Kitabı oku: «From Kingdom to Colony», sayfa 11

"Cousin Dot!" called a small voice outside the locked door.

"Yes, 'Bitha." Dorothy started guiltily, and made haste to dash some water over her glowing face and tell-tale eyes.

"Aunt Lettice says the meal is ready," came the announcement from without; "and Hugh Knollys is below with Uncle Joseph."

Dorothy felt thankful for this, as a guest at dinner would serve the better to divert attention from herself; and making a hasty toilette, she descended to the dining-room.

She found them all at the table, with Hugh at her father's right hand, and directly opposite her own place. The young man arose as she entered the room, and responded with his usual heartiness to the greeting she tendered him. But with it all he gave her so odd a look as to make her wonder if he saw aught amiss in her appearance.

The two men resumed their talk of public matters and the town's doings, and were soon so absorbed that Dorothy was able to remain as silent as she could have wished.

It had been resolved not to import, either directly or indirectly, any goods from Great Britain or Ireland after the first of the coming December. And in case the tyrannical decrees of the mother country should not be repealed by the 10th of the following September, it was agreed that no commodities whatever should be exported to Great Britain, Ireland, or the British West Indies.

This would bring about an embarrassing state of affairs for both the men who were now discussing the matter, as they, like many others in the town, had derived a considerable income from such exporting.

"But we'll stand shoulder to shoulder, Hugh," said Joseph Devereux, firmly, "if so be we forfeit every penny, until the oppressors give us fair dealings or we drive every redcoat from our soil. I will kill every cow and sheep – aye, and every horse as well, and cut down every stick o' timber on my land, for the keeping of us and our friends fed and warmed, but that I will maintain the stand I've pledged myself to keep."

"Let us hope, sir, that the redcoats will not first seize your cattle," said Hugh, his eyes fixed gravely upon the abstracted young face opposite him. "I met Trent as I was riding along the pastures, and he told me the sheep had escaped through a broken place in the fence of the ten-acre lot, and he had a chase after them to Riverhead Beach. He said he met a party of soldiers there, and they deliberately took one of the sheep from under his very nose, and carried it off with them to the Neck. And when he remonstrated with them, they only laughed at him, and told him to send the bill to the King for the dinner they would have."

The old man's eyes flashed with anger as he listened to this.

"It is an outrage!" he exclaimed when Hugh had finished, – "to steal stock under our very eyes. I must see Trent about the matter, and the cattle must be kept nigh the house."

"Why not take them by boatloads over to the islands till the redcoats be gone, as has been done before, for pasturage?" The suggestion came from Aunt Lettice, and was made rather timidly.

"You were never cut out for a farmer's wife, Lettice, my dear," her brother-in-law replied, a good-humored smile now breaking over his face, "else you'd remember there is no pasturage there at this time o' year. And I doubt if they'd be so safe on the islands as here, for Trent and the men would have to go each day with fodder for them, and the soldiers' spying eyes would be sure to note the coming and going o' the boats. No," he added with decision, "I shall have the flocks kept penned, nigh the house; and I shall make complaint o' this matter to the Governor. As for the rest," and he smiled grimly, "I take it our guns can protect ourselves and our property."

CHAPTER XXI

Hugh Knollys was so much a member of the household that Aunt Lettice thought nothing of going her own way when dinner was over and leaving him in the living-room with Dorothy; and the two now sat on one of the low, broad window-seats, watching Joseph Devereux as he went out of doors in search of Trent, with 'Bitha dancing along beside him.

"How fast 'Bitha is growing!" Hugh remarked. "She will soon be taller than you, Dot. Although, to be sure," he added with a laugh, "that is not saying very much."

Dorothy did not reply. Indeed it would seem that she had not heard him; and now he laid his hand softly upon one of her own to arouse her attention as he called her by name.

At this she started, and turned her face to him.

"What, Hugh – what is it?" she asked confusedly.

His smiling face became sober at once, and a curious intentness crept into his blue eyes while he and Dorothy looked at each other without speaking. Then he asked deliberately, "Of what were you dreaming just now, Dot?"

A burning blush deepened the color in her cheeks, and her eyes fell before those that seemed to be searching her very thoughts.

"Shall I make a guess?" he said, a strange thrill now creeping into his voice and causing her to lift her eyes again. "Were you dreaming of that young redcoat you were walking with this morning?"

She sprang to her feet and faced him, her eyes blazing, and her slight form trembling with anger.

"I was not walking with any such," she replied hotly. "How dare you say so?"

"Because it so appeared as I came along the Salem road," was his calm answer. "I saw him on one side of the road leaning against the stone wall, and watching you, as you went from the wall on the opposite side, and across your father's lot. His eyes were fixed upon you as though he were never going to look away; indeed he never saw nor heard me until my horse was directly in front of him."

