7 The Temper of Old Put

My fears found ample justification, for the men soon turned their attention to the horse, and two rose and approached him. I looked upon him as one impounded, and he alone was to blame, for he should have known better. One of the men made a wide circuit and came up carefully behind, while the other approached with equal caution from the front, whistling in a soft and coaxing way and holding out his hand. Evidently they appreciated the value of a good horse, and no doubt they had stolen enough from patriot farmers to have experience. Old Put never raised his head to look at them, but continued his hunt for blades of grass. He certainly heard their approaching footsteps, and I was convinced now that his dotage was really at hand.

“I thought you said he was the most intelligent of us three,” said the girl ironically, “and here he is, gone to sleep and letting himself be taken, to be used perhaps as a common cart-horse.”

Her words were an insult to us both, Old Put and me, but I knew no timely reply, and I endured them in silence.

The man in front, emboldened by Old Put’s gentleness, approached more rapidly and was soon within fifteen feet of the horse. Old Put raised his head, and looking at the intruder a moment lowered it and went on nipping the grass.

The fellow, holding out his hand, stepped forward and seized Old Put by the neck. The horse, with a neigh that was human in its anger, turned and bit deep into his shoulder. A scream, wilder, more fearful than any I have ever heard before or since, rose from the man’s throat as the horse reared high in the air and smote him to the earth with his forefeet. The girl turned her eyes away in horror as he was crushed to pulp beneath the fierce beat of the steel-shod hoofs, time for but one cry being given to him, but I kept mine at the crevice, though I will confess that the blood was rather a chilly torrent in my veins.

The other man, the one behind, faced about and fled when he saw the death of his comrade, and the single look that I had of him showed fright to the marrow. The horse, raising his head, trotted away over the hill. The moonlight fell upon him there in distorted rays and enlarged him into a gigantic figure. In the gray light he looked like some phantom horse, a wild creature that brought death.

The band, recovering from the momentary paralysis caused by the sudden acquaintance of their comrade with death, snatched out their pistols and fired at the horse as they would have fired at a man in his place, but their aim was wild, for Old Put gave no sign of a hit, trotting steadily on, his figure growing larger and more threatening in the exaggerating rays of the moonlight, until he disappeared beyond the swell of the earth. The thing that had been living lay in the dead grass, and I was glad that it was hidden almost by some rocks and the roll of the earth.

“He is gone, Julia,” I said, “and I don’t think those men will try to take my horse again.”

I laughed a little, with a rather forced gayety, for the influence of the sudden tragedy was still upon me. Yet I was glad that Old Put had redeemed himself so conclusively from the charge of incaution and dotage, which I would never again bring against him, even should they come to be true in the course of the years.

The girl came back to the crevice, and we watched the British for some minutes. After the hasty discharge of the pistols they returned to the fire, making no movement either to pursue Old Put or to remove the body of their dead comrade. They would have liked well enough to obtain a good horse, but they were not going to bother about such a trifle as a dead man.

“Do you think they will attack us?” asked the girl.

“Well, no; not yet, at least,” I replied. “The advantages of the defence are too great, and these men are mere raiders and robbers. They are not going into a dangerous venture unless the chances are on their side. Perhaps they think we will become frightened and surrender to-morrow.”

“You surely will not do that?”

“I had no such intention, worthless rebel as I am, but if you say surrender I will go out and notify them this minute.”

“You know I meant nothing of the kind.”

She spoke rather sharply, and leaving the window went back to the table, which she began to clear away. She gathered up the scraps and put them back neatly. Then she brushed the crumbs off in her hand, for lack of anything else, and threw them in the fire, and having done that pushed the table to one side against the wall. I made no offer to help her, as she did everything with such skill and despatch, and I was content to watch her. Nor did she say anything to me, but, her work done, took her stool again and sat down at the corner of the hearthstone, leaning her head against the wall of the chimney and gazing into the dying fire.

The last log was smouldering on the hearth and threw but a feeble light. I blew out the candle, thinking we might need it in case our enemies made any hostile movement, and the darkness gathered at once in half the room, only a dim light showing as a fringe to the fire.

