The Road to Paris Part 8

Fevers and numerous internal disorders a.s.sailed d.i.c.k and his comrades, and their cell, in its half light by day and in its black darkness by night, was the lodging of enfeebled wretches who sat or lay in close contact on the floor, thrown by pain or restlessness into every conceivable att.i.tude. Accustomed as he was to outdoor air, and deprived, as he came to be, of a breath of it, as well as of all exercise, d.i.c.k began early in August to lose vitality with alarming rapidity. He became as thin and as sharp of feature as the old Tory himself. His exclusion from the occasional outings in the prison yard became a theme of general talk in the cell.

One day the surgeon examined d.i.c.k's wound, a.s.suming as he did so a kind of grave frown, and uttering certain ominous e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns to himself, his manifestations having, to d.i.c.k's keen intelligence, the appearance of being put on for a purpose. Later, the same day, through a good-natured guard, the prisoners received two pieces of news. The first was that the new commander-in-chief of the rebels, Washington, who had arrived at Cambridge early in July, had threatened retaliation for any ill-treatment of American prisoners, and was taking measures that must eventually result in the exchange of those now in the jail. The second was that the old Tory's friends were working vigorously on his behalf, and that an order of release from General Gage might soon be expected.

To every one's surprise, the old gentleman heard this information with stupid indifference.

The next day, the surgeon returned, accompanied by the Irish officer, and made another examination of d.i.c.k's wound. This done, the surgeon turned to the officer, and said, in a kind of forced tone and shamefaced manner, as if he were acting a part he despised, "Amputation will be necessary in this case, sir."

"Indeed?" said the officer, without even a serious pretence of surprise.

"Then let it be done immediately."

"Immediately, the devil!" cried d.i.c.k. "Cut my leg off? Why, there's nothing the matter with it! I walked on it all the way to this prison!"

"My good man," said the officer, loftily, "you don't know what is best for you. It's our duty to care for you, even against your own will.

Don't double up your fists! You'll only hurt yourself by resisting. We shall use force, for your own welfare, if need be." The officer left the cell, and the surgeon briefly told d.i.c.k to be ready to be taken down-stairs in half an hour, by which time preparations would be made for the operation in the room used for such purposes; then he followed the officer.

Before d.i.c.k could recover from his bewilderment, or his comrades could offer other than expressions of indignant amazement, the cell door again opened, and the friendly guard came in and whispered to the printer that some of the Tory's friends were down-stairs with a coach and with an order for the old gentleman's release. The guard had been sent up-stairs to break the news to the Tory and to make him so presentable, if possible, that his friends might not have too much cause to complain of the effects upon him of his imprisonment. The guard, knowing the old gentleman's state, preferred to entrust the news-breaking to the superior delicacy and tact of the printer, and, having easily engaged the latter to perform it, went from the cell to wait in the corridor.

The printer, glancing at the old man and supposing him to be asleep, rapidly confided to his fellow prisoners what the guard had said, and then stepped over to the Tory and shook him gently by the shoulder.

After a pause, he repeated the shaking, then stooped closer to the old man and grasped his body. A moment later, the printer turned to the expectant prisoners, and said in a loud whisper, "By G.o.d, I think they're too late with their d.a.m.ned release! If I know anything, the old man's dead!"

Meanwhile, the Tory's friends, three gentlemen of middle age, sat down-stairs in the guard-room, talking with the Irish officer, who explained that the prisoner would take a few minutes to make his toilet.

When ten minutes had pa.s.sed, the officer went to the corridor, and called up the dim stairway, "Mr. Follansbee's friends are impatient to see him," a speech meant as a signal for the guard to conduct the old gentleman down-stairs. The officer then stood at the side of the stair-foot, while the three gentlemen waited just within the guard-room door, opposite the officer.

In a minute the guard appeared at the head of the stairs, followed by two armed comrades, and supporting by the arm a bent, trembling, heavily wigged, sharp-featured, blinking person, whose clothes, of rich texture, were the same the old Tory had worn into the prison, but were now sadly soiled.

Slowly and painfully their wearer descended from step to step, in the half light of the stairs and corridor. When he reached the foot, the Irish officer stepped back to make more room for the Tory's three friends. These now came from the guard-room, and stood with half smiling, half shocked faces, to give the old man greeting. When he reached the lowest step, they held out their hands to him, but, to their astonishment, as the guard let go his arm, he darted forth between two of them, strode past the sentries at the outer prison door, and, ignoring the waiting coach, plunged down the street with an alacrity miraculous in one so enfeebled, and turned off at right angles into the first street that ran southward.

"His imprisonment has crazed him!" cried one of the three gentlemen.

