CHAPTER VIIITHE NEW SECRETARY"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkindThat, from the nunneryOf thy chaste breast and quiet mind,To war and arms I flee...."Yet this inconstancy is suchAs you too shall adore.I could not love thee, dear, so much,Loved I not honor more."The rich notes rang higher and higher, filling the languid air, and drowning the trill of the mockingbirds. Patricia, filling her apron with midsummer flowers, sang with a careless passion, her mind far away in the midst of a Whitehall pageant, described to her the night before by that silver-tongued courtier, Sir Charles Carew.Still singing, she went up the steps of the porch and into the cool wide hall. In her face there was a languorous beauty born of the sunshine outside; a soft color glowed in her cheeks, her eyes were large and dreamy, little damp tendrils of gold strayed about her temples. She threw down her hat, and loosened the kerchief of delicate lawn from about her warm young throat; then, with the flowers still in her arms, she raised the latch of the door of a room held sacred to Colonel Verney, and entered, to find herself face to face with the convict, Godfrey Landless, who sat at a table covered with papers, busily writing.She started violently, and the mass of flowers fell to the floor, shattering the petals from the roses and poppies. Landless came forward, knelt down, and, picking them up, restored them to her without a word."I thank you," she said coldly. "I thought my father was here.""Colonel Verney is in the next room, madam."She moved to the door leading into the great room with the gait of a princess, and Landless went back to his work.Colonel Verney, on his knees before the richly carven chest containing his library, looked up from the two score volumes to behold a mass of brilliant blooms transferred from two white arms to the ground outside the open window."Well, sweetheart," he said. "What is it?""Papa," she said, coming to his side, and looking down upon him with a vexed face: "you promised me that you would employ no more convicts in the house.""Why, so I did, my dear," answered her father, comfortably seating himself upon "Purchas: His Pilgrimmes." "And I meant to keep my word, but this is the way of it. The day after you went to Rosemead with Betty Carrington, down comes young Shaw with the fever, and has to be sent home to his mother. His illness came at a precious inconvenient season, for the gout was in my fingers again, and I was bent on disappointing William Berkeley, who hath wagered a thousand pounds of sweet scented that my 'Statement of the Evil Wrought by the Navigation Laws to His Majesty's Colony of Virginia' won't be finished in time for the sailing of the God-Speed. So I told Woodson to find me some one among the men who knew how to write. He brought me this fellow, and I vow he is an improvement on young Shaw. He does n't ask questions, and he is a very pretty Latinist. The paper will be finished to-day. I was but searching for a neat quotation to close with. Then the fellow will go back to the tobacco, and you will be no longer annoyed by his presence in the house. Now kiss me, sweet chuck, and begone, for I am busied upon affairs of state."Left alone, Colonel Verney pored over his books until he found what he wanted, when, after rearranging his library in the carved chest, he rose stiffly to his feet, and went into the next room and up to the writing-table. Landless rose from his seat, and, resigning it to his master, stood gravely by while the Colonel looked over the manuscript upon which he had been employed."Ha!" said the Colonel. "A very fair copy! You have numbered and headed the pages, I observe. Let me see, let me see, let me see," and he ran them over between his fingers. "Oppressive Nature of the Act.—Grave Dissatisfaction.—It advantageth No One save Small Traders at Home.—Increase of Revenue to His Majesty if 't were repealed.—Dutch Bottoms.—Trade with Russia.—His Majesty's Poor Planters Throw Themselves upon His Majesty's Mercy. Very good, very good!""It is nigh finished, sir," said Landless."Ay, ay! By the Lord Harry, William Berkeley will repent his wager! A pretty paper it is, and containeth many excellent points and much good Latin, and you have copied it fairly and cleanly. It is a pity, my man," he added not unkindly, "that you should have lived so evilly as to bring yourself to this pass, for you have in you the making of an excellent secretary.""Is it your will, sir, that I finish the copy now?""Yes, but take it to the small table within the window there. I myself will sit here and jot down some ideas for my dedication which you can afterwards amplify."The worthy colonel pulled the big Turkey worked chair closer to the table, turned back his ruffles and fell to work. Landless retired to the table within the window, and for a while naught was heard in the quiet room but the scratching of quills, as master and man drove them across the whitey-brown sheets.At length the master pushed his chair back and stretched himself with a prodigious yawn. "The Lord be thanked!" he said, addressing the air. "That's done! And it is time to see to the dressing of that sore upon Prince Rupert's shoulder; and I remember Haines said that one of the hounds had been gored by Carrington's bull. Haines can't dress a wound. Haines is a bungler. But, by the Lord Harry! Richard Verney is as good a veterinary as he is a statesman."He lifted his burly figure from the depths of the chair, and going over to Landless, dropped upon the table before him a page of hieroglyphics for him to decipher at his leisure. Then with another word of commendation for the beauty of the copy, he walked heavily from the room. A moment later Landless heard him whistle to his dogs, and then break into a stave of a cavalier drinking song, sung at the top of a full manly voice, and dying away in the direction of the stables.Landless' hand moved to and fro across the paper with a tireless patience. He did not go back to the central table, for the light was better in the window, and a vagrant breath of air strayed in now and then. The window was a deep one, and heavy drugget curtains hung between it and the rest of the room.The door opened and a man's voice said: "This room is darkened into delicious coolness. Shall we try it, cousin?"Patricia entered like a sunbeam, and after her sauntered Sir Charles Carew, languid, debonair, and perfectly appareled.Landless, seeing them plainly, did not realize that in the shadow of the heavy curtains he was himself unseen. He had grown so accustomed to the quiet insolence that overlooks the presence of an inferior as it does that of any other article of furniture, that he did not doubt that the fine lady and gentleman before him were perfectly aware of the presence in the room of the slave whom his master's caprice had raised for the moment to the post of secretary. It was some few minutes before he began to consider within himself that he might be mistaken.CHAPTER IXAN INTERRUPTED WOOINGSir Charles pushed forward the big chair for Patricia, and himself dropped upon a stool at her feet. Taking her fan from her, he began to play with it, lightly commenting on the picture of the Rape of Europa with which it was adorned. Suddenly he closed it, tossed it aside, and leaning forward, possessed himself of her hand."Madam, sweet cousin, divinest Patricia," he exclaimed in a carefully impassioned tone; "do you not know that I am your slave, the captive of your bow and spear, that I adore you? I adore you! and you, flinty-hearted goddess, give no word of encouragement to your prostrate worshiper. You trample upon the offering of sighs and tears which he lays at your feet; you will not listen when he would pour into your ear his aspirations towards a sweeter and richer life than he has ever known. Will it be ever thus? Will not the goddess stoop from her throne to make him the happiest of mortals, to win his eternal gratitude, to become herself forever the object of the most respectful, the most ardent, the most devoted love?"He flung himself upon his knee and pressed her hand to his heart with passion not all affected. He had come to consider it a piece of monstrous good luck, that, since he must make a wealthy match, Providence (or whatever as a Hobbist he put in place of Providence), had, in pointing him the fortune, pointed also to Patricia Verney. But the night before, in the privacy of his chamber, he had suddenly sat up between the Holland sheets with a startled and amused expression upon his handsome face, swathed around with a wonderful silken night-cap, and had exclaimed to the carven heads surmounting the bed-posts, "May the Lard sink me! but I 'm in love!" and had lain down again with an astonished laugh. While sipping his morning draught he made up his mind to secure the prize that very day, in pursuance of which determination he made a careful toilet, assuming a suit that was eminently becoming to his blonde beauty. Also his valet slightly darkened the lower lids of his eyes, thereby giving him a larger, more languishing and melancholy aspect.Patricia, from the depths of the Turkey worked chair, gazed with calm amusement upon her kneeling suitor."You talk beautifully, cousin," she said at length. "'Tis as good as a page from 'Artemène.'"Sir Charles bit his lip. "It is a page from my heart, madam; nay, it is my heart itself that I show you.""And would you forsake all those beautiful ladies who are so madly in love with you?—I vow, sir, you told me so yourself! Let me see, there was Lady Mary and Lady Betty, Mistress Winifred, the Countess of —— and Madame la Duchesse de ——. Will Corydon leave all the nymphs lamenting to run after a little salvage wench who does not want him?""'S death, madam! you mock me!" cried the baronet, starting to his feet."Sure, I meant no harm, cousin; I but put in a good word for the poor ladies at Whitehall. I fear that you are but a recreant wooer.""Will you marry me, madam?" demanded Sir Charles, standing before her with folded arms.She slowly shook her head. "I do not love you, cousin.""I will teach you to do so.""I do not think you can," she said demurely. "Though I am sure I do not know why I do not. You are a very fine gentleman, a soldier and a courtier, witty, brave and handsome—and this match"—a sigh—"is my father's dearest wish. But I do not love you, sir, and I shall not marry you until I do.""Ah!" cried Sir Charles, and sunk again upon his knee. "You give me hope! I will teach you to love me! I will exhibit towards you such absolute fidelity, such patient devotion, such uncomplaining submission to your cruel probation, that you will perforce pity me, and pity will grow by soft degrees into blessed love. I do not despair, madam!" He pressed her hand to his lips and cast his fine eyes upward in a killing look.Patricia gave a charming laugh. "As you please, Sir Charles. In the mean time let us be once more simply good friends and loving cousins. Tell me as much as you please of Lady Mary's charms, but leave Patricia Verney's alone."Sir Charles rose from his knees, smarting under an amazed sense of failure, and very angry with the girl who had discarded him, Charles Carew, as smilingly as if he had been one of the very provincial youths whom he awed into awkward silence every time they came to Verney Manor. Without doubt she deserved the condign punishment which it was in his power to inflict by sailing away upon the next ship which should leave for England. But he was now obstinately bent upon winning her. If not to-day, to-morrow; and if not to-morrow, the next day; and if not that, the day after. He was of