Cardigan

"How many have you?" I asked, choking with indignation. "I'll give three of you merry gentlemen a chance at me if you will allow me one dry priming!"

There was a dead silence. The unseen hand that held my horse's head fell away, and the animal snorted and tossed his mane. Again, not knowing what to expect, I cautiously felt around until I found the bridle, and noiselessly began to work it back over Warlock's head.

"Now for it!" I thought, gathering to launch the horse like a battering-ram into the unknown ahead.

But just as I drew my light hatchet from my belt and lifted the bridle, I almost dropped from the saddle to hear a meek and pleading voice I knew call me by name.

"Jack Mount!" I exclaimed, incredulous even yet.

"The same, Mr. Cardigan, out at heels and elbows, lad, and trimming the highway for a purse-proud Tory. Are you offended?"

"Offended!" I repeated, hysterically. "Oh no, of course not!" And I burst into a shout of uncontrollable laughter.

He did not join in. As for me, I lay on my horse's neck, weak from the reaction of my own laughter, utterly unable to find enough breath in my body to utter another sound.

"Oh, you can laugh," he said, in a hurt voice. "But I have accomplished a certain business yonder which has nigh frightened me to death – that's all."

"What business?" I asked, weakly.

"Oh, you may well ask. Hell's whippet! I lay here for the fat bailiff o' Grafton, who should travel to Hadley this night with Tory funds, and – I stopped a lady in that post-chaise yonder, and she's fainted at sight o' me. That's all."

"Fainted?" I repeated. "Where are her post-boys? Where's her footman? Where's her maid? Is she alone, Jack?"

"Ay," he responded, gloomily; "the men and the maid ran off. Trust those Dutch patrooners for that sort o' patroonery! If I'd only had Cade with me – "

"But – where's the Weasel?"

"I wish I knew," he said, earnestly. "He left me at Johnstown – went away – vanished like a hermit-bird. Oh, I am certainly an unhappy man and a bungling one at that. You can laugh if you like, but it's killing me. I wish you would come over to that cursed post-chaise and see what can be done for the lady. You know about ladies, don't you?"

"I don't know what to do when they faint," I replied.

"There's ways and ways," he responded. "Some say to shake them, but I can't bring myself to that; some say to pat their chins and say 'chuck-a-bunny!' but I have no skill for that either. Do you think – if we could get her out o' the chaise – and let her be rained on – "

"No, no," I said, controlling a violent desire to laugh. "I'll calm her, Jack. Perhaps she has recovered."

As we advanced through the rain in the dim radiance of the chaise-lamps, I looked curiously at Mount, and he up at me.

"Lord," he murmured, "how you have changed, lad!"

"You, too," I said, for he was haggard and dirty and truly enough in rags. No marvel that the lady had fainted at first sight o' him, let alone his pistol thrust through the chaise-window.

"Poor old Jack," I said, softened by his misery. "Why did you desert me after you had saved my life? I owe you so much that it were a charity to aid me discharge the debt – or as much of it as I may."

"Ho!" he muttered. "'Twas no debt, lad, and I'm but a pottle-pot after all. Now, by the ring-tailed coon o' Canada, I care not what befalls me, for Cade's gone – or dead – and I've the heart of a chipmunk left to face the devil."

"Soft," I whispered; "the lady's astir in her chaise. Wait you here, Jack! So! – I dismount. Touch not the horse; he bites at raggedness; he'll stand; so – o, Warlock. Wait, my beauty! So – o."

And I advanced to the chaise-window, cap in hand.

"Madam," I began, very gently, striving to make her out in the dim light of the chaise; "I perceive some accident has befallen your carriage. Pray, believe me at your disposal and humbly anxious to serve you, and if there be aught wherein I may – "

"Michael Cardigan!" came a startled voice, and I froze dumb in astonishment. For there, hood thrown back, and earnest, pale face swiftly leaning into the lamp-rays, I beheld Marie Hamilton.

We stared at each other for a moment, then her lovely face flushed and she thrust both hands towards me, laughing and crying at the same moment.

"Oh, the romance of life!" she cried. "I have had such a fright, my wits ache with the shock! A highwayman, Michael, grand Dieu!– here in the rain, pulling the horses up short, and it was, 'Ho! Stand and deliver!' – with pistol pushed in my face, and I to faint – pretence to gain a wink o' time to think – not frightened, but vexed and all on the qui vive to hide my jewels. Then comes the great booby, aghast to see me fainted, a-muttering excuse that he meant no harm, and I lying perdu, still as a mouse, for I had no mind to let him know I heard him. But under my lids I perceived him, a great, ragged, handsome rascal, badly scared, for I gathered from his stammering that he was waiting for another chaise bound for Hadley.