Dorothy was now looking down at the floor, and made no reply.

After waiting a moment for her to speak, Hugh took both her hands and held them close, while he said with an earnestness that seemed almost solemn in its intensity: "Don't deceive me, Dot. Don't tell me aught that is not true, when you can trust me to defend you and your happiness with my life, if needs be."

His words comforted her in a way she could not explain. And yet they startled her; for she was still too much of a child, and Hugh Knollys had been too long a part of her every-day life, for her to suspect how it really was with him.

"I was not intending to tell you any untruth, Hugh. But – I was not walking with him."

The anger had now gone from her eyes, and she left her hands to lie quietly in his clasp. But she had not forgotten the warm pressure of those other hands in whose keeping they had been that same morning.

"Had you not seen him, Dot?" Hugh asked, looking keenly into her face.

At this her whole nature was up in rebellion, for she could not brook his pursuing the matter farther, after what she had already told him.

"Let go my hands!" she exclaimed angrily. "Let me go! You have no right to question me as to my doings."

He dropped her hands at once, and rising to his feet, turned his back to her, and looked out of the window. A mighty flood of jealousy was surging through his brain; and that which he had so long repressed was struggling hard to uproot itself from the secret depths, – where he was striving to hide it from her knowledge – and burst forth in fierce words from his lips.

Had this hated Britisher dared to steal into the sacred place of the child's heart, which he himself, from a sense of honor, was bound to make no effort to penetrate? The mere suspicion of such a thing was maddening.

Dorothy glanced at him. How big and angry he looked, standing there with tightly folded arms, his lips compressed, and his brows contracted into a deep scowl! How unlike he was to the sunny-faced Hugh Knollys who had been her companion since childhood!

"Don't be angry with me, Hugh," she pleaded softly, venturing timidly to touch his shoulder.

He whirled about so suddenly as to startle her, and she fell back a pace, her wondering eyes staring at the set white face before her.

"I am not angry, Dot," he said, letting his arms drop from their clasping; "I am only – hurt." And he slowly resumed his place upon the window-seat.

"I don't wish to hurt you, Hugh," Dorothy declared, as she sat down by him again.

He seemed to make an effort to smile, as he asked, "Don't you?"

"No, I do not." And now her voice began to gather a little asperity. "But you do not seem to consider that you said aught to hurt me, as well."

He took her hand and stroked it gently.

"You know well, Dot," he said, "that I'd not hurt you by word or deed. And it is only when I think you are doing what is like to hurt yourself, that I make bold to speak as I did just now."

Dorothy was silent, but her brain was busy. The thought had come to her that she must bind him by some means, – make it certain that he should not speak of this matter to her brother. And a wild impulse – one she did not stop to question – urged her to see that the young soldier was not brought to any accounting for whatever he had done.

She wondered how much Hugh might know, and how much was only suspicion, – surmise. And with the intent to satisfy herself as to this, she said, "Just because you saw a redcoat watching me, as you thought, and at a distance, you forthwith accuse me of walking with him."

She spoke with a fine show of impatience and reproof, but still permitting him to hold and caress her hand.

"Aye, Dot, but there be redcoats and redcoats. And this one happened to be that yellow-faced gallant we are forever meeting, the one you – "

She interrupted him. "I know what you mean. But I tell you truly, Hugh, I had not been walking with him, nor did I know he was by the stone wall looking after me, as you say."

"And you had not seen him?" Hugh asked, now beginning to appear more like himself, and bending his smiling face down to look at her.

But the smile vanished, as he met her faltering eyes.

"Don't tell me, Dot, if you'd sooner not; only know that you can trust me, if you will, and I'll never fail you, – never!"

These words, and the way they were spoken, settled all her doubts, and clasping her other hand over his, that still held her own, she burst forth impetuously: "Oh, I will tell you, Hugh. Only you'll promise me that you'll never tell of it, not even to Jack."

The young man hesitated, but only for a second, as the sweet prospect of a secret between them – one to be shared by no other, not even her idolized brother – swept away all other thoughts.

"I promise that I'll tell no one, Dot, – not even Jack."

He spoke slowly and guardedly, the better to hide the mad beating of his heart, and the effort he was making to restrain himself from taking her in his arms and telling her what she was to him.

Dorothy uttered a little sigh, as if greatly relieved. Then she said with an air of perfect frankness: "Well, Hugh, I did see him – up in the wood, as I was coming from old Ruth's. He spoke to me, and I ran away from him."

"What did he say?" Hugh demanded quickly.

"Oh, I cannot remember, – he startled me so. I was dreadfully frightened, although I am sure he meant no harm."

"No harm," Hugh repeated wrathfully. "It was sufficient harm for him to dare speak to you at all."

"No, but it was not," the girl declared emphatically. "He and I are acquainted, you know – after a fashion. It was not the first time he has spoken to me, nor I to him, for that matter."

