Cardigan

by Robert W. Chambers

CHAPTER XXI

My journey to Albany was slow, easy, and uneventful; I spared Warlock because of his added burdens, though he would gladly have galloped the entire distance, for the poor fellow was bitterly ashamed of playing pack-horse and evinced the greatest desire to finish and have done with it as soon as convenient.

His mortification was particularly to be noticed when he met other horses: he would turn his head away when he passed a pretty mare, he would hang his head when gay riders cantered past, and, when he met a peddler's horse, he actually shuddered.

But Warlock need not have taken it so to heart: he was the peer of any horse we met, which truly is no great recommendation, for the people of Albany do exhibit the most sorry horseflesh I have ever seen, and so Sir William had always said, laughing frequently at the patroons' nags until Sir Peter Warren wrote him to be careful else he might offend the entire town.

As for Albany itself I found it very large, though smaller than New York or Boston, they said, and I marvelled to see so many troops in various bright uniforms hitherto unfamiliar to me. The people themselves were somewhat stupid, being full o' Dutch blood and foodstuffs, and appeared somewhat mean in their dealings with strangers, though they call this penny-clipping thrift. Still, gentle blood never yet warmed at the prospect of under-feeding a stranger to save a shilling, and I found myself out of touch with those honest burghers of Albany who crowded the sleepy tap-room of the "Half-Moon Tavern" where I lodged.

I had no great difficulty in finding Peter Weaver, or in recommending myself to his good offices. He informed me that my uncle, Sir Terence Cardigan, was dying o' drink in Ireland, and wished me to go to him. I politely declined, and told him why. He was a pleasant, kindly, over-fed man, somewhat given to long and pointless discourse, yet a gentleman in bearing and a courteous friend. In his care I deposited my childish treasures for safe-keeping, taking with me only three extra articles, namely, my silver-gray clothes with underwear befitting, Sir William's leather book, and the knot of ribbon from Silver Heels's sleeve.

In Albany I bought a ring of plain gold to fit half-way on my little finger, judging Silver Heels's finger to be of that roundness. I also purchased a razor, though I had no present use for such an article. Still, I could not tell how soon my cheeks might require it, and it would not do to be caught unawares.

I stayed but one day in Albany, paying dearly for bait at the "Half-Moon Tavern," but my joy in my freedom and my happiness in expectancy left no room for rancour against these stolid, thrifty people who, after all, were but following the instincts of their breed.

Sir William was the most liberal man I had ever known, always cautious in condemnation, though he unknowingly did poor Cresap injustice; but I have often heard him say that to choose between the Dutch and the French for thrift and ferocity was totally beyond his power.

What I have seen of the Dutch or of those in whose veins runs Dutch blood confirms this. Since the Spaniards perpetrated their crimes in the New World, no people have ever been guilty of such shocking savagery towards the Indians as have the Dutch. Placid, honest in their own fashion, cleanly, sober, almost passionless, they yet have, deep within them, a ferocity and malignity scarcely conceivable—scarcely credible unless one has read that early history of their occupation here, of which little of the truth now remains on record.

The Albany people appear to have little sympathy to spare for unfortunate Boston. However, of that I cannot speak with authority, seeing that the whole town is soldier-ridden, and Tories everywhere holding forth in tap-room and marketplace. Besides, a company of Colonel John Butler's irregulars and a body of ne'er-do-well Onondagas were camped across the river, and their behaviour to the country people is drunken and scandalous.

Before I left Albany to set out on the Boston high-road, I visited Mr. Livingston's house, knowing that such a courtesy I owed for Sir William's sake, yet scarcely pleased at the prospect of again meeting Mrs. Hamilton. However, I had my journey for my pains, Mr. Livingston being lately deceased, and Mrs. Hamilton having left the day before to visit in Boston. Thus free of further obligation, Warlock and I took the Boston road at dawn; and how the dear fellow did gallop, though he carried but a buckskin dragoon without company or colours or commission to bear arms!

The first two days of my travel were almost without incident, lovely, calm October days through which sunlit clouds sailed out of the west, and the wild ducks drifted southward like floating banners in the sky.

