A Song of a Single Note Part 6

"She is weel enough--in her way. There are plenty o' girls not as pleasant; but she is neither Venus, nor Helen o' Troy. I was speaking o'

Captain Macpherson; when he stood in the garden with your uncle Neil, his hand on his sword and the wind blowing his golden hair----"

"Grandmother! His hair is red."

"It is naething o' the kind, Maria. It is a bonnie golden-brown. It may, perhaps, have a cast o' red, but only enough to give it color. And he has a kindly handsome face, sweet-eyed and fearless."

"I did not notice his eyes. He seems fearless, and he is certainly good-tempered. Have you known him a long time, grandmother?"

"I never saw him before this afternoon," the old lady answered wearily.

She had become suddenly tired. Maria's want of enthusiasm chilled her.

She could not tell whether the girl was sincere or not. Women generally have two estimates of the men they meet; one which they acknowledge, one which they keep to themselves.

When the gentlemen returned to the sitting-room a young negro was lighting the fire, and Macpherson looked at him with attention. "A finely built fellow," he said, when the slave had left the room; "such men ought to make good fighters." Then turning to Madame he added, "Captain de Lancey lost four men, and Mr. Bayard five men last week.

They were sent across the river to cut wood and they managed to reach the rebel camp. We have knowledge that there is a full regiment of them there now."

"They are fighting for their personal freedom," said the Elder, "and who wouldna fight for that? Was.h.i.+ngton has promised it, if they fight to the end o' the war."

"They have a good record already," said Macpherson.

"I have nae doubt o' it," answered the Elder. "Fighting would come easier than wood cutting, no to speak o' the question o' freedom. I heard a sough o' rumor about them and the Hessians; true, or not, I can't say."

"It is true. They beat back the Hessians three times in one engagement."

"I'm glad o' it," said Madame, "slaves are good enough to fight hired human butchers."

"O, you know, Madame, the Hessians are mercenaries; they make arms a profession." He spoke with a languid air of defense; the Hessians were not of high consideration in his opinion, but Madame answered with unusual warmth:

"A profession! Well, it isn't a respectable one in their hands--men selling themselves to fight they care not whom, or for what cause. If a man fights for his country he is her soldier and her protector; if he sells himself to all and sundry, he is worth just what he sells himself for, and the black slave fighting for his freedom is a gentleman beside him." Then, before any one could answer her tart disparagement, she opened a little Indian box, and threw on the table a pack of cards.

"There's some paper kings for you to play wi'," she said, "and neither George nor Louis has a t.i.tle to compare wi' them--kings and knaves!

Ancient tyrants, and like ithers o' their kind, they would trick the warld awa' at every game but for some brave ace," and the ace of hearts happening to be in her hand she flung it defiantly down on the top of the pack; and that with an air of confidence and triumph that was very remarkable.

With the help of these royalties and some desultory conversation on the recent alliance of France with the rebels, the evening pa.s.sed away.

Madame sat quiet in the glow of the fire, and Maria, as Neil's partner, enlivened the game with many bewitching airs and graces she had not known she possessed, until this opportunity called them forth. And whatever Macpherson gained at cards he lost in another direction; for the little schoolgirl, he had at first believed himself to be patronizing, reversed the situation. He became embarra.s.sed by a realization of her beauty and cleverness; and the sweet old story began to tell itself in his heart--the story that comes no one knows whence, and commences no one knows how. In that hour of winning and losing he first understood how charming Maria Semple was.

The new feeling troubled him; he wished to be alone with it, and the ardent pleasure of his arrival had cooled. The Elder and his wife were tired, and Neil seemed preoccupied and did not exert himself to restore the tone of the earlier hours; so the young officer felt it best to make his adieu. Then, the farewell in a measure renewed the joy of meeting; he was asked to come again, "to come whenever he wanted to come," said Madame, with a smile of motherly kindness. And when Maria, with a downward and upward glance laid her little hand in his, that incident made the moment wonderful, and he felt that not to come again would be a great misfortune.

