CHAPTER XXVI
Mary felt that she must lose no time in making her husband as wise as herself with respect to Dorothy's real sentiments, and in having him understand that he could not bring any harm to the young Britisher without making his sister all the more unhappy.
She wondered what Jack would say—as to the effect it would have upon his temper and actions. But she was determined upon this,—that if he showed resentment or anger, she would assert herself in Dorothy's defence, feeling as she did that it was too late to do other than submit to what fate had brought about, and all the more especially, since Dorothy had confessed to loving this man.
"I could almost wish he had been killed outright the morning I made him tumble over the rocks," she said to herself, "or that he had fallen into the sea, never to be seen again." Then, realizing that this was little short of murder, she shrank from such musings, shocked to find herself so wicked.
There came still another burden of sorrow when she imparted the whole truth to her husband.
He listened with a brooding face, only the unusual glitter in his eyes showing how it stirred him. Then, after a long silence, while he appeared to be turning the matter in his mind, he exclaimed, not angrily, but with nothing showing in his voice save bitter self-reproach: "Blind fool that I've been, seeking to keep my little sister a child in thought. And right here, under my very eyes, has she become a woman, both in love and suffering!"
He sprang to his feet and began to pace back and forth, his wife watching him with troubled eyes. Presently he came and looked down into her face.
His own was pale, but it had a set, determined expression, as though the struggle were over, and he had turned his back upon all the hopes he had builded for his beloved sister,—upon what might have been, but now never to be.
"Sweetheart," he said, "there is one other we are bound in honor to take into our confidence, to tell all we know of this sad matter, and that is Hugh Knollys. He is not like to return here this many a day; still it is possible he may, or that I may be sent to the neighborhood of Boston before the summer comes. But whichever way I see him, I shall have to tell him the truth. Poor old Hugh!"
"Why, John!" But Mary's eyes filled with a look bespeaking full knowledge of what he was to say, although she had never suspected it until now.
He told her of all that passed between Hugh and himself that night, so many months ago. And when he finished, she could only sigh, and repeat his own words, "Poor Hugh!"
"Aye, poor Hugh, indeed, for I know the boy's heart well. It will be a dreadful thing for him to face, and with his hands tied, as are my own, against doing aught to the Britisher because his welfare matters so much to Dot."
Then he added almost impatiently: "I wish the child would let me talk with her. She must, before I go away, else I'll speak without her consent. So long as we are situated as now, it may do no harm to let the matter drift along; but if I have to leave home—"
"Oh, Jack, don't speak of such a thing," Mary interrupted. And rising quickly, she laid her hand on his shoulder as though to hold him fast.
"Why not, sweetheart?" he said, compelled to smile at her anxiety. "We know what we have to face in these distracting times; we knew it when we married. Matters grow worse with every week, each day almost. But we must be brave, my darling, and you will best hold me to my duty by keeping a stout heart, no matter whether I go or stay. And go I am pretty sure to, the same as every other man in the town, for we may look, any day, for a battle somewhere about Boston."
Mary clung to him shudderingly, but was silent.
Hugh Knollys had been all this time at Cambridge, where troops were mustering from every part of the land; and many men from Marblehead were there or in the neighborhood.
They had heard from him but once, and then through Johnnie Strings, who, after this last trip—now over a month since—had returned to Cambridge with a very indefinite notion as to when he would come back to the old town.
The pedler also reported having seen Aunt Penine, who was quartered near Boston, at the house of some royalist relatives of her brother's wife,—he himself having left his home in Lynn and taken up arms for the King.
Mistress Knollys was also away, for she had closed her homestead and gone to stop with an only sister living at Dorchester,—doing this for safety, and before the soldiers left the Neck.
A decided feeling of impending war was now sharpened and well defined, and all were waiting for the actual clash of arms.
Late in February, His Majesty's ship "Lively," mounting twenty guns, arrived in the harbor and came to anchor off the fort; and her officers proceeded to make themselves fully as obnoxious as had the hated soldiers.
