A few minutes later there came the clank of a sword and a hurried step, and then the door burst open and in marched Master Dick in all the glory of his full regimentals. And so brave was the show that he made in his cocked hat, scarlet coat, with its facings of buff, and the long clanking sword, that I longed to spring up and don my own then and there. But my mother's finger on her lip caused him to stop the cheery greeting, and he came forward on his tiptoes, holding his sword carefully to keep it from clanking, for by this time I was growing weak again. Master Dick shook my hand gently and murmured, "Cheer up, old fellow, you will soon be with us again," but I could only give him a slight smile, for I was again on the borderland of dreams. Dick stood for awhile looking down on me; then he, too, had to depart. Gradually the steady tramp of marching feet died away, and everything became quiet and still again.
The days passed by, week followed week, and though at first I gained strength but slowly, the process seeming a long and dreary one, the vigour of a youthful frame soon asserted itself, and I could feel the returning tide of health and strength. But as yet I lay there upon the great four-post bed, with my mother sitting near by, her dear face bending over the embroidery frame, as her deft fingers weaved beautiful designs with the silk. As I lay there, I would wander back again to that day before the duel, to the swift challenging glance of a pair of blue eyes as a blood-red rose was pinned to my coat. But that was so long ago, years it seemed to me, away back in the past, a memory as it were of a fairy tale heard from the lips of a grandmother before the big open fire in the great hall on a winter night; a fairy tale, aye, and she the Princess, with her blue eyes and hair of waving brown, with her step as light as the dew-drop, and her voice as low and soft as the breath of the Southern breeze in the spring; and then I would be her Prince Charming, with my coal-black horse. But, pshaw! I am becoming a child again; whereas I am a man, who has fought his duel as becomes a man, with a right to the sword by his side. And yet those blue eyes, what fate was in store for them? And would their challenging glance ever meet mine again? But here my mother stopped the trend of my thoughts for a moment.
"James," she said, "John Cotton tells me that an old darky comes to inquire for you every night. Strange, is it not? We know so few people here."
"Yes," I replied. "Does John Cotton know who he is?"
"No; he refuses to tell, and all John Cotton can find out is that he leaves town by the river road. He appears to be a stranger to all the other darkies, and nobody seems to know him."
By the river road! Could it possibly be, then, that it was the Tory maid who sent those many miles to see if I were in the land of the living or the dead? Ah, it was too pleasant a thing to dream of; too pleasant to have it shattered by the rough hand of fact. And so I said dreamily, "It is only one of John Cotton's stories, I suppose."
Yet I would not have believed it otherwise for all of John Cotton's weight in gold. Thus it was I was thinking one day of the Tory maid, when the door opened, and a tall, dignified gentleman came in—the man who had stood by my side that day when with drawn sword I held the door against Rodolph and his followers—Mr. Lambert Wilmer of the White House in Kent.
He came forward and greeted me with many kind phrases. While he sat talking to me of the duel and its cause, I thought of that great burst of laughter when he told Rodolph to put up his sword, as by this time he should have had enough of Gordon of the Braes, and I asked the reason for it all.
"It is a long story, lad," said he, "but I will tell it to you."
Then he told me how, many years before, Mistress Margaret Nicholson had been the loveliest girl in Kent, and the belle of the whole shore, and how there was not a bachelor within three counties who did not seek her as his bride, or who would not have sold his soul for a glance of her eyes or the soft pressure of her hand; and how when James Rodolph of Charlestown Hundred came riding down from Cecil and boasted of his wealth, his horses, and his slaves, swearing that he would win her or no one would, the suitors stood aside to see how he would fare with this the proudest of Kent beauties. To their dismay, he seemed to prosper well, until one day there disembarked from a vessel that came sailing up the broad Chester a young gentleman of distinguished appearance, who asked his way to Radcliffe, the home of the Nicholsons.