I told her nothing, save that Felicity was in Boston and that I was journeying thither to see her.
"Is she not to wed the Earl of Dunmore?" asked Mrs. Hamilton.
"No," said I, quietly.
"La, the capricious beauty!" she murmured. "Sure, she has not thrown over Dunmore for that foolish dragoon, Kent Bevan?"
"I hope not," said I, maliciously.
"Who knows," she mused; "Mr. Bevan is to serve on Gage's staff this fall. It looks like a match to me."
"Is Mr. Bevan going to Boston?" I inquired.
"Yes. Are you jealous?" she replied, saucily.
I smiled and shook my head.
"But you once were in love with your cousin," she persisted. "On aime sans raison, et sans raison l'on hait! Regardez-moi, monsieur."
"Your convent breeding in Saint-Sacrement lends to your tongue a liberty that English schools withhold," I said, reddening.
"Nay, now," she laughed, "do you remember how you played with me at that state dinner held in Johnson Hall? You rode me down rough-shod, Michael, and used me shamefully there, under the stairs."
"I'll do the like again if you provoke me," I said, but had not meant to say it either, being troubled by her eyes.
"The—the like—again? And what was that, pray?"
"You know," I said, sulkily.
"I think you—kissed me—"
"I think I did," said I; "and left you all in tears."
It was brutal, but I meant to make an end.
"Did you believe that those were real tears?" she asked, innocently.
"By Heaven, I know they were," said I, with satisfaction, "and small vengeance to repay the ill you did me, too."
"What ill?" she asked, opening her eyes in real surprise.
But I was silent and ashamed already. Truly, it had been no fault but my own that I had taken up the gage she flung at me that night so long ago.
"But I'll not take it up this time," thought I to myself, cracking filberts and looking at her askance across the table.
"I do not understand you, Michael," she said, with a faint smile, ending in a sigh.
"Nor I you, bonnie Marie Hamilton," said I. "Suppose we both cry quits?"
"Not yet," she said; "I have a little score with you, unsettled."
"What score?" I asked, smiling. "Cannot you appeal to the law to have it settled?"
"La loi permet souvent ce que défend l'honneur," she said, with an innocent emphasis which left me sitting there, uncertain whether to laugh or blush. What the mischief did she mean, anyhow?
She picked up a filbert, tasted the kernel, dropped it, clasped her hands, elbows on the cloth, and gave me a malicious sidelong glance which still was full of that strange sweetness that ever set me on my guard, half angry, half bewitched.
"I wish you would let me alone!" I blurted out, like a country yokel at a quilting.
"I won't," she said.
"Remember what you suffered the first time!" I warned her.
"I do remember."
"Do you—do you dare risk that?" I stammered.
"Et d'avantage—encore," she murmured, setting her teeth on her plump white wrist and watching me uncertainly.
The game was running on too fast for me and my pulse was keeping pace.
"Safely they defy who challenge those in chains," I said, commanding my voice with an effort. "If that is your revenge, I cry you mercy; you have won."
After a long silence she raised her eyes, dancing with a mocking light in each starry pupil.
"I give you joy, Michael," she said, "if, as I take it, these same chains and fetters that you lately wear are riveted by Cupid."
But I answered nothing, attending her to the door, where she dropped me what I do believe was the slowest and lowest curtsey ever dropped by woman.
So I to my own chamber in no amiable frame of mind, and still tingling with the strange charm of my encounter. Head bent, hands clasped behind me, I walked the floor, striving to analyze this woman who had now twice crossed me on the trail of fate, this fair woman whose bright eyes were a menace and a challenge, and whose sweet, curved mouth was set there as eternal provocation to saint and sinner.
Thus for the first time in my life I had known what temptation might have been. Nay, I knew a little more than what itmight havebeen, and, in the overwhelming flood of loyalty to Silver Heels, I cursed myself for a man without faith or shred of honour. For I was too unskilled in combats with the fair temptation to understand that it is no disgrace to falter, yet not fall.
There came a timid scratching at the door; I opened it and Mount sidled in, coy as a cat in a dairy with its chin still wet with cream. He regarded me doubtfully, but sat down when bidden and began to complain:
"Now, if you are minded to chide me for taking the road, I'm going out again. I can't bear any more, lad, that I can't!—what with Cade gone and me in rags, and stopping Councillor Bullock near Johnstown with pockets bare of aught but a cursed sixpence and that crooked as Lady Shelton's legs—and now I must needs fright a lady into a faint like a bad boy with a jack-o'-lanthorn—"
"What on earth is the matter with you?" I broke in, peevishly. "I'm not finding fault, Jack. If you mean to spend your life in endeavours to impoverish every Tory magistrate in America, it's your affair, and I can't help it, though you must know as well as I that there's a carpenter's tree and a rope at the end of your frolic."
"No, there isn't," he said, hastily. "I'm done with the highway save to pat it smooth with my feet. Lord, lad, it's not for the money, but for sport. And soon there'll be fighting enough to fill my stomach; mark me, the crocus that buds white this spring will wither red as blood ere its fouled petals fall!"
"War?" I asked, thrilling to hear him.
He rose and gazed at me most earnestly.
"Ay, surely, surely in the spring. Gad! Boston is that surfeited with redcoats now that when they cram down more next spring she can but throw them up to keep her health. Wait! Boston is sick in bone and body, but in the spring she takes her purge. Oh, I know," he cried, with a strange, prophetic stare in his eyes; "I have word from Shemuel. Now he's off to Boston with the news from Cresap. And I tell you, lad, that the first half-moon of April will start a devil loose in this broad land that state or clergy cannot exorcise!
"Not a devil," he corrected himself, slowly, "no, not a thing from hell, but that same swift angel sent to chasten worlds with fire. Dunmore will burn, and Butler. As for the rest, the honest, the rascals, the witless, the soulless, thieves, poltroons, usurers, and the vast army of well-meaning loyal fools, they will be cleared out o' this our world-wide temple whose roof is the sky and whose pillars are our high pines!—cleared out, scoured out, uprooted, driven forth like those same money-changers in the temple scourged by Christ,—and God is witness I, a sinner, mean no blasphemy, spite of all the sweating load o' guilt I bear."
