Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  “Philpotts, can you see how we are heading?”

  “No, faith, Master Huntoon, no more than if I were blindfold. The wind is dead ahead now; but whether it hath shifted or the boat hath run off its course, I know not.”

  “Hearken!” cried Peggy, putting her hand to her ear. “Did ye hear no noise? Methought I caught a sound as of a horn or a distant bell. Perchance ’twas the church bell ringing for noonday prayers. I heard them telling of some saint’s day celebrated to-day.”

  All the men stood listening. Neville rose and running along the deck climbed to the bowsprit to listen again. Suddenly he cried out at the top of his voice, “Boat ahoy! Ahoy there!”

  Too late! The three huddled together in the stern were aware of a large vessel looming up and up above them, rising with the rising wave, and then lunging forward full upon The Lady Betty. Huntoon clasped Peggy in his arms as though he could shield her thus from the inevitable crash. Philpotts dropped the helm and rushed forward to drag back Neville. Again too late. The two boats met with a shock.

  By good luck when Philpotts dropped the helm, The Lady Betty had veered away from the larger vessel, so that the packet’s bowsprit, having crashed against her, bumped along against the side, knocking away rail and stanchion, and staving a hole in her, deep and dangerous but not instantly fatal. For one instant all drew a breath of relief at the deadly peril passed. Then, to their dismay, they heard Philpotts crying out, “He’s overboard! The bowsprit hit him!”

  “Overboard!” cried Peggy; “but he is a famous swimmer, surely he can reach the boat.”

  Even as she spoke, something white rose to the surface and sank again, and Peggy knew it for Christopher’s face with death in it, and but for Romney’s strong arm around her, she, too, would have thrown herself into that cold grave.

  “Let me go to him!” she shrieked aloud in her anguish of soul. “O Kit! Dead! Dead!”

  The words seemed to fall dully on the surrounding wall of fog. No sound; not even an echo answered. Away to the right a single sail flitted ghostlike, showing no hull to support it. On the left close at hand loomed the packet which had wrought so much harm.

  Save for these the waters were bare of life, and the girl in the ketch sat looking with frozen gaze, as if she had seen the Gorgon’s head, at that spot unmoved now by so much as a ripple, that silent grave which had opened and closed again over a life precious to her beyond aught else that earth held.

  As she gazed, she was seized by a sudden madness, following hard upon the stony stillness.

  “I will go! I will!” she screamed, struggling with Romney’s grasp, which held like steel. She was as powerless in that clasp as a bird in a gauntleted hand.

  Of her sense of powerlessness a new emotion was born, a nameless quivering thing that nestled in the heart of her desolation and in that moment of deepest despair struck a peace.

  CHAPTER XV. DIGITUS DEI

  MUCH ADO THERE was at St. Gabriel’s when it was found that the door of the tobacco-house stood open, and the prisoner was gone. All the more exasperating was it when it proved that there was no one to be blamed or held responsible, because the jailor was gone too.

  Each member of the household took the news of the escape differently.

  Cecil jumped for joy. Father White betook himself to solitude and prayer in his oratory. Mary Brent made few comments, but went about with her mouth pursed up as though she feared to relax the muscles lest they betray her into rash words. Her light lashes too were cast down and her eyes carefully discharged of all expression.

  Such silence has more power to irritate than reproaches or curses.

  Elinor felt this irritation so keenly that she could not stay in the house with her cousin, but took refuge in the woods beneath the calm sky, in that silence of Nature which holds only balm for wounded hearts.

  Brent too thought it well to give his sister a wide berth. His own irritation found vent in an honest volley of oaths directed impartially at himself and each member of the household except perhaps Ralph Ingle, to whom he turned for that comfort which a strong and autocratic nature finds in a pliant one. With such a man as Brent, to concur is to conquer.

