Complete weird tales of.., p.137
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 137
“I will rise from bed at eleven o’clock to-night and go out into the orchard with Black Betty. Pray you cozzen, greet me with a post-chaise and take me away from these dreadful, dreadful people.
“Your cozzen,
“Felicity.
“Postscriptum
“To witt, I will not wed you though we be affianced, and I will wed no man upon your recommendation. With your own affairs I pray you be dilligently active and concern yourself not with mine hereafter.”
265 When I had again read the letter I examined the wax. The paper had been carelessly folded and more carelessly sealed; and I called to Mount and the Weasel, pointing out that, though the letter was unsealed, the wax itself had not been broken.
“I do not think,” said I, “that this letter has deliberately been tampered with. This is only carelessness.”
“It was certainly sealed and folded in haste,” remarked the Weasel, poking at the wax with his forefinger.
Mount also pretended to believe that negligence or haste accounted for the open letter, and, satisfied, we sat down to discuss the measures to be taken for a fortnight flight.
I had a mind to follow Silver Heels to the races, trusting that I might find a moment to warn her most solemnly not to fail us. Mount thought the idea most wise, offering to bear me company, and the Weasel agreed to remain and assist Rolfe to equip and furnish our post-chaise with the necessaries for a long journey.
It was understood between us that Silver Heels and Black Betty were to ride in the chaise, and I with them; that Mount and the Weasel would sit the horses as postilions, and that Shemuel should ride atop. It was further decided that, as the northern and western frontier were impassable in view of the border war, we should take the post-road to the Virginia border, make for Williamsburg, and from there turn north across Maryland and the Jerseys, reaching Johnstown through New York and Albany.
I gave the Weasel money to purchase powder and ball, which we all lacked, and to buy for me a silver watch and a rifle or firelock to replace the loss of my own. Also, I charged him to purchase pistols for me and for Shemuel, with flint and ball for the same, and to sharpen our knives and hatchets against need.
“You waste breath,” observed Mount, yawning. “The Weasel never neglects to file his claws for battle.”
“Very well,” said I, wincing; “it seems that of us all I alone know nothing of my own affairs.”
“You will learn,” said the Weasel, kindly, and I was obliged to swallow their well-meant patronage and follow Mount to the street.
“If I had my way,” said I, resentfully, “I would take Miss Warren from the races and set out by noon.”
“If I had my way,” observed Mount, “I should not try to escape to-night at all.”
“Why not?” I asked, in surprise.
“Because of that unsealed letter.”
“But we agreed it was accident!”
“Ay, we agree, but mayhap there are others yet to disagree.”
“Nonsense!” I said.
“Doubtless,” said Mount, with the faintest trace of irony, enough to flavour his mild smile with that mockery which hurts the pride of very young men.
Offended, I strode on beside him, and neither he nor I offered to speak again until Mount suddenly stopped in the middle of the King’s Road and looked back.
“What’s amiss?” I asked, forgetting my sulks.
“Oh, we are followed again,” said Mount, wearily.
I stared about but could see nobody who appeared to be observing us. There were numbers of people on the King’s Road, trudging through the dust as were we, and doubtless also bound for the races on Roanoke Plain. I saw no vehicles or horsemen: the quality in their chairs and coaches would go by the fashionable Boundary; the fox-hunting horsemen met at the “Buckeye Tavern,” a resort for British officers and gentlemen; unpretentious folk must foot it by the shortest route, which was to pass the fortress by the King’s Road.
“Are you sure we are followed?” I asked.
“Not quite,” said Mount, simply. “I shall know anon. Trust me in this, lad, and take pains to do instantly what I do. Perhaps my life may pay for this day’s pleasure.”
“I will take care to imitate you,” said I, anxiously. “You know how deeply in your debt I stand confessed.”
“Good lad,” he said, gravely; “I do not doubt you, friend Michael. As for any debt, your courtesy has long cancelled it.”
The quaint compliment had a pretty savour, coming from one whose world was not my own.
