Sir Christopher: A Romance of a Maryland Manor in 1644

"I love thee too" was all she said.

Clasping his arms close about his mother's neck, Cecil whispered, "God is mending thee, and I am so glad, 'cos now thou wilt have no need to die."

When the child was gone the two women drew nearer to the fire and began to rake the ashes together, but slowly, as if loath to put out the cheerful domestic spark, though the air was too soft to need warming, and the full moon blandly shining in through the window served amply for light.

With the dying of the fire Elinor's cheer seemed to die too, and she sat silent in the moonlight with hands folded before her and feet thrust out toward the warm ashes.

"Margaret!"

"Yes."

"Ralph Ingle was here yesterday."

"I thought I saw him vanishing from the door as I came."

"Yes, he was here, and he asked me again to marry him."

"And thou – "

"I told him for the fortieth time that marriage was not for me."

"Did that settle it?"

"Nay, he only smiled."

"Insolent fellow!"

"No, Cousin, there is no insolence in Ralph Ingle, but something which frights me more, – or did till to-day, – a calm biding of his time, as though in the end, struggle against fate as I would, he must triumph and I must yield."

"Bah, Elinor! That's the talk of a woman who seeks excuse for yielding. Your will is as strong as his; use it!"

Elinor's lips shut in a proud silence. There was something in Margaret Brent's manner which did not invite, much as it justified, self-revelation. Few make confidences to those who never make mistakes. Elinor made a move as if to rise; but Margaret laid her hand upon her arm. "Cousin," said the older woman, "I have heard thy story; now listen to mine. I loved a man once – "

Elinor started.

"Ah, thou didst never think I had known what it was to love?"

"He – he was a lucky man," stammered Elinor, in surprise.

"He might have been a lucky man, though perchance it behooves not me to say it; yet I verily believe I could have made him happy, but that he was of a jealous temper – "

Elinor, who had a blessed gift for silence, used it now.

"Yes," Margaret continued; "he was jealous by nature, and therefore lent a ready ear when one dropped poison in it."

"He doubted thee?"

"He thought he had proof."

"And the villain who traduced thee to him – "

"Was Dick Ingle, and thou dost well to call him villain. 'Twas years ago in England, and we have met but twice since; but I know the blood, and I swear to thee I'd rather see thee carried out of this room in thy coffin than as the bride of an Ingle."

"Yet Ralph – "

"Oh, I know he hath not the brutal outside of his brother, but, Elinor, I count him falser at heart. You don't always see a snake, but you trace his course by the rippling of the grass. Something always goes wrong when Ralph Ingle is about. Trust him not with thy little finger, much less thy hand in marriage."

"Listen, then, Margaret, and thou wilt rejoice with me and understand the better my lightness of spirit this night when I tell thee that yester morning Ralph Ingle renounced me, told me I was too cold for any love save for a dead man, – God help me, that is true, – then suddenly, as if carried beyond his own control, he seized me in his arms and kissed me, and then flung through the doorway. At the door he turned once more and said, 'Elinor, thy day of grace is ended!'

"I was much angered by his free manner, and I answered, —

"'If the day of grace be the day of thy company, the sooner ended the better.'

"'I am going away,' he said.

"For answer I but courtesied, with a great gladness at my heart.

"'The time may come when thou wilt beg me to wed thee.'

"I laughed.

"'Till that time comes I will never speak of marriage more,' he said. Then with one devouring glance, he bowed low and left the house, and Sheriff Ellyson told me to-day that he saw him with three men making down the river in a pinnace. Pray Heaven, he is gone forever!"

"Ay, pray Heaven; but keep thy wits at work none the less, and never believe that an Ingle means what he says. They say only what they wish thee to believe; and as for Ralph Ingle giving thee up, he has about as much intention on't as my gray cat, that withdraws into the dark and lets her victim mouse play about till she's ready for the spring."

"Cousin, thou art suspicious."

"Say rather, watchful."

"'Tis all one."

"Nay. If thou art watchful, thou mayst find there is no cause for suspicion."

Elinor sat looking at the woman opposite her. Dead silence fell between them, till at last, with a cry, Elinor threw herself on her knees at her cousin's side.

"Love me, Margaret! Try to love me! There are so few to love me now!"

