Part 23 (1/2)

The church clock tolled eleven as Mr. Sinclair pa.s.sed, and the sound made his fleet movements fleeter still. Street after street was traversed without a voice or tread, save his own, breaking the stillness of the night. At length he reached the point of the day's devastations.

Dismantled and roofless houses, from which a dull glimmer showed that the fire was not yet wholly extinguished, were seen rising here and there, while in intervening s.p.a.ces a charred and smouldering heap alone gave evidence that man had had his dwelling there. A rapid glance as he pa.s.sed without a pause over this ground told its desolation. But see--what object meets his eye, and causes every nerve to thrill with apprehension! From the midst of one of those blackened heaps a single post shoots up--wildly Mr. Sinclair casts his eyes upward to its summit--gracious heaven! is he too late? To that post, about twenty feet from the ground, a cross-piece is attached, to which a rope has been secured, and from that rope a dark object hangs motionless. Sick with horror he stops--he gazes--no! it is no illusion--dimly defined against the star-lit sky, his eye, dilated by terror, traces the form of man, and fancy supplies the traits of him who stood before him but a few hours since in all the flush of manhood--every moment replete with energy, every look full of proud resolve and generous feeling. With a searching glance Mr. Sinclair looks around for the murderers--but they are gone--again, his strangely fascinated eye turns to that object of horror. Is it the agitation of a death struggle which causes it now to swing to and fro in the dusky air? The thought that life may not yet be extinct gives him new strength--he runs--he flies to Major Scott's lodgings, for from him alone is he secure of aid in his present purpose.

As Mr. Sinclair approached the house in which Major Scott had found accommodations for himself and his prisoner, he found himself no longer in darkness. More than one burning torch threw a lurid light upon the scene, while the men who held them, and perhaps as many as twenty more stood cl.u.s.tered together, near the house, against which some of them were engaged in elevating a ladder. In what service that ladder might have been last used Mr. Sinclair shuddered to think. Perfect stillness reigned in this party. Their few orders were given in whispers.

Keeping cautiously in shadow, and moving with stealthy steps, Mr.

Sinclair pa.s.sed them and reached the house. Even when there, he had little hope of making Major Scott hear him without alarming them, and he could not doubt that they would do every thing in their power to frustrate his object. But Heaven favored his merciful design--he touched the door and found it ajar. All was dark as midnight within it, and he had scarcely taken a step when he stumbled against a man whose voice sounded fiercely even in the low whisper in which he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”D--n you. Do you want to wake the Major? Don't you see you're at his room door?”

”I see now, but it was so dark at first,” whispered Mr. Sinclair in reply--adding with that quickness of perception and readiness of invention which danger supplies to some minds--”I have come to watch him--you are wanted.”

The man obeyed the intimation, and he had no sooner turned away than Mr.

Sinclair laid his hand upon the latch of the door which had been indicated as Major Scott's. It yielded to his touch, and with a quick but cautious movement he entered the room, and closed the door behind him. Cautious as he was, the soldier's light sleep was broken, and he exclaimed hurriedly, ”Who's there?”

Mr. Sinclair's communication was made in a hasty whisper, and Major Scott only heard enough to know that his prisoner was in danger. Of Mr.

Sinclair's worst suspicions he did not even dream when, starting to his feet, half dressed, as he had thrown himself on the bed, he s.n.a.t.c.hed his pistols from under his pillow, and exclaiming to Mr. Sinclair, ”Follow me, sir,” hurried to the scene of action, the room of Captain Percy. Mr.

Sinclair followed with rapid steps.

In one respect the conspirators had been disappointed--they had not obtained the key of Captain Percy's room, for being now a prisoner on parole, he was subject to no confinement. He had, however, locked the door of his room himself, to guard against the incursion of curiosity rather than of hostility; but the lock was none of the strongest--a single vigorous application of Major Scott's foot to the door started the screws which held it, and a second burst it off and threw the entrance open before him. As Mr. Sinclair glanced forward, ”Thank G.o.d!”

burst from his lips, to the no small surprise of Major Scott, who saw little cause for grat.i.tude in finding the object of his solicitude retreating, sword in hand, towards the door, while several athletic men, their faces dark with hate, were already pressing dangerously upon him, and others were crowding in at the opened window. The impetuous rush of his friends freed Captain Percy for a moment from his a.s.sailants, but they returned fiercely to the charge, too furious now to postpone their revenge even to their deference for Major Scott. Vain were Mr.

Sinclair's entreaties to be heard, till their advance was stayed by the sight of Major Scott's firearms--weapons with which they had not furnished themselves, considering them useless in an enterprise to whose complete success silence was essential. Then first they listened to him as he exclaimed, ”This man is innocent, and if you shed his blood it will call to Heaven for vengeance. I saw him myself this day oppose himself to two of his own countrymen to save a defenceless woman from injury. That woman was my daughter--some of you know her well--ah, Thompson! you may well hang your head--would you slay the deliverer of her whose good nursing saved the life of your motherless child?--Wilson, it was but last week that she sat beside your dying mother, and soothed and comforted her--but for this good and brave man she would now have been with her in heaven.”

