CHAPTER XVI
The men of the house breakfasted at the usual hour next morning, and with them were only Aunt Lettice and 'Bitha, Mary Broughton and Dorothy being permitted to sleep until later, when 'Bitha, despatched by her grandmother, went to arouse them.
She first awoke Dorothy by kissing her; then she asked with childish solicitude, "Why do you lie abed so late, Cousin Dot,—are you ill?"
The big dark eyes gazed at the child in bewilderment, and then came a flash of recollection.
"Ill—no. Where is Mary, and why are you here, 'Bitha?"
"Mary is still asleep, and grandame sent me to wake both of you." Then she looked curiously at the carelessly heaped up masculine garb on a nearby chair, and asked, "Are those Cousin Jack's clothes, Dot, and why did he leave them here?"
Dorothy's color deepened. "Never mind, now, 'Bitha," she said hastily, "but go and awaken Mary; then run back to Aunt Lettice, and say we will be down directly. But stop—where is every one—have you breakfasted yet?"
The child laughed. "Long ago," she said. "Cousin Jack and Hugh Knollys have gone off to town on horseback, and Uncle Joseph is away on the farm somewhere."
Dorothy's movements were lacking in their usual youthful vitality as she moved listlessly about the room. She stood in front of her mahogany dressing-case, looking into the tipped-over mirror,—that only in this way could reflect the face and head surmounting her in no wise average height—and was brushing out the tangle of curly locks, when Mary Broughton came into the room, her hair hanging about her like a veil of gold, reaching almost to her knees.
"Good-morning, Dot," she said smilingly. "You were so quiet that I thought you were yet sleeping." And she turned to go back to her own apartment.
But Dorothy called out: "Don't go yet! Oh! Mary, do you know I am dreading so to go downstairs and meet my father. I wonder if he will be angry at what I did last night? He was never angry with me in all my life." And she turned her troubled eyes away from the glass, for which indeed she seemed to have little use, so slight was the note she was taking of the reflection it showed.
"I hope not," Mary replied, but her voice had a touch of doubt, "for he would surely be angry with me as well, for abetting you in what you did. But you remember what Jack said last night; would not your father take the same view of the matter?"
The color deepened in her cheeks as she spoke her lover's name; and this seemed to bring a new recollection to Dorothy.
"Oh, Mary," she cried, "I'd clean forgot, for the moment, all that has befallen." With this she rushed impetuously across the room and caught Mary about the neck. The latter blushed redder than before, while she laughingly disengaged Dorothy's arms. Then urging her to hurry and dress, she hastened back to her own room.
The two girls had finished breakfast and were out on the porch in front of the house, when the hearty tones of Joseph Devereux were heard within, asking Tamson, the red-cheeked housemaid, after her young mistress.
"Here I am, father," answered a low, agitated voice; and Dorothy stood before him, looking quite pale, and with eyes downcast.
"Come with me, my daughter," he commanded, and led the way into the library.
He closed the door after them, and seated himself, while Dorothy remained standing, her hands loosely clasped and her eyes still bent on the floor, her attitude being much like that of a culprit before a judge.
"Come here, child," and his voice was a trifle unsteady. "Why do you stand there and look so strangely?"
For answer, she sank upon her knees before him and laid her face in his lap; and a grateful thrill went through her as she felt his fingers stroking her curly head in his usual loving fashion.
"Ye madcap!" he exclaimed after a short silence. "Whatever possessed ye?"
"Oh, father, don't be angry with me!"
At this, he leaned over, and drawing her into his arms, lifted her to his knee.
"Angry with you, my little Dot!" he said. "My precious, brave little girl, how could I be that, except it were for your risking so carelessly the life that is so dear to my old heart?"
All the sternness of his face had given place to an expression of loving pride.
"One cannot censure an eagle, my baby," he went on,—"that it be not born a barnyard fowl or a weak pigeon. It would seem that a higher power than of poor mortality must have put it into your head and heart to do what you did last night. And I've no word of blame for your having togged yourself out in Jack's clothes. Many a heroine has done a like thing before you. If Joan of Arc had been more like most womenfolk, no doubt many would have reckoned her more properly behaved, according to the laws laid down by men for the behavior o' women. But who dare question the bravery and unselfishness of her deeds? And you, my baby, were our Joan of Arc last night!"
All this was balm to her troubled heart. But she could not speak, and only hugged him more tightly around the neck as she wept on his shoulder.
"Here—hoity toity!" he said presently. "What manner o' bravery be this—crying for naught?"
She raised her head, but before she could reply, they were both startled by a noisy trampling of horses in front of the house, and strange voices coming in through the open windows.
Hastily wiping away her tears, Dorothy sprang from her father's lap and ran to look out.
"Oh, father," she cried, turning to him in dismay, "here be a lot of British soldiers on horseback! Whatever can they have come for?"
He hurried out, Dorothy close by his side, to meet face to face at the open door a tall young officer coming up the steps with much clanking of sabre and jingling of spurs, while on the driveway were a dozen mounted troopers, one of whom held the rein of a spirited gray horse.
