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FIERCEHEART
THE SOLDIER
BY
J. C. SNAITH
Editor-m-Chief:
G. MERCER ADAM
PUBLISHED BY
Ubc
St. Mubert 0uilb ^
' Bhron, ©bio
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©IlllBJiiiL
151509
Copyright, 1897,
By D. Appleton and Company.
made by
THE ST. HUBERT GUILD
WORKSHOPS :
AKRON, OHIO
INTRODUCTION.
By the General Editor.
The author of the preceding story, " Mistress Dor-
othy Marvin,'' a novel which, as we have seen, relates
incidents connected with the English Revolution of
1688, when England, throwing over Stuart rule comes
under Hanoverian sway. The accession of William and
liary was, as we know, quietly but in the main heartily
acquiesced in, save in Ireland and Scotland, where the
spirit of rebellion was for a time rampant and Jacobite
intrigue was insiduously active. While the Revolution
settlement was being effected. Catholic opposition in
Ireland to William and Mary was still rife, and, taking
advantage of the fact, James II. came over from France
to subdue the loyal Protestants of the north, who had
taken refuge in Enniskillen and Londonderry. For
four months the inhabitants of the latter maintained a
heroic defence against the French forces of James and
the Catholic troops of Tyrconnel. The place was finally
relieved, as history relates, by the arrival of some Eng-
lish ships in the river Foyle at the moment when hunger
was about to compel Derry's brave defenders to sur-
render. On the same day the Protestants of Enniskillen
gained a victory over the Irish troops at Newton Butler.
In the following year, William of Orange crossed to
Ireland with a large army and met James II. and his
forces on the river Boyne, not far from Drogheda. On
the 1st of July, 1690, was fought the Battle of the
Boyne, in which James's troops were defeated and the
(iii)
iv
INTRODUCTION.
deposed Stuart King fled back to France. The Irish
held out determinedly in Limerick for eighteen months
afterwards, when the struggle was brought to an end by
the treaty of Limerick, and some 10,000 Irish troops
took service in France where they distinguished them-
selves as " the Irish Brigade. " In Scotland, up to the
year 1715, feeling in the Highlands in favor of the
elder Stuart line showed itself by a Jacobite rising
which however was speedily crushed. The end of
Stuart hopes did not come, however, until the year 1745,
when Scottish disaffection to the then Hanoverian rul-
ers of the United Kingdom and active loyalty to the
Stuart cause, encouraged Charles Edward Stuart, " the
Young Pretender" as he was called, to make what
proved to be the final effort for Stuart restoration.
Landing with a few personal followers at Inverness at
the close of July, 1745, Prince Charles Edward induced
the Highlanders again to take up arms in the Stuart in-
terest and march southward with him, gathering as he
went an imposing array of clansmen. At Preston-
pans the Prince met and defeated the royal forces under
Sir John Cope, and then took up his residence in the an-
cient palace of Holyrood, in the Scottish capital. Here
he held high carnival, the Scottish nobles with their
dames being greatly enamored with the youth and
beauty of the "gay chevalier. " After loitering some
weeks a^ Edinburgh, Charles Edward, at the head of
5,000 men, now entered England, where he expected to
be joined by English Jacobites, and to march on Lon-
don. But in this he was disappointed, and at Derby he
was compelled to return to the north, closely followed
by new musterings of the royal troops under the Duke of
Cumberland. At Culloden Moor ( April 16, 1746) Cum-
berland met and defeated the rebel army, and Charles
INTRODTJCTION.
V
fled from the disastrous fleld and his adherents were
mercilessly put to death. The cause of the Stuarts was
now forever lost. The young Prince was for over flve
months a hunted fugitive; but the romantic devotion of
a Stuart sympathizer, the maiden, Flora Macdonald, en-
abled him, despite the large reward that was placed on
his head, to escape to France. Driven thence, he took
refuge in Italy, where he fell into dissolute habits and
died at Rome in 1788. Many Highland chieftains who
espoused his cause came to the block, while the clans
#vere disarmed and forbidden to wear the Highland cos-
tume, and the clan system was broken up.
This is the historic setting for both of Mr. J. C.
Snaith's stories, including the present novel, " Fierce-
heart, the Soldier," which treats of the Jacobite rising
of 1745 in Scotland, in the interest of " the young Pre-
tender." In that rising the rebel son of Fierceheart, the
loyal but Spartan father, takes part, besides making love,
in the intervals of the invasion, to the heroine Molly.
Besides these two, the chief characters are only Fierce-
heart and his wife, the wards of Molly, and the loqua-
cious parson and bosom friend of the family whose talk
is set forth somewhat grandiloquently and in elaborate
style by the novelist. A pretty story is interestingly
woven around the Fierceheart household, and the reader
will be kindly drawn to and become fond of it; while
the romance portion, as well as the historic happenings
of the time, will attract and enchain his attention. The
other writings of the novelist, John Collis Snaith, of
Nottingham, England, include " Lady Barbarity," " Wil-
low the King, " "Patricia at the Inn," "The Wayfar-
ers," "Broke of Covendon, " and " Love's Itinerary."
G. Meecbr Adam.
New York, Nov., 1906."
CONTENTS.
obaptbk faoi
I. In Which a Mature Opinion is Pronounced, 1
II. Black Resigns 13
III. A Summer Morning, 24
• IV. Is Concerned with the Conduct op Elderly
Gentlemen, *as Admirable as it was Fe-
_ culiar 32
V. The Departure, 43
VI. Leads Through Liddesdale to the Seat op
War 52
VII. Prestonpans, 66
VIII. At Pinkie House, 81
IX. Father and Son 87
X. Contains Another Inspiring Instance op
Moral Grandeur 97
XI. Provides a Moth-Eaten Metaphor, Suppi-
ciENTLT Trite to Need no Apology ; and
Describes how Cupid's Murderer Re-
CEiTEs a Message prom Home, . . .109
XII. Prepares a Pretty Kettle op Fish, . . 121
XIII. In Which we are Led to Examine Several
Persons Whose Hearts Exceeded their .
Understandings, 134
XrV. Flashes a Light on Cupid's Murderer in
Pursuit op His Ghastly Trade, . . 142
XV. Calls por the Aid op a Little Burgundy, 151
XVI. Contains an Astounding Revelation, . . 161
vii
yiii
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAOB
XVII. To Introduce the Devil 171
XVIII. jVIaees us Blush for the Heroine, . . 180
XIX. Exhibits the Beverend Doctor in a Pro-
' FEssiONAL Capacity, .... 186
XX. The Hero Resigns the Sword for the
Pen, 203
XXI. Involves Some Straininq at the Gnat, . 216
XXII. The Swallowing of the Camel, . . 228
XXIII. Desperate Remedies, .... 237
XXIV. Young Fierceheart, the Soldier, Laugh-
ing at Death 248
XXV. The Bridge by Auchterarder, . . . 257
XXVI. Exhibits Captain Wiseman at ms Ease, . 263
XXVII. Truth's Revenges, 270
XXVIII. The Traitor 282
XXIX. Has a Moral Hidden in It, . . . 291
XXX. The Battle Eve 296
XXXI. Mother and Son 303
XXXII. Conversation Between a Whitehaired
Cynic of Seventy and a Commercial
Gentleman of Fifty Five, . . . 310
XXXIII. Provides a " Deus ex Machina" to Make
the Reader Happy, .... 318
XXXIV. Day 325
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER
CHAPTER I.
in which a mature opinion is pronounced.
^ "James," said the parson, in his thumb-in-the-waistcoat
manner, " I think you're an old fool." ,
The general's retort was knight to his fifth; an onslaught
on the sable monarch. They were playing chess as usual.
Nightly they fought with the aid of a bowl, a box of the
best high-dried, and a quarrel. They were the finest quar-
relers of their time: the general's power to say a sour thing
sweetly and to smile resistance down; while the parson re-
joiced in a gift of insolence surpassing Johnson. Nightly
it was demonstrated whether Caesar was a greater than the
duke; and whether expedient to bring your rooks out
early. The general held a brief for the duke. He was a
Qrand Commander of the Bath, and had seen Ramillies.
The parson, a doctor in divinity, bubbling with the classic
lore, stood for Caesar and the ancients. As for that far more
serious matter, the question of the rooks, it was, it seemed,
a horrid fallacy of the general's, one so inimical to Phillidor,
and so appalling to the reverend doctor's conservative in-
telligence, that at times young Molly was compelled to
interfere, and to remind him that his language—well, that
his language was embarrassing and derogatory to his cloth.
She liked to do it, too.
They sat before drawn curtains in the window-bow, board
and men brilliant; and their own sparkling faces bathed
with eager beauty by the braveries of candlelight and blaze.
Outside slept the night, dark, starless, and still, except
2
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
when the voice of summer breathed a sweet thought to the
trees, and for a far soft song of wind on the sea. Inside
was a sight most cheerly picked with a sweet coziness of
warmth; but it had noises; the cat purring and toasting its
fur by the hearth, the parson snarling occasional epithet,
the regulated movement of the men, and above all a per-
petual tune of feet and voices in a chamber above. Despite
it, they maintained a wonderful battle, their nervous bodies
poised quaintly over the board; the general smiling and
cool; the parson betrayed by his hand and an ardent eye.
On his brow thunder.
" James," he repeated, " I said that I think you're an old
fool."
"John, you'll pardon me," smiled the enemy, provoked
to the tu quoque, " but if you sit for the picture of wisdom,
Solomon, after all, wasn't such a remarkable man. I win
that pawn—see! "
"You don't."
"I do. A guinea I do!"
" Shah! Keep your guineas; lord knows you want 'em
for your beautiful son."
" My bishop; your pawn—and where are you?"
The parson's chin sank. He scratched his wig tiU it
snowed flour on the cat's back.
"The deuce! I didn't see that bishop. And I'd defy the
devil to play with upstairs in that uproar. Is hell un-
chained, sir? But, James, I may tell you that I still think
you're an old fool."
The general bowed. The parson said:
" Bow, my wiseacre; by all means bow, I like to see you
bow. But bowing won't pay that boy's bills, will it?
Bowing won't correct his erroneous courses, wiU it? Bow-
ing won't sow sense, where sense is not. Though I wouldn't
blame him for his poverty of brain; I pity him. What's
bred in the bone, you know, James."
"And yet," soothed the general, "he had a man singu-
larly wise for god papa."
Thus they fought a fierce and strenuous game. Remark
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
3
the word " fought." Theirs no pretty animosities of play,
mind ; no bloodless triumphs; no swallowing defeat with
an amiable grace; no fulsome compliment, and better-luck-
next-time politenesses; on the conflict they staked a king-
dom of desire; to win was to drink the foaming wine,
victory; to lose was to lay vanity bleeding. Veterans have
palates for strong meat; thus even the recreative food of
these two was spiced with spleen.
These ancient men made pictures for the mind. Both
had long lost the blush of youth; their pregnant faces, cut
and scored with the chisels of adversity, were legible as
printed histories of pain endured; of passions dominant and
paseions dead; of blood-bought victories; of fortune's
cruelties supported; very chronicles of strife.
They had lived. Major General Sir James Seton, G. C. B.,
was known as a dear old gentleman; the handsomest,
tenderest, gentlest old gentleman; no woman could resist
saluting his name when it fell from her mouth, and his
friends caressed his memory. His wife said she would
rather reign in his bosom than be Queen of England.
Could any daughter of the sex that worships purple power
pay a fairer compliment? When he marched her down the
aisle, and the organ pealing. Anno 1699, her heart sang to
the music of his martial step. Tp-night, 1745, her fond old
heart still trilled to his footfall. The parson cynic,
bachelor, misogynist, swore that their languishing glances
were a daily indecency, very demoralizing to the young.
In fact, it was his opinion that if those Whigs had not been
in office, and the government in consequence exceeding
weak in the knee, their indiscretions would have been
stopped by act of Parliament many years ago. Small
wonder that the offspring of such parents was away post-
haste to the deuce. Strange that the parson should christen
this old gentleman Fierceheart the Soldier. But then the
parson had seen him in war.
A bit of a beau was the general, his enemies said; it took
his valet an hour to dress him, and then his wig had to be
curled over night.
4 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
His wig was an inspiration; a death-blow to the poor tie
and the mean cue; a full-bottomed marvel, a perruquier's
triumph, sweeping to the shoulders with curves and deli-
cacies poetic yet imperial. It appealed to the eye like a
picture; the snowy powder-bloom upon it was great art;
the ensemble dazzling and a thing of genius. Aristocratic
Cumberland flourished years in the reflected glory of his
wig, for when its wearer once carried it to St. James to the
King's levee, the Prince of Wales hid his diminished head.
The silver buckles of his shoes tarnished those of the
French King Louis; his velvet and his cambric wore a
supercilious smile to the coarse English shoddy of neighbor-
ing gentry; and more strange, his snuffbox was the com-
monest tortoiseshell, a present from the Rev. John Blunt
flfty-three summers ago. It was part of his religion to set
it beneath his pillow every night; and they found in his
will a fantastic clause, directing the battered thing to be
coflBned with its master. Nor did he lack better. There
was the famous amber-and-pearl the duke put into his hand
after he had led the charge of the Thirty-third at Blenheim;
one of turquoise from her late majesty Queen Anne, and no
fewer than five of singular value from the munificent hand
of his friend the king. He was a bit of a fop, his enemies said,
and of him it was the worst thing they ever recorded. For
himself, he would never admit that he had any enemies.
How different with the Rev. John Blunt, D. D., of the
University of Oxford, and sometime chaplain to the Thirty-
third! He had only one friend; the whole world else were
foes; himself the most strenuous of all. Bom an organ-
izer, he made a diligent recruit-sergeant to that formi-
dable host, swelling the mighty regiment by enrolling new
and vengeful members every day. Where he should
propitiate he insulted; where he might be merciful he
bullied; where it was usual to be polite, he did not take
the trouble, for, having at the outset started life with a
mean opinion of men, he had never the manners to varnish
it. And his person was not pleasing. Six feet four in his
boots, with a massy head, a black frowning countenance.
FBERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
5
and an awful spread of shoulder, he walked abroad with
an ogre's air, and it was not surprising that the mothers of
his parish would quell young children by simulation of a
tragic face, and a sudden " WhistI I hear his reverence."
He had the gait of a carthorse, and a voice like doom; the
conceit of an Englishman; stupendous his vanity, his wit
ponderous, his pretense absurd. His austerity was a blight
that struck your blood chill, for his smiles worked out to
an average of six weekly, with never a one for Sunday.
Yet fiat justitia ! he was content to preach the Gospel in
business hours alone, always prayed on a full stomach,
and considered a square meal a means of grace.
Retween these gentlemen and Lady Seton had been a
domestic Marathon in the matter of Mr. Tom, the joy of
his mother, the hope, the despair, the pride of his father,
the sermon of his reverend godpapa. That the young
gentleman had been seduced into evil courses by the wild
town bloods was known to the world; then the fine ani-
mal was headstrong, and unless the reins were held by the
general with a light, tight, intelligent hand, God help him I
"To sea with the high-blooded rogue!" outspoke the
parson.
" Not while I live!" softly said the mother.
" The army then," pursued the parson, " where went his
father before him,"
"Nor that," said the mother, "he's the only one that's
left me." And her face was wetted with tears.
"The deuce!" sighed the general gently; and emerging
from the nook whither he retired in peace, he kissed away
her sorrow, saying, " My dear, never mind old John; it's
only his way, you know; only his way."
The poor old mother had need to weep. Two of her
handsome lads had sailed with Vernon to Porto Bello, and
had later perished in that ill-starred attack on Carthagena.
And now she had but one. How to mold his career that
his proud name might still be his country's honor and a
treasure to his king troubled his mother's dreams; troubled
his father, and his godpapa; troubled young Molly, who
6
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
loved the light in his eye. He sprang from the cream of
Britain; the richest Anglo-Scotian blend was abroad in his
arteries; he had from Sir James the quickest and thickest
Northern spirit, mellowed by the cool sweet blood of an
unsullied English mother.
" 'Tis the breed of your full-chested war horse," the par-
son would cry, tracing the lineage, " and, my dear madam,
if some hot morning you don't find him charging, and
snorting death from his haughty nostrils in the dust and
gore of the fight, John Blunt's a Dutchman. The son of
the father, madam; and you're not to forget that John
Blunt's seen that father, a little bit of a dandy man he
might put in his pocket, providing he took his wig off; he's
seen that undersized little fop one minute cautiously fiick-
ing stray grains of Rappee from his coat, and the next
racing to death at the head of his company, his eyes
beaconing fire, and his sword singing, and slicing up
Frenchmen. I'm to forget Ramillies, and Blenheim, and
Malplaquet, ere I'll stand by and see a son of James
swaddled with the soft heart of woman. And, be G—d!
ma'am, that melancholy man, his father, is right blithe in
the hour of peace to sit chessing in a corner with old John
Blunt; but do but let 'em rumble the drums and shout
' French in the bay!' and, my dear lady, I fear ye'll weep
your eyes waterless, for again will your little tame fop,
that sits in the chimney, soak his sword in gore."
Then would the parson deliver a homily on blood; drap-
ing his purple theme with warlike attitude and the eye of
Mars. How it reverberated with the Homeric thunders of
his own grandiloquence! His language was a glamour
of fiowers culled from the mythology; spoke of Achilles
the son of Peleus, and other persons very alarming to a
lady. Such intellectual splendor, punctuated with scorn
and a nose loud blown, silenced every maternal platitude.
Poor old lady! She crept to her general later:
"James, why did you marry me? My fibers are too
fiaccid for a soldier's wife."
"I'm sure I forget," smiled her general; "you see it's
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
1
forty-six years ago. But once you were pretty, I think;
and besides, my dear, there were some thousands along with
your hand. And, darling," with a bow, " if now you could
see your beauty, sure you wouldn't ask me."
Her eyes were a mild rebuke, yet she crimsoned to the
lover's compliment. Duty and love were tearing her
bosom. Every time she gazed on her lad, she saw the sol-
dier leap out of his wonderful eyes, the conquering eyes
her husband had wooed with, forty-six years ago. Ay to
the color, the mild splendor, the swift ripples of light, they
were the martial eyes of his noble old father. Could she
forget the young James breasting the hills and the glens in
thef* last years of the dead century, striding to meet her
with his head at its highest and flirting his cane, that same
soldierly light in the eye ? Oh, her soul thrilled 1 Hers not
to forget that dauntless youth trampling timidity down,
and plucking rosy love straight out of her breast, and
wearing it ever since in his own. And his words, she
caught them again. "Darling, the king wants me: I
must go." Then he took his sword out and showed her the
sparkling steel. "Isn't it beautiful and bright?" He
glowed. But she thought it not so beautiful and bright as
her lover's face. He went, though, and presently returned
to a wan woman, his coat a luster of orders, and his name
in history. Then she bore him three sons, perfect men,
stouter and taller than their father. And their faces chal-
lenged that of their indomitable sire. James and John
heard the voice of the king one night, kissed their mother,
and then ran to serve him. Their father said that was his
proudest day; while their mother bled within and waned
pale. Next came a night of winter, when their father
arrived from a journey out of the snow, with the gazette in
his hand. Anguish tore him. He fell on his knees before
her, laying his face in her lap. " Emmy," he moaned,
"oh, forgive me! I sent them."
And here was the third, the only one left, with the wine
of his sires blessing and cursing his blood. That intoler-
able parson man loved to sneer:
8
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"Madam, by all means keep pawing Bucephalus mewed
to your apron. But one day he scents the fray; then up
go his heels and snap goes your apron. Then who'll pay
the devil? And it '11 be a big bill, you mark me."
Duty said : " It is a wickedness to rob the king of his due.
Your child was begot for the king. No nation can spare such."
Her heart mocked: "Frail woman, let him go if you
can! Bah! I know you can't. You sent two others, you
remember. Where are they ?"
Thus was the mother crushed to her knees. Well might
fortitude groan. Well might her humiliated soul, too
bruised by sorrow to any longer bear a silent pain, wail to
her husband aloud, "Am I not weak as water? When a
girl I might have given even him up to the king. But now
I am old, my courage has gone out of me. I am too jealous
of you and yours. It is all that life has left me. And
what I give up I can never regain. I lost two; never,
never can I win them back. I must keep the third. I will
keep the third. But I think God must fashion soldiers'
wives out of tougher flesh than mine." However, the
problem of the boy demanded solution. What must be
done with the headstrong dog? His keen spirit refused to
rust in the country. He packed his valise one night, and
coasted hence to London, that oats might at least be sowed.
He certainly sowed a few: developed some appetite for
theaters, the painted lady, wine, and high play. He still
yearned for war; but at least the sowing of his oats was
some substitute: a poor one, perhaps. Presently bills began
to speak; his full-blooded old father was really easy to
bleed—foretime! Then came a sharp, " You young dog,
stop it!" But alas! a hive of bailiffs were now buzzing
abroad, and he spent half the day dodgingthe "jug." Then
he took coach back to country innocence. The fervor of
his mother's face was like a knife in the body. He began
to wish himself more of a saint. And his cousin. He left
her a young bright beauty with an eye like a star, that
laughed and flashed and clouded seldom; now every rake
in London would have quailed before her.
PIERCEHEAET, THE SOLDIER.
9
" I don't wish to compete with play-actresses," she said.
" I'm a fool! " cried he.
" For which your father pays."
" Gad, no! I pay, Molly; you make me. I say, though,
you're mortal hard on a fellow. Do give me a chance; I
didn't mean "
" You didn't mean! " The dilating of her nostril quelled
him. She looked him very steadily down from his wig to
his buckles; and then very steadily up from his buckles to
his wig. Her quiet face seared into his flesh like afire; and
he staggered shamefully out, his blood smoking in his
veins and scorching his miserable skin. Time took a serious
lapse ere he could face her again. In the meantime he
committed himself to this aphorism in a letter to his friend,
my lord Dash: "Women are d d funny." Lord Dash
admitted its truth.
Haply, one Sunday she condescended to walk to church
in his company. From the first he half sniffed a purpose;
a suspicion that met with confirmation on arrival. The
Rev. John Blunt preached a moving sermon on "The
Prodigal Son." A very moving sermon: his fists moved a
whole year's dust out of the pulpit cushions. The lad went
out limp, with the eyes of the congregation on him. His
every bone was an ache; but he took his godfather's cud-
geling like a man.
"Molly," he said, "you told the doctor I'd be present."
" I did," said she.
"But how did you know I should go? I had no intention,
had you not asked me."
" I had merely to ask," she said coolly.
Straightway he sought the parson. He said:
" Thank you, sir; it's done me good, I think."
Grinned the parson: "If it hasn't, you shall have
another. You young dog, Fll not spare you."
Yet said his reverence to Sir James that night: " James,
the young dog can accept a thrashing, which betrays a
proper sweetness of blood. Give me the lad that can take
a thrashing, James. I believe there's hope for our sinner."
10 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
For a short month the sinner was a marvel for repentance;
such was his humility of soul that it proved a source of
exasperation to his proud young cousin. She soon pre-
pared him a prick, greeting him with:
"Good-morning, Mr. Meek; you do look genial."
And now it was Mr. Meek, except on Sundays, when it
was Mr. Hangdog, since his demeanor was then more
painfully penitent than ever; though the sinner's mother
rebuked her, and the sinner's father hoped in his mild way
that she would let sleeping dogs lie.
"But I can't, you know, uncle," Wickedness told him with
her chin up, " for this particular dog was never meant for
a saint, was he? And to see him practicing me miserum I
and the downcast eye, is perilously like jesting with a sacred
subject—unless," with a flick at the parson, "his godpapa
intends him for the Church."
Causing the reverend misogynist to roll his eye and
growl from his ugliest lip:
"Silence, you she-rogue, or I'll kiss you."
This treatment had its reward in a week. For a youth
there is no withstanding the ridicule of girls; especially if
he scorns humility for its own sake and beholds no blessed-
ness in the lowly heart. Her words instantly pierced to
the teuderest spots of so arrogant a bosom; while his proud
spirit by a continuous wincing soon chafed holes in its coat
of restraint.
The sinner, having got his heels cooled and his debts paid,
began to yawn behind his hand. The cushions of home
had been kinder, and confinement less of a penance, could
he have met with unblushing ease the cruel eye of the
offendted deity. She was too severe, he honestly thought;
yet would have been sorry to have received less punish-
ment; devil in a girl drew his admiration out; to be sure
this one had even some to spare, but then it was beautiful
to see. The kitten was showing its claw. "She'll make
someone a devil of a wife," he commented. "Zounds! I
hope it '11 be me."
Might he one day be fit to tie her shoelace! The clergy-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
11
mwn declared it must be many a weary year ere that befell;
telling him, among other things, that it would be as well
to take spiritual water and an ethical mop, and begin at
once to cleanse his heart and mind of certain foul stains
acquired in London. He meant truly to try; but the trying
was also a great trial of the flesh. The face of that girl
with the scorn in it 1 Lovely to see, mind, had another pro-
yoked it; only the devil was that there was no forgetting
that that face was there especially for himself; daily be-
side him, and so consistently afflicting his eyes when they
gazed, that the time arrived when he preferred not to gaze
at all. But no evading the mocking lip-curl and the hard
laugh with the rasp that sprang from the Hades of anger,
and cut into him with the deep, strong bite of steel. He
lived in a tingle: the cushions of home were a thorn.
Only a wet eyelash of mercy, and he had been down at her
feet in his scarlet shame, wallowing in his own unworthi-
ness. But no, he was dirt. Pah! let him get to his dung-
hill. No reproach, not one word of reproach—but those
eyes, that mouth. Curse play-actresses I Te Gods! had
ue guessed that such deep waters ran under Molly's laugh,
he'd have seen the denizens of the Wells and old Drury at
the Pit rather than this.
But the imperious cannot grovel in the dust beyond a
day. There dawned a morning when he ran to his parent
waving a note.
"Dad," he cried, "I've been chewing my thumbs nine
mortal weeks in this solitude. I can't support it another
hour. 1 am losing flesh, sir; look at my clothes falling in
on me. Besides I've taken my weight, and it tells me it's
thirty-five pounds I've lost. All in nine weeks. Well, you
forbid me follow the drums or go sail the seas; but here's
a line from Dash; I'm off."
Upstairs.they were packing his bags.
Prom the foot of the stairs: " Mol-ly ?"
From the head of them: " Com-ing!"
"Got in all, have you? Stockings, vests, kerchiefs, ruffs,
periwigs, breech—shirts, I mean, and linen. Pack the old
2
12 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
lady's tic mixture in the top corner, where it won't get
broke; and slip her Bible under the bed. Can't find room
for that, can I ? And her cork soles for my shoes, the chest
protector, and that confounded red knitted wraprascal—
stuff 'em up the chimney, will you ? Dash '11 die if he sees
them."
Downstairs, elderly gentlemen evolving move twenty-
three. The parson uplifting prayerless eyes at the ceiling.
"James, it is hell unchained."
" Check I" lisped the enemy.
"Dang, sir! the devil's got the pieces."
"Nay, John, merely friend James." White carefully
lifted Black's knight from the board.
" And it is madness 1" The way the parson's tone leapt
at the little word " is," brought it down like a harmless
bird, and mangled it with a volume of uuharmonious
sound, enlarged the laughter-crease at the enemy's lip.
He grinned: "Oh, I agree! Touching a protecting
knight when His Majesty's tied helplessly up, is sublimer
than madness. It's a palpable suicide."
" I didn't mean that," the loser snapped.
" Then I beg your pardon, I'm sure." The enemy's face
was summer.
"James," bellowed the elephant, roused, "you're a man
of noble gifts. You've the gift of pigheadedness; a gift
mortal fine in the contumacious porker, but never an orna-
ment to the human male. You've the gift of stupidity, a
sign of breed, sir, in the dogmatic ass who's never read his
Aristotle, but again no embellishment to a man in years.
When my sapient friend Jonathan Swift said, 'There's
none so blind as they that refuse to see,' he told me, sir,
that you provoked him. Were the skies to split and to
burst in flame, and the glorious archangels to hiss out of
heaven; you, being unprepared to meet 'em, would shut
your eyes, and smile: ' Pardon, but really, gentlemen, not
seeing you, I'd no idea you were about." The elephant
paused and fortified his bellicose interior with punch and
black Rappee.
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 13
" He's packing his bags!" he thundered.
" I was not aware "
" You were not aware! Oh, don't, you chimney-keeping
old dotard, don't 1 "
"Don't what?"
"Don't lie! And, James, I'll thank you to keep that
dissembling tongue, that smiling lie, that smooth, that
glib, that buttered blackguard well within the mouth,
sir; in fact, sir, I'll thank you to permit me the civility of
silence. I repeat he's packing his bags; defiant to me his
godfather, that brought a silver mug to his christening.
And with your leave, sir, or without your leave, sir, for
I'll not sit on ceremony "
" No, sir, you prefer to sit on me."
" I'll have the boldness to pronounce a mature
opinion."
Forgive the general yawning! Forgive bluff manners
and temerity in that weary old gentleman! By computa-
tion, and the modestest too, the parson had had the bold-
ness to pronounce his mature opinion, two hundred and
thirty-two times in a week. What the general suffered,
the Reader is spared.
CHAPTER II.
black resigns.
When at the fifthly in the course of his sermon on the
"Folly of Parents" the clergyman paused to pay his
respects to the box and the bowl, his game was food for a
groan. He sighed till the candles flickered.
" Black resigns! " the enemy said.
The board was tempestuously thrust away, and kings
and queens and noblemen went rattling on the rug; intel-
lectual men are not graceful losers. Thus this doctor in
divinity blew his nose with a vehemence that startled the
cat from its sleep into a trembling state of consternation;
14 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
he knit his great black brows into utter night; he spoke
about the Grovernment, and described the place where the
Whigs would go to when they, died with an unnecessary
realism, and made himself altogether charming to his foe.
Triumph and laughter sparkled in the eye of White.
"Nosense, have I?" bellowed reverend Black, making
another outlet for his wrath, " no sense have I? That of
course sits in the boy alone, providing we except his exceed-
ing reasonable sire, and his really wonderful discerning
dam. But I'll stake every penny of my stipend you'll
repent it. I have spoken."
The parson's glare was almost an illumination to the
board. The general, though, was martially rigid of muscle;
his coolness under £Lre was proverbial in the service.
"James, I repeat, I've spoken."
"Thank you," bowed the politest man in Cumberland,
" it's really very good of you to speak. But no sense, you
say; faith, John, I'm flooded with surprise. Why, do you
know, I always gave you credit for at least a modicum?"
The enemy admitted his tactical error by dispatching
heavy artillery to repair it.
"Oh, you did, did you?" the big guns banged. "Then
you shall hear a compliment my friend Robert Walpole
once had the sound sense to pay my humble self. Sir
Bobby took me by the button of my coat: 'Friend Blunt,'
he says, ' give us ten men of your stamp in the
Commons '"
"And the Commons would bo a bear garden," White
ventured with a twinkle in his solemnity.
A bseach of the peace, however, was averted in a diplo-
matic style.
"John, I never saw your play more perfect," the victor
soothed. " The sacrifice of that pawn was masterly, and
your defense throughout was intricate and beautiful; while
as for that exquisite knight-queen combination, there's no
dishonor in admitting that it nearly wrecked me. Oh, it
was subtle 1" Vanity has the nature of a cat; stroke it
tenderly, and how it purrs satisfaction and peace! The
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 15
praise was gross, but the eye of fierce and vanquished Black
opened on an interrogatory " Eh?" dilated to a more inter-
rogatory " Oh I " drooped to mildness on a pleased, " Ah 1"
closing, with a touching tranquillity, on a realized " H'ml"
"And, John," successful White proceeded, "don't you
think we are doing our best for the sinner? Ennui clogs
him if he stays at home ; he's young to marry, besides that
Molly has not forgiven him yet; and poor Emmy can't be
pressed in the soldiering, can she? She doesn't forget her
others, if you do. And she's quite as strenuous regarding
the sea. Where, then, is your alternative? Besides, he is
very determined."
• "Obstinate, sir, like his father—d d obstinate!"
" Parson, you forget your cloth."
" Deuteronomy—Two," the clergyman quoted with
never a wink. " And alternatives! Emmy or no Emmy,
pack him to the army. It's the only possible place for the
rascal; he's soldier to the bone; his sinews were never
strung for peace. Bahl don't tell me! If some of his fiery
blood isn't split under the king, he'll gallop away to the
devil. I know."
"But, Emmy?"
" Oh, Emmy! yes, Emmy! " The misogynist worried the
name. " Man, man, don't riddle me with woman. The
Book admits that she was the source of our confusion. I
tell you I won't be cozened and insulted to silence with a
parcel of petticoats; and you, you apron-serving slave, it's
your shame that you are. Did the Almighty ever create
a woman that could see beyond her nose? The worst that
can befall the rogue on a battlefield is to drop by the side
of his brothei-s, smothered in glory. Wherefore, my friend,
you have but to steel your heart against the noble blow;
and it can fall once only, and its agony is over soon, while
the permanent honor is yours of having bred a child who
died for his duty and his king. But, my man, let him
philander 'twixt the Fleet and the sponge-house, and he'll
pretty soon have a claim on Newgate."
"In your career there's been one error," said Benedick,
16 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" you didn't marry; which must, I fear, with all deference,
John, make your present opinion incompetent. Ton
ignore the flesh-thrilling mother, sir. And, sweet Grodl
isn't it enough for a woman to suffer the blasting of two in
a day; two lovely opening huds, fair in their promise; their
form and beauty marvelous." Benedick mopped his brow,
Benedick shuddered in soul.
The bachelor got up with a jerk, then sat down with a
jerk, then plucked his wig off and threw it at the eat, and
was compelled to pick it up and put it back again with a
very consummate gravity of countenance. He wrenched
the bell-rope for a servant.
" I want Mr. Thomas."
" Black resigns," coughed White.
Mr. Thomas was prompt to appear, and halted with a
bow of ostentatious meekness in the shadow of the door.
'* Come here, sir!" thundered god papa, " and don't stand
there, sir, becking and mowing like a Barbary ape."
Mr. Tom went there.
" You are going to London!"
"I—I believe I am, sir."
" You believe you are, sir—oh I"
Silence fell a long second; silence so deep that Mr. Tom
thought he could hear his heart tick; certainly he felt it
depart from his bosom to his boots. Perhaps, after all, the
affair wasn't going to be such fun, for there was an icy
moisture lending a somewhat unpleasant sensation to his
head.
"You think your wisdom a very penetrating sort, don't
you?" opened godpapa, his note tentative.
" Rather," smiled the sinner with his father's eye. But a
deceitful tenderness in the parson's tone had entrapped his
innocence. Really the ogre sounded playful this evening;
hut this misconstruction was corrected soon.
''And you think Thomas Blunt Seton a rather clever
boy, don't you?"
No answer. The tempest was already bursting from the
parson's tone.
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 17
" A bit of a gay dog, isn't he? Knows a thing or two,
eh? Wonderfully worldly sort of man; a pronounced
genius for ogling the lewd, dicing with dukes, and drink-
ing his dram. Rather admire that character, eh ? But 1
don't."
The parson fixed the culprit with his fearful eye. Whew!
wasn't it going to be hot; and the fear was deadly that
Molly had her ear to the door.
"In the first place," said the casuist, wagging a pulpiti-
cal finger, " did you belong to me wholly, I'd whittle a
stout ash, pluck you thus by the ear, and somewhat seri-
ously bruise; and then you'd go to the army. But it being
y9ur felicity to be the property of persons of an infinite
rarity of wisdom, a wisdom so rare that it defies discern-
ment, you are to have your bills paid and be presented
with the opportunity to contract more. I am also informed
that there is a scheme afoot to pipeclay your chai'acter, that
the fun may not be denied you of daubing it again.
These ideas are replete with beauty, and I'm sure their
conception will never be marred by the grateful you.
Now will it? You'll run up as many bills as you possibly
can, won't you? And you'll race to the devil at the utmost
of your breath, shan't you? Singularly good of you, I'm
sure!"
Stern silence came, that a discourse pregnant with such
large sagacity might strike and fructify. The culprit began
to moan in spirit, and sent an appealing eye to his father,
who was discovered in minute study of the very obvious
pattern of chessboards. A conspiracy, curse it! He tried
to stand stolid though, and unblushing, and at his ease.
That was all right until the master-gunner opened the next
battery.
"Boy," the artillery rattled, " you train your arrows at
an uncommonly high ambition. Your yearnings to ape
the devil denote it; though the misfortune is that others
have tried, but with only a paucity of success, for before
being able to establish a claim to the Hoof, they have rotted
and died. But I quite admit the prudence of your choice;
18 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
the best minds regard the strife for perfection as the founda-
tion of their fine careers. And if I may so greatly presume
as to counsel the juvenile, I would venture to say they
are essentially correct; they don't arrive at perfection, of
course, but they journey through sublime hemispheres on
the way, and the probability is that they perish in some
exalted spot. You adventure forth to wrest reputation
from the devil, the perfection of imperfection; but there
^he drawback is that the entire route is thick with mud-
sloughs. Frankly, boy, I admire you; ambition in a child
must always be nurtured and encouraged; but 'ware lest
you become bogged, that's all."
The casuist held the prisoner with his eye while he
summoned the necessary breath to continue. It will be seen
that the butcher, unable to sustain the thunder, had relapsed
on hard blows; he had exchanged the guns for ponderous
steel. Thus the boy blushed: the delicacy of the rapier
merely provokes a wince as it pricks, but the clumsy and
gigantic broadsword cannot meet the skin without great
suffusions of blood.
"Sin is so manly," the butcher clove on. " Win a rou6
reputation; then you have the entrance to notoriety, and the
milk-sipping child is received with hurrahs into the ranks
of manhood. Virtue is not the fashion now; the time
stinks of the Restoration; morality is become effete.
Purity, that meek-eyed maid, is jostled to the wall, hiding
her face. The finest gentleman is he who rolls most aifiong
the dung. It was so in our time, too; but I do not recollect,
James, that we groveled amid filth and the public shame
to lip the hem of the robe of Lucifer." The culprit was
blushing Again, more brightly and shamefully. "Look at
your little old father, sir. You will 6nd his name writ in
aggressive red on the glory-scroll; at the Assembly you
will find swarms of the titled, bigger externally, louder in
language, with better elbows for bluster, smarter drinkers
of hock; but how often amid that sparkling mob have I
heard the question hum; ' Who's that little old fop in the
corner there, all orders and periwig, with the stars on his
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 19
coat}' 'Oh, General Seton!' 'Thunder! the great
General Seton who crumpled the French?' And once as
the rumor ran, as we lay before Dunquerque, that your
father was down, and dying, I saw the coarsest men of his
company melted to tears. Besides he's won and kept the
love of woman fifty years, sir, which wants doing, even if
it isn't worth the pains. But that by the way. James, my
man, up with your head and let the young dog see you I
Dash my wig! if the old fool isn't crimson as a girl.
Every word's true, isn't it? And, damnation, sir! Stop kick-
ing me under the table, sir. Do you hear? My shins '11 be
blue."
Stop it, parson, stop it I Do stop it, please. Think of
his age; he'll soon be five-and-tweuty, sir."
"Yes; and you'll soon be five-and-seventy, sir; and your
sense, sir, and your offspring's sense, sir, amounts, sir, in
combination, sir, to the algebraic figure ' x,' which is the
symbol for an unknown quantity. And your united
sapience, sir, amounts, sir, to that unknown quantity—it has
never been discovered, sir, and never will be. You mark
me. And you yourself, James, are capable perhaps of
wheeling a flank, or sending a squadron into action, but
there's your limit. For brutal and mechanical matters
you have probably a natural aptitude; but in those affairs
that are intellectual, and appertain to the understanding, I
repeat that you are a babe, sir, and a suckling."
"You forget my chess, John."
" Oh, your chess! Well, I don't mind admitting that you
are the very luckiest player I ever saw. And don't quibble.
Is my word to be insulted, then? Do I say a thing without
I mean it? And, boy," returning once more to the well-
dusted jacket, " this father of yours made vows to a girl
when he was younger than you; and had the folly to keep
them. And you, sir, you have the most radiant girl in the
county delivered into your hand, sir, on the condition that
that hand is clean, sir; and you of course must accordingly
go in your wisdom and dip it straightway in filth and foul
it. That's a proceeding soimd to the core in theory; evade
20 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Eve, my boy, evade her by every means; only it happens
that this girl is a creature with blood and a soul in her, who
reminds me of one I used to sonnet when I was twenty-
five." The misogynist digressed a moment to hum and ha
himself out of the breath-seizing revelation. " But, 'pon
my wig, she does remind me—reminds me of her I tell you;
thus for gold and preferment I wouldn't have that girl lost
to the family. So I've spoken to her about you."
*' You, sir—about me?" slipped unchecked from the lips
of horror.
"I, sir—about you."
The man of tact drew his dignity up with a kinglike
simper. He was expecting his hand to be kissed; his con-
descension, he thought, deserved it.
" Why, you meddlesome old fool I"
Nay, Reader, keep your seat if you please. The boy did
not actually say that, but it was on his lip, you understand,
and was restrained by miracle. Sorry to disappoint you
this time; you would have liked him to have said it, and
so would his biographer, but he didn't; and even at the
cost of tedium, we must stick to history, mustn't we? No,
he didn't, but it scalded his mouth, it bubbled and hissed
on his tongue-tip, it incited his head; but with jaw vice-
like, and with saintly restraint of desire, he strangled the
opprobrious phrase.
"She was haughty, sir," the man of tact lumbered on,
" dreadfully haughty. I'd only said two words, when she
said, ' Thank you, doctor,' with a quite unnecessary polite-
ness, and remarked how warm it was in the sun. But I
cornered any young lady, and the more impertinent she
grew the more I told her. And, you young fool, I'm afraid
I pleaded for you."
" But, oh, sir, you didn't let her think that I'd sent
you?"
" I forget. Probably I might have done."
" Good God! " was wrung out of the sinner's anguish.
"And when I'd said all," the man of tact continued,
" she fell dismally white, and pinned her looks to a rose,
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 21
she was tearing to pieces; and she sighed: ' I will only dis-
cuss a man and a gentleman. Sir, I hope you recognize
that I said a man and a gentleman.'"
" Sighed 1" A lover clutched at a straw.
" Certainly she sighed. And I saw a tear."
" A tear," he said; and he took his handkerchief to one
eye lest the parson should see another.
" At least I think I saw a tear. I scarcely think it could
have been the dew glistening on her lashes."
For ten seconds the man of tact gloated on the com-
plexityof his godson's face; then puckered up his mouth
like a man who whistles to the world to persuade it that he
is unconcerned and blithe-hearted as a bird.
"Yes, my lad," the reverend cheat pursued, "it was a
tear; and talk about a dewdrop hanging in a cowslip's ear—
why, that man Shakspere's puerile. As for her whiteness
it went to my heart, my lad, and when she sighed I longed
to flee."
" Then, oh, sir, why didn't you?"
" Why didn't I?" A pause, a wide mouth and a wide
eye, and then again, " Why didn't I? Well, I don't mind
saying this is the flrst good deed I've been guilty of this
year, and I'm not meeting with the requisite encourage-
ment to be guilty of another. But it all tends to further
prove my argument that whenever the Whigs are in, virtue
and goodness are at a discount."
Then more silence; which Love's elephantine ambassador
employed by whirling his fat and gout-laden thumbs round
and round like a mill-wheel in miniature. He was concen-
trating his massive intellect. What on? Why, on a
peculiarly subtle, delicate, elusive matter. The bachelor
groaned through all his inexperience; but suddenly, with
the courage of an explorer who sets forth to find the Pole,
he grasped his pluck with both hands and took a leap in
the dark. He grabbed the bell-rope. He pealed the bell.
The footman was horribly prompt.
" Mr. Tom here would like to see Miss Molly."
The man of tact grimly watched the footman's calves
22 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
twinkle out, then dragged the frightened general from his
chair.
"James," his whisper, "we'll get out of this; we're not
required. We'll go and catch some supper; what a hungry
game chess is 1" The warriors strutted out arm in arm,
and the door slammed after them.
"Well, d mel" moaned the animal in the trap.
And the behavior of his heart was simply absurd. It was
all over the place; in his throat and his toes at the same
time, not to mention a healthy young sledge-hammer that
was having a lot of boisterous fun with his ribs, and oh 1
an awful something that sat in his breast like putty.
Those beautiful parsons! They ought to preach about hell,
hanged if they didn't I Tried to scare folks from eternal
sulphur, so that they would have more room to stretch their
six feet fours in, when they came and took quarters there
themselves. Those beautiful parsons! But the animal in
the trap was hideously certain in his mind that at that
moment the one creature in the universe he was least
capable of meeting was terrible Molly the tormentress.
His brush with godpapa had bruised him rather too badly.
He was sore. He thirsted for a good swear; his mood was
unfit for pleading and the mealy-mouth. Besides he was
limp as rags. He had need to be at his sunniest, his
sharpest, his surest, for that ordeal. He would cheerfully
face a regiment rather than Molly the relentless.
And heavens! he could hear her; the song of her footfall
entered into him as no other shoe-tune had the power to
do. Her hand was on the door-knob; here she was. Ob,
those beautiful parsons!
The caged animal reddened to his hair, though the para-
dox was that he really felt himself green with mortifica-
tion. She pinned him with her unfathomable eye, and
paralyzed his wits with its serpent-lights. He shook in his
shirt.
"Well?" demanded Medusa.
Not being Perseus, he was petrified to stone.
" Well?" demanded Medusa again. This time she ripped
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 23
secrecy up the belly with her look; she could read the soul
of the poor fool like print. And being a girl and a bully,
she exacted a full mead from his sufferings.
" Sir, you sent for me, I think?"
Velvet the tone: lovely pussy-cat's claw is always set in
soft fur. Medusa watched her victim's scarlet deepen to a
humorous purple. And she did enjoy it.
'* I am wholly at the service of your majesty."
Medusa leaned against the mantelpiece with about as
much humility as Lucifer; she shot back her superb white
throat, and her curls laughed at the golden lamplight that
poured from a bracket above her and bathed her hair with
hdloes of glory. Her victim was dazzled and kept his eyes
on his shoes.
"Molly," sheer desperation spluttered and struggled,
"are my stockings all right?"
It was a coarse, a gross expedient, but godpapa, the man
of tact, and terrible young Medusa had dragged him lower
than the plebs.
Dubiety flashed out of the serpent orbs of Medusa. But
the pure impudence of her prisoner sent a ripple of enjoy-
ment among her wonderful locks. Her curls danced to the
pipings of merriment. Really that boy was very good.
" Yes, emperor," she sedately courtesied, "your stockings
are all right. There was a hole in one; your slave hath
darned it. Your majesty's wigs and purple coat are also
most carefully adjusted; and, sire, by misadventure, as your
duteous humble slave was brushing your majesty's most
gracious vest, a lock of hair, tied with blue ribbon, fell out."
Her clemency! How generous of his dear delightful
Molly! She had at last given him a chance. Perhaps, when
said,those beautiful parsons weren't, after all, all was so bad.
He seized his chance, young hope skipping in his arteries.
" A lock of hair! Darling, I think it was yours."
He peered half-liddedly up to her brilliancy, his eye
shaded with an insinuation.
But Medusa. Her lips tightened; her eye sparkled.
Perseus was coming at last to destroy her in her power.
24 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"Your pardon, sir, but 1 think it was not," said she, a
dark heavy anger-blush spreading over and embittering her
beauty. " I showed that lock of hair to the cook-maid; my
curiosity was aroused. ' I've never seen hair that singular
color before,' I said. 'Nor have I, miss, except when iVs
dyed,'' she said."
Then he remembered. And by the time he had collected
a few fragments of his shattered coolness. Medusa had fled,
her victim having actually turned the tables on her, uncon-
sciously, of course. And as she went away, she conceived
an original aphorism, excelling the whole of Seneca and
La Rochefoucauld for truth—"Wonderful animals—men 1"
CHAPTER m.
A SUMMER MORIONO.
Tms summer morning that tuned two hearts up to
poetry had clothed the sea with peace, and bad laid it sing-
ing and smiling under an encouraging sky. As yet the sun
had hardly unbosomed his splendors, though every instant
the white films were lifting and receding from the face of
the waters, leaving it dimpled with light. The laughing
and fleckless heavens seemed as happy as the mad thrush
on a lilac, gushing its throat out for joy; there was a black-
bird down in the dale, also competing; and hidden some-
where a lark, who was straining his emulating heart to
outthrill the trembling woods.
" Tom," said the girl, " I think God must send mornings
like this to kill our hates and our angers. I have lost all
mine." She was sobbing.
" Molly," he said, " it sounds merely lame and pitiful for
me to say that I'm sorry—sorry I've been such a brute. To
see you like this makes me long to fling myself into the sea
to mend things, only it wouldn't; the only way to mend
them is once more to meet hell, this time with the tight lips
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 25
of a man. That's what I'm going to do. You've given me
my lesson."
"Then, comrade, here's my hand," she said simply.
" We always have been comrades since I ever remember.
Why, I recall that time when I was six and you were nine,
when we robbed the orchard. Tou took one whipping for
yourself and another for me, and very proud you seemed
to take it. We were comrades from that minute; and to
me you've beeu straighter, truer, stancher than any man
in history—until this!"
He was compelled to turn his face away to avoid the
sight of her tears sparkling under the sun; he couldn't
sup{>ort such punishment.
" Yes, you have been a brute," she said, trembling, but
sobbing no more, " and if it were not that you had sum-
moned so noble a morning to your aid you should go back
to London thinking me one. It's right of course that you
men should have your diversions. 'Tis pretty for you
cavaliers to have your jest and your song, and then ride on
to the next; and if not satisfied, to come back next day till
you're lured again with a fairer eye; but what of us bound
susceptible women? ' Let 'em weep,' I suppose you'll say;
' sad, but necessary 1'"
A summer morning never embellished two fairer
creatures than these; one with the step and the glide of a
startled doe; the other a clean-limbed Adonis, his breast
bursting with martial songs. In every sure strong line of
him was carved the soldier, as though a later Angelo had
chiseled an immortal statue of Mars. But the mere woM
" statue " is convicted elumsy and false, when his blood, the
century-sealed wine of the adventurous Danes, was yearn-
ing and throbbing for warm activity. Those haunting hues
of his eyes, surprising as sunbeams, only quicker, more
fugitive, of less palpability; glowing like life, fiowing with
fire, were burning their image into the bosom of the girl.
She who had come to upbraid was fain to fall down and
worship. Standing, gazing up into his face, framed with
the morning's glory, one regal glance of the strong.
26 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
intrepid, sun-crowned creature made her abandon her body
to the dust, that the heel of the conqueror might grind her
neck.
Heaven! she had come ill-found against so pitiful, so
abject a capitulation. Even that morning she had been
waked before Aurora, by a soul hot and swelling in anger,
primed for high deeds and scorn; but now the beautiful
bird was down, its proud plumes trailed the earth. She
loved him, the despised 1 She knew her shame, she felt it,
it was scolding her! Alas! She was merely a mortal
woman. Diana alone could have sailed away mocking and
imperious from the generous picture of a young conqueror's
eyes, outshining the triumphs of a summer morning. Her
piercing vision saw within him; saw a weak being, young,
his brow unscored; untouched with adversity's silvering
hair; saw him babyishly soft, little in wisdom, and with an
intellect no deeper than a dog's. And soiled; ah, soiled!
She pressed two hands to her heart, as if to restrain it
from leaping up, out of her throat. The bonds of purity
were beginning to fester on her limbs. But there was the
other side. Even him, shallow and raw as he was, she had
seen stanch, chivalrous, true. And oh! his possibilities.
She had come to the Gehenna of good women.
And he! A new Prometheus he, who, for playing with
fire, was chained to a rock; a rock of silence with eloquence,
that fierce eagle, consuming his passionate heart. He must
speak; the time was now; he could see the ice of her anger
melting under the morning sun; yet the Zeus of Honor
grappled his throat, and forced back the fiery words, unsaid.
He the fouled, the stained, was doomed to passivity, while
the juice-charged peach was bent from its impossible
heights, by the riches in its blood that bowed it down. It
inclined, ripe and luscious, toward the lip. The hateful
tempter! Let him put forth a hand, and the prize caressed
it. One ringing word, and the love lying in her eyes
would leap out to meet him, and mock the world's opinion.
There poured the sun, bathing her hair and her pure eyes;
and beneath her irresistible broad-brimmed hat, laughing
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 27
curls played bo-peep with the breeze. A radiant girl; the
most radiant girl in the county, the parson said; so true, so
straight, with the heavenly secret of laughter. The skies
could smile, were smiling—but not like she. They hadn't
the lips of wit and dimples twinkling sympathetically round
them. And here was his friend, his comrade, his cousin,
her blood thrilled with music by the ethereal bird songs of
summer. That heroic blackbird down in the vale was
brimming her eyes with the love-light; the song of the
lark thrilled into her and sped its wild note of wonder
through her rejoicing ear. The pent madness of his blood
cried out to him to speak; was she not crushed captive
before his victorious car? Had she not succumbed?
Honorable Zeus, however, performed the part of man's
nobility; he kept tiie fouled and frail rogue chained to his
rock of silence. She was a pure woman; be, an impure
man; to speak was to play the cur. Such restraint was
purchased at the price of a fleshly slash from Adversity's
knife. It scored his brow with the first line of bitterness.
How she watched him wrestle with the best and the
worst! How she recoiled from his face, when, in the fever
of strife, sweat bought with blood brightened his forehead.
Nothing is sealed from a woman in love. Intuition crept
to whisper at her jealous ear that he, the fouled, was at
last imitating the bearing of a man. Intuition said his
very heart was crying out to him to speak; and that his
crimes restrained him. Indeed the word was to come from
her. She assumed the role of Hercules the releaser. She
was submerged next day in a deluge of shame, when her
cooled mind reviewed this hot temerity in the matter of a
libertine. But now, dazzled with his imperial eyes, match-
ing the sun, and seduced by some of his simple essential
virtues, scrupulosity fled.
She said: " I forgive you I "
The words, bursting without context on a long deep
dreadful silence, filled his heart with an ecstasy. They
were not to be mistaken; one glance at her courageous face
sufficed. o
28 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"My darling!" he could only breathe.
The rosy blood-flush whipping her face, deepening into
her bright white neck, the eager eyes, the betrayed bosom
he read, and, reading, had to withdraw his gaze. Seas of
emotion tossed him high and stranded him inane and
mindless; he could not look, he could not think, he could
not speak.
In these high moments it is Phillis as a rule who keeps
quite sane; Corydon is usually the victim of his fervor.
Thus, after a supreme minute had passed, soundless unless
for the low songs of the sea, and the mad-breasted birds
pouring wild harmonies, Phillis forced her excited heart
to lie peacefully down, and cried on a peal of laughter:
"Molly mollified!"
It wrenched them both back to earth, out of the blue;
back to heavy and wingless earth. Corydon in particular
fell with a bump out of the bright empyrean, bruising his
head. Let us preach at no elaborate length on the usages
of laughter, but among them all it boasts none more excel-
lent than to sprinkle the salt of common sense on the sweet
dishes of extravagance. A whiflf of laughter among lovers
is a breeze from the gods; preserving as it does, amid bursts
of passion, a sane mean of conduct.
Humor is the only specific for tragedy; but the mis-
fortune is, it is apt to be spurned by billers and cooers, in
the flush of their ardent business, as a thing not sufficiently
serious. Excessive seriousness, however, has been known
to produce a fool.
At first the lad was hurt at laughing Molly having ven-
tured to dash palpable bathos into that superior region,
where impalpable bathos already existed. The truth was
that she, being the one to pay, could no longer stand the
strain. So she laughed; and hearing his own full pardon
trembling out of her trills, he had the sweetest of reasons
for lapsing in mirth.
"Ay, Molly mollified!" He tried to copy her gayety.
" I can't say more, sir." Curls were peeping in clusters^
from under her hat.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 29
Not his to repel their soft incitement; their mellifluous
ripples waved pardon to a sinner. Oh, let him seize it!
"Yes," said the sinner, "I've been bad; base, a brute;
I deserve no inch of pity, and yet your eyes, they give it
me. And a full free pardon, too."
She faltered; "Yes."
" But, oh," said he, " we can never be as we used to be.
Never again can I be your Romeo, your true knight, your
preux chevalier."
" And do you regret it?"—peering fiercely, wistfully into
his eyes; and one hand, hot as a quick coal, touched his and
burnt it.
""How can you ask?" he moaned.
Here the sun again flowed to him, hathing his demand-
ing face, gilding his passionate eyes.
" I could have loved you once," was wrung from her.
The word in its nakedness silenced him. Honorable
Zeus reminded him that he was still a chained criminal.
But her brain seemed flooded with magic under the spell
of the sunlight; every phase of thought that shot through
him she seized and imbibed its significance; thus once more
his reticence was divined.
" And I could love you again," she exulted, her head
towering in triumph.
Despite his strong, restraining will and his nice sensibili-
ties his emotions were uncontrollable.
" Don't, Molly!" he pleaded hoarsely. " Don't use such
cunning to incite me, or you may cause words to spring
from my lips that will make you hate me, and leave me
shamed forever. You forget that you are talking to a
libertine."
" I don't," she denied, " I don't—God forgive me!"
She tossed her eyes up high toward him and heaven, and
faced him in the glow of her bold, courageous beauty.
Every proud inch of her was an arrow then, and strung to
a de.sperate tension.
He could only meet her with the gaze of an animal
hunted; their wild fears reminding her piteously of the
30 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
stag fearfully, nobly at bay; vainly seeking a way to turn
ere the dogs tear him down in his splendor. But the spur
of passion goaded him at once to take a turning.
" It means you'd marry me," he struggled, and he
watched the creaming army of rollers kissing the rocks.
Then he turned again and took a dreadful leap. "I'd
give," he cried, "my name, my youth, my heritage if I
were clean enough for that. Tou always have been mine;
and mine you always will be. Dear comrade, one day I
shall die with your name on my lip."
She said; " Tom, you've bruised me, you've battered me,
you've ground your heel on my heart, but I shall never
have another lover. Nay, don't pity me,"—she saw his
eyes,—" I'm happier having loved you, stained as you are
with the dust, than to have loved another, even were he an
unsoiled saint."
She could say no more till the sun, the birds, and the sea
maddened her with the potent spirit of heaven, the realm
of eternal love. It was then she crept to him, and hugged
his hand and whispered to his eyes;
" Heaven says I must give you farther trial. It says I
must wait a year—and then!"
Her mercy stunned him to silence.
They were now forsaking the sea, and bending their
steps to the house.
They walked together, hands joined, over the giving
carpet of grass; under glad skies, through the protecting
woodland branches that shut out the impertinent eyes of
the sun. Here they halted long, sighing sweet hope,
while their hearts conceived the wonderful Castles of
Spain. There was a choir of birds to regale them, and of
flowers a young-eyed multitude spread on the soft earth,
to kiss the feet of lovers and to charm their path. But
hist I let us leave those wand-touched people, disturbing
them not. Watching raptures we cannot share is a cold
business; and apt to provoke the sneers of the phlegmatic
in temper. Let it suflice, that they had one glimpse of
poetry in the world of prose.
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 31
And strange! but that morning the parson was early
about; that his soul might drink God's purity, and that
the zephyrs might tickle and entice his slow-drawn sermon.
The radiant children, hand in hand in the glade, alarmed
his eyes.
He also did what was right and kind. On the instant
the cynic judged himself a defiling third; and stole he
away on his toes, though his new shoes creaked at every
step. But never a twig cracked, nor a bird fiew in his soft
retreat, and they were left unconscious in folly; unfiut-
tered in peace. Then he started a trot.
He steamed into the general, shining but blown. He
threw his hat in the air, pufSng: "They've made it up,
James, they've made it up. Dash my wig! Give me a
glass of Maderla." The cynic fell into a chair to coax back
his departed wind; while the beaming general brimmed
him a beaker with trembling hands. Then the cynic
measured one for the general; and sang out in a tone that
startled birds from the trees:
" Here's to 'em! God bless 'em!"
They clinked glasses and drank together.
In an hour the cob was pawing the drive before the door
of the Hall. It would be a tight run to catch the coach for
England. The boy's bags were bundled into the chaise, and
the boy himself into the vacant seat.
" I'd have you chalk a straight line of virtue; and, you
young dog, mind you keep on it, or you don't show your
face here I" bawled the parson, pressing officiously forward,
presumably to attend to the baggage, and under cover of
which he secretly pressed a fifty-pound bankbill into his
godson's astonished palm. But he added, to take all signs
of tenderness out of the gift, " your father's an arrant fool
that you're not off to the army, sir, and you're another,
sir; only worse, for you're also the deuce of a rogue, I
fancy I"
32 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
CHAPTER IV.
is concerned with the conduct of elderly gentle-
men, as admirable as it was peculiar.
Something had happened; the room's interior said so.
Old Lady Seton was stitching pink antimacassars under
the lamp, and her withered time-stamped face receded
deeper into her cap than usual. Her declining counte-
nance was pinched and white; moreover, a sickness of
dread appeared to look out of her eyes.
Rev. John sat upright, straight as a stick, his open palms
pressed on his knees, his scowling hrows suggesting thun-
der, and his face painted an aggressive purple. General
James had fallen far back in his chair, his lips tight, his
eyes sparkling. Between them the slighted chessboard,
innocent of men, their long churchwardens sitting empty
and cool upon it, and the punch growing cold in the howL
Enter Molly, smiling. The dainty madcap was fondling
a beautiful rose that blushed at its treatment. Softly she
stole on the carpet to the back of the general's chair, bent
over it, and smuggled the flower to his coat.
"There, uncle!" she said, "that's for you, and this is
for me." Expectantly she coiled her arms about his neck
for the usual payment. But the kiss chilled her; it was
cold, formal, insincere. Instantly she stood upright,
stepped to where she could see all three fully, and gazed
sharply from one to the other with questioning face.
" Why ^ what's this ?" she demanded.
"I—I don't quite know, dear," whispered Lady Seton,
" but there's terrible news, I fear."
Here the little old general shot up out of his chair, like
some whimsical puppet directed with a concealed spring.
" Ay, dearie, terrible news, awful news!" and he leaned
back against the mantelpiece, his chin thrown into his
breast, and his fingers tearing savagely at his seals. The
girl had never before beheld her smooth and smiling uncle
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 33
roused like this. Alarm shook her limbs; and she was
brave.
" Tell me, is it Tom t" she gasped.
"No,'' answered the old man bitterly, "but Tom's
country, and Tom's king."
" Hal" panted the relieved women: he was safe.
" John, John," rambled the anguished general, " hang
it, sir, I can't believe it! Invasion in 1745—why, the very
word rings obsolete. I could understand it if it were the
days of the Roses, or of Elizabeth even; ay or of even
those devilish Stuarts—but our own time, '45—no, it's not
in nature, sir."
It's perhaps not in nature," growled the parson, " but
it's in the Edinburgh News Letter of Thursday, September
5., And did I gamble, the News Letter would hold all
money o' mine. Besides I had it from MacKenzie of Saint
Andrews, who had it from MacPhee his own cousin, who
lives in Blair Athol, that ' Chairlie lad' is collecting
blackguard Highlandmen in thousands in Olenfinnan;
and there they are reiving and cursing and piping, and
promising to cut up Johnny Cope."
"Cut up Johnny Cope! Will they, by Q—d!" The
old war-dog left his station by the mantelpiece, and went
strutting up and down the room like an indignant turkey.
He strode over every available inch of the room, gobbling:
" Cut up Johnny Cope! Cut up Johnny Cope!" and tag-
ging every fifth repetition with "Will they, byG—d!"
Then suddenly he fell into shrills of laughter.
" And where shall we be, John ?" he shouted, "youand
I that were with the duke at Bamillies, and Blenheim, and
Malplaquet. I suppose we shall be cut up, too."
"Of course," acquiesced the sardonic parson with a
hungry eye, " we're bound to be in at the cutting; though
the strange thought struck me that you and I at that par-
ticular time might be engaged in cutting out the livers of
those blighted Highlandmen."
"Marvelous coincidence!" cried Fierceheart, "but that
very same thought struck me at the very same time! "
34 PESRCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
The mighty parson was now on his feet also, and the
huge mastiff of six feet four stood peering proudly down
into the eyes of the little terrier of five feet three.
"James," he demanded, "your hand I" and he seized it
and squeezed it till the tingling terrier had to tighten his
lips on the pain.
"John," glowed the enraptured general, "you're a
jewel! No show, no fuss, no polish, no flummery, but
solid, sir, devilish solid, and true as steel and straight as a
musket. Cut up Johnny Cope! Will they by Gf—d!
Only give his blessed Majesty twenty men like old JoKin
Blunt, and Charlie shall smell hell, sir—I'm a Jacobite
else! " Then he turned to his startled wife.
"Your pardon, my dear," said the polite man, " but I'd
forgot you quite. Devilish—er—deuced hot times, my
dear; army talk, army times, my dear : I'm wanted."
The frail old lady had to fight against swooning. Once
more his eyes were lit with the lust of battle, as she had
seen them half a century since. Alas! she knew that tears,
prayers, entreaties would avail her nothing when her lord
had to choose between her and the king. Not that he
loved her less than his Majesty; but it was the wonderful
temper of his spirit; it would not lie down such times as
these; it must bubble and effervesce in war-time, scorning
clay-footed peace.
"And, John, you say this filthy Charles Edward's sworn
to march on London and wrest the crown from the king?"
The parson grinned.
"And he'll kick out the best ministry that ever was
bred?"
The parson grinned.
"And he'll blow up the best constitution that ever was
born?"
The parson grinned.
"And he'll kill the true religion, and set up-priests and
the scarlet woman?"
The parson grinned.
"Well, I think we'll see about that!"
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 35
All of a sudden his voice had a fall into mildness, and that
sound of mildness delighted the parson, but was steel in the
flesh of the trembling wife. In him that particular softness
of cadence ever denoted a mind that was made.
He took the bell-rope in both hands, and performed such
a peal that it startled the servants' hall. When it was
answered he said:
" I want Daniel at once."
Daniel was his valet, an old, lean, scarred, lead-peppered
veteran, who had ridden behind his master through the
whole of the great French campaign. The ancient warrior
shuffled in in an instant, blinking and smirking.
Mebbe it's true, sirs!" The tough rogue was compelled
to put his hand to his mouth to save grinning in his mas-
ter's face.
"Oh, you've heard," said the general—"you've heard that
they're on the march to Eldinburgh, and that they've prom-
isedtocutup Johnny Cope? Now, Daniel," asked his master,
with an amazing mischief in his eye, "I'd like your opinion."
"Na, na, your honor!" deprecated Daniel, "it's no for
the likes o' me to presoom to baud ae opeenion."
This modesty was less adn^irable than it appears; he fre-
quently did presume to hold an opinion, but being a " leal
chield" to his country, he remembered that it was a Scotch-
man's first duty to wait for the wind.
"This is sublime, this modesty, Daniel," laughed his
master. " I might say it's heroic. But my opinion is that
it's time every true man left toasting his knees at the hearth,
and went to strike for the king."
Daniel nearly jumped out of his skin. What did his
crackbrained old master mean by wearing the face of
battle in his seventy-first year?
"Nae doot," said Daniel, "the time's fasheous, unco'
fasheous." He punctuated this large utterance with a
slowly nodded head.
" So fasheous, Daniel, that you, I think, and I and Dr.
Blunt, will go help at the cutting," said the decisive Fierce-
heart.
36 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
Daniel held his hands up in horror. Nothing was ever
farther from his thoughts than to exchange the sleek fur-
lined nest he had found for his declining days for the
travails of war. He had experienced campaigns, also the
cushions of peace; no more campaigns for Daniel. Let
him seek an evasion. He turned his eyes from the purple-
faced parson and his obstinate master, and they glinted joy
when they lit on her ladyship wetting the antimacassar
with tears. He saw his strong card and played it.
" My leddy," he shuffled, lifting his voice up, though he
wore the downcast eye of humility, "God forgie me that I
suld presoom tae ae opeenion contrair tae his honor, and
mair especially, contrair to his reverence, him being a
ordained meenister o'the Word; but dooty, my leddy, dooty
maun sit afore ceevility; dooty maun gang its ain gate."
" Be quick and speak, you wriggling, shuffling, old
villain," thundered the reverend wrath, "Say at once you
dou't want to go, and done with it."
"Sirs, I didna say sae."
"No, but why don't you?"
"An', my leddy," he flowed on, quietly ignoring the
parson, " dooty gars me assert that ilka hale an' spunkie
chiel' i' th' warld suld be awa' tae King Geordie, assooming
his years be nae mair nor saxty-an'-five, whilk, sirs, I pre-
soom tae say, is the leemitation to man's acteevity; but
when the puir fallow is at three scower and ten like your
honor, or at saxty-an'-sax like me, it's richt, in my een,
tae bide at hame. My leddy, I hope I havenae been ower
bauld in this opeenion."
" Very right, Daniel; very right!" piped the old lady.
"But, Daniel," insinuated sly Fierceheart, "you, I
believe, are butsixty-and-four."
"Wae's me!" sighed the veteran, "saxty-an'-sax, yer
honor, saxty-an'-sax."
"Yes," snapped a clergyman's anger, "and Lucifer's
provided a front parlor for his soul."
" I'se my faults, sirs," the soft answer, " but blinking o'
dooty isna amang them."
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 37
"No, Daniel," smiled the general, "your duty you
always did, and of course do your duty you always will.
Now your first duty is toward your master, and he bids
you have his riding coat brushed against to-morrovir<
Strap the holsters on my saddle, have my sword and
pistols fettled, and clap a polish to my cavalry boots. I
shall also want my 'fortunate' hat; the one I wore at
Ramillies, you know. John, I think I've shown you that
hat; I swore at the time that I'd never wear another in
war; four bullets sang through it without so much as
scorching my wig. And the duke noticed it. ' Jim,' said
he—it was ever Jack and Jim between us when we cracked
together—'Jim, somebody's charmed that hat.' 'That's
true. Jack,' says I. 'My Emmy charmed it when she
stitched the lining in.'" The old beau paused to bow to his
terrified wife in a style that would have provoked a green
monster to bite Horace Walpole. "Now, Daniel, don't
forget; and, Daniel, if the morning's fair, I shall wear my
lavender coat; if not, my brown, and you'll put the other
in my portmanteau. And in any case I shall want my
silver-embroidered waistcoat, and my stockings of partridge
silk. I'm sure to meet the nobilities, and one can never be
too careful in the matter of bon ton. And lastly I charge
you to go this instant down to the village before the ale-
house closes, that you may enroll as many volunteers as
you can for the king, to take with us to-morrow."