"Where got you such phrases, Jack?" I asked. "It is not Jack Mount who speaks to me like a crazed preacher in the South who shouts the slaves around him to repent."
Mount looked at me; the dazed, fanatic light in his eyes faded slowly.
"I have a book here," he muttered, "a book I purchased in Johnstown of a man who sold many to patriots. Doubtless grief for Cade and my privations and my conning this same book while starving make me light-headed yet."
"What book is that?" I asked.
"The Rights of Man."
"I, also, would be glad to read it."
"Read, lad. 'Tis fodder for King George's cattle—such as we. And the little calves our wenches cast, they, too, shall feed on it, though they cannot utter moo! for their own mothers' milk!"
"Jack, Jack," I cried, "you are strangely changed! I donot know you in this bitter mood, and your mouth full o' words that burn your silly lips. Wake to life, man! Gay! Gay! Jack! A pest on books and those who write 'em! I have ever despised your printed stuff, and damme if I'll sit and hear it through your lips!"
But it was like rousing a man from a sleeping-draught, for the book had so bewitched his senses in these long weeks he had wandered alone that I had all I could do to drag him out of his strange, dreamy enthusiasms, back into his old, guileless, sunny, open-hearted self. And I feel sure that I could not have succeeded at all had not the shock of his encounter with Mrs. Hamilton on the highway first scared him back to partial common-sense. Added to this my entreaties, and he became docile, and then, little by little, dropped his preacher's mad harangue to talk like a reasonable creature and wag his tongue unlarded with his garbled metaphors and his half-baked parables which no doubt no simple forest-runner could digest on the raw printed page. I pitied him sincerely. Truly, a little learning makes one wondrous kind.
I put the book in my shirt-front, meaning to be of those who ride and read, even as Jack was of those others who both read and run.
"Why did you desert me, Jack?" I asked, sitting chin on hand to watch him smoke the pipe which no kind fate had filled for him since he left Johnstown.
"Faith, I hung about with Cade, doing no harm, sitting in the sun to wait for news from you. Mr. Duncan, a kind officer, gave us news and made us welcome on the benches in front of the guard-house. And Mistress Warren would have us to eat with her—only I was ashamed. But Cade went and supped with her.
"Lad, Sir John Johnson is not a gentleman I should grow too fond of. His courtesy is a shallow spring, I'm thinking, dry at the first taste, and over-sour to suit my teeth."
"What did Sir John do?" I asked, growing red. "Surely he thanked you and Cade for saving his kinsman's life; surely he made you welcome at the Hall, Jack?"
"Surely, he did nothing of the kind," grunted Mount, puffing his pipe. "Sir John sent word to the guard that wehad best find quarters in Johnstown taverns and not set the hounds barking in his kennels."
It was like a blow in the face to me. Jack saw it and laughed.
"It's not your fault," he said; "show me two eggs and I'll name two birds, but I won't swear they'll fight alike. If he's your kin, it's to be borne, lad, and that's all there is to it."
I set my teeth and swallowed my shame.
"So we went to Rideup's old camp," he continued; "a fair inn where a man may drink to whom he pleases and no questions asked nor any yokel to bawl 'God save the King!' or turn your ale sour with Tory whining. And there I lay and—tippled, lad. I'll not deny it, no! Like a fish in sweet water my gills did open and shut while the ale flowed into me, day and night perdu.
"Cade never drank. God! how that man changed—since he saw your sweet Mistress Warren there on the hillock at Roanoke Plain! Mad, lad, quite mad. But such a dear, good comrade—I—I can scarce speak o' him but I wink with tears."
The great fellow dug one fist into his eyes, and then the other, replacing his pipe in his mouth with an unmistakable snivel.
"Quite mad, Mr. Cardigan. He thought he saw his little daughter in Miss Warren, without offence to any one in all the world and least of all to you, and he waited all day to see her come out to the guard-house and give the news of your sick-bed to your Lieutenant Duncan. So one day, when you were surely out of danger and ready to fatten, comes Cade to the tavern and bids me good-bye, talking wildly of his lost daughter, and I, Heaven help me, lay abed with my head like a top all humming for the ale I'd had, and thinking nothing of what he said save that his madness grew apace.
"And that night he went away while I slept in my cups. When he came not I hunted the town for him as I had never hunted trail in all my life before. And I warrant you I left no stone unturned in that same town. I was half-crazy; I could not think he'd left me there of his own free will. Many a fight I had with the soldiers, many a bruise and broken head I left behind me ere I shook my moccasins freeo' dust in Johnstown streets. They'll tell you, and that fat, purple-pitted councillor—Bullock, I mean—why, he would have me jailed for a matter of damaging his Tory constable. So I gave him a fright on the highway and left your Tryon County for a quieter one. That's all, lad."
What he had told me of Cade Renard troubled me. If Felicity had been strangely lost to her own family, and had been restored, doubtless she was now happy and full of wonder for the dear, amazing chance that had brought to her those honoured parents she had so long deemed to be with God. Yet she must be shy and over-sensitive also, having been brought up to believe she had no nearer kin than Sir Peter Warren. And now that he, after all, was no kin to her, nor she to us, if a mad forest-runner like Cade Renard should come to vex her with his luny fancies, it might hurt her or seem like reproach and mockery for her new parents.
"Do you think Cade followed Miss Warren to Boston?" I asked.
"My journey is to find that out," he said. "Ah, lad, a noble mind was wrecked in Renard's head.Iknow—others know nothing. What fate sent him like a wild thing to the forests, I only know, as you know, nothing but what he has told us both. If his madness has waxed so fiercely since he saw Miss Warren, it may be a sign that the end is near. I do not know. I miss him, and I must look for him while I can move these clumsy feet of mine."
My candle was burning very low now. Mount laid his pipe in the candle-pan, rose, shook himself, and said good-night.
"Good-night," I said, and sat down to light another candle. This done, I did undress me, and so would have been in bed had I not chanced to open the book he left me, thinking to glance it over and forget it.
But sunrise found me poring over its pages, while the candle, a pool o' wax, hardened in the candle-stick beside me.
