Complete weird tales of.., p.147
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 147
“You are mistaken,” I said, grimly. “Romance is the breath of my life, madam. And so I now plead freedom to present to your good graces my friend, Jack Mount, who lately stopped your coach upon the King’s highway!”
And I caught the abashed giant by his ragged sleeve and dragged him to the chaise-window, where he plucked off his coon-skin cap and stared wildly at the astonished lady within.
But it was no easy matter to rout Marie Hamilton. True, she paled a little, and took one short breath, with her hand to her breast; then, like sunlight breaking, her bright eyes softened and that sweet, fresh mouth parted in a smile which spite of me set my own pulse a quickstep marching.
“I am not angry, sir,” she said, mockingly. “All cats are gray at midnight, and one post-chaise resembles another, Captain Mount — for surely, by your exploits, you deserve at least that title.”
Mount’s fascinated eyes grew bigger. His consternation and the wild appeal in his eyes set me hard a-swallowing my laughter. As for Mrs. Hamilton, she smiled her sweet, malicious smile, and her melting eyes were soft with that false mercy which deludes apace and welcomes to destruction.
“Jack,” said I, smothering my laughter, “do you get your legs astride the leader, there, and play at post-boy to the nearest inn. Zounds, man! Don’t stand there hanging your jaw like a hard-run beagle! Up into the saddle with you! Gad, you’ve a ride before you with those Albany nags a-biting at your shins! Here, give me your rifle.”
“And you, Michael,” asked Mrs. Hamilton, “will you not share my carriage, for old time’s sake?”
I told her I had my horse and would ride him at her chaise-wheels, and so left her, somewhat coolly, for I liked not that trailing tail to her invitation— “for old time’s sake.”
“What the foul fiend have I to do with ‘old time’s sake’?” I muttered, as I slung myself astride o’ Warlock and motioned Jack Mount to move on through the finely falling rain. “‘Old time’s sake’! Faith, it once cost me the bitterest day 358 of my life, and might cost me the love of the sweetest girl in earth or heaven! ‘Old time’s sake’! Truly, that is no tune to pipe for me; let others dance to it, not I.”
As I rode forward beside her carriage-window, she looked up at me and made a little gesture of greeting. I bowed in my saddle, stiffly, for I was now loaded with Mount’s rifle as well as my own.
What the deuce is there about Marie Hamilton that stirs the pulse of every man who sets eyes on her? Even I, loving Silver Heels with my whole heart and soul, find subtle danger in the eyes of Marie Hamilton, and shun her faint smile with the instant instinct of an anchorite.
Perhaps I was an anchorite, all ashamed, for I would not have it said of me, for vanity.
In a day when the morals of the world were rotten to the core, when vice was fashion, and fashion marked all England for her own, the overflow from those same British islands, flooding our land, stained most of those among us who could claim the right to quality.
I never had been lured by those grosser sins which circumstances offered — even in our house at Johnstown — and I would make no merit of my continence, God wot, seeing there was no temptation.
I had been reared among those whose friends and guests often went to bed too drunk to snuff their candles; cards and dice and high play were nothing strange to me, and, perhaps from their sheer familiarity, left me indifferent and without desire.
A titled drab I had never seen; the gentlemen whom I knew discussed their mistresses over nuts and wine, seeming to think no shame of one another for the foolishness they called their “fortune.” Had it not been for Sir William’s and Aunt Molly’s teachings, I might have grown up to think that wives were wedded chiefly to oblige a friend. But Sir William and Aunt Molly taught me to abhor that universal vice long before I could comprehend it. I did not clearly comprehend it yet; but the thought of it was stale ashes in my mouth, so unattractive had I pictured what I needs must shun one day.
Riding there through the fine rain which I could scarcely 359 feel on my skin, so delicate were the tiny specks of moisture, I thought much on the smallness of this our world, where a single hour on an unknown road had given me two companions whom I knew.
God grant the end of my journey would give me her for whose dear sake the journey had been made!
Thinking such thoughts, lost in a lover’s reverie, I rode on, blind to all save the sweet ghosts I conjured in my brooding, and presently was roused to find the chaise turning into a tavern-yard, where all was black save for a lanthorn moving through the darkness.
