The Hidden Children by Robert W. Chambers (books to improve english .TXT) 📗

find this Sagamore for you?" she asked very quietly.

"Will you do so?"

A drop of rain fell; another, which struck her just where the cheek curved under the long black lashes, fringing them with brilliancy like tears.

"Where do you lodge?" she asked, after a silent scrutiny of me.

"This night I am a guest at Major Lockwood's. Tomorrow I travel north again with my comrade, Lieutenant Boyd."

She was looking steadily at me all the time; finally she said:

"Somehow, I believe you to be a friend to liberty. I know it—somehow."

"It is very likely, in this rifle dress I wear," said I smiling.

"Yet a man may dress as he pleases."

"You mistrust me for a spy?"

"If you are, why, you are but one more among many hereabouts. I think you have not been in Westchester very long. It does not matter. No boy with the face you wear was born to betray anything more important than a woman."

I turned hot and scarlet with chagrin at her cool presumption—and would not for worlds have had her see how the impudence stung and shamed me.

For a full minute she stood there watching me; then:

"I ask pardon," she said very gravely.

And somehow, when she said it I seemed to experience a sense of inferiority—which was absurd and monstrous, considering what she doubtless was.

It had now begun to rain in very earnest; and was like to rain harder ere the storm passed. My clothes being my best, I instinctively stepped into the doorway; and, of a sudden, she was there too, barring my entry, flushed and dangerous, demanding the reason of my intrusion.

"Why," said I astonished, "may I not seek shelter from a storm in a ruined sugar-house, without asking by your leave?"

"This sap-house is my own dwelling!" she said hotly. "It is where I live!"

"Oh, Lord," said I, bewildered, "—if you are like to take offense at everything I say, or look, or do, I'll find a hospitable tree somewhere——"

"One moment, sir——"

"Well?"

She stood looking at me in the doorway, then slowly dropped her eyes, and in the same law voice I had heard once before:

"I ask your pardon once again," she said. "Please to come inside—and close the door. An open door draws lightning."

It was already drawing the rain in violent gusts.

The thunder began to bang with that metallic and fizzling tone which it takes on when the bolts fall very near; flash after flash of violet light illuminated the shack at intervals, and the rafters trembled as the black shadows buried us.

"Have you a light hereabout?" I asked.

"No,"

For ten minutes or more the noise of the storm made it difficult to hear or speak. I could scarce see her now in the gloom. And so we waited there in silence until the roar of the rain began to die away, and it slowly grew lighter outside and the thunder grew more distant.

I went to the door, looked out into the dripping woods, and turned to her.

"When will you bring the Sagamore to me?" I demanded.

"I have not promised."

"But you will?"

She waited a while, then:

"Yes, I will bring him."

"When?"

"Tonight."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

"And if it rains again''

"It will rain all night, but I shall send you the Sagamore. Best go, sir. The real tempest is yet to break. It hangs yonder above the Hudson. But you have time to gain the Lockwood House."

I said to her, with a slight but reassuring smile, most kindly intended:

"Now that I am no longer misunderstood by you, I may inform you that in what you do for me you serve our common country." It did not seem a pompous speech to me.

"If I doubted that," she said, "I had rather pass the knife you wear around my throat than trouble myself to oblige you."

Her words, and the quiet, almost childish voice, seemed so oddly at variance that I almost laughed; but changed my mind.

"I should never ask a service of you for myself alone," I said so curtly that the next moment I was afraid I had angered her, and fearing she might not keep her word to me, smiled and frankly offered her my hand.

Very slowly she put forth her own—a hand stained and roughened, but slim and small. And so I went away through the dripping bush, and down the rocky hill. A slight sense of fatigue invaded me; and I did not then understand that it came from my steady and sustained efforts to ignore what any eyes could not choose but see—this young girl's beauty—yes, despite her sorry mien and her rags—a beauty that was fashioned to trouble men; and which was steadily invading my senses whether I would or no.

Walking along the road and springing over the puddles, I thought to myself that it was small wonder such a wench was pestered in a common soldier's camp. For she had about her everything to allure the grosser class—a something—indescribable perhaps—but which even such a man as I had become unwillingly aware of. And I must have been very conscious of it, for it made me restless and vaguely ashamed that I should condescend so far as even to notice it. More than that, it annoyed me not a little that I should bestow any thought upon this creature at all; but what irritated me most was that Boyd had so demeaned himself as to seek her out behind my back.

When I came to the manor house, it had already begun to rain again; and even as I entered the house, a tempest of rain and wind burst once more over the hills with a violence I had scarcely expected.

Encountering Major Lockwood and Lieutenant Boyd in the hall, I scowled at the latter askance, but remembered my manners, and smoothed my face and told them of my success.

"Rain or no," said I, "she has promised me to send this Sagamore here tonight. And I am confident she will keep her word."

"Which means," said Boyd, with an unfeigned sigh, "that we travel north tomorrow. Lord! How sick am I of saddle and nag and the open road. Your kindly hospitality, Major, has already softened me so that I scarce know how to face the wilderness again."

And at supper, that evening, Boyd frankly bemoaned his lot, and Mrs. Lockwood condoled with him; but Betsy Hunt turned up her pretty nose, declaring that young men were best off in the woods, which kept them out o' mischief. She did not know the woods.

And after supper, as she and my deceitful but handsome lieutenant lingered by the stairs, I heard her repeat it again, utterly refusing to say she was sorry or that she commiserated his desperate lot. But on her lips hovered a slight and provoking smile, and her eyes were very brilliant under her powdered hair.

