Mistress Madcap/Chapter 22
IS HE dead?" asked Mehitable fearfully, when Tolliver, who had knelt to pull out the winged arrow which had struck Jaffray, looked up.
"Nay, I fear not." He got to his feet. "Come, I will see ye started for home in the farmcart which is in readiness in the barn. Jaffray's wounding has made it possible, my friends."
"But cannot you come with us?" urged Mehitable, when Master Jones had been laid upon straw in the cart and she had climbed to a seat beside her father.
"Nay." Tolliver shook his head. "I must help Jaffray. I am a surgeon."
"So we guessed." Squire Condit looked at him gratefully. "Well, let us hope we may have ye as guest some day. My name is Samuel Condit and I live"
"Condit!" Tolliver took an eager step forward as he stood beside the farm cart. "The father o' John Condit?"
"Aye!" The Squire's voice was astonished. "Do ye know my lad?"
"Know him!" Tolliver's face shone. "He studied medicine with me!"
"But I thought he studied with Doctor Carter!"
"He did," the other returned quietly. "My name is Carter. Stripped of land and moneys by the British in New York, my family gone, I came to this outpost position, thinking I might be of more aid to Americans than with the army. This Tory headquarters is used by all the river pirates and renegades who seize upon the war as a pretext for carry'ing out their own bold schemes!"
"'Twould be well to report it to Captain Littell!" cried Mehitable.
"Well, Doctor Carter, we hope to have ye as guest, remember!" the Squire was saying in farewell, when all at once Sturgins came crying out of the house, begging them not to leave him.
"In sooth, I know not what to do with him," said Doctor Carter, looking perplexed. "If Jaffray's ship crew find him here, they are likely to finish him off rather than be bothered by blind baggage like him! He knows it, having seen and doubtless helped in similar cases. That is why he is afraid now to be left!"
"Oh, Father, we cannot leave him!" exclaimed Mehitable, horrified.
"An he promises absolute quiet, we will take him," said Squire Condit sternly. Sturgins promised quiveringly and Doctor Carter helping him into the cart beside Master Jones, he sat cross-legged and bent his head upon his arms. Mehitable, glancing back more than once, was really sorry for him, though she had thought she never could be.
It was a long hard journey home. They dared not go fast, for the jolting of the farm cart over rough roads was more than Master Jones could bear. But at last, without being stopped by Tory or friends, they reached the Jones's house where Young Cy, responding to the Squire's hailing, came running joyfully out with Jemima. As soon as they had gotten the wounded man into the house the Squire resumed his journey, but not before Mehitable, tugging at Young Cy's arm, whispered to him.
"What!" The boy's eyes opened in awful horror. "Blind! I made him blind, ye say, Hitty!" He turned slowly and stared at the bowed figure of Sturgins in the farm cart.
"Why, 'twas in fair combat! Of course, it is awful" Already Mehitable was sorry for her wagging tongue.
"Awful!" Young Cy breathed it out slowly. "To—take—away—a—man's sight! It be more than awful, Hitty!"
Mehitable, driving away home beside her father, found his eyes fixed in rebuke upon her. "My daughter was in haste to spread evil tidings," he said sadly. And the girl hung her head.
But by the time they had turned into Second Road, with the sunrise slanting across the swamp toward them, she forgot her shame, forgot everything save that she was bringing her father home.
The next few days passed in rejoicing with the Condit family, made the more keen by the unexpected appearance of John Condit the morning of his father's arrival home, bringing with him a tall, straight figure. Mehitable had stared in amazement when, standing in the doorway, she had spied them approaching upon horseback.
"Mother! Father!" she shrieked. "Yonder come John and an Indian!"
Later, she saw that he was their Indian, the one who had so often rescued them. John, greeting his father with sincere, loving grasp of his hand, swung him around to face that silent person beside him. But the Squire drew back, his eyes the color of steel. How could he forget that he had once branded him a thief, that he had threatened him a most shameful punishment!
