Of the down-stream flitting through the small hours of the warm midsummer night there is no sharp-etched picture on the memory page. As I recall it, no spoken word of Jennifer's or mine came in to break the rhythm of the hasting voyage. Our paddles rose and fell, dipping and sweeping2 in unison3 as if we two, kneeling in bow and stern, were separate halves of some relentless4 mechanism5 driven by a single impulse. Overhead the starlit dome6 circled solemnly to the right or left to match the windings7 of the stream. On each hand the tree-fringed shores sped backward in the gloom; and beneath the light shell of poplar wood that barely kissed the ripples8 in passing, the river lapped and gurgled, chuckling9 weirdly10 at the paddle plungings, and swirling11 aft in the longer reaches to point at us down the lengthening12 wake with a wavering finger silver-tipped in the wan1 starlight.
With the canoe safely hidden at the landing place, which was some little distance from that oak grove13 where I had twice kept tryst14 with death, we set out for the manor15 house, skulking16 Indian fashion through the wood; and, when we reached the in-fields, looking momently to come upon a sentry17.
Thinking the approaches from the road and river would be better guarded than that from the wood, we skirted a widespread thicket18 tangle19, spared by my father twenty years before to be a grouse20 and pheasant cover, and fetching a compass of half a mile or more across the maize21 fields, came in among the oaks and hickories of the manor grounds.
Still there was no sight nor sound of any enemy; no light of candles at the house, or of camp-fires beneath the trees.
A little way within the grove, where the interlacing tree-tops made the darkness like Egyptian night, Jennifer went on all fours to feel around as if in search of something on the sward. Whereat I called softly to know what he would be at.
He rose, muttering, half as to himself: "I thought I'd never be so far out of reckoning." Then to me: "A few hours since, the Cherokees were encamped just here. You are standing22 in the ashes of their fire."
"So?" said I. "Then they have gone?"
"Gone from this safely enough, to be sure. They have been gone some hours; the cinders23 are cold and dew wet."
"So much the better," I would say, thinking only that now there would be the fewer enemies to fight.
He clipt my arm suddenly, putting the value of an oath into his gripping of it.
"Come awake, man; this is no time to be a-daze!" His whisper was a sharp behest, with a shake of the gripped arm for emphasis. "If the Indians are gone, it means that the powder train has come and gone, too."
"Well?" said I.
I was still thinking, with less than a clod's wit, that this would send the baronet captain about his master's business, and so Margery would have surcease of him for a time, at least. But Jennifer fetched me awake with another whip-lash word or two.
"Jack24! has the night's work gone to your head? If Falconnet has got his marching orders you may be sure he's tried by hook or crook25 to play 'safe bind26, safe find,' with Madge. By heaven! 'twas that she was afeard of, and we are here too late! Come on!"
With that he faced about and ran; and forgetting to loose his grip on my arm, took me with him till I broke away to have my sword hand free. So running, we came presently to the open space before the house, and, truly, it was well for us that the place was clean deserted27; for by this we had both forgot the very name of prudence28.
Jennifer outran me to the door by half a length, and fell to hammering fiercely on the panel with the pommel of his broadsword.
"Open! Mr. Stair; open!" he shouted, between the batterings; but it was five full minutes before the fan-light overhead began to show some faint glimmerings of a candle coming from the rooms beyond.
Richard rested at that, and in the pause a thin voice shrilled29 from within.
"Be off, you runagates! Off, I say! or I fire upon ye through the door!"
Giving no heed30 to the threat, Dick set up his clamor again, calling out his name, and bidding the old man open to a friend. In some notching31 of the hubbub32 I heard the unmistakable click of a gun-flint on steel. There was barely time to trip my reckless batterer33 and to fall flat with him on the door-stone when a gun went off within, and a handful of slugs, breaching34 the oaken panel at the height of a man's middle, went screeching35 over us.
Before I knew what he would be at, Richard was up with an oath, backing off to hurl36 himself, shoulder on, against the door. It gave with a splintering crash, letting him in headlong. I followed less hastily. It was as black as a setter's mouth within, the gun fire having snuffed the old man's candle out. But we had flint and steel and tinder-box, and when the punk was alight, Jennifer found the candle under foot and gave it me. It took fire with a fizzing like a rocket fuse, and was well blackened with gunpowder37. When the flint had failed to bring the firing spark, the old man had set his piece off with the candle flame.
We found him in the nook made by the turn of the stair, flung thither38, as it seemed, by the recoil39 of the great bell-mouthed blunderbuss which he was still clutching. The fall had partly stunned40 him, but he was alive enough to protest feebly that he would take a dozen oaths upon his loyalty41 to the cause; that he had mistook us for some thieving marauders of the other side; craftily42 leaving cause and party without a name till he should have his cue from us.
Whereupon Richard loosed his neckcloth to give him better breathing space, and bidding me see if the revelers had left a heel-tap of wine in any bottle nearer than the wine cellar, lifted the old man and propped43 him in the corner of the high-backed hall settle.
The wine quest led me to the banqueting-room. Here disorder44 reigned45 supreme46. The table stood as the roisterers had left it; the very wreck47 and litter of a bacchanalian48 feast. Bottles, some with the necks struck off, were scattered49 all about, and the floor was stained and sticky with spilt wine and well sanded with shattered glass.
I found a remnant draining in one of the broken bottles, and a cup to pour it in; and with this salvage50 from the wreck returned to Jennifer and his charge. The old man had come to some better sensing of things,—he had been vastly more frightened than hurt, as I suspected,—and to Richard's eager questionings was able to give some feebly querulous replies.
"Yes, they're gone—all gone, curse 'em; and they've taken every plack and bawbee they could lay their thieving hands upon," he mumbled51. "'Tis like the dogs; to stay on here and eat and drink me out of house and home, and then to scurry52 off when I'm most like to need protection."
"But Madge?" says Richard. "Is she safe in bed?"
"She's a jade53!" was all the answer he got. Then the old man sat up and peered around the end of the settle to where I stood, cup and bottle in hand. "'Tis a Christian54 thought," he quavered. "Give me a sup of the wine, man."
I served him and had a Scottish blessing
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