Janice Meredith Part 31

"Oh, Charles," besought the girl, "you'll not be so cruel! I'd sooner die than--than--Think what mommy-- and dadda--and the whole village--I did n't want to go with him--but--Please, oh, please! You'll not disgrace me? I'll promise never to go off with him--indeed--"

"Of that I'll be bound," sneered the servant, with a harsh laugh, "for I'm going to take him with me to Cambridge."

For a moment Janice was silent, then cried: "If you only knew how I hate you."

The man laughed bitterly. "I do--from the way I hate-- ay, and despise you!"

Another moment brought them to the edge of a wharf, where a number of men were busying themselves in stowing barrels on board a small sloop. "Hold this horse," ordered the servant, while he joined one of the toilers and drew him apart in consultation.

"Powder aboard, cap'n," presently called some one.

"Take that man and stow him below decks along with it,"

ordered Charles. "Good-by, parson. I hope to send good news from Cambridge of this night's work. Boys, take Bagby out of the stocks before daylight, and tell him if the Invincibles want their powder to follow us, and they shall have fifty rounds of it a man, with plenty of fighting to boot. All aboard that are for the front!"

Half a dozen men followed, while those on the wharf cast off the fasts. But all at once stood still when the parson, with bowed head, began a prayer for the powder, for the adventurers who took it, and for the general and army it was designed to serve. Sternly yet eloquently he prayed until the boat had drifted with the tide out of hearing, and the creak of the blocky came across the water, showing that those on board were making sail. Then, as the men on the wharf dispersed, he mounted the horse Evatt had ridden.

"Janice Meredith," he said sternly," I propose to occupy this ride with a discourse upon the doctrine of total depravity, from which downward path you have been saved this night, deducing therefrom an ill.u.s.tration of the workings of grace through foreordination,--the whole with a view to the saving of your soul and the admonishment of your sinful nature."

XXI A SUDDEN SCARCITY OF BEAUX

It was daylight when the parson and Janice rode through the gate of Greenwood, and the noise of hoofs brought both the girl's parents to the window of their bedroom in costumes as yet by no means completed. Yet when, in reply to the demand of the squire as to what was the meaning of this arrival, it was briefly explained to him that his daughter had attempted to elope with his guest, he descended to the porch without regard to scantiness of clothing.

A terrible ten minutes for Janice succeeded, while the squire thundered his anger at her, and she, overcome, sobbed her grief and mortification into Daisy's mane. Then, when her father had drained the vials of his wrath, her mother appeared more properly garbed, and in her turn heaped blame and scorn on the girl's bowed head. For a time the squire echoed his wife's indignation, but it is one thing to express wrath oneself and quite another to hear it fulminated by some one else; so presently the squire's heart began to soften for his la.s.s, and he attempted at last to interpose in palliation of her conduct. This promptly resulted in Mrs. Meredith's ordering Janice off the horse and to her room. "Where I'll finish what I have to say," announced her mother; and the girl, helped down by Mr.

Meredith, did as she was told, longing only for death.

The week which succeeded was a nightmare to Janice, her mother constantly recurring to her wickedness, the servants addressing her with a scared breathlessness which made her feel that she was indeed decla.s.sed for ever, while the people of the neighbourhood, when she ventured out-of-doors, either grinned broadly or looked dourly when they met her, showing the girl that her shame was town property.

Mrs. Meredith also took frequent occasion to insist on the girl's marriage with Mr. McClave, on the ground that he alone could properly chasten her; but to this the squire refused to listen, insisting that such a son-in-law he would never have, and that he was bound to Philemon. "We'll keep close watch on her for the time he's away, and then marry her out of hand the moment he's returned," he said.

Had the parents attempted to carry out the system of espionage that they enforced during the first month they would have had their hands full far longer than they dreamed. Week after week sped by, summer ripened into fall, and fall faded into winter, but Philemon came not. Little by little Janice's misconduct ceased to be a general theme of village talk, and the life at Greenwood settled back into its accustomed groove.

Even the mutter of cannon before Boston was but a matter of newspaper news, and the war, though now fairly inaugurated, affected the squire chiefly by the loss of the bondsman, for whom he advertised in vain.

One incident which happened shortly after the proposed elopement, and which cannot be pa.s.sed over without mention, was a call from Squire Hennion on Mr. Meredith. The master of Boxely opened the interview by shaking his fist within a few inches of the rubicund countenance of the master of Greenwood, and, suiting his words to the motion, he roared: "May Belza take yer, yer old--" and the particular epithet is best omitted, the eighteenth-century vocabulary being more expressive than refined--"fer sendin' my boy ter Boston, wheer, belike, he'll never git away alive."