  Ingle in return gave him sympathy and silence. Silences differ as widely as speech, and Ingle’s silence was no more like that of Mary Brent than the calm of a sunny day is like the electric stillness preceding storm. Ingle’s silence was full of delicate suggestions of assent, of a sympathy too subtle to be put into words, of comradeship and support to that self-esteem which just now felt itself sadly shaken.

  No wonder his company was desired! We succeed with others as we comprehend them. We value others as they comprehend us.

  Giles Brent was a man of action, and lost no time in locking and double barring the stable door after the horse was stolen.

  Two messengers he despatched to St. Mary’s to learn, if they could, whether any news had reached the town of Neville’s escape. The other available men he divided into parties of four, and sent them to scour the woods in all directions. Then, taking Ralph Ingle with him, he buckled on his sword, lifted two guns from the rack in the hall, and marched grimly down the little path to the wharf.

  “You have a keen eye, Ingle, and are a mariner born and bred. Therefore have I brought you with me, for it seems far likelier that Neville has made his escape by sea than by land. I will take the helm, and do you go before the mast and keep a sharp lookout for any small boat, especially one that may seem to hug the wooded points at the mouth of the river.”

  Ingle ventured a few words by way of conversation, but found his companion in a taciturn mood and not to be drawn into conversation. Both men scanned every headland and inlet till their eyes ached, but with no success, till at length Ingle called out, —

  “There’s a ship yonder, — a packet, I should say, from the size and build of her.”

  “Ay, for a guess ’tis Prescott’s. I ordered him from St. Mary’s yesterday for being too much hand in glove with that scapegrace brother of thine.”

  A pained look crossed Ralph Ingle’s face.

  “Forgive me!” said Brent, who had a soft heart under a quick temper. “Whatever may be said of your brother, I put trust in you, and here’s my hand on ‘t.”

  Ingle did not note the outstretched hand, for his eyes were fixed on something beyond the ship, a smaller boat making for St. Mary’s.

  “Look!” he said, “to the right there, to the southward of Pine Point! Damnation, how the fog is shutting down!”

  Even as he spoke a film gathered between him and the two boats, — a film deepening into a thick veil and that into an impenetrable, impalpable wall of fog.

  Brent held his boat straight on her course. On, on, till once again he caught the outline of the packet looming close at hand. Then from the other side he heard a voice which he recognized as Neville’s shouting “Boat ahoy!” Then a crash as if a sea monster had both boats and were grinding them between his teeth. A rebound, and then another crash, and above the noise the voice of Philpotts crying, “My God! He’s gone!” and a woman’s voice sobbing, “O Kit! Dead! Dead!”

  “Hard alee!” shouted Ingle to Brent. “Hard alee! or we shall be in the coil with the rest;” and running aft he threw his whole weight on the tiller just in time to shave the packet. They swept into open water, and the wind bore them away till once more the two boats looked like gray phantoms against the grayer sky.

  “Well done, Ingle! But for your quickness we should have been snarled up with the other boats. Next time we must come to them with more caution.”

  “Why take the risk again? Death has been before us in claiming our prisoner.”

  “Ay, but his jailor and the accomplices are yet to be reckoned with if Maryland justice is not to become a byword and a hissing.”

  “Governor Brent,” Ingle spoke in slow, reluctant tones, “did you chance to read the name of the larger packet as we passed?”

  “Nay, I was too much occupied with saving the skin of my own boat
. Did you?”

  “I did.”

  “And the name—”

  “Was The Reformation.”

  “Ah!”

  “Yes, and I saw Dick aboard her striding up and down the deck in a fury, swearing like the cutthroat he is.”

  “Yet shall he not hinder me from the performance of my duty. No man shall say that Giles Brent is a coward.”

  “No fear that any man will ever say that. Let none have cause to say that the Lieutenant-General, Admiral, Chancellor, Keeper of the Great Seal, Chief Captain, Magistrate, and Commander of the Province forgot the sacredness of trust involved in all these offices and ran risks. Do not drive me to say what risks; but believe me when I say that I know my brother well, and I know he would stop at nothing, — even to the carrying off of an officer of the King. He is mad, fairly mad, over his treatment at St. Mary’s yonder.”

