CHAPTER XVI
JACK’S MASTER IN THE TOILS
JACK had been living nearly a month at the Roost before he saw anything of those money troubles that so beset and harassed his master. He was afterward to learn how fierce and truculent Mr. Parker could become at those times when he was more than usually tormented by his creditors.
It was about noon, and Jack was busy getting ready the clothes that his master was to wear for the morning. There had been company at the Roost the night before, and Mr. Parker, who had sat up till past midnight, and who had only just risen, sat at the open window in his nightcap and dressing-gown, with his half-eaten breakfast beside him, smoking a long pipe of tobacco out into the warm, soft air.
Suddenly there came the sound of horses’ hoofs approaching from the distance, and then the opening of the gate. Mr. Parker craned his neck and peeped out of the window cautiously. Immediately he laid down his pipe of tobacco, and turning to Jack,—“Harkee,” said he, in a voice instinctively lowered, “yonder is a man coming whom I don’t choose to see, so you just go down and tell him I’m not at home, and that I won’t be back till next Thursday; d’ ye understand?” Jack nodded his head. “Well, then, do as I tell you, and don’t you let him guess I’m at home.”
Even as the master spoke there came a loud knocking at the door. Jack ran down-stairs and through the hall, and opened it before any of the slower negroes could reach it. There were two men outside, one of them held a pair of horses, and the other had just knocked. The man with the horses had the look of a servant. The other was a lean, wizened fellow with smoothly brushed hair tied behind with a bit of string, a flapped hat, and a long-skirted gray coat—he looked like an attorney or a money-lender. “Well, master,” said Jack, “and what’ll you have?”
“I want to see your master,” said the man shortly.
“Who?” said Jack.
“Your master.”
“My master?”
“Yes; what’s the matter with the oaf? Where’s your master? Why don’t ye answer me and tell me whether Mr. Parker is at home.”
“Oh, Mr. Parker! So ’tis him you wish to see, to be sure.”
But, after all, Jack did not have to tell the lie Mr. Parker had bidden him to tell. A voice suddenly sounded from overhead—a keen, shrill voice. “What d’ye want, Master Binderly? Who d’ye come to see?”
The man at the door stepped back a pace or two and looked up, and Jack craned forward and looked up also. Mrs. Pitcher was leaning out of the window just above their heads. She wore a morning wrapper, and a cap very much the worse for wear, which gave her a singularly frowsy, tousled appearance.
“Why, you know what I want, Mistress Pitcher, just as well as I do,” said the man. “I want to see Mr. Richard Parker, and by zounds! I will see him, too! Here have I been running after him and looking for him up and down the Province these two weeks past. Here are obligations of his which have come into my hands for over a thousand pounds, and he won’t pay any attention to me, and he won’t renew his notes, and he won’t do anything.”
Jack stood in the doorway listening with very great interest, and two or three grinning negroes had gathered at the end of the house, looking on with a vague and childish curiosity. “Well, Master Money-Shark,” said the woman, “I don’t know what you are talking about; all I know is that you won’t find Mr. Richard Parker here, and so you may as well go about your business.”
“Why, what are you talking about?” bawled the money-lender. “If this is not my business, what is my business?” and Jack could not help laughing at his loud voice.
“Well, that I don’t know anything about, or don’t care anything about,” Mrs. Pitcher answered shrilly. “All I know is this here—Mr. Parker ain’t about, and won’t be about till next Thursday.”
“I don’t believe what you tell me,” answered the man roughly; “anyhow, I’ll come in and wait—and I’ll wait till next Thursday, if I have to. Either I’m going to have my money, or I’m going to have satisfaction for it.”
“No, you won’t come into the house, neither,” cried Mrs. Pitcher; and then, as the money-lender made as though to enter, she called, “Shut the door, there, Jack!” and Jack at her bidding banged the door in the man’s face, shooting the bolt and locking it.
The man kicked and pounded upon the door, and Jack could hear the housekeeper pouring vituperation down upon him from above. He himself, now having nothing more to do, went up stairs and leaned out of another window to see what the outcome of it all would be.
The housekeeper was just saying: “If you don’t go away from there, now, I’ll pour a kittle of hot water on ye.” Whereupon Mr. Binderly seemed to think it best to quit his knocking. He went out into the roadway in front, and stood there for a while talking in low tones to his servant.
“Very well, then, Mistress Pitcher,” said he at last. “You’ve got the power on me here; but you tell your master this for me, that he may hide himself from me as he pleases, but for all that there is law to be had in the Province of Virginia. And that ain’t all, neither, Mrs. Pitcher; you tell your master that I ain’t going to law till I try other things first. I’m going to his brother, Colonel Birchall Parker, first, and see what he’ll have to say to this here. He’s the richest man in Virginia, and he ain’t got the right to let his brother ruin a poor man like me.”
Peggy Pitcher made no answer to the money-lender, but snapped her fingers at him. Then she leaned on the window-sill watching him as he clambered on his horse and rode away again as he had come, with his serving-man at his heels.
There were several other occasions when creditors came pressing Mr. Parker for money, but never any that had such a smack of comedy about it.