Hugh's blue eyes flashed with anger.

"I have a great mind to make it the last!" he exclaimed with hot indignation, and half starting from his seat.

But Dorothy pushed him back. "Now mark this, Hugh Knollys," she said warningly, – "if you say aught to him, and so make me the subject of unseemly brawling, I'll never speak to you again, – no, not the longest day we both live!" And she brought her small clenched fist down with enforcing emphasis upon Hugh's broad palm.

"What a little spitfire you are, Dot!" And he smiled at her once more.

"Spitfire, is it? You seem to have a plentiful supply of compliments for me this day." She spoke almost gayly, pleased as she was to have diverted him so easily.

He was now staring at her with a new expression in his eyes, and appeared to be turning over some matter in his mind; and Dorothy remained silent, wondering what it might be.

"Dorothy," he said presently, and very gravely, "I wonder will you promise me something?"

"I must know first what it is." She was smiling, and yet wishing he would not look at her in such a strange way; she had never known before that his frank, good-natured face could wear so sober an aspect.

"I wish you would promise me that you'll keep out of this fellow's way, – that you'll never permit him to hold any converse with you, and, above all, when no one else is by."

"I'll promise no such thing," she answered promptly, and with a look of defiance.

"And why not?" he asked in the same grave way, and with no show of being irritated by her quick refusal. Indeed he now spoke even more gently than before.

"Because," she replied, "it is a silly thing to ask. He is a gentleman; and I do not feel bound to fly from before him like a guilty thing, or as though I were not able to take care of myself. Besides, we are not like to meet again – he and I."

Her voice sank at the last words, as though she were speaking them to herself – and it had a touch of wistfulness or of regret.

This set Hugh to scowling once more. But he said nothing, and sat toying in an abstracted fashion with her small, soft fingers.

The desire to plead his own cause was again strong upon him, and he was wondering if he might not in some way sound the depths of her feeling toward him, without violating the pledge which, although unspoken by his lips, he knew her brother – his own dearest friend – assumed to have been given.

He was aroused from these speculations by a question from Dorothy.

"You will never speak to him of me in any manner, will you, Hugh?" she asked coaxingly.

"Speak to whom?" he inquired in turn. Then, noting the embarrassment in her eyes, he muttered something – and not altogether a blessing – upon Cornet Southorn.

"But you 'll – promise me you 'll," she insisted.

"And if I promise?" he asked slowly. He was looking into her face, thinking how sweet her lips were, and wishing he could throw honor to the winds and kiss them – just once, while they were so close to his own.

"There is nothing," she declared with a sudden impulse, "that I will not do for you in return!"

"Nothing!" A reckless light was now growing in his eyes. "Are you sure, Dot, there is nothing?"

"No, nothing I can do," she affirmed. But she could not help remarking his eagerness and illy repressed excitement, and felt that she must keep herself on guard against a possible demonstration, – something whose nature she could not foresee.

The young man was still looking fixedly at her. But now he let go her hands and sprang to his feet.

"I'll make no bargain with you, Dot," he said excitedly. "I hate this man, and have from the very first, and I hope I'll have the good fortune before many days to meet him face to face, in fair fight. But I promise, as you ask it, that I'll seek no quarrel with him. And even had you not asked, I'd surely never have mentioned your name to him."

"Thank you." Dorothy spoke very quietly; and before he could know of her intention she snatched his hand and kissed it.

She did it so suddenly and quickly that he knew not what to say or do. He felt the hot blood rush to his face, and found himself trembling from the storm aroused within him by her caress.

Before he could speak, she was on her feet alongside him, smiling up into his burning face, and saying, "You are a good friend to me, Hugh, and I'll not forget it." Then, as she laid her hand on his arm, "Come, I will play something for you; I feel just in the humor for it."

He followed her into the drawing-room, where a huge wood-fire leaped and crackled on the hearth. She bade him be seated in a big chair in front of the dancing flames, and then went over and perched herself upon the bench – roomy enough to hold three Dorothys – before the spinet.

A moment later and there stole from beneath the skilful touch of her fingers one of those quaint melodies of which we in this generation know nothing, save as they have come down to us through the ear alone, never having been put upon paper.

Hugh Knollys sat and watched her, noting the pretty curves of her cheeks and throat, – the firm white neck, so small and round, with the wayward hair breaking into rebellious little curls at the nape, – the slender wrists, and small, snowy hands.

None of these escaped him, as he sat a little back of her, his hungry eyes absorbing each charming detail. He thought what a blessed thing it would be, could she and he always be together, and alone, like this, with peace smiling once more over the land, and they happy in the society of each other.

The music seemed to fit exactly into his present mood, and he sat motionless for a time, listening to it. Then, scarcely conscious of what he was doing, he arose to his feet; and as the final cadence died softly away, he was in a chair beside the bench, with his arm clasping Dorothy's waist.