They diligently searched all incoming vessels that could by any pretext be suspected; and where they found anything in the nature of military stores, these were confiscated.
One vessel, carrying a chest of arms destined for the town, was, although anchored close to the "Lively," boarded one night by a party of intrepid young men under the lead of one Samuel R. Trevett, who succeeded in removing the arms, which they concealed on shore.
Later on in the month a body of troops landed one Sunday morning on Homans' Beach; and after loading their guns, the soldiers took up their march through the town.
The alarm drums were beaten at the door of every church to warn the worshippers, and it was not long before the hitherto quiet streets were thronged with an excited crowd of indignant citizens, gathered in active defence of their rights.
They suspected the object of the enemy to be the seizure of several pieces of artillery secreted at Salem. But in this—or whatever was their purpose—they were baffled, meeting with such determined opposition as to be forced to march back to the shore and re-embark, with no more disastrous result to either side than the usual number of bloody faces and bruised fists, such as had distinguished the sojourn of the regulars upon the Neck.
Aside from these two events, the days in the old town passed much as before, despite the ever-increasing certainty of war,—this leading the townsfolk to go armed night and day, and to keep close watch from the outlooks for any sudden descent the enemy might seek to make.
The last vestige of snow was gone from the shaded nooks amid the trees on the hills,—the land, swept dry and clear of all signs of winter, was waiting for the sun to warm the brown earth into life; and in the hollows of the woods, the tender shoots of the first wild flowers were already showing, where the winds had brushed away the fallen leaves of the year before.
It was the twenty-first of April, and the expected battle had come at last, for Lexington was two days old. The news was brought into town before the morning of the twentieth, and had resulted in the sudden departure of many of the younger men for the immediate scene of action.
Among these was John Devereux; and Mary was to accompany her husband to the town, in order that she might be with him until the very last moment.
The parting between father and son was full of solemnity, for each felt it to be the last time they would meet on earth.
"God bless and keep you, my dear boy," said Joseph Devereux, showing more of his natural vigor than for many weeks past, as he fixed his large eyes upon the handsome young face, pale, but filled with resolution and high purpose. "God bless and keep you in the struggle in which I know you will do your part unflinchingly. Never be guilty of aught in the future, as you have never in the past, to stain the good name you bear."
Fearing that which he deemed a reflection upon his manhood, the young man did not reply in words, but threw his arms about his father's neck in a way he had not done since boyhood; and the old man alone knew how something wet still lay upon his withered cheek after his son had left him.
The last person to whom Jack said farewell was his sister. She had stolen away to her own room, and there he found her weeping.
"Little Dot," he said in a choking voice, opening his arms to her as he paused just across the threshold.
She looked up, and with a low cry—half of pain, half joy—fled to him; and with this the shadow, almost estrangement, that had come between them was swept away forever.
He held her tight against his breast, and let her weep silently for a time, before he said very gently, "Dot, my little girl, I must speak to you on a certain matter before I go away."
She raised her head and kissed him; and this he took as permission to tell her what was upon his mind.
"Dot, I cannot go from you without having everything between us the same as has been all our lives, until these past few sad months."
At this she clung all the closer to him.
"You were badly treated, little one," he continued, "shamefully treated; and it was a great grief to me that you did not come and trust your brother to the end of telling him the whole matter at the very first. But 't is all past now, and words are of no worth. Only this I must know from your own lips,—if you love this man who has forced himself to be your husband, and if you love him sufficiently to leave us all, should he so bid you?"
"That he will never do," Dorothy answered, her voice full of sad conviction. "He has gone, thinking I hate him."
"And why did you send him away with such a notion as that?"
"Oh, Jack," the girl cried piteously, "cannot you see—can you not understand? I could not go and leave you all. I dared not tell at the time all that had happened—I did not know what to do."
"And you love not the cause he fights for, though you love the man himself?" And a faint smile touched his lips.