the school of Buckingham and Rochester. He could devote to the capture of a woman all the tireless energy, the strategic skill, the will, the patience, the daring, of a great general. He could mine and countermine, could plan an ambuscade here, and lead a forlorn hope there, could take one intrenchment by storm, and another by treachery. And victory seldom forsook her perch upon his banners.Life in Virginia was pleasant enough, and he could afford to devote several months to this siege. As to how it would terminate he had not the slightest doubt. But just now it was the course of wisdom to retreat upon the position held yesterday, and that as quickly as possible. So he smoothed his face into a fine calm, modulated his voice into its usual tone of languor, and said with quiet melancholy:—"You are pleased to be cruel, madam. I submit. I will bide my time until that thrice happy day when you will have learnt the lesson I would teach, when Love, tyrannous Love, shall compel your allegiance as he does mine.""A far day!" said Patricia with soft laughter. "You had best return to Lady Mary. I do not think that I shall ever love."She lifted her white arms, and clasping them behind her head, gazed at him with soft, bright, untroubled eyes and smiling lips. The sunlight, filtering through the darkened windows in long bright stripes, laid a shaft of gold athwart her shoulder and lit her hair into a glory. From out the distance came the colonel's voice:—"In his train see sweet Peace, fairest Queen of the sky,Ev'ry bliss in her look, ev'ry charm in her eye.Whilst oppression, corruption, vile slav'ry and fearAt his wished for return never more shall appear.Your glasses charge high, 'tis in great Charles' praise,In praise, in praise, 'tis in great Charles' praise."Some one outside the door coughed, and then rattled the latch vigorously. These precautions taken, the door was opened and there appeared Mistress Lettice, gorgeously attired, and with an extra row of ringlets sweeping her withered neck, and a deeper tinge of vermilion upon her cheeks,—for she had waked that morning with a presentiment that Mr. Frederick Jones would ride over in the course of the day. Sir Charles rose to hand her to a chair, but she waved him back with a thin, beringed hand."I thank you, Sir Charles: but I will not trouble you. I am going down to the summer-house by the road, as I think the air there will cure my migraine. Patricia, love, I am looking for my 'Clelie,'—the fourth volume. Have you seen it?""No, Aunt Lettice.""It is very strange," said Mrs. Lettice plaintively. "I am sure that I left it in this room. 'T is that careless slut of a Chloe who deserves a whipping. She hides things away like a magpie.""Look in the window; you may have left it there," said Patricia.Mrs. Lettice approached the window, laid a hand upon the curtain, and started back with a scream."What is it, madam?" cried the baronet."'T is a man! a horrid, horrid man hiding there, waiting to cut all our throats in the dead of night as the Redemptioner did to the family at Martin-Brandon! Oh! Oh! Oh!" and Mrs. Lettice threw her apron over her head, and sank into the nearest chair. Patricia started up. Sir Charles, striding hastily towards the window, his hand upon his sword, was met by the emerging figure of Landless.The two gazed at each other, Sir Charles' first haughty surprise fast deepening into passion as he remembered that the man before him had assisted at the scene of a while before, had witnessed his discomfiture, had seen him upon his knees, baffled, repulsed, even laughed at!He was the first to speak. "Well, sirrah," he said between his teeth, "what have you to say for yourself?""That I ask your pardon," said Landless steadily. "I should have made known my presence in the room. But at first I thought you aware of it; and when I discovered that you were not, I ... it seemed best to remain silent. I was wrong. I should have made some sign even then. Again, I beg your pardon." He turned to Patricia, who stood, tall, straight, and coldly indignant, beside the chair from which she had risen. "Madam," he said in a voice that faltered, despite himself, "I crave your forgiveness."She bit her coral under lip, and looked at him from under veiled eyelids. It was a cruel look, very expressive of scorn, abhorrence, and perhaps of fear."My father hath many unmannerly servants," she said coldly and clearly, "who often provoke me. But I pardon them because they know no better. It seems that like allowance cannot be made for you. However," she smiled icily, "I shall not complain of you to my father, which assurance will doubtless content you."Landless turned from burning red to deadly white. His eyes, fixed upon the floor, caught the rich shimmer of her skirts as she moved towards the door; a moment and she was gone, leaving the two men facing each other.Between them there existed a subtle but strong antagonism. Sir Charles Carew, courtier in a coarse and shameless court masquerading under a glittering show of outward graces, had taken lazy delight in heaping quiet insults upon the man who could not resent them. This amusement had beguiled the tedium of the Virginia voyage; and when chance threw them together upon a Virginia plantation, where life flowed on in one long, placid lack of variety, the sport became doubly prized. It had to be pursued at longer intervals, but pursued it was. Heretofore the amusement had been all upon one side; now, Sir Charles felt a chagrined suspicion that it was he who had afforded the entertainment. Simultaneously with arriving at this conclusion he arrived at a point where he was coldly furious.Landless returned his look coolly and boldly. He considered that he had made quite sufficient apology for an offense which was largely involuntary, and he was in no mood for further abasement."You are an insolent rascal," said the baronet smoothly.Landless smiled. "Sir Charles Carew should be a good judge of insolence."Sir Charles took a leisurely pinch of snuff, shook the fallen grains from his ruffles, snapped the lid of the box, looked languishingly at the miniature that adorned it, replaced the box in his pocket, and remarked, "Well, I am waiting!""And for what?""To hear your petition that I forbear to bring this matter to the notice of your master. The lady mercifully gave you her promise. I suppose I must follow so fair an example.""Sir Charles Carew may wait till doomsday to hear that or any other request made by me to him or to the lady—who does not seem always mercifully inclined—" he broke off with a slight and expressive smile.Sir Charles took another pinch of snuff. "May the Lard blast me," he drawled, "if they do not teach repartee at Newgate! But I forget that the tongue is the only weapon of women and slaves.""Some day I hope to teach you otherwise."The other laughed. "So the slave thinks he can use a sword? Where did he learn? In Newgate, from some broken captain, as payment for imparting the trick of stealing by the Book?"Landless forced himself to stand quiet, his arms folded, his fingers tightly clenching the sleeves of his coarse shirt. "Shall I tell Sir Charles Carew where I first used my sword with good effect?" he said in an ominously quiet voice. "At Worcester I was but a stripling, but I fought by the side of my father. I remember that, young as I was, I disabled a very pretty perfumed and ringleted Cavalier. I think he was afterwards sold to the Barbadoes. And my father praised my sword play.""Your father," said the other, bringing his strong white teeth together with a click. "Like father, like son. The latter a detected rogue, gaol-bird, and slave; the former a d—d canting, sniveling Roundhead hypocrite and traitor, with a text ever at hand to excuse parricide and sacrilege."Landless sprang forward and struck him in the face.He staggered beneath the weight of the blow; then, recovering himself, he whipped out his rapier, but presently slapped it home again. "I am a gentleman," he said, with an airy laugh. "I cannot fight you." And stood, slightly smiling, and pressing his laced handkerchief to his cheek whence had started a few drops of blood.Mrs. Lettice, whom curiosity or the search for the fourth volume of "Clelie" had detained in the room, screamed loudly as the blow fell; and Colonel Verney, appearing at the door, stopped short, and stared from one to the other of the two men.CHAPTER XLANDLESS PAYS THE PIPERThe hut of the mender of nets stood upon a narrow isthmus connecting two large tracts of marsh. That to the eastward was partially submerged at high tide; that to the west, being higher ground, waved its long grass triumphantly above the reaching waters. Upon this side the marsh was separated from the mainland of forest and field by a creek so narrow that the great pines upon one margin cast their shadows across to the other, and one fallen giant quite spanned the sluggish waters.The grass of this marsh was annually cut for hay; for though the great herds of cattle belonging to the different plantations roamed at large through all seasons of the year, seeking their sustenance from forest or marsh, the more provident of the planters were accustomed to make some slight provision against the winter, which might prove a severe one with snow and ice.It was late afternoon, and the hay was cut. The half dozen mowers threw themselves down upon the stubble, stretching out tired limbs and pillowing heated foreheads upon their arms. They had been given until sunset to do the work. Having no taskmaster over them, and being hid from the tobacco-fields by a convenient coppice of pine and cedar, they had set to work in a fury of diligence, had cut and stacked the grass in a race with time, and now found themselves possessed of a precious hour in which to dawdle, and swap opinions and tobacco before the sunset horn should call them to quarters.Three were indented servants, lumbering, honest-visaged youths whose aims in life were simple and well defined. Their creed had but four articles: "Do as little as you can consistently with keeping out of the overseer's black books; get your full share of loblolly and bacon, and some one else's if you are clever enough; embrace every opportunity for reasonable mischief that is offered you; honor Church and King, or say you do, and Colonel Verney will overlook most pranks." Of the others, one was the Muggletonian, one the mulatto, Luiz Sebastian, and one a convict, not Trail, but the red-haired, pock-marked, sullen wretch who had come to the plantation with Trail and Landless, and whose name was Roach.One of the rustics, who seemed more intelligent than his fellows, and who had a good-humored deviltry in his young face and big blue eyes, began an excellent imitation of Dr. Nash's exhortation to submission and obedience delivered upon the last instruction day for servants, and soon had his audience of two guffawing with laughter. The mulatto and the convict edged by imperceptible degrees farther and farther away from the others, until, within the shadow of a stack of grass, they lay side by side and commenced a muttered conversation. The countenance of the white man, atrocious villainy written large in every lineament, became horribly intent as his amber-hued companion talked in fluent low tones, emphasizing what he had to say by a restless, peculiar, and sinister motion of his long, yellow fingers. At a little distance lay the Muggletonian, his elbows on the ground, his ghastly face in his hands, and his eyes riveted upon the Geneva Bible which he had drawn from his bosom.When he had brought his entertainment to a finish, the blue-eyed youth rolled himself over and