"h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation!" cried the Irish officer, rushing up the stairs and motioning the guard to follow. Entering the cell, he stepped over the prostrate bodies of several prisoners to a figure that lay motionless in a corner. The clothes on this figure were d.i.c.k Wetheral's, but the face was that of the dead old Tory. With a curse, and a gesture of threat at the prisoners in the cell, the officer bounded back to the door, fastened it, and leaped down the stairs to order a pursuit.

At about the same moment, d.i.c.k, tossing the old man's wig back towards the prison from which he ran, thus conversed jubilantly and defiantly with himself:

"Cut my leg off, eh? Not if it and its comrade serve me properly to-day!

The printer was right,--'twould have been a shame to waste that order of release on a dead man!"

As he ran, he divested himself of the old Tory's c.u.mbersome coat, throwing it over a gate into an alley-way between two houses, and he also mentally justified his apparent selfishness in consenting to be the one who should use the opportunity of escape. As the printer and others had argued, in the few moments available for discussion, d.i.c.k's leg was at stake, he had been singled out for the harshest treatment, there was an evident intention to persecute the life out of him, and the others might be presently exchanged, which d.i.c.k could not hope to be as long as the machinations of his enemy could hinder.

When the vital resources called forth by excitement were used up, and d.i.c.k fell back to his weakened and wounded condition, his gait became a walk. Fortunately, until that time, his way had been mainly through a deserted street, so that his running had attracted no attention.

Reaching a more populous thoroughfare, on which he saw more soldiers than citizens, he proceeded southwestwardly in a preoccupied manner, his coatless condition being easily accounted for by the heat of the season.

At last he sat down to rest on the steps of a large brick church, at a corner where the street opened to a great, green, hilly, partly wooded s.p.a.ce, which he knew, from previous description and from the military tents now upon it, to be the Common.

While he was viewing the scene, and gaining breath, and wondering how he should ever get out of the town, he became conscious of a hurried movement of men, at some distance back on his own route. Standing on the highest church step to look, he saw a squad of soldiers led by an officer whom he took to be the Irishman. Other people about had noticed this movement, which was rapidly nearing.

To get out of the way inconspicuously, d.i.c.k descended from the church steps, and started at a walk up the steep street that ran by the side of the church and which bounded the end of the Common. As he tugged up the hill, he knew by cries and footsteps that the soldiers were making good speed towards the corner he had left; and just as he reached the top of the hill he heard a shout from the foot of it.

"Stop that rebel!" were the words, and the voice was that of the Irish officer. d.i.c.k turned into the street that went along the upper side of the Common, and thence he bounded through the first open gate on the right-hand side, into a flowery garden before a broad residence whose wide door, flanked by gla.s.s panels and surmounted by a great fan-light, gaped hospitably from a s.p.a.cious vine-embowered porch. As he made for this porch, for the time hidden from his pursuers on the up-hill street by the trees at the corner of the Common, a young lady came idly from the door. She first halted at the approaching cry, "Stop that rebel,"

and then stepped back in surprise as d.i.c.k, tripping on the steps that led up to the porch, fell p.r.o.ne at her feet.

"Dear me, what's the matter?" she said, breathlessly; then quickly stooped and picked up something from near d.i.c.k's head.

"That belongs to me!" he said, hoa.r.s.ely, rising to his knees, and reaching out for it greedily. It was the precious miniature, which had in some manner worked from its fastenings in d.i.c.k's queue.

"Who are you?" asked the girl, who was slender, blue-eyed, and fair, still retaining the portrait.

"Stop that rebel!" came the cry from around the corner of the Common.

d.i.c.k's mind worked quickly. "I'm the man they're hunting," he said.

The girl frowned, murmured the word "rebel," and looked down at him with an expression of dislike. From this he knew she was a Tory, hence friendly to his pursuers and at bitter enmity with his cause.

She looked mechanically at the portrait, which had escaped from its silken bag. "Is this a lady who is waiting for you to come back from the fighting?" she asked, with sudden softness of tone and countenance.

"Yes," lied d.i.c.k, promptly; "as you also doubtless wait for some one!"

The girl blushed, and looked sympathetically at the portrait, then at d.i.c.k.

"Stop that rebel!" The voice had turned the corner of the Common, but its owner was still concealed from view by the trees and bushes of the garden. "The open gate yonder," it added; "search that place!"

"Sit down," quickly whispered the girl to d.i.c.k, handing him the portrait. "There,--under that bench!"

d.i.c.k obeyed, from lack of other choice, at the same time losing hope, for the s.p.a.ce beneath the bench was open to the view of any one entering the porch.