Mount called; a yawning ostler came with a light, and at the same instant our host in shirt and apron toddled out to bid us welcome, a little, fat, toothless, chattering body, whose bald head soon was powdered with tiny, shining rain-drops.
Mrs. Hamilton gave me her hand to descend; she was as fresh and fragrant as a violet, and jumped to the ground on tiptoe with a quick flirt of her petticoat like the twitch of a robin his tail-feathers.
“Mad doings on the road, sir!” said our host, rubbing his little, fat hands. “Chaise and four stopped by the penny-stile two hours since, sir. Ay, you may smile, my lady, but the post-boys fought a dreadful battle with the highwaymen swarming in on every side. You laugh, sir? But I have these same post-boys here, and the footman, too, to prove it!”
“But, pray, where is the lady and her maid and the chaise and four?” asked Mrs. Hamilton, demurely.
“God knows,” said the innkeeper, rolling his eyes. “The villains carried it off with the poor lady inside. Mad work, my lady! Mad work!”
“Maddening work,” said I, wrathfully. “Jack, borrow a post-whip and warm the breeks of those same post-boys, will you? Lay it on thick, Jack; I’ll take my turn in the morning!”
Mount went away towards the stable, and I quieted the astonished landlord and sent him to prepare supper, while a servant lighted Mrs. Hamilton to her chamber. Then I went out to see that Warlock was well fed and bedded fresh; and I did hear sundry howls from the villain post-boys in their 360 quarters overhead, where Mount was nothing sparing of the leather.
Presently he came down the ladder, and laughed sheepishly when he saw me.
“They’re well birched,” he said. “It’s God’s mercy if they sit their saddles in the morning.” Then he took my hands and held them so hard that I winced.
“Gad, I’m that content to see you, lad!” he repeated again and again.
“And I you, Jack,” I said. “It is time, too, else you’d be in some worse mischief than this night’s folly. But I’ll take care of you now,” I added, laughing. “Faith, it’s turn and turn about, you know. Come to supper.”
“I — I hate to face that lady,” he muttered. “No, lad, I’ll sup with my own marrow-bones for company.”
“Nonsense!” I insisted, but could not budge him, and soon saw I had my labour for my pains.
“A mule for obstinacy — a very mule,” I muttered.
“I own it; I’m an ass. But this ass knows enough to go to his proper stall,” he said, with a miserable laugh that touched me.
“Have it as you wish, Jack,” I said, gently; “but come into my chamber when you’ve supped. I’ll be there. Lord, what millions of questions I have to ask!”
“To be sure, to be sure,” he murmured, then walked away towards the kitchen, while I returned to the inn and cleansed me of the stains of travel.
We supped together, Mrs. Hamilton and I, and found the cheer most comforting, though there was no wine for her and she sipped, with me, the new brew of dark October ale.
A barley soup we had, then winter squash and a roast wild duck, with little quails all ‘round, and a dish of pepper-cresses. Lord, how I did eat, being still gaunt from my long sickness! But she kept pace with me; a wholesome lass was she, and no frail beauty fed on syllabubs and suckets. Flesh and blood were her charms, a delicate ripeness, sweet as the cresses she crunched between her sparkling teeth. And ever I heard her little feet go tap, tap, tap, under the lamplit table.
I spoke respectfully of her losses; she dropped her eyes, accepting the condolence, pinching a cress to shreds the while.
She of course knew nothing of my journey to Pittsburg, nor of any events there which might have occurred after she had left, when her husband fell with many another stout frontiersman under Boone and Harrod.
I told her nothing, save that Felicity was in Boston and that I was journeying thither to see her.
“Is she not to wed the Earl of Dunmore?” asked Mrs. Hamilton.
“No,” said I, quietly.
“La, the capricious beauty!” she murmured. “Sure, she has not thrown over Dunmore for that foolish dragoon, Kent Bevan?”
“I hope not,” said I, maliciously.
“Who knows,” she mused; “Mr. Bevan is to serve on Gage’s staff this fall. It looks like a match to me.”
“Is Mr. Bevan going to Boston?” I inquired.