"Vrai Dieu, but I did frighten him well, and now he's gone, and I in a plight with my cowardly post-boys, maid, and footman fled, Lord knows whither!"

The amazing rapidity of her chatter confounded me, and she held my hands the while, and laughed and wept enough to turn her eyes to twin stars, all dewy in the lamp-shine.

"Dear friend," she sighed; "dear, dear friend, what happiness to feel I owe my life to you!"

"But you don't," I blurted out; "there never was any danger."

"Lord save the boy!" she murmured. "There is no spark o' romance in him!" And fell a-laughing in that faint, low mockery that I remembered on that fatal night at Johnson Hall.

"You are mistaken," I said, grimly. "Romance is the breath of my life, madam. And so I now plead freedom to present to your good graces my friend, Jack Mount, who lately stopped your coach upon the King's highway!"

And I caught the abashed giant by his ragged sleeve and dragged him to the chaise-window, where he plucked off his coon-skin cap and stared wildly at the astonished lady within.

But it was no easy matter to rout Marie Hamilton. True, she paled a little, and took one short breath, with her hand to her breast; then, like sunlight breaking, her bright eyes softened and that sweet, fresh mouth parted in a smile which spite of me set my own pulse a quickstep marching.

"I am not angry, sir," she said, mockingly. "All cats are gray at midnight, and one post-chaise resembles another, Captain Mount – for surely, by your exploits, you deserve at least that title."

Mount's fascinated eyes grew bigger. His consternation and the wild appeal in his eyes set me hard a-swallowing my laughter. As for Mrs. Hamilton, she smiled her sweet, malicious smile, and her melting eyes were soft with that false mercy which deludes apace and welcomes to destruction.

"Jack," said I, smothering my laughter, "do you get your legs astride the leader, there, and play at post-boy to the nearest inn. Zounds, man! Don't stand there hanging your jaw like a hard-run beagle! Up into the saddle with you! Gad, you've a ride before you with those Albany nags a-biting at your shins! Here, give me your rifle."

"And you, Michael," asked Mrs. Hamilton, "will you not share my carriage, for old time's sake?"

I told her I had my horse and would ride him at her chaise-wheels, and so left her, somewhat coolly, for I liked not that trailing tail to her invitation – "for old time's sake."

"What the foul fiend have I to do with 'old time's sake'?" I muttered, as I slung myself astride o' Warlock and motioned Jack Mount to move on through the finely falling rain. "'Old time's sake'! Faith, it once cost me the bitterest day of my life, and might cost me the love of the sweetest girl in earth or heaven! 'Old time's sake'! Truly, that is no tune to pipe for me; let others dance to it, not I."

As I rode forward beside her carriage-window, she looked up at me and made a little gesture of greeting. I bowed in my saddle, stiffly, for I was now loaded with Mount's rifle as well as my own.

What the deuce is there about Marie Hamilton that stirs the pulse of every man who sets eyes on her? Even I, loving Silver Heels with my whole heart and soul, find subtle danger in the eyes of Marie Hamilton, and shun her faint smile with the instant instinct of an anchorite.

Perhaps I was an anchorite, all ashamed, for I would not have it said of me, for vanity.

In a day when the morals of the world were rotten to the core, when vice was fashion, and fashion marked all England for her own, the overflow from those same British islands, flooding our land, stained most of those among us who could claim the right to quality.

I never had been lured by those grosser sins which circumstances offered – even in our house at Johnstown – and I would make no merit of my continence, God wot, seeing there was no temptation.

I had been reared among those whose friends and guests often went to bed too drunk to snuff their candles; cards and dice and high play were nothing strange to me, and, perhaps from their sheer familiarity, left me indifferent and without desire.

A titled drab I had never seen; the gentlemen whom I knew discussed their mistresses over nuts and wine, seeming to think no shame of one another for the foolishness they called their "fortune." Had it not been for Sir William's and Aunt Molly's teachings, I might have grown up to think that wives were wedded chiefly to oblige a friend. But Sir William and Aunt Molly taught me to abhor that universal vice long before I could comprehend it. I did not clearly comprehend it yet; but the thought of it was stale ashes in my mouth, so unattractive had I pictured what I needs must shun one day.