over the stubble to where the Muggletonian lay, intent upon a chapter of invective. The youth covered the page with one enormous paw and playfully attempted to insert the little finger of the other into the hole in Porringer's ear. "What now, old Runaway," he said, lazily, "hunting up fresh curses to pour on our unfort'net heads?""Cursed be he who makes a mock of age," said the Muggletonian, grimly. "May he be even as the wicked children who cried to the prophet, 'Go up, thou baldhead!'"The boy laughed. "Tell me when you see brown bear a-coming," quoth he. "Losh! a bear steak would taste mighty good after eternal bacon!"Porringer closed his book and restored it to his bosom. "Tell me," he said, abruptly, "have you seen aught of the young man called Landless?""'The young man called Landless,'" answered the other, petulantly, "has a d—d easy berth of it! Yesterday evening I carried water from the spring to the great house to water Mistress Patricia's posies, and every time I passes the window of the master's room I see that fellow a-sitting at his ease in a fine chair before a fine table, writing away as big as all out of doors. And every time I says to him, says I, 'I reckon you think yourself as fine as the Lord Mayor of London? A pretty sec'tary you make!'""Have you seen him to-day?""No, I have n't seen him to-day,—but I see someone else. Mates," he exclaimed, "Witch Margery's coming down t' other side of creek. I 'll call her over."Scrambling to his feet he gave a low halloo through his hands, "Margery! Margery! Come and find the road to Paradise!"Margery waved her hand to signify that she heard and understood, and presently stepped upon the fallen tree that spanned the stream. It was a narrow and a slippery bridge, but she flitted across it with the secure grace of some woodland thing, and, staff in hand, advanced towards the men. Between them and the western sun she stood still, a dark figure against a halo of gold light, and threw an intent and searching glance over the unbroken green of the marsh and the blue of the waters beyond. Then with a wild laugh she came up to them and cast her staff wreathed with dark ivy upon the ground."The road is not here," she cried. "Here is all green grass, and beyond is the weary, weary, weary sea! There is no long, bright, shining road to Paradise." She sat down beside her staff, and taking her chin into her hand, stared fixedly at the ground.The men gathered around her, with the exception of the Muggletonian, who, after audibly comparing her to the Witch of Endor, turned on his side and drew his cap over his eyes as if to shut out the hated sight. The convict took up the staff and began to pull from it the strings of ivy."Put it down!" she said quickly.The man continued to strip it of its leafy mantle."Put it down, can't you?" said the youth. "She never lets any one touch it. She says an angel gave it to her to help her on her way."With a snarling laugh the convict threw it from him with all his force. Whirling through the air it struck the water midway from shore to shore. Margery sprang to her feet with a loud cry. The boy rose also."D—n you!" he said, wrathfully. "I'd like to break it over your misshapen back! Here, Margery, don't fret. I 'll get it for you."He ran to the bank, dived into the water, and in three minutes was back with the dripping mass in his arms. He gave it into Margery's hands, saying kindly while he shook himself like a large spaniel; "There! it is n't hurt a mite!"With a cry of delight Margery seized the "angel's gift" and kissed the hand that restored it. Then she turned upon the convict."When I go back to my cabin in the woods," she said, solemnly, and with her finger up, "I shall whistle all the fairy folk into a ring, all the elves and the pixies, and the little brown gnomes who burrow in the leaves and look for all the world like pine cones, and I shall tell them what you did, and to-night they will come to your cabin, and will pinch you black and blue, and stick thorns into you, and rub you with the poison leaf until you are blotched and swelled like the great bull frog that croaks, croaks, in these marshes."There was an uneasy ring in the convict's laugh, full of bravado as he meant it to be. Margery continued with an ominously extended forefinger. "And then they will fly to the great house where the master lies sleeping, and they will whisper to him that you took away the angel's gift from poor, lost Margery, and he will be angry, for he is good to Margery, and to-morrow he will make Woodson do to you what he did to-day to the Breaking Heart.""To the Breaking Heart!" exclaimed her auditors.Margery nodded. "Yes, the Breaking Heart. You call him Landless."The Muggletonian sat up. "What dost thou mean, wretched woman! fit descendant of the mother of all evil?"Margery, offended by his tone, only pursed up her lips and looked wise."What did the master have done to Landless, Margery?" asked the youth.Margery threw her worn figure into a singular posture. Standing perfectly straight, she raised her arms from her sides and spread them stiffly out, the hands turned inward in a peculiar fashion. Then, still with extended arms, she swayed slightly forward until she appeared to lean against, or to be fastened to, some support. Next she threw her head back and to one side, so that her face might be seen in three quarter over her shoulder. Her mobile features wreathed themselves in an expression of pain and rage. Her brows drew downward, her thin lips curled themselves away from the gleaming teeth, and, at intervals of half a minute or more, her eyelids quivered, she shuddered, and her whole frame appeared to shrink together.The pantomime was too expressive to be misunderstood by men each of whom had probably his own reasons for recognizing some one or all of its features. The convict broke into a yelling laugh, in which he was joined, though in a subdued and sinister fashion, by Luiz Sebastian. The rustics looked at each other with slow grins of comprehension, and the blue-eyed youth uttered a long shrill whistle. The great letter upon the cheek of the Muggletonian turned a deeper red, and his eyes burned. The youth was curious."Tell us all about it, Margery," he said, coaxingly, "and when the millons are ripe, I 'll steal you one every night."Margery was nothing loth. She had attained the reputation of an accomplishedraconteuse, and she was proud of it. Her crazed imagination peopled the forest with weird uncanny things, and fearful tales she told of fays and bugaboos, of spectres and awful voices speaking from out the dank stillness of twilight hollows. Often she sent quaking to their pallets men who would have heard the war-whoop with scarcely quickened pulses. And she could tell of every-day domestic happenings as well as of the doings of the powers of darkness.Her audience listened greedily to the instance of plantation economy which she proceeded to relate."When was this, woman?" demanded the Muggletonian, when she had finished.Margery pointed to the declining sun and then upwards to a spot a little past the zenith."Just after the nooning," said the Muggletonian, and began to curse.Margery stood up, her staff in her hand, and said airily, "Margery must be going. The sun is growing large and red, and when he has slipped away behind the woods, the voices will begin to call to Margery from the hollow where the brook falls into the black pool. She must be there to answer them." She moved away with a rapid and gliding step, flitted across the fallen tree, and was lost to sight in the shadow of the pines beyond.As the last flutter of her light robe vanished, a figure appeared, walking rapidly along the opposite margin of the creek. The youth's sight was keen. He sent a piercing glance across the intervening distance and broke into an astonished laugh. "Lord in Heaven! it's the man himself!" he cried in an awed tone. "Ecod! he must be made of iron!"Landless crossed the bridge and came towards the staring group. His face was white and set, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes, which had the wide unseeing stare of a sleep-walker. He walked lightly and quickly, with a free, lithe swing of his body. The men looked at one another in rough wonder, knowing what was hidden by the coarse shirt. He passed them without a word, apparently without knowing that they were there, and went on towards the hut of the mender of nets. Presently they saw him enter and shut the door.The rustics and the convict, after one long stare of amazement at the distant hut, began to comment freely and with much recondite blasphemy upon the transaction recorded by Margery. Luiz Sebastian only smiled amiably, like a lazy and well-disposed catamount, and the boy whistled long and thoughtfully. But the countenance of Master Win-Grace Porringer wore an expression of secret satisfaction.CHAPTER XILANDLESS BECOMES A CONSPIRATORAs Landless entered the hut Godwyn looked up with a pleased smile from the net he was mending. The two men had not seen each other since the night upon which Landless had been brought to the hut by the Muggletonian. Twice had Landless laid his plans for a second visit, only to be circumvented each time by the watchfulness of the overseer.The smile died from Godwyn's face as he observed his visitor more closely."What is it?" he asked quickly.Landless came up to him and held out his hand. "I am with you, Robert Godwyn, heart and soul," he said steadily.The mender of nets grasped the hand. "I knew you would come," he said, drawing a long breath. "I have needed you sorely, lad.""I could not come before.""I know: Porringer told me you were prevented. I—" He still held Landless' hand in both his own, and as he spoke his slender fingers encircled the young man's wrist."What is the matter with your pulse?" he demanded. "And your eyes! They are glazing! Sit down!""It is nothing," said Landless, speaking with effort."I have been a physician, young man," retorted the other. "Sit down, or you will fall."He forced him down upon a settle from which he had himself risen, and stood looking at him, his hand upon his shoulder. Presently his glance fell to the shoulder, and he saw upon the white cloth where his hand pressed it against the flesh, a faint red stain grow and spread.The face of the mender of nets grew very dark. "So!" he said beneath his breath.He limped across the hut and drew from some secret receptacle above the fireplace a flask, from which he poured a crimson liquid into an earthen cup; then hobbled back to Landless, sitting with closed eyes and head bowed upon the table."Drink, lad," he said with grave tenderness. "'T is a cordial of mine own invention, and in the strength it gave me I fled from Cropredy Bridge though woefully hacked and spent. Drink!"He held the cup to the young man's lips. Landless drained it and felt the blood gush back to his heart and the ringing in his ears to cease. Presently he raised his head. "Thank you," he said. "I am a man again.""How is it that you are here?"Landless smiled grimly. "I imagine it's because Woodson thinks me effectually laid by the heels. When he goes the rounds at supper time he will be surprised to find my pallet empty.""You must be in quarters before then. You must not get into further trouble.""Very well," was the indifferent reply.They were silent for a few moments, and then Landless spoke."I am come to tell you, Master Godwyn, that I will join in any plan, however desperate, that may bring me release from an intolerable and degrading slavery. You may use me as you please. I will work for you with hands and head, ay, and with my heart also, for you have been kind to