The officer raised his hat, and his sea-blue eyes, keen as steel, looked with smiling fearlessness straight into the lowering face of Joseph Devereux. Then they changed like a flash, and with swift significance, as they fell upon the slight figure shrinking close beside him.
"Sir," he asked, "are you Joseph Devereux?"
"As you say," was the calm reply. "And what might an officer of His Majesty's army want with me?"
"Only an audience," the young man answered respectfully. "I wish to assure you, in case of its being needful, of my good will, and of my desire to see that your person and property are guarded from annoyance during our stay in your neighborhood."
The old man frowned, and drew his tall figure to its full height.
"It would seem a strange chance," he replied haughtily, "that should put such a notion into your mind, young sir. I've lived here as boy and man these seventy years and more, and my fathers before me for well beyond one hundred years; and I 've needed no protection o' my own rights save such as God and my own townsfolk have accorded me as my just due."
"Such may have been the case before now, sir," the officer said, his eyes still fixed upon Dorothy's blushing face; "but troublesome times, such as these, have brought changes that should, methinks, make you take a somewhat different view of matters."
"The times may be troublesome, as you say; but even should they grow more so, I have my country's cause too truly at heart to desire favors from its enemies."
"I am an enemy only should you determine to make me one; and this I trust you will not." He still smiled pleasantly, as though bent upon accomplishing whatever object he had in view.
"The color o' the coat you wear has determined that matter already," was Joseph Devereux's grim answer.
But the young man was proof against even this pointed rebuff, for he laughed, and said with reckless gayety, "Think you not, sir, 't is a bit unjust to refuse good fellowship to a man because of the color of his garb?"
"A truce to this nonsense, young sir!" exclaimed the old man, his impatience rapidly changing to anger. "Since you are about my premises in the manner you are, 't is certain you can in no wise be ignorant o' reasons existing which make it needless for me to say that I desire naught to do with you, nor your fellows."
The officer bowed, and with a slight shrug of his broad shoulders, resumed his hat.
"So be it, sir," he said, while the smile left his olive-hued face, "although I deeply regret your decision. But before I go, I must have speech with a young son of yours."
Dorothy moved still closer to her father, and turned a troubled look up into his face.
"My son, sir," he answered stiffly, "is not at home."
"No? Then pray tell me where I am like to find him."
"He has gone to the town on affairs of his own."
"They are like to be affairs of great weight." The young man's voice had a note of sarcasm.
"Whatever they be, they can assuredly be no concern of an officer o' the King."
"That is for me to decide, sir," the soldier retorted with evidently rising anger. "He has done that which gives me good cause to put him in irons, should I choose to be vengeful."
"What mean ye?" the old man demanded with flashing eyes.
"I mean," replied the other, slowly, "he shall be taught that he cannot play boyish pranks upon His Majesty's officers with impunity."
"It would seem you are better aware o' what you are prating of than am I," said Joseph Devereux, now laying a reassuring hand over the small one that had stolen tremblingly into his own. "As for my son playing 'boyish pranks,' as you say, he would scarcely be likely to turn back to such things in his twenty-eighth year."
"Do you mean me to understand that your son is so old as that?" was the officer's surprised inquiry.
"I care little of what your understanding may be," was the indifferent reply; "but such is the fact."
"And have you no other son—a young boy?"
"I have not, as any one can tell you."
The young man bit his lips, and looked perplexed. Then, as his eyes turned to Dorothy's flushed face, he smiled again, and said, as though addressing her, "I beg pardon for any seeming incivility; but there would appear to be some mystery here."
"No mystery, young man," answered Joseph Devereux, with unbending severity, "save to wonder why you should come riding to our door in the fashion you have, with a troop o' your fellows, when we have no liking for the entertainment of any such company."
The officer still smiled, but now sarcastically. "It can scarcely be claimed that you have entertained me, sir. But since I find my presence so disagreeable to you, I will bid you good-morning."
He bowed haughtily to the old man, while his eyes still lingered upon Dorothy's face. Then turning quickly, he strode down the steps, and mounted his horse, the servants, who had gathered about, falling away from before him.
Mary Broughton and Aunt Lettice, who had been standing in the hall listening to the colloquy, now came out to the porch and stood with the others watching the scarlet-clad troop clatter noisily down the driveway, following the rapid pace set by their youthful leader.
John Devereux and Hugh Knollys, returning from the town, met them just within the open gate, and drew to one side, watching them with scowling brows as they dashed past; and the young officer turned in his saddle to glance over his shoulder, as if something in the former's face had caught his attention.
"What did those Britishers want here, father?" the son asked, as he and Hugh came up the steps, leaving their horses with Leet and Pashar.
"He would seem to wish to assure us of his courtesy and good-will; and when I declined these, he demanded to see my son, whom he accused of playing a boyish prank upon a King's officer, and threatened him with irons, should he catch the rogue."
