Роберт Чамберс - Cardigan

"God knows," said the innkeeper, rolling his eyes. "The villains carried it off with the poor lady inside. Mad work, my lady! Mad work!"

"Maddening work," said I, wrathfully. "Jack, borrow a post–whip and warm the breeks of those same post–boys, will you? Lay it on thick, Jack; I'll take my turn in the morning!"

Mount went away towards the stable, and I quieted the astonished landlord and sent him to prepare supper, while a servant lighted Mrs. Hamilton to her chamber. Then I went out to see that Warlock was well fed and bedded fresh; and I did hear sundry howls from the villain post–boys in their quarters overhead, where Mount was nothing sparing of the leather.

Presently he came down the ladder, and laughed sheepishly when he saw me.

"They're well birched," he said. "It's God's mercy if they sit their saddles in the morning." Then he took my hands and held them so hard that I winced.

"Gad, I'm that content to see you, lad!" he repeated again and again.

"And I you, Jack," I said. "It is time, too, else you'd be in some worse mischief than this night's folly. But I'll take care of you now," I added, laughing. "Faith, it's turn and turn about, you know. Come to supper."

"I—I hate to face that lady," he muttered. "No, lad, I'll sup with my own marrow–bones for company."

"Nonsense!" I insisted, but could not budge him, and soon saw I had my labour for my pains.

"A mule for obstinacy—a very mule," I muttered.

"I own it; I'm an ass. But this ass knows enough to go to his proper stall," he said, with a miserable laugh that touched me.

"Have it as you wish, Jack," I said, gently; "but come into my chamber when you've supped. I'll be there. Lord, what millions of questions I have to ask!"

"To be sure, to be sure," he murmured, then walked away towards the kitchen, while I returned to the inn and cleansed me of the stains of travel.

We supped together, Mrs. Hamilton and I, and found the cheer most comforting, though there was no wine for her and she sipped, with me, the new brew of dark October ale.

A barley soup we had, then winter squash and a roast wild duck, with little quails all 'round, and a dish of pepper–cresses. Lord, how I did eat, being still gaunt from my long sickness! But she kept pace with me; a wholesome lass was she, and no frail beauty fed on syllabubs and suckets. Flesh and blood were her charms, a delicate ripeness, sweet as the cresses she crunched between her sparkling teeth. And ever I heard her little feet go tap, tap, tap, under the lamplit table.

I spoke respectfully of her losses; she dropped her eyes, accepting the condolence, pinching a cress to shreds the while.

She of course knew nothing of my journey to Pittsburg, nor of any events there which might have occurred after she had left, when her husband fell with many another stout frontiersman under Boone and Harrod.

I told her nothing, save that Felicity was in Boston and that I was journeying thither to see her.

"Is she not to wed the Earl of Dunmore?" asked Mrs. Hamilton.

"No," said I, quietly.

"La, the capricious beauty!" she murmured. "Sure, she has not thrown over Dunmore for that foolish dragoon, Kent Bevan?"

"I hope not," said I, maliciously.

"Who knows," she mused; "Mr. Bevan is to serve on Gage's staff this fall. It looks like a match to me."

"Is Mr. Bevan going to Boston?" I inquired.

"Yes. Are you jealous?" she replied, saucily.

I smiled and shook my head.

"But you once were in love with your cousin," she persisted. " On aime sans raison, et sans raison l'on hait! Regardez–moi, monsieur. "

"Your convent breeding in Saint–Sacrement lends to your tongue a liberty that English schools withhold," I said, reddening.

"Nay, now," she laughed, "do you remember how you played with me at that state dinner held in Johnson Hall? You rode me down rough–shod, Michael, and used me shamefully there, under the stairs."

"I'll do the like again if you provoke me," I said, but had not meant to say it either, being troubled by her eyes.

"The—the like—again? And what was that, pray?"

"You know," I said, sulkily.

"I think you—kissed me—"

"I think I did," said I; "and left you all in tears."

It was brutal, but I meant to make an end.

"Did you believe that those were real tears?" she asked, innocently.

"By Heaven, I know they were," said I, with satisfaction, "and small vengeance to repay the ill you did me, too."

"What ill?" she asked, opening her eyes in real surprise.

But I was silent and ashamed already. Truly, it had been no fault but my own that I had taken up the gage she flung at me that night so long ago.

"But I'll not take it up this time," thought I to myself, cracking filberts and looking at her askance across the table.

"I do not understand you, Michael," she said, with a faint smile, ending in a sigh.

"Nor I you, bonnie Marie Hamilton," said I. "Suppose we both cry quits?"

"Not yet," she said; "I have a little score with you, unsettled."

"What score?" I asked, smiling. "Cannot you appeal to the law to have it settled?"

" La loi permet souvent ce que défend l'honneur ," she said, with an innocent emphasis which left me sitting there, uncertain whether to laugh or blush. What the mischief did she mean, anyhow?

She picked up a filbert, tasted the kernel, dropped it, clasped her hands, elbows on the cloth, and gave me a malicious sidelong glance which still was full of that strange sweetness that ever set me on my guard, half angry, half bewitched.

"I wish you would let me alone!" I blurted out, like a country yokel at a quilting.

"I won't," she said.

"Remember what you suffered the first time!" I warned her.

"I do remember."

"Do you—do you dare risk that?" I stammered.

" Et d'avantage—encore ," she murmured, setting her teeth on her plump white wrist and watching me uncertainly.

The game was running on too fast for me and my pulse was keeping pace.

"Safely they defy who challenge those in chains," I said, commanding my voice with an effort. "If that is your revenge, I cry you mercy; you have won."

After a long silence she raised her eyes, dancing with a mocking light in each starry pupil.

"I give you joy, Michael," she said, "if, as I take it, these same chains and fetters that you lately wear are riveted by Cupid."

But I answered nothing, attending her to the door, where she dropped me what I do believe was the slowest and lowest curtsey ever dropped by woman.

So I to my own chamber in no amiable frame of mind, and still tingling with the strange charm of my encounter. Head bent, hands clasped behind me, I walked the floor, striving to analyze this woman who had now twice crossed me on the trail of fate, this fair woman whose bright eyes were a menace and a challenge, and whose sweet, curved mouth was set there as eternal provocation to saint and sinner.

Thus for the first time in my life I had known what temptation might have been. Nay, I knew a little more than what it might have been, and, in the overwhelming flood of loyalty to Silver Heels, I cursed myself for a man without faith or shred of honour. For I was too unskilled in combats with the fair temptation to understand that it is no disgrace to falter, yet not fall.

There came a timid scratching at the door; I opened it and Mount sidled in, coy as a cat in a dairy with its chin still wet with cream. He regarded me doubtfully, but sat down when bidden and began to complain:

"Now, if you are minded to chide me for taking the road, I'm going out again. I can't bear any more, lad, that I can't!—what with Cade gone and me in rags, and stopping Councillor Bullock near Johnstown with pockets bare of aught but a cursed sixpence and that crooked as Lady Shelton's legs—and now I must needs fright a lady into a faint like a bad boy with a jack–o'–lanthorn—"