“Proud lineage! now how little thou appearest!”
NOTWITHSTANDING THE UNUSUAL alacrity with which Polwarth obeyed the unexpected summons of the capricious being whose favour he had so long courted, with so little apparent success, he lingered in his steps as he approached near enough to the house in Tremont-street, to witness the glancing lights which flitted before the windows. On the threshold he stopped, and listened to the opening and shutting of doors, and all those marked, and yet stifled sounds, which are wont to succeed a visit of the grim monarch to the dwellings of the sick. His rap was unanswered, and he was compelled to order Meriton to show him into the little parlour where he had so often been a guest, under more propitious circumstances. Here he found Agnes, awaiting his appearance with a gravity, if not sadness of demeanour, that instantly put to flight certain complimentary effusions with which the captain had determined to open the interview, in order to follow up, in the true temper of a soldier, the small advantage he conceived he had obtained in the good opinion of his mistress. Altering the exulting expression of his features, with his first glance at the countenance of Miss Danforth, Polwarth paid his compliments in a manner better suited to the state of the family, and desired to know if in any manner he could contribute to their comfort or relief.
“Death has been among us, captain Polwarth,” said Agnes, “and his visit has, indeed, been sudden and unexpected. To add to our embarrassment, Major Lincoln is missing!”
As she concluded, Agnes fastened her eyes on the face of the other, as if she would require an explanation of the unaccountable absence of the bridegroom.
“Lionel Lincoln is not a man to fly, because death approaches,” returned the captain, musing; “and less should I suspect him of deserting, in her distress, one like the lovely creature he has married. Perhaps he has gone in quest of medical aid?”
“It cannot be. I have gathered from the broken sentences of Cecil, that he, and some third person, to me unknown, were last with my aunt, and must have been present at her death; for the face was covered. I found the bride in the room which Lionel has lately occupied—the doors open, and with indications that he and his unknown companion had left the house by the private stairs, which communicate with the western door. As my cousin speaks but little, all other clue to the movements of her husband is lost, unless this ornament, which I found glittering among the embers of the fire, may serve for such a purpose. It is, I believe, a soldier’s gorget?”
“It is, indeed; and it would seem the wearer has been in some jeopardy, by this bullet-hole through its centre. By heavens! ’tis that of M’Fuse!—Here is the 18th engraved; and I know these little marks which the poor fellow was accustomed to make on it at every battle; for he never failed to wear the bauble. The last was the saddest record of them all!”
“In what manner, then, could it be conveyed into the apartment of Major Lincoln? Is it possible that”—
“In what manner, truly!” interrupted Polwarth, rising in agitation, and beginning to pace the room, in the best manner his mutilated condition would allow—“Poor Dennis! that I should find such a relic of thy end, at last! You did not know Dennis, I believe. He was a man, fair Agnes, every way adapted by nature for a soldier. His was the form of Hercules! The heart of a lion, and the digestion of an ostrich! But he could not master this cruel lead! He is dead, poor fellow, he is dead!”
“Still you find no clue in the gorget by which to trace the living?” demanded Agnes.
“Ha!” exclaimed Polwarth, starting—“I think I begin to see into the mystery! The fellow who could slay the man with whom he had eaten and drunk, might easily rob the dead! You found the gorget near the fire of Major Lincoln’s room, say you fair Agnes?”
“In the embers, as if cast there for concealment, or dropped in some sudden strait.”
“I have it—I have it,” returned Polwarth, striking his hands together, and speaking through his teeth—“’twas that dog who murdered him, and justice shall now take its swing—fool or no fool, he shall be hung up like jerked beef, to dry in the winds of heaven!”
“Of whom speak you, Polwarth, with that threatening air?” inquired Agnes, in a soothing voice, of which, like the rest of her sex, she well knew not only the power, but when to exercise it.
“Of a canting, hypocritical, miscreant, called Job Pray—a fellow with no more conscience than brains, nor any more brains than honesty. An ungainly villain; who will eat of your table to day, and put the knife that administered to his hunger to your throat to-morrow! It was such a dog that butchered the glory of Erin!”
“It must have been in open battle, then,” said Agnes, “for though wanting in reason, Job has been reared in the knowledge of good and evil. The child must be strongly stamped with the wrath of God, indeed, for whom some effort is not made by a Boston mother, to recover his part in the great atonement!”
“He, then, is an exception; for surely no Christian will join you in the great natural pursuit of eating at one moment, and turn his fangs on a comrade at the next.”
“But what has all this to do with the absent bridegroom?”