me, and I am grateful."The mender of nets touched him softly upon the hand. "Lad," he said, "I once had a son who was my pride and my hope. In his young manhood he fell at the storming of Tredah. But the other night when I talked with you, I seemed to see him again, and my heart yearned over him."Landless held out his hand. "I have no father," he said simply."Now," at length said Godwyn, "to business! I must not keep you now, but come to me to-morrow night if you can manage it. You may speak to Win-Grace Porringer, and he will help you. I will then tell you all my arrangements, give you figures and names, possess you, in short, with all that I, and I alone, know of this matter. And my heart is glad within me, for though my broken body is tied to my bench here, I shall now have a lieutenant indeed. I have conceived; you shall execute. The son of Warham Landless, if he have a tithe of his father's powers, will do much, very much. For more than a year I have longed for such an one.""Tell me but one thing," said Landless, "and I am content. You have so planned this business that there shall be no wanton bloodshed? You intend no harm, for instance, to the family yonder?" with a motion of his head towards the great house."God forbid!" said the other quickly. "I tell you that not one woman or innocent soul shall suffer. Nor do I wish harm to the master of this plantation, who is, after the lights of a Malignant, a true and kindly man, and a gentleman. This is what will happen. Upon an appointed day the servants, Oliverian, indented and convict, upon all the plantations seated upon the bay, the creeks, the three rivers, and over in Accomac, will rise. They will overpower their overseers and those of their fellows who may remain faithful to the masters, will call upon the slaves to follow them, and will march (the force of each plantation under a captain or captains appointed by me), to an appointed place in this county. All going well, there should be mustered at that place within the space of a day and a night a force of some two thousand men—such an army as this colony hath never seen, an army composed in large measure of honest folk, and officered by four hundred men who, bold and experienced, and strong in righteous wrath, should in themselves be sufficient to utterly deject the adversary. We will make of that force, motley as it is, a second New Model, as well disciplined and as irresistible as the first; and who should be its general but the son of that Warham Landless whom Cromwell loved, and whose old regiment is well represented here? Then will we fight in honest daylight with those who come against us—and conquer. And we will not stain our victory. Your nightmare vision of midnight butchery is naught. There will be no such thing."Through the quiet of the evening came to them the clear, sweet, and distant winding of a horn."'Tis the call to quarters," said Godwyn. "You must go, lad."Landless rose. "I will come to-morrow night if I can. Till then, farewell,—father." He ended with a smile on his dark, stern face that turned it into a boy's again."May the Lord bless thee, my son," said the other in his gravely tender voice. "May he cause His face to shine upon thee, and bring thee out of all thy troubles."As Landless turned to leave the hut the mender of nets had a sudden thought. "Come hither," he said, "and let me show you my treasure house. Should aught happen to me, it were well that you should know of it."He took up the precious flask from the table, and followed by Landless, limped across the hut to the fireplace. The logs above it appeared as solid, gnarled and stained by time as any of the others constituting the walls of the hut, but upon the pressure of Godwyn's finger upon some secret spring, a section of the wood fell outwards like the lid of a box, disclosing a hollow within.From this hollow came the dull gleam of gold, and by the side of the little heap of coin lay several folded papers and a pair of handsomely mounted pistols.Godwyn touched the papers. "The names or the signs of the Oliverians are here," he said, "together with those of the leaders of the indented servants concerned with us. It is our solemn League and Covenant—and our death warrant if discovered. The gold I had with me, hidden upon my person, when I was brought to Virginia. The pistols were the gift of a friend. Both may be useful some day.""Hide them! Quick!" said Landless in a low voice, and wheeled to face a man who stood in the doorway, blinking into the semi-darkness of the room.The lid of the hollow swung to with a click, the log assumed its wonted appearance, and the mender of nets, too, turned upon the intruder.It was the convict Roach who had pushed the door open and now stood with his swollen body and bestial face darkening the glory of the sunset without. There was no added expression of greed or of awakened curiosity upon his sullenly ferocious countenance. He might have seen or he might not. They could not tell."What do you want?" asked Landless sternly."Thought as you might not have heard the horn, comrade, and so might get into more trouble. So I thought I 'd come over and warn you." All this in a low, hoarse and dogged voice."Don't call me comrade. Yes: I heard the horn. You had best hasten or you may get into trouble yourself."The man received this intimation with a malevolent grin. "Talking big eases the smart, don't it?" and he broke into his yelling laugh."Get out of this," said Landless, a dangerous light in his eyes.The man stopped laughing and began to curse. But he went his way, and Landless, too, after waiting to give him a start, left the hut and turned his steps towards the quarters.Upon the other side of the creek, sitting beneath a big sweet gum, and whittling away at a piece of stick weed, he found the boy who, the day before, had accused him of feeling as fine as the Lord Mayor of London. He sprang to his feet as Landless approached, and cheerfully remarking that their paths were the same, strode on side by side with him."I say," he said presently with ingenuous frankness, "I asks your pardon for what I said to you yesterday. I dessay you make a very good Sec'tary, and Losh! the Lord Mayor himself might n't have dared to strike that d—d fine Court spark. They say he has fought twenty duels.""You have my full forgiveness," said Landless, smiling."That's right!" cried the other, relieved. "I hates for a man to bear malice."'"I have seen you before yesterday. I forget how they call you.""Dick Whittington.""Dick Whittington!""Ay. Leastways the parish over yonder," a jerk of his thumb towards England, "called me Dick, and I names myself Whittington. And why? Because like that other Dick I runs away to make my fortune. Because like him I 've little besides empty pockets and a hopeful heart. And because I means to go back some fine day, jingling money, and wearing gold lace, and become the mayor of Banbury. Or maybe I 'll stop in Virginia, and become a trader and Burgess. I could send for Joyce Witbread, and marry her here as well as in Banbury."Landless laughed. "So you ran away?""Yes; some four years ago, just after I came to man's estate." (He was about nineteen.) "Stowed myself away on board the Mary Hart at Plymouth. Made the Virginny voyage for my health, and on landing was sold by the captain for my passage money. Time 's out in three years, but I may begin to make my fortune before then, for—" He stopped speaking to give Landless a sidelong glance from out his blue eyes, and then went on."A voice speaks through the land, from the Potomac to the James, and from the falls of the Far West to the great bay. What says the voice?"Landless answered, "The voice saith, 'Comfort ye, my people, for the hour of deliverance is at hand.'""It 's all right!" cried the boy gleefully. "I thought you was one of us. We are all in the fun together!""We are in for a desperate enterprise that may hang every man of us," said Landless sternly. "I do not see the 'fun,' and I think you talk something loudly for a conspirator."The boy was nothing abashed. "There's none to hear us," he said. "I can be as mum as t' other Dick's cat when there are ears around. As for fun, Losh! what better fun than fighting!""You seem to have a pretty good time as it is.""Lord, yes! Life 's jolly enough, but you see there 's mighty little variety in it.""I have found variety enough," said Landless."Oh, you 've been here only a few weeks. Wait until you've spent years, and have gone through your experience of to-day half a dozen times, and you will find it tame enough.""I shall not wait to see.""Then a man gets tired of working for another man, and hankers for the time when he can set up for himself, especially if there 's a pretty girl waiting for him." A tremendous sigh. "And then there 's the fun of the rising. Losh! a man must break loose now and then!""For all of which good reasons you have become a conspirator?""Ay, it does n't pay to run away. You are hunted to death in the first place, and well nigh whipped to death if you are caught, as you always are. And then they double your time. This promises better.""If it succeeds.""Oh, it will succeed! Why should n't it with old Godwyn, who is more cunning than a red fox or a Nansemond medicine-man, at its head? Besides, if it fails, hanging is the worst that can happen, and we will have had the fun of the rising.""You are a philosopher.""What's that?""A wise man. Tell me: If this plot remains undiscovered, and the rising actually takes place, there will be upon each plantation before we can get away an interval of confusion and perhaps violence. 'T is then that the greatest danger will threaten the planters and their families. You yourself have no ill feeling towards your master or his family? You would do them no unprovoked mischief?"The boy opened his big blue eyes, and shook his head in a vehement negative."Lord bless your soul, no!" he cried. "I would n't hurt a hair of Mistress Patricia's pretty head, nor of Mistress Lettice's wig, neither. As for the master, if he lets us go peaceably, we 'll go with three cheers for him! Bless you! they 're safe enough!"The sanguine youth next announced that he smelt bacon frying, and that his stomach cried "Trencher!" and started off in a lope for the quarters, now only a few yards distant. Landless followed more sedately, and reached his cabin without being observed by the overseer.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEW SECRETARY
"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkindThat, from the nunneryOf thy chaste breast and quiet mind,To war and arms I flee...."Yet this inconstancy is suchAs you too shall adore.I could not love thee, dear, so much,Loved I not honor more."
"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkindThat, from the nunneryOf thy chaste breast and quiet mind,To war and arms I flee....
"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind
That, from the nunnery
That, from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I flee....
To war and arms I flee....
"Yet this inconstancy is suchAs you too shall adore.I could not love thee, dear, so much,Loved I not honor more."
"Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore.
As you too shall adore.
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more."
Loved I not honor more."
The rich notes rang higher and higher, filling the languid air, and drowning the trill of the mockingbirds. Patricia, filling her apron with midsummer flowers, sang with a careless passion, her mind far away in the midst of a Whitehall pageant, described to her the night before by that silver-tongued courtier, Sir Charles Carew.