It was somewhat more than a month later when another sort of visitor than poor Mr. Binderly appeared at the Roost. Again the master was at home, and alone, but upon this occasion it was after nightfall when the visitor arrived. Jack was reading aloud the jokes from an old almanac to Mrs. Pitcher, who sat idly listening to him. Mr. Parker was in the room beyond, and every now and then in the intervals of his muttered reading, Jack would turn and glance toward the half-opened door. The master was very quiet, and very intent upon what he was doing. He sat by the light of a candle, smoking a pipe of tobacco, and shuffling and dealing to himself and an imaginary opponent a hand of cards which he turned face up upon the table. Then, leaning with his elbows upon the board, he would study and calculate the combinations of the two hands until he was satisfied, and then again would shuffle and deal the cards. A bottle and a glass of rum and water stood at his elbow, and every now and then he would take a sip of it.
Then a loud, sudden knock upon the door startled the stillness of the house. Jack pushed back his chair, grating noisily upon the bare floor, and hurried to open to the visitor. It was a tall, brown-faced man with a great, heavy, black beard hanging down over his breast. His figure stood out dimly in the light of the candle from the darkness of the starlit night behind. The brass buttons of his coat shone bright in the dull yellow light. “Is Mr. Richard Parker at home, boy?” he asked in a hoarse, husky voice.
“I—I believe he is, sir,” said Jack, hesitatingly.
“Hath he any visitors?”
“Why, no,” said Jack. “I believe not to-night.”
Then the stranger pushed by into the house. “I want to see him,” said he, roughly; “where is he?”
Mrs. Pitcher had arisen and had managed to quietly close the door of the room in which Mr. Parker sat. “And what might be your business with his honor, master?” she said.
“Well, mistress,” said the man, “that’s my affair and not yours. Where is Mr. Parker?”
At that moment the door that Mrs. Pitcher had closed was opened again and Mr. Parker appeared. He wore a silk nightcap upon his head, and carried his pipe in his hand. “’Tis you, is it, captain?” said he. “Well, I hadn’t looked to see you so far up the river as this; but come in here.”
He held the door open as the other entered, and then closed it again. “Sit down,” said Mr. Parker, pointing toward the table with the stem of his pipe. “Sit down, and help yourself.”
As the stranger obeyed the invitation, Mr. Parker stood with his back to the great empty fireplace, looking with his usual cold reserve, though perhaps a little curiously, at his visitor. The other tossed off the glass of rum and water he had mixed for himself, and then wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand. Then, thrusting his hand into an inside pocket of his coat he brought out a big, greasy leather pocket-book, untied the thongs, opened it, and took from it a paper. “Here’s that note of hand of yours, Mr. Parker,” said he, “that you gave me down at Parrott’s. ’Tis due now some twenty days and more, and yet I have received nothing upon it. When may I look for you to settle it?”
“Let me see it,” said Mr. Parker calmly, reaching out his hand for it.
The other looked at him quizzically for a moment, and then without a word replaced the paper in his pocket-book, retied the thongs, and thrust the wallet back into his pocket again. “Why,” said he, “methinks I’d rather not let it go out of my own hands and into yours, if it’s all the same to you.”
Mr. Parker’s expression did not change a shade, but he shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly. “Why, Mr. Captain Pirate,” said he, dryly, “methinks then you’re mightily careful of small things and not so careful of great things. If I were of a mind to do you some ill turn, what do you think is to prevent me from opening this window and calling my men to knock you on the head, tie you up hand and foot, and turn you over to the authorities? Governor Spotteswood and my brother would be only too glad to lay hands on you, now you’ve gone back to your piracies and broken your pardon and fallen under the law again, as I hear you have done. What’s to prevent me from handing you over to my brother, who would rather than ten thousand pounds have the chance of hanging you?”
The other grinned. “Why,” said he, “I’ve taken my chances of that. I dare say you could do me an ill enough turn if you chose—but you won’t choose.”
“Why, Mr. Pirate?” said Mr. Parker, looking down at his visitor coldly.
“Because, Mr. Tobacco-planter, I’ve made my calculations before I came here! I know very well how you depend upon your honorable brother for your living, and that he’d cut you off to a farthing if he knew that you’d been so free and easy with me as to sit down quietly at table with me and lose four or five hundred pounds at play. You can afford to give your note to anyone but me, Mr. Gambler-Parker, but you can’t afford to give it to me and then lord it over me! Come! come! Don’t try any of your airs with me,”—this with a sudden truculence—“but tell me, when will you settle with me in whole or part?”
Mr. Parker stood for a while looking steadily at his visitor, who showed by every motion and shade of expression that he did not stand in the least awe or fear of the other. “I don’t know,” said Mr. Parker at last. “Suppose I never pay you, what then?”
“Why, in that case I’ll just send the paper to your brother for collection.”
Another long space of silence followed. “Lookee, sirrah,” said Mr. Parker at last, “I’ll be plain with you. I can’t settle that note just now. I have fifty times more out against me than I can arrange for. But if you’ll come—let me see—three days hence, I’ll see what I can do.”
The other looked suspiciously and cunningly at him for a moment or two. “Come! come! Mr. Tobacco-planter,” said he, “you’re not up to any tricks, are you?”
“MR. PARKER STOOD LOOKING STEADILY AT HIS VISITOR.”
“No; upon my honor.”
The other burst out laughing. “Upon my honor,” he mimicked. “Well, then, I’ll be here three days from now.”
Jack and Mrs. Pitcher, as they sat in the next room, heard nothing but the grumbling mutter of the two voices and now and then the sound of the stranger’s laugh. “What d’ ye suppose he’s come for, Mrs. Pitcher?” asked Jack.
