Part 4 (1/2)
The ranger took Garret's arm, and expostulating with him as he led him away, dismissed him at the gate with an admonition to bear himself discreetly in the presence of his wife,--a hint which seemed to have a salutary effect, as the landlord was seen shaping his course with an improved carriage towards the town.
”Have you reason to believe, Captain Dauntrees,” said the Proprietary, after Weasel had departed; ”that the Cripple gives credit to these tales. He lives near this troubled house?”
”Not above a gunshot off, my Lord. He cannot but be witness to these marvels. But he is a man of harsh words, and lives to himself. There is matter in his own life, I should guess, which leaves but little will to censure these doings. To a certainty he has no fear of what may dwell in the Black building.--I have seldom spoken with him.”
”Your report and Arnold's,” said the Proprietary, ”confirm the common rumour. I have heard to-day, that two nights past some such phantoms as you speak of have been seen, and deemed it at first a mere gossip's wonder;--but what you tell gives a graver complexion of truth to these whisperings. Be there demons or jugglers amongst us--and I have reason to suspect both--this matter must be sifted. I would have the inquiry made by men who are not moved by the vulgar love of marvel. This duty shall be yours, friends. Make suitable preparation, Captain, to discharge it at your earliest leisure. I would have you and Arnold, with such discreet friends as you may select, visit this spot at night and observe the doings there. Look that you keep your own counsel:--we have enemies of flesh and blood that may be more dreaded than these phantoms. So, G.o.d speed you friends!”
”The man who purges the Black House of the fiend, so please you, my Lord,” said Dauntrees, ”should possess more odour of sanct.i.ty than I doubt will be found under our soldier's jerkins. I shall nevertheless execute your Lords.h.i.+p's orders to the letter.”
”Hark you, Captain,” said the Proprietary, as his visiters were about to take their leave--”if you have a scruple in this matter and are so inclined, I would have you confer with Father Pierre. Whether this adventure require prayer, or weapon of steel, you shall judge for yourself.”
”I shall take it, my Lord, as a point of soldiers.h.i.+p,” said Dauntrees, ”to be dealt with, in soldierly fas.h.i.+on--that is, with round blows if occasion serves. I ask no aid from our good priest. He hath a trick--if I may be so bold as to speak it before your Lords.h.i.+p--which doth not so well sort with my age and bodily health,--a trick, my Lord, of putting one to a fasting penance by way of purification. Our purpose of visiting the Black House would be unseasonably delayed by such a purgation.”
”As thou wilt--as thou wilt!” said the Proprietary, laughing; ”Father Pierre would have but an idle sinecure, if he had no other calling but to bring thee to thy penitentiary.--Good even, friends,--may the kind saints be with you!”
The Captain and his comrade now turned their steps toward the fort, and the Proprietary retired into the mansion. Here he found the secretary and Benedict Leonard waiting his arrival. They had just returned from the town, whither they had gone after doing their errand to the fort.
Albert Verheyden bore a packet secured with silken strings and sealed, which he delivered to the Proprietary.
”d.i.c.k Pagan, the courier,” he said, ”has just come in from James Town in Virginia, whence he set forth but four days ago--he has had a hard ride of it--and brought this pacquet to the sheriff for my Lord. The courier reports that a s.h.i.+p had just arrived from England, and that Sir Henry Chichely the governor gave him this for your Lords.h.i.+p to be delivered without delay.”
The Proprietary took the pacquet: ”Albert,” he said, as he was about to withdraw, ”I have promised the old ranger, Arnold de la Grange, a new cap. Look to it:--get him the best that you may find in the town--or, perhaps, it would better content him to have one made express by Cony the leather dresser. Let it be as it may best please the veteran himself, good Albert.” With this considerate remembrance of the ranger, Lord Baltimore withdrew into his study.
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 a.s.sault. 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 friends.h.i.+p and tried fidelity. What rendered it the more grating to the feelings of the Proprietary in this instance, was that the collectors.h.i.+p 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 inc.u.mbent, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 coa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sions elbow room, without rendering our little secluded nook a theatre for the struggle. Come what may, Anthony Warden shall not lack the collectors.h.i.+p 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.