CHAPTER XXVIII
Silver Heels stood in the tap-room of "Buckman's Tavern" castingbullets; the barefoot drummer watched the white-hot crucible and baledout the glittering molten metal or fed it with lumps of lead strippedfrom the gate-post of Hooper's house in Danvers.
Near the window sat some Woburn Minute Men, cross-legged on the wornfloor, rolling cartridges. From time to time the parson of Woburn, whohad come to pray and shoot, took away the pile of empty powder-hornsand brought back others to be emptied.
The tavern was dim and damp; through freshly bored loopholes in theshutters sunlight fell, illuminating the dark interior.
In their shirts, barearmed and bare of throat to the breast-bone, ascore of Lexington Minute Men stood along the line of loopholes, theirlong rifles thrust out. They had no bayonets, but each man had drivenhis hunting-knife into the wall beside him.
Jack Mount and the Weasel lay, curled up like giant cats, at the door,blinking peacefully out through the cracks into the early sunshine. Icould hear their low-voiced conversation from where I stood at mypost, close to Silver Heels:
"Redcoats, Cade, not redskins," corrected Mount. "Britishlobster-backs--eh, Cade? You remember how we drubbed them there inPittsburg, belt and buckle and ramrod--eh, Cade?"
"That was long ago, friend."
"Call me Jack! Why don't you call me Jack any more?" urged Mount. "Youknow me now, don't you, Cade?"
"Ay, but I forget much. Do you know how I came here?"
"From Johnstown, Cade--from Johnstown, lad!"
"I cannot remember Johnstown."
Presently the Weasel peered around at Silver Heels.
"Who is that young lady?" he asked, mildly.
Silver Heels heard and smiled at the old man. The faintest quivercurved her mouth; there was a shadow of pain in her eyes.
The fire from the crucible tinted her cheeks; she raised both baredarms to push back her clustering hair. Hazel gray, her brave eyes metmine across the witch-vapour curling from the melting-pot.
"Do you recall how the ferret, Vix, did bite Peter's tight breeches,Michael?"
"Ay," said I, striving to smile.
"And--and the jack-knife made by Barlow?"
"Ay."
She flushed to the temples and looked at my left hand. The scar wasthere. I raised my hand and kissed the blessed mark.
"Dear, dear Michael," she whispered, "truly you were ever the dearestand noblest and best of all!"
"Unfit to kiss thy shoon's latchet, sweet--"
"Yet hast untied the latchets of my heart."
A stillness fell on the old tavern; the Minute Men stood silently atthe loopholes, the barefoot drummer sat on his drum, hands folded,watching with solemn, childish eyes the nuggets of lead sink, bubble,and melt.
A militiaman came down-stairs for a bag of bullets.
"They be piping hot yet," said the drummer-boy, "and not close pared."
But the soldier carelessly gathered heaping handfuls in his callousedpalms, and went up the bare, creaking stairs again to his post amongthe pigeons.
The heat of the brazier had started the perspiration on Silver Heels'sface and neck; tiny drops glistened like fresh dew on a blossom. Shestood, dreamily brushing with the back of her hand the soft hair fromher brow. Her dark-fringed eyes on me; under her loosened kerchief Isaw the calm breathing stir her neck and bosom gently as a whiteflower stirs at a breath of June.
"The scent of the sweet-fern," she murmured; "do you savour it fromthe pastures?"
I looked at her in pity.
"Ay, dear heart," she whispered, with a sad little smile, "I amhomesick to the bones of me, sick for the blue hills o' Tryon and thewhistling martin-birds, sick for the scented brake and the smell ofsweet water babbling, sick for your arm around me, and your man'sstrength to crush me to you and take the kiss my very soul does acheto give."
A voice broke in from the pigeon-loft above, "Is there a woman belowto sew bandages?"
"Truly there is, sir," called back Silver Heels.
"I'll take the mould," said the small drummer, "but you are to comewhen the fight begins, for I mean to do a deal o' drumming!"
