The Heart's Highway Part 17

Then she rose and turned to Sir Humphrey and Catherine.

"I am ready," said she, and Sir Humphrey gave my hand one last wring, and said that he would stand by me. Then they fled and, as I lay there alone, I heard their footsteps on the cellar stairs, and presently the dip of the boat as she was launched, and heard it above all the din outside, so keen were my ears for aught that concerned her.

Then that sound and all others grew dim, for I was near swooning, and when the door fell with a mighty crash near me, it might have been the fall of a rose leaf on velvet, and I had small heed of the fierce faces which bent over me, yet the hands extended toward my wounds were tender enough. And I saw as in a dream, Capt. Robert Waller, with his arm tied up, and wondered dimly if we were both dead, for I verily believed that I had killed him, and I heard him say, and his voice sounded as if a sea rolled between us, "'Tis the convict tutor, Wingfield, who held the door, and unless I be much mistaken, he hath his death-wound. Make a litter and lift him gently, and five of you search the house for whatever other rebels be hid herein."

And as I live, in the midst of my faintness, which made all sounds far away as from beyond the boundary of the flesh, and beyond the din of battle, which was still going on, though feebly, like a fire burning to its close, I heard the dip of oars on the creek, and knew that Mary Cavendish was safe.

A litter they fashioned from a lid of a chest while the search was going on, and I was lifted upon it with due regard to my wounds, which I thought a generous thing of Captain Waller, inasmuch as his own face was frowning with the pain of the wound which I had given him, but he was a brave man, and a brave man is ever a generous foe.

But when I was on the litter, breathing hard, yet with some consciousness, he bent close over me, and whispered "Sir, your wounds are bound up with strips torn from a woman's linen. I have a wife, and I know. Who was in hiding here, sir?"

My eyes flew wide open at that.

"No one," I gasped out. "No one as I live."

But he laughed, and bending still lower, whispered, "Have no fear as to that, Master Wingfield. Convict or not, you are a brave man, and that which you perchance gave your life to hide, shall be hidden for all Robert Waller."

So saying he gave the order to carry me forth with as little jolting as might be, and stationed himself at my side lest I come to harm from some over-zealous soldier. But in truth the militia and the officers in those days were apparently of somewhat uncertain quant.i.ty as regarded their allegiance to the King or the Colony.

The sympathy of many of them was with the colonists who made a stand against tyranny, and they were half-hearted, if whole-handed, for the King.

Just before they bore me across the threshold of Laurel Creek, those troopers who had been sent to search the house, clattered down the stair and swore that not so much as a mouse was in hiding there, then we all went forth.

Captain Waller, though walking somewhat weakly himself, kept close to my side. And he did not mount horse until we were out in the highway.

The grounds of Laurel Creek and the tobacco fields were a most lamentable sight, though I seemed to see everything as through a mist. Here and there one lay sprawled with limbs curled like a dead spider, or else flung out at a stiff length of agony. And Capt. Noel Jaynes lay dead with a better look on his gaunt old face in death than in life. In truth Capt. Noel Jaynes might almost have been taken for a good man as he lay there dead. And the outlaw who lived next door to Margery Key was doubled up where he fell in a sulky heap of death, and by his side wept his shrewish wife, shrilly lamenting as if she were scolding rather than grieving, and I trow in the midst of it all, the thought pa.s.sed through my mind that it was well for that man that he was past hearing, for it seemed as if she took him to task for having died.

Of d.i.c.k Barry was no sign to be seen, but Nick lay not dead, but dead drunk, and over him was crouched one of those black women with a knife in her hand, and no one molested her, thinking him dead, but dead he was not, only drunk, and she was wounded herself, with the blood trickling from her head, unable to carry him from the field as she had brought him.

They carried me past them, and the black woman's eyes rolled up at us like a wild beast's in a jungle defending her mate, and I remember thinking, though dimly, as a man will do when he has lost much blood, that love was love, and perhaps showed forth the brighter and whiter, the viler and blacker the heart which held it, and then I knew no more for a s.p.a.ce.