In the yellow sunlight of the fields the quails were whistling, the heath-hens thundered through the copse, the crested partridge, with French ruff spread, stepped dainty as a game-cock through the briers, with his breathless menace: "Quhit! Quhit! Quhit!"

Once, riding on a treeless stretch of sandy road under the hot sun, a vast company of wild pigeons began to pass high overhead, thousands on thousands, thicker and ever thicker, till as far as the eye could reach from east to west they covered the sky in millions and millions, while the sun went out as in a thunder-cloud, and the air whistled and rang with their wings.

Their passage lasted some twenty minutes; a fine flight, truly, yet in Tryon County, near Fonda's Bush, Sir William and I had marked greater flights, lasting more than an hour.

This and Warlock's narrow escape from being bitten by one of those red snakes which pilot the rattlesnake and go blind in September were the only two noteworthy incidents of the first two days' journey on the Boston highway.

On the third day Warlock cast both hind shoes, and I was obliged to lead him very carefully, mile after mile, until, towards sundown, I entered a little village, where in a smithy a forge reddened the fading daylight.

The smith, a gruff man, gave me news of Boston, that the Port Bill was starving the poor and driving all decent people towards open rebellion. As for himself, he said that he meant to march at the first drum-beat and carry his hammer if firelocks were lacking.

He spoke sullenly and with a peculiar defiance, doubtless suspicious of me in spite of my buckskins. I told him that I knew little concerning the wrongs of Boston, but that if any man disturbed my native country, the insolence touched me as closely as though my own door-yard had been trampled. Whereat he laughed and gave me a brawny, blackened fist to shake. So I rode away in the dusk.

To make up for the delay in travelling afoot all day, I determined to keep on until midnight, Warlock being fit and ready without effort; so I munched a quarter of bread to stay my stomach and trotted on, pondering over the past, which already seemed years behind me.

The moon came up, but was soon frosted by silvery shoals of clouds. Then a great black bank pushed up from the west, covering moon and stars in sombre gloom, touched now and again by the dull flicker of lightning. The storm was far off, for I could hear no thunder, though the increasing stillness of the air warned me to seek the first shelter offered.

The district through which I was passing was well populated, and I expected every moment to see some light shining across the road from possibly hospitable windows. So I kept a keen outlook on every side, while the fields and woods through which I passed grew ominously silent, and that delicate perfume which arises from storm-threatened herbage filled my nostrils.

After a while, far away, the low muttering of thunder sounded, setting the air vibrating, and I cast Warlock free at a hand-gallop.

Imperceptibly the dark silence around turned into sound; a low, monotonous murmur filled my ears. It rained.

Careless of my rifle, having of course no need for it on such a populous highway, I let the priming take care of itself and urged Warlock forward towards two spots of light which might come from windows very far away, or from the lamps of a post-chaise near at hand.

Reining in, I was beginning to wonder which it might be, and had finally decided on the distant cottage, when my horse reared violently, almost falling on his back with me, and at the same moment I knew that somebody had seized his bridle.

"Stand and deliver!" came a calm voice from the darkness. I already had my rifle raised, but my thumb on the pan gave me warning that the priming was soaking wet.

"Dismount," came the voice, a trifle sharply.

I felt for the bridle, which had been jerked from my hands; it was gone. I gave one furious glance at the lights ahead, which I now saw came from a post-chaise standing in the road close by. Could I summon help from that? Or had the chaise also been stopped as I was now? Certainly I had run on a nest of highwaymen.

"How many have you?" I asked, choking with indignation. "I'll give three of you merry gentlemen a chance at me if you will allow me one dry priming!"

There was a dead silence. The unseen hand that held my horse's head fell away, and the animal snorted and tossed his mane. Again, not knowing what to expect, I cautiously felt around until I found the bridle, and noiselessly began to work it back over Warlock's head.

"Now for it!" I thought, gathering to launch the horse like a battering-ram into the unknown ahead.

But just as I drew my light hatchet from my belt and lifted the bridle, I almost dropped from the saddle to hear a meek and pleading voice I knew call me by name.