Daniel chewed his lips, and like a rat in a trap he looked
all sides for escape. It was midsummer madness this; yet
there was no denying what was meant by Fierceheart's
eye. Desperation spurred him to the remark:
"Your honor, it's a presoomption, but my ain opeenion
is ye've fair dammered her leddyship. She's a face like
snaw."
With that he took himself out, and swore to the butler
that "the daft auld donnert had tint his wits entirely,"
and the butler concurred indeed when he heard the amaz-
ing story.
Meantime was being fought Marathon the third.
38 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"James, are you madt" from the old lady.
" Tes, my dear, mad as a March hare," from the pleasant
old gentleman. " The pibrochs of those wild Highlandmen
are skirling in my ear. They're going to cut up Johnny
Cope."
" And pray, who's Johnny Cope!"
"The king's commander, and he does but command two
thousand men. John and I start to-morrow as gentleman
volunteers to help him; for if ever king did need stanch
hearts, it's now he needs 'em."
That talk slew every argument, except a woman's one
of tears. But they battled long; the parson with a con-
temptuous nose high in the air, Fierceheart persuasive
and meek of mien, the old lady wet-eyed and querulous.
Did he forget his age, and her age, and that only he and
Tom were left now that the king had stolen her other two
beautiful lads? It was hard, she said, bitterly hard, that
she who had served the king so faithfully, having given
her husband more than once to him, and having later
abandoned two noble specimens of her flesh for ever to his
relentless service, that she should now be called on in her
gray hairs to make further sacrifice. Had she not done
her part years ago? It was for younger and baler mothers
and wives to now do theirs. She said the king was selfish.
"My dear," said the old man, taking her hand, "it's
hard, I know. Oh, for a little bravery I It will not be for
long. I shall be back early, and hale as I ever have been.
As to the king being selfish, I'd have a wife of mine the
last to utter that. He's been a good king and a true, and
when that snake treason rears its head to bite him, those
who love him must no longer bide at home."
"Amen to that!" roared the reverend patriot at his
elbow, helping himself largely to snuff, and snapping the
lid of the box down in a distinctly militant manner.
The old lady reproached with peevish warmth:
"James, I think you're cruel."
The husband winced; half a century is a long time, but
throughout those years this was the first time she had
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER 39
given him that speech. He answered never a word, but
accepted it humbly on his bowed head. A heart-cutting
silence came, and the parson broke it.
"James," he denounced, snorting wrath, " that's you all
over. You pitiful mouse! You are insulted, sir, and you
bow and scrape and look humility. Since the duke went
in '22 Britain has not seen your equal in the field. I heard
the king utter it with his own lips, that since Marlborough
he has had no captain so lionly and strategic as Seton, and
yet you take law from a petticoat. And, madam, if you will
pardon the bluntness my name implies, I would remind you
that you have the best husband in the world, and so long
as tTohn Blunt has a tongue at his service, I'd warn you,
madam, against casting mud on a good man's character."
An impolitic defense, but the reverend gentleman had a
theory that politeness and tact were excrescences in a solid
person of parts and scholarship. It was a pity, though, that
his courage was not of a piece with his controversial style.
And yet he ventured to part conjugal warriors I The bus-
band nudged him in the rib for silence; the wife went for
his head and his ears, ay, his whole anatomy. She was
roused; red banners of hostility were unfurled in her white
cheeks.
"Dr. Blunt," she told him, "hate you I always did.
Any time these fifty years you'd have turned James from
me if you could; but you couldn't, thank God! You
wanted him all to yourself, only," with an easy transition
to sneers, " sometimes he had the folly to prefer me. Yes,
Dr. Blunt, I've hated you always, and hate you I always
shall; there never was a man so selfish as you. And never
I think one so bard-hearted and so little of a gentleman.
It was you who incited James to leave me, a girl, while he
went to the wars in the terrible days of Blenheim. It was
your voice that moved him to sacrifice my John and my
James to the king, who is only less selfish than you. Dr.
Blunt. And you would have him sacrifice my Tom also,
the only one that's left me now. Thwarted in that you
}iave still mwaged to qorrupt him with your own stony
40 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
heart, for now that I have one foot in the grave, you are
persuading him once more to desert me. And you cry ' In
the king's name 1' to conceal your motive. And, Dr.
Blunt, I'll name that motive: it's spite, sir, purely; spite of
me."
Of course she broke into a torrent of tears at the finish;
not tears of contrition, mind, but of rage and of self-pity.
Long ago the husband had slunk away to a seat in a distant
corner, where the glare of the lamps could not penetrate.
He could face the guns, but not the tongue of women,
though the bachelor and misogynist, having never been
tied to one, was not so respectful; though it would be doing
him more than justice to claim that he was not disconcerted,
since he was at pains to explain to the general later:
"When you're pelting a man, sir, it can be done with an
occasional D and a B, and all kinds of Biblical embroidery:
or if your warrior gets too saucy and you find your artillery
insufficient, you're allowed, on occasion, to clap a well-
clenched fist to his eye. But with a woman, you see,
James, it's different."
This theory he was able to prove with an ocular demon-
stration. The savage whirlwind compelled him to bend his
head before it; and when it came to an answer, at first he
could only open his mouth very wide, and then shut it
with singular care. Then he opened it again and said
irresolutely:
"Madam!"
But she killed what was left of the remonstrance with
" Dr. Blunt, I hate you!" her face and eyes fiercely support-
ing the Speech. All of which suddenly reminded the
clergyman that he must make provision for the spiritual
well-being of the souls of Rundell parish during his pro-
posed campaigning.
"See you first thing to-morrow, James," he bowed himself
out, "but can't stop now. Must see Comfort, the church-
warden, and Wragg, the beadle, about services while I'm
away. Good-night, James; good-night, ladies." And toss-
ing off his punch and treading on the cat's tail in his haste.
PIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 41
the deserter was away to the village ere hostilities could be
resumed.
No sooner was he gone than young Molly crept to bed,
soul-sick and angry with women. That night it struck her
with horrid force that, on the high occasions of life, when
it was a game of kings and nations with freedom and con-
science for the stakes, they could bear no hand, but must
be mewed in a chamber away from the strife. But she had
not to wrestle with this sickness long, ere hope flew in at
the skylight. To her flne-spirited sisters there was still one
alternative: to present their country with fine-spirited chil-
dren who might bring to fruition their mother's yearnings.
" Oh, auntie! auntie!" she moaned, as she caught her own
sparkling image in the mirror. Then she thought of Tom,
but let us respect a heroic rhapsody.
Downstairs the poor general was dreadfully battered.
Love and Duty are bad bedfellows; they contrive to quarrel,
as a rule, and of course, the weaker, according to nature's
ordination, is made to feel the floor. Fifty years is a long
time to have expanded in the sunshine of a wife, and they
had grieved and rejoiced together with an intensity so
unanimous that time had made their souls amalgamate and
had formed one strong-pulsed heart to reprint two fraU
bodies. They had not yet lost by any means the art of
loving, but the eager buoyance of youth was gone. Gener-
ous hope could re-enforce them never again. Besides they
had suffered; times and again had they stood together hand
in hand, white-lipped and hearts drooping in the hour when
darkness came and when the mouth of the grave was open;
and those are the cruel tricks crabbed old Time resorts to to
clip the wings of youth and insert lead in his airy shoes.
The old man no longer felt the rebound in his fibers the
young rejoice in; his tissues were not elastic now and juicy
with strength. In those bright days, alas! long vanished.
Duty was able to beat Love without turning a hair. To-
night would be different; there was going to be a terrible
struggle. And how his soul prayed for those absent
resources of boyhood! Oh! for the consciousness of
42 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
imprisoned stores of power pent up in his blood that was
wont to be such a stimulus of yore. His wife's reproachful
face was Love's piercing weapon. And that cunning com-
hatant had others as shrewd in his sheath. There was a
little dart, Fear, skillfully trimmed, that had bitten his
bosom. Had not the doctors told him a year ago that God
had numbered her days? A drawn, white face, and peevish
tears, were not for nothing. Then the dart Remorse was
loosed from the bow; and he was bitten again. Who sent
her two beautiful lads to the wars? Could it he that the
king was selfish? Next instant he cursed himself for the
thought.
"Emmy," he pleaded softly, "I am getting very old
now, and I feel that when my nearly-ended career is
examined, they will find scant worth in it, with which to
embellish an epitaph. But I should like them to he able to
put on it ' He did his duty.' If they can only do that, I
shall die a proud man, and a happy man. Will you help
me to deserve that epitaph?"
It was all very simply said, with an entreating voice
though, that poured straight out of the man's strong heart.
"James," her answer, "I am not the woman I used to
be, else you would not need to talk to me like this. I begin
to feel that my years defeat me. I begin to feel myself a
whimpering, weak creature instead of a soldier's wife; I
begin to feel that disease and adversity have diluted my
once proud spirit. I am no longer fit to he a wife to you
and a mother to Tom."
" Yes, you called the king selfish," he upbraided her.
"For f?hich I crave God's pardon," she whispered
through starting tears. "I never said it before to-day;
and I know not why I said it then. James, ever have I
lovedtheking; and why, James? Why, James, do you think
I have loved the king, these long years? I have never seen
the man; I have never heard what his virtues are; but I do
know that he's robbed me of my boys. Why do you think
I love him, then? James, it's for the sake of you that I
love him."
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 43
The lovers looked into each other's eyes.
" Emmy, you will permit me still to serve the king, my
master," he implored, with her hand at his lips. Had a
word of hers denied his eager glance, and his bearing,
braced and strung with the pride of valor, she would have
confessed herself insensible to her husband's soul.
"Oh, Emmy, I beseech you!" The lover was on his
knees. Duty had struck him to that appealing posture.
To Duty he had surrendered. But not without a compro-
raise with Love, though. He shut his eyes to keep out the
brutal sight of his wife's torn face. The wife struggled to
give him his release. Her mouth refused to frame it.
Ag^vin the voice of Fierceheart entered into her and at last
she yielded him a muttered:
"As you will, my husband."
He rose up, blessing herfor a true wife. Not his to divine
that this true wife was criminally false to her maternal
heart.
CHAPTER V.
THE DEPARTURE.
MoRNiNa arrived with a promise of winter; light films
of frost were spread on the grass and the hills. Although
the season was still September, autumn. Nature's cunning-
est painter, had already flung indefinable browns and hints
of gray from his brush into wonderful harmonies and
schemes of shade over the deep dales of Cumberland, fading
miles in the east into breadths of pasture and white heights
of mountain ascending to cloud. And over all, fold upon
fold of gloom-haunted woodland shed a heavy and a
solemn light, subduing the bursts of early day, and toning
its excesses into chastity and grandeur, while the sun
climbed into heaven.
The general was awakened at five. He had only closed
his eyes twenty minutes; and when at the knock on his
door he had yawned and stretched himself into sensibility.
44 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
his stale old flesh immediately whispered its weariness,
and his heart its sickness; and he would have paid a
guinea that day for every extra minute he retained his bed
and cheated his pains with sleep. But it was not to be:
Daniel had already peered round the curtains, ironic of
countenance, with hot water and razor in either flst; and
Duty had poured a tumultuous and a swelling song into the
breast of a patriot.
Though the ebb-tide of his career had had its quiet back-
waters suddenly roused with a flush of activity, the general
refused to bate one particular in his toilet on this high
occasion. He was to coast forth to meet the powdered and
polite, and the breathless question of what to wear was
only to be decided by the opinion of experts; thus himself
and valet minutely scrutinized every suit in his closets
and even then they had to summon Nature to give the cast-
ing vote. Daniel thrust his head through tlie casement,
sniffed at the air, and twisted his eyes to the east. They
returned to the general informed with all knowledge.
"E'ening red an' a mornin' gray is taiken sure o' a
bonnie day," cried the prophetic Scot. " Your honor, an I
may presoom tae baud ae opeenion, after a' the lavender
suld hae a shaw the day."
The beau stepped into it with the care of a maid robing
for conquests at Vauxhall, lamenting it was fifteen months
behind the mode.
" That's the whole argument, Daniel, against country
life," he sighed.
However, his wig appeased him. His wig to-day actually
eclipsed ^elf; a triumph for Daniel and the wearer. The
lenience of fashion had decreed some latitude for individu-
ality in a wig, permitting the true artist to reveal his
touch and the wearer to regale an admiring world with a
well-carried creation. From the meek tie to the majestic,
full-bottomed, or sublime peruke, in every matter of shap-
ing, curling, and powdering, Daniel's inspired hand touched
none but what it adorned. There would be a flutter in the
bosoms of the king's officers when that wig greeted
FIEKUEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
45
Q«neral Cope. Yet throughout this most elaborate dress-
ing Daniel kept his tongue far in his cheek the whole of
the time. This morning he was visibly shifty of mien and
evasive of eye, like a man badly attacked by his conscience,
Still it went unremarked with the general, though in an
hour when Fierceheart had been less immersed with prep-
aration, such an inhuman silence in a valet would have
had to be explained. With sedulous care the Scot steered
free of the breathless business at hand. At seven o'clock,
however, when the general was dispatching a breakfast of
mulled ale and beef, he cracked the ice.
" Your houor," Daniel announced, rocking his body like
a rded in the wind and sucking his breath in loud spasms,
as a man in mortal pain, " it's ae presoomption, but it's
my ain opeenion ye winna win Geordie ava'."
"Not get to the king at all," Fierceheart translated in
amaze. "You'll have to invent such a mighty strong
hindrance, Daniel!"
" Weel, first, your honor, nane o' the laddies at tha ale-
hoose las' nicht wad tak tae thae sodgerin'; an' say I,
whae's tae blame 'em!"
"Psha!'" rapped Fierceheart, "it's not for cravens to
taint true men."
" But it's fearsome wark tae traverse thae Liddesdale
mosses alane."
" I've smelt powder, sir," was the proud retort.
"And forby, your honor, the gray mear gat her houghs
gaw'd yestreen."
" Then I'll take Churchill, the bay."
" He isna weel, your honor. He was took wi' anither
seizure twa day syne."
" How sad ! " lamented Resignation. " Go on, Daniel."
" An' your boots, your honor, deil dang me an I can find
'em."
" And deil dang you, if you do, fause-hearted villain. It
strikes me I'd better give you a bit of advice, Daniel; it will
save time, sir, and an appalling amount of your wicked
dissembling Scots. Briefiy, you wish to stay at home to
46 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
nurse your knees at the fire. Your age demands con-
sideration; therefore, Daniel, by all means stay."
" But your honor canna fend wi'oot me. Wha's tae dae
your wig?"
"Ha! I'd forgotten my wig. Why, you're quite an
institution, Daniel."
Daniel had known that all along.
"Hech, sirs! quite ae institootion, and I may presoom
tae sic an opeenion."
" For once I will dispense even with you, Daniel."
" Na, na, your honor. Hech! your honor canna."
" But you're old, Daniel, and fond of the fire, and the
creature demands its comforts."
" Well, maybe I'm a thocht pithless an' ower prone tae
my bit parritch an' my toothfu' o' whusky; maybe I'm a
thocht cappernoity, an' I wadna deny I'm a thocht the less
souple and skeely than formerly; but an your honor gangs
I gang; an your honor bides, I bide."
"Daniel, that's uncommonly well said. You're a good
man, Daniel."
" That's true, my certie ! I wad hae ye ta ken I am a
gude man: a man tae he respeckit. But your honor can
spare his whilly-was an sic' like saft and wily speeches.
It's nane I'm wantin'."
With which moral neatly and decently pointed, the
veteran clothed his self-conceit in the sweeping robes of
condescension. He regarded it in the light of a religious
duty to demonstrate once a day at least to the powers that
were that, though Daniel could at any time very well dis-
pense with his master, his master could not possibly dis-
pense with Daniel. And having imbibed the ethics of
impudence in his tender years, he was able to walk round
his conscience and persuade it to support him in all he did:
thus, on those rare occasions he ran his head against
rebuffs, his conscience soothed his injuries by a curse upon
the Sassenach (Scots avoid injuring one another) and it also
made him feel quite easily that he was another Wallace or
some other superior sort of martyr. He always had the
FIERCEHEAKT, THE SOLDIER. 47
strut of a man of worth, and while submitting with much
hauteur to accept a fat salary and enticing perquisites, he
did not disguise the fact that the mere submission in one so
proud was a virtue in itself.
The general had slipped his fine Andrea de Ferrara
down from the wall, and was lovingly fingering its crown-
stamped blade, when arriving hoofs, grinding the gravel
without, drew his eyes to the window. It was the parson,
a little too fat and too fierce for Don Quixote, dangling his
great legs from the fianks of a pony unnecessarily short.
No mortal could have hit his vocation at a glance. He
looked no more of a soldier than the prophet Balaam
bestriding his ass. True there was an ancient sword
strapped on the crupper and beating his heels, and a pistol
peeped from the saddle ; but his garb was bizarre; top-
boots moldy and low at the heel, garnished with one spur
only, and that rusty; his greatcoat, an eccentric article
somber of shade, very woebegone with wear, and falling so
tight to his form that it threw his straight and enormous
length into sheer relief like a steep hill-side; and to behold
this sensational thing actually in motion was to suggest
that at last the mountain was coming to Mahomet; for, as
a crown to this g^otesqueness, a clerical penthouse or
Geneva hat, shabby, straight, and tall, and fifty years
behind the time, set so many inches to his normal six feet
four of stature that, to a poetic mind, his head appeared to
kiss the sun. His well-floured cue, swinging from under
his penthouse; his steined white tie, his corded riding
breeches uncertain at the seams, and his ancient undipped
Galloway pony, gamboling along with a flowing tail and
its heart at peace, are almost admitted in pure despair, for
the reverend doctor riding to the wars is a matter for
Hogarth rather than the dictionary. The general laughed.
He laid the sword on the table and came forward to greet
the rider as he strode into the room, his solitary spur hit-
ting the carpet at every step he took.
"Morning, John," the beau saluted him, "but I hope
you've seen yourself?"
48 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"What now?" demanded his reverence, smelling ir-
reverence. " I'm sleepy, if that's what you mean."
"But, my dear man, your uniform; andPopsietoo, she's
never heen groomed this century. Besides she looks no
more than a flea under you, sir."
"James," said he of the heavy weapon, not without
grandeur, "in a person of solid parts like myself, the
cheap fripperies of modes and embroideries are an imperti-
nence, polluting the flne simplicity of the natural man. I
may say that an individual of my type is never so well
adorned as when not adorned at all. Worth needs no
embellishment; like precious stones it is best set plain. It
is my severe rule in my intercourse with strangers, neither
to flatter nor to varnish, nor to parade; making my char-
acter my passport to the world's opinion. Persons less
stalwart in virtue, and more meagerly found in spiritual
armor, must indeed have recourse to the foppery of a valet
and a lavender coat. You remember Phaedrus, sir;
" Formosos ssepe inveni pessimos,
Et turpi facie multos cognovi optimog."
The general did not remember Phaedrus, but Daniel the
erudite stepped gallantly to his aid.
"Whilk is tae sae, sirs," said the unabashed with his
proudest air of penetration, " and I may presoom tae thae
indecency o' redoocin' preceesely tae simplicity thae braw
langwidge o' your reverence, whilk is tae sae, ' gude gear's
no to be gaped at,' but 'gude ale needs nae wisp,' an' 'a'
isna gowd as glitters.' "
In the meantime the general in his wisdom kept deaf
ears. He mildly smiled, and embodied his retort in a
tangible form, since he dipped a quill in the horn, and
inscribed in boldest letters on a square of paper: " Puzzle:
what is it ?" And when the parson was done, he waved it
before him, saying:
" John, permit me to pin this on the back of your coat.
It will spare us a thousand questions on the way."
The parson thought it the strangest sight in nature to
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
49
behold this boyish exuberance in a cashiered old war-dog
of seventy; and not the least beautiful, for that sword on
the table and the high thoughts in his mind had stripped
him of twenty years in a night. Still, despite the parson's
forbearance, the old beau could not be brought to accept
the dress and the warhorse of his fellow volunteer. He
called them an affront to gravity, a prostitution of dignity,
nay, nothing short of an insult to his very sacred majesty,
the king; implying to the world that his army had to be
recruited with scarecrows. On his side, the parson called
them a sermon against the pampered rogue vanity; the
prick to a bastard pride, and to sum up and to be more
broad, an awful humiliation to a small fop of seventy in
a smart wig and a lavender coat. But the beau was genu-
inely alarmed; to be tied to that satire of the fashions in
towns and hamlets, in war and peace, in the society of the
well-groomed great, was to him very little the laughing
side calamity. It is a characteristic of the great, that, even
when poised on the dizziest altitudes of conduct and feeling,
they have the capacity of mind to receive the less as well
as the greater; and permitting this hypothesis, it was for
this reason that this singular old gentleman, even when
plunged in the noble accidents of war, could be yet exer-
cised by a mean matter of clothes. But argument with the
parson was like the adjacent sea beating the Cumberland
headlands: there was no impression. Luckily, Molly stole
in in time to catch the argument. Having duly saluted
them, she said never a word, but stood boldly in front of
the bachelor and gazed at him a full minute with parted
lips, and then flowed into such an extraordinary music of
laughter that their heated speeches paused before it. When
she found leisure for remonstrance:
"Why, doctor," trilled Impudence, "do you know you
are funnier than a poem of Mr. Pope's ? And for fine
comedy, I'd wager that wonderful penthouse hat, sir, against
Mr. Vanbrugh. Faith 1 my dear doctor, I can't have this."
Nor did she. Ere the astounded gentleman could guess
the assault, she had planted a chair at the side of his six
50 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
feet four; was on it herself, and then awaj with his hat in
triumph.
"Oh, you—you rogue, you wild animal!" the thunder
rumbled.
"You dear old gentleman," she shook her curls at him,
"you are a dear old gentleman, aren't you ?" Naughti-
ness laid her head to one side and looked the misogynist
shortly down with her cool, insinuating impudence. But
all the same she burnt that terrible penthouse hat. She
discreetly placed it in the flames, set her hands upon her
hips in manner debonair, and demurely watched it burn,
despite the reverend thunder. She then sailed forth and
fetched a delightful gold-laced Montero of Mr. Tom's, with
the newest curl in the brim, and a flowing sprightly plume.
Mounting the chair a second time, she planted it tastefully
on the indignant head, and in the act noted the worn
white tie.
" Doctor, my dearest, take off your tie, and I'll fetch
you another, sir."
"Molly," announced the thunderer, "I'm very angry
indeed."
" Oh, sir, how very interesting I" she clasped her hands
and assumed the fervent look of a rapt listener to a romantic
tale.
Step by step the amazing Molly created a revolution in
the bachelor's external man. It thundered much; times
and again it muttered:
" To think that I nursed you before you could crawl, you
saucy, naughty she-rogue, and to repay me with an un-
paralleled impertinence." Despite it, though, she gained the
day. The beau chafed his hands with glee, to see her coax,
wheedle, and bully him into changing his tie to a necker-
chief, both fashionable and secular. Then she found him
a second spur; nor did the transformation end even here,
for, by dint of bullying pure and simple, she battered him
into discarding that monstrous greatcoat for a very neat
riding cloak of Mr. Tom's which, though a trifle short on
so colossal a gentleman, was scarcely so humorous as its
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 51
predecessor; while, as a crowning consummation to her
victory, she even prevailed upon him to part with a little
of the mold on his riding boots.
Daniel was presently dispatched to the stables with the
Galloway to effect an exchange in horses. It was a busi-
ness simple of performance, for being now persuaded that
no intervention that sprang from a mortal source would
turn the general from his journey, he made the discovery
that if in this instance the "gray mear" was not the better
horse, it was at least a sound one; and having had it duly
groomed and saddled, he caused it to be led round to the
door for the parson's service. He promptly informed the
geperal that:
"Thae deceitfu' villain John had tauld anither lee; after
a' the mear waur well, an' fit forby; whilk, your honor, I
e'en kenned my ainsel frae the first."
" A sort of mare's nest, then," said the general; he had
learned to know Daniel.
They were soon involved in the turmoil of departure. The
reverend doctor insisted in bating one item in his external
transformation. The rags of dignity left him, revolted at
that worldly plume in his Montero; it had a mocking and
a wanton air, distinctly inimical to the sobriety of a doctor
in divinity. He said:
" Molly, you rogue, if they see my head flaunting the
feathers of a fop, they'll say it gets its divinity from the
devil. I'm not Tom, you know." And to her indignation
he plucked it out and threw it at her.
The two gentlemen were presently outside, well-found
and well-horsed, with Daniel at their heels. The old lady
and the girl gave them "Good-by! " from the side of the
stirrups with lips trembling on their hastening tears.
" We shall be back soon," said the husband.
But they had few words or tears to give; the part these
heart-torn people played was not an honest one: they strove
to cheat sorrow by a pain-charged silence, fearful should
they lapse into words lest they lapse into weakness also.
Yet no sooner were the volunteers past the shrubbery bend.
52 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
and out of sight, than the old lady lost her temporary cour-
age. He who had fed its uncertain flame was no longer
there to succor it. Perchance he would never be there
again; what so terrible as war I Hers was no idle alarmist's
story. She knew, she had lived through these things, and
had paid for her experience with the flesh next her heart,
and her most precious blood. Her beautiful lads 1 It was
just such a morning of sun and serene peace that they rode
away thus out of her sight round the shrubbery bend. The
warm farewells they paid their mother that morning were
yet thrilling her cold lips. It was Molly's task to console
the beaten woman, but ere the day was out they were riding
hastily over the hills for the doctor.
CHAPTER VI.
leads through liddesdale to the seat of war.
It was ten o'clock in the morning when these gentlemen
rode forth from the Sol way shore. They took a course due
east almost for Carlisle, a town that would see them a
short twenty miles on their errand. It was a garrison place
with a castle in it, which had a special communication
service with the South. Indeed it was the chief news-
house of northern England, and thither they went for
latest tidings of the king and this terrible rebellion.
They came there a little after noon, drawing rein at
The Dog and Bear, an inferior tavern wrapped in the
shadows of the fortress darkening Castle Street. Here the
horses received a bait while their riders were refreshed
with a midday tankard. A suppressed commotion appeared
to he in the town, and portents of great and disturbing
news seemed to have charged the heavy thundery air.
Good Mrs. Rumor was out with her mouth unmuzzled.
True, she did not say much, for as soon as a war-word
slipped off her tongue, fear would seize her by the breath,
nipping her garrulity in the bud and abashing her to
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 53
silence with the sound of her own startling talk. But the
effect of these hints and this strangled language was to
provoke and oppress the minds of all who heard, quite as
much as an undiminished declaration of bloodshed and
civil strife. The travelers caught the gloom of this atmos-
phere while they sat at meat; thus the general dispatched a
meal speedily, and went off to the castle at once. He was
hack in an hour with all they could tell him. The com-
mander of the garrison had given him to understand that
Marshal Wade, who administered the main protective forces
of the North at Newcastle, had sent a word that Charles
Edward the Pretender, at the head of a formidable High-
land company, was expected in Edinburgh any hour, and
that, true to reports already published, Sir John Cope,
acting for King George, was out against him. A battle,
even if not actually fought, was imminent every day; and
Sir James Seton was strenuously assured that if he desired
to aid with his own person his country and his king in this
affair, he must burst hence to Scotland at an exceptional
speed, while, even as he went, there would be the growing
probability that he would arrive too late to take the field.
In crises Fierceheart soon proved to the world that he
was a man of action. He was an old man, but the style in
which he trotted into the inn, fetched the waiter summarily
up with a demand for horses and the hill, and the energy
with which he imparted to the parson that a time of hard
riding, long fasting, and scant sleep lay before them, would
have honored a boy of ardent twenty. Not ten minutes
had flown ere they were away down the street at a sensa-
tional rate, supplying new rumors to the wide-mouthed
town. Now they drove abruptly northeast for Scotland,
straight and as hard as the roads allowed, Liddel river in
front, and the sea away to the west. Their fierce career
bespoke no peaceful mission, and they never once slackened
till they were involved in the skirts of the dales. They
had employed this pace that daylight might help them to
penetrate deep into the heart of this dangerous Border
country. As soon as the dark swamped their road, they
54
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER,
would be no longer able to proceed; their track being a
moss and an intricacy of murderous paths with bogs and
precipices and sheer descents lying in ambush to waylay
those unhappy men who traveled at night. Every mile
was studded with unexpected endings and falls of rock, and
grim scaurs bridging chasms insufiBciently, or jutting above
deep and roaring water, all cunningly laid to exact the fee
of a broken neck. They found it a country of gmnd dis-
mality, glooming with an angry beauty of wild hills, naked
to the night and shivering bare to the frosts of autumn.
Scraps and wastes of stern moor, faced morosely with
patches of ungenerous heath, made the eyes of the riders
ache and shudder with their continuous and sardonic
frowns. This desolation of the land, occasionally shot
with sulky variety by the shadows of a black and secret
dale, packed away darkly in the belly of a broken fell; and
the cold rocks wrapped in a misery of morasses and eternal
twilight, every crag and shrub damp with weeping because
it never saw the sun; this vale of earth-grief stabbed them
to the blood with the utter dejection of its spirit. Thus
soon, in sympathy with the land, they fell weary and
despairing too. Their hearts drooped to the cruppers;
while the shadow-wind complained on the moors, and
night came pealing like a ghost, and frightened with its
dreadful apparition the color out of the face of the west.
Besides, Liddesdale held a reputation on the countryside
that was in keeping with its uncharitable countenance. It
was cursed with evil traditions, and correctly so; it was a
hermitage of thieves; for centuries the robber and the out-
law had dwelt and spawned in its unlighted corners and its
dim interior. Woe betide him who rode alone!
The cavalcade of three had perforce to tighten rein in
these passes, for from end to end it boasted no easy and
unbroken road; while the majority of its tracks, used by
the herdsmen only, hung on the faces of steep hills, and
sloping as the mountains sloped, often provided only
meager room for a single passenger. Haply Daniel was
acquainted with these parts, and by the advice of blm they
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
55
attended to their weapons well, ere they committed them-
selves to the tender mercies of the dales. He had a thousand
hair-raising tales on his tongue.
" Auld wives' cracks, ye'll sae, sirs; hut "
Daniel shuddered and prayed that the night was far.
Alas I that his eyes and his heart should tell him it was so
near. A glance behind, and there was the horizon's
orange gone, a star sparkled in the blue, and behind a fire-
lit cluster of rocks fading to intensest night, the sun dipt
deep and fell into the sea. They pricked incessantly on to
unearth a lodging for the night. Alack! they sought and
found not. Vain their quest for an inn, while the few
belated huts they saw had poverty and squalor plainly
inscribed upon the thatch, and mostly reposed high on
some steep ridge, inaccessible to horses. The gloaming
brought them deep anxieties; it rendered a roof and enter-
tainment an acute neces.sity. To embrace a darkness
infested with robbers and broken roads was surely to court
disaster. But even to attempt that folly was utterly out-
side their thoughts; the horses were stumbling from weari-
ness already, and for themselves, they too were conscious
of fatigue, that insidious drug, working in their limbs and
bringing them to the level of their beasts. Slowly they
now wound over the mosses and the miserable track, while
every minute their hearts declined, and troops of gaunt and
long night-shadows stalked like witches in their wake.
Vain, though, that they peered on every hand for the
desired emblem of a wisp before the door, the customary
badge of the rude hedge-alehouses of that primitive country.
Their need was now bitterly imperative. A fog was rising
from the wet wastes, blotting the stars out and the promise
of a moon; the night had a tooth of frost in it, and on
every side the mirk leapt out and tried to thwart their
farther journeying.
"It's a nice to do," groaned the reverend rider; "a
very nice to do!"
"John," joked Fierceheart, the indomitable, "we had
better lie all night in our cloaks in one of these hollows.
56 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER,
I'm thinking; though the pity is that we haven't a chess-
board and a bowl of Molly's hottest to regale us and to pass
the time."
"An' a bit parritch an' a toothfu' o' whusky, your
honor," Daniel lamented with a moan for his own mis-
fortunes.
That, however, was not the end of them, since such
deviations had their traveling suffered in the course of this
inn-quest, that now they no longer knew their way. They
came to a dead halt presently.
" A very nice to do!" snarled the parson, blowing into
his hands to coax out the frost that had settled in them.
Personal suffering made Daniel a most diligent servant,
for in serving his master in this period of need he was also
serving himself. His vision grew excessively keen; and
presently he spied out in the gloom a large stone, very
fantastic in its shape.
"Hoot!" said Daniel, "it's ca'd thae Giant's Bagpipe.
There suld be ae alehoose nar; I mind thae time there
waur."
Remembrance helped him in his search, and in a minute
he had found a miserable by-path, diving at an acute angle
down into a dell. No sooner did he see this than his tone
went up on a note of command, and a certain mastery of
pose strung his limp bearing up. Wherefore, even before
he had made the announcement, the general said:
"John, praise Heaven, these peregrinations are done.
Daniel's found something; observe the importance in his
look."
Happil^true, since just ahead they saw a poor entertain-
ment house for shepherds and the infrequent travelers of
the dales. It was hardly superior to a mud-walled hut,
though not without a certain expansiveness seldom to be
seen in Liddesdale. It consisted of two stories, and to
judge by the spread of styes and hovels at the back, it
seemed that the tenant combined small farming with his
keeping of an inn.
It looked an unholy spot with the shadows about it, and
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 57
a huddle of treacherous hills glowering behind it and frown-
ing on the thatch. It seemed shut out of life entirely at the
bottom of this broken road; its only light and sign of
having habitation consisting of a poor and lonely rush,
trembling weakly at its own audacity through a shutter
chink.
Daniel smote the barred door peremptorily, and the
noise of his fist went echoing among the hills. No sound
responded from the hut. The parson groaned; the general
whistled; Daniel re-assaulted, this time with his pistol butt.
"Wha's there?" A thin voice crawled through the
wood.
V Honest men!" the unanimous answer.
It was a painful business the undoing of the door. An
old, tall, stoop-shouldered creature at last stood in the
opening, and kept an awkward silence while he shaded his
gaze with his hand, and peered at them closely, shiftily,
with an eye of suspicions. It fell on Daniel's pistol, and
recoiled from it; while the man made a little cry in his
throat and paled to the color of his white hair.
" It wasna me. I didna dae't," he stuttered.
"We don't care what you did or what you didn't,"
replied a reverend gentleman, "so long as you'll do us
a meal and provide us a lodging, you trembling white
fool. Have you not seen a pistol before, then?"
It was Daniel, however, who had discovered this hut,
and he accordingly would permit nobody to override his
dignity and his pride of place.
" Auld carle," he assured mine host in his haughtiest,
most impressive manner, "it isna your e'en I've coom ta
see; nae doot they's unco'braw, I wudna be denyin' o't;
but it's a bit brose, or a bit parritch, and a toothfu' o'
whusky I'm wantin' for my ainsel, for I wad hae ye ta ken,
my mannie, I'm aye a verra tenty and frugal pairson; but
for these gentlemen I'se want a mentith o' collops, an ae
mutchkin o' brandy, an ane bed for the nicht forby."
" I'se gie ye that," said the man; "ye're weelcome."
" Aboot as weelcome as frost i' hairst, I trow," sniffed
58 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Daniel. The general and the parson admitted to their
hearts that he had grave grounds for this incredulity. If
ever the face of a man did give his professions the lie, it
was the face of this one, when he pronounced the good
word, "Weelcome." From that instant they trusted him
no more. In fact the mere presence of the man increased
the depression of their spirits, and, looking at him, a vague,
insensible fear came upon them suddenly. It might have
been the ungracious mood their weariness had put them in;
the scowling night; the wild desolation of the country
that imprisoned them on every side; the total absence of
good cheer; the solitariness of the place; or, above all, the
tales of dark and secret evil these wretched hills and dales
had bodied forth for generations, that inspired the appre-
hension of their hearts. But there it was; and when they
came to consider it side by side with those strange matters
that afterward befell, it was not theirs to marvel at it. Even
in despite of the night and their languors, ere they passed
the threshold of that house, they drew apart from the too
significant man at the door, and consulted in a whisper as
to the expedience of supping and sleeping in that inhospit-
able spot.
" Frankly, John," the general admitted, " if I knew of an
inn within miles, I'd be off in the dark. I'm not overnice
in wartime, as you know; but there's a maggot crept into
my head to whisper me that honesty and this rathole never
were synonymous."
" My ain opeenion," said Daniel the luminous, " is that
the hoose is kittle, an' that a thrawn carle sits in it."
In spit#, however, of their own suspicions and this really
profound utterance, they sent Daniel to an outhouse with the
horses, and then stepped past the host into the hut. Their
entertainer provided additional light with an uncertain Ian-
tern, and poked the drowsy fire of peats up in their honor,
then put a piece of reasty bacon in a pot, and hung it over
the blaze to boil. It appeared that there actually was no
accommodation for travelers at all; the room in which
they found themselves proving neither less nor more than
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 59
the usual mean living room of a hind. The proprietor kept
an aggressive silence, but ever and anon he glinted dark
looks at his visitors out of the corner of one eye, whenever
he felt that he might do so without being discovered in the
act. He also made himself busy in the same sulky and
ungracious fashion in setting a meal forth for their service.
They noted him in an unapproving way, but at the same
time seized the opportunity of drawing a bench to the
hearth to obtain all the benefit the miserable fire could
bestow. Daniel joined them soon.
" Hoot, it's a unchancy spot," he shivered, cocking at the
host the canny eye of a Scot. The man and an underfed
collje, more like a wolf than a dog, being no more friendly
than its master, appeared to be the only occupants of the
place; in consequence, there was no object to divert the per-
petual fierce scrutiny of Daniel the uneasy. Presently he
accosted mine host.
" I dinna ken your name; what ees it?"
"They ca's me Wilson, Fleemie Wilson," growled mine
host with hanging head.
'' Wilson, Wilson I Sib, I dootna, ta thae Andra Wilson
they hangit at Carlisle twal year syne for murther."
"Sib? Aye, unco' sib; he waur my brither, sirs," he
glowered, " but tha threep [indictment] waur fause, an he
gang'd ta tha woodie [gallows] an' got a thrawn thrapple
for a deed he didna dae."
" He didna dae thae deed," cried Daniel with a grave
and earnest interest: "he didna dae thae deed; why,
that's as I suspeckit a' alang." And he winked familiarly
at the parson and his master.
To be housed with a convicted murderer's nearest kins-
man was cold assurance, and already visions of a sleepless
night came upon their weary eyes. Daniel whispered:
" Reivin' and murtherin' bides i' th' bluid belike; least-
ways, tha's my opeenion."
His companions appeared to share it. The Scot was after-
ward heard to swear that from the first he had plainly seen
the diagram of a gallows traced in the wrinkles of mine
60 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
host's forehead. He, insensible of the grave impression he
had created, conjured up the tardy supper in all its details:
a slice of the cold buttock of beef, which was fresh; the
bacon recently boiled in the pot, which was not fresh; new-
baked bannocks, and a sturdy jug of home-brewed.
The travelers attacked this spread with stomachs cleared
for action; and while they warmed to their work the host
crept up a ladder that was the only staircase to the second
story, to prepare a chamber for the reception of his guests.
Such the poverty of the hut's convenience that they were
informed that master and man must share and share alike,
because there would be only one bed between three. Not
that the travelers were disposed to regret this altogether;
regarding in the light of no misfortune any pretext that
served to keep them so united in a locality so dire. But
this is where they erred; and were so informed by a terrify-
ing means ere that evil night was out.
When he betook himself up the ladder Fleemie Wilson,
being able to listen through a chink in the upper floor,
heard his character discussed with a freedom that darkened
his eye. *' If,'' said the general, " the face of that man is
not pregnant with all villainy, then have I been a justice
for Cumberland county without learning what a gallows-
bird's like."
His reverend friend groaned in a biblical style: " James,
I think it's time we put our trust in the Lord. We are far
belated in a dark, strange, desolate land, and are lying,
I believe, this night in a haunt of secrecy and wickedness.
I've heard heart-stopping tales of these wild parts."
Daniel began to relate some with a touch of the weird
power of the true Northern manner; and had to be
restrained for a ghastly-brained Border dog, who had
a passion for supping on horrors. They knew too well the
reputation of these hidden dales; and they were like to have
a proof of it that night. The place and the situation had so
direfully stirred Daniel's anxiety that he quested perpetu-
ally for fuel wherewith to feed it. He made an ill and
hasty meal, because "his wame waur cauld, forby unco'
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 61
fu' o' fearfu' bodiu'"; then he tiptoed about to explore the
kitchen. First he threw a hunk of meat to the hearth to
propitiate the hound upon it; then he set forth and entered
those gloom-veiled corners the puny lights could not. The
first he arrived at was filled with a worm-eaten and rotting
chest, extensive of dimension. He lifted the lid; looked in,
and sought its contents; found none though; the box was
empty. This was all done in an infinitely stealthy and
cautious manner. But the contents of the next corner filled
him with alarm. At sight they appeared a mere innocent
heap of clothes, but inspection and some handling said that
here was a much-worn plaid of a shepherd, exceedingly
mottled with bloodstains. Raising this plaid he peered
beneath it, and there discovered a long, heavy-bladed knife,
not unlike a butcher's in appearance. Clotted blood was on
this also. Grimly he brandished it before the eyes of the
gentlemen at the board; but no sooner had their eyes
encountered it than there arose a great creaking of the
ladder, and Fleemie Wilson came swiftly down.
Hastily Daniel the prowler endeavored to restore the
plaid and the knife to that order in the corner in which
they had been found, but the man's gray harsh face was on
him ere his fumbling was done.
Wilson had nothing to say, but with the pallors of his
cheek increasing, and an accession of fiercer suspicions to
his eye, he planted his back to the mantelpiece. He gazed
from one to the other of his visitors, and all about him
shiftily and incessantly, sucking in his cheeks while he did
this, until the hollows in his face grew into cavities of dark-
ness, most unpleasant to be seen.
Daniel meanwhile departed from that guilty corner and
walked across the floor to his master's stool; looking the
host steadily down as he went, and cowing him in some
degree with the audacity of his bearing. And as he passed
he now for the first time noted that a band of blood-clots
defiled the sleeve of the man's jerkin; besides a crimson
smear on his hands. Five minutes the man stood thus by
the hearth, looking them fully oyer as covertly, suspi-
62 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
ciously, and deceitfully as ever. They had every opportunity
to let his powerful though stooping figure sink into their
minds. He looked very old, a mop of shining white hair
besieging his brows; he looked very sparse and loose of
mold, with a knotted craggy throat shooting up from wide
and bony shoulders, that propped a head (stoop included)
to within two inches of the parson's. But in the whole lean
length of him was power; and the fall of his loose flabby
lips hanging in creases, and the lights of his fierce sly eyes
set that in his look that had only to be seen to blight the
confidence of the most confiding. Later he assumed a
chair the hither side the fire, though all the while he sat he
never solaced his guests with a word of speech. Perhaps
had he even done so the solace had been doubtful. But if
his mouth was idle, his wicked eye was active to an extent
that was as alarming as it was unnecessary.
The travelers went to bed quite early in the evening,
being thoroughly weary, and also possessed of a natural
desire to be rid of their companion. The attic was dis-
covered of the meagerest, not exactly notable for cleanliness,
though furnished with a chest and a mattress bed of a toler-
able size. They carried up the lantern from below to pro-
vide them with a little light, besides being at the same time
zealous in bringing up their firearms and swords. To begin
with, they dragged the large chest from its nook in the
window-angle, and wedged it in the manner of a barricade
across the door. Next they primed their pistols with grave
care, and laid their cloaks out; the parson's, for a large
man, on the bed; the general's, for a small one, on the chest
top; and Daniel's, for a person ordinary of mold, was set
on the narrow strip of rushes on the floor. Thus they pre-
pared to spend the night in their clothes, with their
weapons within reach.
Before the lantern was turned out, however, Daniel would
insist on examining this apartment thoroughly. He inves-
tigated every nook; and his first discovery was of a paralyz-
ing kind. Bloodstains disfigured the rushes beside the bed.
This discovery was promptly announced; and as he pros-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
63
ecuted his search for new evidence, the traditions of this
district ran always in his mind. His activity, though, pro-
voked a clergyman.
" Out with that infernal lantern, sir I" he was directed.
"Who can sleep, confound you! with you bobbing and
dodging like a bee in a jug?"
"Ane meenit, your reverence," Caution implored him.
He was just returned from a suggestive little clothes closet,
leading from their present chamber. Farther evidence had
not resulted, though. But now as he tarried lantern in
hand, debating in his mind the need for a deeper search,
the thought seized him suddenly to look under the bed.
Pjromptly he did this, and the first object the light revealed
was a parcel of sacking hurriedly secured, and it chilled
him to the heart to see the traces of blood on this more prev-
alent than ever. Moreover, the shape of the bundle had a
horrid resemblance to that of a man's body. He muttered
this appalling news to the parson and the general, conjur-
ing them not to make one sound, lest the villain below
stairs should be aroused. They forsook their couches
instantly, and came and aided Daniel to pull forth and
unwrap the cloth from about the bloodstained thing. The
more they looked the more certain they became that they
were dealing with some dead human body. The lines and
undulations in this vile package, thick in the middle, and
tapering toward the head and feet, were not to be mistaken.
It was, alas! too certain that they had unearthed the remains
of some ill-starred traveler the men of the dales had robbed
and murdered.
All three were on their knees, trying to tug the body out,
and at the same time quivering through all their limbs and
senses, such was the clutch of horror on them, when a dire
misfortune came. The general, in the midst of his efforts,
struck his sleeve against the lamp reared upright by his
side, and over it went and was extinguished in its fall.
With foreheads damp, and the hair rising on their scalps,
they had perforce to desist from their nauseous labors
while they procured another light. They ventured scarcely
64 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
to breathe while Daniel fumbled in his pocket for his flint.
It took him long to find it, and by the time he had the
kneeling clergyman was in a grievous state of collapse, his
head thrown against the quilt; his master was seized with a
chattering in the teeth; while he himself, as soon as he had
found it, was in such a disgraceful state of nerves that
times and again he clashed the steel against the flint so
weakly that he failed to draw out of it the necessary spark.
Indeed he failed utterly in his office and was compelled to
resign in favor of the parson, who could not do it either.
The general performed it, though, at the first attempt. But
then, after all, a second spark had to be procured ere the
wick would catch, since the hand of stricken Daniel while
it held the lantern, shook and wabbled till the first was
fled.
In the end they actually got a light, and returned again
to their grewsome toil. The general held the lantern this
time in his own right hand, while the parson and the valet
tucked up the stained hangings of the bed, that their labors
migbt be unimpeded. No sooner did their fingers assail
the sacking than their shrinking yet anticipatory tips were
thrilled with a sense of a yielding body beneath it; giving
unmistakably to the touch, yet at the same time inanimate
as lead. The business of pulling the dead mass forth
among the bedside rushes revolted their stomachs, and a
singular haste of straining, lifting, and hauling took them,
for to handle the nauseating thing with requisite precision
and care was far too serious a call on their plowed up
nerves. They must have the matter through at once; thus
tackled with a feverish and unseemly heat, lest fortitude
be overpowered by disgust. They heaved the loathsome
parcel on to the bed, and disturbed in the process, blood
began to ooze through its covering. Tentatively the sack-
ing was stripped away. At first they feared to gaze on
what was exposed to their eyes. It was the reverend
doctor who was the first to speak on beholding the revealed
object in its nakedness. The reverend gentleman shook
his fist in the face of Daniel.
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 65
"You meddlesome old mule!" he roared; "look at it.
you canny, sapient Scot! look at your body of a man."
Daniel blinked grimly down at the body.
" Then look at me, Daniel, you peeping, nosing villain,"
continued the reverend thunder, "look at me, I say. Are
you aware that you have cast me in a bigger sweat this
night than at any time since I first smelt powder, sir?
There's your murder; now it's out!"
Sir James was tickled; though he was obliged to draw
sundry deep breaths, and wipe his eloquently luminous
forehead ere he ran into laughter.
"We are three elderly men," he broke out. "I'm
seventy-one in December; John, you are seventy in March;
and Daniel is sixty-seven in August, and we've let a nurse
tale reduce us to this. I learn to-day the full wisdom of the
saw, 'The worst fool is an old fool.' There's three of
'em gazing at this bedside on the raw hide of a cow. John,
when we tell this tale, it must be the hide of an ass, for the
sake of the dramatic unities and the poetic justice."
"I'd prefer it myself to be the hide of one Daniel
Munn," the thunder rumbled.
But Daniel himself was undaunted. For a very full
minute he looked solemnly, and earnestly, on the raw cow-
hide that had issued from the sack, and then drawled
slowly, looking at his toes the while:
" Weel, sirs, I thocht a' alang it mioht belike be e'en the
fell o' a coo."
" And I, Daniel, have thought all along," the parson told
him, " that since Ananias there's been none to match your
talent for fabrication."
Daniel's quick nose for a compliment enabled him to
bow.
" Your reverence, I dinna ken wha Hannah Nyas waur,
but she waur a dooms kenspeckle woman, I dootna; but
my faither aften said I waur a unco' talented chield."
At this psychological moment, there croaked a voice
through the keyhole:
"Hoot, sirs, ony the hide o' a runt!" and the rest was
66 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
lost in the crackles of laughter of Fleemie Wilson, who,
roused by the commotions above, had crept up the ladder
to listen.
On the morrow explanations were thicker than the dew
on the mountains. From the first the distrust had been
mutual, it appeared. Fleemie had all along been very un-
favorably impressed with the martial look of his visitors.
He took it as an ill sign to see travelers armed to the teeth.
But the most important thing he said, was that to his voca-
tion of innkeeper he wedded that of a butcher; the cowskin
had been stretched out on the bed to dry; and that when
he went upstairs he removed it. This also made the
knife and the display of blood appear far less dire. In
spite of it, however, as Daniel was prompt to remind them
later, his conscience did not appear too conspicuously
peaceful and clean, nor was there any overriding of the
fact that his brother had been hanged twelve years ago at
Carlisle. And indeed, despite these daylight apologies, the
travelers went forth without regretting in any way their
separation from their dark-faced host. They were away
while the dawn was gilding the hills; and duly primed by
Fleemie as to the straightest route to pursue, they were, in
less than three hours, well quit of blood-haunted Liddes-
dale.
CHAPTER Vn.
prkstonpans.
They paused to dine this second day at Galashiels, a
hamlet on the Gala river just beyond the town of Selkirk,
and a mile below the Gala's confluence with the Tweed.
Edinburgh stood twenty-six miles to the northeast, and
as they drew rein at an inn opposite the Market Cross,
urgent rumors had preceded them; this inconsiderable
place being in a precise line of communication with the
south. The waif word ran that that morning at daybreak
between Edinburgh and Musselburgh a battle had been
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 67
fouglit, and that Sir John Cope's force had been cut to
pieces.
"I don't believe it, landlord I" cried Fierceheart, slap-
ping his fist upon the dinner board until the dishes rattled.
And now he was more than ever eager to be gone. His
ardor was not to be denied, and soon they were once moi-e
posting at the utmost of their horses to the north. They
had dined late in the day; thus, under two hours, the sun
had declined out of the sky, throwing a pomp of lurid and
foreboding purple over the conspicuous Pentlands and
whipping the west with blood. They were to have that
fierce color painted in their hearts that night; and Daniel,
who had a primitive intelligence born directly of the soD,
had, in common with his kind, rude belief in the language
of nature; thus to him a sky fiushed with blood was pro-
claiming to the world of men a sanguinary tale when it
fiashed its marvelous hues across brae and mountain.
The three travelers, steaming silently on to the seat of
war, bore hearts bursting with speculation. The general's
face was twisted into a white harsh agony of questions;
they could be seen sleeping in the creases of his cheek and
the ruts of his brow, and above all in the twitching, eager
lips, ever moving, yet speaking not. He dashed a query
for the news at a doddering old gammer, when they reined
up at a wayside cot to ask the road. The rustic said he
held none on which they could put reliance; but sure he
was that there had been a terrible battle fought just after
daybreak, at a spot some ten miles away on the skirts of
the sea, between Musselburgh and Tranent. But who
took the victory and what was the amount of the slain,
he could not tell them, since accounts were various. Yet
he was inclined to fear for General Cope, and then, seeing
when he said this the face of the least of these three riders,
a handsome old man in a lavender coat, he hurriedly
slapped the door in their faces and set good bolts behind it.
He had seen mischief.
"John,'' said Fierceheart hoarsely, "this quibbling
begins to alarm me. There'd been bonfires and bells, had
68 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
matters gone all right with the king. But at least we'll go
to the field ourselves and see."
"An yer honor '11 overlook the presoomption," sug-
gested Daniel, "it's my opeenion naething gude '11 come o'
ganging forrarder. Let's gang hame, yer honor."
"Silence, sir!" his master's command; and Daniel in-
stantly obeyed, for he remembered it was war time.
Fierceheart was no more a tame domestic animal; his for-
bearance was tainted, his blood sold to truculent Mars.
Setting their course for Musselburgh, they had to hark
back some miles, to recross the river Esk, and then em-
brace a by-road thither. They had not proceeded far when
two approaching figures loomed suddenly large in the twi-
light; soldiers both, if dress and accouterment could speak.
They bore the bright red coat of King George, hut that
gleaming cloth was the only brightness in them. One had
lost his helmet, the other's was drooping dejectedly over his
brow. Their persons, even to their powdered cues, had lost
every vestige of a military smartness; mud had splashed
them even to their neck bands, there was a blackening of
powder over the face and hands of one, and though they
no longer had their firearms in their custody, their swords
yet occupied their sheaths, and both were free of wounds.
But they were savage, beaten, sullen men.
When the travelers drew their horses before them to
gain the news, distrust gleamed from their vacillating
eyes, and the taller of the two menaced them by clapping
a hand on his scabbard.
"Nay,"the parson said, "you can leave your steel un-
touched; jrou won't catch us flaunting the white cockade."
" Then," snarled the less apprehensive of the two, "git
hack home. Don't trot inither yard, nohow, perwidin'
yer sets a walue on yer throat. It's been a day, gents, a
gloryouse day for them d Hielanmen, but us don't
want to see another same as this, does us Bill ? Some
pretty hoys have gone to God."
" Men, you are, I see, of His Majesty's Thirteenth
Dragoons," said the general, with a voice sharp as a musket
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 69
crack. It was strange how these limp troopers drew
themselves up and fell into politeness. They knew when
an officer spoke.
" Now " pursued the general, nerving himself for the
worst, " I wish to hear what's occurred. Is Sir John Cope
beaten ?"
" Lord, yer honor, yes," said Number One. " Beaten to
the death, sir." _
" It's a lie, I say," inserted Number Two. " Bouncer, it's
a lie; wi' these eyes I saw him alive and flyin'—flyin' like
hell, sir."
"And where was the battle?" The deathly sickness
was now defiling the patriot's heart and mind.
" They call it Preston, just outside Tranent," said
Bouncer, "against the house of our Colonel Gardiner,
which our right was a-resting on. And the colonel's dead,
sir, dead as the duke. I saw him die, though of course Bill
'11 say he aint."
"No, yer honor," deprecated Bill; " that's truth, that's
gospel, that is. An' our colonel died a good color, he did;
he made some of them d Hielanmen squirm afore he
went and 'opped the perch. Poor colonel! Gents, our
colonel were blood to the bone, that he wei-e."
"And you, gentlemen," inquired the patriot silkily,
though the parson turned his eyes away from the old man's
face, "and you, gentlemen, what were you doing while
Cope was being cut up? I see never a sign of battle on you."
Bouncer shut one eye slowly with a marked air of
wisdom.
" Well, yer honor. Bill an' I an' some hundreds more
didn't like them d howlin' Hielanmen at all. So us
didn't stop for all the music; we went early."
" Then out of my way, you lily-livered dastards," Fierce-
heart cried, and with a gust of passion he spurred his
charger and drove at them so straightly and so hotly that
they had to be as alert on their feet at that moment as they
had been on the field, to escape being mangled underfoot
by the patriot's horse.
70 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
The deserters threw a host of curses after the vanishing
cavalcade; and mocked them for three fools for riding
straight into the jaws of the enemy, when all was lost.
The parson was willing to grant that the last remark was
greatly deficient in heroism, but at the same time he had
to admit that it was pregnant with sound sense.
"James," said he, " it is too true that Cope's cut up; so
why go another yard unless you're anxious to be cut up,
too ?"
"John," said Fierceheart, " a lost battle is not of neces-
sity a lost cause. I am going to the field to see what that
can tell us, and to learn if in any way there is scope for my
services. To a soldier versed in his trade, you should
know, John, that the study of an actual rout is the surest
means of averting a second. The field will always teach a
man of experience his enemy's strength, also his weakness.
And when I've learned that I shall go and find Cope, and
I shall tell Cope something he doesn't hear every day."
The old man measured his words out with such a subdued
calmness that the restraint in it was so apparent that it
only emphasized its need.
The parson said no more; the beau was not himself
to-night. The brave wig was disordered, the fine coat of
lavender fell in creases on his weeping form; a steady rain
of tears was brimming out of his eyes and washing the
starch from his frills. He wept the tears of the generous,
tears that honored his manhood. They gushed from a
soul flooded with a jealousy of pity for his country and his
king. When the knife of death cut the slender cord of
mortality Jjinding him to his sons, and they were spirited
from him and earth forever, he took that blow with meek
head, like a man who respects his pride; but now it was
different. It was his country. Oh, that he should have
lived to see the day! To a patriot a lost cause is worse
than death. And it was traitors that had triumphed,
would-be usurpers of the Crown. As that thought tore
through his brain, rending his tissues, a cold lage came in
his heart. There was shame, too; fierce, welling, scalding
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
71
shame, making his cheeks burn with blood, and all his
fibers throb under the knife-points of pain. There had
been cowardice. It would be written in history that a
sprinkling of brute Scotch Highlanders led by England's
deepest enemy, a thrice-loathed Stuart, had utterly cut up
the trained battalions of his friend the king.
"John," he croaked, t'thank God, the duke's no longer
with us. Oh! had he lived to see the lay! A few score
clowns with claymores, hacking his army to pieces. They'd
be compelled to dispatch him to Bedlam; he'd never sup-
port it. And the king, John; think of the king!"
Fierceheart lurched, and came perilously near pitching
hdhdforemost from the saddle, for those imps, his agonies,
fastened on him in a body and nearly brought down the
haughty prey. The arrogant man was horridly beset;
an unholy madness of anger was stinging his imperious
spirit. In the far roll of the years that lay between now
and his youth, that untamed bosom had learned meekness
in suffering, patience in bereavement, fortitude in adver-
sity, but never to accept defeat with a proper humility of
soul. It was the fiaw in his armor, the conscious parson
would tell him, where Eve's son was laid bare for the
devil's barb. And the enemy of man had now buried that
barb in his fiesh, leaving the old man bleeding and exposed
and transfigured with wrath and anguish. In his uncouth
way the parson was tender as a mother; he made it his
business to reduce loquacious Daniel to a constant silence
by angry bursts of invective whenever the Scot betrayed a
disposition to speak. It was not so much a rampant
patriotism that had called the parson to the wars, but
worship of one man; where the general went, he went, too.
Thus for himself he was able to wear a mask of indiffer-
ence above the pallors of sorrow and alarm. It was the
only course he knew of likely to prove inoffensive to his
friend. Despite a long life passed with his fellows, the
Churchman was unversed in the soothing mysteries of
tact. He was now inclined to regret his ignorance; but
in his elephantine style he did the best he could to
^2 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
nurse the wounds of Fierceheart. He applied the balm of
silence.
Some members of the general's family living in this
neighborhood, he had a knowledge of the country here-
abouts; thus he found no difficulty in steering for Preston
village, an obscure spot by the sea, the scene of the disaster.
The stars now studded heaven, smiling round a slice of
moon; and from the southwest a rainy breeze was freshen-
ing and making moan in the autumn trees. They were on
a vile road now, churned into mud and ruts by armies of
feet; and at every few yards the horses would sink into the
deeper holes scored by the flying artillery and splash their
riders with water. Breasting sullenly on into the endless
cloak of the night, they overrode every obstacle of these
eccentric paths, though the horses were involved in per-
petual stumbles calling for strict diligence in the hands of
their riders that they might preserve their feet. A soft
adjacent music of the sea made them ultimately halt; and
looking to the right, the moon showed them the park walls
of the house of Colonel Gardiner. They were at last on
the scene of the battle. Immediately at their feet a short
bare plain of stubble was outstretched, unfenced from the
highway and bald as a stone, being without solitary brush
or tree. Here was the actual theater of the conflict of that
day. It needed only a glance to tell them that accumulated
bodies at this instant encumbered the ground. The moon,
sailing higher into the heaven, now flashed its lamp in its
whiteness on the hateful earth, tracing the field into a lurid
and weird picture of death. Every detail of the carnage
was here picked placidly out by this radiance of the sky. A
thousand souls lay sleeping; some with upturned faces
wetted with the dew, and smiling to God through the
ghostly light; but by far the greater part were stretched
stark in the contortions of the final throe, taking leave of
life as they had entertained it, with great agonies.
To the general, war was a business to which he had been
apprenticed all his days; and he was there in a professional
station, to examine the field and to review the strife. By
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 73
his request his two companions dismounted with him, and
Daniel being charged to bring on the horses after them, he
led them in the wake of these two gentlemen as they
walked with eyes bent to the strewn earth in an absorption
of marking, commiserating, and comparing. A foul and
blended stench of spent powder and of burning grass,
garments, and flesh, now assailed their nostrils, thickening
the air invisibly; and visibly black armies of the depraved
birds disturbed by the coming of the travelers scudded up
and away to a more distant and more peaceful meal. That
beneficent Deity who turns every deed and accident of man
to the service of his creation had prepared a sumptuous
supply of brave men's flesh for carrion that night. Every-
where contributions to the feast of the birds. Proud war-
riors gashed and ripped horribly, and twisted into every
posture by their mortal pain, had been scattered to rot in
one fierce hour, even as the breathing leaves of the ash
trees yonder on the hill would be blasted to decay in a
November night of frost. They saw one death-blighted
man, extended on all-fours on his knees and his elbows, his
two hands pressed to his sliced face to stanch its blood,
which even now was dripping from his long cold fingers.
Beside him was a second redcoat, massive of shoulder and
with a martial nobleness of mold, his splendid form broken
in the back and flung across the body of a third. A little
further was a carriage mingled with its dismantled gun,
the center of a very carnival of slaughter; twenty corpses
were heaped around it, weltering; and one of them, a young
man with a very rustic face, was utterly minced with steel,
as many holes in his carcass as a sieve. Fierceheart noted
with a brightening eye that this dead lad's convulsed fingers
inclosed a piece of the colors, while an extinct company of
Highlanders lay all about him.
" The blood of England!" the old man cried, a singular
exaltation in his tone; and he plundered the dead man's
hand of the bit of cloth, and thrust it in the pocket of his
own cloak.
Troops flitted with lanterns over distant parts of the earn-
74 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
age, aiding the wounded and bearing off the dead. A livid'
light of dew was on the field, fioating weird and impalpable
over the slain, and as the fiitting lamps struck through it,
a careless look at their strange restless points of flame made
their effect appear not unlike warning lights set far out at
sea, and as they moved and twinkled between the white
haze and the moon, they seemed to imitate those lamps
hung in ships that strike a warning far over the face of the
waters in a winter's night. To Daniel they embodied a
danger signal; to him they spoke of a concealed reef of
rocks. Those lanterns were swung by the enemy, tending
the maimed and abstracting the dead. But Fierceheart
was intrepid. When his soul was fired with the nation's
need, the personal equation in him was shriveled to an
inconsiderable pip. It was his to peruse the field and to
read its lessons.
First to strike his expert vision was the almost entire
absence of artillery havoc. Nine out of every ten of those
extended in the stubble had been cleft to earth by the
ofiSce of claymore, ax, or scythe; creating a sickening in-
crease of mutilation and swelling the scarlet deluge. Whole
limbs and minor portions of flesh were everywhere found
severed and cast upon the ground, while nearly every body
had deep and hideous furrows gaping in its surface, height-
ening its pitiful, pale grotesqueness, and provoking the
angry sorrow, and also a nausea of disgust in those who
saw.
" It's not war," said Fierceheart, *' it's the butcher at his
chopping block. I am used to the regulated carnage of
sword, musket, and pike—that is what every soldier must
accept; but this ghastly ripping and tearing and bungling
in the letting out of life is an offense to all military skill.
These gashes of the ax and scythe are, to me, a positive
affront to science; they savor of the beast."
"Oh, my God, yes!" the parson cried. The poor man
was afflicted at that instant with stomachic revolt. He
hated his mild friend the general for his cool professional
tone. As a military chaplain he was no novice in war, but
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 75
his internal man would not permit him to appear unmoved
at the sight this field presented; it was the most barbaric
spectacle of war that had ever afflicted his experience.
Here was the place marked by a hundred men where the
point of the Prince's first frantic charge had struck. The
eye of his mind showed Fierceheart where and how the
crowds of impetuous, whooping Highlanders had sallied out
of the narrow glen. He could see them sweeping like
light through the gray veils of the dawn, full on the waver-
ing front of Cope. He could see the dreadful blades of
these magnificent warriors, challenging for splendor the
vanguard of the beams of dawn. His very feet stood on
the spene of the impact, chronicled by contorted clusters of
slain. Those faces not too disfigured with anguish were
instinct with their wild amaze. They told the whole story.
" Panic," groaned the patriot, " panic I I see it written
on those astounded faces; written for all time for the
derision of us who love the king."
It was too true; the grand blow had been delivered while
the sun was rising, ere the breath of morning could purge
from the minds of the English their nocturnal visions and
the black countenance of night. Cope's army had been
caught at that eerie hour, between sleeping and waking,
when the brain is least prepared to encounter the unusual.
They were rubbing sleep out of their eyes, when crack I
crack! rang the alarmed muskets of the vedettes into their
ears, to tell them glory and death were at hand. A rumble
of drums, the commotion of feet, and orders screamed from
every side had summoned them, shivering and low of vital-
ity, to their posts in the field. The chill wet sea fogs struck
cold as death to their limbs, filling their empty stomachs
with the poison of depression, and wrapping the damps so
tightly about their souls that their poor sparks of spirit
instantly fiuttered out. And then appalling cries, wild as
those of beasts and more awful to the ear, soon screeched
through the mists and assailed their ears. Then the enemy.
What an enemy I Noble, enormous men, half-bare, great-
limbed, and hideously fantastic of voice and guise. They
76 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
crashed down into the plain like an avalanche. No time
for a breath. Never an instant to choke wild wonder off.
These fiends, hacking with unheard-of weapons, were
cutting up battalions ere those battalions were awake.
Theirs the strong fury of the storm that invests the heavens
with its terrible dominion; bursting over surprised hemi-
spheres whose flocks of heavy and black tempest fill
utmost space, and blot out for an hour the fair countenance
of Grod. Before this omnipotent fury, what can mortals
do! The tremendous morning charge of these Highlanders
had drunk of the spirit of storms. The shivering English
had merely the resistance of vapor before such imperious
heat; they vanished with the fogs as the sunrise came.
Thus was the day's full history written for Fierceheart
in this blood-flowing cornfield. The quaking stand, the
breaking-away, the uncertain rally, the gradual melting—
then the final eclipse, and the shameful betrayal of their
country; all this he read with an anguish of disgust,
humiliation, pity, and contempt. The hateful field was
stained with an eternal degradation to his beloved Eng-
land. For this worshiper of country, there was only one
gleam of mitigation.
"John," he said, "lam glad these terrible mad High-
land devils are countrymen of mine. If they ever left
heaven and descended to do earthly battle, thunder and
lightning would fight like this. It is grand, sublime, in-
human, how they have poured forth and hacked and
hewed to victory."
He showed the parson how the high seas of Scotland had
foamed oyer England's shaking sands. But the parson
tried to divert his eyes from this horrid mess of men and
horses.
"Yes, yes, James, I see," he said, and sought to lead the
old beau in the lavender coat away. Fierceheart's cloak
happened to be waving open in the breeze, and as his
friend's directing hand plucked at it, it chanced to meet
the soft face of the coat underneath. The incongruity of
such luxuriance in that loathsome spot came on the par-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 11
son's heart. And then his mind recalled that the general
had decked himself in grandeur in high anticipation of a
victory.
By this long companies of cloud had marched over the
sky, besieging the moon, and glooming bank on bank in
the west. The wind had now lain down very still, leav-
ing the mournful sea to its peace. But the occasional wail
of a dying horse pierced the hush of night. They could
now no longer inspect the plain with requisite distinctness;
and the general gave the word to retreat to a safer place.
All along they had known themselves to be in the country
of the enemy, and had been keenly alert to the approach of
Priifce Charles' men. But the rencounter that had been
hitherto so well avoided was now near at hand. Round
the adjacent wall of poor Colonel Gardiner's park suddenly
came a score of soft-stepping Highlanders, whose feet were
cased in their noiseless cuarans. A glance made it plain
that their humane business was to succor the living and
to sepulture the slain. Lanterns were swinging in their
hands, and in lieu of their claymores and Lochaber axes
of the morning, they had shouldered spades. Coming full
on the armed travelers, who, moreover, had horses behind
them well furnished for war, the company instantly drew
up, at the word of the ofScer in command, a handsome,
olive-faced fellow, superb of mold, and with eye very
keen.
"Halt, gentlemen, please!" he cried in mincing Pall
Mall English, very startling to be heard among half-wild
rebels on a battle-field. On the word the Highlanders
closed threateningly round men and horses.
"Gentlemen, I must hear your business," the officer
added with decision.
Daniel nudged his master with great violence and whis-
pered with the utmost cunning of his lungs:
" Tell him, yer honor, that we're gaun to Charlie, tae do
oor duty and ta ficht for the richt."