XIX

When I came to a consciousness of myself again, the first thing of which I laid hold with my mind as a means whereby to pull my recollections back to my former cognisance of matters was a broad shaft of sunlight streaming in through the west window of the prison in Jamestown. And all this sunbeam was horribly barred like the body of a wasp by the iron grating of the window, and had a fierce sting of heat in it, for it was warm though only May, and I was in a high fever by reason of my wounds. And another thing which served to hale me back to acquaintance with my fixed estate of life was a great swarm of flies which had entered at that same window, and were grievously tormenting me, and I was too weak to disperse them. All my wounds were dressed and bandaged and I was laid comfortably enough upon a pallet, but I was all alone except for the flies which settled upon me blackly with such an insistence of buzzing that that minor grievance seemed verily the greatest in the world, and for the time all else was forgot.

For some little time I did not think of Mary Cavendish, so hedged about was I as to my freedom of thought and love by my physical ills, for verily after a man has been out of consciousness with a wound, it is his body which first struggles back to existence, and his heart and soul have to follow as they may.

So I lay there knowing naught except the weary pain of my wounds, and that sense of stiffness which forbade me to move, and the fretful heat of that fierce west sunbeam, and the buzzing swarm of flies, for some little time before the memory of it all came to me.

Then indeed, though with great pain, I raised myself upon my elbow, and peered about my cell, and called aloud for some one to come, thinking some one must be within hearing, for the sounds of life were all about me: the tramp of horses on the road outside, the even fall of a workman's hammer, the sweet husky carol of a slave's song, and the laughter of children at play.

So I shouted and waited and shouted again, and no one came. There was in my cell not much beside my pallet, except a little stand which looked like one from Drake Hill, and on the stand was a china dish like one which I had often seen at Drake Hill, with some mess therein, what, I knew not, and a bottle of wine and some medicine vials and gla.s.ses. I was not ironed, and, indeed, there was no need of that, since I could not have moved.

Between the wound in my leg and various sword-cuts, and a general soreness and stiffness as if I had been tumbled over a precipice, I was well-nigh as helpless as a week-old babe.

I called again, but no one came, and presently I quit and lay with the burning eye of the sun in my face and that pestilent buzz of flies in my ears, and my weakness and pain so increasing upon my consciousness, that I heeded them not so much. I shut my eyes and that torrid sunbeam burned red through my lids, and I wondered if they had found out aught concerning Mary Cavendish, and I wondered not so much what they would do with me, since I was so weak and spent with loss of blood that nothing that had to do with me seemed of much moment.

But as I lay there I presently heard the key turn in the lock, and one Joseph Wedge, the jailor, entered, and I saw the flutter of a woman's draperies behind him, but he shut the door upon her, and then without my ever knowing how he came there, was the surgeon, Martyn Jennings, and he was over me looking to my wounds, and letting a little more blood to decrease my fever, though I had already lost so much, and then, since I was so near swooning, giving me a gla.s.s of the Burgundy on the stand. And whilst that was clouding my brain, since my stomach was fasting, and I had lost so much blood, entered that woman whom I had espied, and she was not Mary, but Catherine Cavendish, and there was a gentleman with her who stood aloof, with his back toward me, gazing out of the window, and of that I was glad since he screened that flaming sunbeam from me, and I concerned myself no more about him.

But at Catherine I gazed, and motioned to her to bend over me, and whispered that the jailor might not hear, what had become of Mary.

Then I saw the jailor had gone out, though I had not seen him go, and she making a sign to me that the gentleman at the window was not to be minded, went on to tell me what I thirsted to know; that she and Mary and Sir Humphrey had escaped that night with ease, and she and Mary had returned to Drake Hill before midnight, and had not been molested.

If Mary were suspected she knew not, but Sir Humphrey was then under arrest and was confined on board a ship in the harbour with Major Beverly, and his mother was daily sending billets to him to return home, and blaming him, and not his jailors, for his disobedience.

She told me, furthermore, that it was Cicely Hyde who had led the militia to our a.s.sembly at Laurel Creek that night, and was now in a low fever through remorse, and though she told me not, I afterward knew why that mad maid had done such a thing--'twas because of jealousy of me and Mary Cavendish, and she pulled down more upon her own head thereby than she wot of.

All this Catherine Cavendish told me in a manner which seemed strangely foreign to her, being gentle, and yet not so gentle as subdued, and her fair face was paler than ever, and when I looked at her and said not a word, and yet had a question in my eyes which she was at no loss to interpret, tears welled into her own, and she bent lower and whispered lest even the stranger at the window should hear, that Mary "sent her dear love, but, but--"

I raised myself with such energy at that that she was startled, and the gentleman at the window half turned.

