45. CHAPTER XLV.
A LAWYER WITH A SMALL LIBRARY.
In a small upper room of a dingy hotel by the river side, a
middle-aged man, well dressed, and apparently much at his ease,
sat smoking an unexceptionable Havana, and looking listlessly
into the cheering fire which burned in a grate at his side. On a
table near at hand lay a volume of New York statutes and another
legal book, while a bulky portfolio beside them indicated the presence
of writing materials within. These implements of his
assumed profession had been furnished by the forethought of Gertrude,
and Johnson had brought them with him now, in order
that he might familiarize himself with their presence, and perhaps
receive some hints from his more clerkly confederate as to the
skillful handling of such strange tools.
His reverie, which seemed by no means a painful one, was
interrupted by a knock at his door, and scarcely had he given
permission to enter, when the disguised Hadley, who had been
shown up by a servant, walked in unannounced.
Johnson's eyes glanced momentarily towards an overcoat which
hung on the wall, in an inner pocket of which were the weapons
he usually carried closer to his person, but which his legal dress
did not admit of receiving. The singular apparel and deportment
of his visitor had induced him to doubt whether he could be the
man whom he was expecting to see, but at the next instant his
misgivings were dispelled by an expressive smile on the stranger's
face, and by the lady-like hand, flashing with a brilliant diamond,
which was extended towards him.
“Your name is Miller, I believe?” said Hadley, taking a seat
which was offered him, but without removing either cloak or hat.
Johnson bowed assent, and threw the remainder of his cigar
into the fire.
“You are a barrister from New York?”
“No, sir—a lawyer; there are no barristers in our State.”
“Right—it is well to remember the distinction. You have
brought your library with you, I see, Mr. Miller.”
The outlaw again bowed and smiled, as he observed the searching
look of his companion.
“All of it, I presume?” again asked Hadley.
“All of it.”
“I believe there can be no doubt that you are the man I am
sent to. But you will excuse me, if I seek to make assurance
doubly sure, before entering upon business of grave concern.
There is a name which may serve as a watchword between us.”
“Gertrude Van Kleeck.”
“Right. It is a name, too, although strange to Anglo-Saxon
ears, which the bravest knight of the days of chivalry might have
been proud to bear to tournament or battle-field. If you were
such a champion, she could not repose higher confidence in your
valor and skill than she already does.”
The outlaw smiled with evident satisfaction, as he replied,
“She is worthy of a brave man's fealty; yet I fear I should not
be here to-night, had I not other motives than her service. It is
something to inflict a humiliating blow, however slight, upon a
tyrannical government.”
It is unnecessary to detail the conference which ensued between
these dissimilar confederates, which a subsequent narrative of its
results will sufficiently explain. Let it suffice that Hadley was able
to give his companion such satisfactory assurance of the promised
facilities for a rescue as to fully decide the latter upon making the
attempt.
A little before nine o'clock in the evening they parted, the one
to become the “observed of all observers” in a fashionable and
brilliant assembly, the other to rejoin the concealed comrades,
who waited to bear him back to their island refuge.
While these events were taking place, there were still two
parties who were deeply interested in the fate of Harry Vrail, who
as yet knew nothing of the intended rescue. In vain had the
unhappy Ruth sought, again and again, to obtain from Gertrude
some clue to the mysterious hopes at which she hinted, and which
seemed sufficient to sustain her from despondency. The child had
long ceased to ask, but her tear-filled eyes turned often with appealing
glances to her friend, and she watched with strange
interest every minute event which might throw light upon the
clouded subject. She had some indistinct idea that Gertrude's
visit to the States had been for the purpose of invoking the aid of
her own government for its imprisoned citizen, and this hope
grew and took shape in her mind, until it entered into her
dreams, and she saw vast armies, with starry banners, come to
demand the freedom of her unfortunate friend. From these
visions she awoke to grief enhanced by the brief illusion.
“You shall know all to-morrow, dear Ruth,” said Gertrude, on
the evening of her last conference with Hadley, from which
the wondering child had been excluded. “Be patient until
then.”
“I will try, Gertrude,” she replied, faintly; “but oh, I am
so frightened as the time draws nigh. Is there nothing that I
can do?”
“Yes, Ruth, you can pray.”
“Night and day—night and day!” exclaimed the frantic child,
with clasped hands. “Oh, do you think He will hear?”
“Yes,” replied Gertrude, with sudden enthusiasm, inspired by
the beautiful picture of passionate supplication before her; “yes,
Ruth, I believe that He will hear.”
She drew the gentle child to her side, and together the fair
young friends wept long and in silence.
With grief scarcely less deep or sincere, though more rudely
expressed, did the faithful servant bewail his young master's fate,
and his own impotency to aid him.
“I don't know, Massa Garret,” he said, “what it all means.
Dare is a great deal of comin' and goin' and talkin', but it don't
amount to nothin'. These Britishers will hang Massa Harry day
after to-morrow, as sure as a gun.”
“I fear they will, Brom.”
“'Course they will sir; he'll walk out of that back door I
showed you, Massa Garret, and he knows it, too, only he don't
want to scare Missa Gertrude by tellin' her so. She had better
go home, she and little Roof, and then we'll come afterwards, and
tell 'em he's only transported, and will come back one of these
days, ten or twelve years from now.”
Brom showed much emotion, and was quite in earnest in his
proposition.
“It won't do, Brom,” replied Van Vrank; “we could never
deceive them in that way. They must know the worst, whatever
it is.”
“I bin thinking,” continued the negro, after a little pause, and
speaking in an embarrassed manner, as if he feared he might be
presumptuously overrating his own importance, “I bin thinking
whether dey wouldn't take me back and let Massa Harry off. I
think I would do it, Massa Garret, for poor Missa Getty, that I've
trotted on my knee when she was a baby, and who was always jis
so good and kind. She'll die if Massa Harry dies, I know. You
don't know all that I do about dis ting, and I ain't gwine to tell
you—but I sartingly think I would do it. Do you think dey
would swap?”
“What, and hang you instead of Harry?”
“Yes—I am a strong man.”
“No, my good fellow, they would do no such thing; they would
not hang you any way, not if you should ask them to.”
“Dey are a set of heathens, den,” replied Brom, indignantly,
“and I am sorry we ever had anything to do with them.”
