As he spoke, the fellow levelled a musket, and another instant would have decided the fate of Job, who cowered before the danger with instinctive dread, had not Polwarth beat up the piece with his cane, and interposed his body between them.
“Hold your fire, brave grenadier,” he said, warily adopting a middle course between the language of authority and that of counsel. “This is hasty and unsoldier-like. I knew, and loved your late commander well; let us obtain the confessions of the lad before we proceed to punishment—there may be others more guilty than he.”
The men regarded the unexpected intruder with such furious aspects as augured ill of their deference for his advice and station. “Blood for blood,” passed from mouth to mouth, and the short pause which succeeded his appearance was already broken by still less equivocal marks of hostility, when, happily for Polwarth, he was recognised, through the twilight, by a veteran of the grenadiers, as one of the former intimates of M’Fuse. The instant the soldier communicated this discovery to his fellows, the growing uproar again subsided, and the captain was relieved from no small bodily terror, by hearing his own name passing among them, coupled with such amicable additions as, “his ould fri’nd!” “an offisher of the light troops”—“he that the ribbils massacred of a leg!” &c. As soon as this explanation was generally understood, his ears were greeted with a burst from every mouth, of—
“Hurrah! for captain Pollywarreth! His fri’nd! the brave captain Pollywarreth!”
Pleased with his success, and secretly gratified by the commendations that were now lavished on himself, with characteristic liberality, the mediator improved the slight advantage he had obtained, by again addressing them.
“I thank you, for your good opinion, my friends,” he added, “and must acknowledge it is entirely mutual. I love the Royal Irish, on account of one that I well knew, and greatly esteemed, and who I fear was murdered in defiance of all the rules of war.”
“Hear ye that, Dennis? murthered!”
“Blood for blood!” muttered three or four surly voices.
“Let us be deliberate, that we may be just, and just that our vengeance may be awful,” Polwarth quickly answered, fearful that if the torrent once more broke loose, it would exceed his powers to stay. “A true soldier always awaits orders; and what regiment in the army can boast of its discipline, if it be not the 18th! Form yourselves in a circle around your prisoner, and listen, while I extract the truth from him. After that, should he prove guilty, I will consign him to your tenderest mercy.”
The rioters, who only saw, in the delay, a more methodical execution of their own violent purpose, received the proposition with another shout, and the name of Polwarth, pronounced in all the varieties of their barbarous idioms, rung loudly through the naked rafters of the building, while they disposed themselves to comply.
The captain, with a wish to gain time to command his thoughts, required that a light should be struck, in order, as he said, to study the workings of the countenance of the accused. As the night had now gathered about them in good earnest, the demand was too reasonable for objection, and with the same headlong eagerness that they had manifested a few minutes before, to shed the blood of Job, they turned their attention, with thoughtless versatility, to effect this harmless object. A brand had been brought, for a very different end, when the plan of burning was proposed, and it had been cast aside again with the change of purpose. A few of its sparks were now collected, and some bundles of oakum, which lay in a corner of the warehouse, were fired, and carefully fed in such a manner as to shed a strong light through every cranny of the edifice.
By the aid of this fitful glare, the captain succeeded, once more, in marshalling the rioters in such a manner that no covert injury could be offered to Job. The whole affair now assumed, in some measure, the character of a regular investigation. The curiosity of the men without, overcame their fears of infection, and they crowded into the place, until, in a very few moments, no other sound was audible but the difficult and oppressed respiration of their victim. When all the other noises had ceased, and Polwarth perceived, by the eager and savage countenances, athwart which the bright glare of the burning hemp was gleaming, that delay might yet be dangerous, he proceeded, at once, in his inquiries.
“You may see, Job Pray, by the manner in which you are surrounded,” he said, “that judgment has at length overtaken you, and that your only hope for mercy lies in truth. Answer, then, to such questions as I shall put, and keep the fear of God before your eyes.”
