Once at Edinburgh College I had read the Latin tale of Apuleius, and the beginning stuck in my memory: "Thraciam ex negotio petebam"—"I was starting off for Thrace on business." That was my case now. I was about to plunge into a wild world for no more startling causes than that I was a trader who wanted to save my pocket. It is to those who seek only peace and a quiet life that adventures fall; the homely merchant, jogging with his pack train, finds the enchanted forest and the sleeping princess; and Saul, busily searching for his father's asses, stumbles upon a kingdom.
"What seek ye with Ringan?" Mercer asked, when we had sat down inside with locked doors.
"The man's name is Ninian Campbell," I said, somewhat puzzled.
"Well, it's the same thing. What did they teach you at Lesmahagow if ye don't know that Ringan is the Scots for Ninian? Lord bless me, laddie, don't tell me ye've never heard of Red Ringan?"
To be sure I had; I had heard of little else for a twelvemonth. In every tavern in Virginia, when men talked of the Free Companions, it was the name of Red Ringan that came first to their tongues. I had been too occupied by my own affairs to listen just then to fireside tales, but I could not help hearing of this man's exploits. He was a kind of leader of the buccaneers, and by all accounts no miscreant like Cosh, but a mirthful fellow, striking hard when need be, but at other times merciful and jovial. Now I set little store by your pirate heroes. They are for lads and silly girls and sots in an ale-house, and a merchant can have no kindness for those who are the foes of his trade. So when I heard that the man I sought was this notorious buccaneer I showed my alarm by dropping my jaw.
Mercer laughed. "I'll not conceal from you that you take a certain risk in going to Ringan. Ye need not tell me your business, but it should be a grave one to take you down to the Carolina keys. There's time to draw back, if ye want; but you've brought me the master word, and I'm bound to set you on the road. Just one word to ye, Mr. Garvald. Keep a stout face whatever you see, for Ringan has a weakness for a bold man. Be here the morn at sunrise, and if ye're wise bring no weapon. I'll see to the boat and the provisioning."
I was at the water-side next day at cock-crow, while the mist was still low on the river. Mercer was busy putting food and a keg of water into a light sloop, and a tall Indian was aboard redding out the sails. My travels had given me some knowledge of the red tribes, and I spoke a little of their language, but this man was of a type not often seen in the Virginian lowlands. He was very tall, with a skin clear and polished like bronze, and, unlike the ordinary savage, his breast was unmarked, and his hair unadorned. He was naked to the waist, and below wore long leather breeches, dyed red, and fringed with squirrels' tails. In his wampum belt were stuck a brace of knives and a tomahawk. It seemed he knew me, for as I approached he stood up to his full height and put his hands on his forehead. "Brother," he said, and his grave eyes looked steadily into mine.
Then I remembered. Some months before I had been riding back the road from Green Springs, and in a dark, woody place had come across an Indian sore beset by three of the white scum which infested the river-side. What the quarrel was I know not, but I liked little the villainous look of the three, and I liked much the clean, lithe figure of their opponent. So I rode my horse among them, and laid on to them with the butt of my whip. They had their knives out, but I managed to disarm the one who attacked me, and my horse upset a second, while the Indian, who had no weapon but a stave, cracked the head of the last. I got nothing worse than a black eye, but the man I had rescued bled from some ugly cuts which I had much ado stanching. He shook hands with me gravely when I had done, and vanished into the thicket. He was a Seneca Indian, and I wondered what one of that house was doing in the Tidewater.
Mercer told me his name. "Shalah will take you to the man you ken. Do whatever he tells you, Mr. Garvald, for this is a job in which you're nothing but a bairn." We pushed off, the Indian taking the oars, and in five minutes James Town was lost in the haze.
On the Surrey shore we picked up a breeze, and with the ebbing tide made good speed down the estuary. Shalah the Indian had the tiller, and I sat luxuriously in the bows, smoking my cob pipe, and wondering what the next week held in store for me. The night before I had had qualms about the whole business, but the air of morning has a trick of firing my blood, and I believe I had forgotten the errand which was taking me to the Carolina shores. It was enough that I was going into a new land and new company. Last night I had thought with disfavour of Red Ringan the buccaneer; that morning I thought only of Ninian Campbell, with whom I had forgathered on a Glasgow landing.
My own thoughts kept me silent, and the Indian never opened his mouth. Like a statue he crouched by the tiller, with his sombre eyes looking to the sea. That night, when we had rounded Cape Henry in fine weather, we ran the sloop into a little bay below a headland, and made camp for the night beside a stream of cold water. Next morning it blew hard from the north, and in a driving rain we crept down the Carolina coast. One incident of the day I remember. I took in a reef or two, and adjusted the sheets, for this was a game I knew and loved. The Indian watched me closely, and made a sign to me to take the helm. He had guessed that I knew more than himself about the handling of a boat in wind, and since we were in an open sea, where his guidance was not needed, he preferred to trust the thing to me. I liked the trait in him, for I take it to be a mark of a wise man that he knows what he can do, and is not ashamed to admit what he cannot.
That evening we had a cold bed; but the storm blew out in the night, and the next day the sun was as hot as summer, and the wind a point to the east. Shalah once again was steersman, for we were inside some very ugly reefs, which I took to be the beginning of the Carolina keys. On shore forests straggled down to the sea, so that sometimes they almost had their feet in the surf; but now and then would come an open, grassy space running far inland. These were, the great savannahs where herds of wild cattle and deer roamed, and where the Free Companions came to fill their larders. It was a wilder land than the Tidewater, for only once did we see a human dwelling. Far remote on the savannahs I could pick out twirls of smoke rising into the blue weather, the signs of Indian hunting fires. Shalah began now to look for landmarks, and to take bearings of a sort. Among the maze of creeks and shallow bays which opened on the land side it needed an Indian to pick out a track.
The sun had all but set when, with a grunt of satisfaction, he swung round the tiller and headed shorewards. Before me in the twilight I saw only a wooded bluff which, as we approached, divided itself into two. Presently a channel appeared, a narrow thing about as broad as a cable's length, into which the wind carried us. Here it was very dark, the high sides with their gloomy trees showing at the top a thin line of reddening sky. Shalah hugged the starboard shore, and as the screen of the forest caught the wind it weakened and weakened till it died away, and we moved only with the ingoing tide. I had never been in so eery a place. It was full of the sharp smell of pine trees, and as I sniffed the air I caught the savour of wood smoke. Men were somewhere ahead of us in the gloom.
