The Great Quest Part 11

"Come! Hear that?"

"Watch the back door," someone was crying. "He's probably dead drunk, but he's a dangerous man and we can't take chances."

It was the constable's voice.

Gleazen was already running through the long hall, and we followed him at our best speed.

As we left the room, the landlord fell and carried down with a crash a table on which a tray of gla.s.ses was standing. I would have stayed to help him, but I knew that other help was near, and to tell the truth I was beginning to fear the consequences of even so slight a part as mine had been in the ghastly happenings of the night. So I followed the others, and we noiselessly slipped away through the orchard, just as the men sent to guard the back door came hurrying round the house and took their stations.

With the distant fire flaming against the sky, with the smell of smoke stinging in our nostrils, and with the clamor of the aroused town sounding on every side, we hurried, un.o.bserved, through dark fields and orchards, to my uncle's house, where Arnold and Sim and Abe were impatiently waiting.

They started up from beside the wagon as we drew near, and crowded round us with eager questions. But there was no time for mere talking. Already we could hear voices approaching, although as yet they were not dangerously near.

"Come, boys," my uncle cried, "into the wagon, every one. Come, Neil, come--for heaven's sake--"

"Be still, Seth, I am sober."

"Sober!" Uncle Seth put a world of disgust into the word.

"Yes, sober, curse you."

"Very well, but do climb in--"

"Climb in? I'll climb in when it suits my convenience."

Jostling and scrambling, we were all in the wagon at last. Uncle Seth held reins and whip; Neil Gleazen, who was squeezed in between him and me on the seat, snored loudly; and the others, finding such seats as they could on boxes or the bed of the wagon, endured their discomfort in silence.

The whip cracked, the horses started forward, the wheels crunched in gravel and came out on the hard road. Turning our backs on the village of Topham, we left behind us the benches on the green, the fine new platform, the banquet that was already half prepared, and all our antic.i.p.ations of the great farewell.

We went up the long hill, from the summit of which we could see the lights of the town shining in the dark valley, the great flare of fire at the burning barn, and the country stretching for miles in every direction, and thence we drove rapidly away.

Thus, for the second time, twenty years after the first, Cornelius Gleazen left his native town as a fugitive from justice. But this time the fortunes of five men were bound up with his, and we whom he was leading on his mad quest knew now only too well what we could expect of our drunken leader.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BRIG ADVENTURE

We drove for a long time in silence, with the jolting of the chaise and the terrible scenes behind us to occupy our minds; and I a.s.sure you it was a grim experience. In all the years that have intervened I have never been able to escape from the memory of the burning barn, with the dark figures running this way and that; the shrill cries of Cornelius Gleazen, staring drunk, and his talk of the man he had killed; the landlord at the tavern, with the blood spurting from his shoulder where the hook had pulled through the flesh.

In a night the whole aspect of the world had changed. From a care-free, selfish, heedless youth, put to work despite his wish to linger over books, I had become of a sudden a companion of criminals, haunted by terrible memories, and through no fault of my own. After all, I thought, by whose fault was it? Cornelius Gleazen's, to be sure. But by whose fault was I forced to accompany Cornelius Gleazen in his flight? Certainly I was guiltless of any unlawful act--for that matter, we all were, except Gleazen. I had not a jot of sympathy for him, yet so completely had he interwoven our affairs with his that, although the man was a drunken beast, we dared not refuse to share his flight. By whose fault? I again asked myself.

For a while I would not accept the answer that came to me. It seemed disloyal to a well-meaning man who at one time and another had given a thousand evidences of his real affection for me, which underlay the veneer of sharpness and irascibility that he presented to the world at large. It seemed to me that I could hear him saying again, "You're all I've got, Joey; you're all that's left to the old man and I'm going to do well by you--"; that I could hear again the clink of gold thrown down before me on the table; that I could feel his hand again on my shoulder, his voice again trembling with despair when he cried, "I've meant to do so well by you, Joey! But now--heaven keep us all!" Yet, as we jounced away over that rough road and on into the night, and as I thought of things that one and another had said, I felt more and more confident that at bottom Seth Upham was to blame for our predicament. To be sure, he had _meant_ well, even in this present undertaking; and though he was said to drive sharp bargains, he lived, I well knew, an honest life. Yet I was convinced that at some time in the past he must have been guilty of some sin or other that gave Neil Gleazen his hold over him. It fairly staggered me to think of the power for good or evil that lies in every act in a man's life. To be sure, had Seth Upham been a really strong man, he would have lived down his mistake long since, whatever it might have been, and would have defied Gleazen to do his worst. But the crime, if such there was, was his, none the less; and that it was the seed whence had sprung our great misfortunes, I was convinced.

Looking back at Arnold Lamont, I caught his eye by the light of the rising moon and found great comfort in his steady glance. As if to rea.s.sure me further, he laid his hand on my arm and slightly pressed it.