Maria was going to her room soon afterward but Neil detained her. "Can you sit with me a little while, Maria?" he asked; "or are you also sleepy?"

"I am not the least weary, uncle; and I never was wider awake in my life. I will read to you or copy for you----"

"Come and talk to me. The fire still burns. It is a pity to leave its warmth. Sit down here. I have never had a conversation with you. I do not know my niece yet, and I want to know her."

Maria was much flattered. Neil's voice had a tone in it that she had never before heard. He brought her a shawl to throw around her shoulders, a footstool for her feet, and drawing a small sofa before the fire, seated himself by her side. Then he talked with her about her early life; about her father and mother, and Mrs. Charlton, and without asking one question about Agnes Bradley led her so naturally to the subject, and so completely round and through it, that he had learned in an hour all Maria could tell concerning the girl whose presence and appearance had that day so powerfully attracted him. He was annoyed when he heard her name, and annoyed at her p.r.o.nounced Methodism, which was evidently of that early type, holding it a sin not to glory in the scorn of those who derided it. Yet he could not help being touched by Maria's enthusiastic description of the girl's sweet G.o.dliness.

"You know, uncle," she said, "Agnes's religion is not put on; it is part of Agnes; it is Agnes. Girls find one another out, but all the girls loved Agnes. We were ashamed to be ill-natured, or tell untruths, or do mean things when she was there. And if you heard her sing, uncle, you would feel as if the heavens had opened, and you could see angels."

Now there is no man living who does not at some time dream of a good woman--a woman much better than himself--upon his hearthstone. Neil felt in that hour this divine longing; and he knew also, that the thing had befallen him which he had vowed never would befall him again. Without resistance, without the desire to resist, he had let the vision of Agnes Bradley fill his imagination; he had welcomed it, and he knew that it would subjugate his heart--that it had already virtually done so. For Maria's descriptions of the pretty trivialities of their school life was music and wine to his soul. He was captivated by her innocent revelations, and the tall girl with her saintly pallor and star-like eyes was invisibly present to him. He had the visionary sense, the glory and the dream of love, and he longed to realize this vision. Therefore he was delighted when he heard that Maria had permission to continue her studies under the direction of her friend. It was an open door to him.

It was at this point that Maria made her final admission: "I am obliged to tell you, uncle, that I am sure Agnes is a Whig." This damaging item in her idol's character Maria brought out with deprecating apologies and likelihood of change, "not a bad Whig, uncle; she is so gentle, and she hates war, and so she feels so sorry for the poor Americans who are suffering so much, because, you know, they think they are right. Then her father is a Tory, and she is very fond of her father, and very proud of him, and she will now be under his influence, and of course do what he tells her--only--only----"

"Only what, Maria? You think there is a difficulty; what is it?"

"Her lover. I am almost certain he is a rebel."

"Has she a lover? She is very young--you must be mistaken?" He spoke so sharply Maria hardly knew his voice, and she considered it best to hesitate a little, so she answered in a dubious manner:

"I suppose he is her lover. The girls all thought so. He sent her letters, and he sometimes came to see her; and then she seemed so happy."

"A young man?"

"Yes, a very young man."

"A soldier?"

"I think, more likely, he was a sailor. I never asked Agnes. You could not ask Agnes things, as you did other girls."

"I understand that."

"He wore plain clothes, but all of us were sure he was a sailor; and once we saw Agnes watching some s.h.i.+ps as far as she could see them, and he had called on her that day."

Neil did not answer her conjecture. He rose and stood silently on the hearth, his dark eyes directed outward, as if he was calling up the vision of the sea, and the s.h.i.+ps and the girl watching them. For the first time Maria realized the personal attractiveness of her uncle. "He is not old," she thought, "and he is handsomer than any one I ever saw.