Shalah ran the sloop into a little creek so overgrown with vines that we had to lie flat on the thwarts to enter. Then, putting his mouth to my ear, he spoke for the first time since we had left James Town. "It is hard to approach the Master, and my brother must follow me close as the panther follows the deer. Where Shalah puts his foot let my brother put his also. Come."
He stepped from the boat to the hill-side, and with incredible speed and stillness began to ascend. His long, soft strides were made without noise or effort, whether the ground were moss, or a tangle of vines, or loose stones, or the trunks of fallen trees, I had prided myself on my hill-craft, but beside the Indian I was a blundering child, I might have made shift to travel as fast, but it was the silence of his progress that staggered me, I plunged, and slipped, and sprawled, and my heart was bursting before the ascent ceased, and we stole to the left along the hill shoulder.
Presently came a gap in the trees, and I looked down in the last greyness of dusk on a strange and beautiful sight. The channel led to a landlocked pool, maybe a mile around, and this was as full of shipping as a town's harbour. The water was but a pit of darkness, but I could make out the masts rising into the half light, and I counted more than twenty vessels in that port. No light was shown, and the whole place was quiet as a grave.
We entered a wood of small hemlocks, and I felt rather than saw the ground slope in front of us. About two hundred feet above the water the glen of a little stream shaped itself into a flat cup, which was invisible from below, and girdled on three sides by dark forest. Here we walked more freely, till we came to the lip of the cup, and there, not twenty paces below me, I saw a wonderful sight. The hollow was lit with the glow of a dozen fires, round which men clustered. Some were busy boucanning meat for ship's food, some were cooking supper, some sprawled in idleness, and smoked or diced. The night had now grown very black around us, and we were well protected, for the men in the glow had their eyes dazed, and could not spy into the darkness. We came very close above them, so that I could hear their talk. The smell of roasting meat pricked my hunger, and I realized that the salt air had given me a noble thirst. They were common seamen from the pirate vessels, and, as far as I could judge, they had no officer among them. I remarked their fierce, dark faces, and the long knives with which they slashed and trimmed the flesh for their boucanning.
Shalah touched my hand, and I followed him into the wood. We climbed again, and from the tinkle of the stream on my left I judged that we were ascending to a higher shelf in the glen. The Indian moved very carefully, as noiseless as the flight of an owl, and I marvelled at the gift. In after days I was to become something of a woodsman, and track as swiftly and silently as any man of my upbringing. But I never mastered the Indian art by which the foot descending in the darkness on something that will crackle checks before the noise is made. I could do it by day, when I could see what was on the ground, but in the dark the thing was beyond me. It is an instinct like a wild thing's, and possible only to those who have gone all their days light-shod in the forest.
Suddenly the slope and the trees ceased, and a new glare burst on our eyes. This second shelf was smaller than the first, and as I blinked at the light I saw that it held about a score of men. Torches made of pine boughs dipped in tar blazed at the four corners of the assembly, and in the middle on a boulder a man was sitting. He was speaking loudly, and with passion, but I could not make him out. Once more Shalah put his mouth to my ear, with a swift motion like a snake, and whispered, "The Master."
We crawled flat on our bellies round the edge of the cup. The trees had gone, and the only cover was the long grass and the low sumach bushes. We moved a foot at a time, and once the Indian turned in his tracks and crawled to the left almost into the open. My sense of smell, as sharp almost as a dog's, told me that horses were picketed in the grass in front of us. Our road took us within, hearing of the speaker, and though I dared not raise my head, I could hear the soft Highland voice of my friend. He seemed now to be speaking humorously, for a laugh came from the hearers.
Once at the crossing of a little brook, I pulled a stone into the water, and we instantly lay as still as death. But men preoccupied with their own concerns do not keep anxious watch, and our precautions were needless. Presently we had come to the far side of the shelf abreast of the boulder on which he sat who seemed to be the chief figure. Now I could raise my head, and what I saw made my eyes dazzle.
Red Ringan sat on a stone with a naked cutlass across his knees. In front stood a man, the most evil-looking figure that I had ever beheld. He was short but very sturdily built, and wore a fine laced coat not made for him, which hung to his knees, and was stretched tight at the armpits. He had a heavy pale face, without hair on it. His teeth had gone, all but two buck-teeth which stuck out at each corner of his mouth, giving him the look of a tusker. I could see his lips moving uneasily in the glare of the pine boughs, and his eyes darted about the company as if seeking countenance.
Ringan was speaking very gravely, with his eyes shining like sword points. The others were every make and manner of fellow, from well-shaped and well-clad gentlemen to loutish seamen in leather jerkins. Some of the faces were stained dark with passion and crime, some had the air of wild boys, and some the hard sobriety of traders. But one and all were held by the dancing eyes of the man that spoke.
"What is the judgment," he was saying, "of the Free Companions? By the old custom of the Western Seas I call upon you, gentlemen all, for your decision."
Then I gathered that the evil-faced fellow had offended against some one of their lawless laws, and was on his trial.
No one spoke for a moment, and then one grizzled seaman raised his hand, "The dice must judge," he said. "He must throw for his life against the six."
Another exclaimed against this. "Old wives' folly," he cried, with an oath. "Let Cosh go his ways, and swear to amend them. The Brethren of the Coast cannot be too nice in these little matters. We are not pursy justices or mooning girls."
But he had no support. The verdict was for the dice, and a seaman brought Ringan a little ivory box, which he held out to the prisoner. The latter took it with shaking hand, as if he did not know how to use it.
"You will cast thrice," said Ringan. "Two even throws, and you are free."
The man fumbled a little and then cast. It fell a four.
A second time he threw, and the dice lay five.
In that wild place, in the black heart of night, the terror of the thing fell on my soul. The savage faces, the deadly purpose in Ringan's eyes, the fumbling miscreant before him, were all heavy with horror. I had no doubt that Cosh was worthy of death, but this cold and merciless treatment froze my reason. I watched with starting eyes the last throw, and I could not hear Ringan declare it. But I saw by the look on Cosh's face what it had been.
"It is your privilege to choose your manner of death and to name your successor," I heard Ringan say.
But Cosh did not need the invitation. Now that his case was desperate, the courage in him revived. He was fully armed, and in a second he had drawn a knife and leaped for Ringan's throat.
Perhaps he expected it, perhaps he had learned the art of the wild beast so that his body was answerable to his swiftest wish. I do not know, but I saw Cosh's knife crash on the stone and splinter, while Ringan stood by his side.
"You have answered my question," he said quietly. "Draw your cutlass, man. You have maybe one chance in ten thousand for your life."
