CHAPTER V.

---deep on his front engraven, Deliberation sat, and public care.

MILTON.

Lend me thy lantern quoth a? Marry I'll see thee hanged first.

SHAKSPEARE.

A small fire blazed on the hearth of the study and mingled its light with that of a silver cresset, which hung from the ceiling above a table furnished with writing materials and strewed over with papers. Here the Proprietary sat intent upon the perusal of the pacquet. Its contents disquieted him; and with increasing solicitude he again and again read over the letters.

At length the secretary was summoned into his presence. "Albert," he said, "the council must be called together to-morrow at noon. The messengers should be despatched to-night; they have a dark road and far to ride. Let them be ready with the least delay."

The secretary bowed and went forth to execute his order.

The letters brought the Proprietary a fresh importation of troubles. That which most disturbed him was from the Board of Trade and Plantations, and spoke authoritatively of the growing displeasure of the ministry at the exclusiveness, as it was termed, of the Proprietary's favours, in the administration of his government, to the Catholic inhabitants of the province; it hinted at the popular and probably well-founded discontent--to use its own phrase--of his Majesty's Protestant subjects against the too liberal indulgence shown to the Papists; repeated stale charges and exploded calumnies against the Proprietary, with an earnestness that showed how sedulously his enemies had taken advantage of the disfavour into which the Church of Rome and its advocates had fallen since the Restoration; and concluded with a peremptory intimation of the royal pleasure that all the offices of the province should be immediately transferred into the hands of the Church of England party.

This was a blow at Lord Baltimore which scarcely took him by surprise. His late visit to England had convinced him that not all the personal partiality of the monarch for his family--and this was rendered conspicuous in more than one act of favour at a time when the Catholic lords were brought under the ban of popular odium--would be able finally to shelter the province from that religious proscription which already was rife in the mother land. He was not, therefore, altogether unprepared to expect this assault. The mandate was especially harsh in reference to the Proprietary, first because it was untrue that he had ever recognised the difference of religious opinion in his appointments, but on the contrary had conferred office indiscriminately in strict and faithful accordance with the fundamental principle of toleration upon which his government was founded; and secondly, because it would bear with pointed injustice upon some of his nearest and most devoted friends--his uncle the chancellor, the whole of his council, and, above all others in whose welfare he took an interest, upon the collector of the port of St. Mary's, Anthony Warden, an old inhabitant of the province, endeared to the Proprietary--and indeed to all his fellow-burgesses--by long friendship and tried fidelity. What rendered it the more grating to the feelings of the Proprietary in this instance, was that the collectorship had already been singled out as a prize to be played for by that faction which had created the late disturbances in the province. It was known that Coode had set his eyes upon this lure, and gloated upon it with the gaze of a serpent. The emoluments of the post were something considerable, and its importance was increased by the influence it was supposed to confer on the incumbent, as a person of weight and consequence in the town.

The first expression of irritation which the perusal of the pacquet brought to the lips of the Proprietary had a reference to the collector. "They would have me," he said, as he rose and strode through the apartment, "discard from my service, the very approved friends with whom in my severest toils, in this wilderness, I have for so many years buffeted side by side, and to whom I am most indebted for support and encouragement amidst the thousand disasters of my enterprise. They would have me turn adrift, without a moment's warning, and even with circumstances of disgrace, that tried pattern of honesty, old Anthony Warden. Virtue, in her best estate, hath but a step-daughter's portion in the division of this world's goods, and often goes begging, when varnished knavery carries a high head and proud heart, and lords it like a very king. By the blessed light! old Anthony shall not budge on my motion. Am I to be schooled in my duty by rapacious malcontents, and to be driven to put away my trustiest friends, to make room for such thirsty leeches and coarse rufflers as John Coode? The argument is, that here, in what my father would have made a peaceful, contented land, planted by him and the brothers of his faith,--with the kindest, best and most endeared supporters of that faith by my side--worthy men, earnest and zealous to do their duty--they and their children true to every christian precept--men who have won a home by valour and patient, wise endurance--they must all be disfranchised, as not trustworthy even for the meanest office, and give their places to brawlers, vapouring bullies and factious stirrers-up of discord--and that too in the name of religion! Oh, this viper of intolerance, how hath it crept in and defiled the garden! One would have thought this world were wide enough to give the baser passions elbow room, without rendering our little secluded nook a theatre for the struggle. Come what may, Anthony Warden shall not lack the collectorship whilst a shred of my prerogative remains untorn!"

