University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

The Hermit of Warkworth.

Old Ballad.

During the day occupied by the events narrated
in the last chapter, the Cripple of St. Jerome's remained
in the dwelling of father Pierre. His misanthropy
had relaxed into a kinder tone, and contrition
had spread a sadness over his mind. In this temper
he had made his shrift, and abjured the lawless life
and evil fellowship into which his passions had
plunged him, and now offered up a sincere and
needful vow of penitence, to which he was resolved
to devote the scant remainder of his days. The good
priest did not fail to encourage the convertite in his
wholesome purpose nor to aid him with such ghostly
counsel as was likely to strengthen his resolution. At

the period of life to which the Cripple had attained,
it is no difficult task to impress upon the mind the
value of such a resolution. When age and satiety
have destroyed the sense of worldly pleasure, the
soul finds a nourishment in the consolations of religion,
to which it flies with but slight persuasion; and
however volatile and self-dependent youth may deride
it, the aged are faithful witnesses to the truth,
that in the Christian faith there is a spell to restore
the green to the withered vegetation of the heart,
even as the latter rain renovates the pastures of
autumn.

The Proprietary had directed the brigantine to be
brought from Mattapany to St. Mary's, and she had,
in consequence, been anchored in the harbour, a
short distance from the quay, before Dauntrees had
returned from his late expedition: the men left by
Cocklescraft to navigate her were held on board as
prisoners, under a small guard from the Mattapany
Fort. The provincial court, the chief judicial authority
of the government, had assembled on the same
day, with the intention to continue its sessions until
the cases of the conspirators were disposed of. The
sitting of this court had attracted, from all quarters
of the province, an unusually large crowd of attendants;
and the town was accordingly filled with farmers,
planters and craftsmen from the interior, who,
in character of suitors, witnesses, men of business, or
mere seekers of news, occupied every place of public
accommodation.

Such was the state of things at the close of the
day to which we have referred. The faction adverse

to the Proprietary, notwithstanding the vigilance
with which they were watched, still found
means for private conference. A few of the principal
men who had not yet fallen under the suspicion
of the public authorities, assembled in familiar guise
under the roof of Chiseldine, and there consulted
upon their affairs. The hope of rescuing Fendall
and his companions by force, although somewhat
depressed by recent events, was not abandoned.
There were some sufficiently bold still to encourage
this enterprise, and they spoke confidently of the
assistance of friends, now in the port, who were
anxious to bring about an immediate conflict with the
Proprietary. It was deemed essential to the success
of this attempt that the Olive Branch should be got
into the possession of the conspirators: without the
aid of the brigantine, neither the escape of the prisoners,
nor the assistance of their confederates on
the opposite shore of the Potomac could be relied
on, even if all the other chances turned up favourably
to the design.

These topics were duly debated in conclave, and
the result was a determination to leave the enterprise
in the hands of those who had projected it, either to
be pursued or abandoned as the means at their command
might counsel. With this conclusion the restless
spirits, who had met at Chiseldine's, retired to
organise their plans amongst their kindred malcontents
throughout the town.

On the following morning when the hour for commencing
business drew nigh, an unwonted throng of

customers frequented the tap-room of the Crow and
Archer. There was but little of that cheerfulness
which usually characterizes such a resort: the occupants
of the place seemed to be chiefly engaged with
matters that rendered them thoughtful, and their
conferences were held in under tones; many loitered
through the room in silence; and it was manifest
that the aspect of public affairs had impressed all
with a sense of the weightiness of the issues which
were pending. The concourse was no less conspicuous
upon the quay. Here little knots of burghers
and inland inhabitants, sorted according to the complexion
of their political sentiments, whether of hostility
or attachment to the Proprietary, were scattered
about in quiet communings, and exchanging distrustful
and hostile glances as they came within the sphere
of each other's observation. The yawl of the Skipper
lay secured to the wharf by a rope, and the
Escalfador, scarce a cable's length out in the stream,
was near enough to present to the view of the townspeople
the sentinels that paced her deck, and kept
guard over the remnant of the pirate band, who were
yet detained on board until their presence might be
required by the authorities.

