I.
Peele sat on the platform, surrounded by a group of youthful sympathizers. "The fact is," he said, the light of battle in his eye, "I'll either have Gough's gore, or he mine. Matters have come to a crisis."
At the other end of the school-room "Grinny" Gough made an exactly similar speech. From time to time these youthful Montagues and Capulets glanced ruefully at a blackboard containing the following pregnant information:
Composition to be written by every boy in the school, instead of customary half-holiday.
Subject:
Landes.—A maritime department in the southwest of France, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. It derives its name from the landes, or marshy heaths, which occupy a considerable portion of its surface. The capital of the department is Mont-de-Marsan, and its area 3599 square miles. The population in 1893 was 35,143.
Impositions must be handed in to Mr. Squinnige at evening preparation.
Peele glanced ruefully at the blackboard. His look of disgust gradually gave way to a broad grin of delight. Gough (he was pressing a metal inkpot against a black eye) intercepted the grin, and looked more rueful still.
"It seems to me," said Peele, again addressing his followers, "we're going to have a jolly row."
"And all because of a few potatoes," said the Tadpole.
"And a girl," added Bates.
"Girls always do let a man in for rows," observed a youthful pessimist.
Peele checked his followers with a lordly wave of his hand. "I thought I was in Ireland," he said, "I saw so many potatoes flying about, and heard Squinnige say, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen, you forget yourselves as gentlemen.'"
"He never forgets himself—especially at meals," said the Tadpole. "I don't know how the row began. When I saw the other fellows chucking taters I chucked too. I bagged Squinnige first shot; then he got under the table and yowled."
"I began it myself," Peele admitted. "When I saw Polyhymnia [Miss Wantage's real name was Polly, but Peele preferred "Polyhymnia" as being more sonorous] giving that beast Gough two potatoes instead of one, I didn't mean to say a word; but he pitched one into the fireplace, and I couldn't help shying mine at his head. He shied back, and hit Squinnige, and then you fellows all chipped in."
From which it will be gathered that the young gentlemen of Hutton Park Academy were in a state of open rebellion. There were several causes to account for this; but the chief among them was the rivalry which existed between Peele and "Grinny" Gough with regard to Polyhymnia, who was sixteen to their fourteen.
Dr. Wantage had a theory that to teach boys to be gentlemen they should be subjected at an early age to the refining influence of feminine society.
He was a widower. The only feminine society, therefore, that he could provide for the young gentlemen under his charge was that of Polyhymnia, who entered into his plans with the greatest gusto, and announced that she was perfectly willing to sacrifice herself for the good of the school. Had the Doctor been a suspicious man, he would have wondered at this alacrity, but a work on Greek particles absorbed most of his time, and he noticed nothing. Polyhymnia had only been home about a fortnight from school, and was already beginning to find time hang heavily on her hands. She hailed the Doctor's scheme with delight, and made her first public entrance at the boys' dinner, and sat at the head of the table in order to distribute the potatoes.
Peele, who was the first boy to enter the room, made her a lordly bow. "Grinny" Gough came second, put one foot into a hole in the mat, and tumbled heavily at his divinity's feet. The rest of the rank and file made an awkward entrance over "Grinny" Gough's prostrate body, whilst Peele conversed with Polyhymnia, and regarded his rival with lofty contempt.