She started towards the stairway, then turned to look at me.
"My post is wherever you are," I said, stepping to her side.
I took her little hand, all warm and moist from the bullet-moulding,and I kissed the palm and the delicate, rounded wrist.
"There is a long war before us ere we find a home," I said.
"I know," she said, faintly.
"A long, long war; separation, sadness. Will you wed me before I go tojoin with Cresap's men?"
"Ay," she said.
"There is a parson below, Silver Heels."
Her face went scarlet.
"Let it be now," I whispered, with my arm around her.
She looked up into my eyes. I leaned over the landing-rail and calledout, "Send a man for the parson of Woburn!"
An Acton man stepped out on the tavern porch and shouted for theparson. Presently the good man came, in rusty black, shouldering afowling-piece, his pockets bulging with a Bible and Book of CommonPrayer, his wig all caked and wet from a tour through the dewy willowsbehind the inn.
"Is there sickness here--or wounds?" he asked, anxiously. Then he sawme above and came wheezing up the stairs.
"Heart-sickness, sir," I said; "we be dying, both of us, for theheart's ease you may bring us through your holy office."
At length he understood--Silver Heels striving to keep her sweet eyeslifted when he spoke to her, and I quiet and determined, asking thathe lose no time, for no man knew how long we few here in the tavernhad to live. In the same breath I summoned a soldier from the southloophole in the garret, and asked him to witness for me; and he tookoff his hat and stood sheepishly twirling it, rifle in hand.
And so we were wedded, there in the ancient garret, the pigeonscoo-cooing overhead, the blue wasps buzzing up and down thewindow-glass, and our hands joined before the aged parson of Woburntown. I had the plain gold ring which I had bought in Albany for thispurpose, nor dreamed to wed my sweetheart with it thus!--and O thesweetness in her lips and eyes when I drew it from the cord around myneck and placed it on her smooth finger at the word!
Little else I remember, save that the old parson kissed her, and thesoldier kissed her outstretched hand, and let his gun fall for bashfulfright. Nor that we were truly wedded did I understand, even when theparson of Woburn went away down the creaking stairs with hisfowling-piece over his shoulder, leaving us standing mute togetherunder the canopy of swinging herbs. We still held hands, standingquiet, in a vague expectation of some mystery yet to come. Childrenthat we were!--the mystery of mysteries had been wrought, never to beundone till time should end.
A pigeon flew, whimpering, to the beam above us, then strutted andbowed and coo-cooed to its startled, sleek, white sweetheart; a windblew through the rafters, stirring the dry bunches of catnip, mint,and thyme, till they swung above, scented censers all, exhalingincense.
There was a pile of cotton cloth on the floor; Silver Heels sank downbeside it and began to tear it into strips for sewing bandages.
I looked from the window, seeing nothing.
Presently the Minute Man at the south loop spoke:
"A man riding this way--there!--on the Concord Road!"
Silver Heels on the floor worked steadily, ripping the snowy cotton.
"There is smoke yonder on the Concord Road," said the Minute Man.
"AND SO WE WERE WEDDED"]
I roused and rubbed my eyes.
"Do you hear firing," he asked, "far away in the west?"
"Yes."
"Concord lies northwest."
Silver Heels, absorbed in her task, hummed a little tune under herbreath.
"The smoke follows the road," said the Minute Man.
The firing became audible in the room. Silver Heels raised her headwith a grave glance at me. I went and knelt beside her.
"It is coming at last, l
ittle sweetheart," I said. "Will you go, now?Foxcroft will take you across the fields to some safe farm."
"You know Sir William would not have endured to see me leave at such atime," she said.
"Yes, dear heart, but you cannot carry a rifle."
"But I can make bullets and bandages."
"The British fire at women; you must go!" I said, aloud.
"I will not go."
"I command."
"No." She bent her fair, childish head and the tears fell on the clothin her lap.
"Look! Look at the redcoats!" called out the Minute Man at the atticwindow.