The fierce light of the lanterns was fiashed in their half-
blinded eyes, for delay was not to be brooked, and when
78
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
the general exhibited some inclination to digest his reply
ere he uttered it, a sullen murmur escaped from their elhow-
ing foes, and a frown disfigured the ofiBcer's face.
"Speak out," he said; "true men never need hesitate.
If you're for the king, you've hut to admit it, and you may
pass."
" We're certainly for the king," said Fierceheart.
" But which?" asked the officer.
" There is hut one, sir," said Fierceheart sharply; " the
other's a mere usurper."
"True, he of Hanover is the merest of usurpers. But
are you for King James VIII., whom we proclaimed last
week in Edinburgh?"
" King James the what?" jeered Fierceheart.
" My certie! we're deed for King Jamie," Daniel inserted.
" Blest he his name!"
" You can let my servant pass," said his stern master,
" he appears extremely willing to fight for the Traitor, sir
[nudge], the Usurper, sir [nudge], the Rebel, sir [nudge]."
Daniel punctuated his master's audacious answer with
three unmistakable nudges.
" But for myself, sir, and for my friend," continued the
undaunted warrior, " we have the folly to prefer King
George; and we are at your service, sir."
" Sir," said the officer with courtesy, " much as I regret
it, I have but the alternative of ordering your arrest. The
orders are that all persons under arms that hear hostilities
to King James are to be arrested in his name."
"But, my good friend," whispered the parson, "weare
only avowing hostility to King Fiddlestick. A figurehead,
my friend, a figurehead; clap a crown on your cracked
pate, sir, and you would make equally as good a king, for
you would have just as many brains and just as much
authority."
" Sir," drawled the officer in a very languid and smiling
manner, " I thought I did myself the pleasure of convers-
ing with two gentlemen, but I now perceive my error; one
I discover with pain is not by any means a gentleman."
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
79
" True," acquiesced the parson. "My friend Sir James
Seton is, I regret to say, merely a fool, else we had not
reached this scrape."
"Sir James Seton!" echoed the other, "Not the General
Sir James?"
"Yes the General Sir James."
" Of Blenheim, of Ramillies, of Malplaquet?"
" At your service, sir," the beau swept him his best bow.
A flush of happy pride leapt to the young man's face.
Instantly he outdid the general in his own bow of elaborate
respect, and his swift eye brimmed compliments.
" I beseech you. Sir James," he said, " that if any ill-con-
sidefed words have left my lips that you will give them
pardon. It is the proudest day of my life, I confess; for it
was beyond the dreams of hope ever to expect to come
face to face with General Seton, the hero of the French
War."
Here he halted, bogged in indecision. He had a youthful
heart, addicted to hero-worship; his old prisoner had been
for years a god to his military English bosom. But his
orders were explicit; besides his captive might prove of
incalculable value to the prince; yet how could an English-
man bring himself to sacrifice that ancient hero? It was
the old tale of Duty and Love, and a situation that every
Civil War delights to provoke. But Fierceheart guessed
the conflict; and flattered though he was, he had to speak.
" Sir," he said, " I would remind you of your duty to the
prince."
" Ha, the prince!" breathed the other heavily, and then
with a rich throbbing tone of desperation, peculiar to
youth, " Oh, sir, if you knew how I loved you!"
" Duty, my friend!" urged Fierceheart sternly. " Duty,
my friend, should be the soldier's only love. When a man
enlists to serve his principle, let him smother self."
The young man did not dare to disobey this counsel,
coming from whom it did.
" Too true! Sir James, you are my prisoner." The hero-
worshiper swallowed the bitter draught at one gulp.
80 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Accepting the parole of all three, he permitted them to
continue in the dignity of arms, while he and six men
conducted them to the prince. It seemed that the victor
was lying that night at Pinkie House, a mansion hard by
Musselburgh. To keep pace with their captors the travelers
were compelled to dismount and pursue the way on foot,
while the horses followed in their rear in the charge of
Highlanders. They found it a tedious journey through the
heavy veils of darkness now lapping the hills, the plain,
and the sea. And as they went a thin, melodious rain-song
invested the forms of the dead, and the horrid sound of
these tears out of heaven pattering on the bodies, and the
cold sense of it creeping through their cloaks, chilled the
prisoners to the core.
Fierceheart felt that here was the nadir of his miseries;
the utmost dejection of night on the fatal field that
swallowed up his every sorrow; the dying and the dead
swimming in the blood and rain; and over all this horror
and this gloom presided the fiend of shame. Oh, his
country! Again the tears leapt out of eyes red with that
day's weepings of blood. To think that its children had
renounced their birthland, with scarce a blow, into the
hands of the invader and usurper!
Fierceheart, the parson, and the officer walked together
some paces in front of the guard, but their positions one
toward another imposed an irksome silence upon them.
But once Fierceheart disturbed it bitterly.
"My lad," he demanded of the officer, "you're an
Englishman, aren't you?"
" Sir James," he said, " I think I've expressed my pride
at being a countryman of yours."
" Then, sir, let me say that you're a hateful traitor to
your country and your king; and were you son of mine I
could never sleep again till your blood had washed out
your villainy, ^ink of the bitter stain you have helped
to impose this day."
The stung youth looked up haughtily and hotly, but see-
ing the old man's eyes by the aid of the lantern he carried.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 81
he felt pity start in his soul suddenly, and depressed his
head to his bosom; and now strode through the night with
a face of pain.
CHAPTER VIII.
AT PIKEIB HOUSE.
As hour's tortuous walking over blood- and rain-sod-
dened stubble; among the carnage of the held; along the
immediate paths, churned by two armies into waves of
mud; and later across the devious recesses in the valleys
of low hills brought them wet, stained, and weary before
the gates of Pinkie House. The blurred lanterns of the
guard, mingling with those of their escort, gave them only
a scant picture of the beauties of its grounds. It was
indistinctly seen to be a handsome, tall mansion, some-
what of the modern style, nestling in the bosom of a cluster
of beeches, sycamores, and chestnuts, on which the soft
rain was murmuring. Already their foliage was autumn-
bitten, verified by the darker hues glancing through the
green of the drooping leaves. The travelers matched their
dashed aspect; in particular the white old man, in the coat
of lavender and the proud wig, looked blighted by this sea-
son of adversity.
The gates were swung back for them with great prompti-
tude, and the captives were conducted slowly along the
path for carriages up to the entrance of the house.
Dismissing his Highland escort with the horses, the officer
led them to the vestibule; from whence they were requested
to repair to a little ante-chamber on the left, while he
went to consult the desire of the prince. In a cold stolidity
of silence they stood in this room, awaiting the pleasure of
their enemy. Daniel was gripped by his "awfu' hairt o'
boding "; which thumped upon his shirt almost as loudly
as if it were beating out that dire tune, calamity, on the
tense parchment of a drum. His two companions were
devoured with shame; that slow, sinking, and corrupting
82 FEERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
acid that defiles the soul. They had nothing to say; nay,
nothing to meditate upon beyond the abasement of their
own gray hairs in this present degradation of their country.
They might be called men of the world; certainly men of
profound experience, who had picked up some nucleus of
philosophy in that harsh school; yet the philosophy and
the cynic wisdom it prides itself with teaching were here
reduced to futility by the rude insult the traditions of their
blushing nation had received. And when a great nation
is put to the blush, what of those patriots who worship itt
Fierceheart would have sacrificed his soul could the sacri-
fice have averted this accursed day; and the parson, who
took his mood from the eyes of his friend languishing with
him in sorrow, and who allowed the smile of his friend to
illuminate his own wifeless heart, if the roots of his own
agonies were not so deep, their twinges punished his less
patient and enduring fiesh with a nearly equal poignance.
Fortuitously they were not closeted long alone, with
victorious disgrace permitted a free hand to torment their
fretted spirits. The young ofiScer was back soon, saying
that his master, the prince, was prepared to give them
audience. Up a short flight of stairs he conducted them to
a spacious chamber bung with blue, far more courtly than
its occupants. It was a handsome apartment; heavy folds
of Bayeux tapestry besieging its nooks and its doorways;
Chubby Cupids primitively clad, flying over the lofty ceil-
ing in the fine Italian manner; and a grand sparkle of
candelabra depending from its center lit up the intense
faces of the gentlemen assembled. Warriors all, many
with dry mud corroding their persons, none with any
attempt at polish or order in their apparel; an occasional
victim achieving distinction of garb by a white bandage
for limb or countenance. With few exceptions they
affected a full Highland dress, an idiosyncrasy the prince
greatly fostered by taking a kilt to himself. Never did
majesty in the heart of his court appear less majestic than
to-night; and certainly courtiers never less courtly. Every
man was bonneted, and not a few being in frequent com-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 83
munication with the army camping without, were attired
in open cloaks and plaids, with their swords upon their
thighs. Nor were the three prisoners more chaste in ap-
pearance; haggard, hard-faced, unsmiling men, pools of
water assembling round their feet on the rich carpet, their
drenched cloaks making water courses in miniature. All
three looked absurdly old for the aggressive weapons they
bore; yet two were rigid and as tight of form as strung
arrows; and their eyes flashed a deflant pride that appealed
to more than one of the assembled warriors.
The prince could never have been hidden in any
assembly. Tall beyond the common, and with a certain
willowy graciousness of line that embraced decision too, he
carried the title "your majesty" with the proprietory ease
of a birthright. There was no need for the garter enhanc-
ing his leg, and the fine star of the Thistle that lit his
breast, to announce his degree; it was spoken in his proud
shape and his smiling dignity. He looked a florid, eager,
clear-faced lad, swift yet soft of eye, his mien touched with
a sobriety rather above his years; his features neatly and
regularly cut, but a latent weakness under all, more partic-
ularly in the mouth and jaw. But a regal countenance,
informed with those infrequent friends since Caesar's time,
clemency and ambition. It has been remarked that he
wore the national garb of his followers; and it was indeed
an embellishment to his athlete's limbs and the bold curves
of his form. His extensive fair hair, scorning wigs, hung
in his neck, tied in all simplicity with one blue ribbon.
And it was observed in that day's battle that he went into
action with his shield slung over his back, like a private
soldier.
In the interim Sir James, than whom there was none
more intimate with the notable of his time, had merely
allowed the prince a solitary glance. For his astounded
eyes had picked out a youth handsome, more perfect of
shape, and only less regal than the prince. He was amid
a group of noblemen and two or three veteran Highland
chiefs of Glenshiel and Sheriffmuir, beside the prince's
84 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
chair, in the civilian dress of a fashionable English gen-
tleman, though it also was stained and disorderly. The
old man peered at this figure a full half minute in trem-
bliug bewilderment. Yes, he saw his son, limp of figure,
face of ashes, a hard glare of suffering in his eyes, and
one shoulder and his entire head gleaming with thick
bandages. Upon the spot a light of intuition fiashed
through Fierceheart. He saw all—all! Oh, his noble lad!
Where others must have shrunk, his lad had dared and
done! Where others, even seasoned war-dogs, had been
panic-bitten, and had shamefully fled, to the eternal
humiliation of their country and their king, his raw,
untutored lad had been gashed and torn and had yielded
not until made captive by his country's enemies. He
whom he had suspected, admonished, and upbraided had
borne himself a Seton this bitter day; For the father,
a portion of that bitterness was already spent; his boy had
purged that disaster of its personal stain. It could not
now be said that, while the king and his realm were
tottering, the great house of Seton had played the slug-
gard. Were it not for this young Tom, the ill-natured
might have said it. Thus do the beneficent Fates find a
means to mitigate even the most potent agonies of the
strong.
Before a word passed from either party, the shame-
bowed father was over the carpet, and his hand locked in
his lad's, in sublime unheed of prince and retinue.
" My dearest boy," his cry, pride of his blood gushing
from him like pure waters from the mountain's face, "I
do not forget that you were forbidden the army for your
mother's sake; but when these villainous usurpers that sur-
round us came, and it was a matter of your country's need,
you judged its claim more sacred than those of maternity.
I will not say how justified you were; for have I not told
you ever to set Duty before Love. My lad, before all these
traitors, I thank God that son of mine has had the courage
to surmount that fiery ordeal. You have, I see, ascended
out of it unstained in triumph. How you have acquitted
PIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 85
yourself is stamped upon your body. And though hun-
dreds fled in their shame this day, it cannot yet be written
in history of a Seton that he betrayed his country in her
hour of most immediate need. My lad, again before this
foul assembly of traitors, I bare my head to thank Heaven
for your deeds."
This sudden tide of pride, after so far an ebb of it, pro-
yoked the father's joy in a wild and unlicensed revulsion.
Under the nose of the astonished prince, and in the midst
of the no less surprised assembly, the old man swooped for-
ward, and ecstatically flung his arms round the neck of his
son, and kissed him twice upon the lips. He desisted then,
trembling visibly in his feverish passion. What man with
the generous capacity for heroism could support unmoved
the transition from the depths of shame to the transport of
bursting joyful pride provoked by the noble conduct of his
son?
Presently suppressing to some degree the torrent of his
too visible emotion, which the spectators had had the delicacy
not to intrude upon, this exalted father retired some paces
back from his Highness, where stood Daniel and the parson.
"His Highness, Prince Charles Edward, I think," said
the general, addressing the Pretender with admirable steadi-
ness of mien and voice; only achieved, however, by a
mighty screwing up of heat in his unruly bosom and a long
apprenticeship at courts.
"His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, you mean,
sir," interposed the Duke of Perth, a ponderous and
bearded man who stood behind the prince's chair. It was
said with that excessive and provoking haughtiness that
Highland gentlemen hunger to employ when there is a
question of birth, title, or precedence involved.
"Prince of Fiddlestick!'' put in the parson with his
splendid insolence.
Daniel reminded him with a very severe nudge; while a
score of hasty hands caressed the hilts of a score of willing
swords. A commotion, however, was quelled by the prince,
who said:
86 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
'' My cousin of Perth, I fear the fault is yours. You forget
that our claim will only be acknowledged by our enemies
when it is driven down their throats by point of sword."
"No time like the present, Prince Charles," quoth the
undaunted reverend. " Here's a throat to practice on, and
as I see two score swords to essay the trick, I should like
them to start the driving down this throat of mine." He
jutted forth that craggy portion of his own anatomy, and
indicated what he was inviting them to do by opening his
mouth very wide and burying his fore-finger in it.
This time Daniel perseveringly trod on his toe, without,
however, effecting the smallest diversion in his language.
" Peace, John!" the general whispered to his stubborn ear;
and then speaking up to the Pretender: "Your Highness, I
await your pleasure."
" Sir," said the prince, " I am told you bear the name of
Seton; can it be that you are the famed Sir James?"
The general bowed to his boots.
"What exquisite pleasure!" exclaimed Majesty with
a voice that rang princely. "They tell tales of you
in France, sir. At St. Germain's they have clapped the
' de' to your name; even as at Windsor they have prefixed
the ' the.' Sir James, yours is an international renown."
With a gracious courtesy beautiful to see, the young
conqueror of Prestonpans rose quickly from his seat, and
sailed over the carpet, his hand extended to the notorious
old gentleman. With command, with entreaty in his eyes.
Majesty held his white, soft bejeweled fingers under Fierce-
heart's disdainful nose. But the beau, ever polite, dipped
to the royal hand, and scorned it with a touch from his ice-
cold lips. Diplomacy's first lesson is to learn to swallow
rebuffs; the Court-bred conqueror was no whit abashed.
"My friends," he cried, wheeling round and fronting his
companions, "it is my happiness to present to you the
renowned General Sir James Seton, the hero of the Anglo-
French campaigns; and, my friends, it is my happiness to
tell you that if there was one man I desired to meet when I
embarked for England, it is he I now salute." With which
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 87
be unboimeted, and swept the cold old gentleman a
courtesy in the grand manner that princes only can
perform.
The eyes of the son were sparkling, but when the proud
sire sent his tender gaze to meet his boy's, the lad blanched
to the lips and immediately pinned his looks to the carpet.
He was strangely quiet and ill at ease; he had said never a
word, nor had once appeared like his own nonchalant self.
In another it might have been the atmosphere of the Court;
but the education of the young patrician had provided
amply for that rarefied air. What could it be ? Still the
pure faith of the sire never soiled itself with one suspicion.
* Meantime the prince managed to woo the great soldier's
thoughts from his son. As much amusement as the mood
of the prisoner would permit him to extract, could be im-
bibed from the behavior of his Highness. It was sweet
to see such lavish courtesy from conqueror to captive.
"I smell motives, John!" whispered Fierceheart once
more in the ear of the reverend mocker of princes.
CHAPTER IX.
father and son.
Sib James was invited to take wine with the prince.
" And if your friends will condescend ?" said the gener-
ous gentleman.
Certainly his friends did condescend to take wine with
his Highness. And O, wild music in Daniel's tranced ear!
The whole world witnessed that he, Daniel Munn, conde-
scended to drink with a Prince of the Blood. To the end
of his career Daniel regarded it in the light of a religious
duty to recount once a day thereafter to a jealous and a
disbelieving servants' hall, how he, the said Daniel Munn,
condescended to take wine with King James VIII. of Scot-
land, on the evening of September 21, 1745. Nor was the
phrase his, be it understood : Sir James Seton, G. C. B.,
88 FEERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
and Dr. John Blunt, D. D., could furnish proof that the
king besought him to condescend with his very own lips.
" Ay, sirs, my auld faither waur a'ways dooms gleg o'
assertin' I suld coom to deesteenction somegate !" The
males would gnash their teeth, and the females wonder.
Indeed from that purple hour Daniel demanded an increase
in his salary ; and also a boy to do his work.
Well, the three prisoners condescended to drink wine
with the prince.
" Sir James," began Majesty, cautiously feeling his way
like a man in the dark, " I am told you journeyed hither
prepared to serve the Elector of Hanover."
" Prince Charles, I presume you mean his most gracious
Majesty King George the Second of Great Britain and
Ireland," the parson pompously corrected between the sips.
Nothing less than a well-hissed " S-s-s-sh, man 1" would
here content the head-swelling and condescending Daniel.
" I did," the general resumed.
" Ha, Sir James ! your glass is empty, I see. Allow me,
sir, and let us toast a speedy solution to these unhappy
troubles. May right triumph 1" The prince was truly
solicitous.
Quoth Daniel, stepping briskly forward and brimming
beaker the second :
" Yer Highness, an I may presoom tae ae opeenion, tha'x
unco' weel said. Richt wrangs nae man."
" Sir James," continued the Pretender, " I should be
truly happy to discuss this matter at some length. I think
I might apply a remedy that would heal the conflict of our
opinions."^
Said Fierceheart, '' Prince Charles, I will suggest that
remedy : that you and your abettors lay down your arms
and march in chains through Traitor's Gate."
It was now Sir James' turn to submit to Daniel's perse-
cution. The Scot, head ever enlarging, kicked a blue
bruise on his master's shin.
" What a mild remedy 1" smiled the prince.
" I assure your Highness that I will listen to no other,"
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 89
Here the amiable conqueror knit his brows ; his answer
had a touch of testiness.
" But, my good sir, let us be reasonable. I hold the con-
viction that the Royal House of Stuart has a prior claim to
the throne now occupied by the Hanoverian. Sir James, I
defy you to gainsay that claim."
Amid the most pointed attentions from Daniel, Sir
James did gainsay it.
"Sir, it is my conviction that your great-grandfather
Charles, and your grandfather James, forfeited that claim
twice over. The whole career of your family, dating from
your ancestress Mary, has been identified with our nation's
ruin. Charles Stuart squandered treasuries of gold and
seas of blood; James Stuart by his vile tyranny murdered
hundreds of the erring innocent; lied, vacillated, and
betrayed; sinking this country of mine, that I love beyond
kings, to the very lees of humiliation and disgrace. He
caused its name to be mocked by the mouth of Europe.
But my countrymen in the past have thought fit to visit
them both with uncompromising vengeance; and have also
in their wisdom stripped your house forever of its ancient
rights. Cromwell taught them the Fallibility of Kings,
as opposed to the doctrine of your fathers. The great
heart of Cromwell is in my sight the corner stone of
Liberty, and Liberty is the first and most priceless posses-
sion of my country."
The temperate young conqueror palpably fretted under
this artless burst of rhetoric. But ere he answered it he
again had to rebuke his haughty and threatening followers,
while Daniel at the same moment seized the opportunity
to rebuke his master.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!"
" Is yer honor gane clean wowf 1"
"Sir James," the prince then retorted hotly, "if you
deny the Divine Right of Kings, you deny the Word of
God. Will you deny that the Bible states we are God's
Anointed ? If this is to be successfully refuted then the
very foundations of the world are shaken; and ancient
60 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
blood has lost its virtue. That rare spirit, sir, that leaps in
your veins, and has caused your name to he carved for-
ever in your country's tablets, is it to exact no more con-
sideration than that of the most servile hind ?"
That query bespoke the tutored politician. It was cun-
ning, it cut straight to the roots of vanity. But Sir James
was an old warrior.
" It is, your Highness," his reply, " until it is retraduced
with tyranny, intemperance, and sin. And then it must
lose its high estate, and be degraded to the level to which
its lapses and pollutions have sunk it. Virtue is demanded
hy Heaven of every nation."
Here was the case for the plaintiff.
But conqueror and prince paid his opponent the sincere
compliment of angling much for his services, since England
held no more valuable fish than General Seton. The
hook was beautifully plied. The young prince, master of
the arts of peace as well as those of war, had a thousand
arguments all calling for an answer. His condescension,
it was very charming. And his Court education had been
too perfect for him ever to lose for an instant the true
equipoise of courtliness and dignity in conduct. Music his
tone, silvern his speeches; expansive his mien, while he
marshaled long battalions of his fallacies to support his
claim. Fierceheart quietly demolished them one by one
with British phlegm; and when one rolled out that he
could not meet, his friend Dr. Blunt, most pure-blooded
of British bipeds, was there to hold the field with insolence
and sneers, while Sir James found an intrenched position.
And the Pretender had the ultimate wit to discover that
Stuart argument could never hope to reduce so stalwart a
patriot to submission. So he had recourse to the coarser
way. If there is one thing more pathetic than another in
the lamentable history of princes, it is the low view they
have taken from the first of little human nature. Alas,
with what justice! for no mortal historian has ventured as
yet to compile a history of Bribes Refused. We dare not
opine that bis materials would prove too slender wherewith
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 91
to weave a volume; for our present pleasing duty is to
record an instance of Incorruptibility.
The young prince, pursuing the ancient and honorable
custom of his kind, drew the general apart. Then came
the confidential, low, melodious whisper:
" Sir James, has it not occurred ever to your mind that
the Hanoverian has misused you; or to speak rather more
explicitly, that your high deserts have not been decorated
with a high reward? A meager Grand Cross of the Bath,
sir!"
" Then your Highness overlooks that I declined a peerage
and a pension."
The royal diplomat felt the stroke beneath his sangfroid
efren, and was compelled to blink, despite his training.
This fish called for the devil to land it securely. To his
sorrow, however, he decided to persevere. " Faint heart
ne'er won," etc.
But, sir," he prosecuted, " if I come into my kingdom
there '11 be handfuls of dukedoms and wide acres to dis-
tribute."
" Your Highness insults me! "
Fury sparkled from the blue eyes of the beau in the
remarkable wig and the coat of lavender. He strode
angrily away. Majesty followed him, biting savagely at
his lips.
Majesty had heard members of his family, notably his
father, the Old Pretender, repeating the words of ht's
father, James II. of England, say that they grew a queer,
stiff, arrogant race in England, for which the luckless
House of Stuart had had to pay. And here was the proof
of the pudding. A polished, worldly, famed old man,
whose tongue was that of the Court, was insulted at a
word of dukedoms from the lips of a Prince of the Blood.
He did not wonder that his race had suffered in such a
land and among such a people! And now, said the tena-
cious youth to his wits, for the last shot in the locker. He
confronted Fierceheart with the same fixity of air, courtly,
gracious, smiling.
7
92 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Yet your son, my dear general, is not the least noble of
a noble stock. 'Fore God he fought like twenty! It made
the blood swirl to witness him. To-night I told him he had
Apollo's form and the eye of Mars."
"What a gift of compliment your Highness has! And
did your Highness further compliment him with a hint of
dukedoms and wide acres?"
The prince thought he heard a chuckle in Fierceheart's
voice.
" There was no need," said his candid Highness.
"You surprise me," said Fierceheart dryly,
" He came without."
" As a prisoner—yes."
"A prisoner, sir; a prisoner?" His Highness echoed.
" Sir James, I am at a loss."
Sir James was also at a loss; he could not guess the
source of the royal bewilderment.
" Prince Charles," he repeated, " I said a prisoner."
" But, my dear Sir James, a prisoner of whom?"
"Certainly of your Royal Highness. What else does
he here?"
"Ha! My friend, I see, I see! " Suffusions of light ap-
peared to flood the groping darkness out of the prince's
mind. " I see, I see! " he said.
But the old man was still belated, far in utter night.
Even the fainting face of his boy, opposite, did not help him.
"So you thought. Sir James, that he fought for the
House of Hanover?"
"Your Highness, do you suppose I should think he
fought fpr you?" The confident father was really bland.
" Perhaps, sir, you will ask him."
"Which would be no more necessary than to ask your
Highness whether your sword was drawn for the House of
Stuart."
The prince pealed laughter; but being a clement prince,
pity diluted his mirth.
" Zooks, Sir James!" he said, "your brave son looks
most rueful and unhappy."
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 93
" Alas, your Highness t had you felt the stigma of this
day, you had looked unhappy. Poor lad! And I'll say
noble lad! Though he's son of mine." The eyes of the
father were in a flood of pride.
Now all the time Prince Charles Edward and the
general had been sunk in conversation, the parson and
his godson Tom, the wounded prisoner, had been pouring
fevered language forth on one another. No one had noted
them: the councilors and captains were consulting
together in hot-tongued groups on the high events of the
day; the prince and his associate were too totally wrapped
in their own concerns; and swollen Daniel, not being in-
viled to condescend to drink wine with a Prince of the
Blood every day, was prompt to celebrate such a landmark
in his life. Besides he had sorrows to drown; and the
wines of princes are said to be excellent. Thus, being left
to his own devices wholly, he drank himself into a state of
multiplied vision; and was now chiefly concerned in pro-
viding a reason for his additional hands and feet, and for
additional princes condescending to arm additional generals
up and down additional chambers. But logic paused before
these phenomena in nature.
Thus were parson and godson unheeded; none marked
the fading paleness of the boy; the purple proclamations
posted in the reverend countenance; the entreaties, the
head-shakes, the repeated tremblings in the limbs of both;
the occasional smothered outbursts of reverend thunder;
the splendid lightnings from the eyes of the lad; the defi-
ances and the prayers; the despair, the eloquence, the pas-
sionate appeals; the clenched anguish of both; then the
ultimate tears, the flnal, " Alas, poor James! " of the rever-
end patriot, and the godfather's head hopelessly crushed
to his hands.
The son was left with the whites of death on his cheek,
and a lip-quivering wildness of the mouth as though his
slow-issuing spirit was in the throes of death. God, what
had he done! And yet he had traversed the muddy
ground of the argument wholly. He had beard each side
94 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
analyzed by his father and his king that night; and his
blood and his conscience cried out in tempest to his heart
that King James VIII. of Scotland was he on whose side
justice sat. If his father could not see with his scale-
clogged eyes, was that a reason why his own passionate
soul should refuse to do the right and be damned to all
eternity? Yea; deliberately and in cold sanity he had
cast in his fortunes with the true king; nay more, despite
his noble, misguided father, despite his mother, despite his
education, he had done the right, and he felt strong in his
deed.
The prince was now walking up and down the carpet
alone, with occupied eyes and his hands behind him.
General James, released at last, was by the far-bowed
shoulder of Rev. John, who had his head in his hands and
was shaking strong sobs out of his body.
"Good God, John, what's the matter?" demanded the
father; his blood curdled at this sudden, unknown, un-
bridled anguish in the elderly parson. Could the coun-
try have received any newer and deeper catastrophe? His
own unmanliness of that day was bitterly recalled by the
sight of tears.
No answer for a long minute save inarticulate gurgles
from a deep recess. Then the parson blinked up into the
light like a very large and melancholy owl; only he per-
formed a trick that well-bred bird would omit; he brushed
his shameful eyes on his cuffs.
"Ask your son," he spluttered, then fighting whole
armies of agitation in his throat.
A darlr of fire touched a nerve in Fierceheart's breast.
The identical words of the prince 1 He had referred him to
his heroic boy. He scented egregious error somewhere.
No; he was not afraid; the lad was his and his mother's;
of their blood; the blood of unsullied Seton and purest
Devonshire Haverbigh. Where was the lad to match him—
his face frank as March breezes and clear as the summer
heavens; his eyes imperial; his very carriage exciting love
and wonderful trust. What was that sweet compliment of
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 95
the prince's? Sure it hit the high-blooded rogue to the life;
he must learn that fine phrase by heart to repeat to the
lad's mother—his wife. Dear Emmy, how it would
wreathe her in smiles 1 And oh! how seldom she did smile
now. Bless her stanch spirit for giving him such a son I
That day their young hero had mitigated for future Setons
his country's shame. How her joyful eyes would beacon
when he told her! Bless her for having a soul that could
enter the inmost life of a soldier! " Apollo's form and the
eye of Mars!" Yes, that was the phrase of the prince. How
true! Let him repeat it to his hungry and cherishing
heart that, when he got home, it might rejoice her. No;
h^had no fear of his boy.
No, he was not afraid of his boy; yet he looked up at his
boy and beheld, in lieu of his unfearing face, a death-mask
of waxen clay, hideously framed in a livid purity of band-
ages. And the blood-robbed lips were moving in an
unholy, passionate silence. Those lips were .speaking aloud
and yet had nothing to say. Oh, paradox; why were they
speaking, yet speaking not!
" Speak, Tom, speak!" implored the father, beaten by his
heart's suspense.
"Speak!" squeaked the parson, twisting round on his
elbow in desperation to stare.
" Yes, speak! " commanded the approaching prince, with
a face shut against all emotion.
The voice of his king unchained the lad's pent language.
But his confession maintained the ghastly paradox. It was
to fall down on one knee and kiss the hand of his king
before the eyes of his father.
Hell ripped a curtain clean out of Fierceheart's mind,
leaving a loathsome void beyond, whose horrors the mind
staggered to conceive. Groaning multitudes of maimed
and bloody possibilities were tied up in the torture chamber
that vanished curtain had revealed. He could not count
them; he could no more enumerate and classify those limb-
wrenched and flesh-flayed victims than he could make an
inventory of the stars. But there was one thing in that
96 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
chamber that branded itself upon his eyes. It was the
purple life-stream released from these veins of these muti-
lated creatures flowing into a carpet for the chamber floor.
His eyeballs strove to burst from their sockets while he
gazed, for the muddy flood wound slowly, inexorably into
a design that formed one inextinguishable word, Shame!
There was the hero upon his knees, wolfing a usurper's
hand. It was a madness that prompt measures only could
correct. Praise clement Heaven! that the young oflBcer's
civility had dictated that the prisoners' weapons were to be
retained. Joy! his loaded pistol was in the pocket of his
cloak. His asking fingers felt deep in it for the butt; and
the butt leapt to them like a faithful friend. The thrilling
and awaiting muzzle was now trembling to be unleashed, a
very bloodhound in his hand. Patience, patience, foolish
fingers! They were dancing to his heart's tune on the
trigger now. They drew a bead on the brain of his kneel-
ing child. But no! his old eyes could not look on and
behold its living wisdom strewn. He must close them,
keeping all the time the sight inviolate. He'did close them
with clasped agony, and the spasm of a prayer flashed
through his soul that he might never open them again.
Then his fingers slipped the leash from the shivering,
straining bloodhound, leaving it to its instinct and natural
appetite for the life of heroes. But even as the leash was
slipped and the blopdy beast was away with a bark that
trembled the room, a blow dashed the pistol up and away
far over the room, while a crash of glass announced its
flight through the window.
The mu'rderer opened his fierce-sealed eyes to find the
prince and his retinue pressing around him, speechless with
horror and rage. His son was standing before him in every
inch of his height, his late cheeks of wax again stained
warm with life. Daniel was rolling on the floor, and howl-
ing to a well-grasped bottle that the end of the world was
here. The parson, with clenched right hand uplifted, was
he who had played Deliverer. He had seen the bloodhound
pistol, and quicker than light he had dashed up the hand
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 97
that held and directed the quivering trigger. The first
sound that succeeded th^ horrid bark of the bloodhound
was the smack of the paieon's lips on his godson's face.
Even in the midst of this last report, the heart of the old
man was praising Heaven.
It seemed that the murderer had shot an innocent gay
Cupid as it flew over the ceiling. Shot it straight through
the brain, cutting its young and unclad beauty ofiF while it
budded in its early spring I Alas, poor Cupid! No one was
heeding the murderer much till he lurched and fell head-
foremost on his face, with a sickening crack that appealed
to the room's foundation. And thus he lay with the blood
a Continuous trickle i from his cold white face, while men
ran for water. It was the son who had staggered back
under the first bucketful. And strange but the magnani-
mous and clement Prince Charles would insist, to the
scandal of his Court, on kneeling down in his majesty to
assist in exposing the father's neck, and to flap water with
his kerchief on the countenance of Cupid's murderer, till
tardy life exhibited signs of a reappearance.
CHAPTER X.
contains another inspirmo instance op moral
grandeur.
Morning with its September brightness spurned these
tragic vapors of the night. All Pinkie House was astir at
sunrise. The chateau's broad staircase submitted to a con-
stant stream of footsteps, going to and issuing from the
prince. Inside and out it hummed with the confabulation
of the military of mind on matters political and bellicose.
A great victory had been gained, and now it could not be
too strongly urged upon his Highness that another shrewd
and immediate blow must be struck at once at the House of
Hanover to drive the moral of Preston home. His every
counselor clamored for a duplicated triumph; for it is the
98 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
victorious cause that wins adherents. And they must have
adherents heedless of the price that bought them.
Thus early the young prince was closeted alone with his
keen adviser Lord George Murray.
" Oh," cried the ardent conqueror, " for another day such
as yesterday! Oh, for another Prestonpans I"
" It pleases me," said Murray, " to hear that that victory
has set so sharp an edge on your Majesty's desire. Let us
achieve a second Preston, and every waverer of England
will besiege the standard of your Majesty."
The Pretender said; "Good Murray, if you could guess
how at this instant the mocking God of armies has brought
a second Preston to my side, and yet how my hands are
bound and how I can grasp it not, sure you would pity me
exceedingly."
" Your Majesty," said the solid, material Murray, " there
is nothing my experience could suggest that would cause
me to admit a thing so nearly within my reach, and yet
so far removed. If your Majesty would deign to ex-
plain."
" My good Murray, admit that I have old General Seton
in this house under lock and key. I have won his son, and
the winning of the father would be our second Preston.
That old man is reverenced over the breadth of fighting
England. Advertise that the old hero rides at our side,
and you would witness several thousand sluggards issuing
from their holes to join us, like worms after rain."
" Sire, have you employed all the arts of peace?"
"Yes, my faith! I was fii-st persuasive; and my dear
Murray, I think you'll allow that I can be silken and fiuent.
We sipped wine in company. I charmed his ear with com-
pliment; I besought him with meek voice—my Murray, a
sweating exercise for Stuarts I Gad, coz! Charles Edward
was unctuously humble, but that frilled and powdered little
pagan was winter, always winter, Murray. He would not
thaw."
" But maybe, your Majesty, he desired your supplications
to be embodied in tangibility," said the material Murray,
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 99
carefully wrapping his coarse meaning up in an uncom-
promising phrase.
"Hal ha! old Father Machiavel, you allude to lucre.
True, I tried it, but no lily is more white than he. I lisped
of dukedoms and broad acres: when,' Sir,' he blazed, ' you
insult me!' and his blue eyes burnt me. And the deuce is,
good Murray, my heart says it would like to love the'
man."
"That's a fine lad of his, your Majesty."
" Oons, yes! 'Tis a pretty, pretty cub! God wither me if
ever I deny it! Three times he saved me. It is the old
story of us luckless Stuarts; we owe what we can never
repay. And yet the mere unfurling of our standard breeds
a new swarm of heroes, who rejoice to serve us."
The generous young prince was victory-fiushed this
morning. True scion of his mercurial house, here was his
blood warm with success; and he was in love with the
brave, in love with life, and most of all with himself.
"My Murray," he said, "I think this morning I have
the mood of persuasion. Last night I slept the sleep of
victory, and lo! all the cobwebs are swept out of my brain.
My wits skip, my words trip on their lightest toe; my
tongue fiows honey; and my eyes beacon soft inducement.
Nay, my Murray, deny me no denials. It is so, for I feel it
so. And, my Murray, do not impose your sour restraint
this morning. Am I not your king? To-day I unchain
my gayety. Stuart hearts ever dance to victory's pipings.
Besides, I have tried on my new coat, majesty. Frankly,
I like it, and odds, my life! it fits the form of Charles in
the most becoming and creaseless way. 'Tis a rare coat; a
dazzling coat, an alluring coat; though, to be sure, 'tis a pity
the tailor is not paid. But Prestonpans is some installment;
and grant us, 0 God, just such another glorious victory, and
this suit of our regality shall be paid in full. Yes, my
Murray, rest assured we'll pay the tailor. And now call
me old General Seton, who is to help me pay him; and
faith! I think I'll witch that grand old gentleman to
a softer mood."
100 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Lord George Murray went hence at the command of his
king to call the general, leaving his royal master to his
transports. Heady wine, victory, was inciting his lips, and
when Fierceheart appeared he beheld a young prince with
flushed cheeks, and smiling, ever smiling, from his swift
bright eyes. But the old man saw no beauty in this face;
indeed he could scarce train his eyes to look upon this
accursed visage. Very pinched, bloodless, and thin was
the countenance of the father to-day, though his clothes,
his wig, and his frills sat on him with the same exquisite
precision as of yore, thanks to the extraordinary Daniel,
whose art had triumphed over the flesh, since the hand of
that master was suffering from excess of royal vintages.
" Are you quite recovered of your last night's seizure,
sir?" his Highness opened, and the kind tone, as so skilled
a swordsman intended, was only half a foil to his steel.
Blood bathed the face of the father. His Highness indi-
cated a chair.
"I beg you to be seated, sir," he smiled. " lamsureyou
are not too robust this morning."
Fierceheart silently took a chair opposite his smooth
enemy.
"My dear general," cooed the sweet conqueror, "it is
unfortunate indeed, but I do feel that your position is
notoriously false. I would blink that unhappy fact, and I
might; only my feelings are too unanimous and positive.
You, Sir James, the head of the house of Seton, loudly deny
my cause; but yet your own heir, Sir James, your own flesh,
sir, and the second representative of your house, has been
my most valuable friend. Three times did the noble fellow
yesterday interpose himself between my body and the
Elector's steel. And it has struck me. Sir James, that this
diverse conduct in the house of Seton will prove a distinct
anomaly to the mind of Hanover George. It certainly
does to the mind of Charles Edward."
The general tightened his lips on his imprisoned pain
and rage. Yet he admired his foe's agility.
" And, my dearest man," maneuvered the ambassador,
FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 101
" has it not occurred to you that George will experience a
difficulty in reconciling the behavior of your house with its
professions?"
" No," cried the baited father, in his white agony, *' His
Majesty the king will require more than the errors of a
disobedient child to pollute his fair opinion of my house.
He knows that I, as heretofore, am prepared to support my
professions with my blood. As to my unhappy son, God
and the king, I know, will hold me guiltless of his errors.
High powers a father has, but beyond sound precept he
cannot go. My unhappy son has been taught virtue and
truth in richest measure from the lips of a better than I;
and if being thus, if the vessel prove weak and unworthy,
and ultimately sinks to a receptacle of sin, who shall blame
the sire?"
"But, my dear Sir James," smiled the Stuart, "you
that are old, and have seen the world, provoke my deep
astonishment by so persistently ignoring all question of
expediency."
"Expedience! expediency!" groped the other. "Your
Highness, I confess I am obtuse to-day."
It was plain that the simple gentleman had again for-
gotten that he was dealing with a Stuart. He was imme-
diately reminded, though. The new king, with the aid of
his coat of regality, dressed his Stuart morality in bolder
language. He said:
" Sir James, I'd better tell you that my mind still runs on
dukedoms. I cannot understand how any man of acknowl-
edged wisdom can be so wholly blind to their possibilities.
A dukedom, my dear Sir James, and ten thousand pounds
per annum would be an ornament to your posterity. And
at least it is more than they will ever receive from the
House of Hanover."
"Your Highness," said Fierceheart, "has already in
your toils the father of my posterity. You can practice
your Stuart munificence on him; since you are so solicitous
for the aggrandisement of our house. And your Highness
will recollect that when your fathers begot a bastard from
102 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
a gutter-wench, he was dubbed Duke of St. Albans, or of
Grafton, as the case might be, and you would dub me Duke
of Prestonpans. I pray you, save that proud and honorable
title for my son."
It was here that bitterness welled up into the father's
throat and choked further speech with its inarticulate
anguish. It was perhaps as well. The new king was
tingling with wrath; he had heard of the devilish presump-
tion of that nation that had dared to lop off Stuart heads.
He now enjoyed an introduction to it. A prisoner had
insulted a king: he must punish him.
" So," he scorned, devouring the mocking old man with
his indignant eyes, " you. Sir James, have dared to my face
to spit on the memory of my father."
" Dared, your Highness, is the word perhaps," acquiesced
Fierceheart, " though I certainly think it a coarse one
between gentlemen."
"Between gentlemen!" burst from the king, "between
gentlemen I Do you forget my presence ? Man, have you
no etiquette ?"
" For traitors, for usurpers, sir, not any—except when
my sword performs a congee in their flesh."
Fierceheart never flinched before the fiery glance of
Majesty.
Blood-royal is impatient of rebuffs. Bude anger burst
out of Majesty's new coat, tarnishing its elegance, crump-
ling its dignity, as Fierceheart saw.
" But it is mine to show," raged the humiliated king,
"that stiff-backed Sir James Seton has an heir, flesh of
his flesh, blood of his blood, who at least has not the pride
to reject the gift of a despised Stuart."
The new king rose in his anger, and rang the bell. As
the door opened at the sound, he said: "I am wanting
Captain Seton."
The general was still sitting unflinching and cool, when
his son came. The paroxysm of the night was dead; he
was now able to gaze on the face of the traitor; yea, he
could even speak with him. But no longer as a father;
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 103
the tone and the mien he employed was that of a judge
toward a criminal condemned. Praise God! Duty could
yet triumph over Love. Though, alas I love was not wholly
elbowed out of his soul. It must forever crouch in the
corners. And it was crouching now as he looked up, full
on the face of the lad, and beheld in it the fair face of dead
hope. He had spied whole kingdoms in the splendid eyes
of this child; they had smoothed his midnight pillow;
they had caressed his soul in solitude; they had nerved
him to patience in adversity; they were now in the dust.
Hope lay bleeding and stark in the mud. It is time for
strong men to weep when Hope dies; but the old man was
nevei* more dry-eyed. Self-pity is the source of the teara
we shed for ourselves; thus Fierceheart preferred to keep
all his tears for his country. But still, gazing on Apollo's
form and the eye of Mars, it occurred to him that he must
soon weep for the hero's mother; she who was never to
hear the prince's compliment.
Meanwhile in silence the old man braced his body for
the stroke Majesty was preparing to deal it. Majesty
waited, though, till father and son had saluted each other
with grave and unbetraying deference. That ceremony
interested him, and he thought what finished courtiers they
were, so well did they manage to conceal their souls.
Then he opened prettily on the boy.
" Thanks alone are a fieeting, unsubstantial honorarium,
my dear, my brave captain. That thought hit me, as I lay
on my couch last night. I felt that he who had saved my
life three times in an hour could not be fobbed off with
mere evaporating phrases. And it has ever been a custom
of the Stuarts to reward noble services in a palpable and
enduring manner. Captain Seton, I must ask you to
kneel."
Majesty drew forth his sword.
The lad was puflBng and panting in deep waters of con-
duct. Great and good men accepted such payment from the
swords of their kings daily, he was quite aware ; and he
yrould merely bo a fool to deny that the feats of yesterday
104 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
were deserving of reward. He knew that none had fought
better than himself at Preston. But was he not a Seton ?
The world looked for more from one of that blood than
another ; and pursuing the same thought, for that reason
what was an embellishment to a meaner name was to his
no ornament. Thus he did the most obvious and natural
thing : he looked to the head of his house for aid.
Fierceheart had preserved stem silence while the cun-
ning and unscrupulous prince had been digging the pit for
his boy, and now as the blind traveler wavered irresolutely
at the brink, when a word could have saved him, and at
the same instant have avoided the enemy's stab to Seton
pride, Cupid's murderer pricked the poor traveler on. No
sooner did he behold the plea for aid in the eyes of his son,
than he cried to him out of a bitter mouth:
"Nay, captain, not so. I would not have you look to
me for my opinions and my precepts. All ties between us
are severed now. Henceforth from me you will but re-
ceive pistol courtesy. Tou are no longer son of mine ;
from yesterday you are disowned, you are another Stuart
bastard, and your king and father you will notice is bum-
ing to bestow on you the emolument it is usual for Stuarts
to give their bastards. Come, good captain, I think I can-
not be more explicit."
Every color that can paint the face of humiliation dyed
the son's during the studious delivery of this language.
Meekness was hard to preserve ; yet Setons were known to
triumph oftener than the common men over the difiScult
tasks. Thus he took every cut in silence, with bowed head ;
a triumph for his haughty, resenting heart. But Majesty
less disciplined, less pure of blood, streamed with retalia-
tion in the defense of his servant. But it merely afforded
Fierceheart added experience of that salient Stuart charac-
teristic : that noble princely generosity that cost them
nothing. And so the young Seton took the leap. He
knelt; the conferring sword tapped his shoulder, and :
" Sir Thomas Blunt Seton 1" sang his king's clear tones.
Thus was the sacrifice consummated on the altar of a
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 105
generous king's revenge. Majesty had trampled roughshod
on the prostrate pride of him to whom he owed his life,
merely to smite the cheek of his white-haired and honor-
able father. Let us agree, though, that it was a deed
worthy of a king ; worthy of that romantic and that clem-
ent House of Stuart! Or can it be that unimperial feats
are to be found written on its scrolls ?
Majesty now turned, flushed with a sneer, on the mute
old man.
"It's a nice pride yours, Sir James," his laugh, "and
you think it a pity it is not peculiar to the family. What
the father spurns, the son lips greedily."
"My son! Ha! ha!" mocked the old man in a false
high cadence. " From yesterday, I have no son, but from
that hour the indefatigable Stuarts have begot another
bastard. And how soon they have embellished him!
Your service, good Sir Thomas; your service, good St.
Albans!"
An elaborate obeisance was made to the new knight, Sir
Thomas Blunt Seton, who remonstrated.
"Father "
"Stop, Sir Thomas," said Fierceheart with a perfect
restraint. "Havel not already most concisely said that
the title 'son' is stripped from your lips. Then, sir, I
would have you address me as our respective positions
require."
" I was about to say, sir," said the lad sternly, " that
whatever the gift it is hallowed when a Stuart condescends
to make it. And, sir, I would not have you think that I
have cast in my lot with the true king without deep
ponderation on the ethics of the matter. Sir, it may re-
lieve you to know that in this step, the most vital of my
career, I have the full weight of my conscience to support
me, even in the same degree that you have yours, sir, to
bolster you on the other side. All my life till now, I have
submitted to the leading strings of you, sir, and the Rever-
end Dr. Blunt. But one day the bird is fledged, and
then its long-fettered soul cries to it to fly. It is so with
106 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
me, ray father. You are not the only patriot, Sir James:
there is one wearing your name who equally adores his
duty. And, like you, sir, I take duty to be the service of
one's country. In its name you smother paternal love;
and for similar cause is filial love surrendered by me. And
I cursed God last night that your bullet was not then
buried in my brain; for I am haunted with the awful fear
that one day in a weak hour I may renounce the love of
my country for love of you my father. Even as I speak I
can see 'liar' and 'ingrate' forming on your lips; it is
because I worship my honor and my duty that you feel
that I have never learned to worship you. I wish you
could see my heart, sir."
It was an appeal for a little pity. It was in his voice
throbbing with notes of mellow, holy subdued worship of
his ancient father; it was in his eyes yearning with a tender
sorrow. Earth had no fairer child to show than he, that
hour as he stood supplicating for a little of his father's
compassion, for he had brought his pride to its stubborn
knees; a rare achievement for one so young, so haughty,
so resentful. But Setons were wrought of steel thrice-
welded. He had to deal with a Roman parent, whose reso-
lution never admitted a flaw.
The father merely said: "Sir Thomas, your speech ap-
peared to me magniloquent, and a thought too florid for
my taste; pray prune it. I've never discovered the fallacy
yet that was made strong in the back by being excessively
swathed in a bandage of words."
The son was perfect patience; for, though his scornful
soul was crying out on his meekness, he felt that he could
not resignthe wealth of a father's love without an effort.
" Can I not make you see, sir," he strove, " that with us
both it is an entire question of duty? Duty is the Alpha
and the Ornega of our divergence. Your conscience has
directed you to choose King George for your private hom-
age and service; my conscience on the contrary has ordered
me to his gracious Majesty, and that, sir, being the case, I
beseech you still to be my father. Oh I embrace me, sir, as
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 107
you did but yesterday, and then we will go our separate
ways in peace, with uninterrupted love to strengthen us in
our hours of need and darkness."
" It's very pretty, I'm sure," Fierceheart approved, " but
so sweet a plea is most unfortunately marred by the inter-
ference of Dame Morality. That good lady, it appears, has
whispered me that he who embraces a known and declared
traitor is guilty of high treason toward the sacred person
of his king. And sooner than that I would submit to con-
sumption before slow fires. Thus, Sir Thomas, if you
come again to Cumberland, may Heaven smite me in my
white hairs if I do not arrest you with this right hand,
that the king's justice may be done upon your miserable
body. Or failing that, I will still endeavor to purge the
name of Seton of its late disgrace should I chance to meet
you outside the pale of my jurisdiction; for there you shall
be shot down like a dog. Sir Thomas. It should have been
done last night, had not your unhappy godfather inter-
vened. I think I can speak no plainer, sir."
The soul-sick lad admitted how unvarnished his Ian-
guage was. And now humility was oozing. The battle
had every symptom of being too surely lost; and no more
than his father could he brook defeat.
" So be it, sir!" he said. " Never again will I abase my-
self by falling on my unaccustomed knees, beseeching.
That position irks them. But I may tell you, my father,
that this hour I part from you in infinite love. Though,
alas! again I see your lips are sneering unbelief."
" And Lady Seton, your natural mother," said the father,
"will part from you yielding up her life when she is in-
formed that she has conceived and loved a traitor. You
will murder her as truly as though you had taken a
sword to her much-tried and now failing heart. As for
me, your natural father, sir, I part from you whistling!"
And the terrible, foolish Roman pursed up his lips and
burst into precisely two bars of a military tune. It was
quite true that he stopped as suddenly as he began, also
that it was a very unnatural performance, and one of the
8
108 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
most pitiable shifts to which mulish pride was ever reduced.
But at the same time he managed to burst out with those
two horrid, jagged bars of discord. It would have been less
bad had not the man been so much of a liar, for during every
word of that last revolting interview, chained love was
calling from the corners of the man's dissembling heart:
" You brute, you miserable brute, you; you are killing your
wife! And, oh, James, old fool, old liar, look at the eyes
of your hero! "
Thus they parted under the gaze of Majesty. They had
soon plunged into waters too deep for his Highness; and
he, having the rudiments of wisdom, had become wonder-
fully absorbed of late in papers of state. But he looked up
as the new knight made to withdraw; looked up and said
to him, aside:
"Captain, is your father beyond all persuasion, think
you! The talisman of his name would be a second Preston
for our cause. Know you nothing that will move him?"
"Your Majesty," cried the son, "ask the sea to stand
still, or try to prevail on continents to move, and your
breath will be just as profitably employed as on my
father."
With which he made a deep obeisance to both king and
prisoner and then went out, to trudge incessantly up and
down over the field of yesterday's fight, in a sort of mad-
ness of anger and sorrow. He would inevitably kill his
doting old mother, and further, he could see behind the
strained and distorted mask of his father. Yes, Cupid's
murderer might whistle, but in those eyes he read self-in-
flicted death. Even Setons had human hearts, which under
excessive strain were therefore breakable.
"Heaven have mercy, grant me great strength!" his
prayer. But there was the consolation, however cold, that
he was a second patriot, doing his duty.
FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 109
CHAPTER XI.
provides a moth-eaten metaphor, sdfeioientlt trite
to need no apology ; and describes how oupid's
murderer receives a message from home.
Left together, prisoner and king sat smiling the unin-
spired smile of a pair of duellists shaking hands over the
handkerchief. The prince, a creature of swift moods, had
sunlight no more in his face; a cloud dimmed his clear
brow, leaving the scowls of foul thoughts, half lit at inter-
vals with fugitive gleams of sardonic mirth. Fierceheart
wore a horrible white face, with deceit slashed across his
laugh. The man was suffering.
" Prince Charles," said Cupid's murderer, " risking im-
politeness, I begin to yawn behind my hand at this comedy.
Come, sir, ring the curtain down, and pack me hack to my
dungeon. I prefer the rats and slimy walls of solitude to
such barbaric entertainment. The piece is bad and the
playing infernal. Where there is no basis of heart, there
can be no art either; thus 'Stuart Generosity,' which I
believe is the comedy's name, isegregiously lacking in both.
So the piece is damned unless played to a Jacobite audience."
" Mr. Critic, you are too severe on our humble efforts to
amuse," said the author silkily. " Too utterly severe.
The comedy has been frequently played and received with
manifest applause by divers persons."
"For instance by one Cromwell."
" That particular person was not impartial, I fear. He
introduced a personal bias. But, my dear critic, your son
seems to have enjoyed the piece."
Thus on the first bout they paused, with the honors to
neither.
" But I'm anxious indeed to retire to the rats of a dun-
geon," resumed Fierceheart doggedly.
But, as has been insisted already, a Stuart knew how to
be geoerpus when it cost him nothing.
no FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"Good Sir James," said this one, "our house never
erred on the side of severity. A Stuart has ever something
better than locks, holts, and bars to offer a noble enemy."
Pride puckered up his ears on the word severity; it had
an after-smack of favors to be conferred, but "noble
enemy " refined the gall from its flavor.
" There's a condition, of course," said the prisoner,
stiffening.
"Merely the most obvious and most conventional one,
on these occasions,"Clemency's reply. "We only ask the
customary parole, sir, not to take up arms against us during
the war."
" Then you won't get it," laughed Fierceheart.
" We shan't get it!" mused astonished Majesty, "but, my
dear good sir, that leaves us only the black alternative."
" To rot in a dungeon," laughed Fierceheart.
"Too true; for, my friend, you cut the ground wholly
from under our feet; which you should know, you being
so versed in military custom."
"I do know," answered Don Quixote doggedly. "I'll
rot in the dungeon, please."
We seek no applause for this deep discovery; hut it has
occurred to us that Cervantes dug the foundations for his
hero in the fruitful soil of pride's perversities. That ingen-
ious gentleman of La Mancha spent his own lean flesh and
that of his thin Bozinante in riding down on ridiculous
things, taking flocks of sheep to be armies, and windmills
to be giants. He gained nothing but exhausted lungs for
his pains. And so, when we leap to the stirrups of our
attenuated pride and charge down on a magnificent giant
of conduct, we return perspiring and blown, but with
nothing achieved; and next day straight-grained Sancho
assures us, after we have slept and pondered, that the giant
we dashed at was only a windmill for importance; merely
an invisible imp that hides in the air, who takes an elf's
shrill delight in blowing maggots into the brains of
chivalrous persons.
Meantime Fierceheart could feel this maggot of the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. HI
imp skipping in his head, and lol he mounted bis elderly
pride.
"No, Prince Charles! " snorted the Don, " I'll take your
dungeon sooner than you shall take my parole."
Sancho Panza internally laughed his young sides sore.
How soon we smell the errors of others I
"But don't you see, my dear Don Quixote, that you are
charging at windmills?" he inquired.
Don Quixote didn't. Of course he didn't, else Cervantes
had never spent so much ink in writing his history. He
said:
" I have no wish to bask in the clemency of your High-
ness. * Save it for the humble-blooded people of a wiser
and a more penetrating turn."
" Which is an admission, good Don, that our aristocracy
is distinguished by stupidity and little brain. You are
severe, you know; and, my faith, something of a traitor,
sir."
"A traitor 1" rasped the patriot, hitting the ugly word.
" A traitor to your tribe, sir. And if aristocrats begin to
pelt themselves with mud, the mob will soon begin to pelt
them with brickbats."
Thus was the crafty pilot trying to steer the crazy bark
out of the troubled waters. The Stuart wished to witness
no wreck of this peculiar craft; besides he was inclined to
love the battered thing, despite the grotesqueness of its
groaning timbers. And there was something due to the
son; and persuasion costs nothing, you will understand.
Don Quixote, now quite atilt on his Rozinante, led
benevolent Majesty back to the point.
"I should greatly enjoy your powers of conversation,
your Highness," said he, " were my head a little less riot-
ous. I am an old man, sir, and it takes but the meanest
thing to flutter it. I lost a trifle of sleep in the night and
now I would be thankful for the stones of a cell to restore
it. For I give no parole."
This was too direct to admit of a decent evasion; but this
tenacious prince had no mind to be thwarted in his quest of
112 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
cheap generosity. He would take another, more devious
road. And it is fair to assume that pride was also at the
root of the royal persistency. It hurts a king to be refused
his own way; it especially hurt a Stuart king, who had
the legend, " I can do no wrong," stamped on the velvet
of his crown. Besides, was there not one in the family who
had trod the scaffold sooner than budge? Now this
strange, pig-headed old warrior had thus far overthrown
every desire King James VIII. had expressed in their
intercourse. It was high time his Majesty began to
assert himself. He now employed a roundabout route
to do so.
Still detaining the wearied Fierceheart, he sent for the
reverend prisoner and the drunken valet. They came
alertly and with uncompromising mien: the parson a
buck rat for fierceness, while Daniel bore bloodshot eyes
from yesterday. His demeanor was marvelously bold be-
fore the king he had condescended to bib several bottles
with. A thought aggressive, perhaps: but your Scot has
only to be exalted for a moment to occupy the dizzy alti-
tude for all time. There's no Wolsey in their history.
Besides the jealous Southron has been heard to say that
the reason why the Burns-reading biped is found in all
regions of the habitable globe at this moment, and invari-
ably dwelling in silks and high places at the tree top, is
because he has laid it down as a first principle that given a
yard he must take an ell. His reverence merely carried a
heightened scarcasm this morning. "John, as you love
me, crush this bore," he clearly read in the eyes of his
yawning fi;iend.
"We were eager to ascertain," commenced Majesty,
" whether, good gentlemen, you would offer your honorable
words not to interfere again during these troubles on
behalf of King George. If you are prepared to make that
pledge, I know nothing to thwart your instantaneous
release."
Daniel's soul jumped.
" Hoot, sirl" his hasty reply, "I'll gie ye my honorable
rrERCEHEA.RT, THE SOLDIER. 113
word &nce, or ane hundred times, jist as it pleases ye;
a'ways wi' tha proveeso that ye lets us gang awa'."
" And Dr. Blunt ?" inquired his Clemency.
The parson nodded cold assent, and the prince flashed a
victorious eye on Fierceheart.
" You will never consent surely to be left in the lurch,
Sir James ?"
" I give no parole," said Don Quixote quietly.
*' Then, James," pronounced the man of thunder, " you
are most exactly what I've so persistently denominated you
these fifty years, nothing but an unmitigated fool, James."
" Ay, naething but that," said Daniel in a mighty con-
fldential whisper to the prince, "but, your Highness, us
wha's had the honor ta bib thegither, I gie ye my solemn
woord ne'er ta ficht agin for Geordie."
The thunderer meantime trained his big guns on Don
Quixote, and banged him a broadside.
" A raw, uncooked fool, James, and that's omitting a ten-
dency boldly defined toward the mulish and the asinine.
Bayard himself, sans peur et sans reproche, would have
gobbled at these terms; and yet no, you cock up your
supercilious Seton nose, scorning fair intention. Man,
you're mad: I've spoken!"
Before the rude breath of such wrath the patriot bent
like a proud pine in the blast: but like the pine he was
supple, defying even tempest to break him.
Said he in his mildness, " Go your ways, old John ; and
in the words of that other John, may I be d d for a
shotten-herring if manhood, good manhood, be not lost on
the face of the earth, if, when traitors swarm in our England,
I do not either take up cudgels for my king, else suffer for
him bodily. Nay, John, I accept no parole that bars both.
I'm old, but I fight, or I rot for my duty."
"Or be burned, James," said the parson, "for an over-
righteous old rogue, who reduces virtue herself to villainy
by such wild excess of holy conduct. James, only continue
to practice these extravagant ideals ; and presently heaven
will prove a place not sufficiently chaste for your soul's
114 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
reception. You prideful old fool, are you become stark
lunatic ?"
"Our white name is stained," said the Seton. "Its
own flesh and blood has stained it; but, please God! its
purity shall be redeemed in some degree by this old
body."
"And that old head shall canonize its own insanity,"
said the man of thunder.
Then they summoned tooth and claw, and fell on one
another utterly. Neither imparted conviction to the other's
brain; for to do that, logic was the tool required, a timid
implement that shrinks from the controversial violence of
arbitrary tooth and claw. Thus they ended where they
opened, unclinching with an expressed opinion concerning
each other's scant equipment in intelligence.
" You've as much as a mule, James," roared he of the
splendid insolence.
"Which would be a flattery if applied to yours," Fierce-
heart smiled.
They sheered off, panting for breath to rebegin.
'' I think you forget that you are in the presence, gentle-
men," said his Majesty the King, grinning all over his
mouth. This was an artiflce of the generous gentleman's
to reunite these elderly warriors. It ranged the combat-
ants on one side, while they denied together with pointed
briskness that they stood in the presence of their king.
Union against the common foe is apt to heal private strife.
And it assuaged these patriots'.
" Well, James, all I can say is," conceded the parson in
the end, i' that you, James, being somewhat twisted in
your mind, are in no condition to be left alone. Thus, if
you give no parole, I give none either. Your Highness, I
have decided to share this old dolt's captivity."
The elderly gentlemen exchanged hand-grips.
Then Daniel stepped in: "Wha's ta dae yer wig, yer
honor ?"
"Oh! I dare say the rats '11 curl it, if they're asked
politely," his master said.
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 115
" I'll be dang'd an' they wull 1" cried out the artist in his
vanity.
"Ah, I forgot, Daniel, that you are an institution."
" Eh, ma certie, a institution, sirs. Prince, 'e couldna
dae wi'oot me, naegate. I'm a dooms talented chield, I
am, tho' aiblins ye wudna think it. Sae, prince, I'll speer
tae stap, I'm thinkin'."
The Pretender had lost this second Preston, yet he sent
a sweet face to receive defeat. The obdurate pride of such
otherwise yielding hearts regaled him; while the stub-
bornness of these ancient people, and the pains they were
prepared to expend in pursuing their foibles, were big
indeed with experience; and also provided a serviceable
lesson to this statesman in embryo against seeking to drive
the old and willful.
"Well, messieurs," his voice held chords of regret,"!
must say that I feel it quite a pitiful thing that you refuse
to honor the best terms I can afford. It really makes me
sore to steal your liberty; but in times like these a com-
mander's first thought must be ever for his cause. Thus,
gentlemen, not disguising my regret, I am compelled, in
lieu of your parole, to demand your swords; which, as you
will be soon too well aware, involves the forfeiture of your
liberty till our quarrel with the Elector is adjusted."
This was so tenderly and so temperately said that it left
no inch of ground on which the prisoners might retort.
They felt that the mode of the speech did an infinite honor
both to the mind and the heart of the conqueror. And it
occurred to Fierceheart that a quainter blend of/ generosity
and selfishness he had never encountered in one man. But
it was only that cheap imitation of magnanimity that cen-
turies have mistaken for the genuine coin of kindness.
The Stuarts were a race of magnificent charlatans. Where-
fore, when half a score of his Majesty's Highland guard filed
suddenly in to conduct them to an authorized confinement,
the beau, with his passion for politeness, was moved by the
sugared language of the prince to thank him for it as he
retired, in a well-chosen and a courteous word.
116 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"And, your Highness." he tagged on at the end, strug-
gling to dodge his self-sacrificing friends, " would it, might
I ask, be quite impossible to grant my friend Dr. Blunt,
and my servant Daniel Munn, their liberty—even when
they refuse this parole? They have no military importance,
your Highness."
"No, your Highness, no military importance," roared
the purpling Churchman, with a great wound in his vanity.
"You will notice, please, that we wear common five-and-
nine-penny wigs and that we haven't got coats of
lavender."
But the prince was inflexible, and with a sharp nod he
gave the signal for their retirement. And the general had
even made a step toward showing the lead to their prison,
when a gentleman of the chamber opened the door and
inserted his head to cry:
"Your Majesty, here is a messenger without, who has
ridden from Cumberland express, to speak with General
Seton."
"He must he brought forward then," said Charles, per-
haps not unhopeful that he was on the point of a new
development; for he was not in the least satisfied with the
present turn of events.
A messenger shambled in with a wide mouth of wonder
and presented Fierceheart with a letter. And while the
general examines the missive, we might as well examine
its hearer.
The messenger was bashful John Blundell: a true bucolic,
sluggish in temper, torpid in understanding, a pudding-
clogged creature sold to the deity of sleep. He bartered
his wits for food and slumber; the amount he could take
in a day was startling, for there was a story afloat that at
his birth a witch had changed his blood to pudding. Thus
so dull a stream of life flowed slowly, and required to be
constantly and very substantially fed, and in turn incited
his soul to cry for heavy repose. A reverend sarcasm
called him the Bovine, and was wont to mightily condole
with him for being compelled to suffer from the delinquen-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 117
cies of that thief Nature, who had stolen two of his legs.
The parson said he was meant for a cow, an animal who
was never asked to work, but was very heavily fed for a
material purpose. And to such a degree did the sardonic
man work on the pathetic credulity of pudding, that in the
fullness of time the Bovine began to plume himself and to
wear an air on the strength of these natal injuries, and
assumed the character of a man misused. And presently,
like that prince the gypsies stole, his true pride of birth
flooded his yearning spirit, and one day at dinner the par-
son recited with grave unction how the Bovine had been
seen that morning leaping over the gate of a fleld in which
the cows were sleeping and feeding, deploring, with all the
sentiment of the true romantic, that the conspiring Fates
had robbed him of his kingdom.
When this messenger had rolled in and delivered his
letter he recollected that he was in a room that held
royalty, and took off his hat, therefore, and stood twisting
it solemnly round and round in his hand. He also put his
tongue out to admire the ceiling. It was not, of course,
for him to say, but if he had not known that a king lived
there " he should a' thought them noode Cupids an' bare
Veen hussies rayther rude, that 'e should; an' he'd 'a'
'addem in no house o' hissen, speshully as he'd a young
family to bring up." Though, to he sure, one of these
Cupids did look funny with a hole gaping in its brain.
But he was truly abashed to feel himself under the nose
of Majesty, though he looked for the king in vain. Young
Miss Molly had told him that if his travels took him to the
king he would be able to grant him recognition quite
easily, for just as the devil was always known by the horn
set in his forehead, so kings had the contradistinction of a
lovely blue carbuncle that blazed from a similar spot, and
dazzled the eyes of all that beheld. Yet he could see no
carbuncle, and though he was bound to believe Miss Molly,
they had told him outside that the king was there. So while
the general was reading the missive with the cords in
his forehead swelling, he inquu*ed of his friend, Daniel,
118 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
who seemed magnificently at his ease, which was the
king.
"Oh, the king," said the Scot quite coolly, and now his
egotistical nose smelt that here was the moment to win
immortal fame, " weel, man, Johnnie, I'll interdooce ye
to the king. I ca's him prince, for we're verra britherly
thegither, ye ken; and yestreen we had the condeshen-
shuns ta bib a wee drappie thegither, Johnnie; an', man, I
tell ye he's an unco' douce gentleman. An' I ca's 'im
prince, Johnnie, we're that mighty cracky and giff-gaffy
thegither; but, Johnnie, Isuld sae you'd best ca' 'im king."
Johnnie opened his eyes in wonder, but he was in no
situation to speculate, then. His mind was built on such
an economic principle that it only had room for one idea
at a time; and that one idea at present was how to conduct
himself before his Majesty. He had very sound advice on
that point in etiquette from experienced Miss Molly, ere he
left Cumberland. If he kept unceasingly tugging his top-
knot and answered, "Yes, Muster King," and "No,
Muster King," to everything his Majesty said, that young
lady had declared that everything was sure to pass off all
right; and, moreover, he would very likely create an im-
pression. He being such a handsome and quick-witted
fellow, had said that veracious young person, that if he
chanced to see the king, it might mean his fortune. She
had heard of such things before. Although it may be
assumed that this ex-cathedra remark was mere diplomacy;
for until it had been uttered the credulous Bovine had be-
trayed no disposition to leave his meat and his sleep and
his twelve children, even in this matter of life and death.
And while the general was pondering and reading with
a set and awful face, Daniel brought the messenger to the
notice of his friend, the prince.
"Prince," he said, "this ees a mannie o'the name o'
Blundell, wha's richt proud to be acquent wi' ye."
"I'm honored, I'm sure," said his graciousness, looking
from one to the other, with a laugh in his sleeve.
But when smiling Majesty declared himself honored
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
.119
in the matter of common John Blundell, Daniel smelt
catastrophe; such a reciprocal sentiment in his friend the
prince in regard to insignificant John bereft the Scot of a
great piece of his new dignity. It was an expected and
human thing that he, Daniel, and the prince should hold
each other in such deep esteem; but perish the thought
that this pudding-faced Johnnie should also partake of the
regal favor! It would mean extracting the savor from
Daniel's condescension. The prince was in error; he must
have his ideas in regard to John adjusted to due decency.