“It proves that Job Pray has been in his room since the fire was replenished, or some other than you would have found the gorget.”
“It proves a singular association, truly, between Major Lincoln and the simpleton,” said Agnes, musing; “but still it throws no light on his disappearance. ’Twas an old man that my cousin mentioned in her unconnected sentences!”
“My life on it, fair Agnes, that if Major Lincoln has left the house mysteriously to-night, it is under the guidance of that wretch!—I have known them together in council more than once, before this.”
“Then, if he be weak enough to forsake such a woman as my cousin, at the instigation of a fool, he is unworthy of another thought!”
Agnes coloured as she spoke, and turned the conversation, with a manner that denoted how deeply she resented the slight to Cecil.
The peculiar situation of the town, and the absence of all her own male relatives, soon induced Miss Danforth to listen to the reiterated offers of service from the captain, and finally to accept them. Their conference was long and confidential; nor did Polwarth retire until his footsteps were assisted by the dull light of the approaching day. When he left the house to return to his own quarters, no tidings had been heard of Lionel, whose intentional absence was now so certain, that the captain proceeded to give his orders for the funeral of the deceased, without any further delay. He had canvassed with Agnes the propriety of every arrangement so fully, that he was at no loss how to conduct himself. It had been determined between them that the state of the siege, as well as certain indications of movements which were already making in the garrison, rendered it inexpedient to delay the obsequies a moment longer than was required by the unavoidable preparations.
Accordingly, the Lechmere vault, in the church-yard of the ‘King’s Chapel,’ was directed to be opened, and the vain trappings in which the dead are usually enshrouded, were provided. The same clergyman who had so lately pronounced the nuptial benediction over the child, was now required to perform the last melancholy offices of the church over the parent, and the invitations to the few friends of the family who remained in the place were duly issued in suitable form.
By the time the sun had fallen near the amphitheatre of hills, along whose crests were, here and there, to be seen the works of the indefatigable men who held the place in leaguer, the brief preparations for the interment were completed. The prophetical words of Ralph were now fulfilled, and, according to the custom of the province, the doors of one of its proudest dwellings were thrown open for all who choose, to enter and depart at will. The funeral train, though respectable, was far from extending to that display of solemn countenances which Boston in its peace and pride would not have failed to exhibit on any similar occasion. A few of the oldest and most respected of the inhabitants, who were distantly connected by blood, or alliances with the deceased, attended; but there had been nothing in the cold and selfish character of Mrs. Lechmere to gather the poor and dependent in sorrowing groups around her funeral rites. The passage of the body, from its late dwelling to the tomb, was quiet, decent, and impressive, but entirely without any demonstrations of grief. Cecil buried herself and her sorrows, together, in the privacy of her own room, and none of the more distant relatives who had collected, male or female, appeared to find it at all difficult to restrain their feelings within the bounds of the most rigid decorum.
Dr. Liturgy received the body, as usual, on the threshold of the sacred edifice, and the same solemn and affecting language was uttered over the dead, as if she had departed soothed by the most cheerful visions of an assured faith. As the service proceeded, the citizens clustered about the coffin, in deep attention, in admiration of the unwonted tremor and solemnity that had crept into the voice of the priest.
Among this little collection of the inhabitants of the colony, were interspersed a few men in the military dress, who, having known the family of the deceased in more settled times, had not forgotten to pay the last tribute to the memory of one of its dead.
When the short service was ended, the body was raised on the shoulders of the attendants, and borne into the yard, to its place of rest. At such a funeral, where few mourned, and none wept, no unnecessary delay would be made in disposing of the melancholy relicks of mortality. In a very few moments, the narrow tenement which contained the festering remains of one who had so lately harboured such floods of human passion, was lowered from the light of day, and the body was left to moulder by the side of those who had gone before to the darkness of the tomb. Perhaps of all who witnessed the descent of the coffin, Polwarth alone, through that chain of sympathies which bound him to the caprice of Agnes, felt any emotion at all in consonance with the scene. The obsequies of the dead were, like the living character of the woman, cold, formal, and artificial. The sexton and his assistants had hardly commenced replacing the stone which covered the entrance of the vault, when a knot of elderly men set the example of desertion, by moving away in a body from the spot. As they picked their footsteps among the graves, and over the frozen ground of the church-yard, they discoursed idly together, of the fortunes and age of the woman, of whom they had now taken their leave for ever. The curse of selfishness appeared even to have fallen on the warning which so sudden an end should have given to those who forgot they tottered themselves on the brink of the grave. They spoke of the deceased as of one who had failed to awaken the charities of our nature, and though several ventured conjectures as to the manner in which she had disposed of her worldly possessions, not one remembered to lament that she had not continued longer, to enjoy them. From this theme they soon wandered to themselves, and the whole party quitted the church-yard, joking each other on the inroads of time, each man attempting to ape the elastic tread of youth, in order not only to conceal from his companions the ravages of age, but with a vain desire to extend the artifice so far, if possible, as to deceive himself.
