The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea Part 46

"I might answer you, Colonel Howard, by saying that it is according to the laws of arms, or rather in retaliation for the thousand evils that your English troops have inflicted between Maine and Georgia; but I wish not to increase the unpleasant character of this scene, and I therefore will tell you that our advantage shall be used with moderation. The instant that our men can be collected, and our prisoners properly secured, your dwelling shall be restored to your authority. We are no freebooters, sir; and you will find it so after our departure. Captain Manual, draw off your guard into the grounds, and make your dispositions for a return march to our boats--let the boarders fall back, there! out with ye! out with ye--tumble out, you boarders!"

The amicable order of the young lieutenant, which was delivered after the stern, quick fashion of his profession, operated on the cl.u.s.ter of dark figures that were grouped around the door like a charm; and as the men whom Barnstable had led followed their shipmates into the courtyard, the room was now left to such only as might be termed the gentlemen of the invading party, and the family of Colonel Howard.

Barnstable had continued silent since his senior officer had a.s.sumed the command, listening most attentively to each syllable that fell from either side; but now that so few remained, and the time pressed, he spoke again:

"If we are to take boat so soon, Mr. Griffith, it would be seemly that due preparations should be made to receive the ladies, who are to honor us with their presence; shall I take that duty on myself?"

The abrupt proposal produced a universal surprise in his hearers; though the abashed and conscious expression of Katherine Plowden's features sufficiently indicated that to her, at least, it was not altogether unexpected. The long silence that succeeded the question was interrupted by Colonel Howard.

"Ye are masters, gentlemen; help yourselves to whatever best suits your inclinations. My dwelling, my goods, and my wards, are alike at your disposal--or, perhaps Miss Alice here, good and kind Miss Alice Duns...o...b.., may suit the taste of some among ye! Ah! Edward Griffith!

Edward Griffith! little did I ever--"

"Breathe not that name in levity again, thou scoffer, or even your years may prove a feeble protection!" said a stern, startling voice from behind. All eyes turned involuntarily at the unexpected sounds, and the muscular form of the Pilot was seen resuming its att.i.tude of repose against the wall, though every fibre of his frame was working with suppressed pa.s.sion.

When the astonished looks of Griffith ceased to dwell on this extraordinary exhibition of interest in his companion, they were turned imploringly towards the fair cousins, who still occupied the distant corner, whither fear had impelled them.

"I have said that we are not midnight marauders, Colonel Howard," he replied: "but if any there be here, who will deign to commit themselves to our keeping, I trust it will not be necessary to say, at this hour, what will be their reception."

"We have not time for unnecessary compliments," cried the impatient Barnstable; "here is Merry, who, by years and blood, is a suitable a.s.sistant for them, in arranging their little baggage--what say you, urchin, can you play the lady's maid on emergency?"

"Ay, sir, and better than I acted the peddler boy," cried the gay youngster; "to have my merry cousin Kate and my good cousin Cicely for shipmates, I could play our common grandmother! Come, coz, let us be moving; you will have to allow a little leeway in time, for my awkwardness."

"Stand back, young man," said Miss Howard, repulsing his familiar attempt to take her arm; and then advancing, with a maidenly dignity, nigher to her guardian, she continued, "I cannot know what stipulations have been agreed to by my cousin Plowden, in the secret treaty she has made this night with Mr. Barnstable: this for myself, Colonel Howard, I would have you credit your brother's child when she says, that to her, the events of the hour have not been more unexpected than to yourself."

The veteran gazed at her, for a moment, with an expression of his eye that denoted reviving tenderness; but gloomy doubts appeared to cross his mind again, and he shook his head, as he walked proudly away.

"Nay, then," added Cecilia, her head dropping meekly on her bosom, "I may be discredited by my uncle, but I cannot be disgraced without some act of my own."

She slowly raised her mild countenance again, and bending her eyes on her lover, she continued, while a rich rush of blood pa.s.sed over her fine features:

"Edward Griffith, I will not, I cannot say how humiliating it is to think that you can, for an instant, believe I would again forget myself so much as to wish to desert him whom G.o.d has given me for a protector, for one chosen by my own erring pa.s.sions. And you, Andrew Merry! Learn to respect the child of your mother's sister, if not for her own sake, at least for that of her who watched your cradle!"

"Here appears to be some mistake." said Barnstable, who partic.i.p.ated, however, in no trifling degree, in the embarra.s.sment of the abashed boy; "but, like all other mistakes on such subjects, it can be explained away, I suppose. Mr. Griffith, it remains for you to speak--d.a.m.n it, man," he whispered, "you are as dumb as a codfish--I am sure so fine a woman is worth a little fair-weather talk:--you are muter than a four- footed beast--even an a.s.s can bray!"

"We will hasten our departure, Mr. Barnstable," said Griffith, sighing heavily, and rousing himself, as if from a trance. "These rude sights cannot but appall the ladies. You will please, sir, to direct the order of our march to the sh.o.r.e. Captain Manual has charge of our prisoners, who must all be secured, to answer for an equal number of our own countrymen."

"And our countrywomen!" said Barnstable, "are they to be forgotten, in the selfish recollection of our own security?"

"With them we have no right to interfere, unless at their request."

"By heaven! Mr. Griffith, this may smack of learning," cried the other, "and it may plead bookish authority as its precedent; but let me tell you, sir, it savors but little of a sailor's love."

"Is it unworthy of a seaman, and a gentleman, to permit the woman he calls his mistress to be so, other than in name?"

"Well, then, Griff, I pity you, from my soul. I would rather have had a sharp struggle for the happiness that I shall now obtain so easily, than that you should be thus cruelly disappointed. But you cannot blame me, my friend, that I avail myself of fortune's favor. Miss Plowden, your fair hand. Colonel Howard, I return you a thousand thanks for the care you have taken, hitherto, of this precious charge; and believe me, sir, that I speak frankly, when I say, that, next to myself, I should choose to entrust her with you in preference to any man on earth."

The colonel turned to the speaker, and bowed low, while he answered with grave courtesy:

"Sir, you repay my slight services with too much grat.i.tude. If Miss Katherine Plowden has not become under my guardianship all that her good father, Captain John Plowden, of the Royal Navy, could have wished a daughter of his to be, the fault, unquestionably, is to be attributed to my inability to instruct, and to no inherent quality in the young lady herself. I will not say, Take her, sir, since you have her in your possession already, and it would be out of my power to alter the arrangement; therefore, I can only wish that you may find her as dutiful as a wife as she has been, hitherto, as a ward and a subject."

Katherine had yielded her hand, pa.s.sively, to her lover, and suffered him to lead her more into the circle than she had before been; but now she threw off his arm, and shaking aside the dark curls which she had rather invited to fall in disorder around her brow, she raised her face and looked proudly up, with an eye that sparkled with the spirit of its mistress, and a face that grew pale with emotion at each moment, as she proceeded:

"Gentlemen, the one may be as ready to receive as the other is to reject; but has the daughter of John Plowden no voice in this cool disposal of her person? If her guardian tires of her presence, other habitations may be found, without inflicting so severe a penalty on this gentleman as to compel him to provide for her accommodation in a vessel which must be already straitened for room!"

She turned, and rejoined her cousin with such an air of maidenly resentment as a young woman would be apt to discover, who found herself the subject of matrimonial arrangement without her own feelings being at all consulted. Barnstable, who knew but little of the windings of the female heart, or how necessary to his mistress, notwithstanding her previous declarations, the countenance of Cecilia, was to any decided and open act in his favor, stood in stupid wonder at her declaration. He could not conceive that a woman who had already ventured so much in secret in his behalf, and who had so often avowed her weakness, should shrink to declare it again at such a crisis, though the eyes of a universe were on her! He looked from one of the party to the other, and met in every face an expression of delicate reserve, except in those of the guardian of his mistress, and of Borroughcliffe.

The colonel had given a glance of returning favor at her whom he now conceived to be his repentant ward, while the countenance of the entrapped captain exhibited a look of droll surprise, blended with the expression of bitter ferocity it had manifested since the discovery of his own mishap.

"Perhaps, sir," said Barnstable, addressing the latter, fiercely, "you see something amusing about the person of this lady, to divert you thus unseasonably. We tolerate no such treatment of our women in America!"

"Nor do we quarrel before ours in England," returned the soldier, throwing back the fierce glance of the sailor with interest; "but I was thinking of the revolutions that time can produce; nothing more, I do a.s.sure you. It is not half an hour since I thought myself a most happy fellow; secure in my plans for overreaching the scheme you had laid to surprise me; and now I am as miserable a dog as wears a single epaulette, and has no hope of seeing its fellow!"

"And in what manner, sir, can this sudden change apply to me?" asked Katherine, with all her spirit.

"Certainly not to your perseverance in the project to a.s.sist my enemies, madam," returned the soldier, with affected humility; "nor to your zeal for their success, or your consummate coolness at the supper-table! But I find it is time that I should be superannuated--I can no longer serve my king with credit, and should take to serving my G.o.d, like all other worn-out men of the world! My hearing is surely defective, or a paddock- wall has a most magical effect in determining sounds!"

Katherine waited not to hear the close of this sentence, but walked to a distant part of the room to conceal the burning blushes that covered her countenance. The manner in which the plans of Barnstable had become known to his foe was no longer a mystery. Her conscience also reproached her a little with some unnecessary coquetry, as she remembered that quite one-half of the dialogue between her lover and herself, under the shadow of that very wall to which Borroughcliffe alluded, had been on a subject altogether foreign to contention and tumults. As the feelings of Barnstable were by no means so sensitive as those of his mistress, and his thoughts much occupied with the means of attaining his object, he did not so readily comprehend the indirect allusion of the soldier, but turned abruptly away to Griffith, and observed with a serious air:

"I feel it my duty, Mr. Griffith, to suggest that we have standing instructions to secure all the enemies of America, wherever they may be found, and to remind you that the States have not hesitated to make prisoners of females in many instances."

"Bravo!" cried Borroughcliffe; "if the ladies will not go as your mistresses, take them as your captives!"

"'Tis well for you, sir, that you are a captive yourself, or you should be made to answer for this speech," retorted the irritated Barnstable.

"It is a responsible command, Mr. Griffith, and must not be disregarded."

"To your duty, Mr. Barnstable," said Griffith, again rousing from deep abstraction; "you have your orders, sir; let them be executed promptly."

"I have also the orders of our common superior, Captain Munson, Mr.

Griffith; and I do a.s.sure you, sir, that in making out my instructions for the Ariel--poor thing! there are no two of her timbers hanging together--but my instructions were decidedly particular on that head."

"And my orders now supersede them."

"But am I justifiable in obeying a verbal order from an inferior, in direct opposition to a written instruction?"

Griffith had hitherto manifested in his deportment nothing more than a cold determination to act, but the blood now flew to every vessel in his cheeks and forehead, and his dark eyes flashed fire, as he cried authoritatively:

"How, sir! do you hesitate to obey?"

"By heaven, sir, I would dispute the command of the Continental Congress itself, should they bid me so far to forget my duty to--to--"

"Add yourself, sir!--Mr. Barnstable, let this be the last of it. To your duty, sir."

"My duty calls me here, Mr. Griffith."

"I must act, then, or be bearded by my own officers. Mr. Merry, direct Captain Manual to send in a sergeant and a file of marines."

"Bid him come on himself!" cried Barnstable, maddened to desperation by his disappointment; "'tis not his whole corps that can disarm me--let them come on! Hear, there, you Ariels! rally around your captain."

"The man among them who dares to cross that threshold without my order, dies," cried Griffith, menacing with a naked hanger the seamen who had promptly advanced at the call of their old commander. "Yield your sword, Mr. Barnstable, and spare yourself the disgrace of having it forced from you by a common soldier."