Thus Majesty received an aside from behind the hand of
the jealous Scot.
"l'rince,"it began, " man Johnnie's a' richt, ye ken; he's
gude eneuch, an' verra blate, ye ken; but, prince," with a
thrill of impressiveness, "he's nae mair nor a gomeril; a
mislear'd chield, yer honor, his eedyewcation waur neg-
leckit when he waur a bairn; an' he's althegither ignorant,
I fear, for tha likes o' you, prince."
But the prince's behavior was too cruel; it shattered
Daniel's peace. For he presented the astounded John with
the delicate royal right hand; and with his eyes wickedly
luminous he at the same time searched the most intimate
recesses of the Scot; and behold the monster with grjeen
eyes provoking great agonies in his soul. But the head of
John was in a strange riot of bewilderment and flattery, as
he half tugged off his topknot and knitted this bejeweled
hand to his unpoetic fist. Very happily, however, his con-
duct now enjoyed that nice poise experienced Miss Molly
had insisted that it should in royalty's presence.
"Muster King," he said with a serene sense of instruc-
tions remembered, and also feeling that here was the place
for high compliment, " sich happiness makes I sweat, sorr.
Yuss, it dew. I beant a sparkler, I beant. I beSnt a mir-
racle; but I knows when I'm honored, yussa dew."
But while these comedians were supplying the comic
interlude, up and down walked the general, with a face
own cousin to Tragedy's. The letter so convulsively crushed
in his fist had summoned his weary spirit to fight new
120 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
battles of pride and justice. Molly had written it. Her
warm words of command were:
"Dearest Uncle: Do come, you must come, auntie is
dying. She was seized within two hours of your going; 1
sent straight for Monkton of course, but so soon as he saw
her he looked up into my eyes, and he said in his usual out-
right fashion: ' My dear, you had better be brave, for I'm
compelled to put on the black cap, and if you love your
uncle, write this moment, and tell him precisely what I
now tell you; cover up your language and spare him a
pang, and he'll not come. You see, my dear, I know your
uncle.' That is his speech in the exact order he made it,
and oh, forgive me, poor dear kind friend that you are! for
wounding you with these bold words that Monkton has
printed on my heart. But, dearest uncle, 1 was told to be
brave, you know. I have lost no second in rousing and
sending that sluggish beast, the Bovine; but the brute had
me down on my knees almost for persuasion. And now
she is just out of her unconsciousness and is murmuring
her last wish to see you and Tom before she goes. I am
writing Tom, care of Lord Dash. And, uncle, come
straightway if you hope to see her while she yet lives, is
my last word.
" Molly."
The old man took this blow with head erect and proud,
like a warrior. It was no more than Monkton had pre-
dieted months ago; but coming at this crisis it was a divine
command. God had ordered him to throw away pride.
And in that letter was a word of Tom that was striking
like steel into his blood. He ordered his imagination to
cease weaving its fanciful web of fatality around it. But
his imagination went its own way with a sneer and a gibe.
" My good man," it said, " if you do not cut that infernal
pride of yours wholly asunder, it may possibly arrange one
of the prettiest little domestic tragedies since that ancient
affair of CEdipus."
FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 121
The old patriot started this cuttiog at once. First he
gave Dr. Blunt the letter to read, and then he turned to the
prince.
"Your Highness," he smiled whitely, "I have this
moment received a letter to say that you have enlisted the
devil to subdue me. At least the devil has wooed my
parole." He solemnly gave it and then took leave of his
victorious enemy.
CHAPTER :XII.
• prepares a pretty kettle op pish.
"James," ventured the parson, as horses and riders
drove into the night, through patches of deluding heath
and irregular road; while two servants galloped behind
them, swearing, " James, what will you do with the boy?"
"John," said the general, in a controlled deep voice,
" John, when he puts his nose in Cumberland, I arrest him
in the name of the king with this right hand. I can speak
no straighter."
'' Hum ph, no straighter!" the parson was bound to agree;
and then with a betraying softness, " but, James, what of
the mother who's dying?"
"I shall perform the brute, I suppose," Pierceheart said,
spurring his animal furiously on into the weird and starless
night. From the sea the wind was whimpering; and over
the great cold gloom of the sullen hills stole the dank hand
of the dew, chilling the undefended bosoms of these two
old men. Old storm-struck men who had met many angry
tempests with their firm yet mutilated, beaten brows.
Shining silver hair, and carved and ancient faces, have
their histories; sorrow and strife and every phase of the
soul's vital anguish are there written in with a strenuous
and unrelenting chisel, to publish to the young world
of man the honorable theory, per crucem ad coronam.
And to-night these two old battered documents of strife
122 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
had their passionate faces twisted with the inmost
travail of their hearts. A short day since they were
riding over these fields of death, secure in a peaceful and
a smiling age ; declining with untainted name to the well-
achieved release of the grave. And here they were fleeing
back with shame, that cloud of dark night blotting out the
brave beacon-lights of love and hope. Oh, weep, soft sea-
wind, weep! Sigh, sensible branches of the woodland, and
mourn with meek voice, you conscious yet distant waves
of the shore 1 'Tis a time of dirges and low song; hushed
are the rapt melodies of hope; the lutes of mirth can ne'er
be swept again. A patriot fleeing from his country's
shame; her he had served so faithfully with the best
blood of his life, she was now in the dust, degraded. And
he, the darling and the hero of his twilight speculation,
what patriot would ever gird himself with the fortitude to
recite the portion of this humiliation that appertained to his
own unhappy son. And so hour upon hour they struck
into the all-surrounding night, with their servants behind
them, swearing. Their pace was breathless and unmerci-
ful till the horses wearied, for these thorns that were
fretting their flesh had stung their impatient spirits to a
frenzy. The best part of that dark night was consumed in
shaking the fatal soil of Scotland from their feet; and yet,
after many missings of the way and a score of minor mis-
adventures, when they were pulled up by the refusal of
their foam-lapped beasts to make another mile, they found
themselves in intolerable Scotland still. This befell them
just as the dawn leapt along the east. The birds began to
twitter tcj encourage its appearance; and one of its pure
heralds, a whiff of morning's breath, smote the nostrils of
these mad travelers, and washed their insane faces with the
sanity of light.
It was a pitiable company that dismounted under the
shadow of a wood, spreading near the north face of the
Cheviots. The dawn's gray coldness was now in their
hearts, their blood, their limbs; it even seemed to dominate
their souls as they crouched, shivering and limp, beneath
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 123
the trees. Fierce traveling had at last beaten tlieir resolve;
and now clustering, despondent and wan, under an awning
of wet branches, they watched the spent horses muster a
sufficiency of wind to reach the nearest inn. They looked
a sad party, mud mottling over the withers of their beasts,
and far over the faces of their own suits, even as high as
their collars and sunk chins. Two were beating their
clotted feet on the ground, and grumbling and damning
their own discomforts, while the other two gave these
penalties the insignificant body incurred a more arrogant
mien, spurning them and their inflicted pain; for their
sufferings were of the soul. Knee to knee all night had
they,rode, their brains hissing and simmering like engines,
strained with their imprisoned steam. From one furnace
of conflict they were racing together to embrace one of a
whiter heat. Ever together, thank God! The general did
not descend to a mere tortoiscshell snuffbox for nothing;
it had a stanch heart inside, he always said. And so,
when necessity cried halt under the Cheviots, the old men
twined their fraternal arms, and stepped out together
beyond the word-range of their too audible followers.
Tell-tale day had robbed sorrow of its secrecy. Their faces
had now their mutilations published by his pale beams.
" James, my boy " said the Churchman, " you look bad.
You should be, like me, cheerful." The reverend doctor
looked just as cheerful as Styx.
" Oh, happy man! " said the general, " when you take a
header into Acheron's waters, you'll look like that."
And they spurred up their pluck, and tried to smile
through their griefs, these elderly dissemblers, and failed
very badly. Yes, very badly, for Comedy is a craven and
pale-livered dog, who skulks from the swords of woe.
Give him a hint of blood, and a glimpse of skull and cross
bones peeping through a chink in their cupboard, and his
proud tail slinks to the ground, and he is away down the
street announcing the murder. Thus, though these patriots
tied their masks most carefully on, in their despite, the
livid torture streaks struck through them, and made a
9
124 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
wreck of their ridiculous smiling, for that coward Comedy
had deserted them hours ago,
"James, you old liar," growled the parson, "you've no
need to keep grinning at me. I know quite well you are
monstrously gay, but you'll certainly have to buy a new
face before you'll look it."
"And I confess that yours is a sublime indifference,
John," Fierceheart said. " But I wouldn't repose too much
faith in that voice, if I were you. It's traitor, sir, traitor to
your iceberg of a bosom. I heard a sigh."
" A throb, James, you mean a throb! That asthma, you
know, James, it is really trying when the weather's damp."
" And damp it seems to be; why, man, your very cheeks
are wet!" Fierceheart said. "But I'd quite forgot the
asthma."
"James, with your usual inconsideration," quoth the
truthful clergyman, " you condemn me to a wild night
ride, very prejudicial to a person of my years. It threw
me in a lathering sweat, sir. And yet you taunt me with a
wetted cheek. Sir, it's a shame."
"Well, John, asthma or no asthma, I'll swear to that
sob."
" Then it was a sob of sorrow for your iniquities. You
are aware, I think, that your deviations from the truth
grow daily more appalling."
Preposterous fencing, but for a minute at least it sus-
pended those knives that were tearing fortitude to ribbons.
And in the head of one this incessant steel plowed to the
time of: "I have written Tom, care of Lord Dash; her one
cry is to-see you and Tom before she goes!" In the other's
it was to the simpler one of " Poor James, poor James! "
This the substance of the parson's dirge. The sealed bosom
of the man sometimes hungered in its own arrogant
manner for a spark of humanity's warmth. When the
fires waned low in the winter time on the hearthstone of his
heart and condemned him to gloom, he did not disdain the
soft touch of sympathy then; nay, the shivering heart-fiame
demanded the rugs of warm tenderness to shield it from
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 125
the coldness of the night. And the misogynist having
renounced woman almost at the dawn of his day for a
tragic reason, he was in these bitter seasons driven to
apply to a little fop in a lavender coat for a spark of this
precious and genial heat. For he alone held the secret
that could dissipate heart-chills and could provoke the
blood to cast out its ice. Here was the hour to reduce this
accumulated debt. Wherefore, as they footed languidly
over the sward, while the horses breathed, their hearts
were welded in nearer union than even their tight-clutched
arms.
"James," mumbled the parson, a strange change in his
tone/! " I shall make it my business to be as serviceable as
I can, during this foul weather. You may want a pilot,
perhaps; the wheel shall have the whole weight of my
shoulder; for I foresee stormy seas."
"Ha, stormy seas!" breathed Fierceheart heavily.
"John, if your experience can step forth and curve the
hejm through these waters, you will bankrupt my
gratitude."
" You talk of gratitude," reproved his friend. " Why,
man, how many times have you tugged me out of madden-
ing pessimism, when you have found me there, half
swamped in spleen! I merely ask permission to reciprocate
in slight degree."
" We'll say no more, then," Fierceheart said. His tone
was crisp and curt, for he had to fight down the internal
wails that strove to advertise in his voice what his bosom
suffered, But his friend wallowed in his native obtuse-
ness. The parson was seldom silent when he ought to be.
"You know," said Clumsiness, "if Emmy's alive, this
business of the boy will call for pretty neat navigation."
"John," the desperate husband answered, "I don't mind
conceding that it's the prayer of a coward, but I've prayed
all night that she dies before I arrive with the news. She
has only to hear that her last, her all-enfolding child, is
blasted with treachery, to die abusing Heaven. Oh, it is
very hard I Oh, it is very pitiful I My poor Emmy I"
126 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
The parson was almost provoked to add, "My poor
James I" to this speech, but mercifully allowed the tempta-
tion to pass by.
"There's my point," pronounced the logician with his
finger up. "It's just a matter of navigation; the breaking
of the news must be avoided."
" Blind a dying mother to the deeds of her darling?"
Benedick derided. "John, you'll square the circle
next."
" It's most simply done," said the mere bachelor, " if
she's alive and crying aloud for the boy, the boy must be
notified, and the boy must be brought to her arms. And
she suspecting nothing, he has merely to tie his politics up,
and she'll go placidly like a Christian should."
The patriot's face was not pleasant; the eye held no com*
promise; there was a brutal sternness sitting in the lips and
chin. There was a lack of moral fiber in his friend the
parson that shocked him horribly; the man's counsel was
profane, bis doctrine indecent; his conception of wrong
and right impure, as it was revolutionary and deplorable.
Take a traitor back to his bosom! Beneficent God 1 Was
the man sane?
" John," he said, mightily striving to restrain his burst-
ing wrath, " your talk grieves me. Her son is a traitor to
his country and his king. And she lies in house of mine,
and you dare to say, bring him to her arms."
"Dare!" blazed the other, "yes, dare if you like, my
turkey."
"But I repeat, she lies in house of mine. And I have
^ but to harbor him an hour to connive at his crimes. He
will then stand no more alone in his treachery."
" Well," said the casuist, " now you have shown where
the shoe pinches, suppose I play the cobbler? Go pass a
week with friend Selwyn, he's ever afire to see you; then
I'll whistle for the sinner, serve up a sweet tale for mamma,
then exit dilemma. Who shall then label you an accom-
plice? At the worst, you can but appear an unwilling
agent?"
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 127
" John, there's my God to consider," inserted the general
with a terrible sternness.
"God is love," said the doctor in divinity with great
heat; " the embodiment of love; and is not this conspiracy
wholly in the name of love? Are not his doctrines founded
on charity alone? And to bring a son to the arms of
a dying woman, is that charity, or is it not?"
" Wonderfully well said," agreed the husband, "coming
as it does from a bachelor and a misogynist; but, unhappily,
my principles are challenged by the thought that you argue
monstrously like a Stuart. I fear you are tainted by Prince
Charlie. And yet, only yesterday I saw your virtue bum-
ing like a beacon."
" Virtue in the abstract is, I grant, most beautiful," the
tempter's voice ran on, "but in a world rented by the
devil, sense and gross sublunary wisdom must adulterate
it ere it be fit for human food. This earth's thick atmos-
phere is too foul for angels. They can't live in it; rightly
too, since it was never intended that they should. So,
James, don't ape the conduct of the heavenly hosts in this
most wicked sphere; it is a great anomaly in manners, sir.
Mingle a sprinkling of cynic wisdom with your virtue like
I do, sir, to meet your mundane locality, and your morals
will easily attain the standard that Heaven demands of
those it drops in this immoral spot. And then, when your
summons comes, affable Peter will be blithe to pass you
through as a man, who if not an angel quite, was a person
of considerable worth, if modest in pretension, who cut his
garment in accordance with his cloth. Ideality is a cheer-
ful thing, and when well hugged it comforts the bosom, but
it never brought bread and cheese; and mere virtue with-
out an infusion of worldly wisdom in it is fit for the con-
sumption of angels only, whose homes are the ethereal
spheres. They have never yet flourished on this polluted
planet; and never will, James; never will, you mark me.
There was only one who ever adorned our earth, and he was
crucified." The casuist wagged his sapient wig, and the
canopy of autumn trees sighed over it, and young daylight
128 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
came and spied out the grim philosophy sitting in bis eyes.
And it painted the general's lips curved in cold mockery.
" John," his sigh, though sharp teeth interrupted the se-
quence of soft breaths, "perhaps the devil has paid you to
seduce me from my duty. But let me tell you, sir, that
seventy years I've done it; and now that time has so nearly
writ finis to my history, please God, I'll do it to the end.
No blinking, no fiinching, no paltering, my friend; through
fire and water I'll do it till the grave receives me. What
is due to a traitor shall my son enjoy."
"Then your heart is shut against your wife. She who
has been faithful to you in misery and joy these fifty
years."
"John, duty in its strength has a passion for ravaging
our pitiable immaterial fiesh. And, John, let those who
worship at its altar sacrifice kindred and themselves to its
imperious lusts."
"Answer me," the bachelor demanded, and in his rage
he grasped Benedick by the cloak, " you mean to sacrifice
your dying wife, your white-haired wife; the wife who has
given you her all, and has served you these fifty years
with a true fidelity? Answer me."
"I pray that she is already dead," said Benedick, and
the bachelor shook him. And then he cried out to the
startled birds:
" Oh! it's a pretty kettle of fish you're preparing! You
blind and headlong fool, you don't see; you can't see.
But, my God, can't I?"
Whereupon the philosopher, shaken to the very founda-
tions of his enormous agitated being, strode up and down
through the dew-damp grass, with the silent birds above
him, watching his absurd motion from a coigne of leaves
that deepened to a dying tint and were soft swayed by the
breath of zephyrs. A preposterous mountain of a man in
his six-feet-four, face pale as the films of the glade; his
great limbs swinging like mill-sails, and his lips savagely
moving on well-chewed invective, that fiowed out of his
soul, tainting the air. Later he halted and fronted Fierce-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 129
heart whose little foi'm was drawn splendidly up like a
soldier's, on a carpet of bright brown nuts, with a beech at
his back, straight as the patriot and taller far, but less
majestic.
" James," thundered the casuist, " reflect!"
" I've reflected forty hours, man," the immovable said.
" And reflection teaches you to shut your heart against
your last, your brightest son, and your dying wife?"
" You're allowed to put it like that, John, if you choose,
but I think, John, if you could peer inside that shut heart,
you'd tremble," and here the shut heart squeezed a groan
through the proud, tight lips. A flfty-years' friendship
beats barriers down.
" And if you'd the omniscience to look into the future
I'd think you'd tremble, too," cried the prophetic parson.
"It contains such a pretty kettle of fish, such a pretty
kettle of fish 1" and the man plucked at his wig in sheer
impotence; and then, suddenly feeling that the whole scene
had tended to smear the impassive philosophy of his char-
acter, he broke out: " Not, you know, James, that the busi-
ness in any way touches or concerns me. I'm godfather to
Tom; and a friend to you, the best friend you've ever had,
.you'll admit, save the woman you are going to murder;
but it is no affair of mine. Personally I am utterly cold
and indifferent; though I do feel that I should defend the
interests of my godson."
Then again he strutted up and down across the grass in
his late ridiculous fashion, and then halted suddenly to
inform the general what a dreadful fool he was, and where
he'd go to when he died.
" But," he ended, after vehement attentions to his nose,
"you foppish, undersized seventy years of folly, I think I
shall have to stick to you through the thin and the thick,
till you're hanged in Newgate, till you expire stark mad,
or till the devil steals you bodily. One of these will be
your inevitable end; but till then' I am yours, same as I
have been these fifty years, though, James, you are quite
insane, you know; perfectly insane I"
130 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Fierceheart slipped his trembling hand stealthily in that
of the philosopher, and like children it was in this way that
they returned to the horses, hand in hand and strengthened.
And soon they pushed on to an inn in peaceful England,
By this the day had come wonderfully fair and warm; the
sun, pouring out of the pure cerulean, had charmed every
vapor from the mountains and the heather of the northern
plains. Here came darting waters, sparkling from the
shade of the upper hills; there issued shyly forth from the
foot of the rocks, a company of trees, with the indefatigable
squirrels quickening their boughs. Peace was imprinted
on every stone; at least if man, the struggler and the
fighter, could only be brought to acknowledge it. But he
was ever hard to persuade, and these harmonies of wood-
land and water melody appeared to Fierceheart and the
parson merely nature occupied in mockery of their storm-
tossed heart-vessels, now faltering in the tempest of passion,
now ground to fragment on adversity's rocks. But they
strove uninterruptedly on; and on the morrow their dread-
ful journeying was at an end.
When they had made the Hall, in sheltering Cumber-
land, Molly was on the steps to meet the returning four.
The sun was on the illumined larches, and the beeches
autumn brownshot, washing with deep lights her hair and
her strong face; and melting her starry eyes into liquid
glow. A glance of the vanguard, as it threaded slowly
round that fatal angle of the path, had called her; and the
sight of these limp wanderers whipped her blood with pain,
and reproduced it in her face for one weak instant. But
like the sun she gave them gay and smiling greeting; for
was not her defiant and tight-lipped uncle smiling too, and
the parson also trying and most egregiously failing?
"She lives," she assured them, to kill suspense, and
Fierceheart rewarded her for her thoughtful words.
"Then kiss me," said the old dissembler, "and, John,
didn't I swear she'd keep her till I came?"
"Yes, and I'll keep her till Tom comes too," cried the
young nurse as pride swelled through her. The nerves
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 131
were twitching in the husband's face, as he tied his mask
on; but the parson's countenance of pleased benignitj was
most sickly and incompetent.
"You don't look well, dbctor," the nurse attacked him;
"no, sir, you don't look well at all. But if old men will go
oblivious of reason, madly racing to the drum, they must
pay of course."
The preceptor was charmingly and impudently stern.
"Such sauce!" roared his reverence, banging his big
guns for the sake of the situation, "such impertinence! Old
men, oblivious of reason, must pay! Such impudence!
Why, you hoyden, you; bless your stars you're not my
daughter!"
"We'd have such an alteration if I were, sir; eh?
Wouldn't we? No more buttons missing off your coat, sir;
no more chickens underdone, no more sauces indigestible.
And no more unstarched ruffles, and no more wigs awry.
Oh, doctor, you'd look so different, and your dyspepsia
would die."
" Naturally, you rogue, with the grave you'd prepare
me."
" You'd better have said the gravy, sir."
The young nurse prattled on through farce with an
unflagging laugh. Yet her jealous eyes declined to
abandon the stern-lined husband, so firm of lip, so rigid
and so calm of look; and with face blenched so brutally,
save where a fever flush had bitten through and now
throbbed and smoldered in each red cheek. And she
tried to excite a flow of warm talk to avert her courage
being wholly spurned and beaten by the unnatural coun-
tenance of that old man.
"I have told Tom, at the address of Lord Dash, what's
occurred, and prayed him to immediately return," she said,
" though of course no answer has yet come."
But she stopped when Yierceheart groaned and fumbled
at his lips. True, he sought to cover such capitulation with
a cough pitched in a wrong key; which merely told maiden
sympathy that she was straining the floodgates of his feel-
132 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER,
ings. And she began to adore the half-century husband
for his sweet and unswerving fidelity; and insensibly her
tender thoughts reverted to the son. Would he, when
she Reptile self, lie down! Shame fiew into her
bosom and punished it bitterly. It made her feel a self-
conscious creature since her mind had presumed to recede
to itself in that of all hours. Then, however, with that
elasticity characteristic of her time of life, she sought
sanctuary from her bowed uncle and her own steel-edged
meditation, in the person of the Bovine.
" Well, John Blundell, and did you see the king?"
'' Yess'm, an' 'e's a guddn. 'E's a sparkler, 'e is! Moses, 'e's
a miracle, an' pertickler fond of I. Be9.nt that trewth,
Dan'l Munn?"
Daniel demurred; he had to consult his reputation.
" Weel, missie," insisted that politician, smiling at her
with a finger at the side of his nose, " ye ken it's this gate.
My friend the prince waur that fiichtering perlite like, that
he acshally gied man Johnnie his fistie; but it's just nash-
gab on the pairt o' he ye ken ta say he waur ' particular
fon'.' It's a lee, missie; it waur meer hetticutt, ye ken; but
wi' me, ye see, it waur dooms different. I'm o' his bluid, ye
see, being Scots, an' we took wine thegither, as brithers
suld, we waur that mazing naffy, lassie. 'Wud I con-
deshend?' says he. *I'se gie that honner, prince,' says I.
That's wha I ca' bein' particular fon', missie; dawn't ye?"
Miss Molly confirmed that opinion with considerable
solemnity.
" And, John Blundell," she inquired with the rogue in
her eye, "you didn't forget j/our'hetticutt,' did you?
Your manners, I mean?"
"Naw," grinned John, grasping his topknot for guid-
ance. " But I nivver seed naw carbuncle, mum."
" Ah, the carbuncle 1" said ingenuous mischief with a
face of truth. " Oh, you poor disappointed man 1 You say
it was not in his forehead ?"
" Naw!"
" Nor in his nose nor his breast."
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 133
"Naw."
" Then it was in his catastrophe, of course. You should
certainly have looked there, John," and Miss Veracity then
discreetly followed the gentlemen within; while the de-
jected Bovine repaired with Daniel to the cook, whose
husband was the doctor's man, to inquire which was the
precise locality of the catastrophe in the human male. Of
course the cook knew. She said it was a polite name for
an impolite part.
Inside Molly sailed straight to her uncle who, having
discarded traveling cloak and hat, was now in a quivering
huddle beside the parlor hearth, his head low in his hands
and<his eyes, heavy with misery, bent upon the blaze. The
parson was lolling opposite, breathing clumsy and ele-
phantine comfort.
" You can see her now, dear uncle, if you choose," the
nurse said, trying to dissolve a little of his sorrow with
caresses.
"Not now, my dear," he said; "set out the wine, then
shut the door, and leave Dr. Blunt and I to discuss things."
And as she dejectedly obeyed and they crouched together
in council, over the embers, the general raised his head to
announce:
" John, it strikes me there '11 be the devil to pay with the
young one as well as the old one."
"Oh, yes!" assented the cheerful parson, "it's a very
pretty kettle of fish, James."
" For she's a creature that will only love once, John.
God forgive her for loving him ! But she's got to be told,
I suppose."
With which the general unsteadily rose, and staggered
to the decanter for wine to fortify his heart and mind
against his ordeals.
134
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
CHAPTER XIIL
m which we arb led to examine several persons
whose hearts exceeded their dndbrstandinos.
Filuno a beaker to the brim, he tossed it off, and then
be said: ^
" I shall confess all to the mother, concealing nothing.
The upshot will lie with God."
Quoth the parson, "James, it's heroic, but brutal, devilish
brutal! Have you not shown me that you will kill her with
the same certainty as if you had carried your sword to her
breast f"
The wretched husband's lips seemed to move in mute
prayer; which the parson saw, whereon he was not slow
to imitate that desperate employment. Then Benedick
jumped up with a wild burst of words, and with fingers
that soaked the tablecloth in the stimulating ruby, he
poured forth more wine, and threw it down his throat
with a single hand jerk. With mutinous feet he then
reached the door, reeling like one who bore a dozen glasses
instead of two. Then he turned to tell the parson:
" John, I'm off to get it over; suspense is devouring my
peace; every instant I tarry undermines resolve."
" Go and murder her, you brute! it will most certainly."
" But there's no escape," moaned the husband, clutching
the door handle for support. " You must know that she's
crying aloud for the boy."
" Then your one plan is to send for the boy."
" Never I" said the patriot.
"Then I denounce you as a murderer, James Seton."
" I do my duty; I remember my country and my king."
" Your duty," apostrophized the bachelor, "your country,
and your king! But what of the wife you are going to
murder, and that fine girl you will beat to earth? I call
myself patriot, but I pause at murder. I beseech you be
merciful."
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 135
" I do my duty." The husband opened the door.
The parson rose from his seat at the fire; the imminence
of the fell deed was maddening, and not to be endured
without a struggle to postpone it.
"James," he cried, running to him and catching his
coat, " let us tell young Molly first It will prepare you
for the greater ordeal; besides she may suggest; three
heads are better than two, you know, and she has wit.
Do!" he implored.
" You shall not seduce me," said the patriot, his face
bathed in its livid anguish. He tried to unclasp the vice-
like fingers on his garment.
" Oh, wait one instant!" besought the parson, dragging
him back to the room. " I will tell her myself, for indeed
she ought to know first. Fm sure she^ll assist us; she's
head, I tell you, and heart too, and my faith's in her." It
was pitiful to see how the drowning churchman clutched
at this straw.
"No, no!" the imperious Fierceheart's reply; but his
friend's ringing eloquence incited the galled jade of his
disinclination, who had been greatly spurred beyond her
courage, to tarry and take breath. For a second hesitation
seized him. It was fatal. He was lost.
" Yes, yes, you will!" proclaimed the reverend doctor,
pulling the general back to the room, while the torn man
warred with his indecision. His duty must be done; but
the briefest respite was sweet as bread in the time of famine.
The parson rang for Molly, and that done, he managed to
cajole Fierceheart to a chair. But as he did so the full
force of his own appalling promise hit him a violent blow.
He had promised to kill young love. And he was made to
curse his uncovered cowardice.
"Be G—d, James!" mopping his speckled brow and
addressing himself to the Dutch courage brave wine
bestowed, " it's not a bachelor's job."
"I don't care; you promised to tell her yourself," mut-
tered the fifty-years' lover, trying to wash his hands of at
least a portion of the hateful business.
136 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" But I really can't, you know," pleaded the craven
bachelor; '* they're lovers; very devils for loving, and here
am I who know nothing about love; I, who have never
been in love; how in the world can I delicately cut their
hearts asunder? And it must be delicately done; and, James,
you've told me often that I lack tact." The man's humilia-
tion was extreme.
" True, you've no tact," he was assured by the inexorable,
" but a promise is a promise, isn't it?"
When young Molly appeared the parson felt crushed to
the dust under the weight of his age and his inexperience;
and the sight of the fine-faced girl oppressed the churchman
with a more poignant idea than ever that it was his to
slaughter one of the fairest of his Master's creatures. It
was a painful business to begin. The start involved a
mute but moving glance of appeal for Fierceheart's aid;
but the patriot's generous soul was shut. The look was
harshly repelled by its closed doors. A concert of unhar-
monic coughs from the parson's throat succeeded this, as-
sisted by a solo in the nose, that rang like a trumpet through
the room. It presently subsided into a variation with a
snuffbox, which, after mighty snortings and a snapping of
its lid, provoked a whole orchestra of astonishing nasal
sound. Then, having wetted his lips with wine, he began:
" My dear!"
He pulled up on that second word with a jerk that was
sensational and was reduced to inarticulate stutterings, and
another solo on the nose.
"Yes, doctor," encouraged the patient sacrifice. And
she was nobly upright and handsome.
"My dear," floundered the bachelor, "I'm afraid the
d-d d machinery's snapped."
" Oh, doctor! " cried the horrified one, with hands held
high in pious rebuke, "your cloth, sir!"
"Your pardon," begged rebellious tongue, "but can't
help it; I'm blunt."
"Yes, sir, but the Reverend Blunt," quoth the pietist
with an eye that laughed.
FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 137
'* James, you must tell her," whispered the slaughterer,
routed. " I'll be shot if Jean."
Thus was the little old hero of the French war pressed
into the service. He darted just reproach at the sweating
deserter; then went into battle with fibers strung. Ho
slowly rose, his shoulders braced, his chin high up, his
chest distended for the fray. She had seen his son like
that, that summer morning, but she met both with an un-
flinching front.
" Dearie," he began, in the tone he fondled her with in
her bib-and-tucker period, " Monkton was strangely wise
when he asked you to be brave, for it's what I have now
myself to ask you.''
She refused to give fear one inch, but met him with his
own firm lips.
" Sir, I will be." The ancient hero admired her voice
end the eyes supporting it.
'' It's your lover," said the old man softly. " He has com-
mitted an act that has torn you apart forever."
" Then, sir, he is dead," the quiet answer, " for he made
a sacred vow and I saw his face. He is mine, sir, always
mine 1" And now one nostril quivered with the smolder-
ing passion that her every word was fanning into flame.
The parson, coward and deserter, covered his unenduring
eyes.
" He has become traitor to his country and his king,"
Fierceheart told her; and the depth of his stern sorrow
wrenched her heart. " He has embraced the rebel cause,
he has borne a heavy part in the infliction of an awful
humiliation on this our land. And," continued the terrible
old Roman, " I think it is as well to tell you my attitude
toward this traitor."
"No, no, don't be a brute!" admonished the deserter
from out of his handkerchief. But Fierceheart had a deter-
mination to spare no stroke. He pursued in the parson's
despite.
" Thus, Molly, it is my duty to acquaint you with the
fact that no longer is that traitor son of mine; that should
138 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
he by any chance show himself within the bounds of my
jurisdiction, with this right hand do I arrest him, and con*
sign him to the king's justice, which is death. Or again,
should it ever be my unhappiness to encounter him in a
place outside it, I shall either consign him to the law or
shoot him like a dog. as circumstances may demand. Be
brave, dearie I"
Truly she was brave. Brave as he had guessed that she
would be. She gave his speech that inscrutable calm face
that only grim courage can exhibit.
" But his mother, who is dying ?" were her first words,
and with them she took two hearts captive.
Horrible her sufferings must have been, but she made it
plain to the general and the parson that, even in the first
spasm of the infinite anguish they imposed upon her, she
could spare a thought for another, and divide her own
most cruel pain with hers.
" I am going now to tell her," the old Roman said.
" Uncle, you shall not." Her voice held neither palter-
ing nor entreaty; it was dedicate to fierce command.
"Shall not?" he frowned with dark night on his brow.
" Unless you seek to kill her as surely as you will your
son." Her language was unstudied, but it came from her
scornful lip with a simple and a brutal power that trans-
fixed the man's paternal heart. His soul shuddered, and
he drank his third glass. All of which the parson noted
with grim care.
" Yes, James," said the deserter, slinking into the ranks
now the fight was done, " you can wince, you can shiver,
you can drink, but the women, my friend, the women
won't allow you to rub out the fact that you're a father.
It's what you'd like to do, I'm quite sure; but the women,
my boy, will tie you to it. You've a noble notion of duty;
your theories are heavenly; your ideals exquisite to bear,
but the women will look to it that you don't pluck bonds
of blood out of your heart. Which Molly will corrob-
orate."
But the girl was heedless. The business before her
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 139
insisted on her highest and her fullest energies. She had
been associated sufficiently long with her uncle to dread
his imperious spirit when inflamed with fight. She knew
it for the conquering weapon of a dauntless soul. What
he said, he did. Prayers and tears had to die when he
unfurled the standard of duty. Why wonder, then, that
her cheeks were livid as ashes, and that, when her beauti-
ful eyes blazed out from their intense depths, they seemed
like sun on snow.
Again the unswerving general came out of his chair;
and quite well they knew that he was going to embrace his
demanding wife, and to deal death to a mother.
" Mind, sir, not a word of treachery and your resolve."
The'nurse defied him with her eyes.
"Which, Molly, you must see is ridiculous," Fierceheart's
retort permitted his tone an inflection of petulance. " Her
first word will be surely of her son."
" Then, sir, I insist that you tell her nothing beyond that
you have despatched him an express, calling him with every
urgence to her side; and I further insist that that express
be instantly sent, if only to save your credit as a man
of truth."
The parson, since that accident that loomed like a storm-
cloud across the chapters of his youth, had nursed a uni-
formly low opinion of the remainder of the sex, but to-day
that opinion was winged from the valley almost to the
mountain top. The style in which young Molly bullied
Fierceheart fired his own dashed spirit with new temerity;
besides, it was not the least fair thing in nature to witness:
a mere girl, whose only equipment was a head both juvenile
and female, battering the whims of a hard-bitten veteran
with sound sense. For was not this fine rogue of a nurse
assaulting the terrible Roman with the parson's very own
precept?
"Infernally true, my dear," the churchman acquiesced.
"Stamp your feet, my dear, bite your lips, flash your
eyes, give him the law. Lord knows he wants it! And
sense into the bargain. Crash into him, my dear Xantippe.
10
140 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
And your wisdom is superlative for woman, for you are
telling him exactly what I have told him all along.
Make him cast out pride and forgive his boy. 'Tis the one
road to save the wife."
With an appealing look, the nurse cemented this valua-
hie alliance.
" You said pride, John," Fierceheart threw at him, " but
I send that word back to your teeth. Do you call a
citizen's most sacred duty, the service of his country,
pride? I call it morality, sir, of which may Heaven grant
you a little more. John, your weak-kneed attitude in this
affair greatly grieves me. My friend, it is a blemish on
your name. And now I shall go and perform my duty."
He again took a step to the door, but the girl's entreating
eyes arrested him. "Oh, no! it must not be," she cried,
and hard and tearlessly she looked into his face. "Surely,
uncle, you will not commit a wanton murder on her?"
"Yes, a wanton murder," the bachelor put in. But
imperious Benedict was dumb. And then suddenly he
turned, dodged through the door, and was away at an
unmerciful pace to the room of the dying woman. He left
them starkly staring after him, ravaged with horror and
surprise.
"Oh, poor, misguided heart, miserable beast!"the girl
burst upon the silence, and she flung her proud head on the
parson's shoulder.
A long, hushed minute while the clock ticked to an
accompaniment of autumn wind among the trees, and then
insensibly the churchman's flngers toyed with her curls of
silk, dainty playmates dancing in companies about her per-
feet brow. They culled the stings of gout from their joints
and swept the thin and slow-flowing blood once more along
his veins till his sympathetic tips were thrilled. Her
lighted eyes went into his pair of grim honorable gray.
She said:
" Doctor, promise me that you will cleave to my poor
uncle through all his proud folly, through all his noble
cruelty—the brutal old hero!"
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 141
He conveyed his assurance by squeezing her soft fingers,
and then proceeded to bankrupt his vocabulary of every
epithet that could riddle a fool. This exercise was only
curtailed by the audible latching of a door upstairs.
"Hark! enter the murderer,"moaned the girl, clutching
at her breast. She shook in her shoes visibly, for the chair
in which she had coiled her beaten figure began to move
with her trembling limbs.
" Are you sure she has not the strength to accept the
blow?" demanded the parson, seeking for another straw to
grasp ere he sank.
" Let him pour out the whole of his unmerciful mind as
he has poured it out to me," the nurse struggled to answer,
" and she dies this day, for she is a great patriot; besides,
vitality is spent, says Monkton. It is the merest flickering
farthing rush, at the mercy of the least breath of wind.
Oh, doctor, his terrible morality is killing her now I "
Together they waited; waited like two frightened chil-
dren for an awful hour, crouching in a twilit comer, while
the night shadows fell upon the country and their hearts.
Together they nestled over the low-burning embers with a
rapt intimacy of eyes and thoughts; waiting for the return
of Cupid's murderer, with the blood of his old wife upon
his soul. They knew that they could do no more; the
unswerving patriot had crushed them to their knees in
prayer, only to spurn their weak appeals. And once,
as the tardy-footed minutes crawled on, with scarce more
speed than hours, the parson lifted his lips to tell her;
"Do you know, my dear, brave little one, I could weep
most of all for you. Don't tell me that that old barbarian's
decree has not stabbed the young sweetness in your heart.
He has torn you and your lover asunder forever. And
you'll laugh at old John Blunt, I know, young impudence;
but I had arrived at about your age when I was struck
down by a parallel experience. I might have made a fine
man once." Here the bachelor stopped; a sudden stinging
of the blood assured him that he must be fiercely red and
hot about the face.
142 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
•'Dear doctor," her fine-tempered courage rebuked, "how
dare we think of ourselves this night?"
Her bravery only served to reopen his wound. It was
half a century since this misogynist had felt the same glad
faith in woman. But they fell again to wordless waiting
for the fatal news; though to that cold spell was one diver-
sion. It was when the bruised young creature beheld an
unmistakable tear steal out of the terrible bachelor's eye;
for she then gave her passionate lips to his scored
forehead.
CHAPTER XIV.
flashes a uqht on CtJPm's mubdereb in pursuit op
his qhastlt trade.
The husband came steeled to kill. He was strong in
his duty, and he praised Heaven for such fortitude.
Cupid's murderer stealthily tapped on the panel outside.
"Dear James, is that you?" piped a thin but joyful
voice from the victim's couch; and, "ah, yes; of course, I
know it's you, dear James. As if your step could ever de-
ceive mel" was her greeting on a flushed note of happy
pride.
He peered round the curtains and their livid faces met.
Death was very plainly painted in her eyes, he saw; and
the perishing wife knew what he was looking at, and what
defiled his gaze with tears.
"Tes, dear husband, here it is at last," she smiled; and
the weak jnurderer could have hated her for her courage.
" And oh, James! do you know, as I lie here, I am always
thanking Heaven for giving me such spirit with which to
bear it. I am not in the least afraid. Nay, were it not for
Tom and you, I declare I should be very happy."
The soldier covered his eyes from her deathly smiling.
He was a warrior of seventy, but these women were to-day
dazzling his dim vision. During his long career, he had
been prodigal of his private opinion that women were bom
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 143
cowards in the serious affairs of life. But to-day a young
one and an old one had volunteered to correct his fallacies:
he had seen one yield up her lover, and the other her dust,
with never a groan. Cupid's murderer began to think him-
self an owl.
" At first," confessed the doomed woman, " I had a fear
that I should be called ere I could kiss my husband and my
boy. But then I prayed, James, I prayed; and a voice out
of the stars assured me that my James and my Tom should
come to my arms before I went. Thus from that hour I
have been very confident and calm, James."
Her voice ran very thin, but piercing and clear like a
bell« But the husband kept his chin in his frill in signal
silence.
"And here you are, James," went on the mother.
" And Tom—Tom will be here soon, won't he?"
The weapon was now in the murderer's hand; now was
the hour to strike.
The patriot was conscious of a delirious glow in his
arteries, and he snapped his teeth as he thought of the
deed.
" Emmy," he said, and halted to catch his unruly breath.
It had all run right out of his lungs.
Meantime his wife raised herself precariously on her
elbow with a pain at her slow heart, for her husband's tone
was identical with the one he had struck her with that
murderous night he arrived from that journey out of the
snow, with the gazette in his hand. And Monkton said the
words her husband spoke that night signed her death war-
rant. Oh; what could he mean I And his face—his face
was the one of that fatal night.
Cupid's murderer saw fear sweep into the eyes of his
wife. He beheld a quiver convulse her dissolving body,
and startle the counterpane.
"James, James, your face! What does it mean? Is it
Tom; oh, tell me, is it Tom?"
The mother's fierce appeal shook the fortifications of his
steeled heart.
144 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
The murderer clutched at his resources; but as he tried to
grasp palpitating fortitude by both hands, forth it slipped
from them, and bolted back rabbit-like to the burrow in his
bosom.
"Dearest, I ramble," the murderer stuttered. "I think
my mind must have been on old times; but 'tis nothing at
all, love, I assure you."
The mother panted relief. But the patriot really thought
it must have been the devil who had saved her; it was
most certain that the full history of her Tom's treachery,
and of his own attitude of mind, had been screwed up from
his rebellious heart to his lips. Yet it was all unsaid. And
why? Sure he could not tell; though he had the suspicion
that it had bolted with fortitude back to that deep recess
inside him.
Still it grew momently more imperative that she should
hold the truth.
Already her importunity was sickening him; she was
now only living to clasp her son once more to her yearning
heart. Which she never could; he was a traitor, and cut
off to eternity from his father and his father's house. Yes,
he must tell her now. Every instant he dwelt within the
circuit of her doting eyes, his courage oozed out of his
breast like water. He prepared his throat; he employed
the cough preliminary and the face of announcement.
" Ha, James! there you go again," went the wife. " Do
tell me what it is, dear. You alarm me so. It must be
Tom."
" Oh, no, my beloved, it is not," soothed the murderer,
wrestling yith stubborn fortitude, who was devilishly
intractable to-day.
God help him! but high resolve was melting. The
mother's face was wooing him to pity and to pardon.
Pardon! The rude word raised its head among his soft
thoughts like a snake. Perhaps it was well that it intruded
so grossly on his meditation, for the faintest cession to the
mother meant that he, James Seton, must stand forth
damned, a traitor to his king. Forty-six years had adora-
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 145
tion of her and hers accumulated in his breast, and now it
was bubbling high in it, a very wild flood of love. But
dutyl Oh, where was his manhood that he should pause
to consult his paternal heart! when its dictates, if humored,
must inevitably dye him with shame's dark stain.
Pricked with such flerce reflection, again he strained his
lips to the speaking point, and again they grew incon-
tinently dumb. His iron mind was once more compelled
to yield before her eyes—anxious, jealous, sorrowful, burn-
ing from a deep nest of pale pillows and pale cheeks.
Their power fettered the patriot; he was subdued, inert and
captive by their terrible startled hope.
The mother lapsed into further prattling on her boy,
piping on the sweet theme with a glow in her voice, and
unveiling latent beauties in the character of the absent hero
in the turgid maternal manner.
" I'm always thinking," flowed the rhapsodist, " what a
flne man I'm leaving for England. I am a prey to senti-
ment no more, James; for to-morrow, when I'm dead, his
eyes assure me he will feed his fierce heart on the lust of
battle. Nothing save fight can subdue the dauntless blood
his father gave him. His Seton spirit must be spilled ere it
can be reduced; and young Molly tells me that she means
to wait for him till he has purged himself of his London
stains. But when they are plighted, which will be soon, I
pity her with all my heart, for then she will taste the cup
of midnight terror which I so often drank. How many
times, James, did you stretch me wide-eyed and half-wild
with speculation in my girlhood and my womanhood, when
I should have been at my dreams? How many times, as
thus I lay, did my open eyes see you prone upon the field,
with your life soaking in the grass? Their record's kept
correctly on this forehead." And as up she reared it, with
a pursed mouth of soft smiling, the soldier swooped down
and caressed it swiftly with his lips.
" But, my own James," her exultant bosom swelled with
its pleasures, " young Molly will provoke my envy, too.
My husband's son will bring her the joys his father
146 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
brougfht to me. Yes, James, I have drunk of bliss. Kiss
me again, James."
The well-trained spouse was most obedient. He dipped
to this new salute with fervor painting his horrid face. It
was well that she felt instead of saw. The stinging passion
of his lips choked her htful breath back; and it demanded
all her retreating energy to support their power. Alas!
that her own thin running blood could no longer respond;
but his, it seemed, was as hot and as thick as ever. She had
to fight Titanically ere her breath could be regained, and
it returning, she swam on garrulously happy, closing her
eyes for very pleasure.
'* I have sworn by my boy's face that I will yet last a
short day or two, so that ere she goes his foolish old mother
shall once again strain to him while he lies in her arms.
Which is no vain vow. Kiss me again, James."
They encored the previous performance; and the ago-
nized husband supported his part in an inspired manner. It
calls for a great actor to wholly deceive a wife and a
mother, especially when pinned to a deathbed. But Fierce-
heart did. But oh, the irony! it was utterly against his
will.
His perverted soul cursed her for having so much to say.
Maternal babbling was playing the devil with that mighty
steel-plated stronghold, his heart. This wretched sing-
sing, so inconveniently emphasizing the essential prides
and joys of women, was crumpling up the fortalices, and
would, he feared, only too soon be rattling down the walls
of the imperial fortress itself. So he beat his mind's garri-
son out on to the green, and pitched it a swelling Philippic,
with Duty for thesis; and therewith strove to incite its
battalions to chant the war cry of "Traitor!" and dash
out through the gates straight at the throat of that invad-
ing babble. Oh, let them instantly still its torrent of
corrupt music!
"And, dear James," she flowed on, ever streaming, ever
purling, without guessing that she was committing the
unsuspected iron of her husband's heart to a fierce-tongued
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 147
furnace, "and, dear James, when I go, I would never
have you too harsh with our sinner. Don't be excessiwly
severe, James, when he steps into error. For he is but a
child, James, though he will one day be England's pride
like he now is his fond old mother's. Possibly he may
stray from Dr. Blunt's thin line of rectitude oftener than
another, for he is higher-blooded, James. In fact, James, to
quote his hateful godpapa, is he not an imtamed warhorse
with red nostrils quivering for the fray?"
Here the mother grew too hot in her speech, and fell
back a moment, panting, on her pillow. This the murderer's
golden opportunity. Every ardent word she uttered was
a poison to dedle his clean resolve. This the instant to un-
bosom heavy confession; the instant to stab the heart ©f
the perfervid wife. Again he solemnly assured himself it
must be done; again he lashed fortitude the skulker to a
semblance of action. First, as has been said, he tried to
fly at the throat of that demoralizing babble. In this
attempt he was successful; he at once choked back its
insidous stream. His eyes did that; they charged fiend-
like straight out of their extending sockets, laying the
cowed wife dumb and heart-cold. Oh, what did he mean!
There was the old look of fatality wrecking his face. The
murderer dug his nails through the skin of his hands, and
began;
" My dear "—then stopped; then rebegan—"my dear—"
and again paused on that soft word, though this time he
had swung his back round that it might come between her
and his hideous countenance.
He fought away many invaluable seconds in deadly com-
bat with an absurd chorus of inarticulate murmurs in his
throat. Cupid's murderer was plu nged in a bloody struggle;
sweat leapt out on his brow, his tongue grew insubordinate,
his parched mouth impertinently demanded drink ere it
would obey him; and worse, his brutal nerves revolted and
went to war with his dandified precepts, while rude
cowardice took an air unto itself of fleering and chuckling
insolence. The haughty being was now in the vortex of a
148 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
revolution; his soul seethed with iconoclasm and rebellion.
Briefly Fierceheart, the soldier, the iron man, the patriot,
had ordered his tongue to slay the woman he had wor-
shiped flfty years; which his tongue had refused to do.
It merely intimated that he had better perform that bloody
deed himself, and then retired to roost in the roof of his
mouth in a condition of skin-cracking dryness.
More priceless seconds went and then he swung round to
confront her in her fright, and his brow corded with im-
prisoned passion, his face lacerated, purpled, swollen with
mute strife, sought eagerly hard to perform that which the
mutinous tongue would not. His flesh was shaking, every
vein was quivering in the neck, his body was twisted and
contorted, a very ghoul's for ugliness, and his eyes were no
longer sane, but by word of mouth Fierceheart failed sheerly
to tell his wife that her darling was a traitor to his king,
and that his father had shot at him, and was exultant in
the act. Not that the horrided woman had no sense of
tragedy. She had an awful one at sight of such demean-
or, until an inflnite minute went, when Fierceheart her
husband flung his face among her pillows, and his arms
about her shoulders. He soothed her terror with his sobs.
This volcanic passion of the old intoxicated her with its
fury. It set her coursing with vainglorious thoughts.
"Theseardors of my wonderful James," they ran, "sus-
pend the laws of nature, for does not their heat increase as
his age advances? Who shall match this exuberant old
hero; I fancy, good people, only his son, the exuberant
young one!"
Meantime this violent assault upon that fading cheek, by
cupping a portion of his mad blood, enabled Cupid's mur-
derer to cease striving with the futile; and accordingly he
sounded the trumpets of peace to his fleeing wits, and back
they flocked to his aid now the fight was over. Their first
duty was to explain that vivid face of tragedy to the wife.
Thus the vanquished murderer retreated from his victim
with a lie at his lips.
" Emmy," stammered the liar, " this gout of mine be-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 149
comes the very devil. Just now, as you perceive, dear, it
gave me an infernal twinge or two just to remind me, I
suppose, that there is a hereafter. Nor does it confine its
brutalities to me, dear; sometimes it makes old John Blunt
roll and roar, dear."
She rewarded his sin with a smile of reassurance.
"Wine, my masters 1" Her eyes laughed relief, and
earnestly they watched his small figure stumble from the
room.
" His legs are not what they used to be," said her mind
to her heart; " old Time, it seems, has the power to canker
the material flesh of even my James; though, thank God!
the winged spirit of my James defeats him."
Here she resumed the thread of her connubial rhap-
sodies. I
Meanwhile, Cupid's murderer was stumbling down the
stairs. He landed at the bottom breathlessly, without any
definite knowledge as to whether his heels or his head had
brought him. He had met his Prestonpans. A remind-
ing imp inside him said so; very gleefully said so too, for
every imp is by nature malicious, though the patriotic suf-
ferer was inclined to consider this particular devil quite
the most vindictive that was ever shot from the parlors of
hell into the bosom of a man of honor. " A man of honor,
ye gods!" sang the imp. " A coward, a liar, a traitor to
his country and his wife—hurrah for Johnny Cope! "
Presently, with an eloquent slowness, the patriot reeled
into the room where Molly and the parson crouched hand
in hand over the blaze, while along the lawn and down
through the trees stole the moroseness of the twilight.
Clutching tables and chairs the vanquished Fierceheart
staggered pitiably over the carpet, till he reached a vacant
seat beside them, which, all of a heap, he fell into. They
had nothing to say. They read murder done in his un-
hinged features and his gait of the guilty. Nor had he.
Language had again shrunk out of his dry tongue; while
the imp inside him, whose name it seemed was Shame, had
created such a riot in his breast that he was sensible of
150 PIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
nothing else. It had made a drum of the patriot's tense
sensibilities, and on that instrument was beating out every
mocking tune its repertory held. Once a whim of madness
skipped along his blood, and on him came a disposition to
shriek aloud. But he dug his teeth in his lips and checked
the desire; and then made a momentary retaliation on the
imp by sneering at his seventy years of frailty. And all
this time Molly and the parson had barely the courage to
breathe. The girl, having the sterner tissues of the two,
was the one who dared to introduce a discord to this hate-
ful peace. She ventured:
" Uncle!" but as the whisper met the heavy silence, the
impact made her frightened voice recoil back on her heart.
" My dear," strayed out of the depths of the crumpled
patriot; "wine; give me wine."
She gave him wine, and promptly. Activity is the
surest antidote to fear; and when her feet clipped over the
carpet, and her fingers trembled on the glass, her blood
resumed its natural eager motion, and her wits found a
diversion from their present paralyzing theme. She no
longer shrank. She demanded:
"Now tell me, uncle, what have you done? Have
you Is it Is she " Three times her mouth
shied on the last word of the question. The patriot
greedily lipped his drink, while she tussled with her tongue,
most rebellious member. This truism Fierceheart accepted
as a melancholy fact. Had he not very recently been
thrust to the filthiest sloughs of shame by the rebellion
of that instrument! His young niece's struggles with this
rebel might well excite his eye to irony. No; her tongue
curtly refused to complete the brutal query. She made a
ridiculous bungle of her language, while her uncle bibbed.
Steadily the blood of the grape began to deaden the bites
of the imp, so that shortly he was able to sit up and find
some speech.
" Have I killed her, dearie, eh ? That's your meaning, I
think, if only your tongue would embody it," he struck
in; and he was at ineffable pains that his voice should not
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. ♦ 151
mock her with its note. But he forgot to regulate his Ian-
guage. It suffused her face in burning waves.
" Oh, tell me, dear uncle!" she burst out.
"She yet lives," the husband groaned. "My lips were
sealed: I have told her nothing yet."
Whereon, making a dive at his wig, most correctly
curled and powdered, and writhing her joyous arms be-
neath it, she hugged the perspiring, expostulating Fierce-
heart.
CHAPTER XV.
* calls fob the aid op a uttlk burgundy.
"There, there!" puffed Fierceheart, as she tightened
her clutch and impeded bis throat with her serpentine
folds. " Molly, unloose me, unless it's murder you seek."
" No need to murder him now," quoth the parson, permit-
ing his hands a satisfied friction. "He has played the
man."
" Played the man!" Straight the patriot's brows arched
into peaks of scorn. " Played the cur, sir, played the
cur!" And bis band and bis lip made a dash for that
invaluable ally, his glass, for shame stung him again.
Now that the thunderclouds had blown over a space, and
the sun was trying to peep through a rift in the receding
wrack, the churchman was able to reassume bis ancient
mantle of the stolid philosopher trimmed with a meager
and a sneering charity that was seldom moved by the
accidents of life. It was the vain man's pride that the
world should never accuse him of having a heart, and also
to persuade it that the tears of distress had no appeal to his
stoic bosom. He liked to feel himself a cynic philosopher,
a pupil of Antisthenes, and one who, like his master, had
rather more cynicism than philosophy. He was at serious
pains to assist this fallacy; and he so contrived to hood-
wink the world that he was able to achieve and easily live
up to his character " of great sneering, gibing brute and
162 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
one who hated women." Thus latterly his life had resolved
itself into one elaborate and finished friction. But, alas!
two persons had now found him out; the general had done
so years ago, and this night keen-eyed Molly, taking him in
a posture of singular disadvantage, had also spied out his
duplicity. Thus the overfiowing one, having sufiiciently
fondled her uncle, feU on his reverend friend.
" But, my dear girl," a stern finger forewarned her, " I
insist on a little decency; I am neither a lapdog nor an
infant."
" But you've a heart soft as silk. Dr. Blunt," she exulted,
bursting with amazing knowledge. " I was always told, sir,
that you had no heart at all; but 'tis false, for you, sir,
showed me its hiding-place not an hour ago. I saw your
heart, sir; and, do you know, I saw it womanlike and
tender. Nay, no use your grunting and frowning and
denying it; I saw it, I tell you. You counterfeit the ogre
exceedingly well, I must confess, sir; until to-night I
always trembled at you; but, oh, dear doctor! I shall never
be afraid of you again." And before he could retaliate or
defend she leapt on in hot assault and served him in the
manner she had already served Fiorceheart.
Cupid's murderer was still busy attempting to drown
shame in Burgundy.
" Yes, John, I went equipped to kill," he admitted to the
philosopher once while the talk fiowed on. "I swear I
entered that room quite strung for confession. It was the
one straight course, for was she not yearning for him who
could never come. But her eyes, her face, her glad words
slowly, slowly overcame me, and now I taste my Preston.
Her heel is on my honor; I am traitor to her and to
myself!"
"You fiow too fast, my friend," replied Sir Oracle,
grandly. "As usual, you magnify a molehill of failure to
a mountain of shame."
" Then, John, do you dare to tell me there is no shame in
standing acquiescently by while she prattles fondly of her
lad's return; while she declares she does but now tarry
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 153
here on earth till he arrives. Must you always forget that
the house of his dying mother is denied him?"
" There is the remedy, though, dear uncle," Molly breath-
lessly darted in. " You can send for him to come."
" Send for him to come!" The horrified patriot tore the
phrase to tatters; and he spanked the boards so smartly
with his open palm that much of the Burgundy shot over
the boundaries of the glass and dripped upon the cloth.
" Molly, there spoke woman!"
However, the indomitable Molly was not of the metal to
tamely capitulate. Was she not fighting for her uncle, her
aunt, and ah! her lover? Thus she nudged the parson's
knee, and summoned that blatant ally to strike for the cause.
He said:
"James, she's a petticoat, but it's wonderful sound coun-
sel. Your sole salvation lies in sending for the boy."
The patriot's agitation was tempestuous. He shot out of
his chair and reeled about the room with the face of a baited
beast.
"John, there spake woman, too!" he sang. * * Molly says
she has seen your heart and has seen it to be a woman's. It's
a creditable penetration, hers; for, John, that heart of yours
is an insult to the bosom of a man. That traitor my son
shall be sent for when I, his father, am rotting in a vault.
Not until! Mark that, John, mark that, Molly—not until!"
" Then I'll send for him myself, James."
" Do so, John, and when he appears I arrest him with
this right hand; or, should he resist, I shoot him like a dog,
which is what I have already told him."
" Fudge! " retorted the contemporary of Mr. Burchell.
But the torn man felt that that expression was no more
efifectual against the magnificent heat of Fierceheart the
soldier, than a mob is against the inroads of the illimitable
sea. Here fine-witted Molly dashed in again to the aid of
her discomforted supporter. She cried:
" But, dear uncle, you must know that your refusal leaves
you a wholly untenable position. You admit that you
have not the strength to confess to Tom's mother what Tom
154 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
has done; yet, if you refuse to screen him, she will soon
put questions. Then, whereshall you be, dear uncle? Yes,
I repeat, sir, your position is impossible quite. You must
either murder or forgive. And you want to do neither;
but let auntie live another week, sir, and you will be made
to do one or the other. And, uncle, let me remind you that
she will live, for has she not ordered her heart to beat till
her boy appears?"
The soldier mightily admired young Molly's fighting.
There was no phase of that fierce conflict this quick creature
did not seize and apply in a manner so entirely masterful
that, had it been an affair of words merely, sbe would have
beaten Fierceheart clean out of the field. But, as he quite
calmly informed her at the expiration of a terrible hour of
strife: "Logic, my dear, is one thing: honor, my dear, is
another thing. The combined powers of Demosthenes and
Euclid would find me a rock, I think, when it comes to
that."
" Yes, uncle, a craggy, insensible rock. I can speak no
more," and the chagrined warrior ended with a tear.
She had worn a stern face throughout all the horrors of
that day, and it was a comfort to these two ancient gentle-
men to see that there was a limit to even her endurance. So
low had they sunk in conceit of themselves that, judged in
their own perspective, they had come to regard this speci-
men of femininity as very little if any lower than the
angels. They had now settled that abstruse point in
physiology: angels did not permit themselves to weep in
anger. No, young Molly was not, it seemed, an angel, but
in the day of trial a very beautifuUy-tempei-ed spirit;
mortaC though.
" Well, James, might I ask what you now propose to do?"
inquired the parson, now young Molly had wantonly dis-
sipated all her strength by beating it on the rock. " Your
mind must be made at once. To keep the matter in its
present stage is, of course, beyond all question. Come,
decide!"
" What I now propose to do, John, is to take another
" Mollv mollified.'
(See paife 28.)
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 155
glass," returned Fierceheart with conciseness; and he
unsteadily measured his sixth that evening; while Molly,
who by this had spent the whole resources of her wisdom
in futility, slipped out and upstairs to attend the dying
woman.
For the remainder of that dread evening all the parson
said and all the general answered would provoke only a
languid interest, for, from the time they started to the
time they stopped, they made never an inch of progress
toward the solution of this hateful problem.
Candles were presently brought, the board was laid,
they dispatched a Barmecide's meal, and later came their
dail^ struggle at chess. The parson won in the most egre-
gious fashion, since the general played his recorded worst.
On his own part the reverend doctor saw in his ridiculous
victory a stunning argument against bringing your rooks
out so early; although at the same time he was willing to
admit that his play had been of the most superlative and re-
sistless kind. When the timepiece chimed eleven, the par-
son went, leaving the general contemplating glass number
nine. Even in the flush of fiery youth his utmost drinking
had been eight, the occasion being when a party of oflBcers
and beaux assembled at Will's to celebrate Blenheim.
This night, however, was fraught with more strenuous
occupation. It was the drowning of the aggressive imp of
Shame. While he pursued this religious duty, being
beyond all things military in his habitudes, he passed the
slow time with a review. He reviewed his thoughts. His
mental comments on them were severe; for they formed a
truly pitiable regiment. Fierceheart the soldier spied
weakness everywhere; especially in execution of his duty.
When he had only to shoot down a traitor he had perforce
to shut his eyes while he performed the deed, and then
drop on the floor in a fit when he had half-heartedly
essayed it and failed. When he had to inform the traitor's
mother that he proposed to visit the fullest severity of the
law upon her son, the climax to that tale was further
fainting and failure.
11
156 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Oh, it was a sweet record, for one who boasted courage I
Fierceheart then deliberately pledged his opinion that
domesticity and the Courts of Hymen were a canker, very
inimical to a soldier's fortitude. He considered that they
should be discouraged by the state, and added a rider of
wonderment as to why no other person had been inspired
with a similar idea? Then there was the conduct of his
friend to animadvert upon. Dr. John Blunt had stepped
forth incapable of a lofty conception of honor. The easy
moi'als of his friend were his not least poignant pain. He
dared to bolster a traitor; and such horrid absence of virtue
in the bosom of him who set up for philosopher must from
that day cut the intimate link of their long intercourse.
True they would still smoke and snuff and chess and argue
ever as heretofore, for the sake of used to be, and that un-
faithful John might not be too bitterly visited with correc-
tion for his sin. But never again must they hold a com-
munion of hearts; their amity must now be of the outside
only, a surface aping of high regard, and their fraternal
sentiments a superficial mockery, no deeper than the skin.
Next the image of stanch-souled Molly ran over his eyes.
Sure he saw mischief brewing in that young rogue. He
knew it for a solecism in the nature of women for them to
be sundered from their lovers, and to permit themselves
never a protesting sigh. To bow as meekly to the fiat as
young Molly had was evidence that the rogue was already
dissembling, for a proud spirit is not to be subdued with a
word. Yes, this ostentatious fiaunting of her humility as-
sured him that he had taken an eminently right diagnosis
of her case: he already discerned rebellion behind her mask
of resignation.
Hk pride must kill his son, tear him from his one true
friend, and deal heart wounds to two women in love. God
help him! And this sinister programme filled the devil
with the unction of a pious idea. Brimstone! He would
masquerade as a moralist. "Old man," he insinuated to
the fiayed patriot, "hasn't it ever occurred to you that
you're a bit of an egoist? Hasn't it ever struck you that
riERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 15?
you are a singularly selfish old dog? Frankly, it has me.
For who but an egoist would slaughter so many on the
altar of his private honor? Patriotism, is of course, a
theoretically beautiful thing, but when it takes the reins
and grows the ruling passion in a man, it is then no
sweeter and no cleaner than any other lust. Thus, when
you sacrifice in its name, instead of pluming and acclaim-
ing yourself hero for all you suffer in the performance of
the deed, you should remember that you have merely
pampered your own soul in its selfishness by making
another concession to its pride." The devil's sharp tone
and his sharp argument pricked Achilles in his vulnerable
heeL Heaven! That logic rang true as a Ferrara. For
an instant Fierceheart faltered under the fleering smile of
the Enemy of Man, and his mocking powers of reason.
Then he turned again to Burgundy to re-enforce him; and
its fumes fired the patriot's British obstinacy to retort: "To
the devil with your logic, Mr. Devil. It may be egoism to
kneel to the king; but to the devil, I say, with logic! I do
my duty."
In substance, this was the answer he had found for
the logic of insidious Molly. And now, as the liquor
caught his blood, it sent it coursing in his arteries, and
rang a call to arms to his resolution, which mustered in his
brain, vaunting what it would do. But there was one act
that staggered even its pot-valiance; it abstained from
promising confession to the boy's mother. From young
Molly it was prepared to bear no nonsense; toward the par-
son it even gave its word to be very self-righteously
severe; but it swerved at the bogey of wife-murder. When
it beheld that pale image of the night, fear possessed its
limbs, and its revolted eyes far retreated to their cavities.
It would blast the rosy dreams of a maid, and willingly; it
would poison the life of an ancient friend; but it barred
wife-murder.
Anything but that: the slaying of a son, for instance, and
resolution, bloody of jowl, was the dog for the deed. So the
patriot returned to his dram, drinking, drinking! Presently
158 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER,
Shame perished in the roseate hues of the cup, then pride
grew limp and drooping as wine washed the starch out of
its frills. And then, toward two of the clock, recollection
suddenly snapped in his brain. He emptied the bottle as
the timepiece chimed; then rose on his semi-liquefied legs,
and tried to persuade his feet of pulp to bear him to bed. The
room grew animate, and the carpet rose up to his face and
hit it a brutal smack. And then the patriot dreamed of
peace.
Toward three Molly, the unsleeping nurse, came hunting
for food. She was up with her aunt all night, as usual.
The first object she noted was somewhat bizarre, an empty
bottle of Burgundy horizontally laid on the cloth. Its un-
dignified posture, had he seen it, was calculated to shorten
the butler's life. It looked indecent, not to say bacchana-
lian; and her officious hand determined to restore its fallen
equlibrium. Her eye ran over the table's verge as she pre-
pared to do so, and lo! there was the patriot on the hearth-
rug, prone. The pietistical embers shrunk low in the grate,
being very appalled, of course; yet, fiawless as they morally
were, they had yet permitted their inquisitive eyes to stray
through the bars, to illuminate that degraded and mis-
placed wig, that the disgusted fender and tongs might
also see. On the face of Fierceheart the soldier was smiling
peace; a musicianly undertone of snores enhanced it, and
his head, his coat, and his limbs had the sublime abandon
of rejoicing ease. The nurse looked from the patriot to the
bottle, from the bottle to the patriot: each had a precise simi-
larity of attitude; each was utterly prone and unashamed.
But she qdjudged poor bottle the criminal. It had wantonly
stolen the sensibility of an honorable man; and forthwith
poor bottle was condemned and visited with punishment
condign. She shivered it to atoms on the carpet. But the
sleeper merely turned over on his back, and continued to
purr in his pleased oblivion. The girl then took a stand
by the table, looking down on this stretched figure of Fiei*ce-
heart, with eyes that laughed to defeat their sorrow. Angry
waves of shame were commencing to well from the revolted
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 159
bosom to the scorning lip and the rosy face, as she gazed
and pierced with her feminine instinct to the depths of the
wreck. It seems she saw the pity of it, since she came on
her knees there by the reproving embers and clapped her
passionate lips to the cheek of the fetid sleeper.
"Oh, brave misguided heart!" her soul was sighing.
And here her heart went out to the son; went out to him
as only a love-fluttered creature's can. No, fair piety, 'tis
not for you to put your admonishing finger up and think to
restrain willful blood. Hymen had been obsolete among
saints, else! Mew up that of the thin-flowing old, an it
please you, but that of the young is too hot for your hand.
Youth cries " Fico!" and bites its thumb. And so with un-
fettered Molly; she adored her uncle, however murderous
and shame-spattered he might be; but there was one thing
she would make it her business to tell him: that her age
was twenty-three, and that Love was her religion. She
had set Mr. Tom upon his probation that summer morning,
chaining the bold and big-breasted rascal to a whole year
of virtuous behavior, that his soul might be cleansed of a
few of its London stains. Let him bring a well-scrubbed
character back, and on that condition she would lisp hope
in his ear and promise that the rest should be the parson's
business. True, he was now an acclaimed traitor to King
George, but her friend Cupid, sly-eyed Dan, put a finger of
all knowledge to his lip, and insinuated to her conniving
heart that politics were not for women; thus, how was one
of the sex to learn which was the true king—George or
Charlie; and whether her hero's choice was right, or, on the
other hand, whether his sins were multiplied. Certainly it
was not for a woman to pronounce, but in an aside to the
Love God she was fain to unbosom the melancholy
news that her heart had expressed an inclination to pin on
the White Cockade and coast over the hills to Charlie. It
liked the name, it seemed. It had a gallant and a winning
ring, exuding "nods and becks and wreathM smiles";
whereat Master Cupid patted her shoulder and declared his
pupil promising.
160 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Now from this inventory of our young maid's bosom it
should be seen that it was like to beheld by the rebels soon.
