Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  The tingling air, the slant sunshine, and the sense of unknown adventure awaiting him raised Neville’s spirits, so that as a turn of the path brought the ketch in sight he found himself humming the refrain of a song, — a song he had first heard rippling from the lips of Elinor Calvert, oh, how many years ago, among the green fields of Somerset, —

  “Greensleeves was all my joy,

  Greensleeves was my delight,

  Greensleeves was my heart of gold,

  Who but Lady Greensleeves?”

  The words called up a vision of Elinor as he had seen her at eighteen tripping along the forest paths of the Somerset woods, her robe as green as Maid Marian’s and her floating sleeves catching ever and anon on bush or briar, — a blessed chance which gave her lover opportunity to bend over it and touch it with his lips whilst disentangling it slowly — oh, so slowly! And again he saw her in a dress of a similar fashion there in the hall of St. Gabriel’s, and again she smiled upon him, and those warm slender fingers rested in his, and those perfect eyes unveiled their tender depths before his gaze. To have come so near and then to have lost — oh, it was unbearable! — and he kicked viciously at the innocent root of a tree in his path.

  As the last words left his lips, his mood sank to despair again.

  “Look alive there, sir! Jump aboard, Philpotts, and loosen that forward sheet! Sir Christopher, step on that board and you’ll reach the stern easy! That’s your seat by the helm.”

  “You are shivering,” said the younger man, who had scarcely spoken till now. “Take my cloak.”

  “No, no,” reproved his elder, “not too much softness to the Governor’s prisoner! He’ll do very well for a while yet with his jerkin and doublet. Come on! we need your help there forward.”

  “Let me thank you for the intention at least before you go,” said Neville, ignoring the churlish speech of the older man and addressing himself to the one in purple. “A kind word may carry more warmth than a purple cloak.” Then he sank back, gazing out over the water, while the sails were raised and the ropes cast off from the wharf, which slowly receded as the bright sunrise-tinted water slipped along the keel, and the brisk little waves slapped the side of the ketch as if daring her to a game of tag.

  They were out in the river now. The Potomac spread far to the southward as far as eye could reach, with vague hints of low hills so near the hue of the water that one could scarce tell where water ended and land began, or where the land again slipped into the misty blueness of the western sky.

  Neville strained his eyes to catch sight of a particular point as they passed it, — a point rising a little from the water and crowned with a thick growth of primeval forest. There lay Robin Hood’s Barn, and the wide acres of Cecil’s Manor stretched peacefully along the river just where it widened into the bay.

  There is a peculiar irony in watching in our unhappiness the scenes associated with hours of hope and joy. Neville smiled bitterly as he contrasted what might have been with what was. Then he reproached himself for a coward and a faint heart that was ready to yield to the first buffet of Fate. He resolved to turn his mind from gloomy thoughts and find comfort in the cheerfulness around him.

  The ketch was running free with all sails spread and looked like a big white bird skimming the surface. It was a sight to cheer the heart of the most downcast, but more cheering still was the smell of breakfast a-cooking in the cabin, and right willingly did Neville respond to the call and seat himself at the rude board in the tiny cabin, which, rude as it was, proved a welcome shelter from the fresh wind blowing outside.

  “I reckon,” he said, looking with a smile at his captors, “that I am to be allowed the freedom of my arms while eating unless ye do intend to feed me with a pap spoon like an infant.”

  “All in good time, Sir Christopher.” It seemed to be always the tall man who spoke.

  “Curse his ready tongue! Why will he never give the other fellow a chance?” thought Neville, but held his peace while the spokesman continued, —

  “Before we remove the rope we want your oath to two things. First, that you will make no effort to escape. Second, that you will cheerfully obey our orders and those, whatever they may be, in this sealed paper.”

  “A largish contract; but for the first I can well afford to promise, since having put aside the chance of escape when ’twas easy, I am not like to undertake it now ’tis become well-nigh impossible. I’m neither whale nor Jonah that I should set out to swim a matter of a dozen miles to land; and as for running away, I am bound to see this trial to a finish and try what Maryland law for Protestants is.”

