The Pilot

by James Fenimore Cooper

  "I acquit you of both much easier than I can acquit myself of the charge of weakness and folly," continued Cecilia; "but there are many things that have occurred, since we last met, to prevent a repetition of such inconsiderate rashness on my part. One of them is," she added, smiling sweetly, "that I have numbered twelve additional months to my age, and a hundred to my experience. Another, and perhaps a more important one, is, that my uncle then continued among the friends of his youth, surrounded by those whose blood mingles with his own; but here he lives a stranger; and, though he finds some consolation in dwelling in a building where his ancestors have dwelt before him, yet he walks as an alien through its gloomy passages, and would find the empty honor but a miserable compensation for the kindness and affection of one whom he has loved and cherished from her infancy."

  "And yet he is opposed to you in your private wishes, Cecilia, unless my besotted vanity has led me to believe what it would now be madness to learn was false; and in your opinions of public things, you are quite as widely separated. I should think there could be but little happiness dependent on a connection where there is no one feeling entertained in common."

  "There is, and an all-important one," said Miss Howard; "'tis our love. He is my kind, my affectionate, and, unless thwarted by some evil cause, my indulgent uncle and guardian,—and I am his brother Harry's child. This tie is not easily to be severed, Mr. Griffith; though, as I do not wish to see you crazed, I shall not add, that your besotted vanity has played you false; but surely, Edward, it is possible to feel a double tie, and so to act as to discharge our duties to both. I never, never can or will consent to desert my uncle, a stranger as he is in the land whose rule he upholds so blindly. You know not this England, Griffith; she receives her children from the colonies with cold and haughty distrust, like a jealous stepmother, who is wary of the favors that she bestows on her fictitious offspring."

  "I know her in peace, and I know her in war," said the young sailor, proudly, "and can add, that she is a haughty friend, and a stubborn foe; but she grapples now with those who ask no more of her than an open sea and an enemy's favors. But this determination will be melancholy tidings for me to convey to Barnstable."

  "Nay," said Cecilia, smiling, "I cannot vouch for others who have no uncles, and who have an extra quantity of ill humor and spleen against this country, its people, and its laws, although profoundly ignorant of them all."

  "Is Miss Howard tired of seeing me under the tiles of St. Ruth?" asked Katherine. "But hark! are there not footsteps approaching along the gallery?"

  They listened, in breathless silence, and soon heard distinctly the approaching tread of more than one person. Voices were quite audible, and before they had time to consult on what was best to be done, the words of the speakers were distinctly heard at the door of their own apartment.

  "Ay! he has a military air about him, Peters, that will make him a prize; come, open the door."

  "This is not his room, your honor," said the alarmed soldier; "he quarters in the last room in the gallery."

  "How know you that, fellow? come, produce the key, and open the way for me; I care not who sleeps here; there is no saying but I may enlist them all three."

  A single moment of dreadful incertitude succeeded, when the sentinel was heard saying, in reply to this peremptory order:

  "I thought your honor wanted to see the one with the black stock, and so left the rest of the keys at the other end of the passage; but—"

  "But nothing, you loon; a sentinel should always carry his keys about him, like a jailer; follow, then, and let me see the lad who dresses so well to the right."

  As the heart of Katherine began to beat less vehemently, she said:

  "'Tis Borroughcliffe, and too drunk to see that we have left the key in the door; but what is to be done? we have but a moment for consultation."

  "As the day dawns," said Cecilia, quickly, I shall send here, under the pretence of conveying you food, my own woman—"

  "There is no need of risking anything for my safety," interrupted Griffith; "I hardly think we shall be detained, and if we are, Barnstable is at hand with a force that would scatter these recruits to the four winds of heaven."

  "Ah! that would lead to bloodshed, and scenes of horror!" exclaimed Cecilia.

  "Listen!" cried Katherine, "they approach again!"

  A man now stopped, once more, at their door, which was opened softly, and the face of the sentinel was thrust into the apartment.