At least that idea evidently occurred to her, for on the spot
she began to hate herself for hating her uncle for hating
his son. Could she forget that the sot on the hearthrug
had winged a bullet of lead to her darling's brain? And
that the impious snoring monster had professed himself
blithe to repeat the deed. It called for strength to bow the
knee to that unnatural father; but if she failed to screw a
drop of magnanimity out of her resentment, exit self-
respect. For it was her bitterness to know that Fierceheart
the soldier, who has set up honor as the god of his idolatry,
is not to stand before the judgment bar of a girl with a
mind like milk. His is a case for Aristotle and the learned
doctors. Thus groping in the dark, she must imperatively
concede a little kindness, lest his crime should prove no
crime after all. The doctors might be able to show that the
boy was base. And if they did; God, what if they did!
Suppose the dispassionate verdict came that he was again a
conscious sinner. At the thought she grasped two hands
over her heart; it was betraying a desire to leap right out
of her throat. Here came a quivering conversation
between her and Cupid. " But you just leave all this to
me," winked Dan to his fluttered pupil. It was well that
she took this counsel; it enabled her to pause and spare
some compassion for her uncle. He yet slumbered with the
perseverance of Epimenides, and assimilating wisdom like
that poet. His niece still regarded him amid the throes of
her strangled tears, for pity sprang like a fountain out of
her soul. She was always at the mercy of heroes. And
this frail fragment, now blasted to the dust and snoring on
to her feet, was Spartan in his dissolution. He had no
mercy for his flesh; he had not learnt to waive its raw
gashes one agony, even now as his pulses waned and time
was hunting him to earth. Circumstances were now
stronger than he. Their weight was caving his shoulders
in, but he granted the failing engines of his mind no peace.
Her fear was for the servants. If he were discovered so,
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 161
under the nose of daylight, it would mean a prick to his
authority and to their fair opinion. It required a sprightly
assault to scare his visions. She shook his wine-sodden
clay for half an hour; a performance diversified with an
occasional peremptory nose-tweak, or other facial liberties
of an equally surprising character.
"Lemmy 'lone, dearie, I'm awright," reeling from a
bibulous interior, was her dubious reward at first. But it
was a bugle call to her energies. More pointed her atten-
tions grew, her fingers shrewder, her arm more vehement.
" Wake, dear uncle, do," prayed the kneeling suppliant.
" Shan't!" breathed Bacchus through his cargo. Vinous
beatitude smiled out of his soaked countenance, and musi-
cal respiration was resumed. Brute force was summoned.
The suppliant punched: Bacchus snored a reiterated
"Shan't!" and squeezed new chords out of his Circean
slumber-song.
"Then, don't, sir!" submitted asperity at the end of an
hour with irregular lungs and a rather red face. Shall
drink subdue an undaunted heart? Never! vaunted the
maid's. Nor did it; though the laurels of victory did not
embellish the conqueror's brow till her metal had been
smartly tested. Assistance must be summoned to bodily
remove the sot; yet Mother Scandal must be quieted, too.
She knew only one person in Cumberland who gave sealed
lips to the world. He the parson; and she blest him for
his golden gift.
CHAPTER XVI.
contains an astoundina revelation.
That she must run for the parson was plain. Perish the
idea that Fierceheart should be left displayed in his mud
to the gaze of a sneering household! It was a time when
an adorer of heroes must walk abroad in the night at a
creepy hour, casting out fear. She went. Her journey
162 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
was distinctly adventurous; first sailing forth of the room
and turning the key on the sleeper, she imprisoned
that master of the situation in her pocket, and later
quested for cloak and hat to fortify her against a half-mile
trudge to the vicarage.
Unbarring the door of the great hall, she stole through
it into the night with the secrecy of guilt, and with the
same severe caution secured it behind her. The clock
struck four from the village, as her feet felt the lawn. A
sheet of low-fiying rain cloud was drawn over the eyes of
the sleeping stars, the path was dim with a weird obscurity,
that made every tree and hedge look eerie, and invested
the patches of copse beside the gate with great possibilities
for fright. When a startled hare streaked the road in
front an instant as it sought escape in a bramble covert,
her nerves rose up in mutiny. But she gasped sternly on
to her destination, cleaving the shadows and breasting the
dark with solicitous thoughts for her uncle. There was
almost food for a scream when, as she took the turn for
the village, the ofiBcious wind cried the news to the com-
muning trees that there was a girl abroad, feverish of face,
gliding between a walk and a run over a carpet of stones,
ruts, and mud puddles to outstrip dark speculation. She
was within two furlongs of relief when a monstrous form
of man swung round the angle of a lane, and jerked her
mind back to one Bones, who had been hanged at Carlisle
that July for robbery and murder done on the highway at
dead of night. Her wits beat wildly against their brain-
walls, debating what to do, while the form strode on her.
She dodgqd and darted, but the circuit of his grasp proved
large, and his full-stretched hand caught and locked her
wrist desperately as she evaded, and plucked back her pal-
pitating form, straight under the eyes of an ogre.
"Molly?"
"Doctor!" and then between a croak and a sob; "oh,
dear, you frightened me!"
" But, girl," the fierce interrogatory without any descent
to sympathy, " what in profundity's name brings you trot-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 163
tingdown the dale at this hour? Not GrentaGreen, I hope,
you wickedness ?"
" Faith no, sir I" Her laugh seemed to have no breath
behind it.
" Then why tremble like a leaf, you madcap? Old con-
science has got a scratch, I'm thinking, else you wouldn't
shiver like the guilty. Now out with it, you runaway!
" Indeed it was for you I came, sir."
" For me I " The steel in his tone was far more appalling
than the language of the wind. " Poor James, is it? And
yet I'd guessed it all along. Oh, old James! "
The man's misery was pitiful to hear. She sped to sooth
it.'
"You're too hasty by half, sir." She was eager to
relieve him. "Your conclusions mere brain-bubbles, sir.
Uncle is alive, uncle is well; but " She tiptoed to his
ear and whispered the indecent word that even the listening
night might not hear it.
" He that!" was wrung out of the clergyman. " And I
see, you want me to pray for the pot-polluted soul of
James," the sardonic man tacked on.
" It's the servants, sir," the whisperer strenuously assured
him. "He sleeps on his parlor hearthrug, impervious to
fair or foul persuasion. I've coaxed and I've kicked;
punched and besought; but he merely snores 'Shan't!'
and rolls over. But there he yet lies, sleeping like the
seven, and unless you come and help me bear him to bed,
he'll remain there till the servants rise. Doctor, do come!"
The doctor went; with a strengthened conviction that
the times were out of joint.
" Young Molly," he said, as she trotted back beside him,
for one stride of his contained three of hers. " That pre-
posterous uncle of yours has gone to war with circumstances
much too powerful for his time of life. Sooner or later
they'll kill him; 'tis a mere question of time."
" But, doctor, you'll yet be his friend," she pleaded.
"I've only one friend," admitted this misogynist.
" When he is gone I shall suck no more pleasure from the
164
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
sunshine, no more joy from life. When he deserts me,
my heart flees with him; for age already creaks in my
joints, and, save old James, there is none who will stoop to
close my eyes."
It occurred to Molly that the reverend doctor had drifted
of late into speeches quite foreign to a cynic mouth. Already
during this period of tears she had observed a really indecent
tenderness suffusing the face of the Gktrgon; a sight no
less wonderful and whimsical to see, because it so eminently
abashed his serpent-headed reverence. And at this hour
he would unconsciously insist on preserving the soft trans-
formation.
"Young wickedness," he flshed, "of course you'll be
true to your uncle?"
She acknowledged it for a shrewd crack on the ribs of a
rebel. She staggered and blundered and blushed. The
terrible ogre had cornered her; he could pound her to pulp
with his flourished club, if he chose. She must abandon
herself to his mercy.
" I—I daren't say, sir," answered a meek voice of appeal.
" You're a somewhat rare animal," grinned the ogre; "I
might say very rare indeed. I've never encountered female
honesty before; and have only read of it once in history,
which was the case of Her Majesty Queen Jezebel, who
made no professions of piety. But you, you singular
rogue, woman as you are, have evidently a pinch of the
same, else you had not given me so fair an answer. So
you daren't say! "
She here tried to wriggle to less perilous territory. And
then suddenly a cool purity from heaven kissed her on the
face. She cried:
" What a darkness! Ha, and here's the rain!"
She took it on the lip and sucked it thirstily in, this
sweetness of God, as its first drops fell. Fierceheart's sur-
render to the vine she viewed with a more indulgent eye as
the wet pelted down on to her cracking lips, and her skin
of tinder. How she drank the storm! tilting her hat far
back on her hair, and tearing open the mouth of her cloak
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 165
to bare her neck for a bath, pure and cool and fresh as
morning. The lashed and wind-driven spray washed the
fierce corruptions of passion out of her blood, leaving it for
one generous instant as sweet and sane as that of one
untouched with fever. And that bright moment, unpol-
luted with the jealousies of love, she seized to assure the
parson; '
" This rain makes me dare to answer you squarely, doctor.
I will be true to my uncle."
" The murderer?" the unfiinching churchman's query.
The ogre was using his club; the first blow had smashed
a bone in the body of the cornered victim.
V Please God, yes!" she moaned.
" The unrelenting son-slayer?" crunched the club.
"I—I'll try, sir," squeaked the captive under its blows.
And then resentment came; retaliation fumed to her
throat; and she prepared this ogre an ordeal of darts.
What was he doing tramping to dark nowhere, at four of
the clock, ere the dawn came in late autumn? She could
make a pretty straight guess if she chose, but aching under
the bruises he had dealt her, she preferred that he should
smart with a few barbs of her own.
"Doctor, what brings you abroad at this illegitimate
hour?" hissed her first into his epidermis.
It drove him to fortify the sensitive citadel of his
philosophy with deceit.
"Dyspepsia, my dear," muttered the punctured bully,
now possessed with an unpleasant consciousness that his
adroit prey had dodged his weapons, and moreover had
trained them back and shot them into his own precious
hide.
" Which I can't believe," announced Miss Honesty, with
q seductive though somewhat impudent candor. "Even
a ruined stomach would never excite an ease-loving clergy-
man to make a pleasaunce of the night-capped country in
the autumn small hours, sir."
This bare defiance of the prisoner's caused the club to
swing terribly.
166 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" When the face of the honored elderly," it cracked on
the too daring victim's body, " is slapped with the flat hand
of contradiction by a wench with a brain of jelly, the
conviction besieges me that the standard of manners at the
present day is not what it was in my time."
"For which we'll praise Heaven," cried mischievous
piety. " You were born, you know, doctor, in the reign of
Charles II. But, sir, is dyspepsia dissolving in the sweet
air of morning?"
"Sensibly," quoth his sapience, much too well schooled
in controversy to attempt to lug the last word from a
woman. " You see there was cold turkey and coflTee for
supper, which always clogs my ill-oiled gastric machinery.
Besides there was woodcock pie; and my dear, there is a
tradition in Italy that Dante composed the ' Divine Com-
edy' on a meal of woodcock pie. And my friend, the great
Dr. Swift, has told me twice that his quill is never so
splenetic as when his stomach is sullen with woodcock
pie. It was on nothing but that he wrote the ' Drapier
Letters.'"
"Fudge!" said unbudging Molly. " I know better, sir."
"Oh, impudence!" apostrophized the parson to the
cloud-cloaked stars,
To watch the ogre writhe as each arrowy question flew
into his skin was an amusement the more delightful
because it was so dangerous. It was foolhardy sweet to
give one eye to his sensibilities, twisting from the torments
of her retaliatory pricks, while the other one had to keep
her own a safe distance from the dancing of his high-
borne club.
" Doctor, suppose I tell you why you've been prowling
in the mud all night," said the incorrigible.
"You can't," said the defendant in a voice of no confl-
dence.
"It was because of uncle," she squarely told him.
" My time is too precious to be squandered in argument
with women," retreated he.
Molly was indeed right; it was thoughts of James that
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 167
had occupied the brain of John this season of utter dark-
ness. His couch had been unvisited; empty night, the
home of shadows, was better able to lull his mind.
The teacup of storm was now emptied on the refreshed
earth, and as the drenched pair stepped down the lane,
their oppressed senses were regaled with the moist beauty
of herbs and the cleanliness of the air. A turn to the left,
and the sky, with its wrappings of cloud receding, showed
them the Hall sleeping under the uncurtained moon.
From an extreme window in the northern wing, a solitary
light wriggled like a worm through the trellis of trees that
partitioned the wanderers from the shining pile of roof and
chimney.
It informed their eyes of the chamber of the dying
woman. Trembling beneath their feet as they walked
across the whitened lawn toward it, it proved a usurping
tyrant to the minds of both. It enthralled their united
thoughts. The image of that pale mother hungering for
the poison of a traitor's kiss was among them like a
nightmare, and they conld also see her couch overhung
with the shadows of an impartial father who for an hour
had comforted his soul with wine. Tragedy inflamed their
sight. Hellish it seemed to their shuddering sympathies
that they should sit passively down, and unresistingly
witness the murder. They beat their wits for an alter-
native with the power to arrest the impending deed. But
it staggered invention; and they were forced back to that
febrile one, forgiveness of the boy.
" Which is worse than no alternative at all, doctor, for
uncle will most certainly never forgive him," despaired the
girl.
"My name's not Blunt, if he doesn't," blustered the
brave words of weak-stomach.
" If he does, then your name '11 be Miracle," sighed
she, as her feet touched the steps of the dreadful house.
"Hist! not a word, sir," was now sung into the ear of
the braggart. Together they made a burglarious entry.
A sound as they stole through the ill-oiled hall-door, as
168 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
they sneaked over the hollow tiles, or as they bore the
snoring drunkard to security; then the alarmed house
would be about their heads, and farewell precaution,
avaunt concealment! They traveled as far as the dim
lamp that swung over the door mat, with no louder
announcement than now and then a fugitive creak of the
parson's shoes.
" Off with 'em, doctor!" breathed his commander.
The reverend doctor halted, marveling. But his fluttered
dignity collapsed before the captain's imperious mouth; and
when she flashed him an eye of no compromise, the ogre
was abashed and fell into obedience.
Dauntless Molly glided like light over the tiles to the
parlor door, pursued by a stocking-footed parson of nine-
and-sixty, who stalked through the shadows, his shoes
in one hand, his heart in the other. All the inches of his
six-feet-four quailed like wind-kissed aspens as he picked
his way through this breathless deed. The criminal and
soft-breathing secrecy of the thing, and the awfully silent
silence enshrouding it, got among his nerves like a terror,
so that he could feel his brain vibrate, when it grew con-
scious of the ticking of a distant clock; and when the wind
spoke once without among the branches, his flesh crept
under his guilty skin. There was, indeed, the slender con-
solation that Nature had certainly not cut him out for
a housebreaker; but many times before that night's part
was played, he wished she had. For the faint-hearted
adventurer was merely at the threshold of his stealth.
When he crept up to his officer, who was now arrested
with the Rocked door of Bacchus, her hard, unsmiling face
struck him through the gloom and made his heart tick
louder than that infernal clock. She was searching for the
key. Yes, searching for the key! Into every mysterious
feminine pocket she dived with noiseless yet frantic haste,
but this hot quest allowed her to produce nothing of more
service than a face of woe. Cloak, skirt, and bodice she
plundered with fierce fingers, but horrors, no key! The
situation was too dire to conceive. The door was locked.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 169
Bacchus slumbered; one sound would call the servants.
It was a time to shiver the resolution of the brave. Cour-
age had done all in its province. She had bearded the
night and her fears, had suffered infinite agonies at
the corner of a dark lane, had enlisted a recruit, had con-
veyed that unwilling animal undiscovered to the drunkard's
door, and had actually charmed the snarling creature
to discard his refractory shoes. And, merciful Heaven!
with it all, she had lost the key 1 Caesar had never bought
dearer victory, yet the laurels were to be denied her deserv-
ing brow. It was this consciousness of worth rewarded
not that, in the first blush of rage, advised her to spend it
in a tumult of sobs, that would at once wake the servants
an<f inform them what had happened to their master.
Happily the voice of heroism was loudest in council. The
parson was watching her, and if she gave his sarcasm one
tithe of a chance, he lapsed into a most sardonic and sneer-
ing person. She must tread fortitude's path, if only to
defeat the ogre. Thus she felt again, and failed to find,
and then hissed in his astonished ear:
"Key gone, doctor! All your fault; every bit your
fault—shook it out my pocket when you plucked me back
by the wrist at the corner of the lane. Don't you feel you
did a very foolish thing? I do." And there was a face of
doom very able to corroborate.
But with a purpling cheek, the churchman fiung off the
false aspersion.
" Oh, I admire that," he gasped and snorted. " Oh, you
saucebox!"
"S-s-sch, s-s-sch! Heavens! they'll hear you!" quelled
his commander.
"Me—I—you said, my fault!" spluttered the pained
recruit.
But a more strenuous "S-s-sch!" assisted by "Doctor,
are you mad ?" restrained him.
Now her wits groped for other ways and means to effect
the silent entry. It was presently their happiness to
unearth an idea, though its revealed prospect was of the
170 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
flimsiest and most precarious kind. She recollected that
Sellers the butler held a duplicate key of the parlor door.
It was attached to his bunch, and she at the same time
remembered that that bunch was housed in a most inac-
cessible spot—his breeches. But when her energies were
at large on a high enterprise, it called for the obstacle of
the impossible to curb them. If her business was burglary,
well, she would undertake it in the manner of a craftsman.
" Doctor, you wait here, sir! I won't be long. "
She shot off her shoes, and true thief that she was she
attained the top of the stairs without even a creak of warn-
ing. In three minutes by the loud ticking-clock that still
assailed the parson's ear, she was back with the butler's
key. The actual manner in which she procured it is
beyond the province of her discreet biographer, who
hereby sets an example to his very indiscreet brethren.
He feels that our present high-minded age might be severe
on the coarse method she used; for it seems that Sellers the
butler, who slept with his bedroom door unlocked, was the
carefullest of men, with prodigious eye for detail. And he
swore that, though this night he went to sleep with his
breeches hung over the bed rail, when he awoke in the
morning they were heaped on the floor, and subsequent
investigation proved that, since that night, his bunch was
minus the key of the door of Sir James' very own parlor.
Conceive his horror I But he had long thought that there
were rats behind the wainscot of his room, and be remem-
bered that that night strange nocturnal noises had intruded
themselves upon his dreams.
And now the stubborn portal flew back before the key,
and th^ burglars entered. Fierceheart was still profound
in sleep upon the rug. When the lamps were upturned,
the parson curled his lip at the obscene sight. Here,
father, friend! Yes, the times were out of jpint. That
picture of Circe's victim by the hearth shattered an ideal.
But the voice of Molly saved him for a time from those
sharp thoughts that were already hopping up out of his
pride to attack his mind. Fierceheart being still un-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 171
responsive to her shakes and pushes, she wanted to
know:
"Doctor, do you think you can bear him bodily to bed ?
Or shall I lend a hand with his heels ?"
Quoth the mighty: "Stand back and I'll try." And as
he tilted the wizened sleeper of seventy into his arms he
poohpoohed:
"Bear him ? Why, you goose, there's nothing to bear.
There's as much flesh on his ribs as a mouse has; no more.
Out of the way! "
With a cat's tread he stocking-footedly took him to his
room, laid him, ever sleeping, on his couch, swathed
blai^ets round his shoulders, and kissed him oh his
degraded mouth. Kissed him! Then he slipped forth
again and turned the key against Daniel and his water jug.
He then glided down to Molly, and whispered her how
sweetly the eyes of the rude were cheated, while she occu-
pied her knees to inspire those abashed embers once more
to look out of the bars.
CHAPTER XVII.
i to introduce the devil.
Dawn was on the trees ere Molly had picked the frag-
ments of that indecent bottle from the carpet and had
spurned them out of the window. By this the blaze had
responded to persuasion and was drying her own cloak and
the parson's. She had fetched a pot and a bowl from the
kitchen, and was here busy heating him some toddy. The
man had been invaluable and must be rewarded. Her
wisdom held a very material estimate of the creature man.
And when she thanked him with the cheering cup, and
said:
" Doctor, now we can breathe," he blinked down on her
smiles with an eye of knowledge.
" Young one," said he, as the flrst sip caressed his heart,
" you've uncommon wit, for a petticoat. As yet you are
12
172 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
quite missish, but I find you schooled in the prime axiom that
makes for success in domesticity—attend to man's stomach,
and his temper attends to itself."
" It's the same with the hog, sir, and the other animals."
"Exactly," said the philosopher, "except with the
animal woman. You compliment her on her reason."
But this levity went with the bird songs of sunrise. It
was a flash in the pan merely. The philosopher drooped
into brooding on the latest sufiFerings of his love. His
James had just been carried to bed because he was too
drunk to walk. He could have supported that easier had
his James not delayed till so very late in life. The man
had stooped to appease the gashes in his bosom with a
balsam of degradation. If that were the beginning, what
must be the end ? His eye chased the shadow of dark possi-
bility; they winged his mind beyond the earth of its heavy
English.
"'Eyvovs rit Kaivb. ToOs ira\yi rtKiMlperat." He relapsed into the
" large utterance of the early gods."
Young Molly put her brows up.
" Why, you poor man," she purred, " what's wrong in
the state of Denmark? That was Greek, wasn't it!"
The Sophoclean sighed.
"And you told me," she reprimanded him, "that Latin
was a case for the doctor; Greek for the undertaker. Are
you so bad?"
" When the honored and heroic proud," he gurgled,
"must have wine for their woes, God send their friends
large handkerchiefs."
" And much Greek I"
But sTie saw a tear. Again iron circumstance was crush-
ing his cynic dignity. Cruel, how the touch of sorrow had
smitten a lifetime of pretension to the ground 1
" Doctor dear," she said, " I think I'll kiss you."
" You shan't," muttered the misogynist feebly.
" Then I shall I It '11 do you good," and she consoled his
cheek with the warm lip of sympathy. " And don't you
like it?"
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 173
She searched his melted eyes, while her palms pressed his
shaking shoulders.
He liked it; but subterfuge forbid that he should tell her
so!
In a minute the philosopher tried to recover a few frag-
ments of his shattered reputation in a manner he would
have himself named the humorous gingerly.
"You see, you witch," he struggled, " if it were not for
James and not for Emmy, I shouldn't care."
"And Tom, too," she interjected, and with a fire.
" And Tom, too," he nodded.
"I don't think I should, either," she agreed on a great
breach.
They were wonderfully at one, he thought, considering
their disparity in intellect and years. Men should retire to
the long clothes of infancy, she thought, when catastrophe's
knock is heard upon the door. They could neither act nor
think; they were only fit to wear his badge upon their
faces. Desperation prompted her to test this opinion.
" If you would only suggest, you know, doctor; if you
would only speak a word toward solving this horrid riddle
of what to do. Either uncle, who's obstinate, must have
his forgiveness stormed, or clear-sighted auntie must be
bluffed. Already she has twice inquired when Tom's ex-
pected. I shall tremble if something is not done soon. If
your age and your learning could only suggest, sir!"
" It's like this, my dear; my cerebellum is pachyderma-
tously disinclined to the conception of prehensile expedient.
It is merely valetudinarian beside your juvenile agility."
The coward retreated to the dictionary.
She gave him up. Her retreat was to fiercely stir the
cinders; while so greatly had the cynic been reduced in a
day, that he actually chuckled over the doubtful glory of
having baffled featherly woman.
They sat in council till six, when Daniel urgently
showed through the door a head surmounting razor and
^ater pot.
''Missie," dilated the mysterious man, "wha's tae dae?
174 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
His honor's far ben abint the door, wbilk is lockit, missie,
an' I canna gang in tae fettle bim. There's naetbing
wrang, micbt I speir?"
"Yesuldken well eneucb, man Daniel," said mischief.
"Since you condescended to wine with a king, sir, the
humble Sir James feels it would be too steep a fall in
dignity for you, a royal favorite, to continue fettling his
chin and his wig. His locked door excuses you."
" Gertie, juist that! " leaped the Scot. " Weel, its unco'
nat'ral I sae."
His eye beaconing pleasure, he proudly retired with the
news and the water pot to that meek sphere he was so fast
outgrowing.
Later in the day the parson repaired to the chief come-
dian. He unlocked the door softly and entered with bed-
side tread, and saw Fierceheart woefully upright, out of his
rugs, sitting on the edge of his couch wigless, and twisting
his pate's embellishment carefully round in his hand. He
had the face of rue.
"James, you're bad," said the clergyman.
Bacchus was not sure, though he thought that he
might be.
" I'm sorry," said the sardonic man; and he took a chair.
Fierceheart shuddered under his bedgown. And his
head! In the prime of fair youth this timeworn orna-
ment had never been precisely a subtlety: it now embodied
a too gross palpability; it was soaked with a queasy pollu-
tion of mud and malaria—Burgundy's revenges.
" Vino diffugiunt mordaces curce," said the pleasant
clergyman. "To permit myself a vulgar and familiar gar-
bling of friend Flaccus. Cankering cares by wine dispelled,
eh, James? Only our well-paunched Flaccus didn't wait
till seventy for the sake of his nose; he went early to Epi-
curus and the vine. He was right; your true tun-
stomached artist must serve a long apprenticeship; he can
then accept the nectar of his gods, oblivious of morning's
gravities."
The comedian's mien of white unease, though a plea for
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 175
the straining of the quality of mercy, was a very trumpet
to the parson's blood. The sermonizer screwed his thumbs
within his waistcoat, struck his pulpit attitude, took his
snuffbox out, dipped a deliberate excess, thoughtfully fan-
farronaded on the lid, then paid the sincere compliment to
Nemesis of enlisting under its righteous banner. It took
him one hour and five minutes to attain his slow Amen.
He then said: "And I'll adjust your wig. For Golden
Ind I wouldn't have Daniel light his eye on your shipwreck,
my beauty, before it's towed into harbor. Nor would the
young one. That girl's a jewel, by Jupiter 1"
The casuist began to enthuse; he unspun the astound-
ing jtory:
"Dead of night; no sound; skies of pitch; and she
coasted a mile to spare the repute of an irreligious old
heathen snoring on a hearthrug. I call it Amazonian,
I do. She's a jewel! "
Bacchus looked excessively sick, but the misogynist still
fiuted his appreciative exclamations out.
"For there's enough in the young one, sir, to preserve
the tone of three Seton generations. Cut her from the
family and you. Sir James: you must forgive the
boy."
But the patriot's heart had issued from the furnace now;
it had become steel, wrought and pure out of its bath of
fire. Resolve had grown beyond words in a night: the
father shut his lips. Yesterday he had shut his heart, and
hungering paternity was vainly lingering about the closed
portals for admission now. And to-day he had shut his
lips. They drove the parson from their locked exterior.
He left the beau bestowing the last trimmings to his de-
caying person. He descended to the jewel. She was sip-
ping a dish of tea. She looked up at him with eyes that
held a tale of vigil.
" Have some?" she invited him,
" He's had some," the sermon-monger told her.
" I'm glad," said the rebel. " Hot, I hope, and without
sugar."
176 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" An hour and five minutes, and hog was the mildest
word."
The parson folded his proud arms.
" Any impression ?"
" None I During his sleep he has received a frost blight
on his soul. He's awoke flint, my dear, just flint. And I
begged for the boy; constant drippings wear the stone,
you know."
She looked up; her eyes were beautiful.
"But, my dear, not his heart stone, very likely. But
don't let us despair, though. Yet his answer was to shut
his lips."
Here came a sound of approaching feet from the hall;
thus, when Fierceheart hove in view through the door, they
had stifled this apposite talk, and Miss Molly was calling Dr.
Blunt's particular attention to the fact that it had been a
very nice day after the rain. When he neared their table,
Bacchus was conscious of the exceeding hawk-like eye of
his niece gleaming over the brim of her teacup. It pierced
his face. The criminal was alarmed. Happily hers was
not the eye of the law, for when with some pleasant cruelty
she had assured him she was not a parson, whose vocation
was to pound the guilty, she civilly invited him to tea.
This insipid Chinese mess was not for Fierceheart; it
provoked the sneer of a wine-pampered palate, educated by
the vine. Now, however, for the first time in his history
he quaffed the non-inebriating cup, nor did he find it
vinegar. He was oblivious of every sensation of man the
animal, the fleshly being utterly sunk this minute in the
intellectual. He was chasing a dim idea, it seemed; hunt-
ing the fay-footed thing to earth in his brain. A gasping
business this pursuit. Oh, it was an airy, cunning quarry,
swift as light and more impalpable! And when presently
his wits took it captive by pinning it in a corner of his
head, "Thank God! " his soul exulted; the creature looked
so fairylike, so agile, so intelligent.
"My dear," panted the hunter, " I've caught an expedi-
ent; and now I shall go and see your auntie."
riERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
177
"Tour expedient's got to have four qualidcations,
mind," the nurse informed him, sticking four fingers up,
and tapping each member severally; " it must be merciful,
it must be plausible, it must he sane, and it must be told to
me."
The first three he was blithe to vouchsafe, the fourth he
flatly demurred to.
"Oh, no I" ho declined. "I fail to see the necessity
quite."
" We too curious women, you know, uncle "
Those shut lips, cold and harsh, told her that she had
better restrain her kittenish byplay. He could play no
more. She was piqued. It is no defect in the women, dear
playful creatures, to take offense so readily, but rather a fine
point in policy. The instant pretty pussy begins to mew
disconsolation, she reminds the bearish male that she's
a fair martyr and that he's a gross brute. Pique delights
to fetter chivalry with her frown. And it is her reptile
pleasure to bite the hand that pampers her, since it is the
consistent gallantry of man the monster, throughout the
ages, that has begot and carefully fed her excessive petu-
lance. Thus, being a wise girl, Molly pouted. But alas!
that diplomatic act had lost its virtues. Fierceheart
responded not; his countenance was frozen.
Young Molly took her defeat with her unnatural
humility. She was burning to hear her uncle's plan of
salvation, if only as a measure of protection for her patient
against the ruflfianly patriot. Fierceheart was not to
be trusted with the frail. Her life now hung on so fine a
hair that the mere breath that accompanied a brutal word
had the power to snap it. Singfular! that the nurse was
content to let the warrior rise and depart up the stairs on
his mission before he had unbosomed his big idea. And as
the soldier went, the parson noted that she held the calm air
of winning that so generally annexes irresolute victory.
Fierceheart was soon to return; with no very pleasant
mien he fronted his niece. He asked, " Molly, did you
lock the door of her chamber?"
178
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
'* And took the key," she nodded, and fetched it from her
pocket, and held it up before his eyes.
" I want it," his unequivocal demand.
"Uncle, I want your expedient. I'll give you this for
that." She dangled the key on one finger. But emphatic-
ally she feared his look.
" Must I command you?" She saw the devil sitting in his
brow. And now she was alarmed indeed; he was no more
the tender gentleman who had petted her from babyhood,
for during his impure wine-sleep, Morpheus, prime minister
of Somnus the slumber-god, had opened the victim's bosom
and had inserted iron in his heart, That was what the par-
son really meant when he spoke of his friend's frost blight
of the soul. But being so horridly afraid of Fierceheart
now, the high-couraged rogue just stiffened her tenacity.
She knitted her fingers tighter to the key.
"Molly, release it instantly! "
" Not till I've heard and approved your expedient, uncle.
Really, I daren't blindly trust you, sir, for a word would kill
her."
" Cease this folly 1"
"Oh, uncle, I never was more earnest! I daren't! I
daren't!" her voice trembled.
Had the parson been a poet, he would have written a
sonnet to her eyes. But Fierceheart was eminently less of
one than even that prosaic, since his reply was to dart with
his right at her right wrist, and terribly grasping it to
haste with his left, and tear the key wholly out of her
hand.
It was her first taste of man the bully, and she enjoyed it.
It was a new sensation and an experience not to be
despised; but the moment she saw Fierceheart slink away
to his wife, the parson recoiled from her deranged face.
Terror sprang fiooding to her eyes, the smiling red retreated
even from her lips; she plucked at the churchman's arm.
"Oh, my dear doctor," was her wail, "he is not to be
trusted with her. He is not my gentle uncle now; he's
caught something in his sleep that I can't quite fathom."
FIERCEHEART, THE SOI.DIER.
179
" Nor I either," moaned the impotent.
" You saw his face?"
" God, yes! I saw his face: it's not a sane face. And, my
jewel, remembering that insanity, I implore you to forgive
his rude hands."
She snapped, " I've no time to think about that, sir. It's
dying auntie there, with a madman at her elbow. We
must lift a finger for her safety."
Genius, her faithful servant, touched his cap to her as she
distorted her brows in deep thought. He whispered, " I'm
here, miss," and lo! he surprised her chaste mind with
indelicate suggestion. Her uncle had hit below the belt,
sh^ could best retaliate by doing the same. She consulted
her heart an instant, which as a rule is the feminine equiv-
alent for honor, and then, like vice-witted Falstaff, she be-
came a coward on instinct. She screwed down the corners
of her mouth to say;
" Doctor, it's horridly vile, I know, but suppose I listen at
the door to his expedient; then, when I hear him use rash
words, I can step in and check him. Besides, it is so impera-
tive for us to know all that's in his mind; we must be fully
aware of the precise ground on which we stand. Ugh!
but it's a dirty deed. I'd prefer to part with a stout tooth."
" In love and war, my dearest," the casuist assented. On
that she rose, and crept upstairs on the murderer's trail. No
sound made she in winning the fatal portal, being lighter-
footed than a spider, and in action a second Ariel for
ingenuity.
Downstairs was the parson, his soul sunk in trepidation,
his chin chucked in his waistcoat. He feared that his James
had a mind undone.
180 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER
CHAPTER XVIII.
makes us blush fob the heroine,
The eavesdropper strained her ear to the wood. Merely
a half-hushed mutter assailed it, and not a solitary word
she knew. She deftly withdrew the stolen key from its
hole and bent to the aperture, but no distinct syllable
escaped. The gods generally do conspire against an illicit
listener. Not that these slaps in the face made her sit
down to submission. Invoking the daring of Ulysses, our
indomitable attacked the handle of the door. Softly, softly!
she twisted the knob within her cunning palm, she made
no sound, she let no faint creak arise, but there it was un-
latched with a secrecy excelling feline. Now she jammed
one taut finger-tip against the panel's face, applied the
most expert nicety of pressure, and the door opened one-
eighth of an inch, nor made no sound. A thread of lamp-
light curled out and made love to her sparkling face. It
admired her nostrils most, it saw the throb of battle in
them. Success was now piping to her blood; it swelled on
the martial song and incited her eyes to fiash rebellion.
Her ears had wanted to hear, they complained, and she
had been so kind as to prepare them an opportunity, and
didn't her eyes want to see, and weren't they every bit as
good as her ears; ay, better—with a dart of temper. So she
widened the door-breach mouselike, till she could strain
one eyeball round the corner, and her orbs could wallow
in the prospect of Cupid's murderer cutting his victim up.
Only there was a more infinite cunning required to behold
that pale sight wholly and safely. The eavesdropper
crouched on her knees on the mat, and peering round the
bottom of the door saw much, and by the same maneuver
minimized discovery.
The husband had pressed one shoulder against the bed-
post that it might assist his legs to keep his body in an
honorable attitude. It was true that sleep had sucked the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 181
wine from his hrain, but it was now afflicted with an
enemy even as reducing as the fumes of the emasculating
cup. His face was not a nice face; every muscle strained,
his cheeks retreating, and his half-lidded eyes pinned upon
the counterpane. The eavesdropper could not see the wife,
for the curtain screened her, and she was glad to be spared
so much. But she heard the murderer mumbling:
" As you've promised to be very calm. Til tell you, then."
" Go on, dear I" encouraged the voice out of the bed.
The eavesdropper debated what to do. Was the mur-
derer preparing to slay his wife with the fatal news ? Was
that, after all, his expedient ? Fierceheart, she knew, was
brutally anxious to perform that deed. The jealous nurse
looked and listened Argus-like, and made quite ready at
any word to intervene. Yet now sensational language was
oozing out of his lips. In no valiant style. The hero of
the French wars had a blight in his hearing; the strung
air of Mars was not there, nor the proud consciousness of
self and reputation. There was not even an attempt to
achieve courage, let alone to flaunt it. The leader of men
ate dust. The man was lying; it was his expedient.
"You see it's this, Emmy," he floundered; "it's me to
blame; blame me, will you ? T—Tom, T—Tom," the foul
name arrested him. He puffed and choked in the struggle
to surmount it, as he must have done had the obstacle been
a six barred-hurdle.
" Him! " fluttered out of the sheets.
The voice flung a thorn into the flesh of the young
eavesdropper. It is never wrong to punish fiercely every
member of that tribe.
"There, there, my own!" soothed the murderer, without
venturing an inch from the benevolent bedpost. "And
there's nothing to alarm you. Besides, you promised that
you wouldn't, even though it is your son."
That was a bright idea. If he was unable to utter the
name itself, he could pronounce " your son" with com-
parative ease.
" Our son, dear!" smiled the proud wife and mother.
182 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
The eavesdropper nearly groaned.
"He went to London, as you know," ignored the dis-
sembler, with a terrible accession of speed, "he went to
London, and while there bis behavior has been so bad that
I have been compelled to visit him with a very severe cor-
rection. Despite what I said, and Dr. Blunt said, before he
went, on the matter of his early offenses, he has again
diced himself into debt, and it has been most essential that
I should assert my authority."
" And what have you done?" the hoarse demand.
" Sent him on a five-years' cruise among the Indies."
The eavesdropper strained her ears to seize the answer.
It was long coming, and when it did come it was embodied
in a shivering tone of query.
" James, and when did you send him?"
" Precisely a week before I rode to Cope, love."
"And the ship, James?"
It was an attempt to cheat conviction. Her heart felt
compelled to believe the words of this Boman father.
She knew him of old. But then the weak have a trick of
trying to persuade themselves that a catastrophe has not
occurred when they know that it has. She was obliged to
accept all that was told her by him who never lied. But
there was no law, save that of reason, to forbid her rattling
the bars of ber cage, when she was aware she was caught
and could never more get out.
" And the ship, James?"
"Bark Truthful, Captain Frank, love."
The eavesdropper recoiled from this brute devilry of
Fierceheart. It had bitten her. It was uncanny. And
his moufh? The polite lips of the gentleman who never
gibed now reeked mockery. The parson was right; he had
gone to war with circumstances too strong for his time of
life.
"James, you have written to recall him, of course? "stag-
gered out of the bed.
"No."
"No?"
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 183
"No!"
"Oh!"
The eavesdropper suffered; she still listened in a mad-
ness of listening, but the face of the husband blasted her
guilty sight. To have gazed longer at that mutilated
countenance would have been to scream. Haply the wife
saw it not, for his uplifted bands covered it and spared her
eyes.
" And why, James, why have you not sent?" she croaked.
" He was warned,"said the Roman. " He was warned, he
chose to disobey and trail his proud name in the filth; he
has been punished. No, I have not issued his recall; he
shall serve every minute of his sentence."
"But, James," softly, " they have told you I am dying."
"Oh, yes!" half airily, with something of a histrionic
headshake.
" And did I not say I would wait for my boy? My boy! "
Her hands were on the coverlet, clasped.
" Does a Seton ever relent, ma'am?"
Tears were her answer. And he had expected them;
thus he came found against their cunning, and he took them
with a stoic calm.
The eavesdropper was trembling and collapsing on the
mat. She was too young for her trade.
"You do recognize, don't you," returned the murderer
hungrily, but bungling rather badly, though, in the cutting
up, " that the whole blame of his absence rests with me?"
" Yes, I think I recognize that," quietly said the harden-
ing mother, and the father bled under her steel, " but this
night you will dispatch an express-boat to forgive him, and
to recall him with the news that I lie dying and waiting
here."
The mother was very conscious of the pathos; she knew
it for her shrewdest weapon.
The father was also conscious of the pathos, and greatly
regretted that he was. It was such a grim, unconquerable
fighter. He was losing blood.
And now the mother defied mortality;
184 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" I shall not die till I see him, James. God has promised
me. And I have much pain. You will send, James."
"I pledged him my word," haughtily; " and, wife, did I
ever break it? "
Garrick had barely made a reputation then, thus the
husband owed nothing to him; yet his acting was mag-
nificent.
"For my sake!" she wept.
To selSsh woman this is a phrase thrice blessed. With
what rapt appeal she clings to it, hugging and sobbing!
The wife went through every mode of the persuasive lyre—
scorn, cajolery, and the pathos of wet cheek. But her arts
were crushed on a pillar of flint.
"And what is his crime?" rude anger snorted at last
with an eye that flashed. '' Had my boy been traitor to his
country, I could have understood it; had he committed
murder; were he in any way answerable to the law; had he
truly stained our name. But a paltry matter of guineas—
James, are you insane?"
" Maybe," drawled the actor, in whom the full spirit of
the comedy had entered now, and who accordingly was
playing it with inspiration, " maybe, but I'll permit no
woman to dictate to me in my chastisement of a disobedient
son. Madam, you understand that. He has defled me, and
I shall deal with him in my own manner."
" So small a fault! "
" Pardon me, the fault is anything but that. He was
warned. And what of the girl he has duped and fooled
with promises? For her protection alone, this house should
be debarred him."
"Her protection!" Self unmercifully worried the word,
" My boy, my house, I never to rise more, and an alien to
come between us. Her! Molly Appleby? Who is she? A
dependent, James! A dependent that subsists on our
charity!"
The husband had committed a gross error in tactics.
That argument was flimsy to begin with: in the most pro-
pitious hour it could have nowise strengthened bis case;
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 185
and worse, far worse, he had submitted a victim, a defense-
less victim, on whom her tormented heart might wreak
easily, yet.violently, its pent-up spleen. Self must purchase
some relief for its sores; but it paid a pretty price for this
balsam. As soon as the strung mother procured it, the
eavesdropper crept, well whipped, away. She rose from her
knees several years older than when she had knelt, and
crawled with cautious step up the second flight of stairs to
her private chamber, and there arrived, she locked her door
against the callous world.
Meantime the tiger-wife having at last tasted blood,
turned on the husband and tore him also.
*'J'orty-seven years next June, James, and a very true
wife I've been. Very admiring, very consenting, very
worshiping, very faithful. And, James, I'm dying now,
but I rise so, just like this, on my deathbed, and order you
forth of my room. Go I"
No description could be more realistic than her own.
The mother and the wife did rise straight up in her bed, and
with stretched finger gave the husband and the father the
door.
"Go! and remember my door is locked against you till
your son is sent for."
"My son?" groped the half-stunned actor, forgetting his
part. For an instant his failing brain could only grasp the
image of the traitor, the Stuart bastard, who was a son yet
not a son.
" Your son—your flesh, your blood, James!"
" Hal " He remembered, of course, he was merely assist-
ing at a comedy. And had played it very well; yes, had
played it very well. Pity, though, that he got so soon
excited, but to be sure he was growing old. Certainly, his
son!
"Go, James!" scorned the mother's finger, "go, and do
not return to this room until you bring his pardon. And
remember that I have waited fifty years, and for my death-
bed, to speak to you like this. But my boy, my boy! Go!
Dr. Blunt will console you."
186 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
He went. Straight as an arrow he left her, and shut the
door behind him gently. He shut it gently; he was closing
a door in his soul. The mother fell back on her pillows,
coughing blood.
CHAPTER XIX.
exhibits the reverend doctor in a professional
capacity.
Fierceheart stumbled down to his friend. The parson
was much alone, save for heavy meditation, boon com-
panion of his mind. His eyes were for the fire, his wig lay
in his lap, exposing a smooth carpet of scalp, whose white
face was here and there encumbered with a few tufts of
gray, bristling upright to imitate the fretful porcupine.
He was sipping wine, with a little water in it. Never
before had he sipped wine with a little water in it, but then
the wise profit by the errors of their friends. And here, as
Racchus came, he swiftly slipped the Madeira, the glass, and
the water jug under his chair. The business of the casuist
is to be discreet.
The mutilated husband cast his eyes about for the
decanter. Not discerning it, he summoned the butler.
"I should like the Madeira, Sellers."
" The Madeira, Sir James? I just now brought some to
Dr. Blunt, Sir James."
The parson replaced his wig to assist his dignity, and
said with stern eye, " Sellers, I dare say you are mistaken."
And he threw a corroborating glance to the Madeira-less
table and sideboard.
"I wouldn't mind making my hoath," insisted the in-
' credulous man of aitches.
But the reverend countenance froze every aspirate.
"Sellers, must I repeat that you might be mistaken?"
Sellers succumbed, though reason made her protest.
Had he been a younger man it could have been laid to
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 187
Psyche; an old one, to the mind's decay; hut he was at the
meridian of his manhood, was a husband and a father, and
went to sermon regular. For in addition to this illusion
of the wine, there was the afifair of the parlor key. Yet as
he returned with a re-enforcement of Madeira, he spied
under the parson's chair, and Lucifer! A deep theory in-
stantly restored the lost status of his mind. His reverence
was a kleptomaniac—a very fine word if you please—but
then Sellers the butler was a man of thought. Accordingly
he evolved the new axiom from that hour of, "Never trust
the Bible-bit."
When Sellers had walked out on his dignity, the parson
coyly produced the water jug from beneath the chair.
" James," said he with silk tongue, " you are quite bent
on Madeira?"
" Quite," said the shattered husband. He filled a glass
with palsied hand to its utmost brim, and held it to the
light and moaned. He then softly set it down to meditate
before he sipped, while the casuist, excellent man t having
observed that his thoughts had strayed to ultima Thule,
bent his lips to the full cup, took a cautious pull, and then
rebrimmed it with the jug's assistance. Presently the
husband moistened his sorrow.
" The devil! " his palate revolted on the merest mouth-
ful. He noted the water jug then, and whishl sang the
polluted liquid into the fender.
"James, you mayn't know, hut I think that's sin," the
casuist recorded; "good wine, good water, and the starv-
ing poor. Yes, I think it's sin."
"Lovely night," sighed the bland Fierceheart, pouring
a second measure forth, and swinging it into his throat
with a jerk.
The parson delivered a swelling panegyric on water.
He began with metaphor. It was the wine of life, and
many other things that were picturesque and euphuistic.
"Very true," admitted the husband, and he went on
drinking. " No water, and there'd be no wine."
" And no tears." The parson shed a mental one for a
13
188 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
fallen friend. "But," he pursued, "introduce it to a
cherished bin; you then spare the stomach and the head,
and also spare the purse by prolonging the pleasures of the
vintage."
" God help the flavor, John!" demurred the fervent and
the pious palate.
The parson made the error of arguing with palate, that
practical creature that so far transcends logic, the child of
theory. It demands a fact, like a Briton; it is sheer mouth
with imagination minus; it must have a rotund and solid
something; an airy anything or nothing floating about in
unembodied space is futile, and won't do. You can't taste
that. The parson was wrong to attempt to convince,
with pneumatoscopic reason, an animal that could only
accept brute matter. Thus it immediately brought his
error home, for Pierceheart kept on drinking. Chess was
proposed to divert Bacchus from the pot, but it was brow-
beaten with excuses. " My head grows muddy, I don't
know why," reeled the thickening voice. The parson did:
nor was he too polite to conceal the dark knowledge.
" You sot! " said he.
It was a knife full in the paunch of self-respect; it made
it writhe and squeal. The ancient hero sprang up in his
chair, with outstretched arm strained high toward Heaven.
He called out:
" Oh, my dear God, how true! " and collapsed back into
his seat like a log.
"Hush, man; hush!" soothed his friend, patting his
quivering shoulder.
The ogre now wore the face of a sister. Pierceheart sat
a minute shivering in his shame, then retreated to his bed.
And so soon as he lay alone the coldness of the sheets
reminded him that he had now no wife. Him or her son
she had to choose; she had preferred her son. His stag-
gering eyes traveled down the long scroll of the years to
the month of June, 1699. A long time; and after basking
so long in the sunshine his heart was sure to feel cold when
the night fell. Yet the beneficent sun was not to be
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 189
blamed for withdrawing its warmth at eve; thus the hus-
band lay down in the evening of his day, without humili-
ating his soul with unworthy thoughts. He considered
himself a patriot; but he remembered that his wife had
deeply suffered; the king had spared her no inch of mercy.
And his Majesty had further exacted his own blood; his
Majesty had robbed him of his three handsome lads, yes
three; had torn him out of the arms of his dying love;
and had sprung a chasm between him and his only friend,
who had been lately found unable, through the king's
interference, to spell the sweet word. Honor. All that
domesticity and charity could bestow had regality plucked
from that patriotic breast. And now he called on his king
for comfort. There was a small cast of his Majesty in
plaster, smiling from the bedroom mantelpiece; thus the
patriot slipped from his lonely bed an instant, and returned
with it to the sheets, and lay all night with clasped arms
around it, ecstatically hugging this cold image in his
plundered bosom. And when daylight came and caught
him, he tried to soothe the blushes it provoked, by ascribing
this whimsical behavior to the force of habit and the loss
of a fifty-years' wife.
In the parlor the parson waited weary hours for young
Molly, with ever and anon an appealing eye upon the
clock. The jewel was not to return that night. She had
hidden her punished head. Self-respect, which is only an
vniable pet name for pride, had met with savage treatment.
!!t had had a wound gashed in it, and corruption crept in
♦hrough the hole. '' Subsists upon our charity!" It was a
'*low acid that deeply ate into her bright spirit, cankering
as it sank. She tried to tear her mind away from this
throbbing injury, not to let it bias her; though as she
rolled on her bed and drew the blood out of her lips in the
fierceness of her thoughts, she felt brute retaliation wake
ap and begin to walk abroad within her. Herculean were
her struggles to avert fiingingone spark of prejudice in the
powder keg of her resentment. Apart from the bare con*
sequences of the deed, and an explosion is mostly dire,
190 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
there was a most uncomfortable sense of cowardice about
the act. True, Guy Fawkes risked his life, but despite his
lantern and his cloak, to see him beside the barrel, his is no
heroic pose, and he cuts but a sorry figure in the histories.
And she had a thirst for heroes; there had been no sweet
look of lenience for Mr. Tom had she not spied embryonic
possibilities for heroism in that bold-blooded sinner.
Besides was not cowardice, the curse of Eve, her perpetual
fear? She would prefer to subsist on the most grudging
charity rather than be the victim of that disgusting vice.
It was the pettiness of her sex that made it cowardly, and
she knowing it, there could be no excuse should she fail to
act upon her knowledge. No, she must kiss the rod; at no
price retaliate. Quite so, she would retort with a heroic
meekness. Yet An unhappy accident here befell her
mind. By misadventure she had withdrawn the key from
the chamber door, and eheu! the impertinent devil curled
himself and his tail through the open keyhole. He tapped
her shoulder as she lay.
" My dear," coughed the devil, clearing the sobs out of
his voice, " I am grieved to the hoof to witness your very
self-evident distress. Haven't you been ill-used, my
dear?"
The devil looked a marvel of sympathy as he swept the
tears out of his eyes.
"I—I believe I have," wept self-pity, peeping out so soon
as it heard the devil's voice. That set the devil smirking
in his sleeve. Oh, he was a cunning one! He sang this
to self-pity's especial ear:
"Sof^ood you've been to your uncle, love; so good
you've been to your aunt. And you've been repaid with
hard words, love; suffer again you shan't."
The devil congratulated his genius on an impromptu
quatrain worthy of the witty Mr. Matthew Prior in his
sentimental moments. He hoped that its feeling rang as
false as the serious verse of that gentleman. For was not
the devil dealing with a woman, and women have no pre-
tense to truth of taste in poetry. They like to mistake the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
191
pinchbeck for the real in song, setting Homer after Mrs.
Hemans. They lack the heroic spirit, which leads us to
the devil's downfall in this instance. Instead of diagnosing
this particular case of young Molly, he idly generalized
instead. Ha, a woman! well, a woman, untainted with
the true heroic, require a dose of doggerel of the cheapest
kind. He gave her one—she who thirsted for the epic.
And by this very error was self-pity strangled, and the
devil chivvied back through the keyhole to whence he
came. She never slept that night, though.
On the morrow at nine o'clock the reverend doctor sat
in the vicarage parlor, occupied with his matutinal steak
succulently accompanied with a toast and a tankard. He
was*sitting rude of beard and wig ridiculous, decked like
a monarch in a dreadful dressing gown that had been
purple once, but now stained every color save its original
regal tint. It was buttoned up tight to the chin, for the
reason that he was the owner of only two shirts, one of
which was at the wash, while Mrs. Pye was sewing a button
on the other. This Mrs. Pye, his housekeeper, was a well-
bosomed matron of fifty-nine whose conscience was her
only joy. The reverend doctor openly admired her con-
science, promising to beg it for the nation whenever she
might find she had no further use for it. The casuist
pronounced an expert's opinion that it was a rare variety,
and was determined to preserve it in rum and pack it off
to Bloomsbury at the earliest date. And Mrs. Pye had a
quite dangerous residue of religion in her character, so
that the clergyman had been heard to groan: "that that
woman is so damnably familar with the persons in the
Bible that she speaks of St. John and St. Matthew as Jack
and Matthy." But the ag^e was a specific against such
theological excess; a sharp attack would blood some of
this religious feeling, for it would drive her to admit,
"that religion is consoling when you've got the shakes,
but rum removes 'em." Rum, then, was her limitation.
The parson was wont pathetically to say that she was a
trial. She had a tongue.
192
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
But to revert back to nine o'clock of this autumn morn-
ing of rime and nipping sea-fog, young Molly tripped in
upon the parson's breakfast with clieeks of health and
frosted coat, and caught him hanging his nose over his
early beer. Wiping his mouth of the beer he kissed
her.
"Well," he said, " what brings you?"
" A shirt, sir I I promised to make you a shirt. You're
short of shirts, I know."
She flourished a parcel from under her arm.
" It's a providence, that's what it is!" the devout Mrs.
Pye considered it, emphasizing each word with a stitch.
" A providence and a heavenly ordination; for I've prayed
for a new shirt for the doctor for weeks, that I have, and
now my prayer is answered." She clasped her fervent
hands, and then, in a tremendous penetrating whisper:
" Oh, doctor, do keep your gown buttoned close! "
This morning there was an air about young Molly that
claimed the parson's grave attention. The clear simplicity
of her face, that yesterday was so legible to an inquiring
mind, defied him to read it now. A night had blurred
its candor; its features were sharper-bitten, and resolved
into a most complex subtlety of look, culm,inating in eyes
that harbored depths of obscurity as mystifying as they
were perplexing to an elderly inquisitor. Vain that he
leveled his vision, vain that he marshaled his cunning
apprehension, vain that he trained his deep, penetrating
brain against that face. It was inscrutable. And oh! how
irritating to an alert fine-balanced diviner of things and
men to be beaten by the countenance of woman! A
hoyden, mark you, a milk-bred hoyden; the humiliation
had been less had she been a matron even, who had suf-
fered and achieved, whose face was imprinted with a
strenuous history of the soul. But to be shown incom-
petent by a mien that had no history, and therefore noth-
ing to conceal, was bitterness. Dyspepsia perhaps; he had
learned to suspect that insidious enemy of late; no more
bacon to his breakfast!
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 193
Now it was very plain that a more serious matter than a
third shirt had winged young Molly hither. But she with-
held her business against the retreat of Mrs. Pye. It was
secret and important. She filled the time in by casting
tragic eyes about this apartment of the bachelor. Oh, it
was woe to a precisian's heart I To begin with, " The Tale
of a Tub " of Dr. Swift was propped up on the table beside
his beer, despite that cherished inscription on the fiy-leaf of
"J. S. to his friend J. B." in the Dean's own hand. Thus
the parson spilled half his food down his gown as he oblivi-
ouslyread. Books sprawled loose all over the room ; books
careless, tattered, stained—an egregious company, thicker
than the dust.
"I shall alter this," announced Decision, picking Sir
Thomas Browne, Mr. W. Shakspere, and the outrageous
Monsieur Rabelais off the hearthrug, dusting those gentle-
men, and setting them apart. Mrs. Pye shuddered her
pious horror; the bachelor bristled.
" Oh, it's daring, miss; it's daring! " gasped the true cus-
todian.
"Oil, you—you—you wickedness!" spluttered the roused
ogre.
"I daren't ha' done it, miss; that I daren't," fluttered
Pye confided. '< Them's holy things; he gets all his beauti-
ful pious thoughts from them, and they are not to be touched
by the gross fingers of the worldly. It is a sacrilege, my
dear. "Them is the inspirers of his pulpit utterance, he
says."
The religious woman rose and fled the room to escape her
master's developing wrath. Molly swiftly locked the door.
" At last!" she sighed; and the sigh smote the laugh off
her drawn face, causing the parson's effervescing anger to
postpone its outburst, while she cast the duster down.
" You see, doctor, dear, it's like this: I want a friend."
The parson bowed no polite willingness to serve, being
never the most courteous of men. But he heeded with
both ears; that girl's dramatic face wrought on his soul
much in the manner of rude iElschylus. He should like
194 riERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
to know what the rogue meant. But to begin with, she
darted off at an acute tangent like the hare-brained thing
she was.
" Doctor," she said, " I'm not very good at the Bible,
you know, but isn't there something in it about 'if thy
enemy smite thee on one cheek, do thou proffer the other,'
or words similar ? "
The reverend doctor seemed to think that there was.
" Well, doctor, if somebody smote you, should you do
that ?"
" Oh, certainly 1" responded the moralist on an airy note,
despite the paradox of a sanguinary eye.
"And then, doctor, there's the 'coals of fire' business,
that visiting of evil with good."
" I do that every day," he said with a touching pathos,
" and this day I've begun earlier than usual, you rogue, you
madcap, you saucy minx I You have presumed to disorder
my most precisely arranged theology, and how have I
repaid you ? Why, by expending valuable time upon your
babble. Gro on!"
She was meek, and the judgment day not more serious.
His abnegation of self drew not one smile.
"I've received a fierce hit in the face," she explained;
!' it's the first hard one I've had, and oh! it does smart; I
fear pride's horribly stung."
She attempted a laugh, which lapsed to the suspicion of
a sob.
"Then you can't do better than take the Bible for a guid-
ance," the clergyman assured her uneasily. To transact
his business out of the pulpit unnerved him.
"I should so like to do it, doctor!"
"Heroic, if you do. The Bible is the epic of virtue."
" But it is very hard; though I have a mad, preposterous,
great-hearted uncle that would without winking, wouldn't
he?"
"True," groaned the friend of Fierceheart, "true!
Every week pins a new luster on his crowded coat."
" Yet, doctor, pride stings cruelly, I tell you, and I feel
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
195
myself so insecure in resolution that I need the help of a
friend. Doctor, I have come to you."
Such talk fetched the sweat out of the reverend brow.
He now shot sly glances at her face from under his eye-
lids. He read at once the great struggle of the night.
"Pray with me, doctor. I want to overcome the petti-
ness of my heart."
There was that aggressive simplicity about the creature
that pinned the expostulating parson as neatly as a butter-
fly, permitting him never an inch to wriggle in. She was
deadly earnest. There was a contained glow of passion in
her eyes that delighted as much as it astounded him. But
then it was the very deuce! Catch the reverend gentle-
mdn praying out of business hours.
" It's not Sunday, woman," he reminded her quite mildly.
The imperious one deigned no retort, but set about clear-
ing a space of carpet on which they might kneel down
together. The parson struggled to escape from his grievous
situation, but her decisiveness made the impending thing
inevitable as fate. Her conduct was monstrously sure and
unswerving.
"Now then, doctor, dear, I am ready." She indicated with
majestic finger what he had to do. The clergyman puffed
through his protest like an ungainly whale, but the fine
economy of that demanding tight mouth was more effective
far. " I can't and I shan't." The misery of this logic was
equaled by the mode in which it was expressed.
'' Doctor, you will"—her quietude was cutting. And will
was, of course, victorious. It was a labor prodigious for a
man endowed with a sense of the ridiculous; but then the
snow could no more resist the thaw than could he the reso-
lution of this unchallengeable maid, though he was com-
pelled to lift the lid of the box of his humanity and take a
pinch of pity out ere he could screw his courage to the
dizzy point of praying, in a daylit parlor of a week day, with
a young headstrong slip of folly. It was much to ask, at
seventy, of even a professional in prayer.
And her strife was anxious and long: demand failed.
196 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
entreaty, wheedling, and the long lip met no happier
doom. It was only when she pressed her burning hand
upon his neck that he showed a first symptom of response;
the fever in her spirit then goaded him toward the deed.
He began to conceive how grim a fight hers had been;
what a merry time the devil had had during yesterday,
and what a strong bright pluck was in the girl. The
knowledge ground him to his knees. Together, hand
knitted to hand, and clinched in spirit, they implore Mars
to renew her immature heart with courage.
She rose presently from her searching ordeal, and panted
into a chair and could not speak. A glad fear was quiver-
ing in her wild face. Little sobs of breath sighed out of
her, while her voice struggled to regain lost language.
The parson made her drink powerful brandy.
'' Oh, doctor; oh, doctor, I didn't know you could pray like
that! 'Twas terrible, yet it took me awfully close to God."
The parson was compelled to mix a spoonful of neat
liquor with his own speech, before vanity replied, " Yes,
I'm a pretty fair prayer when I like, or I should he perhaps
more accurate if I said my praying demands a creature
with a soul. And when I get one, and it is bitterly seldom
I do, I think I might tell you, my jewel, there's not a pair of
knees in England to beat mine, though the Bishop of
Worcester's are certainly very good."
There was no man quite so proud in Cumberland that
morning as the man of prayer. When he gazed on the
utter wreck of the perfervid girl, his breast glowed as an
artist's does as he surveys his work. Thunder and light-
ning! give him a soul and he could pray. His Testimonial
was shuddering, sobbing, smiling in that chair. It took
three-fifths of a tumbler of his best French, which was
sacred to those days he had to officiate at funerals, ere
young Molly could be persuaded to forego her laughing
sobs and subdue her painful ecstasy.
" I—I feel a fool," said the Testimonial.
He excused that light ofliense, it being so fair, so spon-
taneous a tribute to his genius.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 197
"I'll admit your provocation," said the artist self»
pleasedly, patting himself and her with the clement phrase.
It then flashed through his flattered mind that the present
bench of prelates was a poverty-smitten affair and a flaw
in the Church. The king had about as much judgment as
a flea. For instance, there was a person of the name of
Blunt who could pray, who was really powerful in prayer,
yet he wore no miter. Ah, well! he had his Testimonial.
She, having quelled the threat of hysteria, ultimately went
back to the house she hated, re-enforced with pluck. As
the Hall's sun-picked profile shone through its fringe of
trees, a sudden nausea welled up in her heart and strove to
reclaim her feet from the damned spot. But a vibration in
its*now strong flbers choked it back, and she opened her
aunt's gate and entered her aunt's grounds. The sun had
painted them hideously fair. She beheld the shade of the
light-swept woods glooming on the house with gold; a
young stream beside it, running and rejoicing in the
meadows, and on a hedge a mighty happiness in one de-
luded bird that had mistaken the deceitful autumn's sun
glow for a promise of the spring. But the girl knew better:
she was aware that unrelenting winter had yet to come.
Her feet twinkled with the sun, as they skimmed with him
along the drive. In the air was a nip of frost very clear
and mellowing to the blood, and piercing to the girl's it
cooled and sweetened it, thus completing what passionate
fight and prayer began.
She ran to her aunt straightway, fearing delay lest the
high spirit of battle should go out of her. She dreaded a
return of that vindictive bestial hate that had animated her
so long last night, and had tried to reduce her to the level
of the brute. Festering pride had then made her gnash her
teeth in the dark, and had incited her to whine and spit
with vengeance. Now her blood was saner and more pure;
thanks to a stout heart, an old man with a spark of soul
within him, and an imperial morning Gk)d had sent her as
an answer to her prayers.
Lady Seton was in a light doze, so that, soft as was the
198 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
entrance of her niece, it called her eyes open, and drew a
querulous "Well?" out of her sick spirit. Hours she had
brooded and wept over the image of her close-hugged boy;
hours her dying breath had blasted all his enemies. He
had three; the man Blunt, James the insane, whom an
ironical God had dubbed " father," and a pauper who must
be protected. Here was the pauper simpering over her
pillow. And as this most obsequious dependent brushed
the forehead of her patron with her lip and her low bent
bosom fluttered near her cheek, she was conscious of an
absurd commotion in it. She was unaware that it was pro-
voked by a snake that lay there, who was trying to shake its
coils out; else she had been less irritably amazed by what
she mistook for weak excess of feeling.
" You seem moved, dear," sarcasm croaked.
The rasp of the voice was like a speck of grit in the flne
mechanism of the pauper's senses. Thus she kissed her
patron again, and put one arm tenderly about her.
"You are too kind, dear; too solicitous," sarcasm fleered
with a smile that was not a smile. But the trodden worm
refused to turn.
One night had wrought bitter change in this old lady.
It had soured the milk of a mother's heart; also had terri-
bly warped that heart, permitting it no room now to enfold
the unkind world. It was forced to spurn its enemies with
a curse, for its shrunk chamber had only space enough to
house her son. No room there to shelter the inimical; she
condemned his every foe to the cold night of her hate;
uncharitable it might be, perilous to the soul, perhaps, since
she could see Death behind the curtain waiting to snatch at
her throht, but devilishly necessary when a child has to be
defended from a father who is maddened with his wrath.
The girl had prayed for a bowed pride that might descend
to lick the dust from her patron's shoes, lest it should flnd
a more scornful occupation. It could never forgive the
mother for her intolerable speech. She felt that to suffer
her would be the highest achievement it could ever com-
pass, yet now to behold her harsh and angry grief was to
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 199
have shreds of pity ripped out of her resenting heart. It
was a torture to witness the desecration of one who was
trying to yield her life up in honor; it was too plainly seen
that this cold hard rage had robbed the fair countenance of
its placid victory. The dying woman, secure in the worship
of her sou and her husband, had meant to ascend the scaf-
fold smiling, and to humbly and pleasantly kiss the hand
of Death, the executioner. This was impracticable now;
the last dread scene would be enacted amid soul-consuming
shriek and tears. Unhappy woman!
The more the perverted mother bespattered her with
polite abuse, the more obsequious grew the girl.
^ I think you lack spirit, my dear," said gibes, with ugly
mouth, " and in the young I consider a slavish acquies-
cence under insult a melancholy thing."
"Auntie, dear, I owe you so much." The meek hypocrite
smiled as stifled rage, that snake at her breast, turned in on
it and bit its soft flesh.
" But, my dear, Setons abhor the spiritless; and, my dear,
you will, I know, forgive me, since death is never polite
and ceremonious, if I warn you against my Tom. Forget
him! In one year his imperious heart would crush you to
the grave; I would recommend you some plain and home-
faring yeoman. My dear, excuse me saying I am disap-
pointed in you, and that your heart can be no mate for my
boy's haughty one, but a failing voice leaves me no time
to sugar my words, and, believe me, it is your ultimate
welfare that prompts me to wound you now."
" Oh, my dear aunt, I know it!" The hypocrite knitted
her teeth on the lie.
" My dear, he will one day be a great hero, and, my dear,
if you will still pardon my disinterestedness—for it is
wholly for your sake I speak—you, my dear, are not the
one to embrace the full conception of so high a word, and
therefore will be unable to accompany him in his pride.
And so wide a chasm between you will only mean misery
for both. I hope you heed me, my dear."
" What a courage yours is, dear aunt, to have talked to
200 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
me so fully and so plainly, and so honestly on a theme so
very delicate. Believe me, I shall heed what you have
said all my life. And Tom, I think, can scarcely help be-
ing such a hero."
The snake showed its head a little in those last phrases,
but the young stoic, instantly seizing the hissing reptile,
thrust its teeth hack into the deep and cruel wound it had
already made within her, though, as she did so, it hit her
finger to the hone.
These sufferings were the prototype of many; hours
every day she was made to endure the shrewd tongue of
woman, well wielded. None so servile as she; noon and
night she was beside that loathed pillow, meekly kissing
the rod. The too sedulous slave was hardly ever in bed,
dancing attendance on her tormentor till the flesh rebelled;
the cheeks drooped in languor; the arch beauty fell white
and thin. She certainly overacted her part; hut the escape
of that uneasy snake from her bosom was her perpetual
fear. It hungered to dash its fang into its dying enemy.
It demanded a bite for a blow, as its snakish nature is;
only one, just one! How it squirmed to anticipate the
sweet pleasure of its teeth playing with its foe's soft nerves 1
But happily she kept the case very rigidly about the viper,
though indeed she erred on the side of tightness. She was
too strict with its captivity, knowing the thing to be in-
sidious and hard to entice back when once at large.
Thus the nursing of her aunt staggered even the profes-
sion; and old Monkton of Carlisle would rub his hands
over Sir James's port and swear he'd never seen such dili-
gence in his life.
" I tell you, Seton, that girl's a marvel. If it's kept up to
this pitch, I shall give that wife of yours a year. Though,
'pon honor, at first I didn't think it possible. I ought to
know a nurse when I see one; but if that young Molly
isn't a revelation I'm a codfish. I think, Seton, you'll admit
my experience; and, man, I tell you I've seen conscientious
nurses, sedulous nurses, determined nurses, tender nurses,
but I stop at a passionate nurse. Faith, I've never seen
PEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 201
anything like it. And who was that fool who said women
have no compassion for one another?"
He gave the nurse different speeches, though. He would
tap her shoulder about twice a week, and tell her, brusque
as a surgeon:
" Say, young 'un, don't you be a fool. You'll be down
next, if you don't snatch more rest."
" Nonsense!" would smile the stoic, killing a yawn with
her hand.
" Well, I'm telling you."
And once she put the absurd, the unfathomable query:
" Doctor, honestly, do you think my bitterest enemy could
point out any particular in which I had neglected my
duties as a nurse?"
That she was not asking to be patted on the back, he
knew; yet what in conscience did she mean! He was a
miser with praise as a rule, but in this instance he was only
able to be censorious in one regard.
" Oh! your nursing's very fair, I think: that is, allowing
for your youth and inexperience, though you've one bad
fault—too smiling, too conciliatinij-, too humble, too soft,
my dear. It's well to bully a bit, or they grow pam-
pered and querulous, especially the aged. Bear it in mind,
will you?"
" I'll try, sir," bowed the most meek, " but it '11 be rather
a strain on my clement nature, don't you think," the sly
addition.
" Oh, will it!" Disbelief had a twinkling eye; and sud-
denly the old doctor invested her chin between his finger
and his thumb, and examined the laughing face with an
eye that missed nothing. " Oh, will it! " And he boxed
her ears for her naughtiness. "Catch me wedding that
nose and that mouth, that's all!"
