From Kingdom to Colony
Where streams of living waters run,"--
that world whose glories no speech might convey to earthly
understanding.
"I can never tell him now," Dorothy said with bitter sorrow, addressing
Mary, as the two were alone in the dining-room. It was one of the days
when her father had risen for his morning meal, and, after sitting with
them awhile, had returned to his room to lie down.
"'T is best not, dear," Mary assented. "Do not burden his heart now,
for it would only give him bitter sorrow to brood over. Jack knows the
whole matter, and he can do all that is to be done."
"And what is that?" Dorothy asked, speaking a little sharply.
"Call the man to a strict account," was Mary's reply, with anger now
showing in her voice.
"No, Mary, no," cried Dorothy, with much of her old spirit. "That must
not be,--at least not now." Then more gently, as she observed Mary's
look of surprise, "Naught that he nor any one can say or do will mend
what has been done; and it is my earnest wish that the matter be let
alone, just as it is, for the present. Perhaps the future may show
some way out of it." But she spoke as though saying one thing and
meaning quite another.
"Will you tell Jack all this?" Mary asked, with an odd look.
"Me?" cried Dorothy, in great alarm. "No, no, Mary; you must do that.
I do not wish to have him speak to me of the matter; I could not bear
it." And she covered her face with her hands, as if to shut out the
very prospect of such a thing.
Mary's white forehead wrinkled as though from perplexity, while her
slender fingers tapped nervously upon the arm of her chair.
She knew not what to make of the girl,--of her words and actions, of
her strange and sudden sickness and faintings, of all that had come to
her since the advent of this young Britisher.
And within these past few minutes a new anxiety had found its way into
her mind, and this prompted her to ask, "Can it be, Dot, that you have
permitted this stranger to come between you and your only brother, who
loves you best of all in the world?"
But Dorothy evaded the question. "That he does not," she asserted,
taking her hands from in front of her face and trying to smile; "'t is
you he loves best of all."
Mary flushed a little, but replied with tender earnestness, "But you
know, Dot, he and I are one. We both love you next to each other, and
we wish to serve you and assure your happiness."
Dorothy sighed and looked down at the floor. "I doubt if I shall ever
be happy again, Mary," she said; "and the best way to serve me is to
leave me alone and let me go my own way."
She spoke as though wishing to dismiss the matter, and, rising from her
chair, walked over to the window and stood looking off over the meadow
lands and toward the sea.
It was a cheering, hopeful sight, for the snow was gone, and everything
in nature was beginning to show a touch of the coming spring.
Later that same morning they were in Mary's room, the young wife busy
with some sewing, while Dorothy, with much of the former color showing
in her face, was moving restlessly about.
"Dorothy!"
Mary spoke suddenly, as though impelled by a hasty resolution, and
there was a look in her blue eyes that made a fitting accompaniment to
her words; but she kept them averted from Dorothy, who had turned and
was coming slowly toward her.
"Dorothy," she repeated, as the girl drew close to her, "where is that
ruby ring?"
Dorothy came to a stop, and every drop of blood seemed to find its way
to her face.
"Eh,--ring,--what ring?" She glanced at her hands, and then at Mary's
face, still turned partially away from her.
"That ruby ring I gave you back, and advised that you throw it into the
fire or into the sea, and with it all thought of the dastardly giver."
Dorothy did not reply, and Mary now looked at her as she said slowly
and distinctly, "If you cannot tell, I can. It is over your heart,
hanging about your neck on a chain."
The girl gave a gasp, and Mary saw her face paling, only to flush
again, while the dark eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, Dot," she cried, astonished and angry, "how can you love such a
man?"
Dorothy threw herself on her knees and hid her face in Mary's lap,
sobbing as if the words had broken a seal set to keep this knowledge
from even her own heart.
"I don't know, Mary, but I do--I do love him, and have, for always.
And now he has gone--gone away, thinking I hate him, and I may never
see him again."
Mary put her arms around the little form, and used all her efforts to
soothe the passionate outburst. She could not but feel that she had
been wise in thus forcing Dorothy to open her heart, for not only did
she know the girl would feel better for having spoken, but she herself
had a new and most important fact to guide her own future action.
CHAPTER XXVI
Mary felt that she must lose no time in making her husband as wise as
herself with respect to Dorothy's real sentiments, and in having him
understand that he could not bring any harm to the young Britisher
without making his sister all the more unhappy.
She wondered what Jack would say--as to the effect it would have upon
his temper and actions. But she was determined upon this,--that if he
showed resentment or anger, she would assert herself in Dorothy's
defence, feeling as she did that it was too late to do other than
submit to what fate had brought about, and all the more especially,
since Dorothy had confessed to loving this man.
"I could almost wish he had been killed outright the morning I made him
tumble over the rocks," she said to herself, "or that he had fallen
into the sea, never to be seen again." Then, realizing that this was
little short of murder, she shrank from such musings, shocked to find
herself so wicked.