  Brent frowned, shook his head, and hesitated as if uncertain what course to pursue, then he gave the helm to Ingle entirely, saying, —

  “You are right. It is hard to draw the line betwixt cowardice and caution; but in Calvert’s absence I have no right to run risks.”

  Still in the distance hovered the two phantom ships gray against the universal grayness, yet dimly discernible, the smaller boat settling lower and lower like some despairing animal feeling death near at hand yet struggling to the last.

  “It is the end,” said Ralph Ingle. “The man is drowned, and his boat is sunk. Whatever he has done, he has made the fullest atonement man can make.”

  “Yes,” said Brent, uncovering his head. “I think that we have seen the end of this unhappy business. A life has been given for a life. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

  Ralph Ingle bowed his head as one too much moved for words.

  Silently they drifted shoreward and still silently clewed up the sail and tied the boat to the dock. Once more Brent held out his hand. “You have proved yourself a tried and trusty comrade this day, and if you have aught to ask of me, be sure I stand ready to grant it.”

  “Nay, nay,” said Ralph, with his frank smile, “‘twere poor comradeship to begin with asking of favors; besides, there is naught in your gift that I crave unless — unless—”

  “Out with it, man!”

  “Well, then, your influence with your kinswoman, Mistress Elinor Calvert.”

  Brent started.

  “I never dreamed of this,” he said.

  “Nor I, on my faith, till I was so deep there was no turning back. She is one of those women that to love once is to love always. I would do anything for her, — sacrifice my life, nay, my soul itself, — but she is cold as the ice floating in yonder river.”

  Giles Brent’s face grew set and stern.

  “I can well believe it, for I fear ’tis not alone that she loves you not; but that her heart has been given to another and clings but the closer, the unworthier she finds him.”

  “Then it was Neville. I suspected as much. But now, surely now that he is dead, there may be a chance for me.”

  “My friend, you little know Elinor Calvert. She has made this murderer into a saint, and she will burn candles to his memory and say masses for his soul while she lives.”

  “Hush! is this not she coming down the path?”

  “Ay, go you round through the underbrush and leave me to tell her.”

  So advised, Ingle took a short cut through the woods, and Brent, walking on alone, met Elinor face to face.

  “Good morrow, Cousin!”

  “Would it were a good morrow, Giles! But that can scarce be till we are good ourselves and credulous of good in others.”

  “I have no time to play with words. I am come from stern scenes that wring men’s souls.”

  Elinor turned pale.

  “Hast thou seen him?”

  “By him signifying Christopher Neville, I doubt not. Now I might put thee off by saying I have not seen him, as in a sense I have not; yet I have been near him and in a way to know his fate, which, not to delay ill news in the telling, is death by drowning.”

  Elinor answered not a word. She grew deadly white, bowed her head, and turning about began to walk toward the house.

  Brent would not have been surprised to see her swoon at his feet, but this unnatural calmness terrified him.

  “Whither art thou bound?” he asked, catching up with her.

  “To the manor-house — there to say a prayer for the soul of him that’s gone, then to pack my belongings and Cecil’s.”

  “To pack?”

  “Ay, and to make ready for our departure to St. Mary’s. There we will make our home till we can betake ourselves to Cecil Manor. The house of the Brents can never again be shelter for me or mine.”

  “Elinor! Have I deserved this?”

  “Thou hast been a kind kinsman to me, Giles, and for the past I thank thee; but thou art a hard man, and my heart is bitter against thee for the part thou hast played in driving an innocent man to his death.”

  “I drive the poltroon!” muttered Brent. “Was he not drowned in a cowardly attempt to escape from a trial he dared not face?”

  “No!” flamed Elinor.

  “Thou dost speak as one who knows. Perhaps thou hast information. How canst thou talk so bold?”

  “I talk so bold because I do know — alas! none better. I — I tempted him — the other night — I promised him aid and begged him to escape, and he would not. He scorned the cowardice and vowed he would stand his trial and abide by the result.”

