From Kingdom to Colony - Mary Eddy 5 стр.

Little 'Bitha, who had been crooning softly to herself, and improvising, after a fashion of her own,

suddenly cried out, "Oh, Dot, look, look! What an ugly fish!"

They all looked, and saw a dead dogfish, its cruel teeth showing in the gaping jaws, go bobbing by, entangled in a mesh of floating seaweed.

"Him look like dead nigger," said Pashar, as he flung a pebble at it.

Old Leet scowled over his shoulder at his lively descendant.

"Dere'll be anudder, an' real true, dead nigger ter keep him company, ef ye don't sit still, an' quit grampussin' 'bout de boat," he growled; and. Pashar became very quiet.

They were now drawing in nearer to the shore, where the strip of sand-beach lay down below the rocky headland, upon the highest point of which stood Spray House, the home of Nicholson Broughton and his daughter Mary.

The house a low, rambling building, with gabled roof was perched upon the highest of a series of greenstone and syenite ledges, whose natural jaggedness had no need to be strengthened by art to render them a safe bulwark against the encroaching seas, when the storms flashed blinding mists and glittering spray about the diamond-paned windows.

These looked off over the open water, and past the point of land intervening between Great Bay and Marblehead Rock. Upon the latter was an odd beacon,  being a discarded pulpit from one of the Boston churches, whence, after hearing much of the noise and commotion of men, it had been transferred to this barren rock, there to listen to the ceaseless tumult of the battling sea.

Inland from Spray House stood the many great warehouses; and back of these stretched the pasture-lands, breaking here and there into rough hills, showing fields of golden splendor, where the wood-wax, or "dyer's weed," was growing in luxuriant wildness.

Several small boats were drawn up on the beach; and anchored a little way out, and directly opposite the front windows of Spray House, were two goodly-sized schooners, and a brig, their topmasts now touched by the fiery gold of sunset.

"I wish you were coming home with me, Mary," said Dorothy, as Leet ran the boat's nose into the shingle, and Pashar leaped out to hold the stern.

"I wish so, too. But you know it will not be many days before father goes up to Boston, and he said I should abide with you until he returned."

"That will be fine," said Dorothy, her face aglow with pleasure, as Mary, after dropping a light kiss upon her check, arose to leave the boat. "Only, if I were you, I should coax him to let me go to Boston."

"I did ask him; but he goes on public matters, he said, and was like to have a quick and a rough trip." Mary was now standing upon the beach.

"Well, be he gone a long or a short time, we shall all be very happy to have you with us. That you know, surely." And Dorothy kissed her hand to her friend, as Leet pulled out again into the water and rowed toward the upper end of the bay, while Mary took her way across the beach to the thread-like path leading up to the plateau that formed the back dooryard of Spray House.

In the yard was Joe, the darkey serving-man, busy cutting more wood to increase the already generous pile stored in the building near by, while Agnes, his niece, was in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal.

In the long, low, oak-panelled "living-room" of the house, its windows facing the water, Mary found her father. He was standing a tall, finely built man, nearly fifty gazing through an open window. His sturdy legs were well apart, as with hands in his trousers' pockets he was jingling his keys and loose coin in a restless sort of way, while he hummed to himself.

Mary entered so softly, or else his thoughts were so absorbing, that he did not notice her until she stood close beside him and slipped a hand within his arm. Then he started, and the scowl left his brow as he turned the frank, blue-gray eyes, so like her own, down upon her upturned, smiling face.

"Ha, Pigsney!" he exclaimed, now smiling himself. "And have you had a pleasant water-trip?" He looked at her lovingly, while he caressed the blonde head that just reached to his broad shoulder.

"Yes," she replied hurriedly. "And I met Johnnie Strings, who has but just come from over Salem way. He says there are quantities of soldiers there, and that they are like to come this way and spread all over the town."

"You speak of them, sweetheart, as if they might be another epidemic of smallpox," he said grimly, "And so they are, so they are, if not indeed something worse." And the scowl came back to his face as he looked off over the water at his brig and schooners.

"But what does it all mean, father?" Mary asked anxiously. "Think you they will meet with opposition should they actually come down here? Oh, it would be dreadful to have any fighting right here in our streets and before our very doors." The girl trembled, and her cheeks paled.

"Nay, nay, lass," and he patted her shoulder reassuringly; "cross no bridges until you come to them." Then he added rather impatiently, "What does Johnnie Strings mean by telling such tales to affright women-folk?"