I shut my eyes as I heard the steel clash. Then very soon came silence. I looked again, and saw Ringan wiping his blade on a bunch of grass, and a body lying before him.
He was speaking—speaking, I suppose, about the successor to the dead man, whom two negroes had promptly removed. Suddenly at my shoulder Shalah gave the hoot of an owl, followed at a second's interval by a second and a third. I suppose it was some signal agreed with Ringan, but at the time I thought the man had gone mad.
I was not very sane myself. What I had seen had sent a cold grue through me, for I had never before seen a man die violently, and the circumstances of the place and hour made the thing a thousandfold more awful. I had a black fright on me at that whole company of merciless men, and especially at Ringan, whose word was law to them. Now the worst effect of fear is that it obscures good judgment, and makes a man in desperation do deeds of a foolhardiness from which at other times he would shrink. All I remembered in that moment was that I had to reach Ringan, and that Mercer had told me that the safest plan was to show a bold front. I never remembered that I had also been bidden to follow Shalah, nor did I reflect that a secret conclave of pirates was no occasion to choose for my meeting. With a sudden impulse I forced myself to my feet, and stalked, or rather shambled, into the light.
"Ninian," I cried, "Ninian Campbell! I'm here to claim your promise."
The whole company turned on me, and I was gripped by a dozen hands and flung on the ground. Ringan came forward to look, but there was no recognition in his eyes. Some one cried out, "A spy!" and there was a fierce murmur of voices, which were meaningless to me, for fear had got me again, and I had neither ears nor voice. Dimly it seemed that he gave some order, and I was trussed up with ropes. Then I was conscious of being carried out of the glare of torches into the cool darkness. Presently I was laid in some kind of log-house, carpeted with fir boughs, for the needles tickled my face.
Bit by bit my senses came back to me, and I caught hold of my vagrant courage.
A big negro in seaman's clothes with a scarlet sash round his middle was squatted on the floor watching me by the light of a ship's lantern. He had a friendly, foolish face, and I remember yet how he rolled his eyeballs.
"I won't run away," I said, "so you might slacken these ropes and let me breathe easy."
Apparently he was an accommodating gaoler, for he did as I wished.
"And give me a drink," I said, "for my tongue's like a stick."
He mixed me a pannikin of rum and water. Perhaps he hocussed it, or maybe 'twas only the effect of spirits on a weary body; but three minutes after I had drunk I was in a heavy sleep.
I awoke in broad daylight, and when my wits came back to me, I saw I was in a tent of skins, with my limbs unbound, and a pitcher of water beside me placed by some provident hand. Through the tent door I looked over a wide space of green savannah. How I had got there I knew not; but, as my memory repeated the events of the night, I knew I had travelled far, for the sea showed miles away at a great distance beneath me. On the water I saw a ship in full sail, diminished to a toy size, careering northward with the wind.
Outside a man was seated whistling a cheerful tune. I got to my feet and staggered out to clear my head in the air, and found the smiling face of Ringan.
"Good-morning, Andrew," he cried, as I sat down beside him. "Have you slept well?"
I rubbed my eyes and took long draughts of the morning breeze.
"Are you a warlock, Mr. Campbell, that you can spirit folk about the country at your pleasure? I have slept sound, but my dreams have been bad."
"Yes," he said; "what sort of dreams, maybe?"
"I dreamed I was in a wild place among wild men, and that I saw murder done. The look of the man who did it was not unlike your own."
"You have dreamed true," he said gravely; "but you have the wrong word for it. Others would call it justice."
"What sort of justice?" said I, "when you had no court or law but just what you made yourself."
"Is it not a stiff Whiggamore?" he said, looking skywards. "Why, man, all justice is what men make themselves. What hinders the Free Companions from making as honest laws as any cackling Council in the towns? Did you see the man Cosh? Have you heard anything of his doings, and will you deny that the world was well quit of him? There's a decency in all trades, and Cosh fair stank to heaven. But I'm glad the thing ended as it did. I never get to like a cold execution. 'Twas better for everybody that he should fly at my face and get six inches of kindly steel in his throat. He had a gentleman's death, which was more than his crimes warranted."
I was only half convinced. Here was I, a law-abiding merchant, pitchforked suddenly into a world of lawlessness. I could not be expected to adjust my views in the short space of a night.
"You gave me a rough handling," I said, "Where was the need of it?"
"And you showed very little sense in bursting in on us the way you did! Could you not have bided quietly till Shalah gave the word? I had to be harsh with you, or they would have suspected something and cut your throat. Yon gentry are not to take liberties with. What made you do it, Andrew?"
"Just that I was black afraid. That made me more feared of being a coward, so I forced myself to yon folly."
"A very honourable reason," he said.
"Are you the leader of those men?" I asked. "They looked a scurvy lot.Do you call that a proper occupation for the best blood inBreadalbane?"
It was a silly speech, and I could have bitten my tongue out when I had uttered it. But I was in a vile temper, for the dregs of the negro's rum still hummed in my blood. His face grew dark, till he looked like the man I had seen the night before.
"I allow no man to slight my race," he said in a harsh voice.
"It's the truth whether you like it or not. And you that claimed to be a gentleman! What is it they say about the Highlands?" And I quoted a ribald Glasgow proverb.
What moved me to this insolence I cannot say, I was in the wrong, and I knew it, but I was too much of a child to let go my silly pride.
Ringan got up very quickly and walked three steps. The blackness had gone from his face, and it was puzzled and melancholy.
"There's a precious lot of the bairn in you, Mr. Garvald," he said, "and an ugly spice of the Whiggamore. I would have killed another man for half your words, and I've got to make you pay for them somehow." And he knit his brow and pondered.
"I'm ready," said I, with the best bravado I could muster, though the truth is I was sick at heart. I had forced a quarrel like an ill-mannered boy on the very man whose help I had come to seek. And I saw, too, that I had gone just that bit too far for which no recantation would win pardon.
"What sort of way are you ready?" he asked politely. "You would fight me with your pistols, but you haven't got them, and this is no a matter that will wait. I could spit you in a jiffy with my sword, but it wouldna be fair. It strikes me that you and me are ill matched. We're like a shark and a wolf that cannot meet to fight in the same element."
Then he ran his finger down the buttons of his coat, and his eyes were smiling. "We'll try the old way that laddies use on the village green. Man, Andrew, I'm going to skelp you, as your mother skelped you when you were a breechless bairn," And he tossed his coat on the grass.