“Like enough for money,” said Mrs. Pitcher, briefly.
CHAPTER XVII
JACK RIDES ON A MISSION
IT was the next morning after this visit that Jack, coming at Mr. Parker’s call, found his master lying propped up in bed, clad in his nightcap and dressing-gown. As Jack entered he thrust his hand under the pillow and brought out a letter. “Harkee,” said he, “d’ ye see this letter?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Very well, then, now listen to me. This is to go to my brother, Colonel Parker, and I choose that you shall take it. Go out to the stables and tell Dennis that I say he is to give you a good fresh horse. Ride to Marlborough and back as soon as you can. You can make the South Plantation to-night if you post along briskly, and they will give you a change of horses. I want you to be back by Friday night, so lose no time, and see that Colonel Parker gets this letter from your own hand, d’ ye understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack. “Shall I fetch you your breakfast first?”
“No, Peggy will attend to that.”
Jack hurried off to the stables, stopping only long enough on his way to tell Little Coffee where he was going. Then the black boy and the white boy went down together to find Dennis. Little Coffee was distinctly displeased. “What for he send you, anyhow?” said he. “You no find um way—you get lost in woods, boy. I find um way if he send me.”
Jack burst out laughing. “Why, to be sure,” said he, “that would be a pretty thing to do! How could Mr. Parker send you to Marlborough, Coffee? Why, you’re nothing but a black boy. You couldn’t do what he wants to have done.”
“You call me black boy all um time,” burst out Little Coffee. “I no like you call me black boy. Black boy good as white boy, anyhow.”
“No, he ain’t, neither,” said Jack; and just then Dennis came out of the stable, and Jack told him the master’s bidding.
As Jack, mounted upon one of the best horses in the stable, trotted down past the house with Little Coffee running along beside him, Peggy Pitcher stopped him to give him some food wrapped up in a paper, and Jack tucked it into the saddle-bag. “You lose um way,” shouted Little Coffee after him as he cantered away, but he did not deign any reply but galloped on down the dusty road toward the woodland, into which the ragged roadway plunged, presently to be lost in a jungle of trees and bushes and undergrowth.
In the woods all was still and warm and fragrant with the spicy odors. A squirrel ran across the way; further on a rabbit scurried out of the bushes and along the road. At one place a great wild turkey ran down across the open path. Jack shouted at it as it plunged into the thickets again, and he could hear it rustling thunderously through the bushes for a long while as he sat peering in through the dense screen of leaves whither it had gone. At another place he came upon a black snake that lay motionless in a sunny patch in the road, watching him with its bright, diamond-like eyes, and shooting out its quivering tongue. The horse shied and refused to pass the snake, and Jack, following the instinct of all men, got off his saddle and killed it. Once he forded a great, wide, shallow creek, the horse splashing and thundering through the water, and the fish darting swiftly away from either side. He had some trouble in finding the road on the further shore, but by and by he regained it and drove the horse scrambling up the steep, bluff bank. At this time the noon sun was shining straight down through the leaves overhead, and Jack dismounted, tied his dripping horse to a sapling, and took out his lunch. He sat in a little open, grassy spot, with the waters of the ford spread out before him. The solitude of the woods was full of a ceaseless stir and rustle and the resonant singing of wood birds; it seemed to Jack as though there was nobody in the whole world but himself. The horse plucked at the leaves every now and then with a loud rustle of the branch, and then chewed them, champing upon the bit.
It was nearly sundown before Jack came to the end of the first stage of his journey. Then suddenly, almost before he knew it, he was out from the woods into an open clearing where there was a growing field of maize, the harsh, crisp leaves glinting and rattling dryly in the wind. Beyond the field of Indian corn was a great and wide stretch of tobacco-fields, bordered, in the distance, by woodlands, nearly a mile away. In the mid-distance he could see a low log house surrounded by what appeared to be huts and cabins of various sizes and sorts.
Jack dug his heels into the horse’s side and galloped down the straight, dusty road that stretched away between the unfenced fields toward the houses, the horse pricking up his ears and whinnying.
At last he drew rein in front of the largest of the log houses. A number of half-naked negro children ran out as he approached, and, as he reined up his panting and sweating horse, a barefoot negro woman with a string of beads around her neck, and another around each of her wrists and each of her ankles, came to the door and stood looking at him. Her tall, conical turban blazed like a flame in the light of the setting sun and against the dark interior of the cabin. “Is this the South Plantation?” asked Jack.
“Um! Um!” assented the woman, nodding her head.
“Where’s the master?” asked Jack. “Where’s the overseer?”
The woman stared at him, making no attempt to answer his question. “Where’s your master?” said Jack again; and then, the woman still not replying, he said: “What’s the matter, don’t you speak English?”
“Iss,” said the woman with a grin; “me Ingiss.”
“Well, then,” said Jack, “where’s your master, where is he, eh?” and he waved his hand off toward the plantation field in a general way. Perhaps the negro woman understood the action better than the words. “He dar,” she said, pointing with her fingers. “He beat white man.”
“What?” said Jack.