"Jack Mount!" I exclaimed, incredulous even yet.

"The same, Mr. Cardigan, out at heels and elbows, lad, and trimming the highway for a purse-proud Tory. Are you offended?"

"Offended!" I repeated, hysterically. "Oh no, of course not!" And I burst into a shout of uncontrollable laughter.

He did not join in. As for me, I lay on my horse's neck, weak from the reaction of my own laughter, utterly unable to find enough breath in my body to utter another sound.

"Oh, you can laugh," he said, in a hurt voice. "But I have accomplished a certain business yonder which has nigh frightened me to death—that's all."

"What business?" I asked, weakly.

"Oh, you may well ask. Hell's whippet! I lay here for the fat bailiff o' Grafton, who should travel to Hadley this night with Tory funds, and—I stopped a lady in that post-chaise yonder, and she's fainted at sight o' me. That's all."

"Fainted?" I repeated. "Where are her post-boys? Where's her footman? Where's her maid? Is she alone, Jack?"

"Ay," he responded, gloomily; "the men and the maid ran off. Trust those Dutch patrooners for that sort o' patroonery! If I'd only had Cade with me—"

"But—where's the Weasel?"

"I wish I knew," he said, earnestly. "He left me at Johnstown—went away—vanished like a hermit-bird. Oh, I am certainly an unhappy man and a bungling one at that. You can laugh if you like, but it's killing me. I wish you would come over to that cursed post-chaise and see what can be done for the lady. You know about ladies, don't you?"

"I don't know what to do when they faint," I replied.

"There's ways and ways," he responded. "Some say to shake them, but I can't bring myself to that; some say to pat their chins and say 'chuck-a-bunny!' but I have no skill for that either. Do you think—if we could get her out o' the chaise—and let her be rained on—"

"No, no," I said, controlling a violent desire to laugh. "I'll calm her, Jack. Perhaps she has recovered."

As we advanced through the rain in the dim radiance of the chaise-lamps, I looked curiously at Mount, and he up at me.

"Lord," he murmured, "how you have changed, lad!"

"You, too," I said, for he was haggard and dirty and truly enough in rags. No marvel that the lady had fainted at first sight o' him, let alone his pistol thrust through the chaise-window.

"Poor old Jack," I said, softened by his misery. "Why did you desert me after you had saved my life? I owe you so much that it were a charity to aid me discharge the debt—or as much of it as I may."

"Ho!" he muttered. "'Twas no debt, lad, and I'm but a pottle-pot after all. Now, by the ring-tailed coon o' Canada, I care not what befalls me, for Cade's gone—or dead—and I've the heart of a chipmunk left to face the devil."

"Soft," I whispered; "the lady's astir in her chaise. Wait you here, Jack! So!—I dismount. Touch not the horse; he bites at raggedness; he'll stand; so—o, Warlock. Wait, my beauty! So—o."

And I advanced to the chaise-window, cap in hand.

"Madam," I began, very gently, striving to make her out in the dim light of the chaise; "I perceive some accident has befallen your carriage. Pray, believe me at your disposal and humbly anxious to serve you, and if there be aught wherein I may—"

"Michael Cardigan!" came a startled voice, and I froze dumb in astonishment. For there, hood thrown back, and earnest, pale face swiftly leaning into the lamp-rays, I beheld Marie Hamilton.

We stared at each other for a moment, then her lovely face flushed and she thrust both hands towards me, laughing and crying at the same moment.

"Oh, the romance of life!" she cried. "I have had such a fright, my wits ache with the shock! A highwayman, Michael, grand Dieu!—here in the rain, pulling the horses up short, and it was, 'Ho! Stand and deliver!'—with pistol pushed in my face, and I to faint—pretence to gain a wink o' time to think—not frightened, but vexed and all on the qui vive to hide my jewels. Then comes the great booby, aghast to see me fainted, a-muttering excuse that he meant no harm, and I lying perdu, still as a mouse, for I had no mind to let him know I heard him. But under my lids I perceived him, a great, ragged, handsome rascal, badly scared, for I gathered from his stammering that he was waiting for another chaise bound for Hadley.