I could only follow suit, though I was black ashamed at the whole business. I felt the disgrace of my conduct, and most bitterly the disgrace of the penalty.
My arm was too short to make a fighter of me, and I could only strive to close, that I might get the use of my weight and my great strength of neck and shoulder. Ringan danced round me, tapping me lightly on nose and cheek, but hard enough to make the blood flow, I defended myself as best I could, while my temper rose rapidly and made me forget my penitence. Time and again I looked for a chance to slip in, but he was as wary as a fox, and was a yard off before I could get my arm round him.
At last in extreme vexation, I lowered my head and rushed blindly for his chest. Something like the sails of a windmill smote me on the jaw, and I felt myself falling into a pit of great darkness where little lights twinkled.
The next I knew I was sitting propped against the tent-pole with a cold bandage round my forehead, and Ringan with a napkin bathing my face.
"Cheer up, man," he cried; "you've got off light, for there's no a scratch on your lily-white cheek, and the blood-letting from the nose will clear out the dregs of Moro's hocus."
I blinked a little, and tried to recall what had happened. All my ill-humour had gone, and I was now in a hurry to set myself right with my conscience. He heard my apology with an embarrassed face.
"Say no more, Andrew. I was as muckle to blame as you, and I've been giving myself some ill names for that last trick. It was ower hard, but, man, the temptation was sore."
He elbowed me to the open air.
"Now for the questions you've a right to ask. We of the Brethren have not precisely a chief, as you call it, but there are not many of them would gainsay my word. Why? you ask. Well, it's not for a modest man to be sounding his own trumpet. Maybe it's because I'm a gentleman, and there's that in good blood which awes the commonalty. Maybe it's because I've no fish of my own to fry. I do not rob for greed, like Calvert and Williams, or kill for lust, like the departed Cosh. To me it's a game, which I play by honest rules. I never laid finger on a bodle's worth of English stuff, and if now and then I ease the Dons of a pickle silver or send a Frenchman or two to purgatory, what worse am I doing than His Majesty's troops in Flanders, or your black frigates that lie off Port Royal? If I've a clear conscience I can more easily take order with those that are less single-minded. But maybe the chief reason is that I've some little skill of arms, so that the lad that questions me is apt to fare like Cosh."
There was a kind of boastful sincerity about the man which convinced me. But his words put me in mind of my own business.
"I came seeking you to ask help. Your friends have been making too free with my belongings. I would never complain if it were the common risk of my trade, but I have a notion that there's some sort of design behind it." Then I told him of my strife with the English merchants.
"What are your losses?" he asked.
"The Ayr brig was taken off Cape Charles, and burned to the water. God help the poor souls in her, for I fear they perished."
He nodded. "I know. That was one of Cosh's exploits. He has paid by now for that and other things."
"Two of my ships were chased through the Capes and far up the Tidewater of the James not two months back," I went on.
He laughed. "I did that myself," he said.
Astonishment and wrath filled me, but I finished my tale.
"A week ago there was a ship ashore on Accomac. Pirates boarded her, but they took nothing away save a sum of gold that was mine. Was that your doing also, Mr. Campbell?"
"Yes," he said; "but the money's safe. I'll give you a line to Mercer, and he'll pay it you."
"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Campbell," I said, choking with anger. "But who, in Heaven's name, asked you to manage my business? I thought you were my friend, and I came to you as such, and here I find you the chief among my enemies."
"Patience, Andrew," he said, "and I'll explain everything, for I grant you it needs some explaining. First, you are right about the English merchants. They and the Free Companions have long had an understanding, and word was sent by them to play tricks on your ships. I was absent at the time, and though the thing was dirty work, as any one could see, some of the fools thought it a fair ploy, and Cosh was suffered to do his will. When I got back I heard the story, and was black angry, so I took the matter into my own keeping. I have ways and means of getting the news of Virginia, and I know pretty well what you have been doing, young one. There's spirit in you and some wise notions, but you want help in the game. Besides, there's a bigger thing before you. So I took steps to bring you here."
"You took a roundabout road," said I, by no means appeased.
"It had to be. D'you think I could come marching into James Town and collogue with you in your counting-house? Now that you're here, you have my sworn word that the Free Companions will never lay hand again on your ventures. Will that content you?"
"It will," I said; "but you spoke of a bigger thing before me."
"Yes, and that's the price you are going to pay me for my goodwill. It's what the lawyers callconsideratiofor our bargain, and it's the reason I brought you here. Tell me, Andrew, d'you ken a man Frew who lives on the South Fork River?" "A North Ireland fellow, with a hatchet face and a big scar? I saw him a year ago."
"It stuck in my mind that you had. And d'you mind the advice he gave you?"
I remembered it very well, for it was Frew who had clinched my views on the defencelessness of our West. "He spoke God's truth," I said, "but I cannot get a Virginian to believe it."
"They'll believe in time," he said, "though maybe too late to save some of their scalps. Come to this hillock, and I will show you something."
From the low swell of ground we looked west to some little hills, and in the hollow of them a spire of smoke rose into the blue.
"I'm going to take you there, that you may hear and see something to your profit. Quick, Moro," he cried to a servant. "Bring food, and have the horses saddled."
We breakfasted on some very good beefsteaks, and started at a canter for the hills. My headache had gone, and I was now in a contented frame of mind; for I saw the purpose of my errand accomplished, and I had a young man's eagerness to know what lay before me. As we rode Ringan talked.
"You'll have heard tell of Bacon's rising in '76? Governor Berkeley had ridden the dominion with too harsh a hand, and in the matter of its defence against the Indians he was slack when he should have been tight. The upshot was that Nathaniel Bacon took up the job himself, and after giving the Indians their lesson, turned his mind to the government of Virginia. He drove Berkeley into Accomac, and would have turned the whole place tapsalteery if he had not suddenly died of a bowel complaint. After that Berkeley and his tame planters got the upper hand, and there were some pretty homings and hangings. There were two men that were lieutenants to Bacon, and maybe put the notion into his head. One was James Drummond, a cousin of my own mother's, and he got the gallows for his trouble. The other was a man Richard Lawrence, a fine scholar, and a grand hand at planning, though a little slow in a fight. He kept the ordinary at James Town, and was the one that collected the powder and kindled the fuse. Governor Berkeley had a long score to settle with him, but he never got him, for when the thing was past hope Mr. Richard rode west one snowy night to the hills, and Virginia saw him no more. They think he starved in the wilderness, or got into the hands of the wild Indians, and is long ago dead."