" Nobody axed you, sir," she courtesied.
" And nobody '11 axe you, my fine bird, save he who
axed King Charles," the brisk old gentleman rallied, who
enjoyed a dram and a skirmish and, above all, a beautiful
face, " if you don't catch a bit more sleep. You're lean
202 FIERCEHEAET, THE SOLDIER.
and sharp as a rat." A speech that sent her to the mirror,
as the cunning old gentleman had calculated that it would;
and when she saw the wreck of her roses she went to her
room and allowed herself a full five hours.
And this is how the days went, the weeks went with
sorrow brooding, and a black cloud of anger over all. She
was with the general little, but that little shocked her.
With notorious regularity he sought aid of wine, his
sympathetic friend. The old man retired into himself, had
not so much as a word for a dog, made a poor figure at
everything except his drinking, and hour upon hour
would he take his seat in the chimneyside, his chin
between his hands. Sometimes he might be seen reading
a great while in " The Manual of Military Conduct" of
the late famed Major General Rogerson. The strange
thing was that he never moved beyond one chapter.
When he got to the end of it, he would turn back the
leaves and start again. It dealt with the punishment of
traitors. Again, after sitting with a rapt, thinking air all
one forenoon, he was seen to suddenly get up without a
word and quietly tear down a handsome painting of his
son, that smiled above the mantelpiece. His unsteady
hands found the power to crack it into fragments, and to
commit them to the grate. On a subsequent occasion he
took a knife to the family Bible, and neatly erased the
entry of the birth of Thomas Blunt Seton, and often his
face frightened the parson, while he was beseeching for-
giveness for this son. He never had a word about his
wife; he did not attempt to visit her; but the alarming
and the strange thing was that on more than one occasion
had young Molly caught him listening at her chamber
door at dead of night, to assure himself that she was still in
life. On her side the old woman never spoke of him, yet
on the other hand was in a daily rapture on the subject of
her son. The parson had this news out of Molly, and
would often go and pull his hair in private. The reverend
man began to permit himself more secular talk thaF^
decently adorned the cloth; there was none now to play
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 203
chess and take punch with him, so that he relapsed upon
rude language and one Michel de Montaigne. An awful
breach now yawned between him and his friend.
One day in the thick of winter there came a diversion for
young Molly. About noon she was in the grounds, taking
the air, when a man, on a blown, much-spattered horse
came trotting from the gates and stopped at her side.
" Am I right, miss?" He waved a letter.
She gave an eye to its inscription: " Miss Mary Appleby,
The Hall, Solwayside, Cumberland." Her heart leaped
and fluttered at the writing.
"I'm to take an answer hack," the messenger said.
Shh walked to the stables with him, and issued orders for
the entertainment of man and beast; and then, two steps at
a time, she climbed to her room. With a trembling lip she
quickly paid toll upon this letter for its long journey, and
then with agitated fingers tore its cover off. It was dated
Derby, December 4, 1745.
CHAPTER XX.
THE HERO RESIGNS THE SWORD FOR THE PEN.
"My Molly!"—with an emphatic stroke under the
" my "—" I shall ask you to judge between my father and
me. Ever since this matter happened, I have been pestering
my head with what I ought to do on your account. I hate
thinking, which will explain why I have been so long find-
ing a resolve; but having now obtained one, after being
driven nearly mad, I propose to lay the facts of each case
before you wholly, so that you can come to a decision like
a justice in a court.
" My father's side is that, himself being so stout a
Hanoverian, he considers every opponent of the Guelph not
only an enemy to the State, but also his own immediate foe.
You are familiar, I do not doubt, with his unhappy deed
within the presence; and he calls me traitor, has denied me
14
204 FIEECEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
kinship, has cut me off from his house and heart, and has
sworn, if I put my nose in Cumberland, either to bring me
to the scaffold with his own right hand, or to fulfill that
which he has already attempted to perform. I take an
almost melancholy pleasure in this recapitulation, I am so
proud of him: it will make fine history, but the devil is
that it also makes a part of mine! From my youth I have
been trained to accept the Guelph, without daring to frame
a single unfaithful question; my father having bled
for that family, and my mother's, Haverloighs of Devon-
shire, have opposed the Stuarts a hundred years. But I,
having arrived at an age when the brain of a man wishes
to walk alone, have investigated for myself these tenets of
my parents without passion, I hope. I tried to shirk the
matter so long as I might, but when this king put a foot in
England, my heart with a sudden new desire craved truth.
I got the histories out; read them, meditated on them, then
read them again with a cold thrill of horror. It was then I
first saw the falsity of my father's creed. He speaks of
Liberty, but Justice is the father of Liberty. Those who
would exalt the Guelph, and maintain him in that posture
he has so unlawfully usurped, trample the father under
foot in the name of the son; huzzaing for Liberty, they
crush out the breath of Justice while they shout. God
poured the blood-royal in the veins of the Stuart; thus, by
the patent of Heaven has he been called to occupy the
throne of his country till his seed shall perish. God only
has the power to judge, correct, or condemn a king. But you
know the story; it tears my heart to repeat it. I have vowed
over the gword to spill the last drop of my own honor-
able spirit, that special gift of Heaven, to expiate a portion
of this accumulated shame of England. And, to summon
an illustration out of myself, is it given to any mob,
bethink you, to filch from me my blood and my pedigree,
the fruit of centuries? It has sought to steal these from the
Stuarts.
"It is decreed that I shall sacrifice home, the ties of
kindred, perhaps, Molly, all a young man has, for the sake
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 206
of niy soul. But I do my duty. You will recognize my
father's phrase; never have I so reverenced the white hairs
of that noble, that misguided man as I do this hour. He
does his duty. But I ask you to judge between us; the mes-
senger will await your answer. If you have none to make,
your silence I shall take to mean Amen, and never again
can we look upon each other. Then no more will my heart
be sensible to the sunshine, nor will yours; only once in
our lives can we drink the rapture and the purity of a sum-
mer morning. And so farewell!
" As to this high enterprise in which I am embarked, it
promises to be the most unhappy business; it is melancholy
to witness the criminal apathy of the supposed friends of
our king. To-day we are come to Derby, yet the horrid
thing is that scarcely a man will lift his hand. It has been
a similar tale all the way down from Scotland—fair words,
smiling faces, but in every town they stand aloof. It is too
certain that we can push on no farther; the king's follow-
ing is pitiful scant, his Highlanders, men that gained the
day of Preston, now snarl dissent from morn till sunset,
and his Majesty himself has his chin hanging always in his
breast. I begin to despair. My Lord George, who has
hitherto shown so bright a face, is to-day insistent on
retreat; and that, as you know, must mean fatality. The
kingdom gives us as much good-will as it does the Guelph,
yet its enthusiasm is for neither; and from the lips of
France flow promises, the heart of it refuses to redeem;
Cumberland is out with eight thousand men. Wade is
marching down from Yorkshire, Byng is blockading East
Scotland, Vernon is in the Channel with an eye upon the
French, and at Finchley a third army is being very
speedily prepared. Where is the hope for a thousand
or so ill-armed, worse drilled, poor-spirited men? God
help us!
"For myself, this campaign has taken the nature of a
triumph; I am become a person of importance, as no doubt
to my cost T shall be presently informed. Having had the
felicity to be of service to the king at Preston when the
206 FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
person of my royal master was twice in a considerable peril,
he has professed a singular interest—indeed, I might almost
dare to say friendship—toward me, and actually has
installed me in a situation most honorably near his
person. And this is the more strange, since I have scarce
a drop of the Celtic blood to recommend me. But my
fortune has exceeded even this: within a ten days of that
glorious Preston his Majesty dispatched me to the South
with letters of privacy to thirteen gentlemen and noblemen
in London and its neighborhood. Their names I am under
oath to hold concealed, which makes the honor the more
appreciable, since the matter is allowed to be so incrimi-
nating and so grave. As you see I am now returned; with
what success I dare not say. But you will be aware that
should even so much as I have told you reach the
Hanoverian's ear, it will multiply any price that may be
set upon my head. Not that I fear; those thirteen names,
unhappy number I were never so safe as now; would I not
defy kings and empires to tear them from my tongue.
And oh, Molly, forgive the vanity! but his Majesty pub-
lished that identical opinion to his council and Lord George
the night his choice was conferred on me. It would be a
proud folly to repeat even to your ear his actual speech,
but it was of a nature to make my dreams sweet. Nor is
the king ever wearied of telling me that he loves my father
for the truest soldier he ever saw. Will you deny that the
king, my master, can be generous!
" Before subscribing myself once more yours ' to all eter-
nity' I have so greatly dared as to con what is just set
down, and lo! my absurd failure is too plain. You will
notice that my premises were two, but I have been at
pains to observe neither. One was to be explicit and
impartial; the other to treat you as a judge. To see how
egregiously I have departed from this lawyer attitude
will make you smile; the truth is that I lack the patience
to be anything but partisan. I am better with the sword,
I think. I can limn in my own side well enough; but
when it comes to that of the villain Guelph—curse him, I
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 207
cannot plead for him. Yet you are to remember that if
the present messenger, an honest and carefully instructed
fellow, answerless returns, I shall know that you have
decided for my father, and renounced forever him who
subscribes himself,
" Your eternal
(f 17
The discreet biographer of these lovers, perhaps scenting
applause, craves one second to announce that he has cut
from this letter a growth of luscious epithet that demands a
special phase of mind to be appreciated duly. Besides
Cupidr was always a poor hand with the pen; he has com-
posed basketfuls of sonnets to the eyebrow of Psyche, but
who durst print it?
Psyche drank each syllable in a fever of pleasant fear,
then, smiling a sigh, put the letter down gently; then,
laughing a tear, picked it up again, more gently still, and
tried, having read the lines themselves, to read between
them. She was asked to choose "betwixt George and
Charlie," and the pity was she knew no politics. Her
unfathomable face grew strenuous and brilliant, and she
crushed the letter so harshly in her hand that she squeezed
young Cupid out.
" Don't put yourself about, love," the knowing youth
implored; and he winked at himself like the very wise
child he was.
Without so much as another word the knowing youth
charmed a key from her pocket with surreptitious hand,
opened her cabinet with its aid, took quill, ink, and paper
out, laid them on the little table beneath the window,
guided her hand to the sheet, and dictated:
"My own, how dare you ask me? I have only one
King—guess him! Molly.
" P. S.—I have no politics, but Charlie seems a very
pretty name, I like Charlie."
208 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"Hum," approved Cupid, "you've got every word down
quite as I said, but those trembly, wabbly letters very
certainly say that your hand's been guided. And hasn't it?"
She now slid downstairs with his letter in her pocket
and its answer in her hand. There was commotion in the
dining parlor; there was the parson in it, rappee re-
nounced for tobacco, of which he was taking soft pipe-
pulls; and fumbling, too, at the bristles on his chin; all
eloquent of mind's distress. And worse, the general was
sitting stern and straight as justice lapped in its scarlet
dignity, with the face of a magistrate, at least. Before him
stood the messenger, full of protest and apologetic cough.
Horror! she drew her head back to effect an escape. In
her own concerns she had even erred to the point of for-
getting her uncle for an hour. Oh, why hadn't she used
precaution! Too late now.
'' Molly, close that door and come here!" was the magis-
trate's order.
In a flash her decision was to face so perilous a situation;
thus she entered and looked at the parson with appeal in
her eye. But that inferior wit puffed his impotence.
With alarm she noted a profound change in her uncle:
for seven weeks had he sat like a stone in his chimneyside,
dull and cold to every serious affair, and frightening the
butler with his inroads on the bin. But now a dark light
peopled his eye, his grim mouth was again unsealed, and
his sunk countenance bitter with determination. And
when he wore that face he would have torn a secretive
bosom up rather than be thwarted in the truth.
"Stand there; I shall want you presently."
She dared not disobey the awful voice. She shook like
a bush of autumn leaf with the wind among it, while the
magistrate riddled the messenger.
"You admit, my man, that you have borne a message
from a traitor of the Pretender's rabble at Derby, and that
you are pledged to bear an answer back? Then tell me if
you have not taken arms up against your loyal sovereign
and enlisted in the mob of this Charlie—wretch?"
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 209
" Which I haven't, your worship," whined the apologist,
who knew a tight corner when he saw one. "I'm an
honest 'un, I am, an honest landlord; the Gk)at and Com-
passes at Little Eaton is my inn, and I don't lie. T'other
day a mighty tall and proud young person, with a face as
handsome as blazes, comes to my house and pays for a pot,
and says he, just as your worship would, ' Your name's
Bleat, I think,' says he, ' and I am recommended to you
for an honest man. Now, Bleat, I s'pose you'd be happy
to pick up five guineas for a bit of a journey to Cumberland.'
And that, your worship, is how I come by this letter; 'ow
did I know a word about traitors? though, when I come to
think, I might 'a' done, for as he give me the letter, he
rolled*his eyes pretty ferocious like, and took his pistol out
and showed it me and says, 'It's a bargin. Bleat, and.
Bleat, play me one trick between your going and returning
and, 'fore God! I shoot you deader than a stoat.' That
give me a turn, that did, your worship."
The reluctant magistrate accepted this snuffling defense
to the best of his impartiality; but dolefully replied:
" Yours is the voice of villainy. Bleat, and could I quite
persuade myself that you were a rebel, I should trot you
ofiF to Carlisle jail. You had better thank your facile
tongue, my man."
Bleat shuddered and blest his stars; the eye of that dark
old beast struck to his spine and was wonderfully like cold
water trickling down it.
"And," the magistrate pursued, "this is the lady you
gave the letter to, and you wait the answer? Well, I
believe I see the answer."
A glance shot to the note in Molly's hand.
"Molly, come here!"
She had no intention of obeying such rude behest; but
did. His voice leapt at her, and somehow grasped her
limbs and drew her by brute force to his chair. She shut
her eyes an instant when she got there; his face was
sickening.
" Molly, give me the traitor's letter."
210 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
The caged bird began to beat against ber bars.
" If you please, uncle "
"Stop"—be pinned the bird tighter to captivity—'*1
demanded the letter, not words."
" Uncle, it's mine." She flashed him an eye.
" Child, I ask you not to exasperate me," rasped the
patriot. " I am beyond playing now. Either say you will
or you will not."
In a spasm of terror she recalled the deeply incrimina-
ting passages within it. Besides be bad no right! The
letter was solely to ber; was of the utmost privacy; who
would tolerate so preposterous a demand? Certainly not
she, if only for the protection of Tom.
" Ob, sir, I can't, I can't!" desperation cried.
" You must and shall! " retorted determination.
But she felt the glow of right within. The letter was
exclusively ber own; bis claim, no matter bow stern, was
inadmissible; and in ignoring it she was shielding a son
from a dreadful parent.
" You have no right, sir!" the ringing reply.
The sparks that flew from ber eyes fell into the powder-
keg of bis wrath, and provoked an explosion.
" Must I prove to you, my dear, that might is right?"
The abrupt bush in the tune that embodied this unpleasant
inquiry bit ber like a blow. She knew the portent of that
sudden quiet: Action.
" You stand within the pale of the law," the magistrate
told ber softly; " you bold a letter that belongs neither to
you nor to me, but to the king; and the supposition is that
it contains news of the first importance."
" Indeed it doesn't, sir." She knew she lied.
" A woman's word is worth nothing in a matter of this
nature. Girl, release it!"
His outstretched band asked for the document; while bis
cold eye noted with a diabolic pleasure that bis words bad
dashed blood down ber face and throat. A terrible unyield-
ing figure of a man be made as she fronted him with strung
mien, stanch as a queen's, with eyes that stoutly
FIERCEHEAKT, THE SOLDIER. 211
encountered his, undimmed in their defiance, with mouth
close-molded and lips pinched in as ugly as his own. But
the lying young rogue, the dissembler! Again she quivered
like a leaf when it is breathed upon: she was in a vertigo
of fear. She had occasionally marveled that her fireside
uncle could have commanded armies, but from this day
Fierceheart destroyed all cause for further marveling.
" Uncle, I won't!"
Uncle slipped his watch, elegant, gold bediamonded, a
present from the king, upon the tablecloth.
" I give you one minute. If you have not then obeyed I
shall have you seized and searched. You are dealing with
a magistrate, mind, and you can as soon defeat death as you
can the law."
Had her pride had a minute to spare, it would have
howled forthright at this outrage. It hadn't, though; it
was only the purest part of her, her heart, that loved a
traitor, that had time to act. Too well it knew the might
and brutality of the law; she would be mashed to pulp in.
sixty seconds by that dread instrument. Vain to resist it,
but—she might cheat it, though. By the time the second-
hand was ticking on the fifty-fifty she had put on a smile
to match the one that Fierceheart wore. She then dived her
hand in her dress with baffling agility; out came the
traitor's letter; and she made a dart at the fire and thrust
it far and deep between the bars. The wide-mouthed grate
began instantly to lick its nature out with fiery tongues of
blaze.
" There, uncle!" She cast up her heavy-curled head;
she set her throat back.
Fierceheart winged one glance to the grate, then like a
rocket shot clean out of his chair. He flung himself to his
knees by the bars: he drove one old naked hand sheer
between the teeth of the fagots and drew the fast burning
paper out. Then he dropped it underfoot and crushed the
flames out with his heel. And the moment he picked it from
the rug and slipped it in his pocket, the sight of the charred
document drew a shamefully audible groan from the girl.
212 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
She had seen that it was merely the stout wrappings of the
packet that were as yet consumed; the undefiled white of
the actual letter itself shone through the ruins of the cover.
And now her old uncle had a face harrowed with agony.
Those fiery teeth had bitten far through his wizened skin,
digging their fangs wickedly deep in his fiesh. And while
the stoic bound his handkerchief tightly about his tortured
hand in an arrogant silence, his suffering half-quelled the
rebel. At least a few soft tears of hers plopped from her
eyes to the carpet.
"Oh, uncle, forgive me I "
But Fierceheart was in no mood to play at humanity.
"Now, Molly," he said, "burn that note you have in-
dited to the traitor. No person dwelling under roof of
mine shall be permitted to correspond with enemies of the
king. You understand! "
She saw his charred hand and prepared to yield meekly:
she saw his uncompromising mouth and made her mind up
to rebel.
" Molly, I would recommend your instant obedience."
" And if, uncle, it is not forthcoming ?"
"You will either burn that note, or walk straight out of
this house."
She was galled; pride maddened her with a swarm of
deep-shot darts. Besides, the necessity! Tom had ex-
plicitly said that he should put one construction only, and
that the darkest, on her silence.
"We'll go out of this accursed house," sang pride and
expedience.
" You've been brutally dealt with, dear," piped self-pity.
"Let him and his house go to the deuce!" spluttered
rage.
"Yes, let 'em!" acquiesced their friend, my lord the
devil.
" Then, uncle, I'll go," she retorted without tears.
" Go at once, then," said the inexorable, pointing to the
door.
She had made the first step toward the door, when the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 213
parson for the first time interposed. During all the tur-
moil of that half hour, the reverend man had had his
ineffectual head sunk in Butler's " Analogy." He had ex-
pressed no opinion hitherto; he was acutely conscious of
his own incompetence, it seemed. The fact was, he was
afraid; such bloody passages at arms were frightful to the
loud-mouthed coward. But now as the vanquished gladia-
tor, beholding her conqueror's down-bent thumb, was
resigning her soul for slaughter, he plucked her arm,
whispering.
" Remembering your aunt, my dear, poor child ?"
Sooth, the parson was not such an owl as he appeared;
no reminder could have been so timely. Must all for which
she had prayed, struggled, and endured these late weeks of
bitterness be renounced to gratify a momentary pique ?
No, when all was said, the parson was not such an owl as
he looked: he could pray, and further the man's shrewd
eye had penetrated to that corner in her heart where its
keenest wound was so cunningly concealed from an un-
sympathetic world. By no means must she concede to her
hated, never-to-be-forgiven aunt one thrill of victory.
Fearless of cost, she must continue to heap up the coals of
fire on that offending head I
'' But, doctor," she whispered back,'' uncle is cruel, cruel!
And if this reply is not sent to Tom, he will accept my
silence as a wrenching apart forever."
The parson groaned his chronic impotence. The impetu-
ous tide of those deep waters of catastrophe was dashing
the breath out of the poor swimmer, as usual. Though, to be
quite just, his one word of reminder had wholly achieved
his object; the rebel now knew how ignominious it would
be for her to abandon the woman who had insulted her,
wherefore she startled relentless Fierceheart, by wheeling
round in a flash and throwing the all-potent reply to the
flames.
"Uncle, I'm going to stay."
"That's right, my dear," he sighed through his pain and
his weariness. He turned to the messenger then. "Away,
214 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Bleat; and if your master hungers for an answer, tell him
that rope and pistol are the only answers we keep for
traitors in Cumberland."
Bleat shuffled out, mighty grateful for freedom and a
whole skin.
The battle fought and lost, Molly ran forth to seek
bandages and a balsam to succor the wounded enemy, who
was now pacified and temperate. She tenderly bathed and
bound his injuries; while the terrible warrior, with an
accession of his ancient sweetness, caressed her curls with
his undamaged hand. The parson and he then left the
room together: the clergyman for much-needed sanctuary
at the Vicarage; Fierceheart to investigate the traitor's
letter behind locked doors. The girl was left solitary with
a complaining heart. It was bursting with repulsive
notions. At first defeat, galled and clamorous to retaliate;
but when presently it grew more sane it yearned to avert
catastrophe between her lover and herself. But how I He
had plainly stated what no answer would mean to him.
She cudgeled her unresponsive head a long, dark hour,
and the world grew black. It was imperative that some-
thing should be done; yet inquiry evoked that the messen-
ger was long hence, and it then appeared that her only
line of communication was snapped indeed. It was at the
moment she was conscious of an undignified inclination to
relieve her feelings by an outburst of hair-tearing anger,
that a diversion was presented. A note arrived from Dr.
Blunt; " Come and try my new Pekoe, will you ? Got a
new box from town yesterday, and I want an expert's
opinion." ^he had a keen nose for a subterfuge; thus she
smelt one here. Accordingly she went. On marching
into the bachelor's disorderly abode, she found a large tray
set for tea, hut in a rather whimsical manner; a saucer, a
cup and a spoon, but in lieu of a stack of buttered mufflns
looming beside them, as was the rule of every conventional
household, there were paper, pens, and ink.
"Bleat's in the kitchen drinking to Mrs. Pye, and his
horse is in the yard," announced this second traitor.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 215
"You dear, good, kind " His aider and abettor
ending by falling bodily upon him, and hugging him till
most of his breath had said a painful farewell to his body.
It was by this illicit means, then, that the traitor actually
did receive his answer. But while these conspirators
plotted and smashed the law to atoms at the Vicarage, the
embodiment of justice treated it far less cavalierly at the
Hall. Inspection assured him that merely the envelope of
his son's letter had been damaged. His son 1 Well, let the
term pass unchallenged for once; now and again it took a
fiend's delight in stealing into his mind, perhaps with the
idea of playing a trick on fretting resolution. He read
witlf grim care, and assimilated one bright fact. Heaven
had put a weapon in his hand. It was clear as day that
this traitor possessed the names of thirteen noblemen and
gentlemen who had been involved in a correspondence with
the Pretender. Their names would be of immediate value
to the state. No sooner was the discovery made, and this
refiection appended to it, than he determined to weave a
network of precaution, so that, when the impending rout of
the rebels did occur, a special plan might be adopted to
insure the arrest of one who held such important evidence
against those sly double-dealers who dealt with Charles in
secrecy. No; he would see to it that the possessor of such
information did not easily slip through the fingers of the
king. Nor is it to be thought that he felt that there would
be any glorification of himself, nor any vindication of the
conduct of his house, if he called the Throne's particular
attention to this important matter. He knew his duty and
he did it. He asked no more. When his country loomed
within his eye, it filled the entire range of his vision; it left
no inch of space for self to be reflected on his retina. His
flesh and his heart were nought when country exhibited
her massive person. Which should explain why this old,
diminished man, so soon as he had grasped the import of
the traitor's pen, summoned Daniel to pack his valise, and
also had the chaise prepared. He would catch the night
coach from Carlisle and post straightway to the king. Ah 1
216 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
what had he to tell his Majesty. He would not falter,
though yet there was a craven wish within him that it
would please a merciful God to make this the beginning of
his last journey. Age looked out at him from every mirror;
his febrile hands were never steady now; mud clogged his
brain most mornings, and sometimes lingered there all day,
his feet were not so certain as they used to be; yesterday,
for instance, when he fell on the carpet rather heavily,
their services seemed to desert him suddenly for no
apparent reason. And the world was cold; its conception
of duty was perilously low, its ethical ideas were either
parody or taint, not excepting those of even a doctor in
divinity. Ah, well; he didn't complain I and if the polluted
earth robbed him of the consolations of age, sure he'd beg
none. He was too proud to beseech a little love. Yet he
considered it strange, even harsh, when he condescended to
think of it, which was seldom, that he should stand so
alone in his white hairs; three magnificent sons dead to him;
a dying wife on the far side of a chasm of anger; his life-
long friend found unworthy in this crucial time of twilight
creeping subtly on the soul, and a young niece he had
reared and fondled, now rebellious. These defections left
a void in his heart. Country could not entirely fiJl that
heart, it seemed.
CHAPTER XXI.
involves some straxning at the gnat.
When Molly returned from the Vicarage, and learned
that her uncle was away to London and the king, her first
impulse was to kick up her heels, in the manner of a colt
when it unexpectedly slips its halter; but then refiection
came and banished rose color. Why he had so suddenly
gone was self-evident. Was he not acting on certain pass-
ages in that letter to promote the surer undoing of her
darling? Bitterly she divined that he had gone to call the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 217
king's explicit attention to the existence of so virulent a
traitor, and to suggest more stringent measures for his
capture. When she informed the parson of the letter and
these fears, he sighed and damned the name of James.
"That man '11 drive me to Bedlam yet," he lamented,
taking his watch from his pocket in mistake for his snuff-
box, and politely inquiring who and what the dickens had
got the lid? when he tried to open it in the usual manner.
" Faith, I'm afraid he will," quoth wickedness.
Fierceheart was back in a short nine days, armed with a
hideous document: a warrant under the signature of my
Lord Privy Seal, authorizing Major General Sir James
Seto% G. C. B., to arrest one Thomas Blunt Seton, son of
the said Major General, etc., in any place and under any
circumstances within his most Gracious Majesty's Do-
minions, extreme measures to be resorted to if necessary.
Molly and the parson were treated to an early sight of
the murderous thing; and they viewed it much in the
manner that the law-observing innocent view that horrid
ax sitting on the block in the Tower.
The parson pronounced it an awful warning one minute,
and the next threatened to burn it, if it was not at once
removed from under his nose.
" Faugh, man! it stinks."
" It makes me feel quite sick and ill," moaned the faint
Molly.
"It's cannibalic brutality, and you're a Yahoo, James; a
Yahoo!" thumped the parson, while Molly applauded with
her shudders.
Fierceheart defiantly transferred the bloodthirsty sheep-
skin to his coat.
They were prompt to remark further change in Fierce-
heart. An insignificant nine-days' journey to the king
and back again had sufficed to introduce a new devil to his
mind. It was subsequently often his pleasure to carefully
harrow their fine sensibilities by parading in an unctuously
quiet manner the proposal to capture the traitor. They
would be sitting together of an evening in the parlor for
218 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
an hour as of yore, when he would take this warrant from
his coat, and startle the silence with an outrage on their
ears. He would read every word of the warrant aloud
without a context or comment, slowly and softly in a con-
tained voice, and having finished the perusal, just as
solemnly would he put it back. He gained such a hru-
tality of sweetness in his tone-effect sometimes that to
listen to it was to impose a strain upon the reason.
He had also returned with another unnatural trick from
that nine-days' journey. When he was alone, or at a
moment when he felt himself unobserved, he was often
known to mumble a phrase under his breath. Molly dis-
covered its import one day:
"The king feels compelled to think that the treason
Thomas, my son, has displayed against his country has in
a measure dishonored the pure name of our house."
Whenever they could catch the sounds of his moving
lips, their burden was ever the same.
" I begin to think the king's a brute," the parson con-
fessed to his fellow-conspirator.
"I've thought so a long time, doctor, dear." She laughed
to choke a groan down. " But then I may he wrong; for
years I thought you the same, doctor; didn't I?"
And on the spot she melted his tenderness quite with
the combination of liquid lights from a dark eye swim-
ming with caresses, and by an expectant pursed mouth
that drew the old gentleman's lips like steel to a magnet.
"But you'll begin to think me a witch."
She simulated shyness. Which was hardly a success,
for her cheeks failed to bloom with the blushes necessary
to color the deceit.
"Or a siren at least," admitted the philosopher; "or
maybe the devil."
All the while, however, they were horribly aware that
make-believe is a childish game, insipid as water. It was
a device to keep their hearts up. God knew their need.
Fierceheart never spoke of his wife; his wife never spoke
of Fierceheart, but how often of her son! She prattled
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 219
over him morning and night like a little girl does over her
doll. How she hugged that sawdust image, weeping and
laughing over the beads of his eyes and his sunny features
of wax. There never was so fair and pure a creature in
the flesh as that exquisite simulacrum. But one morning
of snow, when the sharp air thrilled in the blood like wine,
and when a chance sunbeam, flowing down from the far
white hills to the sea, was so gorgeously welcomed by
nature that her frost-swept swards and woods received it
with a blaze of jewels outvying the pomp of Empire; at
this exhilarating time of sun in winter, of hope in desola-
tion, the mother elbowed herself once upon her pillows to
meet4he returning beam, and seeing it, whispered hungrily
to the nurse:
" Will my sunbeam never come, I wonder?"
It flung the girl into a turbulent dream, beset with ruddy
battle and young Mars stark in his snow-shroud; or, as the
light from the hills died out of the window and her visions
deepened to the hour of night, she beheld the ignominy
of chains—fettered wrists and the nation fleering, and a
foul mob spitting on his name.
"Child," said the mother, "you are often vacant, I
notice, for one of your sprightly years."
She delved deep, as women know how, into these far-
away eyes.
" Child, what can you be thinking about?"
With a return of long-absent kindness she pushed the
girlish curls gently back from the white brow, but in an
instant the chilling sense of those fingers of the invalid,
transparent, gentle, soft as gossamer, playing with her
unforgiving head, shot ice among her niece's arteries.
She shivered.
"You shiver, too. I fear you have been too good to me,
dear—the times I've robbed you of your sleep; the times
you've nursed me till you've nearly dropt from weariness!
God said that I should live to hold my Tom within my
arms, and I have come to think you are the instrument he
has ordained to fulfill this promise."
15
220 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Her young enemy was gnashing her teeth in secret;
she could accept blows from that hand, but found its
caresses insupportable. The mother again returned to the
white face before her.
"When your years were mine, dear," said the wife of
Fierceheart, straining her eyes down the dim vistas of
time, " when your years were mine, and I bad a lover,"—
the voice broke on its hard sob,—" I used to toss all night
sleeplessly in my cold winter bed, and had a face pale and
empty all the daytime, like I see yours now, dear. My
lover was a soldier then, and my eye was always filled
with a battlefield; and I remember how at times, when I
fell into a doze, I should be with him and the smoke and
the horrid red swoi*ds, and often I woke thinking the blood
was bursting'out of my side, and had to feel if the sheets
were wet ere I could believe that it was not so. Do not
love a soldier, child I They suck the last drop of life out of
your heart, and when you wither they scorn you. Those
lofty creatures are too fierce and bloody for us women, dear.
They carry the teachings of the camp and the slaughter to
our hearths, and when we grow old, and fail a little, and
we cannot help ourselves, they throw our blood-drained
bodies to the snow and the cold night."
At times it stunned, at times it frightened the nurse to
notice the famishing egoism of this dying woman; how
she trained every topic to the central heart of herself; to
her consuming misery and her great wolfish passion.
"Soldiers are ogres, child. Sooner or later they club us
and devour us, soul and body, to satiate their intemperate
lust of blood. My boy, my boy, who did no wrong, is
banished from me. And who banished him? But years
ago I might have guessed it; only my soldier lover was so
cunning. He would sit by the fire for years, pouring forth
pretty speeches to deceive me. That was how he wrapped
the inward war steel of his heart in outward silk, but now
he knows I am dying and subdued, he has ripped its cover
off and driven the bare blade to the hilt in my helpless flesh.
Child, shun soldiers always!"
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 221
" But, oh, auntie,! if you can't 1"
"Ha, child; If you can't!" Shivering, the old woman
crouched down deep into her bed. The thin blood was rac-
ing through her, her head swam, and her faint, slow heart
now seemed to quite possess and shake her bosom with the
vibrations of its beat.
" What, auntie, if he dashes you to earth, and makes
you wash his feet with your tears ? And refusing, what if
he plants his foot on your stretched neck and crushes resist-
ance cold under his heel ?"
The girl's wild face was twisted with passion.
" That's my James; you mean my James! "
Th# first time for weeks was the name wrung from the
lips of the wretched woman. Her niece's agony had
resummoned her own. And the sudden madness of the
spoken word, so much more inflammable and dangerous
than the protective restraints of silence, goaded the girl
into forgetting the part she had to play.
"Tom, I mean Tom!" She burnt her aunt with her
eyes.
" He's not a soldier, child."
" Christ, isn't he ?" She flung full down on the bed,
digging her head and her storm-quivered shoulders in the
counterpane.
The old woman fought again to her pillows. The great
question pealed out of her:
" Tom a soldier ? "
The answer was the bed-frame tottering, and a convul-
sive stillness at her feet. The mother grew very bold and
hard.
" Molly, you do not leave this room till you have sworn
to me the truth."
Pulse-arresting fears oppressed her now. Her darling,
the sole link now between her and the earth, bleeding on
battleflelds, and perhaps (who knew) in the throes of death.
These depths of horror were too profound for a mind
blunted with decay to pierce in one moment. Yet the
words had been torn out of Molly, and at a time when the
222 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
girl was too wrought and strung to employ the cool calcu-
lations a lie demanded. It mvM he the truth. But how
could it possibly be ? Her husband, who never was known
to lie, had told her a different tale. And why should he
tell her a different tale, a tale so cruel if the facts were
otherwise ? In a flash she saw it. To spare her; a lie told
to spare her! In the hour of confession doubt had strug-
gled upward within, for the flrst time within half a cen-
tury of her husband's speaking. And the snake head,
distrust, was hissingly rampant now that the quiet faith
of her heart in her husband was overawed.
Besides her son had been silent those long months, and
had affairs occurred in accordance with the interpretations
of his father, long since would her poor child have turned
for consolation to her maternal heart. Ha! the speech
wrung out of Molly had exposed the deception; she was
convinced that a lie had been concocted to deceive her.
But she would tear the truth piecemeal out of her niece,
tiger-like, if the need arose. First, however, she would try
the method of tears and kisses, with the picture of a mother
kneeling and yearning in a strained attitude of supplication.
" Child, I beseech you for the truth. You called him a
soldier. Is it so? Oh, tell me ?"
The girl was still prone, face buried in the bed, with the
nerve and muscle play uncontrollable in her limbs. But
the arrowy appeal, pathos-tipped and cunningly shot,
when it flew from the mother's lips found the pity of her
niece. There were chords in its tone of such marvelous
transmutation power that they would have softened ada-
mant. She dared to speculate on the murderous character
of her recent error, yet even found the courage to rise at
her aunt's voice, and to face her with a look half wild,
half hangdog. Desperately she began to lie to the old
woman, to the utmost of her speech.
"My feelings ran somewhat away with me, auntie.
Tom, you see, dear auntie; Tom, you see; Tom, you see—
Tom is so terribly like a soldier that my silly heart began
to anticipate the time he probably would be a soldier."
FIERCEHEAET. THE SOLDIER. 223
So poor was her condition to accomplish the necessary
amount of lying that already she had as much trouble
with her breath as through she had just arrived from a
ten-mile run; which would suggest that the mental athlete
must be as carefully trained as the physical.
Hard was the stare of unbelief.
" Oh, Molly, there is something hidden behind all this!
Molly traced a pattern of the carpet with her boot. Why
have mothers such mutilating eyes ? In a minute, how-
ever, she actually had the hardihood to meet them with
the open face of innocence.
"There is nothing, auntie," said the unblushing young
liar..
Unbelief was not dispelled, though; it still glazed the
mother's look.
" Give me the truth. I want the truth!" she implored.
The girl was dumb.
" Child, child, how can you madden me so! Your face
contradicts your lips. Spare me this strain, this suspense.
Do!"
The girl's aspect was too palpably a lie. She was not
the finished actor her uncle was; her exposition of her role
lacked conviction's ringing note, that stops the mouth of
criticism. The poor mother sobbed her incredulity. The
dissembler's heart was torn, but doggedly shelled; with-
out the magic of the artist though, without those grand
flashes of verisimilitude that fork and zigzag their light-
ning above the dead bones of deceit, and cause them to
glow all over into life, and persuade the brain against its
judgments that this fiery illumination is indeed the con-
staut and the vital spark. Not that: hers were brutal,
coarse, uninspired, tainted with low earth. She used imag-
ination's prose when its poetry was needed.
"Thetruth, Molly!"
"I'll—I'll—oh. Til swear to it, auntie!" God forgive
her! but desperation respects no deity.
The dying woman locked her white-hot hand in her
niece's.
224 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" I know it's all untrue, child. Had things heen just as
your uncle said, I should have heard before now from my
boy. All these weary months, and never a word have I
seen of his. Gainsay it, child; gainsay that positive
proof."
" You forget he is voyaging, auntie. He must put into
port ere his letter can he dispatched."
" He's touched at many by now."
"Perhapshe hasn't, auntie, dear."
How weak, how lame! O, for the divine flame to
endow these very cold clay of lies with a living breath. O,
limping Muse that was so wingless!
At last she made a precipitate escape with failure biting
at her mind. Her aunt was left pillaged with doubts.
Proof was her demand. The poor woman was torn with
these various tales; their very variety left her nothing of
sufficient substance to cling to. She cried for solid rock of
fact. Seen by the light of Molly's passion-lashed face,
interpreted by the import of that girl's reckless, wild
words, the strange language of James, though he was
never known to lie, was inadmissible. Proof! she thirsted
for proof to assuage her torments.
Young Molly sought the liar-in-chief in abject mood.
As she descended the stairs she rejoiced in a not too
angelic desire to cut her own comeliness up into very small
pieces indeed, and then scatter them to heaven's four
winds as the seed of an overgrown hahe, who had been
proved too weak to perform the strong deeds required of
fully developed women.
She discovered the parson and the general sitting
together in that same intolerable silence that of late had so
much obtained between them. She could have wished the
parson away; hut as her business at present was self-pun-
ishment, the grimmer and the bigger the audience, the bet-
ter she would succeed in inflicting penance on herself, and
in further enraging the furies within that were thrashing
her weakness for having yielded to its pusillanimity. The
sharper the pains, the sooner the relief.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 226
Closing the door, she stepped up crisply to their places
by the fire, and forthwith drew their attention with her
turbulent eyes. Wanting a beating she turned to him of
the strong arm.
" Doctor, you've seen a fool, an idiot, a baby that can't
keep its face straight and its mouth shut ?"
The parson honored her at once with a full front. There
was a sharp titillation about both her style and her subject
that appealed to his pleased nostrils like a pungent grain of
the best high-dried.
'' I presume you refer, my jewel, to an invertebrate
jelly-fish, or some such backboneless thing that perpetu-
ally wabbles its own irresponsibility."
"'Well, that's me, sir."
"Of course it's you. Didn't I know then: wasn't it
because I saw the little model before me that I drew so
nearly to the life ? Wasn't that why my description
enjoyed such literary precision and grasp ?"
This the first stripe, and didn't it whish down and make
her back sing! Evidently she had come to an arm that
could give her as much as she asked for.
" Yes, doctor, that's quite true. I am a fool, only worse,
far worse I "
Miss Sackcloth-and-Ashes dug a disgusted toe in the
hearthrug.
" I know, I know," gloated the beadle, his thong again
well shouldered, " you didn't allow me time to finish, you
poor thing; else I could have found far worse terras to fit
your folly, you flimsy bit of exaggerated silliness."
" Go on, doctor," came a groan from the whipping post.
The beadle laid on a ringing dozen in no time.
" That do?" inquired Honest Arm.
" I—I think it will, sir," admitted the faint recipient.
" Or, you know, you can have more of it if you prefer."
"If I should want any more, I think I'd prefer a hair-
shirt, sir."
The beadle relinquished his thong with a sigh.
Forthwith she embarked on her late catastrophe; she
226 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
told them all, even to the fatal words she had slipped about
young Fierceheart, the soldier at the wars, and her
infantile failure to kill suspicions with a lie.
"But if you'd known how I felt, uncle; if you'd known
how I felt, doctor, when she began to tell me how, when she
was my age, what agonies she knew when her husband
was away at war; how "
" Stop!" said Fierceheart.
She obeyed on the word, and implored the old man for
forgiveness.
" Things must be beginning to tell on me," was her
excuse. "I'm forever saying the wrong things now. Ob,
I am a brute! "
"You are," beadle thoroughly agreed, "suppose you
have another dozen ? Do you a world of good."
She didn't seem to see it, though.
" And I have managed to make her most horribly suspi-
cious," she pursued. " All your brilliant work, uncle, has
been undone. I've shown her what a dreadful pair of liars
we are; I might say trio " with a half gleam for the
beadle.
"Don't, oh, ineflfectual parody of woman!" with a flourish
of the thong.
" I did my very best to reassure her, but what could you
expect from a thing like me ?"
"Nothing," from the beadle.
" She demands proofs, facts; she says she has done with
words; swears there is a conspiracy against her "
"How preposterous of the woman! "said the beadle to
his snuff.
"That *^re are determined to deceive her, that she
won't be deceived, that she knows Tom is at the wars.
And, uncle, one reason she denies he is on a voyage, as you
have declared, is because she has received no word about it
from him. He would have confided in her in his distress,
she says. I've wholly shattered her belief. Oh, what
shall we do I Forgive me, uncle! "
Fierceheart spoke not, but gave her a soft look which
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER, 227
was worse than a blow. Desperation fastened on her
hands and wrung them; wells of vexation formed in her
eyes. Her wail was:
" Oh, what shall we do!"
"Ware folly! " said beadle.
She stamped on the rug, and shook sparkling anger-
drops from her eyes.
" Doctor, give me another dozen."
Wonderful obedience flattered this demand; Honest
Arm made her howl:
" What language, sir! "
" You shall be sore, my dear," the bland assurance.
Fierceheart said nothing. There he sat, wrapped in his
greaJ sorrow, with nothing revealed in his ancient counte-
nance, wizened like a frog's and no more expressive than
the face of that immaculate reptile. Molly thought his
mercy toward her superhuman; if he were not so passive,
if he would only beat her with his tongue I Such clement
silence was uncanny.
" Uncle, do tell me what you think of me?"
His answer was a kiss. No bitterness, nothing but a
poisonous sweetness. She began to understand that ca-
resses could be much worse than the whip. But it galled
her to the soul for her to feel that he thought he was
behaving with a becoming kindness.
"I wish you'd hit me, uncle," she begged. "Do give
me one of the names I've earned to-day. Such relief, sir!"
" Pap-brain, for instance, James," flourished officious
beiadle.
But his answer was another kiss.
Presently they left him to his silence. They took a walk
together far into the easterly land of snow-swathed hills in
quest of a new expedient to lay the mother's fears. And
once, as they incidentally discussed the silent, shattered
father, they would have gone on their knees to God, in the
snow, for one to lay their own.
228 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
CHAPTER XXII.
the swallowing of the camel.
Thet came back wanting. They had searched miles of
hill and hushed snow-field for a means to soothe the un-
quiet mother, and, having sought and found not, returned
with the cold of failure on their spirits.
"Doctor, you haven't the invention of a rabbit!" la-
mented woman's contrariety.
" And yours, Shakespeare?" inquired the bland man.
"Well, I did try." Petulance paused, to look for some-
thing to bully, to ease the heavy dyspepsia of irritation
afflicting her within. "Doctor, I don't mind telling you
that I think the way you've put your wig on is just dis-
gusting."
"Peace, rogue!" This hypochondriac had a dyspepsia,
too. The pair of puerilities kicked the snow from their
boots and entered the parlor of Fiercelieart. The old man
was too busy to glance from his occupation. His table was
laid with paper and ink and other appurtenances of the
scribe, yet he was engaged in a mere pretense of writing.
The pen moved with a very painful care, and his visage,
twisted to grotesqueness with every movement of his slow
hand, took them back to their own schooldays and the
early forming of their capitals.
When they came to his side, they were astounded to per-
ceive that the whole time of their entrance had only en-
abled this so fiuent writer to trace an uncertain "dear"
upon the paper.
Further, the late letter of the traitor was spread out be-
side it, and the father was palpably copying, with crabbed
care, the formation of its letters. This new maggot in the
mind of Fierceheart reduced them at once to terror. They
were struck with the madness of the thing. Yet Fierce-
heart blinked up to them as they looked pitifully down at
him, and half showed them there was a method in it. He
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 229
stopped, chewed his quill a moment in perplexity and nerv-
ousness, then pulled a slow speech painfully out of his
mouth.
" Doctor, I never was clever with ink, was I ? Suppose
you were a son who had got into debt, and your father had
sent you on a voyage to the Indies, and you were writing a
letter to a mother that adored you and viewed your offenses
lightly, how should you begin it ? Dear mother, dearest
mother, or what ?"
" You're going to forge a letter from the boy to his
mother ?"
" My hand is wonderfully like his, you know. I should
accomplish it with ease if I could only keep my fingers
quiet."
Molly and the parson looked at one another, looked at
Fierceheart, looked at his paper and ink and his tottering
hand.
" By God, I bow to genius I" stuttered the admiring rev-
erend.
"Uncle, it can't be done." Young Molly was like one
who had been informed of unexpected fortune, and is at
the pains to persuade himself that the news is not so, to
guard against a possible disappointment.
"It can be and shall be," proclaimed the shaking hand.
His tone was his usual quiet one of action that killed failure
and controversy with its softness. She knew he would do
it now ; what he said, he did; and unless God saw fit to
speed a special blight from heaven to wither that old un-
certain hand while it held the pen, which was not unlikely,
there would be no failure here.
His tone had burst the fioodgates down; he had promised
her to provide an antidote for her own criminal folly; he
would convince his wife.
" Uncle," her voice had a masterful tremble sobbing and
throbbing in it; "I-I—I—I "
"We know all about it." The parson impertinently
patted her cheek.
A great glow spread over her senses as she spoke with
230 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
old Fierceheart. The poor decayed gentleman had still that
'within him that made him so much greater than them all.
If a thing had to be done, he did it, whilst they fumed and
spluttered and futilely beat their little wits and wondered.
Years upon years had she been persistently told of the
illimitable strength in action of this frail and ancient chim-
ney-keeper, and seeing it not, had not believed it. The
weight of her error was now so severe on her head that it
crushed that weak vessel. What a man; what a terrible
heroical fool!
" How must it be begun ? " inquired Fierceheart again,
spitting fragments of quill-stump from his lips.
" Dear mother," suggested the misogynist.
" Darling mother! " cried fierce Molly.
" Fudge I as though a boy'd begin to that tune. He's not
a petticoat woman. James, I say, ' Dear mother.'"
*' Then I know he would, you great, big, coldblooded old
iceberg of a man. I'd like you to see how he begins to me,
that's all." She had a shining face of enthusiasm.
"How does he begin, my dear?" asked simple Fierce-
heart, who meant business only.
"Yes, my dear, how does he begin," from the bland
bachelor brute, who meant rather more than business.
Young Molly crimsoned right up to her hair. Hadn't
she put her foot in it! Oh, and that beast, the parson!
"It could be of no possible use to you, uncle, I'm
sure."
" Oh, it might be, my dear I" The old gentleman was all
simplicity. "This one merely says, 'My Molly,' which
is scarcely typical, I think."
"It has very fine restraint, though," said Mr. Critic,
grinning at the dogs.
"But, John, ' My mother' would be rather colorless and
cold, I think." The intensity of Fierceheart's seriousness
was really whimsical to see.
" Maybe," assented the wicked bachelor; "we must get
the hint from those letters to Molly. There you will find
the natural spontaneous man."
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 231
" Perhaps we should," earnest Pierceheart thought, with
a wide, imploring eye for Molly.
No resisting that eye, though it was committing her to a
superhuman deed. It is the worst of heroes that they judge
humanity by their own high standard, so that they demand
for servants and friends those who shrink at nought.
Young Molly tried to be heroic in this instance; thus she
fled the room for a packet of her lover's letters. But as she
retired, if a look could have killed a cynic, one of her Far-
thian glances would have cut one prematurely off in the
midst of his gibes.
The letters were brought, a neat packet smothered in
lavender odors, and the vanities of blue ribbon. Iphigenia
put the pile on the cloth. " Do your worst," said the crim-
son face.
The bachelor made forthwith a dart for the parcel, and
read out aloud each commencement to save time and to
assist Fierceheart. Molly retreated round the room, setting
antimacassars straight, whilst the business was conducted
with due detail and precision. Small their service, though.
" Never saw such stuff in my life, James," growled the
reader, with villainous curling lip. "I'm afraid, after all,
they'll be no use. All about pearls, flowers, guiding stars,
and beautiful stars of the night and heart of my hearts,
with occasional Evadues and fair Daphnes. We don't want
his absurd chatter, do we ?"
No, Fierceheart thought they did not. When the perusal
was complete, she who had so precipitately fled now ran
up like a lorn young lioness questing her cubs, and tore
her letters by brute force from the bachelor.
All this time Fierceheart was sunk in his serious design;
and Molly and the parson, feeling their inventions sterile,
decided to leave the scribe to his own ideas. They could
have desired to have beeu of service to him, and so have
shared the glory of a unique expedient; but this great
occasion, instead of quickening, had deadened their little
wits. They withdrew. Their incompetence was too gross
pnd toq self-evident,
232 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Thus for a long three hours Fierceheart worked in seclu-
sion, with all the time a permanent twist in his face. Oft
he revealed his tongue a little, in the schoolboy style, when
he found himself with a peculiarly subtle curve to over-
come.
Tom's writing, happily, had ever been nearly related to
his father's; and by his excessive pains, the forger accom-
plished a wonderful counterfeit. The old gentleman proved
himself an artist to his finger tips: cunning the resem-
blance of the spidery downstroke of the "g " and the "f,"
the thick, full loop of the "b," the majestic sweep of cap-
ital "E," the swan-like elegance of capital "S," the jerky
"r," the acute top-crossing of the "t," and the eccentric
way he had put the commas in. The marvelous craftsman
everywhere! To be sure, the whole performance had a
rather wabbling look never seen before in Tom's caligraphy,
but mark how a true artist tears the throat out of criticism.
Hera is the passage explaining the apparent singularity;
"You will excuse this very shaky writing I know, when
I tell you it is performed in the cabin of a heeling ship,
within sight of the sunny hills of Malta; and I might say
I have submitted to this inconvenience of using a pen on
the sea, so that when we port, time may be saved in the dis-
patch to you, my dear mother, of this long-delayed letter."
The artist scanned these duplicities as soon as they were
evolved, bosom swelling with vanity. Prate of the toils of
art, but what of the passionate rewards that divine mis-
tress soopen-handedly bestows! When the artist pointed
out those felicities of " the heeling ship," " the sunny hills
of Malta," "the submitting to the inconvenience for the
sake of the earlier dispatch of so long-delayed a letter" to
the censorious friend of Dr. Swift, who was reluctantly
compelled to admit that he lied with the exactitude of
Gulliver, his breast had the poet's glow. When quite done,
he summoned his critics. Their first fear was for the writ-
ing; feverish their haste in glancing; shaky, they thought,
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 233
but resemblance beyond praise. Here the artist, conscious
of his power, pointed to the explanation of the quoted pass-
age, whence the comparison with Gulliver and the poetic
glow. Pen, then, must be pronounced a triumph, but full
judgment had to be reserved till they had seen the wit.
The friend of Dr. Swift undertook to read it aloud to the
swelling creator and to his own colleague and criticaster,
whose face had all its muscles in play. Thus began Wor-
shipful Mr. Critic:
"Babquk Truthful, in sight of Malta,
"October 22, 1745.
"MyNearest Mother:
" This is the first opportunity I have had to post to you,
and eagerly have I seized it. You will excuse this very
shaking writing I know when I tell you it is performed
in the cabin of a heeling ship, within sight of the sunny
hills of Malta; and I might say I have submitted to this
inconvenience of using a pen on the sea, so that when we
port, time may be saved in the dispatch to you my dear
mother of this long-delayed letter. May this procure your
forgiveness of the writing and any look of negligence since
this is practically my first chance of a letter. True I
might have posted from London, but to be quite frank I
was too overcome with grief by the first impact of this mel-
ancholy affair to have sufficient command of my wit and
my charity, to do justice at that shocking moment to either
my heart or my mind.
"Above all mother, Idesire to be manly, in whatlcannot
but feel, an unmerited exile. God save me from peevish
complaint of an honored father, but I am sure you will
admit how harsh, to permit myself an expression no more
pungent and offensive toward a father, he has been in his
dealings with me in this matter. I apprehend that he has
told you of the error that summoned his wrath down on
this devoted head. But I will tell it you myself.
" One evening, the third of September to be precise,
& oh mother it is easy to be precise in this, for the fatal
234 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
day is branded on my heart 1 I in company of my Lord
Dash, Sir William Binns, and young Percie Strang left
Almack's toward seven of the clock and repaired to
my lodging in Saint James St. to supper. When the
dishes had been removed and we sat at punch, Dash pro-
posed primero, and on the word Binns, and young Percie
acclaimed it. You will remember mother how very care-
ful I had promised to be, and I tried to hedge in the best
manner possible.
" 'Really gentlemen' says I, trying to make a joke of
it and thus gracefully retreat, 'really gentlemen when I
left the country I promised my mother not to play.'
" 'Then go back to your mother my infant' said Binns.
' And you set up for host.'
" I praise God for one mercy, which is that in the heat
of the moment I did not challenge him who had sneered
at your name, and so averted having his blood upon my
soul. I swear mother it was only thought of you that re-
strained me. And being host, I was left with no alternative
other than playing or fighting. I preferred to play and
you know why. In three hours I had dropt three thou-
sand guineas. My father has told you of my sentence. I
am not to see you for three years, and when sometimes in
the midst of these wide seas I think of this, I feel as though
I cannot support the thought. Your sweet face I see on
my pillow every night, and then I pray that you may have
the life spared to greet me on my return.
" Good-by, I beseech you keep a warm heart, and to deal
gently with my hard father. I am dispatching a letter with
this totny dear Molly; and will you appease the pain of an
abrupt tearing apart as much as you can for her, as you
love your most unhappy son? I can say no more, though
I have written out of a full heart. Good-by mother.
" Ever your loving, unhappy
" Tom."
When the parson had won to a conclusion, and had de-
posited the forged document on the table, the eyes of the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 236
artist dilated on a small touch to his work, which, strange
to say, was there without his cognizance.
" What's this ?" demanded a pair of puckered eye-
brows. He pointed to a yellowish-white blob on the writ-
ing, near the bottom of the last page. The parson having
blinked something lachrymose from one eyelash, solemn
as an owl, said:
" Can't say."
Young Molly examined the blot with relentless gaze.
" It's a tear; that's what it is."
" Bah I" said the parson. But the man was uneasy.
"Doctor, will you wipe your eye?" her modest request;
impud^Dce has the vision of hawks.
Certainly, a tear, and a hideous disfigurement to a
stately piece of pencraft. The drying blob of yellow, with
a portion of ink running into it, was a disgusting defile-
ment.
" Doctor, I hope you're ashamed." There was no shak-
ing his tormentor oil, and the parson, baited but contrite,
was compelled to take refuge in a blatant performance
with a nose and a handkerchief.
However, this mishap proved but a pretext for the artist
to rejoice yet further in his powers. Returning to the quill,
in three minutes he had painfully traced this postscript:
" P. S.—For obvious reasons kindly excuse the blot."
With that was the forgery sealed, and the cover made
up in a somewhat battered manner that it might appear as
though it had made a considerable journey; which done,
the conspirators dispersed, untroubled of conscience.
The nurse, on the morrow, was deputed to convey it to
the mother. She brought it to her couch, simulating gay
smiles.
" Isn't it a coincidence, auntie?"
The invalid's heart leaped in her side at sight of the
white; she called for her spectacles with wild voice, and, as
the nurse conveyed them to her, the most cunning rogue
16
236 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
licked her finger unseen and managed to smear the specta-
cles, as she deposited them in the old lady's hand.
Trembling fingers fixed the gold on her nose.
" Ah!" she sighed, " I think my eyes get worse."
" Very dark morning, auntie, dear," she was assured by
the cheat.
The old woman gloated on the cover, then kissed it.
Who could mistake that hand? Very shaky, though.
Oh, if his sentence was undermining his health I She
allowed herself insufBcient time to read; she swallowed,
rather than scanned, with the unseemly haste of her hun-
gry eyes. His voice made her bleed; phrase after phrase
brought him there in the flesh; strange how the curious
slipshod slant of each line, sloping at an angle of thirty
down to the comer of the page, bespoke him I Sure she
could recall him now, writing with his paper twisted ridic-
ulously across the pad, and that absurd man. Blunt, who
pretended to take an interest in his education, boxing his
ears and swearing he'd never write properly so long as he
lived. Oh, irony I Could any writing in the world match
this present specimen of his, written on shipboard! Beau-
tiful—beautiful wasn't the word. She ravished the embel-
lished paper with her kisses.
And oh, the lad's pain I Just him to pretend himself
indifiFerent in spite of the moans wrung by every sentence
out of his unhappiness! Poor lad I
She read and read again till she knew every word by
heart, and till her eyes were sore, when she opened her
gown and slipped the paper in, against her bare skin, that
she might continue to experience the warmth of it, without
the fatigue of grasping it to her thrilling hands. It now
occupied a spot that made her no less sensible of its presence,
although to her eyes no longer visible. And when pres-
ently the fever did burn somewhat out, and her heart's fire
waned low for lack of fuel, she fell back in her sheets again,
cursing Fierceheart.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 237
CHAPTER XXin.
desperatk remedies.
Fierceheart had a relapse. Icicles clustered about him
more coldly, binding his bosom, warping his soul. It was
little he spoke, and that little often of weird irrelevance to
any point incident to the conversation in hand. He only
once spoke of his wife. Those who heard remembered. It
was the time Molly brought tidings of the triumphant sue-
cess of the forgery.
"Uncle, she suspected nothing absolutely. What a
marvelous talent you have, sir."
" It made her curse me, didn't it ?"
She dared not answer: his face was horrid.
" I know it made her curse me."
"Don't, uncle; oh, don't, uncle I"
The old man was rocking himself in his chair, his hands
jammed each side of his head. His face was a mutilation.
" I'm glad she cursed me."
" Don't I oh, uncle!"
" We were ever so fond of each other once, my pet. We
had few ill words, I might say no ill words, for something
over forty years, except a little tiff now and then about the
king. But nothing you could construe to a quarrel, you
know. 'Tis a fine record, isn't it ? And do you know,
though you might not think it, she's been a wonderful,
stanch, patriotic woman. She worships her country at
bottom, though she pretends she doesn't. You find her
sobbing about her John and her James in public, but she
told me once in private that she was proud of their doom.
It is a singular disguising of legitimate pride, but it's what
I like to see. And for love of God, dearie, I charge you
keep her heart sweet till she dies; spare her every word of
treachery and the guilt of him. We can afford to let her
curse me a bit to spare her that, for, if she should find it
out, she die cursing her God instead."
238 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
A lie! The man's lacerated heart could not afford to let
his old wife curse him. His face now half frightened
young Molly out of her wits.
" Oh uncle, uncle I"
"It's nothing, my dear."
Nothing! He swayed and fell far back in his chair, in-
sensible as stone.
She dashed water on him without result; she gave
him air; she forced a cordial betwixt his lips; but it was
only when she had him between the sheets, and the par-
son was up from the Vicarage full-blown, hatless, and his
face in a flood that sense returned and the extinguished
blue of his drooping eyes beamed out.
Monkton was soon fussing about; cupped him, prescribed
him a tonic, and ordered him to shun Madeira.
" But Burgundy?" inquired faint Fierceheart.
" That '11 do; more suited to your time of life."
Nurse Molly buttonholed the doctor when he got outside.
She looked things.
" If I was not so young and you so old, I should so
greatly dare as to differ from you. Dr. Monkton. Bur-
gundy, indeed!"
" Wait till you come to my age, young mistress, then
you'll be only too sensible of its necessity. When you
grow too old for the love fever, you must have Burgundy.
Man demands a madness. Life is too stale for endurance
without a legitimate excitement."
"That's just it, doctor. Burgundy and the love fever
together, though, would consume a horse, wouldn't they ?"
"Certainly! Separate, they're life; united, too much
for life."
"Well, it's the love fever that's consuming my uncle.
Therefore, knock off the Burgundy."
" At his age ? Nonsense I"
" I know, sir."
"A man with love fever at seventy! brain fever at
twenty,next! Pooh—stuff—knock it off—certainly not!"
" You will, though, doctor."
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 239
And he had to do it, though he was many times heard to
remark that when it came to a forty-years' medico being
bullied by ignorant nurses, untrained and absurdly young,
it was time to resign the profession.
Monkton allowed his patient a week for recovery. He
frankly informed Molly that it was one of the most
abstruse cases in his experience. The root of the malady
defeated him. " Brain—must he brain. Eating him up, my
dear, whatever it is. Anything happened that could pro-
voke deep worry ?"
"Oh, no, sir."
"Singular! But I'm convinced it's worry. Nor do I
mind telling you that if we don't find the cause and root
it out soon, some fine morning, candle-like, he'll be snuffed
out suddenly."
Bitterly well did she know the cause, hut what possibly
could physics, nurses, doctors do ? The breach with his
fifty-years' wife was slaying him by inches. It was because
in the next room she lay cursing him. It was too horrible
that this patient Spartan should sacrifice himself for his
son in this quiet, brutal fashion. The more she brooded on
the horror, the faster it drove her beyond the liberal limit
of her endurance. Presently it compelled her to fiy to the
parson.
" Doctor, I can endure it no more! " her moan.
" What of me, then f Already it has reduced my heart
to a wet-clout fiabbiness. Can't put a sermon together now
fit to be seen, and as to preaching—put a Tom cat up in the
pulpit and they'd be as much impressed. Got a tremend-
ous text out of Galatians for the other Sunday, but before
I'd gone ten lines, something like a dog began to bark in
my head, and I stuck; yes, stuck, I tell you! "
" Well, I'm going to take a very hold step, sir. Will
you support me ?"
"Won't I ?" He held a hand.
" I'm going to send for Tom."
"What!"
" I can't bear to see that old man."
240 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER,
" But it's desperate—desperate I"
The parson emphasized his disapproval with a shudder.
"Oh, I know it!" Bitterness welled up and stopped
her mouth.
They fell silent a long minute, with their hearts heating
out a wild music of new terrors. Vistas of dread were
opened up to their minds. Too well they knew Fierce-
heart. God help Tom, if once he strayed into his father's
clutch t And yet his absence was breaking the old man
like a reed.
" It's the mother we ought to appeal to," the parson said.
" Of course, and the only appeal that will melt her is to
give her her boy."
" There's another. Tell her her husband is lying to save
her; that her lad is traitor."
"Doctor, could you ?" fiercely.
" Heavens, no I" The man shook in his chair.
"Doctor, that word and she'd die hating herself and
Heaven. I know that she's a terrible patriot. Oh, her
great agonies! No, no; I promised uncle I'd keep her lad's
name sweet. Oh, I couldn't I " Sobs came.
The distraught pair saw reflections of their hearts in the
quivering faces of each other. They were knitted together
in pain; their pulses thrilled under the same tense horror
that held their blood in bondage; they shared the long
anguish of the night; the sob of one was the other's sigh.
" If she could but hold her boy in her arms she'd die in
great peace. If she's debarred him, she'll linger weeks and
weeks. Let us send for Tom."
" Bu<i,the awful danger! Old James would rip him limb
from limb!"
" It would require the extreme of secrecy."
"Impossible, I tell you."
"Will you help me, doctor ?" Her eyes startled him.
They made the man long to strain from his hesitation.
" What should you do if he came ? "
" Introduce him to his mother, unknown to all save you
and me; submit to him an outline of the situation, and he
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 241
would tell his mother that his father had relented for the
sake of her. We should then get him as cautiously away.
Having seen him, she would then be eager to dispense for-
giveness to her husband, and you and I would go to the
old man, acknowledging what we had done, that the ap-
pearance of Tom had wrung a pardon out of her, and that
she now begged to die in her husband's arms. And that
night she'd die, blessing the world, and healing her old
lover's heart." -
" How do you know she'd die ?"
"Whenever Tom comes she'll die. There's not enough
life in her blood to support such a moment."
"Qut when we tell James that the traitor's been and
gone he'll just froth into madness."
"You're wrong, sir; he'd submit to circumstances, and
praise God in his heart for her forgiveness. You see his
ignorance of Tom's whereabout would make him entirely
blameless to his country."
"Scheme's crack-brain, though. Beyond reason to sup-
pose we could so bluff the old dog as to the traitor's pres-
ence; and assuming, for argument, that we effected that,
the rest of the matter would never fall out as you say."
" Then I know it would, sir."
"Balderdash!"
"Anyhow, it shall be tried. The life of uncle and the
soul of auntie is at stake. We must lift a finger to save
them both, and here is the only way suggested. The rem-
edy's desperate, but not more desperate than the case. I
shall send for Tom, sir."
" No, girl, I say 'tis not the only way. The true way is
to take the bull by the horns. Let someone step up to your
aunt this moment, saying, 'Madam, take your husband
back to your bosom. He is a noble fool, who for the sake
of an erring child is sacrificing fifly years of your love and
also his honorable life. He has lied to you to cover the
shame of your son. Your son is a traitor to his country,
madam, and proscribed by the king, which will reveal the
true reason of his absence.' That is the correct way."
242 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Molly's mouth fell into impolite creases; her eyes scorned.
" 1 ask again, could you do that, doctor ?"
The heroic parson had overlooked the doing. Even
Fierceheart quailed at that.
He stuttered: " I'll admit it would want the devil."
"And I never said you were that, sir."
Never were two persons more bitterly wrung with
fiendish dilemma. Fate had knocked them from pillar to
post, till courage was beaten to an irresolute jelly. Indeed,
that of the reverend doctor had never been conspicuous,
except in the time of peace. But young Molly was so drunk
with her uncle's grandeur and the blaze of glory about his
lionly son that, fate or no fate, woman or no woman, courage
or no courage, she would eke out her own slender store to its
utmost limit. She prepared to stand or fall by a heroic
measure.
" Doctor, I repeat I shall send for Tom. Again, will you
help me ?"
The coward shook in his shirt. He was an old man; he
had fought his battles long ago; it was unfair to make him
enlist again. Oh, the horrors of campaign! How they
clasped his soul I He was old, old, old; the blood ran thin;
a scarlet coat could no more provoke the eye; a sword no
more tickled the side pleasantly, and smiled to the eyes like
a pretty, youthful toy. The fire of battle refused to burn
in his blood. And yet the young face before him was vie-
tory—command in the set of it, haughty power in its
sparkles; " do or die," said the splendid high-thrown head.
The wonderful rogue inflamed his fiat blood like living
beakers of wine. Death or glory there, melting fear, cut-
ting resistance down. Avaunt, vain cowardice!
" I shall send for Tom. Will you help me, doctor ? "
"Yes."
She went to his arms to reward him. Her face was fire,
and, when it came to his, generated deep heat that sank far
into his body, even to his rising heart.
"Shoulder to shoulder, doctor, we shall lift mountains,
you and I," trumpeted this martial she.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 243
However, the doctor was not too sure about it. Expo-
rience said; " It's fine the day before to see the standards
flaunting, and the band in the van, and the thousands
shouting; but on the morrow, when you are called at shiv-
ering three by the great barking of guns, and the blood
creeps on your coat in an hour, and brings the darkness
buzzing about your eyes in daylight, and you feel the soft
grass under you before you know you are down, it's then
that you don't feel so cock-sure of the glory. However,
I'm pledged. Send for the boy; I've 'listed; I don't doubt
we shall give fortune a pretty stanch bout."
Thus that day was he sent for. The letter was written
with a thick-cut quill in hand bold and masculine, and the
paper somewhat heavily scored with command. It told
the complete story: how his mother lay dying, and refus-
ing to die till he came; how his father had lied and cheated
to keep a traitor's name sweet in her memory; how she had
turned viperishly on the mute old man, and how Fierce-
heart lay blighted to the soul by the breath of a wife who
cursed him for his sufferings. Grief was painted as com-
mitting slow murder on his white hairs. Not one syllable
of tragedy was spared the traitor in that letter. When fin-
ished, she revised it with a grim mouth.
"Doctor, if he has to trudge miles through thick-burning
forests glowing white with fire, and all the kingdom guards
his father's gate, 'twill bring him, that letter. There is a
brutality of truth in it not to be resisted; it will pluck him
here raging, like a whifif of blood draws thirsty tigers."
" Don't I know it ?" said sorrow.
They were now at the threshold of great difficulty.
Whom could they get to ride ? Profound experience of
war, sagacity, and a still tongue were demanded of the mes-
senger. Only one servant was known in the county with
these requisites: Daniel Munn.
" I'd trust Satan sooner than a Scot," snapped the rever-
end Southron. "Besides, he's James's man; he's interpen-
etrated with James. Give him a whisper of what we're
about and the game's up."
244 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Molly sighed at this excessive truth.
"Can't we corrupt him, doctor ?"
The casuist sneered at her psychology.
" My dear woman, a soul that can be bought for gold is
at the mercy of the purse. We give five guineas. James
has a whiff of suspicion, gives five and a bawbee, and
where are we ? Corruption recoils as a rule."
" But he would be of such incalculable value," unreason-
able woman jogged on, oblivious of logic.