"That is it, Jack," she answered, relieved at being understood. "You have spoken my own feelings. I could not leave father; had I done so, think of what would have come to me now."
"Poor father, 't is well he will never need to know. Well, Dot," and he tried to speak cheerily, "although 't is a sad tangle now, perhaps time will straighten it somewhat; and all we can do is to wait and hope."
"And you'll never say aught to—him, should you two meet?" Dorothy asked wistfully, a burning color deepening in her cheeks.
"Should he and I meet," the young man said with a scowl, "it is not likely to be in a fashion that will permit discourse of any sort." Then he regretted his words, for his sister shivered and hid her face over his heart.
"Come, Dot,"—and now he spoke more calmly, while he caressed the curly head lying against his breast—"try to keep a brave heart. You have done no wrong, little one, and we are all in God's hands. Pray you to Him for your brother while he is from home; and pray as well that all these sad matters will come right in the end."
He pressed a kiss upon her tearful face, and was gone.
Arriving in the town, he found his companions ready to depart; and before sunset he was upon the road to Boston, leaving his wife to stop for a day with Mistress Horton.
The following evening it was apparent that the end was coming fast to Joseph Devereux.
Dorothy was alone with the stricken man, Aunt Lettice, who took 'Bitha with her, having gone into the town early that afternoon, to make some purchases, intending to return later with Mary.
Dr. Paine had told them how the end would probably come; and it was as he had said. He himself was away toward Boston, where his services were most needed, and there was no other physician for Dorothy to summon, even had she felt it necessary.
But she well knew the uselessness of this. No human skill could prolong the life of him who had been stricken down late in the afternoon, and now lay unconscious, breathing heavily, like a strong swimmer breasting heavy seas. And what sea beats so relentlessly as do the black waters of Death?
Dorothy had stolen for a moment to the window, scarcely able to endure to sit longer by the bed, listening to those gasping breaths that wrung her heart with the passionate sense of impotence to help, or even ease, the dying man.
Curled up in the broad window-seat, her face turned from the dimly lighted room to the fast-falling night outside, the past, and its contrast with the present, seemed to unroll before her with a vividness of detail such as we are told comes to one who is drowning.
All that was happy seemed to lie behind her; all the cheer and comfort of the old home were gone, never to return—no more than would her father's protecting love.
And he—her father—was now drawing nigh to the day that knows no darkness, no dawning; while for her the night shadows of the bitter parting were closing about, dark and cold.
The incoming tide was almost at the full, and the surf sounded like a moaning voice from the sea. It was to the young girl's tortured imagination a warning voice, bidding her heed that the fashion of this world must pass away, and with it the souls of its children, who, like merry little ones gathering flowers in fair fields, unheeding, unthinking, grow grave only as the day draws on. It told her that they grow wise—sad, perhaps—as the sun sinks; and that when the darkness falls they lie down to sleep, with tired brains and heavy hearts, all their buoyancy gone with the day's brightness. They have come to know its bitter lesson of weary struggle, of sore disappointment and heart-breaks.
The sky was filled with broken banks of ragged clouds that sent great tattered streamers across the zenith, entangling the glittering stars that seemed struggling to push them away, as if they were smothering draperies, from before their silvery faces.
Over in the east a faint spot of dusky red was showing in a cloud-rift. It was the rising moon, seeming to battle, like the stars, with the black hosts seeking to envelop it. It fought bravely, like a valiant soldier, and emerging triumphantly at last, threw a bar of dull red, like a pathway, across the sullen floor of the ocean.
This reached from the shore, out over the water, far away, to end in the heavy shadows looming against the horizon like the walls of the City of Death, whose angel keeper was even now unbarring the gates for the call that should bring the soul of Joseph Devereux within their misty portals.
Dwellers by the sea have a belief that the souls of those who are called, go ever with the turning of the tide. It was now only an hour, or less, to that; and Dorothy was waiting with a trembling heart for the ebb of the sea to carry her father away to the world of shadows.
He lay motionless, as though his soul were already departed, save for that same heavy breathing.