The captain paused to allow this exhortation to produce its desired effect. But Job, perceiving that his late tormentors were quiet, and to all appearance bent on no immediate mischief, sunk his head languidly upon his blankets, where he lay in silence, watching, with rolling and anxious eyes, the smallest movements of his enemies. Polwarth soon yielded to the impatience of his listeners, and continued—
“You are acquainted with Major Lincoln?”
“Major Lincoln!” grumbled three or four of the grenadiers—“is it of him that we want to hear!”
“One moment, my worthy 18ths, I shall come at the whole truth the sooner, by taking this indirect course.”
“Hurrah! for captain Pollywarreth!” shouted the rioters—“him that the ribbils massacred of a leg!”
“Thank you—thank you, my considerate friends—answer, fellow, without prevarication; you dare not deny to me, your knowledge of Major Lincoln?”
After a momentary pause, a low voice was heard muttering among the blankets—
“Job knows all the Boston people; and Major Lincoln is a Boston boy.”
“But with Major Lincoln you had a more particular acquaintance—restrain your impatience, men; these questions lead directly to the facts you wish to know.” The rioters, who were profoundly ignorant of what sort of facts they were to be made acquainted with by this examination, looked at each other in doubt, but soon settled down again into their former silence.—“You know him better than any other gentleman of the army?”
“He promised Job to keep off the grannies, and Job agreed to run his ar’n’ds.”
“Such an arrangement betrays a greater intimacy than is usual between a wise man and a fool! If you are then so close in league with him, I demand what has become of your associate?”
The young man made no reply.
“You are thought to know the reasons why he has left his friends,” resumed Polwarth, “and I now demand that you declare them.”
“Declare!” repeated the simpleton, in his most unmeaning and helpless manner—“Job was never good at schooling.”
“Nay, then, if you are obstinate, and will not answer, I must withdraw, and permit these brave grenadiers to work their will on you.”
This threat served to induce Job to raise his head, and assume the attitude and look of instinctive watchfulness that he had so recently abandoned. A slight movement of the crowd followed, and the terrible words of “blood for blood,” again passed among them. The helpless youth, whom we have been obliged to call an idiot, for want of a better term, and because his mental imbecility removed him without the pale of legal responsibility, now stared wildly about him, with an increasing expression of reason, that might be ascribed to the force of that inward fire which preyed upon his vitals, and which seemed to purify the spirit in proportion as it consumed the material dross of his existence.
“It’s ag’in the laws of the Bay, to beat and torment a fellow-creature,” he said, with a solemn earnestness of voice, that would have melted hearts of ordinary softness; “and what is more, its ag’in His holy book! If you hadn’t made oven-wood of the old North, and a horse-stable of the old South, you might have gone to hear such expounding as would have made the hair rise on your wicked heads!”
The cries of—“Have done wid his foolery;” “the imp is playing his games on us!” “As if his wooden mockery was a church at all fit for a ra’al Chr
istian!” were heard on every side, and they were succeeded by the often-repeated threat, of “blood for blood!”
“Fall back, men, fall back,” cried Polwarth, flourishing his walking-stick in a manner effectually to enforce his orders; “wait for his confession before you judge. Fellow, this is the last and trying appeal to your truth—your life most probably depends on the answer. You are known to have been in arms against the crown.—Nay, I myself saw you in the field on that day when the troops a-a-a countermarched from Lexington; since when you are known to have joined the rebels while the army went out to storm the entrenchment on the heights of Charlestown.” At this point in the recapitulation of the offences of Job, the captain was suddenly appalled by a glimpse at the dark and threatening looks that encircled him, and he concluded with a laudable readiness—“On that glorious day when his majesty’s troops scattered your provincial rabble like so many sheep driven from their pastures, by dogs!”
The humane ingenuity of Polwarth was rewarded by a burst of savage laughter. Encouraged by this evidence of his power over his auditors, the worthy captain proceeded with an increased confidence in his own eloquence.