  "Captain Borroughcliffe is on his rounds, and for fifty of your guineas I would not leave you here another minute."

  "But one word more," said Cecilia.

  "Not a syllable, my lady, for my life," returned the man; "the lady from the next room waits for you, and in mercy to a poor fellow go back where you came from."

  The appeal was unanswerable, and they complied, Cecilia saying, as they left the room:

  "I shall send you food in the morning, young man, and directions how to take the remedy necessary to your safety."

  In the passage they found Alice Dunscombe, with her face concealed in her mantle; and, it would seem, by the heavy sighs that escaped from her, deeply agitated by the interview which she had just encountered.

  But as the reader may have some curiosity to know what occurred to distress this unoffending lady so sensibly, we shall detain the narrative, to relate the substance of that which passed between her and the individual whom she sought.

  Chapter XIV

  *

  "As when a lion in his den,

  Hath heard the hunters' cries,

  And rushes forth to meet his foes,

  So did the Douglas rise—"

  Percy.

  Alice Dunscombe did not find the second of the prisoners buried, like Griffith, in sleep, but he was seated on one of the old chairs that were in the apartment, with his back to the door, and apparently looking through the small window, on the dark and dreary scenery over which the tempest was yet sweeping in its fury. Her approach was unheeded, until the light from her lamp glared across his eyes, when he started from his musing posture, and advanced to meet her. He was the first to speak.

  "I expected this visit," he said, "when I found that you recognized my voice; and I felt a deep assurance in my breast, that Alice Dunscombe would never betray me."

  His listener, though expecting this confirmation of her conjectures, was unable to make an immediate reply, but she sank into the seat he had abandoned, and waited a few moments, as if to recover her powers.

  "It was, then, no mysterious warning! no airy voice that mocked my ear; but a dread reality!" she at length said. "Why have you thus braved the indignation of the laws of your country? On what errand of fell mischief has your ruthless temper again urged you to embark?"

  "This is strong and cruel language, coming from you to me, Alice Dunscombe," returned the stranger, with cool asperity, "and the time has been when I should have been greeted, after a shorter absence, with milder terms."

  "I deny it not; I cannot, if I would, conceal my infirmity from myself or you; I hardly wish it to continue unknown to the world. If I have once esteemed you, if I have plighted to you my troth, and in my confiding folly forgot my higher duties, God has amply punished me for the weakness in your own evil deeds."

  "Nay, let not our meeting be embittered with useless and provoking recriminations," said the other; "for we have much to say before you communicate the errand of mercy on which you have come hither. I know you too well, Alice, not to see that you perceive the peril in which I am placed, and are willing to venture something for my safety. Your mother—does she yet live?"

  "She is gone in quest of my blessed father," said Alice, covering her pale face with her hands; "they have left me alone, truly; for he, who was to have been all to me, was first false to his faith, and has since become unworthy of my confidence."

  The stranger became singularly agitated, his usually quiet eye glancing hastily from the floor to the countenance of his companion,
as he paced the room with hurried steps; at length he replied:

  "There is much, perhaps, to be said in explanation, that you do not know. I left the country, because I found in it nothing but oppression and injustice, and I could not invite you to become the bride of a wanderer, without either name or fortune. But I have now the opportunity of proving my truth. You say you are alone; be so no longer, and try how far you were mistaken in believing that I should one day supply the place to you of both father and mother."

  There is something soothing to a female ear in the offer of even protracted justice, and Alice spoke with less of acrimony in her tones, during the remainder of their conference, if not with less of severity in her language.

  "You talk not like a man whose very life hangs but on a thread that the next minute may snap asunder. Whither would you lead me? Is it to the Tower at London?"

  "Think not that I have weakly exposed my person without a sufficient protection," returned the stranger with cool indifference; "there are many gallant men who only wait my signal, to crush the paltry force of this officer like a worm beneath my feet."

