Cardigan Part 31

Aching with fatigue and mortification, I stood there so perfectly helpless that the great oaf fell a-laughing again, and, with a shrug of good-humoured contempt, handed me back my rifle as though I were an infant.

"Don't grind your teeth at me," he chuckled. "Come to the camp, lad. I mean no harm to you. If I did, there's men yonder who'd slit your pipes for the pleasure, I warrant."

He took a step up the slope, looked around in the moonlight encouragingly, then abruptly returned to my side and pa.s.sed his great arm around me.

"I'm dog-tired," I said, weakly, making an effort to walk; but my knees had no strength in them, and I must have fallen except for his support.

Up, up, up we pa.s.sed through the foggy moonlight, he almost dragging me, and my feet a-trail behind. However, when we reached the plateau, I made out to stumble along with his aid, though I let him relieve me of my rifle, which he shouldered with his own.

After a minute or two I smelled the camp-fire, but could not see it.

Even in the darkest night a fire amid great trees is not visible at any considerable distance.

My big companion, striding along beside me, had been constantly muttering under his breath, and presently I distinguished the words he was singing:

--"One shoe off, one shoe on, Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John--"

"I know you," I said, abruptly.

He dropped his song and glanced around at me.

"Oh, you do, eh? Well, I mean to know you, too, so don't worry, young man."

"I won't," said I, scarcely able to speak.

Presently I saw a single tree in the darkness, all gleaming red, and in a moment we entered a ruddy ring of light, in the centre of which great logs burned and crackled in a little sea of whistling flames.

I was prepared to encounter the other coureur-de-bois, and there he was, ferret-face peering and sniffing at us as we approached. However, beyond a grunt, he paid me no attention, and presently fell to stirring something in a camp-pot which hung from cross-sticks over a separate bed of coals.

There was a third figure there, seated at the base of a gigantic pine tree; a little Hebrew man, gathering his knees in his arms and peeping up at me with watery, red-rimmed eyes; Saul Shemuel!--though I was too weary to bother my head as to how he came there. As I pa.s.sed him he looked up, but he did not appear to know me, though he came every spring to Sir William for his peddling license, and sometimes sold us children gaffs and ferret-muzzles and gilt chains for pet dogs.

He bade me good-evening in an uncertain voice, and peered up at me continually; and although I doubted that even Sir William could have recognized me now, I feared this Jew.

The big man brought me a bowl of broth and spread a blanket for me close to the blaze. I do not recollect drinking the broth, but I must have done so, for shortly a delicious warmth enveloped me within and without, and that is the last I remembered that night.

CHAPTER X

It was still dark when I awoke; the fire had become a pyramid of coals. By the dull glow I saw two figures moving; one of them presently crossed the dim, crimson circle and sat down beside me, fists clasped under his ma.s.sive chin, rifle balanced on his knees.

"I am awake," I whispered. "Is there any trouble?"

Without moving a muscle of his huge frame, the forest runner said: "Don't come into the fire-ring. There's a man been prowling yonder, a-sniffing our fire, for the last four hours."

I drew myself farther into the darkness, looking about me, s.h.i.+vering and rubbing my stiffened limbs.

"How do you feel?" he asked, without turning his head.

I told him I felt rested, and thanked him so earnestly for his great kindness to me that he began to laugh and chuckle all to himself and drag his great chin to and fro across his knuckles.

"Consider yourself fortunate, eh?" he repeated, rising to come into the thicket and squat on his haunches beside me.

"Yes," said I, wondering what he found so droll in the situation.

"Ever hear of Catamount Jack?" he inquired, after a moment.

"Yes; you mean Jack Mount, the highwayman? But you are mistaken; the man who follows me is not Jack Mount," I replied, smiling.

"Sure?"

"Oh yes," I said, bitterly; "I ought to know."

"What do you know about Jack Mount?" he asked.

"I? Nothing--that is, nothing except what everybody knows."

"Well, what does Mister Everybody know?" he inquired, sneeringly.

"They say he takes the King's highway," I replied. "There's a book about him, printed in Boston."

"With a gibbet on the cover," interrupted the big fellow, impatiently.

"Oh, I know all that. But don't they say he's a rebel?"

"Why, yes," I replied; "everybody knows he set fire to the King's s.h.i.+p, _Gaspee_, and started the rebels a-pitching tea overboard from Griffin's Wharf."

I stopped short and looked at him in amazement. _He_ was Jack Mount! I did not doubt it for one moment. And there was the famous Weasel, too--that little, shrivelled comrade of his!--both corresponding exactly to their descriptions which I had read in the Boston book, ay, read to Silver Heels, while her gray eyes grew rounder and rounder at the exploits of these so-called "Minions of the Moon."

"Well," asked the forest runner, with a chuckle, "do you still think yourself lucky?"

I managed to say that I thought I was, but my lack of enthusiasm sent the big fellow into spasms of smothered laughter.

"Now, now, be sensible," he said. "You know you've a belt full of gold, a string of good wampum in your sack, and as pretty a rifle as ever I saw. And you still think yourself in luck? And you're supping with Jack Mount? And the Weasel's watching everything from yonder hazel-bunch? And Saul Shemuel's pretending to be asleep under that pine-tree? Why, Mr. Cardigan, you amaze me!" he lisped, mockingly.

So the little Hebrew had recognized me after all. I swallowed a lump in my throat and rose to my elbow. With Jack Mount beside me, Walter Butler prowling outside the fire-ring, and I alone, stripped of every weapon, what in Heaven's sight was left for me to do? Truly, I had jumped into that same fire which burns below all frying-pans, and presently must begin a-roasting, too.

"So they say I take the King's highway, eh?" observed Mount, twiddling his great thumbs over his ramrod and digging his heels into the pine-needles.

"They say so," I replied, sullenly.

He burst out petulantly: "I never take a _rebel_ purse! The next fool you hear call me a cut-purse, tell him that to stop his mouth withal!"

And he fell a-muttering to himself: "King's highway, eh? Not mine, not his, not yours--oh no!--but the King's. By G.o.d! I'd like to meet his Majesty of a moonlight on this same highway of his!"

He turned roughly on me, demanding what brought me into the forest; but I shook my head, lips obstinately compressed.

"Won't tell, eh?" he growled.