It was as if the cry of Elinor's full heart broke down the barriers that had somehow raised themselves between her and Margaret Brent. A single word had laid them low, never to rise again.

"I do love thee; I do," whispered Margaret, folding her arms close about Elinor. "Poor child! Life hath been a hard school for thee."

"And I an unruly scholar," murmured Elinor, smiling through her tears.

"Perchance; most of us are. But now shalt thou give proof of thy new-found spirit of obedience by obeying me, and getting this weary body of thine into bed. Hark! the watchman is crying ten of the clock."

With a certain joy in being bidden like a little child, Elinor rose and moved to her chamber. It is, however, one thing to go to bed, and quite another to go to sleep. Strive as she would, she could not shake off the sombre shadow of Margaret's words.

At last, unable to rest quiet longer, she rose and went to Cecil's little bed. There he lay, flushed and rosy in sleep, with the coverlid thrust aside and revealing the firm curves of a sturdy leg.

"Thank God for him!" murmured his mother, and taking down a vial of holy water she sprinkled a few drops on the golden curls. Then from the shelf beneath the crucifix she took down a little brown book with worn cover and dog's-eared corners. Opening at random her eyes fell on these words: —

"Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good: by itself it makes everything that is heavy light, and it bears evenly all that is uneven. For it carries a burden which is no burden and makes everything which is bitter sweet and savory."

"Heigh ho!" sighed Elinor; but she read on.

"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth."

"For some," murmured Elinor, and read on.

"My child, thou art not yet a courageous lover. Because for a slight opposition thou givest over thy undertakings and too eagerly seekest consolation. A courageous lover standeth firm in temptations and giveth no credit to the crafty persuasions of the enemy – "

A tear slid down upon the hand that turned the page. Tears are crystallized confession. Elinor bowed her head.

"Alas! Alas! How the words pierce to my heart's core! It is to me surely that they were written. What a coward in love have I been! How ready at the first whisper to sink from faith into doubt! To me God gave such chance as falls to the lot of few women to hold up the hands of my love, and the chance slipped from me, and I joined the ranks of them that doubted and turned aside.

"Is it too late now to repent? No, never too late for that. What consolation, what joy, what glory to feel that perhaps ages hence, when I have worked out the penance my sin demands in Purgatory, I may rise to the presence of the saints, where, for all the churchmen say, God must make a place for souls like Christopher's! Then I shall look into his eyes and he will forgive and bless me."

The thought brought comfort, and she turned back to her couch with a calmer mind. As she passed the window she heard the watchman calling the hour of midnight, followed by the familiar cry, —

"From fire and brand and hostile handGod save our town!"

For some time she stood still, watching, with a comfortable sense of safety, the queer figure and the twinkle of his lantern as it bobbed up and down along the street.

"Elinor, is that thou?"

"Ay, Margaret."

"Now art thou unruly, indeed, – walking the house at midnight like an uneasy ghost, when I bade thee go to bed and to sleep. To bed, I say, this instant!"

Elinor smiled, but obeyed, and drawing the coverlid over her fell into a light slumber, broken by a fitful dream in which the world seemed to be whirling around, and Ralph Ingle was pushing it to make it go faster, when suddenly Christopher Neville appeared, and all at once it stopped and she could hear his voice bidding her be of good cheer and fear nothing. Then came the unconsciousness of deeper sleep; and at last, out of that calm there swept a great noise, a rush of feet along the quiet street, a swinging of lanterns, a hurried knocking at the door, and a shout, —

"Make ready all within! Dick Ingle is at the gates!"

CHAPTER XXIII

"HEY FOR ST. MARY'S, AND WIVES FOR US ALL!"

Morning was streaking the black of night with a single line of silver as Richard Ingle dropped anchor in St. Mary's River opposite the little town marked by its tall rude cross and its sentinel mulberry-tree on the edge of the bluff. Already the men were lowering boats and filling them with muskets, powder, and shot, and strips of wood soaked in oil.

As Ingle looked upward at the sleeping village, his heart swelled with delight. Let no one fancy that happiness is the reward of virtue. To the good there can be little individual happiness that does not carry its own sting in the thought of the cost to others at which it has been purchased, but to the bad man life is simplified to

"The good old rule, the simple plan,That he may take who has the power,And he may keep who can."

