Audrey by Mary Johnston
CHAPTER VI
MASTER AND MAN
The two men, left alone, turned each toward the interior of the store, andtheir eyes met. Alike in gray eyes and in dark blue there was laughter."Kittle folk, the Quakers," said the storekeeper, with a shrug, and wentto put away his case of pins and needles. Haward, going to the end of thestore, found a row of dusty bottles, and breaking the neck of one with areport like that of a pistol set the Madeira to his lips, and therewithquenched his thirst. The wine cellar abutted upon the library. Taking offhis riding glove he ran his finger along the bindings, and plucking forthThe History of a Coy Lady looked at the first page, read the lastparagraph, and finally thrust the thin brown and gilt volume into hispocket. Turning, he found himself face to face with the storekeeper.
"I have not the honor of knowing your name, sir," remarked the latterdryly. "Do you buy at this store, and upon whose account?"
Haward shook his head, and applied himself again to the Madeira.
"Then you carry with you coin of the realm with which to settle?"continued the other. "The wine is two shillings; the book you may have fortwelve-pence."
"Here I need not pay, good fellow," said Haward negligently, his eyesupon a row of dangling objects. "Fetch me down yonder cane; 't is asdelicately tapered and clouded as any at the Exchange."
"Pay me first for the wine and the book," answered the man composedly."It's a dirty business enough, God knows, for a gentleman to put fingerto; but since needs must when the devil drives, and he has driven me here,why, I, Angus MacLean, who have no concerns of my own, must e'en befaithful to the concerns of another. Wherefore put down the silver you owethe Sassenach whose wine you have drunken and whose book you have taken."
"And if I do not choose to pay?" asked Haward, with a smile.
"Then you must e'en choose to fight," was the cool reply. "And as Iobserve that you wear neither sword nor pistols, and as jack boots and afine tight-buttoned riding coat are not the easiest clothes to wrestle in,it appears just possible that I might win the cause."
"And when you've thrown me, what then?"
"Oh, I would just draw a rope around you and yonder cask of Jamaica, andleave you to read your stolen book in peace until Saunderson (that's theoverseer, and he's none so bad if he was born in Fife) shall come. You canhave it out with him; or maybe he'll hale you before the man that owns thestore. I hear they expect him home."
Haward laughed, and abstracting another bottle from the shelf broke itsneck. "Hand me yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to hishome-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to findso honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhattoo complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent havekept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long haveyou been my storekeeper?"
Neither cup for the wine nor answer to the question being forthcoming,Haward looked up from his broken bottle. The man was standing with hisbody bent forward and his hand pressed against the wood of a great caskbehind him until the finger-nails showed white. His head was high, hisface dark red and angry, his brows drawn down until the gleaming eyesbeneath were like pin points.
So sudden and so sinister was the change that Haward was startled. Thehour was late, the place deserted; as the man had discovered, he had noweapons, nor, strong, active, and practiced as he was, did he flatterhimself that he could withstand the length of brawn and sinew before him.Involuntarily, he stepped backward until there was a space between them,casting at the same moment a glance toward the wall where hung axe andknife and hatchet.
The man intercepted the look, and broke into a laugh. The sound was harshand gibing, but not menacing. "You need not be afraid," he said. "I do notwant the feel of a rope around my neck,--though God knows why I shouldcare! Here is no clansman of mine, and no cursed Campbell either, to seemy end!"
"I am not afraid," Haward answered calmly. Walking to the shelf that heldan array of drinking vessels, he took two cups, filled them with wine, andgoing back to his former station, set one upon the cask beside thestorekeeper. "The wine is good," he said. "Will you drink?"
The other loosened the clasp of his hand upon the wood and drew himselfupright. "I eat the bread and drink the water which you give yourservants," he answered, speaking with the thickness of hardly restrainedpassion. "The wine cup goes from equal to equal."
As he spoke he took up the peace offering, eyed it for a moment with abitter smile, then flung it with force over his shoulder. The earthenfloor drank the wine; the china shivered into a thousand fragments. "Ihave neither silver nor tobacco with which to pay for my pleasure,"continued the still smiling storekeeper. "When I am come to the end of myterm, then, an it please you, I will serve out the damage."
Haward sat down upon a keg of powder, crossed his knees, and, with hischin upon his hand, looked from between the curled lengths of his periwigat the figure opposite. "I am glad to find that in Virginia, at least,there is honesty," he said dryly. "I will try to remember the cost of thecup and the wine against the expiry of your indenture. In the mean time, Iam curious to know why you are angry with me whom you have never seenbefore to-day."