A moment later he felt and saw himself closed in from sight, by the skirts and petticoat of the young lady, who had taken her seat on the bench immediately over him.

In this novel hiding-place he lay, half stifled, while the girl politely answered the questions of the Irish officer, whom she directed to a rear alley, whither, she said, the fugitive must have betaken himself; and when the last soldier had gone from the premises she blushingly arose and faced her equally flushed guest, who stammered the thanks he could better look than speak. Not waiting for talk, she immediately conducted him to the garret of the house, where he pa.s.sed the rest of the day, and the ensuing night, on a pile of old bedclothes behind some barrels.

Next afternoon, she brought him a pa.s.s obtained from Major Urquhart, the town-major, permitting one Dorothy Morrill to pa.s.s the barriers at Boston Neck. She gave d.i.c.k a maid-servant's frock and cap, showed him how to put up his hair in feminine fashion, and led him out of the house and grounds by a back way while the family sat at supper.

"'Tis all for the sake of the lady who is waiting for you," were her last words, and d.i.c.k, bowing low so as to avoid her eyes, took the way she had described, to Boston Neck. In the streets he was chucked under the chin by certain jocular soldiers, which demonstrations he took as evidence of the excellence of his disguise.

His heart was in his mouth when he showed his pa.s.s to the sergeant of the guard, at the gate in the barriers, for failure at the last moment is a sickening thing. But he was pa.s.sed through without special question, and went on his way rejoicing to Roxbury, past the George Tavern, and so to the American lines, where, taking off his woman's garb before the astonished sentries, he was recognized by one of General Thomas's officers, and allowed to proceed through Brookline to Cambridge.

There he found things greatly changed since he had been taken prisoner, as he had found them at Roxbury also. The camps were larger, better equipped, and more orderly. Everywhere manifest was the presence of the new commander-in-chief, whose headquarters were at Cambridge, where the army's centre lay. Best of all, to d.i.c.k, companies of riflemen had arrived from Virginia and Pennsylvania, one from his own county, c.u.mberland. He knew its captain, Hendricks, by reputation, and, learning from Captain Maxwell that Tom MacAlister had regularly joined this organization, he hastened to follow the last-named hero's example, much to the said hero's unconcealed delight, although not to his surprise, for nothing ever surprised him. d.i.c.k found him quartered on Prospect Hill, in a hut of boards, brush, stones, and turf, and just returned from a day spent with a rifle in picking off British soldiers in Boston.

d.i.c.k was warmly welcomed by Captain Hendricks, and speedily mustered in.

He doffed his prison-worn clothes for a rifleman's suit, which had belonged to a man who had died in camp; renewed acquaintance with his friend, M'Cleland, who was now a lieutenant in the company, and with Lieutenant Simpson and others from his own part of the country; and pa.s.sed his days, like the other riflemen, on the hills, blazing away at British soldiers afar in the town, even bringing down a redcoat near the camp on the Common now and then.

He counted as a great event his first sight of Washington, as the commander-in-chief rode along the lines when the regiments were a.s.sembled for morning prayers. The large, soldierly figure, the mien of dignity and simplicity, the self-contained countenance, quite equalled all d.i.c.k's previously formed impressions of the Virginia hero, and would have done so without aid of the buff-faced blue coat over the buff underdress, the epaulettes, the small sword, and the great, warlike c.o.c.ked hat with its black c.o.c.kade.

On a fine September morning, the 8th of the month, d.i.c.k and Tom took note of these general orders of the commander-in-chief: "The detachment going under the command of Colonel Arnold, to be forthwith taken off the roll of duty and to march this evening to Cambridge Common, where tents and everything necessary are provided for their reception. The rifle company at Roxbury and those from Prospect Hill, to march early to-morrow morning, to join the above detachment. Such officers and men as are taken from General Green's brigade, for the above detachment, are to attend the muster of their respective regiments to-morrow morning, at seven o'clock, upon Prospect Hill; when the muster is finished, they are forthwith to rejoin the detachment at Cambridge."

"And what do ye think of that, now, sonny," said old Tom, softly. "Do ye mind a word I spoke to ye once, about the wind o' circ.u.mstance?"

"Why, what do you mean?" queried d.i.c.k.

"Nothing," said the piper's son, "only that order includes us, and maybe it's well ye keep it guid hauld of the bit picture, for this detachment will be bound for nane ither place than Quebec, lad!"

Quebec! d.i.c.k reached back and clutched the portrait, which had been restored to its former hiding-place; and only in a vague, distant way he heard the next ensuing words of MacAlister:

"It's ever over more hills and farther away, boy; and wha kens but the road will lead to Paris yet, afore all's said and done?"