Why has he not got married before this?" And as she speculated on this question, Neil let his eyes fall upon the dead fire and in a melancholy voice said:

"Maria, my dear, it is very late, I did not remember--you have given me two pleasant hours. Good-night, child."

He spoke with restraint, coldly and wearily. He was not aware of it, for his mind was full of thoughts well-nigh unspeakable, and Maria felt their influence, though they had not been named. She went away depressed and silent, like one who has suddenly discovered they were no longer desired.

Neil speedily put out the lights, and went to the solitude his heart craved. He was not happy; but doubt and fear are love's first food. For another hour he sat motionless, wondering how this woman, whom he had not in any way summoned, had taken such possession of him. For not yet had it been revealed to him, that "love is always a great invisible presence," and that in his case, Agnes Bradley was but its material revelation.

CHAPTER III.

LIFE IN THE CAPTIVE CITY.

At this time in New York, John Bradley was a man of considerable importance. He was not only a native of the city, but many generations of Bradleys had been born, and lived, and died in the wide, low house close to the river bank, not far north of old Trinity. They were originally a Yorks.h.i.+re family who had followed the great Oliver Cromwell from Marston Moor to Worcester, and who, having helped to build the Commonwealth of England, refused to accept the return of royalty. Even before Charles the Second a.s.sumed the crown, Ezra Bradley and his six sons had landed in New York. They were not rich, but they had gold sufficient to build a home, and to open near the fort a shop for the making and repairing of saddlery.

Ever since that time this trade had been the distinctive occupation of the family, and the John Bradley who represented it in the year 1779, had both an inherited and a trained capability in the craft. No one in all America could make a saddle comparable with Bradley's; the trees were of his own designing, and the leather work unequalled in strength and beauty. In addition to this important faculty, he was a veterinary surgeon of great skill, and possessed some occult way of managing ungovernable horses, which commended itself peculiarly to officers whose mounts were to be renewed frequently from any available source. And never had his business been so lucrative as at the present date, for New York was full of mounted military during the whole period of the war, and enormous prices were willingly paid for the fine saddlery turned out of the workshop of John Bradley.

Contrary to all the traditions of his family, he had positively taken the part of the King, and at the very commencement of the national quarrel had shown the red ribbon of loyalty to England. His wife dying at this time, he sent his daughter to a famous boarding-school in Boston, and his son to the great dissenting academy in Gloucester, England; then he closed his house and lived solitarily in very humble fas.h.i.+on above his workroom and shop. In this way, he believed himself to have provided for the absolute safety of his two children; the boy was out of the war circle; the thundering drum and screaming fife could not reach him in the cloistered rooms of the Doddridge School; and as for Agnes, Mrs. Charlton's house was as secure as a convent; he had no fear that either English or American soldiers would molest a dwelling full of schoolgirls. And John Bradley could keep the door of his mouth; and he believed that a man who could do that might pursue a trade so necessary as his, with an almost certain degree of safety.

In appearance he was a short, powerful-looking man with tranquil, meditating eyes and a great talent for silence; an armed soul dwelling in a strong body. Some minds reflect, s.h.i.+ft, argue, and are like the surface of a lake; but John Bradley's mind was like stubborn clay; when once impressed it was sure to harden and preserve the imprint through his life, and perhaps the other one. His Methodism was of this character, and he never s.h.i.+rked conversation on this subject; he was as ready to tell his experience to General Howe or General Clinton as to the members of his own cla.s.s meeting; for his heart was saturated with the energy of his faith; he had the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

On politics he would not talk; he said, "public affairs were in wiser hands than his, and that to serve G.o.d and be diligent in business, was the length and breadth of his commission." His shop was a place where many men and many minds met, and angry words were frequently thrown backward and forward there; yet his needle never paused an instant for them. Only once had he been known to interfere; it was on a day when one of De Lancey's troop drew his sword against a boyish English ensign almost at his side. He stopped them with his thread half drawn out, and said sternly:

"If you two fools are in a hurry for death, and the judgment after death, there are more likely places to kill each other than my shop,"