There was no change in this. It was as regular in its hoarse panting as the swinging of the pendulum in the clock outside the door,—the old clock that had seen both joy and sorrow passing before it through many generations, and had seemed to look with friendliness upon every eye—blue, black, gray, or brown—uplifted to its great face,—eyes that had long since been closed, some of them not even having time to grow dim with age or be moistened by tears of grief.
"Gone—gone—going," it sighed in Dorothy's ears, until she covered them with her hands to shut out the sound, and with it the moaning of the surf.
"Dot, my little girl!" A faint voice broke the stillness as the heavy breathing was hushed.
She flew to the bedside and knelt there, while she pressed her warm mouth against the nerveless hand, whose chill seemed to strike her very heart. Her father felt the quivering of her lips, and tried to lift his other hand to her head.
She knew this without seeing it, and moving yet closer to him, she laid her face over his heart, her head fitting into the hollow of his arm as she clasped his hand with her small fingers.
"Dot, my baby—oh, my little girl!"
The words came with all his old strength of voice, and she felt that he was weeping.
Startled at this outbreak, and alarmed for fear of some injury it might do him, all the girl's grief became swallowed up in the new energy that now surged through her.
"Hush!" she said soothingly, placing her face against his own. "Hush, dear! Never mind me; I shall be well enough. I know—I know," choking back a sob that rose in her throat like a stinging blow, "that all is for the best, 'that He doeth all things well.'"
"Yes, yes," her father murmured drowsily, as though calmed by her words and caresses. "Aye, my child, 'though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' God is on the other side, waiting—waiting—for me."
His eyelids had fallen again, and the closing words came in a faint whisper. He was now breathing heavily as before, and was seemingly unconscious; and Dorothy felt that he had come back for a moment from out the dark shadows gathering to shut them apart, so that he might speak to her once more in the voice she loved so dearly.
She did not stir, but remained kneeling by the bed, his arm around her, and his hand clasping her fingers with marvellous firmness.
She could feel and hear the feeble beating of the loving heart that had ever held her so tenderly. Throbbing against her cheek, its pulses seemed to keep rhythm with the mournful booming of the surf on the shore.
Suddenly, like a mighty ocean of falling waters, there came, to overwhelm her unnatural calm, the thought of what her world would be when that true, loyal heart was stilled,—when she could only lay her cheek against the earth that shut it away from her.
A giant hand seemed clutching at her throat; the grief, rising in mighty bursts, could find no vent in tears, and a gasping cry sprang from her lips, causing her to stir unconsciously within his arm.
His grasp tightened upon her hand, and her acutely listening ears heard him whisper brokenly, "'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end.'"
The words brought to her a strange comfort. And now his feeble hand caressed her head in a wandering, fluttering way, and she felt as in her baby days when he used to rock her to sleep; for his failing voice began to croon the old hymn he so often sang to her then.
She crept still closer to him. She was quieted for the moment, and filled with an awe as if angels were all about them. Her wild grief was hushed,—the agony of clutching pain in her throat dissolved itself in silent tears, and the sound of the surf now seemed a peaceful, soothing voice.
She felt as though she were going with her father along the way through the dark valley,—even to the very gates of jasper and pearl that would give him entrance to the City of Light, then to close, leaving her without.
Fainter, yet fainter grew his voice, at length dying away altogether. She heard her name breathed softly, just as he used to speak it when she, a little maid, was nestling in his arms, and he wished to assure himself of her being asleep.
"Yes," she whispered.
"My baby, 't is growing dark, blackly dark, little one. Ye'd better get to bed."
She made no answer—she could not, but listened breathlessly.
"My baby—my baby Dot. God keep my baby!"
The words were scarcely spoken, but came like long sighs, to mingle and die away with the night wind moaning outside the window. And it was as if the surf caught them, and repeated them to the watching stars.
"God—keep—my—baby!"
The room was still—still as the great loving heart under her cheek. And the tide was on the ebb.