The Continental Dragoon Part 28

Meanwhile Miss Sally remained in the parlor, thinking it best not to go to Elizabeth unless sent for; while Colden continued to stand at the window, showing his impatience for the arrival of his two soldiers in a tense contracting of the brow, in a restless shifting from foot to foot, and in intermittent stifled curses.

As he kept his eyes on the place where the branch road left the highway, he did not see that part of the lawn walk which led from the garden. But suddenly a slight noise drew his look towards the portico before the east hall.

"Who are these coming?" he cried, startling Miss Sally out of her musings and her chair.

"Are they your men?" she asked, hastening to join him at the window.

"No, mine are mounted," said he. "Why,--these are Williams and Sam,--and they are bringing,--yes, it is he! They're bringing him back a prisoner! She has done it, after all, without consulting me!" And he strode to the centre of the room, in the utmost elation.

Miss Sally weakened at the imminent prospect of a meeting between the two enemies in the changed circ.u.mstances, and felt the need of her niece's support.

"I must tell Elizabeth they have him," she said, and ran out to the east hall, and thence to the dining-room, just in time to avoid seeing Peyton led in through the outer door, which Cuff had opened at Williams's call.

The steward and Sam conducted their prisoner immediately into the parlor. There Colden stood, with a rancorously jubilant smile, to receive him.

Peyton's wrists were as Williams had tied them. He was without his hat, which had been knocked off in a brief struggle he had essayed against his captors in a moment when Sam had lowered the pistol. There was a little fresh snow on his hair, and more on his shoulders. The feet of his boots were cased with it. His left arm was held by Williams, who carried the broken sword, having taken it from the scabbard at the first opportunity. Peyton's other arm was grasped by the huge, bony left hand of Sam, who held the c.o.c.ked pistol in his right. The two men walked with him to the centre of the parlor, and stopped.

"By George," said he, turning his face towards Sam, with fire in his eyes, "had the snow not killed the sound of your sneaking footsteps till you'd caught my arms behind, I'd have done for the two of you!"

"Good, Williams!" said Colden. "Place him on that chair, and leave him here with me. But stay in the hall on guard."

"So Miss Elizabeth ordered us, sir," said Williams, dryly, and, with Sam, conducted Peyton to the chair, on which he sat willingly.

"Of course she did," replied Colden. "Was it not at my suggestion?"

Peyton looked sharply up at the major, who regarded him with the undisguised pleasure of hate about to be satisfied.

Williams handed the broken sword to Colden, saying, "This was the only weapon he had, sir. We grabbed him before he could use it. We ran out behind him from the roadside, and he couldn't hear us for the snow."

"Ay, or the pair of you couldn't have taken me!" said Peyton, with hot scorn and defiant gameness.

Colden, with the piece of sword, motioned Williams to go from the room.

"Leave the door ajar a little," he added, "so you can hear if I call."

Peyton uttered a short laugh of derision at this piece of prudence.

The steward and Sam withdrew to the hall, where Sam remained, while Williams went in search of Elizabeth for further orders. As soon as she had a.s.sured herself, by watching and listening, that Peyton was safe in the parlor, she had stolen quietly down-stairs to the dining-room, where she had met her aunt, with whom the steward now found her sitting. She told him to get the duck-gun, make sure it was loaded and primed, and to wait with Sam on the settle in the hall. She then requested her aunt to remain in the dining-room, silently returned to the hall, and took station by the door leading from the parlor,--the door which Williams, at Colden's command, had left slightly ajar. Her original plan, she felt, might have to be altered by reason of Colden's having obtruded his hand into the game, a possibility she had not, in roughly sketching that plan, taken into account. It was in order to have the guidance of circ.u.mstance, that she now put herself in the way of hearing, unseen, what might pa.s.s between the two men. Meanwhile, through the snow-storm, Colden's two soldiers, who had indeed tarried at the tavern for the heating up of their interiors, were blasphemously urging their sleepy horses towards the manor-house.

In the parlor, the two enemies were facing each other, Peyton on his chair, his tied wrists behind him, Colden standing at some distance from him, holding the broken sword. As soon as they were alone, Peyton uttered another one-syllabled laugh, and said:

"The hospitality of this house beats my recollection. One is always coming back to it."

"You'll not come back the next time you leave it!" said Major Colden, his eyes glittering with gratified rancor.

"And when shall that time be?" asked Peyton, airily.

"As soon as two of my men arrive, whom I outrode on my way hither to-night. They attended me out of New York. I shall be generous and give them over to you, to attend you _into_ New York."

"Thanks for the escort!"

"'Tis the only kind you rebels ever have, when you enter New York,"

sneered the major.

"We shall enter it with an escort of our own choosing some day! And a sorry day that for you Tories and refugees, my dear gentleman!"

"But if that day ever comes, _you'll_ have been rotting underground a long time,--and thanks to _me_, don't forget that!"

"Thanks to _her_, you coward!" cried Peyton. "'Twas she that sent her servants after me! You didn't dare try taking me, alone!"

"Bah!" said Colden, hotly, "I might have pistolled you here to-night"--and he placed his hand on the fire-arm in his belt--"but for the presence of the ladies!"

"Was it the ladies' presence," retorted Peyton, contemptuously, "or the fact that you're a devilish bad shot?"

Neither man heard the door moved farther open, or saw Elizabeth step through the aperture to the inner side of the threshold, where she stopped and watched. Peyton's back was towards her, and Colden's rage at the last words was too intense to permit his eyes to rove from its object.

"d.a.m.n you!" cried the major. "I'd show you how bad a shot I am, but that I'd rather wait and see you on the gallows!"

"Will _she_ come to see me there, I wonder?" said Peyton, half thoughtfully. "She ought to, for it's her work sends me there, not yours! 'Twill not be _your_ revenge when they string me up, my jolly friend!"

Taunted beyond all self-control, the Tory yelled:

"Not mine, eh? Then I'll have mine now, you dog!"

With that, he strode forward and struck Harry a fierce blow across the face with the flat side of Harry's own broken sword.

Harry merely blinked his eyes, and did not flinch. He turned pale, then red, and in a moment, first clearing his voice of a slight huskiness, said, quietly:

"That blow I charge against you both,--the lady as well as you!"

Colden had stepped back some distance after delivering the blow.

Something in Harry's answer seemed to infuriate still further the devil awakened in the Tory's body, for he cried out:

"The lady as well as me,--yes! And this, too!"

And he advanced on Peyton, to strike a second time.

"Stop! How dare you?"

The cry was Elizabeth's. It startled Colden so that he loosened his hold of the broken sword before he could deliver the blow. At that instant, she caught his arm in her one hand, the sword-guard in her other. She tore the weapon from his grasp, and faced him with a countenance as furious as his own.

"What do you mean?" he cried.

For answer she struck him in the face with the flat of the sword, as he had struck Peyton. "You sneak!" she said.

He recoiled, and stood staring, a ghastly image of bewilderment and consternation. After a moment he turned livid.

"Ah! I see now!" he gasped. "You love him!"

"Yes!" came the answer, prompt and decided.