As I rose I heard plainly the long, resounding crash of musket firing,and the rattle of rifles followed like a hundred echoes.
"Look yonder!" he cried.
Suddenly the Concord Road was choked with scarlet-clad soldiers.Mapped out below us the country stretched, and over it, like ablood-red monster worm, wound the British column--nay, like to adragon it came on, with flanking lines thrust out east and west forits thin red wings, and head and tail wreathed with smoke.
And now we could see feathery puffs of smoke from the road-sidebushes, from distant hills, from thickets, from ploughed fields, fromthe long, undulating stone walls which crossed the plain. Faster andfaster came the musket volleys, but faster yet rang out the shots fromour yeomanry, gathering thicker and thicker along the British route,swarming in from distant towns and hamlets and lonely farms.
The old tavern was ringing with voices now--commands of officers,calls from those who were posted above, clattering steps on the porchas the Acton men ran out to their posts behind the tufted willows inthe swamp.
He who had been placed in charge at the tavern, a young officer of theWoburn Alarm Men, shouted for silence and attention, and ordered usnot to fire unless fired upon, as our position would be hopeless ifcannon were brought against us. Then he commanded all women to leavethe tavern and seek shelter at Slocum's farm across the meadows.
"No, no!" murmured Silver Heels, obstinately, as I took her hand andstarted for the stairs, "I will not go,--I cannot--I cannot! Let mestay, Michael; for God's sake, let me stay!" And she fell on her kneesand caught at my hands.
"To your posts!" roared the Woburn officer, drawing his sword andcoming up the stairs two at a jump. He stopped short when he sawSilver Heels, and glanced blankly at me; but there was no time now forflight, for, as he stepped to the window beside me, pell-mell into thevillage green rushed the British light infantry, dusty, exhausted,enraged. In brutal disorder they surged on, here a squad huddledtogether, there a company, bullied, threatened, and harangued by itsofficers with pistols and drawn swords; now a group staggering past,bearing dead or wounded comrades, now a heavy cart loaded withknapsacks and muskets, driven by hatless soldiers.
Close on their heels tramped the grenadiers. Soldier after soldierstaggered and fell from the ranks, utterly exhausted, unable to risefrom the grass.
The lull in the firing was broken by a loud discharge of musketry fromFiske's Hill, and presently more redcoats came rushing into thevillage, while at their very heels the Bedford Alarm Men shot at them,and chased them. Everywhere our militia came swarming--from Sudbury,Westford, Lincoln, Acton; Minute Men from Medford, from Stowe, fromBeverly, and from Lynn--and their ancient firelocks blazed from everystone wall, and their long rifles banged from the distant ridges.
Below me in the street I saw the British officers striving desperatelyto reform their men, kicking the exhausted creatures to their feetagain, striking laggards, shoving the bewildered and tired grenadiersinto line, while thicker and thicker pelted the bullets from theMinute Men and militia.
They were brave men, these British officers; I saw a young ensign ofthe Tenth Foot fall with a ball through his stomach, yet rise and facethe storm until shot to death by a dozen Alarm Men on the BedfordRoad.
It was dreadful; it was doubly dreadful when a company of grenadierssuddenly faced about and poured a volley into our tavern, for, ere thecrashing and splintered wood had ceased, the tavern fairly vomitedflame into the square, and the British went down in heaps. Through thesmoke I saw an officer struggling to disengage himself from his fallenand dying horse; I saw the massed infantry reel off through thevillage, firing frenziedly right and left, pouring volleys intofarm-houses, where women ran screaming out into the barns, and franticwatch-dogs barked, tugging at their chains.
It was not a retreat, not a flight; it was a riot, a horriblesaturnalia of smoke and fire and awful sound. As a maddened panther,wounded, rushes forth to deal death right and left, even tearing itsown flesh with tooth and claw, the British column burst south acrossthe land, crazed with wounds, famished, athirst, blood-mad, dealingdeath and ruin to all that lay before it.