“On that glorious day,” he continued, gradually warming with his subject, “many a gallant gentleman, and hundreds of fearless privates, met their fate. Some fell in open and manly fight, and according to the chances of regular warfare. Some—he-e-m—some have been mutilated; and will carry the marks of their glory with them to the grave.” His voice grew a little thick and husky as he proceeded, but shaking off his weakness, he ended with an energy that he intended should curdle the heart of the prisoner, “while, fellow, some have been murdered!”
“Blood for blood!” was heard again passing its fearful round. Without attempting any longer to repress the rising spirit of the rioters, Polwarth continued his interrogatories, entirely led away by the strength of his own feelings on this sensitive subject.
“Remember you such a man as Dennis M’Fuse?” he demanded in a voice of thunder; “he that was treacherously slain in your inmost trenches, after the day was won! Answer me, knave, were you not among the rabble, and did not your own vile hand the bloody deed?”
A few words were heard from Job, in a low, muttering tone, of which only “the rake-hellies,” and “the people will teach ’em the law!” were sufficiently distinct to be understood.
“Murder him! part him sowl from body!” exclaimed the fiercest of the grenadiers.
“Hold!” cried Polwarth; “but one moment more—I would relieve my mind from the debt I owe his memory. Speak, fellow; what know you of the death of the commander of these brave grenadiers?”
Job, who had listened to his words attentively, though his uneasy eyes still continued to watch the slightest movements of his foes, now turned to the speaker with a look of foolish triumph, and answered—
“The 18th came up the hill, shouting like roaring lions! but the Royal Irish had a death-howl, that evening, over their tallest man!”
Polwarth trembled, but while with one hand he motioned to the men to keep back, with the other he produced the battered gorget from his pocket, and held it before the eyes of the simpleton.
“Know you this?” he demanded; “who sent the bullet through this fatal hole?”
Job took the ornament, and for a moment regarded it with an unconscious look. But his countenance gradually lighting with a ray of meaning, he laughed in exultation, as he answered—
“Though Job is a fool, he can shoot!”
Polwarth started back aghast, while the fierce resentments of his ruder listeners broke through all restraint. They raised a savage shout, as one man, filling the building with hoarse execrations and cries for vengeance. Twenty expedients to destroy their captive were named in a breath, and with the characteristic vehemence of their nation. Most of them would have been irregularly adopted, had not the man who attended the burning hemp caught up a bundle of the flaming combustible, and shouted aloud—
“Smodder him in the fiery flames!—he’s an imp of darkness; burren him, in his rags, from before the face of man!”
The barbarous proposition was received with a sort of frenzied joy, and in another moment a dozen handsful of the oakum were impending above the devoted head of the helpless lad. Job made a feeble attempt to avert the dreadful fate that threatened him, but he could offer no other resistance than his own weakened arm, and the abject moanings of his impotent mind. He was enveloped in a cloud of black smoke, through which the forked flames had already begun to play, when a woman burst into the throng, casting the fiery combustibles from her, on either side, as she advanced, with a strength that seemed supernatural. When she had reached the bed, she tore aside the smoking pile with hands that disregarded the heat, and placed herself before the victim, like a fierce lioness, at bay, in defence of her whelps. In this attitude she stood an instant, regarding the rioters with a breast that heaved with passions too strong for utterance, when she found her tongue, and vented her emotions with the fearlessness of a mother.
“Ye monsters in the shape of men, what is’t ye do!” she exclaimed, in a voice that rose above the tumult, and had the effect to hush every mouth. “Have ye bodies without hearts! the forms without the bowels of the creatures of God! Who made you judges and punishers of sins! Is there a father among you, let him come and view the anguish of a dying child! Is there a son, let him draw near, and look upon a mother’s sorrow! Oh! ye savages, worse than the beasts of the howling wilderness, who have mercy on their kinds, what is’t ye do—what is’t ye do!”