Polyhymnia declined to carve for the forty young gentlemen, but devoted herself to the distribution of potatoes, boiled in their skins—the potatoes' skins, not the young gentlemen's. On the first day of her doing so each boy was about to devour his potato, when the Tadpole noticed that Peele gracefully removed his from his plate, wrapped it up in his handkerchief, bowed to Polyhymnia, and put it in his pocket—his breast pocket. Polyhymnia blushed; this was true worship. Her blushes were succeeded by others when the whole of Peele's faction proceeded to follow their chief's example, each boy enfolding the precious potato in a more or less dirty pocket-handkerchief. But after about three days' persistent accumulation of potatoes, Nature asserted itself, and Peele's followers felt that it was rather ridiculous to carry about a pound and a half of uneaten vegetables in their pockets. On the fourth day, Gough, with a vigorous sneer at Peele, had, as Peele explained, ostentatiously pitched his extra potato into the fireplace. The next instant he received the point of a particularly hard-skinned potato in his left eye. Two moments later the battle became general, Peele standing in front of Polyhymnia, and shielding her from flying missiles with heroic devotion. Then Squinnige, the usher, came out from under the table, and the result was the suppression of the customary half-holiday, and an absurd "imposition" to be done about the Landes.
"Never heard of the blessed places," said the Tadpole, with a rueful glance at the blackboard. "What are they, anyway?"
"Oh, it's easy enough," said Peele. "You fellows needn't trouble about it. It's where every one goes about on stilts. Now just settle down and do your 'impo,' or Squinnige'll be at us again. He's a victim to duty, is Squinnige, and I want to make things easy for him."
At this moment Gough, surrounded by his faction, approached the platform.
"Come down, and I'll lick your head off," he said to Peele.
Peele, who was an admirable boxer for his age, regarded Gough with particular contempt.
"Squinnige would be at us before I'd blackened the other eye," he said to Gough. "Name your weapons. We'll fight this thing out like gentlemen."
Gough was staggered. If he did not assert himself his ascendency was gone forever.
"I'd like to punch your head," he said; "but, as you say, when gentlemen fight about a woman they don't do it with fists. Swords and pistols are common. I'd like something worse."
Gough's followers crowded to the support of their chief with a thrill of delight.
"I call this prime," said the Guinea-Pig. "Prime!" he repeated, smacking his lips.
Peele waved his hand with lofty condescension.
"As you please," he said, glancing idly at the blackboard. Then a thought struck him which did credit to his love of the dramatic.
"What do you say to stilts?" he asked.
"Stilts!" said Gough, in amazement. "You might as well talk of 80-ton guns."
"Not at all," said Peele. "Quite customary in France. Much deadlier than pistols."
"But how d'you do it?" asked the crestfallen Gough.
Peele shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, stand on one stilt and hit with the other," he said. "Gentlemen generally leave details to their seconds."
"That's all very well," said Gough. "I didn't come over to England with a Norman pig-driver, and ain't used to those things; but we can't make fools of ourselves in the middle of the playground. If you can hit on a way of working it without making asses of ourselves I'm game."
"All right," said Peele, loftily; "I'll work it out. The Tadpole acts for me. I suppose the Guinea-Pig will do the same for you?"
"Yes," said Gough, sulkily, creeping away to his end of the school-room.
Peele's followers gathered round him again and began to worship.
"Of course it's all guff," said the Tadpole. "Nothing but a stork could fight on one leg."
Peele again waved his hand.
"Can each of you fellows rake up a shilling?"
It being Saturday, the amount required was speedily subscribed, and handed over with unquestioning faith to Peele.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked the Tadpole.
Peele sat down and hastily drew a pair of stilts. "I'll take this to the village," he said, "and get Smith to make us forty pairs. Then I'll show you fellows how to use them. It's often struck me we could play 'footer' in this way and get a lot of fun out of it. Now, Tadpole, go and explain to the enemy."
When the plan was explained to the enemy, the enemy immediately acquiesced in it. About a week later Dr. Wantage was surprised to see his pupils mounted on stilts and tumbling about in every direction. When he came to the Tadpole, who sat on the ground, ruefully rubbing the back of his head, the Doctor sternly ordered that big-headed youth to rise.
"What's the meaning of this tomfoolery, Wilkinson?" (the Tadpole's name was Wilkinson) he demanded.
The Tadpole looked imploringly round at Peele, who at that moment appeared on stilts which covered about six feet at a stride.
