Роберт Чамберс - Cardigan

"She can't lie out there in the sleet," he muttered, blood–shot eyes roving restlessly in the darkness. "I am going back!"

"For God's sake, don't do that!" I begged; but he cursed me and brushed me aside.

Back over the wall he dropped. I started to follow, but he shoved me roughly and bade me mind my own concerns.

I leaned against the foot of the wall; the sleet pelted me; I bared my throat to it. After a while I heard Mount's labouring breath on the other side of the wall, and I climbed up to aid him.

He held the dead child in his arms; I took the body from him; he climbed over, and received it again, bearing it as though it were but a snow–flake's weight in his great arms.

"Go you and find a pick and spade in the mews, yonder," he said. There was a fixed stare in his eyes that alarmed me. "Damn you," he said, "it is the least we can do!"

"Jack," I said, "we cannot stay here to be taken again! You cannot bury her now; the ground is frosted; people will hear us!"

He glared at me, then swung his heavy head right and left. The next moment he started running through the storm, cradling the burden in his arms. I followed, not knowing what he meant to do.

At the King's Chapel gate he turned in along a dim gravel path, hedged with dripping box. Around us lay the headstones of the dead, with here and there a heavy tomb looming up in the storm around us.

For a moment he halted, peering about him. A square white sepulchre surmounted a mound on his right; he motioned me to hold the dead child and stepped forward, laying his hands on the slab. Then, with a heave of his powerful back, he lifted the huge stone, laying open the shadowy sepulchre below.

Again he took the dead in his arms, wiped the rain–drops from the face, laid the limp form in the sepulchre, and smoothed the clothing. Together we replaced the slab; it taxed all my strength to lift one end of it. The bell of the prison clanged frantically.

Mount stood back, breathing heavily, hands hanging. I waited in silence.

"What a little thing she was!" he muttered; "what a child—to—do—that! Do you think she will lie easy there?"

"Yes," I said.

At the sound of my voice Mount roused and turned sharply to me.

"The thief and the thief–taker's daughter!" he whispered, with a ghastly laugh. "They'll make a book of it—I warrant you!—and hawk it for a penny in Boston town!"

He touched the slab, all glistening with sleet, gripped the edge of the sepulchre, turned, and shook his fist at the prison. Then, quietly passing his arm through mine, he led the way out of the chapel yard, guiding me between the soaking hedges to the iron gate, and so out into the black alley.

Almost immediately a man shouted: "Stop thief! Turn out the guard!" and a soldier, in the shadow of the wall, fired at us.

Mount glared at him stupidly, hands dangling; the soldier ran up to him and presented his bayonet, calling on us to give up.

The sound of his voice appeared to rouse Mount to fury; he seized the musket, wrenched it from the soldier, and beat him into the mud. Then swinging the weapon by the barrel, he knocked down two bailiffs who were closing in on us, and started after another, with a yell of rage.

"Jack! Jack!" I cried. "Are you mad? Follow me; quick! We can't stay here, you great fool!"

He heard me, halted, hurled the musket after his flying foe, and broke out into a harsh laugh.

"Come on, lad," he said. "I did but mean to warm my blood and purge it of the prison rust. Truly I think we must make for the purlieus till they lose our trail!"

Through reeking lanes, foul alleys, and muddy mews where gaunt dogs battled over scraps with gaunter children, we ran, or lurked to listen, shunning the bleared lanthorn–light, shining through the storm.

At times the horror of that flight even now appalls me—that flight through the starving town o' Boston, where old women mouthed at us with their scurvy–cankered gums; where, slinking along dead walls, we stumbled over old men patiently picking with skinny fingers in the rotted herbage for roots to stay their starved stomachs' craving; where, in doorways, naked children, with bellies bloated by famine, stared at us out of hollow eyes.

The town appeared to be alive with British soldiery; mounted pickets roved through the streets; parties of officers passed continually; squad after squad of marines crossed our path, and at first we thought that all this show of troops was due to us and our escape, the hour being late for so many troops to be abroad.

"There's something else in the wind," muttered Mount, as we hid in Belcher's Lane to avoid a party of dragoons; "all this pother is never made on our account. There's deviltry a–brewing, lad. We had best start for the 'Wild Goose.'"

Through the mud of Cow Lane, Flounder Mews, and Battery Marsh we crept on, on, along back roads and shiny lanes, then, alarmed by a galloping dragoon, we threaded the marshy alleys to the north, from Hancock's Wharf clear around the peninsula to Back Street and Link Alley.

From thence through Hog Alley and Frog Lane south towards the Neck, only to be frightened north once more by the mad gallop of dragoons, and so to hide in Mackerel Lane.

And I am minded, as I recall that night's skulking flight, of a bandy little watchman who, at the mere sight of us, did drop his lanthorn and make off, bawling for aid, until Jack came up with him and fetched him a clip which knocked him and his noisy rattle into the mud of Mackerel Lane.

We fled as though all Boston ran snapping at our shin–bones, and at last we turned, unmolested, into Green Lane, and so came in sight of the "Wild Goose Tavern." Then, as we dropped into a breathless trot and began to plod across Chambers Street, a man, standing in the shadow of a tree, started forward as we came up.

Mount halted and drew his knife, snarling like a jaded wolf.

"Mount! Cardigan!" cried the man.

"Paul!" exclaimed Mount, eagerly.

The goldsmith wrung our hands with a grip of iron.

"It is the beginning of the end," he said. "The Grenadiers are to march. I've a horse on the Charlestown shore. Gage has closed the gates on the Neck."

"What do the Grenadiers want?" asked Mount, all on fire again, fagged and exhausted as he was.

"They want the cannon and stores at Concord," replied Revere, in a low, eager voice. "I'm waiting for Clay Rolfe. If the Grenadiers march by land, Rolfe hangs a lamp in the steeple of the Old North; if they take boats, he hangs two lamps. I guess they mean to cross the bay. The boats have been moored under the sterns of the war–ships for a week. I've a good horse across the water; I'll have the country–folk out by daylight if the troops stir an inch to–night. Wait; there's Rolfe now!"

A dark cloaked figure came swiftly out of the mews, swinging two unlighted lanthorns. It was Clay Rolfe, our landlord at the "Wild Goose," and he grasped our hands warmly, laughing in his excitement.

"Your boatman is ready under Hunt's Wharf, Paul," he said. "You had best row across the bay while the rain lasts. It will clear before midnight, and the Somerset is moored close to the Lively to–night."

"Yes," said Revere, "I've no mind to run the fleet yonder under a full moon." And he offered his hand to us, one after another, giving our hands a terrific squeeze.

"Don't forget, Rolfe," he said—"one if by land; two if by sea!"

Rolfe turned to us.

"Gage has officers watching every road outside of Boston; but Paul will teach them how fast news can travel." He glanced at the sky; rain fell heavily. "It won't last," he muttered; "there'll be a moon to–night; Paul, you had best row across now. The oars are muffled."

They saluted us and walked rapidly down Green Lane, wrapped to the eyes in their riding–cloaks.