The air of maternal intrepidity with which this burst from the heart was uttered, could not fail to awe the worst passions of the rioters, who gazed on each other in stupid wonder, as if uncertain how to act. The hushed, and momentary stillness was, however, broken once more by the low threat of, “Blood for blood!”
“Cowards! Dastards! Soldiers in name and demons in deeds!” continued the undaunted Abigail—“come ye here to taste of human blood! Go—away with you to the hills! and face the men of the Bay, who stand ready to meet you with arms in their hands, and come not hither to bruise the broken reed! Poor, suffering, and stricken as he is, by a hand mightier than yours, my child will meet you there, to your shame, in the cause of his country, and the law!”
This taunt was too bitter for the unnurtured tempers to which she appealed, and the dying spark of their resentment was at once kindled into a blaze by the galling gibe.
The rioters were again in motion, and the cry of “burn the hag and the imp together,” was fiercely raised, when a man of a stout, muscular frame forced his way into the centre of the crowd, making room for the passage of a female, whose gait and attire, though her person was concealed by her mantle, announced her to be of a rank altogether superior to the usual guests of the warehouse. The unexpected appearance, and lofty, though gentle bearing of this unlooked-for visiter, served to quell the rising uproar, which was immediately succeeded by so deep a silence that a whisper could have been heard in that throng which so lately resounded with violent tumult and barbarous execrations.
Chapter XXVII
“Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I shall
do that that is reason.”
Slender.
* * *
DURING THE CLOSE of the foregoing scene Polwarth was in a bewildered state, that rendered him utterly incapable of exertion, either to prevent or to assist the evil intentions of the soldiery. His discretion, and all his better feelings, were certainly on the side of humanity, but the idle vaunt of the simpleton had stirred anew the natural thirst for vengeance. He recognized, at the first glance, in the wan, but speaking lineaments of the mother of Job, those faded remnants of beauty that he had traced, so lately, in the squalid female attendant who was seen lingering near the grave of Mrs. Lechmere. As she rushed before the men, with the fearlessness of a mother who stood in defence of her child, the brightness of h
er eyes, aided as they were by the strong glare from the scattered balls of fire, and the intense expression of maternal honor that shone in every feature of her countenance, imparted to her appearance a dignity and interest that greatly served to quell the unusual and dangerous passions that beset him. He was on the point of aiding her appeal by his authority and advice, when the second interruption occurred, as just related. The effect of this strange appearance, in such a place, and at such a time, was not less instant on the captain than on the vulgar throng who surrounded him. He remained a silent and an attentive spectator.
The first sensation of the lady, in finding herself in the centre of so confused and unexpected a throng, was unequivocally that of alarm; but forgetting her womanish apprehensions in the next moment, she collected the powers of her mind, like one sustained by high and laudable intentions, and dropping the silken folds of her calash, exhibited the pale, but lovely countenance of Cecil to the view of the wondering by-standers. After a moment of profound silence, she spoke—
“I know not why I find this fierce collection of faces around the sick-bed of that unfortunate young man,” she said; “but if it be with evil purpose, I charge you to relent, as you love the honour of your gallant profession, or fear the power of your leaders. I boast myself a soldier’s wife, and promise you, in the name of one who has the ear of Howe, pardon for what is past, or punishment for your violence, as you conduct yourselves.”
The rude listeners stared at each other in irresolute hesitation, seeming already to waver in their purpose, when the old grenadier, whose fierceness had so nearly cost Job his life, gruffly replied—
“If you’re an officer’s lady, madam, you’ll be knowing how to feel for the fri’nds of him that’s dead and gone; I put it to the face of your ladyship’s reason, if it’s not too much for men to bear, and they such men as the 18ths, to hear a fool boasting on the high-ways and through the streets of the town, that he has been the death of the like of captain M’Fuse, of the grenadiers of that same radg’ment!”
The Spy & Lionel Lincoln Page 85