Janice Meredith Part 47

"One moment, madam," intervened the colonel. "I have been plying our prisoner with questions, and have some to ask of your daughter. Now, Miss Meredith, Lee's letter, that we found on the prisoner, has told us all we need, but we want to test the prisoner's statements by yours. Look to it that you speak us truly, for if we find any false swearing or quibbling, 't will fare ill with you." Then for three or four minutes the officer examined the girl concerning her first interview with the rebel officer, seeking to gain additional information as to Lee's whereabout. Finding that Janice really knew nothing more than had been overheard in the Van Meter barn, he ended the examination by turning to Philemon and saying:--

"Sound boots and saddles, Lieutenant Hennion. You can guide us, I take it, to this tavern from which General Lee writes?"

"That I kin," a.s.serted Phil, "though 't will be a stiff ride ter git there afore morning."

As the two officers went toward the door Janice made her pet.i.tion anew. "Colonel Harcourt, may I have word with Colonel--with the prisoner, that he shall not think 't was my treachery?" she pleaded.

"I advise agin it, Colonel Harcourt," interjected Philemon, his face red with some emotion. "That prisoner's a sly, sneaky tyke, and--"

"Get the troop mounted, Mr. Hennion," commanded his superior. "Mr. Meredith, I leave our captive in charge of a sergeant and two troopers, with orders that if I am not back within twenty-four hours he be taken to Brunswick. Whether we succeed or fail in our foray, Sir William shall hear of the service you have been to us." Unheeding Janice's plea, the colonel left the room, and a moment later the bugle sounded in quick succession, "To horse," "The march," and "By fours, forward."

Interest in the departing cavalry drew the elders to the windows, and in this preoccupation Janice saw her opportunity to gain by stealth what had been denied her. Slipping silently from the parlour, she sped through hall and dining-room, pausing only when the kitchen doorway was attained, her courage wellnigh gone at the thought that the aide might refuse to believe her protestations of innocence. Certainty that she had but a moment in which to explain prevented hesitancy, and she entered the kitchen.

The two troopers were already stretched at full length on the floor, their feet to the fire, while the sergeant sat by the table, with a pitcher of small beer and a pipe to solace his particular hours of guard mount over the prisoner. The latter was seated near the fire, his arms drawn behind him by a rope which pa.s.sed through the slats of the chair back. So far as these fetters would permit, Brereton was slouched forward, with his chin resting on his chest in a most break-neck att.i.tude, sound asleep. There could be no doubt about it, beyond credence though it was to the girl! While she had been miserably conceiving the officer as ablaze with wrath at her, he, with the philosophy of the experienced soldier, had lost not a moment in getting what rest he could after his forty-eight hours of hard riding.

Such callousness was to Janice a source of indignation, and as she debated whether she should wake the slumberer and make her explanation, or punish his apathy by letting him sleep, Mrs. Meredith's voice calling her name in a not-to-be-misunderstood tone turned the balance, and, flying up the servants' stairway, Janice was able to answer her mother's third call from her own room. Worn out by excitement, worry, and physical fatigue, the girl, like the soldier, soon found oblivion from both past and future.

It was well toward morning when a finish was made to the night's doings, and the early habits of the household were for once neglected to such an extent that the dragoons at last lost patience and roused Peg and Sukey with loudly shouted demands for breakfast,--a racket which served to set all astir once more.

With the conclusion of the morning meal, Janice rose from the table and went toward the kitchen,--an action which at once caused Mrs. Meredith to demand: "Whither art thou going, child?"

Facing about, the girl replied with some show of firmness: "'T is but fair that Colonel Brereton should know I had no hand in his captivation; and I have a right to tell him so."

"Thou shalt do nothing of the sort," denied Mrs. Meredith.

"Was not thy conduct last evening indelicate enough, but thou must seek to repeat it?"

Janice, with her hand on the k.n.o.b, began to sob. "'T is dreadful," she moaned, "after his doing what he did for us at York, and later, that he should think I had a hand in his capture."