In this strain of feeling the Proprietary continued to chafe his spirit, until the necessity of preparing the letters which were to urge the attendance of his council, drew him from his fretful reverie into a calmer tone of mind.

In the servants' hall there was an unusual stir occasioned by the preparations which were in train for the outriding of the messengers whom the secretary had put in requisition for the service of the night. The first of these was Derrick Brown, a man of stout mould though somewhat advanced in years. He held in the establishment what might be termed the double post of master of the mews and keeper of the fox hounds, being principal falconer and huntsman of the household. The second was a short, plump little fellow, bearing the name of John Alward, who was one of the grooms of the stable. These two, now ready booted, belted and spurred, were seated on a bench, discussing a luncheon, with the supplement of a large jack or tankard of brown bastard. Several of the other domestics loitered in the hall, throwing in occasionally a word of advice to the riders, or giving them unsolicited aid in the carnal occupation of bodily reinforcement to which they were devoting themselves with the lusty vigour of practised trenchermen. Leaning against the jamb of the ample fireplace, immediately below a lamp which tipped the prominent points of his grave visage with a sharp light, stood an old Indian, of massive figure and swarthy hue, named Pamesack, or, as he was called in the English translation of the Indian word, The Knife. This personage had been, for some years past, at intervals, a privileged inmate of the Proprietary's family, and was now, though consigned to a portion of the duties of the evening, apparently an unconcerned spectator of the scene around him. He smoked his pipe in silence, or if he spoke, it was seldom more than in the short monosyllable, characteristic of the incommunicative habits of his tribe.

"When I saw Dick Pagan, the James Town courier, coming into town this evening with his leather pouch slung across his shoulder," said the elder of the riders, "I guessed as much as that there would be matter for the council. News from that quarter now-a-days is apt to bring business for their worships. I warrant you the brother of Master Fendall hath been contriving an outcome in Virginia. I heard John Rye, the miller of St. Clements, say last Sunday afternoon, that Samuel Fendall had forty mounted men ready in the forest to do his bidding with broad-sword and carbine. And he would have done it too, if my Lord had not laid him by the heels at unawares. He hath a savage spite against my Lord and the chancellor both."

"But knew ye ever the like before," said John Alward, "that his lordship should be in such haste to see their worships, he must needs have us tramping over the country at midnight? By the virtue of my belt, there must be a hot flavour in the news! It was a post haste letter."

"Tush, copperface! What have you to do with the flavour of the news? The virtue of thy belt, indeed! Precious little virtue is there within its compass, ha, ha! You have little to complain of, John Alward, for a midnight tramp. It is scant twelve miles from this to Mattapany, and thine errand is done. Thou mayst be snoozing on a good truss of hay in Master Sewall's stable before midnight, if you make speed. Think of my ride all the way to Notley Hall,--and round about by the head of the river too--for I doubt if I have any chance to get a cast over the ferry to-night. Simon the boat-keeper is not often sober at this hour: and if he was, a crustier churl--the devil warm his pillow!--doesn't live 'twixt this and the old world. He gets out of his sleep for no man."

"But it is a dark road mine," replied the groom. "A plague upon it! I have no stomach for this bush and brier work, when a man can see the limb of a tree no more than a cobweb."

"A dark road!" exclaimed the master of the kennels, laughing. "A dark road, John! It is a long time, I trow, since there has been a dark road for thy night rides, with that nose shining like a lighted link a half score paces around thee. It was somewhat deadened last September, I allow, when you had the marsh ague, and the doctor fed you for a week on gruel--but it hath waxed lately as bright as ever. I wish I could buckle it to my head-strap until to-morrow morning."