When the seniors of the party withdrew, the remainder of the spectators did not hesitate to follow, and in a few minutes Polwarth found himself standing before the vault, with only two others of all those who had attended the body. The captain, who had been at no little expense of time and trouble to maintain the decencies which became a near friend of the family of the deceased, stood a minute longer to permit these lingering followers to retire also, before he turned his own back on the place of the dead. But perceiving they both maintained their posts, in silent attention, he raised his eyes, more curiously, to examine who these loiterers might be.
The one nearest to himself was a man whose dress and air bespoke him to be of no very exalted rank in life, while the other was a woman of a still inferior condition, if an opinion might be formed from the squalid misery exhibited in her attire. A little fatigued with the arduous labours of the day, and of the duties of the unusual office he had assumed, the worthy captain touched his hat, with studied decorum, and said—
“I thank you, good people, for this mark of respect to the memory of my deceased friend; but as we have performed all that can now be done in her behalf, we will retire.”
Apparently encouraged by the easy and courteous manner of Polwarth, the man approached still nigher, and after bowing with much respect, ventured to say—
“They tell me ’tis the funeral of Madam Lechmere that I have witnessed?”
“They tell you true, sir,” returned the captain, beginning slowly to pick his way towards the gate; “of Mrs. Priscilla, the relict of Mr. John Lechmere—a lady of a creditable descent, and I think it will not be denied that she has had honourable interment!”
“If it be the lady I suppose,” continued the stranger, “she is of an honourable descent indeed. Her maiden name was Lincoln, and she is aunt to the great Devonshire Baronet of that family.”
“How! know you the Lincolns?” exclaimed Polwarth, stopping short, and turning to examine the other with a stricter eye. Perceiving, however, that the stranger was a man of harsh and peculiarly forbidding features, in the dress already mentioned, he muttered—“you may have heard of them, friend, but I should doubt whether your intimacy could amount to such wholesome familiarities as eating and drinking.”
“Stronger intimacies than that, sir, are sometimes brought about between men who were born to very different fortunes,” returned the stranger, with a peculiarly sarcastic and ambiguous smile, which meant more than met the eye—“but all who know the Lincolns, sir, will allow their claims to distinction. If this lady was one of them, she had reason to be proud of her blood.”
“Ay, you are not tainted, I see, with these revolutionary notions, my friend,” returned Polwarth; “she was also connected with a very good sort of a family in this colony, called the Danforths—you know the Danforths?”
“Not at all, sir, I—”
“Not know the Danforths!” exclaimed Polwarth, once more stopping to bestow a freer scrutiny on his companion. After a short pause, however, he nodded his head, in approbation of his own conclusions, and added—“No, no—I am wrong—I see you could not have known much of the Danforths!”
The stranger appeared quite willing to overlook the cavalier treatment he received, for he continued to attend the difficult footsteps of the maimed soldier, with the same respectful deference as before.
“I have no knowledge of the Danforths, it is true,” he answered, “but I may boast of some intimacy with the family of Lincoln.”
“Would to God, then,” cried Polwarth, in a sort of soliloquy, which escaped him in the fullness of his heart, “you could tell us what has become of its heir!”
The stranger stopped short in his turn, and exclaimed—
“Is he not serving with the army of the king, against this rebellion! Is he not here!”
“He is here, or he is there, or he is any where; I tell you he is lost.”
“He is lost!” echoed the other.
“Lost!” repeated a humble female voice, at the very elbow of the captain—
This singular repetition of his own language, aroused Polwarth from the abstraction into which he had suffered himself to fall. In his course from the vault to the church-yard gate, he had unconsciously approached the woman before mentioned, and when he turned at the sounds of her voice, his eyes fell full upon her anxious countenance. The very first glance was enough to tell the observant captain, that in the midst of her poverty and rags, he saw the broken remains of great female beauty. Her dark and intelligent eyes, set as they were in a sallow and sunken countenance, still retained much of the brightness, if not of the softness and peace of youth. The contour of her face was also striking, though she might be said to resemble one whose loveliness had long since departed with her innocence. But the gallantry of Polwarth was proof even against the unequivocal signs of misery, if not of guilt, which were so easily to be traced in her appearance, and he too much respected even the remnants of female charms which were yet visible amid such a mass of unseemliness, to regard them with an unfriendly eye. Apparently encouraged by the kind look of the captain, the woman ventured to add—
“Did I hear aright, sir; said you that Major Lincoln was lost?”