"Tush, Jan!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the squire, fretfully, the more that his conscience had already secretly blamed him. "No grat.i.tude I owe the rogue, if both sides of the ledger be balanced.

'T is he brought about the sc.r.a.pe that led to my arrest."

"Ay," went on Mrs. Meredith, delighted to be thus supported, "I have small doubt thy indelicacy with him will land us all in prison. Such folly is beyond belief, and came not from my family, Mr. Meredith," she added, turning on her husband.

"Well, well, wife; all the folly in the la.s.s scarce comes from my side, for 't is to be remembered that ye were foolish enough to marry me," suggested the squire, placably, his anger at his daughter already melted by the sight of her distress.

"Don't be too stern with the child; she is yet but a filly."

"Thee means but a silly," snapped Mrs. Meredith, made the more angry by his defence of the girl. "Men are all of a piece, and cannot hold anger if the eyes be bright, or the waist be slim," she thought to herself wrathfully, quite forgetful of the time when that very tendency in masculine kind had been to her one of its merits. "Set to on the quilt, girl, and see to it that there's no sneaking to the kitchen."

Scarcely had Janice, obedient to her mother's behest, seated herself at the big quilting-frame, when Lord Clowes joined her.

"They treat ye harsh, Miss Janice," he remarked sympathetically; "but 't is an unforgiving world, as I have good cause to wot."

Janice, who had stooped lower over the patches when first he spoke, flashed her eyes up for an instant, and then dropped them again.

"And one is blamed and punished for much that deserves it not. I' faith, I know one man who stands disgraced to the woman he loves best, for no better cause than that the depth of his pa.s.sion was so boundless that he went to every length to gain her."

The quilter fitted a red calimanco patch in place, and studied the effect with intense interest.

"Wouldst like me to carry a message to the prisoner, Miss Janice?"

"Oh, will you?" murmured the girl, gratefully and eagerly.

"Wilt tell him that I knew nothing of the plan to capture him, and was only trying to aid his escape? That, after all his kindness, I would never--"

Here the eager flow of words received a check by the re-entrance of Mrs. Meredith. Dropping his hand upon the quilting-frame so that it covered one of the girl's, the commissary conveyed by a slight pressure a pledge of fulfilment of her wish, and, after a few moments' pa.s.sing chat, left the room. Before a lapse of ten minutes he returned, and took a chair near the girl.

Glancing at her mother, to see if her eyes wandered from the sock she was resoling, Janice raised her eyebrows with furtive inquiry. In answer the baron shook his head.

"'T is a curious commentary on man, "he observed thoughtfully, "that he always looks on the black side of his fellow-creatures, and will not believe that they can be honest and truthful."

"Man is born in sin," responded Mrs. Meredith. "Janice, that last patch is misplaced; pay heed to thy work."

"I lately had occasion to justify an action to a man," went on Clowes, "but, no, the scurvy fellow would put no faith in my words, insisting that the person I sought to clear was covinous and tricky, and wholly unworthy of trust."

"The thoughts of a man who prefers to think such things,"

broke in Janice, hotly, "are of no moment."

"Ye are quite right, Miss Janice," a.s.sented the emissary, "and I would I'd had the wit to tell him so. 'T is my intention some day to call him to account for his words."

Further communion on this topic was interrupted by the incoming of Mr. Meredith, and during the whole day the two were never alone. His forgiveness partly won by his service, the commissary ventured to take a seat beside the quilter, and sought to increase his favour with her by all the arts of tongue and manner he had at command. As these were manifold, he saw no reason, as dusk set in, to be dissatisfied with the day's results. Inexperienced as Janice was, she could not know that the cooler and less ardent the man, the better he plays the lover's part; and while she never quite forgot his previous deceit, nor the trouble into which he had persuaded her, yet she was thoroughly entertained by what he had to tell her, the more that under all his words he managed to convey an admiration and devotion which did not fail to flatter the girl, even though it stirred in her no response. Entertained as she might be, her thoughts were not so occupied by the charm and honey of Lord Clowes's attentions as to pretermit all dwelling on the aide's opinion of her, and this was shown when finally an interruption set her free from observation.

