Cardigan Part 84

The effect of his unexpected appeal was as dramatic as his sudden exit. With one impulse the company rose, grave, pale, tight-lipped; little groups formed on the floor; few words pa.s.sed; but Hanc.o.c.k had done his work, and every alarm company in Ma.s.sachusetts would know, ere many hours, that they were to fight one day, not for their honour, but to prevent the King of England from driving them to dishonour, so that their children might not die of want before their eyes.

It was not an orator's effort that Hanc.o.c.k had accomplished; it was a mere statement of a truth, yet so skilfully timed and so dramatic in execution that it was worth months of oratory before the vast audiences of Faneuil Hall. For he had startled the representatives of hundreds of villages, and set them thinking on that which was closest to them--the danger to the welfare of their own households. Such danger makes panthers of men.

If Hanc.o.c.k was theatrical at moments, the end justified the means; if he was an egotist, he risked his wealth for principle; if he was a dandy, he had the bravery of the true dandy, which clothes all garments with a spotless, s.h.i.+ning robe, and covers the face of vanity under a laurelled helmet.

It was late when the servant returned from Mr. Foxcroft, with a curt note from that gentleman, promising to receive me at one o'clock in the afternoon of the day following.

As I stood twisting the letter in my fingers, and staring out into the black city which perhaps sheltered the woman I loved somewhere amid its shadows, Jack Mount came up, peering through the window with restless eyes.

"Cade has never returned to this tavern," he said, gloomily. "No one here has either seen or heard of him since he and I left last April for Cresap's camp."

CHAPTER XXIII

Like a red lamp the sun swung above the smoky east, its round, inflamed lens peering through the smother beneath which Boston lay, blanketed by the thick vapours of the bay.

From my window I could distinguish the shadowy s.h.i.+p-yards close by.

Northeast, across Green Lane, lay the Mill Pond, sheeted in mist, separated from the bay by an indented causeway.

On Corps Hill the paling signal-fires went out, one by one; a green light twinkled aloft in the dusky tangle of a war-s.h.i.+p's rigging; the smoky beacon in its iron basket flared, sank, glimmered, and went out.

Across the street, through the white mist lifting, spectral warehouses loomed, every shutter locked, iron gates dripping rust.

Jack Mount came in, and sat down on the edge of the bed with a silent nod of greeting, clasping his large hands between his knees.

"I have been thinking of that d.a.m.ned thief-taker," he said, yawning.

"If he's tracked me from Pitt he's a good dog, and his wife should cast a prime dropper some day."

A servant brought us a bowl of stirabout and some rusks and salted codfish, and we breakfasted there in my chamber, scarcely speaking.

Instead of exultation at my nearness to Silver Heels, a foreboding had weighed on me since first I unclosed my eyes. The depression deepened as I sat brooding by the window where the white sea-fog rolled against the sweating panes. Mount ate in silence; I could scarcely swallow any food. Presently I pushed away my plate, drew paper and ink before me, and fell to composing a letter. From the tap-room below a boy came to bring us our morning cups, and we washed the salty tang from our throats. Mount lighted his yard of clay and lay back, puffing smoke at the smeared window-panes. I wrote slowly, drinking at intervals.

The morning draught refreshed us; and when at length suns.h.i.+ne broke out over the bay, something of our dormant spirits stirred to greet it.

"How silent is the world outside," said I, listening to the sea-birds'

mewing, and mending my quill with my hunting-knife.

"Misery breeds silence," he said.

"Are men starving here around us?" I asked, trying to realize what I had heard.

"Ay, and dying of it. The sun yonder no longer signals breakfast for Boston. Better finish your fish while you may."

He pulled slowly at his pipe. "If I am right," he drawled, "it would be close to mid-day now in England--the King's dinner-hour. His Majesty should be greasing his chin with hot goose-gravy."

His blue eyes began to s.h.i.+ne; the long pipe-stem snapped short between forefinger and thumb; the smoking bowl dropped, and he set his moccasined heel upon it, grinding clay and fire into the stone floor.

I watched him for a moment, and then resumed my writing.