Still singing, she went up the steps of the porch and into the cool wide hall. In her face there was a languorous beauty born of the sunshine outside; a soft color glowed in her cheeks, her eyes were large and dreamy, little damp tendrils of gold strayed about her temples. She threw down her hat, and loosened the kerchief of delicate lawn from about her warm young throat; then, with the flowers still in her arms, she raised the latch of the door of a room held sacred to Colonel Verney, and entered, to find herself face to face with the convict, Godfrey Landless, who sat at a table covered with papers, busily writing.
She started violently, and the mass of flowers fell to the floor, shattering the petals from the roses and poppies. Landless came forward, knelt down, and, picking them up, restored them to her without a word.
"I thank you," she said coldly. "I thought my father was here."
"Colonel Verney is in the next room, madam."
She moved to the door leading into the great room with the gait of a princess, and Landless went back to his work.
Colonel Verney, on his knees before the richly carven chest containing his library, looked up from the two score volumes to behold a mass of brilliant blooms transferred from two white arms to the ground outside the open window.
"Well, sweetheart," he said. "What is it?"
"Papa," she said, coming to his side, and looking down upon him with a vexed face: "you promised me that you would employ no more convicts in the house."
"Why, so I did, my dear," answered her father, comfortably seating himself upon "Purchas: His Pilgrimmes." "And I meant to keep my word, but this is the way of it. The day after you went to Rosemead with Betty Carrington, down comes young Shaw with the fever, and has to be sent home to his mother. His illness came at a precious inconvenient season, for the gout was in my fingers again, and I was bent on disappointing William Berkeley, who hath wagered a thousand pounds of sweet scented that my 'Statement of the Evil Wrought by the Navigation Laws to His Majesty's Colony of Virginia' won't be finished in time for the sailing of the God-Speed. So I told Woodson to find me some one among the men who knew how to write. He brought me this fellow, and I vow he is an improvement on young Shaw. He does n't ask questions, and he is a very pretty Latinist. The paper will be finished to-day. I was but searching for a neat quotation to close with. Then the fellow will go back to the tobacco, and you will be no longer annoyed by his presence in the house. Now kiss me, sweet chuck, and begone, for I am busied upon affairs of state."
Left alone, Colonel Verney pored over his books until he found what he wanted, when, after rearranging his library in the carved chest, he rose stiffly to his feet, and went into the next room and up to the writing-table. Landless rose from his seat, and, resigning it to his master, stood gravely by while the Colonel looked over the manuscript upon which he had been employed.
"Ha!" said the Colonel. "A very fair copy! You have numbered and headed the pages, I observe. Let me see, let me see, let me see," and he ran them over between his fingers. "Oppressive Nature of the Act.—Grave Dissatisfaction.—It advantageth No One save Small Traders at Home.—Increase of Revenue to His Majesty if 't were repealed.—Dutch Bottoms.—Trade with Russia.—His Majesty's Poor Planters Throw Themselves upon His Majesty's Mercy. Very good, very good!"
"It is nigh finished, sir," said Landless.
"Ay, ay! By the Lord Harry, William Berkeley will repent his wager! A pretty paper it is, and containeth many excellent points and much good Latin, and you have copied it fairly and cleanly. It is a pity, my man," he added not unkindly, "that you should have lived so evilly as to bring yourself to this pass, for you have in you the making of an excellent secretary."
"Is it your will, sir, that I finish the copy now?"
"Yes, but take it to the small table within the window there. I myself will sit here and jot down some ideas for my dedication which you can afterwards amplify."
The worthy colonel pulled the big Turkey worked chair closer to the table, turned back his ruffles and fell to work. Landless retired to the table within the window, and for a while naught was heard in the quiet room but the scratching of quills, as master and man drove them across the whitey-brown sheets.
At length the master pushed his chair back and stretched himself with a prodigious yawn. "The Lord be thanked!" he said, addressing the air. "That's done! And it is time to see to the dressing of that sore upon Prince Rupert's shoulder; and I remember Haines said that one of the hounds had been gored by Carrington's bull. Haines can't dress a wound. Haines is a bungler. But, by the Lord Harry! Richard Verney is as good a veterinary as he is a statesman."
He lifted his burly figure from the depths of the chair, and going over to Landless, dropped upon the table before him a page of hieroglyphics for him to decipher at his leisure. Then with another word of commendation for the beauty of the copy, he walked heavily from the room. A moment later Landless heard him whistle to his dogs, and then break into a stave of a cavalier drinking song, sung at the top of a full manly voice, and dying away in the direction of the stables.
Landless' hand moved to and fro across the paper with a tireless patience. He did not go back to the central table, for the light was better in the window, and a vagrant breath of air strayed in now and then. The window was a deep one, and heavy drugget curtains hung between it and the rest of the room.
The door opened and a man's voice said: "This room is darkened into delicious coolness. Shall we try it, cousin?"
Patricia entered like a sunbeam, and after her sauntered Sir Charles Carew, languid, debonair, and perfectly appareled.
Landless, seeing them plainly, did not realize that in the shadow of the heavy curtains he was himself unseen. He had grown so accustomed to the quiet insolence that overlooks the presence of an inferior as it does that of any other article of furniture, that he did not doubt that the fine lady and gentleman before him were perfectly aware of the presence in the room of the slave whom his master's caprice had raised for the moment to the post of secretary. It was some few minutes before he began to consider within himself that he might be mistaken.
CHAPTER IX
AN INTERRUPTED WOOING
Sir Charles pushed forward the big chair for Patricia, and himself dropped upon a stool at her feet. Taking her fan from her, he began to play with it, lightly commenting on the picture of the Rape of Europa with which it was adorned. Suddenly he closed it, tossed it aside, and leaning forward, possessed himself of her hand.
"Madam, sweet cousin, divinest Patricia," he exclaimed in a carefully impassioned tone; "do you not know that I am your slave, the captive of your bow and spear, that I adore you? I adore you! and you, flinty-hearted goddess, give no word of encouragement to your prostrate worshiper. You trample upon the offering of sighs and tears which he lays at your feet; you will not listen when he would pour into your ear his aspirations towards a sweeter and richer life than he has ever known. Will it be ever thus? Will not the goddess stoop from her throne to make him the happiest of mortals, to win his eternal gratitude, to become herself forever the object of the most respectful, the most ardent, the most devoted love?"
He flung himself upon his knee and pressed her hand to his heart with passion not all affected. He had come to consider it a piece of monstrous good luck, that, since he must make a wealthy match, Providence (or whatever as a Hobbist he put in place of Providence), had, in pointing him the fortune, pointed also to Patricia Verney. But the night before, in the privacy of his chamber, he had suddenly sat up between the Holland sheets with a startled and amused expression upon his handsome face, swathed around with a wonderful silken night-cap, and had exclaimed to the carven heads surmounting the bed-posts, "May the Lard sink me! but I 'm in love!" and had lain down again with an astonished laugh. While sipping his morning draught he made up his mind to secure the prize that very day, in pursuance of which determination he made a careful toilet, assuming a suit that was eminently becoming to his blonde beauty. Also his valet slightly darkened the lower lids of his eyes, thereby giving him a larger, more languishing and melancholy aspect.
Patricia, from the depths of the Turkey worked chair, gazed with calm amusement upon her kneeling suitor.
"You talk beautifully, cousin," she said at length. "'Tis as good as a page from 'Artemène.'"
Sir Charles bit his lip. "It is a page from my heart, madam; nay, it is my heart itself that I show you."
"And would you forsake all those beautiful ladies who are so madly in love with you?—I vow, sir, you told me so yourself! Let me see, there was Lady Mary and Lady Betty, Mistress Winifred, the Countess of —— and Madame la Duchesse de ——. Will Corydon leave all the nymphs lamenting to run after a little salvage wench who does not want him?"
"'S death, madam! you mock me!" cried the baronet, starting to his feet.
"Sure, I meant no harm, cousin; I but put in a good word for the poor ladies at Whitehall. I fear that you are but a recreant wooer."
"Will you marry me, madam?" demanded Sir Charles, standing before her with folded arms.
She slowly shook her head. "I do not love you, cousin."
"I will teach you to do so."
"I do not think you can," she said demurely. "Though I am sure I do not know why I do not. You are a very fine gentleman, a soldier and a courtier, witty, brave and handsome—and this match"—a sigh—"is my father's dearest wish. But I do not love you, sir, and I shall not marry you until I do."
"Ah!" cried Sir Charles, and sunk again upon his knee. "You give me hope! I will teach you to love me! I will exhibit towards you such absolute fidelity, such patient devotion, such uncomplaining submission to your cruel probation, that you will perforce pity me, and pity will grow by soft degrees into blessed love. I do not despair, madam!" He pressed her hand to his lips and cast his fine eyes upward in a killing look.
Patricia gave a charming laugh. "As you please, Sir Charles. In the mean time let us be once more simply good friends and loving cousins. Tell me as much as you please of Lady Mary's charms, but leave Patricia Verney's alone."
Sir Charles rose from his knees, smarting under an amazed sense of failure, and very angry with the girl who had discarded him, Charles Carew, as smilingly as if he had been one of the very provincial youths whom he awed into awkward silence every time they came to Verney Manor. Without doubt she deserved the condign punishment which it was in his power to inflict by sailing away upon the next ship which should leave for England. But he was now obstinately bent upon winning her. If not to-day, to-morrow; and if not to-morrow, the next day; and if not that, the day after. He was of the school of Buckingham and Rochester. He could devote to the capture of a woman all the tireless energy, the strategic skill, the will, the patience, the daring, of a great general. He could mine and countermine, could plan an ambuscade here, and lead a forlorn hope there, could take one intrenchment by storm, and another by treachery. And victory seldom forsook her perch upon his banners.