  "Then has the conjecture of Colonel Howard been true I and the manner in which the enemy's vessels have passed the shoals is no longer a mystery! you have been their pilot!"

  "I have."

  "What! would ye pervert the knowledge gained in the springtime of your guileless youth to the foul purpose of bringing desolation to the doors of those you once knew and respected! John! John! is the image of the maiden whom in her morning of beauty and simplicity I believe you did love, so faintly impressed, that it cannot soften your hard heart to the misery of those among whom she has been born, and who compose her little world?"

  "Not a hair of theirs shall be touched, not a thatch shall blaze, nor shall a sleepless night befall the vilest among them—and all for your sake, Alice! England comes to this contest with a seared conscience, and bloody hands, but all shall be forgotten for the present, when both opportunity and power offer to make her feel our vengeance, even in her vitals. I came on no such errand."

  "What, then, has led you blindly into snares, where all your boasted aid would avail you nothing? for, should I call aloud your name, even here, in the dark and dreary passages of this obscure edifice, the cry would echo through the country ere the morning, and a whole people would be found in arms to punish your audacity."

  "My name has been sounded, and that in no gentle strains," returned the Pilot, scornfully, "when a whole people have quailed at it, the craven cowardly wretches flying before the man they had wronged. I have lived to bear the banners of the new republic proudly in sight of the three kingdoms, when practised skill and equal arms have in vain struggled to pluck it down. Ay! Alice, the echoes of my guns are still roaring among your eastern hills, and would render my name more appalling than inviting to your sleeping yeomen."

  "Boast not of the momentary success that the arm of God has yielded to your unhallowed efforts," said Alice; "for a day of severe and heavy retribution must follow: nor flatter yourself with the idle hope that your name, terrible as ye have rendered it to the virtuous, is sufficient, of itself, to drive the thoughts of home, and country, and kin, from all who hear it.—Nay, I know not that even now, in listening to you, I am not forgetting a solemn duty, which would teach me to proclaim your presence, that the land might know that her unnatural son is a dangerous burden in her bosom."

  The Pilot turned quickly in his short walk; and, after reading her countenance, with the expression of one who felt his security, he said in gentler tones:

  "Would that be Alice Dunscombe? would that be like the mild, generous girl whom I knew in my youth? But I repeat, the threat would fail to intimidate, even if you were capable of executing it. I have said that it is only to make the signal, to draw around me a force sufficient to scatter these dogs of soldiers to the four winds of heaven."

  "Have you calculated your power justly, John?" said Alice, unconsciously betraying her deep interest in his safety. "Have you reckoned the probability of Mr. Dillon's arriving, accompanied by an armed band of horsemen, with the morning's sun? for it's no secret in the abbey that he is gone in quest of such assistance."

  "Dillon!" exclaimed the Pilot, starting; "who is he? and on what suspicion does he seek this addition to your guard?"

  "Nay, John, look not at me, as if you would know the secrets of my heart. It was not I who prompted him to such a step; you cannot for a moment think that I would betray you! But too surely he has gone; and, as the night wears rapidly away, you should be using the hour of grace to effect our own security."

  "Fear not for me, Alice," returned the Pilot proudly, while a faint smile struggled around his compressed lip: "and yet I like not this movement either. How call you his name? Dillon! is he a minion of King George?"

  "He is, John, what you are not, a loyal subject of his sovereign lord the king; and, though a native of the revolted colonies, he has preserved his virtue uncontaminated amid the corruptions and temptations of the times."

  "An American! and disloyal to the liberties of the human race! By Heaven, he had better not cross me; for if my arm reach him, it shall hold him forth as a spectacle of treason to the world."

  "And has not the world enough of such a spectacle in yourself? Are ye not, even now, breathing your native air, though lurking through the mists of the island, with desperate intent against its peace and happiness?"