The arrival of Lord Baltimore at the Town House
attended by Albert Verheyden and the greater number
of the members of the Council, as it indicated
his Lordship's intention to examine the prisoners in
person, served to increase the public interest in the
events of the day, and to draw a considerable portion
of the crowd into the immediate neighbourhood of
the Hall of Justice. The Proprietary with his friends

took possession of a chamber opposite to that occupied
by the court, where they were soon joined by
the sturdy old Collector who, with an erect and vigorous
carriage, and a face flushed with mingled
resentment and pride of manhood aroused by the
recent events, rode up to the door and alighted
amidst the salutations of his townsmen and the clamorous
expressions of their joy at the good fortune
which had restored him his daughter. A brief interval
brought father Pierre, conducting Rob of the
Bowl, to the same spot, and by order of the Proprietary
they were both admitted into the chamber.

The prisoners had not yet arrived. In the mean
time the Council were occupied with such inquiries
as the presence of Albert Verheyden suggested.
The appearance and demeanour of the Cripple of
St. Jerome's engrossed the chief interest of the assembly.
His age, his deformity, his singularly harsh
and shrewd features, the extraordinary mystery of
his life, his connexion with the ruffians of the Chapel,
his apparent contrition, amounting to melancholy,
—above all, his presence in this conclave, amongst
persons with whom he had never before exchanged
a word, were circumstances of a nature to throw
around him the eager regard of the bystanders.
There was a peculiarly subdued and sorrowful expression
in his countenance, as he gazed with silent
intensity, upon the features of Albert Verheyden and
listened to his story of the disasters of that night
of horrors, in which Rob had first become acquainted
with him. The old man's lip quivered and

his eye glistened with a tear, as he dwelt upon
the tones of the Secretary's voice, and watched the
changes of his countenance. At length, whilst the
Secretary still continued his eventful narrative, unable
longer to control his feelings or restrain his eagerness
to catch every word that fell from Albert's lips,
he heaved an involuntary but deep sigh, and muttered,
loud enough to be heard by every one in the
apartment—“Oh, God, I have been reserved for this
deed!—in mercy, have I been spared to save his
life.” After a pause, he added in a voice of loud
and fervent entreaty—“I pray you, gentlemen, raise
me to the table that I may look him nearer in the
face:—my eyes are old and dim;” he continued,
wiping away the tear with his hand,—“this seared
and maimed trunk holds me too near the earth;—it
hath placed me below my fellow man and taught my
spirit to grovel—to grovel,” he repeated with a bitter
emphasis—“in the very mire of the basest fellowship.—Lift
me on the table, I beseech you.—I
have saved his life!—the saints be thanked, I have
saved his life!” he uttered with a wild gesticulation.
“Albert, I had made up my mind to save it with loss
of my own!—I had, boy!”

The strange frenzy that for the time seemed to
possess the deformed old man, the wild glance of his
eye and the nervous tone, almost of raving laughter,
with which he ejaculated these last words, gave rise
to an instant doubt of the sanity of his mind; but in
a moment he subsided into a calmer state, and resumed
his original self-command.

Upon a sign from the Proprietary his request was

complied with, and he was lifted upon the table that
occupied the middle of the room.

“Go on, boy,” he continued, as soon as he was
adjusted in this position; then suddenly checking
himself for the familiarity of the address, “I crave
pardon—I forget—Master Verheyden,” he added,
choking with the utterance of the name, as now within
a few feet of the Secretary he still more narrowly
gazed upon his face—“I pray thee, go on!”

When the Secretary had concluded his narrative,
a deep silence prevailed throughout the room, and all
eyes were bent upon the Cripple in expectation that
he had something to disclose which all were anxious
to hear. He however remained mute, still fixing his
gaze upon Albert; and when the Secretary casually
turned his back upon him, he reached forth his hand
and caught the skirt of the young man's cloak, with
an evidently unconscious motion, as if he sought by
this constraint to prevent the Secretary from leaving
him.

The Proprietary at length, as much struck with
the deportment of the Cripple as the rest who witnessed
it, and hoping to draw from him some history
of himself, addressed him in a tone in which the severity
of rebuke seemed to have been softened by
the anxious interest he took in the endeavour to learn
more of the singular person to whom he spoke. It
was therefore with a grave, though scarcely stern
manner that Lord Baltimore accosted him:

“Master Robert Swale,” he said, “the Secretary's
narrative which we have just heard has a
dreadful import: nor is it coloured by a distempered

fancy. We are all witnesses to facts connected with
this fearful tale that leave no room to doubt the scrupulous
truth of all that has been told—”

“True—in every syllable, true!” interrupted Rob,
with quick assent. “As God shall judge us, it is all
true.”