There came still another burden of sorrow when she imparted the whole
truth to her husband.
He listened with a brooding face, only the unusual glitter in his eyes
showing how it stirred him. Then, after a long silence, while he
appeared to be turning the matter in his mind, he exclaimed, not
angrily, but with nothing showing in his voice save bitter
self-reproach: "Blind fool that I've been, seeking to keep my little
sister a child in thought. And right here, under my very eyes, has she
become a woman, both in love and suffering!"
He sprang to his feet and began to pace back and forth, his wife
watching him with troubled eyes. Presently he came and looked down
into her face.
His own was pale, but it had a set, determined expression, as though
the struggle were over, and he had turned his back upon all the hopes
he had builded for his beloved sister,--upon what might have been, but
now never to be.
"Sweetheart," he said, "there is one other we are bound in honor to
take into our confidence, to tell all we know of this sad matter, and
that is Hugh Knollys. He is not like to return here this many a day;
still it is possible he may, or that I may be sent to the neighborhood
of Boston before the summer comes. But whichever way I see him, I
shall have to tell him the truth. Poor old Hugh!"
"Why, John!" But Mary's eyes filled with a look bespeaking full
knowledge of what he was to say, although she had never suspected it
until now.
He told her of all that passed between Hugh and himself that night, so
many months ago. And when he finished, she could only sigh, and repeat
his own words, "Poor Hugh!"
"Aye, poor Hugh, indeed, for I know the boy's heart well. It will be a
dreadful thing for him to face, and with his hands tied, as are my own,
against doing aught to the Britisher because his welfare matters so
much to Dot."
Then he added almost impatiently: "I wish the child would let me talk
with her. She must, before I go away, else I'll speak without her
consent. So long as we are situated as now, it may do no harm to let
the matter drift along; but if I have to leave home--"
"Oh, Jack, don't speak of such a thing," Mary interrupted. And rising
quickly, she laid her hand on his shoulder as though to hold him fast.
"Why not, sweetheart?" he said, compelled to smile at her anxiety. "We
know what we have to face in these distracting times; we knew it when
we married. Matters grow worse with every week, each day almost. But
we must be brave, my darling, and you will best hold me to my duty by
keeping a stout heart, no matter whether I go or stay. And go I am
pretty sure to, the same as every other man in the town, for we may
look, any day, for a battle somewhere about Boston."
Mary clung to him shudderingly, but was silent.
Hugh Knollys had been all this time at Cambridge, where troops were
mustering from every part of the land; and many men from Marblehead
were there or in the neighborhood.
They had heard from him but once, and then through Johnnie Strings,
who, after this last trip--now over a month since--had returned to
Cambridge with a very indefinite notion as to when he would come back
to the old town.
The pedler also reported having seen Aunt Penine, who was quartered
near Boston, at the house of some royalist relatives of her brother's
wife,--he himself having left his home in Lynn and taken up arms for
the King.
Mistress Knollys was also away, for she had closed her homestead and
gone to stop with an only sister living at Dorchester,--doing this for
safety, and before the soldiers left the Neck.
A decided feeling of impending war was now sharpened and well defined,
and all were waiting for the actual clash of arms.
Late in February, His Majesty's ship "Lively," mounting twenty guns,
arrived in the harbor and came to anchor off the fort; and her officers
proceeded to make themselves fully as obnoxious as had the hated
soldiers.
They diligently searched all incoming vessels that could by any pretext
be suspected; and where they found anything in the nature of military
stores, these were confiscated.
One vessel, carrying a chest of arms destined for the town, was,
although anchored close to the "Lively," boarded one night by a party
of intrepid young men under the lead of one Samuel R. Trevett, who
succeeded in removing the arms, which they concealed on shore.
Later on in the month a body of troops landed one Sunday morning on
Homans' Beach; and after loading their guns, the soldiers took up their
march through the town.
The alarm drums were beaten at the door of every church to warn the
worshippers, and it was not long before the hitherto quiet streets were
thronged with an excited crowd of indignant citizens, gathered in
active defence of their rights.
They suspected the object of the enemy to be the seizure of several
pieces of artillery secreted at Salem. But in this--or whatever was
their purpose--they were baffled, meeting with such determined
opposition as to be forced to march back to the shore and re-embark,
with no more disastrous result to either side than the usual number of
bloody faces and bruised fists, such as had distinguished the sojourn
of the regulars upon the Neck.
Aside from these two events, the days in the old town passed much as
before, despite the ever-increasing certainty of war,--this leading the
townsfolk to go armed night and day, and to keep close watch from the
outlooks for any sudden descent the enemy might seek to make.
The last vestige of snow was gone from the shaded nooks amid the trees
on the hills,--the land, swept dry and clear of all signs of winter,
was waiting for the sun to warm the brown earth into life; and in the
hollows of the woods, the tender shoots of the first wild flowers were
already showing, where the winds had brushed away the fallen leaves of
the year before.
It was the twenty-first of April, and the expected battle had come at