“I am afraid, good woman,” returned the captain, leaning on the iron-shod stick, with which he was wont to protect his footsteps along the icy streets of Boston—“that this siege has, in your case, proved unusually severe. If I am not mistaken in a matter in which I profess to know much, nature is not supported as nature should be. You would ask for food, and God forbid that I should deny a fellow-creature a morsel of that which constitutes both the seed and the fruits of life. Here is money.”
The muscles of the woman worked, and, for a moment, she glanced her eyes wistfully towards his silver, but a slight flush passing quickly over her features, she answered—
“Whatever may be my wants and my suffering, I thank my God that he has not levelled me with the beggar of the streets. Before that evil day shall come, may I find a place amongst these frozen hillocks where we stand. But, I beg pardon, sir, I thought I heard you speak of Major Lincoln.”
“I did—and what of him? I said he was lost, and it is true, if that be lost which cannot be found.”
“And did Madam Lechmere take her leave before he was missing?” asked the woman, advancing a step nearer to Polwarth, in intense anxiety to be answered.
“Do you think, good woman, that a gentleman of Major Lincoln’s notion of things, would disappear after the decease of his relative, and leave a comparative stranger to fill the office of principal mourner!”
“The Lord forgive us all our sins and wickedness!” muttered the woman, drawing the shreds of her tattered cloak about her shivering form, and hastening silently away into the depths of the grave-yard. Polwarth regarded her unceremonious departure for a moment, in surprise, and then turning to his remaining companion, he remarked—
“That woman is unsettled in her reason, for the want of wholesome nutriment. It is just as impossible to retain the powers of the mind, and neglect the stomach, as it is to expect a truant boy will make a learned man.” By this time the worthy captain had forgotten whom he addressed, and he continued, in his usual philosophic strain, “children are sent to school to learn all useful inventions but that of eating; for to eat—that is to eat with judgment, is as much of an invention as any other discovery. Every mouthful a man swallows has to undergo four important operations, each of which may be called a crisis in the human constitution.”
“Suffer me to help you over this grave,” said the other, officiously offering his assistance.
“I thank you, sir, I thank you—’tis a sad commentary on my words!” returned the captain, with a melancholy smile. “The time has been when I served in the light corps, but your men in unequal quantities are good for little else but garrisons! As I was saying, there is first, the selection; second, mastication; third, deglutition; and lastly, the digestion.”
“Quite true, sir,” said the stranger, a little abruptly; “thin diet and light meals are best for the brain.”
“Thin diet and light meals sir, are good for nothing but to rear dwarfs and idiots!” returned the captain, with some heat. “I repeat to you, sir—”
He was interrupted by the stranger, who suddenly smothered a dissertation on the connexion between the material and immaterial, by asking—
“If the heir of such a family be lost, is there none to see that he is found again?”
Polwarth finding himself thus checked in the very opening of his theme, stopped again, and stared the other full in the face for a moment, without making any reply. His kind feelings, however, got the better of his displeasure, and yielding to the interest he felt in the fate of Lionel, he answered—
“I would go all lengths, and incur every hazard to do him service!”
“Then, sir, accident has brought those together who are willing to engage in the same undertaking! I, too, will do my utmost to discover him! I have heard he has friends in this province. Has he no connexion to whom we may apply for intelligence?”
“None nearer than a wife.”
“A wife!” repeated the other, in surprise—“is he married?”
A long pause ensued, during which the stranger mused deeply, and Polwarth bestowed a still more searching scrutiny than ever on his companion. It would appear that the result was not satisfactory to the captain, for shaking his head, in no very equivocal manner, he resumed the task of picking his way among the graves, towards the gate, with renewed diligence. He was in the act of seating himself in the pung, when the stranger again stood at his elbow, and said—
“If I knew where to find his wife, I would offer my services to the lady?”
Polwarth pointed to the building of which Cecil was now the mistress, and answered, somewhat superciliously, as he drove away—
“She is there, my good friend, but your application will be useless!”
The stranger received the direction in an understanding manner, and smiled with satisfied confidence, while he took the opposite route from that by which the busy equipage of the captain had already disappeared.