Роберт Чамберс - Cardigan

"Do you think Cade followed Miss Warren to Boston?" I asked.

"My journey is to find that out," he said. "Ah, lad, a noble mind was wrecked in Renard's head. I know—others know nothing. What fate sent him like a wild thing to the forests, I only know, as you know, nothing but what he has told us both. If his madness has waxed so fiercely since he saw Miss Warren, it may be a sign that the end is near. I do not know. I miss him, and I must look for him while I can move these clumsy feet of mine."

My candle was burning very low now. Mount laid his pipe in the candle–pan, rose, shook himself, and said good–night.

"Good–night," I said, and sat down to light another candle. This done, I did undress me, and so would have been in bed had I not chanced to open the book he left me, thinking to glance it over and forget it.

But sunrise found me poring over its pages, while the candle, a pool o' wax, hardened in the candle–stick beside me.

By noon we were well on our way towards Boston, I riding beside Mrs. Hamilton's carriage wheels, Jack Mount perched up on the box, and very gay in a new suit of buckskins which he bought from a squaw in the village, the woman being an Oneida half–breed and a tailoress by trade.

So gorgeous was this newly tailored suit that, though my own buckskins were also new and deeply fringed on sleeve and leg, even to the quill and wampum embroidery on the thigh, I did cut but a dingy figure beside Jack Mount. His shoulders were triple–caped with red–fox fur edges; he wore a belted hunting–shirt, with scarlet thrums; breeches cut to show his long legs' contour to the clout, also gay with scarlet thrums; and Huron moccasins, baldric, holster, and sporran, all of mole–skin, painted and beaded with those mystic scenes of the False–Face's secret rites, common to the Six Nations and to other Northern and Western clans.

Proud as a painted game–cock with silver steels was Jack. Poor gossip, how different his condition now, with a rasher o' bacon and a cup of ale under his waist–band, a belt full of money outside of it, and his scarlet thrums blowing like ribbons in the wind! A new fox–skin cap, too, with the plumy white–tipped tail bobbing to his neck, added the finish to this forest dandy. Truly it did warm me to behold him ruffling it with the best o' them; and it was a wink and a kiss for the pretty maid in the pantry, and a pinch o' snuff with mine host, and "Your servant, ma'am," to Mrs. Hamilton, with cap sweeping the dust in a salute that a Virginian might envy and mark for imitation.

The post–boys slunk past him with rueful, sidelong glances; the footman gave him wide berth, obeying the order to mount with an alacrity designed to curry favour as soon as possible, and let the painful past go bury itself.

"You had best," muttered Mount, with pretence of a fierceness he loved to assume. "Gad! I'm minded to tan your buttocks to line my saddle—ho!—come back! I'm not going to do it, simpleton! I only said I was so minded. Into your saddles, in Heaven's name. Salute!—you mannerless scullions! Do you not see your mistress coming?"

I handed Mrs. Hamilton to her chaise, and stood in attendance while she tied on her velvet sun–mask, watching me steadily through the eye–holes the while, but not speaking. Yet ever on her lips hovered that smile I knew so well; and from her hair came that fresh scent which is of itself like the perfume of Indian swale–herb, and which powder and pomatum can neither add to nor dissimulate.

Over her gown of shimmering stuff, garlanded with lilac–tints, she wore a foot–mantle, for the road was muddy from the all–night rain, and this I disposed around her ankles when she had seated herself in the chaise, and wrapped her restless little feet in a thick, well–tanned pelt.

" Merci ," she said, in a whisper, with her bright eyes sparkling under her velvet mask; and I closed the carriage and mounted Warlock nimbly, impatient to be gone.

"Michael," she said from the chaise window, nose in the air to watch me ride up.

"Madam," I replied, politely.

"Let Captain Mount ride your horse, and do you come into the carriage. I have so much to tell you—"

I made what excuse I could. She tossed her chin.

"I shall die of ennui," she said.

"Count the thraves in the stubble," said I, laughing.

"And talk to my five wits of the harvest? How amusing!" she retorted, indignantly.

"Repent the past, then," I suggested, smiling.

"Ay—but 'tis one blank expanse of white innocence, with never a stain to mark for repentance. My past is spotless, Michael—spotless—like a fox–pelt, all of a colour."

Now, though we call foxes red, their ear–tips are jet black and their brushes and bellies touched with white. But she was right; your spotless fox can have no dealings with a dappled fawn.

I signalled the footman and post–boys; the chaise creaked off down the road, and I dropped behind, turning a sober face to the rain–washed brightness of the world.

So we journeyed, coming into dry roads towards noon, where no rain had fallen. And already it seemed to me my nostrils savoured that faint raw perfume of the mounting sea, which only those who have lived their whole lives inland can wind at great distances. It is not a perfume either; it is a taste that steals into the mouth and tingles far back, above the tongue. And it is strange to say so, but those who never before have tasted the scent know it for what it is by instinct, and fall into a restless reverie, searching to think where they have savoured that same enchanted ocean breath before.

At Grafton we baited at the "Weather–cock Tavern"; then on along the Charles River, with the scent o' the distant sea in every breath we drew, through Dedham, past Needham, and north into a most lovely country of rolling golden stubble and orchards all red with apples, and bridges of stone, neatly fashioned to resist the freshets. Alas, that this fair province of Massachusetts Bay should lie a–gasping amid plenty, with the hand of Britain upon the country's thrapple to choke out the life God gave it.

On the straight, well–laid high–road we passed scores of farmers' wains, piled with corn and yellow pumpkins, cabbages, squashes, barrels of apples, sacks o' flour, and thraves, all bound for Boston, where the poor were starving and the rich went hungering because the King of England had been angered to hear men prate of human rights.

Since the 1st day of June the Boston Port Bill was in full effect, and the city was sealed to commerce. Not a keel had stirred the waters of the bay save when the great bulging war–ships shifted their moorings to swing their broadsides towards the town; not a sail was bent to the shore breeze in this harbour where a thousand vessels had cleared in a single year from its busy port.

So when the city felt the punishment heavy upon her, and the poor starved and the rich suffered, and the hot sun poured down on the empty rotting wharves, the farmers of Massachusetts Bay brought their harvests by land to the famine–stricken city, and sister colonies sent generously of their best with the watchword: "Stand fast, Boston! A King's anger is a little thing, but human rights shall not perish until we perish, every one!"

It was sunset as we turned into the Roxbury road, with the salt wind blowing the marsh–reeds and ruffling the shallow waters of the harbour to the north and east. It was ebb–tide; beyond the eastern bog, far out in the yellow shallows, the harbour channel ran in a darker streak, glittering under the red blaze of sunset.

Wet marshes spread away to the north; the wind was heavy with the salty stench of mud–flats uncovered at low–water, and all alive with sea–fowl hovering. Northeast the steeples of Boston rose, blood–red in the setting sun; distant windows flashed fire; weather–vanes turned to jets of flame.