"It's this way, sir," Peele explained to the Doctor, as he leaped to the ground. "Mr. Squinnige gave us an 'impo' on the Landes last Saturday, where the people do everything on stilts. We got so interested in it, we're going to play a football match on stilts when we've had a little practice."
The Doctor looked round and saw half of his pupils reclining in various involuntary attitudes on the ground, whilst ten or twelve others put their stilts against the wall and tried in vain to get on them.
"Oh, very well, Peele," he said; "don't let your zeal carry you too far. It will be awkward if half of you are laid up with broken arms and legs." And the Doctor continued his way to a neighboring wood, there to meditate on particles.
Polyhymnia could not understand this sudden craze for stilts. She pressed Peele for an explanation.
"I'm sure you're at the bottom of it," said Polyhymnia, with emphasis. "You are the worst boy I ever knew—and the handsomest," she added, weakly.
"If you look in your glass," said Peele, "I think you'll find I'm not at the bottom of it all. I wish you wouldn't speak to that beast Gough."
"Gough is full of good points," said Polyhymnia, angrily.
"So are a lot of other beasts," retorted Peele, more than ever decided that the combat should be waged to the death.
A bogus match was played under the Doctor's nose one afternoon, in which Peele's followers got decidedly the worst of it. Gough, emboldened by triumph, proposed that Peele and himself should settle their differences in Homeric combat then and there.
"I fight," retorted Peele, "when there is no chance of interruption."
This remark made the matter irrevocable, and the combat was fixed to take place on the following Saturday afternoon, when it was known that the Doctor would be away.
On the appointed afternoon all the boys in the school were drawn up into two armies mounted on stilts.
Peele and Gough stalked into the middle of the playground, attended by the Tadpole and the Guinea-Pig respectively, and ceremoniously bowed to each other, although the feat was difficult.
Now that everything had gone so far, the Tadpole began to funk it. "Hadn't you better let him off?" he said, apprehensively, to Peele.
"Say another word," threatened Peele, "and I'll begin on you."
THEN THE FIGHT COMMENCED.
Then the fight commenced.
The Tadpole and the Guinea-Pig had drawn up a code regulating the manner of the combat.
The combatants were not allowed to push against each other, but might strike with one stilt, or thrust. Whenever one fell, it counted to his opponent.
The two began shuffling warily round each other, like wrestlers waiting for an opening. By a dexterous thrust of the right stilt Gough succeeded in bringing Peele to the ground, amid derisive shouts from his followers. Peele's face was badly scratched by the gravel, but he was on his stilts again in a second.
In the next round he fought more warily, and balancing himself on one foot, delivered a swashing blow at Gough's shoulder-blade. He was about to follow it up as Gough wavered, but the Guinea-Pig came behind him, and, utterly regardless of the laws of the duello, struck Peele a crushing blow on the back of the head with his stilt.
Peele fell to the ground for the second time. There was a cry of horror, as Polyhymnia, who had not accompanied her father, rushed up and supported his head on her lap; whilst Gough stood moodily looking on at his rival, and the abashed Guinea-Pig bolted, amid a shower of stilts flung at him by the enraged boys.
"You coward!" screamed Polyhymnia to Gough. "Oh, you base, cowardly wretch; you daren't fight him yourself, so you got some one else to attack him from behind. I'll never speak to you again."
Gough was too proud to exculpate himself at the expense of his injudicious follower. Peele at last opened his eyes. "It wasn't his fault," he said, magnanimous to the last; "don't let on to the Doctor," and fainted.
Peele remained a month in the sick-room. The first day he was able to come down into the matron's parlor he found Gough there, gloomily waiting for him.
"I've come," the latter explained, "to let you know I wasn't cad enough to plan hitting you from behind."
Peele looked at him curiously.
"I never thought you were," he said.