By noon we were well on our way towards Boston, I riding beside Mrs. Hamilton's carriage wheels, Jack Mount perched up on the box, and very gay in a new suit of buckskins which he bought from a squaw in the village, the woman being an Oneida half-breed and a tailoress by trade.
So gorgeous was this newly tailored suit that, though my own buckskins were also new and deeply fringed on sleeve and leg, even to the quill and wampum embroidery on the thigh, I did cut but a dingy figure beside Jack Mount. His shoulders were triple-caped with red-fox fur edges; he wore a belted hunting-shirt, with scarlet thrums; breeches cut to show his long legs' contour to the clout, also gay with scarlet thrums; and Huron moccasins, baldric, holster, and sporran, all of mole-skin, painted and beaded with those mystic scenes of the False-Face's secret rites, common to the Six Nations and to other Northern and Western clans.
Proud as a painted game-cock with silver steels was Jack. Poor gossip, how different his condition now, with a rasher o' bacon and a cup of ale under his waist-band, a belt full of money outside of it, and his scarlet thrums blowing like ribbons in the wind! A new fox-skin cap, too, with the plumy white-tipped tail bobbing to his neck, added the finish to this forest dandy. Truly it did warm me to behold him ruffling it with the best o' them; and it was a wink and a kiss for the pretty maid in the pantry, and a pinch o' snuff with mine host, and "Your servant, ma'am," to Mrs. Hamilton, with cap sweeping the dust in a salute that a Virginian might envy and mark for imitation.
The post-boys slunk past him with rueful, sidelong glances; the footman gave him wide berth, obeying the order to mount with an alacrity designed to curry favour as soon as possible, and let the painful past go bury itself.
"You had best," muttered Mount, with pretence of a fierceness he loved to assume. "Gad! I'm minded to tan your buttocks to line my saddle—ho!—come back! I'm not going to do it, simpleton! I only said I was so minded. Into your saddles, in Heaven's name. Salute!—you mannerless scullions! Do you not see your mistress coming?"
I handed Mrs. Hamilton to her chaise, and stood in attendance while she tied on her velvet sun-mask, watching me steadily through the eye-holes the while, but not speaking. Yet ever on her lips hovered that smile I knew so well; and from her hair came that fresh scent which is of itself like the perfume of Indian swale-herb, and which powder and pomatum can neither add to nor dissimulate.
Over her gown of shimmering stuff, garlanded with lilac-tints, she wore a foot-mantle, for the road was muddy from the all-night rain, and this I disposed around her ankles when she had seated herself in the chaise, and wrapped her restless little feet in a thick, well-tanned pelt.
"Merci," she said, in a whisper, with her bright eyes sparkling under her velvet mask; and I closed the carriage and mounted Warlock nimbly, impatient to be gone.
"Michael," she said from the chaise window, nose in the air to watch me ride up.
"Madam," I replied, politely.
"Let Captain Mount ride your horse, and do you come into the carriage. I have so much to tell you—"
I made what excuse I could. She tossed her chin.
"I shall die of ennui," she said.
"Count the thraves in the stubble," said I, laughing.
"And talk to my five wits of the harvest? How amusing!" she retorted, indignantly.
"Repent the past, then," I suggested, smiling.
"Ay—but 'tis one blank expanse of white innocence, with never a stain to mark for repentance. My past is spotless, Michael—spotless—like a fox-pelt, all of a colour."
Now, though we call foxes red, their ear-tips are jet black and their brushes and bellies touched with white. But she was right; your spotless fox can have no dealings with a dappled fawn.
I signalled the footman and post-boys; the chaise creakedoff down the road, and I dropped behind, turning a sober face to the rain-washed brightness of the world.
So we journeyed, coming into dry roads towards noon, where no rain had fallen. And already it seemed to me my nostrils savoured that faint raw perfume of the mounting sea, which only those who have lived their whole lives inland can wind at great distances. It is not a perfume either; it is a taste that steals into the mouth and tingles far back, above the tongue. And it is strange to say so, but those who never before have tasted the scent know it for what it is by instinct, and fall into a restless reverie, searching to think where they have savoured that same enchanted ocean breath before.
At Grafton we baited at the "Weather-cock Tavern"; then on along the Charles River, with the scent o' the distant sea in every breath we drew, through Dedham, past Needham, and north into a most lovely country of rolling golden stubble and orchards all red with apples, and bridges of stone, neatly fashioned to resist the freshets. Alas, that this fair province of Massachusetts Bay should lie a-gasping amid plenty, with the hand of Britain upon the country's thrapple to choke out the life God gave it.
On the straight, well-laid high-road we passed scores of farmers' wains, piled with corn and yellow pumpkins, cabbages, squashes, barrels of apples, sacks o' flour, and thraves, all bound for Boston, where the poor were starving and the rich went hungering because the King of England had been angered to hear men prate of human rights.
Since the 1st day of June the Boston Port Bill was in full effect, and the city was sealed to commerce. Not a keel had stirred the waters of the bay save when the great bulging war-ships shifted their moorings to swing their broadsides towards the town; not a sail was bent to the shore breeze in this harbour where a thousand vessels had cleared in a single year from its busy port.
So when the city felt the punishment heavy upon her, and the poor starved and the rich suffered, and the hot sun poured down on the empty rotting wharves, the farmers of Massachusetts Bay brought their harvests by land to the famine-stricken city, and sister colonies sent generously of their best with the watchword: "Stand fast, Boston! A King's angeris a little thing, but human rights shall not perish until we perish, every one!"
It was sunset as we turned into the Roxbury road, with the salt wind blowing the marsh-reeds and ruffling the shallow waters of the harbour to the north and east. It was ebb-tide; beyond the eastern bog, far out in the yellow shallows, the harbour channel ran in a darker streak, glittering under the red blaze of sunset.
Wet marshes spread away to the north; the wind was heavy with the salty stench of mud-flats uncovered at low-water, and all alive with sea-fowl hovering. Northeast the steeples of Boston rose, blood-red in the setting sun; distant windows flashed fire; weather-vanes turned to jets of flame.
The red glow enveloped the road over which we travelled, now in company with scores of other vehicles, all bound for Boston—coaches, flies, chaises, wagons, farm wains—all moving slowly as though the head of the column had been checked by something which we could not yet see.