"Vrai Dieu, but I did frighten him well, and now he's gone, and I in a plight with my cowardly post-boys, maid, and footman fled, Lord knows whither!"

The amazing rapidity of her chatter confounded me, and she held my hands the while, and laughed and wept enough to turn her eyes to twin stars, all dewy in the lamp-shine.

"Dear friend," she sighed; "dear, dear friend, what happiness to feel I owe my life to you!"

"But you don't," I blurted out; "there never was any danger."

"Lord save the boy!" she murmured. "There is no spark o' romance in him!" And fell a-laughing in that faint, low mockery that I remembered on that fatal night at Johnson Hall.

"You are mistaken," I said, grimly. "Romance is the breath of my life, madam. And so I now plead freedom to present to your good graces my friend, Jack Mount, who lately stopped your coach upon the King's highway!"

And I caught the abashed giant by his ragged sleeve and dragged him to the chaise-window, where he plucked off his coon-skin cap and stared wildly at the astonished lady within.

But it was no easy matter to rout Marie Hamilton. True, she paled a little, and took one short breath, with her hand to her breast; then, like sunlight breaking, her bright eyes softened and that sweet, fresh mouth parted in a smile which spite of me set my own pulse a quickstep marching.

"I am not angry, sir," she said, mockingly. "All cats are gray at midnight, and one post-chaise resembles another, Captain Mount—for surely, by your exploits, you deserve at least that title."

Mount's fascinated eyes grew bigger. His consternation and the wild appeal in his eyes set me hard a-swallowing my laughter. As for Mrs. Hamilton, she smiled her sweet, malicious smile, and her melting eyes were soft with that false mercy which deludes apace and welcomes to destruction.

"Jack," said I, smothering my laughter, "do you get your legs astride the leader, there, and play at post-boy to the nearest inn. Zounds, man! Don't stand there hanging your jaw like a hard-run beagle! Up into the saddle with you! Gad, you've a ride before you with those Albany nags a-biting at your shins! Here, give me your rifle."

"And you, Michael," asked Mrs. Hamilton, "will you not share my carriage, for old time's sake?"

I told her I had my horse and would ride him at her chaise-wheels, and so left her, somewhat coolly, for I liked not that trailing tail to her invitation—"for old time's sake."

"What the foul fiend have I to do with 'old time's sake'?" I muttered, as I slung myself astride o' Warlock and motioned Jack Mount to move on through the finely falling rain. "'Old time's sake'! Faith, it once cost me the bitterest day of my life, and might cost me the love of the sweetest girl in earth or heaven! 'Old time's sake'! Truly, that is no tune to pipe for me; let others dance to it, not I."

As I rode forward beside her carriage-window, she looked up at me and made a little gesture of greeting. I bowed in my saddle, stiffly, for I was now loaded with Mount's rifle as well as my own.

What the deuce is there about Marie Hamilton that stirs the pulse of every man who sets eyes on her? Even I, loving Silver Heels with my whole heart and soul, find subtle danger in the eyes of Marie Hamilton, and shun her faint smile with the instant instinct of an anchorite.

Perhaps I was an anchorite, all ashamed, for I would not have it said of me, for vanity.

In a day when the morals of the world were rotten to the core, when vice was fashion, and fashion marked all England for her own, the overflow from those same British islands, flooding our land, stained most of those among us who could claim the right to quality.

I never had been lured by those grosser sins which circumstances offered—even in our house at Johnstown—and I would make no merit of my continence, God wot, seeing there was no temptation.

I had been reared among those whose friends and guests often went to bed too drunk to snuff their candles; cards and dice and high play were nothing strange to me, and, perhaps from their sheer familiarity, left me indifferent and without desire.

A titled drab I had never seen; the gentlemen whom I knew discussed their mistresses over nuts and wine, seeming to think no shame of one another for the foolishness they called their "fortune." Had it not been for Sir William's and Aunt Molly's teachings, I might have grown up to think that wives were wedded chiefly to oblige a friend. But Sir William and Aunt Molly taught me to abhor that universal vice long before I could comprehend it. I did not clearly comprehend it yet; but the thought of it was stale ashes in my mouth, so unattractive had I pictured what I needs must shun one day.