"The Doctor fancies it was an accident," moodily continued Gough; "and he's ordered all the stilts to be burned. Since then I've been thinking things over." He hesitated. "We could finish this affair in the holidays, on the sands at Boulogne. Perhaps pistols would be better; stilts are too uncertain," he added, darkly. "You shall have first shot to make up for this."
Polyhymnia entered the room.
"Shake hands," she commanded, "or I'll never speak to either of you again. Besides, if you don't, I'll tell the Doctor all about it."
Dogged to the last, the foes reluctantly shook hands, and Gough left the room. Polyhymnia remained, looking at Peele rather doubtfully.
She came a step or two nearer, but he did not glance at her.
"Philip!" she said. "Aren't you beginning rather early?"
Peele looked up.
Polyhymnia put out her hand, and insisted on his shaking hands with her.
"I've not given Gough a single potato since you were ill," she said; "and I never, never will, as long as I live."
Peele began to feel better.
[A LOYAL TRAITOR.]
A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER VII.
HARDSHIPS.
Now behold the third attempt that I have made to condense this part of my narrative.
In desperation, for I wish to push on, I have adopted the measure of giving but an outline of my personal history covering two years.
So I jump to a day in June, after I had been living in the little house on Mountain Brook some seven months.
During this time I had been to Miller's Falls but once with my uncle, but so insolently was I stared at that I did not care to withstand again the ordeal of pointed fingers and the whispered conversations of the curious. But now on this June day, here I was standing at the edge of the pasture waiting for some one most impatiently.
From the door-step of Belair but one other dwelling was in sight; except this, nothing but ranges of hill-tops. But a mile below lived a farmer named Tanner, who managed by hard labor to gain his living from the ground. But I was not waiting for him, nor for my uncle, nor for Gaston, who, by-the-way, had been constituted, or had appointed himself, my guardian to such an extent that I might at times, with no stretching of the imagination, consider myself a prisoner. No, I was not waiting for any of them, but for some one who soon hove in sight across the slope of the opposite hill. It was a little girl of my own age, and the only living being at that time who knew anything of my thoughts or life; and they were both strange enough for a boy of fifteen to possess or to endure.
Perhaps if I should tell of our conversation on this day it might recount something that would show how things were with me. In our meeting there was nothing but the friendship of two lads, to put the case as it really appeared to be, and when she had climbed up on the top rail of the fence beside me, and hooked the hollows of her feet behind the bar to keep her balance, the way I was doing, we began, as children do, to speak without preliminaries of any kind in the way of greetings.
"Why weren't you here this morning?" she said, as if accusing me.
"He had one of his fits on and kept me at work," I replied. "First I had to practise with the small sword for two hours. If I don't look out he will run me through some day. I almost wish he would."
"I heard you shooting," said the girl.
"Yes, he wouldn't let me off until I had placed three pistol balls inside a horseshoe nailed to the side of the barn; but I'd rather do that than go through the fencing."
"Down in the village and at our house every one says you're all crack-brained up here," the girl said, making a grasp in the air at a yellow butterfly that flittered over her head. "What else did you do?"
I was ashamed to say that I had been at my dancing-lesson, so I said: "I had to translate four odes of Horace and learn all about a lot of stupid people named De Brissac. I'm glad they had their heads cut off."
"Why did that happen to them?" asked the girl. "What did they cut their heads off for?"
"Because they were nobles and offended the French Republicans by being polite and well dressed and clean, my uncle says."
"Tell me all about it."
I had had the history of the great French revolution, at least one side of it, drilled into me ever since my advent at Mountain Brook. I had learned that my uncle had escaped to America from France, where he had fought for the King, and that my mother and her twin sister had also managed to get away from the frightful prison of La Conciergerie with their lives, but that my grandfather, two uncles, and an aunt by marriage had all lost their heads by the guillotine for the sole reason that they were rich, very well dressed, and very polite indeed, so far as I could make out.
