Through the Gates of Old Romance

by Weymer Jay Mills

The cords that bound his swelling arms were loosened. The great hall door swung back for freedom, and he staggered out into the garden. The storm was over. After the brightness of the room his eyes could not penetrate the darkness. A dash against a drenched rose-bush brought a cloud of raindrops and loosened petals on his head. The dampness and the faint odor of the flowers awakened him. A wind was arising, making a low murmur among the bushes.

Suddenly it came over him that he was leaving Sally's house. Only the Townsends had white garden-posts. Sally! How sweet the name! Long, long ago it was that he bade her good-by in the meadow. He felt her kiss on his cheek now. Then the wind sighed, "You are to die!—to die!"

A chill was creeping over him—he was to go back to the great house. No, it was not right. He was young; he was free; he could escape to the forest, and they would never know. For a moment he turned and looked at it, then hurried off into the road.

He began to run slowly at first, gradually increasing his pace until his strength was taxed to its utmost. He was a wild, hunted thing that the forces of the world were about to drown. A wet blanket was over the earth. Watery trees touched him with their wet arms, making him shudder. Deep pools in the middle of the roadway showed him his shadow. Dark, wet things flew out at him from coverts and joined his mad course. The wind was at his heels, growing louder and more insistent. "You are to die!—to die!" it shrieked. Now he was battling with it. "I cannot die!—I shall not die!" his soul said. On he plunged.

It was his own log school-house overlapping the road that stopped him. Close to his path it stood like some grim sentinel. Before it he paused, his breath coming in short gasps. "You must go back," it whispered. "You have promised." "I cannot die," he answered; but he lingered by it as if afraid to go on. The wind was lessening; it no longer challenged him. In its sweep he now heard the voices of children. "Here you taught us the meaning of faith and honor." Over the years he saw them all. A long line of eager little forms were stealing through a gate whose latch was rusted. Where were they all to-night: the merry boys who dreamed of playtimes over dull books; the girls with their flowers and apples for the master? No longer would he guide them. They were gone forever from him. The wind had caught their droning voices. A lad who wore the dunce-cap often was before him. He saw him stolid and indifferent in the corner of the dreary room; then again, awakened by the call of war, he was by his side, a drummer-boy, charging the heights of Bergen. The dunce was not afraid to die. "You will go back," the voices wailed, and he answered, "Yes!"

The moon was throwing off the mist veils, and her first pale beams sent earthward showed him his mother's cot. There were no lights in the windows. He approached the door and stood by it shivering. An awful fear came over him that perhaps she was away. A fourth of his time was already gone. What if he could not see her again? He longed to feel her tender arms about him, and yet he knew that the agony of leaving them would be more than he could bear. He dared not knock, but crept softly to an open window. In the old stole-band rocking-chair she was seated close to a dying fire, her eyes closed by sleep. The worn strip of wool rag carpet he knew so well was smooth beneath her feet. A pair of finches were twittering softly in their cage by the south window. Over the broad sill he climbed as in the days of his boyhood. To her side he crept and began to stroke her calloused, tired hands. His touch brought her back from her visionary realm. "Is he dead?" her waking lips murmured, and then she saw her son.

At the Townsend house none of the officers knew that the youth who left them was anything to Sally. It was proper for a tender-hearted maid to swoon at a danger. After the door closed upon him there were calls for the hostess. Was she revived? Then André stepped forward and told the officers what the condemned youth was to her. In his graphic way he repeated the simple love-story. The eyes of all in the room, expressing varying emotions, were still centred on his face when a faint rustle of women's garments was heard in the hall. André stopped speaking. In their midst stood Sally, pale and with anguish in her eyes. Miss Townsend was near her, wringing her hands.

"Sirs," the girl said, "you have been here nigh a month, and we have given you of our best, hiding naught, although you are not of our color." Her voice was breaking. "I," she continued, "have worked for you, amused you, laughed for you, and now I want my pay. You must give me an innocent man's life. The one you have condemned to death is not a spy. I swear it before God!"

Bluff and hearty Colonel Simcoe, in the act of drawing a goblet of port, lowered the glass a few inches at each of the girl's passionate outbursts. He began to feel of his wig to see if it were awry. "Lud, here is a pretty to do," he murmured to himself. The lady was a fine creature and her words were true. He placed the heavy cut piece on the table and then he spoke. "His death-sentence was but a mock one," he said. "'Tis our mind to set him free, yet 'twas necessary to find out if he knew aught."

"Oh, sir, let me have his life! Write it on a paper that you set him free." The girl's tones were entreating. "I must go to him, and now."