With the dashing of the wine to earth the other's passion had apparentlyspent itself. The red slowly left his face, and he leaned at ease againstthe cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinkingfrom floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half lightstrange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness,beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, the river made itselfheard.
"For ten years and more you have been my--master," said the storekeeper."It is a word for which I have an invincible distaste. It is notwell--having neither love nor friendship to put in its place--to lethatred die. When I came first to this slavery, I hated all Campbells, allWhigs, Forster that betrayed us at Preston, and Ewin Mor Mackinnon. Butthe years have come and the years have gone, and I am older than I was attwenty-five. The Campbells I can never reach: they walk secure, overseas,through Lorn and Argyle, couching in the tall heather above Etive,tracking the red deer in the Forest of Dalness. Forster is dead. EwinMackinnon is dead, I know; for five years ago come Martinmas night I sawhis perjured soul on its way to hell. All the world is turning Whig. A manmay hate the world, it is true, but he needs a single foe."
"And in that capacity you have adopted me?" demanded Haward.
MacLean let his gaze travel over the man opposite him, from the looped hatand the face between the waves of hair to the gilt spurs upon the greatboots; then turned his eyes upon his own hand and coarsely clad armstretched across the cask. "I, too, am a gentleman, the brother of achieftain," he declared. "I am not without schooling. I have seensomething of life, and of countries more polite than the land where I wasborn, though not so dear. I have been free, and have loved my freedom. Doyou find it so strange that I should hate you?"
There was a silence; then, "Upon my soul, I do not know that I do," saidHaward slowly. "And yet, until this day I did not know of your existence."
"But I knew of yours," answered the storekeeper. "Your agent hath anannoying trick of speech, and the overseers have caught it from him. 'Yourmaster' this, and 'your master' that; in short, for ten years it hathbeen, 'Work, you dog, that your master may play!' Well, I have worked; itwas that, or killing myself, or going mad. I have worked for you in thefields, in the smithy, in this close room. But when you bought my body,you could not buy my soul. Day after day, and night after night, I sent itaway; I would not let it bide in these dull levels, in this cursed land ofheat and stagnant waters. At first it went home to its own country,--toits friends and its foes, to the torrent and the mountain and the music ofthe pipes; but at last the pain outweighed the pleasure, and I sent itthere no more. And then it began to follow you."
"To follow me!" involuntarily exclaimed Haward.
"I have been in London," went on the other, without heeding theinterruption. "I know the life of men of quality, and where
He ceased to speak, and the hand upon the cask was still. The sunshine wasclean gone from the room, and without the door the wind in thelocust-tree answered the voice of the river. Haward rose from his seat,but made no further motion toward departing. "You have been frank," hesaid quietly. "Had you it in mind, all this while, so to speak to me whenwe should meet?"
"No," answered the other. "I thought not of words, but of"--
"But of deeds," Haward finished for him. "Rather, I imagine, of one deed."
Composed as ever in voice and manner, he drew out his watch, and held itaslant that the light might strike upon the dial. "'T is after six," heremarked as he put it away, "and I am yet a mile from the house." The winethat he had poured for himself had been standing, untouched, upon the kegbeside him. He took it up and drank it off; then wiped his lips with hishandkerchief, and passing the storekeeper with a slight inclination of hishead walked toward the door. A yard beyond the man who had so coolly shownhis side of the shield was a rude table, on which were displayed hatchetsand hunting knives. Haward passed the gleaming steel; then, a foot beyondit, stood still, his face to the open door, and his back to thestorekeeper and the table with its sinister lading.
"You do wrong to allow so much dust and disorder," he said sharply. "Icould write my name in that mirror, and there is a piece of brocade fallento the floor. Look to it that you keep the place more neat."
There was dead silence for a moment; then MacLean spoke in an even voice:"Now a fool might call you as brave as Hector. For myself, I only give youcredit for some knowledge of men. You are right. It is not my way tostrike in the back an unarmed man. When you are gone, I will wipe off themirror and pick up the brocade."
He followed Haward outside. "It's a brave evening for riding," heremarked, "and you have a bonny bit of horseflesh there. You'll get to thehouse before candlelight."
Beside one of the benches Haward made another pause. "You are a Highlanderand a Jacobite," he said. "From your reference to Forster, I gather thatyou were among the prisoners taken at Preston and transported toVirginia."