I knew all about Dick Lawrence, for I had heard the tale twenty times. "But surely they're right," I said, "It's fifteen years since any man had word of him."
"Well, you'll see him within an hour," said Ringan, "It's a queer story, but it seems he fell in with a Monacan war party, and since he and Bacon had been fighting their deadly foes, the Susquehannocks, they treated him well, and brought him south into Carolina. You must know, Andrew, that all this land hereaways, except for the little Algonquin villages on the shore, is Sioux country, with as many tribes as there are houses in Clan Campbell. But cheek by jowl is a long strip held by the Tuscaroras, a murdering lot of devils, of whom you and I'll get news sooner than we want. The Tuscaroras are bad enough in themselves, but the worst part is that all the back country in the hills belongs to their cousins the Cherokees, and God knows how far north their sway holds. The Long House of the Iroquois controls everything west of the coast land from Carolina away up through Virginia to New York and the Canadas. That means that Virginia has on two sides the most powerful tribes of savages in the world, and if ever the Iroquois found a general and made a common attack things would go ill with the Tidewater. I tell you that so that you can understand Lawrence's doings. He hates the Iroquois like hell, and so he likes their enemies. He has lived for fifteen years among the Sioux, whiles with the Catawbas, whiles with the Manahoacs, but mostly with the Monacans. We of the Free Companions see him pretty often, and bring him the news and little comforts, like good tobacco andeau de vie, that he cannot get among savages. And we carry messages between him and the Tidewater, for he has many friends still alive there. There's no man ever had his knowledge of Indians, and I'm taking you to him, for he has something to tell you."
By this time we had come to a place where a fair-sized burn issued from a shallow glen in the savannah. There was a peeled wand stuck in a burnt tree above the water, and this Ringan took and broke very carefully into two equal pieces, and put them back in the hole. From this point onwards I had the feeling that the long grass and the clumps of bushes held watchers. They made no noise, but I could have sworn to the truth of my notion. Ringan, whose senses were keener than mine, would stop every now and again and raise his hand as if in signal. At one place we halted dead for five minutes, and at another he dismounted and cut a tuft of sumach, which he laid over his saddle. Then at the edge of a thicket he stopped again, and held up both hands above his head. Instantly a tall Indian stepped from the cover, saluted, and walked by our side. In five minutes more we rounded a creek of the burn and were at the encampment.
'Twas the first time I had ever seen an Indian village. The tents, or teepees, were of skins stretched over poles, and not of bark, like those of the woodland tribes. At a great fire in the centre women were grilling deer's flesh, while little brown children strove and quarrelled for scraps, I saw few men, for the braves were out hunting or keeping watch at the approaches. One young lad took the horses, and led us to a teepee bigger than the others, outside of which stood a finely-made savage, with heron's feathers in his hair, and a necklace of polished shells. On his Iron face there was no flicker of welcome or recognition, but he shook hands silently with the two of us, and struck a blow on a dry gourd. Instantly three warriors appeared, and took their place by his side. Then all of us sat down and a pipe was lit and handed by the chief to Ringan. He took a puff and gave it to one of the other Indians, who handed it to me. With that ceremony over, the tongue of the chief seemed to be unloosed. "The Sachem comes," he said, and an old man sat himself down beside us.
He was a strange figure to meet in an Indian camp. A long white beard hung down to his middle, and his unshorn hair draped his shoulders like a fleece. His clothing was of tanned skin, save that he had a belt of Spanish leather, and on his feet he wore country shoes and not the Indian moccasins. The eyes in his head were keen and youthful, and though he could not have been less than sixty he carried himself with the vigour of a man in his prime. Below his shaggy locks was a high, broad forehead, such as some college professor might have borne who had given all his days to the philosophies. He seemed to have been disturbed in reading, for he carried in his hand a little book with a finger marking his place. I caught a glimpse of the title, and saw that it was Mr. Locke's new "Essay on the Human Understanding."
Ringan spoke to the chief in his own tongue, but the Sioux language was beyond me. Mr. Lawrence joined in, and I saw the Indian's eyes kindle. He shook his head, and seemed to deny something. Then he poured forth a flood of talk, and when he had finished Ringan spoke to me.
"He says that the Tuscaroras are stirring. Word has come down from the hills to be ready for a great ride between the Moon of Stags and the Corngathering."
Lawrence nodded. "That's an old Tuscarora habit; but somehow these ridings never happen." He said something in Sioux to one of the warriors, and got an emphatic answer, which he translated to me. "He thinks that the Cherokees have had word from farther north. It looks like a general stirring of the Long House."
"Is it the fighting in Canada?" I asked.
"God knows," he said, "but I don't think so. If that were the cause we should have the Iroquois pushed down on the top of the Cherokees. But my information is that the Cherokees are to move north themselves, and then down to the Tidewater. It is not likely that the Five Nations have any plan of conquering the lowlands. They're a hill people, and they know the white man's mettle too well. My notion is that some devilry is going on in the West, and I might guess that there's a white man in it." He spoke to the chief, who spoke again to his companion, and Lawrence listened with contracting brows, while Ringan whistled between his teeth.
"They've got a queer story," said Lawrence at last. "They say that when last they hunted on the Roanoke their young men brought a tale that a tribe of Cherokees, who lived six days' journey into the hills, had found a great Sachem who had the white man's magic, and that God was moving him to drive out the palefaces and hold his hunting lodge in their dwellings. That is not like an ordinary Indian lie. What do you make of it, Mr. Campbell?"
Ringan looked grave, "It's possible enough. There's a heap of renegades among the tribes, men that have made the Tidewater and even the Free Companies too warm for them. There's no knowing the mischief a strong-minded rascal might work. I mind a man at Norfolk, a Scots redemptioner, who had the tongue of a devil and the strength of a wolf. He broke out one night and got clear into the wilderness."
Lawrence turned to me briskly. "You see the case, sir. There's trouble brewing in the hills, black trouble for Virginia, but we've some months' breathing space. For Nat Bacon's sake, I'm loath to see the war paint at James Town. The question is, are you willing to do your share?"
"I'm willing enough," I said, "but what can I do? I'm not exactly a popular character in the Tidewater. If you want me to hammer sense into the planters, you could not get a worse man for the job. I have told Governor Nicholson my fears, and he is of my opinion, but his hands are tied by a penurious Council. If he cannot screw money for troops out of the Virginians, it's not likely that I could do much."
