no man nor woman at fox tor farm had ever witnessed an explosion of human passion so awful as shook maurice malherb upon his discovery. annabel, in tears, confided to peter norcot that her husband had taken his daughter by the shoulders, shaken her nearly senseless, then flung her upon her bed. he had raged and roared until the house was a cave of harsh echoes; he had made fast his daughter's chamber door from the outside, and dared any living soul to approach the sinner without his permission.
"in the case of these tropical tempests," explained peter, "nothing can be done. happily they are short. 'in rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.' for my part, i return home immediately. everybody here must get under shelter and wait for a change of wind."
"argument is vain," said annabel.
"tut, tut! who argues with a volcano? write to me in a day or two; and have no fear for the dear girl. half his rage now is because he so far lost his self-command as to shake her. a shaking after all—well, by my faith, she deserves it. to correspond with cecil stark! when i say that it was naughty, i understate the offence. however, that matter lies in a nutshell. get rid of her messenger. john lee's the man. despatch him; and let him know that i'll befriend him. farewell, until a brighter star shines over us, my dear annabel."
towards evening, when his wrath had somewhat abated, mrs. malherb told her husband of norcot's departure—a fact he had not noticed for himself. she added particulars of his last advice; and before the moon rose john lee had passed out of fox tor farm for ever. with difficulty beer and kekewich withstood their master, for he had rushed among his people with a horsewhip.
"i was her servant, sir, to do her bidding," said lee quietly; then he rose from his meal to depart. one ghastly blow he received across his face; and he clapped his hand to it and went out, while kekewich interposed his stunted figure between malherb and the groom.
"you've done enough for one day," he said without flinching. "best to cool down, else your raging fires will set your brain on light and cast you into bedlam."
"'enough'! is it enough that a man's daughter——?" began malherb. then he broke off and rolled his eyes upon their frightened faces until the pallid and rotund orb of mr. cockey's countenance challenged his glance.
"and you, tailor, work as you never worked yet! let your trash be done next week, or take it back again."
he quitted the hall abruptly; and for the rest of that dim day his wife suffered him alone. her prayers he cried down; her tears he dried by terror. he ordered her not to weep, and frightened her into obedience. she believed that he was going mad and suffered untold dismay until, cast up like a drowned thing by the waves of his passion, physical nature collapsed and malherb slept. groaning and moaning in the dream scenery begot of his wild spirit, she left him, crept to the prisoner and took grace to her bosom.
for an hour they held mournful discourse, but annabel did all the weeping. her father's temper animated the girl and she panted with indignation.
"i weary of your tears, dearest mother," she said. "if you may fetch me some food i should be thankful for it. that smooth coward to peep into my room! and to tell! i will jump from my window on to the kind granite sooner than marry him!"
annabel mourned her daughter's folly; she explained how that john lee had been dismissed at a moment's notice; and then, changing her mood, she talked herself into quite another frame of mind, and began to upbraid the sinner with all her might.
"'twas a very unmaidenly thing, and that much i stoutly tell you. to have an understanding with a man, and one who is your country's enemy! your father has destroyed the flag. he thrust it into the red-hot peat and scorched his own hand badly. he raved against the very foundations of the earth when he burnt himself. like samson, he would have dragged down the house if he could. oh, you are a thorn, not a daughter! he is breaking his great heart. treachery is beyond his understanding. i blush for you, grace malherb."
"i wish you would get me some food; i'm starving," said the girl wearily. "he would not grudge me bread and water."
"that is what he said just before he slept. 'bread and water,' said he; then his voice grew softer on the brink of sleep, and he said, 'she may have milk too.'"
"i love him through it all!"
mrs. malherb's tears flowed again. she left her daughter and presently returned with the food.
"he didn't say 'twas not to be warmed, so i've heated it for you. oh, my pretty, wicked sweet—how could you do a deed so unbecoming?"
"i don't know, mother," answered grace, beginning to eat. "these things happen. i liked mr. cecil stark very much, and i like his country and his ideas about right and wrong."
"a young man's ideas upon such subjects are usually very mistaken."
"in the third letter he wrote me he asked me to make a flag for him, and i consented after carefully weighing the matter in my mind."
"what should he want with a flag, poor soul?"
"'twas for the fourth of july—the anniversary of their independence. there—the bread and milk are gone. good night, kind mother. i'm sorry you ever had a daughter."