"Don't try to bully me!" snorted the squire, shaking his fist in turn, and much nearer to the hatchet-face of his antipathy.

"Put that down or I'll teach ye manners! Yes, d.a.m.n ye, for the first time in your life ye shall be made to behave like a gentleman!"

"I defy yer ter make me!" retorted Hennion, with unconscious humour.

"Heyday!" said Mrs. Meredith, entering, "what 's the cause of all this hurly-burly?"

"Enuf cause, an' ter spare," howled Hennion. "Here this--" once more the t.i.tle is left blank for propriety's sake-- "hez beguiled poor Phil inter goin' on some fool errand ter Boston, an' the feller knew so well I would n't hev it thet all he dun wuz ter write me a line, tellin' how this--insisted he should go, an' thet he'd started. 'Twixt yer whiffet of a gal an'

yer old--of a husband, yer've bewitched all the sense the feller ever hed in his noddle, durn yer!"

"Let him talk," jeered the squire. "'T will not bring Phil back. What's more, I'll make him smile the other side of his teeth before I've done with him. Harkee, man, I've a rod in pickle that will make ye cry small." The squire took a bundle of papers from an iron box and flourished them under Hennion s nose "There are a.s.signments of every mortgage ye owe, ye old fox, and pay day 's coming."

"Let it," sneered the owner of Boxely. "Yer think I did n't know, I s'pose? Waal, thet 's wheer yer aout. Phil, he looked so daown in the maouth just afore yer went ter York thet I knew theer must be somethin' ter make him act so pukish, an' I feels araound a bit, an' as he ain't the best hand at deceivin' I hez the fac's in no time. An' as I could n't hev them 'ere mortgages in better hands, I tell 'd him ter go ahead an' help yer all he could. 'T was I gave him the list of them I owed."

The squire, though taken aback, demanded: "And I suppose ye have the money ready to douse on pay day?"

Hennion sn.i.g.g.e.red. "Yer won't be hard, thet I know, squire. I reckon yer'll go easy on me."

"If ye think I'm going to spare ye on account of Phil ye are mightily out. I'll foreclose the moment each falls due, that I warn ye."

"Haow kin yer foreclose whin theer ain't no courts?"

"Pish!" snapped the creditor. "'T is purely temporary; within a twelve-month there'll be law enough. Think ye England is sleeping?"

"We'll see, we'll see," retorted Hennion. "In the meantime, squire, I hope yer won't wont because I don't pay interest. Times is thet onsettled thet yer kain't sell c.r.a.ps naw nothin,' an' ready money 's pretty hard ter come by."

"Not I," rejoined the squire. "'T will enable me to foreclose all the quicker."

"When theer 's courts ter foreclose," replied Hennion, grinning suggestively. With this parting shot, he left the house and rode away.

On the same day this interview occurred, another took place in the Craigie House in Cambridge, then occupied as the headquarters of General Washington. The commander-in-chief was sitting in his room, busily engaged in writing, when an orderly entered and announced that a man who claimed to have important business, which he refused to communicate except to the general, desired word with him. The stranger was promptly ushered in, and stood revealed as a fairly tall, well-shaped young fellow, clad in coa.r.s.e clothing, with a well-made wig of much better quality, which fitted him so ill as to suggest that it was never made for his head.

"I understand your Excellency is in dire need of powder,"

he said as he saluted.

A stern look came upon Washington's face. "Who are you, and how heard you that?" he demanded.

"My name is John Brereton. How I heard of your want was in a manner that needs not to be told, as--"

"Tell you shall," exclaimed Washington, warmly. "The fact was known to none but the general officers and to the powder committee, and if there has been unguarded or unfaithful speech it shall be traced to its source."

"Your Excellency wrote a letter to the committee of Middles.e.x County in Jersey?"

"I did."

"The committee refused to part with the powder."

Washington rose. "Have they no public spirit, no consideration of our desperate plight?" he exclaimed.

"But your Excellency, though the committee would not part with the powder, some lads of spirit would not see you want for it, and--and by united effort we succeeded in getting and bringing to Cambridge twenty half-barrels of powder, which is now outside, subject to your orders."

With an exclamation mingling disbelief and hope, the commander sprang to the window. A glance took in the two carts loaded with kegs, and he turned, his face lighted with emotion.

"G.o.d only knows the grinding anxiety, the sleepless nights, I have suffered, knowing how defenceless the army committed to my charge actually was! You have done our cause a service impossible to measure or reward." He shook the man's hand warmly.

"And I ask in payment, your Excellency, premission to volunteer."

"In what capacity?"

"I have served in the British forces as an officer, but all I ask is leave to fight, without regard to rank."

"Tell me the facts of your life."