I had learned by heart the family histories of any number of the great noble families of France, and all of this I considered most dull work indeed, and wasted time. However, the story that I related to Mary Tanner, as we sat on the top rail of the fence, seemed to interest her greatly.
"You see," I was saying, after I had finished spinning the long yarn, "my name is not John Hurdiss at all; it is something else."
"What is it?" asked the girl.
"I have no idea," I replied; "but my uncle always calls me Jean, which means John, and, to be honest, I don't think he knows himself."
"I don't see why he shouldn't be able to tell," replied Mary, "if he knows so much about other people."
"No more do I," I answered. "But I don't care. John Hurdiss is good enough for me."
Now, the fact of the matter was this, and I may as well state it here as afterwards: I had guessed about the truth. My uncle did not really know my name, and for this reason:
You see, as I have told, my grandfather was the Marquis de Brienne (I have forgotten to set down that Gaston always called my uncle "Monsieur le Marquis," or something that might be resolved into that). Well, the old gentleman (my ancestor) had three children—the present proprietor of the Château de Belair on Mountain Brook, and twin daughters, Hortense and Hélène, who afterwards married two of the well-dressed and well-hated ones at a time when they had more titles than gold.
Now it happened these two latter gentlemen—my father and uncle, of course—had each the same initials (it is no consequence what the names were, but each ended in "de B"). Early in the great troubles they had sought refuge in England, having better luck than their future wives, who were taken by the revolutionists. But the two ladies escaped through the aid of an adventurous sea-captain, and they joined the colony of refugees in England, where they each found a husband. But affairs did not prosper with them. In the year 1798 the Duke de B—— became entangled in a plot of some kind for the restoration, was caught in France, and lost his head like the rest of his family; and in the same year the Comte de B—— had an unfortunate duel with an English Major of infantry, and was killed. This left the two noble ladies widows, each with an infant boy of a few months old to take care of. For some reason they packed up their belongings and set out for America on a sailing-vessel, commanded, it appears, by no less a person than the sea-captain who had assisted in their first escape from France.
Sad to relate, the ship in which they sailed was wrecked, and one of the ladies was lost with her infant in the disaster. Whether it was the Duchesse de B—— or the Comtesse de B—— was not placed on record, but the commander of the ship, Captain John Hurdiss, married the survivor at some place in the West Indies, I believe.
Now there was no way of finding out which one of the ladies the gallant Captain Hurdiss had married, and I had never heard my mother's first name mentioned that I could recall. My uncle did not know it, of a certainty. This was the situation in a nutshell, and I trust that I have made it plain, for I have endeavored to do so in the very shortest manner, to the best of my ability.
Thus the loss of the letter and the burning of the strong-box were two misfortunes that had prevented me from knowing really who I was.
All this may seem complicated, but I have done my best to make it lucid; and with a heartfelt apology for this long digression, let me return to the day in June, and to the boy and girl talking together, balanced on the top rail of the pasture bars.
"Did you bring the book with you that you were speaking about?" I asked of my companion.
"No," she replied; "but I will leave it under the flat rock this evening."
"I'll get it, then," I answered. "Halloa! Look at that."
"It's a woodchuck," said the girl, jumping from her perch, and we both charged at a small brown animal that scurried into a hole beneath some loose stones. We were busily engaged in routing him out and he was whistling back defiance (we had almost got at him), when I heard my name called. I looked up and saw my uncle and old Twineface approaching along the path.
"Jean, Jean! Come here at once!" called Monsieur de Brienne, in French.
"I'm going to run," said the girl, who had often expressed her terror at Gaston's appearance.
Without another word she turned and fled, jumping over the tall ferns like a deer.
My uncle had now approached within a few feet's distance.
"Who is that with you?" he inquired, angrily.
"Mary Tanner, the daughter of the farmer below," I replied. "I have known her for some months. She is very nice—and—and pretty," I faltered.
