Part 3

That action made Jack a Midshipman in the United States navy, and gave him a share in the prize-money, and a year later he was an Ensign. For special gallantry in action in Mobile Bay he was made a Lieutenant before the close of the war, and in the long years since then he has risen more slowly to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander.

A LOYAL TRAITOR.[1]

[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 888.

A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

BY JAMES BARNES.

CHAPTER VI.

A LAND VOYAGE.

As soon as breakfast had been finished I bade farewell to Captain Morrison, and to the mate and all of the crew, with whom I had somehow gained popularity, and then I was set on shore.

When I felt the solid ground beneath me and smelt the familiar odors of a seaport town, my fears almost gained the upper hand, and I was tempted to stay by the brig and return to Maryland in her. But finding that the town of Miller's Falls was distant only some thirty miles up in the country, and getting the right direction from the first person I asked, a blacksmith standing at the entrance to his forge, I set out bravely on foot with my belongings on a stick over my back, the way I had seen sailors start on a land voyage from Baltimore.

Hill country was new to me, and the stone walls and fences and neat white houses gave me much to wonder at, as I plodded along the road that was deep in dry dust, and such hard travelling that after I had made twelve miles, or such a matter of distance, I grew very tired, and determined to rest.

Although it was November the day was quite warm, and I sat down by the edge of a little brook and bathed my feet, that had blistered badly. The cold water felt very comforting, and I took my ease.

While drawing on my shoes I heard a strange sound, and saw coming down the road a two-wheeled cart drawn by a team of swaying oxen. Climbing up to the roadway and hailing the man who was walking at their heads, (calling out "Gee," "Haw," every other minute), I asked my whereabouts and the hour.

The farmer, even before he replied to my questionings, began to subject me to many of his own: "Where was I bound?" "Where did I come from?" and, "Who did I know in the parts?" To these I replied as best I could, and with a directness that seemed rather to disconcert him.

But he was a kindly man, and noticing that I limped, and that I was in no condition to travel, he proposed my stopping the night with him, and he would carry me part way on my journey on the morrow. To this I agreed, as I found I had wandered somewhat out of my way.

At supper that evening I tasted for the first time the delightful cakes made out of buckwheat, and had to relate again, for the benefit of my host and his wife (a tall, sharp-featured woman who spoke with a whining drawl), the story of my adventures and the eventful voyage of the _Minetta_.

When I told of the affair of the severed hand, and the action of the English, the woman quoted a passage from the Bible that was quite as much as a curse on the heads of the offenders, it breathed so of vengeance. But we had not burned half a candle before we all were yawning. Well, to be short, I slept in a great feather bed that night, and the next morning I started northward, mounted astride, behind Farmer Lyman on a jolting gray nag.

When my friend put me down he bade me a farewell, and told me I had but five miles before me to the town of Miller's Falls.

It was up and down hill, slow going, and noon, I should judge by the shadows, before I saw the village, nestling at the bend of a small valley. On the wind came to me the shrieking and clanking of machinery and the jarring of a waterfall.

I sat down on the top rail of a fence, and surveyed the village for some time before I descended the hill. As I walked along I saw in a steep gorge, a sheer descent of some fifty feet to one side of the roadway, a rushing brook, and almost in the centre of the town itself a pond that spread back into the hills.

The mill that was raising such a clatter stood at one side of a dam built of stone and timber that had backed the water of the pond; and I walked up close to the building and looked with wonder at everything. A huge over-shot wheel was turning and plashing busily, and the water was roaring over the dam and breaking on the brown slippery rocks below. It fascinated me, and I stood for some time leaning over the rail watching it. I grew so interested, in fact, that I almost forgot my mission or where I was, and was recalled to myself by a voice hailing me from only a few feet above my head.

"Well, sonny," said a drawling voice, "be ye wondering where all that water is goin' to?"