We were now passing that angle of the fortified works through which the King’s Road passes between two block-housen. 267 The sentries, standing in the shadow of the stockade, watched us without visible interest, turning their idle heads to scan the next comer, and stare impudently if it were some petticoat.
So, unquestioned, we passed out into the country, where a few heavily stockaded farms flanked the road, always built on heights, and always free from trees or any cover that might shelter an attacking enemy. Beyond these farms the road became a turnpike, and we stopped at the toll-gate to pay tuppence to the keeper’s wife, who sat nursing a baby, one hand on a rifle, which she never let go until the evening brought her husband to keep his perilous vigil there all night.
“No,” she said, listlessly, “no Indians have troubled us. Yet, God knows I sleep not while my man is out here in the night, though they send a patrol from the fortress every hour.”
Mount earnestly advised her to give up the toll-gate until the border had quieted; but she only stared, saying, “How, then, are we to live?” And we passed on in silence, side by side.
Beyond the toll-gate a broad road curved out from the turnpike, running south, and Mount pointed it out as the road we were to travel that night.
“It crosses the Virginia border by that blue hill yonder,” he said, then suddenly jerked his head over his shoulder.
“I think I am right; I think I know the jade,” he said, calmly.
“Is it a woman who follows us?” I asked, amazed.
“Ay, a bit of a lass, maybe eighteen or thereabouts.”
“You know her?”
“And she me,” said Mount, grimly. “Harkee, friend Michael, if you must needs know the truth, her father is — Gad! I can scarce say it to you, but — well — her father is what they call a thief-taker.”
“What has that to do with us?” I asked.
Mount spoke with an effort: “Because I have stopped some few purse-proud magistrates upon the highway, they say evil things o’ me. That lass behind us means to follow me and tell her lout of a father where I may be found.”
I was horrified, and he saw it and stopped short in his tracks.
“You are right,” he said, simply; “a gentleman cannot be found in such company. Go on alone, lad; it is right, and I shall bear no malice.”
“Jack!” I said, hotly; “do you believe I would cry quits now? Damnation! Come on, sir! I would as soon take the King’s highway myself!”
His firm mouth relaxed and quivered a little; he hesitated, then walked forward beside me with a touch of that old swagger, muttering something about gentle blood and what’s bred in the bone.
“It’s all very well,” he said; “it’s all very well for some of our people to say that we men are created equal. There’s no truth in it. A broodhound never cast whippets, let them say what they will!”
We were now in sight of the flag-covered pavilion on Roanoke Plain, and on either side of us the road was lined with those drinking-booths and peddler-stands and cheap-jack tents which had pitched camps here for the day rather than pay the tax required to sell their wares within the racing-grounds.
Around them the townspeople clustered, some munching gingerbread and pies, some watching the gilded wheel of fortune spin their pennies into another man’s pockets, some paying for a peep into a dark shed where doubtless wonders were to be seen for a penny. Ragged children sold colours and cards for the races; peddlers assailed our ears at every step; fortune-tellers followed us, predicting unexpected blessings, which turned to curses when we passed along unheeding; acrobats, tumblers, jugglers, strong men, and merry-andrews hailed us as their proper prey. And, in sooth, had it not been for the sickening knowledge of Mount’s peril, I should have found keen pleasure in spending all I had, to see everybody and everything at this show; for I do dearly love strange sights, and in Johnstown I have always viewed them all, with Silver Heels and Esk and Peter, when the season of racing brought these gay folk to our town.
But now I had no stomach for pleasure, nor had Mount, for he scarcely glanced at the booths as we passed, though 269 there was ale there, and sweet Virginia wines, which drew the very honey-bees themselves.
Suddenly Mount said, “This will not do; I have been hunted long enough!”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Hunt in my turn,” he said, grimly.
“Hunt — what?”
“The lass who hunts me. Follow, lad. On your life, do as I do. Now, then! Gay! Gay! Ruffle it, lad! Cut a swagger, cock your cap, and woe to the maid who is beguiled by us!”
