Cardigan Part 85

"So you robbed him," I added, disgusted. Mount glanced guiltily around the room--anywhere but at me.

"I only asked him what his saddle-bags might weigh," he muttered, "and the fat fool bawled, 'Thief! Help!' If he had not put it in my mind to scotch him!--but the great b.o.o.by must out with his small-sword and call up his men. So, when he fell a-roaring that he was a King's magistrate--why--why, I rubbed a pistol under his nose. And would you believe it, lad, the next thing I knew, Cade and I could scarce walk for the weight o' the half-crowns in our breeches-pockets! It amazes me even yet--it does indeed!"

"You'd best look to your neck, then," I said, shortly. "Remember Bishop's buxom daughter on the Philadelphia coach last night. Where the kitten runs the catamount prowls."

"Oh, I'll take the air by night," observed Mount, with perfect good-humour. "The night air o' Boston is famous medicine for troubles like mine."

"You will do no more tricks on the highway?" I demanded, suspiciously.

He buried his nose in a pot of beer without replying. An hour pa.s.sed in silence, save for the continual trotting to and fro of the boy from the tap-room, bearing deep, frothing tankards for Mount.

"Have a care," I said, at length; "if you drink like that you'll be out and abroad and into every foolish mischief, as you were in Pittsburg. Be a man, Jack!"

"I'm all salty inside like a split herring," he said, reaching for a fresh pewter, and blowing the foam till it scattered over the floor like flakes of snow.

Two hours had dragged on towards their finish, and already the clocks in the tavern were tolling the death of another hour, when my lank messenger came breathless to the door with a letter for me, and at the first glance I saw that the writing was the hand of Silver Heels herself.

Mount gaped at me, then one of his rare and delicate instincts moved him to withdraw. I heard him leave the room, but did not heed his going, for I was already deep in the pages of the letter:

"DEAR LAD, MY OLD COMRADE,--Mr. Foxcroft did summon me to consider your letter of last evening, how it were best to inform you of what you should know.

"Now comes your letter of this morning by your messenger, and leaves me a-tremble to breathe its perfume of the love which I had, days since, resigned.

"For I did write you constantly to Johnstown in care of Sir John, and no answer came save one, from Sir John, saying you cared not to answer me my letters. This cruel insult from Sir John could not have been the truth in light of the letter now folded in my bosom, and softly rustling nestled against my breast.

"But it is plain to me, dear heart, that you as yet know nothing of what great change has come to me. And so, before I dare give you the answer which burns my mouth and thrills this poor body o' mine which aches for you, I must, for honour's sake, reveal to you what manner of maid you would now court, and into what desperate conditions I am come; not that I doubt you, Michael, dear soul of chivalry and tender truth!

"Know then, my friend, that I am hopelessly poor in this world's goods; know, too, that the new name I bear is a name marked for pity or contempt by those few who have not long since forgotten it. It is the death of my pride to say this.

Yet I say it.

"My father is old and broken. His faculties have failed; he is like a child who forgets what his tongue utters, even while voicing his harmless desires. His property is gone; he does not know it. He sees around him the shadows of the past; he talks with the dead as though they sat at his elbow.

"His house is an empty sh.e.l.l; his lands have grown into thickets; his estate is lost to him through taxes long unpaid. Yet everywhere the phantoms of dead scenes surround him; ghosts walk with him through spectral domains, ride with him to hounds, carry his colours to victory on the race-course, sit with him at table, pour water for him which, in his wrapped eyes, bubbles like wine.

"Believe me, dear friend, it is pitiful and sad--sad past all I have ever known.

"For me, too, it is so strange, so hopeless, that, even after these long days, it is still an untrue dream from which I seem too weary and stunned to rouse and drive the gray vision from me.

"Long ago, in a distant year of sunlight, I remember a child called Silver Heels, whose mad desire for rank and power crammed her silly head, till, of a sweet May day, love came to her. Love drove her to folly; love reclaimed her; love lies still in her heart, watching for you with tireless eyes.

"Dear heart, would you take me? Even after all you now know?

Do you want me, Michael?--me?--when all the world lies before you?

"I once most wickedly said that if I had been humbly born, I would not for my pride's sake wed with you. It is not true, Michael; I will wed with you. But, if after what you have learned, you care no longer to wed me, do not write me; do not come to give me reasons.

"Mr. Foxcroft attends me. We will await you at his house, at noon, and if you come--as, G.o.d help me I believe you will--then I shall teach you what a maid's love can mean. Oh, to have you again, as I held you those long days on the trail; but you were too near death to know it!--too close to death to hear all I promised you if only you would live!

"FELICITY."

"Mount!" I cried, all of a-tremble, "I shall wed this noon! Get me a parson, man!" And I began tearing off my buckskins and flinging them right and left, shouting for Jack the while, and dressing in my finest linen and my silver-gray velvet.

Now choking with the tears that I could not crush back, now smiling at the sunlight which yellowed the white walls of my chamber, I shouted at intervals for Mount, until the tap-boy came to say that Mount had gone out. So I bade the tap-boy hasten forth and buy me a large nosegay with streamers, and fetch it to me instantly; and then returned to my toilet with a feverish haste that defeated its own purpose.

At last, however, I hung my sword, dusted the hair-powder from frill and ruffle, buckled shoon and knees, and shook out the long soft lace over my cuffs. Then I found the ring I had bought in Albany, and placed it in my silver-webbed waistcoat with its flowered flaps of orange silk.

The inn clocks chimed for ten as the lad brought me a huge nosegay all fluttering with white silken streamers.

"Where is my companion?" I asked, red as a poppy under his grins.

"Below, sir," replied the lad, hesitating.

"Drunk?" I demanded, angrily.

"Tolerable," said the lad.

With that I seized my nosegay, set my small French hat on my head, and went down the side stairway to the street.

Mount, swaggering on the tap-room porch, spied me and rubbed his startled eyes. But I seized him by the painted cape of his fox-trimmed hunting-shirt, and jerked him to and fro savagely.

"Idiot! Tippler! Pottle-pot!" I cried, in a rage. "I'm to be married--d'ye hear? Married! Married! Get me a parson! Take my nosegay! So! Now walk behind me as if you knew what decent folk are accustomed to do at a sudden wedding!"

"How can I get you a parson if I'm to march here behind you, bearing this nosegay?" he remonstrated, sidling away towards the tavern again.

"You stay where you are!" I said; then I called a servant and bade him find a parson to go instantly to the house of Thomas Foxcroft in Queen Street, and there await my coming.

Mount, almost sobered, through sheer astonishment, regarded me wildly.

"Jack, old friend," I said, in a burst of happiness, "I've found her, and she will be my wife by noon! Give me joy, Jack!--and mind that nosegay, idiot! Hold it aloft, else the streamers will trail in the dust! Now, then! Follow me! Gingerly, idiot, gingerly!"

And away I marched, scarce knowing what I did in my excitement, but turning now and again to see that Mount followed, bearing the nosegay with proper care.

"If you are to be wedded at noon," he said, timidly, as we were hurrying through Cambridge Street, "what are we going to do until then--walk the streets like this? Lord, what a fool I feel!"

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 pa.s.sed 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 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 d.a.m.ned rag flies high to-day," muttered Mount.