Life in Virginia was pleasant enough, and he could afford to devote several months to this siege. As to how it would terminate he had not the slightest doubt. But just now it was the course of wisdom to retreat upon the position held yesterday, and that as quickly as possible. So he smoothed his face into a fine calm, modulated his voice into its usual tone of languor, and said with quiet melancholy:—
"You are pleased to be cruel, madam. I submit. I will bide my time until that thrice happy day when you will have learnt the lesson I would teach, when Love, tyrannous Love, shall compel your allegiance as he does mine."
"A far day!" said Patricia with soft laughter. "You had best return to Lady Mary. I do not think that I shall ever love."
She lifted her white arms, and clasping them behind her head, gazed at him with soft, bright, untroubled eyes and smiling lips. The sunlight, filtering through the darkened windows in long bright stripes, laid a shaft of gold athwart her shoulder and lit her hair into a glory. From out the distance came the colonel's voice:—
"In his train see sweet Peace, fairest Queen of the sky,Ev'ry bliss in her look, ev'ry charm in her eye.Whilst oppression, corruption, vile slav'ry and fearAt his wished for return never more shall appear.Your glasses charge high, 'tis in great Charles' praise,In praise, in praise, 'tis in great Charles' praise."
"In his train see sweet Peace, fairest Queen of the sky,Ev'ry bliss in her look, ev'ry charm in her eye.Whilst oppression, corruption, vile slav'ry and fearAt his wished for return never more shall appear.Your glasses charge high, 'tis in great Charles' praise,In praise, in praise, 'tis in great Charles' praise."
"In his train see sweet Peace, fairest Queen of the sky,
Ev'ry bliss in her look, ev'ry charm in her eye.
Whilst oppression, corruption, vile slav'ry and fear
At his wished for return never more shall appear.
Your glasses charge high, 'tis in great Charles' praise,In praise, in praise, 'tis in great Charles' praise."
Your glasses charge high, 'tis in great Charles' praise,
In praise, in praise, 'tis in great Charles' praise."
Some one outside the door coughed, and then rattled the latch vigorously. These precautions taken, the door was opened and there appeared Mistress Lettice, gorgeously attired, and with an extra row of ringlets sweeping her withered neck, and a deeper tinge of vermilion upon her cheeks,—for she had waked that morning with a presentiment that Mr. Frederick Jones would ride over in the course of the day. Sir Charles rose to hand her to a chair, but she waved him back with a thin, beringed hand.
"I thank you, Sir Charles: but I will not trouble you. I am going down to the summer-house by the road, as I think the air there will cure my migraine. Patricia, love, I am looking for my 'Clelie,'—the fourth volume. Have you seen it?"
"No, Aunt Lettice."
"It is very strange," said Mrs. Lettice plaintively. "I am sure that I left it in this room. 'T is that careless slut of a Chloe who deserves a whipping. She hides things away like a magpie."
"Look in the window; you may have left it there," said Patricia.
Mrs. Lettice approached the window, laid a hand upon the curtain, and started back with a scream.
"What is it, madam?" cried the baronet.
"'T is a man! a horrid, horrid man hiding there, waiting to cut all our throats in the dead of night as the Redemptioner did to the family at Martin-Brandon! Oh! Oh! Oh!" and Mrs. Lettice threw her apron over her head, and sank into the nearest chair. Patricia started up. Sir Charles, striding hastily towards the window, his hand upon his sword, was met by the emerging figure of Landless.
The two gazed at each other, Sir Charles' first haughty surprise fast deepening into passion as he remembered that the man before him had assisted at the scene of a while before, had witnessed his discomfiture, had seen him upon his knees, baffled, repulsed, even laughed at!
He was the first to speak. "Well, sirrah," he said between his teeth, "what have you to say for yourself?"
"That I ask your pardon," said Landless steadily. "I should have made known my presence in the room. But at first I thought you aware of it; and when I discovered that you were not, I ... it seemed best to remain silent. I was wrong. I should have made some sign even then. Again, I beg your pardon." He turned to Patricia, who stood, tall, straight, and coldly indignant, beside the chair from which she had risen. "Madam," he said in a voice that faltered, despite himself, "I crave your forgiveness."
She bit her coral under lip, and looked at him from under veiled eyelids. It was a cruel look, very expressive of scorn, abhorrence, and perhaps of fear.
"My father hath many unmannerly servants," she said coldly and clearly, "who often provoke me. But I pardon them because they know no better. It seems that like allowance cannot be made for you. However," she smiled icily, "I shall not complain of you to my father, which assurance will doubtless content you."
Landless turned from burning red to deadly white. His eyes, fixed upon the floor, caught the rich shimmer of her skirts as she moved towards the door; a moment and she was gone, leaving the two men facing each other.
Between them there existed a subtle but strong antagonism. Sir Charles Carew, courtier in a coarse and shameless court masquerading under a glittering show of outward graces, had taken lazy delight in heaping quiet insults upon the man who could not resent them. This amusement had beguiled the tedium of the Virginia voyage; and when chance threw them together upon a Virginia plantation, where life flowed on in one long, placid lack of variety, the sport became doubly prized. It had to be pursued at longer intervals, but pursued it was. Heretofore the amusement had been all upon one side; now, Sir Charles felt a chagrined suspicion that it was he who had afforded the entertainment. Simultaneously with arriving at this conclusion he arrived at a point where he was coldly furious.
Landless returned his look coolly and boldly. He considered that he had made quite sufficient apology for an offense which was largely involuntary, and he was in no mood for further abasement.
"You are an insolent rascal," said the baronet smoothly.
Landless smiled. "Sir Charles Carew should be a good judge of insolence."
Sir Charles took a leisurely pinch of snuff, shook the fallen grains from his ruffles, snapped the lid of the box, looked languishingly at the miniature that adorned it, replaced the box in his pocket, and remarked, "Well, I am waiting!"
"And for what?"
"To hear your petition that I forbear to bring this matter to the notice of your master. The lady mercifully gave you her promise. I suppose I must follow so fair an example."
"Sir Charles Carew may wait till doomsday to hear that or any other request made by me to him or to the lady—who does not seem always mercifully inclined—" he broke off with a slight and expressive smile.
Sir Charles took another pinch of snuff. "May the Lard blast me," he drawled, "if they do not teach repartee at Newgate! But I forget that the tongue is the only weapon of women and slaves."
"Some day I hope to teach you otherwise."
The other laughed. "So the slave thinks he can use a sword? Where did he learn? In Newgate, from some broken captain, as payment for imparting the trick of stealing by the Book?"
Landless forced himself to stand quiet, his arms folded, his fingers tightly clenching the sleeves of his coarse shirt. "Shall I tell Sir Charles Carew where I first used my sword with good effect?" he said in an ominously quiet voice. "At Worcester I was but a stripling, but I fought by the side of my father. I remember that, young as I was, I disabled a very pretty perfumed and ringleted Cavalier. I think he was afterwards sold to the Barbadoes. And my father praised my sword play."
"Your father," said the other, bringing his strong white teeth together with a click. "Like father, like son. The latter a detected rogue, gaol-bird, and slave; the former a d—d canting, sniveling Roundhead hypocrite and traitor, with a text ever at hand to excuse parricide and sacrilege."
Landless sprang forward and struck him in the face.
He staggered beneath the weight of the blow; then, recovering himself, he whipped out his rapier, but presently slapped it home again. "I am a gentleman," he said, with an airy laugh. "I cannot fight you." And stood, slightly smiling, and pressing his laced handkerchief to his cheek whence had started a few drops of blood.
Mrs. Lettice, whom curiosity or the search for the fourth volume of "Clelie" had detained in the room, screamed loudly as the blow fell; and Colonel Verney, appearing at the door, stopped short, and stared from one to the other of the two men.
CHAPTER X
LANDLESS PAYS THE PIPER
The hut of the mender of nets stood upon a narrow isthmus connecting two large tracts of marsh. That to the eastward was partially submerged at high tide; that to the west, being higher ground, waved its long grass triumphantly above the reaching waters. Upon this side the marsh was separated from the mainland of forest and field by a creek so narrow that the great pines upon one margin cast their shadows across to the other, and one fallen giant quite spanned the sluggish waters.
The grass of this marsh was annually cut for hay; for though the great herds of cattle belonging to the different plantations roamed at large through all seasons of the year, seeking their sustenance from forest or marsh, the more provident of the planters were accustomed to make some slight provision against the winter, which might prove a severe one with snow and ice.
It was late afternoon, and the hay was cut. The half dozen mowers threw themselves down upon the stubble, stretching out tired limbs and pillowing heated foreheads upon their arms. They had been given until sunset to do the work. Having no taskmaster over them, and being hid from the tobacco-fields by a convenient coppice of pine and cedar, they had set to work in a fury of diligence, had cut and stacked the grass in a race with time, and now found themselves possessed of a precious hour in which to dawdle, and swap opinions and tobacco before the sunset horn should call them to quarters.
Three were indented servants, lumbering, honest-visaged youths whose aims in life were simple and well defined. Their creed had but four articles: "Do as little as you can consistently with keeping out of the overseer's black books; get your full share of loblolly and bacon, and some one else's if you are clever enough; embrace every opportunity for reasonable mischief that is offered you; honor Church and King, or say you do, and Colonel Verney will overlook most pranks." Of the others, one was the Muggletonian, one the mulatto, Luiz Sebastian, and one a convict, not Trail, but the red-haired, pock-marked, sullen wretch who had come to the plantation with Trail and Landless, and whose name was Roach.