"the female character has always been beyond me," confessed mrs. malherb. "the difference between a boy and a girl, as peter once said, is the difference between a dog and a cat. a dog is so much more reasonable, so much easier to comprehend and direct. slyness: 'tis a feline thing; and as to obedience, it certainly comes more natural to a son than a daughter, though i know not why. at any rate, it is so where a mother's concerned. a son will do anything so gladly for his mother—if you don't ask him to interfere with his own comfort. and what mother worthy of the name would do that? not that disobedience to parents was ever recorded against either sex in our rank of society when i was a girl. now good night, child. try to sleep, and let your prayer be the same as mine—that it will please god to lift your dear father's wrath by morning."
but with the return of day malherb still wasted his nervous energy in anger. he refused to see his daughter or to liberate her. he wandered miles upon the high moors alone; then going back again, he returned to the infamous treatment he had suffered and the torment of possessing a thankless child. presently he attacked his wife, and cursed her past folly and ignorance.
"you are to blame for all!" he said. "'twas your upbringing—so weak, so fond—that bred this devil in her. would to god you had more of my own mother's spirit in you. look at me. i owe everything to my education. she was a roman mother. had you been more like her, this minx had never dared to flout a father. but, by god, i'll break her now or never!"
within the day malherb arrived at a determination; but he told his wife and kekewich only. then a letter reached peter norcot. the secret, however, leaked out, for kekewich confided it to mordecai cockey, and mr. cockey uttered it aloud as a mournful fact in the hearing of dinah beer. that night richard beer naturally heard it; and then the news reached harvey woodman's ears. finally it came to the intelligence of tom putt, and made his heart quicken by a stroke or two in the minute. for putt had taken this matter much to heart.
"'tis become a common prison, wi' that lovely miss locked up as if she's done a murder, 'stead of fall into love with a fine gentleman," grumbled thomas. "for my part, i can't stand it very much longer. ban't a manly thing for us chaps to bide here an' know a maiden's being starved to death on bread an' water under the same roof with us."
"her done it underhand," said woodman. "if it wasn't for that, i'd feel the same as you."
"well she might do it underhand wi' a tiger for a parent."
"best you pick your words, else you'll go after jack lee, wi' a flea in your ear," returned woodman. "i say 'tis a very terrible proceeding," he continued. "an' seeing the chap's a yankee, nought can be done. 'tis an unthinkable thing for one of our bettermost young women to marry an american. i'm 'mazed she could give her mind to such a rash deed."
"that's because you haven't got more ideas than a cow," said mary woodman firmly. "what's the matter with the man—mr. stark, i mean? god's goodness! you talk as if he was a monkey, or some foreign savage as scalped people for his pleasure. he'm good to look at, an' he had a beautiful gentle way with him for all his fighting face. an' so straight as a fir tree a was, an' full of learning, an' civil to the least of us, an' gave you a golden half-sovereign afore he went away. so you'm a traitor to miscall him. i won't have no narrowness, harvey, an' you well know it. you used to be so broad as bible in your opinions, an' very charitable-minded for a common man. but to tell such things because a young gentleman be born out of england—i'm shamed for 'e!"
woodman had little to say before this wifely rebuke. they all talked on and expressed their concern; but thomas putt did more than debate the situation and regret it. despite lack of opinions on all matters save sporting, he had plenty of common sense and courage. he could act promptly, and danger or any consciousness of unlawfulness in a task usually stimulated him to successful achievement. on his own responsibility he took up the cause of the prisoner. while there was yet time, grace malherb must know the thing determined; so argued putt; and in that conviction he took a definite step, and conveyed his information to another.
then came a morning when grace from her prison window witnessed the departure of mr. mordecai cockey. she shivered as he went, for she knew that his work was done. some six weeks yet remained before the day appointed for the marriage, and gloomily she speculated as to whether her father could find it in his heart to keep her thus shut up throughout the whole splendour of summer. annabel visited her daughter thrice daily; but she brought little news and no comfort. grace soon discovered that her gentle parent suffered much under weight of secrets. the mother felt often tempted to reveal what was now afoot; but she had promised her husband to say nothing.
"mr. cockey has gone off much earlier than it was proposed," said grace upon the evening of the tailor's departure.
"he has done his work."
"and wasted much good cloth."
"i pray to heaven that you will listen to reason when the time comes to do so, grace."
"i shall never hear reason under this roof, mother. to think—a grown woman so treated! how can father heap such insult upon his own flesh and blood? how he would have scorned any other man in the land who had treated a daughter so!"