Through these twelve long months the memory of the indignity thrust upon him at Brent's behest, as he firmly believed, by the townspeople of St. Mary's, had rankled in his memory. This, combined with his old grudge against Margaret Brent, drove him back to England. This kindled his delight at finding King Charles defeated and Parliament in control. This was always in mind when he represented to the government the dangerous growth of Catholic power in Maryland, and this the crown of his triumph when he found himself turning the prow of The Reformation westward once more, armed with letters of marque giving him license to attack these dangerous monarchists and schismatics and harry them out of the land if he could.

"Now, my friends," thought he, as he peered through the darkness at the dim outlines of the wharf, "we'll see whose turn it is to be tossed aboard a vessel like a sack of grain. I'll settle my score with you, Sheriff Ellyson, and with you, Worshipful Councillor Neale. As for you, Giles Brent, if you get not a sword-thrust from my blade that will make you carry your head a shade less high, my name is not Dick Ingle."

As the buccaneer strode up and down the deck nursing his hot wrath, he came to where Claiborne was standing in talk with Ralph Ingle, who had joined his brother as soon as the secret news reached him that The Reformation lay hid among the wooded points of the bay.

"Now," said Richard, "remember that I am the Captain of this expedition and you are both to take the word from me."

"Hm! I know not," Claiborne began doubtfully.

Richard Ingle bent a compelling glance upon him.

"Did you not ask my help?"

"Ay."

"Did you not say I was worth any twenty Virginians in this expedition?"

"Belike I did."

"Is not the ammunition of my providing?"

"Oh, have done with your vain boasting!"

"I'll have done with boasting when you have done with insubordination. Do you or do you not recognize my authority?"

"On your ship, yes," answered Claiborne, flushing; "on land I take commands from no man. I am answerable to the authorities of Virginia and them only."

"And I," said Ralph, "am a free lance, and will thrust where I see fit. Besides, this expedition is as much mine as thine."

"The devil take the fellow's impudence!" exclaimed Richard. "Here have I been over seas to fetch letters of marque, and pulled members of Parliament this way and that, gathered a crew, begged, borrowed, and stolen money to buy powder and shot, and now you, who have stayed in the lap of luxury there at St. Gabriel's, would have me give you control."

"The still hog sups the milk," answered Ralph, coolly. "'Twas I kept you informed of the temper of the colony, of Brent's unreadiness for attack; and did you but know it I did you the greatest favor of all in ridding the colony of the one man who might have detected your plot and made some head against us."

Richard Ingle flushed and laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword; but Claiborne, foreseeing an ill beginning if the invaders fell to fighting among themselves before they were fairly landed, stepped between the brothers and laid a hand on the shoulder of each as he said, —

"There is honor enough ahead for each of you and for me too, so let us not quarrel over that. Let Dick direct his crew, while I lead the Virginians in the ship behind us, and you, Ralph, shall be the free lance."

The words were timely. Richard put up his sword, and Ralph smiled again, – that frank smile that had won its way to Giles Brent's heart and deceived him to the end.

Claiborne saw his advantage and pressed it. "First of all," he said, "we must have a rallying cry whereby we may know friend from foe."

"The cry of the townsfolk up yonder is 'Hey for St. Mary's, and wives for us all!'"

"We'll make it true by taking of their wives."

"Ay," chuckled Dick, "we'll make hay of St. Mary's, set fire to the rick, and then off to sea again with wives for us all!"

"A merry jest. You would have made your fortune as a clown, Dick."

"The trouble is I have your fortune to make, too, Ralph, and you're too much of the damned fine gentleman for me, and find my ways over rough."

"Keep to the point, my friends, keep to the point," interrupted Claiborne. "'Tis a rallying cry we want. Now what say you to 'God and the Parliament'?"

A soft voice from Richard Ingle's right answered, "Think you not 'twere as well to leave the name of God out of the business? Considering the nature of the matter in hand, is it not just possible that He might take offence?"

"Faith, I believe you're right for once, Ralph!" cried Richard Ingle, with a certain generosity, not detecting the sarcasm underlying his brother's words. "For my part, I think that cry too tame. I would like better 'The devil take the Brents!' or 'To Hell with the Calverts!'"

