The colonel pushed forward through the open door and accosted the dignified lady, who was taking an inventory of the ruined household effects. Byle stalked into the room at the officer's side.
In the stately manner of the gentry of the period, Phelps made his compliments and solicited a brief interview. He apologized as well as he could for the outrageous behavior of the militia, and offered to do anything in his power to make amends. The only favor which the proud woman asked was the privilege of embarking as soon as practicable, on a down-river boat that would carry her and her children to the South.
"Can you procure for me the family boat which my husband provided for us at Marietta?"
The colonel feared not. Marietta was out of his jurisdiction.
"Is there any boat that I can borrow here, or buy? I must join my husband; I promised him that I would not delay."
"I'd lend you my big piroque, but you'll overset before you get as far as Farmer's Castle," said Byle.
"Pardon me," responded Madam Blennerhassett, in tones of apology, bestowing looks of infinite gratitude on her zealous guardian; "I cannot put in words my sense of obligation to you, sir. Colonel Phelps, I owe to this gentleman more than money can repay! It was he who protected me and my servants from the drunken soldiers; he drove them out, risking his life; he was wounded defending us!"
"You don't owe me a fip. It is no trouble at all to me to do a little chore for you. It was fool's luck, anyway. I saw you in town this morning, skiting about, from pillar to post, and says I to myself, 'There's uneasiness under that fine bonnet!' I noticed you dodge in at the court-house and at Squire Hale's, and everywhere, and something told me to investigate. So I went in wherever I saw you come out, in reg'lar order, and larnt, I guess, just about as much as you did, about your disappointment and your worry. Then I thought, 'as like as not that woman is having more trouble down upon the island than I know anything about. So, true as calamus is sweet-flag, as soon as you was on your white horse, like the old lady of Banbury Cross, I was in my everyday skiff, and I didn't lose you out of my sight from the minute you started to the minute Peter and Ransom took you on the ferry—but I slid along where you couldn't spy me."
"I did see you, sir, and I confess I imagined you might be some river-ruffian watching me with no good intention. I did you great injustice."
"I looked like a river pirate, did I? No, ma'am, I was a privateer, but not a pirate. I was sailing under your colors, unbeknown to you. Is that correct military language, Phelps? To make a long story short, Scipio told me in his charcoal style what happened last night, and all about Harman's sudden going away. Well, sir—ma'am, I mean—it struck me of a heap. I never was worse doubled up by news in my life. I'm not a praying man, as a rule—I only remember praying out loud once—that was when brother Euc was near 'bout dead with cholera morbus—I began to pray, and he says, 'Don't be fooling with the Lord now, but give me some more camphire.' That speech of Euc's sort of cured me of praying out loud, though I'm orthodox. Let's see; where was I? Oh, yes, I felt so dangnation sorry for the family, that I says, in my mind, or I reckon it was in my soul, I says to God, 'Don't forget to keep your all-seeing eye on Margaret.' Well, Colonel Phelps; I leave you in charge of the widow and the fatherless. If you have any trouble with the militia, just send for Plutarch Byle. Good-bye, Mrs. B. I never seen you lookin' handsomer since the day I first met you and Evaleen, last May a year ago, when I was up here investigating that hunk of raw beef in the puddle."