"it has pleased god to perplex his noble nature; and he knows his own weaknesses. he has come near relenting more than once. but, like pharaoh, he hardens his heart again. he suffers worse than you do. he has quite lost his appetite—a very alarming symptom, i think. at table he helps himself, as he helps everybody, with his usual generosity; then i see you come into his mind, and he fumes and frets and thrusts his meat from him. there is trouble, too, that i know not of. we are much straitened. i shall hear all about it some night, when he is in a soft mood."
"nobody can help him—that's the cruel thing with dear father."
"he'll not listen to his kind. it is as though god had cursed him and said, 'thou shall trust no judgment but thine own.' so warm-hearted and so beyond reach of other men's wisdom as he is!"
"i trust in heaven to bring him to his better self. there are yet many weeks before this dreary farce is ended," said grace.
mrs. malherb looked exceeding guilty as her daughter uttered these words. she answered nothing and prepared to depart; but she hesitated at the door as though about to speak. then she changed her mind and withdrew quickly.
ere the morning's dawn, however, grace heard the thing so studiously concealed from her. she slept but little at this period and busied her mind with futile thoughts. she did not doubt that john lee and stark knew all and were busy upon her behalf. therefore, when a gentle tap fell on her casement an hour after midnight, she felt neither fear nor astonishment, but welcomed it as a thing expected. she struck a light to show that she had heard, wrapped a gown about her and came to the window.
a scrap of paper tied round a pebble lay on the sill, and upon the paper was written one word: "pull." she obeyed and found that a thread communicated with the ground below. at the other end of this string was a length of whipcord, and when that also had been drawn up, she found that it brought after it the head of a slight rope-ladder. a further laconic direction appeared upon another scrap of paper: "make fast." grace fixed the ropes to the iron grate of her fireplace and extinguished the light for safety; then her heart beat fast as the cords strained and a man rose up from the darkness of the earth below.
not until he was at the casement and she heard him whisper, did she know that it was john lee. a wave of disappointment swept over her; and to hide any ray of it, she bent and kissed his hand.
"'tis only me," he said; and his voice that read her heart so clear, cried to her to be honest with him and speak the thing she had longed yet feared to say.
"dear, dear john. i wish i could say what you deserve to hear! you risk your life for me, for father would surely kill you if he knew of this. yet what have i to give you back for such devotion? 'tis no time for anything but solemn truth. i've long feared to face it, dear john; but now i'm grown older and braver. i will marry you, john, but i do not feel all that i thought i felt. i am not the true, trustful girl you think me, but a flighty fool who did not know her own mind. there—you know—and i'm thankful that you should know, though you must hate me and condemn me evermore."
"think you this is news, my pretty grace? how strange to hear these things retold after so many days! i'm long since schooled to this cold truth. dear heart, your eyes never hid a secret—nor your soul! i know—i know everything—all that you feel—all the sorrow you've suffered for me—all that you cannot say—all—all—to the secret prayers you've prayed to christ about it! suffer no more. the man you love will soon be free to stand between you and trouble. and you'll never quite forget me neither—never forget me—i know that. i'm content; and i'm selfish too, you see. i've claimed one great payment—the right to rescue you, and the joy of it. 'twill be his turn next. i'm saving you for him. you can trust me if he does?"
"whom should we trust? we're both in prison now. 'trust you'! faithful, generous john!"
"you must be so good as your word at once then. your banns have been asked out thrice. to-day is saturday; you are to be married on monday. the date is changed. putt brought me the news where i dwell now. i have returned to my grandmother. there's much to tell about what's doing at the war prison, and about him—master stark—but that must wait until you're safe."
"they have plotted to marry me—to dash me into it by a surprise?"
"they have."
"i'll stay and brave them!"
"no, no—what's one girl against two resolute and determined men? terrible things happen—women have been drugged as maids and come to their senses wives. don't pit yourself against them. stark knows that you must escape."
she reflected a moment.
"if he wishes it—if you wish it—yes. but not now. to-morrow night, john."
"all's ready. your parents shall learn that you are safe and well. but to find you will be beyond power of man. so that you can trust me——"
"to-morrow night, then, i'll be furnished for flight. to-morrow—kiss me, john."
"for him?"
"for yourself. is not my life worth that? yet 'tis poor payment for a poor thing."
"for the last time before god."
he bent over her and folded her in his arms. she felt his young heart against her own. then he kissed her lips.
"your lover no more; your slave for ever," he said.
a moment later he had descended to earth, and grace shed tears for the first time since her imprisonment. she drew up the ladder as he directed, hid it close and watched john lee vanish into the dim dawn. then she turned into her room and felt already that it was a memory of the past—a nest of youthful joys and sorrows, of many a girlish fancy and old dead dream, now left behind for ever.