"We Dorothy Devereux and I met him, and we made him talk. But he did not seem to want to tell us all he knew about it."

"And quite right," said her father, smiling again. "Lord pity the man who is fool enough to tell women and girls, at that all he knows of such matters, in days like these."

Mary looked up at him a little reproachfully, but he only bent and kissed her, as he said, now quite gravely: "I've much on my mind this night, my child, and I have to ask if you can be ready soon after supper to drive with me to the house of neighbor Devereux, and to stop there a few days with Dorothy. I have certain matters to talk over with him, and will pass the night there; and before daylight I must be on my way to Boston."

CHAPTER V

On Riverhead Beach, at the extreme southwest end, the Devereux family kept sundry boats, for greater convenience in reaching the town proper, without going around the Neck, by the open seaway; and some distance from the boat-house was their home, the way being along the shore and across the thriftily planted acres and through the woodland.

The same low stone house it was that had withstood the pirates' raid over one hundred years before. But the forests were now gone, although a noble wood still partially environed it. And beyond this were sloping hills and grassy meadows, through which ran a stream of pure, sweet water, wandering on through the dusk of the woods until it found the sea.

Here fed the flocks and herds of Joseph Devereux, the grandson of John and Anne.

There had been some additions to the original building, but these were low and rambling, like the older portion. And before it, broader of expanse and to the vision than in the early days, stretched the sea, a far-reaching floor of glass or foam, to melt away in the pearly dimness of the horizon.

The hush of lingering twilight was over the place, and now and then the note of a thrush or robin thrilled sweet on the golden-tissued air. But from the vine-draped door of the low stone dairy came sounds less inviting, uttered by Aunt Penine, the widowed sister-in-law and housekeeper of Joseph Devereux, as she goaded her maids at their evening work.

In sharp contrast with her, both as to person and manner, was her invalid sister Lettice, who was sitting on the porch before the open door, with little 'Bitha, her orphaned grandchild, hanging lovingly about her.

Opposite these sat Joseph Devereux, smoking his evening pipe; and crouched on the stone step, her curly head resting against his knee, was Dorothy, now gentle and subdued.

There was an irresistible charm about the girl's wilfulness that blended perfectly with the sacred innocence of her childish nature. She was impetuous, laughter-loving, and somewhat spoiled; but she was possessed of a high spirit, strong courage, and a pure, tender heart.

Her father's idol and chief companion she had always been since, in his sixtieth-odd year, she was laid in his strong arms,  vigorous as those of a man half his own age. And he was looking into her baby face, so like his own, when he heard that she was all he had left of his faithful wife.

He had lost many children; and such sorrow, softening still more a never hard heart, had made him dotingly fond of those left to him,  his twenty-seven-year-old son John and the wilful Dot.

The girl's education had been beyond that of most maids in those times, as had also that of her only friend, Mary Broughton; and for much the same reason. Both girls had been carefully trained by their fathers; and Aunt Penine, at Nicholson Broughton's request, had taught Mary housewifery in all its branches, at the same time she was undertaking the like portion of her niece's education.

But this was an art in which Mary far exceeded Dot; and Aunt Penine lectured her niece unceasingly, while seeming to find nothing but praise for Mary's efforts.

It was pretty sure to be something of this sort: "Dorothy, Dorothy! Ye'll ne'er be a good butter-maker; ye beat it so, the grain will be broke. Why cannot ye take it this way?" and Aunt Penine would show her. "See how fine Mary does it! Ye have too hot a hand."

Dot would give her head a toss, and remind her aunt that it was not she herself who had the fashioning of her small hand, nor the regulating of its temperature. And then Aunt Penine would be very sure to go to her brother-in-law with complainings of his daughter's disrespectful tongue, and it would end in Dot being persuaded by her father to beg Aunt Penine's pardon, which she would do in a meek tone, but with a suspicious sparkle in her eyes. And after that she was very likely to be found at the stables, saddling her own mare, Brown Bess, for a wild gallop off over the country.

Aunt Penine was one who never seemed to remember that she had ever been young herself; and this made her all the more unbending in her disapproval of Dorothy's flow of spirits, and of the indulgence shown her by her father.

She was now coming across the grass from the dairy,  a tall, lithe figure, from which all the roundness of youth (had she ever possessed anything so weak) had given way to the spareness of middle age. Her hair, still plentiful, was of a dull, lustreless black; her complexion sallow, with paler cheeks, somewhat fallen in; and she had a pair of small gray eyes that seemed like twinkling lights set either side a very long, sharp nose.