"Bah! You shall have nothing to do with her. Never speak to her, d'ye mind me? And here's where you have been spending your time instead of being at your studies. Come back with me; I will fence with you."
It was one of my uncle's young days; and here, to put down something that neither I nor any person of real learning to whom I have related the facts, could account for: at varying periods my uncle, who was past sixty, seemed to be gifted with an agility, a nervous force and strength, that I have never seen equalled in a man of his slightness. This rejuvenation, during which he often sang rondeaux and tinkled an accompaniment on an old lyre, would last for some ten hours, perhaps, and would be followed by two or three days, or sometimes a week, of collapse, during which he appeared on the verge of dissolution, and either Gaston or myself had to be with him every minute, administering from time to time a few drops from an acrid-smelling vial.
But, as I have said, this was one of his youthful days.
I had been awakened in the morning early by a strange sound, and had found him jumping the colt backwards and forwards over a hurdle on the grass-plot before the house, Gaston standing by, a grim spectator, with no interest in his dull, lack-lustre eyes. For an hour the old man had put me through a practice with a small sword (he was the best fencer I have ever seen), until I almost cried out from weariness, and we changed the exercise for pistol practice. Now we returned to Belair, and despite my complaining, I was forced to take up the foils again, and actually to defend myself, for my uncle kept me up to my work by now and then giving me a clip over the thigh or forearm. At last I grew angry, and pressed him so close that a smile of pleasure drew his lips, and he muttered "bravo" two or three time beneath his breath. Suddenly I noticed a gray shadow cross his face, and his eyelids drooped. He raised his hand, and without a word fell forward at my feet. It was one of the worst attacks that he had experienced, and for five days Gaston and I nursed him, and I found no chance to get away to the pasture bars, or to the flat rock where Mary had placed the book we had spoken of.
On the sixth day my uncle was up and as spry as ever, but now I found that I was practically under surveillance; wherever I went the frightful Gaston would go also. He was a most unpleasant person to have around, for although his senses were most acute and he possessed the cunning of a wolf, it was impossible to carry on a conversation with him. He had an impediment in his speech, a combination of a stutter and the result of having no roof to his mouth, that made his utterances sound like those of a savage or wild beast. To say "yes" or "no" was an effort for him, and he usually expressed his meaning by making signs.
One day, I remember, I had determined to test my authority over him (for in most things he obeyed me implicitly, so far as the fetching and carrying went, but upon this occasion, as I say, I determined to give him a test). I had walked as far as the edge of our clearing, and paused on the bank of the brook.
"Gaston," I said, "go back to the house. I'm going on alone." The only reply was a shake of the head. "Do you hear me? I'm going on alone." (It was my intention to make my way to the Tanner farm-house, where, by-the-way, I had never been, and ask for Mary.)
Now, seeing that Gaston did not intend to obey me, I jumped down the bank and dashed across the stream, but I had not taken a dozen strides before the old servant had me by the arm; his long fingers closed on my flesh like a steel clamp. The result was that I went back to the house. But that evening I managed to get away, and went to the flat rock, under which I found the book. I had to wait until daylight before I could examine it, although Mary, a week or so before, had told me of its contents.
It was an old volume relating the adventures of an Englishman named Robinson Crusoe (I can recall the musty smell of its pages at this very instant). Oh, the delight that I had for the next few hours, reading the greatest story, to my mind, that was ever penned! Oh, the desire for freedom and the longing to see the world which was builded up within me as I turned each page! Ah! Robinson, Robinson! despite the moral you intend to teach, you have turned many lads' minds to the sea, and given them a burning, dry thirst for adventure not to be quenched at home! I had read few stories in English up to this time, but I fairly shook, as I read this one, with the intensity of my sensations.
I am afraid that living this life gave me a tendency for dissimulation, although in my gaoler, Gaston, I had a hard one to deceive. Nevertheless I succeeded in getting away one afternoon, and made my way through the woods to Farmer Tanner's. Suffice it to say that I was chased out of the door-yard by the goodwife, with a broom in her hand, who informed me that Mary had gone away—where, she did not state. I was threatened, incidentally, with the ox-goad, if I should return; and so my errand was not altogether successful.