  Here Philpotts was guilty of the indiscretion of sighing. Neville, fearing he would show himself too much the prisoner’s friend for his own good, turned upon him with simulated fierceness.

  “Sirrah, I will have none of your officious sighing as if I were already as good as a dead man. Keep your breath to cool your porridge. When I want it I’ll ask for it.

  “Now,” turning again to his interlocutor, “as for the second clause, you ask a trifle too much. As much of your will as I must obey I shall, and with three against one to enforce it that share seems likely to be well-nigh the whole; but as to the cheerfulness with which I meet it, that must needs depend on God and my own mind. But make haste ere those cakes be cold to unbind me and let me have at them!”

  “Are you satisfied with the prisoner’s promise?”

  The other two men nodded, and Philpotts went on deck again. The stripling began in a trice to undo the ropes which bound Neville, whereupon he fell to and made as hearty a breakfast as ever he laid in on firm land with high hopes and bright prospects.

  When they were come out of the cabin again, he noticed that the boat had changed her course and was running with a beam wind.

  “Why, how’s this?” he asked of Philpotts as he took his seat once more by the stern. “Surely this ketch is not laying her course for St. Mary’s.”

  “Do not ask me, sir! I’m not the captain of this infernal ketch. In truth, I’m no sailor at all, and would be right glad if I could be set ashore this minute.”

  Neville could have laughed as he saw the green and yellow melancholy that too surely tells the story of coming sea-sickness, but pity ruled and he said sympathetically, “Go you below, and I’ll keep the helm till you have braced your insides with some hot meat and drink.”

  “How’s this?” cried the tall man, coming on deck just as Neville reached for the tiller. “Mutiny already! Troth, I have a pair of irons below, and you shall be clapped in them if I see you move toward the tiller again. Philpotts, give me the helm and go below!”

  Neville shrugged his shoulders, but refrained from speech. He withdrew his outstretched hand, pulled his hat over his eyes, and sat gazing over the sail at the blue distance which seemed of a sudden peopled with all the friends of a lifetime. He could see his father and mother seated by the great stone fireplace at Frome Hall, the Irish setter with his head on his master’s knee. Yes, and there in her own little chair, the tiny Peggy, with rebellious curls shaken back every now and again from the bright eyes beneath them, and then the quick lighting up of the face, the leaning forward of the little figure as Christopher himself entered the room with his game-bag over his shoulder, the eager peep into the bag, and the jumping up and down with delight as she counted the tale of the day’s success.

  Perhaps he had scarcely realized in those days how much that little sister’s adoring love had meant to him. But now it all came back with a swift stab. Oh, to take her in his arms once more, to tell her how he felt to the heart’s core her loyalty and devotion! Why do these impulses so often come too late to all of us?

  As Neville withdrew his gaze from the water to the deck, the hallucination of familiar figures followed him. There close at his elbow was the dear round face with its roguish dimples and mischievous eyes, not cast down and swollen with crying as he had seen them last, but full of life and light, and her dear voice was murmuring in his ear, —
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br />   “Kit, my darling brother, I am here. Are you glad?”

  Neville brushed his arm across his eyes: the figure was too real. It savored of madness, but it would not move. When he opened his eyes again, there it stood, more solid than ever, but now the tears were rising in the eyes, and the hands were stretched out softly toward him.

  “Where am I? What does it mean?” Christopher murmured.

  “It means,” said the senior escort, removing his hat, and revealing the dark curls of Romney Huntoon, “that we have decided upon a change of venue for your case, and have arranged to remove the jurisdiction to Romney Hall, York County, Virginia.”

  “Bless my soul!” cried Philpotts, from the companionway; “he’s told him, the mean devil, and me not there to see the fun — me, that’s beaten any play actor in the old country at deceiving tricks. Sir Christopher, the Captain and crew of the ketch Lady Betty are at your service, and it’s no more of prison bars we’ll hear after we touch Protestant Virginia.”

  “Peggy, Peggy, what have you done?” exclaimed her brother, bending over her brown head as it lay on his breast, as she knelt close beside him.