“I think you’d better go to sleep,” I said to the girl. “It is always well to save one’s strength, and now is a chance for rest.”

“And you?”

“I don’t want any sleep. I’ll stay at the window and watch.”

“But you need rest as well as I.”

“Why do you bother yourself about a villanous rebel who is going to be hanged anyway by his justly angry King?”

“I wish you would stop talking that way.”

Her tone was rather plaintive. Undoubtedly she was tired and worn by anxieties, and I obeyed her request. I made her wrap her cloak around her, and though she declared stoutly that she would not go to sleep, merely wishing to lean her head against the wall and rest, her eyelids drooped and fell, and in two minutes she slumbered.

The fire sank lower, eating its way along the log until only a few inches of wood were left. The girl slept soundly. The curve of the chimney into the wall formed a kind of nook, and her head and shoulders rested easily there like a picture framed against the rough logs, which were unplastered and not even smoothly hewn. I trusted that she would sleep the night through, and as the fire sank lower and lower and the darkness crept up to the hearthstone, almost hiding her figure, the stillness of midnight came, and I could hear her regular breathing in the dead silence.

I went back to the window. The fire of the British faced it, and I could see that three of the men had lain down and gone to sleep. The other two were sitting up, weapons at hand, and I inferred that, they had been detailed as sentinels, though their lazy attitudes showed well enough that it was a job they did not like. For all I could tell at the distance, these men too might be asleep sitting.

I watched them for a half hour or more, and grew very tired of the business. The brightness of the moonlight culminated, and the earth lost its silver tint, shading into a dark, dull gray. The figures of our besiegers became shadowy and shapeless. It was a time for sleep, and I felt it in all my bones. A trooper doesn’t ask much. If I could have taken my blanket and put myself down on a reasonably smooth piece of turf under the shade of a tree, with the certainty that no enemy would waken me, it would have been sufficient. I would have slept the sleep of the just, or the tired unjust, which is often as good.

I drew the old pine box up to the window and sat on it, resolved to listen, now that I was weary of looking. I wondered what had become of Old Put, the manslayer, and tried to discover why I had been such a fool as to distrust him even for a moment.

Thus musing, I discovered that the fire had gone out; that I could see nothing—in fact, that the room was pitchy dark. I opened my eyes, remembering that all things must be dark to a man with his eyes shut, and saw again the flickering fire and the figure of the girl half-reclining in the chimney-corner.

This would not do. I was the whole army—horse, foot, artillery, and baggage-wagons, commander-in-chief, colonel, captains, and privates—and we could never go to sleep all at once. I undertook to walk briskly around the room in order to stir my sluggish blood into watchfulness, but that would wake the girl, and I did not want to do such a cruel thing. I stopped in front of her and looked at her face attentively. Asleep she did not look at all the spitfire she was awake. Mingled with her beauty now was a certain wanness, a something that was pathetic, a look that appealed to a man for protection and strength. After all, she was but a girl, and why should I care for the bitter things she said when probably half the time she said them she was sorry?

I went back to the window and looked out once more. The besieging army was taking its comfort. The part which had stretched itself on the ground remained stretched, and the part which watched sagged more than ever towards the horizontal. It was a lazy army, that was evident, and I resolved that I would set it an example of superiority.

Having made these brave resolutions, I sat down on the stool and leaned my head once more against the wall, not because I was tired and sleepy, but merely that I might reserve my strength for a crisis, the most necessary thing in the world to a soldier, every man of experience knowing that an army fights better if it goes into battle well fed, well clothed, and well rested. It was a good argument, that bore extension, and I closed my eyes that they too might have rest, as they felt weary and clogged. Then, do what I would or could, weariness and sleep took charge of me. Tired muscles rose in open and defiant rebellion against mind and will. The combat was short and fierce, but matter triumphed over mind, and in five minutes I was in the midst of a sleep that was heavenly with rest, unpeopled by bad dreams, with my head back against the wall and my breathing long and regular. Meanwhile the bed of coals on the hearth became smaller and paler. The rim of fire narrowed. Coals turned from red to black and then to gray and crumbled into ashes. The darkness crept up to the very edge of the hearthstone and then invaded it. The girl was completely in the shadows, and the pale glimmer of the fire was but a faint light left in the room.