“Yes. Are you jealous?” she replied, saucily.
I smiled and shook my head.
“But you once were in love with your cousin,” she persisted. “On aime sans raison, et sans raison l’on hait! Regardez-moi, monsieur.”
“Your convent breeding in Saint-Sacrement lends to your tongue a liberty that English schools withhold,” I said, reddening.
“Nay, now,” she laughed, “do you remember how you played with me at that state dinner held in Johnson Hall? You rode me down rough-shod, Michael, and used me shamefully there, under the stairs.”
“I’ll do the like again if you provoke me,” I said, but had not meant to say it either, being troubled by her eyes.
“The — the like — again? And what was that, pray?”
“You know,” I said, sulkily.
“I think you — kissed me—”
“I think I did,” said I; “and left you all in tears.”
It was brutal, but I meant to make an end.
“Did you believe that those were real tears?” she asked, innocently.
“By Heaven, I know they were,” said I, with satisfaction, “and small vengeance to repay the ill you did me, too.”
“What ill?” she asked, opening her eyes in real surprise.
But I was silent and ashamed already. Truly, it had been no fault but my own that I had taken up the gage she flung at me that night so long ago.
“But I’ll not take it up this time,” thought I to myself, cracking filberts and looking at her askance across the table.
“I do not understand you, Michael,” she said, with a faint smile, ending in a sigh.
“Nor I you, bonnie Marie Hamilton,” said I. “Suppose we both cry quits?”
“Not yet,” she said; “I have a little score with you, unsettled.”
“What score?” I asked, smiling. “Cannot you appeal to the law to have it settled?”
“La loi permet souvent ce que défend l’honneur,” she said, with an innocent emphasis which left me sitting there, uncertain whether to laugh or blush. What the mischief did she mean, anyhow?
She picked up a filbert, tasted the kernel, dropped it, clasped her hands, elbows on the cloth, and gave me a malicious sidelong glance which still was full of that strange sweetness that ever set me on my guard, half angry, half bewitched.
“I wish you would let me alone!” I blurted out, like a country yokel at a quilting.
“I won’t,” she said.
“Remember what you suffered the first time!” I warned her.
“I do remember.”
“Do you — do you dare risk that?” I stammered.
“Et d’avantage — encore,” she murmured, setting her teeth on her plump white wrist and watching me uncertainly.
The game was running on too fast for me and my pulse was keeping pace.
“Safely they defy who challenge those in chains,” I said, commanding my voice with an effort. “If that is your revenge, I cry you mercy; you have won.”
After a long silence she raised her eyes, dancing with a mocking light in each starry pupil.
“I give you joy, Michael,” she said, “if, as I take it, these same chains and fetters that you lately wear are riveted by Cupid.”
But I answered nothing, attending her to the door, where she dropped me what I do believe was the slowest and lowest curtsey ever dropped by woman.
So I to my own chamber in no amiable frame of mind, and still tingling with the strange charm of my encounter. Head bent, hands clasped behind me, I walked the floor, striving to analyze this woman who had now twice crossed me on the trail of fate, this fair woman whose bright eyes were a menace and a challenge, and whose sweet, curved mouth was set there as eternal provocation to saint and sinner.
Thus for the first time in my life I had known what temptation might have been. Nay, I knew a little more than what it might have been, and, in the overwhelming flood of loyalty to Silver Heels, I cursed myself for a man without faith or shred of honour. For I was too unskilled in combats with the fair temptation to understand that it is no disgrace to falter, yet not fall.
There came a timid scratching at the door; I opened it and Mount sidled in, coy as a cat in a dairy with its chin still wet with cream. He regarded me doubtfully, but sat down when bidden and began to complain:
“Now, if you are minded to chide me for taking the road, I’m going out again. I can’t bear any more, lad, that I can’t! — what with Cade gone and me in rags, and stopping Councillor Bullock near Johnstown with pockets bare of aught but a cursed sixpence and that crooked as Lady Shelton’s legs — and now I must needs fright a lady into a faint like a bad boy with a jack-o’-lanthorn—”
“What on earth is the matter with you?” I broke in, peevishly. “I’m not finding fault, Jack. If you mean to spend your life in endeavours to impoverish every Tory magistrate in America, it’s your affair, and I can’t help it, though you must know as well as I that there’s a carpenter’s tree and a rope at the end of your frolic.”
