Cardigan Part 110

"Yours the praise, dear soul."

"And did face our enemies like true people all; is it not so, Michael?"

"It is so."

"Then let us go, my husband. I am sick for my own land, and for the happiness to come."

"Northward we journey, little sweetheart."

"To the blue hills and the sweet-fern?"

"Ay, home."

And so we started for the north, out of the b.l.o.o.d.y village where our liberty was born at the first rifle-shot, out of the sound of the British cannon, out of the land of the salt sea, back to the inland winds and the incense of our own dear forests, and the music of sweet waters tumbling where the white pines sing eternally.

I rode Warlock beside the chaise; Shemuel lay within; Silver Heels sat beside the poor, hurt creature, easing his fevered head; but her eyes ever returned to me, and the colour came and went in her face as our eyes spoke in silence.

"Good-bye," said Foxcroft, huskily.

Mount squared himself in his saddle; the Weasel, rifle on thigh, set his horse's head north.

Slowly the cavalcade moved on; the robins sang on every tree; far to the southward the thunder of the British cannon rolled and re-echoed along the purple hills; and over all G.o.d's golden light was falling on life, and love, and death.

CHAPTER XXIX

We entered Albany on the 22d of April; the town had heard the news from Lexington ere we sighted the Albany hills, the express having pa.s.sed us as we crossed the New York line, tearing along the river-bank at a breakneck gallop.

So, when we rode into Albany, the stolid, pippin-cheeked Dutchmen had later news than had we, and I learned then, for the first time, how my Lord Percy's troops had been hurled headlong through Cambridge Farms into Charlestown, where they lay like panting, slavering, senseless beasts under the cannon of the _Somerset_ and _Asia_. And all Ma.s.sachusetts sat watching them, gun in hand.

We lay at the house of Peter Weaver, my lawyer, Silver Heels and I; Jack Mount and Cade Renard lay at the "Half Moon," where poor Shemuel could procure medicine and such medical attendance as he so sorely stood in need of.

With Peter Weaver I prepared to arrange my affairs as best I might, it being impossible for me to undertake a voyage to Ireland at this time, though my succession to the t.i.tle and estates of my late uncle, Sir Terence, made it most necessary.

For the first time in my life I now became pa.s.sably acquainted with my own affairs, though when we came to figure in pounds, shillings, and pence, I yawned, yet made pretence of a wisdom in mathematics which, G.o.d knows, is not in me.

Silver Heels, her round chin on my shoulder, listened attentively, and asked some questions which caused the ponderous lawyer to address himself to her rather than to me, seeing clearly that either I cared nothing for my own affairs or else was stupid past all belief.

Sir William's legacies to me and to Silver Heels were discussed most seriously; and Mr. Weaver would have it that the law should deal with my miserable kinsman, Sir John, for the fraud he had wrought. Yet, it was exactly _that_; and, because he _was_ my kinsman, I could not drag him out to cringe for his infamy before the rabble.

The land and the money left to us by Sir William we would now, doubtless, receive, but it was only because Sir William had desired it that we at length made up our minds to accept it at all.

This I made plain to Mr. Weaver, then relapsed into a dull inspection of his horn spectacles as he discoursed of mortgages and bonds and interests and liens with stupefying monotony.

"It is like the school-room, Micky," murmured Silver Heels, close to my ear, and composed her countenance to listen to a fluent peroration on percentage and investments in terms which were to me as vain as tinkling cymbals.

"Then I am wealthy?" I interposed, again and again, yet could draw from that fat badger, Weaver, neither a "yes" nor "no," nor any plain speech fit for a gentleman's comprehension.

So when at length we quitted Mr. Weaver a sullen mood possessed me and I felt at bay with all the learned people in the world, as I had often felt, penned in the school-room.

"Am I?" I asked Silver Heels.

"What?"

"Rich or poor? Tell me in one word, dear heart, for whether or not I possess a bra.s.s farthing in the world, I do not know, upon my honour!"

"Poor innocent," she laughed; "poor unlearned and hara.s.sed boy! Know, then, that you have means to purchase porridge and a butcher's roast for Christmas."

"I be serious," said I, anxiously, "and I would know if I have means to support a large family--"

"Hush!" said Silver Heels. What I could see of her face,--one small ear,--was glowing in rich colour.

"Because--" I ventured. But she plucked at my arm with lowered eyes, nor would hear me to explain that I, newly wedded, viewed the future with a hopeful gravity that befitted.

"As for a house," said I, "there is a pleasant place of springs called Saratoga, dearly loved by Sir William."

"I know," said she, quickly; "it comes from 'a.s.serat,' sparkling waters."

"It comes from 'Soragh,' which means salt, and 'Oga,' a place--"

"It does _not_, Micky!"

"It does!"

"No!"

"It does!"

"Oc-qui-o-nis! He is a bear!" said Silver Heels, to herself.

We stopped in the hallway, facing each other. Something in her flushed, defiant face, her bright eyes, the poise of her youthful body, brought back with a rush that day, a year ago, when I, sneaking out of the house to avoid the school-room, met her in the hallway, and was balked and flouted and thrust back to the thraldom of the school.

Here was the same tormentor--the same child with her gray eyes full of pretty malice, the same beauty of brow and mouth and hair was here, and something added--a maid's delicate mockery which veiled the tenderness of womanhood; a sweetheart and a wedded wife.

"I am thinking of a morning very, very long ago," I said, slowly.

"I, too," said Silver Heels.

"Almost a year ago," I said.

"A year ago," said Silver Heels.

"You little wild-cat thing!" I whispered, tenderly, and took her by the waist so that her face lay upturned on my shoulder.

"Stupid," she said, "I loved you that very day."