Janice Meredith Part 97

"'T was Matilda's--'t was my wife's dying prayer that we should bring her back here, and lay her beside her four babies, and to let her die happy I gave her my word it should be done. Ye'll not refuse me leave, I'm sure, man, to bury her in the private plot at Greenwood."

"Yer need n't expect ter fool me by no sich a story. I ain't goin' ter let yer weaken my t.i.tle by no sich a trick!"

"For shame!" cried Joseph, and a number of others echoed his words.

"Yelp away," snarled Hennion, rising; "If't 't wuz yer bull ez wuz ter be gored yer 'd whine t' other side of yer teeth." With which remark he shuffled away.

Not stopping to listen to the expressions of sympathy and disgust that the idlers began upon, Mr. Meredith entered the public of the tavern.

"Here yer be, squire, jus' mixed from my very bestest liquor, an' it'll set yer right up," declared the landlord, offering him a pewter pot.

The squire made a motion of dissent, but seeing the publican's look of disappointment, he took the cup and drained it.

"Ye've not lost your skill, Simon," he remarked kindly, as he returned it. "Canst tell me if 't is possible for me to get a letter into New York quickly?"

"'T aint ez easy ez it wuz afore the soldiers come here fer they pervent the secret trade, but if yer apply tew Gin'ral Brereton, ez lodges with the paason, I calkerlate he kin send it in with a flag if he hez a mind tew"

Mr. Meredith shook his head in discouragement. "It seems as if all I ask must be begged of enemies. However, 't is small grief, after what has pa.s.sed. Wilt give me pen and ink, man?"

While he was writing, Bagby came into the public, and interrupted him.

"I did n't offer to shake hands, squire," he said, "seeing as you were in trouble, and took up with other things, but I'm glad to see you and Miss Janice back, and there 's my hand to prove it."

Mr. Meredith laid down his pen, and took the proffered handshake. "Thank ye, Mr. Bagby," he said, meekly.

"I would n't stop what you're at now," went on Joseph, sitting down at the table, "if I had n't something in my mind as I think 'll interest you big, and may make some things easier that you want."

"What's that?"

"If I put you on to this, I guess you'll be so grateful that I don't need to make no terms beforehand. You 'd give me about what I asked, would n't you, if I can get you Greenwood back again?"

"How could ye e'er do that?"

"It 's this way. That general act was n't drawn very careful, and when old Hennion bid the place in, I looked it over sharp, and I concluded there was a fighting chance to break the sale. You see, the act declares certain persons traitors, and that their property is forfeited to the state. Now what we must do is to make out that Greenwood was Mrs. Meredith's and that as she was n't named in the act, of course the sale was n't valid and is void."

The squire wagged his head despondingly. "By the colony law it became mine the moment she inherited it."

"You see if I can't make a case of it," urged Bagby. "I've come out a great hand at tieing the facts up in such a snarl as no judge or jury can get them straight again, and this time the jury will be with us before we begin. You see old Hennion's been putting the screws on his tenants tight as he can twist them, and glad enough they 'd be if they could only have you again, 'stead of him. The whole country's so down on him that I've been planning to prevent his being re-elected to a.s.sembly this spring. Now, you know, as well as I, what I would like, and I guess you won't be so set against it now, for I've got nigh to twenty thousand pounds specie, laid out in all sorts of ventures, so even if we don't get Greenwood, I'll be all the better match, but we won't say nothing about all that till we've seen what comes."

"Nay, Mr. Bagby, I'll not gain your aid by a deceitful silence. I owe ye an apology for the way I treated your overture before, but I must tell you that both my own, and my girl's word is given to Major Hennion, and so--"

"But he's been attainted, an' 'll never be able to come back here.

"Aye, and we too expect to accept exile with him. When we left Williamsburg, we planned once we had buried our dead, to go to New York, where the two will marry, and then I shall follow them to wherever his regiment is ordered."

"But you don't need to go, now that General Brereton 's persuaded the governor to pardon you," protested Joseph, "and you--"

"Was it Brereton did that?" demanded Mr. Meredith.

"Between you and me, squire, I'd been at Livingston ever since you was sent away, and had about won him over, when Brereton got back from Virginia and went to see him."