“It is a tale,” continued the Proprietary, “fraught
with crimes of ruthless men who, we find, have lived
in near companionship with you. Long has the province
been frightened with stories of wicked rites
celebrated in the Black Chapel,—as our people have
been taught to call that accursed house. The common
terror could solve the mystery only by referring
it to the acts of the Fiend, and it has ascribed to you
some fearful intercourse with evil spirits.”

“It hath—it hath, and with reason! mea culpa,
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!” muttered Rob, as
he vehemently struck his bosom with his open palm.

“More sober eyes have seen in your sequestered
life and rare communion with your fellow men, but
the evidences of a mind soured by adversity—a mind,
it would seem, not so humbly cast as your condition
might infer, but stricken, as the common belief has
signified, by some heavy blow of fortune.”

A stifled groan spoke the listener's apprehension
of the Proprietary's words.

“All have been deceived: you have not lived that
secluded life which in charity many have imputed to
you. No sorcery nor witchcraft hath wrought these
terrors, but the trickery of lawless ruffians; and
what was deemed your solitude, it is now confessed,
was active and commanding fellowship in this den

of robbers. Thou art too far journeyed in the vale
of years to be reproved, even if time, which seldom
fails to do his office, had not already been the avenger
of the past. Your interposition in behalf of the
Secretary's life, your removal of the brigantine and
prompt repairing hither, as well as rumours, which
I trust are true, of clear shrift and penitential vow,
announce an honest though a late purpose of amendment.
We think you owe it now to the consummation
of this good purpose, that you divulge all
it concerns us to know of that wicked haunt, the
Wizard's Chapel, the scene of so much grief and
crime, and of its inmates. Speak freely, old man.”

“My Lord,” answered Rob, with a calm though
somewhat tremulous voice; “the story of my life I
have confided to this holy man. Until my sand is
run—would that its stream were spent!—that story
lies in his bosom under the seal of the confessional.
I dare not again rehearse it:—when I am gone he
will tell it. It will be heard with curses by many—
I deserve them;—but if a life clouded by disgrace
and stung with misery may atone for a deed of passion,
I pray, with an humble spirit, that my story
may raise one voise of pity—but it doth not concern
us to speak of this,” he said as in deep emotion he
paused for some moments with his hand closely
pressed across his eyes—“these are unaccustomed
tears, my Lord,—I have not wept before to-day this
many a long year.

“What concerns my coming to the province, the
life I have led here and the history of the Black
House,” he resumed after an interval in which he

had regained his composure—“of these, I have no
scruple to speak. Sixteen years ago, my Lord, I
sailed from a port on the other side of the Atlantic,
with some little store of wealth consisting chiefly of
jewels. My destination was the islands: my name
was hidden from the world, and I had hoped to hide
myself. Disasters at sea drove us upon this coast,
where in a winter's storm, such as I have never
known but that, our ship was wrecked. I know not
who survived—I only know that it pleased Heaven
for my sins, to prolong a life that I could have better
parted with than any who found their grave beneath
the waters. I chanced to save the larger
portion of my valuables, and, on a raft of floating
spars, was drifted into the Chesapeake, where a fisherman
took me up almost lifeless, famished and
starved with cold. He put me down at St. Jerome's
—I had no wish to face my fellow men,—and, for
such hire as I gave him, provided me with comforts,
the scant comforts my condition needed, in that forsaken
house, which then was terrible, as it hath been
since—the house where Paul Kelpy murdered his
own family. There, my Lord, I lived a solitary
lodger, with no attendant near me except an aged
woman, who afterwards abandoned me and took up
her habitation at Warrington on the Cliffs:—she hath
of late again returned. That winter passed away
in suffering—ay, to the full measure of my deserts
—and when spring came, my frosted limbs had rotted
off, and I lay on my pallet that wretched, deformed
and unsightly thing thou seest me now.
There, for many weary years, I dwelt, a man
of sin and misery. Use made my state familiar,
and I began to think that my penance would, at last,
restore my peace of mind. In this lone spot, from
which all the world turned away with shuddering, I
did not dream that worldly passions could again be
awakened. But it so fell out that, four years ago, a
band of baccaneers in a trim brigantine, led by this
ravening wolf Cocklescraft, tempted their fortune
in these waters. They came in the disguise of traders,
pitched upon the Chapel as their lurking place,
won me to their purpose of unlawful commerce, and
drove their craft with such success as you, my Lord,
have seen. I consorted with them, first because
they were outlawed men, and in that thought I took
pleasure;—there was sympathy, the food for which
my heart was hungered. They built me a lodge,
and came and went as my familiar guests—and I
made money by them. Can you wonder, my Lord,
that I became their comrade? they made me their
chief—I had their secret,—they gave me friendship,
—and they brought me that devil's lure, gold—gold
more than I had ever known before. Can you
wonder, my Lord, that I became their companion?
The treasures of the Chapel needed guarding from
curious eyes. I made the spot to be doubly desecrated—we
had visors, masks and strange disguises.
I had the skill to compound chemical fires:—we had
sentinels on the watch, and plied our game of witchcraft
seasonably, till the whole country was filled
with alarm—”