Lawrence nodded his wise head. "All you say is true, but I want a different kind of service from you. You may have noticed in your travels, Mr. Garvald—for they tell me you are not often out of the saddle—that up and down the land there's a good few folk that are not very easy in their minds. Many of these are former troopers of Bacon, some are new men who have eyes in their heads, some are old settlers who have been soured by the folly of the Government. With such poor means as I possess I keep in touch with these gentlemen, and in them we have the rudiments of a frontier army. I don't say they are many; but five hundred resolute fellows, well horsed and well armed, and led by some man who knows the Indian ways, might be a stumbling-block in the way of an Iroquois raid. But to perfect this force needs time, and, above all, it needs a man on the spot; for Virginia is not a healthy place for me, and these savannahs are a trifle distant, I want a man in James Town who will receive word when I send it, and pass it onto those who should hear it, I want a discreet man, whose trade takes him about the country. Mr. Campbell tells me you are such an one. Will you accept the charge?"
I was greatly flattered, but a little perplexed. "I'm a law-abiding citizen," I said, "and I can have no hand in rebellions. I've no ambition to play Bacon's part."
Lawrence smiled. "A proof of your discretion, sir. But believe me, there is no thought of rebellion. We have no quarrel with the Council and less with His Majesty's Governor. We but seek to set the house in order against perils which we alone know fully, I approve of your scruples, and I give you my word they shall not be violated."
"So be it," I said, "I will do what I can."
"God be praised," said Mr. Lawrence, "I have here certain secret papers which Will give you the names of the men we can trust. Messages will come to you, which I trust you to find the means of sending on. Mercer has our confidence, and will arrange with you certain matters of arms. He will also supply you with what money is needed. There are many in the Tidewater who would look askance at this business, so it must be done in desperate secrecy; but if there should be trouble I counsel you to play a bold hand with the Governor. They tell me that you and he are friendly, and, unless I mistake the man, he can see reason if he is wisely handled. If the worst comes to the worst, you can take Nicholson into your confidence."
"How long have we to prepare?" I asked.
"The summer months, according to my forecast. It may be shorter or longer, but I will know better when I get nearer the hills."
"And what about the Carolina tribes?" I asked. "If we are to hold the western marches of Virginia, we cannot risk being caught on the flank."
"That can be arranged," he said. "Our friends the Sioux are not over-fond of the Long House. If the Tuscaroras ride, I do not think they will ever reach the James."
The afternoon was now ending, and we were given a meal of corn-cakes and roast deer's flesh. Then we took our leave, and Mr. Lawrence's last word to me was to send him any English books of a serious cast which came under my eye. This request he made with so much hesitation, but with so hungry a desire in his face, that I was moved to pity this ill-fated scholar, wandering in Indian lodges, and famished for lack of the society of his kind.
Ringan took me by a new way which bore north of that we had ridden, and though the dusk began soon to fall, he never faltered in his guiding. Presently we left the savannah for the woods of the coast, and, dropping down hill by a very meagre path, we came in three hours to a creek of the sea. There by a little fire we found Shalah, and the sloop riding at anchor below a thick covert of trees.
"Good-bye to you, Andrew," cried Ringan. "You'll be getting news of me soon, and maybe see me in the flesh on the Tidewater. Remember the word I told you in the Saltmarket, for I never mention names when I take the road."
When we sailed at daybreak next morning I had the glow of satisfaction with my own doings which is a safe precursor of misfortunes. I had settled my business with the Free Companions, and need look for no more trouble on that score. But what tickled my vanity was my talk with Ringan and Lawrence at the Monacan lodge and the momentous trust they had laid on me. With a young man's vanity, I saw myself the saviour of Virginia, and hailed as such by the proud folk who now scorned me. My only merits, as I was to learn in time, are a certain grasp of simple truths that elude cleverer men, and a desperate obstinacy which is reluctant to admit defeat. But it is the fashion of youth to glory in what it lacks, and I flattered myself that I had a natural gift for finesse and subtlety, and was a born deviser of wars. Again and again I told myself how I and Lawrence's Virginians—grown under my hand to a potent army—should roll back the invaders to the hills and beyond, while the Sioux of the Carolinas guarded one flank and the streams of the Potomac the other. In those days the star of the great Marlborough had not risen; but John Churchill, the victor of Blenheim, did not esteem himself a wiser strategist than the raw lad Andrew Garvald, now sailing north in the long wash of the Atlantic seas.
The weather grew spiteful, and we were much buffeted about by the contrary spring winds, so that it was late in the afternoon of the third day that we turned Cape Henry and came into the Bay of Chesapeake. Here a perfect hurricane fell upon us, and we sought refuge in a creek on the shore of Norfolk county. The place was marshy, and it was hard to find dry land for our night's lodging. Our provisions had run low, and there seemed little enough for two hungry men who had all day been striving with salt winds. So, knowing that this was a neighbourhood studded with great manors, and remembering the hospitality I had so often found, I left Shalah by the fire with such food as remained, and set out with our lantern through the woods to look for a human habitation.
I found one quicker than I had hoped. Almost at once I came on a track which led me into a carriage-road and out of the thickets to a big clearing. The daylight had not yet wholly gone, and it guided me to two gate-posts, from which an avenue of chestnut trees led up to a great house. There were lights glimmering in the windows, and when I reached the yard and saw the size of the barns and outbuildings, I wished I had happened on a place of less pretensions. But hunger made me bold, and I tramped over the mown grass of the yard, which in the dusk I could see to be set with flower-beds, till I stood before the door of as fine a mansion as I had found in the dominion. From within came a sound of speech and laughter, and I was in half a mind to turn back to my cold quarters by the shore. I had no sooner struck the knocker than I wanted to run away.
The door was opened instantly by a tall negro in a scarlet livery. He asked no questions, but motioned me to enter as if I had been an invited guest. I followed him, wondering dolefully what sort of figure I must cut in my plain clothes soaked and stained by travel; for it was clear that I had lighted on the mansion of some rich planter, who was even now entertaining his friends. The servant led me through an outer hall into a great room full of people. A few candles in tall candlesticks burned down the length of a table, round which sat a score of gentlemen. The scarlet negro went to the tablehead, and said something to the master, who rose and came to meet me.
"I am storm-stayed," I said humbly, "and I left my boat on the shore and came inland to look for a supper."
"You shall get it," he said heartily. "Sit down, and my servants will bring you what you need."
"But I am not fit to intrude, sir. A weary traveller is no guest for such a table."
"Tush, man," he cried, "when did a Virginian think the worse of a man for his clothes? Sit down and say no more. You are heartily welcome."