One of the rustics, who seemed more intelligent than his fellows, and who had a good-humored deviltry in his young face and big blue eyes, began an excellent imitation of Dr. Nash's exhortation to submission and obedience delivered upon the last instruction day for servants, and soon had his audience of two guffawing with laughter. The mulatto and the convict edged by imperceptible degrees farther and farther away from the others, until, within the shadow of a stack of grass, they lay side by side and commenced a muttered conversation. The countenance of the white man, atrocious villainy written large in every lineament, became horribly intent as his amber-hued companion talked in fluent low tones, emphasizing what he had to say by a restless, peculiar, and sinister motion of his long, yellow fingers. At a little distance lay the Muggletonian, his elbows on the ground, his ghastly face in his hands, and his eyes riveted upon the Geneva Bible which he had drawn from his bosom.
When he had brought his entertainment to a finish, the blue-eyed youth rolled himself over and over the stubble to where the Muggletonian lay, intent upon a chapter of invective. The youth covered the page with one enormous paw and playfully attempted to insert the little finger of the other into the hole in Porringer's ear. "What now, old Runaway," he said, lazily, "hunting up fresh curses to pour on our unfort'net heads?"
"Cursed be he who makes a mock of age," said the Muggletonian, grimly. "May he be even as the wicked children who cried to the prophet, 'Go up, thou baldhead!'"
The boy laughed. "Tell me when you see brown bear a-coming," quoth he. "Losh! a bear steak would taste mighty good after eternal bacon!"
Porringer closed his book and restored it to his bosom. "Tell me," he said, abruptly, "have you seen aught of the young man called Landless?"
"'The young man called Landless,'" answered the other, petulantly, "has a d—d easy berth of it! Yesterday evening I carried water from the spring to the great house to water Mistress Patricia's posies, and every time I passes the window of the master's room I see that fellow a-sitting at his ease in a fine chair before a fine table, writing away as big as all out of doors. And every time I says to him, says I, 'I reckon you think yourself as fine as the Lord Mayor of London? A pretty sec'tary you make!'"
"Have you seen him to-day?"
"No, I have n't seen him to-day,—but I see someone else. Mates," he exclaimed, "Witch Margery's coming down t' other side of creek. I 'll call her over."
Scrambling to his feet he gave a low halloo through his hands, "Margery! Margery! Come and find the road to Paradise!"
Margery waved her hand to signify that she heard and understood, and presently stepped upon the fallen tree that spanned the stream. It was a narrow and a slippery bridge, but she flitted across it with the secure grace of some woodland thing, and, staff in hand, advanced towards the men. Between them and the western sun she stood still, a dark figure against a halo of gold light, and threw an intent and searching glance over the unbroken green of the marsh and the blue of the waters beyond. Then with a wild laugh she came up to them and cast her staff wreathed with dark ivy upon the ground.
"The road is not here," she cried. "Here is all green grass, and beyond is the weary, weary, weary sea! There is no long, bright, shining road to Paradise." She sat down beside her staff, and taking her chin into her hand, stared fixedly at the ground.
The men gathered around her, with the exception of the Muggletonian, who, after audibly comparing her to the Witch of Endor, turned on his side and drew his cap over his eyes as if to shut out the hated sight. The convict took up the staff and began to pull from it the strings of ivy.
"Put it down!" she said quickly.
The man continued to strip it of its leafy mantle.
"Put it down, can't you?" said the youth. "She never lets any one touch it. She says an angel gave it to her to help her on her way."
With a snarling laugh the convict threw it from him with all his force. Whirling through the air it struck the water midway from shore to shore. Margery sprang to her feet with a loud cry. The boy rose also.
"D—n you!" he said, wrathfully. "I'd like to break it over your misshapen back! Here, Margery, don't fret. I 'll get it for you."
He ran to the bank, dived into the water, and in three minutes was back with the dripping mass in his arms. He gave it into Margery's hands, saying kindly while he shook himself like a large spaniel; "There! it is n't hurt a mite!"
With a cry of delight Margery seized the "angel's gift" and kissed the hand that restored it. Then she turned upon the convict.
"When I go back to my cabin in the woods," she said, solemnly, and with her finger up, "I shall whistle all the fairy folk into a ring, all the elves and the pixies, and the little brown gnomes who burrow in the leaves and look for all the world like pine cones, and I shall tell them what you did, and to-night they will come to your cabin, and will pinch you black and blue, and stick thorns into you, and rub you with the poison leaf until you are blotched and swelled like the great bull frog that croaks, croaks, in these marshes."
There was an uneasy ring in the convict's laugh, full of bravado as he meant it to be. Margery continued with an ominously extended forefinger. "And then they will fly to the great house where the master lies sleeping, and they will whisper to him that you took away the angel's gift from poor, lost Margery, and he will be angry, for he is good to Margery, and to-morrow he will make Woodson do to you what he did to-day to the Breaking Heart."
"To the Breaking Heart!" exclaimed her auditors.
Margery nodded. "Yes, the Breaking Heart. You call him Landless."
The Muggletonian sat up. "What dost thou mean, wretched woman! fit descendant of the mother of all evil?"
Margery, offended by his tone, only pursed up her lips and looked wise.
"What did the master have done to Landless, Margery?" asked the youth.
Margery threw her worn figure into a singular posture. Standing perfectly straight, she raised her arms from her sides and spread them stiffly out, the hands turned inward in a peculiar fashion. Then, still with extended arms, she swayed slightly forward until she appeared to lean against, or to be fastened to, some support. Next she threw her head back and to one side, so that her face might be seen in three quarter over her shoulder. Her mobile features wreathed themselves in an expression of pain and rage. Her brows drew downward, her thin lips curled themselves away from the gleaming teeth, and, at intervals of half a minute or more, her eyelids quivered, she shuddered, and her whole frame appeared to shrink together.
The pantomime was too expressive to be misunderstood by men each of whom had probably his own reasons for recognizing some one or all of its features. The convict broke into a yelling laugh, in which he was joined, though in a subdued and sinister fashion, by Luiz Sebastian. The rustics looked at each other with slow grins of comprehension, and the blue-eyed youth uttered a long shrill whistle. The great letter upon the cheek of the Muggletonian turned a deeper red, and his eyes burned. The youth was curious.
"Tell us all about it, Margery," he said, coaxingly, "and when the millons are ripe, I 'll steal you one every night."
Margery was nothing loth. She had attained the reputation of an accomplishedraconteuse, and she was proud of it. Her crazed imagination peopled the forest with weird uncanny things, and fearful tales she told of fays and bugaboos, of spectres and awful voices speaking from out the dank stillness of twilight hollows. Often she sent quaking to their pallets men who would have heard the war-whoop with scarcely quickened pulses. And she could tell of every-day domestic happenings as well as of the doings of the powers of darkness.
Her audience listened greedily to the instance of plantation economy which she proceeded to relate.
"When was this, woman?" demanded the Muggletonian, when she had finished.
Margery pointed to the declining sun and then upwards to a spot a little past the zenith.
"Just after the nooning," said the Muggletonian, and began to curse.
Margery stood up, her staff in her hand, and said airily, "Margery must be going. The sun is growing large and red, and when he has slipped away behind the woods, the voices will begin to call to Margery from the hollow where the brook falls into the black pool. She must be there to answer them." She moved away with a rapid and gliding step, flitted across the fallen tree, and was lost to sight in the shadow of the pines beyond.
As the last flutter of her light robe vanished, a figure appeared, walking rapidly along the opposite margin of the creek. The youth's sight was keen. He sent a piercing glance across the intervening distance and broke into an astonished laugh. "Lord in Heaven! it's the man himself!" he cried in an awed tone. "Ecod! he must be made of iron!"
Landless crossed the bridge and came towards the staring group. His face was white and set, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes, which had the wide unseeing stare of a sleep-walker. He walked lightly and quickly, with a free, lithe swing of his body. The men looked at one another in rough wonder, knowing what was hidden by the coarse shirt. He passed them without a word, apparently without knowing that they were there, and went on towards the hut of the mender of nets. Presently they saw him enter and shut the door.
The rustics and the convict, after one long stare of amazement at the distant hut, began to comment freely and with much recondite blasphemy upon the transaction recorded by Margery. Luiz Sebastian only smiled amiably, like a lazy and well-disposed catamount, and the boy whistled long and thoughtfully. But the countenance of Master Win-Grace Porringer wore an expression of secret satisfaction.
CHAPTER XI
LANDLESS BECOMES A CONSPIRATOR
As Landless entered the hut Godwyn looked up with a pleased smile from the net he was mending. The two men had not seen each other since the night upon which Landless had been brought to the hut by the Muggletonian. Twice had Landless laid his plans for a second visit, only to be circumvented each time by the watchfulness of the overseer.
The smile died from Godwyn's face as he observed his visitor more closely.
"What is it?" he asked quickly.
Landless came up to him and held out his hand. "I am with you, Robert Godwyn, heart and soul," he said steadily.
The mender of nets grasped the hand. "I knew you would come," he said, drawing a long breath. "I have needed you sorely, lad."
"I could not come before."
"I know: Porringer told me you were prevented. I—" He still held Landless' hand in both his own, and as he spoke his slender fingers encircled the young man's wrist.
"What is the matter with your pulse?" he demanded. "And your eyes! They are glazing! Sit down!"
"It is nothing," said Landless, speaking with effort.
"I have been a physician, young man," retorted the other. "Sit down, or you will fall."
He forced him down upon a settle from which he had himself risen, and stood looking at him, his hand upon his shoulder. Presently his glance fell to the shoulder, and he saw upon the white cloth where his hand pressed it against the flesh, a faint red stain grow and spread.
The face of the mender of nets grew very dark. "So!" he said beneath his breath.
He limped across the hut and drew from some secret receptacle above the fireplace a flask, from which he poured a crimson liquid into an earthen cup; then hobbled back to Landless, sitting with closed eyes and head bowed upon the table.