Riding there through the fine rain which I could scarcely feel on my skin, so delicate were the tiny specks of moisture, I thought much on the smallness of this our world, where a single hour on an unknown road had given me two companions whom I knew.

God grant the end of my journey would give me her for whose dear sake the journey had been made!

Thinking such thoughts, lost in a lover's reverie, I rode on, blind to all save the sweet ghosts I conjured in my brooding, and presently was roused to find the chaise turning into a tavern-yard, where all was black save for a lanthorn moving through the darkness.

Mount called; a yawning ostler came with a light, and at the same instant our host in shirt and apron toddled out to bid us welcome, a little, fat, toothless, chattering body, whose bald head soon was powdered with tiny, shining rain-drops.

Mrs. Hamilton gave me her hand to descend; she was as fresh and fragrant as a violet, and jumped to the ground on tiptoe with a quick flirt of her petticoat like the twitch of a robin his tail-feathers.

"Mad doings on the road, sir!" said our host, rubbing his little, fat hands. "Chaise and four stopped by the penny-stile two hours since, sir. Ay, you may smile, my lady, but the post-boys fought a dreadful battle with the highwaymen swarming in on every side. You laugh, sir? But I have these same post-boys here, and the footman, too, to prove it!"

"But, pray, where is the lady and her maid and the chaise and four?" asked Mrs. Hamilton, demurely.

"God knows," said the innkeeper, rolling his eyes. "The villains carried it off with the poor lady inside. Mad work, my lady! Mad work!"

"Maddening work," said I, wrathfully. "Jack, borrow a post-whip and warm the breeks of those same post-boys, will you? Lay it on thick, Jack; I'll take my turn in the morning!"

Mount went away towards the stable, and I quieted the astonished landlord and sent him to prepare supper, while a servant lighted Mrs. Hamilton to her chamber. Then I went out to see that Warlock was well fed and bedded fresh; and I did hear sundry howls from the villain post-boys in their quarters overhead, where Mount was nothing sparing of the leather.

Presently he came down the ladder, and laughed sheepishly when he saw me.

"They're well birched," he said. "It's God's mercy if they sit their saddles in the morning." Then he took my hands and held them so hard that I winced.

"Gad, I'm that content to see you, lad!" he repeated again and again.

"And I you, Jack," I said. "It is time, too, else you'd be in some worse mischief than this night's folly. But I'll take care of you now," I added, laughing. "Faith, it's turn and turn about, you know. Come to supper."

"I—I hate to face that lady," he muttered. "No, lad, I'll sup with my own marrow-bones for company."

"Nonsense!" I insisted, but could not budge him, and soon saw I had my labour for my pains.

"A mule for obstinacy—a very mule," I muttered.

"I own it; I'm an ass. But this ass knows enough to go to his proper stall," he said, with a miserable laugh that touched me.

"Have it as you wish, Jack," I said, gently; "but come into my chamber when you've supped. I'll be there. Lord, what millions of questions I have to ask!"

"To be sure, to be sure," he murmured, then walked away towards the kitchen, while I returned to the inn and cleansed me of the stains of travel.

We supped together, Mrs. Hamilton and I, and found the cheer most comforting, though there was no wine for her and she sipped, with me, the new brew of dark October ale.

A barley soup we had, then winter squash and a roast wild duck, with little quails all 'round, and a dish of pepper-cresses. Lord, how I did eat, being still gaunt from my long sickness! But she kept pace with me; a wholesome lass was she, and no frail beauty fed on syllabubs and suckets. Flesh and blood were her charms, a delicate ripeness, sweet as the cresses she crunched between her sparkling teeth. And ever I heard her little feet go tap, tap, tap, under the lamplit table.

I spoke respectfully of her losses; she dropped her eyes, accepting the condolence, pinching a cress to shreds the while.

She of course knew nothing of my journey to Pittsburg, nor of any events there which might have occurred after she had left, when her husband fell with many another stout frontiersman under Boone and Harrod.

I told her nothing, save that Felicity was in Boston and that I was journeying thither to see her.