He pushed me into a vacant chair at the bottom of the table, and gave some orders to the negro. Now I knew where I was, for I had seen before the noble figure of my host. This was Colonel Beverley, who in his youth had ridden with Prince Rupert, and had come to Virginia long ago in the Commonwealth time. He sat on the Council, and was the most respected of all the magnates of the dominion, for he had restrained the folly of successive Governors, and had ever teen ready to stand forth alike on behalf of the liberties of the settlers and their duties to the Crown. His name was highly esteemed at Whitehall, and more than once he had occupied the Governor's place when His Majesty was slow in filling it. His riches were large, but he was above all things a great gentleman, who had grafted on an old proud stock the tolerance and vigour of a new land.
The company had finished dining, for the table was covered with fruits and comfits, and wine in silver goblets. There was sack and madeira, and French claret, and white Rhenish, and ale and cider for those with homelier palates. I saw dimly around me the faces of the guests, for the few candles scarcely illumined the dusk of the great panelled hall hung with dark portraits. One man gave me good-evening, but as I sat at the extreme end of the table I was out of the circle of the company. They talked and laughed, and it seemed to me that I could hear women's voices at the other end. Meantime I was busy with my viands, and no man ever punished a venison pie more heartily. As I ate and drank, I smiled at the strangeness of my fortunes—to come thus straight from the wild seas and the company of outlaws into a place of silver and damask and satin coats and lace cravats and orderly wigs. The soft hum of gentlefolks' speech was all around me, those smooth Virginian voices compared with which my Scots tongue was as strident as a raven's. But as I listened, I remembered Ringan and Lawrence, and, "Ah, my silken friends," thought I, "little you know the judgment that is preparing. Some day soon, unless God is kind, there will be blood on the lace and the war-whoop in these pleasant chambers."
Then a voice said louder than the rest, "Dulcinea will sing to us. She promised this morning in the garden."
At this there was a ripple of "Bravas," and presently I heard the tuning of a lute. The low twanging went on for a little, and suddenly I was seized with a presentiment. I set down my tankard, and waited with my heart in my mouth.
Very clear and pure the voice rose, as fresh as the morning song of birds. There was youth in it and joy and pride—joy of the fairness of the earth, pride of beauty and race and strength, "My dear and only love" it sang, as it had sung before; but then it had been a girl's hope, and now it was a woman's certainty. At the first note, the past came back to me like yesterday. I saw the moorland gables in the rain, I heard the swirl of the tempest, I saw the elfin face in the hood which had cheered the traveller on his way. In that dim light I could not see the singer, but I needed no vision. The strangeness of the thing clutched at my heart, for here was the voice which had never been out of my ears singing again in a land far from the wet heather and the driving mists of home.
As I sat dazed and dreaming, I knew that a great thing had befallen me. For me, Andrew Garvald, the prosaic trader, coming out of the darkness into this strange company, the foundations of the world had been upset. All my cares and hopes, my gains and losses, seemed in that moment no better than dust. Love had come to me like a hurricane. From now I had but the one ambition, to hear that voice say to me and to mean it truly, "My dear and only love." I knew it was folly and a madman's dream, for I felt most deeply my common clay. What had I to offer for the heart of that proud lady? A dingy and battered merchant might as well enter a court of steel-clad heroes and contend for the love of a queen. But I was not downcast. I do not think I even wanted to hope. It was enough to know that so bright a thing was in the world, for at one stroke my drab horizon seemed to have broadened into the infinite heavens.
The song ended in another chorus of "Bravas." "Bring twenty candles, Pompey," my host called out, "and the great punch-bowl. We will pledge my lady in the old Beverley brew."
Servants set on the table a massive silver dish, into which sundry bottles of wine and spirits were poured. A mass of cut fruit and sugar was added, and the whole was set alight, and leaped almost to the ceiling in a blue flame. Colonel Beverley, with a long ladle, filled the array of glasses on a salver, which the servants carried round to the guests. Large branching candelabra had meantime been placed on the table, and in a glow of light we stood to our feet and honoured the toast.
As I stood up and looked to the table's end, I saw the dark, restless eyes and the heavy blue jowl of Governor Nicholson. He saw me, for I was alone at the bottom end, and when we were seated, he cried out to me,—
"What news of trade, Mr. Garvald? You're an active packman, for they tell me you're never off the road."
At the mention of my name every eye turned towards me, and I felt, rather than saw, the disfavour of the looks. No doubt they resented a storekeeper's intrusion into well-bred company, and some were there who had publicly cursed me for a meddlesome upstart. But I was not looking their way, but at the girl who sat on my host's right hand, and in whose dark eyes I thought I saw a spark of recognition.
She was clad in white satin, and in her hair and bosom spring flowers had been set. Her little hand played with the slim glass, and her eyes had all the happy freedom of childhood. But now she was a grown woman, with a woman's pride and knowledge of power. Her exquisite slimness and grace, amid the glow of silks and silver, gave her the air of a fairy-tale princess. There was a grave man in black sat next her, to whom she bent to speak. Then she looked towards me again, and smiled with that witching mockery which had pricked my temper in the Canongate Tolbooth.
The Governor's voice recalled me from my dream.
"How goes the Indian menace, Mr. Garvald?" he cried. "You must know," and he turned to the company, "that our friend combines commerce with high policy, and shares my apprehensions as to the safety of the dominion."
I could not tell whether he was mocking at me or not. I think he was, for Francis Nicholson's moods were as mutable as the tides. In every word of his there lurked some sour irony.
The company took the speech for satire, and many laughed. One young gentleman, who wore a purple coat and a splendid brocaded vest, laughed very loud.
"A merchant's nerves are delicate things," he said, as he fingered his cravat. "I would have said 'like a woman's,' had I not seen this very day Miss Elspeth's horsemanship." And he bowed to her very neatly.
Now I was never fond of being quizzed, and in that company I could not endure it.
"We have a saying, sir," I said, "that the farmyard fowl does not fear the eagle. The men who look grave just now are not those who live snugly in coast manors, but the outland folk who have to keep their doors with their own hands."
It was a rude speech, and my hard voice and common clothes made it ruder. The gentleman fired in a second, and with blazing eyes asked me if I intended an insult. I was about to say that he could take what meaning he pleased, when an older man broke in with, "Tush, Charles, let the fellow alone. You cannot quarrel with a shopman."
"I thank you, George, for a timely reminder," said my gentleman, and he turned away his head with a motion of sovereign contempt.