Terrible was the vengeance that followed it, hovered on its gaspingflanks, scourged its dwindling ranks, which withered under thesearching fire from every tuft of bushes, every rock, everytree-trunk.
Already the ghastly pageant had rushed past us, leaving a crimsontrail in its wake; already the old tavern door was flung wide, and ourMinute Men were running down the Boston Road and along the ridges oneither side, firing as they came on.
I, with Mount and the Weasel, hung to their left flank till twoo'clock, when, about half a mile from Lexington Meeting-house, weheard cannon, and understood that the relief troops from Boston hadcome up.
Then, knowing that there were guns enough and to spare without ours,we shouldered our hot rifles and trudged back to "Buckman's Tavern,"through the dust, behind a straw-covered wain which was drivingslowly under the heat of an almost vertical sun.
Mount, parched with thirst, hailed the driver of the wain, asking himif he carried cider.
"Only a wounded man," he said, "most dead o' the red dragoons."
I stepped to the slowly moving wagon and looked over the tail-boarddown into the straw.
"Shemuel!" I cried.
"Shemuel!" roared Mount.
The little Jew opened his sick eyes under his bandage. The Weaselclimbed nimbly over the tail-board and settled down beside the woundedman, taking his blood-smeared hand.
"Shemuel! Shemuel! We saw them split your head!" stammered Mount, inhis astonishment and joy.
"Under my hat I did haff a capful of shillings," replied Shemuel,weakly; "I--I go back--two days' time to find me my money by dotLechemere swamp--eh, Jack?"
"God bless you, old nosey!" cried Mount; "we'll get your money, lad!Won't we, Cardigan?"
The little Jew turned his heavy eyes on me.
"You haff found Miss Warren?" he gasped. "Ach, so iss all well. I goback--two days' time--find me my money." He smiled and closed hiseyes.
So we re-entered Lexington, Jack Mount, the Weasel, Saul Shemuel, andI; and on the tavern steps Silver Heels stood, her tired, colourlessface lighted up, her outstretched hands falling on my shoulders; and Ito take her in my arms, for she had fallen a-weeping. Above us thesplendid blue of the sky spread its eternal tent, our only shelter,our only home on the long trail through the world; our lamp was thesun, our fireplace a continent, and the four winds our walls, and ourestates were bounded by two oceans, washing the shores of a land wherethe free, at last, might dwell.
In the south the thunder of the British cannon muttered, distant andmore distant; the storm had passed.
Had the storm passed? The smoke hung in the north where Concord townwas burning, yet around us birds sang.
And now came Jack Mount, riding postilion on the horses which drew thepost-chaise; behind him trotted the Weasel, leading out Warlock.Silver Heels saw them and stood up, smiling through her tears.
"Truly, we stayed and did our duty, did we not, dear heart?"
"With your help, sweet."
"And deserted not our own!"
"Yours the praise, dear soul."
"And did face our enemies like true people all; is it not so,Michael?"
"It is so."
"Then let us go, my husband. I am sick for my own land, and for thehappiness to come."
"Northward we journey, little sweetheart."
"To the blue hills and the sweet-fern?"
"Ay, home."
And so we started for the north, out of the bloody village where ourliberty was born at the first rifle-shot, out of the sound of theBritish cannon, out of the land of the salt sea, back to the inlandwinds and the incense of our own dear forests, and the music of sweetwaters tumbling where the white pines sing eternally.
I rode Warlock beside the chaise; Shemuel lay within; Silver Heels satbeside the poor, hurt creature, easing his fevered head; but her eyesever returned to me, and the colour came and went in her face as oureyes spoke in silence.
"Good-bye," said Foxcroft, huskily.
Mount squared himself in his saddle; the Weasel, rifle on thigh, sethis horse's head north.
Slowly the cavalcade moved on; the robins sang on every tree; far tothe southward the thunder of the British cannon rolled and re-echoedalong the purple hills; and over all God's golden light was falling onlife, and love, and death.