All women liked Boyd; none was insensible to his charm. Handsome, gay, amusing—and tender, alas!—too often—few remained indifferent to this young man, and many there were who found him difficult to forget after he had gone his careless way. But I was damning him most heartily for the prank he played me.

I sat in the parlour talking to Mrs. Lockwood. The babies were long since in bed; the elder children now came to make their reverences to their mother and father, and so very dutifully to every guest. A fat black woman in turban and gold ear-hoops fetched them away; and the house seemed to lose a trifle of its brightness with the children's going.

Major Lockwood sat writing letters on a card-table, a cluster of tall candles at his elbow; Mr. Hunt was reading; his wife and Boyd still lingered on the stairs, and their light, quick laughter sounded prettily at moments.

Mrs. Lockwood, I remember, had been sewing while she and I conversed together. The French alliance was our topic; and she was still speaking of the pleasure it had given all when Lewis Morris brought to her house young Lafayette. Then, of a sudden, she turned her head sharply, as though listening.

Through the roar of the storm I thought I heard the gallop of a horse. Major Lockwood lifted his eyes from his letters, fixing them on the rain-washed window.

Certainly a horseman had now pulled up at our very porch; Mr. Hunt laid aside his book very deliberately and walked to the parlour door, and a moment later the noise of the metal knocker outside rang loudly through the house.

We were now all rising and moving out into the hall, as though a common instinct of coming trouble impelled us. The black servant opened; a drenched messenger stood there, blinking in the candle light.

Major Lockwood went to him instantly, and drew him in the door; and they spoke together in low and rapid tones.

Mrs. Lockwood murmured in my ear:

"It's one of Luther's men. There is bad news for us from below, I warrant you."

We heard the Major say:

"You will instantly acquaint Colonels Thomas and Sheldon with this news. Tell Captain Fancher, too, in passing."

The messenger turned away into the storm, and Major Lockwood called after him:

"Is there no news of Moylan's regiment?"

"None, sir," came the panting answer; there ensued a second's silence, a clatter of slippery hoofs, then only the loud, dull roar of the rain filled the silence.

The Major, who still stood at the door, turned around and glanced at his wife.

"What is it, dear—if we may know?" asked she, quite calmly.

"Yes," he said, "you should know, Hannah. And it may not be true, but—somehow, I think it is. Tarleton is out."

"Is he headed this way, Ebenezer?" asked Mr. Hunt, after a shocked silence.

"Why—yes, so they say. Luther Kinnicut sends the warning. It seems to be true."

"Tarleton has heard, no doubt, that Sheldon's Horse is concentrating here," said Mr. Hunt. "But I think it better for thee to leave, Ebenezer."

Mrs. Lockwood went over to her husband and laid her hand on his sleeve lightly. The act, and her expression, were heart-breaking, and not to be mistaken. She knew; and we also now surmised that if the Legion Cavalry was out, it was for the purpose of taking the man who stood there before our eyes. Doubtless he was quite aware of it, too, but made no mention of it.

"Alsop," he said, turning to his son-in-law, "best take the more damaging of the papers and conceal them as usual. I shall presently be busied with Thomas and Sheldon, and may have no time for such details."

"Will they make a stand, do you think?" I whispered to Boyd, "or shall we be sent a-packing?"

"If there be not too many of them I make a guess that Sheldon's Horse will stand."

"And what is to be our attitude?"

"Stand with them," said he, laughing, though he knew well that we had been cautioned to do our errand and keep clear of all brawls.

CHAPTER III VIEW HALLOO!

It rained, rained, rained, and the darkness and wind combined with the uproar of the storm to make venturing abroad well nigh impossible. Yet, an orderly, riding at hazard, managed to come up with a hundred of the Continental foot, convoying the train, and, turning them in their slopping tracks, start back with them through a road running shin-high in mud and water.

Messengers, also, were dispatched to call out the district militia, and they plodded all night with their lanterns, over field and path and lonely country road.

As for Colonel Sheldon, booted, sashed, and helmeted, he sat apathetic and inert in the hall, obstinately refusing to mount his men.

"For," says he, "it will only soak their powder and their skins, and nobody but a fool would ride hither in such a storm. And Tarleton is no fool, nor am I, either; and that's flat!" It was not as flat as his own forehead.

"Do you mean that I am a fool to march my men back here from Lewisboro?" demanded Colonel Thomas sharply, making to rise from his seat by the empty fireplace.

Duels had sprung from less provocation than had been given by Colonel Sheldon. Mr. Hunt very mildly interposed; and a painful scene was narrowly averted because of Colonel Thomas's cold contempt for Sheldon, which I think Captain Fancher shared.

Major Lockwood, coming in at the moment, flung aside his dripping riding cloak.

"Sir," said he to Sheldon, "the rumour that the Legion is abroad has reached your men, and they are saddling in my barns."

"What damned nonsense!" exclaimed Sheldon, in a pet; and, rising, strode heavily to the door, but met there his Major, one Benjamin Tallmadge, coming in, all over mud.

This fiery young dragoon's plume, helmet, and cloak were dripping, and he impatiently dashed the water from feathers and folds.

"Sir!" began Colonel Sheldon loudly, "I have as yet given no order to saddle!"

And, "By God, sir," says Tallmadge, "the orders must have come from somebody, for they're doing it!"

"Sir—sir!" stammered Sheldon, "What d'ye mean by that?"

"Ah!" says