Cardigan Part 82

"The instant importance of the matter I trust may plead my excuse for this abrupt intrusion on your privacy.

"Pray consider me, Sir, "Y'r most obliged and obedient Servt "MICHAEL CARDIGAN.

"At the Wild Goose near Wiltshire and Chambers Streets."

Sealing the letter, I bade the servant take it and bring an answer if the gentleman was at home, but in any event to leave the letter.

Mount had taken a pipe from the stranger's rack, and now lighted it, peering out of the window, and puffing away in vast contentment.

Northward, across the water, the lights of Charlestown glimmered through a thin fog. Nearer, in mid-stream, rose the black hull of a British war-ship, battle-lanthorns set and lighted, stabbing the dark tide below with jagged shafts of yellow light, cut by little black waves which hastened seaward on the sombre ebbing tide.

As for Boston, or as much of it as we could see over the shadowy roofs and slanting house-tops, it was deathly dark and still. Fort Pitt, with its hundreds of people, which Boston could match with thousands, was far more stirring and alive than this dumb city of shadows, with never a stir in its empty streets, and never a light from a window-candle. Truly, we sat in a tomb--the sepulchre of all good men's hopes for justice from that distant England we had loved so well in kinder days.

Somewhere, deep in the dim city's heart, a fire was burning, and we could see its faint reflection on chimneys in the northwest.

"Doubtless some regimental fire on the Common," muttered Mount, "or a signal on Mount W--d--m, where the Light Horse camp. They talk to the war-ships and the castle from Beacon Hill, too. It may be that."

Musing there by the window, we scarcely noticed that, little by little, the room behind us was filling. Already at the long table a dozen guests were seated, some conversing, some playing absently with their gla.s.ses, some reading the newspapers through round horn-rimmed spectacles.

Many of them glanced sharply at us; some looked at Mount, smiled, and nudged others.

"Do you know any of these gentlemen, Jack?" I asked, in a low voice.

He swung around in his chair and surveyed the table.

"Ay, all o' them," he said, returning their amused salutations; "they all belong to the club that meets here."

"Club? What club?" I asked.

"The Minute Men's. I meant to tell you that you're a member."

"I a member?" I repeated, in astonishment.

"Surely, lad, else you never could ha' pa.s.sed these stairs. I am a member; I bring you, and now you're a member. There's no oath to take in this club. It's only when you go higher into the secret councils like those o' the three caucuses, the Mechanics', and some others I shall not mention, by your leave."

Mount watched the effect of his words on me and grinned.

"You didn't know that I am one of the Minute Club's messengers? That's why I went to Pitt. Did you think I went there for my health? Nenny, lad. I had a message for Cresap as well as you, and I gave it, too."

He laughed, and moistened his lips at the hot bowl.

"Paul Revere, the goldsmith--he who made the print of the Boston Ma.s.sacre--is another messenger, but not of the Minute Club. He is higher--goes breakneck to York for _S. A._, you know."

"What is S. A.?" I broke in, petulantly. "You all talk of J. H. and S.

A. and the Thirteen Sisters, and I don't understand."

"S. A. is Sam Adams," said Mount, surprised. "J. H. is John Hanc.o.c.k, a rich young man who is with us to the last gasp. The Thirteen Sisters mean the thirteen colonies. They're with us, too--at least we hope they are, though York is a h.e.l.l for Tories, and Philadelphia's full o'

broad-brims who may not fight."

"But what is this Minute Men's Club?" I asked, curiously.

"Headquarters for delegates from the Minute Men and all alarm companies in Ma.s.sachusetts Bay. You know that every town, village, and hamlet in the province is organized, don't you? Well, besides the regular militia we have alarm companies, where half of the men are ready to march at a minute's notice. One officer from every company throughout the province is delegated to attend the Minute Club here, so that he can keep his company in touch with the march of events.

"Besides that, the club has a corps of runners, like me, to travel with orders when called on. I'm in for a rest now, unless something pressing occurs."

"And--what am I in this club?" I asked, smiling to see how well Jack Mount had kept his secrets since I first knew him.

"You? Oh, you are a recruit for Cresap's battalion," said Mount, much amused. "We recruit here, for certain companies."

"Is Cresap coming here?" I asked, eagerly.

"He marches in the spring with his Maryland and Pennsylvania Rangers--to pay his respects to Tommy Gage? Nenny! To help turn this pack o' b.l.o.o.d.y-backs out of Boston, lad, and that's the truth, which you should know."

I sat silent, pondering on the strange circ.u.mstances of these months which had brought me so swiftly, from my boyhood's isolation, into the thick of the tremendous struggle between King and colony, a struggle still bloodless, save for the so-called Boston Ma.s.sacre of some years past.

That Mount had coolly recruited me without my knowledge or consent disturbed me not at all: first, because I should have offered my poor services anyway; second, because, had I been free to select, I should have chosen to serve with Cresap's men, knowing him, as I did, for a brave and honourable young man.

I told Jack as much, and his face brightened with pleasure. He insisted on presenting me to the company--which was now fast filling the room--as one of Cresap's Rangers; and he further did most foolishly praise me for my bearing in certain common dangers he and I had shared, which made me red and awkward and vexed with him for my embarra.s.sment.

The gentlemen I met were all most kind and polite; some appeared to be gentlemen bred, others honest young men--over-silent and sober for their years, perhaps, but truly a st.u.r.dy, clean-limbed company, neatly but not fashionably attired, and the majority characterized by a certain lankness of body which tended to gauntness in a few.

All were officers of alarm companies belonging to the numerous towns of the province; all were simple in manner, courteous to each other, and thoughtful of strangers, inviting us to wine or punch, and taking no offence when I prudently refused, for my own sake as well as for Jack's.

Two soldiers of the Lexington militia entertained me most agreeably; they were Nathan Harrington and Robert Monroe, the latter an old soldier, having been standard-bearer for his regiment at Louisburg.

"For years," he observed, quietly, "the British have said that all Americans are cowards, and they have so dinned it into their own ears that they believe it. It is a strange thing for them to believe. Who was it stood fast before Duquesne when Braddock's British fled? Who took Louisburg? What men have fought for England on our frontiers from our grandfathers' times?"

"Ay," broke in Harrington, "they tell us that we are yokels without wit or knowledge to fire a musket. Yet, to-day, two-thirds of the men in our province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay have served as soldiers against the French or the savages."

"That we are under the King's displeasure," said Monroe, "I can well understand; but that he and his ministers and his soldiers should wish to deem us cowards--we who are English, too, as well as they--pa.s.ses my understanding."

"Mayhap they will learn the truth ere winter," observed Harrington, grimly.

"If I or my friends be cowards, I do not know it," added Monroe, simply. "It is not well to boast, Nathan, for G.o.d alone knows what a man may do in battle; yet I myself have been in battle, and was afraid, too, but never ran. I carried England's flag once. It is not well that she foul her own nest."

"I have never smelled powder; have you, sir?" said Harrington, turning to me.

"Not to boast of," I replied.

"Mount says you conducted most gallantly under fire," said Monroe, smiling.

"No more gallantly than did all at Cresap's fort," said I, annoyed.

"We were behind ramparts and dreaded nothing save an arrow or two."

"But you had some warm work with certain Tories, too," began Monroe--"one Walter Butler, I believe."

"How did you hear of that?" I asked, in astonishment.