"In the Elizabeth and Anne of Liverpool, _alias_ a bit of hell afloat; themaster, Captain Edward Trafford, _alias_ Satan's first mate," quoth theother grimly.
He stooped to the bench where lay the debris of the coast and mountains hehad been lately building, and picked up a small, deep shell. "My story isshort," he began. "It could be packed into this. I was born in the islandof Mull, of my father a chieftain, and my mother a lady. Some schooling Igot in Aberdeen, some pleasure in Edinburgh and London, and some serviceabroad. In my twenty-third year--being at home at that time--I was askedto a hunting match at Braemar, and went. No great while afterwards I wasbidden to supper at an Edinburgh tavern, and again I accepted theinvitation. There was a small entertainment to follow the supper,--justthe taking of Edinburgh Castle. But the wine was good, and we waited topowder our hair, and the entertainment could hardly be called a success.Hard upon that convivial evening, I, with many others, was asked acrossthe Border to join a number of gentlemen who drank to the King after ourfashion, and had a like fancy for oak boughs and white roses. The weatherwas pleasant, the company of the best, the roads very noble after ourHighland sheep tracks. Together with our English friends, and enlivened bymuch good claret and by music of bagpipe and drum, we strolled on througha fine, populous country until we came to a town called Preston, where wethought we would tarry for a day or two. However, circumstances arosewhich detained us somewhat longer. (I dare say you have heard the story?)When finally we took our leave, some of us went to heaven, some to hell,and some to Barbadoes and Virginia. I was among those dispatched toVirginia, and to all intents and purposes I died the day I landed. There,the shell is full!"
He tossed it from him, and going to the hitching-post loosed Haward'shorse. Haward took the reins from his hand. "It hath been ten years andmore since Virginia got her share of the rebels taken at Preston. If Iremember aright, their indentures were to be made for seven years. Why,then, are you yet in my service?"
MacLean laughed. "I ran away," he replied pleasantly, "and when I wascaught I made off a second time. I wonder that you planters do not have aSociety for the Encouragement of Runaways. Seeing that they are nearlyalways retaken, and that their escapades so lengthen their term ofservice, it would surely be to your advantage! There are yet several yearsin which I am to call you master."
He laughed again, but the sound was mirthless, and the eyes beneath thehalf-closed lids were harder than steel. Haward mounted his horse andgathered up the reins. "I am not responsible for the laws of the realm,"he said calmly, "nor for rebellions and insurrections, nor for thepractice of transporting overseas those to whom have been given the uglynames of 'rebel' and 'traitor.' Destiny that set you there put me here. Weare alike pawns; what the player means we have no way of telling. CurseFate and the gods, if you choose,--and find that your cursing does smallgood,--but regard me with indifference, as one neither more nor less theslave of circumstances than yourself. It has been long since I went thisway. Is there yet the path by the river?"
"Ay," answered the other. "It is your shortest road."
"Then I will be going," said Haward. "It grows late, and I am not lookedfor before to-morrow. Good-night."
As he spoke he raised his hat and bowed to the gentleman from whom he wasparting. That rebel to King George gave a great start; then turned veryred, and shot a piercing glance at the man on horseback. The latter's mienwas composed as ever, and, with his hat held beneath his arm and his bodyslightly inclined, he was evidently awaiting a like ceremony ofleave-taking on the storekeeper's part. MacLean drew a long breath,stepped back a pace or two, and bowed to his equal. A second "Good-night,"and one gentleman rode off in the direction of the great house, while theother went thoughtfully back to the store, got a cloth and wiped the dustfrom the mirror.
It was pleasant riding by the river in the cool evening wind, with thecolors of the sunset yet gay in sky and water. Haward went slowly,glancing now at the great, bright stream, now at the wide, calm fields andthe rim of woodland, dark and distant, bounding his possessions. The smellof salt marshes, of ploughed ground, of leagues of flowering forests, wasin his nostrils. Behind him was the crescent moon; before him a terracecrowned with lofty trees. Within the ring of foliage was the house; evenas he looked a light sprang up in a high window, and shone like a starthrough the gathering dusk. Below the hill the home landing ran its gauntblack length far out into the carmine of the river; upon the Golden Roselights burned like lower stars; from a thicket to the left of the bridlepath sounded the call of a whippoorwill. A gust of wind blowing from thebay made to waver the lanterns of the Golden Rose, broke and darkened thecoral peace of the river, and pushed rudely against the master of thoseparts. Haward laid his hand upon his horse that he loved. "This is betterthan the Ring, isn't it, Mirza?" he asked genially, and the horse whinniedunder his touch.