At this moment, some tumult from without attracted

the attention of the inmates of the chamber,
and interrupted the further narrative of the Cripple.

At a distance, in the direction of the Fort, was
seen a guard of some ten or twelve musqueteers advancing
along the principal street of the city, led by
Captain Dauntrees in person, and forming an escort
to Cocklescraft and the prisoners who had been captured
with him. Their progress was impeded by the
crowd that thronged upon their path, amongst whom
were some who scarcely attempted to conceal their
sympathy with the prisoners, and who by signs, if
not by words, cheered them with the hope of deliverance
from their present durance. Nods of recognition
were exchanged with Cocklescraft, and significant
gestures made which he was at no loss to
comprehend. The press increased as they drew
near the door of the Town House, and in the disorder
incident to the introduction of the prisoners
into the building, more than one of the movers in
the late sedition found an occasion to assure the
master of the Escalfador, by a brief hint, of their
readiness to co-operate in seizing the brigantine.

Cocklescraft and his crew were conducted into
the presence of the Proprietary by Dauntrees, who,
leaving the guard in the hall or passage way that separated
the court-room from that occupied by the
Council, ranged the prisoners within the apartment
on either side of the door, which, being left open,
exposed to view the musqueteers, who were thus in
a position to do their duty in case any difficulty
should render their interference necessary; whilst
the crowd, at the same time, intruded itself into the

hall with such importunity as to leave but little space
for the occupation of the guard.

Cocklescraft had lost none of the moodiness that
characterized his demeanour after his surrender on
the day previous. He was somewhat paler, owing to
the wound upon his brow, which was now bound up
with a bandage of black silk that, in some degree
enhanced the sickly aspect of his complexion. Still
the fire of his spirit sparkled in his unquenched eye,
and a sullen scowl, as he looked Albert Verheyden
in the face, rested on his features. A slight but
guarded expression of surprise flashed across his
countenance when his glance encountered Rob of
the Bowl. He was unaware of the presence of the
Cripple in the Port; nor had he, up to this moment,
ever entertained a suspicion that Rob had deserted
him. The escape of the Secretary he imputed alone
to the carelessness of the seamen; the failure of the
brigantine to meet him at the rendezvous, he set down
to accident and unskilfulness, and her presence now
in the harbour to a cause altogether disconnected
with any conjecture of treachery in the Cripple.
Even the old man's presence before the Council, he
attributed to force, and believed him to be, like himself,
a prisoner. In this conviction he now found
himself before the chief authorities of the province.
He was, of course, weaponless; and as all eyes were
turned upon him, he stood with folded arms, his
cloth cap dangling from his hand, gazing in silent
defiance upon the assembly. He meditated no purpose
of defence to the charges which he expected to
hear: the facts of his late outrage admitted none, and

the presence of the Secretary assured him that the
crime he had attempted to perpetrate on All Soul's
Eve had been divulged in all its enormity, and with
such full identification of the actors in it as to render
useless all attempt even at palliation.

The unabashed gesture of the Buccaneer, his confident
port and look, even of scorn, provoked an instant
emotion of resentment in the Proprietary as
well as of the greater number of those who surrounded
him.