A thin cadaverous face with a very pointed nose and chin was thrust out of a little window, and two long hands on either side gave the man the effect of holding himself in his position by the exercise of sheer strength.

"I suppose it goes into the sea," I replied, perceiving that he wished to chaff me.

"Correct," he answered. "Go to the head."

"May I come into the mill?" I asked, for I had never seen one, and the varied noises excited my curiosity.

"Why, certainly," the man said. "Pull the latch-string in the door yonder and come in."

The mill not only sawed the long pine trunks into planks and squared timbers, of which there was a profusion about, but also ground most of the grain for the neighborhood. As I entered, the stones were grumbling and the air was full of dust.

"What is it you're making?" I shouted into the tall man's ear. He had greeted me at the doorway.

"Buckwheat cakes," he replied, thrusting his hand into the top of an open sack. "Ye're a stranger here, ain't ye?"

I knew what to expect by this time, and that probably my appearance had determined the miller to find out all he could about me merely for his own satisfaction. So, half shouting in his ear, I related (by the answering of questions) part of my story--at least I told him where I had come from and the why and wherefore of my trip. When it came to the asking for my uncle's place of residence I ran against trouble, and my heart sank.

"What is the name?" asked the thin man when I had first mentioned it.

"Monsieur Henri Amedee Lavalle de Brienne."

"Eh?"

I had to repeat it.

"No such person in these parts," the man answered, shaking his head positively. "And I ought to know," he added. (I dare say he did, and most people's private business besides.)

But here was an uncomfortable position. What was I to do? Somehow the hum and groaning and rumbling of the mill appeared to prevent my thinking, and I stepped to the door.

The village of Miller's Falls stretched down one wide road that curved about the edge of the mill-pond. It was not a cheerful-looking place taking it altogether, but it had a certain air of prosperity; there was some movement, and a number of horses and carts were on the streets.

All at once the chatter of voices and the familiarly shrill cries of boys at some rough merriment came up from the road at the right. I looked about the corner of the mill and saw that a half-dozen youngsters of about my own age were coming down the hill, and before them rode an odd figure on a small brown horse. It was a little man, who sat very erect, and who had a semi-military hat set aslant his gray hair, which was gathered in a long queue behind. His coat was of a very old fashion, made of velvet, and heavy riding-gaiters encased his thin legs.

The horse he was riding was by no means a bad one, and it was apparently all the old man could do to keep him from breaking into a run; and to accomplish this last was the evident intention of the crowd of small boys, for they were tickling the horse's heels, or giving him a cut now and then with some long switches; they varied this by pelting small pebbles at the rider. The latter, however, kept his seat and controlled the horse exceedingly well, although it was apparent that he was both angry and frightened, for he would stop and scold at the boys, and often turn his horse's head threateningly in their direction. This would excite a scattering and shouts of derision and laughter.

Some one spoke over my head at this moment, and I saw that the tall man and one of the mill hands, attracted by the noise, had perceived the approach of the old man and his tormentors.

"Why, it's old Debrin, from Mountain Brook," said the miller. "Come down to get his wheat ground, I reckon."

Slung across his saddle were two bags, and the rider was now headed toward the mill and restraining the horse with difficulty. When he drew up at the little platform it was all he could do to throw off the bags, and when he had lifted his legs from the stirrups and slid to ground I thought he would have fallen, and for the first time I perceived how old a man he was. Moved by some impulse, I jumped down from the door-sill and helped him tie the rope halter of the little horse fast to a post. The old man's hands were trembling so that I doubt if he could have accomplished it unaided.

My action had so surprised the boys that they had gathered in a circle about us in silence and astonishment. When I had finished, the old gentleman looked at me with his black beadlike eyes and raised his hat.

"Thank you, thank you very much," he said, in broken English, in which I recognized at once the manner in which my mother had spoken. The trace of the French tongue was there beyond all doubt. So I lifted my own cap, and answered in what I may well call my native tongue, and told him in French that I was very glad to have been able to help him.