The land was quite gray, the river pearl-colored, and the firefliesbeginning to sparkle, when he rode through the home gates. In the dusk ofthe world, out of the deeper shadow of the surrounding trees, his houselooked grimly upon him. The light had been at the side; all the front wasstark and black with shuttered windows. He rode to the back of the houseand hallooed to the slaves in the home quarter, where were lights andnoisy laughter, and one deep voice singing in an unknown tongue.
<
"Wanted!" exclaimed Haward. "Ingress into my own house is wanted! Where isJuba?"
One of the negroes pressed forward. "Heah I is, Marse Duke! House allready for you, but you done sont word"--
"I know,--I know," answered Haward impatiently. "I changed my mind. Isthat you, Saunderson, with the light? Or is it Hide?"
The candle moved to one side, and there was disclosed a large white faceatop of a shambling figure dressed in some coarse, dark stuff. "Neither,sir," said an expressionless voice. "Will it please your Honor todismount?"
Haward swung himself out of the saddle, tossed the reins to a negro, and,with Juba at his heels, climbed the five low stone steps and entered thewide hall running through the house and broken only by the broad, windingstairway. Save for the glimmer of the solitary candle all was in darkness;the bare floor, the paneled walls, echoed to his tread. On either handsquares of blackness proclaimed the open doors of large, empty rooms, anddown the stair came a wind that bent the weak flame. The negro took thelight from the hand of the man who had opened the door, and, pressing pasthis master, lit three candles in a sconce upon the wall.
"Yo' room's all ready, Marse Duke," he declared. "Dere's candles enough,an' de fire am laid an' yo' bed aired. Ef you wan' some supper, I kin getyou bread an' meat, an' de wine was put in yesterday."
Haward nodded, and taking the candle began to mount the stairs. Half wayup he found that the man in the sad-colored raiment was following him. Heraised his brows, but being in a taciturn humor, and having, moreover, toshield the flame from the wind that drove down the stair, he said nothing,going on in silence to the landing, and to the great eastward-facing roomthat had been his father's, and which now he meant to make his own. Therewere candles on the table, the dresser, and the mantelshelf. He lit themall, and the room changed from a place of shadows and monstrous shapes toa gentleman's bedchamber,--somewhat sparsely furnished, but of acomfortable and cheerful aspect. A cloth lay upon the floor, the windowswere curtained, and the bed had fresh hangings of green and whiteKidderminster. Over the mantel hung a painting of Haward and his mother,done when he was six years old. Beneath the laughing child and the smilinglady, young and flower-crowned, were crossed two ancient swords. In themiddle of the room stood a heavy table, and pushed back, as though someone had lately risen from it, was an armchair of Russian leather. Bookslay upon the table; one of them open, with a horn snuffbox keeping downthe leaf.
Haward seated himself in the great chair, and looked around him with athoughtful and melancholy smile. He could not clearly remember his mother.The rings upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all that dwelt inhis mind, and now only the sound of that merriment floated back to him andlingered in the room. But his father had died upon that bed, and besidethe dead man, between the candles at the head and the candles at the foot,he had sat the night through. The curtains were half drawn, and in theirshadow his imagination laid again that cold, inanimate form. Twelve yearsago! How young he had been that night, and how old he had thought himselfas he watched beside the dead, chilled by the cold of the crossed hands,awed by the silence, half frighted by the shadows on the wall; now filledwith natural grief, now with surreptitious and shamefaced thoughts of hischanged estate,--yesterday son and dependent, to-day heir and master!Twelve years! The sigh and the smile were not for the dead father, but forhis own dead youth, for the unjaded freshness of the morning, for theworld that had been, once upon a time.
Turning in his seat, his eyes fell upon the man who had followed him, andwho was now standing between the table and the door. "Well, friend?" hedemanded.
The man came a step or two nearer. His hat was in his hand, and his bodywas obsequiously bent, but there was no discomposure in his lifeless voiceand manner. "I stayed to explain my presence in the house, sir," he said."I am a lover of reading, and, knowing my weakness, your overseer, whokeeps the keys of the house, has been so good as to let me, from time totime, come here to this room to mingle in more delectable company than Ican choose without these walls. Your Honor doubtless remembers yondergoodly assemblage?" He motioned with his hand toward a half-opened door,showing a closet lined with well-filled bookshelves.
"I remember," replied Haward dryly. "So you come to my room alone atnight, and occupy yourself in reading? And when you are wearied yourefresh yourself with my wine?" As he spoke he clinked together the bottleand glass that stood beside the books.