“He beat white man—he dar,” and she pointed again. Jack did not understand what she meant, but he knew that the overseer was in the direction indicated, so he rode off toward the long row of huts that stretched away beyond, some built of boards and bark, and some of wattled sticks smeared with clay. Turning the end of the last hut he came suddenly upon an open space fronted by the outbuildings. A little crowd of men—black and white—stood gathered in this open. A man, evidently the overseer, was mounted upon a barrel and was addressing the group clustered before him. He carried one arm in a sling, and the sling was stained with fresh blood. Two assistant helpers, or overseers, stood behind the speaker.
The crowd of slaves in front of the overseer—black and white—barefoot, half-clad, wretched, low-browed, made a motley group. The overseer was evidently just finishing his harangue to them when Jack came up around the corner of the cabin. He stopped for a moment in his speech and turned his head as Jack appeared upon the scene, and the listening crowd turned their eyes toward him from the speaker as with one movement. Jack recognized the overseer as the man who had come down with him and his master in the flat-boat from the Hall. Then the overseer went on with his speech, concluding, perhaps, rather more abruptly than he otherwise would have done. “And don’t you forget this here what I’ve been telling to you,” said he; “I be one of the best drivers in the province of Virginia if ye did but know it—and what be ye, I should like to know? Why, the very dirt of the earth under my feet. How many drivers d’ ye suppose there be in this here Colony, but what would have killed that there Will Dickson if they’d been in my place, and been struck with a hoe in the arm and cut to the bone? But I tell you, I’ve got my eye on ye all, and the first man that lifts his hand ag’in’ me again had better never been born. And now you go about your business, all of ye, and remember what you’ve seen.” Then he stepped down from the barrel and came across to Jack. “Well, master,” said he, “and who be ye?”
“I’m Master Richard Parker’s serving-man,” said Jack. “Don’t you remember me? I came down with you in the flat-boat from the Hall.”
“Ay, to be sure,” said the other. “Now I remember you very well. But what brings you here?”
“Why,” said Jack, “I take a letter up to Colonel Parker, and his honor—that is Mr. Richard Parker—told me I was to stay here all night and then be on again to-morrow.”
“Did he?” said the overseer. “Then we’ll go on to the house and tell Chloe to fit ye up a room. How long ha’ ye been over from the old country?” he asked as they walked off together.
“I was just brought here when you saw me in the boat,” Jack answered.
“Ay, to be sure,” said the other. “And what part o’ England do ye hail from?”
“I was fetched from Southampton,” said Jack. “I was kidnapped.”
“So?” said the man. “I came from Hampshire myself, and I was kidnapped, too. That’s been more than twelve year ago. I had a cousin in Southampton. D’ ye happen to know anything of her—Polly Ackerman?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Jack, “I do know a Mistress Mary Ackerman. She lives in Kennel Alley. Her husband’s a tailor-man. A tall, thin man with a wart on his chin.”
“Ay,” said the man, “that’s Polly Ackerman’s husband to a T, and to think it’s been twelve year since I see ‘em. Well, here we are; walk in. Here, Coffee, take this horse and put it up in the stable. Walk in.” And Jack entered the barren interior with its earthen floor and its rude, home-made furniture.
That evening, after supper, Jack and his host sat out in front of the house in the gloaming. Three of the overseer’s helpers came over from their cabins to sit with them and smoke their pipes. Jack, being a new-comer, was questioned and cross-questioned about the old country until he was wearied of telling what he knew. It was all very quiet and restful after the day’s journey. Some voices from the servants’ quarters sounded loud in the stillness of the hot, breathless evening. The night-hawks flew high, circling with piping cries, and now and then dropping with sudden booming flight. The frogs from the distant swamp piped and croaked ceaselessly, and a whippoorwill perched on the edge of the roof in the darkness, and uttered its hurried repeated notes over and over again in answer to one of its kind in the more distant thickets. Once or twice Jack wondered aimlessly how it was faring with the poor servant whom he had only just missed seeing whipped an hour or two before, but he did not ask the overseer about him.
CHAPTER XVIII
MISS ELEANOR PARKER
IT was nearly noon the next day when Jack rode up to the front of Marlborough. A group of negroes came gathering about the horse, and Jack asked of them whether Colonel Parker was at home.
“Iss, he be at home,” was the grinning answer; but no one made any offer to help him in any way. Just then Mr. Simms came to the door of his office in one of the wings of the house, and then, though bareheaded, walked directly across in the sun to where Jack stood holding his horse.
“What d’ ye want?” said the factor, and Jack answered that he brought a letter from Mr. Richard Parker to his honor.
“Humph!” said Mr. Simms, and his face fell somewhat. “You don’t know what your master wants, do you?”
Jack looked at the factor somewhat cunningly. “How should I know?” said he.
“Well, then, give me the letter,” said Mr. Simms, “and I’ll take it to Colonel Parker. You came just in time to find him at home, for he’s going to Williamsburg this afternoon. You may go into the hall and wait for your answer there, if you choose. Here, Blackie”—to one of the negroes—“take this horse over to the stable. Come in, young man, come in!”