“No, there isn’t,” he said, hastily. “I’m done with the highway save to pat it smooth with my feet. Lord, lad, it’s not for the money, but for sport. And soon there’ll be fighting enough to fill my stomach; mark me, the crocus that buds white this spring will wither red as blood ere its fouled petals fall!”
“War?” I asked, thrilling to hear him.
He rose and gazed at me most earnestly.
“Ay, surely, surely in the spring. Gad! Boston is that surfeited with redcoats now that when they cram down more next spring she can but throw them up to keep her health. Wait! Boston is sick in bone and body, but in the spring she takes her purge. Oh, I know,” he cried, with a strange, prophetic stare in his eyes; “I have word from Shemuel. Now he’s off to Boston with the news from Cresap. And I tell you, lad, that the first half-moon of April will start a devil loose in this broad land that state or clergy cannot exorcise!
“Not a devil,” he corrected himself, slowly, “no, not a thing from hell, but that same swift angel sent to chasten worlds with fire. Dunmore will burn, and Butler. As for the rest, the honest, the rascals, the witless, the soulless, thieves, poltroons, usurers, and the vast army of well-meaning loyal fools, they will be cleared out o’ this our world-wide temple whose roof is the sky and whose pillars are our high pines! — cleared out, scoured out, uprooted, driven forth like those same money-changers in the temple scourged by Christ, — and God is witness I, a sinner, mean no blasphemy, spite of all the sweating load o’ guilt I bear.”
“Where got you such phrases, Jack?” I asked. “It is not Jack Mount who speaks to me like a crazed preacher in the South who shouts the slaves around him to repent.”
Mount looked at me; the dazed, fanatic light in his eyes faded slowly.
“I have a book here,” he muttered, “a book I purchased in Johnstown of a man who sold many to patriots. Doubtless grief for Cade and my privations and my conning this same book while starving make me light-headed yet.”
“What book is that?” I asked.
“The Rights of Man.”
“I, also, would be glad to read it.”
“Read, lad. ’Tis fodder for King George’s cattle — such as we. And the little calves our wenches cast, they, too, shall feed on it, though they cannot utter moo! for their own mothers’ milk!”
“Jack, Jack,” I cried, “you are strangely changed! I do 365 not know you in this bitter mood, and your mouth full o’ words that burn your silly lips. Wake to life, man! Gay! Gay! Jack! A pest on books and those who write ‘em! I have ever despised your printed stuff, and damme if I’ll sit and hear it through your lips!”
But it was like rousing a man from a sleeping-draught, for the book had so bewitched his senses in these long weeks he had wandered alone that I had all I could do to drag him out of his strange, dreamy enthusiasms, back into his old, guileless, sunny, open-hearted self. And I feel sure that I could not have succeeded at all had not the shock of his encounter with Mrs. Hamilton on the highway first scared him back to partial common-sense. Added to this my entreaties, and he became docile, and then, little by little, dropped his preacher’s mad harangue to talk like a reasonable creature and wag his tongue unlarded with his garbled metaphors and his half-baked parables which no doubt no simple forest-runner could digest on the raw printed page. I pitied him sincerely. Truly, a little learning makes one wondrous kind.
I put the book in my shirt-front, meaning to be of those who ride and read, even as Jack was of those others who both read and run.
“Why did you desert me, Jack?” I asked, sitting chin on hand to watch him smoke the pipe which no kind fate had filled for him since he left Johnstown.
“Faith, I hung about with Cade, doing no harm, sitting in the sun to wait for news from you. Mr. Duncan, a kind officer, gave us news and made us welcome on the benches in front of the guard-house. And Mistress Warren would have us to eat with her — only I was ashamed. But Cade went and supped with her.
“Lad, Sir John Johnson is not a gentleman I should grow too fond of. His courtesy is a shallow spring, I’m thinking, dry at the first taste, and over-sour to suit my teeth.”