"Come, come, sirs," Colonel Beverley cried, "remember the sacred law of hospitality. You are all my guests, and you have a lady here, whose bright eyes should be a balm for controversies."
The Governor had sat with his lips closed and his eyes roving the table. He dearly loved a quarrel, and was minded to use me to bait those whom he liked little.
"What is all this talk about gentility?" he said. "A man is as good as his brains and his right arm, and no better. I am of the creed of the Levellers, who would have a man stand stark before his Maker."
He could not have spoken words better calculated to set the company against me. My host looked glum and disapproving, and all the silken gentlemen murmured. The Virginian cavalier had as pretty a notion of the worth of descent as any Highland land-louper. Indeed, to be honest, I would have controverted the Governor myself, for I have ever held that good blood is a mighty advantage to its possessor.
Suddenly the grave man who sat by Miss Elspeth's side spoke up. By this time I had remembered that he was Doctor James Blair, the lately come commissary of the diocese of London, who represented all that Virginia had in the way of a bishop. He had a shrewd, kind face, like a Scots dominie, and a mouth that shut as tight as the Governor's.
"Your tongue proclaims you my countryman, sir," he said. "Did I hear right that your name was Garvald?"
"Of Auchencairn?" he asked, when I had assented.
"Of Auchencairn, or what is left of it," I said.
"Then, gentlemen," he said, addressing the company, "I can settle the dispute on the facts, without questioning his Excellency's dogma. Mr. Garvald is of as good blood as any in Scotland. And that," said he firmly, "means that in the matter of birth he can hold up his head in any company in any Christian land."
I do not think this speech made any man there look on me with greater favour, but it enormously increased my own comfort. I have never felt such a glow of gratitude as then filled my heart to the staid cleric. That he was of near kin to Miss Elspeth made it tenfold sweeter. I forgot my old clothes and my uncouth looks; I forgot, too, my irritation with the brocaded gentleman. If her kin thought me worthy, I cared not a bodle for the rest of mankind.
Presently we rose from table, and Colonel Beverley summoned us to the Green Parlour, where Miss Elspeth was brewing a dish of chocolate, then a newfangled luxury in the dominion. I would fain have made my escape, for if my appearance was unfit for a dining-hall, it was an outrage in a lady's withdrawing-room. But Doctor Blair came forward to me and shook me warmly by the hand, and was full of gossip about Clydesdale, from which apparently he had been absent these twenty years. "My niece bade me bring you to her," he said. "She, poor child, is a happy exile, but she has now and then an exile's longings. A Scots tongue is pleasant in her ear."
So I perforce had to follow him into a fine room with an oaken floor, whereon lay rich Smyrna rugs and the skins of wild beasts from the wood. There was a prodigious number of soft couches of flowered damask, and little tables inlaid with foreign woods and jeweller's work. 'Twas well enough for your fine gentleman in his buckled shoes and silk stockings to enter such a place, but for myself, in my coarse boots, I seemed like a colt in a flower garden. The girl sat by a brazier of charcoal, with the scarlet-coated negro at hand doing her commands. She was so busy at the chocolate making that when her uncle said, "Elspeth, I have brought you Mr. Garvald," she had no hand to give me. She looked up and smiled, and went on with the business, while I stood awkwardly by, the scorn of the assured gentlemen around me.
By and by she spoke: "You and I seem fated to meet in odd places. First it was at Carnwath in the rain, and then at the Cauldstaneslap in a motley company. Then I think it was in the Tolbooth, Mr. Garvald, when you were very gruff to your deliverer. And now we are both exiles, and once more you step in like a bogle out of the night. Will you taste my chocolate?"
She served me first, and I could see how little the favour was to the liking of her little retinue of courtiers. My silken gentleman, whose name was Grey, broke in on us abruptly.
"What is this story, sir, of Indian dangers? You are new to the country, or you would know that it is the old cry of the landless and the lawless. Every out-at-elbows republican makes it a stick to beat His Majesty."
"Are you a republican, Mr. Garvald?" she asked. "Now that I remember, I have seen you in Whiggamore company."
"Why, no," I said. "I do not meddle with politics. I am a merchant, and am well content with any Government that will protect my trade and my person."
A sudden perversity had taken me to show myself at my most prosaic and unromantic. I think it was the contrast with the glamour of those fine gentlemen. I had neither claim nor desire to be of their company, and to her I could make no pretence.
He laughed scornfully. "Yours is a noble cause," he said. "But you may sleep peacefully in your bed, sir. Be assured that there are a thousand gentlemen of Virginia whose swords will leap from their scabbards at a breath of peril, on behalf of their women and their homes. And these," he added, taking snuff from a gold box, "are perhaps as potent spurs to action as the whims of a busybody or the gains of a house-keeping trader."
I was determined not to be provoked, so I answered nothing. But MissElspeth opened her eyes and smiled sweetly upon the speaker.
"La, Mr. Grey, I protest you are too severe. Busybody—well, it may be. I have found Mr. Garvald very busy in other folks' affairs. But I do assure you he is no house-keeper, I have seen him in desperate conflict with savage men, and even with His Majesty's redcoats. If trouble ever comes to Virginia, you will find him, I doubt not, a very bold moss-trooper."
It was the, light, laughing tone I remembered well, but now it did not vex me. Nothing that she could say or do could break the spell that had fallen on my heart, "I pray it may be so," said Mr. Grey as he turned aside.
By this time the Governor had come forward, and I saw that my presence was no longer desired. I wanted to get back to Shalah and solitude. The cold bed on the shore would be warmed for me by happy dreams. So I found my host, and thanked him for my entertainment. He gave me good-evening hastily, as if he were glad to be rid of me.
At the hall door some one tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to find my silken cavalier.
"It seems you are a gentleman, sir," he said, "so I desire a word with you. Your manners at table deserved a whipping, but I will condescend to forget them. But a second offence shall be duly punished." He spoke in a high, lisping voice, which was the latest London importation.
I looked him square in the eyes. He was maybe an inch taller than me, a handsome fellow, with a flushed, petulant face and an overweening pride in his arched brows.
"By all means let us understand each other," I said. "I have no wish to quarrel with you. Go your way and I will go mine, and there need be no trouble."
"That is precisely the point," said he. "I do not choose that your way should take you again to the side of Miss Elspeth Blair. If it does, we shall quarrel."
It was the height of flattery. At last I had found a fine gentleman who did me the honour to regard me with jealous eyes. I laughed loudly with delight.
He turned and strolled back to the company. Still laughing, I passed from the house, lit my lantern, and plunged into the sombre woods.