  “Some other must have had more influence with him, then, for there was a woman’s voice in the boat when he sank.”

  “Bless her!” cried Elinor, “whoever she was, that did plan his safety — but hold. I know who it was, — his sister Peggy, — who, as we thought, went back to St. Mary’s yesterday; whether he be taken with or against his will, she is with him. God has been kind to her, but she deserved it, for she was stanch and true. She has her deserts, and I had mine. ’Twas God’s truth she spoke when she told me I had been false, and vowed she never wished to see my face again. I know how she felt, for I feel it now toward thee. Ay, stand back, Giles, and hear my vow: Never again after this day will I hold converse with thee or remember that there is a bond of kinship between us till thou shalt kneel as I have knelt in contrition and shame for the part thou hast played.”

  “These are wild vows, Elinor, and will be repented when thou dost consider them. I would be well-nigh as glad as thou to see Christopher Neville acquitted of the charge of this terrible crime. To say truth, against all the evidence, against reason itself, I cherished faint hope that something might be unearthed even yet to show us that we had all been mistaken, but now that he hath skulked away under cover of darkness — why, ’tis the same as a confession.”

  “Ay, and for that reason he has never done it. Never — never — never! ’Tis not in his nature, not near so much as to have done the murder of which he stands accused. Giles, ’tis but a little while since thou didst urge my taking Christopher Neville for my tenant yonder at Cecil Manor; and why? Because, thou saidst, he was the boldest and the truest and the faithfullest man in Maryland. So he was and is. Thinkst thou a man’s soul is changed in a day or two days or a week? Fie! thou hast not enough knowledge of human nature to be ruler of a county, much less a commonwealth.”

  Brent drew his brows together impatiently.

  “’Tis all very well to rail like that, but it proves nothing. He is gone. That is a fact not to be gainsaid. What is it, then, but jail-breaking?”

  “Ay, but he may not have gone of his free will.”

  “A likely story. Who, then, hath taken him by force?”

  “How do I know? Some that have reason to profit by his accusation, yet fear to press the trial to the end. Perchance the fathers of St. Inigo’s.”

  Giles Brent was furious, all the more that the same possibility had been floating dimly in his own mind. He answered coldly, —

  “Since thou art so los
t to all sense of dignity and decency in the cause of thy lover as to accuse Holy Church herself rather than admit what one who runs may read, that he hath done a dastardly deed and then hath run away to escape the consequences, why, I will waste neither argument nor entreaty, but when the day comes that all is made clear, thou wilt have a heavy account to settle.”

  “I know not how it may be in the future of this world, Giles; but when the day comes that the secrets of all hearts are laid open, I feel sure as that I stand here that Christopher Neville will have naught to fear. For myself my shame will be that I loved not too much, but too little. To love cautiously is not to love at all. For thee, thy punishment — the hardest, I believe, for a just man — shall be to see too late the wrong thou hast done; the friendship lightest held where it should have been strongest, the faith withheld where the hand should have been outstretched in aid, the life sacrificed that should have been a bulwark to the state, — all this will be laid at thy door—”

  Then, — with a sudden break,— “God forgive me! What a hypocrite I am! My sin is heavier than thine. I knew him, I loved him, and I failed him. Death holds no bitterness like this.”

  Without another word she turned and left him.

  Brent fell back, awed by the force of her passion, and stood still watching her as she swept on, a tall vision of Nemesis, vague and gray in the mist that clung about the long folds of her cloak. On she walked, slowly at first, then faster and faster till she was almost running. At the third bend of the path a man slipped out from behind the twisted pine, and fell in with her step so naturally that she was scarcely conscious of his companionship.

  There was a softness in Ralph Ingle’s silence, a soothing quality in his sympathy that made itself felt. Elinor’s gait slowed, and she removed the hands that had been pressed to her temples, as if to quiet the intolerable throbbing pain.