It was only necessary to gain a hearing for such words to produce an influence on the rash, but not cruel men whom Mr. Sinclair addressed, and scarcely half an hour had pa.s.sed since their entrance into the room, when they offered their hands in pledge of amity to him whose life they had come to seek. As a proof of their sincerity, they advised Major Scott no longer to delay his departure from the town, and some of them volunteered to accompany him as a guard to his country-seat.

”You have saved my life,” said Captain Percy, as he shook hands with Mr.

Sinclair at parting.

”And you have preserved for me all, except my duties, for which I can now desire to live,” answered Mr. Sinclair with emotion: then turning to Major Scott, he added, ”as soon as you consider it safe, you will, I hope, bring Captain Percy to visit us. In the mean time, Captain Percy, remember that the stranger and the prisoner are a clergyman's especial care, and suffer yourself to want nothing which I can do for you. By-the by,” and he took Major Scott aside and whispered him.

”Give yourself no concern about that, my dear sir,” said Major Scott in reply, ”I will attend to it.”

He did attend to it, and Captain Percy's drafts on his captor were promptly met, till he was able to open a communication with the British commander.

In as quiet a manner as possible Major Scott and Captain Percy moved off from the hotel, and were met in the suburbs by their volunteer guard, while another party of the men whom he had thus saved from a great crime, attended Mr. Sinclair to his home. As he entered the area of the smouldering ruins his eye sought the object lately viewed with so much horror. He had scarcely glanced at it, when one of his companions stepped up and disengaged a dark cloak from the noose already prepared for its expected victim--”I knew no one would steal it from the gallows,” said the man, as he threw it over his shoulders. Mr. Sinclair smiled to think how easily imagination had transformed that harmless object into the fair proportions of a man.

Nothing more was heard of Captain Percy for weeks--dreary weeks to many in Havre de Grace--melancholy weeks to the inmates of the parsonage, who missed at every turn the familiar step and voice which had been life's sweetest music to their hearts. At length Mr. Sinclair received a note from Major Scott, announcing his own approaching departure to the army on our northern frontier, and requesting permission for Captain Percy and himself to call on Mr. and Miss Sinclair. Permission was given--the call was made, and they who had met only in scenes of terror and dismay, amidst flus.h.i.+ng looks and fierce words, now greeted each other with gentlest courtesy among sounds and sights of peace. The call was succeeded by a visit of some days, and this by one of weeks, till at last it seemed to be understood that the parsonage was to be the home of Captain Percy while awaiting the exchange which Major Scott had promised to do all in his power to expedite. His society was at the present time peculiarly pleasing to Mr. Sinclair, who was diverted from his own sad thoughts by the varied intelligence of the soldier and traveller in many lands. Mary Sinclair had been unable to meet her deliverer without a thrill of emotion which communicated an air of timidity to her manner, whose usual characteristic was modest self-possession. Captain Percy, at thirty-five, had outlived the age of sudden and violent pa.s.sion, but he had not outlived that of deep feeling. A soldier from boyhood, he had visited almost every clime, and been familiar with the beauties of almost every land, yet in this lovely and gentle girl, whom he had guarded from ill, and whom he now saw in all the pure and tender a.s.sociations of her home, blessing and blessed, there was something which touched his heart more deeply than he liked to acknowledge even to himself. Again and again when he saw the soft, varying color that arose to her cheek at his sudden entrance, or heard the voice in which she was addressing another, sink into a more subdued tone as she spoke to him, did he take his hat and wander forth, that he might still in solitude his bosom's triumphant throb, and reason with himself on the folly of suffering his affections to be enthralled by one from whom, ere another day pa.s.sed, he might be separated by orders which would send him thousands of miles away, and detain him, perhaps, for years.

”If I thought her feelings were really interested,” he would say to himself at other times--”but nonsense--how can I be such a c.o.xcomb--all she can feel for me is grat.i.tude.”

This last sentiment was echoed by Mary Sinclair, who, when self-convicted of unusual emotion in Captain Percy's presence, ever repeated, ”It is only grat.i.tude.”

One evening Mr. Sinclair retired after tea to his study, leaving his daughter and his guest together. He had not been gone long when a servant entered with the letters and papers just brought by the semi-weekly mail, which conveyed to the inhabitants of Havre de Grace news of the important events then daily transpiring in distant parts of the country. The only letter was a somewhat bulky one for Captain Percy.

Mary received the papers and commenced reading them, that she might leave her companion at liberty. Had she been looking at him she would have seen some surprise, and even a little annoyance in his countenance as his eyes rested on the seals of his dispatch. He opened it, and the annoyance deepened. He read it more than once. Minutes pa.s.sed in perfect silence, and Mary began to wonder what correspondent could so deeply interest him. A heavy sigh made her look up. His letter lay open on the table before him, but he had evidently long ceased to read, for his arm rested upon it, while his eyes were fixed with an expression at once intent and mournful on her. Mary thought only of him as she said, ”I hope you have no painful intelligence there, Captain Percy.”

”I suppose I ought to consider it very joyful intelligence--I am no longer a prisoner--I have been exchanged, and”--he hesitated, looked away, then added rapidly--”I am ordered immediately to join my regiment in Canada.”

A quick drawing of the breath, as though from sudden pain, met his ear--his heart beat quickly, but he would not embarra.s.s her by a glance.