"All save one!" murmured Ralph under his breath. Aloud he said, "Let 'Ingle!' be our cry. 'Tis short and sharp and sufficient."

"So let it be!" assented Richard; "but were it not well to have badges on the arm besides the cry, that we may know each other by them when the growing dawn gives light enough to see?"

"'Tis a good thought," said Claiborne. "I have a roll of green cloth which can be swiftly torn into bands; but I know not if 'tis enough to go round among so many."

"I will be answerable for mine own," said Ralph Ingle, putting his hand to the breast of his jerkin and drawing out a green ribbon of watered silk.

"See what a fop this brother of mine learned to be in France. His very points must be tagged with gold, and, on my life, the tags are tipped with emerald!"

"Ay," said Ralph, coolly, "I got them of a French Seigneur without his permission, and they have been cursed unlucky so far. The first tag I lost in the forest near St. Gabriel's and could never find again, and the point with the other tag joined to it was stolen by a Patuxent brave while I was on a mission, – the sacrilegious savage! Since then for safe keeping I have carried this in the inner pocket of my jerkin."

"Cease talking of your jewelled points and make haste," cried Claiborne, testily. "Speed is the main thing. To be discovered is to be balked, if not defeated."

"Push off there in the first boat if you are ready! Shall I go in her, Captain Ingle?"

"Ay, and command her crew. Wait for us at the shore, and we'll rush the stockade together."

"But how to mount the bluff?"

"There is a road, and I suppose it was made to be walked on."

"Ay, but it leads to the strongest fortified of the gates."

"You are a monstrous clever man, Master Claiborne; but for all that, Dick Ingle knows more tricks than ever a juggler taught you."

"That means I am to have no confidences."

Ingle laid his red finger to the side of his redder nose.

"Are you Captain or I?"

"You are Captain but not Pope; I suppose you may be questioned."

"All in good time, Master Claiborne; all in good time. Yonder on the strip of beach below the bluff I will give my orders and divulge my plans."

"Fend off!" called Claiborne, sullenly, to the man at the prow of the small boat, and seating himself in the stern he pulled his cloak close about him, muttering to himself, —

"Damn the fellow! I begin to hate him worse than Calvert."

"Dick," said Ralph Ingle as the two brothers were left alone together, "what treatment might a prisoner look for if brought aboard this ship?"

"Why, all the difference betwixt a swift death and a slow one."

"And if the prisoner were a woman – "

"Nay, none of that business, Ralph! I was but jesting when I spoke of carrying off the villagers' wives. Remember, we take our commission from the Roundheads, who do faithfully believe we are bent on promoting the Puritan religion in this part of the world." Here Richard Ingle burst into a roar of laughter, but his brother's eyes flashed.

"You know not how to take a gentleman," he said.

"Indeed," sneered his brother, "have a few months in the Brent household turned thee into such a white-livered fellow, half prude, half priest? Nay, nay," seeing his brother's sulky looks; "I meant not to vex thee, though 'tis a damned odd time for talking of such matters; but take thy pleasure as thou wilt, only now make ready for the prettiest fight thou hast seen since we met the pirates off Algiers."

"The other pirates," corrected Ralph, and began buckling on his cutlass and feeling for his pistols.

"Come on, then," called Richard, lowering himself over the ship's side, "come on, men; rally to the cry of 'Ingle!' Never mind giving quarter, and set the torches to every house in St. Mary's. There's plunder enough for us all, and then up sail and away before the burghers know who's struck them."

The muffled oars sped silently through the water; silently, too, the keels of the boats slipped over the sand of the beach. With unshod feet, pistols in belts, and cutlass in hand, the men ranged themselves in a ragged line, and before them, Richard Ingle stood in a theatrical attitude, with one hand on his hip, the other waving a sword.

"Are you ready for a fight, my men?"

"Try us!"

"Ready to make a bonfire of yonder town?"

A waving torch answered, but was speedily extinguished by Ingle's order.

"Ready to open the bung-holes in the tavern barrels?"

"Ay, and drink the spirit as it runs."

"Then you're the men for Dick Ingle. Claiborne, how many have you in your command?"

"Forty."

"Take twenty, and climb yonder stairs. There is a gap in the palisade at their head. Put your men through it single file, and in dead silence. There is no guard.