Now to give a big jump over time. Another year went by. Oh, the misery of it all! The long, snowed-in days of the winter when, although my uncle had money, I think, I had scarcely sufficient clothing to keep me warm, and barely enough to eat. M. de Brienne's conduct and manner by now had become so strange and his mind was so volatile that I could never say that I felt affection toward him. I had begun to hate Gaston generously.
When spring came, to amuse myself, I delved in the garden, and was rewarded by seeing all my green things prosper wondrously. An illness that had lasted over a month almost brought me to my grave in April, but I cannot complain for lack of nursing. Now, however, there had entered my mind but one idea—to escape, and that right soon. Why I had not thought of it seriously before must excite wonder. The determination to begin to prepare for an actual separation came to me in this fashion.
Owing to the strangeness of the costumes I was forced to wear, I had much hesitancy about going abroad. People would have taken me, I fear, for a mountebank. My coat, much too small, was of velvet; my breeches, of stained and heavy brocaded silk, much patched; and my hose tattered and threadbare. I was well shod, as my uncle possessed a box of shoes and boots of curious fashion and superior workmanship, that fitted me, even if those I wore were not always mates. But I determined I must have other clothing.
I knew nothing of the goings on of the outside world. Now to come to the day on which I was enlightened.
June again. I had escaped from Gaston's eye (the old man had begun to show some signs of age), and had gone down to the highway that led to Miller's Falls. Half hid in the bushes, I was seated, hoping to catch a glimpse of some human being, when I saw walking down the hill a man whose appearance made my heart give a leap—a tall, broad-shouldered figure, dressed in a sailor jacket and wide trousers. A great bundle, that he carried as if it was a bag of feathers, was on his back, and he was whistling merrily as he swung along the road. I knew him in an instant, and his name came to me. It was Silas Plummer, who had been one of the crew of the Minetta. I sung out to him by name. He came to a halt, but showed half fright upon my appearing through the bushes.
"What in the name of Moll Roe have we here?" he cried.
"It is I, Master Plummer," I answered, and I told him who I was. In my eagerness I must have appeared half crazed, I judge, for he looked at me askance as I grasped him by the arm.
"What are you doing, lad?" he inquired. "And how you've grown!"
In a few words, and in an incoherent fashion, I fear, I told him of my life and my virtual imprisonment. Evidently the explanation that I made set his mind at rest in regard to my sanity.
"Why don't you clear out?" he said. "There's a chance for a fine lad like yourself to the southward. The sea is not far away (how my heart leapt at the word 'sea'!), and there are great goings on there. We've taken their frigates, and given the lion's tail a twist until it is kinked like a fouled hawser."
"What do you mean?" I inquired.
"Hear the lad!" Plummer responded, setting down his bundle and going into the pocket of his jacket and drawing out a newspaper. "There's a war between America and England. I'm just in off the Comet privateer. Listen to this," he said. He slapped his trousers pocket, and it chinked to the sound of gold. "And listen here," he repeated, and he tapped the other side. It jingled musically. "Ho, but we are getting even with them for all their mail-stealing!"
"A war with England!" I cried, taking the paper that had "Victory!" spread across it in large type. "Do you remember Dash, and his hand there on the deck?"
"Ay, like a glove thrown in the face of the King," said the sailor; "and the news of it is about the world."
"Plummer," I said, "sell me some clothes. I'll pay you for them—if you'll wait." I had hidden three or four of the gold pieces under the flat rock. "I will run and fetch you the money," I continued, eagerly.
"Not a penny, not a farthing," answered the man, giving my shoulder a push. "Come into the woods. I have some duds that might fit you here in my bundle."