I rode forward to where Jack Mount was sitting on the box of the chaise, and he motioned me to his side.
"We're close to Boston Neck," he said. "Tommy Gage has been making some forts ahead of us since I last smelled the mud-flats yonder."
I rode on slowly, passing along the stalled line of vehicles, until, just ahead, I caught a glimpse of an earthwork flying the British flag. The red banner stood straight out in the sea-wind, rippling, and snapping like a whip when the breeze freshened. Under it a sentry moved, bayonet glittering as he turned, paced on, turned again, only to retrace his endless path on the brown rampart of earth.
I shall never forget that first coming to Boston, and the first glimpse of the round city, set there in the sea with only a narrow thread of land to fasten it to the continent which had made the city's cause its own. Nor shall I forget my first sight of the city's landward gate, closed by British earthworks, patrolled by British bayonets, with the red standard flying in the setting sun.
The Providence coach was standing in the road to my left, the six horses stamping restlessly, the outside passengers shivering in the harbour wind, while the red-nosed coachman mutteredand complained and craned his short bull-neck to see what was blocking the highway ahead.
"It's them darned cannon," he explained to everybody who cared to listen; "they're a-haulin' some more twenty-four pounders into the right bastion. Ding it! My horses are ketchin' cold an' bots an' ring-bone while we set here in a free land waitin' his Majesty's pleasure!"
"The cannon will come handy—some day," called out a passenger from the Philadelphia coach, stalled just behind.
"You'd better get your cannon out of the south battery before you lay plans to steal these!" retorted a soldier, derisively, making his way towards the city between the tangle of wheels and horses which almost choked the road.
"We'll get 'em yet, young red-belly!" shouted a fat farmer, cracking his whip for emphasis. His horses started, and he pulled them in, shouting: "Whoa, lass! Whoa, dandy! Don't shy at a redcoat; he can't harm ye!"
"Gad!" burst out an old gentleman on the Roxbury coach, "is this rebel impudence to be endured?"
A chorus of protestations broke from the tops of neighbouring coaches, but the sturdy old gentleman shook his cane, defying every Yankee within hearing, while the protests around grew to angry shouts and cries of: "Enough! Tar the Tory! Pitch the old fool into the mud!"
In the midst of the bawling and uproar the line of vehicles ahead suddenly started, and those behind moved on, rumbling over the planked road with creaking wheels and thunder of a hundred hoofs, drowning the voices of disputing Whig and Tory.
I looked up at the passengers as the huge mail-coaches with their four, six, or eight horses rumbled past. Many of the people glanced somewhat curiously down at me, smiling to see a forest-runner mounted on so fine a horse as Warlock. And I was proud to sit the saddle under their gaze, not minding the quips and jests directed at me from above; though, when once a mealy faced post-boy shouted at me, I fetched him a cuff on the ear which nigh unseated him, and drew a roar of laughter from the people near.
The Philadelphia coach with passengers from Maryland and Virginia came swaying up, horses dancing, guard standingby the boot, and sounding his long coaching-horn—a gallant equipage, with its blue gear and claret body showing through a skin of half-dry mud.
I glanced up at the outside travellers, thinking I might know some face among them, yet not expecting it. There were no familiar faces. I wheeled my horse to watch the coach go by, glancing idly at the window where a young girl leaned out, sucking a China orange. Our eyes met for a moment; the girl dropped the orange and stared at me; I also eyed her sharply, certain that I had seen her somewhere in the world before this. The coach passed. I sat on my horse, looking after it, cudgelling my wits to remember that red-cheeked, buxom lass, who seemed to know me, too.
Then, as our chaise rattled by, with the post-boys urging the horses, and Jack Mount on the box, it came to me in a flash that the girl was the thief-taker's daughter from Fort Pitt.
I rode up beside Mount and told him in a low voice that Billy Bishop's buxom lass was ahead of us in the Philadelphia coach, and that he had best keep his wits and eyes cleared for Billy Bishop himself.
He shrugged his shoulders, not answering, but I noticed he was alert enough now, unconsciously fingering his rifle, while his quick eyes roamed restlessly as the chaise passed in between the British earthworks on the Neck.
Truly this Captain-General Thomas Gage, whom the King of England loved so well, had cut Boston from the land as neatly as his royal master had cut it from the sea.
The Roxbury road ran through a narrow passage between two bastions of earth, surrounded with a heavy abatis andtrous de loup. In the left bastion I could see magazines and guard-houses, and beyond it, near the shore, a small square redoubt, a block-house, and a battery of six cannon. In the right bastion there was a guard-house, and beyond that a block-house on the shore of the mud-flats, while farther out in the shallow water lay a floating battery.
Our chaise rolled in through the earthworks and down a causeway surrounded by water. This was Boston Neck, a strip of made land not wider than a high-road, and blockedat the northern extremity by a solid military work of stone and earth, bristling with cannon.
The gate guards eyed us sullenly as we drove into the city and up a long, dusty road called Orange Street. We continued to Newbury Street, to Marlborough Street, Mount directing us, thence through Cornhill to Queen Street, where we drew up at a very elegant mansion.
Dismounting, I took Mrs. Hamilton from the carriage, and she unmasked, for the fire was dying out in the western heavens.
"If," she began slowly, "I should bid you to supper at my house, would you hurt me with refusal, Michael?"
"Is this your house?" I asked, in surprise.
"Yes—my late husband's. Will you come?"
I explained that I cared not to leave Mount, and that also we must seek a tavern as soon as might be, for we had much business on the morrow which could not wait.
She listened, with a faintly mocking air, then thanked me for my escort, thanked Mount for his share in providing me as her escort by stopping her carriage, and finally curtseyed, saying in a low voice: "Your charming Miss Warren is doubtless impatient. Pray believe me that I wish you joy of your conquest."
I thought she meant it, and it touched me. But when I stepped to her door-yard to conduct her, she turned on me like a flash, and I saw her eyes all wet and brilliant, and her teeth crushing her under-lip.
"For a charming journey in my own company, I thank you," she said; "for your conceit and your insufferable airs, I will find a remedy—remember that! My humiliation under your own roof is not forgotten, Mr. Cardigan, and it shall not be forgotten until you pay me dearly!"