  “Done? We have saved you from prison, to be sure. He and I and good Master Philpotts, that we thought to outwit and found full ready to help us. And this is Master Huntoon’s boat all ready loaded for Romney. He brought it round yesterday from St. Mary’s. He’s rather clever, that Master Huntoon, though he keeps his wits mostly for great occasions.”

  “Vastly clever of you all three, and vastly dull of me to be your dupe! I thank you all heartily; and now will you please put your helm about, and head the ketch for St. Mary’s with what speed you may?”

  “Christopher!” exclaimed Peggy, in such a heart-broken voice that her brother clasped her closer than ever as he said, —

  “Indeed, indeed, I appreciate what you have all done, and risked for me, but I cannot run away.”

  “Then you care nothing for me compared with your flimsy honor.”

  “Nay, ’tis partly that I care so much for you that I must have a care of this flimsy honor, which is yours as well as mine. Philpotts, will you kindly put about that helm?”

  Philpotts made a motion to obey; but Huntoon stopped him with a movement of his hand.

  “Listen, Sir Christopher, I pray you,” he said. “Of course I am a younger man, and you may resent my counselling you; but remember, I love your sister, and her honor and yours are no less dear to me than to you. I see the situation more clearly as a looker-on, and this is how it looks to me. There is no hope here and now of a fair trial. The Catholics are hot for the punishment of the murderer of a priest, and Calvert and Brent have already angered them by the leniency they have shown to Protestants. Give the matter but time to cool, and make sure of a fair hearing. That is all I ask.”

  Neville sat silent with his head bowed on his hands for an instant, then he spoke low but firmly, —

  “Go! I must have time to think. Go you all below and give me the helm! When I have made up my mind, I will summon you, and my decision must stand. You, Huntoon, must give me back the oath I swore to obey you. This matter touches none so close as me, and in my hands it must be left. Go!”

  Slowly and dejectedly the three conspirators crept into the cabin. There Romney and Peggy sat silent and expectant for what seemed an eternity. Ropes creaked, sails flapped on deck. Who could say what was passing? At length they heard a cheerful call of “All hands on deck!”

  They rushed up the companionway and saw Christopher standing at the helm, his hair blown back and his hand grasping the helm, the tiller pushed far to port, and the ketch standing for St. Mary’s.

  CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH FATE TAKES THE HELM

  AS THE THREE conspirators emerged from the companionway one after another, they made a forlorn picture of disappointment, so chapfallen were the faces of all. Philpotts stood still, his shaggy eyebrows drawn into a frown, and under them a pair of eyes that threatened resistance. ’Twas as if Sancho Panza had come to the end of his patience with Don Quixote, and thought it time that common-sense took control for the good of all concerned.

  Romney twisted his cap and looked at Peggy, who bit her lips to keep back the tears which, in spite of her will, were gathering in her eyes, and standing large on the fringe of her lashes.

  As Christopher watched her, he felt his courage ebbing so fast that he must either yield or smile. He chose the latter.

  “Troth,” cried he, “’tis as though you were condemned criminals and I the judge. For having connived at the escape of a prisoner, I do sentence you to a happy life forever after, but in the present case to be balked of your good intent. Wherefore I am bound for St. Mary’s, there to surrender myself to Sheriff Ellyson; but ’tis no part of my plan to give you up too. So if you are minded to risk the trip across the bay without yonder shallop bobbing along behind us like an empty cork, I’ll e’en borrow it, when we are within a mile of the town and then—” here he paused and swallowed hard for a minute, “then, tried friends and true, we’ll say good-bye for a while and you must continue on your way.”

  “Let them go, then, since thou wilt have it so, and we will make our way safe to St. Mary’s, thou and I.”

  It was Peggy who spoke, coming close to her brother and looking up at him with unwavering love in her eyes.

