Chapter 17
"Holy powers!" said Father Tierney, "did ye not know that I live here by myself? Father Lavalle is at the other end of town, and Father O'Hara lives by the Noviciate. Sure, and any one could have told you--"
"Father Lavalle and Father O'Hara," said the aide, "are nothing to the question. You have a guest with you--"
Father Tierney looked enlightened. "Oh! Av coorse! There's always business on hand between soldiers. Was it Lieutenant McNeill you'll be looking after?"
Marchmont nodded. "There are some instructions that General Banks neglected to give him. It is late, but the general wishes to get it all straight before he sleeps. I am sorry to disturb Lieutenant McNeill, for he must be fatigued. But orders are orders, you know--"
"Av coorse, av coorse!" agreed Father Tierney. "'A man having authority,' 'I say unto this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh--'"
"So, father, if you'll be good enough to explain to Lieutenant McNeill--or if you'll tell me which is his room--"
The light of the candle showed a faint trouble in Father Tierney's face.
"Sure, it's too bad! Do you think, my son, the matter is of importance?
'T would be after being just a little left-over of directions?"
"Perhaps," said Marchmont. "But orders are orders, father, and I must awaken Lieutenant McNeill. Indeed, it's hard to think that he's asleep--"
"He isn't aslape."
"Then will you be so good as to tell him--"
"Indeed, and I wish I could do that same thing, my son, but it isn't in nature--"
General Banks's aide made a gesture of impatience. "I can't dawdle here any longer! Either you or I, father." He pushed into the hall. "Where is his room?"
"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Father Tierney. "It's vexed he'll be when he learns that the general wasn't done with him! There's the room, captain darlint, but--"
Marchmont's eyes followed the pointing of the candlestick. "There!" he exclaimed. The door was immediately upon the left, not five feet from the portal he had lately belaboured. "Then 't was against his window that I flung the gravel!"
With an oath he crossed the hall and struck his hand against the panel indicated. No answer. He knocked again with peremptoriness, then tried the door. It was unlocked, and opened quietly to his touch. All beyond was silent and dark. "Father Tierney, I'll thank you for that candle!"
The priest gave it, and the aide held it up, displaying a chill and vacant chamber, furnished with monastic spareness. There was a narrow couch that had been slept in. Marchmont crossed the bare floor, bent, and felt the bedclothing. "Quite cold. You've been gone some time, my friend. H--m! things look rather black for you!"
Father Tierney spoke from the middle of the room. "It's sorry the lieutenant will be! Sure, and he thought he had the general's last word!
'Slape until you wake, my son,' says I. 'Judy will give us breakfast at eight.' 'No, no, father,' says he. 'General Kelly is wearying for this letter from General Banks. If I get it through prompt it will be remembered for me,' he says. "T will be a point toward promotion,' he says. 'My horse has had a couple of hours' rest, and he's a Trojan beside,' he says. 'I'll sleep an hour myself, and then I'll be taking the road back to Romney. Ashby's over on the other side,' he says, 'and the sooner I get Ashby off my mind, the better pleased I'll be,' he says. And thereupon he slept for an hour--"
Marchmont still regarded the bed. "I'll be d.a.m.ned if I know, my friend, whether you're blue or grey! How long has he been gone?"
Father Tierney pondered the question. "By the seven holy candles, my son, I was that deep asleep when you knocked that I don't rightly know the time of night! Maybe he has been gone an hour, maybe more--"
"And how did he know the countersign?"
"Faith, and I understood that the general himself gave him the word--"
"H--m!" said Marchmont, and tugged at his moustache. He stood in silence for a moment, then turned sharply. "Blue or grey, which? I'll be d.a.m.ned if I don't find out!
"Yes, sir."
"You two go at once to headquarters' stables. Saddle my horse--not the black I rode yesterday--the fresh one, Caliph. Get your own horses.
Double-quick now! Ten minutes is all I give you."
The men departed. Marchmont stalked out of the chamber and to the open front door. Father Tierney, repossessed of the candle, followed him.
"Sure, and the night's amazing chill! By good luck, I've a fine old bottle or two--one of the brigadiers, that's a good son of the church, having sent me a present. Whist, captain! a little gla.s.s to cheer the heart av ye--"
"I'll not stop now, father," said the aide dryly. "Perhaps, upon my return to Frederick I may call upon you."
"Do so, do so, my son," said Father Tierney. "And ye're going to overtake the lieutenant with the general's last words?--Faith, and while I think of it--he let drop that he'd be after not going by the pike. The old road by the forge, that goes south, and then turns. It's a dirt road, and easier on his horse, the poor crathur--"
"Thanks. I'll try the pike," said Marchmont, from the doorstep. "Bah!
it's turning cold! Had you noticed, father, what exceedingly thin ice you have around this house?"
