide on side by side, neither wholly filling nor dominating the mind.