A Song of a Single Note: A Love Story

CHAPTER VII.

THE PRICE OF HARRY'S LIFE

He heard Agnes calling him, and he resolved to go at once to her. And never had he looked handsomer than at this hour, for he had clothed himself with that rich and rigid propriety he understood so well while the sense of injustice under which he so inwardly burned gave to him a haughty dignity, suiting his grave face and lofty stature to admiration. He went very softly along the upper corridor of his home, but Madame heard his step, and opening her door, said in a whisper:

"Your father has fallen asleep, Neil, and much he needed sleep. Where are you going?"

"I am going back to the court. I wish to know what has been done in Bradley's case."

"Why trouble yourself with other people's business? The lad has surely given us sorrow enough."

"He is her brother – I mean – "

"I know who you mean; weel, then, go your way; neither love nor wisdom will win a hearing from you on that road."

"There is money to be found somewhere, mother. Until his fine is paid, father will be miserable. I want to borrow the amount as soon as possible."

"Borrow! Has it come to that?"

"It has, for a short time. I think Captain DeVries will let me have it. He ought to."

"He'll do naething o' the kind. I would ask any other body but him."

"There are few to ask. I must get it where I can. Curtis will advance one hundred pounds for me."

"They who go borrowing go sorrowing. I'm vexed for you, my dear lad. It is the first time I ever heard tell o' a Semple seeking money not their ain."

"It is our own fault, mother. If father and I had taken your advice and let confiscated property alone we should have had money to lend to-day; certainly, we should have been able to help ourselves out of all difficulties without asking the assistance of strangers."

The confession pleased her. "What you say is the truth," she answered; "but everybody has a fool up their sleeve some time in their life. May God send you help, Neil, for I'm thinking it will hae to come by His hand; and somehow, I dinna believe He'll call on Batavius DeVries to gie you it."

With these words she retreated into her room, closing the door noiselessly, and Neil left the house. As soon as he was in the public road he saw Batavius standing at his garden gate, smoking and talking with Cornelius Haring and Adrian Rutgers. They were discussing Bradley's trouble and the Semples's connection with it, and Neil felt the spirit of their conversation. It was not kindly, and as he approached them Haring and Rutgers walked away. For a moment Batavius seemed inclined to do the same, but Neil was too near to be avoided without intentional offense, and he said to himself, "I will stand still. Out of my own way I will not move, because Neil Semple comes." So he stolidly continued to smoke, staring idly before him with a gaze fixed and ruminating.

"Good afternoon, Captain. Are you at liberty for a few minutes?" asked Neil.

"Yes. What then, Mr. Semple? I heard tell, from my friends, that you are in trouble."

"We have been fined because Mr. Bradley's son used our landing. It is a great injustice, for in this matter we were as innocent as yourself."

"That is not the truth, sir. If, like me, you had boarded in your house a few soldiers, then the care and the watch would have been their business, not yours. Those who don't act prudently must feel the chastisement of the government; but so! I will have nothing to do with the matter. It is a steady principle of mine never to interfere in other people's affairs."

"There is no necessity for interference. The case is settled. My father is fined two hundred pounds, a most outrageous wrong."

"Whoever is good and respectable is not fined by the government."

"In our case there was neither law nor justice. It was simple robbery."

"I know not what you mean. The government is the King, and I do not talk against either King or government. The Van Emerlies, who are always sneering at the King, have had to take twenty-seven per cent. out of the estate of a bankrupt cousin; and the Remsens, who are discontented and always full of complaints, have spoiled their business. God directs things so that contentment leads to wealth."

"I was speaking of neither the King nor his government, but of the Military Police Court."

"Oh! Well, then, I think all the stories I hear about its greediness and tyranny are downright lies."

"I must, however, assert that this court has been unjust and tyrannical both to my father and myself."

"That is your business, not mine."

"I was in hopes that you would feel differently. My father has often helped you out of tight places. I thought at this time you would remember that. There was that cargo at Perth Amboy, but for my father, it had gone badly with you!"

"Yes, yes! I give good for good, but not to my own cost. People who go against the government and are in trouble are not my friends. I do not meddle with affairs that are against the government. It is dangerous, and I am a husband and a father, not a fool."

"To assist my father for a few days, till I can turn property into money, is not going against the government."

"You will not turn property into money these days; it is too late. I, who am noted for my prudence, got rid of all my property at the beginning of the war; you and your father bought other people's houses, while I sold mine. So! I was right, as I always am."

"Then you had no faith in the King's cause, even at the beginning; and I have heard it said you are not unfriendly now to the rebels."

"Ja! I give the Americans a little, quietly. One must sail as the wind serves; and who can tell which way it will blow to-morrow? I am a good sailor; never shall I row against wind and tide. Who am I, Batavius DeVries, to oppose the government? It is one of my most sacred principles to obey the government."

"Then if the Americans succeed, you will obey their government? Your principles are changeable, Captain."

"It is a bad principle not to be able to change your principles. The world is always changing. I change with it. That is prudent, for I will not stand alone, or be left behind. That is my way; your ways do not suit me."

"This talk comes to nothing. To be plain with you, I want to borrow two hundred pounds for a month. I hope you will lend it. In the Perth Amboy matter my father stood for you in a thousand pounds."

"That is eaten bread, and your father knew I could secure the money. I wish I could help Elder Semple, but it would not be prudent."

"Good gracious, sir!"

"Oh, then, you must keep such words to yourself! I say it would not be prudent. He has swamped himself with other men's houses, his business is decayed, he is old; and you are also in a bad way and cannot help him, or why do you come to me?"

