Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman Part 9

but he shut his eyes, and the weak grasp of his fingers on mine relaxed.

"That's right, lad, keep up a brave heart; my friends will not forget you."

I could trust myself to say no more, and as I took a last look at the smooth, girlish face of the lad, I thought with a fresh heart pang, "How much do the horrors of war outweigh its glories!"

CHAPTER IX

The Buford mansion reached, I was at once a.s.sisted to my room, and put to bed, a special servant being a.s.signed to attend upon me. A week later I was able to sit up each morning in a cushioned chair before my cheerful fire, and presently to walk about my room. I spent many of my waking hours listening to the voices which floated up to me from the lower floor, trying to distinguish Nelly's gay sweet tones among them.

Now and then I recognized a light footfall, as she flitted past my door, and hoped vainly that she would stop to speak to me. At last I grew desperate, demanded paper and quill of my man, Hector, and wrote this in scrawling characters:

"Am I never to have the honor and privilege of thanking my generous deliverer? The weight of my grat.i.tude oppresses me; will you not add another deed of gracious kindness to my debt, and give me the opportunity to ease my soul by expressing a part of the thankfulness and devotion which fill it to overflowing? Only let me see you, and I shall be, for as long as it pleases you, sweet Nelly.

"Your most willing captive,

"DONALD MCELROY."

Then I sealed, and addressed the note, and bade Hector take it to his young mistress. He came back in a few moments with the message that "Miss Nelly would see me in half an hour." The interim was spent by me in making as careful a toilet as any young girl robing for her first ball. I had had Captain Buford purchase for me two suits of citizens'

clothes of latest cut and pattern, and I flattered myself that the plum colored breeches and coat, the sprigged velvet waistcoat, black silk stockings, and silver buckles set off my heroic proportions to some advantage. I had been daily clean shaven since I had been strong enough to stand it, and my "curling chestnut locks," had grown long enough to admit of their being gathered into a respectable resemblance to a queue, which I tied with a black satin ribbon.

Just as I had satisfied myself that I was not ill to look at, a liveried footman came to my door to say that Miss Buford awaited me in the second floor reception room, and that I was to follow him thither. I found her standing by the window, a plume covered brown felt scoop hiding all her blonde head, except the airy curls upon her forehead, and about her throat a dark fur tippet, from which her fair face rose, like a flower set in rich leaves.

"I'm just going out, Captain McElroy," she said, after she had given me a gracious greeting, "but I could not resist your gallant appeal, nor go until I had relieved you of your heavy burden--though I'm sorry, sir, you should feel it as a burden, the small service it has been our pleasure to render you."

"I feel not your kindness as a burden, Miss Nelly, it has been accepted as freely as bestowed--'twas the longing to see and to thank you that I could endure no longer. I have now no further cause for unrest, save this threat of yours to leave me, before I have had time to clothe my grat.i.tude in adequate words."

"Will't say you're glad I'm a Tory--and that even a Tory may be honest and a Christian? If you will, I shall call it fair quittance of all you owe me," and she laughed the rippling saucy laugh that had been ringing through my dreams for months.

"That a Tory may be honest and a Christian, I admit most freely,--but that I am glad you are one is more than I can say, with aught of truth.

I would have you all on my side if I could; still more, I would have no one with half so good a claim to you as I."

"But 'tis the other way, Sir Patriot--no one else has so good a claim to you as have I; since you are my paroled prisoner. Do they treat you well, poor captive?"

"As an honored guest, fair jailer; there's but one thing lacking to my comfort."

"And what may that be? It shall be supplied."

"A daily interview, and a long one, with my jailer."

"You have been very slow, sir, to signify a wish to see her. Two weeks ago to-day it has been since you came, and this is the first intimation I have had that my presence would be welcome."

"And daily I have hoped you would stop at my threshold to ask of my improvement--you could not fail to know that I have been pining for one look at your bright face."

"Young women must not take things for granted, sir; you, however, are not like the British officers and the city macaronis, you are both honest and modest, and if you have not made great haste to be gallant, I feel sure you are sincere. But I must say good-by for the present, a skating party waits for me, down stairs."

"When may I hope to see you again?"

"To-morrow, if you wish."

"At what hour, that I may count the minutes!"

"Eleven o'clock, shall we say? If I might read to you an hour each morning, would that help you to pa.s.s less irksomely the tedious days of your captivity?"

She called this back to me over her shoulder, her saucy face fairer for its frame of soft plumes and rich fur.