His astonishment at hearing me address him thus was so great that for a minute it deprived him of the power of answering, but then he burst forth into such rapid speech and into so many violent gesticulations that it was all I could do to follow. The little crowd pressed us so close that I became embarrassed, and the old man, who had been complaining of the conduct of the boys and the temper of his horse, and at the same time stating how welcome it was to hear his own tongue again, suddenly saw that he was creating a great deal of amusement for the gaping, snickering circle about us. He drew himself up and his lip curled with contempt. I now, for the first time, had an opportunity to ask a question that had been forming itself in my mind.

"Are you Monsieur de Brienne?" I ventured.

"I am, and you?" he replied.

"Am Jean Hurdiss, your nephew, who has come all the way from Baltimore to see you."

Instantly his manner changed. I thought he was going to fling his arms about me. But if such was his intention he controlled himself.

"We will not talk before this canaille," he said, quietly, "and I cannot here express my delight at seeing you."

This must have appeared very strange to the on-lookers, who, of course, understood no word of what we were saying, and what happened afterwards must have been stranger still; and I can now readily see why I was regarded as a mystery by the inhabitants of Miller's Falls during the whole course of my stopping there.

The old man with a great deal of dignity laid hold of the sack of corn, and seeing that nobody volunteered to help him, I took up the other end, and we carried it into the mill. There he flung it on the floor, and M. de Brienne pointed at it with his finger.

"Grind me this," he said, in a commanding tone, despite the broken and twisted accents. "I will pay for it when I return."

The surprise occasioned by our actions at the meeting had evidently struck the crowd of youngsters dumb, but they were soon started again in their shouts of laughter by the difficulty that my uncle and I immediately had with the little brown horse. How so feeble a man as he appeared to be could ever manage the restive beast at all was more than I could see. Full half a dozen times he failed to make the saddle, even with my assistance, and this started the boys in their shouts of derision, and even drew laughter from the windows in which some of the mill-crew had gathered.

At last, however, I succeeded in getting the old gentleman into the saddle, and, obeying him, I crawled up behind him and placed my arms about his waist. But between my lack of knowledge, the horse's scampering, and the old man's weakness, we almost came to grief more than once.

Three of the little rapscallions, who of course could not follow us, for we had started on a run down the road, cut across the meadow by a path, as if intending to head us off for some reason.

They reached the main roadway first, and were waiting in an orchard at the end of a stone wall for us to go by. I noticed that they had gathered some apples, which they held in the hollows of their arms, much as boys carry snow-balls in an attack. I had been angry before, but now my one desire was to get at them. I often fear that I must be a vindictive person indeed.

As we approached they let fly, of course, and one of the apples caught my uncle squarely in the forehead. He would have fallen, I believe, had I not held him for an instant, and reaching forward I caught the reins and brought the little horse to a sudden halt. Then I slipped from my seat to the ground, and with no weapons but my closed fist I charged the enemy.

It is not bragging to say that from some ancestor I have inherited immense strength, and even at the age of thirteen I believe I should have been a match and more for some lads four or five years older. (Since I have been sixteen years old even I have never met a grown man who could force down my arms or twist a finger with me.) But to return: I caught the first boy a jolt with my closed fist on the side of the head, and seizing the second, who came to his rescue, I fairly believe I threw him over the fence without so much as touching it. He landed on some loose stones on the other side, and set up a tremendous bawling. The third lad did not stop to get a chance, but legged it as fast as he could across the meadow. I was so angry now that I believe murder was in my heart, and I picked up the broken branch of a tree and stood over the first boy whom I had struck. He looked up at me and began to beg for mercy.

"Bravo!" called my uncle from the horse, that for a wonder was standing still. "Bravo, mon enfant!"

He was wiping the juice of the apple from his eyes, but catching my glance he threw me a kiss from his finger-tips, and laughed a laugh of congratulation and sympathetic triumph.

