“Your expulsion from the council, the liberties of the Red Band, the ruin of your house.”
I expected an outbreak of anger in return for these plain words, but none came. Instead, the patroon looked at me with eyes brimful of tears.
“You are right. The ruin of my house. If only I could put it off, but I cannot. Miriam, my Miriam, it will fall like death upon you; it is coming, it is coming like a storm.”
“But you can stop it. It is not too late.”
“It is too late. How can I stop it? I expected the support of my class. They have drawn back. I stand alone. I cannot go back. Where will my honor be if I desert my men? I have led them on in defiance of the law. Can I give them up to justice now? Would you have me play the coward to save myself? The die is cast. The Red Band cannot draw back. I must lead them on. I have no more the power to stop this that I have set my hand to than you have to stop the sun. Can I not see the end? I and the Earl! Who am I? And he has the whole power of England at his back; but I’ll play the bull-dog till I die. I’ll set the horseback rider by the ears. The Red Band is not asleep. Beware, Earl Bellamont, beware. No maid is playing with you now. Do I not see the end? Do you think a man stares ruin in the face and strikes a feeble blow?”
His excitement had led him on; but he was showing me a deal more of confidence than he thought wise. He became suddenly more reserved, and then dismissed me abruptly, as if he repented what he had said, and did not know how to get rid of me in any more delicate manner. He gave me a command to wait upon him later in the day. With that I left the room.
And so this chapter of my adventure ended; I had been in deadly peril, and I had escaped; but I was in the same uncertain state as before. What would yet come of it? That was my thought, and only time could tell.
CHAPTER XX
THE SKELETON IN THE PATROON’S CLOSET
As I glance over the pages I have just written I wonder whether anyone will believe the record I have set down. So much happened during the first three days of my residence at the manor-house that the recollection of it seems to me now more like some romance of the old time than of life here in New York within the memory of people now alive. Yet these are events not soon forgotten, and every detail clings in my memory as fresh to-day as on the day it happened.
When the patroon dismissed me there was a strange, half-convinced look about him which augured further trouble. His state of mind was peculiar, and later events enable me to say pretty surely what it was. Though I was fairly free from superstition myself, that was a time when it ran riot. In that respect, Van Volkenberg was the creature of his day. He felt many a secret dread that could never have taken hold of me. Once he had tried my life at night; and Louis subsequently told me that my opportune absence when they came inspired the patroon with the unrighteousness of his act. He never guessed, nor did I at the time, that Meg’s warning to me had been due to the prompting of her son. Again he had tripped, captured and buried me, as he firmly believed, only to find me in his house the next morning as hearty as ever. And so I became, to him, an invulnerable foe; I bore a charmed life. The swift and deadly blows that made such short work of his other enemies, had, to all appearance, scarcely a finger’s weight with me. I grew vaguely conscious of this superstitious attitude on the part of the patroon towards me, though not until afterwards did I learn how heavily the burden weighed upon his spirit.