THE FUGITIVE AND HIS CHILD.
"Adieu! adieu! My native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue.
The night winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew."
At the close of a July day in the year of the restoration, a man, travelling on foot and leading a little girl six years of age, entered the town of Boston. The few inhabitants on the streets and at their doors and windows regarded the travellers with amazement and even suspicion, for both were strangers in this part of the world. It would be difficult to meet wayfarers of more wretched appearance. He was tall, muscular and robust, and in the full vigor of life. His age might be anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five, for while his eye possessed the fire of youth, there were streaks of gray in his long hair and beard. His ruffled shirt of well-worn linen was met at the neck by a modest ruff faded and torn like the shirt, and both sadly in need of washing. On his head he wore a round black cap which, if it ever had a peak, had lost it. The trousers of dark stuff came just below the knee, Puritan fashion, and were met by coarse gray stockings. The feet were encased in coarse shoes with steel buckles, and a sable blouse well worn was held close to the body by a belt. His only visible weapon was a knotted stick. Perspiration, heat, exhaustion from travelling on foot, with dust, added something sordid to his general wretched appearance.
No less interesting than the man was the child he led at his side. Her great, dark brown eyes and golden hair were indications of beauty, despite the careworn look and dust-covered features. She wore a hood and frock, stockings and thick English shoes of the period. Like the man, the child had a haggard look, and her clothing was faded and worn. There were leaves and dust in that golden hair, as if her pillow had been the earth, and her beautiful brown eyes had a terrified look, as if some dread possessed her mind.
The appearance of these two travel-stained strangers occasioned much comment in Boston. No one knew them. Where did they come from? The south, perhaps the seaboard, for they made their entrance from the Plymouth and Rhode Island roads. But why had they come by land when travel by water was so much easier? They must have been walking all day, for the child seemed very tired. Some women, who had seen them enter the old suburb at the lower part of the town, asserted that the stranger was carrying the child in his arms when he came to the town. They saw him halt under some trees by the big spring and both man and child drink of the pure sweet waters. On reaching the corner of what is now Washington Street he paused a moment and glanced toward the house of the governor as if he would go there; but, after a few whispered words with the child, he shook his head and turned his attention toward the principal inn of the town.
The child evidently caused this change in his mind, for Mrs. Alice Stevens, who from her window was watching the pair with no little interest, thought the little girl looked hungry and tired. She was on the point of going out to offer her some refreshments and ask the wanderers to come in and rest, when they went on. The travellers must have been very thirsty, for the children who followed them saw them pause at the town-pump and drink again.
There was at this time in Boston a very respectable inn, at which Bradford the governor of New Plymouth had been entertained by the elder governor Winthrop. The man and child proceeded to this inn, the best in the town, and entered the broad piazza which was on a level with the street. All the ovens were heated, and the host, who was also chief cook, was preparing supper. The savory smell of cooked meats and vegetables filled the air with an odor which seemed to increase the child's hunger. The man and child without a word sank down upon the wooden benches and listened to the conversation of some men who were drinking in the tap-room. The peals of laughter and loud talk certainly were very unlike the staid Puritans of New England. Anon, one of them struck up a cavalier song very popular among that sect at the period, and ended with:
"God save the King!"
No war-horse ever heard the blast of a trumpet with more fire in his soul than did the stranger sitting on the porch holding his child by one hand, and his knotted stick in the other, hear that cry. His hand involuntarily clutched the stick as if it were a sword, and his breath came hard and quick, as if he were eager to rush into battle. The child seemed instinctively to catch the idea of her father and clutched his arm with both her hands, while her soft brown eyes were fixed on his in mute appeal, and he sat enduring the insult without a murmur.
The kitchen was not so far away but that the partridges, grouse and trout on spits and in the oven gave forth their fumes as they browned to tempting perfection. The little girl had not yet spoken since they had entered the town; but now she fixed her eyes on her parent and whispered:
"I am very hungry."
He turned his great brown eyes on her tenderly, and made no answer. At this moment a tow-headed son of the host espied the strangers on the porch and went to his father to report. The landlord, with flushed face and greasy apron, appeared on the porch and asked:
"What do you want?"
