The Crossing Part 10

"Keep off, Harry," said Nicholas. "I am teaching this n.i.g.g.e.r that he is not to lay hands on his betters." With that he gave the boy one more cut, and turned from him contemptuously.

"What is it, Harry?" came in a shrill voice from within the coach.

"It's Nick's pranks," said Mr. Riddle, grinning in spite of his anger; "he's ruined one of your footmen. You little scoundrel," cried Mr.

Riddle, advancing again, "you've frightened your mother nearly to a swoon."

"Serves her right," said Nick.

"What!" cried Mr. Riddle. "Come down from there instantly."

Nick raised his whip. It was not that that stopped Mr. Riddle, but a sign about the lad's nostrils.

"Harry Riddle," said the boy, "if it weren't for you, I'd be riding in this coach to-day with my mother. I don't want to ride with her, but I will go to the races. If you try to take me down, I'll do my best to kill you," and he lifted the loaded end of the whip.

Mrs. Temple's beautiful face had by this time been thrust out of the door.

"For the love of heaven, Harry, let him come in with us. We're late enough as it is."

Mr. Riddle turned on his heel. He tried to glare at Nick, but he broke into a laugh instead.

"Come down, Satan," says he. "G.o.d help the woman you love and the man you fight."

And so Nicholas jumped down, and into the coach. The footman picked himself up, more scared than injured, and the vehicle took its lumbering way for the race-course, I following.

I have seen many courses since, but none to equal that in the gorgeous dress of those who watched. There had been many, many more in former years, so I heard people say. This was the only sign that a war was in progress,--the scanty number of gentry present,--for all save the indifferent were gone to Charlestown or elsewhere. I recall it dimly, as a blaze of color pa.s.sing: merrymaking, jesting, feasting,--a rare contrast, I thought, to the sight I had beheld in Charlestown Bay but a while before. Yet so runs the world,--strife at one man's home, and peace and contentment at his neighbor's; sorrow here, and rejoicing not a league away.

Master Nicholas played one prank that evening that was near to costing dear. My lady Temple made up a party for Temple Bow at the course, two other coaches to come and some gentlemen riding. As Nick and I were running through the paddock we came suddenly upon Mr. Harry Riddle and a stout, swarthy gentleman standing together. The stout gentleman was counting out big gold pieces in his hand and giving them to Mr. Riddle.

"Lucky dog!" said the stout gentleman; "you'll ride back with her, and you've won all I've got." And he dug Mr. Riddle in the ribs.

"You'll have it again when we play to-night, Darnley," answered Mr.

Riddle, crossly. "And as for the seat in the coach, you are welcome to it. That firebrand of a lad is on the front seat."

"D--n the lad," said the stout gentleman. "I'll take it, and you can ride my horse. He'll--he'll carry you, I reckon." His voice had a way of cracking into a mellow laugh.

At that Mr. Riddle went off in a towering bad humor, and afterwards I heard him cursing the stout gentleman's black groom as he mounted his great horse. And then he cursed the horse as it reared and plunged, while the stout gentleman stood at the coach door, cackling at his discomfiture. The gentleman did ride home with Mrs. Temple, Nick going into another coach. I afterwards discovered that the gentleman had bribed him with a guinea. And Mr. Riddle more than once came near running down my pony on his big charger, and he swore at me roundly, too.

That night there was a gay supper party in the big dining room at Temple Bow. Nick and I looked on from the gallery window. It was a pretty sight. The long mahogany board reflecting the yellow flames of the candles, and spread with bright silver and s.h.i.+ning dishes loaded with dainties, the gentlemen and ladies in brilliant dress, the hurrying servants,--all were of a new and strange world to me. And presently, after the ladies were gone, the gentlemen tossed off their wine and roared over their jokes, and followed into the drawing-room. This I noticed, that only Mr. Harry Riddle sat silent and morose, and that he had drunk more than the others.

"Come, Davy," said Nick to me, "let's go and watch them again."

"But how?" I asked, for the drawing-room windows were up some distance from the ground, and there was no gallery on that side.

"I'll show you," said he, running into the garden. After searching awhile in the dark, he found a ladder the gardener had left against a tree; after much straining, we carried the ladder to the house and set it up under one of the windows of the drawing-room. Then we both clambered cautiously to the top and looked in.

The company were at cards, silent, save for a low remark now and again.

The little tables were ranged along by the windows, and it chanced that Mr. Harry Riddle sat so close to us that we could touch him. On his right sat Mr. Darnley, the stout gentleman, and in the other seats two ladies. Between Mr. Riddle and Mr. Darnley was a pile of silver and gold pieces. There was not room for two of us in comfort at the top of the ladder, so I gave place to Nick, and sat on a lower rung. Presently I saw him raise himself, reach in, and duck quickly.

"Feel that," he whispered to me, chuckling and holding out his hand.

It was full of money.

"But that's stealing, Nick," I said, frightened.

"Of course I'll give it back," he whispered indignantly.

Instantly there came loud words and the sc.r.a.ping of chairs within the room, and a woman's scream. I heard Mr. Riddle's voice say thickly, amid the silence that followed:--

"Mr. Darnley, you're a d--d thief, sir."

"You shall answer for this, when you are sober, sir," said Mr. Darnley.

Then there came more sc.r.a.ping of chairs, all the company talking excitedly at once. Nick and I scrambled to the ground, and we did the very worst thing we could possibly have done,--we took the ladder away.

There was little sleep for me that night. I had first of all besought Nick to go up into the drawing-room and give the money back. But some strange obstinacy in him resisted.

"'Twill serve Harry well for what he did to-day," said he.

My next thought was to find Mr. Mason, but he was gone up the river to visit a sick paris.h.i.+oner. I had seen enough of the world to know that gentlemen fought for less than what had occurred in the drawing-room that evening. And though I had neither love nor admiration for Mr.

Riddle, and though the stout gentleman was no friend of mine, I cared not to see either of them killed for a prank. But Nick would not listen to me, and went to sleep in the midst of my urgings.

"Davy," said he, pinching me, "do you know what you are?"

"No," said I.

"You're a granny," he said. And that was the last word I could get out of him. But I lay awake a long time, thinking. Breed had whiled away for me one hot morning in Charlestown with an account of the gentry and their doings, many of which he related in an awed whisper that I could not understand. They were wild doings indeed to me. But strangest of all seemed the duels, conducted with a decorum and ceremony as rigorous as the law.

"Did you ever see a duel, Breed?" I had asked.

"Yessah," said Breed, dramatically, rolling the whites of his eyes.

"Where?"

"Whah? Down on de riveh bank at Temple Bow in de ea'ly mo'nin'! Dey mos'

commonly fights at de dawn."

Breed had also told me where he was in hiding at the time, and that was what troubled me. Try as I would, I could not remember. It had sounded like Clam Sh.e.l.l. That I recalled, and how Breed had looked out at the sword-play through the cracks of the closed shutters, agonized between fear of ghosts within and the drama without. At the first faint light that came into our window I awakened Nick.

"Listen," I said; "do you know a place called Clam Sh.e.l.l?"

He turned over, but I punched him persistently until he sat up.

"What the deuce ails you, Davy?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "Have you nightmare?"

"Do you know a place called Clam Sh.e.l.l, down on the river bank, Nick?"

"Why," he replied, "you must be thinking of Cram's h.e.l.l."