"G.o.d save the King," he sneered, "and smear his maw thick with good fat meat! Let the rebel babes o' Boston die snivelling at their rebel mothers' dried-up b.r.e.a.s.t.s! It's a merry life, Cardigan. I dreamed last night a naked skeleton rode through Boston streets a-beating a jolly ringadoon on his bones:

"'Yankee doodle came to town A-riding on a pony--'

But the pony was all bones, too, like the Pale Horse, and sat Death astride, beating ever the same mad march:

"'Yankee doodle--doodle--do!

Yankee doodle--dandy!'

'Twas the bay wind shaking the weather-vane--nothing more, lad. Come, shall we steer au large?"

"I must first send my letter," said I; and began to re-read it:

BOSTON, _October 29, 1774_.

"_To Mistress Felicity Warren_:

"DEAR, DEAR SILVER HEELS,--Being cured of my hurts and having done with Johnson Hall and my dishonourable kinsman, Sir John Johnson, Bart: I now take my pen in hand to acquaint you that I know all, how that through the mercy of Providence you have been reunited with your hon'rd parents, long supposed to have been with G.o.d, their name and quality I know not nor doubt that it is most honourable. I did think to receive a letter from you ere I left the Hall, yet none came, so I insulted Sir John and took Warlock who is mine of a right and I am come to Boston to pay my respects to y'r hon'rd parents and to acquaint them that I mean to wed you as I love you my hon'rd cozzen but feel no happiness in as much as a deathly fear hath possessed me for some hours that I am never again to see you, this same haunting dread that all may not be well with you does not subdue and chill those ardent sentiments which of a truth burn as hotly now as they burned that sweet noonday at Roanoke Plain.

"I further acquaint you that my solicitor, Mr. Peter Weaver of Albany, hath news that my uncle, Sir Terence Cardigan, Bart, is at a low ebb of life being close to his Maker through much wine and excesses, and hath sent for me, but I would not stir a peg till I have found you dear Silver Heels to ask you if you do still love that foolish lad who will soon be Sir Michael Cardigan to the world but ever the same Micky to you, though if war comes to us I doubt not that my t.i.tle and estate will be confiscated in as much as I shall embrace the cause of the colonies and do what harm I may to the soldiers of our King.

"My sweet Silver Heels, this letter is to be delivered to y'r solicitor Mr. Thomas Foxcroft and by him instantly into your own hands, there being nothing in it not honourable and proper. I strive in vain to shake off the depression which so weighs down my heart that it is heavy with the dread that all may not be well with you, for I do distrust Sir John his word, and I do despise him heartily and deem it strange that he did conduct you to Boston under pretence of a business affair which he has since refused to discuss with me.

"Dear maid, if y'r honourable parents will permit, I shall this day venture to present myself and formally demand your hand in that sweet alliance which even death cannot end but must perforce render immortal for all time.

"Your faithful and obedient "servant and devoted lover "MICHAEL CARDIGAN."

The writing of this letter comforted me. I directed it to "Miss Warren, in care of Mr. Thomas Foxcroft, to be delivered immediately,"

and summoning a servant, charged him to bear it instantly to Mr.

Foxcroft.

"It is but a step to Queen Street," I said to the lank lad; "so if by chance the young lady herself be living there, you shall wait her pleasure and bring me my answer." And I gave him three bright s.h.i.+llings fresh struck from the mint that year.

"You will go with me, Jack?" I asked, as the messenger vanished.

Mount, sprawling by the window, turned his ma.s.sive head towards me like a sombre-eyed mastiff.

"Daylight is no friend o' mine," he said, slowly. "In Boston here they peddle ballads about me and Cade; and some puling quill-mender has writ a book about me, the same bearing a gallows on the cover."

"Then you had best stay here," I said; "I can manage very well alone, Jack."

"Once," continued Mount, thoughtfully, polis.h.i.+ng his hatchet on his buckskin breeches--"once I went strolling on the Neck, yonder, and no thought o' the highway either, when a large, fat man came a-waddling with two servants, and a pair o' saddle-bags as fat as the man, every bit."

He licked his lips and slowly turned his eyes away from mine.

"The moon was knee-high over the salt-gra.s.s," he continued; "the devil's in the moon when it's knee-high."