“Viper!” he said, “dost thou approach us with this
shameless front to brave our authority in the province!
Does no sense of crime abash thy brow, that
here, in the presence of those whom thou hast most
foully wronged, thou showest thy dastardly face without
a blush! Richard Cocklescraft, you came hither,
as all men thought, a peaceful trader, and found the
friendship of the Port accorded to you, without stint
or question. Again and again you left us, and returned;
and the townspeople ever gave you hearty
welcome to their homes. How brief a span is it,
since we saw you breaking bread and sharing the
wine-cup with this aged father, whose daughter,
execrable villain, thou soughtest to carry off by force,
in the dead hour of the night? Hast thou not plotted
against the life of the Secretary? Didst thou not
murder the fisherman, bloody and remorseless man?
Didst thou not, like a coward, strike at the gray hairs
of this venerable man, when thou stol'st upon him
in his sleep?”

“No!” replied the pirate leader, in a voice loud and
angry, undaunted by the presence of the chief functionaries

of the province, and untamed by his captivity.
“He lies who says I struck at the Collector!
though, by St. Iago, Anthony Warden may claim no
favour at my hands,—”

“Favour at thy hands!” exclaimed the Collector,
who could not sit quiet whilst the Skipper spoke—
“A boy, who undertakes to play at man's game, with
men!—A boy, to prate me thus!”

“I pray you, Master Warden,” interposed the Proprietary,
mildly, “do not interfere.”

“I struck not at the Collector,” repeated Cocklescraft;
“I look to match my sword with men not
spent with age. When others would have beaten this
old man to the ground, I saved him. I plotted not
against the Secretary's life,” he continued, answering
the accusations which the Proprietary had at random
heaped upon him. “I slew the fisherman, as a hound
that had been set to track my path. I carried away
this old man's daughter, because I loved her. Are
you answered, Lord Baltimore?”

“Impudent outlaw!” returned the Proprietary,
with an excitement of speech altogether unaccustomed,
“dost thou beard us with the confession of thy
crimes? Have the laws of the province no terrors
for thee?”

“I never acknowledged your Lordship's laws,”
retorted the seaman, scornfully. “I have lived above
them—coming when I would, and going when it
pleased me. By St. Anthony, your Lordship hath
but a sorry set of lieges! You might do well to teach
the better half of the freemen to remember that
Charles Calvert claims to be Lord and master of this

province—they seem to have forgotten it. You think
I am saucy, my Lord; I have but one master here—
Old Rob of the Trencher, my fellow prisoner:—we
will die in company.”

“Peace, knave!” ejaculated Rob, in his former
peevish voice of command. “I know thee and thy
villanies of old. Never again call me comrade of
thine. Thou shalt not depart in ignorance of the
favour you owe me, Dickon Cocklescraft. Know
that I saved the Secretary's life—that I gave back
the daughter to her father's bosom—”

“Thou!” exclaimed Cocklescraft, with a deeper
storm thickening on his brow. “Thou! didst thou
betray me?”

“I foiled thee,” replied Rob, as a vengeful smile
played on his features, “in thy horrid plot;—I saved
the boy's life—ha, ha! I saved his life!—and left thee
on the island without a refuge—thy villany deserved
it.”

“Betrayed,—betrayed by thee!” vociferated the
Pirate, as with the swift spring of the tiger he threw
himself upon the Cripple, and seized the long knife
from the old man's girdle, and plunged it deep into
his bosom, shouting as he struck the blow, “By St.
Iago, I have paid thee for it!”

The suddenness of the deed took all by surprise,
and scarce a step was made, nor a hand raised to
arrest the murderer, who, with a quickness that defied
orderly resistance, turned towards the door, with the
bloody weapon in his hand, and pronouncing aloud
the watchword that seemed to electrify his men
—“A la savanna!” rushed, at the head of his crew,

into the hall. The guards at the door were no less
unprepared for resistance than the persons within,
whilst the crowd in the hall gave ground, with that
sudden panic which belongs to all unorganized masses
of men, and fled tumultuously before the Buccaneer
and his band—thus increasing the confusion and
rendering it impossible for the weak guard of the
hall, either to follow the fugitives with the necessary
expedition to overtake them, or to fire upon them,
without risk of greater injury to friend than
foe.

