Prisoners of Hope Part 7

"But who is to hear? the tobacco, the Lord in heaven, and you. The senseless plant will keep counsel, the Lord is not like to betray his servant, and as for you, friend,--" he looked long and searchingly at Landless. "Despite the place you come from, I do not think you one to bring a man into trouble for being bold enough to say what you dare only think."

Landless returned the look. "No," he said quietly. "You need have no fear of me."

"I fear no one," said the other proudly.

Presently he craned his long body across the plant between them until his lips almost touched the ear of the younger man.

"Shall you try to escape?" he whispered.

A smile curled Landless's lip. "Very probably I shall," he said dryly.

He looked down the long lines of broad green leaves at the toiling figures, black and white, dull peasants at best, scoundrels at worst; and beyond to the huddled cabins of the quarter, and to the great house, rising fair and white from orchard and garden; seeing, as in a dream, a man, young in years but old in sorrow, disgraced, outcast, friendless, alone, creeping down a vista of weary years, day after day of soul-deadening toil, of a.s.sociation with the mean and the vile, of shameful submission to whip and finger. Escape! The word had beaten through brain and heart so long and so persistently, that at times he feared lest he should cry it aloud.

Win-Grace Porringer shook his head.

"It's not an easy thing to escape from a Virginia plantation. With dogs and with horses they hunt you down, yea, with torches and boats. They band themselves together against the fleeing sparrow. They call in the heathen to their aid. And it is a fearful land, for great rivers bar your way, and forests push you back, and deep quagmires clutch you and hold you until the men of blood come up. And when you are taken they cruelly maltreat you, and your term of service is doubled."

"And yet men have gotten away," said Landless.

"Yes, but not many. And those that get away are seldom heard of more.

The forest swallows them up, and after a while their skulls roll about the hills, playthings for wolves, or the deep waters flow over their bones, or they lie in a little heap of ashes at the foot of some Indian torture stake."

"Why did you try to escape?" asked Landless.

The man gave him another sidelong look.

"I tried because I was a fool. I am no longer a fool. I know a better way."

"A better way!"

"Hush!" The man looked over his shoulder and then whispered, "Will you go with me to-night?"

"Go with you! Where?"

"To a man I know--a man who gives good advice."

"Many can do that, friend."

"Ay, but not show the way to profit by it as doth this man."

"Who is he?"

"A servant even as we are servants,--a learned and G.o.dly man, albeit not a follower of the blessed Ludovick. Listen! About the rising of the moon to-night, slip from your cabin and come to the blasted pine on the sh.o.r.e of the inlet. There will be a boat there and I will be in it. We will go to the cabin of the man of whom I speak. He is a cripple, and knowing that he cannot run away, the G.o.dless and roistering Malignant who calls himself our master hath given him a hut among the marshes, where he mendeth nets. Come! I may not say more than that it will be worth your while."

"If we are caught--"

"Our skins pay for us. But the Lord will shut the eyes of the overseers that they see not, and their ears that they hear not, and we will be safely back before the dawn. You will come?"

"Yes," said Landless. "I will come."

CHAPTER VI

THE HUT ON THE MARSH

It was shortly after midnight when the two servants slipped along the inlet, silently and warily, and keeping their boat well under the sh.o.r.e.

It was a crazy affair, barely large enough for two, and requiring constant bailing. When they had made half a mile from the quarters, the Muggletonian, who rowed, turned the boat's head across the inlet, and ran into a very narrow creek that wound in mazy doubles through the marshes. They entered it, made the first turn, and the broad bosom of the inlet, lit by a low, crimson moon, was as if it had never been. On every side high marsh gra.s.s soughed in the night wind,--plains of blackness with the red moon rising from them. The tide was low. So close were the banks of wet, black earth, that they heard the crabs scuttling down them, and Porringer made a jab with his pole at a great sheepshead lying _perdu_ alongside. The water broke before them into spangles, glittering phosph.o.r.escent ripples. A school of small fish, disturbed by the oars, rushed past them, leaping from the water with silver flashes.

A turtle plunged sullenly. From the gra.s.s above came the sleepy cry of marsh hens, and once a great white heron rose like a ghost across their path. It flapped its wings and sailed away with a scream of wrath.

