as they descended into prince town grace proposed to visit the church now growing there. she knew one lieutenant mainwaring, a young officer in command at these works; and now, glad enough to be of service and display his little power, the lad himself escorted miss malherb and peter norcot into a scene of stir and activity.
the frenchmen chattered and sang to the clink of their trowels; while within, more thoughtful and more silent, a hundred americans were engaged upon carpentering and carving in wood and stone. the strangers regarded grace with curiosity. save for the market folk, it was long since any among them had seen a woman, and this lovely girl awoke invisible emotion. many a heart quickened, then slowed at the sight of her. she wakened the thought of women in lonely bosoms; she bridged rolling oceans with a sigh. some cursed as memory probed their helplessness; some sneered; some winked and whistled and kissed their hands; some, sensitively conscious, turned away to hide their rags from these well-clothed and prosperous visitors.
they were soldiers and sailors, and they exhibited a wide variety of spiritual and mental attributes. many among them crept about like thin ghosts clad in motley; a few looked stout and happy, despite their shameful clothing; some toiled in sulky and wooden silence; others maintained a gay and alert demeanour. they wore yellow roundabout jackets, mostly too small, rough waistcoats and pantaloons, shirts, caps of wool, and shoes made from list and wood, that gaped at every seam. those amongst them whose shoes had fallen to pieces, cased their feet in strips of blanket, and so limped through the dreary time until authority should refurnish them.
young mainwaring was called away at this moment, and before he departed, the lad turned to an elderly american with grey hair and a distinguished bearing, and asked him a favour.
"may i beg you to show miss malherb and this gentleman round the works, commodore miller?" said mainwaring; and the prisoner bowed a grave assent. in looking at this man's sad eyes and noble face one forgot the ridiculous rags that covered him.
"come this way, young lady," he said. "you see our labours prosper. 'twill be a monument for the generations that follow us. our dust will mingle with this desert and be forgotten; our handiwork will remain."
suddenly as they proceeded a cry from overhead made grace stop, start back, and look upward. the warning saved her life, for six inches in front of her breast an object cut the air, and striking at the girl's feet upon the unpaved aisle, buried itself head first in the earth. it was a heavy chisel that had dropped from a beam and just missed grace's head by inches. a cry rose on several lips; some shouted a curse at a man aloft on the beam from which the chisel had fallen; and commodore miller cried to him—
"good god, stark; what have you done?"
"nothing—nothing at all," said grace quickly. "i am not touched."
the man responsible for this accident was already half-way to the ground. he descended a rope ladder so swiftly as to endanger his own neck, and a moment later stood white and trembling before grace malherb.
"you stupid fellow," said mr. norcot; "'twas within a hair's-breadth of her life."
"i know it," answered the man. he was young and very tall, with a clean-shorn face and curling brown hair. "i can only ask you to forgive me. i turned suddenly and my foot struck the chisel."
"there's nothing to forgive," said grace. "'twas your voice arrested me. if you hadn't shouted, i should not be here now; so i owe you nothing but gratitude."
she smiled at him, and the youngster's colour came back to his cheek. young mainwaring, who had just returned, bustled forward with his sword clanking as the sailor spoke.
"you're good and brave, young mistress; and you understand. 'twas a noble way to pardon me. a clumsy fool thanks you from his heart."
he was turning away when grace spoke again, and blushed a little as she did so.
"is that your chisel, sir?" she asked.
he nodded.
"will you give it to me? may i keep it?"
taking it from the hand of commodore miller, who had pulled it out of the earth, the girl looked at its two-inch blade and glittering edge.
"i should like to keep it," she repeated. "it ought to make me feel humble and grateful when i look upon it."
"i pray you keep it, then. and i shall thank god every time that i miss it," said the young man quietly.
norcot was talking to mainwaring aside, and in the silence that followed these words, his voice, unfortunately for himself, came directly to the american prisoner's ear.
"surely not. the devil draws the line somewhere. one would never presume to suggest a deliberate intention to murder an innocent girl."
the words came clear and cold; then, like a thunderbolt, a heavy fist fell between peter's eyes, and he was on his back half unconscious. from trembling fear, from emotion almost prayerful at the thought of what might have happened, from frank and absolute sorrow for his carelessness, the young american leapt suddenly into ungovernable and blazing wrath. his very body seemed to expand and tower above the men around him. the commodore leapt forward, but stark shook him off like a child. "there!" he shouted, so that the naked walls rang with echoes. "take that, whoever you are! to hint such a foul crime from your foul soul against an american!"
"who's this lunatic? arrest him," cried mainwaring, and several soldiers hastened forward.
"cecil stark is his name—a sailor and a leader in prison no. 4," said a sergeant.