"Is she not to wed the Earl of Dunmore?" asked Mrs. Hamilton.

"No," said I, quietly.

"La, the capricious beauty!" she murmured. "Sure, she has not thrown over Dunmore for that foolish dragoon, Kent Bevan?"

"I hope not," said I, maliciously.

"Who knows," she mused; "Mr. Bevan is to serve on Gage's staff this fall. It looks like a match to me."

"Is Mr. Bevan going to Boston?" I inquired.

"Yes. Are you jealous?" she replied, saucily.

I smiled and shook my head.

"But you once were in love with your cousin," she persisted. "On aime sans raison, et sans raison l'on hait! Regardez-moi, monsieur."

"Your convent breeding in Saint-Sacrement lends to your tongue a liberty that English schools withhold," I said, reddening.

"Nay, now," she laughed, "do you remember how you played with me at that state dinner held in Johnson Hall? You rode me down rough-shod, Michael, and used me shamefully there, under the stairs."

"I'll do the like again if you provoke me," I said, but had not meant to say it either, being troubled by her eyes.

"The—the like—again? And what was that, pray?"

"You know," I said, sulkily.

"I think you—kissed me—"

"I think I did," said I; "and left you all in tears."

It was brutal, but I meant to make an end.

"Did you believe that those were real tears?" she asked, innocently.

"By Heaven, I know they were," said I, with satisfaction, "and small vengeance to repay the ill you did me, too."

"What ill?" she asked, opening her eyes in real surprise.

But I was silent and ashamed already. Truly, it had been no fault but my own that I had taken up the gage she flung at me that night so long ago.

"But I'll not take it up this time," thought I to myself, cracking filberts and looking at her askance across the table.

"I do not understand you, Michael," she said, with a faint smile, ending in a sigh.

"Nor I you, bonnie Marie Hamilton," said I. "Suppose we both cry quits?"

"Not yet," she said; "I have a little score with you, unsettled."

"What score?" I asked, smiling. "Cannot you appeal to the law to have it settled?"

"La loi permet souvent ce que défend l'honneur," she said, with an innocent emphasis which left me sitting there, uncertain whether to laugh or blush. What the mischief did she mean, anyhow?

She picked up a filbert, tasted the kernel, dropped it, clasped her hands, elbows on the cloth, and gave me a malicious sidelong glance which still was full of that strange sweetness that ever set me on my guard, half angry, half bewitched.

"I wish you would let me alone!" I blurted out, like a country yokel at a quilting.

"I won't," she said.

"Remember what you suffered the first time!" I warned her.

"I do remember."

"Do you—do you dare risk that?" I stammered.

"Et d'avantage—encore," she murmured, setting her teeth on her plump white wrist and watching me uncertainly.

The game was running on too fast for me and my pulse was keeping pace.

"Safely they defy who challenge those in chains," I said, commanding my voice with an effort. "If that is your revenge, I cry you mercy; you have won."

After a long silence she raised her eyes, dancing with a mocking light in each starry pupil.

"I give you joy, Michael," she said, "if, as I take it, these same chains and fetters that you lately wear are riveted by Cupid."

But I answered nothing, attending her to the door, where she dropped me what I do believe was the slowest and lowest curtsey ever dropped by woman.

So I to my own chamber in no amiable frame of mind, and still tingling with the strange charm of my encounter. Head bent, hands clasped behind me, I walked the floor, striving to analyze this woman who had now twice crossed me on the trail of fate, this fair woman whose bright eyes were a menace and a challenge, and whose sweet, curved mouth was set there as eternal provocation to saint and sinner.

Thus for the first time in my life I had known what temptation might have been. Nay, I knew a little more than what it might have been, and, in the overwhelming flood of loyalty to Silver Heels, I cursed myself for a man without faith or shred of honour. For I was too unskilled in combats with the fair temptation to understand that it is no disgrace to falter, yet not fall.