She turned a startled face, to find his own bending close to her, and with a look in it such as she had never before known it to hold.

"Dorothy," and his voice was almost a whisper, "you care more for me than for the Britisher?"

An alarmed suspicion of the truth came to her. She saw a new meaning in all he had said, in what she had beheld in his face and manner; and realizing this, she sat white and motionless, her fingers still resting upon the keys.

He now bent his head, and she was frightened to feel tears dropping on her wrist.

She was possessed by a wild desire to fly, – to get away from him. But she found herself unable to stir, and sat rigid, feeling as if turned to marble, while his arm was still lying loosely about her waist.

Then his hand stole up, and his fingers clasped her hand.

"Oh, my God," – his voice was hoarse and choked – "I cannot endure it!"

At this, there came to the girl a flash of remembrance from that same morning. She seemed to feel the arm of the young soldier around her, and to see the scarlet-clad breast against which her head was pressed so tenderly. A feeling as of treacherous dealing with his faith and with her own rushed upon her, and she struggled to get away.

"Are you gone daft, Hugh Knollys," she cried angrily, "or whatever ails you?"

He arose shamefacedly, and stood mute. But as she moved off, he stretched out a hand to detain her.

"Wait, – wait but a moment, Dot," he begged. "Don't leave me in such fashion. Don't be angry with me."

"Are you mad?" she demanded again, and with no less impatience, although pausing beside him.

"Aye, I think I must be," he admitted, now speaking more naturally, and trying to smile down into the small face, still glowing with indignation, so far beneath his own.

"So it would seem," she said coldly, and in no wise softened. "I ne'er expected such a thing from you."

"Never mind, Dot, – forget it," he pleaded, now full of penitence. "I've a great trouble on my mind just now, and your music seemed to bring it all to me with a new rushing."

Dorothy's face changed in a second, and became filled with sympathy.

"Oh, Hugh, I am so sorry," she said with quick solicitude, taking him by the hand. "Don't you want to tell me about it? Mayhap I can help you." Her anxiety about this unknown trouble had lulled to sleeping her suspicions as to the reason for his outbreak.

He smiled, – but sadly, grimly. "I'll tell you some day," he said, "and we will see if you can help me. But we'll be better friends than ever after this, won't we, Dot?" His eyes had been searching her face in nervous wonder, as if to assure himself that he had not told her aught of his secret, – the secret his honor forbade him to reveal.

"Yes, Hugh, I am sure we shall be." Dorothy said it with a warmth that set his mind at rest.

"And you'll let no redcoats, nor any coats – whate'er be their color – come betwixt us?" he added, with a touch of his old playfulness.

"No, never!" And there was a sincerity and firmness in her answer that warmed his very heart.

"Thank you, Dot," he said, lifting her fingers to his lips. "And thank God!" he muttered as he released her hand, saying it in a way to make Dorothy feel uncomfortable in the thought that perhaps she had pledged herself to something more than she had intended.

Just here Aunt Lettice came into the room. "Leet has returned from the town," she announced, full of excitement, "and says that Mugford's wife has at last prevailed upon the English officers to release him."

"Can this be true?" inquired the young man, instantly alert, and quite his natural self again.

"So Leet says; and that Mugford is now in the town, with every one rejoicing over him." And she poked the fire with great energy, sending a thousand sparkles of flame dancing up the wide chimney.

"How happy his poor wife must be!" was Dorothy's comment, as she stooped to pick up 'Bitha's kitten, which had followed Aunt Lettice, and was now darting at the steel buckles on the girl's shoes, where the bright fire was reflected in flickerings most inviting to kittenish eyes and gambols.

"I think I'll ride over to town and see Mugford," said Hugh. "I want to congratulate him upon his escape."

He glanced at Dorothy, as if half expecting her to speak, as he had just declined Aunt Lettice's urgent invitation that he return for supper, saying that his mother was looking for him before evening.

But all Dorothy said was, "Here come father and 'Bitha." And she walked over toward the window.

Hugh followed her, and said in a low voice, not meant for Aunt Lettice's ears, "You'll not forget our compact, Dot, and your promise?"

"No," she answered, smiling at him; "nor will you yours?"

"Never!" He pressed the hand she extended to him, and then hurried away.

Joseph Devereux met him on the porch, and they stood talking for a few minutes, while 'Bitha came within, her cheeks ruddy from the nipping air.

"Leet is back," she said, as she entered the drawing-room; "but Uncle Joseph says it is too cold for us to take so late a ride over to see Mistress Knollys."

"So it is, 'Bitha," Dorothy assented. "But we'll go to the kitchen, and ask Tyntie to let us make some molasses pull."

She was, for the moment, a child again, with all perplexing thoughts of redcoats and Hugh Knollys banished from her mind.