Astonished at her bitterness, I found not a word to answer. A man-servant in purple livery opened the door. Mrs. Hamilton turned to me with perfect composure, returning my bow with the smile of an angel, and tripped lightly into her house.
The post-chaise had driven off into the mews when I returned to the street, but Jack Mount was waiting for me, patting Warlock, whose beautiful head had swung around to watch for my coming.
"Well, Jack?" I asked, wearily.
"The 'Wild Goose Tavern' is ours," he said—"good cheer and company to match it."
I walked out into the paved street, leading Warlock. Mount swaggered along beside me, squaring his broad shoulders whenever we passed a soldier, and whistling lustily "Tryon County Men," till the stony streets rang with the melody.
We now crossed into Treamount Street, passed Valley Acre on our right into Sudbury Street, then northwest through Hilliers Lane, crossing Cambridge Street to Green Lane, and west again along Green Lane to the corner of Chambers Street, where it becomes Wiltshire Street and runs due north.
There was enough of daylight left for me to see that we were not in an aristocratic neighbourhood. Warehouses, ship-chandlers, rope-walks, and scrap-iron shops lined the streets, interspersed with vacant, barren plots of ground, rarely surrounded by wooden fences.
The warehouses and shops were closed and all the shutters and doors fast bolted. There was not a soul abroad in the streets, not a light to be seen save from one long, low building standing midway between Chambers and Wiltshire Streets—an ancient, discoloured, rambling structure, with a weather-vane atop, and a long, pillared porch in front, from which hung a bush of sea-weed, and a red sign-board depicting a creature which doubtless was intended for a wild goose.
"Lord, Jack!" I said, "Shemuel's 'Bear and Cubs' appeared preferable to your 'Wild Goose' yonder. I'm minded to seek other quarters."
"Never trust to the looks o' things," he laughed. "God made woodchucks to live on the ground, but they climb trees, too, sometimes. Do I think on the hog-pen when I eat a crisped rasher? Nenny, lad. Come on to the cleanest tap-room in Boston town and forget that the shutters yonder need new hinges!"
I led Warlock into the mews to a clean, well-aired stable, where an ostler bedded and groomed him, and shook out as pretty a handful of grain as I had seen since I left Johnson Hall.
Then Mount and I went into the tavern, where half a dozen sober citizens in string-wigs sat, silently smoking clay pipes with stems full three feet long.
"Good-evening, the company!" said Mount, pleasantly.
The men repeated his salutation, and looked at us sleepily over their pipes.
"God save our country, gentlemen," said Mount, standing still in the centre of the room.
"His mercy shall endure," replied a young man, quietly removing the pipe from between his teeth. "What of the Thirteen Sisters?"
"They sew that we may reap," said Mount, slowly, and sat down, motioning me to take a chair in the circle.
The men looked at us curiously, but in silence, although their sleepy, guarded air had disappeared.
After a moment Mount asked if there was anything new.
"Yes," replied the young man who had spoken before; "the Lawyers' and Merchants' Club met at Cooper's in Brattle Square last night to receive instructions from the Committee of Safety. I do not know what new measures have been taken, but whatever they may be we are assured that they will be accepted and imitated by every town in Massachusetts Bay."
"Who were present?" asked Mount, curiously.
"The full committee, Jim Bowdoin, Sam Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Will Phelps, Doctor Warren, and Joseph Quincy. Paul Revere called a meeting at the "Green Dragon" the same night, and the Mechanics' Club sent invitations to the North End Caucus, the South End Caucus, and the Middle District, to consider the arrival of British transports from Quebec with the Tenth and Fifty-second regiments."
"What! more troops?" exclaimed Mount, in amazement.
"How long have you been absent from Boston?" asked the young man.
"Since April," replied Mount.
"Would you care to hear a few facts that have occurred since April, gentlemen?" asked the young man, courteously including me in his invitation. Mount called the tap-boy and commanded cakes and ale for the company, with a harmlessswagger; and when the tankards were brought we all drank a silent but significant toast to the dark city outside our windows.
The young man who had acted as spokesman for his company now produced a small leather book, which he said was a diary. Pipes were filled, lips wet in the tankards once more, and then the young man, who said his name was Thomas Newell, opened his little note-book and read rapidly:
1774, May 18.—Man-o'-warLivelyarrived with Gen. Gage. Town meeting called.A.sent Paul Revere to York and Philadelphia.H.very anxious.May 17.—Gage supersedes Hutchinson as Governor.S. A.has no hopes.June 1.—Three transports here with redcoats.Thirteen Sistersnotified.June 14.—The Fourth Regiment (King's Own) landed at the Long Wharf and marched to the Common. No riot.June 15,a.m.—Stores on Long Wharf closed. Forty-third Regiment landed. We are already surrounded by a fleet and army, the harbour is shut, all navigation forbidden, not a sail to be seen except war-ships.July 1.—Admiral Graves arrived with fleet from London, also transports with Fifth and Thirty-eighth Regiments.July 2.—Artillery landed with eight brass cannon. Camped on Common.S. A.notifiedThirteen Sisters.July 4.—Thirty-eighth Regiment landed at Hancock's Wharf, with a company of artillery, great quantity of ordnance, stores, etc., three companies of the Royal Irish Regiment, called the Eighteenth Foot, and the whole of the Forty-seventh Regiment. Also bringing news that the Tenth and Fifty-second Regiments would arrive in a few days!S. A.sent riders to York and Philadelphia. Much hunger in town. Many young children dying.
1774, May 18.—Man-o'-warLivelyarrived with Gen. Gage. Town meeting called.A.sent Paul Revere to York and Philadelphia.H.very anxious.
May 17.—Gage supersedes Hutchinson as Governor.S. A.has no hopes.
June 1.—Three transports here with redcoats.Thirteen Sistersnotified.
June 14.—The Fourth Regiment (King's Own) landed at the Long Wharf and marched to the Common. No riot.
June 15,a.m.—Stores on Long Wharf closed. Forty-third Regiment landed. We are already surrounded by a fleet and army, the harbour is shut, all navigation forbidden, not a sail to be seen except war-ships.
July 1.—Admiral Graves arrived with fleet from London, also transports with Fifth and Thirty-eighth Regiments.