  “Nay, nay, little sister,” said Christopher, gathering her soft hand into his. “That will not content me neither. Thou art well-nigh a part of myself, and it will content me much, whate’er betides, to feel that one part at least is happy. I will not have thee go back where thou must be made wretched by hearing hard words of thy brother, and be looked down upon by all. Huntoon, thou hast in right manful fashion declared thy love for my sister Margaret here. I venture not to give her answer. That must thou win from her thyself, and perchance ’tis not yet ready for the giving; but I trust her in thy keeping. Take her back to thy mother! She will, I know, receive her tenderly, for I am familiar with the repute of Mistress Huntoon’s hospitality.”

  Huntoon came swiftly forward and grasped Neville’s other hand, which released its hold on the tiller as Philpotts took the helm. Tears stood in the lad’s eyes.

  “Be sure,” he said, “that your sister shall be treated with that love and reverence which are her due, nor shall she be hurried to any decision she might after regret. To my mother she will be dear as a daughter of her own.”

  Men are prone to believe in a family welcome to their loves as warm as their own. It does not always fall out according to expectation, but Romney Huntoon knew his mother’s heart, which was soft to a folly, especially to young and unhappy lovers; she herself having suffered much, ’twas said, in her youth.

  “’Tis well,” said Neville, clasping Huntoon’s hand on his right almost as firmly as he held his sister’s on the other side. “Thou art a man after my own heart; and if thou dost win this little sister of mine, be tender, be gentle to her whimsies, of which she hath a full assortment; but keep the whip hand, my friend, keep the whip hand! And now one more charge I pray thee accept for my sake. This good Master Philpotts, — he is not made for a roving life, as his sea-sickness but now did bear witness, yet hath he without a murmur left farm and implements and all means of earning a livelihood to help me out of this hard place.”

  “Yes, and if thou wert a wiser man, thou wouldst stay helped and not go throwing thyself back into the pit from which we ha’ digged you.”

  “Have thy fling, good friend Philpotts! Having never laid claim to wisdom, I am not over-sensitive to the charge of lacking it; but what I would say to Master Huntoon was this, that if my lands at home in England be not confiscate, I do intend them as a dowry for my sister. I would counsel that they be sold and land taken up in Virginia, where Philpotts may have a farm and implements as many as he left and whatsoever more is needed.”

  Philpotts tried to speak, but could not. The tears choked him. He gulped and bent over the tiller. Peggy, too, was crying hard, and Huntoon sat with stead
y gaze fixed upon Christopher.

  The silence that fell upon the little group continued long. So much must be said if that silence were once broken! So bowed down were their hearts that it seemed quite natural that the sunshine should fade out of the sky and a universal grayness slowly spread itself over the sea.

  Philpotts was first to speak. “Look yonder, Captain!” he said, pointing Huntoon to the eastward; “is that yonder Watkins Point or a bank of fog?”

  “That’s the Point. No, it cannot be the Point either,— ’tis too far south for that; besides, it looms as we look. It is drawing nearer, and the fogs do drift in with marvellous quickness in these waters. Give me the helm!”

  “’Tis unlucky,” murmured Neville, “for ’tis not the easiest thing in the world in the brightest weather to make one’s way past all these headlands, they are so much alike. What’s that craft yonder by the wooded point?”

  Huntoon made a glass of his two hands. “She hath the look of a packet sloop outward bound, somewhat heavy laden too, for she lies low in the water and goes slowly with a fair wind.”

  “How far away is she?”

  “A matter of a mile, I should say.”

  “Ay,” put in Philpotts, “and she hath seen the fog too, and is setting all sail to make what way she can before it strikes her.”

  The air grew colder as the sky clouded, and Huntoon brought Peggy’s red cape from below and wrapped it close about her. She thanked him with a smile that he thought the sweetest and the saddest thing he had ever seen.

  The fog was closing in on them now, and the wind dropped before it. The rail dripped with the chill dampness, and the sails flapped heavily as they swung over the deck whenever the vessel changed her course.

  “Peggy dear, wilt thou not go below and keep warm?” said Christopher’s voice.

  “Nay, let me stay by thee whilst I can; and, Kit, if I obey thee in this, mind, ’tis only that I may help thee more. Romney — Master Huntoon — hath friends in the colony who are sure to sift this matter to the last. And it will go hard but we find some way to bring thee aid and comfort yet.”