"By all the powers, my son!" answered Father Tierney. "The moonlight's desaving you! That isn't water--that's firm ground. Look out for the flagstaff at the gate, and presint my respects to the general. Sure, 't was a fine donation for the orphans he donated!"
It was two o'clock of a moonlight night when Captain Marchmont and his troopers took the road to Williamsport. They pa.s.sed through the silent camp, gave the word to the last sentry, and emerged upon the quiet countryside. "Was a courier before them?" "Yes, sir--a man on a great bay horse. Said he had important dispatches."
The moon-flooded road, hard beneath the hoofs of the horses, stretched south and west, unmarked by any moving creature. Marchmont rode in advance. His horse was strong and fresh; clear of the pickets, he put him to the gallop. An hour went by. Nothing but the cold, still moons.h.i.+ne, the sound of hoofs upon the metalled road, and now and then, in some wayside house, the stealthy lifting of a sash, as man or woman looked forth upon the riders. At a tollgate the aide drew rein, leaned from his saddle, and struck against the door with a pistol b.u.t.t. A man opened a window. "Has a courier pa.s.sed, going to Williamsport?"
"Yes, sir. A man on a great bay horse. Three quarters of an hour ago."
"Was he riding fast?"
"Yes. Riding fast."
Marchmont galloped on, his two troopers behind him. Their steeds were good, but not so good as was his. He left them some way behind. The night grew old. The moon, which had risen late, was high in the heavens.
The Englishman traversed a shadowy wood, then went by silvered fields. A cabin door creaked; an old negro put out a cautious head. "Has a courier pa.s.sed, going to Williamsport?"
"Yaas, sah. Er big man on er big bay. 'Bout half er hour ergo, sah."
Marchmont galloped on. He looked back over his shoulder--his men were a mile in the rear. "And when I come up with you, my friend, what then? On the whole I don't think I'll ask you to turn with me. We'll go on to Williamsport, and there we'll hold the court of inquiry."
He touched his horse with the spur. The miles of road ran past, the air, eager and cold, pressed sharply; there came a feeling of the morning. He was now upon a level stretch of road, before him, a mile away, a long, bare hill. He crossed a bridge, hollowly sounding through the night, and neared the hill. His vision was a trained one, exercised by war in many lands. There was a dark object on the road before him; it grew in size, but it grew very slowly; it, too, was moving. "You've a tired horse, though, lieutenant!" said the aide. "Strain as you may, I'll catch you up!" His own horse devoured the ground, steadily galloping by the frosty fields, through the air of earliest dawn. Suddenly, before him, the courier from Kelly halted. Mounted against a faint light in the southwestern sky, he stood upon the hilltop and waited for the horseman from Frederick. The latter took at a gallop the remainder of the level road, but at the foot of the hill changed to a trot. Above him, the waiting horseman grew life-size. He waited, very quietly, Marchmont observed, sitting, turned in his saddle, against the sky of dawn.
"d.a.m.ned if I know if you're truly blue or grey!" thought the aide. "Did you stop to disarm suspicion, because you saw you'd be overtaken--"
Another minute and the two were in speaking distance; another, and they were together on the hilltop. "Good-morning!" said McNeill. "What haste to Williamsport?" He bent forward in the light that was just strong enough to see by. "Why--It is yesterday's comrade! Good-morning, Captain Marchmont!"
"We must have started," said Marchmont, "somewhere near the same hour. I have a communication from General Banks for the commander at Williamsport."
If the other raised his brows over the aide's acting courier twice in twenty-four hours, the action did not appear in the yet uncertain light.
Apparently McNeill took the statement easily, upon its face value. "In that case," he said with amicableness, "I shall have the pleasure of your company a little longer. We must be about six miles out, I should think."
"About that distance," agreed the other. "And as at this unearthly hour I certainly cannot see the colonel, and as your horse is evidently spent, why go the rest of the way at a gallop?"
"It was my idea," said McNeill, "to pa.s.s the river early. If I can gain the big woods before the day is old, so much the better. Dandy is tired, it is true, but he has a certain staying quality. However, we will go more slowly now."
They put themselves in motion. "Two men are behind us," remarked the man from Romney.
"Yes. There they come through the fields. Two troopers who are riding with me--Regulars. They'll accommodate their pace to ours."
"Very good," said the other with serenity, and the two rode on, Marchmont's men a little way behind. By now the stars had faded, the moon looked wan, there was a faint rose in the east. Far in a vale to the left a c.o.c.k crew, and was answered from across a stream. To the south, visible between and above the fringing trees, a ribbon of mist proclaimed the river. The two men rode, not in silence, but still not with yesterday's freedom of speech. There was, however, no quietude that the chill ebb of the hour and the weariness of overwork might not account for. They spoke of this and that briefly, but amicably. "Will you report at headquarters?" asked Marchmont, "before attempting the Virginia sh.o.r.e?"