On and on and on we drove, past towns and villages, over bridges and under arching trees, beside arms of the sea and inland ponds, until, as dawn was breaking, we came down the road into Boston, with the waters of the Charles River and of the Back Bay on our left and Beacon Hill before us.

Here and there in the town early risers were astir, and the smoke climbed straight up from their chimneys; but for the most part the people were still asleep, and the shops that we pa.s.sed were still shuttered, except one that an apprentice at that very moment was opening for the day. Down to the wharves we drove, whence we could see craft of every description, both in dock and lying at anchor; and there we fell into a lively discussion.

As the horses stopped, Gleazen woke, and that he was sick and miserable a single glance at his face revealed.

"Well," said he, "there's the brig."

"Yes," Uncle Seth retorted, "and if you had kept away from Higgleby's barn, we'd not have seen her for a week to come. We've got you out of that sc.r.a.pe with a whole skin, and I swear we've done well."

"It was _sub rosa_," Gleazen responded thickly, "only _sub rosa_, mind you. Under the rose--you know, Seth."

"Yes, I know. If I had had my wits about me, you would never have pulled the wool over my eyes."

Gleazen laughed unpleasantly. It was plain that he was in an evil temper, and Uncle Seth, worn and hara.s.sed by the terrible experiences of the night, was in no mood to humor him. So we sat in the wagon on a wharf by the harbor, where the clean salt water licked at the piling and rose slowly with the incoming tide, while our two leaders bickered together.

At last, in anger, Seth Upham cried: "I swear I'll not go. I'll hold back the brig. I'll keep my money. You shall hang."

Gleazen laughed a low laugh that was more threatening by far than if as usual he had laughed with a great roar. "No, you don't, Seth," he quietly said. "You know the stakes that you've put up and you know that the winnings will be big. I've used you right, and you're not going to go back on me now--_not while I know what I know_! There's them that would open their eyes to hear it, Seth. I've bore the blame for thirty years, but the end's come if you try to go back on me now."

I looked at my uncle and saw that his face was white. His fingers were twisting back and forth and he seemed not to know what to say; but at last he nodded and said, "All right, Neil," and got down from the wagon; and we all climbed out and stretched our stiff muscles.

"Here's a boat handy," Gleazen cried.

Uncle Seth cut the painter, and drawing her up to a convenient ladder, we began to carry down our various belongings, finishing with the big bags that hours before I had packed so carefully in the bottom of the wagon. Neil Gleazen then seated himself in the stern sheets, Abe Guptil took the oars, and I climbed into the bow.

As Uncle Seth was coming on board, Sim Muzzy stopped him.

"What about the horses?" he exclaimed. "You ain't going off to leave them, are you? Not with wagon and all. Why, they must be worth a deal of money; they--"

"Come, come, you prattling fool," Gleazen called.

Uncle Seth, after reflecting a moment, added sharply, "They'll maybe go to pay for the boat we're taking. I don't like to steal, but now I see no way out. Quick! I hear steps."

So down came Sim, and out into the harbor we rowed; and when I turned to look, I saw close at hand for the first time the brig Adventure.

She was a trim, well-proportioned craft, with a grace of masts and spars and a neatness of rigging and black and white paint that quite captivated me, although coming from what was virtually an inland town, I was by no means qualified to pa.s.s judgment on her merits; and I was not too weary to be glad to know that she, of all vessels in the harbor, was the one in which we were to sail.

When a sleepy sailor on deck called, "Boat ahoy!" Gleazen gave him better than he sent with a loud, "Ahoy, Adventure!"

Then we came up to her and swung with the tide under her chains, until a couple of other sailors came running to help us get our goods aboard; then up we scrambled, one at a time, and set the boat adrift.

I now found myself on a neat clean deck, and was taken with the buckets and pins and coiled ropes lying in tidy fakes--but I should say, too, that I was so tired after my long night ride that I could scarcely keep my eyes open, so that I paid little attention to what was going on around me until I heard Uncle Seth saying, "And this, Captain North, is my nephew. If there are quarters for him aft, I'll be glad, of course."

"Of course, sir, of course," the captain replied; and I knew when I first heard his voice that I was going to like him. "If he and the Frenchman--Lamont you say's his name?--can share a stateroom, I've one with two berths. Good! And you say we must sail at once? Hm! In half an hour wind and tide will be in our favor. We're light of ballast, but if we're careful, I've no doubt it will be safe. We must get some fresh water. But that we can hurry up. Hm! I hadn't expected sailing orders so soon; but in an hour's time, Mr. Upham, if it's necessary, I can weigh anchor."

"Good!" cried Uncle Seth.

"Mr. Severance," Captain North called, "take five men and the cutter for the rest of the fresh water, and be quick about it. Willie, take Mr. Woods and Mr. Lamont below and show them to the stateroom the lady pa.s.sengers had when we came up from Rio. Now then, Guptil, you take your bag forward and stow it in the forecastle, and if you're hungry, tell the cook I said to give you a good cup of coffee and a plate of beans."