There came a timid scratching at the door; I opened it and Mount sidled in, coy as a cat in a dairy with its chin still wet with cream. He regarded me doubtfully, but sat down when bidden and began to complain:

"Now, if you are minded to chide me for taking the road, I'm going out again. I can't bear any more, lad, that I can't!—what with Cade gone and me in rags, and stopping Councillor Bullock near Johnstown with pockets bare of aught but a cursed sixpence and that crooked as Lady Shelton's legs—and now I must needs fright a lady into a faint like a bad boy with a jack-o'-lanthorn—"

"What on earth is the matter with you?" I broke in, peevishly. "I'm not finding fault, Jack. If you mean to spend your life in endeavours to impoverish every Tory magistrate in America, it's your affair, and I can't help it, though you must know as well as I that there's a carpenter's tree and a rope at the end of your frolic."

"No, there isn't," he said, hastily. "I'm done with the highway save to pat it smooth with my feet. Lord, lad, it's not for the money, but for sport. And soon there'll be fighting enough to fill my stomach; mark me, the crocus that buds white this spring will wither red as blood ere its fouled petals fall!"

"War?" I asked, thrilling to hear him.

He rose and gazed at me most earnestly.

"Ay, surely, surely in the spring. Gad! Boston is that surfeited with redcoats now that when they cram down more next spring she can but throw them up to keep her health. Wait! Boston is sick in bone and body, but in the spring she takes her purge. Oh, I know," he cried, with a strange, prophetic stare in his eyes; "I have word from Shemuel. Now he's off to Boston with the news from Cresap. And I tell you, lad, that the first half-moon of April will start a devil loose in this broad land that state or clergy cannot exorcise!

"Not a devil," he corrected himself, slowly, "no, not a thing from hell, but that same swift angel sent to chasten worlds with fire. Dunmore will burn, and Butler. As for the rest, the honest, the rascals, the witless, the soulless, thieves, poltroons, usurers, and the vast army of well-meaning loyal fools, they will be cleared out o' this our world-wide temple whose roof is the sky and whose pillars are our high pines!—cleared out, scoured out, uprooted, driven forth like those same money-changers in the temple scourged by Christ,—and God is witness I, a sinner, mean no blasphemy, spite of all the sweating load o' guilt I bear."

"Where got you such phrases, Jack?" I asked. "It is not Jack Mount who speaks to me like a crazed preacher in the South who shouts the slaves around him to repent."

Mount looked at me; the dazed, fanatic light in his eyes faded slowly.

"I have a book here," he muttered, "a book I purchased in Johnstown of a man who sold many to patriots. Doubtless grief for Cade and my privations and my conning this same book while starving make me light-headed yet."

"What book is that?" I asked.

"The Rights of Man."

"I, also, would be glad to read it."

"Read, lad. 'Tis fodder for King George's cattle—such as we. And the little calves our wenches cast, they, too, shall feed on it, though they cannot utter moo! for their own mothers' milk!"

"Jack, Jack," I cried, "you are strangely changed! I do not know you in this bitter mood, and your mouth full o' words that burn your silly lips. Wake to life, man! Gay! Gay! Jack! A pest on books and those who write 'em! I have ever despised your printed stuff, and damme if I'll sit and hear it through your lips!"

But it was like rousing a man from a sleeping-draught, for the book had so bewitched his senses in these long weeks he had wandered alone that I had all I could do to drag him out of his strange, dreamy enthusiasms, back into his old, guileless, sunny, open-hearted self. And I feel sure that I could not have succeeded at all had not the shock of his encounter with Mrs. Hamilton on the highway first scared him back to partial common-sense. Added to this my entreaties, and he became docile, and then, little by little, dropped his preacher's mad harangue to talk like a reasonable creature and wag his tongue unlarded with his garbled metaphors and his half-baked parables which no doubt no simple forest-runner could digest on the raw printed page. I pitied him sincerely. Truly, a little learning makes one wondrous kind.

I put the book in my shirt-front, meaning to be of those who ride and read, even as Jack was of those others who both read and run.

"Why did you desert me, Jack?" I asked, sitting chin on hand to watch him smoke the pipe which no kind fate had filled for him since he left Johnstown.