"I plead guilty to the wine," answered the intruder, as lifelessly asever, "but it is my only theft. I found the bottle below, and did notthink it would be missed. I trust that your Honor does not grudge it to apoor devil who tastes Burgundy somewhat seldomer than does your Worship.And my being in the house is pure innocence. Your overseer knew that Iwould neither make nor meddle with aught but the books, or he would nothave given me the key to the little door, which I now restore to yourHonor's keeping." He advanced, and deposited upon the table a large key.
"What is your name?" demanded Haward, leaning back in his chair.
"Bartholomew Paris, sir. I keep the school down by the swamp, where Iimpart to fifteen or twenty of the youth of these parts the rudiments ofthe ancient and modern tongues, mathematics, geography, fortifications,navigation, philosophy"--
Haward yawned, and the schoolmaster broke the thread of his discourse. "Iweary you, sir," he said. "I will, with your permission, take mydeparture. May I make so bold as to beg your Honor that you will notmention to the gentlemen hereabouts the small matter of this bottle ofwine? I would wish not to be prejudiced in the eyes of my patrons andscholars."
"I will think of it," Haward replied. "Come and take your snuffbox--if itbe yours--from the book where you have left it."
"It is mine," said the man. "A present from the godly minister of thisparish."
As he spoke he put out his hand to take the snuffbox. Haward leanedforward, seized the hand, and, bending back the fingers, exposed the palmto the light of the candles upon the table.
"The other, if you please," he commanded.
For a second--no longer--a wicked soul looked blackly out of the face towhich he had raised his eyes. Then the window shut, and the wall was blankagain. Without any change in his listless demeanor, the schoolmaster laidhis left hand, palm out, beside his right.
"Humph!" exclaimed Haward. "So you have stolen before to-night? The marksare old. When were you branded, and where?"
"In Bristol, fifteen years ago," answered the man unblushingly. "It wasall a mistake. I was as innocent as a newborn babe"--
"But unfortunately could not prove it," interrupted Haward. "That is ofcourse. Go on."
"I was transported to South Carolina, and there served out my term. Theclimate did not suit me, and I liked not the society, nor--being of apeaceful disposition--the constant alarms of pirates and buccaneers. Sowhen I was once more my own man I traveled north to Virginia with a partyof traders. In my youth I had been an Oxford servitor, and schoolmastersare in demand in Virginia. Weighed in the scales with a knowledge of thehumanities and some skill in imparting them, what matters a little mishapwith hot irons? My patrons are willing to let bygones be bygones. Myschool flourishes like a green bay-tree, and the minister of this parishwill speak for the probity and sobriety of my conduct. Now I will go,sir."
He made an awkward but deep and obsequious reverence, turned and went outof the door, passing Juba, who was entering with a salver laden with breadand meat and a couple of bottles. "Put down the food, Juba," said Haward,"and see this gentleman out of the house."
An hour later the master dismissed the slave, and sat down beside thetable to finish the wine and compose himsel
Haward went to the open window, and with one knee upon the window seatlooked out into the windy, starlit night. This was the eastern face of thehouse, and, beyond the waving trees, there were visible both the river andthe second and narrower creek which on this side bounded the plantation.The voice with which the waters swept to the sea came strongly to him. Alarge white moth sailed out of the darkness to the lit window, but hispresence scared it away.
Looking through the walnut branches, he could see a light that burnedsteadily, like a candle set in a window. For a moment he wondered whenceit shone; then he remembered that the glebe lands lay in that direction.The parish was building a house for its new minister, when he leftVirginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that theminister--who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow--hadtold him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said thatit should be the child's.
It was possible that the star which pierced the darkness might mark thatroom. He knit his brows in an effort to remember when, before this day, hehad last thought of a child whom he had held in his arms and comforted,one splendid dawn, upon a hilltop, in a mountainous region. He came to theconclusion that he must have forgotten her quite six years ago. Well, shewould seem to have thriven under his neglect,--and he saw again the girlwho had run for the golden guinea. It was true that when he had put herthere where that light was shining, it was with some shadowy idea ofgiving her gentle breeding, of making a lady of her. But man's purposesare fleeting, and often gone with the morrow. He had forgotten hispurpose; and perhaps it was best this way,--perhaps it was best this way.
For a little longer he looked at the light and listened to the voice ofthe river; then he rose from the window seat, drew the curtains, and beganthoughtfully to prepare for bed.