The great empty, shady hallway, open from one end to the other, felt and looked very dark and cool after the glare of the morning sun outside. The great doors stood open from the rear to the front, and from where he sat Jack, through the vista of trees, could catch a glimpse of the wide river stretching away in the sunlight, sparkling and glittering in the warm breeze. The strong wind swept through the space, and it was very cool and sweet. Jack sat there waiting and waiting. Somewhere a mocking-bird in a cage was singing its mimic notes, and now and then he could hear the noise of voices echoing loudly through the summer stillness of the great house. There was the sound of an occasional banging of a door, a distant snatch of a high-pitched, monotonous negro song. Through all these he could hear the ceaseless tinkling and jingling of a spinet played in one of the more distant rooms. As Jack sat listening, holding his hat in his hand, he knew that it must be Miss Eleanor Parker who was playing the spinet; and thinking of her he recalled that first day of his servitude, in which he had come out across the lawn and had seen her standing behind her father, looking at him. It seemed as though all that had happened not two or three months ago but two or three years ago, in some far-away time of the past. Suddenly the music ceased—a door opened, and the young lady came into the hall fanning herself. As she came forward Jack rose and stood waiting for her to pass by. She glanced toward him and was about to do so, when she suddenly recognized him and stopped. “Why,” said she, “are you not the young man that papa gave to Uncle Richard for a servant some while ago?”
“Yes, lady,” said Jack, and he blushed hotly.
“Methought I remembered your face,” she said; “and tell me, how do you like to be with my uncle?”
“I like it—that is, I like well enough to be with him,” said Jack, “if I have to be with any body. I wouldn’t be anybody’s servant, if I could help it.”
“But sure,” said she, “you must be somebody’s servant. Why else did you come from England except to be a servant?”
“I could not help coming,” said Jack. “I was knocked in the head and kidnapped.”
“Why, then,” said she, “it was a very great pity, indeed, for you to have been treated so. What is your name?”
“Jack—that is, John Ballister.”
Just then Mr. Simms came down-stairs to where Jack and the young lady stood. “Colonel Parker wants to see you up-stairs in his closet, young man,” said the factor; and then to the young lady, “By your leave, Mistress Nelly,” said he, “I’ll have to take him up-stairs with me, his honor wishes to speak with him.”
“He tells me, Mr. Simms, that he hath been kidnapped and fetched here to Virginia against his will,” she said.
“Like enough, Miss Nelly. ’Tis the only way we can supply enough servants nowadays. If they did but know it, they are a thousand times better off here living at ease than they are at home living in poverty.”
“I wasn’t living in poverty,” Jack said, indignantly.
“There, Mr. Simms, you hear what he says?” said the young lady.
“Well, Miss Nelly, you can talk about this some other time, maybe, for now by your leave I must take the young man away. His honor wants to see him.”
When Jack was ushered into Colonel Parker’s presence he found him seated in a large, double-nailed armchair at an open window. Some books and a lot of letters and papers lay upon the writing-desk near at hand. His head was covered by a silk nightcap, and he wore a silk dressing-gown. A sealed letter lay upon the window-sill beside him. “Come hither, young man,” he said to Jack. “Haven’t I seen you before?”
“I DON’T WANT TO BE ANYBODY’S SERVANT, LADY, AND WOULDN’T IF I COULD HELP IT.”
“Why, yes, your honor,” said Jack. “You gave me as a servant to Mr. Richard Parker.”
“He was one of the servants I fetched over from Yorktown when the Arundel came in,” said Mr. Simms.
“Oh, yes, I remember now,” said Colonel Parker. “How long have you been with your master?”
“Between two and three months, sir.”
“Two or three months, hey? Well, tell me now, how does your master live—what does he do?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” said Jack hesitatingly, and then he looked in the direction of Mr. Simms.
“You need not mind my agent,” said Colonel Parker, “and I want you to speak plainly. Tell me, does your master play much at cards or dice?”
“Yes—yes, sir,” hesitated Jack, “he does play sometimes.”
“You see, Simms,” said Colonel Parker. “I knew ’twas so. That is where the money all goes.” Mr. Simms did not reply, and Colonel Parker turned to Jack again. “Tell me,” he said, “is my brother often away from home?”
“Methinks, sir,” said Mr. Simms, very respectfully but firmly, “you do your brother an injustice in thus questioning his servant behind his back.”
“I mean to do him no injustice, Simms,” said Colonel Parker, impatiently, “but I mean to do myself justice. Tell me, boy,” he continued, turning to Jack, “do men come pushing your master for money?”
“Sometimes, sir,” said Jack. “There was a man came once saying that Mr. Parker owed him a thousand pounds, and last night—”
“A thousand pounds!” interrupted Colonel Parker. “’Tis enough. I will not ruin myself, Simms, for him or for any other man. Take this letter, sirrah, and give it to your master,” and he handed Jack the sealed letter that lay in the window place beside him. “And now get you gone.”
It was the middle of the afternoon of the following day when Jack finally reached the Roost. Mr. Parker himself came to the door as he galloped up and leaped to the ground, and the housekeeper looked down from an upper window. Jack’s master snatched Colonel Parker’s note from his fingers and tore it open violently. He hesitated for a moment, and then he began reading it, running his glance rapidly down the letter. As he did so, his face gathered into a heavier and heavier frown, and his strong, white teeth bit deep into the end of the cigarro. At last he crushed the letter in his hand. Jack, for fear he should appear to notice anything, had turned and had begun to stroke and rub the neck of the sweating horse. When he looked again, he saw that Mr. Parker had reopened the crumpled letter and was reading it through once more, this time very carefully. Then, having finished it the second time, he tore it sharply across, and then across again and again and into little pieces that fell at last in a white fluttering shower.
