Cardigan

I, with Mount and the Weasel, hung to their left flank till two o'clock, when, about half a mile from Lexington Meeting-house, we heard cannon, and understood that the relief troops from Boston had come up.

Then, knowing that there were guns enough and to spare without ours, we shouldered our hot rifles and trudged back to "Buckman's Tavern," through the dust, behind a straw-covered wain which was driving slowly under the heat of an almost vertical sun.

Mount, parched with thirst, hailed the driver of the wain, asking him if he carried cider.

"Only a wounded man," he said, "most dead o' the red dragoons."

I stepped to the slowly moving wagon and looked over the tail-board down into the straw.

"Shemuel!" I cried.

"Shemuel!" roared Mount.

The little Jew opened his sick eyes under his bandage. The Weasel climbed nimbly over the tail-board and settled down beside the wounded man, taking his blood-smeared hand.

"Shemuel! Shemuel! We saw them split your head!" stammered Mount, in his astonishment and joy.

"Under my hat I did haff a capful of shillings," replied Shemuel, weakly; "I – I go back – two days' time to find me my money by dot Lechemere swamp – eh, Jack?"

"God bless you, old nosey!" cried Mount; "we'll get your money, lad! Won't we, Cardigan?"

The little Jew turned his heavy eyes on me.

"You haff found Miss Warren?" he gasped. "Ach, so iss all well. I go back – two days' time – find me my money." He smiled and closed his eyes.

So we re-entered Lexington, Jack Mount, the Weasel, Saul Shemuel, and I; and on the tavern steps Silver Heels stood, her tired, colourless face lighted up, her outstretched hands falling on my shoulders; and I to take her in my arms, for she had fallen a-weeping. Above us the splendid blue of the sky spread its eternal tent, our only shelter, our only home on the long trail through the world; our lamp was the sun, our fireplace a continent, and the four winds our walls, and our estates were bounded by two oceans, washing the shores of a land where the free, at last, might dwell.

In the south the thunder of the British cannon muttered, distant and more distant; the storm had passed.

Had the storm passed? The smoke hung in the north where Concord town was burning, yet around us birds sang.

And now came Jack Mount, riding postilion on the horses which drew the post-chaise; behind him trotted the Weasel, leading out Warlock. Silver Heels saw them and stood up, smiling through her tears.

"Truly, we stayed and did our duty, did we not, dear heart?"

"With your help, sweet."

"And deserted not our own!"

"Yours the praise, dear soul."

"And did face our enemies like true people all; is it not so, Michael?"

"It is so."

"Then let us go, my husband. I am sick for my own land, and for the happiness to come."

"Northward we journey, little sweetheart."

"To the blue hills and the sweet-fern?"

"Ay, home."

And so we started for the north, out of the bloody village where our liberty was born at the first rifle-shot, out of the sound of the British cannon, out of the land of the salt sea, back to the inland winds and the incense of our own dear forests, and the music of sweet waters tumbling where the white pines sing eternally.

I rode Warlock beside the chaise; Shemuel lay within; Silver Heels sat beside the poor, hurt creature, easing his fevered head; but her eyes ever returned to me, and the colour came and went in her face as our eyes spoke in silence.

"Good-bye," said Foxcroft, huskily.

Mount squared himself in his saddle; the Weasel, rifle on thigh, set his horse's head north.

Slowly the cavalcade moved on; the robins sang on every tree; far to the southward the thunder of the British cannon rolled and re-echoed along the purple hills; and over all God's golden light was falling on life, and love, and death.

CHAPTER XXIX

We entered Albany on the 22d of April; the town had heard the news from Lexington ere we sighted the Albany hills, the express having passed us as we crossed the New York line, tearing along the river-bank at a breakneck gallop.

So, when we rode into Albany, the stolid, pippin-cheeked Dutchmen had later news than had we, and I learned then, for the first time, how my Lord Percy's troops had been hurled headlong through Cambridge Farms into Charlestown, where they lay like panting, slavering, senseless beasts under the cannon of the Somerset and Asia. And all Massachusetts sat watching them, gun in hand.

We lay at the house of Peter Weaver, my lawyer, Silver Heels and I; Jack Mount and Cade Renard lay at the "Half Moon," where poor Shemuel could procure medicine and such medical attendance as he so sorely stood in need of.

With Peter Weaver I prepared to arrange my affairs as best I might, it being impossible for me to undertake a voyage to Ireland at this time, though my succession to the title and estates of my late uncle, Sir Terence, made it most necessary.

For the first time in my life I now became passably acquainted with my own affairs, though when we came to figure in pounds, shillings, and pence, I yawned, yet made pretence of a wisdom in mathematics which, God knows, is not in me.

Silver Heels, her round chin on my shoulder, listened attentively, and asked some questions which caused the ponderous lawyer to address himself to her rather than to me, seeing clearly that either I cared nothing for my own affairs or else was stupid past all belief.

Sir William's legacies to me and to Silver Heels were discussed most seriously; and Mr. Weaver would have it that the law should deal with my miserable kinsman, Sir John, for the fraud he had wrought. Yet, it was exactly that; and, because he was my kinsman, I could not drag him out to cringe for his infamy before the rabble.

The land and the money left to us by Sir William we would now, doubtless, receive, but it was only because Sir William had desired it that we at length made up our minds to accept it at all.

This I made plain to Mr. Weaver, then relapsed into a dull inspection of his horn spectacles as he discoursed of mortgages and bonds and interests and liens with stupefying monotony.

"It is like the school-room, Micky," murmured Silver Heels, close to my ear, and composed her countenance to listen to a fluent peroration on percentage and investments in terms which were to me as vain as tinkling cymbals.

"Then I am wealthy?" I interposed, again and again, yet could draw from that fat badger, Weaver, neither a "yes" nor "no," nor any plain speech fit for a gentleman's comprehension.

So when at length we quitted Mr. Weaver a sullen mood possessed me and I felt at bay with all the learned people in the world, as I had often felt, penned in the school-room.

"Am I?" I asked Silver Heels.

"What?"

"Rich or poor? Tell me in one word, dear heart, for whether or not I possess a brass farthing in the world, I do not know, upon my honour!"

"Poor innocent," she laughed; "poor unlearned and harassed boy! Know, then, that you have means to purchase porridge and a butcher's roast for Christmas."

"I be serious," said I, anxiously, "and I would know if I have means to support a large family – "