"Drink, lad," he said with grave tenderness. "'T is a cordial of mine own invention, and in the strength it gave me I fled from Cropredy Bridge though woefully hacked and spent. Drink!"
He held the cup to the young man's lips. Landless drained it and felt the blood gush back to his heart and the ringing in his ears to cease. Presently he raised his head. "Thank you," he said. "I am a man again."
"How is it that you are here?"
Landless smiled grimly. "I imagine it's because Woodson thinks me effectually laid by the heels. When he goes the rounds at supper time he will be surprised to find my pallet empty."
"You must be in quarters before then. You must not get into further trouble."
"Very well," was the indifferent reply.
They were silent for a few moments, and then Landless spoke.
"I am come to tell you, Master Godwyn, that I will join in any plan, however desperate, that may bring me release from an intolerable and degrading slavery. You may use me as you please. I will work for you with hands and head, ay, and with my heart also, for you have been kind to me, and I am grateful."
The mender of nets touched him softly upon the hand. "Lad," he said, "I once had a son who was my pride and my hope. In his young manhood he fell at the storming of Tredah. But the other night when I talked with you, I seemed to see him again, and my heart yearned over him."
Landless held out his hand. "I have no father," he said simply.
"Now," at length said Godwyn, "to business! I must not keep you now, but come to me to-morrow night if you can manage it. You may speak to Win-Grace Porringer, and he will help you. I will then tell you all my arrangements, give you figures and names, possess you, in short, with all that I, and I alone, know of this matter. And my heart is glad within me, for though my broken body is tied to my bench here, I shall now have a lieutenant indeed. I have conceived; you shall execute. The son of Warham Landless, if he have a tithe of his father's powers, will do much, very much. For more than a year I have longed for such an one."
"Tell me but one thing," said Landless, "and I am content. You have so planned this business that there shall be no wanton bloodshed? You intend no harm, for instance, to the family yonder?" with a motion of his head towards the great house.
"God forbid!" said the other quickly. "I tell you that not one woman or innocent soul shall suffer. Nor do I wish harm to the master of this plantation, who is, after the lights of a Malignant, a true and kindly man, and a gentleman. This is what will happen. Upon an appointed day the servants, Oliverian, indented and convict, upon all the plantations seated upon the bay, the creeks, the three rivers, and over in Accomac, will rise. They will overpower their overseers and those of their fellows who may remain faithful to the masters, will call upon the slaves to follow them, and will march (the force of each plantation under a captain or captains appointed by me), to an appointed place in this county. All going well, there should be mustered at that place within the space of a day and a night a force of some two thousand men—such an army as this colony hath never seen, an army composed in large measure of honest folk, and officered by four hundred men who, bold and experienced, and strong in righteous wrath, should in themselves be sufficient to utterly deject the adversary. We will make of that force, motley as it is, a second New Model, as well disciplined and as irresistible as the first; and who should be its general but the son of that Warham Landless whom Cromwell loved, and whose old regiment is well represented here? Then will we fight in honest daylight with those who come against us—and conquer. And we will not stain our victory. Your nightmare vision of midnight butchery is naught. There will be no such thing."
Through the quiet of the evening came to them the clear, sweet, and distant winding of a horn.
"'Tis the call to quarters," said Godwyn. "You must go, lad."
Landless rose. "I will come to-morrow night if I can. Till then, farewell,—father." He ended with a smile on his dark, stern face that turned it into a boy's again.
"May the Lord bless thee, my son," said the other in his gravely tender voice. "May he cause His face to shine upon thee, and bring thee out of all thy troubles."
As Landless turned to leave the hut the mender of nets had a sudden thought. "Come hither," he said, "and let me show you my treasure house. Should aught happen to me, it were well that you should know of it."
He took up the precious flask from the table, and followed by Landless, limped across the hut to the fireplace. The logs above it appeared as solid, gnarled and stained by time as any of the others constituting the walls of the hut, but upon the pressure of Godwyn's finger upon some secret spring, a section of the wood fell outwards like the lid of a box, disclosing a hollow within.
From this hollow came the dull gleam of gold, and by the side of the little heap of coin lay several folded papers and a pair of handsomely mounted pistols.
Godwyn touched the papers. "The names or the signs of the Oliverians are here," he said, "together with those of the leaders of the indented servants concerned with us. It is our solemn League and Covenant—and our death warrant if discovered. The gold I had with me, hidden upon my person, when I was brought to Virginia. The pistols were the gift of a friend. Both may be useful some day."
"Hide them! Quick!" said Landless in a low voice, and wheeled to face a man who stood in the doorway, blinking into the semi-darkness of the room.
The lid of the hollow swung to with a click, the log assumed its wonted appearance, and the mender of nets, too, turned upon the intruder.
It was the convict Roach who had pushed the door open and now stood with his swollen body and bestial face darkening the glory of the sunset without. There was no added expression of greed or of awakened curiosity upon his sullenly ferocious countenance. He might have seen or he might not. They could not tell.
"What do you want?" asked Landless sternly.
"Thought as you might not have heard the horn, comrade, and so might get into more trouble. So I thought I 'd come over and warn you." All this in a low, hoarse and dogged voice.
"Don't call me comrade. Yes: I heard the horn. You had best hasten or you may get into trouble yourself."
The man received this intimation with a malevolent grin. "Talking big eases the smart, don't it?" and he broke into his yelling laugh.
"Get out of this," said Landless, a dangerous light in his eyes.
The man stopped laughing and began to curse. But he went his way, and Landless, too, after waiting to give him a start, left the hut and turned his steps towards the quarters.
Upon the other side of the creek, sitting beneath a big sweet gum, and whittling away at a piece of stick weed, he found the boy who, the day before, had accused him of feeling as fine as the Lord Mayor of London. He sprang to his feet as Landless approached, and cheerfully remarking that their paths were the same, strode on side by side with him.
"I say," he said presently with ingenuous frankness, "I asks your pardon for what I said to you yesterday. I dessay you make a very good Sec'tary, and Losh! the Lord Mayor himself might n't have dared to strike that d—d fine Court spark. They say he has fought twenty duels."
"You have my full forgiveness," said Landless, smiling.
"That's right!" cried the other, relieved. "I hates for a man to bear malice."'
"I have seen you before yesterday. I forget how they call you."
"Dick Whittington."
"Dick Whittington!"
"Ay. Leastways the parish over yonder," a jerk of his thumb towards England, "called me Dick, and I names myself Whittington. And why? Because like that other Dick I runs away to make my fortune. Because like him I 've little besides empty pockets and a hopeful heart. And because I means to go back some fine day, jingling money, and wearing gold lace, and become the mayor of Banbury. Or maybe I 'll stop in Virginia, and become a trader and Burgess. I could send for Joyce Witbread, and marry her here as well as in Banbury."
Landless laughed. "So you ran away?"
"Yes; some four years ago, just after I came to man's estate." (He was about nineteen.) "Stowed myself away on board the Mary Hart at Plymouth. Made the Virginny voyage for my health, and on landing was sold by the captain for my passage money. Time 's out in three years, but I may begin to make my fortune before then, for—" He stopped speaking to give Landless a sidelong glance from out his blue eyes, and then went on.
"A voice speaks through the land, from the Potomac to the James, and from the falls of the Far West to the great bay. What says the voice?"
Landless answered, "The voice saith, 'Comfort ye, my people, for the hour of deliverance is at hand.'"
"It 's all right!" cried the boy gleefully. "I thought you was one of us. We are all in the fun together!"
"We are in for a desperate enterprise that may hang every man of us," said Landless sternly. "I do not see the 'fun,' and I think you talk something loudly for a conspirator."
The boy was nothing abashed. "There's none to hear us," he said. "I can be as mum as t' other Dick's cat when there are ears around. As for fun, Losh! what better fun than fighting!"
"You seem to have a pretty good time as it is."
"Lord, yes! Life 's jolly enough, but you see there 's mighty little variety in it."
"I have found variety enough," said Landless.
"Oh, you 've been here only a few weeks. Wait until you've spent years, and have gone through your experience of to-day half a dozen times, and you will find it tame enough."
"I shall not wait to see."
"Then a man gets tired of working for another man, and hankers for the time when he can set up for himself, especially if there 's a pretty girl waiting for him." A tremendous sigh. "And then there 's the fun of the rising. Losh! a man must break loose now and then!"
"For all of which good reasons you have become a conspirator?"
"Ay, it does n't pay to run away. You are hunted to death in the first place, and well nigh whipped to death if you are caught, as you always are. And then they double your time. This promises better."
"If it succeeds."
"Oh, it will succeed! Why should n't it with old Godwyn, who is more cunning than a red fox or a Nansemond medicine-man, at its head? Besides, if it fails, hanging is the worst that can happen, and we will have had the fun of the rising."
"You are a philosopher."
"What's that?"
"A wise man. Tell me: If this plot remains undiscovered, and the rising actually takes place, there will be upon each plantation before we can get away an interval of confusion and perhaps violence. 'T is then that the greatest danger will threaten the planters and their families. You yourself have no ill feeling towards your master or his family? You would do them no unprovoked mischief?"
The boy opened his big blue eyes, and shook his head in a vehement negative.
"Lord bless your soul, no!" he cried. "I would n't hurt a hair of Mistress Patricia's pretty head, nor of Mistress Lettice's wig, neither. As for the master, if he lets us go peaceably, we 'll go with three cheers for him! Bless you! they 're safe enough!"
The sanguine youth next announced that he smelt bacon frying, and that his stomach cried "Trencher!" and started off in a lope for the quarters, now only a few yards distant. Landless followed more sedately, and reached his cabin without being observed by the overseer.