As soon as Cocklescraft was seen on the open
ground in front of the Town House, driving with
headlong haste towards the quay, the partisans of
Coode and Fendall, constituting a considerable number
of those who frequented the spot, increased
the disorder by a clamour which, under the show
of pursuit, in truth retarded the movement of those
who endeavoured to intercept the flying band. The
momentary consternation in the chamber being
over, the Proprietary and those around him, sprang
from their seats and ran to the great door, whence
they could witness the struggle of pursuit. Dauntrees,
at the first moment, had repaired to his men, and
was immediately busy in attempting to open a way
through the crowd, in which he was greatly impeded
by the tumultuous interference of the malcontents.
Albert Verheyden, in the act of moving to leave the
apartment, was recalled by the voice of the wounded
man, and instantly returned to his side, where, with

father Pierre, he awaited, in anxious suspense, the
recapture of the prisoners.

Meantime Cocklescraft furiously urged his onward
course. He had snatched a sword in the crowd, with
which he became a formidable enemy to all who crossed
his path, and soon discovered, from their shouts, that
his nearest pursuers were in fact aiding his escape.
The only exception to this was Talbot and our old
friend Arnold, who, foremost in the melee, had at one
moment, as they sped down the bank, come in actual
contact with the fugitives, and Talbot had exchanged
more than one pass with Cocklescraft. The crowd
thickened on the quay; shouts rent the air, and cries
of encouragement and strife resounded from all sides.

The passage over the quay was opened—the boat
gained, the rope severed, the oars in place,—and in
another instant the buccaneers were in full flight
upon their accustomed element. The musqueteers
hasten to the wharf,—their small band jostled, pressed,
and swayed by the encumbering crowd—an ineffectual
volley is fired—Cocklescraft waves his hand in
triumph—the Escalfador is won from the feeble resistance
of her light guard, and the pirates are again
upon their own deck. The cable is slipped, sail after
sail drops from the yard or runs up along the mast
—the brigantine swings round to a fair and stiff
breeze under a cloudless heaven, and cleaves her
way mid-stream towards the mouth of the river. A
few harmless shot were fired from the fort, as she
bounded past; and almost before the bewildered
burghers were aware, she had swept beyond the
limit of the harbour—her daring master standing at

the helm and looking back at the town, scarce able
to realize the truth of his own escape, as he waved
his bonnet in derision of the gaping crowd. Many
eyes still lingered upon this fleeting vision, until the
white sails of the Escalfador disappeared behind the
projecting headland which opened to her prow the
broad current of the Potomac.

Not all could note this stirring strife of flight. A
melancholy attraction drew back the Proprietary and
his council to the chamber. When Albert was recalled
to the side of the wounded man, it was but to hear
his own name pronounced in a whispered accent, and
then to see the sufferer faint away. For some minutes,
father Pierre and the Secretary, the only persons
in the room, thought life was fled; but whilst
they still watched, the light of the eye flickered upon
them, and, by degrees, a sickly animation returned
to the body. When Lord Baltimore and the others
had gathered around, Rob was able to speak. His
voice was faint, and his gaze was upon the Secretary.

“My web is wove,” he said, in that figurative
language which had grown to be his habitual form
of expression. “Albert Verheyden thou look'st upon
—upon thy father—William Weatherby—a man of
crime—and misery. Thy hand, boy—thy lips upon
my brow—there—there,” he whispered, as his son,
pale as a spectre and trembling with emotion, bent
down over his prostrate trunk and kissed his forehead.
“Pity me, my son, and forgive me for thy
mother's sake. Poor Louise—Louise—” and with
this name again and again breathed from his lips,
when no other sound could be heard, his spirit was

gradually wafted from its mutilated and weary tenement
of clay.

“I forgive thee—I forgive and pity!” breathed
Albert, with sobs that shook his whole frame, as
he threw himself upon the lifeless body of his father.

“My dear Albert, leave this place,” said father
Pierre; “let us go to the Chapel, and there thou
may'st temper thy grief with prayer. His Lordship
will take order for the disposal of the body. I have
a paper which I was charged, when this event should
take place—and in his reckoning it was not far off—
to deliver into thy hands. Come, and when we have
done our duty at the altar, I will give it thee.”

With silent step and slow, Albert leaning on the
arm of the priest, they left the Town House, and
walked towards the little Chapel of St. Mary's.