"'Twould make me rejoice in the midst of my misfortunes, most merciful jailer," I answered, striking an att.i.tude with my hand upon my heart.

The hours crawled by like a slow procession of half torpid serpents till I fell asleep, and the next morning pa.s.sed in eager expectancy.

"Which of these shall I read from?" began Miss Nelly, entering the small reception room with her arms full of books.

"I have chosen a variety, one of which will, I hope, suit both your taste and your mood. Here is Ossian, if your literary appet.i.te calls for the mystic and lyric; or Pope if it demands the caustic and humorous; or Lady Mary Montague if you have a weakness for gossip; or Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' Ben Jonson's 'Mourning Bride,' should your mood be tragic; or 'Evelina,' the most popular of the new novels, if you have a fancy for fiction. Which shall it be this morning?"

"First, a few extracts from Ossian, then, a bit of Lady Mary, and lastly, a chapter from the new novel," I answered with shameless greed.

But we did not get to the novel that morning, for the reading of Ossian ended in an animated discussion of the claims of McPherson that his poems were a genuine translation from the old Gaelic. I strongly maintained, that the true spirit of the ancient Gaelic people was in these poems, and that it would be well nigh impossible for a modern to conceive or to reproduce the feelings and sentiments of these primitive bards with such absolute truth of conception. Miss Nelly, however, held stoutly to the views of the critics, as became her conservative habit of mind.

Then came a few extracts from "Lady Mary" after which she seemed weary, so that I picked up her volume of plays and read from it some of my favorite quotations.

"Why, Captain McElroy," she exclaimed, "you read well. After this you shall read to me, sir, while I finish hemst.i.tching my ruffles."

"I have a favor to ask of you, Captain McElroy," said Miss Nelly one morning when my hour of bliss was about to end. "I want you to take a part in the play we are rehearsing,--'tis the latest comedy written by the late great London playwright, Sheridan, and you could do the part of Sir Peter Teazle to perfection."

"But I have never so much as seen a play, Miss Nelly," I answered in consternation.

"Never mind that, you will be sure to say your lines with true expression, and the rest I can teach you. Do consent, Sir Patriot, I have told the girls and the British officers about you, and they all desire greatly to meet you; even the belle and beauty, Miss Margaret Shippen, said last evening to me, 'I hear, Miss Nelly, you have captured a rebel captain, and hold him imprisoned in your castle--are not we to have the pleasure of meeting him? 'Tis said he is a Goliath for size; a David for skill, though with rifle instead of sling; and an Absalom for beauty of person.' Now, Sir, can you resist a compliment like that from the fairest Tory maiden in Philadelphia; will you not come in the drawing room this evening, and be introduced to her?"

"And meet British officers, who might resent my impertinence!"

"All who come to this house are gentlemen, sir--nor would they show the least disrespect to a friend of mine."

"I am not fit for polite society, Miss Nelly, and I wish not to play the part of Samson--to make sport for my enemies."

"The suggestion is insulting, Captain McElroy, and I urge you no more,"

and Miss Nelly left the room, her head poised haughtily. Next morning she did not join me in the library at the usual time, and after an hour's waiting I sent to beg her presence.

"I apologize with deep humility of soul for my rudeness of yesterday," I said, as soon as she came in. "I'll meet your friends gladly, and try the part of Sir Peter if 'twill gratify you. Do not I owe my life to you, and have you not made my very captivity a time of delight? Will you not forgive me, since the speech was prompted by the stupidity of a blunt soldier, and not by any doubt of you or your friends?"

"Only upon condition that you stop abusing yourself, will I forgive you, sir, and moreover that you speak before these British, and Tory friends of mine with the same bold spirit of independence you have ever used to me. I like you for it, though, at times, it nettles me."

"You need have no fear of that," I laughed, "but I shall endeavor so to act that you may not blush for having honored me with the name of friend."

"You know well that I shall be proud of you, Captain McElroy, there's not so handsome a man in the British army. I would give a great deal to see you in a British captain's uniform, that I might show them such men as this land, which they sometimes flaunt and laugh at, produces. Though a Tory, Captain McElroy, I love America, and Americans, and allow no one to slur either at our country, or our people."

O wily, bewitching Nelly; how was it possible to resist you. And yet I cannot believe that you were from the first playing a part, nor that you coldly schemed to entrap me. You were my true friend when much I needed one, and if afterward you became a snare, it was greatly my own fault.