"Supper and bed," was the answer, and the little girl raised her eyes to the host, giving him a tired hungry stare.
The proprietor of the inn looked at them suspiciously for a moment, and then, as if doubting their ability to remunerate him for his accommodations, asked:
"Have you money to pay for that which you ask?"
"I have," and the mysterious stranger drew from an inside pocket of his blouse a heavy leathern purse. Unfastening its strings he emptied its contents, golden guineas, into his own hands, as if to prove that he had the wherewithal to pay for himself and child. The sight of so much gold caused the landlord's eyes to sparkle with delight, and he said:
"You can have what you ask!"
The stranger returned his money to his purse and put it in the pocket of his blouse. There was an air of mystery about the stranger which puzzled the landlord, and he stood gazing at him, his brow gathered into a knot of wrinkles as if trying to solve some intricate problem. The man was sparing of his words; but when he did speak there was something terrible in his voice; it was deep and heavy like the roar of a cannon. While the landlord was gazing at him, lost in a sort of revery, he was suddenly startled by the awful voice asking:
"Will supper be ready soon?"
"Directly."
The host, being thus recalled to his duty, wheeled about to return to the kitchen. On his way he was met by his wife, whose face was the very picture of terror and superstitious dread.
"Have nought to do with them! Have nought to do with them!"
"Wherefore, good wife, do you say as much?"
She whispered a few words in his ears which made him turn pale, and with eyes starting from their sockets, he asked:
"How know you this?"
"Mrs. Johnson hath told me."
The whole demeanor of the landlord underwent an immediate change, his eyes no longer sparkled with delight at thought of the golden guineas, and he would sooner have handled a red-hot toasting-fork than have touched one of them. For a moment he stood hesitating and actually quaking, and then he appealed to his wife with:
"What must be done?"
"Be done with them at once. Marry! send them hence without delay."
The good dame ruled the household, and he hastily returned to the porch where the stranger and his child were sitting, and said:
"I cannot make room for you!"
Half starting from his seat, the traveller fixed his terrible eyes on the host and asked:
"What mean you? Be you afraid of your payment? Verily, I will give you the money before I eat your bread," and once more he put his hand into the pocket of the blouse to pull forth the purse; but the landlord raised his own hand and, with a restraining gesture and averted his head, as if he dreaded a sight of the other's gold, answered:
"Nay, it is not that."
"Pray, what is it?"
"I doubt not that you have the money."
"Then why refuse me what I ask?"
"I have no spare beds. When I said you could remain, I knew not that all my rooms were taken."
The child raised her beautiful but dirt-stained face to the host in mute appeal, while her father quietly continued:
"Put us in the stables; we are used to it."
"I cannot."
"Pray why not? Surely the enemies of the son of God would not refuse him that."
The host started at the awful reply, which to him was sacrilege, and answered in a faltering voice:
"The horses take up all the room."
The stranger seemed not entirely put out by the persistent refusal of the landlord and said:
"We will find some corner in which to lie after supper."
"I will give you no supper."
This declaration, made in a firm tone, brought the mysterious traveller to his feet.
"Can you, a Christian, speak thus?" he cried. "We are dying of hunger. I have been on my legs since sunrise, and have walked ten leagues to-day, for most part carrying my child on my back. I have the money, I am hungry, and I will have food."
"I have none for you," said the landlord.
"What are you cooking in your kitchen, the savory odors of which are maddening to a hungry man?"
"It is all ordered."
"By whom?"
"Merchants and travellers from Plymouth and New Amsterdam."
"You can surely spare a crust for my child, she is starving."
The stern landlord hesitated, when a loud authoritative "Ahem!" from his invisible wife strengthened him, and he said:
"I have not a morsel to spare."
"I am at an inn. I am hungry, I have money, and I shall remain," answered the stranger, sitting by the side of the little girl, who nervously clutched his arm. The landlord seemed quite put out, if not a little awed by the determined manner of the stranger, and turning about re-entered the house, where he held a whispered consultation with some one. Terror overcame the hunger of the tired child, and, clinging to her father, she whispered:
"Let us go from this house. I am not hungry now, let us go to some other place where we will not be injured."