"yes, cecil stark of vermont," answered the lad passionately. "your general burgoyne knew the name. 'twas my kinsman that made him surrender and so caused louis of france and the civilised world to acknowledge america free of your bullying, braggart nation. to hint at murder! you scoundrel—if you're a gentleman, you'll meet me; but you're not."
"candidly," said mr. norcot, who was now restored to consciousness and sat on the ground with his hand over his eyes. "candidly, i don't want to meet you again. you are young, and evidently dartmoor has not tamed your fiery spirit. nor has it polished your nautical wits. you strike before you hear—like your great nation. tut, tut! my nose is broken. i was just declaring on my honour that to credit you with malice was madness. 'twas this gentleman here who suspected that you dropped the chisel of set purpose."
"you said it!" exclaimed stark, turning upon lieutenant mainwaring.
"i did, and i repeat it; and don't look at me with that insolent expression, or you'll repent it. 'tis quite likely this was no accident."
the american regarded the little officer with contempt and astonishment.
"you're a knave to think that; and a coward to say it. at least you don't believe him, young mistress? i'd give up all hope of freedom, or heaven either, if i thought that any woman held me so vile."
"no woman, and no man either, would believe it," said grace calmly, and mainwaring's face flamed.
"why, then, i'm content," declared stark. "as for this red-coated monkey, he's neither one nor t'other and his opinion don't matter."
"take him to the cachot!" cried the indignant soldier in a fury. "away with him—insolent hound! we'll see what a few days of bread and water will do for him."
"and 'tis trash like this that they put into power over honest men!" said the prisoner, with great show of scorn. "in america no man can command others until he has learned to command himself."
"and did you use to command, my young hero?" asked peter, who had now risen to his feet again.
cecil stark turned and laughed as he marched off with half a dozen soldiers for an escort.
"no, sir. you'll guess why. i'm a fool. your nose will tell you that. but i'm learning. i shall be free again some day. then i'll try to be wise. meantime i beg you ten thousand pardons that i hit the wrong man. if 'tis ever in my power, i'll make generous amends."
he departed, and among the guard his great stature was revealed, for he towered above them.
"what a stinging sermon against disinterestedness," said mr. norcot, still patting his wounded face. "yet 'tis nothing beside your escape. if you had died—my light would have gone out. henceforth i should have lived with petrarch under my pillow: 'to laura—i mean gracie—in death.'
"'for i was ever yours; of you bereft,
full little do i reck all other care.'"
"we'd better go back to our horses," she answered. "he's a fine courageous gentleman. only i very much wish that he had struck lieutenant mainwaring instead of you."
"so do i—cordially."
"and yet i'm not quite sorry, either; for you are so kind that you pass it with a jest; that little snappy soldier would have done dreadful deeds. why do soldiers always bear themselves with such silly pride? sailors don't."
"sailors are not so swollen with their own importance, certainly; they've got more intellect as a rule; and don't blush to talk about their profession, like so many of these fatuous warriors. my dismal nose! tut, tut! i see a mountain uplifting between my eyes. henceforth there will be another tor on dartmoor."
"carry the chisel, please. he had a fine deep voice. he might have been an englishman. certainly he was right to be furious. i will never speak to lieutenant mainwaring more."
"cecil stark of vermont, eh? he'll be stark enough after a week in a cachot. let us home. my nose wants its luncheon of brown paper and vinegar."
the commodore saw them to their horses, and grace expressed an earnest hope that young stark would not suffer for his natural anger.
"'twill make his trouble light enough to know you are sorry for him," said the old sailor gallantly; then he gave the girl a hand into her saddle and soon she and mr. norcot were galloping homewards.
anon mrs. malherb uplifted placid thanksgivings for her daughter's escape, and the farmer breathed forth indignation at the adventure of the chisel. he took a dark view of the incident, despite grace's indignant assurances, and gave it as his opinion that where an american was concerned the worst motives might most justly be attributed. yet he made far more of the incident than anybody else, yearned towards the girl with emotion hardly concealed, and hastened over his wine after dinner, that he might return to her presence.
"come you here," he said, "and put your fingers in mine, so i may feel you are alive."
therefore she sat beside him, and he patted her little hand and exhibited the actions of quickened love. yet his face was stern the while, and betrayed no spark of the softness that marked his gestures and his words.
peter's countenance had now taken upon itself the grotesqueness of a gargoyle, but he exhibited neither self-consciousness nor irritation. indeed, he proved in a placid and didactic vein, moralised the incidents of the day and illuminated them with many quotations from many scribes. conversation naturally turned upon america, and norcot declared that the hot-headed and romantic person of cecil stark fairly typified his country.
"most just," allowed maurice malherb. "america exhibits defects so glaring that he who runs may read. she is too vainglorious, too boastful, too impatient of control, and too ignorant ever to take commanding rank among the nations."
he mentioned his own failings without an omission.
