A party of about a dozen boys and four or five men have gone for the past six years to a little island in a New Hampshire lake not far from Lake Winnipisaukee, which is a favourite summer resort on account of its beautiful scenery, to pass the months of July and August. Their temporary dwelling is very primitive, not much more than a roof and three walls, for they intend to spend all their time in the open air. Every Sunday afternoon these boys have held religious services; they have a small parlour organ, and form a choir themselves. They intend this year, if possible, to have their choir properly vested, for their service is according to the Book of Common Prayer. There is not a church of any sort within a long distance, for this portion of the State is rather thinly settled. It is of New Hampshire that residents of other States say that the farmers there have to sharpen the noses of the sheep, in order that they may crop the grass between the rocks, as New Hampshire is all rocks. The natives attend the boys’ service as a treat, though, as the church is not very well known there, they are not quite sure that they approve of the ceremonial. The service is not always lay, however; several distinguished clergy and one or two bishops have visited this little camp and have preached for them. One of the boys told me that during these six years there had been but one Sunday when it rained so hard that they had to hold service in their hut. Doubtless, some day there will be a permanent chapel there.
And oh, what good times the little ones have at these camps! No fine clothes to be kept clean; no attractive but forbidden alley children to be avoided; no danger of being run over; no cross dogs to fear; and no venturing out in the water without the knowledge of mamma or nurse, for here no one is too busy to have one eye on the little mischiefs; but as much paddling about on the brink of the lake or ocean as would delight any small heart. And then, too, for mamma’s side of the question: no candy-shops to draw the pennies out of her pocket, or the tears from disappointed eyes; no coaxing ‘Can’t we go play with So-and-so?’ no scarlet fever or measles to be caught from some neighbour’s progeny; no evil influences to be feared for the older boys and girls; and no parties to be made for or attended by the children.
Mother Nature is a great restorer, and a few days of uninterrupted intercourse with her do more to renew the wasted health or relaxed energies, than as many weeks of dress and gaiety at a fashionable resort; and so sensible people are becoming more and more convinced.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XLI.
Before the yelling mob could close again round Harry Noel’s fallen body, with their wild onslaught of upraised cutlasses, more dangerous to one another in the thick press than to the prostrate Englishman or to poor fainting and unconscious Nora, another hasty clatter of horse’s hoofs burst upon them from behind, up the hilly pathway, and a loud, clear, commanding voice called out in resonant tones that overtopped and stilled for a moment the tumultuous murmur of negro shrieks: ‘In the Queen’s name—in the Queen’s name, hold; disperse there!’
That familiar adjuration acted like magic on the fierce and half-naked throng of ignorant and superstitious plantation negroes. It was indeed to them a mighty word to conjure with, that loud challenge in the name of the great distant Queen, whose reality seemed as far away from them and as utterly removed from their little sphere as heaven itself. They dropped their cutlasses instantly, for a brief moment of doubt and hesitation; a few voices still shouted fiercely, ‘Kill him—kill him!’ and then a unanimous cry arose among all the surging mass of wild and scowling black humanity: ‘Mr Hawtorn, Mr Hawtorn! Him come in Missis Queen name, so gib us warnin’. Now us gwine to get justice. Mr Hawtorn, Mr Hawtorn!’
But while the creole-born plantation hands thus welcomed eagerly what they looked upon, in their simplicity, as the Queen’s direct mouthpiece and representative, Louis Delgado, his face distorted with rage, and his arms plying his cutlass desperately, frowned and gnashed his teeth more fiercely than ever with rage and disappointment; for his wild African passion was now fully aroused, and like the tiger that has once tasted blood, he would not be balked of the final vengeful delight of hacking his helpless victim slowly to pieces in a long-drawn torture. ‘Missis Queen!’ he cried contemptuously, turning round and brandishing his cutlass with savage joy once more before the eyes of his half-sobered companions—‘Missis Queen, him say dar! Ha, ha, what him say dat for? What de Queen to me, I want you tell me? I doan’t care for Queen, or judge, or magistrate, or nuffin! I gwine to kill all de white men togedder, in all Trinidad, de Lard helpin’ me!’
As he spoke, Edward Hawthorn jumped hastily from his saddle, and advanced with long strides towards the fiercely gesticulating and mumbling African. The plantation negroes, cowed and tamed for the moment by Edward’s bold and resolute presence, and overawed by the great name of that mysterious, unknown, half-mythical Queen Victoria, beyond the vast illimitable ocean, fell back sullenly to right and left, and made a little lane through the middle of the crowd for the Queen’s representative to mount the staircase. Edward strode up, without casting a single glance on either side, to where Delgado stood savagely beside Harry Noel’s fallen body, and put his right hand with an air of indisputable authority upon the frantic African’s uplifted arm. Delgado tried to shake him off suddenly with a quick, adroit, convulsive movement; but Edward’s grip was tight and vice-like, and he held the black arm powerless in his grasp, as he spoke aloud a few words in some unknown language, which sounded to the group of wondering negroes like utter gibberish—or perhaps some strange spell with which the representative of Queen Victoria knew how to conjure by some still more potent and terrible obeah than even Delgado’s.
But Louis Delgado alone knew that the words were Arabic, and that Edward Hawthorn grasped his arm: ‘In the name of Allah, the All-wise, the most Powerful!’