The boat had wound its tortuous way for many minutes before Porringer said in a low voice: "We can speak safely now. There is nothing human moving on these flats unless the witch, Margery, is abroad. Cursed may she be, and cursed those who give her shelter and food and raiment and lay offerings at her door, for surely it is written, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'"

"Is there anything a Muggletonian will not curse?" asked Landless.

"Yea," answered the other complacently. "There are ourselves, the salt of the earth. There are a thousand or more of us."

"And the remainder of the inhabitants of the earth are reprobate and doomed?"

"Yea, verily, they shall be as the burning of lime, as thorns cut up will they be burned in the fire."

"Then why have you to do with me, and with the man to whom we are going?"

"Because it is written: 'Make ye friends of the mammon of unrighteousness;' and moreover there be degrees even in h.e.l.l fire. I do not place you, who have some inkling of the truth, nor the Independents and Fifth Monarchy men (as for the Quakers they shall be utterly d.a.m.ned) in the furnace seven times heated which is reserved for the bigoted and b.l.o.o.d.y Prelatists who rule the land, swearing strange oaths, foining with the sword, and delighting in vain apparel; keeping their feast days and their new moons and their solemn festivals. They are the rejoicing city that dwells carelessly, that says in her heart, 'I am, and there is none beside me.' The day cometh when they shall be broken as the breaking of a potter's vessel, yea, they shall be violently tossed like a ball into a far country."

Here they struck a snag, well-nigh capsizing the boat. When she righted, and Landless had bailed her out with a gourd, they proceeded in silence.

Landless was in no mood for speech. He did not know where they were going, nor for what purpose, nor did he greatly care. He meant to escape, and that as soon as his strength should be recovered and he could obtain some knowledge of the country, and he meant to take no one into his counsel, not the Muggletonian, whose own attempts had ended so disastrously, nor the 'man who gave good advice.' As to this midnight expedition he was largely indifferent. But it was something to escape from the stifling atmosphere of the cabin where he had tossed from side to side, listening to the heavy breathing of the convict Turk and peasant lad with whom he was quartered, to the silver peace of moon-flooded marsh and lapping water.

They made another turn, and in front of them shone out a light, gleaming dully like a will-of-the-wisp. It looked close at hand, but the creek turned upon itself, coiled and writhed through the marsh, and trebled the distance.

The Muggletonian rested on his oar, and turned to Landless.

"Yonder is our bourne," he said gravely. "But I have a word to say to you, friend, before we reach it. If, to curry favor with the uncirc.u.mcised Philistines who set themselves over us, thou speakest of aught thou mayest see or hear there to-night, may the Lord wither thy tongue within thy mouth, may he smite thee with blindness, may he bring thee quick into the pit! And if not the Lord, then will I, Win-Grace Porringer, rise and smite thee!"

"You may spare your invectives," said Landless coldly. "I am no traitor."

"Nay, friend," said the other in a milder tone. "I thought it not of thee, or I had not brought thee thither."

He shoved the nose of the boat into the sh.o.r.e, and caught at a stake, rising, water-soaked and rotten, from below the bank. Landless threw him the looped end of a rope, and together they made the boat fast, then scrambled up the three feet of fat, sliding earth to the level above where the ground was dry, none but the highest of tides ever reaching it. Fifty yards away rose a low hut. It stood close to another bend in the creek, and before it were several boats, tied to stakes, and softly rubbing their sides together. The hut had no window, but there were interstices between the logs through which the light gleamed redly.

When the two men had reached it, the Muggletonian knocked upon the heavy door, after a peculiar fashion, striking it four times in all. There was a shuffling sound within, and (Landless thought) two voices ceased speaking. Then some one said in a low voice and close to the door: "Who is it?"

"The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," answered the Muggletonian.

A bar fell from the door, and it swung slowly inwards.

"Enter, friends," said a quiet voice. Landless, stooping his head, crossed the threshold, and found himself in the presence of a man with a high, white forehead and a grave, sweet face, who, leaning on a stick, and dragging one foot behind him, limped back to the settle from which he had risen, and fell to work upon a broken net as calmly as if he were alone. Besides themselves he was the only inmate of the room.

A pine torch, stuck into a cleft in the table, cast a red and flickering light over a rude interior, furnished with the table, the settle, a chest and a straw pallet. From the walls and rafters hung nets, torn or mended. In one corner was a great heap of dingy sail, in another a sheaf of oars, and a third was wholly in darkness. Lying about the earthen floor were several small casks to which the man motioned as seats.