I covered my fallen antagonist with added chagrin by scooping up with a sideway stroke of the foot some dust out of the road on top of him, and, walking to the horse, I clambered up behind again. Then, digging my heels into the nag's side, we started on a gallop up the hill and entered the woods that lined the crest.

I had been so angry that I dare say I had shed tears even at the moment of my victory (what varieties of weeping there are, to be sure), and I had such a lump in my throat that I waited for my uncle to begin any conversation he might wish, but he did not speak until after we had progressed some distance in among the trees. Then he pulled the horse up with a jerk (that caused me almost to break my nose on the back of his head), and he ordered me to dismount. I did so. Monsieur de Brienne leaned from the saddle and turned me around by the shoulder, much as I have seen a planter look at a negro before purchasing.

"Very like indeed," he muttered. "A true De Brienne."

Then he leaned further over and told me to embrace him. I complied, and he kissed me on each cheek and between the eyes. This quite embarrassed me, and I dropped my glance to the ground and shuffled uneasily; but the old man had begun to talk, and I dare say it was an hour that we stood there, for I had to tell him, of course, of my mother's death and of the burning of Marshwood. When I came to relate of the loss of the strong-box and its contents, the old gentleman grew quite pale, then he drew a long breath, and ripped out into a frightful burst of temper. For some reason I could not help but feel that it was directed against me, and I waited until he had calmed before I went on. Then I remembered the letter which had given me the only clew that had led to this meeting, and I thrust my hand into my coat pocket. It was not there? Fruitlessly I searched with a growing fear upon me, and I saw that my uncle's little black eyes were following my every movement; I could see that there was a certain suspicion in his look, but the letter was not forth-coming, and was not to be found in my bundle, although I undid it from the strap of the saddle-bag where I had tied it, and spread its few contents on the road-side.

"Where is the miniature that you spoke of finding?" inquired Monsieur de Brienne, in a cold harsh voice.

I told him what I imagined had become of it.

"Ah, bah!" he cried at this, and raised his hand as if he would have struck me. Had he done so I believe I should have pulled him from the saddle. He was scarcely larger than myself, and I was growing angry at his unnecessary and unjust words.

"What have you done?" he cried, restraining himself. "You have lost all the proofs--all the papers, you fool! Now we can prove nothing. A curse on such stupidity! What use are you without them? Why did you come?"

I had gathered up my possessions, and was tying together the corners of the handkerchief, making up my mind to burden him no longer with my presence, and to return whence I had started (for I still had a number of the gold pieces sewed in the lining of my cap, where Mr. Edgerton's maiden sister had placed them), but suddenly M. de Brienne spoke in rather an eager tone, and asked me to come closer to him. I did so, wondering. He leaned forward and caught one of the buttons of my coat between his thumb and forefinger and looked at it closely. Then he heaved a sigh.

"All there is left," he said. "Ah, my child, my child, you do not know what you have lost. Pardon my rough speech of a moment since, but what you told, and what has happened, appeared to turn into ashes what little hope I had left in life."

I was softened by the sadness of his tone and the real grief that showed itself in his small pinched features. So I looked up at him, and tried to smile.

"What is your name?" he questioned of me, eagerly, in a whisper, as if to extract a secret that I might not care to disclose aloud.

"John Hurdiss," I replied. "That's all I know."

The old man drew a long sigh. "Was your mother's name Hortense or Hélène?" he questioned again, suddenly and hoarsely.

"I don't know," I said. "I have no idea."

"So be it," he replied, as if accepting a decision against which there was no use railing. "Come, son; up with you, and we will ride on to my château."