"I can give you good security, good land – "

"Land! What is good land to me? It will not be useful in my business. And there is another thing, you are not particular in your company. I have heard about your Methodist friends; there is Vestryman William Ustick, he was a Methodist servant, and he has become bankrupt; so, then – "

"You will not repay my father's frequent loans to you. If your father-in-law, Joris Van Heemskirk, was here – "

"I am not Joris Van Heemskirk. He is a rebel. I, who have always been loyal, have made twelve thousand dollars this last year. Is not that a hint for me to go on in the right way?"

Without waiting for the end of this self-complacent tirade, Neil went forward. Batavius was only a broken reed in his hand. Never before in all his life had he felt such humiliating anxiety. Even the slipping away of Haring and Rutgers, and the uncivil refusal of Batavius, were distinctly new and painful experiences. He felt, through Haring and Rutgers, the public withdrawal of sympathy and respect; and through Batavius, the coming bitterness of the want of ready money. The Semples had been fined; they were suspects; their names would now be on the roll of the doubtful, and it would be bad policy for the generality of citizens to be friendly with them. And the necessity for borrowing money revealed poverty, which otherwise they would have been able to conceal. He knew, also, that he would have to meet many such rebuffs, and he was well aware that his own proud temper would make them a pleasant payment to many whom he had offended by his exclusiveness.

As he approached the Bradley house he put all these bitter thoughts aside. What were they in comparison with the sorrow Agnes was compelled to endure? His whole soul went out to the suffering girl, and he blamed himself for allowing any hope of Batavius to delay him. The very house had taken on an air of loneliness and calamity. The door was closed, the blinds down, and the wintry frost that had blackened the garden seemed in some inscrutable way to have touched the dwelling also. He saw the slave woman belonging to the Bradleys talking to a group of negroes down the road, and he did not call her. If Agnes was within, he would see her; and if her father had returned, they would probably be together.

Thinking thus, he knocked loudly, and then entered the little hall. All was silent as the grave. "Agnes! Agnes!" he cried; and the next moment she appeared at the head of the stairs. "Agnes!" he cried again, and the word was full of love and sorrow, as he stretched out his arms to the descending girl. She was whiter than snow, her eyes were heavy and dark with weeping, her hair had fallen down, and she still wore the plain, blue gingham dress she had put on while Maria was telling her tragical tale. Yet in spite of these tokens of mental disturbance, she was encompassed by the serene stillness of a spirit which had reached the height of "Thy will be done."

When her father left her, smitten afresh by his anger she had fled to her room, and locking the door of this sanctuary, she had sat for two hours astonished, stupefied by the inevitable, speechless and prayerless. Yet while she was musing the fire burned; she became conscious of that secret voice in her soul which is the spirit that helpeth our infirmities, and ere she was aware she began to pray. It was as if she stood alone in some great hall of the universe, with an infinite, invisible audience of spirits watching her. Then the miracle of the ladder between heaven and earth was renewed, and angels of help and blessing once more ascended and descended. An inward, deep, untroubled peace calmed the struggle of her soul; one by one the clouds departed and the light steadily grew until fears were slain, and doubts had become a sure confidence that

She was sitting waiting when she heard Neil's call, and Oh! how sweet is the voice of love in the hour of anxious sorrow! She never thought of her appearance or her dress; she hasted to Neil, and he folded her to his heart and for the first time touched her white cheek with his lips. She made no resistance, it was not an hour for coy withdrawals, and they understood, amid their silent tears, far more than any future words could explain.

Then Neil told her all that had happened, and when he described John Bradley's open recognition of his son she smiled proudly and said, "That was like father. If I had been there I would have done the same. It is a long time," she said, looking anxiously at Neil. "Will father soon be home?"

"I expected to find him here. I will go to the court now; the trial ought to be over."

But complications had arisen in what at first seemed to be a case that proved itself. Harry was not easily managed. He admitted that he had been in America for more than three years, but declared that his father had been totally ignorant of his presence. When asked where he had dwelt and how he had employed himself during that time, he gave to every question the same answer, "I refuse to tell."

Then the saddle found in his boat was brought forward, and he was asked from whom he received it and to whom he was taking it. And to both these questions there was the same reply, "I refuse to tell."

"It is indisputably a Bradley saddle," said the assistant magistrate, DuBois. "Let John Bradley identify it."

Bradley came forward, looked at the saddle, and answered, "I made it; every stitch of it."

"For whom? Mr. Bradley?"

"I should have few saddles to make if I talked about my patrons in this place. I refuse to tell for whom I made it."

"The court can fine you, sir, for contempt of its requests."

"I would rather pay the fine than bring my patron's name in question and cause him annoyance."

There was considerable legal fencing on this subject, but nothing gained; a parcel also found in the boat was opened and its contents spread out for examination. They consisted of a piece of damasse for a lady's gown, some lace, two pairs of silk stockings, two pairs of gloves, some ribbon, and a fan that had been mended. Everything in this parcel was obviously intended for a woman, but Harry was as obdurately noncommittal as he had been about the saddle. Nothing could be gained by continuing an examination so one-sided, and the next witness called was Captain Quentin Macpherson. He came forward with more than his usual haughty clangor, and was first asked if he had ever seen the prisoner before.

"Yes," he answered, "for about half an hour yesterday evening, say, between half-past seven and eight o'clock."

"Did you have any conversation with him?"

"Very little. When I began to question him about his residence he rose and went away."

"Who else was present?"

"Miss Bradley and Miss Semple."

"Tell the court what occurred when the prisoner left."

"Miss Bradley went to the gate with him, Miss Semple remained with me. I noticed that she was anxious, and found my company disagreeable; and suddenly she excused herself and left the room. As she did so a pebble was thrown through the window, it fell at my feet; a note was wrapped round it, and I read the note."