" I think I'll go, my dear." The hero was really start-
led at his deed. But he went. Cheerfully he admitted this
behavior bordered on the noble, but lo! he went. He
found an accommodating incumbent in Carlisle to do ser-
mons for him the ensuing Sunday at a guinea apiece; he
got into his cloak and his borrowed Montero, and pricked
to the wars on his Galloway. Molly bluntly told him the
morning she sped him away that she had never guessed he
had so deep a store of action stowed away within, a pro-
fession which provoked her to give him good-by with a
mellow and an earnest voice, and when she went back to
the hall and spent thirty minutes before his picture on her
uncle's bedroom mantelpiece, she unearthed subtle lines of
beauty in it, perversely buried from her eyes before. She
began to sorrow for the loneliness of this self-forgetful
gentleman. To spur miles into the boiling heart of rebel-
lion, when the years cumbered his feet so heavily, was a
bright deed, and she began to profess a confidence in her
recruit she had hitherto been chary to admit. For her
uncle or her aunt she was now compelled to toil like a
horse, but in any rare intervals in labor she was able by
extreme diligence to make, instead of seeking rest of day
dreams or in knitting comforters, as her preferences were,
she began to study the principles of chess.
This sprang out of the unhappy parson's accident in
friendship. The general had long evaded play with him;
a difference in their conceptions of honor had opened a
chasm in their amity. And the poor doctor pined for his
chess; to do without it was to increase dyspepsia. Where-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 245
fore young Molly applied herself painfully, conscientiously
to study. From her uncle, whose case so steadily improved
every day that he soon promised to cease being bedridden,
she acquired funds of instruction of an invaluable kind.
Fierceheart tutored with zest; he was charmed with the
opportunity to propagate to a later generation his pet
theory of bringing out his rooks early.
She counted the days ere the parson came. Her uncle
was able to crawl down to his parlor soon; but her aunt,
sentenced never more to rise, appeared to grow neither
worse nor better, one name only for her lip, only one
document for her hand. The brave theme of her absent
martyr swelled with the lengthening days. She never
spoke of her husband; and when the nurse once mentioned
him as being prone in his malady, the wife cast the clothes
over her head hastily and refused to hear.
At last the parson surreptitiously returned, having been
away some twenty days, to the consternation of his parish.
Several times had he been compelled to alter his route to
arrive at the army of Charles. It had long fled from Eng-
land; had gained the fleld of Falkirk in its retreat into
Scotland, and was now in position at Inverness, to which
extreme point north the messenger had posted with his
missive.
On the evening of his return, Molly early settled her aunt
in her pillows, made an excuse that was flimsy, and stole
out to the Vicarage to pass an eager hour with the returned
traveler. He was at his supper; and she was received with
the proud face of achievement. She began with a compli-
ment, which he took like milk.
" I think I deserve it," simpered self-complacency.
Then the story. He had had adventures; he was dog-
tired; he had performed his functions with a thorough skill
that approached perilously near nobility; but self palled
soon. "And Tom, sir ?" on a thrill of inquiry.
" Well, but worried, my dear. He almost cried over me
like a cbild; he took me to his arms; he spoke of his father
in the terms of a man, but he seems half mad with despair."
246 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Oh!"
"Wrecked hopes; army dwindling; brink of ruin and
death. No hope—none. A mere remnant of men at Inver-
ness, shivering together with cold hearts like sheep on a
moor in winter. No hope—none. There they are, waiting
sullenly to be cut up, our boy among them. Poor lad 1"
The parson paused for an eye-wipe.
"Cumberland is marching from Aberdeen with twice
their strength to return the compliment paid to Cope. God
help our boy!"
The girl clutched her side. But she had no tears. " He
is to die, then." Her hard resignation tore the narrator.
"He would not come away," said anguish. " I gave him
your letter, but he mumbled of moral obligation, for all the
world as his fool of a father loves to do. He fetched me to
my knees, beseeching. Dozens were leaving the bungling
idiot prince every day to his ruin. ' But I stay here,' said
the son of James. He dilated on duty in the parental man-
ner, which made me half love the fool while I cursed him.
Had it been aught but the last fight and the wreck of their
fortunes, he would have returned with me for a couple of
weeks. But he talks of honor now. He has sworn, though,
that, if Heaven spares him in this fight, he will take his life
in his hands and straight return."
"And the letter—what had he to say to the letter f"
" I thought him mad at first. He tore it up, and stamped,
and called us brutes and fools. Killing his father for the
sake of him I I could not bear to see the fellow. But when
a little coolness came, and I showed my gentleman who
really was the brute and the fool, he got up, and walked
the town for an hour, and came back altered, such as I have
never .seen any man within one hour. Do not fear, my
dear; if this last battle spares him, he'll come to Cumber-
land, if he has to cleave through armies."
"Is the prince bound to be cut up, sir?" The charged
question burst into his ear like a shell, and mangled it.
It screwed his face with excruciating pain, while she—she
clung to her chair and was afraid to let go, till he had
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 247
answered her. But the answer never came; he dared not
frame it.
Then ensued the time of waiting. Little news crept to
their far-away corner of the kingdom. The girl had lurid
dreams swollen with blood, and grim with the pale face of
death. The parson had informed her, in his brute fashion,
that for her lover there could be no escape. Sometimes the
throes of death stole over her. Farewell the joyousness of
the yovmg heart! For her the light would be out of the sun-
shine, and her spirit must grope to her days' end in con-
stant night. Her soul could only admit one conqueror.
The suspense of no news was harder to endure than actual
and definite tidings of fatality. And her heart knowing
the lion courage of her soldier, it seemed to her that a bloody
but a glorious death in battle was the only conclusion
likely to be written to his history. Ever and anon she
strove to fortify herself against this too inevitable end.
Witbin a week of the parson's reappearance. Fierce-
heart called their express attention to a letter that had
yesterday come from the king's people at Whitehall. It
was to inform Major General Sir James Seton, G. C. B.,
that a great blow was about to descend on the rebels in
Scotland, and that the commander of the forces of the king,
his grace of Cumberland, was prepared to be at pains to
procure the capture—alive if possible—of Thomas Blunt
Seton, in order that the information that he held in regard
to the suspected influential rebels of London and the south
might be secured. Sir James was also instructed to hold
himself in readiness to bear witness at any moment against
this notorious rebel and traitor; and also to hold himself in
readiness to assist the king's Majesty in the matter of his
son's arrest, in case his son showed himself in Cumberland.
Fierceheart never relented; he spared the devoted pair
no pang; and upstairs was his wife who spared him none,
either. But the sight of the old man waning was very
apparent now. He still continued his dram; and his silence
grew unassailable, except when, as heretofore, he would
quietly read out the warrant for his son's captivity.
248 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
I
At last the parson, unable longer to support suspense,
paid a visit to Carlisle for the news, and returned with the
tale of Culloden, and the extinction of the final hope of
Charles. It was only then that the patriot sat up in his
chair, straining his ear for the news; and hearing it;
" Thank God!" was his hoarse cry.
But young Molly 1 She felt this to be the doom of her
lover and of herself. The ruddy visions crowded about
her strangling hope. Despair gripped her despite her
strength.
" Doctor, all is over?" An infinite question hung in her
eyes.
" Ah, yes!" was the question answered.
The parson bent under his sorrow.
It was the beginning of a time of hard sobs and proud
grief. Now and then an unsubduable tear was shed in the
night, but when the sun laughed in the morning and the
spring birds spoke, she dried it and went down to breakfast
with Fierceheart with a smiling face of lies.
CHAPTER XXIV.
youno fierceheart, the soldier, laxtghino at death.
There was an inn a few miles out of Kingussie on the
England side under the Grampians' frown, that hummed
in an April evening with great news that had come out of
the north. Culloden was won, and good man Sinclair,
landlord'of the tavern, praised the wisdom of Heaven. He
took down the picture of Charlie that sat over his taproom
mantelpiece, and replaced it with a weak print of George,
by the grace of God, and ostentatiously wept over the fat
image in a periwig, in the presence of his customers. Man
Davie waur leal, sink traitors! What happiness for the
nation that the true cause had triumphed!
The shadows had begun to glide down the bum, and
night to strike through the sky and its heavy rain-wrack,
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 249
when a haggard, bloody figure of a man stumbled into the
inn.
Four gossips and one wayfarer were drinking a cup with
Davie Sinclair. They drew their pipes from their pursed
lips when this bad-omened bird appeared; while mine host
leered round from him to them, with a fine, inscrutable
northern caution.
" You, landlord," opened the stranger on the shirt-sleeved
Davie, the absence of his coat being evidence of mine host,
" you, landlord, prepare a hot supper in a private room for
me."
He placed a guinea in the willing palm, knowing gold to
be great argument. Davie took the guinea, and scanned
his guest with a grave particularity. He could label the
gentleman while he looked. Plainly from the recent field:
a pair of pistol butts showed from under his cloak, sword
to his side, handsome strung face, pale as linen save for
three or four blood-smears, gore soaking half his waistcoat
to a pulp, mud all over him from his boots to his battered
hat, a staggering weariness of look; and he seemed to walk
with a groan.
Mine host led the mutilated warrior upstairs to privacy,
promising bannocks, trout, and red venison in half an hour.
" Fought ye long, sir, at Culloden?"
"Not long. 'Twas over before we began."
Man Davie said a civility or two about the pleasant
weather, and went down to his gossips with discovery.
Candles and a meal were presently brought to the soldier,
the peats stirred to a more entertaining heat, and the cur-
tains drawn to shut the shadows out. As the man sat
alone, eating heavily, but very careful of his drink, he!
pressed a hand sharply at times to his bloodied side, andl
once or twice his tight lips quivered against a pain. His
meat appeared to warm him and to thaw a stream of feel-
ing lately pent up behind his eyes. He sunk his head in
his hands on the table and shed a tear or two, but suddenly
dashed them off, and jumped up, gasping an oath, and
stumbled into his cloak.
260 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
But as he was leaving the room, a tramp of feet on the
stairs drove him back through the door. He slammed it
hastily to, slipped the bolts, and, perceiving the key stick-
ing within the lock, his side, he turned it also, and pre-
pared for defense. He took his pistols out, looked to their
primings, and laid them side by side on the board, and
then drew and fingered his dark-stained sword.
The reiterated rumble and clatter of feet was now stopped
by the barred door. A voice spoke from the hither side,
" It's no use, young Seton."
" How many with you, Wiseman?" from the soldier.
" Fifteen, my friend; and, man, let us do the thing po-
litely, and we'll crack a fiagon, have a hand at commerce,
and a pleasant night."
"Not I! Those occupations are too quiet for my taste.
To-night I'm going to send a few of your fifteen to hell."
" Probably," said Wiseman, " and probably not. And I
should say probably not. And why shed blood at all?
Aren't you run to earth fairly? Isn't resistance utterly
vain, and shan't I take your body to the king, even if I
take it minced?"
" I am remembering Culloden, and some of you have
got to pay."
The tiger issued the speech through his teeth. He was
like his father; he could accept personal beatings, but lost
causes maddened him. His soul was bleeding for Cullo-
den's great wrecking of hopes. He thirsted to repay.
"Seton, I give you five minutes; we shall then storm."
" Brave Wiseman I"
" Escape cut off wholly. Mine host and his gossips are
in the yard, guarding the descent from the window. And
through the door you'll have to cut through fifteen."
Young Fierceheart began to whistle.
"Seton, bet you ten guineas you don't do for five."
"Done!" grinned young Fierceheart.
The traitor fell to examining the room. It was of fair
dimensions for an inn and he set about increasing them.
Captain Wiseman heard him fling up the window-sash,
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
251
and he instantly dispatched several of his men to re-enforce
host Sinclair and his friends waiting beneath it. Host
Sinclair was howling under a cracked head when they ar-
rived, for a chair had hurtled down from the traitor's room
and provoked that damage. Two immediately followed;
and then the small table was crammed through with diffi-
culty, and it, with its supper crockery, crashed on to the
stones.
On reflection. Captain Wiseman informed his lieutenant.
Boulder, that he was not quite so sure of his ten guineas,
and sought to cover them by proposing to bet Boulder the
same amount that young Seton did for six. He then
turned<to his men and instructed them to prepare to charge
with swords only, since the king's command was that the
notorious traitor was to be secured alive, if possible, for
the sake of the information he possessed.
"Five minutes gone, Seton."
" I'm ready."
The traitor had now quite cleared the floor of every en-
cumbrance, and further he took his coat off and rolled up
his right sleeve. To escape was wholly beyond hope, but
the cold rage at his heart demanded that his king should
be avenged. Ere he fell, he had no doubt that if he plied
a good steel, he could square accounts with flve.
"I say, Seton, resistance is mere wanton murder, you
know. Give up your sword quietly, and we will consider
our wager canceled."
"On the contrary, Wiseman, let us double the stakes."
" I will, if you make them six."
Toung Fierceheart considered an instant; looked at the
room, ran his thumb down his sword, and felt the band-
ages of the great gape of wound in his side.
"Very good; twenty for six, then, Wiseman."
" Here goes!"
Captain Wiseman ordered swords to be drawn, and
caused his men to fall back a pace or so down the stairs, to
enable a couple of their number to take a running leap at
the panels with their boots. The stout wood rattled, but
i:
252 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
stood true to the bolts. The experiment was repeated, yet
without material success.
Within young Fierceheart lolled against the mantel-
piece, two fingers of one hand carefully traveling over his
wound, and the other beating his sword against his boot.
Meantime several iron bars had been procured from be-
low, and an incessant battering was kept up, till the wood
began reluctantly to yield.
The traitor now reared his sword by the wall, and picked
his two pistols up. Presently two or three apertures be-
gan to show under the diligent bars. He took careful aim
there-through. Crack! crack! belched the pistols, and
short and astonished cries were heard from without.
Young Fierceheart hastily loaded again, while the bar-
beating ceased an instant.
"You've only touched one, and he's not done," cried
Wiseman, " but, Seton, I must protest against anything of
this sort being admitted. We can't start till the door is
down."
The pistols smoked forth again, and this time a wild cry
answered them. Wiseman dropped an oath and ordered a
breach to be instantly effected.
Ere Seaton had completed his third loading, the door had
fallen to the bars. The calculating Wisenmn departed
from the usual custom in attack, keeping himself and his
lieutenant at the rear instead of at the head of it.
"No need for us. Boulder, to expose ourselves without
need," he laughed. "They'll take him with ease, nor will
it cost them six."
The word was given to assault. Five or six made for the
breach at a run, and were met with a terrible lively sword
and a couple of shots that took one of them in the throat.
The narrow entrance limited arm-play and seriously in-
commoded the attackers. The traitor plied a wonderful
steel; one was down before it ere he guessed how near it
was, and only saw the flash of it returning from his body.
They closed on him like wolves, and drove him back into
his room. But he gave them a sharp exercise. Only three
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 253
or four followed his steadily retreating point, for a consid-
erable number in so small a chamber would have been an
inconvenience. He fought not to escape, but for the fierce
pleasure of fighting, and to yield his life up well. Thus,
his hard, strong struggling was mere dogged, hopeless des-
peration. His wound restrained him, or he had been a
tiger else; but its breath-sucking twinges made him bus-
band his wind and pulled his arm back when he grew too
furious, spoiling many a fatal lunge. He got his back to
tbe far wall, and though time upon time they crowded
straight up to his steel, he retained his weapon, and they
were driven persistently away.
Boulder suggested that the whole body should close into
the room, but—
"No," said Wiseman, "I'll see fair play. D the
English heart of bim I He fights like twenty, and his side
open, too! Down goes another! No, I'll have fair play.
Boulder, did you see that parry ?"
But they were killing the traitor's wind; his mouth was
open, the sweat was streaming, and his breast was heaving
with every stroke. His assailants were on the verge of
victory.
"Boys, come off, d'ye hear!"
Instantly they obeyed their officer, though much inclined
to question the judgment that forbade them press a man
when he was blown.
" Boulder, I'll see fair play. It's a great handicap, that
wound of his. Well done, my lad! Take a breath, will
you I And I win; including the pistols, you've only done
for three."
" It's not ovepyet," said young Fierceheart, sucking the
blood from a gashed hand and spitting it on the carpet.
But the traitor should have considered nature. It was over.
His side gave him a deep bite; he reeled and fell on his
face, fainting. His unconquered sword hopped from his
hand to the carcass of a slain man.
Captain Wiseman had him lifted up tenderly, and car-
ried below to Davie Sinclair's parlor.
254 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Ees it yer mannie ?" inquired that gentleman.
Wiseman paid him his guinea "for information re-
ceived."
"Well, it's a fine lad, Boulder; a very fine lad." The
captain praised him, while they restored his senses with
liberal sprays of water. " I never saw a man with a side
like that fight so well, I think."
The captain was sufQciently humane to have that open
side skillfully redressed, and the gashed hand bandaged
well. It was not so much that humanity was in the com-
position of the man, but it paid, it seemed, to be humane.
The captain never practiced anything, not even piety,
unless it paid. The prisoner opened his eyes on Wiseman
presently, and got up. He winced when he saw his situa-
ation, and his captors clustering round him.
" Pity you didn't have me settled, Wiseman," he la-
men ted; "great pity! The rest will be the cursed London
farce, I suppose, and the tree for epilogue."
" Should have been only too blithe to oblige, my dear
fellow, but instructions positive. King said you must be
taken alive, for the sake of the information."
" Who marked me out as possessing it ?"
" They say Sir James, your father."
Mention of that dread patriot recalled the parson's visit
and the letter from Cumberland. He was reminded that
he had promised, if he outlasted Culloden, to see the mother
who could not die till he came. He sought to redeem a
pledge so sacred. He besought:
"Wiseman, take me round by Cumberland as we go
south. -My mother is dying; I must see her."
" I shall run no unnecessary risks," refused his captor;
"and shall waste no valuable time. Sorry, Seton; but it
can't be done."
" I must go, Wiseman."
The captain shook his obdurate head.
" Wiseman, I implore you. Oh, man, there's life and
death in it 1"
The captain was an unyielding rock.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 255
'' My father, Wiseman; my old father! He's killing him-
self on my account, man; I must see him."
Wiseman was not even polite in his refusals. He had his
duty to perform; it paid to perform his duty, and therefore
his duty he should do. His heart had no room for senti-
ment when expedience peeped in. But they were an un-
fathomable set, these Setons; it was known that the father
was hunting the son to earth, yet here was that identical
son proclaiming that his father was delivering his life up
for the sake of him, and that he, the son, must save that
incomprehensible old man.
Vain that young Fierceheart appealed in his mother's
name. His captor listened to his impassioned prayers with
a superb patience, drank wine at his expense, received the
amount in full of the lost wager, was really pleasant and
even agile in his conversation, discussed Church and state
in an admirable style, that suggested a man of both intelli-
gence and heart, but despite every warm outpouring, when
it came to extending his London journey round by Cum-
berland he was unresponsive as a corpse. It was beautiful
as poetry to witness the proud, wounded fellow forget what
was due to his name, and literally fall on his knees, be-
seeching. It was fine to see the hunger of appeal embel-
lishing his rare eyes; his eloquence was exceptional, his
fervent gestures in themselves an elevating entertainment,
but Captain Wiseman was one eternal No. Tbe gallant
captain was frank in his admiration of the lad; as a man
and as a soldier he admitted that his prisoner glowed with
qualities unique in his experience. He had felt himself the
proudest father in Europe (Wiseman was an inimitable
solid family man) had he been endowed with so superlative
a son. Still, his phlegmatic soul permitted him no enthu-
siasm; it wouldn't pay to take a traitor round by Cumber-
land. Thus he stood as inexorable as stone.
The company slept at Davie Sinclair's, the night being
now too advanced and dark to proceed farther. The prisoner
went to bed bitterly. Wiseman, knowing him to be much
reduced by his wound, apportioned him the kindness of a
256 FIERCEHEART, TH^ SOLDIER.
couch, though, while he occupied it, three armed and wide-
eyed sentinels shared his room.
Young Fierceheart gathered little rest. His head was so
grewsomely malodorous with its meditations that nice-
nosed sleep was shocked, and ungraciously retired to a
sweeter pillow. Tyburn Tree was to be the destination of
the traitor, and the rare name of Seton was about to be
trampled in the filth. He was young; with ambitions bud-
ding; within him a wonderful sense of conscious power
just born; he thirsted to sip the nectar from the lips of
love; yet to every retributive pang he was resigned. He
beheld his father's hand directing practically every visita-
tion of his woes, yet he blessed the hand that administered
the pain. But his mother dying and awaiting him; and
his father sacrificing fifty years of love to keep his memory
clean, these thoughts were too horrible to be accepted with
complacence. Oh, he must repair to Cumberland and set
the matter straight! The thing goaded him while he pon-
dered on it. His innocent father suffering. Better, far
better, that his mother should perish cursing him. Yet,
would she curse him ? Ah! Conceive his mother cursing
him. Oh, those blinded fools in Cumberland, who had
allowed a mad old patriot to persuade them that his mother
adored the king more tenderly than she adored her son!
As if there was the woman born that could sacrifice chil-
dren for country. God! he must save his father. And at
any price must that white old man be spared.
He tossed long hours, evolving what to do. He swore a
determination to his teeth that ere he suffered martyrdom
for the cause of right he would pass an hour in Cumber-
land and straighten this tangled skein. But how accom-
plish it ?
This, the defiant question.
FIERCESEART, THE SOLDIER. 267
CHAPTER XXV.
thb bridge by auchterarder.
Necessity spurred his wits. So urgent was his heart's
demand for an hour of liberty that unscrupulosity came
sourly to the aid of tumultuous speculation. He summoned
the three sentries to the side of his couch.
*' Men," he began in a careful whisper, " would you like
to earn some gold ?"
Their lusts jumped. Bad pay, dry throats, and a natu-
ral rapacity. Yes, they had no objection to earning gold.
It was coarsely transacted, certainly, but then he knew his
men.* It is best to woo with vulgarity the rabble whose
appetite is for dogfights and horseplay. There was much
to be transacted, but the details were carefully carried out
that night, in business whispers.
They were to give him his freedom, and he would pre-
sent to one his gold watch, to another his ring, to the third
his chain and a diamond pin. His first demand was that
they should permit him to escape that night, to which all
three demurred with promptitude. That would involve
serious trouble to themselves. Their own part in the affair
must be concealed, but one, whose name was Bonus, was a
craftsman. It was little he said, but that little was exceed-
ing germane to the question. Bonus was an artist at his
trade; had robbed his mother at the age of five, had picked
the pockets of a Bow Street runner three years later, had
five times borne false witness, had squeezed blackmail from
a duke, had murdered an old woman who dwelt in the
Ratcliffe Highway for the sake of her hoard of pence con-
cealed in an eight-day clock, for which affair his tongue
had had the skill to get a seaman hanged; the next week
had swindled a widow out of her annuity, and had held a
coach up, with a bishop in it, on the Heath. Nothing was
too high, or too mean, for his talent, and he never was
found out. He never was found out, for he was secret as
that midnight cat that steals the cream.
258 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Yew leave it ter Bonus, yer honner. It '11 be night and
yer 'orse '11 go lame, and then pawty '11 stop. Two or three
'11 dismount to examine it, and ter guard yer, for yer '11 dis-
mount too, and yer can leave the rest ter me."
On the strength of their promises, and the confidence
they had in Bonus, the prisoner paid over his jewelry
on the spot, with an extra guinea to Bonus for his inge-
nuity.
When the morning came, however, this faith in his coad-
jutors received a shock.
As they were on the point of starting from the inn
Wiseman somewhat blandly inquired :
" What's become of your watch, your chain, and your
ring, Seton ?"
The prisoner looked angrily up, and saw Mr. Bonus
some distance away with his thumb beside his nose. Mr.
Bonus was made a corporal on his return to town on the
strength of sagacity displayed. He ultimately rose to the
rank of quartermaster, and in the course of time he
managed to rob the Treasury so systematically and well
that, when he retired upon his pension, he had amassed
enough to set up as a gentleman, and died justice of the
peace for Nottingham.
An early start was made in the kind spring morning of
sun and song. The dew mists, retreating, bared a blue sky
of peace. Dark sorrow should have fled with them and the
night; not that it did, for the prisoner, savage with defeat,
grieving over a lost cause, and torn with the knowledge
that his own deeds had provoked the sufferings of others,
had a cold rage at his heart, from which only death could
release htm. His captors did not guess what a silent, des-
perate, beastlike anger had cursed the spirit of their captive,
else they had not permitted him the liberty of his hands as
he rode in their midst toward England. Hell was loose in
his blood. But he would speak with his mother. All day
his head was a riot of turbulent schemes. He must gain an
hour's liberty. Yet how hopeless his situation. Wiseman
restricted his right rein. Boulder his left, both armed thor-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 259
oughly, and ten men behind them likewise. And he
defenseless, weak, blood-spent, and subdued with gashes in
hand and side. The eyes upon him never relaxed their dill-
gence. For him no hope. Not once, though, did he pause
in the meditation of his designs on freedom. The imperial
Seton in him that spurned defeat was like a music charming
despair away; and presently its precious strain thrilled
through his heart, till the moan of misery was heard no
more. Difficulties court the strong, that the strong may
overcome them.
They came to Pitlochrie by a devious road, and halted
there to dine. Mr. Bonus leered and mumbled of lame
horses as he assisted the wounded prisoner to dismount.
Yodng Fierceheart longed to crush that gentleman's bent
head with his boot, but remembered that those who fondle
snakes are prone to be bitten. The fault was his own. He
felt himself to cut a pretty figure of a man and a gentle-
man. Poor Molly! It was perhaps as well that his desti-
nation was Tyburn Tree.
Over the meal, much as he racked his head for a plan,
plans proved tardy. And the journey was resumed in the
afternoon mile upon mile nearer England, with his mind
still void. There was an inn at Auchterarder they hoped
to reach by nightfall. A mile or so before travelers from
the north could reach this baiting-house they were com-
pelled to cross a wooden bridge, a narrow and insecure
structure, that spanned the river Earn. It was when shad-
ows began to sweep upon the braes, and the sun to fall
behind gold hills, that the presence of this bridge ran in
the prisoner's recollection. Hope I Hope so remote, though,
that sure only desperation could have dared to apply the
word to a straw so slender. The attempt was perilously
like a madness in a man really hale; what, then, to one
stricken and encumbered? He would make it, though, life
being now so valueless.
However, he was not even sure as yet whether fortune
would be sufficiently with him to permit the attempt being
made at all. Night was necessary; also great promptitude
260 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
and skill, and certainly all the favor the fickle goddess
could bestow. But above all, he must have darkness.
Braced with this design, he felt resolution string his lax
fibers up; the great ache grew subdued in his side, his hand
throbbed and bit him less, and he saw more harmonious
tints in the falling sun. Oh, for the night ere they reached
the bridge! The shadows were irritatingly slow in their
crawling. He counted the minutes, and later the sixty
seconds that composed them, to assure himself that they
were really fieeting, since he had no watch to provide him
the assurance.
The rapid fiight of shadows to the hraes, and the white
stream not yet disclosed in the gloom, at last convinced
him that night would defeat their horses. The captain had
made faulty reckoning; the dark would be down ere they
came to the bridge, and to the prisoner this fact argued
that the goddess was indeed with his enterprise. And now
he began to prepare for the fierce deed, with a surprising
and minute particularity. Having been disarmed, he would
be forced to rely solely on his undamaged left hand for his
only weapon. Times and again he clenched it into a spas-
modic fist, and once pressed it into his cheek to test the
tension of the iron knuckles. Then he noted with grim
care the exact point at the side of Lieutenant Boulder's jaw
that he had decided must come in contact with them.
Thus, by the time they actually did arrive at the bridge,
the night was wholly come in its darkness, and his scheme
of escape was mature in every detail.
The bridge over the swift water was an insufficient affair,
that forbade more than three horsemen to ride abreast.
Wiseman preserved the same order as hitherto, feeling
himself so secure in his precautions that he admitted no
necessity to increase them. Thus his prisoner between his
lieutenant and himself still formed the first line of the cav-
alcade, the remainder of his company riding in rows of
three behind them.
Owing to the uncertain nature of the structure, they
were compelled to proceed at a walking pace over the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 261
bridge. They were approaching its middle when the pris-
oner cautiously slipped his boots free of the stirrups,
suddenly whipped to the left, and dashed one fist into the
lieutenant's jaw, beating him half insensible. Hisconvuls-
ive grip on the reins of his horse, as he tried to avert falling
from the saddle, pulled up the animal short, as the prisoner
had calculated that it would. Afid the captain had not
even time to seize his man or to beset him with a sword,
ere the traitor checked his own horse, and scrambled over
its head, and alighted hands and knees on to the planks in
front. The lieutenant dazed, and the troops hemmed in
behind by the narrow path, only Wiseman had a chance
to spur forward from the right to arrest him as he was
about to rise from his knees. But too late. His horse's
forefeet were almost crushing the traitor's body, when he
leaped up from under them, vaulted on to the low parapet,
and while several pistols spoke and men pressed up to avert
the daring act, he took a header and plunged a distance of
twelve feet into the deep stream.
The whole thing was accomplished in much less than a
minute, indeed, ere any of his captors, noi even Wiseman
himself, who rode at his rein, had had a chance to entirely
apprehend what had occurred. Instantly they made for
the other side of the bridge, and for an hour they scoured
the bank of the river, and the captain even dispatched a
company back to the north side of the water to investigate;
but search was of no avail.
Disconsolate and prisonerless, they ultimately supped and
passed the night at the inn at Auchterarder. The strange
thing was, in the bruised lieutenant's opinion, that Wise-
man, his superior, should be so preposterously easy in his
mind in the matter of this disaster. The captain offered to
bet the swearing lieutenant any sum from five pounds to
fifty that the traitor would be retaken, and without exer-
tion.
" I shan't even trouble to hunt him, my dear fellow."
"What?"
It was repeated.
262 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"Well, Wiseman, I'd better confess that I think you
mad."
" I shall simply repair to his father's house in Cumber-
land," answered unconcern, " live on the cream of the
country, and he there to greet our fine young bird when he
puts his appearance in."
Boulder had never heard such douhle-d d nonsense.
"Man, you're madl"
"I'll lay you twenty pounds he comes to Cumberland,
anyhow."
Boulder, the needy, jumped up at so polite a present.
"But, Wiseman, my friend, there '11 he the devil to pay
when we show our noses in town."
" Bah ! we shall retake him, I tell you. Do you think I
don't know my man, then?"
"Absurd! Preposterous I You aren't serious, surely?"
" You'll see."
" Then, Wiseman, when you make your report, I hope
you will do me the justice to state that I most strenuously
refused to concur in this very extraordinary, this very un-
precedented proceeding; and that I earnestly stated to you
at the time you proposed it, that I considered it positively
the last place in the world in which he was likely to he
found, knowing how disaffected his father stood toward
him."
"Certainly, certainly! I shall he at pains to state all
that. And now, my friend, we'll shake hands on our
wager."
Which done. Boulder, a very conscientious oflBcer, went
to his bed, and tossed on it till dawn, bemoaning that he
was not the first in command, and cursing demented Wise-
man. It was really the most ridiculous thing he had ever
heard in his life! Conceive that they should wholly relin-
quish the search, and post straightway to the father's house,
when that father had tried to murder him once, and had
actually furnished the king with the information on which
they were acting. Wiseman was mad.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 263
CHAPTER XXVI.
exhibits captain wiseman at his ease.
This explains why young Molly, when drawing her
aunt's blinds up one morning of spring to let the young
sun in, should be startled into an exclamation. Her eyes
were afflicted with the grim sight of some dozen dust-
stained soldiers of the king crunching down the front path
to the entrance steps.
" What is the matter, dear?" piped the invalid.
"A wasp in the window, auntie." The young cheat
sucked the hack of her hand, and then begged to be ex-
cused whilst she ran to seek a balsam.
She flew down to Fierceheart and the parson, and was
just in time to follow a big, fat, hard-faced man of flfty,
evidently an offlcer by the abundance of braid on his coat
and his hat, into the room.
" Captain Wiseman, on king's business," the servant an-
nounced him.
The captain stepped briskly up to the parson and seized
the churchman's hand.
" We've come for your son, sir; and what a son, sir 1 By
Jove! I'm proud to meet his father; really, that lad's a very
fine fellow 1"
The parson visibly fluttered under the encomium.
"He's not dead, then?"
"Dead? Lord, no! Alive and mischievous as a regi-
ment. Laid out three of my men, wounded three others,
and accomplished absolutely the most wonderful and dare-
devil escape, for one in his condition, in the whole of my
experience."
Young Molly waited for no more; she ran to hide her
agitation. As to the parson, he returned to the captain's
hand and rewrung it in the most ridiculous fashion.
" Not dead, not dead! " he repeated. The singular man!
Reports must have lied regarding his treatment of his son.
264
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
His present behavior was sheer high treason. He could
not control his delight at the escape.
"You'll pardon me, Sir James," he said, " but I do hope
you will not compromise this situation with an undue dis-
play of your feelings, sir."
"Sir, have I done so?" inquired the general. He had
hitherto been quite ignored.
" I was addressing Sir James Seton, sir."
" You are," acknowledged the quiet Fierceheart.
Here dawned a little light. Could it be possible that this
little insignificant old man was England's hero, and the
sire of so wonderful a son! He sued pardon in fitting
terms. Prompt arrangements were made for his company.
It was decided that the captain himself and his lieutenant
should stay at the Hall, and that the men should have
their billets distributed in various houses in the village.
And while this business was being transacted, the shrewd
captain asked:
"Sir James, who is that massive, tall man whom I mis-
took for you?"
" You mean the Reverend Doctor Blunt, I presume."
"Does he live here?"
" At the Vicarage, in the village."
" Then I shall quarter three men on him. He will have
to be regarded, sir.
" True, captain; I heartily commend that precaution."
But when that precaution was mooted to the parson, the
parson thundered.
Quarter three on him! Heaven and earth, would they!
He'd put gunpowder under their beds, and dashed soon
quarter 'em in eternity, if they acted games like that with
him. His language would have killed a bishop on the spot,
as Molly told him.
" My dear sir, I should recommend you to be reasonable,"
from the cool Wiseman.
" And I should recommend you to be polite, puppy,"
from the warm churchman. "You think me afraid of the
braid on your coat, do you? Oons, you poor thing! I
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER. 265
make it a habit to eat better men than you with a little
salt to my breakfast every Sunday."
The captain thought it a pity; and said it was an extrava-
gance to make such a formidable meal.
"Quarter three on me! Man, do you think I'll have three
dirty dragoons crossing my doorstep ? You've heard of
hell, sir; well, that's where I'll see 'em rather!"
The captain still thought it a pity, as dragoons were such
thirsty creatures and would want their summer clothing.
Which appealed to the parson like rappee, and he handed
him his box.
Not that the captain was not thoroughly equal to his
word; the three troopers were duly imposed on the Vicar-
age.
Minute precautions were made to seize the traitor imme-
diately he came, and the general assisted the captain to
complete every arrangement.
"The old one overdoes his part," said Boulder to Wise-
man. " It is unnatural for a father to hunt a son like that;
my belief is that it is mere deceit. It is merely to cover the
fact that he is with his boy in secret."
From that hour sapient Boulder reposed no further trust
in the professions of Fierceheart.
During this period of plot and counter-plot, the behavior
of Molly was conspicuous. The first thing she did after
the arrival of the soldiers was to hold a secret interview
with the reverend doctor.
" You think he will come, sir?" was how she began it,
" If he is not drowned, I indubitably do. Nor do I think
him drowned. It would take an ocean, not a river, to
claim a lad like that. Oh, he'll come!"
" Bu^ I hear that he has a great wound in his side, sir."
" What says the captain? He is staking his guineas and
his reputation on the coming of your boy. For which the
lieutenant calls him mad, but he will yet live to confess
that it is on his own side that the madness lies."
"Tom must be forewarned, then. But how? These sol-
diers have created a woeful complication."
266 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Too true 1 But when I saw him in Scotland I explicitly
told him his father's attitude, and he promised me then to
minimize the risk of detection by not entering the village
till nightfall, and that when he did he would come straight
to me at the Vicarage
" But you have three spies now quartered in the house."
" The devil! I'd forgotten 'em."
" You should have controlled your feelings, sir; then that
wouldn't have occurred," said severity.
"Yours are always conspicuously restrained, aren't they?
But something has got to be done."
" I suggest, sir, that every night one of us two shall keep
a watch on the road from Carlisle, say at a point a couple
of miles out of the village."
It savored of bravery to propose a scheme of such a
nature; the amount of physical exertion it demanded would
be immense, while as a crowning disability, for months
now, her nursing duties had daily swallowed such a
quantity of time, that she had suffered bitterly from lack
of necessary rest.
The parson presented a wry mouth.
"Sleepless nights," he groaned, "agues, rheumatisms,
colds, and an early death from exposure."
" Good for dyspepsia, you know, doctor. Kemember, I've
found you trying it."
"And for the impudence, too; grand thing for the
impudence. Oh, it '11 take it out of you. Suppose you try
the first night, my dear? I've been really very unwell to-
day." The man relapsed into persuasion and diplomacy.
" Yes, ^ will," said nobility; yet she here stifled a yawn,
which was diplomacy, too.
"Well, I think I'll try it myself to-night. Dyspepsia
reminds me. It '11 perhaps do me good, and you are want-
ing a rest, I perceive."
She strenuously deprecated that, but at the same time
contrived to yawn again in the middle of her vehemence.
Thereupon it was decided that at dusk that evening, the
ease-loving clergyman should march out several miles into
PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 267
the night, and perform sentry work on the highroad till
morning came to relieve him. It was scarcely credible
that a person so lethargic could undertake to do so much.
It might have been shame, though. The sources from which
our actions spring are seldom wholly pure. Others were
doing so much, and he was doing so little. His friend, old
Fierceheart, killing himself for a principle; young Molly
ransacking her feminine head for ideas, and with impetuous
toil grinding her flesh into its native dust; Tom, his god-
son, crushing every obstacle of fortune and condition down,
assaulting every danger, and releasing his life to repair
the breach he had made between his father and his mother.
The parson felt greedily that when such an abundance of
flne conduct was flowering, he should like to take one
solitary bud unto himself. But he regretted his punch and
his pipe, though, and when he set forth the night was keen.
He had adventures; their story is remarkable, and may be
found to have even an intrinsic interest.
In the Hall parlor at ten o'clock that evening. Lieutenant
Boulder and Captain Wiseman were smoking and drinking
with the general, and were discussing with him the law as
it stood toward traitors. Commotion burst suddenly upon
their peace. It was the reverend doctor, a vengeful flgure,
in a greatcoat, and awful his wrath. He stepped up to the
captain, in manner fear-inspiring, streaming insults, and
a violent agitation in his hands. The captain attempted to
smile him down.
"Sir," the parson stormed, "did you set a watch upon
me? I go out for an hour, and your three villains follow
me up hill and down dale at a distance of ten paces. It is
an insult, sir, an insult; and I shall be glad to receive your
apology; very glad, sir, to receive your apology."
The man of anger stood purple and expectant, only to be
requited with bland indignity. The captain laughed, and
tenderly used a conciliating voice for an unconciliating
answer.
" Necessity, I assure you, my dear sir. You have betrayed
BO lively an interest in the escape of this traitor that you
18
268 PIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER,
compel precaution. What is to assure me that you are not
trying to co-operate with my late prisoner, sir?"
" It is a free land since Cromwell, my man. Can't I do
what I like, and go where I like, without having to answer
to an insolent officer and three prowling dragoons?"
"Emphatically no, sir. As you may be aware, in times
of war unusual things are done; and I acting for his
Majesty, it is sufficient, if I suspect the need to place you
under surveillance, to take that measure, sir."
" To which I quite as emphatically refuse to submit, sir.
And rather than do so I will call my pistol into use. Your
behavior is an outrage to my feelings, sir. And, sir, I have
served the king."
The captain was still smooth of voice, yet betrayed no
sorrow.
"Yes, sir, I am afraid you will live to serve him overseas,
if discretion does not temper your heat. I know that you
are a dangerous person, and I have acted as I have done to
protect the king."
"Sir, I resolutely refuse to be spied upon; I will assert my
citizen rights; I live in a free land, and I will appeal to its
laws rather than submit to a blackguard."
"Now, my good friend, mark me," said the quite cool
captain. " I have reason to suspect you of holding lenient
sentiments toward traitors, which makes you a person
highly inimical to this realm, and more particularly in
times like this; and his Majesty's Government has per-
mitted me a free hand in dealing with malignant persons
of your description. If you give me any more trouble, I
shall have you removed to the jail at Carlisle till this arrest
has been made, for I am empowered to do so."
'' O tempora! O mores!"
The parson bounced out in anger.
Happily Tom did not come that night. But a sharp
shock had been administered to his friends. When the
parson complained to Molly in the morning of his villain-
ous treatment; how his every movement was food for a
spy. how all assistance he thought of lending Tom when
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 269
he came would be frustrated; and worse than all, the
smiling insolence of Wiseman and the indifference of
Fierceheart, her eyes ffamed anger.
"Oh, it's brutal 1" she cried with curls tossing like the
mane of a lion. " Oh, it's brutal, and you say uncle abets
him ?"
"He does."
"Then I'll just tell uncle something. Oh, it's brutal.
I'll go now." The young fury sprang to the door prepared
to fulfil her word, but the parson grabbed her wrist as she
was darting by him, and detained her.
" Oh, you mad thing, you! Don't you see you are our
only hope; and that, if you go running about with your
heart on your sleeve like that, Wiseman will see you in
your true light, and impose the same restrictions on you he
has already done on me."
She saw her error, but, womanlike, refused to admit it.
However she tarried and listened to Reason, of which Dr.
John Blunt was the embodiment.
" But, doctor, I feel just furious! That fat captain with a
face like a cheese to come domineering here, and uncle to
encourage him. Monstrous! infamous! But we won't be
beaten, will we ? You and I, we'll teach them a few
things—eh?"
She flashed a fine pair of eyes up to the parson out of
a militant face formed for high deeds and indomitable
valor.
The parson gave her a solemn kiss; oh, the comic rogue
was better than Molifere!
" However, sir, I suppose your assistance must now be put
out of the case entirely. The whole business will have to
devolve on me. Auntie seems quiet and at her ease this
morning; thus during the day I shall snatch some sleep,
and start my first watch to-night."
She shivered. Her mind fled to the eerie shadows peeping
out of the dark, and the ghostly wind speaking to the
branches.
" Yet your care yrill have to be the most extreme," the
270 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
parson cautioned her. '' Wiseman and his red devils swarm
in every nook of the village. They are never quiet, nor
are their suspicions."
"But as you had the good fortune to advise Tom to come
in the night, we may cheat them yet, sir."
" We may," groaned dubiety.
Vigilant Wiseman and his men were now a nightmare to
this pair of conspirators. Such was their fear of them that
they durst scarcely talk together lest they should be over-
heard or deductions made. The captain issued stringent
instructions to his company; night and day the village and
the Hall shrubbery were diligently patrolled by the guard.
Boulder sneered, though others trembled.
CHAPTER XXVII.
truth's revenges.
About eleven o'clock at night, as Wiseman and Boulder
were throwing a main for shillings, and the general was
sitting in the chimneyside still reading in bis manual, a
well cloaked person was conducted by the soldiers to their
officer. She had been carefully watched; her behavior had
been found suspicious, and per instructions she had been
brought to the captain.
While her captors spoke young Molly came out of her
cloak, the flash of her eyes illuminating the whole of her
white, scared face. The captain looked up at her with his
soft smile, and dismissed his men. She was genuinely
frightened at the captain; the man was so calm and easy
and so sure, withal so politely brutal; besides she had the
consciousness of wrong. The man had threatened the
parson too, and was one who looked equal to his most im-
perious word. He was also a soldier, and she had learned
to dread the terrible name.
"Well, Miss Appleby," he smiled, "you are even as I
thought you were—a traitor to the king."
FIERCEHEAUT, THE SOLDIER. 271
The offender began to tremble; there was something •
loathsome in the sleek cruelty of his speeches.
" I had long guessed it, and I am glad I now hold posi-
tive evidence. My men received special instructions, you
see."
" To watch a woman! " flashed scorn.
" To watch a traitor, if you please." His mouth fell, his
smile increased; the iron of his natural hand began to bite
through its velvet glove. " My dear young lady, I would
really recommend great care. You wear the stigma of a
very serious crime; and I have merely to communicate
your position to his Majesty's Government for serious
trouble to ensue. You cannot be too careful how you assist
an escaped prisoner and proscribed traitor."
He meant to frighten her, and he very well succeeded.
He would have no nonsense in the prosecution of his duty.
"And I may inform you, my dear young lady, that if
you are caught similarly occupied a second time, or Dr.
Blunt either, you will forthwith be dispatched to Carlisle
jail. And the consequences will probably be serious. I
have no more to say."
And with that dismissal the calm gentleman, having
politely dropped his thunderbolt, turned to pursue his
game with Boulder. But the girl vehemently appealed to
Fierceheart.
" Uncle, will you permit this—this—this man to usurp all
authority in your house?" The effort brought her to tears,
for which she never forgave herself.
Fierceheart was slow to reply, but his answer was most
consistent to himself.
" My dear, I shall certainly uphold Captain Wiseman in
any step he thinks fit to take in his dealings with those who
aid and abet traitors. And, should you be so misguided as
to recommit tbis offense now you have been warned, if
Captain Wiseman is not so good as his word and fails in his
duty, I shall fulfill it for him. Are you not aware what
momentous importance it is to the state that this traitor
shall not escape?"
272 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" But they are going to hang him!" she sobbed.
"Yes, they will hang him; and don't you dare to pity
him, or John Blunt either, or you shall both go to jail till
he is taken."
She did not retort, but fled the room, drunk with anger
and fear.
Captain Wiseman complimented the general.
"Sir James, I am very obliged with your assistance.
Unless these people are at once stopped in this midnight
game, the traitor may slip through our hands, after
all."
"You can be quite easy, captain," said Boulder; "he'll
still slip through your hands. This idle waiting here doing
nothing Jiut dicing and backgammoning, while our bird
quickly hops out of England, is just the maddest thing I've
heard for many a day." The lieutenant never lost an
opportunity of harping on that particular string.
There was one thing in the behavior of Fierceheart,
throughout this time, that puzzled these military gentle-
men. At those periods he was occupied in discussing the
punishment of traitors, the honest captain would now and
then dilate upon the heroic nature of the son. And, at the
first word of glorification, the old man would shut his
mouth up like a trap, and crouch deep into his chair, shiver-
ing in his great, dumb agony. It has been remarked that
the captain was not a humane man unless it paid to
be humane; and in these instances, as soon as Fierce-
heart's reiterated talk of traitors began to weary him,
he would interpose:
"Ah, general! if that fine lad had only gone right now,
if he had only gone right, what a man for England and you
Setons!"
Silence would come upon the father then, and hours
would pass ere he would venture to open his lips again.
Meantime, Molly was bursting with indignation against
the manners of soldiers. She had been foiled; a fact that
will answer for the spontaneity of her wrath. Yet her
wrath was more than equaled by her terror. She and the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 273
parson were now both debarred from helping Tom, which
was tantamount to saying that Wiseman had set about pur-
suing the most effective method of retaking him. If alive,
nothing would prevent him coming to seek his dying
mother; she knew her hero sufficiently well to be assured
of that. And what could save him now his only friends
had their hands tied? Despair came. But instead of fol-
lowing her first impulse, which was to throw herself
on vain tears, she obeyed the hardly more creditable one of
sullen defiance. She had heard the captain recite, with
many admiring punctuations of his own, the horrid, bloody
story of young Fierceheart at the inn; how he had fought
a hopeless battle for the sheer pleasure of fighting, with
a grievous hole in his side, till he could fight no more. She
had learned to loathe the name of soldier—his coarse man-
ners, his hateful instincts, his desperate bulldog tenacity;
but quaint perversity, her heart now hungered to copy the
behavior of that fierce, gross animal. She determined
to fight till she could fight no more. Thus she fled to the
Vicarage, and as she went she noted grimly that all the way,
till her feet were in the parson's garden, a sly-footed
dragoon followed circumspectly in her wake.
It was now eleven o'clock of a soft April morning,
and the parson was seated in the rude bachelor manner
with his legs on the mantelpiece, reading.
" Hullo, young one! And now what's amiss?"
He had need to inquire, for anger and fear's prolonged
orgy in the night had imprinted their visible seal on
her beauty.
She dragged his legs from the mantelpiece, and led
the reluctant man to the window to show him the dragoon
impudently lolling over the gate. And he was only the epi-
logue to the story of last night. The parson's heart dropped
when she had recited it.
" Oh, my dear woman! nothing can save him now."
The too frequent tears crept once more to his cheek. He
had wept so many times lately that all his pretensions were
washed away, and he had ceased to blush for his weepings.
274 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
He no longer desired to pose as an icicle; that cold farce had
lost its refreshment, and the arrogant and wifeless creature
was driven to admit that he had feelings, and worse, feel-
ings even susceptible to sorrow.
They stood and stared pitilessly one at the other.
" Nothing can save him!" said the face of one, and the
cheerless phrase was repeated in the other's eyes.
" We can do no more," he moaned.
" We can, sir—we can die fighting."
"So we can," said the parson. There was no deny-
ing that the tone of the rogue pulled his heart up out of the
slough.
Her voice held a note that called to it clearly, and made
it quiver with life, much as it desired to lie down and
die.
" You witch!" said the coward.
The heavy-souled cynic permitted himself the lightness
of mind to clutch a handful of her provoking curls and tug
them; and, as he did it, his heart began to debate with his
understanding as to whether it really ever had seen a girl
so handsome. Pain had shaded fine lines into her face,
particularly about the deep gleam of her eyes, and in
the recesses of her hollow cheeks. The history of the dark
night was written in her countenance. But he saw power
breathing in that appealing face, and seeing it, knew
he must continue struggling to the end.
" I can only stick by your side and spur you on," said
his new humility.
" Then, doctor," she rewarded him, " I shall fear no
jails, I shall fear no King George captains, no terrible
patriots. And if our lad, my lad, does come, I shall lead
them a pretty dance, I'm thinking." The splendors of
battle glowed out of her.
" I'm sure you will, my dear. And, my dear, let me tell
you for the pure fire of beauty I'd wager you this instant
against Diana and Boadicea, and, thunder! I think I see a
touch of Cleopatra too. It's in the set of that little swing-
ing sky-aspiring head you're wearing, you young witch I
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 275
I spy the conqueror there, the devil-killer. It would over-
come a tempest, I do believe. Let Wiseman and James the
patriot, that mad unmerciful old fool, pack you off to Car-
lisle Jail, you wonderful slip of wickedness, or we shall yet
see 'em deploring shattered schemes."
And he paid her a less effusive, but a sincerer compli-
ment when, as she was about to return to her bed-bound
aunt, he implored:
" Do stay a bit longer! While I can see your face I feel
warm within, and almost as brave as old James, but as
soon as you withdraw it, I grow quite cold and I haven't
the pluck to flutter a cat."
Here, while staying to soften his extreme miseries, and
to incite him to high deeds, she marshaled a few of her
aggressive ideas.
" Would it be possible, do you think, sir, to dodge your
guard to-day by any means ?"
" Why ?"
" I want you to arrange a diflicult and secret matter with
old Tim Lockit. You know what his son is, don't you ?"
Yes, the parson knew what his son was.
" Well, his son's boat is lying in some cove along the
coast, and I want you to inform old Tim that if his son
will undertake to convey a passenger to France "
"Or maybe two," the parson inserted with tremulous
significance.
"Or maybe two, at a given hour some night, it shall be
made better worth the while of both than voyaging with
brandy."'
" But could they be trusted ?"
"Law-breakers can be trusted to cheat the king for
pleasure only, and if they are well paid to do it the bait
will be irresistible, for duty will then Jump with inclina-
tion."
" I am afraid there will be no eluding Wiseman's men,
though. But I'll give them the chance to do their worst;
and assuming, my dear, that your reasoning be correct—
and it's an enormous, a monstrous thing to assume in a
276 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER,
woman—if I confess to old Tim who those red-coated
prowlers are, and warm his palm with a guinea, it's little
they should get out of him."
" True, sir; and you will undertake the task at once ?"
The parson precipitately put his hat on and took his
staff from the corner, the cause of his haste being that he
desired to act while her eyes were on him. Indeed they
only could find and sustain him in courage now. Together
they issued from the Vicarage, and the parson made off at
a strong pace through the village to the cliffs. He
descended a steep hill-brow as the sun danced on the white
face of it and mirrowed its fair reflection in the sea; though
strange lights and shades played on the waters, proceeding
from bank upon bank of storm-wrack riding east. The
passion clouds strewed a heavy trail of shadows as they
came, and presently surrounded and swallowed up the sun.
By the time the old man had come to the beach, and there
entered an obscure cottage stowed among the rocks,
the storm had burst upon the sands, and had con-
demned two spying dragoons, while they waited before the
barred hut door for the parson's reappearance, to be cut
through and through with the angry wind and rain.
As for young Molly, she went home and met the various
looks of the lieutenant, the captain, and Fierceheart with a
very unflinching eye. In fact the calculating stare of it
was considered, by its recipients, to border on the insolent.
She immediately repaired to her aunt. The old lady had
heen left in a troubled sleep; but now, as sbe returned, the
mother was broad awake, and a light dancing in the
utmost depths of her eyes, never witnessed there before in
all the girl's experience.
" I've seen him, I saw him in my sleep ! " the mother
cried. "Oh, how changed 1 But I knew him, I knew him
for all the blood about him, and his thin, white face. And
do you see where his lips have burnt me; they only
touched me once, but so hot they were that they seared
into me like coals."
She smiled and ceased her heavy whispering, and put
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 277
one finger on a fever spot that was glowing in the middle
of her cheek.
" I never had a dream that seemed so real," she said.
" Whatever afflicts you in your sleep, you lose the sensi-
bility of it when you wake; but though I never was more
awake than I am now, I can still feel his kiss quite plainly
shriveling my cheek. And he looked so palpable. The
way he opened his eyes very wide in a sort of wonder, and
the way he set his face very fiercely, like his father used to
do, and the way his lips began to twitch as he talked of
soldiers, I saw all that, and perhaps it was by that I knew
him. I could see thick smears stuck over the white of his
face, and there was a sword in his hands, running blood.
He'looked horrible, yet lovely: my flesh shrank from him
while I strained him to my arms. But God has kept his
promise. He said that I should see him before I went.
And now I have seen him, I shall be released."
" Oh, auntie, do wait; you must wait a little longer!"
Her niece was thinking of the husband.
" No, my dear, I have only an hour or two. And I am
very glad."
" But uncle?"
The dying wife lay silent.
" Your husband, auntie, him you have loved so long.
You won't go without giving him good-by."
" I shall," she said. " All he has made me suffer I will
make him also suffer. He has condemned me to die, hav-
ing only seen my innocent boy in a dream. He has re-
fused to forgive his son. I will die refusing to forgive
him."
Self grimly applauded self as she lay dying and hating.
The girl fell on her knees by the couch.
" That old man is innocent. Tom, your son "
She impotently buried her head in the bedclothes. No,
she could not blast the fair image for that pale mother.
The faith of that old woman had conquered the invincible
Fierceheart. It cast aside the resolves of a puny girl with
scornful ease.
278 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
It was in vain that she implored the dying woman to
summon and forgive her husband; vain, pitifully vain I
" He has denied me my boy, he shall be denied me,"
the reiterated answer ; though once it was modified:
" If I could, I would forgive him, but I can't; my heart
won't let me."
The girl was spurred to a desperate deed.
" If I send for Tom?" she appealed.
"Too late, child. I can't wait. I am sinking every
hour."
" Stay one week, only one week !"
"Nay, not even if I wished to do. I am worn out, and
God has removed his support. He said I should see my
boy, and having shown him me, he is letting me slip
peacefully out of the world. I will admit my disappoint-
ment, though. God has quibbled with me, for I am fubbed
off with nothing more tangible than a dream."
"Within a week I will bring him to you, if you will
only wait, dear aunt."
" I am not a child," the angry answer. " And so
absurd a promise will avail neither you nor me."
Defeated, she went down to her uncle.
"Uncle, she is going at last. She says she is sinking
every hour, and even now is very near to the end.
Hadn't you better go and see her, sir; it is your last chance."
She was conscious of the callous directness of her words,
but was far more deeply so that any tenderer conveyance
of the cruel news would have involved a deep catastrophe
to herself and to her mission.
Fierceheart received her words with his usual placidity,
and aske(] with face inscrutable:
" Has she sent for me to come ?"
His niece stumbled and vacillated in her speech.
" No, she has not," he answered for her, " and that being
so I cannot go."
She tried to pursue and capture him with argument, but
he besought her meekly to desist. And his composure
proving irresistible, she left him and returned to her aunt
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 279
with nothing done. When she had gone, the husband sat
a full hour with his eyes fixed on the decanters on the side-
board. Once he got up, moved toward them, but sud-
denly stopped in the middle of the carpet, then, pondering
a moment, slunk back doglike to the chair. His eyes
though were still for the sheen of glass and the sparkling
ruby, till at last he summoned the butler on the bell.
" Sellers," he commanded, " take those things, those
wines, take them away."
When Captain Wiseman and Lieutenant Boulder re-
turned from a review of their various outposts in the
village, they found their host, the general, in a half
stupid state. When they addressed him a remark he
answered them with a sort of unpremeditated silence, as
though he was quite willing to permit them the courtesy
of speech, only that now he was deprived of the power of
language.
" Tell you what it is. Boulder," said Wiseman under his
breath, " that old fellow is breaking up fast. Lord, and
what a man he's been for England in his time! And I've
heard veterans say that, had he been as unscrupulous as
the duke, he would have cut quite as big a figure before
the world. But he was always stubborn as a mule, they
tell me, and a thought too much the fine gentleman in
morality. And it doesn't pay to split straws of conduct in
the army, does it ? That's why, all through, he's been his
own enemy, I hear."
Molly sat with her aunt all through the afternoon, in-
deed far afterward, till the sun went and the shadows fell.
Visible was the change that crept upon the mother; she
prattled no more of her son, but lay half serenely still,
shutting her eyes and opening them, straining to summon
and embody a bright vision the eyes of her mind beheld.
And to such an extent did she concentrate her resources on
this strenuous occupation that success rewarded her, and
for many hours a quiet smile shone in her cheek. But the
nurse saw that hourly the effort to breathe grew greater,
and that no matter how still she lay, this internal life-
280 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
struggle grew so pronounced at times that it provoked a
ripple of the bedclothes. Once the girl asked her whether
there was anything she wished that she should do. She
answered :
" No, leave me like this to my peace, and in an hour or
two my life will flicker out quietly. Don't he distressed,
child I I am in no pain at all. The sight of my lad's face
has removed it."
This smiling greeting of death irritated the girl, it pre-
sented so cruel a deed and so sore a problem to her mind.
" Then, dearest auntie, for the last time, what about
uncle ?"
" I asked you to leave me to my peace," she piped, with
peevishness returning.
To bully an old woman dying was beyond even the en-
durance of Molly. But as she sat and watched the unre-
lenting mother she was driven to admit that her instincts
were correct in hating one who was so consistent in
her selfishness. Happily, the irony of this compliment she
thought fit to pay to herself was at once presented to her
accurately balanced senses. Was it not the jealous guard-
ing of her own interests that had made her so inimical to
her aunt ? She was thus compelled to mingle scorn
with her self-applause. Only Heaven, to whom her prayers
were addressed, could enumerate the multitudinous en-
treaties her heart silently poured forth as she sat despair-
ingly in the deathroom that afternoon of spring. If Tom
would return that night! If the mother could but clasp
him once to her arms, and hear one word from him in
defense of the father! She would forgive her husband
then, and he, poor noble fool, would have his long dread
hours of anguish tempered by the mercy and the tender-
ness of love. If her son would only come to her, before
she died!
The girl loathed herself for her cowardice. She, who
had vaunted courage, now lacked the bravery to confess
the truth to a woman dying. Why hadn't they respected
truth in the beginning? Their remedy of subterfuge and
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 281
lies had proved infinitely worse than the disease. The an-
guish of a half-century lover, whose generous, proud heart
endured in silence, and so considered others that it spared
them the infiiction of being privy to its sorrows—mxist
not these titanic pains even by their nature prove more
grievous than the utmost agonies of a shallower soul? Here
was the argument for truth I And it was the more power-
ful since, at the time they had been driven to employ this
remedy of lies, none could have foreseen the remote con-
tingency, and the end had then appeared to justify the
means. Hence the obliviousness with which they had
applied it. Truth, however, was amply avenged. It had
weighed two souls and had showed one to be the truer,
yet here had they persecuted the finer of the two to spare
the inferior. The force of this error now struck young
Kolly down. Oh! why had they permitted old Fierceheart
to be so relentless to himself in his desire to shield his wife.
In the twilight she rose to draw the curtains across the
window, and called at the same time for the lamps. Her
eyes went out to the deep black fringe of shrubbery gird-
ling the lawn. If he was but there I Yet while she stood
one of the unceasing sentries came into view and made her
shudder for the thought. She dully watched the sentry
pass from sight, and as she looked a maid came in behind,
bearing a lamp in her hand. Setting it down beside her on
a dressing-table, the flame of it silhouetted her dark form
against the bright glare, and thus made her full figure
quite plain to those in the night.
At last she set her hands to the curtains to draw them
together, yet ere this was performed the act was arrested.
Something of the nature of a waving white handkerchief
twinkled in the shrubbery, and she tarried longer and con-
tinned to look in an agony of looking. She shaded her
eyes, and her blood thrilled to see the figure of a man
unfold itself, as it slowly rose from out of the shrubbery
undergrowth. And here the handkerchief was very palp-
ably waved again.
With strange haste she drew the curtains then, and
282 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
slipped out of the room. She tied her hat and her cloak
on, her pulses running and rising to a nervous speed, and
her heart beating up into her throat. She opened the hall
door and stood on the steps an instant to see where the
sentries were. One soon came into view and as soon
passed out of it, proceeding on his march round the grounds
Assured that the coast was clear for a minute or two, she
pulled the door behind her and darted across the lawn like
a hare. Taking the bold trees for landmarks, she had been
able to note the precise spot in which the apparition had
been seen. She now ran straight to it, and had to halt
abruptly to avert tripping over a figure prone in the grass.
She whispered to it:
" Soldiers—let us go deep among the trees."
Tom rose at her voice with evident exertion, and followed
her silently into the deepest recesses of the brambles. O^e
thing impressed itself upon her, even in the present fever
of her mind. He hung very heavily on her arm as they
penetrated to the heart of the retreat where the foliage was
thickest; indeed, so heavily at times, that his weight
almost crushed her to the ground.
CHAPTER XXVm.
the traitor.
Haply it had come a moonless night of no stars, and the
fast-falling dark no sooner touched the earth than it crept
to the thick trees and inclosed the two in its midst in a
prison of impenetrable walls. All vehicles of light were
excluded in this great black gloom, even the low sky and
the near candles of the house. There was a grandeur
in this isolation, and a solemnity that would have struck
their blood cold had not a fire, so living and so unsubdu-
able, been flowing in their arteries.
In this intensity of night they could see nothing of one
another now except each other's eyes, and as they groped
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 283
among the unlit ways, he hung yet more heavily upon
her. He asked her to assist him to a strong tree, whose
trunk was capable of supporting him. And arriving at
one, he threw his back against it, fighting for his breath.
"You are wretchedly ill and weak," said her thrilling
voice.
" I am, and am not." It was well that she could not see
the smile he screwed out of the white anguish of his face.
" You have terrible things to perform to-night—things
that are only fit for men, for strong and self-reliant men."
"I shall perform them all, please God." His father's
voice.
** But you can scarcely crawl."
" I have crawled two hundred miles through a country
alive with enemies. There was a description of me in
every inn, yet you see I have eluded all. And as I crept
into the village at daybreak this morning, the first creature
I saw was one of Wiseman's men asleep under a tree, his
idea of sentry go. That set me on my guard, and I was
the less surprised to spy another issuing from the Vicarage
gate. But here I am in safety, and if my mother still lives,
it's to-night I see her."
He was assured that she was alive, and that, even as he
said, to-night he must do all this.
"And my father; my old, unspotted father? What of
him? Since your letter, neither my head nor my heart has
ever known peace."
"He is crushed—crushed—beyond recovery, I fear."
" Oh, fools, fools, fools!" his voice lashed at her.
She could not see him, but she heard the tree shake
under his strong fury, and she shook, too. But the injus-
tice galled her.
" The folly is yours," she retorted.
"Mine! " he mocked, "mine! Who allowed him, that
poor old man, to utter lies to her to screen me at the ex-
pense of himself? He who has sacrificed fifty years of love
for nothing—why did you and Dr. Blunt let him do it ?"
" To spare your mother. Had we told her you were a
19
284 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
traitor the news would have killed her, even while we
spoke. And in what manner would she have died, bethink
you? Oh, I can tell you! "
" How, how?" he demanded.
" She would have died cursing you—her darling, cursing
the world, perhaps cursing her God."
" You are quite sure ?" The inquiry was couched in a
tone of silk, but there was that behind it that dashed the
blood to her face.
" Your father said so."
" My father said so?"
"He tried to tell her, and he failed."
" Then what kept you from telling her?"
" I thought as your father thought, and to-day I tried to
tell her, but like him I failed. But come what may, the
truth must be spoken now; and it is left for you to speak
it. And how, I ask you, should we know, when we began
to practice this deception, that your father would be so ter-
rible a sufferer?"
"Poor blind dupes! You considered it heroic, but you
see what truth's done! Oh, the idea of that white-haired
old man, who never had a thought for himself, crushed to
the dust and mutilated horribly when he should be at
peace! Oh, it tears my soul like steel!"
Again the tree shook; and again she insensibly cowered,
despite the protection of the darkness. But she was ruth-
less as he.
" And who crushed him? Who flung the dearest pre-
cepts of his life full into his face, after he had so specially
engendered them?"
" Ha I taunt me!" he cried, "but no taunt can touch him
who has done his duty. Would you have a man prejudice
his soul for the sake of charity? I, knowing my father to
be wrong, must I yet abide in his camp to preserve his
peace? No, I have done my duty, and let you fleer, let the
world fleer, but Heaven knows it, and God will requite me."
The exaltation of his breast poured out to the dark night
and entered into the girl like a wine. The deep forces now
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 285
issuing from him, that had blended his nature into one of
such rich strength, intoxicated her; empowered her, as they
emerged into her thirsty heart, to overcome suffering and
to forget the likenesses of life. To love and to be loved by
a creature so simple and so imperial was to heed no more
the futility of labor, nor the awful temptations to gnash at
God in the darkness that had besieged her of late in the
lonely night. His voice breathed into her through the
pitch, and thrust corruptions out. She was re-enforced to
meekly bear the rebuffs and pains daily imposed by the bit-
ter conditions of mortality. After her fashion she had done
her duty, too, and could go to his arms blessing God. They
wene open to receive her, and springing to them, she aban-
doned her lips to his, one high moment.
"Oh, I said that God would requite me," he murmured,
lingering on the sweetness to prolong it; "and, tell me,
when you foisted those lies upon my mother, that was your
conception of duty, too?"
"I think it was," persuading herself easily, "at least I
acted with my conscience. It was my conception of the
best, and the conception of your father, too."
"You could do no more, then, but oh, your blind folly!
It is too pitiful that you all should have misread my dying
mother."
"Oh, that we had!" she mourned.
"Only the event can prove it, but do you think I cannot
read my own mother, then? Molly, I swear to you that I,
and only I, am her politics. Her hatred of me in the char-
acter of traitor is a mere conscientious fiction of that vain
old idealist, my father. Having worshiped her fifty
years, what has he done—recreated her in his own image.
He has persuaded himself that his passions are her pas-
sions, and that much as she adores her one surviving child,
she adores her country more. When I go to-night to her,
she will snap her finger at her country and will take me to
her arms as hungrily as the night she bent low upon my
bed, when the Gazette had come with the names of my
brothers in it. Oh, you fools, you fools!"
286 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"We had sincerity," she childishly pleaded.
She was now quite reduced by his storm-shaken tones.
Again had he crushed her, this time not with the poetry of
his sun-kissed face, for in the thick dark it was an indefi-
nite shadow; not by his stern, molten tones of passion, for
her own re-echoed them; it was the sense of achievement,
the power to dare and to overcome, that now laid her un-
conditionally before his feet. Thus, in this weird, strange
place, an oasis of hope in the heart of horror, she crept
timidly to him, fate-beaten and weak, and abandoned her
diminished strength to his increasing power.
" I can't bear your reproaches," she sobbed. " It was for
the best we did it, and if you could guess the sufferings of
us all, you would spare us this. And how could we read
the heart of a mother with equal sureness that a son could?
Fools we may be, but it is cruel for you to say the word."
This plea for mercy stayed his tongue in spite of the black
anger in him, and the tears that were raining unseen from
his eyes on to the memory of his father's sorrows. His
heart hungered to console them; his blood was fretting at
his present inactivity.
" You say my mother is hourly dying; that she may be
hence by daybreak!"
" I am sure of it."
" Then I must go instantly to her."
" Impossible! You will be compelled to wait an hour or
so, till the coast is clear. The captain and lieutenant are
sitting with your father, and two or three sentries, as you
are aware, are about the house. Some arrangement must
be made. I must see Dr. Blunt, and engage his assistance,
for unaided, in your present state, you will never be able
to get across the lawn and up the stairs to your mother's
room unseen. The terrible thing is that it must be done in
secret. No, you must abide here till we come to seek
you."
" But my mother ? I must see her before she goes; all
will be undone, else."
" I will tell her of your coming, and be assured hope
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 287
will let her live an additional hour or so, that she may
realize a thing whose anticipation has already prolonged
her life for weeks."
Accordingly, he let her go. She stole away through the
shadows of the trees, with a caution that kept the under-
growth from creaking, but coming suddenly upon a sentry
while emerging from their margin, she was forced to step
eagerly back and hide behind a friendly trunk, whilst the
soldier stopped and looked and listened. Seeing and hear-
ing nothing, he passed on, enabling her then to lift her
skirts from her ankles and to dart into the open gloom of
the lawn. She made the house without discovery, and
went up the stairs to her dying aunt.