July 2.—Artillery landed with eight brass cannon. Camped on Common.S. A.notifiedThirteen Sisters.
July 4.—Thirty-eighth Regiment landed at Hancock's Wharf, with a company of artillery, great quantity of ordnance, stores, etc., three companies of the Royal Irish Regiment, called the Eighteenth Foot, and the whole of the Forty-seventh Regiment. Also bringing news that the Tenth and Fifty-second Regiments would arrive in a few days!S. A.sent riders to York and Philadelphia. Much hunger in town. Many young children dying.
Newell paused, glanced over the pages again, then shut the little book and placed it in his breast-pocket.
Mount sat grim and silent, twisting the scarlet thrums on his sleeves; the others, with painful, abstracted faces, stared at vacancy through the mounting smoke from their long clay pipes.
Presently the landlord came in, glanced silently around, saluted Mount with a quiet bow, paid his respects to me in a similar manner, and whispered that we might sup at our pleasure in the "Square Room" above.
So, with a salute to the company, we rose and left the tap-room to the silent smokers of the long pipes.
The so-called "Square Room" of the "Wild Goose Tavern" was a low, wainscoted chamber, set with small deep windows. It was an ancient room, built in the fashion of a hundred years ago, more heavily wrought than we build in these days; and although the floor-beams had settled in places, and the flooring sagged and rose in little hillocks, yet the place suggested great solidity and strength. Nor was it to be wondered at, for this portion of the tavern had at one time been a detached block-house pierced for musketry, and the long loopholes were still there above the wainscoting.
Spite of its age and fortified allure, the "Square Room" was cheerful under its candle-light and illuminated sconces. Rows of framed pictures hung along the walls, the subjects representing coaching scenes in England and also many beautiful scenes from the sporting life of country gentlemen.
Relics of the hunting field also adorned the walls, trophies of fox-masks, with brush and pads, groups of hunting-horns, whips, and spurs, with here and there an ancient matchlock set on the wall, flanked by duelling-pistols, powder-horns, and Scottish dirks.
The furniture was of light oak, yet very clumsy and old-fashioned, being worn shiny like polished Chinese carvings. Pipe-racks of oak were screwed into the wainscoting under long shelves, well stored with pewters, glass tankards, punch-bowls, and tobacco-jars.
There were a few small square tables scattered along the walls, but the centre of the room was taken up with a long table, some three dozen chairs placed, and as many covers spread for guests.
To this long, tenantless table our host conducted us, seating us with a silent civility most noteworthy, and in sharp contrast to the majority of landlords, who do sicken their guests with obsequious babble.
"Well, Clay," said Mount, hitching his heavy chair closer to the white cloth, "I left brother Jim in good spirits at Pitt."
The landlord bowed, and seemed gratified to hear it.
"You should know," said Mount, turning to me, "that our host is Barclay Rolfe, brother to Jim Rolfe, of the 'Virginia Arms' in Fort Pitt." And to the landlord he said, "Mr. Cardigan, late ward of Sir William Johnson, but one of us."
"I owe your brother much," said I, "more than a bill for a chaise and four. Possibly you have heard from him concerning that same chaise?"
"I have heard through Saul Shemuel," he said, gravely. "I guess my brother was tickled to death to help you out of that pickle, Mr. Cardigan."
"He shall not lose by it either," said I. "My solicitor, Peter Weaver, of Albany, has sent your brother full recompense for the carriage and animals."
The elder Rolfe thanked me very simply, then excused himself to go to the kitchen where our dinner should now be ready.
It was truly a noble dinner of samp soup, roast pork, beans, a boiled cod, most toothsome and sweetly salt, and a great wild goose, roasted brown, with onion and sage dressing, and an aroma which filled the room like heavenly incense.
With this we drank October ale, touching neither Madeira nor sherry, though both were recommended us; but I wished not to mix draughts to set that latent deviltry a-brewing in Jack Mount, so refused all save ale for himself and for me, though I allowed him a hot bowl with his hazel nuts.
We now withdrew to one of the small tables in a corner of the room, a servant bringing thither our nuts and hot bowls, and also some writing materials for me.
These I prepared to use at once, pushing the nut-shells clear, and seized the pen to cramp it in my fist and set to work, tongue-moistening my determined lips:
"October28, 1774."Thos. Foxcroft, Esquire,Solicitor, Queen Street,Boston."My dear Sir,—At what hour this evening will it prove convenient for you to receive the undersigned upon affairs of theutmost urgency and grave moment concerning Miss Warren whose interests I believe you represent?"The instant importance of the matter I trust may plead my excuse for this abrupt intrusion on your privacy."Pray consider me, Sir,"Yrmost obliged and obedient Servt"Michael Cardigan."At the Wild Goosenear Wiltshire and Chambers Streets."
"October28, 1774.
"Thos. Foxcroft, Esquire,Solicitor, Queen Street,Boston.
"My dear Sir,—At what hour this evening will it prove convenient for you to receive the undersigned upon affairs of theutmost urgency and grave moment concerning Miss Warren whose interests I believe you represent?
"The instant importance of the matter I trust may plead my excuse for this abrupt intrusion on your privacy.
"Pray consider me, Sir,"Yrmost obliged and obedient Servt"Michael Cardigan.
"At the Wild Goosenear Wiltshire and Chambers Streets."
Sealing the letter, I bade the servant take it and bring an answer if the gentleman was at home, but in any event to leave the letter.
Mount had taken a pipe from the stranger's rack, and now lighted it, peering out of the window, and puffing away in vast contentment.
Northward, across the water, the lights of Charlestown glimmered through a thin fog. Nearer, in mid-stream, rose the black hull of a British war-ship, battle-lanthorns set and lighted, stabbing the dark tide below with jagged shafts of yellow light, cut by little black waves which hastened seaward on the sombre ebbing tide.
As for Boston, or as much of it as we could see over the shadowy roofs and slanting house-tops, it was deathly dark and still. Fort Pitt, with its hundreds of people, which Boston could match with thousands, was far more stirring and alive than this dumb city of shadows, with never a stir in its empty streets, and never a light from a window-candle. Truly, we sat in a tomb—the sepulchre of all good men's hopes for justice from that distant England we had loved so well in kinder days.