CHAPTER XIX
THE VISITOR AGAIN
IT was the next day after Jack had returned from Marlborough. The night was still and sultry, with just a breath of hot breeze blowing. Jack and Little Coffee were sitting together on the door-step, and Jack was telling about Miss Eleanor Parker. The moon had risen full and round, and bathed all the dark, hot, panting earth with a flood of shimmering silver. The fireflies, which were now just beginning to illuminate the night, flashed and twinkled here and there in clusters out over the damper places. Jack’s coat lay upon the step beside him, and now he sat in his shirt sleeves. Every now and then he slapped at the mosquitos that sang persistently in his ears. He had been speaking of Miss Eleanor Parker.
“I see her once myself,” said Little Coffee.
“And she spoke as kind as could be to me, and asked me all about myself,” continued Jack, without paying any attention to Little Coffee. “I told her how I had been kidnapped. I do believe she’ll speak to her father about me. M—m—m—!” he groaned, stretching himself. “I’m that sore with riding that if I’d had a beating I couldn’t be sorer. Drat that mosquito!” and he slapped his cheek violently.
“I see her once,” said Little Coffee again. “Ai! she a beauty! Um! You ain’t de only one in de world see her. She came down de ribber in de big boat and stopped yan at de landing. I stand up on de bluff and I see her with three, four fine people, all going down ribber. Dey stop here for de ma—aster.”
They were so intent upon their talk that they did not notice the approach of a stranger through the milky brightness of the night, until he was close to them. Then he was there. Jack jumped up from the step as the visitor approached, his feet rustling in the long, dry, moon-lit grass. Jack did not know him at first; then he recognized him. It was the man with the long black beard who had come at night three days before to see the master. He was trigged out now with a sort of tinsel finery that made a great show in the moonlight. He wore petticoat canvas breeches and a short-skirted coat, trimmed, as was the hat, with gilt braid. He wore a satin waistcoat, and across his breast a silken sling, from which dangled a brace of pistols. A broad leathern belt, from which hung a cutlass, was fastened at his waist by a brass buckle. The moonlight shone upon a gold chain about his neck, and his beard, which before had hung loose over his breast, was now plaited into three plaits.
Jack looked at him with wonder, and Little Coffee stared with mouth agape and shining eyes. The stranger, perfectly indifferent to them, spoke directly to Jack. “Is your master at home, boy?” he said, in his hoarse, husky voice.
“Yes, he is,” said Jack.
“Well, then, just tell him I’m here,” said the visitor, “for he’s expecting me.”
The doors and windows of the house stood wide open in the warm night. Jack led the stranger into the hall, the man’s heavy shoes clattering loudly in the silence. Mr. Parker sat at the desk in the room beyond, looking over some papers by the light of a candle. The warm breeze came in at the window, and the candle flickered and wavered. The insects flew around and around the light, and great beetles droned and tumbled in blundering flight. The room was full of the sooty smell from the empty fireplace. Mr. Parker sat in his shirt sleeves. He looked up as Jack tapped upon the door, and his fine florid face glistened with sweat. “Here’s a man wants to see your honor,” said Jack.
The stranger pushed roughly by Jack and entered. “I thought it must be you, captain,” said Mr. Parker, coldly; “I’ve been looking for you all the afternoon. Here; take this chair and sit down,” and he pointed to a seat as he spoke, turning his own chair around so as to bring his back to the candle and his face into shadow. “You may go,” said he to Jack, “and shut the door after you.”
Mr. Parker waited, after the door closed, until he heard Jack’s departing footsteps quitting the house. Meantime, he looked his visitor over with perfectly cool indifference, but with a sort of dry interest in his singular costume—his eyes lingering particularly upon the plaited beard and the chain around the neck. “I suppose, my good man,” said he at last, “that you’ve come for the settlement of that paper of yours?”
“Why, yes, I have,” said the other. “Why else d’ ye suppose I’d come?”
“Well, then,” said Mr. Parker, “I’m sorry for you, for I can’t say that I’m ready, after all, to settle it, or even a part of it. And what’s more, I won’t be for four weeks or more yet, nor until my brother’s agent pays me my quarterly allowance.”
“Not ready!” exclaimed the other, and he stared with bold anger at Mr. Parker. “What d’ ye mean by that? Why should you tell me last week that you’d pay me to-day, and then in so short a time change your mind and blow t’other way?” Mr. Parker shrugged his shoulders coolly, but did not condescend to explain how he had been disappointed in getting money from his brother.
“And don’t you intend to pay me at all, then?” the stranger asked in a loud voice.
“Why, fellow,” said Mr. Parker, “it will do you no good to lift your voice and to bluster at me. You can’t squeeze blood out of a stone, and you can’t squeeze money out of a man who hath none.”
“And when will you pay me, then?”
“That I cannot tell you either, except, as I said, I will settle something upon the paper when my allowance is paid me, and that will be four weeks from next Monday.”
“Why, then, Mr. Parker,” said the other, speaking more and more violently, “you know very well that I can’t be here four weeks from now. You know very well what danger I stand in here in Virginia as it is, and that I can’t come and go as I please, or as you please for me. You was pleased to tell me, last time I was here, that I’d broke my pardon, and you know I come here with a halter around my neck. Come, come, Mr. Parker, if you know what’s good for you you’ll make some reasonable settlement with me, and by—— you must make it to-night.”
“Must? Must, Mr. Pirate?”
“Yes, must, Mr. Gambler. Lookee, wind and weather permitting, I sail for North Carolina the day after to-morrow. If by that time you don’t make some settlement of this paper of yours, I’ll send it to your brother for collection, and tell him how I came by it. D’ ye understand?”