  A dark and fierce expression of angry resentment flashed from the eyes of the Pilot, and even his iron frame seemed to shake with emotion, as he answered:

  "Call you his dastardly and selfish treason, aiming, as it does, to aggrandize a few, at the expense of millions, a parallel case to the generous ardor that impels a man to fight in the defence of sacred liberty? I might tell you that I am armed in the common cause of my fellow-subjects and countrymen; that though an ocean divided us in distance, yet are we a people of the same blood, and children of the same parents, and that the hand which oppresses one inflicts an injury on the other. But I disdain all such narrow apologies. I was born on this orb, and I claim to be a citizen of it. A man with a soul not to be limited by the arbitrary boundaries of tyrants and hirelings, but one who has the right as well as the inclination to grapple with oppression, in whose name so ever it is exercised, or in whatever hollow and specious shape it founds its claim to abuse our race."

  "Ah! John, John, though this may sound like reason to rebellious ears, to mine it seemeth only as the ravings of insanity. It is in vain ye build up your new and disorganizing systems of rule, or rather misrule, which are opposed to all that the world has ever yet done, or ever will see done in peace and happiness. What avail your subtleties and false reasonings against the heart? It is the heart which tells us where our home is, and how to love it."

  "You talk like a weak and prejudiced woman, Alice," said the Pilot, more composedly; "and one who would shackle nations with the ties that bind the young and feeble of your own sex together."

  "And by what holier or better bond can they be united?" said Alice. "Are not the relations of domestic life of God's establishing, and have not the nations grown from families, as branches spread from the stem, till the tree overshadows the land? 'Tis an ancient and sacred tie that binds man to his nation; neither can it be severed without infamy."

  The Pilot smiled disdainfully, and throwing open the rough exterior of his dress, he drew forth, in succession, several articles, while a glowing pride lighted his countenance, as he offered them singly to her notice.

  "See, Alice!" he said, "call you this infamy! This broad sheet of parchment is stamped with a seal of no mean importance, and it bears the royal name of the princely Louis also! And view this cross! decorated as it is with jewels, the gift of the same illustrious hand; it is not apt to be given to the children of infamy, neither is it wise or decorous to stigmatize a man who has not been thought unworthy to consort with princes and nobles by the opprobrious name of the 'Scotch Pirate.'"

  "And have
ye not earned the title, John, by ruthless deeds and bitter animosity? I could kiss the baubles ye show me, if they were a thousand times less splendid, had they been laid upon your breast by the hands of your lawful prince; but now they appear to my eyes as indelible blots upon your attainted name. As for your associates, I have heard of them; and it seemeth that a queen might be better employed than encouraging by her smiles the disloyal subjects of other monarchs, though even her enemies. God only knows when His pleasure may suffer a spirit of disaffection to rise up among the people of her own nation, and then the thought that she has encouraged rebellion may prove both bitter and unwelcome."

  "That the royal and lovely Antoinette has deigned to repay my services with a small portion of her gracious approbation is not among the least of my boasts," returned the Pilot, in affected humility, while secret pride was manifested even in his lofty attitude. "But venture not a syllable in her dispraise, for you know not whom you censure. She is less distinguished by her illustrious birth and elevated station, than by her virtues and loveliness. She lives the first of her sex in Europe —the daughter of an emperor, the consort of the most powerful king, and the smiling and beloved patroness of a nation who worship at her feet. Her life is above all reproach, as it is above all earthly punishment, were she so lost as to merit it; and it has been the will of Providence to place her far beyond the reach of all human misfortunes."

  "Has it placed her above human errors, John? Punishment is the natural and inevitable consequence of sin; and unless she can say more than has ever fallen to the lot of humanity to say truly, she may yet be made to feel the chastening arm of One, to whose eyes all her pageantry and power are as vacant as the air she breathes—so insignificant must it seem when compared to his own just rule! But if you vaunt that you have been permitted to kiss the hem of the robes of the French queen, and have been the companion of high-born and flaunting ladies, clad in their richest array, can ye yet say to yourself, that amid them all ye have found one whose tongue has been bold to tell you the truth, or whose heart has sincerely joined in her false professions?"