"I'm glad to hear he's willing to do me a kindness, for not once at Yorktown did he come nigh us, and so I feared me he would refuse a favour I must shortly ask of him."

"What 's that?"

"I'm writing to Phil Hennion, begging him to intercede with his father and get me permission to bury my wife at Greenwood."

"You would n't need to do no asking if you 'd only let me get the property back."

"You 're right, man, and if it does nothing more, we'll perhaps frighten him into yielding us that much."

"'T will take time, you understand, squire, and it can't be done if you go to York or out of the country."

"We'll stay here as long as there 's nothing better to do."

"That's the talk. And don't you wherrit about your lodgings, if you 're short of cash. I'll fix it with Si, and chance my getting paid somehow. I'll see him right off, and fix it so you and Miss Janice has the best there is." He started to go; then asked, "I hope--there is n't any danger--I suppose--she'll keep, eh, squire?"

The husband winced. "Yes," he replied huskily. "The Marquis de Lafayette, quite unasked, ordered the commissaries to give us all we needed of a pipe of rum."

"That was mighty generous," said Bagby, "for I suppose he had to pay for it. Even a major-general, I take it, can't draw no such a quant.i.ty gratis."

"I writ him, asking that I might know the cost, but he answered that 't was nothing. 'T is impossible to say what we owe to him. 'T was he, so Doctor Craik told me, who asked him to bring Mrs. Meredith off the pest-s.h.i.+p, and 't was he who furnished us with the army-van in which we've journeyed from Virginia. Had we been kinsmen, he could not have been kinder."

"Now that only shows how a man tries to take credit for what he has n't had a finger in. Brereton, who, since he was made a general and got so thick with the governor, has put on airs enough to kill a cat, told your Sukey, as now is cook here, that 't was he went aboard the pest-s.h.i.+p with the doctor, and brought her off."

"'T is the first I've heard of it," averred Mr. Meredith, incredulously yet thoughtfully.

"I tell you that Brereton is a sly, sneaky fellow, as needs watching in more than one matter. Nigh ten months ago I showed him how he could nab old Hennion, so that like as not he'd have gone to the gallows, but he did n't stir a finger, durn him! Oh, here 's Si, now. Say, I want you to treat Mr. Meredith and Miss Janice real handsome, and don't trouble them with no bills, but leave me to square it," he said to the landlord, who had come bustling in.

"Lor, Joe, yer duz n't think I wuz goin' tew make no charge fer this? Why, the squire lent me the money ez started me, an' I calkerlate he kin stay on here jus' about ez long ez he elects tew." Then the publican laughed. "Like ez not there won't be no supper tew-night, squire. That 'ere Sukey hez got yer gal tucked in my best tester bed, an' is croonin' her tew sleep jes' like she wuz a baby ag'in. She most bit my head off when I went in tew tell her supper-time wuz comin'. 'Stonis.h.i.+n' haow like white folks n.i.g.g.e.rs kin feel sometimes, ain't it?"

"I bought her when our first baby was coming, and she saw four born and buried, and nigh broke her heart over each one in turn," said the squire, huskily; "so when Janice came, 't was as if she was her own child." He rose, his letter completed, and with a word to explain his movements, walked across the green to the parsonage, where his knock brought Peg to the door, and resulted in a series of wild greetings and exclamations. At last, however, the old-time master was permitted to make known the object of his call, and was ushered into a room where Brereton was sitting writing.

"Mr. Meredith!" exclaimed Jack, starting to his feet.

"How are you all--that--how is Miss Meredith?"

"She's stood the grief and--I know not if ye have heard of Mrs. Meredith's death?"

"Yes; a friend in Virginia wrote me."

"She's borne up under that and under the hard journey wonderfully, and has been braver and more cheerful, I fear, than I myself. I've come to ye, General Brereton, to ask if ye could send a letter for me, under flag, to New York?"

"Certainly, if 't is of a character that makes it allowable."

"I've not sealed it, that you might read it," answered the squire, holding out his letter.

Brereton read it slowly, as if he was thinking between the words. "It shall be sent in at once," he promised, his lips set as if to conceal some emotion. Then he asked, "You write to Colonel Hennion as if--are he and--you intend to give Miss Meredith to him?"

"Yes."