"What have they done with her?" I cried. "If they dare--"

"Hush," said Catherine. "Our grandmother hath but locked her in her chamber, since she hath discovered her love for thee, and frowns upon it, not since thou art a convict, but since thou hast turned against the King. She says that no granddaughter of hers shall wed a rebel, be he convict or prince. But she is safe, Harry, and there will no harm come to her, and indeed I think that if they in authority have heard aught of what she hath done, they are minded to keep it quiet, and--and--"

Then to my exceeding bewilderment down on her knees beside me went that proud maid and begged my pardon for her scorn of me, saying that she knew me guiltless, and knew for what reason I had taken such obloquy upon myself.

Then the gentleman at the window turned when she appealed to him, and came near, and I saw who he was--my half-brother, John Chelmsford.

XX

It was six years and more since I had seen my half-brother, and I should scarcely have known him, for time had worked great changes in both his face and form. He was much stouter than I remembered him, and wore a ruddy point of beard at his chin, and a great wig, whereas I recalled him as smooth of face, with his own hair.

But he was a handsome man, as I saw even then, lying in so much pain and weakness, and he came and stood over me, and looked at me more kindly than I should have expected, and I could see something of our common mother in his blue eyes. He reached down his hand and shook the one of mine which I could muster strength to raise, and called me brother, and hoped that I found myself better, and gave me very many tender messages of our mother, and of his father likewise, which puzzled me exceedingly, until matters were explained. Colonel Chelmsford had parted with me when I left England with but scant courtesy, and as for my poor mother, I had not seen her at all, she being confined to her chamber with grief over my disgrace, and not one word had I received from them since that time. So when John Chelmsford said that our mother sent her dear love to her son Harry, and that nothing save her delicate health had prevented her from sailing to Virginia in the same ship to see the son from whom she had been so long parted, I gasped, and felt my head reel, and I called up my mother's face, and verily I felt the tears start in my eyes, but I was very weak.

Then forth from her pocket Catherine drew a ring, and it flashed green with a great emerald, and particoloured with brilliants, before my eyes, and I was well-nigh overcome by the sight of that and everything turned black before me, for it was my Lord Robert Ealing's great ring of exceeding value, for the theft of which I had been transported.

Straightway Catherine saw that it was too much for me, for she knelt down beside me and called John to give her a flask of sweet waters which stood on the table, and began bathing my forehead, the while my brother looked on with something of a jealous frown.

"'Twas thoughtless of me, Harry," she whispered, "but they say joy does not kill, and--and--dost thou know the ring?"

I nodded. It seemed to me that no jewels could ever be mined which I would know as I knew that green star of emerald and those encircling brilliants. That ring I knew to my cost.

"My Lord Ealing is dead," she said, "and thou knowest that he was a kinsman of the Chelmsfords, and after his funeral came this ring and a letter, and--and--thou art cleared, Harry. And--and--now I know why thou didst what thou did, Harry, 'twas--'twas--to shield me."

With that she burst into a great flood of tears, even throwing herself upon the floor of my cell in all her slim length, and not letting my brother John raise her, though he strove to do so.

"'Tis here, 'tis here I belong, John," she cried out wildly, "for you know not, you know not what injustice I have done this innocent man. Never can I make it good with my life."

It is here that I shall stop the course of my story to explain the whole matter of the ring, which at the time I was too weak and spent with pain to comprehend fully as Catherine Cavendish related it. It was a curious and at the same time a simple tale, as such tales are wont to be, and its very simplicity made it seem then, and seem now, well-nigh incredible. For it is the simple things of this world which are always most unbelievable, perhaps for this reason: that men after Eden and the Serpent, expect some subtlety of reasoning to account for all happenings, and always comes the suspicion that somewhat beside two and two go to make four.

My Lord Robert Ealing who had come to the ball at Cavendish Court that long last year, was a distant kinsman of our family, and unwedded, but a man who went through the world with a silly leer of willingness toward all womenkind. And 'twas this very trait, perhaps, which accounted for his remaining unwedded, although a lord, though the fact that his estates were inc.u.mbered may have had somewhat to do with it. Be that as it may, he lived alone, except for a few old servants, and was turned sixty, when, long after my transportation, he wedded his cook, who gave him three daughters and one son, to whom the estate went, but the ring and the letter came to the Chelmsfords. The letter, which I afterwards saw, was a most curious thing, both as to composition and spelling and chirography, for his lordship was no scholar. And since the letter is but short, I may perhaps as well give it entire. After this wise it ran, being addressed to Col. John Chelmsford, who was his cousin, though considerably younger.