"we must learn to walk before we can ride," said mrs. malherb. "and yet how often does a child try to copy its elders in advanced arts while yet the slow steps to those arts are hidden from it! 'tis hard to judge the americans, for they are made of our own flesh and blood."
"they are, in fact, our younger selves broke loose from tradition and control. they are scattered like sheep without a shepherd in the mighty pasture of the new world," said norcot.
"not so," returned his host. "england's virtues are just those most notoriously lacking in this upstart, ingrate race. they have broken the golden links of blood and brotherhood. they must abide by the consequences. doctor johnson was in the right of it touching america—as indeed always upon every subject."
"what think you, kek?" asked grace, that the discussion might be lightened.
the old servant had entered to mend the fire, for a peat or two always glowed upon the drawing-room hearth by night.
"no matter what i think, missy. 'tis one of the few blessings of a common man that nobody do set a groat's value upon his views," returned kekewich.
"so much the less need you mind uttering them," said peter.
"we differ like flint and steel, yet strike some sparks between us—kek and i," declared malherb. "he is at once the best, honestest, truest, and most wrong-headed man i ever met in his class of life."
"then you'll guess what i hold about this," answered kekewich, who was indifferent alike to praise or censure. "i thinks that a yankee be only an englishman turned inside out. they says openly what we thinks in secret; but when it comes to doing—'tis 'devil take the hindmost' an' the weakest to the wall with them—just the same as it be with us. 'tis a nation too young to deceive—same as a child be too young to deceive till it be growed. we shall hammer 'em this time; an' maybe next time; but the day will come when they've got too big to hammer. then what? us'll be 'pon top of our last legs some day. an' then everything will be differ'nt, except human nature. an' a beaten nation have a terrible long memory."
"this is anti-british! i blush for you, kek," said grace.
"nay; the man is in the right," declared peter. "a hundred years hence the friendship of america will be better worth having than anything in the world. yet, where there's jealousy, there can be no real friendship. i hope that they will not always be jealous of us."
"you're cowards, both you and kek," shouted malherb. "you are worse than infidels, for you leave the almighty out of your calculations altogether. we make war in the name of right. we are the supreme example that history furnishes of an absolutely impartial nation. we display justice and mercy to the earth. we conquer by the hand of god. and will he desert us for a cowardice of curs, for a rabble that knows not justice, for a horde of highwaymen who mix the mortar for their dirty towns with negroes' blood?"
"blare till you bust, malherb," said kek stoutly. "you won't alter it. god a'mighty's never seen on the side of the weak, an' so soon as thicky folks over the sea get strong enough to lather us, they'll most likely try to do it."
with this prophecy mr. kekewich departed.
"an ancient fool," commented peter; "yet a witty one. i'm quite of his opinion; but our grandchildren, not we, will see the issue."
"read 'lear,'" said malherb. "'tis the only thing i ever do read in the way of high poetry. lear is england—america has taken the vile daughter's part."
"doubtless they'll allow it—if you'll carry the similitude through."
"nay—england won't go mad—a little righteous rage—a breath from her nostrils, and these republican wolves will creep back into their dens."
"yes—to breed there; to suckle the rising generations on——"
"upon lies!" roared the other. "upon vile lies against the mother country. to the father of lies let 'em go!"
presently he cooled down, and mr. norcot, who had turned to grace for a while, was wearied to hear malherb reopen the subject.
"if they would but learn the dignity of manhood; if they would use their brains and read in the books that wise englishmen have written on the highest duty of man, we might hope for the return of the prodigal son even yet," he said; and peter answered—
"how true; how generous of you to put it so; how grand! 'the whole duty of man'—so vast, yet so simple—like dartmoor. a dozen words gives one, a dozen lines from an artist's pencil will convey the vision of the other."
"'tis all in the best authors, i'm sure," declared annabel.
"it is, indeed. what does juvenal say in an inspired moment? 'a sane mind in a sane body. a spirit above the fear of death; a spirit that can endure toil; that counts the labours of hercules his joys and the joys of a certain goddess her shame; a spirit that can keep its——'" he was going to say "temper," but substituted "self-respect" out of consideration for his host, then made an end. "'through virtue lies the life of peace! grasp that fact, and fortune has no divinity left in her.'"
"all good," admitted malherb, "except in one particular. a life of peace is not to be prayed for. peace is rust, and makes against human progress. now, ladies, it is time that you retired."
annabel and her daughter rose, and as he bid his girl "good night," the master's thoughts returned to her great escape. whereupon he kissed her thrice, instead of once, and said, for her ear alone, "thank god! thank god!" in an abrupt and brusque but very earnest fashion.