"Ralph!"

"Ay."

"Do you take the other twenty and follow the longer trail leading to the rear of the town. When our approach is known, the rush will be for the river gate. That leaves your gate weak. Beat it down. Once in, I leave you to your work."

"Trust me!"

"The rest of you follow me. Swift and still. That's your motto till we burst in with a yell, and surprise our friends. The guard is bribed, the gate unbarred. Up and forward!"

Forward they went with a rush, Ingle well in front, – up the hilly road at a double quick to the very shadow of the palisade, not a sound giving warning of their approach.

Suddenly from that gray picketed line of logs broke a zigzag streak of fire, and out into the stillness boomed the sound of guns.

"We are betrayed!" muttered Claiborne, turning at the head of the steps, out of breath with the climb.

"Follow me!" cried Richard Ingle. "Twenty pounds to the first man over the wall, or through the gate!"

"Ingle! Ingle!" the cry rose from all sides, as the men rushed after their leader toward the stockade. Several fell; but the others closed in and rushed on the faster.

"I fear they're too many for us!" muttered Giles Brent, as he peered through the peep-hole of the gate. "If we could have had the news but a few hours earlier! Fire at the tall man with the green cap, Neville! – and there's Ingle, the same swashbuckler as ever! But he's a brave devil. Gather the guard, Neville. Open on them with the culverin; if they break in the gate, give them clubbed muskets: Hey for St. Mary's, and wives for us all!"

No man who took part in that morning's fight ever forgot the day. Almost every fighter had his private feud to avenge, and under the guise of sustaining his colony, slashed and hacked for St. Mary, or St. Richard Ingle, and broke heads in fine style, all for the honor of the Commonwealth or the Palatinate in general, and the satisfaction of James and John and Robert in particular.

Oh, but it was a fine skirmish! and when the invaders, despite the thunder of the culverin, broke in the iron-studded gate and rushed upon the defenders, the fighting took on still more interest. If there is pleasure in knocking over your enemy at a distance with a cannon-ball, it is as nothing to the joy of felling him with your clubbed musket, where he can claim no foul, no better armament, but must acknowledge as he falls, that he dies because you are the better man, and surrender his pride before he gives up the ghost.

Who would not throw away years of inglorious safety to know the mad leap of the blood bounding along his veins as he cut and thrust and parried in the rough give and take of battle? When the Anglo-Saxon forgets that stern ecstasy, his domination of the earth is at an end.

There is, however, one class to whom the struggle brings little of this exhilaration. The non-combatants bear the heart-breaking anxieties of the combat and know nothing of its delights. Little did Elinor Calvert know or care about the effect of fighting on national character as she stood at the door of her cottage in the little hamlet of St. Mary's, holding her boy by the hand. Her heart had room for only one thought, – terror, – not so much for herself as for her child. "But surely," she thought, "none could be so cruel as to harm him!" and she looked down on his yellow curls and drew him closer, and folded her cloak about him as though that feeble shelter could avail anything against men with hearts of steel and arms of iron. Her mind was still bewildered with the suddenness of the excitement.

"Oh, Mother!" cried Cecil, anxious to be a hero, but conscious of a painful sinking at the pit of his stomach, "what manner of man is this Ingle? Will he have horns and a tail like the devil?"

"Fear not, Cecil," Margaret Brent answered. "Dick Ingle has cowered before me ere this. Let him face me now if he dares. He has lied about me to the man I loved, he has done his best to ruin my life, but he has never yet dared to look me in the eye since. If he enters the town this day, he and I will have it out. Elinor, are there fire-arms in the house?"

"Nay, but I have my dagger – "

"Keep it; thou mayst have need of it. Stay thou here with the child, and I will take my pistol and go to the gate. Doubtless Giles will take command at the gate next the river."

"Nay, Margaret, are there not men enough?"

"Not so many but they will be the better for one woman."

"Thou canst not fight like a man."

"Perhaps not, – I have not yet tried; but at least I can make the men fight better. There was never soldier yet that did not shoot straighter and strike deeper if a woman were looking on. That's what we're for, Coz, – not to pit our strength against men's, but to double theirs."

"Margaret, thy courage shames me; I will come too. At least, I can carry powder and water-buckets."