John, however, spoke with self-possession. "Father, and you, too, my mother, this be Gray Hawk, my blood brother, who through rite and Indian ceremony has established a kinship with me which I prize highly. He it is who has watched over my loved ones with a faithfulness seldom equaled and never failing. He has risked life and limb for us. Is this not so, my brother?"
"It is so, my brother," answered the Indian courteously, in his own language, his steady eyes upon the Squire's ruddy face.
"And I must tell ye, in all justice to Gray Hawk," continued John more hurriedly, "that he did not mean to steal my mother's silver candlestick holder. He wished merely to bring me an heirloom to prove, though I had told him it was most unnecessary, that he had truly been to my home upon his first trip as a runner for our army. He did not guess at its value, and now he wishes me to cry pardon for him."
The Squire's expression now changed to its accustomed jollity.
"Is't true, indeed." He thrust out his hand to grasp the red man's and pump it up and down. "I must cry his pardon, too!"
The Indian was no whit discomposed. With the same calm and dignity he had maintained during that first painful visit to the Condit home, he met the Squire's cordiality with a smile. At last the kindly host persuaded him to go indoors and partake of some wine, and soon the others could see him pledge Gray Hawk's health with a tiny flagon of his most prized wine beside the kitchen fire.
And now John glanced around anxiously. "Mistress Nancy—is she not here?" he asked.
Mistress Condit shook her head, though she was sorry to give him the bad tidings, for she had seen and had guessed at the romance with keen motherly intuition. "Nay, my son. She was called back to New York Town by the illness o' her father. Her cousin, Lieutenant Freeman, came for her very soon after Mehitable had gone. They were sorry he had not come sooner; then my impetuous little girl might have had company to Newark."
Mehitable blushed at her mother's gentle rebuke, but John stood lost in somber thought. He raised his eyes to find his mother's understanding glance upon him, and then, perceiving that they were alone, he spoke.
"'Tis queer not to know my offense toward the maid. We knew each other in New York Town, as you have doubtless guessed, my mother, and Nancy was most kind until—until"
"Until when?" asked Mistress Condit, trying hard not to smile as John's voice died away in moping silence. She was truly sympathetic; but the lover's quarrel appeared so trivial beside that great one between mother country and the young colonies.
John laughed shortly. "Until she wasn't kind," he responded in a grim voice. Then his gaze softened as he looked down into Charity's face. His little sister had come to stand close to him, fondling his hand as it hung by his side.
"But Mistress Nancy told me a most marvelous fairy tale!" observed she triumphantly.
"What fairy tale, little lass?" asked her brother idly.
But just at that instant Sturgins passed them, his sightless eyes turned upon them, and John's attention was distracted, so that the fairy tale, which might have enlightened him considerably as to a certain matter, did not receive a repetition in its telling.
"Why, Mother," John Condit spoke in surprise, "who is yonder fellow? I have not seen him around here before!"
"You mean Sturgins?" responded Mistress Condit inquiringly. "He is the man whom Young Cy made blind, by a blow, your father thinks, as he struggled to escape from him and from the villain Jaffray by the Passaic."
She launched into a description of the encounter as her husband had told it to her, the young doctor not removing his gaze from the blind man's pathetic, groping hands and white face.
"How came he here?" asked John absently. Mehitable, who had joined them as they stood upon the doorstep, spoke for her mother.
"We brought him home with us. Tolliver—I mean, Doctor Carter was fearful o' his life and so we brought him that Jaffray's crew might not"
"Doctor Carter!" repeated John in vast astonishment.
"Where saw ye him."
"He it was who bound up Master Jones's wound that night. He goes under the name o' Tolliver, having's caped to Jersey after his wealth was confiscated by ye British in New York. He is an American spy, serving at this outpost and"
"So my dear friend is here in Newark!" John mused. "Perhaps we may have him for house guest upon one o' my leaves of absence." His glance rested once more upon Sturgins's unconscious face. "Who knows—we may be able to restore that man's sight. 'Tis doubtless a portion o' bone pressing upon some nerve!"
"Oh, John, an ye could!" And Mehitable clapped her hands so joyously that even Sturgins looked up with a sympathetic grin, though he could see neither the blue sky above him nor the pitying faces gazing at him.