It was after nightfall ere there was any variation of the monotonous quiet; and indeed the tall clock had just announced the usual bedtime of the family when Clarion's bark made the squire sit up from his drowse before the fire, and set all listening.

Presently came the now familiar sound of hoof-beat and sabre-clank; springing to his feet and seizing a candle, Mr.

Meredith was at the front door as a troop trotted in from the road.

"What cheer?" called the master of Greenwood.

"'T was played to a nicety," answered the voice of Harcourt, as he threw himself from the saddle. "Sound the stable call, bugler. Dismount your prisoner, sergeant, and bring him in," he ordered; and then continued to the host: "We had the tavern surrounded, Mr. Meredith, ere they so much as knew, bagged our game, and here we are."

The words served to carry the two to the parlour, and closely following came a sergeant and trooper, while between them, clothed in a very soiled dressing-gown and a still dirtier shirt, in slippers, his queue still undressed, and with hands tied behind his back, walked the general who but a few hours before had been boasting of how he was to save the Continental cause.

"If you have pity in you," besought the prisoner, "let me warm myself. What method of waging war is it which forces a man to ride thirty miles in such weather in such clothes?

For the sake of former humanity, Mr. Meredith, give me something hot to drink."

In the excitement and confusion of the new arrivals, Janice had seen her chance, and, intent upon making her own statement of justification, she once again stole from the parlour and into the kitchen, so softly that the occupants of neither room were aware of escape or advent. She found the prisoner still tied to his chair, his body and head hanging forward in an att.i.tude denoting weariness, Sukey engaged in cutting slices of bacon in probable expectation of demands from the new-comers, while the single trooper on guard had just opened the entry door, and was shouting inquiries concerning the success of the raid to his fellow-dragoons as they pa.s.sed to the stable.

Acting on a sudden impulse which gave her no time for consideration, Janice caught the knife from the hand of Sukey, and, with two hasty strokes, cut the cord where it was pa.s.sed through the slats of the chair-back, setting the prisoner free.

"Fo' de good Lord in hebin--" began the cook, in amazement; but, as the import of her young mistress's act dawned upon her, she ran to the fireplace and, catching up a log of wood, held it out to Brereton.

Owing to his stooping posture, the release of the cords had caused the aide to fall forward out of the chair; but he instantly scrambled to his feet, and without so much as a glance behind him, seized the billet from the hands of the cook and sprang toward the doorway, reaching it at the moment the dragoon turned about to learn the cause of the sudden commotion.

Bringing the log down with crushing force on the man's head, Jack stooped as the man plunged' forward, possessed himself of his sabre, caught one of the long cavalry capotes from its hook in the entry, and, banging to the door, vanished in the outer darkness. There he stood for a moment, listening intently, apparently in doubt as to his next step; then electing the bolder course, he threw the coat about his shoulders, fastened the sabre to his side, and ran to the stable, where the tired troopers, in the dim light furnished by a solitary lantern, were now dismounting from their horses. Without hesitation the aide walked among them, and in a disguised voice announced: "Colonel Harcourt orders me to look to his horse."

"Here," called a man, and the fugitive stepped forward and caught the bridle the trooper threw to him. He stood quietly while the dragoons one by one led their horses into the stable, then pulling gently on the reins, he slowly walked the colonel's horse forward as if to follow their example, but, turning a little to the left, he pa.s.sed softly around the side of the building. Letting down the bars into the next field, he quickened his pace until the road was reached; swinging himself into the saddle, he once more spurred northward.

"Poor brute," he remarked, "spent as thou art, we must make a push for it until beyond Middle-Brook, if I am to save my bacon. 'T is a hard fate that makes thee serve both sides by turn, until there is no go left in thee. Luckily, the other horses are as tired as thou, or my escape would be very questionable, even though I had wit enough about me to see to it that I got the officer's mount. Egad, a queer shift it is that ends with Lee in their hands and me spurring northward to repeat the general's orders to Sullivan. Who knows but Mrs. Meredith and the parson may be right in their holding to foreordination?"

x.x.xII UNDER DURANCE