The Tory Lover 48

The Tory Lover 48

"We might have been here last night; why, ’t is but a step!" said John

Davis, as they drew near the dismal prison next morning; but his young

companion made no answer. He could not guess what happy fear mingled

with her glad anticipation now, nor how her certainties and

apprehensions were battling with each other.

 

Matthew’s own horse and another that he led for Mr. Wallingford were

weighted with provisions, so that he trudged afoot alongside. It was

easy to hear in Plymouth town how the American prisoners lacked such

things, and yet Mary could hardly wait now to make the generous purchase

which she had planned. She could not know all that Matthew had learned,

and told his master in whispers in the stable yard.

 

As they rode nearer to the prison a flaw of wind brought toward them all

the horrible odors of the crowded place, like a warning of the distress

and misery within. Though it was so early, there were many persons

standing outside the gates: some of them were jeering at the sad

spectacle, and some talking in a friendly way with the men who stood

within. Happily, it was not only a few compassionate Americans who had

posted themselves here to give what they could of food and succor, but

among the Plymouth folk themselves many a heart was wrung with pity, and

one poor old body had toiled out of the town with a basket of food to

smuggle through the bars; cakes and biscuit of a humble sort enough, but

well flavored with love. Mary saw her take thread and needles out of

her pocket, and sit down on the ground to mend some poor rags of

clothing. "My own lad went for a sailor," she said, when they thanked

her and called her "mother."

 

There was long delay; the guards pushed back the crowd again and again;

one must stand close to see the sights within. All at once there was a

cry and scuffling among the idlers, as some soldiers came riding up, one

of them bringing an old horse with a man thrown across the saddle and

tied down. As they loosed him he slid heavily to the ground as if he

were dead, and the spectators closed about him.

 

Mary Hamilton could only look on in horror and apprehension. Her

companion was in the midst of the pushing crowd.

 

"’T was a prisoner who escaped last night and has been retaken," he said

hastily, as he returned to her side. "You may stay here with Matthew,

my dear, while I take our letters and go in. I see that it is no place

for you; they are like wild beasts."

 

"I must go, too," said Mary; "you will not forbid me now. Good

heavens!" she cried aloud. "Now that they stand away from the gate I

can see within. Oh, the poor prisoners! Oh, I cannot bear their sick

faces! They are starving, sir! These must be the men who had the fever

you told me of. I wish we had brought more wine and food to these poor

fellows! Let us go in at once," she cried again, and was in a passion

of pity and terror at the sight.

 

"Let us go in! Let us go in!" she begged. "Oh, you forget that they

are my own countrymen! I cannot wait!"

 

The guard now returned with a message, and the alderman gave his bridle

to the groom. Mary was afoot sooner than he, and had run to the gate,

pushing her way among the idle sightseers to the heavy grating. They

were calling from both sides of the gate to old Matthew, who was

standing with the horses, to come up and give them what he had brought.

Mary Hamilton felt as if she were among wolves: they did not listen;

they did not wait to find what she had to say. "For love of God, give me

a shilling for a little ’baccy, my lady," said one voice in her ear. "I

’ll fetch them the ’baccy from the town, poor boys; they lack it most of

anything, and he ’ll drink the money!" protested an old beggar woman at

her side. "Go in? They ’ll let no ladies in!" and she gave a queer

laugh. "And if you ’re once in, all you ’ll pray for is to be out again

and forget the sight."

 

 

The governor was in his room, which had a small grated window toward the

prison yard; but there was a curtain before it, and he looked up

anxiously to see if this were close drawn as his early guests entered.

This task of jailer was a terrible duty for any man, and he swore under

his breath at Lord Mount Edgecumbe for interfering with what at best was

an impossible piece of business. If he had seen to it that they had

decent supplies for the prison, and hanged a score of their purveyors

and contractors, now, or had blown the whole rotten place into the air

with his fleet guns, ’t were a better kindness!

 

The clerk stood waiting for orders.

 

"Show them in, then, these people," he grumbled, and made a feint of

being busy with some papers as Miss Hamilton and her escort appeared.

The governor saw at once that the honorable Mr. Davis was a man of

consequence.

 

"My Lord Mount Edgecumbe writes me that you would make inquiries for a

prisoner here," said the old soldier, less roughly because the second

guest proved to be a lady and most fair to see. She looked very pale,

and was watching him with angry eyes. As she had crossed the prison

yard, she had seen fewer miseries because her tears had blinded her.

There had been one imploring voice calling her by her own name. "Stop,

Miss Hamilton, stop, for God’s sake!" some one had cried; but the guard

had kept the poor prisoners off, and an attendant hurried her along by

force when she would gladly have lingered. The horror of it all was too

much for her; it was the first time she had ever been in a jail.

 

"I am fearful of your sad disappointment, madam," said the governor of

the prison. "You wished to see Lieutenant Roger Wallingford. I grieve

to say"—He spoke kindly, but looked to ward Mary and stopped, and then,

sighing heavily, turned his eyes toward Mr. Davis with a kind of relief.

 

"He is not dead, I hope, sir?" asked the old man, for Mary could not

speak. "We have the order for his release."

