Joscelyn Cheshire Part 11

Richard staggered up. "The h.e.l.ls, the floating h.e.l.ls!"

"Yes, that is what they are sometimes called."

"My G.o.d!" For a moment the fort.i.tude that had sustained him during the last ten days gave way, and he sank down again, covering his face with his hands in a dry-eyed anguish.

"I wish from my soul that I might have helped you, but this is all I can do," the corporal said. "Pick them up as a gift from a brother in arms."

He surrept.i.tiously dropped some coins upon the sand, and Richard, more because of the friendliness of the gift than because he thought of their value, ran his fingers through the sand and picked them up, shoving them into a torn place in the lining of his boot.

"You have been good to me--" he began slowly, and with the look of a man who is talking unconsciously; but with an impatient shrug the other had moved away. When he had walked the length of the line and stood looking over the water a minute, he came again to Richard's side, apparently with no special object in view. His voice was very low as he said:--

"True soldiers respect each other, no matter what the colour of their uniforms. I guessed--but I want to know for certain--did you let the little lad escape the other night rather than go by yourself and leave him?"

Richard nodded. Colborn took off his hat. Those who watched him from the sand and from the picket line thought he but bared his head to the cool sea breeze, but in truth it was to a brave man's self-sacrifice. A Scripture verse was running in his head: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he give his life for his friend." But he did not speak it, for a boat grating on the sand behind made him turn.

"The ship's warden to receive you," he said, with a quick-drawn breath.

"G.o.d help you!" Then aloud: "Attention!"

The prisoners arose and lined up as the boat's crew came ash.o.r.e. The warden conferred a few minutes with the corporal, went over the list of prisoners, counted them carefully, eying each one sternly as he did so; then turned again to the corporal, who, after another short conference, stepped out before the line of prisoners.

"Attention! My care of you ends here. The warden of the prison-ships will henceforth have you in charge." At a signal his men fell back, and the crew from the ship's long-boat took their places; the two officers saluted, and the corporal stepped aside.

"Attention! Forward! March!" the warden shouted, pointing with his sword to the boat; and the handful of dazed and miserable captives, like so many automatons, caught step and sullenly moved to the water. As Richard, who brought up the rear, pa.s.sed Colborn, the latter whispered:--

"Your Joscelyn shall know," and Richard's eyes spoke his thanks.

Then the boat drew away from sh.o.r.e, carrying its freight of helpless despair to the plague-infected hulk rocking in the tide, the plaything of the winds, the sport of every leaping wave that cast its crystal fringes to the sun.

CHAPTER XII.

A MESSAGE OUT OF THE NORTH.

"I love thee, and I feel That in the fountain of my heart a seal Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright For thee."

--Sh.e.l.lEY.

"It's all very well for our husbands and sons to be away fighting for their country--I'd horsewhip one of mine who sneaked at home; but for all that, this manless state of the town is a terrible test to the tidiness and the tempers of the womenfolk," said Mistress Strudwick, as she sat on her porch with some chosen cronies, and watched the young girls of the town promenading in the aftermath of the July sunset with never a cavalier among them. "Look at Lucinda Hardy, she's as cross as a patch; and yonder is Janet Cameron, who has not curled her hair for a week--just mops it up any way, since there are no men to see it."

"And there's 'Liza Jones without her stays," said Mistress Clevering.

"Yes, and looking for all the world like a comfortable pillow that has just been shaken up; but if there was a man under threescore in seeing distance, she'd be as trim as you please," replied Mistress Strudwick.

"Heigh-ho, what a slipshod world this would be if there were n.o.body but women in it!"

"And what a topsy-turvy place 'twould be with only men. n.o.body'd ever know where anything was," said quiet Mistress Cheshire, with poignant recollections of striving to keep up with the belongings of two husbands. "Depend upon it, Martha Strudwick, the world would be a deal worse off without women than without men, for men never can find anything."

"I am quite of your mind, Mary. In sooth, I always had a sneaking notion that Columbus brought his wife along when he came to discover America, and that 'twas she who first saw the land," said Sally Ruffin.

"I don't seem to remember that there was a Mistress Columbus," said Ann Clevering, biting off her thread with a snap.

"Well, goodness knows there had ought to have been, for Columbus had a son," replied Martha Strudwick, greatly scandalized, although her own knowledge in the matter was somewhat hazy.

"How 'pon earth did we ever get to talking such wise things as history?"

asked Mistress Cheshire, whose _forte_ was housewifely recipes.

"We were saying as how men never could find things."

"Oh, yes."

"Well," said Martha Strudwick, thoughtfully, "that depends on what kind of things you mean. Now there's my husband--and he's a good man, good as common--he can find a fish-hook in the dark if it's good biting season; but he can't see the long-handled hoe in the broad daylight if it's weeding time in the garden and the sun is hot. Finding things depends more on a man's mind than his eyes."

"Then there's a heap of them who lose their minds mighty handy,"

retorted Ann Clevering.

Mistress Cheshire pushed back her chair: "I shall run home and caution Dilsy about putting the bread to rise; she's that unseeing that I think Providence must have first meant her to be a man." Which was as near a joke as anything Mistress Cheshire ever said. As she trotted away the others looked after her affectionately.

"Mary is such a mild-mannered woman," said Ann Clevering; "many's the time I've heard her first husband--dead and gone these twenty-three years--say it was an accident little short of a miracle how Providence could make a woman with so little tongue."

"Joscelyn, with her goings-on, must be a dreadful trial to her," sighed Amanda Bryce.

"And not only to her mother, but to the whole town," snapped another woman.

"Hoity-toity!" bristled Mistress Strudwick, "what's the matter with Joscelyn? She is the very life of the place, now that the men are gone.

If 'twere not for discussing her, and abusing her,"--with a withering glance at the last speaker,--"we should go tongue-tied for lack of somewhat to talk about. She's a tonic for us all, and without her we'd be going to sleep."

"Sleep is a good thing," sniffed Amanda Bryce.

"Ay," retorted Mistress Strudwick, "when you are tucked in bed and the lights are out, it is; but not when you are standing up flat-footed with baking and brewing and weaving and such things to look after. Joscelyn's all right, Tory though she be. Look at her now, with all those red roses stuck around her belt; she's the finest sight on the street."

"Fine enough to look at, I'm not gainsaying you; what I object to is hearing her when she talks about our war."

"Well, Amanda, if our swords were all as sharp as her tongue can be, the war would soon be over."

"You always were partial to the la.s.s, Martha."

"Ay, I often told Richard Clevering I'd be his rival were I a man, old or young; and truly I believe Joscelyn would look with more favour upon me of the two," laughed the corpulent dame, remembering the soft little touches with which the girl sometimes tidied up her gray hair and unruly neckerchief, and the caress upon her cheek that always closed the job.

"I wonder you can take up so for her, Martha, when all your menfolk are in the Continental army, and she a rank Tory."

"Oh, I can forgive a woman her politics, because, like a man's religion, it's apt to be picked up second-hand and liable to change at any time."

"Don't you believe men have any true religion?"

"Well, ye-e-s; if the rain comes in season, and the crops are good, and the cattle don't break into the corn, and their victuals are well cooked, they are apt to be middling religious."

"Remember you have a husband of your own."