He laid his hard, rough hand assuringly on the shoulder of the frightened child and sought to soothe her fears. At this moment the landlord, who had had his courage renewed by his wife, came quite up to the stranger and, in a voice that was terribly in earnest, said:
"I know more of you by far than you realize. I am usually polite to everybody, so pray be off."
For a single instant a flash blazed from the eyes of the stranger, then his face grew deathly white, and he rose, taking the hand of his childIllustration: His tired child was at his side uncomplaininglyin his own and went off. They walked along the streets at hap-hazard, keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated pair. His tired child was at his side, uncomplaining, though scarcely able to drag one weary little foot after the other. They did not look back once. Had they done so they would have seen that the landlord stood with all his guests and the passers-by, talking eagerly and pointing to them. Judging from the looks of suspicion and terror, they might have guessed that ere long their arrival would be the event of the whole town. They saw nothing of this, for people who are oppressed do not look back, they know too well that evil destiny is following them.
Though sad and humiliated, the man was proud, and had the consciousness of right on his side. Only for his child, he might have defied the landlord and all the people, but the dread of leaving her alone and uncared for almost made a coward of a lion. They walked on for a long time, turning down streets new and strange to them, and in their sorrow forgetting their fatigue. The sun had set and darkness was falling over the landscape, when the father, roused once more to a sense of duty for his child, began to look around for some sort of shelter. The best inn was closed against them, so he sought a very humble ale-house, a wretched den which he would have shuddered to have his child enter under other circumstances. The candles had been lighted and the travellers paused for a moment to look through the windows. Even that miserable place had something cheerful and inviting about it. Some cavaliers who had come from England since the restoration were drinking beer, while over the fire in the broad chimney bubbled a caldron hanging from an iron hook. The traveller went to the front entrance and timidly raised the latch and entered the room, bringing his child after him.
"Who is there?" the landlord asked.
"A traveller and his child who want supper and bed."
"Very good. They are to be had here."
A long wooden bench was in the room, and the traveller sat down on it and stretched out his tired feet, swollen with fatigue. The child fell into the seat at his side and, laying her soft curly head on his lap, despite the fact she had travelled all day without food, fell asleep. As the stranger sat there in the gloom of twilight, for no candle had been brought into the room, all that could be distinguished of his face was his prominent nose, and firm mouth covered with beard. It was a firm, energetic and sad profile. The face was strangely composed, for it began by being proud and ended with humility, it commenced in stern austerity and ended in kindness. One moment the eyes beneath the shaggy eyebrows gleamed with fires of hate, next they were softened in love as the glance fell on the sleeping, supperless child. The hand was hardened by grasping the sword-hilt, and the heart, which had so often defied the bullets of the enemy, was humble and child-like in the presence of the little girl.
The landlord was about to prepare supper for the hungry wanderers, when a man suddenly entered by the kitchen door, quite out of breath with running. His eyes were opened wide with terror, and he was trembling from head to foot. He proceeded to whisper some words in the ears of the landlord, which caused him to start and quake with dread.
"What would I better do?" asked the landlord in amazement.
"Drive them hence. No good ever comes to one harboring such."
This being made the plain Christian duty of the landlord, he was not slow to act. He went into the adjoining room, walked up almost to the stranger, holding his sleeping child on his knee, and said:
"You must be off."
At first the eyes glared at the host fiercely, then became more gentle, as he remarked:
"You know me?"
"Yes."
"We were turned away from the other inn."
"So you will be from this."
"Where would you have us go?"
"Anywhere so you leave my house."
The stranger had made no effort as yet to rise, and the child who sat at his side with her head on his knee still slept. Someone brought in a lighted wax taper, and the strange man, gazing on the face of the sleeping child, asked:
"Can she remain? See, she has had no food all day and has journeyed, oh, so far! Won't you let her remain?"
"No, I will have none of you with me."
"But she hath done no wrong," persisted the father.
The stubborn landlord shook his head and answered:
"It brings ill luck to one having such about. You must away and take her with you."
The large, sad-eyed man bent over the sleeping child and whispered:
"Ester!"
