Joscelyn Cheshire Part 21

"Oh, Joscelyn cried till her eyes were all red and puffed, and reminded us how you and she used to ride and read and walk together without even so much as a sharp word until the war talk came on. She did much to comfort mother."

"G.o.d bless her! But you were not long in suspense?"

"No; but mother had already prepared to have a service in your memory, and Janet and Patience had practised the hymns."

"Well, there was at least a grave to sing over," laughed Richard; but his mother was crying, even to think of those sad hours.

"How thin you are!" she said, feeling his arms tenderly.

"Well, mother, when a man has been in his grave, 'tis not to be expected that he will look like one of the fatted kine. But I am plump as a rosy Cupid compared with what I have been; and this reminds me that I am hungry for some of your good cooking; do you and Betty get me up a bit of dinner while I look to my horse."

But he knew his horse had been cared for, and instead of the stable, it was Joscelyn's door he sought.

"I have but a little while left," he said; "come and sit with us, that I may not lose sight of you for one of those blessed minutes. I am as a thirsty man with the cup held ever out of his reach."

"I thought you would wish to talk with your mother and sister alone."

"There is nothing I tell them that I would not quite as willingly trust to you; for though you are a Loyalist, yet you are loyal to your friends," he said, smiling at his own pleasantry, and she laughed too.

Long afterward those words came back to him with a pang.

As they crossed the street Mistress Strudwick hailed them from the sidewalk. "Hey, there, Richard! you are keeping bad company and will fall under suspicion, consorting with that young Tory," she cried. "Are your despatches in the pocket next to her?--if so, beware!"

"I have them in my heart, Mistress Strudwick."

"Then in faith are they already Joscelyn's," laughed the old lady, teasingly pinching the girl's cheek as the two came up to her.

"Come, Mistress Strudwick, Richard wears not his heart on his sleeve."

"But he pins it instead upon yours--which is quite as public. Ah, Richard, she is a sad dare-devil!" and she went on to tell him of some of the scenes of the past months. He had feared for her from the first, and in his mother's parlour he caught her arm almost fiercely:--

"Are you mad that you jeopardize yourself in this way?"

"Mistress Strudwick is over-alarmed; I can take care of myself," she answered, a trifle hotly.

But he was not satisfied; one word brought on another, and they were nearly quarrelling when Betty came to say his dinner was ready.

"Joscelyn," he whispered, with a sudden softening of manner as they went down the hall, and he took her hand and laid in it a shining gold piece, "this is all the gold I have in the world; it was to have paid the price of my flight, but the fisherwoman would not have it. Keep it for me till the war is done--I have a special purpose for it."

After dinner the neighbours came with their letters and farewells, and he had no further talk alone with Joscelyn. She bade him a very gentle good-by, however, and ran across to her own balcony opposite, while he comforted his mother and Betty and said farewell to the a.s.sembled friends. When he was mounted and had waved them a last adieu, he made his horse curvet as though loath to start, and so brought up close to the rail of the opposite balcony.

"Joscelyn, keep the gold piece safe and in some hallowed place, for when the war is done it shall be made into our wedding ring--'tis for that I saved it. Good-by, sweetheart."

And then he was gone as he had come, with a free rein and a ringing hoof beat; and the crowd behind broke into small groups to discuss the news he had brought, while the girl leaning on the veranda across the way, turned a shining coin in her hand, looking at it pensively, with a curious light in her eyes.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE WEARING OF A RED ROSE.

"She gives thee a garland woven fair, Take care!

It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear, Beware! Beware!

Trust her not.

She's fooling thee!"

--LONGFELLOW.

The winter that followed was a quiet one in Hillsboro'. Joscelyn sewed at the flaming poppies of her embroidery during the mornings, rode with Betty or Mary Singleton over the commons in the afternoons when the snow was not too deep, and in the evenings played cribbage with her mother or sang to the sound of her spinet in the fire-lighted parlour. Now and then news of the outside strife came over the mountains or out of the far reaches to the north and east; but the red wave of war spent itself before it reached the inland town. Washington was jealously watching the British in New York, and in the south the fate of Charleston was rapidly being sealed, while now and then a soldier, coming home on furlough or sick leave, brought tidings of the partisan warfare, ceaselessly waged through the Carolinas and Georgia by Sumter and Marion and other bold leaders; but Hillsboro', upon the Eno, dozed through the long winter months.

"This war is worse than tiresome; it's perfectly hateful," Janet Cameron said, twisting her yellow curls about her fingers and pouting disconsolately; "it is making old maids of us whether the men wish it or not. Here I am, eighteen this coming Whitsuntide, and not a genuine suitor have I had."

"Fie, Janet! Where is Billy Bryce?" asked Joscelyn, in whose room the two sat. "Billy has loved you from your pinafore days."

"That baby?" with a scornful accent.

"You did not use to think him such a baby."

"Perchance not; for he is a whole six months older than I, and that is a mighty age!"

"What manner of lover do you want now?"

"Oh, a grown man--a big strong fellow with a will of his own, who never asks for a kiss, but just takes it."

"You little minx! what know you of kissing menfolk?"

"Nothing--that is just it--"

"Janet!"

"--for when Billy blushes like a peony, and politely and decorously begs to kiss my cheek, I am in duty bound to look shocked, and blush back, and say no; nothing else would satisfy my dignity, though I could pinch him for it! That is why I call him a baby," stoutly maintained the girl, her lips curling, and her voice full of mockery.

"He does not wish to forget his manners."

"To say always 'if you please' for tender favours is not the manners for a lover."

"Since you are so wise, tell me what sort of manners a lover should have."

"Oh, you know without the telling! He ought to be headstrong and masterful and a--a bold robber when it comes to claiming favours from his lady; and full of mock repentance after the theft."

"Well, when Billy comes from the war, I shall give him a hint as to how to mend his behaviour."

"An you did, I should hate you. Why, he does not even know how to write to a girl. Here is a letter from him in which he sends his duty to his mother--did you ever hear of such idiocy? A love-letter with a message like that! A love letter should be private and confidential, filled full of such sweetness that one pair of eyes alone should read it; and he sends his duty to his mother, forsooth! Why, that prying old creature would insist upon reading every line written here if I gave her the message--and Heaven knows she might, and be none the wiser, for all of sentiment there is in it is this last sentence, 'I would send you my love, an I dared; but I would not for the world make you angry or hurt your maidenly modesty.' Now that is a love-letter for you!"

"Well, it is not deliriously pa.s.sionate," admitted Joscelyn.

"It is deliriously idiotic. I'd just have him understand that my modesty is not quite so thin-skinned as he imagines."

Joscelyn fell back in her chair, shrieking with laughter, while the yellow-headed tempest before the gla.s.s shook her curls, and emphasized her words with a scouting gesture, "Why, Joscelyn, if I were that boy's great-grandmother, he could not treat me with more deferential respect."