A burst of laughter, at this sally, which rang through the hall, testified the effect of the falconer's wit and brought the groom to his feet.

"'S blood, you grinning fools!" he ejaculated, "haven't you heard Derrick's joke a thousand times before, that you must toss up your scurvy ha-haws at it, as if it was new! He stole it--as the whole hundred knows--from the fat captain, old Dauntrees in the fort there; who would have got it back upon hue and cry, if it had been his own;--but the truth is, the Captain filched it from a play-book, as the surveyor told him in my hearing at Garret Weasel's, where the Captain must needs have it for a laughing matter."

"It is a joke that burns fresh every night," replied Derrick; "a thing to make light of. So, up with the bottom of the pot, boy, and feed it with mother's milk: it will stand thee in stead to-night. Well done, John Alward! I can commend thee for taking a jest as well as another."

"Master Derrick," said the other, "this is not the way to do his Lordship's bidding: if we must go, we should be jogging now. I would I had thy ride to take, instead of my own,--short as you think it."

"Ha, say you that! By the rochet, John, you shall have it, an it please Master Secretary! But upon one condition."

"Upon what condition?"

"That you tell me honestly why you would choose to ride twenty miles to Notley rather than twelve to Mattapany."

"Good Derrick," answered the groom, "it is but as a matter of horsemanship. You have a broader road, and mine is a path much beset with brush-wood. I like not the peril of being unhorsed."

"There is a lie in thy face, John Alward;--the Mattapany road is the broadest and best of the two--is it not so, Pamesack?"

"It is the first that was opened by the white man," replied the Indian; "and more people pass upon it than the other."

"John," said the falconer, "you are a coward. I will not put you to the inventing another lie, but will wager I can tell you at one guess why you would change with me."

"Out with it, Master Derrick!" exclaimed the bystanders.

"Oh, out with it!" repeated John Alward; "I heed not thy gibes."

"You fear the cross road," said the falconer; "you will not pass the fisherman's grave."

"In troth, masters--I must needs own," replied the groom, "that I have qualms. I never was ashamed to tell the truth, and confess that I am so much of a sinner as to feel an honest fear of the devil and his doings. I have known a horse to start and a rider to be flung at the cross road before now:--there are times in the night when both horse and rider may see what it turns one's blood into ice to look at. Nay, I am in earnest, masters:--I jest not."

"Thou hast honestly confessed, like a brave man, that thou art a coward, John Alward; and so it shall be a bargain between us. I will take your message. I fear not Paul Kelpy--he has been down with that stake through his body, ever too fast to walk abroad."

"There's my hand to it," said the groom, "and thanks to boot. I am no coward, Derrick,--but have an infirmity which will not endure to look by night in the lonesome woods, upon a spirit which walks with a great shaft through it. Willy of the Flats saw it, in that fashion, as he went home from the Viewer's feast on the eve of St. Agnes."

"Willy had seen too much of the Viewer's hollands that night," said Derrick; "and they are spirits worth a dozen Paul Kelpys, even if the whole dozen were trussed upon the same stake, like herrings hung up to smoke. In spite of the fisherman and his bolt, I warrant you I pass unchallenged betwixt this and Mattapany."

The secretary, soon after this, entered the hall and confirmed the arrangements which had just been made. He accordingly delivered the letters intended for Colonel Talbot and Nicholas Sewall to the falconer, and that for Mr. Notley, the late lieutenant general of the province, to John Alward. To the Indian was committed the duty of bearing the missions to such members of the council as resided either in the town or within a few miles of it. Holding it matter of indifference whether he despatched this duty by night or by day, the Knife took it in hand at once, and set forth, on foot, with a letter for Colonel Digges, who lived about five miles off, at the same time that the other two couriers mounted their horses for their lonesome journeys through the forest.