 

"No, he is not dead to any certain knowledge," explained the governor,

more slowly than before, "but he was one of a party that made their

escape from this prison last night; ’t was through one of their silly

tunnels that they dig. They have some of them been shot down, and one,

I hear, has just been taken and brought in alive; but Wallingford’s name

is not among any of these." He turned to some records, and then went to

the grated window and looked out, but pulled the curtain across it

impatiently as he came away. "You brought his pardon?" the governor then

asked brusquely. "I should think he would be the last man for a pardon.

Why, he was with Paul Jones, sir; but a very decent fellow, a gentleman,

they tell me. I did not see him; I am not long here. This young lady

had best go back to the inn," and he stole a look at Mary, who sat in

despairing silence. A strange flush had replaced her first pallor. She

had thought but a moment before that she should soon look again into

Roger Wallingford’s face and tell him that he was free. On the end of

the governor’s writing table lay the note that she had written with such

a happy heart only the night before.

 

 

 

 

*XXXVIII*

 

*FULL OF STRAYING STREETS*

 

"Nona ne souffrons quo dans la mesure où nous co-opérons à nos

souffrances."

 

"His age saw visions, though his youth dream’d dreams."

 

 

The town of Bristol was crowded with Loyalist refugees: some who had

fled the colonies for honest love of their King, and some who believed

that when the King’s troops had put down the rebellion they should be

well rewarded for holding to his cause. They were most of them cut off

from what estates they may have had, and were begging for pensions from

a government that seemed cruelly indifferent. Their sad faces fairly

shadowed the Bristol streets, while many of them idled the day through,

discussing their prospects with one another, and killing time that might

have been lived to some profit. The disappointment of their hope was

unexpected, and an England that showed them neither sympathy nor honor

when they landed on her shores, glowing with self-sacrifice, was but a

sad astonishment. England, their own mother country, seemed fallen into

a querulous dotage, with her King’s ministers so pompous in their stupid

ignorance and self-consequence, and her best statesmen fighting hard to

be heard. It was an age of gamester heroes and of reckless living; a

poor page of English history was unfolded before their wistful eyes.

These honest Loyalists were made to know the mortified feelings of

country gentlefolk come unheralded to a city house that was busy with

its splendors on a feast day, and impatient of what was inopportune.

Worse than this, though Judge Curwen and other loyal Americans of his

company were still hopeful of consideration, and of being warmly

received by England as her own true children, they were oftener held

guilty of the vexing behavior of their brothers, those rebels against

English authority whom they had left behind. Something to Mary’s

wonder, Madam Wallingford would have few of them to friend. She was too

great a person at home to consent even now to any social familiarity on

the score of political sympathies. She was known to have brought much

money, and it was made easy for her to share this with one and another

distressed acquaintance or friend’s friend; but while this was done with

generosity, she showed herself more and more impatient of their

arguments, even of those plaints which were always ready, and the story

of such grievances as had led them into exile.

 

"I am too ill and sad to listen to these things," she said often, even

to her friends the Pepperrells, who came from London to visit her. "I

only know my country’s troubles through my own sorrow." She begged them

at last to find poor Roger’s grave, so she might go there to pray for

him; ’t was all that she could do. "Oh no," she would say mournfully to

those who looked for her assent to their own views of the great

situation, "do not expect me to understand you. I am only a mother, and

all my life is done!"

 

 

The Bristol streets were busy as Miss Hamilton came walking through the

town, and the bells were ringing for a holiday. She was deep in anxious

thought, and kept steadily on her way toward the abbey church, without

even a glance at a tradesman’s window or a look at the people she met.

Life was filled with new anxieties. Since the day when they had left

Plymouth they could find no trace of Roger Wallingford, beyond the

certainty that he had made his escape with some fellow prisoners through

a tunnel which they had been for many days digging under the prison

wall. There had been a light near the opening in the field outside, and

a guard set, but six men had gone out of the narrow hole and crawled

away. It was a windy night, and the lantern light and shadows wavered

on the ground and hid them. Two were shot and killed, but two were

captured and brought back at once, while another was shot and got away,

stumbling and falling often, and bleeding like a slaughtered creature,

as the watch could see next morning by daylight. This poor fellow had

escaped to the moors; there was a pool of blood in a place where he must

have hidden for some hours among the furze bushes. There was so large a

bounty paid for any escaped traitors and felons like these, who might be

brought back alive to the Mill Prison, that the poor moorland folk back

of Plymouth were ever on the quest. Roger Wallingford might have been

that bleeding man. They would not dare to keep together; his companion

might have left him dying or dead somewhere in the lonely waste country

that stretched miles away above the prison. His fate was sure if he

should be captured; he was not a man to yield his life too easily. There

were some carefully worded notices posted,—broadsides which might easily

reach the eyes of such fugitives if they ventured into any of the Devon

towns near by; but they might well have starved to death by this time in

the deserts of Dartmoor. One sailor beside the lieutenant had succeeded

in making his escape.

 

 

Mary Hamilton had left her lady pale and in tears that morning, and all her affectionate solicitude had been in vain.