Mr. Parker, who from the first had not seemed to be keenly alert to the importance of the business in hand, sat fingering the papers upon his desk, looking intently at the other, but as though he did not hear what he was saying. After his visitor had ended speaking he still sat gazing at him for a little space of silence. At last, as though suddenly arousing himself, he said: “Pull your chair up here, I want to say something in your ear.”
“What d’ ye mean?” said his visitor, suspiciously.
“I mean that I have to say something privately to you. So pull your chair up here close to me.” And then the other obeyed, drawing his chair close to the desk in front of which Mr. Parker sat. “I have something in my mind,” said Mr. Parker, presently, breaking the silence and speaking in a lower voice, “I have something in my mind that may be of advantage to us both if you are the man to help me carry it out, and ’tis of that I want to speak to you.”
The other sat looking intently at Mr. Parker as he spoke. “D’ ye mean,” said he, “that you and I shall go into some venture together?”
“I mean something of that sort,” said Mr. Parker, and as he spoke there was more than the usual haughtiness in his tone and bearing.
“Well, what is it you have to propose, then?” said the visitor, in no way overawed. Again there was a little time of silence, and then Mr. Parker suddenly said: “I have a mind to be plain with you, Pirate, and I will be so, for I am driven to it. The case is just this”—and then, as with some effort—“I am a ruined and a desperate man. I am pushed fairly to the wall, and know of nowhere to get a single farthing of money to help me out of my pinch.” Even with his back to the candles the other could see that his handsome, florid face had flushed to a redder red than usual, and that he frowned a little as he spoke. “I will tell you plain,” he said, “I am in such straits that only some desperate chance can set me to rights again. So far as I can tell, I owe some five or six thousand pounds to one and another here in Virginia, besides something in Maryland, and something more in South Carolina. ’Tis not so very much, but ’tis enough to give you and others a chance to push me hard. The time was—that was when I was living in England—that my father would send me that much money in a lump, and did so two or three times. But now my brother Birchall hath everything and I have nothing; and ten thousand pounds is more to me now than fifty thousand pounds was to me then. If I could by some chance get seven thousand pounds, methinks I could set myself to rights. But where can a desperate man get seven thousand pounds except by some desperate chance?”
He did not say all this sequentially, but with many breaks and pauses, and it was so he continued, pausing every now and then, and then speaking suddenly again as though with an effort. Now he had stopped in his speech and was playing, fiddling with a pen. Then he began his broken talk again: “Well, I’d as leave say this to a rascal like you as to any other man—I am a ruined, desperate man. Day before yesterday I sent a letter to my brother Birchall asking for an immediate loan of five hundred pounds, and offering any sort of security that he might demand, and that I could give, if he would loan me five thousand pounds. I set forth to him how desperate were my circumstances, but no, he would not consider or think of anything, but sent me a letter—“ He ceased and sat frowning at the other. “You see,” he said, resuming, “when I came back from England four years ago I came a ruined man. My father had given me all that I had asked for while I was living in England, but when he died he left everything to my brother Birchall, and nothing to me except this plantation, which is not a tenth part, I may say, of what had been the estate. He said that he had given me my share, and more than that, while he lived, and so he gave the estate to my brother, who had married a great heiress and needed it not. I had to run away from England to escape my debts, and still they followed me up. Then I was forced into asking my brother for help. I spoke pretty roundly to him, telling him what I thought of such injustice, that gave him everything and me nothing, and so in the end he paid my debts for me. But he talked to me in such a way as showed plainly enough that he thought, in paying my debts, he had bought me body and soul, and might treat me as he chose, and say things to me as he pleased. I bore from him what I would not have borne from any other man in all the world. Well, this letter which he hath sent me in answer to my request for a loan of money, is such as hath driven me clean to the wall, and with no help left to me, and I am a desperate man. He comes as near to calling me a rogue as he dares to do, and tells me in so many words that I am a disgrace and a dishonor to him. Well, then, if he thinks that I am a dishonor to him, I may as well be so.”
All this time the stranger had been sitting motionlessly listening to what the other said, his eyes fixed intently upon the shadowed face of the master of the Roost. Presently Mr. Parker resumed:
“His letter is of the kind that makes me feel easy to do what I can to get from him what he will not give me, and what, if my father had but been just to me, would have been mine by rights. ‘Twould have cost him nothing to have spared me five hundred pounds, or five thousand pounds, either; but now I will get it from him if I can, let him suffer from it ever so much.” He checked himself suddenly, and then said, “Why, do you suppose, am I telling you all this that I would not tell to any other man in all the world.”
“Why, that is the very thing I’m waiting for you to let me know,” said the other.
Mr. Parker hesitated for a moment, and then he said, “Will you have something to drink?”
“Why, yes,” said the other. “If you have it handy here, I would like right well to have a glass of grog.”
Mr. Parker turned as though to summon Jack, then, as if thinking better of it, he himself arose, went to the closet at the side of the fireplace, and brought thence a bottle of rum and a glass. “Can you do without water?” said he.
“Yes, I can if I must,” said the other.
Mr. Parker pushed the papers aside on the desk and set the bottle and glass within reach of his visitor, who poured out nearly half a tumblerful of the liquor.