"Faith, I hung about with Cade, doing no harm, sitting in the sun to wait for news from you. Mr. Duncan, a kind officer, gave us news and made us welcome on the benches in front of the guard-house. And Mistress Warren would have us to eat with her—only I was ashamed. But Cade went and supped with her.

"Lad, Sir John Johnson is not a gentleman I should grow too fond of. His courtesy is a shallow spring, I'm thinking, dry at the first taste, and over-sour to suit my teeth."

"What did Sir John do?" I asked, growing red. "Surely he thanked you and Cade for saving his kinsman's life; surely he made you welcome at the Hall, Jack?"

"Surely, he did nothing of the kind," grunted Mount, puffing his pipe. "Sir John sent word to the guard that we had best find quarters in Johnstown taverns and not set the hounds barking in his kennels."

It was like a blow in the face to me. Jack saw it and laughed.

"It's not your fault," he said; "show me two eggs and I'll name two birds, but I won't swear they'll fight alike. If he's your kin, it's to be borne, lad, and that's all there is to it."

I set my teeth and swallowed my shame.

"So we went to Rideup's old camp," he continued; "a fair inn where a man may drink to whom he pleases and no questions asked nor any yokel to bawl 'God save the King!' or turn your ale sour with Tory whining. And there I lay and—tippled, lad. I'll not deny it, no! Like a fish in sweet water my gills did open and shut while the ale flowed into me, day and night perdu.

"Cade never drank. God! how that man changed—since he saw your sweet Mistress Warren there on the hillock at Roanoke Plain! Mad, lad, quite mad. But such a dear, good comrade—I—I can scarce speak o' him but I wink with tears."

The great fellow dug one fist into his eyes, and then the other, replacing his pipe in his mouth with an unmistakable snivel.

"Quite mad, Mr. Cardigan. He thought he saw his little daughter in Miss Warren, without offence to any one in all the world and least of all to you, and he waited all day to see her come out to the guard-house and give the news of your sick-bed to your Lieutenant Duncan. So one day, when you were surely out of danger and ready to fatten, comes Cade to the tavern and bids me good-bye, talking wildly of his lost daughter, and I, Heaven help me, lay abed with my head like a top all humming for the ale I'd had, and thinking nothing of what he said save that his madness grew apace.

"And that night he went away while I slept in my cups. When he came not I hunted the town for him as I had never hunted trail in all my life before. And I warrant you I left no stone unturned in that same town. I was half-crazy; I could not think he'd left me there of his own free will. Many a fight I had with the soldiers, many a bruise and broken head I left behind me ere I shook my moccasins free o' dust in Johnstown streets. They'll tell you, and that fat, purple-pitted councillor—Bullock, I mean—why, he would have me jailed for a matter of damaging his Tory constable. So I gave him a fright on the highway and left your Tryon County for a quieter one. That's all, lad."

What he had told me of Cade Renard troubled me. If Felicity had been strangely lost to her own family, and had been restored, doubtless she was now happy and full of wonder for the dear, amazing chance that had brought to her those honoured parents she had so long deemed to be with God. Yet she must be shy and over-sensitive also, having been brought up to believe she had no nearer kin than Sir Peter Warren. And now that he, after all, was no kin to her, nor she to us, if a mad forest-runner like Cade Renard should come to vex her with his luny fancies, it might hurt her or seem like reproach and mockery for her new parents.

"Do you think Cade followed Miss Warren to Boston?" I asked.

"My journey is to find that out," he said. "Ah, lad, a noble mind was wrecked in Renard's head. I know—others know nothing. What fate sent him like a wild thing to the forests, I only know, as you know, nothing but what he has told us both. If his madness has waxed so fiercely since he saw Miss Warren, it may be a sign that the end is near. I do not know. I miss him, and I must look for him while I can move these clumsy feet of mine."

My candle was burning very low now. Mount laid his pipe in the candle-pan, rose, shook himself, and said good-night.

"Good-night," I said, and sat down to light another candle. This done, I did undress me, and so would have been in bed had I not chanced to open the book he left me, thinking to glance it over and forget it.

But sunrise found me poring over its pages, while the candle, a pool o' wax, hardened in the candle-stick beside me.