Cardigan

"The history of the present King of Great Britain:

"He refuses his assent to necessary laws for the public good.

"He forbids his Governors to pass laws of immediate importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent be obtained; and when so suspended he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual with intent to fatigue, discourage, and annoy the members of such bodies.

"He has repeatedly dissolved representative houses for opposing his invasions of the people's rights.

"He obstructs the administration of justice.

"He makes judges dependent on his will alone for tenure of office and payment of salaries.

"He has created a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people.

"He keeps among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without consent of our legislature.

"He renders his military independent of and superior to civil power.

"He protects these troops, by mock trials, from punishment for murders committed on the inhabitants of this province.

"He has cut off our trade with the whole world.

"He taxes us without our consent.

"He deprives us of the benefits of trial by jury.

"He transports us beyond the seas for trial for pretended offences.

"He takes away our charters, abolishes our laws, suspends our legislatures."

Hancock looked up, still holding the paper unrolled.

"Why," he said, lightly, "this is no King, but a Cæsar amid his prætorians! Faith, I have been reading some history of the tyrants – surely not the history of our beloved monarch, George the Third!"

There was a grim silence. Hancock's manner changed. He folded the paper, placed it in the bosom of his white waistcoat, and turned soberly to the rows of silent, seated men.

"Yesterday," he said, "a carpenter was arrested for stealing bread for his little children. May I request, gentlemen, that you send a delegate to the committee which will wait upon the Governor to-morrow to intercede for the starving man?"

Then, with a brief inclination, he turned and left the room ere anybody was aware of his purpose.

The effect of his unexpected appeal was as dramatic as his sudden exit. With one impulse the company rose, grave, pale, tight-lipped; little groups formed on the floor; few words passed; but Hancock had done his work, and every alarm company in Massachusetts would know, ere many hours, that they were to fight one day, not for their honour, but to prevent the King of England from driving them to dishonour, so that their children might not die of want before their eyes.

It was not an orator's effort that Hancock had accomplished; it was a mere statement of a truth, yet so skilfully timed and so dramatic in execution that it was worth months of oratory before the vast audiences of Faneuil Hall. For he had startled the representatives of hundreds of villages, and set them thinking on that which was closest to them – the danger to the welfare of their own households. Such danger makes panthers of men.

If Hancock was theatrical at moments, the end justified the means; if he was an egotist, he risked his wealth for principle; if he was a dandy, he had the bravery of the true dandy, which clothes all garments with a spotless, shining robe, and covers the face of vanity under a laurelled helmet.

It was late when the servant returned from Mr. Foxcroft, with a curt note from that gentleman, promising to receive me at one o'clock in the afternoon of the day following.

As I stood twisting the letter in my fingers, and staring out into the black city which perhaps sheltered the woman I loved somewhere amid its shadows, Jack Mount came up, peering through the window with restless eyes.

"Cade has never returned to this tavern," he said, gloomily. "No one here has either seen or heard of him since he and I left last April for Cresap's camp."

CHAPTER XXIII

Like a red lamp the sun swung above the smoky east, its round, inflamed lens peering through the smother beneath which Boston lay, blanketed by the thick vapours of the bay.

From my window I could distinguish the shadowy ship-yards close by. Northeast, across Green Lane, lay the Mill Pond, sheeted in mist, separated from the bay by an indented causeway.

On Corps Hill the paling signal-fires went out, one by one; a green light twinkled aloft in the dusky tangle of a war-ship's rigging; the smoky beacon in its iron basket flared, sank, glimmered, and went out.

Across the street, through the white mist lifting, spectral warehouses loomed, every shutter locked, iron gates dripping rust.

Jack Mount came in, and sat down on the edge of the bed with a silent nod of greeting, clasping his large hands between his knees.

"I have been thinking of that damned thief-taker," he said, yawning. "If he's tracked me from Pitt he's a good dog, and his wife should cast a prime dropper some day."

A servant brought us a bowl of stirabout and some rusks and salted codfish, and we breakfasted there in my chamber, scarcely speaking. Instead of exultation at my nearness to Silver Heels, a foreboding had weighed on me since first I unclosed my eyes. The depression deepened as I sat brooding by the window where the white sea-fog rolled against the sweating panes. Mount ate in silence; I could scarcely swallow any food. Presently I pushed away my plate, drew paper and ink before me, and fell to composing a letter. From the tap-room below a boy came to bring us our morning cups, and we washed the salty tang from our throats. Mount lighted his yard of clay and lay back, puffing smoke at the smeared window-panes. I wrote slowly, drinking at intervals.

The morning draught refreshed us; and when at length sunshine broke out over the bay, something of our dormant spirits stirred to greet it.

"How silent is the world outside," said I, listening to the sea-birds' mewing, and mending my quill with my hunting-knife.

"Misery breeds silence," he said.

"Are men starving here around us?" I asked, trying to realize what I had heard.

"Ay, and dying of it. The sun yonder no longer signals breakfast for Boston. Better finish your fish while you may."

He pulled slowly at his pipe. "If I am right," he drawled, "it would be close to mid-day now in England – the King's dinner-hour. His Majesty should be greasing his chin with hot goose-gravy."

His blue eyes began to shine; the long pipe-stem snapped short between forefinger and thumb; the smoking bowl dropped, and he set his moccasined heel upon it, grinding clay and fire into the stone floor. I watched him for a moment, and then resumed my writing.

"God save the King," he sneered, "and smear his maw thick with good fat meat! Let the rebel babes o' Boston die snivelling at their rebel mothers' dried-up breasts! It's a merry life, Cardigan. I dreamed last night a naked skeleton rode through Boston streets a-beating a jolly ringadoon on his bones:

"'Yankee doodle came to town
A-riding on a pony – '

But the pony was all bones, too, like the Pale Horse, and sat Death astride, beating ever the same mad march:

"'Yankee doodle – doodle – do!
Yankee doodle – dandy!'

'Twas the bay wind shaking the weather-vane – nothing more, lad. Come, shall we steer au large?"

"I must first send my letter," said I; and began to re-read it:

    Boston, October 29, 1774.