Mr. Parker looked coldly on as he filled his glass. “Well, then, my plan is, as I said, to get from my brother Birchall by force what he would not give me of his own free will. Are you listening?” The other nodded briefly, raised the glass to his lips, and drank off the rum he had poured out. “You know perhaps that my brother has only one living child?”
The visitor seemed struck by Mr. Parker’s sudden question. He looked at him for a second or two in an almost startled silence, and then again nodded briefly.
“His child is a daughter,” said Mr. Parker, “and a very beautiful and charming young lady, and one of whom I am very fond. Now, if some desperate pirate—one, for example, like yourself”—and he looked his visitor steadily almost scornfully in the face as he spoke—“should kidnap this young lady, and carry her away, say to somewhere in North Carolina, I know very well that my brother would give ten, yes, maybe twenty thousand pounds by way of ransom to have her safe back again.”
A pause of perfect and unbroken silence followed. “I never did anything of that kind before,” said Mr. Parker’s visitor at last, “and I wouldn’t know how to manage it.”
“Why, as for managing it,” said Mr. Parker, “it could be managed easily enough. You would only have to go up the river some time when my brother was away from home and when nobody was there, and carry off the young lady. You live down in North Carolina, and you could take her home until her father could ransom her.” Then, after a moment or two of brooding silence, he continued almost with a flash: “But, understand, she is my niece, and if anything of the kind is done she is to be treated in every way as befits a lady of such rank and quality in the world. There shall be no needless roughness, nor anything said or done after she is taken away from home that may be unfit for her to hear or to see. I have naught against my niece. I am very fond of her. If her father suffers, ’tis his own fault, but I will not have her suffer. D’ ye understand?”
“Yes,” said the other with a sort of sullen acquiescence, “I understand.”
“You have a home down in Bath and you have a wife there, I understand. The young lady shall be taken to your wife and waited upon by her.”
The other nodded his head, but made no reply. Presently he asked: “But how is the rest to be managed? How is your brother to be approached, and how is the money to be handled that is to redeem the young lady?”
“I am about to tell you that,” said Mr. Parker, curtly. “I understand that Mr. Knight, the Colonial Secretary in North Carolina, is a friend of yours. Now it shall be arranged that Mr. Knight shall send, by some decent, respectable merchant-captain, a letter addressed to me. The letter will be of a kind to tell me that my niece hath been taken by some of the Pamlico pirates, who hold her for ransom. Then I will approach my brother, and the matter will be arranged—I acting as my brother’s agent and Mr. Knight as the agent of the pirates.”
The other listened closely and attentively. “And what share of the money might you expect when the matter is settled?” he asked.
“I shall expect,” said Mr. Parker, “to have the half of it. You and Mr. Knight can settle the balance betwixt yourselves.”
The other whistled and then arose, pushing back the chair noisily. “Why, Mr. Parker,” said he, “I am not used to doing business that way. If the thing is done at all, I take it, it is done at the risk of my neck and not at the risk of your neck. The danger falls all upon me and none of it upon you, and yet you expect the half of all the gain for yourself. My terms are these: I shall have half of what comes of the venture, and not you; and you and Mr. Knight, as agents, shall share the balance betwixt you.”
Mr. Parker also pushed back his chair and rose. “Then, sir,” said he, “if you choose to quibble so, the business is all over between us, for I tell you plainly that I shall not abate one single jot or tittle. I shall have the half of what is made of this venture for my share, or there shall be no venture and nothing to share at all. As for that paper of mine you hold, you will get not a farthing upon it as it stands, and you may send it to my brother if you choose, for, after all, I can’t be worse ruined than I am now,” and he shrugged his shoulders.
The other looked into his face for a moment or two, but there was not a shade or sign of yielding in it. Then he burst out laughing. “Well, Mr. Tobacco-Planter-Gambler,” said he, “you do drive a mightily hard bargain, to be sure. Well, as you won’t come to me I must come to you. I tell you what it is, I will think over all that you have said, and then let you know your answer.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Parker, “and when will that be?”
“Well, I will let you know it on Wednesday next.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Parker, “I will be down at Parrott’s on Wednesday next, and then we can settle the matter one way or the other.”
“At Parrott’s, on Wednesday next,” repeated the other. “That will suit me very well indeed.”
“And now, is there anything more?”
“Why, yes, there is,” said the other. “How about this note of hand that you was to settle this evening?” and he tapped the breast of his coat.
“That,” said Mr. Parker, “must go without settlement. You shall keep it for the present as an assurance of good faith upon my part. But when Mr. Knight sends the letter to me, as I have planned for him to do, the paper must be inclosed in it and sent to me.”
“And how about settlement upon it?”
“It must,” said Mr. Parker, “go, as I told you, without settlement, for I tell you plainly that I won’t conclude this business with you if you hold any paper with my name signed to it. I don’t choose so to put myself into the hands of any man, much less into your hands.”
Then once more the other burst out laughing. He clapped Mr. Parker upon the shoulder. Mr. Parker drew himself a little back, though he chose to show no resentment at his visitor’s familiarity. “Methinks you had better go now,” said he.
“Very well,” said the other, “very well, I’ll go.”
He stopped only long enough to pour for himself another half-glass of rum while Mr. Parker stood by watching him; then he opened the door and walked across the hall and out of the house. Mr. Parker followed him and stood upon the door-step watching him as he stalked away through the white moonlight toward the bluff overlooking the misty distance of the river beyond.