The sleeping man and the sleeping girl were tired, very tired, and they slept soundly. If they had dreams, they were pleasant ones, and no thought of danger entered into them. The men around the camp-fire had moved away to the other side of the world, and the little cabin was peaceful for them, inside and outside. Sleeping thus, they did not see the men rise from the camp-fire and approach the hut, now veiled in a darkness which made such a movement safe. They reached the cabin without alarm or a sign from the watcher who was not watching, and at last the leader tried the shutter of the window. He pried at it with his knife and moved it a little. Then he put his ear to the crack and could hear nothing within. Replacing his ear with his eye, he saw the feeble glimmer of the fire and no more. He was sure that those whom he wished to take were asleep, and he exulted, for a fierce anger mingled with his other desires to recapture both. He pried again at the window, and with greater leverage it yielded further, and wood scraped against wood. He stopped and listened once more, but the inmates of the cabin never stirred.

Putting his ear to the wide crack that now intervened between the shutter and the wall, he listened again and heard the steady, regular breathing of someone inside and below. He knew it was the breathing of a sleeping man, too loud and strong for a woman, too even for one awake, and he reached up and pulled the shutter wide open on its rude leather hinges. Then he grasped the edge of the window with both hands and raised himself up.

My sleep grew troubled at last and then turned into a nightmare. Some huge wild beast, after the fashion of beasts in nightmares, was sitting on my chest and blowing his breath in my face, while I had no power to move a muscle. I was cold to the marrow and waited for him to devour me, but instead he dwindled away and became misty. With one great effort I threw him off my chest and sprang to my feet. My head struck against somebody else’s head as I sprang up, and that somebody else swore an oath that had the savor neither of a nightmare nor a dream, but of reality.

Cold air and moonlight rushed in at the window, but most of the passage was filled up by the shoulders and head of a large man whose face I could not see owing to the imperfect light. He held in his hand a pistol which he fired at me, but now the imperfect light was to my advantage and not his, for his bullet, avoiding me, buried itself with a chuck in the log walls, and the report confined in the small room roared like a cannon-shot.

Moved more by impulse and instinct than by thought, I snatched out my own pistol and fired at the head in the window. The man uttered a deep sigh; the body dropped forward and swayed there; I heard the light drip, drip of something on the floor, and then the body fell inside the room.

The girl, suddenly awakened by the terrible sounds and half in a maze, cried out in fright and then began to ask in a high, trembling voice what had happened.

“The British have attacked us,” I said. “One of them was in the shadow, and I threw him back. Stand out of the range of the window.”

I did not want her to see the thing lying on the floor under the window, and I shoved the table in front of it.

She obeyed, for I spoke the last sentence very sharply. The window was wide open, and, expecting to see another face there, I held my second pistol ready; but none appeared, and I had no doubt that they feared Crowder was dead.

Taking the risk, I reached out an arm, seized the shutter, and slammed it shut, securing it as best I could with the leather strap and nail used as a fastening. Then, with my ear near the crevice, I listened, but could not hear our enemies. I feared at first to look out lest I should receive a bullet, but still hearing nothing I applied my eye and saw that the men had gone back to their fire. They were all there—four. I counted them and knew that none was missing. They were deliberating evidently over the fall of their leader and what next to do, and I took an immediate resolution.

“Light the candle,” I said to the girl. “Hold it to the fire. There’s enough heat left to start the wick to burning.”

She did so, and saw that something lay behind the table.

“What is that?” she cried.

“The dancer and singer of last night,” I replied, seeing that I would have to tell. “The leader of those desperadoes outside came into our fort, but he came into his grave.”

She retreated, shuddering, to the farthest corner of the room.

“Now, you do exactly as I say,” I continued. “Remember that you are the rank and file of this army, and I am its commander.”

“I will obey you,” she said.

I quickly reloaded my pistol.

Then I shoved the table away again and, overcoming my repulsion, dragged the dead body to a sitting position. A chill struck into my marrow, but I pulled off the red British coat and, having thrown off my own, put it on. Then I gathered up the wallet of food and Old Put’s bridle and took down the bar from the door.