Her gown was now pinned up around her like that of a fishwife; a white cap surmounted her severe head, and her brown arms were bare above the elbows, where she had rolled her sleeves. She well knew that her brother-in-law in no wise approved of her going about in such a fashion; but this was only an added reason for her doing so.

There was a silken rustling of doves' wings, as the flock scattered from in front of her on the grass, where, obedient to Dorothy's call, they had come like a cloud from the dove-cote perched high on a pole near by.

"Joseph," she cried, sending her shrill voice ahead of her as she walked along, "do you know that the last two new Devonshires have either strayed or been stolen?"

"So Trent told me." He spoke very calmly, letting several seconds intervene between question and answer, puffing his pipe meanwhile, while the fingers of one hand rested amongst the curly, fragrant locks lying against his knee.

"Told you! Then why, under the canopy, did n't ye tell me?" she demanded, as she now stood on the stone flagging in front of the veranda, her arms akimbo, while she peered at him with her little twinkling eyes.

He looked at her gravely, and as if thinking, but made no reply.

Her eyes fell, and she seemed embarrassed, for she said in a lower tone, and by way of explanation: "Because, you see, Joseph, I cannot look after the pans o' milk properly, if I know not how many cows there be to draw from. There was less milk by twenty pans, this e'en; and I was suspecting the new maid we've taken from over Oakum Bay way of making off with it for her own folk, when Pashar came in and said he was to go with Trent, to hunt for the missing Devonshires. And that was the first I'd heard of any strayed cattle."

"And even had they not been missing, Penine, you had no right to think such evil o' the stranger," Joseph Devereux said reprovingly. "'T is a queer fashion, it seems to me, for a Christian woman to be so ready as you ever seem to be for thinking harsh things o' folk you may happen not to know well. Strangers are no more like to do evil than friends, say I."

He now handed his pipe to Dot, who rapped the ashes out on the ground and returned it to him. He thanked the girl with the same courtesy he would have shown an utter stranger, while Aunt Penine, looking very much subdued, turned about and went back to the dairy.

Joseph Devereux was still a handsome man, with a dark, intellectual face, framed in a halo of silvery hair, worn long, as was the fashion, and confined by a black ribbon. About his throat was wrapped snowy linen lawn, fine as a cobweb, and woven on his own hand-looms by the women of his house, as was also that of the much ruffled shirt showing from the front of a buff waistcoat, gold-buttoned.

The same color was repeated in his top-boots, that came up to meet the breeches of dark cloth, fastened at the knee with steel buckles.

His tall figure was but slightly bowed; and there was a mixture of haughtiness and softness in his manner, very far removed from provincial brusqueness, and belonging rather to the days and surrounding of his ancestors than to the time in which he lived.

John, his son, was a more youthful picture of the father, but with a freer display of temper,  this due, perhaps, to his fewer years. But father and son were known alike for kindly and generous deeds, and as possessing a high ideal of truth and justice.

CHAPTER VI

"Do you suppose, Joseph, that Jack will have had his supper?"

Aunt Lettice asked the question a little anxiously, as she drew about her shoulders the soft shawl that little 'Bitha's impetuous clasping had somewhat disarranged.

"Aye; I think the lad is sure to have taken it at the inn." His voice was very gentle, as it always was when he addressed her.

"There he is!" shouted 'Bitha. And she darted down the steps to wave frantic arms at two horsemen coming up the wooded way to the house, while Dot lifted her head from her father's knee, as he now sat more erect in his chair.

"Have a care, 'Bitha, or we may run you down," called out John Devereux, laughingly. And at this the little maiden made haste to speed back to the porch.

It was Hugh Knollys who accompanied him,  a stalwart, broad-chested young fellow of twenty-five or six, with blunt features and a not over-handsome face. But for all this he had an irresistible magnetism for those who knew him; and no one could ever associate evil or untruth with his frank, keen-glancing gray eyes and clean-cut, smiling lips.

"Good-evening, Hugh, and welcome," said Joseph Devereux, rising to extend a friendly hand as the young man came up the steps.

Hugh removed his hat and nodded to Dorothy, glancing at her askance as she arose and with a demure greeting passed him and went to her brother, who was now giving some orders to old Leet.

"Jack," she whispered imploringly, under cover of the talk going on in the porch,  "Jack, tell me, please, that you will not speak to father of Mary and me seeing Moll Pitcher this afternoon."