The change in him was amazing; his airs, his patronage, his chaff, his lightening wit! — it was the old Mount again, quaffing a great cup of ale, pledging every pretty face that passed, hammering his pewter to emphasize his words, talking with all who would answer him; glorious in his self-esteem, amusing in his folly, a dandy, a ruffler, a careless, wine-bibbing, wench-bussing coureur-de-bois, and king of them all without an effort.
Peddler and gypsy were no match for him; his banter silenced the most garrulous, his teasing pleased the wenches, his gay gallantries made many a girl look back at him, and many a smile was returned to him with delicate surplus of interest.
“Which is the maid?” I asked, under my breath.
“Yonder, stopping to stare at gingerbread as though she had never beheld such a sweet before. Now she turns; mark! It is she with the pink print and chip hat on her hair, tied with rose ribbons under the chin.”
“I see her,” said I.
She was a healthy, red-cheeked, blue-eyed girl, with lips a trifle over-full and bosom to match withal. She appeared uneasy and uncertain, watching Mount when he raised a laugh, and laughing herself as excuse, though her mirth appeared to me uneasy, now that I understood her purpose.
She had been edging nearer, and now stood close to us, at the entrance to an arbour wherein were set benches in little corners, hidden from prying eyes by strips of painted cloth.
“Will no maid pity me!” exclaimed Mount. “I am far, far too young to drink my wine alone in yonder arbour!”
“I have not been invited,” cried a saucy wench, laughing at us over the shoulder of her companion, who backed away, half laughing, half frightened.
“God helps those who help themselves,” said Mount, turning to find her who had followed him close to his elbow.
He smiled in her face and made her a very slow and very low bow, drawing a furrow through the dust with the fluffy tail on his coon-skin cap.
“If I knew your name,” he said, “I might die contented. Otherwise I shall content myself with a life of ignorance.”
She seemed startled and abashed, fingering her gown and looking at her shoe-buckles, while Mount bent beside her to whisper and smile and swagger until he entreated her to taste a glass of currant wine with us in the arbour.
I do not know to this day why she consented. Perhaps she thought to confirm her suspicions and entrap some admission from Mount; perhaps, in the light of later events, her purpose was very different. However, we three sat in the arbour behind our screens of painted cloth, and Mount did set such a pace for us that ere I was aware there remained not a drop of currant in the decanter, no more cakes on the plate, and he had his arm around the silly maid.
Intensely embarrassed and ill at ease with this pot-house gallantry, which was ever offensive to my tastes, I regarded them sideways in silence, impatient for Mount to end it all.
The end had already begun; Mount rose lightly to his feet and drew the girl with him, turning her quietly by the shoulders and looking straight into her eyes.
“Why do you follow me?” he asked, coolly.
The colour left her face; her eyes flew wide open with fright.
“I shall not hurt you, little fool,” he said; “I had rather your father, the thief-taker, took me, than harm you. Yes, I am that same Jack Mount. You are poor; they will pay you for compassing my arrest. Come, shall we seek your father, Billy Bishop, the taker of thieves?”
He drew her towards the gate, but she fell a-whimpering and caught his arm, hiding her face in his buckskin sleeve.
Disgusted, I waited a moment, then turned my back and 271 walked out into the sunshine, where I paced to and fro, until at last Mount joined me, wearing a scowl.
As we turned away together I glanced into the arbour and saw our lass of the ribbons still sitting at the table with her head buried in her arms and her pink shell-hat on the grass.
As for Mount, he said nothing except that, though he no longer feared the girl, he meant, hereafter, to trust to his heels in similar situations.
“It might be less irksome,” said I, curling my lip.
“Ay; yet she has a pretty face, and a plump neck, too.”
“The daughter of a thief-taker!” I added, contemptuously.
“Pooh!” said he. “She has thirty sound teeth and ten fingers; the Queen of Spain has no more.”