We followed the well-worn road, and then turned off through the woods, and came to some pasture bars at the edge of a clearing. I slid to the ground and opened them at a command from my uncle, and replaced them after he had gone through. The field that we entered had been sheep-grazed, and was poor pasturage. Here and there crumbling hoof-worn patches of rock showed through the wiry close-cropped turf; clusters of rank fern and hard-back bushes were dotted about, and we threaded them, following a narrow path, until we came to another gate, which I opened in the way I had the first. A half-mile of travelling through an expanse of soft swampy ground, grown with alders and dogwood, and I heard the sound of running water. Soon we came to a clear brook that gurgled under overhanging banks, and purled about gleaming time-smoothed stones; crossing it, and clambering up the steep bank, we came to a second clearing, hardly five acres in extent. A half-score of large apple-trees and a diminutive garden were to the left, and at the upper edge of the clearing was a small unpainted house, and behind it a little barn, whose foundations extended into the hill-side.

"Gaston! Gaston!" called Monsieur de Brienne, at top voice. "Where are you hiding?"

In answer a head was thrust from the doorway, and the oddest-looking figure that I had ever seen came into view. It was an old man, whose frame when covered with flesh or muscles must have been enormous, but now so scantily cushioned were the bones that the quaint clothes hung on him much in the way that a coat hangs on a fence post. But the man moved with incredible swiftness. He gave a strange look at me, and took Monsieur de Brienne's stirrup-leather in his hand and assisted him to dismount. I pushed myself backwards over the horse's hind quarters.

"A guest, Gaston, to Belair. My nephew, Monsieur Jean Hurdiss. This is Gaston, my valet, chef, major-domo, and standing army."

My uncle had smiled as he said this, but the other's face was most serious. As I eyed him closely his countenance looked more like a ball of tightly wound twine with ears and features than anything else I could imagine. I had never seen such a mesh of wrinkles, or imagined that age could stamp itself so wonderfully. That the old man was not decrepit, however, was evident from the deft way in which he unsaddled the little horse and threw the trappings over his shoulder.

Now my uncle turned to me again. "Welcome, my son," he said. "Consider all here as yours entirely."

He ushered me through the doorway. I could scarce control an expression of my astonishment as I looked about. Immediately facing the light I saw something that caused me to start suddenly. It was the figure of a man in flowing satins and velvets; great heavy curls fell over his shoulders, and torrents of lace poured at his wristbands and knees. He had on high red-heeled shoes, fronted by wide bows, and his slender bejewelled hand rested on the top of a tall walking-stick.

It took me a second glance to perceive that it was but a portrait that extended from the floor to ceiling, and was merely nailed, without framing, against the wall. A rough table made of pine boards but covered with a handsome cloth was in the centre of the room. It was heaped high with books in embossed leather covers. Tacked about the walls were many portraits of times long since. One especially, before which I drew a long breath, dumfounded me (it was so like my mother). But Monsieur de Brienne had gathered me by the elbow, as it were, and marched me around.

The portrait whose resemblance had struck me so vividly he told me was my grandmother, and then went on, stopping before each, "Your great-grandfather, your great-uncle, your aunt," and so forth and so forth.

One might have thought that I was being introduced in person to all my ancestors and past family. In fact, I found myself bowing as if it were expected of me.

After a few minutes I had a chance to look about me. There were but four rooms on the ground-floor of the little house and three above; and if the furniture of Marshwood had been an odd assortment, that of Belair was odder still. I had noticed, as I have said, that the portraits were not in frames. They had evidently been brought from their former residence rolled in some shape or other for convenience. Many of them showed traces of rough handling, and were much cracked and soiled.

My uncle slept on the first floor in a great four-poster bed hung about with heavy curtains of embroidered silk, but the rest of the _ameublement_, was made up of clumsy wooden benches and stools, not the workmanship of a joiner, but clearly made by unskilled hands.

The room upstairs to which I was shown contained nothing but a mattress stuffed with cornhusks, and a beautiful painted landscape (which comparing with some that I have since seen must have been nothing less than a Claude, I dare say). A bench on which stood an ebony cross, and a large brass blunderbuss that hung from a nail over the door, were all the other things in the room.