All eyes were now turned upon Dorothy, who laid her blushing face against her father's arm as she stood clasping it.
Jack muttered something under his breath; and Hugh, his face alight with mischief, said, "May his search take up all the attention of himself and his soldiers, which will be all the better for us." Then stretching out his hand to Dorothy, he said with a sudden change of manner, "Will you shake hands, Dorothy?"
"What for?" she asked, still clinging to her father's arm.
"As my way of thanking you that I am a free man this morning, and not, perchance, in irons myself, and on the road to the Governor, at Salem."
She laid her small hand in his broad palm, and the look he gave her as his fingers closed over it seemed to make her uncomfortable.
"It was very little I did," she declared quietly, drawing her hand away.
"So it may seem to you," he said gravely. "But had it not been done, the things that might have followed would show you otherwise."
In the afternoon the four young people set out to ride over to Hugh's place, where a widowed mother was anxiously expecting the arrival of her boy—and only child.
Jack, for reasons now well understood, kept close to Mary's bridle-rein; so it befell that Dorothy and Hugh were thrown upon one another's society more intimately than for some time heretofore.
As they rode leisurely along the Salem turnpike toward their destination, which lay away from the town, the young man exclaimed suddenly, "I don't believe another girl living would dare do such a thing, Dorothy, as you did last night!"
"Do cease prattling of last night," she said impatiently. "I am sick to death hearing of it."
"Are you?" And Hugh's laughing eyes widened with sober surprise. "I see no call for you to be so."
"I did not ask that you should," was the tart answer, a wilful toss of her head accompanying the sharp words.
"Why, Dorothy, whatever ails you?" And he looked more surprised than hurt at this new phase of his quondam playfellow's disposition.
She did not reply; and Hugh, seeing a glitter of tears in her eyes, said nothing more.
And so they plodded along in utter silence; the two ahead of them seeming to find no need for haste, and conversing earnestly, as though greatly entertained by each other's company.
The thickly planted cornfields rose on either side of their way, and the afternoon sun flickered the landscape with fleeting shadows from the clouds sailing in the blue overhead, while now and again there came a glimpse of the sea.
Everything about them was quiet, save the breathing of the horses and the noise of their trappings.
At length, coming within sight of the Knollys homestead, the two in front drew rein and waited for their companions to join them.
Dorothy gave the impatient mare her head, and rode up briskly, with Hugh not far behind; and then all four went clattering through the gate and up the grass-grown roadway, halting before the porch of the low frame house that stood surrounded by thickly planted fields running back to meet sloping wooded hills, with grassy meadows intervening, where flocks of sheep and many cows were grazing peacefully.
A sweet-faced old lady—Hugh's mother—came out of the door and greeted them cordially, but first casting a searching glance at her son. Then bidding a servant take their horses to the stable, she invited them to come within.
But Hugh said: "No, mother; Sam need not take the horses away. We can stop but a short time, and then I must go back to remain in town for the night. I only rode over—and these kind folk with me—to see how you were faring without having me to look after matters, and to assure you of my well being; for I know how you like to fret if I stop away long enough to give you the chance."
"You are a saucy boy," his mother replied, but with a look that belied her words; then turning to the two girls, she asked after their fathers, and inquired particularly about each member of their households.
She listened eagerly to the news of the town, and its latest doings; the color, fresh as a girl's, coming and going in her cheeks, and making a dainty contrast with the snowy muslin of her mob-cap and the kerchief wound about her throat and crossed over her ample bust.
"And have any of these red-coated gallants stolen their way to the hearts of you two girls?" she asked banteringly,—her eyes upon Mary Broughton's beautiful face.
Jack's eyes were there as well; and Hugh alone saw the sudden mounting of the blood to Dorothy's cheeks and the troubled drooping of her eyelids.
John Devereux rose from his chair, and taking Mary's hand, led her to the old lady.
"I am that one, good Mistress Knollys," he said proudly, "who has stolen his way to this sweet girl's true heart; and you are the first, outside the family, to know of it."
"Dearie me!" exclaimed Mistress Knollys, in a happy fluttered way, as she drew Mary's blushing face down and gave her a hearty kiss. "I always suspected it would be so; and I am sure every one will wish you joy, as I do with all my heart." Then turning to her son, "Hugh, dear, get some wine and cake, and let us pledge our dear friends. With all these Britishers bringing trouble upon us, who can say how much chance there'll be left for joyful doings?"
She bustled about with a beaming face, doing herself most of the setting forth she had requested of her son. But Hugh's face looked far graver than was its wont; his eyes strayed over to Dorothy, who was now laughing and chatting like the rest, and he seemed to be puzzling over a matter for which he could not find a ready solution.
It was later than they thought when they set out upon their return, Mistress Knollys urging them to come again soon, and saying, as she kissed Dorothy last of all: "It ever makes me feel young again, my dear child, to have you in the house. And now that your brother and Mary have one another, and your father has one more daughter, they can spare you to your old friend with better grace."