CHAPTER XVI
AS WE CAME to the high stockade which surrounded the Roanoke Racing Plain, a bell struck somewhere inside; there was a moment’s silence, then a roar, “They’re off!” and the confused shouting of a crowd: “Greensleeves leads! Heather-Bee! Heather-Bee!” which suddenly died out, ceased, then swelled into a sharp yell: “Orange and Black! Orange wins! Baltimore! Baltimore! Baltimore! No! No! The Jersey colt! The Jersey colt! Crimson! Crimson!” A hush; the dull, double thud of galloping; a scramble, a rush, and a hurricane of wild cheers: “Heather-Bee! Heather-Bee! Good Greensleeves! Hi — yi — yi! Hooray!”
“I would I had a sovereign laid on this same Heather-Bee,” said Mount, mechanically fumbling in his empty pockets.
I glanced at him in surprise. Had the novelty of our present peril already grown so stale that the shouting of a rabble over a winning horse could blot it out?
He observed my disapproval and took his hands from his pocket-flaps, muttering something about a passion for betting; and I paid the gate-keepers the fee they demanded for us both, which included a card giving us entry to the paddock.
When I entered I expected to see a “sweet and delightsome plain,” as the public crier had advertised so loudly with his horn, but truly I was not prepared for the beauty which was now revealed. Bowered in trees the lovely pale green meadow lay, all starred with buttercups and cut by the bronzed oval of the course. Pavilion and field glowed in the colours of fluttering gowns; white and scarlet and green marked the line where half a dozen mounted jockeys walked their lean horses under the starter’s tower. The sun blazed down, gilding the chestnut necks of the horses; a cool breeze 273 bellied the bright sleeves of the jockeys, and blew the petticoats and ribbons till they flapped like rainbow flags.
Mount was nudging me, sulkily demanding to be informed where bets were placed, and adding that he knew a horse as well as the next man. However, when he proposed that I allow him to double my capital for me, I flatly refused, and reproached him for wishing to risk anything now.
“Well, then,” he muttered, “lay a sovereign yourself for luck;” but I paid no attention, and fixed my eyes on the pavilion to search it through and through for Silver Heels.
The longer I searched the more hopeless I felt my task to be; I could see a score of maids in that vast bouquet, any one of which might have been Silver Heels, but was not.
I then sought to discover Lady Shelton, a large, sluggish lady whom I had noticed at Johnstown — not attracted by her beauty, but to observe her how she did eat a barrel of oysters in pickle, when visiting our guard-house with her kinsman, Colonel Guy Johnson.
I could not find her, though there were many ladies in the pavilion who appeared to resemble her in largeness and girth, and in fatness of hand and foot.
With my arm on Mount’s, who had fallen a-pouting, I paced the sward, searching the pavilion through and through, unmindful of the battery of bright eyes which swept and raked us with indolent contempt. Where was Silver Heels? Ay, where in the devil’s name had the little baggage hid herself? Many ladies and their consorts in the pavilion were rising and passing under a yellow canopy to the right, where there appeared to be a luncheon spread on tables; and I did see and smell large bowls of sweetened punch, Mount smelling the same and thoughtfully clacking his tongue.
“The quality,” he observed, “have punch and French wines. Yet I dare wager a pocketful o’ sixpences that they have not my depth, and God knows I would cheerfully prove it.”
“Nobody is like to challenge you,” I said, coldly. “Come, we must find my cousin, Miss Warren, or our journey here fails.”
The fox-hunting gentry in pink were coming across the field in a body, spurs glistening and curly horns striking fire 274 in the sunshine. As they passed us, clink! clink! over the turf, a strangely familiar eye met mine and held it — the puzzled eye of a young man, dressed in red coat and tops and wearing a black velvet cap. Where had I seen him before? He, too, appeared perplexed, and, as he passed, involuntarily touched the peak of his cap with his hunting-whip. Suddenly I knew him, and at the same moment he left the company and came hastily up to me, offering his hand. The fox-hunter was my old acquaintance, Mr. Bevan, the dragoon, and he had actually recognized me under my sunburn and buckskins. Rivals never forget.
However, there was no mistaking his cordiality, and I should have been an oaf and a churl not to have met him fairly by the hand he offered.