“Come,” I said; “we are going to leave this place while they are planning by the fire and their backs are turned to us.”

It was a bold measure, involving many risks, but I believed that it would succeed if we kept our courage and presence of mind. For at least two or three minutes they would think I was Crowder, victorious, and that would be worth much. When I had taken down the bar, I stopped a moment.

“Keep by my side,” I said. “Remember that we must become separated by no chance. Here, take this pistol! You can shoot, can’t you?”

She said “Yes,” and took the pistol. Then I opened the door and we dashed out, running with quick and noiseless steps across the clearing towards the wood, which rose in a dim line ahead of us.

While the window opened towards the camp-fire of the besiegers the door did not, and we had gone perhaps fifty yards before they saw us. This I knew by the surprised shout that came to our ears, and looking back I saw them hesitating, as if in doubt about my identity, and at last running towards their horses. I was glad that they would pursue on horseback, and I had taken that probability into consideration when we made a dash from the house, for even at the distance I could see that the dim forest looked dense and a poor place for the use of horses.

“Courage, Julia!” I said, taking her hand. “In a minute or two we will be into the woods, and they mean safety.”

I looked back a second time. The guerillas had reached their horses, mounted them, and turned their heads our way, but in doing it their time lost was our gain. Unless lamed by some unlucky pistol-shot, we would surely gain the wood. They fired once or twice, and I heard the thunder of their horses’ hoofs, but I had little fear. I still held the girl’s hand in mine, and she made no effort to draw it away. She was running with a firm, sure step, and, though her face was white and her eye excited, she seemed to retain both her courage and presence of mind.

The wood was not as far as I had calculated, and when our pursuers were many yards away we dashed into it at such headlong haste that I tripped over a vine and fell upon my nose, burying it in a pile of soft leaves, which saved it from harm. But I was up again, rejoicing at the accident, for in a wood interlaced with vines horses could make no progress.

“I hope you are not hurt?” asked Julia anxiously.

“Hurt? Not a bit of it!” I replied. “What a blessing these woods are! How dark it is in here, and what a blessing that is too!”

In fact, the wood was our good luck and our best luck at that, for even we on foot found it difficult to make our way through it. Afar we could hear the British cursing in profusion and variety as they strove to force their horses through the dense bush.

“Hold my hand,” I said to Julia, “for otherwise I might lose you in all this darkness and density.”

But instead of waiting for her to take my hand, which she might not have done, I took hers, and, bidding her again to step lightly, I led the way, curving among the trees and bushes like a brook winding around the hills in search of a level channel. My object was to leave our pursuers at a loss concerning our course, and we soon ceased to hear their swearing or the struggles of their horses. I dropped into a walk, and, of course, the girl did likewise.

“I think we are safe now,” I said. “There is not one chance in a hundred to bring them across our path again. What a fine wood! What a glorious wood! There is no such wood as this in England. It grew here especially for our safety, Julia.”

“It did grow up in time,” she replied, “but now that you think us safe again you can call me Miss Howard, and not Julia.”

“That’s true, and now that we are safe again I must ask you, Miss Howard, as an especial favor to me, to please quit holding my hand.”

“I am not holding your hand, Mr. Marcel!” she replied indignantly. “It is you who are holding mine, but you shall not do so a moment longer.”

She tried to jerk her hand away. I let her jerk three or four times, and then I added as an afterthought:

“It is very dark here, and there is still danger that we might become separated. I think I will let you hold it a little longer, but I shall endure it merely because it is a military necessity.”

She gave her hand a most violent jerk, and it nearly slipped from me, but I renewed my grip in time.

“Simply a military necessity,” I repeated, and, seeing that it was useless, she made no further effort to withdraw the hand. I could not see her face, the darkness being too great, and therefore had little opportunity to judge of her state of mind. We walked on in silence, winding here and there through the wood, with an occasional stop to listen, though we heard nothing but the common noises of a forest—the crackling rustle of dry leaves and twigs, the gentle swaying of some old tree as the wind rocked it, and the soft swish of the bushes as they swung back into place after we had passed between.

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