She awoke in a moment and cast a bewildered glance about the room, as a child will on being suddenly aroused.
"We must go," the father said, sadly.
She made no complaint, but, rising, with a feminine instinct common even in a girl of her tender years, adjusted her ruffled hood and dress.
They went out into the night, for the sun had long since set, and the far-off stars one by one opened their little eyes, until the heavens were glittering with diamonds. They entered a small street in which there were numerous gardens, some being merely enclosures with stone fences. Among these gardens and fences he saw a house the window of which was illuminated, and he looked through the open casement as he had done at the inn. It was a cozy, whitewashed room, with a bed, a rude cradle, a few chairs and an old-fashioned matchlock hanging on a rack made of deer's antlers on the wall. A plain table was laid for supper in the middle of the room, a wax taper burned on the mantel lighting up the interior of the Puritan's home. A man forty years of age sat at the table with a baby on his knee. Two children, one four and the other two years old, sat at his side, while the mother was placing supper on the table. What a tempting sight for a hungry man! Could one conceive a more happy family picture? The travellers looked on, and the father was almost maddened when he glanced at his own child.
"Papa, I am so hungry and so tired," she whispered. "Won't you ask them if we can stay here?"
Fugitives from the law must have a care where they go, and to whom they appeal, yet Ester's father was growing more desperate every moment. He went boldly to the door and gave a timid rap with his knuckle. That hand once bold enough to strike a king from his throne was weak and trembling on this night. At sound of the knock, the husband and father seemed to have suddenly changed. The lion may sport and play with his whelps in his lair, but when the intruder enters his domestic abode, all is changed. He rose, took up the light and went to the door. He was a tall man and, judging from his charcoal-begrimed features, a blacksmith, and he wore a large leathern apron which came quite to his shoulder. As he threw back his head the shirt-front opened, displaying his bare neck and hairy chest. His face was sullen, with a bull-dog expression on it. Without a moment's hesitation, the stranger began:
"I am weary, and my child hath had no food to-day. Would you, for money, give us a morsel to eat and a blanket and corner in which to sleep?"
"Who are you?" asked the smith.
"We came from New Plymouth, and have walked all day. I will pay you well for what you give us."
The blacksmith loved money; but those were troublesome times, and people had to be careful whom they admitted into their houses. The king had been restored and was pursuing his enemies with a vengeance, and to harbor aregicidemight mean death on the scaffold. The smith thought of all this, and asked:
"Why do you not go to one of the inns?"
"There is no room there."
"Nonsense! that is impossible. Have you been to Robinson's?"
"I have been to all."
"Well?"
The traveller continued with some hesitation, "I do not know why; but they all refuse to take us in."
The man knew there was something wrong with the travellers, and turning about, he held a whispered consultation with his wife. She was heard to say in a faint whisper: "It is the same, a man with a child." Then the smith turned on the stranger, and said:
"Be off."
The proud eye of a daring trooper in despair is the saddest sight one ever gazed upon. Such was the look of the humiliated man, as, with his starving child, he turned from the last door. At times the spirit of revenge rose in his breast, and he was inclined to turn on the men who refused his child food, drink and shelter, and with his stout knotted stick beat out their brains; but, on second thought, he restrained himself and said:
"No--no; I will not make an outlaw of myself. I am not a robber."
He who had been the commander of thousands, the king of the battle-field, at whose name princes grew pale and thrones tottered, was now a wanderer from house to house, rejected at every door.
"I am so hungry," murmured Ester. "If I had but a morsel of food, I could sleep under a tree."
He heard the plaintive appeal, and it wrung his fatherly heart. Through his teeth he hissed:
"If I am made a savage let all the world beware."
They were climbing a hill to enter another part of the town, when they came upon a kind old Puritan woman, who paused to gaze in compassion on the wayfarers. If others kept off from them as though they were creatures to contaminate by a touch, she seemed to entertain no such fears. Coming quite close, she said:
"Prythee, friend, why do you not get this child to bed?"
"I would, good woman, had I a bed for her; but, alas, all doors are shut against us."
"Surely not all!"
"I have tried the inns and the home of the smith; but they seem to fear us, as if we were polution."
"Have you called at that house?" she asked, pointing to a steep-roofed building, the top of which was just visible over the hill in the light of the rising moon.
"No, who lives there?"
"Mathew Stevens, a very good old man."
"Has he a heart? Is he brave?"
"He has a heart tender enough, and he is brave enough to shelter the oppressed, in spite of other people's opinions."
The woman went her way, and the traveller and his weary child went slowly over the hill to the house. It seemed a great distance. Many a time after that Ester traversed the distance alone and thought it short; but on that night rods were lengthened out into miles. As they were passing the window, Ester saw a man about the age of her father reading a Bible. He sat at a table on which burned a taper, and his wife and children were gathered about listening. Surely a man who would read the Bible would not refuse them food and shelter. She staggered up to the door by her father's side, in a dazed, half-conscious manner, and was cognizant of his knocking, and the door being opened. Their story was told briefly, and then warm arms encircled the little fugitive, a colored slave prepared a supper, and Ester was awakened to eat it, after which she sank into slumber on her father's breast.
TYRANNY AND FLIGHT.
"Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of successful or unsuccessful war,
Might never reach me more."
--Cowper.
When Virginia came back to the royal fold, her people little suspected that she was to be fleeced by the very men for whom they had clamored. No event worthy of note had occurred in the colony until September, 1663, when what was known as the "Oliverian Plot" was concocted. A number of indented servants conspired to "anticipate the period of their freedom," and made an appointment to assemble at Poplar Spring in Gloucester, with what precise designs is not known. They were betrayed by one of their number, and Berkeley, who already seemed to thirst for blood, had the four ringleaders hung.
Jamestown was the gay city of the South; but the halcyon days promised on the restoration of Virginia to royalty were never realized. The common people were made worse for the change, and only the favorite few were bettered.
At the home of Mrs. Dorothe Price matters went on fairly well. Her children from the first seemed to whisper rebellion; but the stern cavalier husband met them with firmness. Robert Stevens, who had incurred the man's dislike before he had wed his mother, realized that his stepfather had not forgotten and was not likely to forget the assault. His face, which at times could be pleasant, was firm and immovable with Robert. He never smiled on the boy nor gave him one encouraging word.
When the cavaliers and ladies assembled at the house, the children were sent away. Robert was strong and athletic. His early hardships had bred in him a spirit of fearless independence and freedom, which few of his age realized. Mr. Price saw that unless he early mastered him, he would not be able to do so, for Robert was rapidly growing larger. The gloomy taint in Hugh Price's blood was his religion, which was austere and wrathful. He could assume a character of firmness when he chose to do so, and then, despite his silk, lace, and ruffles, he became terrible. One day when Robert had exhibited a strong spirit of insubordination, he took his arm and, sitting on a chair, held him standing before him for a long time, gazing into his face. The little fellow met his glance without quailing, though he could feel his heart within his bosom giving great thumps.
"Robert," he said, pressing his lips firmly together, "do you know what I do if my horse or dog will not obey me?"
"No," was the answer.
"I beat him and make him smart until I have conquered him. I would drain every drop of blood from his veins, but I would conquer him."
Glaring at him with a fury that made the strong man wince, the lad answered:
"If you beat me I will kill you."
For several minutes the stepfather sat glaring at Robert who met his gaze with defiance. Hugh Price read in the face of the child hate, and inwardly realized that there was a struggle in the near future which might end in the death of one or the other; but if those forebodings were in his mind, he did not let the boy see them, and in a voice quite calm and intended to be gentle, he said:
"Go away, Robert, until you are more reasonable."
Robert Stevens might have been improved for his whole life by a single kind word at that moment; but the haughty cavalier would not bow to the will of any one, much less to the boy he already hated. A word of encouragement, explanation, pity for his childish ignorance, of reassurance that his mother's roof was to be his home, might have made him really dutiful.
On his way out he heard a sob, and, going into his mother's room, found her on her knees weeping bitterly. Tenderly he wound his arms around that weak mother, whom he loved with all the fervency of his young soul, and his own tears mingled with hers. They were in this position when Hugh Price, on his way to mount his horse, paused a single instant to gaze on the scene, and then, muttering something about weakness of women, added an oath and hurried from the house.
When he was gone, Dorothe rose from her knees and, clasping Robert in her arms, cried:
"Oh, Robert, I heard it all!"
"Mother, I mean it!" he answered.
"No, no; for my sake, promise me you will not, Robert."
"Mother," said the boy, "my own father never struck me a blow. He who had the right to punish me never found it necessary, and he shall not."
Dearly as Robert loved his mother, he would not yield to Hugh Price. He would have suffered torture rather than caused his mother a single tear; but to yield to the haughty cavalier was impossible.
Public schools were unknown in that day, and what little learning was to be acquired was by private tutors. Sometimes Price talked of sending the boy to England to school, more to get rid of him than from any real desire to improve his mind. The mother objected to this. Then the stepfather tried to effect a compromise by sending him to Harvard College in Massachusetts, for he had relatives in Boston who might keep an eye on the incorrigible youth; but the fond mother clung to her son, and having a fair education herself, Robert and his sister, a pale little creature, whose great dark eyes were like her mother's, became pupils with the mother for teacher. She was an indulgent preceptress and, for a short season, renounced the pleasures and follies grown so dear to her heart, and devoted herself to the improvement of her children's mind. Mrs. Price was so blind as to believe that it was her husband's real interest in Robert's welfare that made him wish to send the boy away. She soon found her labor as teacher irksome. She employed a private tutor and again mingled with the lords and ladies, and became one of the sparkling lights of Greensprings Manor.
Hugh Price was kind and indulgent to her. Her temperament suited his own ideas of living, and but for the children they might have been happy.
It is possible that Mr. Price entertained some fear that Robert would execute his threat and kill him, for though he often laid his hand on the slender cane as if he would like to use it on the boy, he had thus far refrained; but a crisis was coming. Price not only entertained an aversion to Robert, but disliked Rebecca. She shrank from him in a way that increased the dislike, although he made some efforts to reconcile her to him.
One day, a year and a half after his marriage, he accosted the child, and she, shrinking with dread, failed to do his bidding. He boxed her ears, and she cried out with pain.
That scream roused Robert, and he flew tooth and nail at the stepfather. Hugh Price, unprepared for this violent attack, shook the lad off, held him at arm's length for a moment and said:
"I may as well do it now as ever."
Robert was in a maze, and to him it seemed a dream. His mother was weeping and imploring, his sister screaming, and the faithful slave Dinah howling. As Price took him toward the door, his mother ran toward them; but the husband angrily raised his disengaged hand and growled:
"Dorothe, you are a perfect fool!"
Robert saw her stop her ears, then heard her crying, as he was led slowly and gravely to his room. The supreme moment had arrived when Mr. Hugh Price was to glut his vengeance. Price was delighted with this formal parade to the execution of justice, for he had made up his mind to conquer the lad's spirit or break it, and when Robert's room was reached, he suddenly twisted his head under his arm, saying:
"The moment has arrived, Robert, when I must convince you that I am master of the house."
"Mr. Price, beware! Pray don't beat me, it will only make matters worse. I could not see you strike my sister; but if you will not beat us, we will try to obey you in the future."
"No, no, indeed, Robert!" he answered. "The time has come to convince you that I am master."
He held the boy's arm until it ached with pain, but Robert continued to gaze in his face and implore him for the sake of the future not to strike him. The stepfather was in a rage, and at that moment little cared what he roused in the breast of the boy. Heedless of his pleading, he raised his slender cane and struck at him, but the active lad dodged the blow and caught his arm with his sharp teeth.
It now became a fight to the finish. Hugh Price was enraged and struck fast and furious. Above the din of the combatants in the room, the angry, smarting boy could hear the darkies flying in terror from room to room, and his little sister at the door imploring mercy for her brother. Mingled with this noise were the screams and supplications of his mother until she fainted in the arms of the negress, after which came only the shrill cries of little Rebecca. Then the stepfather was gone, and the door bolted on the outside. The badly bruised lad lay raging and sobbing on the floor, breathing threats of vengeance. By degrees he became quiet and listened. A strange, unnatural silence reigned throughout the whole house. When his smarting began to subside his passion cooled a little, yet he felt wicked; and, rolling on the floor, vowed he would kill his stepfather.
After a while he sat up and listened for a long time; but there was not a sound. He crawled from the floor, and the wounds made by the cane of the cavalier were so fresh and sore that they made him weep anew.
He sat by the window. It had began to grow dark, and he was turning away to lie on the couch, when he heard the clatter of hoofs and saw Hugh Price mounted on his favorite black charger, riding toward Greensprings. Shortly after, Dinah's step was heard on the stairway, and his door was opened.
"Where is Rebecca?" he asked.
"Waiten," was the answer.
"Waiting for what?"
"For you, Massa Robert. You is gwine away."
"Where?"
The negress did not know; but Robert soon learned that their uncle from Flower De Hundred had come to Jamestown and agreed to take the children and rear them.
"When are we to go, Dinah?"
"To-morrow, Massa."
"Is that why Mr. Price left?"
"Yes um. Him say neber want to see you again."
"Shall I see mother?"
"Yes, in de mornin'. Heah am yer suppah chile; now eat it an den go to sleep, honey, for it am all ober."
Consequently next morning at early daylight the children were mounted on horses, the chief mode of travel in Virginia at that time, and, accompanied by their aunt's husband and two negro slaves, they set off on the long journey. Mrs. Price kissed them a tearful adieu and wept as if her heart would break. This unfortunate woman was more weak than bad. By one who has not made a study of the human heart and is incapable of an analysis of woman, Mrs. Price will not be understood. There are many women like her, and, disagreeable as the type may seem, it exists, and the artist who is true to nature must paint nature as he finds it.
Three years were passed by Robert and his sister at the home of their relative, and in those three years Robert imbibed a spirit of republicanism which at that time was rapidly growing in Virginia. As Robert's uncles were republicans, he learned the doctrine from them. If for no other reason than that his stepfather was a royalist, he would have been a republican.
Nothing is more uncertain than political friendship, a friendship selfish and treacherous. It assumes all things, absorbs all things, expects all things, and disappoints in everything. A merely political friend can never be trusted. Robert was seventeen or eighteen years of age, when he became acquainted with Giles Peram, a young man two or three years his senior. Peram was a caricature on nature. He was short of stature, had a round, fat face, eyes that bulged from his head like those of a toad, a corpulent body, and a walk about as graceful as the waddling of a duck. His short legs and arms gave him a decidedly comical appearance.
He was egotistical, with flexible opinions and liable to be swayed in any course. When he was at Flower De Hundred, living in the atmosphere of liberalists and republicans, he was one of the most outspoken of all. He would strut for hours before any one who would listen to his senseless twaddle and would harangue and discourse on the rights of the people.
"Are you favorable to royalty?" he asked Robert one day. "Don't you believe in the rights of the common people?"
"I certainly do," Robert answered, for he was thoroughly democratic.
"So do I--ahem--so do I;" and then the angry little fellow shook his fist at an imaginary foe. "Would you fight for such principles?"
"I would."
"So would I--ahem, so would I," cried Mr. Peram. Giles had a very disagreeable habit of repeating his words. A wag once said that his ideas were so few and his words so many that he was forced to repeat. "I will fight for the rights of the people. I will lead an army myself and hurl King Charles from his throne."
Robert laughed. The idea of this insipid pigmy leading an army to overthrow the king was as ridiculous as Don Quixote charging the windmills.
"Give o'er such thoughts, Giles, or perchance the king will hang you."
"Hang me! I defy him!" cried Mr. Peram.
His manner was earnest, and Robert, who hated Governor Berkeley, suggested they had better begin their republic by overthrowing the governor.
"Do you mean it?" asked Giles. "Aye, do you mean it? Then why not hurl Berkeley from power."
"Verily, you could not more nearly conform to my wishes," answered Robert.
Then Giles, in his impetuous enthusiasm, embraced Robert. Giles Peram was not a spy, and at that time he believed himself a stanch republican. A few days later he went to Jamestown. Robert little dreamed that his remark would bring trouble upon himself.
At this time Governor Berkeley was growing uneasy. He felt that he stood above a burning volcano, from which an eruption was liable to take place at any moment. He trembled at the slightest whispers of freedom, for royalty dreads independence, and the idle boasts of Giles Peram startled him. He summoned Hugh Price and consulted with him on the boldness of Peram.
"Fear him not, my lord," said Hugh. "He is but an idle, boasting, half-witted fellow, as harmless as he is silly. There is a plot, I am sure; but of it I will learn the particulars and advise you."
Hugh Price was shrewd, and, by a little flattery, he won over the vacillating Giles Peram to the royalists' side.
"Yes, sir, I will draw my sword for the king, ahem--draw my sword for the king at any moment. I am a loyal cavalier of his majesty, Charles II., and woe to the man who says aught against him or his majesty's governor, Berkeley."
Then Hugh told him that there was certainly a deep-laid plot against Governor Berkeley, and he asked the aid of Peram in ferreting out the leaders. There were no leaders and no plot; but Peram, after cudgeling his brain, remembered that Robert Stevens had spoken treasonable words against the governor. Having changed his politics, he was no longer the friend of Robert and was willing to aid in his downfall.
Price received the intelligence with joy. He hated Robert, and this was a good way to get rid of him. Often the cavalier had declared:
"Marry! he is a merry rogue. He will yet ornament the gibbet."
His predictions seemed on the verge of realization. Berkeley, grown petulant and merciless in his old age, would not hesitate to hang Robert on suspicion.
One evening as Robert was going from his mother's house he noticed three or four persons coming down the street. Their manner might have excited the suspicion of a guilty man; but as Robert had committed no crime, he relied wholly on his innocence. No sooner had he stepped on the street, however, than he was arrested.
"Of what offence am I accused?" he asked.
"Treason."
"Treason! it is false; I am guilty of no treason."
The mother and sister, hearing the angry words without, hurried to the street to find him in custody. Wringing their hands in an agony of distress, they demanded to know the cause of the arrest, and were informed that Robert had been accused of treason to the governor and must be committed to jail.
Robert slept behind iron bars that night. He had many friends in the town, who no sooner learned of his arrest, than they began to appeal to the governor for his release. Among them was Drummond, Cheeseman and Lawerence; but all supplications and entreaties were of no avail. Hugh Price made a pretence of defending his wife's son; but the hollow show of his pretended interest was apparent.
One night, as he was lying on his hard prison bunk, Robert heard the sound of footsteps without. Some persons were working at the front door with a key. They seemed to be exercising due caution, and soon the door was open.
They came to the door of his cell. For a long time it seemed to baffle them, but at last it yielded, and the door opened.
"Who are you?" asked the prisoner, as three dark forms appeared before him.
"Friends," a voice which he recognized as Mr. Edward Cheeseman's whispered. "We have come to liberate you."
He was led from the jail, and then, by the dim light of the stars, he recognized William Drummond, Edward Cheeseman and Mr. Lawerence.
"There is a ship in the harbor ready to sail for Boston," said Mr. Lawerence. "You will go aboard of her and escape."
"Can I see my mother and sister before I go?"
"They are waiting on the beach," Drummond answered.
Thanking his liberators, he followed them from the jail to the beach. It was midnight, and the stars looked coldly down on the youth as he hurried from the prison. His proud spirit rebelled at flying from home. He had done no wrong and consequently had nothing to fly from; but when his mother threw her arms about his neck and implored him to go, he assented.
"I shall appeal to the king, show him my wrong and obtain my right."
"Have you money?" asked Mr. Drummond.
"None."
"Here is some," and Drummond placed in the hand of Robert a well-filled purse.
"My friend, how can one so poor as I repay you?"
"Talk not of repayment," Drummond answered, "but go on, and when you are away, remember us in kindness."
The boat was waiting on the beach, and the sailors sat at their oars ready to take him away to the vessel which lay at anchor. Drummond, Cheeseman and Lawerence withdrew, leaving Robert alone with his mother and sister. A few silent tears, a few silent embraces, and then he bade them adieu, entered the boat, and was rowed away into the darkness.