Somewhere, deep in the dim city's heart, a fire was burning, and we could see its faint reflection on chimneys in the northwest.
"Doubtless some regimental fire on the Common," muttered Mount, "or a signal on Mount W—d—m, where the Light Horse camp. They talk to the war-ships and the castle from Beacon Hill, too. It may be that."
Musing there by the window, we scarcely noticed that, little by little, the room behind us was filling. Already at the long table a dozen guests were seated, some conversing,some playing absently with their glasses, some reading the newspapers through round horn-rimmed spectacles.
Many of them glanced sharply at us; some looked at Mount, smiled, and nudged others.
"Do you know any of these gentlemen, Jack?" I asked, in a low voice.
He swung around in his chair and surveyed the table.
"Ay, all o' them," he said, returning their amused salutations; "they all belong to the club that meets here."
"Club? What club?" I asked.
"The Minute Men's. I meant to tell you that you're a member."
"I a member?" I repeated, in astonishment.
"Surely, lad, else you never could ha' passed these stairs. I am a member; I bring you, and now you're a member. There's no oath to take in this club. It's only when you go higher into the secret councils like those o' the three caucuses, the Mechanics', and some others I shall not mention, by your leave."
Mount watched the effect of his words on me and grinned.
"You didn't know that I am one of the Minute Club's messengers? That's why I went to Pitt. Did you think I went there for my health? Nenny, lad. I had a message for Cresap as well as you, and I gave it, too."
He laughed, and moistened his lips at the hot bowl.
"Paul Revere, the goldsmith—he who made the print of the Boston Massacre—is another messenger, but not of the Minute Club. He is higher—goes breakneck to York forS. A., you know."
"What is S. A.?" I broke in, petulantly. "You all talk of J. H. and S. A. and the Thirteen Sisters, and I don't understand."
"S. A. is Sam Adams," said Mount, surprised. "J. H. is John Hancock, a rich young man who is with us to the last gasp. The Thirteen Sisters mean the thirteen colonies. They're with us, too—at least we hope they are, though York is a hell for Tories, and Philadelphia's full o' broad-brims who may not fight."
"But what is this Minute Men's Club?" I asked, curiously.
"Headquarters for delegates from the Minute Men andall alarm companies in Massachusetts Bay. You know that every town, village, and hamlet in the province is organized, don't you? Well, besides the regular militia we have alarm companies, where half of the men are ready to march at a minute's notice. One officer from every company throughout the province is delegated to attend the Minute Club here, so that he can keep his company in touch with the march of events.
"Besides that, the club has a corps of runners, like me, to travel with orders when called on. I'm in for a rest now, unless something pressing occurs."
"And—what am I in this club?" I asked, smiling to see how well Jack Mount had kept his secrets since I first knew him.
"You? Oh, you are a recruit for Cresap's battalion," said Mount, much amused. "We recruit here, for certain companies."
"Is Cresap coming here?" I asked, eagerly.
"He marches in the spring with his Maryland and Pennsylvania Rangers—to pay his respects to Tommy Gage? Nenny! To help turn this pack o' bloody-backs out of Boston, lad, and that's the truth, which you should know."
I sat silent, pondering on the strange circumstances of these months which had brought me so swiftly, from my boyhood's isolation, into the thick of the tremendous struggle between King and colony, a struggle still bloodless, save for the so-called Boston Massacre of some years past.
That Mount had coolly recruited me without my knowledge or consent disturbed me not at all: first, because I should have offered my poor services anyway; second, because, had I been free to select, I should have chosen to serve with Cresap's men, knowing him, as I did, for a brave and honourable young man.
I told Jack as much, and his face brightened with pleasure. He insisted on presenting me to the company—which was now fast filling the room—as one of Cresap's Rangers; and he further did most foolishly praise me for my bearing in certain common dangers he and I had shared, which made me red and awkward and vexed with him for my embarrassment.
The gentlemen I met were all most kind and polite; some appeared to be gentlemen bred, others honest young men—over-silent and sober for their years, perhaps, but truly a sturdy, clean-limbed company, neatly but not fashionably attired, and the majority characterized by a certain lankness of body which tended to gauntness in a few.
All were officers of alarm companies belonging to the numerous towns of the province; all were simple in manner, courteous to each other, and thoughtful of strangers, inviting us to wine or punch, and taking no offence when I prudently refused, for my own sake as well as for Jack's.
Two soldiers of the Lexington militia entertained me most agreeably; they were Nathan Harrington and Robert Monroe, the latter an old soldier, having been standard-bearer for his regiment at Louisburg.
"For years," he observed, quietly, "the British have said that all Americans are cowards, and they have so dinned it into their own ears that they believe it. It is a strange thing for them to believe. Who was it stood fast before Duquesne when Braddock's British fled? Who took Louisburg? What men have fought for England on our frontiers from our grandfathers' times?"
"Ay," broke in Harrington, "they tell us that we are yokels without wit or knowledge to fire a musket. Yet, to-day, two-thirds of the men in our province of Massachusetts Bay have served as soldiers against the French or the savages."
"That we are under the King's displeasure," said Monroe, "I can well understand; but that he and his ministers and his soldiers should wish to deem us cowards—we who are English, too, as well as they—passes my understanding."
"Mayhap they will learn the truth ere winter," observed Harrington, grimly.
"If I or my friends be cowards, I do not know it," added Monroe, simply. "It is not well to boast, Nathan, for God alone knows what a man may do in battle; yet I myself have been in battle, and was afraid, too, but never ran. I carried England's flag once. It is not well that she foul her own nest."
"I have never smelled powder; have you, sir?" said Harrington, turning to me.
"Not to boast of," I replied.
"Mount says you conducted most gallantly under fire," said Monroe, smiling.
"No more gallantly than did all at Cresap's fort," said I, annoyed. "We were behind ramparts and dreaded nothing save an arrow or two."
"But you had some warm work with certain Tories, too," began Monroe—"one Walter Butler, I believe."
"How did you hear of that?" I asked, in astonishment.