The mother had now a weight on her eyelids that defied
them to open wide; her pale cheeks had fallen in, and every
breath she took was audible. Tbe end was very near. She
took no notice of her niece's entry. Molly stooped to her
and spoke, but was answered with silence and ^ listless,
calm smile. The girl again addressed her, and this time
her aunt, replying softly and slowly, requested that she
might be left to her peace.
"But, auntie," her nurse said, "Tom has been sum-
moned; I have just received a message, and he will be
with you in an hour."
Such words were stronger than the grip of death.
" Him sent for! Here in an hour I "
A commotion of pillows and rustling sheets, and the
dying woman rose by sheer fever from her couch, and
clutched the girl to her with fingers strong.
" Girl, girl, do not dare to cheat an old dying woman!"
And then, with weak appeals, like a whimpering child,
"You wouldn't cheat an old dying woman, would you ?"
" Oh, how could I, auntie!"
"But, child, I cannot trust you; you have deceived me
so many times of late. Once I could; you were the soul of
candor once. But now—now you have me groveling for
your rectitude; you delight in lies. I can trust you no
more. It is a lie; my boy has dispatched no message. He
288 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
has not been sent for. Go forth, cruel child, and let me
die in my peace!"
She waved her niece away, and fell hack, and lay with
her difficult breaths striving out of her.
" Hear me, auntie, only hear mel"
The girl's stern, wild voice struck into the mother's heart,
filling it with a most terrible music. She wished to listen
no more; she had determined to listen no more; she asked
only to lie alone with death, and to be spared the further
tortures of untruth; but here was an awful music fiowing
from the liar's lips, a siren song that drew her after it to the
brink of the precipice Destruction, despite the shrinking of
her soul—despite every safeguard of resolute sanity. The
siren was too powerful; the frail woman was made to
listen.
" I swear to the truth of this on my knees, before
Godl"
The convicted liar cast her hands up, invoking Heaven.
" You're lips are damned, child. Oh, they stink of false-
hood! I dare not accept what they utter." The mother
lay immovable, and shut her eyes to the wild appeal; not
her ears, however. She strove to do even that; God, she
strove! hut it is not in mortals to resist the siren. The
wonderful thrills of that voice ran in her blood, piping to
it, singing to it, inciting it with an unholy song.
" I cannot believe those lips," the mother struggled; and
she cursed her frailty, for every word she bandied with
this girl was contrary to the dictates of her reason; " no, I
cannot believe those lips; child, open wide your eyes, open
them very wide, that I may look in them for the truth."
Most eagerly the girl bent to her, with her eyes like stars;
but the old woman lay in the shadow, and peering peevishly,
irresolutely up, her sight miscarried. She saw no clear
light of truth shining.
" I can scarce see," she moaned, " fetch me the lamp, and
set it against your white face. Then, perhaps, my eyes
may pierce straight into yours."
Praying behind her closed, her unclean lips, the liar
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
staggered to the dressing table for a lamp, brought it to the
bed, and held it bard against her streaming face of shame.
The dying woman threw her gaze full on the girl's eyes.
Seconds went. That strained, truth-searching vision
scorched her own like flame, and then a joy sob broke sud-
denly out of the mother's gratitude.
" I see it; oh, I see it! Kiss me, child; truth sits in your
eyes! I saw truth; and he, my boy, he comes to-night; 1
know he comes to-night! Kiss me, I ask you."
Their lips struck together again and again in passion.
"And you said he was sent for; who—who sent? My
husband ?"
Joy burst out of that bold word.
•Yes, he, my husband! None but he would dare to
send. Oh, God, this happiness, this happiness is slaying
me!"
She lay an instant in ecstasy, and coughing blood. But
these raptures let death approach no nearer than the far
shadows of the lamp.
"Child, go you down and seek my James. Tell him he
is forgiven; tell him to come to me."
The girl stood with marble face and dumb as stone. She
would have yielded her life up to have obeyed the wife;
but to fulflll that benign command, that love dictated,
was to undo all. It could not be.
" Child, did you hear me ? Bring my James here to my
bed before I die."
"Auntie, see Tom first," desperation implored.
" Child, no! When he comes I die in his arms. Let me
see my husband first, or I can see him not at all."
" I will bring them both together, auntie." The liar was
beside herself. Truth had given her such a lesson that she
durst lie no more. Yet lie she must, and heavily, if the
impending tragedy was to be averted.
" Not together, child!" dictated the delicacy of woman.
" If I receive them together, do you not see that Tom will
know there has been a breach between his father and
me ? And for all the world I would not have him
290 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
know that. It must be kept from him at every cost. Don't
do that, I ask you. And, oh! as you love your uncle, send
him instantly to me."
The face of the wife was now stronger than Truth.
"Auntie, dear, I will," said the liar. She set the lamp
down, turned to the door, and was creeping through it,
with her proud shape, that used to rejoice in the straight
grace of the pine, bowed to the figure of seventy, when the
old woman's voice snmmoned her back.
" I want you to straighten the sheets and the conn-
terpane, dear, and make the bed look a little neater. And
my hair is escaped and a little loose and ragged, don't you
think, and trailing about my face ? You might also make
that a little more orderly, my dear. And do I look like
death, do you think ? Do I look white and sunk ? Do I
look ghastly ?"
" Oh, no!" said the liar. " Indeed, auntie, no one would
suspect that you were so ill."
But when the old lady demanded the hand-mirror her
niece declared that it was mislaid, though it condemned her
from the dressing table all the time.
"And now, child, go and tell my James to come," the
order when these preparations were complete.
"I will, auntie," the escaping liar assured her.
James was not told, though. To bring the husband to
the chamber of his wife would be fatality. The mother
would bless him for sending for her son, and to that act
there could be only one result. Tom would never see his
mother.
Yet big as the situation was with terrible problems, still
another had been added. It was too certain that if the
mother saw the son prior to the coming of the husband,
the old man would only have a dead body to greet him.
But that cruel thing being now the least of the many harsh
contingencies involved, it would have to be borne with all
fortitude, and with an entire submission to the mercy of God.
Cruel that the patient sacrifice should be made to support
his accumulated tortures unto the end. But that he should
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 291
do so was the only means of averting a deeper catastrophe.
Truth, the inexorable, was insisting on its pound of flesh.
Going downstairs, Molly dispatched a note to the Vicar-
age summoning her ally's help. She spent the time await-
ing his arrival in her own little parlor on the ground floor.
The parson appeared with commendable promptitude. So
soon as he entered, the key was turned against intrusion.
CHAPTER XXIX.
has a moral hidden in it.
She placed her hands on the shoulders of the clergy-
man.
" He is come! " were the first words.
The parson smothered a cry.
" When—how—who—ah ?"
The man swayed to a seat, and fell into it in a condition
of collapse and incoherence.
In a few brisk whispers the wonderful story was touched
in.
"And now action," she vaunted, with heart and pulses
applauding.
"Ay, action!" stuttered the man in the chair. His
note was thin imitation, though I
She gave the ally a scornful eye. Frankly, she accepted
his services, now the crisis was here, at the same valu-
ation as a pinch of his snuff. Externals said they were
worth no more.
" Oh, pull yourself together, sir ! " Her tone stung like
pepper. "We must fight like tigers this night if we are to
have even a solitary chance of winning. 'Pon my soul, I
can hear you trembling. Why, you positively shake the
furniture! Oh, doctor, be a man; do be a man !"
Desperation bullied the coward out of his paralysis. She
flattered him into a show of resentment, which gave her
one ray of hope that he might yet win his spurs.
292 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Doctor, dida't you swear you'd die fighting beside
me ?"
" Did I ? But I'm old, very old, my dear." He began to
tremble again. Tom out in the night with the hole in his
side, and the sentries around him; the dying mother ;
Fierceheart and Wiseman just across the hall; these thoughts
called for the genius, the ardor, the intrepidity of Han-
nibal, Caesar, and the duke, to unquakingly confront
them.
"You're a marvel, that's what you are," sweated the
craven.
"Would that I were! Then I'd make you a man, sir.
Doctor; do be a man!'
The reverend doctor took an oath that he would be, and
then his teeth began to chatter, and discounted his pro-
fessions.
In the end, however, a magnificent face and military
language pricked him into some semblance of one; where-
upon she poured her instructions out. Born of despera-
tion, they partook too surely of that character; wild as the
deeds of that night, terrible as their present situation, and
certainly obscene to the ears of a doctor in divinity. The
doctor of divinity demurred on moral grounds.
" Bah I Doctor, you're not a clergyman now, sir. You're
a soldier. And soldiers have no morals; uncle says so.."
" No morals! Then I'll desert."
" Do!" Tears came.
Not heart tears, mind, but that particular variety of tears
the crocodile sheds when it seeks to lure the traveler. The
crocodile gulled this traveler.
" Dry your eyes, my dear! 'Twas only my fun. I'll do
my best."
Shallow, foolish traveler! How the rogue crocodile
laughed in its tail.
Thus the clergyman promised to carry every unscrupulous
instruction out as far as his ability would permit.
"Dear doctor!" The crocodile kissed him in cupboard
love. "And when you have executed them duly, come
FIERCEHEART. THE SOLDIER.
2d3
very cautiously to us in the shrubbery. But first you had
better take this, and mind you bring it with you."
A farther fit of trembling seized the coward when his
officer unlocked her cabinet, and took a fiask of powder and
three pistols out.
"They are loaded; so be careful, sir," he was reminded.
"There's one apiece for you, Tom, and me. Take your
choice and slip it in your coat." It was some comfort to
perceive that she was trembling too as she handed him the
one selected.
" Why, you thief, these belong to your uncle I"
" I know. I stole them from his bedroom yesterday.
' Leve and war,' as you used to say. But now go and do
your duty, sir; and as soon as it's done, come straightway,
but cautiously, to us among the trees."
The coward fumbled and stumbled while she unlocked
the door, but ere he went forth and left her, he gazed into
her face that once more it might inspire him, and seeing it,
this ancient misogynist went out strong, a pistol in his
coat, and in his blood a great warm glow.
He marched in to his mission, which lay in Fierceheart's
parlor, with undaunted stride, his chest out, and his thick
chin very near the ceiling. Not much of the fly about him,
though he was walking into the parlor where the spiders
thirsted for his blood.
The general was in the chimneyside as usual, reading in
his Manual. Lieutenant Boulder was providing Captain
Wiseman with a disconcerting quantity of his mind.
" He'll come when the sun stops, I tell you. We've been
toasting our shins ten days in this hole, instead of scouring
the country, and how much nearer are we retaking him?"
" Exactly ten days," said calm Wiseman.
" Nonsense I absurd! It's not in reason that he'd walk
straight into a trap. By Jove, let us return without him,
and there '11 be the devil to pay when we get back to
town."
"And you, my friend, will be paid a cool twenty," said
calm Wiseman.
294 FIERCiTHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"^eel like commerce, gentlemen?" inquired the affable
fly of the spiders.
"Ay, if youVe anything to lose," said the fat spider
with a rather will-you-walk-into-my-parlor air.
The fly's answer was to lay a handful of gold on the table,
which this spider imitated promptly. Ere they started
however the fly summoned wine.
"Sellers," said the generous fly, "fetch up and decant
half a dozen of the Twenty-three;" and then to the thirsty
spiders, " If you're not already acquainted, gentlemen, with
Seton's Twenty-three, I can promise you a taste of some-
thing you won't soon forget."
The innocent fly smacked his lips. Had he been a spider
instead of an innocent fly, we might have suspected him of
a double-entendre in that last sentence. But how could
there be, for it is a truism that when a fly does deliberately
walk into the spider's parlor his innocence is monumental.
However, rosy dimpling Twenty-three was prompt to
appear, and was soon smiling with all the seductions of a
brilliant mistress from three goblets beside the elbows of
the gentlemen at play. Lieutenant Boulder was the first to
touch his lips to the charmer. One sip of her abundant
nectar, and the wiles of her went to his enthusiasm.
"Twenty-three! gentlemen! it goes to your head like
battle. Warms you like the song of the cavalry coming
when you're holding the guns. Wiseman! Mr. Blunt!
War first, and wine in peace time."
"And smile-wreathed Hebe of the rounded arm," leered
fat spider.
Of coyrse the innocent fly was shocked. But he sipped
also, and played the most sedulous entertainer. His
friends, innocent fly's friends, messieurs the spiders, must
empty those ever filled goblets to make him happy. He on
his own part took little, but made pretense of reducing
hogsheads. Strange, though, how he counted every dimin-
ishing beaker the spiders quaffed. They began in sips, but
fly denied that sipping could content them. Let 'em quaff
the purple; amen, sorrow! Fly told stories, some ecclesi-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER, 295
astical, some not; the some not unloosed their laughter
most. Make White's and Slaughter's roar. Frisky things
that slipped off the tongue like an oath, yet left a flavor;
even the ecclesiastical had a flavor. One in particular,
about a bishop and a duchess, was almost as good as
Twenty-three, not quite. Twenty-three wafted them to
poetry and the realms of gold. But that big, elderly
parson man; oh, the venerable sinner! Tell a story;
zounds! they'd match him against Walker of the Blues.
Such stories, mirthful heart-easers all; besides, in the inter-
vals of guffaw, the man was a flowing stream of wisdom.
" Good story, gentlemen, should have good wine. They
blend beauty-fully. Fill up! Really now, my dear captain,
no more—really, my dear captain, that's not right—I am
astounded! Come, now, you must! And you, lieutenant.
You have some? Well, here's some more. I was remark-
ing that a good story, blended with good wine, is the true
elixir. Preserves a man against the tooth of time. Look
at me—seventy, or near it. Feel thirty; except that my
accumulated wisdom makes my head a thought heavier
than in Arcadian youth it ought to be."
At commerce this innocent fly had his blood sucked by
the thirsty spiders. His gold grew less. But what can you
expect of spiders? And they sucked the good blood of the
grape with equal assiduity. And Twenty-three was potent.
Boulder was hiccoughing in an hour, and Wiseman seeing
him began to hiccough too. Their heads had grown full
heavy for play by the time innocent fly had disgorged his
guineas. Fat spider rubbed his sleepy eyes; thin spider
cast his snoring head among the cards; innocent fly was
bled. But singular that innocent fly should take it so com-
placently. Innocent flies do not do so as a rule; this one
did; and further, he played the good Samaritan. He
charitably assisted his enemies to bed. Lieutenant Boulder
no sooner entered his apartment than he fell fast asleep
upon the mat.
"We'll lock his door to keep him from mischief," said
innocent, charitable, thoughtful fly.
296 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Do!" stuttered fat spider.
The action was suited to the word, and the key pocketed
by Mr. Fly.
Captain Wiseman, on arriving at his room, became com-
municative.
"I shay, shir," he announced, rolling to the bed, "I'm
shleepy, devilish shleepy," and here his communication
ended, for at this point Morpheus came to him. Then it
was that Mr. Fly fled the room on discreet tiptoe. He
took the key from the captain's side as he went, locked the
door on the outside, and slipped it into his coat, to repose
with the pistol and the key of the lieutenant's room.
But mark fat spider! What does he! No sooner had
innocent fly turned the key on him and descended to his
designs, than the sleeper slept no more. He jumped from
his couch, turned the lamp up, and stood in the middle of
the floor, convulsed with a lively inward laugh that shook
him to his boots.
"Boulder, Boulder, you fool!" he said to the water basin,
as he dipped his head into it, "a clumsy parson to walk
round you with his Twenty-three!" and then in a markedly
confidential manner to the towel as he rubbed his face,
" but to-night I win my guineas."
Upon which he cautiously unscrewed the lock bodily
from the door, and left it in such condition that he might
leave his room at a moment's notice. He lowered the lamp,
and then, donning his dressing gown, lay down in it on the
bed, to soberly await events.
CHAPTER XXX.
the battle eve.
The parson stole into the dark night. Within him the
substantial sense of victory won; nothing to fear from the
house, for Fierceheart would be easy to elude, now that the
ofBcers were intoxicated and under lock and key. He had
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 297
performed a great deed; his bead had excuse for being so
high and his step so elastic. Wisdom must inevitably tell
when aided by experience of men and years of gravity.
Men like Wiseman, reputed cunning and skillful at their
business, how they succumbed to such a combination!
Cheating the sentries with fine caution, this doctor in
divinity entered the web of trees and eerie shadows. Here
began his difficulties, but so accurately had young Molly
described the precise spot they would be found in that in
less than five minutes he was grasping his godson's hand
and reciting the story of his own rare deeds.
" Doctor, it's noble, that's what it is," Molly rewarded
him.* " And had I time and could I see you, I'm sure I
should hug you." But she hadn't time, much as the parson
regretted her disability.
And now they started on the most perilous matter of
getting Tom from that place of hiding to the room of his
mother, unseen. Had he been hale and quite sound in
body, the feat had been beset with immense difficulties, that
only courage, good fortune, and infinite care could hope to
overcome. Yet here he was maimed and so spent with
the fatigues of travel that he could scarce stand upright.
However, he for one refused to fiinch before his handi-
cap.
Molly, the thoughtful and indomitable, had had the fore-
thought to bring a fiask of brandy with which to re-enforce
his lapsing energies.
" I should like some myself," said the parson, ever men-
tally and physically fiaccid.
" Still trembling like a leaf, sir," Molly assured him, as
she felt his hand in the act of passing the liquor.
" And you, impertinence ?"
Yes, she was too. Indeed, the maimed and pain-harrowed
fugitive was alone calm and of a consistent fortitude. Sup-
porting the wounded man between them, these conspirators
and traitors now groped forward to the verge of the planta-
tion. It being a very black night, their immediate dangers
were miniinized in some degree, but as they started to make
298 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
their way across the lawn, the full glare of the house ahead
streaming directly on to their secret figures, twenty-fold
enhanced detection. On all sides were sentries prowling,
and at every few paces they halted to allow the fugitive to
repair a little of his much-damaged wind, and also to per-
mit them to listen for the tramp of near feet. And at last
misfortune came. Suddenly a soldier was observed stand-
ing in the shadow of the trees, gazing straight and intently
at them. The parson was the first to see him, and horror
paralyzed the clergyman till he called the attention of his
companions to the apparition.
"On to your faces all! " whispered the fugitive, himself
giving the example.
Hearing and seeing him, Molly and the parson instantly
flung themselves full length on the dewy lawn. They lay
whole minutes there with the wet blades licking them, and
the damp gradually creeping to their blood; they heard the
sentry's cry, " Who goes there ?" and heard it answered
only by the listening night; yet never for one moment did
they dare to raise their eyes and look. Molly buried her
face convulsively in the ice-cold grass; the parson bur-
rowed his chin into the earth like a worm, while shiver
after shiver raced from his forehead to his heels, chilling
him till ague was pleasure by comparison. Still never a
sound of feet arose; indeed, nought intruded on the silence,
not even the brushing of a twig, nothing except ever-pres-
ent echoes of the sentry's voice answering to the dark. At
last the fugitive, too well schooled in adventure to be much
perturbed at any matter so insignificant as this, ventured
to peep out toward the trees. The soldier stood no longer
in the shadows, nor was he to be seen anywhere in the
neighborhood. It seemed that the careless sentry had con-
vinced himself that his eyes had played a trick upon him;
and he had accordingly passed on, being too lazy to inquire
what grounds there wore for the existence of this phenom-
enon.
" It's all right; he's resumed his patrol," were the joyous
tidings whispered. Molly and the parson rose from the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
299
face of the wet earth, shivering^ and thanking God! What
an escape!
They now pushed across the grass with what speed they
might, their ears keen for every sound, their hearts acute
for new alarms. None arrested them, however, although
the swish of their heavy feet along the dew played with
their strung senses all the way to the house, abiding among
their miseries as a constant fear, and the continual promise
of a greater. They came to the house at last; and arriving
there, the dangers multiplied with the shadows about the
gaunt outside of it, and appeared to rise from many unex-
pected nooks and angles.
Gently the door was opened, and the girl intruded her
head into the hall to discern if any of the servants were
about. It had been arranged that Tom should be brought
home prior to their going to bed, that they might avoid
having to force open the door when locked and bolted for
the night. A glance at the clock assured them that the
evening still lacked half an hour of the servants' time for
retiring.
Step by step they crept across the tiles much in the style
they had done on one occasion previous, which the parson
remembered with a shudder. In a minute or two, without
so much as a solitary shoe-creak, they had arrived unseen
at Molly's sitting room; and no sooner had they got there
than the welcoming lamps were upturned and the door
was carefully secured against all enemies.
It has been said that they had arrived unseen at this
place of refuge. They had not in reality, though they cer-
tainly thought that they had. Upstairs Captain Wiseman
had leaned over the banisters the whole time of their entry
through the front door, and with a glad eye, and an irre-
pressible smile at the lip, had he watched the three traitors
steal over the tiles. And oh I he had recognized the man
in the middle. He went back to his room whistling to him-
self a few stray bars out of the " Beggar's Opera." Then the
captain on his own part had recourse to pistols. He went
to a leather case that adorned his washhand stand, and took
20
SOO PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
forth a silver-mounted and shining brace. He sat on the
bed, and with the most amiable face in the world primed
them with delicate care. Downstairs in Molly's parlor sat
the three traitors, in a curious state of misery and exalta-
tion. Their hearts were beating like the little quick flutters
of hand-held birds. The parson, who lived intensely in the
present and was almost insensible to the future or the
past, was half inclined to smile and be happy.
"That grass, ugh I it's given me my death, I know, but
haven't we diddled 'em! And I in particular, haven't I ?"
" You're just a wicked sinning old dear," Molly informed
him. It was a compliment, yet not a compliment. Very
nice, but scarcely meet, you understand, for a doctor in
divinity.
Tom on his part had his heart down. He had seen the
face of Molly at last, under the glare of the lamps.
" Oh, my poor, poor child, your sufferings!" he moaned,
repressing his tears he knew not how. " Had I had your
face and not your voice and figure to recognize you with,
I do not think I should have known you. Oh, your suffer-
ings! Who could have believed it possible that a few short
months could have done so much ?"
"A few short months,"she echoed wearily, " centuries—
centuries!" The light in her eyes waned suddenly so dim
that it seemed to be retreating to those far, dark memories
of awful days, of inward anguish and outward smiling,
hidden in the deepest recesses of her brain.
" I seem to have already lived my life," she said. Sym-
pathy was thawing the ice of proud restraint, as its
custonv is.
Here she looked up to her lover, and saw the slow tears
start. Never before had she seen them spring out of the
eyes of that high creature; and seeing them now, they
released the great long-pent torrent imprisoned in her own.
Without a word she crept into a chair, and lay there
gasping, to keep the torrent back. But vainly. Soon her
white face was a very river, while hysterical sobs poured
forth in a long succession, filling the room with an inartic-
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 301
ulate mad sorrow for herself and for those she loved more
dearly.
The men had the sensibility to leave her to herself, till
the tears had wrought their own recovery. By then it was
somewhat past the servants' hour. Stimulated at the par-
son's express suggestion with a little brandy, she now left
the room to reconnoiter, and to discover whether the coast
was actually clear.
She discerned a lamp still burning in the hall, but testing
the front door she found it barred. This appeared to indi-
cate that the servants had retired, hut that their master
was still abroad. She put her head in her uncle's parlor
to assure herself of this. The room was empty, except for
Fierceheart still in the chimneyside, reading in his Manual.
It was hard on twelve now, and the embers were already
extinct in the grate.
" Uncle, aren't you going to bed?"
" Soon, my dear, soon; when I have finished this chap-
ter."
She saw to her grief that it was the chapter dealing
with the punishment of traitors, a short chapter of eight
pages only, that he read and reread times and again every
day.
" And, Molly "—he recalled her as she was leaving him
with a sense of the weird and the unexplainable upon her—
" and, Molly, is she yet gone ? Is she yet dead ?"
The meek inconsideration of the man was more unnerv-
ing than his silence and his constant reading. To talk
alone with old Fierceheart at that eerie hour appalled her
more than the facing of sentries, and lonely walks in the
night among the shadows and the trees.
"Not yet, dear uncle," she answered him, tremulous.
"But it will be to-night, before another sun, you
think?"
The lack of emotion his voice enounced seemed to in-
crease with his speaking. His dispassionate words were
only equaled by the utter insensibility of his pinched face.
Receiving no answer to his last question, he returned quite
302 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
calmly to the reinvestigation of his Manual; and the girl,
sick with her pain, seized at once the proffered opportunity
of escape.
" Everything is now prepared," she informed her friends
in the other room.
They primed the son with a little brandy, and tightened
the bandages about the great wound in his side. His face
fell whiter than death.
"Can you ascend the stairs to her room, quite silently
and without aid ?" he was asked by the girl.
"I shall try," he answered grimly. "Doctor," he in-
quired with the warrior calmness of great generals on the
eve of battles on which the fates of nations hang, " doctor,
you are certain that those two, Wiseman and Boulder,
are utterly drunk and asleep, and locked securely in ?"
" Oh, yes!" said the doctor faintly.
"And, Molly, my father ?"
"You are quite safe so far as you are concerned with
him," said aid-de-camp Molly. "It is months since he
entered your mother's room, and till you have been and
paved the way he will never enter it again."
"There, that will do," with curt and fierce bitterness, "I
asked for the bald fact only; no details."
She drooped her head under the reproof, accepting it
sullenly.
And now the door was opened; and now he stole away
to the stairs. He hauled the dead weight of his body up
every step, halting after every effort to listen a moment,
and to recapture his fieeing breath for the great ordeals
that Ij^ before him. Slowly, silently, doggedly, he arrived
at last at his mother's door. He entered the room with
never a knock, and on the carpet, as he went over it to the
bed, there was not so much as a footfall to be heard. The
night and the dim-lit chamber were one all-enfolding hush,
save for the short and heavy breathing of the pale woman
in the bed.
The son pulled the curtains back from the head of that
bed, and the wide eyes from the pillows poured out and
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 303
into his, maddening them with fire, and burning them half
blind.
The pale woman then rose up slowly from her pillows,
and, without one cry, fell upon him with her lips.
CHAPTER XXXI.
mother and son.
The apartment of Captain Wiseman was three rooms
away. That shrewd gentleman had timed the actual com-
ing,of his prisoner with such niceness that when he peeped
through an inch of his door and surveyed the landing and
the stairhead to see if aught was moving yet, behold! the
traitor was sneaking from the topmost stair to the room of
his mother. The captain congratulated his really admirable
judgment. Softly he returned to his bed, doffed his dress-
ing gown in favor of the scarlet, braided, and brave-breasted
official coat, picked his pistols up, all in a fashion leisurely,
smiling, negligent, and paused a moment with the smile
expanding, to body forth in his imagination the dramatic
scene. You understand there was about to be a dramatic
scene; to arrest a prisoner by the deathbed of his mother
would be to out-Parsons Mrs. Parsons and to out-Quin
Mr. Quin. It might be a vulgar and not a very humane
action to perform, but for all that it was going to be done.
To attempt to fulfill the affair in any other and more sym-
pathetic manner would be to court disaster. Boulder, the
gull, was dead-drunk; his men were not within earshot;
Sir James could be of no service, and was not to be relied
on had he been in his perfect mind; thus he was alone in a
house swarming with active enemies, every one of whom
hungered to put a bullet in his back. And give the traitor
himself but an inch or two of field, and he was a very tiger
crouching for a spring. Personally, much as he objected
to dramatic scenes on principle, to-night there would have
to be one. It paid. Thus the gallant gentleman kicked
304 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
his slippers off, and stole with cat-caution to the door of
the dying woman. He listened an instant at the closed
door; but could only distinguish a thich inarticulate con-
course of great breaths. Stealthily he opened this well-
oiled and obedient door; and glided in without creating the
faintest sound. The four-post bed, heavily draped with
curtains, was placed beside the door, with the head of it
against the right hand of those who entered. To reach the
farther side of it, which the bed curtains wholly hid, a
visitor would be compelled to make a full circuit round by
the foot of the bed, there being insufficient space to pass
through between the bedhead and the wall. Thus the
captain, when he entered, found himself amid the draped
shadows of the right side of the couch, while his prisoner
had moved round the room and was conversing with his
mother on the left. Curtains and a four-poster were be-
tween the captain and his prey. Wherefore, pistol in each
hand, the captain determined to at once creep round by the
bed foot, and surprise his prisoner, and effect the arrest
straightway. But as he started so to do, audible sounds
fell full on his ear, and chained his feet to their present
spot. Only the thin curtain now intervened between the
mother, the son, and him. He tightened his grasp on the
solid courage-inspiring butts he held in his hands, and
then sought to crawl round to the other side and the
dramatic scene—but failed. Again he tried, but the awful
sounds from behind the curtains still chained his limbs,
paralyzing every power of his body and his mind. No, he
could go no farther. His solid frame fell limp. He tried
to keep the low, mad, wild words out of his eai-s; they worked
on his senses like a poison. Yet they refused to be kept
out; they swam into his brain; harrowing his ears, blasting
his resolves, murdering his grim thoughts of duty, and his
solid ones of expedience. They dared his feet to move;
and those feet that had never retreated, and had swung his
company so often into the very jaws of the guns, were now
nailed quiescent to a domestic carpet. He tried to shake
inertia out, but those words, those words, those voices,
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 305
those awful voices! Sweat burst out of the man, and dyed
him with its shame. He who had yet to smell fear on a
battlefield to be brought to this! Yea, his feet were sealed
to the floor. Not his to move them. Let him struggle,
but those words, those voices! There was a limitation,
it seemed, to even the fortitude and courage of a
soldier.
Minutes the man fought with his fetters, minutes that
made an epoch in his life; but the sounds from the other
side continued in one unbroken stream of passion, and till
the flow of it was broken he was enchained. Every syllable
beat in his brain clearly as a bell; every sentence played any
''.uae it pleased upon his pulses, and performed insolent
vricks upon his heart. He was a soldier, yet how much
more helpless than a child. Now the low voices bubbled
up almost to a wail, and now sobbed into such a note of
softness that he could almost hear the heavy silence of the
darkness breathing through them. He tried again to move,
to retreat, but now his limbs were pulp. His face was
streaming, his soul no longer answered to his mind, for his
mind was faithful no more to his mercenary self. He was
a man of five-and-fifty, a soldier for thirty years, a cunning,
a calculating, a commercial-minded gentleman, and here,
for the first time in his career, he had learned to feel. It
paid to arrest that prisoner by his mother's deathbed; paid
to arrest him, you understand, yet the man of commerce
did it not.
And thus all those niinutes was that man of commerce
letting the chance slip by in idleness, while there were
guineas of bright gold in a few paces of exertion. But he
stood there immovable as a rock, nor was rock ever more
unresponsive to a thing that paid.
In this dramatic scene in which the gallant gentleman
should have played the leading part, but which strangely
was better acted without assistance of any kind from him;
there was a final passage in it, just as the curtain fell
upon the end, that burnt itself upon his heart forever, and
was occasionally known to fill his ears in times of darkness:
306 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
amid the glories and the agonies of battle, and at that wel-
come hour he crept to his bed to die, unmourned.
It was the name of "James," rising to a sweet, wild cry,
a sob filled with hot blood welling out of the throat, and a
corpse falling heavily among pillows.
It might have been a day, or a second merely, for all he
knew, that he stood there in the shadows petrified into an
unconscious sympathy with her now dead. His whole
being was magnetized into listening morbidly for a
repetition of that quintessential sound of a lifeless body
thudding back upon the bed of death.
The sounds had been reduced in that chamber now; the
man in the shaded nook between the curtains and the door,
as he shrank the farther in it, now could only hear the hard,
strong sobs of the son, living and bereft, from the other side
the bed. Once, though, he heard the lips of that frenzied
child beating on an upturned face of cold flesh.
Presently the survivor crept away from his awful,
rapturous employment. He stole out of the chamber
of the dead. The captain saw him. Saw his prisoner pass
out of the door, while he crouched in his invisible bonds
behind that very wood. The captain had only to cast
a pistoled hand out to his eyes, and the thing was done.
A reputation and money to a considerable sum hung upon
that act; it would pay—ha, pay!—yet the crouching man
of commerce remained, inert and passive, as the corpse
behind the curtains.
The traitor, unmolested, swayed out through that door
like a drunkard, reeled across the landing, and stumbled
heavily down the stairs.
Fierceheart, his father, was coming up. There was no
escape. They were face to face, with only one stair
between them.
" You traitor!"
The voice of the father was a tiger-growl, one continued
low cry out of the depths of the soul of anger. It entirely
filled the heavy silence with its great, slow volume.
Fierceheart leaped up at his son's bent face suddenly,
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 307
and hit him full in the teeth with his old ineffectual
knuckles.
" In the name of the king! "
The father grasped the undefended throat of the son, and,
in a spasm of hate, half crushed and half tore its life
out with the strange, new power of his fingers. The blood
from the lips of the traitor dripped on them.
There was no resistance, and no farther word between
them. Fierceheart dragged his son headlong down the
remainder of the stairs, till they reached the lamp in
the hall. He never relaxed his grip on the mutilated
throat.
The clatter on the stairs drew Molly and the parson out
of their retreat. They ran to the son and the father, horrid
of face.
"In the name of the king!" Fierceheart exulted over
them, the triumph of his eyes fiaming out to the lamp.
And then with the softness of command: "John, fetch
Wiseman at once; Molly, go out and call the soldiers; you
will find some in the grounds."
Two defiant faces, murderous with anguish, answered
him with a silence more powerful than tongues.
" Go; do you hear?"
"Mercy!" begged the faint girl. The voice was no
louder than a sparrow's chirp.
Here Wiseman, pistol in each hand, came down the
stairs and intervened. Noises alien to that chamber of the
dead had brought his senses back. The power to act was
now returned.
"Your prisoner, captain, your prisoner!"
The captain cordially thanked the father in the name of
the king.
Fierceheart now removed his fingers from that torn and
purple throat, and formally deposited the person of the
traitor into the custody of the law.
"You have a desperate villain in your hands, sir!"
Fierceheart said. " His struggles were frantic, positively
frantic. Observe his throat and his teeth streaming. Till
308
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
to-morrow, captain, you bad certainly best confine bim
very close."
Sir James was gravely tbanked by tbe captain, wbo
s^med very mucb at one witb tbat gentleman as to
tbe exceeding desperate character of tbe prisoner. He
remembered Xingussie, and tbe nigbt of tbe bridge.
" However," said tbe bumane captain, " as be happens to
be a Seton, if be will proffer bis word of honor not to
attempt to escape, be shall enjoy a bed to-nigbt."
"Wrong, utterly wrong, sir!" Fiercebeart cried.
"Trust bim not an inch; repose no confidence in bim.
And as to bim being a Seton, God has played our bouse a
trick. He was given our name at bis birth tbat be might
be enabled to prejudice tbe world's opinion. He is really a
cur, a beast, a dog 1"
At each deliberate pronouncement of the name tbe
father struck bim heavily on tbe lips, making tbe blood
gush out.
Tbe girl seized tbe arm of tbe terrible man.
"Uncle, come away, let me lead you away?" she
implored bim.
But no. Tbe father refused to leave bis victim." Weeks
upon weeks bad be sat and preserved tbe profoundest
silence, taking interest in nothing save in far and deep and
unknown thoughts. Now, however, be stood pouring
every insult from bis mouth: studied insults, inspired
insults, insults to wring tbe soul and to revolt tbe heart.
His so silent lips were now a running river of foul abuse.
Nor was it enough that bis tongue alone should enjoy
activityi^ His so blank and tranquil eyes now gloated
on tbe ignominy and tbe shame of tbe unresisting traitor.
All nigbt be might have gone on flowing gibes, and
beating tbe bloody face of his child, bad not a diversion
been created in an unexpected quarter. Those whose duty
it was to interfere between tbe old man and bis indecent
vengeance either shrank fearfully from action, else bore
and even encouraged these horrors witb impassive calm.
Molly could only incoherently moan; tbe reverend doctor
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 309
was unable to move or breathe; the son was content to
wince under the blows, yet wordlessly and quietly inclined
his face for those to come. It was the man of commerce
then who interposed.
" Stop, man, stop! Stop as you love Christ! Do you not
know that your wife lies dead upstairs?"
He did stop. He fell against the wall, groaning.
" Oh, my God ! "
His next words were empty and mechanical,
" Dead, you said dead 1 Dead, ah dead I"
It was a breaking of the news to a heart that had lived
with hers and worshiped hers forty-six years. It took
hjs soul long to realize fully what the cold word meant.
"Emmy, my Emmy, and I saw her not!" He turned his
face away and spoke to the wall. "And she died cursing
me. Oh, Emmy!"
"No, no, it is not true. She died blessing you, your
name was last on her lip." The son spoke out.
The father flushed round with a vile gibe in his mouth,
but the face of his son, the voice of his son, killed it before
it formed.
The traitor flung his hands up, imploring :
" Oh, sir, reflect, remember ! Do not foul the memory
of her with blasphemy. Your wife, my mother! Must I
go on my knees before your feet then, to assert the truth ?"
"I heard a Seton!" The tones of the son wrung the
acknowledgment out of the miserable father. " But
how ? I ask how ? Impossible that she could bless me
even as she died."
" Sir, I went to her and told her all, that I was traitor—
and she kissed me to show how much she cared—that you,
sir, had sacrificed your fair and clement name for mine
that was so stained, and she blest you and God with such
an ardor that the ardor slew her while she blest. Your
name was on her lip as she fell back dead."
The father looked wildly about. Oh, that he could be-
lieve a traitor! Oh, that he could accept the testimony of
one whose lips were so traduced! It was not to be. Even
310 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
for his heart's sake he must not do it. Place an implicit
trust in a traitor I
Honor gave stem warning, the love was ground in the
dust by the patriot's heel.
By the mercy of Heaven, however, the man of commerce
read deep into this dilemma. He stepped forth, and
plucked the bleeding patriot by the coat.
" Trae, Sir James ; every word true. I was behind the
curtain, and I heard. He told her all you had done, she
blest God and you, and fell back to her pillows with a sob
of blood, expiring as your name was uttered. Before
Heaven I swear that his every word is trae."
The husband was conquered by the captain. He turned
tigerlike again to his boy.
"Oh, that this great mercy should have been wrought
by you I God, it is too much I Heaven insults me; I am
stung to the soul. That a dog, a cur, a Stewart bastard
should procure my pardon—God, it is too much! Thou
mockest my white hairs I"
Again Fierceheart, the soldier's, clenched hand was poised
to fall upon the traitor. But the husband and the father
spoke; they checked his scarlet fist.
" And yet—and yet," Love fought, "and yet—and yet!"
The father and the husband swooped suddenly upon the
bloody, beaten lips of the son, the flesh of her, with his
own wolfish ones, and worried them with kisses, madder,
fiercer, than his blows.
CHAPTER XXXH.
convebsation between a whitehaired cynic op seventy
and a commercial gentleman op pipty-pive.
Fierceheart took the wine-cellar key from his pocket
and put it in the captain's hand.
"Lock him in there. It is quite secure, you can reply
on it; stout oak-panels and no windows, safe as Newgate."
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 311
" His word would do," said Wiseman, fingering the key;
" we could then let him have a comfortable bed for the re-
mainder of the night."
" No, no! " said Fierceheart. *' Don't I tell you that you
must not trust him a yard? His word is naught; a traitor
loses the power to contract a moral obligation. Captain,
be advised; do not trust him. I daren't."
The man of commerce sniflBng a possibility that nothing
was to he gained, and that all might be lost by humanity
in this instance, conducted his prisoner, with a pistol behind
his ear, deep down to the wine-cellar and sedulously locked
him in, while Fierceheart stumbled up the stairs to
p^ns the night in a vigil at the side of his wife lying dead.
The captain renounced his bed that night. He was a
phlegmatic person as a rule, who would as soon have
thought of foregoing his pay as his sleep, but here was his
head in mutiny. It was the devil! Besides he was a man
of quite mature years, unaccustomed to any fiuctuations in
his pulses or his temperature. He retired to Fierceheart's
now deserted parlor to kill his half-born pangs, a few of
his sensations, and generally to soothe his soul with the
remainder of the Twenty-three.
He was not long alone with the wine and the lamp glare.
There came a timid knock upon the door, and on his
" Come in!" young Molly crept to him, shrinking like a
fawn. She threw herself at his feet.
"Mercy!" she begged in a voice of prayer. "Mercy!
Spare him his death of shame! Spare him the scaffold and
the spitting mob! You have the power, sir; the key is in
your coat."
In this instance it was quite certain that humanity could
not pay him possibly. Accordingly he amused himself a
little.
"My dear young lady, I assure you his doom is very
well deserved. A traitor, my dear young lady, a traitor!"
" Mercy!" she prayed. " Give me the key, you have it
in your coat. His life or his death is nothing to you, and
to your master his fate is no more than a fly's."
-312
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
The gallant gentleman reminded the suppliant of her
posture.
"Rise from my feet, my dear young lady; your situation
is too embarrassing, really. Faith, that it is!"
She was reminded that she was groveling before filth,
and the knowledge put the blood in her proud face. Strife
throbbed in her as she knelt. Had she no respect of self,
then, that she should abase herself before such gross clay?
Rebellion was dominant a moment, but desperation fought
it down, and again she sacrificed herself for the traitor.
It was an entertainment for the captain; he was not ac-
customed to be treated so, especially as the creature was
so handsome. It was a case for a kingly mien, and he put
one on, and gazed grandly from the throne of his conceit,
and smiled blandly upon her tears. The gallant gentleman
regretted that his years were five-and-fifty—what a situa-
tion for a younger man I It was a tantalizing thing that
for himself he had no relish for it, except that in his easy
manner he felt languidly amused.
"Duty, my dear young lady, duty!"
The murderous little word cracked through her brain
like a bullet. Was it not a synonym for iconoclasm, the
tearing asunder of loving hearts, the snapping of love
bonds, the ravaging of domestic peace ? With that word,
where was hope? None. Had she not read the gentleman
from whose lips it dropped? Father and son did their duty
because they must; the gallant captain did it because it
paid. Therefore she still poured her supplications out.
" Oh, sir, the key, the key I It would cost you so little;
it would cost you so little, I say."
"Fifty guineas, my dear, and a large slice of rep-
utation."
He had now lessened his form of address to two words.
The reduction summoned her to her feet with a face of fire.
But the gentleman was soon repaid.
"Money!" she whispered ardently, "money!" The
baited creature was half wild with desperation. " Money,
sir—I have a hundred guineas ready to my hand."
FIERCEHEABT. THE SOLDIER. 313
His majesty rose with an oath.
" By God! " he cried, " this insult, it is insufferable! Am
I not an officer of the king? Do you forget that I am a
gentleman?"
Truly, she had forgotten that, hut, sick with her own
shame, she implored pardon. Then her tactics altered
suddenly.
"For the sake of your own safety, sir; oh, give me the
key!"
" Eh ?" he growled, '' a threat ? Jupiter, a threat!"
He looked at her eyes and saw that they said more than
her tongue. He looked at the hand pressed so tightly to
her,breast, and recollected that all the time she had been
beseeching, her hand had remained like that. It had never
left her bosom. He remembered that he was dealing with
the sex of cats.
"You shouldn't have warned me first," he said calmly;
" you should have struck first and warned me afterward."
He sprang at her hand and tore out the concealed knife.
He then pinned her strengthless wrists in his grasp and
struck her with an insult: he kissed her with an ostenta-
tious calm.
"Now, go!" commanded the gallant gentleman, begin-
ning to pare his nails with the knife.
The fainting creature staggered out, branded.
"So much for one; now for the other," said the captain
to another glass of Twenty-three. '' What a demon! What
a young devil! And if her pluck hadn't snapped at the
pinch—whew, Wiseman, my boy!"
The reverend doctor was the other. He entered like a
man, honestly, with hands empty and wide open.
"Take a seat, sir," said affability; "take a little Twenty-
three, sir, and glad to see you have no knife."
" Eh? What?" groped innocence.
"Can you identify that bit of pearl and steel, keen and
shining, sir?"
The knife lying on the captain's broad palm was brought
under the eyes of the clergyman.
314 FIERCEECEART. THE SOLDIER.
" Young MoUy'sl" he exclaimed. "I gave it to her on
her birthday."
"And it seems she cherished the design of giving it to
me on my death-day."
"Man, explain!"
Man did explain; the parson tore his wig, and sobbed till
the tears ran down his waistcoat and tarnished his shoe
buckles.
"Poor, poor child! " was his moan.
"Pity she hasn't just a little more pluck, and she'd match
that lad," commented the captain, not too sardonically.
"You'll iind no such pair in broad England! " Sobs ex-
panded to enthusiasm.
" I'll grant that."
" Captain, have you the heart f "
It was the first time in his career of fifty-five years that
the gallant gentleman had ever been accused of having a
heart. Oh, it was the queerest of sensations! And till
that hour, having no use for a heart, he never knew that
he possessed one. The clear, clean simplicity of this old
parson, who pretended on his own part to have no heart
either, was a pure stream of virtue that sweetened his bad
blood.
"Captain, have you the heart to rend apart the two
highest creatures in God's England, two to whom separa-
tion is death ? Let the boy be hanged in his shame at
Tyburn, and you blast to the dust the fairer creature.
Poor, poor child!"
" You refer to the one with the propensities, I might say
marked propensities, for bribery and murder, sir ?"
" Captain, have you ever read the Bible and the poets,
sir ? Does the word charity make your blood thrill ever ?"
" It never did till to-night, till I heard a mother die and
a son mourn."
" You say you were in the room, behind the curtain."
"God, yes! And may wild horses tear me ere I get
there again." The parson had now two feverish hands on
the captain's one of warming ice.
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 315
"I am an old man," he said with his white simplicity,
"and I've spent my life preaching; but, my friend, let me
tell you that the aim of life is to die well. And you, my
friend, if you wish to die well, as you love your own soul,
don't condemn these suffering, erring, wayward creatures.
Have you the heart, my friend ?"
Wiseman was stone.
" You saw that old woman die upstairs. When the bullet
takes you on the field wouldn't you pray for your life to
ebb out to the grass with the same pure ecstasy ? Doesn't
it make you mad to reflect on the fate of those condemned
children, one groaning in his prison, the other swooning
outside his prison-door 1"
" I never do refiect; it is an evil habit, sir."
" I left her there full stretched on the cold, hard fioor,
among the cobwebs. The blood was trickling out of her
face where she fell. He, unconscious, was calling on
her out of his cell, and begging her to answer to her
name."
" A graphic picture of a pretty tragedy."
" No, ugly, ugly, my friend, as the vengeance of Heaven,
and as awful. Those children, captain—those fair, those
noble children—have you the heart, I ask you ?"
"Till to-night I have managed very well without one,
and the one I have now found, my dear sir, is very tender
and young; indeed, I may say, juvenile and weak." The
captain broke into a guffaw in the midst of his intro-
spection.
"Then I will beseech that it be made strong."
The clergyman slipped to his knees and begged a boon of
Heaven. He implored that a little more of the heavenly
essence of charity might descend to one on earth that night,
and then returned to his chair, his breast bursting with
concealed passion.
" You dread consequences, perhaps," he told the captain;
" I know there is money and reputation in it. But suppose
you take me to the king instead, and tell his Majesty that
I was the one who played you false, gave you fair words,
21
316 PIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
made pretense of assisting you in your designs, and finally
set the prisoner free."
" A likely story!" sneered the stone. "A pretty scape-
goat! The lie would be sniffed in a minute, and the shift
would serve us worse than silence itself, or even blunt
admission."
"Oh, man, you are callous! Oh, think of those poor
children!"
Wiseman, however, was thinking of the night and its
deathbed; of the mother and the son, and the wild music
of their love, while death folded his minion shadows round
them; the death-cry of the husband's name, and the joyful
welcome the mother and the wife gave dark eternity.
These, and the husband keeping vigil by the couch of
death, and himself a lonely man of commerce, with a soul
that was only one day old and too weak to walk alone,
these—these were his thoughts.
"Man, man, have you no heart?" wailed the cynical
philosopher.
" No, curse you!" growled the man of commerce.
He had, though, a heart born an hour or two ago. He
tried to forget that fact, to override its young existence, to
cheat himself, and persuade his judgment that it wasn't
there. A heart was an encumbrance. It could not be
called a paying concern. It was a drawback to commercial
life; decid^ly it was not a paying concern. But there it
was, the tender thing, indubitably there. He tried to
strangle the new growth in his breast. Let him blight this
excrescence; it was of no use whatever; it was weak and
sentimental, womanlike; unfit for the stern soldier and
unseemly in calculating, commercial men. Truly, it inter-
fered with business and with reputation. Let him blast it,
then; let him bestrew its young life with his unemotional
fingers. Alack! he failed. Commercial fingers had not
the power; fingers sinuous, supple, sensitive were wanted;
those of commerce were horny, stiff-jointed, and too ma-
terial to be pliable. Besides, he had only one hand with
which to attempt the deed; the clergyman held the other
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 317
once more in both his own, The aged man was communi-
eating his own fever-warmth to Wifeeman's tight-grasped
fingers, gross and cold.
" Oh, spare those children!" his eternal moan.
Wiseman did not answer now; but his free hand was
toying with the exterior of his waistcoat's left pocket,
which, strangely, was placed immediately over his new-
born heart. A pulse beat behind it, and mocked his too
quiescent fingers. Soon he inserted those fingers in that
pocket, with care, with hesitation, with reluctance, but
still he got those fingers in. That triumphant baby-heart
had magnetized them to the deed. Once in, they lingered
there irresolute while the seconds fied. But the parson had
an eye upon their daring, and he made a very stanch
supporter.
"My friend, bless you for a good, noble man," his cry;
" may God requite you!"
And with that the key leapt out in the captain's hand.
It came into the parson's palm with a sweeter feel than
does the miser's gold.
" Go, go!" croaked the hoarse Wiseman; " get hence at
once; and if you let Boulder, who's asleep, or any of the
sentries see you, I am ruined. Of course, they will get off
in Lockit's smuggler. I knew all about your yesterday's
visit to the sea-hut, and they are watching it every hour of
the night. I'd recommend great care, but if you wish to
save my name, avoid being seen. And now, go; go at once;
get out of ray sight before I repent! Go, I tell you; go,
and no thanks, blast you I"
Red-faced Wiseman groaned, and fell back on the
further aid of Twenty-three. The parson, blessing his
name, went swiftly out, one cold little key kissing his
hand.
Taking a small lamp from the hall table, he stepped
through the rooms into the servants' quarters and from
thence descended to the lower regions. Passing through
the first cellar, which led to the door of the traitor's prison,
a low murmur of voices came upon his ear. The girl had
318 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
now issued from her swoon, and was conversing with her
lover through the wood.
" It is our last chance," was her rebuke for the parson.
"In an hour or so we shall be able to speak no more
together. Oh, leave us! I pray you, sir."
The parson held the key up to the lamp and showed it
her.
" What—what's this?"
She strained her eyes upon it, but had not the courage to
hazard a guess.
"Freedom!" A note of triumph breathed out of the
parson. To the girl, though, it seemed to be a voice from
some far, vague dream. The key had to be fitted to the
hole before she could believe.
CHAPTER XXXm.
s
provides a "deus ex machina " to make the reader
happy.
Lockit's smuggler was straining from its anchor in the
cove. By a Heaven-fostered act of foresight had that law-
less vehicle been chartered yesterday; and if the three
miles of road dividing the house from the sea could be
overcome before the arrival of the day and the lugger
boarded, all would be happiness, and Fierceheart and the
king well cheated.
" But you are very spent," deplored the girl, with an eye
for the traitor's thin and unstrung form.
" So long as there is one spark of the quick within me,
and you are at my side to lead me on, so long can I travel,
or fight, or be valiant even." And a face of wonderful
courage accompanied the loverly answer.
But it was not a time for compliment and palace speeches.
A terrible business must be performed before the dawn.
A long, bitter journey had to be made by a man already
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 319
half-dead ere he started. Everything must be done in
silence, too. Fierceheart keeping vigil by the dead, snoring
servants, and Boulder drunk; none of these inmates must
be roused out of their occupations; while outside the dark
night teemed with the vigilance of never-sleeping sentries.
And should they be found on the road by the light of the
dawn. Heaven be merciful toward them. They would be a
mark for every prowler then.
" I calculate that we have a bare hour," the parson
announced after minute study of his watch. " And we've
got to make three miles, and a man very badly wounded,
you are remembering, I hope."
• The travelers knew all that; and the speed with which they
hunted forth and packed into the smallest space their scant
treasures and necessities was quite incredible to a bachelor.
"You don't mean to say you're carrying all you need
and cherish most about you?" said he, when he was told
that they were ready.
" We're only taking jewelry and gold and one another,"
Tom said.
"And I've got little," Molly said, "and, doctor, my
dearest doctor, there is only one article I regret that I'm
leaving, and that is you, sir."
" Bah!" he grunted, but was glad.
And now they crept out into the dark again; stole over
the lawn with the same severity of caution and through
the gate, on to the lane to the village, dodging sentries
often, and listening always, while Tom's hand never left
his hard-clasped pistol. Every yard was a breathless
journey, so pregnant with fear that it made the brain quake.
Every time the spring wind made its morning moan among
the branches, every time an unexpected shadow of them-
selves danced among the hedges and the trees, their hearts
felt chill with the cold of terror.
Yet even in this season of weariness and apprehension
their tongues whispered much that was hungering to be
spoken. Parting was so near, and so inevitable, that their
unruly emotions laughed at sentries and mocked detection.
320 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
Much of their language was a hot and honest outpouring
of praise on the parson. If great torrents of human grati-
tude could secure a man a term of happiness, and bring
him in the end to a deathbed of victory, the streaming,
passionate thanks of these lovers would have procured that
consummation for this white-haired cynic of seventy. But
he retorted:
"Hush, hush, young fools I The sentries! And you,
young Molly, you chattering petticoat you, if you dare
breathe any more such words as 'gratitude,' and
' reward,' to me, I'll stop and soundly cuff your ears, you
empty feather-head I Reward forsooth! As though my
reward isn't at this moment maddening my head."
" That it isn't, dearest doctor," she denied. " Your reward
hasn't come to you yet. On earth, sir, it never will."
"A lie! I've got my reward, and far too much of my
reward; for doesn't it consist of hearing the light, foolish
prattle of you two, dinning through my brain?"
They were now come to the road that curled and twisted
half a mile down to the foot of the rocks. They could hear
the sea's sweet welcome borne on the wind. Their hearts
swelled as they heard the voice of that friend who was to
bear these panting, hunted fugitives out of their birth-land
of persecution and captivity to the wide plains of freedom.
The scent of its breath and its many tender musics saluted
their lips and their ears while they blithely descended, arms
linked, to the sands. For an hour the wounded traitor for-
got his fierce-biting side. His father's memory made again
beautiful in his mother's sight, and himself away, free with
his Molly! Life had no more to offer, that hour, to twenty-
five. Duty dohe, the consciousness of increasing power,
and his character not excessively stained for one doomed to
be the heir of erring mortals; here he was at twenty-five
not yet fortune-soured, not yet a giber at life, and a scomer
of the travails of aspiration. No matter how small his
deserts, he had been gratified by the desire of his heart.
Oh, it was rapture! Oh, it was music! to hear her brave
feet following his own intrepid ones down the rocks in the
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 321
dark. With such a mate, at such an age of daring and
exuberance, glittering kingdoms opened out before his
astonished soul. Was he not young, a lover, and a con-
queror? Was not the joy of life and of earth his song?
Again and yet again the indulgent sea welcomed these
fair children with his songs. They were now footing the
yellow sands, that yielded to their ardent feet, as grim
adversity had so lately done.
Young Molly, in whose brain this scheme of safety had
been born, undertook to guide them to the smuggler's cove.
Her hawk eyes had noted it many times on sunny days, as
they noted everything, and she declared that her recollec-
tiqn carried the precise spot. It was marked by formidable
steeps of rock, and a bare, brown headland marching out
to the sea. The rollers unfurled their sails of silver, and
raced toward them through the night; hailing them com-
pan ions to themselves; creatures who knew how to live
swiftly and well; and who, despite times of thunder and of
tempest, could accept the joys of peace bestowed by God in
his hours of clemency. Those laughing, singing, fleet-
limbed rollers drank Heaven's calm in uncomplaining
happiness. Not theirs to avenge the insults of the wicked
wind in times of storm and passion. The soul of the waters
was too sweet to bear resentment toward the rudeness of
angry winter skies. They cried a comrade's call to these
two who were fleeing from the wrath of Fierceheart, yet
whose pure hearts had forgiven that inexorable old man.
Gray of the morn was beginning to dilute the heavy dark
as the sea but threw its shadows out and bid them be wary.
The captain had said that a strict watch was being kept
upon it. Infinite was their caution here. They relapsed
into a strenuous silence that was disturbed by heart-beats
and the sighing of their deep-drawn breaths. The com-
plaint of the gulls squealed about their heads, and once the
hail of a curlew from the rocks. The traitor nestled to his
pistol. But gliding like specters across the soundless sands,
they passed the cot without springing one alarm, and this
successful passing untied their tongues again.
322 FEERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
" Half a mile, and then the cove, and the good ship Free-
dom!" exulted the girl.
" Suppose Lockit's been false and the boat's not there ?"
ventured Seventy, whose pessimism was privileged as a
concession to age.
"Suppose it's not; we shan't he taken, though; we'll
swim the Atlantic rather, eh, Molly ?—you and I, together
side by side, and we're not afraid. We wouldn't quail
before tempests and armies, my fair and brave." That's how
the conqueror spoke. His rich voice was like wine to a
languid pulse. His vaunt was the vaunt of the strong, the
proud, the untamed. She—was not she beside him? Was
not her great-heartedness assimilated in his own? He was
a double creature now she was beside him; with the songs
of her voice in his brain he felt himself a sea-hurling
Cyclops whose hand could stem the tide. They were exiles
driven to a strange, far country to procure bread and free-
dom. They exulted in it; it is a proud day for the young
eagle when he first bursts out of his pinions and his wings
swell to the breeze. The breeze may be a tempest, hut in
his power he rides upon it, subduing it to his service. And
with this haughty pair of love-birds, dual eagles with the
soul of one, the other's wing; their hearts now expanded
for a strife with men and heaven; come shine, come thun-
derclap, they were not afraid; together they might subdue
the world and ride secure upon the storm.
"Peace, young fools!" cried the bachelor out of the
depths of envy. And then he remembered at twenty-five
his own lips had been just as boastful. With Her beside
him, he was to trample fortune down. But it was never
his to have Her beside him. He glanced back through the
fogs of the past into the lone, dark country of his disap-
pointments. No lamps of achievement burning; nomonu-
ments in marble erected to himself; no fairy palaces
fashioned for Her out of the purity and strength of his
heart-blood, and decorated with the sweetness of Her own.
Where was She ? Where was Twenty-five and the boastful
soul ?
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 323
" Nay, go on, young fools, go on!"
He stopped and kissed them both in the dark, hungrily;
and then went the rest of the way piping to these love-
birds with his prattle. For an hour he was again a boy,
dazzled with the land of Going-to-do. So many children
see it in their dreams, and have their gaze scorched with its
splendors; but when the child gets so far belated as to come
to disillusioned seventy, it has long abandoned every hope
of reaching ever that glittering realm. It says it is a land
of dreams. It may be; but it has to arrive at seventy ere it
possesses the authority to say so much.
The grays were stronger than the dark by the time they
had rounded the rocks and crept cautiously into the cove.
At the sound of their entrance a lamp was flashed, and
young Lockit and another got up out of their cloaks from
a floor of sand.
" She's round the p'int," Lockitsaid, "us keeps her round
the p'int. But the boat's ere, an' us can take ye in a gliff."
" Twenty pounds for the coast of France!" cried Tom.
"Thirty, sir?"
"Thirty, then."
" Forty, sir ?"
"Well, forty, then."
Mr. Lockit, the smuggler, was going on to fifty, when
the other love-bird cut in curtly:
" Now, look here, Lockit. You asked thirty, and thirty
only will you get, and not that, my man, till we've touched
the shores of France." Then with an aside for the parson's
private ear, "And don't you think I'd better hold the
purse, sir ? Was anything so barefaced as that ? Tom '11
ruin us both in a day. Oh, men! "
The parson assented, " Certainly!" and added an aston-
ishing rider. " Post me your address from Paris, for there's
a hundred or two of my savings I want to be rid of."
" Oh, doctor!"
"I've no heirs, you know, and no friends; it would be
quite a kindness, my dear, for you to relieve me of them
aU. They make about a thousand altogether. You will.
324
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
won't you?" The diplomatist's tone was pleading. Oh,
he was sly! The acceptance of this thousand was quite a
personal favor to himself, he hoped they understood; and
one he should honor them for conferring on him. He
would he compelled to throw the utterly useless money
out of window to he rid of it, which would be a sinor to
confer it upon Mrs. Pye, who happened to be a dipso-
maniac, which would be a greater sin. He must indeed be
rid of it. Would they help him! At present it clogged
his house-room, and was the sorest incumbrance that
could fall upon a bachelor. Blushing at his own temerity,
he begged them to bestow this favor upon him. Young
Molly very soon set him at his ease.
"Not another word, sir; I'm to be pursekeeper, sir; and
do you think I'm ignorant of what pursekeeping means?
It's grand to listen to a boy talking, but after all a word is
not so tangible as a loaf of bread. We've got schemes, of
course, but in the meantime we must live while we execute
them, mustn't we?" And then she smothered him with
thanks.
The casuist plucked his godson by the coat.
" Look here, young rascal; are you aware that you are
the very luckiest dog in the world, sir?"
" True, true, true! " sang the male love-bird.
" And that I'm a bit of a hero?"
"Aren't you, and a big piece, oh, dearest doctor," piped
the female.
"If I hadn't fetched that key, sir, and thus left you to
your doom, as my inclination was, I should have then
married this wife of yours, myself. I've known only one
petticoat better, and that was when I was twenty-five,
when I saw more sunshine among the land and trees, and
the sea looked prettier. And now, good-by."
The sound of their farewells echoed and re-echoed
among the rocks, to their low roof, and to the wide waters
singing to the dawn. Inside the cove it was still night,
but the sweetest moment of the night, when the birds are
to be heard issuing from their sleep among the leaves, and
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 325
their rehearsal notes hegiu to tremble and to anticipate the
day. Their breasts are thrilled with light ere the east has
begun to smile. Light wafts its wonder to their piercing
senses, that their songs may herald its approach to the less
receptive and the duller earth. With the birds the day
begins in darkness; their souls cleave swifter than do ours
through the mysteries of night.
And with the love-birds in the cove all about was very
dark, the creek at their feet was pitch, the boat invisible,
and the solitary and uncertain lamp, when it struggled to
the roof, revealed a fog of shadows stealing out of un-
fathomable mirk, and a concourse of black-painted bats
encirgling beyond the flame and hanging on the skirts of
gloom. All about was very dark, but these birds also felt
the thrill of the light, long ere the earth received it; long
ere the desolate parson did, who at seventy was of the earth
utterly, and merely one of its groping men. They deserted
him for the boat; though the girl hung long upon his lips,
and left his face a scalding legacy of compassion, and even
love—that is as much as her jealous mate had left her to
bestow. Between the parson and the boy was one mighty
hand-grasp of men.
The curved prow cut through the creek; the good, obedi-
ent sea swished, and answered to the oars and the squeak-
ing rowlocks. Presently one far hail from a girl and a
boy to an old man lonely by the verge of the rocks, then
night and the flutter of bats in the dark.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
dat.
Whitehaired Seventy stood hours alone in the dark.
The light was always late to penetrate to that rock-sur-
rounded cove, and this morning the dew mists long delayed
it. He could not tear his mind from those two children
who had left him an old man, desolate. He was with them
326 FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
as they rode over the waters, breasting the surge of free-
dom. Beautiful, sun-kissed children! They had put the
spirit of summer into his life an instant, but as soon as the
sun went, they went too, to a kinder clime. Night, and
they fled! Twenty-flve could fly to the realms of light,
but Seventy was chained to gloom. He was much alone.
He had only Fierceheart to fall back on now—ugh, old
Fierceheart! There was a chasm between them. What
mortal could fashion a bridge that would have the power
to span that gulf ? He was much alone. It was the
penalty for the indiscretions of Twenty-five. That was the
hour his soul had been winged to Her. He had loved and
lost. He was much alone.
Hours later, when the old man struggled with his misery
and shook the blight from his limbs, and tottered out of
the cove, day flooded his soul. Storm cloud and tempest
and passionate, angry sky were clothed with sun peace.
Heaven was one spreading smile of glad gold. The sea
was laughing and dimpled with light. It sang to occa-
sional birds, light of heart since they flew so high; it sang
to little fairy specks of cloud fleece that tripped saucily
away into the west; it sang to the sheen of sands, and
kissed them too, being enamoured of their golden beauty.
It sang to the old man, while day, its brother and com-
panion in good deeds, poured hope into his blood. The
language of the sea was nobly apposite; sun after tempest,
peace after passion was the title of its song. Happily the
old man heard every word the waters lisped; day glowed
in him; hope spoke.
His James, his love, his one friend; could all be so hope-
less? Night said yes; day denied it utterly; and it was
now day I Day said it could not be a time of passion and
tempest always; the sun must come like a rainbow, with
its promise of peace. The sun had come. Heaven over-
flowed with the sun.
The old man hobbled his fastest home, while his ancient,
uncertain limbs rebelled. Every tree was singing; meads
gloomed with the gold of buttercups; colts kicked high;
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 327
• life was breathing over all the land; the mildest sea wind
was a C07 kiss, and the blue heaven marvelously peaceable.
Honest sweat bathed the old man as he strode; sweat from
the living, rejoicing blood, not the corrupt, cold sweat of
passion. Day, the magician, was all charity. It touched
only to inspire; was it not the pure antidote to night and
sorrow ?
But the news. It must be told in detail to awful Fierce-
heart. How would Fierceheart take it ? He trembled as
he strode, dreading the terrible man in his strength, till
Day the consoler, as the sun burst through a rift of wood-
land and poured into the coward's eyes, told him to be calm
and oLgood courage.
He would beard the lion. He would defy his might.
Those children, breasting the waters to Freedom and fair
France, were the master-card. Fierceheart could curse and
struggle and threaten, hut his power had gone. Those
children were out of England. They were able to mock
the king—ay and Fierceheart! The patriot had his power
now chained up.
And his James ? James had lost Her after forty-six
years. He, John, had lost Her many, many weary years
ago. They were companions in misfortune now. Was it
possible that, after all, the gulf could be bridged. Oh, for
the return of love, and a little chess! They were both left
to their loneliness now.
The parson swung straight on to the Hall. He was in
time to witness a military altercation. Boulder's reminis-
cences of his late debauch had got into his temper. He
breathed sourness and discontent.
"Well, what did I say, Wiseman, all along ? You be-
gin to fear that he won't come. Of course he won't come.
Didn't I say it from the first ?"
" In fact I might say that it's a certainty that he won't
come now," said humble Wiseman.
" Humph! a pretty mess."
"No, as he hasn't appeared before, I'm sure he won't
come now. I'll admit I've been deceived."
328
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER.
"You wise man! and won't you look nice when you get
to town."
" Boulder, call the men, and we'll get out of this at once.
And I can say that it is the first time in my career that I've
made this error."
"And it '11 cost you twenty pounds, not to speak of repu-
tation."
The man of commerce paid his golden pieces without a
groan. In an hour the captain and his company were
winding their way solemnly to the south. They had only
gone a little on the road when the captain pulled his hat
off to let the sun beat more fiercely on his brow.
"Boulder," he said, with his perpetual, imperturbable
smile, " that was a grand lad, wasn't it?"
" Humph!"
The parson stood on the top step, and watched the cav-
alcade fade into the heart of the dell below there by the
sea, where the trees were glowing, and the air was thick
with the music of birds. To him it was the passing across
the sky of the last black remnant of the storm. He then
turned deliberately on his heel, and marched into Fierce-
heart's parlor. The lion was in his den. He was drinking
wine, and the " Military Manual" lay open as usual in his
lap.
The parson stepped to him, but recoiled from the hard
sorrow of his face.
"James!"
" She—did you know she was dead ?" asked the husband
in a hushed, awful whisper. " Died last night. Did you
know ?
The parson took his hand, but it cut him to the soul when
Fierceheart withdrew it gently. It was a thing he had
never dared to do before. Suddenly there came an outburst
of triumph.
"James, you're cheated; the king's cheated! Tom's
escaped with young Molly to France in the small hours of
the morning. And I did it! And now, Mr. Magistrate, Mr.
Patriot, will you arrest me, please ?"
FIERCEHEART, THE SOLDIER. 329
Fierceheart dashed his wine down on the carpet and
leaped out of his chair. He strode up and down the room,
an absurd little figure, shaking in a fever fit.
" Arrest me, please 1" said the parson, foursquare by the
fire.
Once little Fierceheart marched up to his six-feet-four,
and strained a look upward to the eyes of that grim traitor.
"I say arrest me, Mr. Magistrate!"
Fierceheart went striding up and down again.
"You would if you could, but you can't, that's it!"
mocked the traitor. "You've seen the sun, and you can't
do it. I knew you couldn't, else I shouldn't have told
you. !"
Fierceheart collapsed into the chimneyseat.
Long hours they sat coldly in silence, Fierceheart with
sunk eyes deep upon the fire; the parson trying to be brave
and failing. He made a resolution every minute only to
break it the next. The man was a very coward. Oh! for
the eyes of that girl to incite him to an artificial bravery.
At last, however, he got up unsteadily and fetched the
board and the chessmen out of the cabinet. He arranged
the pieces with trembling hands. He came timidly to
Fierceheart's shoulder, and implored him " would he play."
Fierceheart tottered to a seat by the table, and made a
mechanical first move; he lost his queen on the fifth, and
did not appear to bother at all about his rooks. On the tenth
he came to a dead stop, and after the lapse of minutes, the
parson took his watch out and made an observation about
the time limit, and the claiming of the game. The minutes
still flitted, but never a move was m?ide. A fragile little
pawn met with a singular accident; it was washed over by
a perpetual drip of tears. The parson gazed sardonically
up to the eyes of the general.
" James," he assured him, " I still think you are an old
fool!"
" I—I may be!" sobbed Fierceheart, his hand stretched
out for his friend.
THE END.
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