My hands and, indeed, my knees also, were trembling so that I had to have his assistance (a strange tiring-maid) in getting into my clothes. But in ten minutes I was rigged out all-a-taun-to in the outfit of a swaggering privateers-man, even to the shirt opened at the throat and the half-fathom of neckerchief. I recollect that I was crazy to see how I looked in it.
"And here's a cap, too," he said. "It has a Portugee rake to it, but never mind; now you're ship-shape."
He stood off and looked at me, with his head sidewise, as if I was wholly some workmanship of his own hands.
"ANCHOR'S ATRIP!" HE CRIED; "SET SAIL AND AWAY."
"Anchor's atrip," he cried, imitating the shrilling of a boatswain's whistle; "set sail and away."
"How—how can I thank you?" I said, half faltering, and blushing, for I felt hot all over.
"By meeting me ten days from now in Stonington. There's a crack brig, the Young Eagle, about to sail from there; and though they'll take few greenhorns, togged out that way you can pass muster. Ship with me, mess-mate. I'll help you out!" He grasped my hand. "Ah, you've got a good grip for a rope! And look at the chest and the arm of you! Big as my own, I'll warrant."
I had never realized what a size I had become; but I had been finding out that it was only my uncle's skill that kept me from disarming him in our fencing-bouts of late, and that Gaston had not laid hands on me since some time before my illness. Now I was fully recovered and in fine fettle.
"I'll go with you," I replied, grasping Plummer's hand again, "and God bless you!"
"The Young Eagle, then, at Stonington, eh?" He slapped his pockets and started off. "I'm bound up-country to see my sweetheart," he shouted back from over his shoulder, and I heard him chanting the "Sailor's Return" as he disappeared about a bend in the road.
I gathered my rags and made for the brook, where I looked at myself until I became fairly ashamed, and threw a stone at my reflection in the water. Then taking off my clothes, I donned the old ones, and hiding my bundle beneath the old flat rock where I kept the Robinson Crusoe, an old horse-pistol, and many treasures (including a half-score of the De Brienne buttons), I went up to the house. I could see that my uncle was in a strange excitement (that he was going mad I have no doubt of now). Gaston cast a suspicious look at me, in return for which I, elated by the doings of the day, made a threatening gesture. Of a truth, I think the man had grown afraid of me, for he cringed.
At twelve o'clock that night I was awakened by some one stirring in my room. I looked up. It was my uncle. He was in his night-dress, and his gray hair straggled over his ears. Held close to his side, as if it rested in a scabbard, was a narrow court sword, whose naked blade flashed in the ray of the moonlight that came in at the curtainless window.
"No, by St. Michel, they shall not enter!" he cried, and he stopped suddenly, rigid, as if he were listening for some one coming up the stairs. Then he turned to the bed on which I lay.
"Arise, your Majesty!" he said. "They're upon us. Come, gentlemen, stand fast!"
Again he listened. "No, they're gone," he whispered, softly. "Is the Princess calling for me?" He made as if to sheathe the sword, and I saw, in doing so, the sharp blade cut into the palm of his left hand; but he paid no attention to it, and went down stairs.
To say that I had shuddered would not express it. And suddenly, as if a burst of light had come upon me, the idea that I need no longer stay flooded my brain.
"Why, he might murder me!" I thought, the conviction coming then for the first time that he had turned mad-man. I arose, and only putting on half my clothing and my shoes, I lowered myself out of the window.
It was cloudless, and the moon was at the full. My shadow chased before me as I ran down the path. Freedom! freedom! seemed to beckon me. I breathed the same sensation that I had on that clear moonlight night when the salt breeze was in my hair, and when the wide sea rose and fell and the little brig dashed through it—as if she had caught my exultation of I hers.
I leaped the brook and scattered the sleeping birds out of the bushes up the banks. "Ho for the sea! Hurrah!" I cried; and I never turned to give even a farewell look at the Château de Belair.