"Benny Prince brought the news," he replied. "Where he heard it I do not know, but it is noised abroad that you laid no kind hands on Walter Butler and Lord Dunmore. Nay, sir, you should not be surprised. We have our agents everywhere, listening, watching, noting all facts and rumours for those whom I need not name. We know, for instance, that Walter Butler has travelled north in a litter. We know that Dunmore scarce dare show his head in Virginia for the shame you put upon him and the growing hatred of the people he governs. We know that Sir John Johnson is fortifying Johnson Hall and gathering hordes of savages and Tories in Tryon County. Ay, Mr. Cardigan, we know, too, that the son of your father will fight to the death for the cause which his honour demands that he embrace."
"My father died for his King," I said, slowly.
"And mine, too," said Monroe; "but were he not with God to-day, I know where he would be found."
Others began to join our group. Mount, who had been conversing with a handsome and very fashionably dressed young man, approached our table with his companion, and presented me to him.
I had, of course, heard more or less of John Hancock, but had pictured him as an elderly man, sober of costume and stern and gray. Therefore my first meeting with John Hancock was a disappointment. He was young, handsome, decidedly vain, though quite free from affectation of speech or gesture. He appeared to lack that gravity of deportment and deliberation which characterized the company around us; gestures and words were at times impetuous if not whimsical;he appeared not too free from an egotism which, I thought, tinged all he said, so that, somehow, his words lost a trifle of the weight they deserved to carry.
His style of dress was not to my taste, savouring of the French, I thought. He wore an apple-green coat, white silk stockings, very large silver buckles on his pumps, smallclothes of silver-net tied at the knees with pea-green ribbons, which fell to his ankles, and much expensive lace at his throat and cuffs.
His hair was frizzled and powdered, and worn in a French club with black ribbon, and the hair on his temples was loaded with pomatum and rolled twice.
He certainly was most civil to me, mentioning his pleasure that Captain Cardigan's son should embrace the patriots' cause, and inquiring most respectfully concerning the last moments of Sir William Johnson, a man, he said, for whom he had entertained the highest possible respect and admiration.
Our conversation was of short duration, Mr. Hancock being addressed and solicited by so many who had business with him in his capacity of delegate from the secret club at the "Green Dragon Tavern."
I learned from the hints dropped that Boston was literally crowded with clubs, some open, some secret, but all organized to discuss politics, and pledged to combat the acts of the British Parliament to the bitter end.
Many clubs were formed among the Boston mechanics, of which the Mechanics' Society or Club was the centre. The Boston mechanics, I learned, were the earliest and most constant supporters of the patriot cause. Neither threats, temptations, Tory arguments, nor loyalist bribes could shake their fidelity; and they were the people, too, who had most to lose when the city was closed to commerce. Starvation faced them; troops thickened in Boston; but the mechanics remained true. And although, when in dire need, to sustain their wives and little ones, they thoughtlessly started work on the new barracks, at a word of warning and explanation from the Committee of Safety, they left their work in a body, to the rage and chagrin of General Gage and every soldier and Tory in Boston.
I further learned that the patriots carried on their political action not only by clubs and through the newspapers, but also by public meetings in defiance of Governor Gage.
All men know that we Americans have inherited the right of public meeting. But when the "regulating act" came from England to prohibit that right, it missed fire, for though it did forbid such meeting unless authorized by Governor Gage, it did not provide for adjourning meetings already in progress. Therefore the assemblies in all the provincial towns had begun meetings in anticipation of the 1st of August, the date set for their prohibition, and the meetings were carried over that date, and kept alive day after day by not being officially declared adjourned.
It was useless for Gage to fume; he had no authority under the law to adjourn them.
In Boston the people flocked in crowds to Faneuil Hall and the Old South Church, where Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Josiah Quincy were the orators. And the government, in secret dread, watched the people thronging around these fiery orators, whose theme was liberty and equal rights for all.
The Committees of Donation and of Correspondence were most active. The former was organized to distribute relief to the poor in the stricken city; the latter was formed to keep all patriots in all of the thirteen colonies in touch with each other, and to observe the approach of the great current which was surely bearing war upon the waves that formed its crest.
This Committee of Correspondence was the great executive of our party. It watched unceasingly: it received information from all the societies, clubs, town assemblies, caucuses, and local committees. It distributed all information, all warnings, all rumours, not only from America, but also, through its agents, from abroad.
Many of its members were also members of the "Green Dragon." John Hancock was such a member, and therefore his presence here at the "Wild Goose" was perhaps significant.
That he was about to address the company was apparent, for everybody had now taken chairs and formed a semi-circle around Mr. Hancock, who stood leaning against the greatcentre-table, coolly taking snuff, and glancing over a written sheet of paper which he held in his left hand.
"It may be," he said, "a trifle premature to discuss here in open meeting those measures of resistance contemplated and now under discussion in the Committee of Correspondence, the Provincial Congress, and the Continental Congress.
"It is sufficient, therefore, for the moment, that you should know that Virginia and South Carolina are at last aroused to the necessity of taking thought for their local defences. I may also add that my Lord Dunmore's government increases in rigour and also in disfavour.
"The Committee of Correspondence has received word direct from Mr. Patrick Henry that he regards the cause of peace as already lost, and urges us to rely on Virginia, at least, for loyal support in whatever measures we may deem necessary to maintain our manhood in the face of all the world."
A murmur of applause swept like a whisper through the room, hushed immediately by cautious gestures and glances at the street outside, which might harbour a spy in its heavy gloom and impenetrable, brooding shadows.
"There is a certain document embodying a proposed declaration," continued Hancock, "which, although at present merely under discussion, I expect to see one day printed, completed, and framed, and hung in every home in these thirteen colonies. You may perhaps imagine what document I refer to, and doubtless many of you sitting here are not yet prepared for that supreme step forward in our manifest destiny. Neither, I may say, are many who have the framing of that declaration under discussion. Time alone will show that future of which I, for one, am so certain.
"I am not here to discuss with you the proposed declaration in question, which is not even yet existent save in the hearts of those who have dared to dream of it.
"I am here to submit to you a list of crimes against our colony of Massachusetts Bay, committed or contemplated by the King of England."
He unrolled his bit of paper, took a fresh pinch of scented snuff, and read, somewhat carelessly: