The Red City Part 18

"Yes, I am sure."

"And what will Mary Swanwick do with this money won in evil ways?"

"I do not know."

"It is well that she should be counseled."

"Do you not think, sir, as a man of sense and a gentleman and more, that it may be well to leave a high-minded woman to dispose of this matter?

If she goes wrong, will it not then be time to interfere? There is not a ha'-penny of greed in her. Let her alone."

The Quaker sat still a moment, his lean figure bent over his staff.

"Thou art right," he said, looking up. "The matter shall rest, unless worse come of it."

"Why not see Mr. Langstroth about it?" said the German, mischievously inclined. "He is of Friends, I presume."

"He is not," said Pemberton. "He talked in the war of going forth from us with Wetherill, but he hath not the courage of a house-fly. His doings are without conscience, and now he is set in his ways. He hath been temperately dealt with long ago and in vain. An obstinate man; when he sets his foot down thou hast to dig it up to move him. I shall not open the matter with Josiah Langstroth. I have been led to speak harshly. Farewell."

When Mrs. Swanwick heard of this and had talked of it to Margaret, the Pearl said, "We will not take the money, and uncle cannot; and it may go." Her decisiveness both pleased and astonished the mother. It was a maturing woman who thus antic.i.p.ated Schmidt's advice and her own, and here for a little while the matter lay at rest.

Not all Friends, however, were either aware of what Pemberton had learned or were fully satisfied, so that one day Daniel Offley, blacksmith, a noisy preacher in meetings and sometimes advised of elders to sit down, resolved to set at rest alike his conscience and his curiosity. Therefore, on a February afternoon, being the 22d, and already honored as the birthday of Washington, he found Margaret alone, as luck would have it. To this unusual house, as I have said, came not only statesmen, philosophers, and the rich. Hither, too, came the poor for help, the lesser Quakers, women and men, for counsel or a little sober gossip. All were welcome, and Offley was not unfamiliar with the ways of the house.

He found Margaret alone, and sitting down, began at once and harshly to question her in a loud voice concerning the story of her worldly vanity, and asked why she could thus have erred.

The girl had had too much of it. Her conscience was clear, and Pemberton, whom she loved and respected, had been satisfied, as Schmidt had told them. She grew red, and rising, said: "I have listened to thee; but now I say to thee, Daniel Offley, that it is none of thy business.

Go home and shoe thy horses."

He was not thus to be put down. "This is only to add bad temper to thy other faults. As a Friend and for many of the Society, I would know what thee has done with thee devil wages of the lottery."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Thou canst not shoe my conscience'"]

She looked at him a moment. The big, ruddy face struck her as comical.

Her too often repressed sense of humor helped her, and crying, "Thou canst not shoe my conscience, Daniel Offley," she fled away up-stairs, her laughter ringing through the house, a little hysterical, perhaps, and first cousin to tears. The amazed preacher, left to his meditations, was shocked into taking off his beaver and saying strong words out of a far away past.

She was angry beyond the common, for Schmidt had said it was all of it unwise and meddlesome, nor was the mother better pleased than he when she came to hear of Offley's visit. "I am but half a Friend," she confessed to Schmidt, not liking altogether even the gentler inquiries of John Pemberton.

When on the next Sunday Madame de Courval was about to set out for the Swedes' church, Mrs. Swanwick said, "It is time to go to meeting, my child."

"I am not going, mother."

"But thou didst not go last First Day."

"No. I cannot, mother. May I go with madame?"

"Why not?" said Schmidt, looking up from his book. And so the Pearl went to Gloria Dei.

"They have lost a good Quaker by their impertinence," said Schmidt to himself. "She will never again go to meeting." And, despite much gentle urging and much persuasive kindness, this came at last to be her custom, although she still wore unchanged her simple Quaker garb. Madame at least was pleased, but also at times thoughtful of the future when the young vicomte would walk between them down Swanson Street to church.

There was, of course, as yet no news of the _Marie_, and many bets on the result of the bold venture were made in the coffee-houses, for now, in March of the year '93, the story of the king's death and of war between France and England began further to embitter party strife and alarm the owners of ships. If the vicomtesse was anxious, she said no word of what she felt. Outside of the quiet home where she sat over her embroidery there was an increase of political excitement, with much abuse, and in the gazettes wild articles over cla.s.sic signatures. With Jacobin France for exemplars, the half-crazed Republicans wore tricolor c.o.c.kades, and the _bonnet rouge_ pa.s.sed from head to head at noisy feasts when "ca Ira" and the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" were sung. Many persons were for war with England, but the wiser of both parties were for the declaration of neutrality, proclaimed of late amid the fury of extreme party sentiment. The new French minister eagerly looked for by the republicans was soon to come and to add to the embarra.s.sment of the Government whatever of mischief insolent folly could devise.

Meanwhile the hearts of two women were on the sea, and the ship-owners were increasingly worried; for now goods for French ports would be seized on the ocean and sailors claimed as English at the will of any British captain.

Amid all this rancor of party and increase of anxiety as to whether America was to be at war or peace, the small incident of a girl's change of church was soon forgotten. It was not a rare occurrence, and only remarkable because, as Schmidt said to Gainor Wynne somewhat later, it proved what a convincing preacher is anger.

Mistress Wynne had come home from Boston after a week's travel, and being tired, went to bed and decided to have a doctor, with Chovet for choice, because Rush had little gossip. She was amply fed with it, including the talk about the change of dress and the lottery. So good was the effect that, on the doctor's departure, she threw his pills out of the window, and putting on pattens, took her cane and went away through the slush to see Margaret. On the way many things pa.s.sed through her mind, but most of all she remembered the spiritual struggles of her own young days, when she, too, had broken with Friends.

And now when she met Margaret in the hall, it was not the girl who wept most, as Gainor cried to Schmidt to go and not mock at two women in tears no man could understand.

"Ah," cried Schmidt, obediently disappearing, "he who shall explicate the tears of women shall be crowned by the seraphs." Thus he saw Gainor in her tender mood, such as made her to be forgiven much else of men and of angels. She comforted the girl, and over the sad story of the stays and garters she laughed--not then, but in very luxury of unfettered mirth on her homeward way.

He who got the largest satisfaction out of poor Margaret's troubles was Josiah Langstroth, as he reflected how for the first time in his life he had made Mary Swanwick angry, had stirred up Friends, and at last had left the Presbyterian ministers of the trustees of Princeton College in a hopeless quandary. If the owner of the prize in their lottery would not take it, to whom did it belong? And so at last it was left in Miss Swanwick's name in the new bank Hamilton had founded, to await a use of which as yet no man dreamed.

XI

When De Courval lost sight of the red city, and while the unusual warmth of the winter weather was favoring their escape from the ice adrift on the bay, the young man reflected that above all things it was wise to be on good terms with his captain.

Accordingly, he said: "It is fit, sir, that you should advise me as to Mr. Wynne's instructions. Have the kindness to read them. I have not done so."

Much gratified, the captain took the paper. "Hum!" he exclaimed, "to reach Port au Prince in time to prevent unloading of the _George Washington_. To get her out and send her home with her cargo." He paused. "We may be in time to overhaul and stop her; but if she has arrived, to carry her out from under the guns of the fort is quite another matter. 'To avoid the British cruisers.' Well, yes, we are only in ballast,"--he looked up with pride at the raking masts and well-trimmed sails,--"the ship does not float can catch the _Marie_.

'Free to do as seems best if we are stopped by privateers.' Ah, he knows well enough what I should do."

"He seems to have provided for that," said De Courval, glancing at the carronades and the long Tom in the bow such as many a peaceful ship prudently carried.

The captain grinned. "That is like Hugh Wynne. But these island fools rely on us for diet. They will be starving, and if the _George Washington_ reach the island before we do, they will lose no time, and, I guess, pay in worthless bills on France, or not at all. However, we shall see." This ended the conversation.

They had the usual varied luck of the sea; but the master carried sail, to the alarm of his mates, and seeing none of the dreaded cruisers, overtook a French merchant ship and learned with certainty of the outbreak of war between France and Great Britain, a fresh embarra.s.sment, as they well knew.

At sundown on February the 15th, the lookout on the crosstrees saw the mountains of San Domingo back of the city of Port au Prince, and running in under shelter of one of the many islands which protect the bay, the captain and the supercargo took counsel as to what they should do.

"If," said De Courval, "I could get ash.o.r.e as a French sailor at night, and learn something of how things stand, we might be helped."

The captain feared risks neither for himself nor for another, and at last said: "I can run you in at dark, land you on a spit of sand below the town, and wait for you."

Thus it was that in sailor garb, a tricolor c.o.c.kade in his hat, De Courval left the boat at eight at night and began with caution to approach the town. The brilliant moon of a clear tropic night gave sufficient light, and following the sh.o.r.e, he soon came upon the warehouses and docks, where he hoped to learn what ships were in the harbor. Soon, however, he was halted by sentries, and being refused permission to pa.s.s, turned away from the water-front. Pa.s.sing among rude cabins and seeing almost no one, he came out at last on a wide, well-built avenue and into a scene of sorrowful misery. Although the new commissioners of the republic had put down the insurrection of the slaves with appalling slaughter, their broken bands were still busy with the torch and the sword, so that the cities were filled with refugees of the plantation cla.s.s--men and women who were quite helpless and knew not where to turn for shelter or for the bread of the day.

De Courval had been quite unprepared for the wretchedness he now saw.

Indistinct in the moon-made shadows, or better seen where the light lay, were huddled groups of women and children, with here and there near by a man made helpless by years of the ownership of man. Children were crying, while women tried in vain to comfort them. Others were silent or wildly bewailing their fate. To all seeming, indifferent to the oft-repeated appeals of misery, went by officials, army officers, smoking cigarettes, drunken sailors, and such women as a seaport educates to baseness. Half of the town had been for months in ashes. The congestion of the remainder was more and more felt as refugees from ruined plantations came hither, hungry and footsore, to seek food where was little and charity where was none.

Unable to do more than pity, the young vicomte went his way with care along a street strangely crowded with all manner of people, himself on the lookout for a cafe where he might find seamen. Presently he found what he sought, and easily fell into sea-talk with a group of sailors.

He learned only that the town was without the usual supplies of food from the States; that the troops lived on fish, bananas, and yams, and that General Esbarbe had ruthlessly put down the negro insurrection.

Only one ship had come in of late. The outbreak of war between England and France had, in fact, for a time put an end to our valuable trade with the islands. Learning nothing of value, he paid his score and stood a moment in the doorway, the drunken revel of idle sailors behind him and before him the helpless wretchedness of men and women to whom want had been hitherto unknown. He must seek elsewhere for what he wished to learn. As he hesitated, two men in white linen went by with a woman.

They were laughing and talking loudly, apparently indifferent to the pitiable groups on door-steps or on the sidewalks.

"Let us go to the Cocoanut," said the woman. One of the men said "Yes."

They went on, singing a light drinking song. No one seemed to care for any one else: officials, sailors, soldiers, dest.i.tute planters seemed all to be in a state of detachment, all kindly human ties of man to man broken. In fact, for a year the island had been so gorged with tragedy that it no longer caused remark.