University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
THE BLACK WATCH.

Our young friends at the bonfire were questioning
where the lady in black clothes, who had gone up the
West Road, now was; and began to answer themselves.

“It's getting dark, down there: soon you couldn't tell
her.”

But in every boys' gathering, as in every gathering
of men, there are always some who, finding themselves
gifted with extraordinary faculties, are not disposed to
keep the discovery to themselves.

“Oh, I could!” said one of these lucky young persons;
and his reputation was at once extended by
Towne, who caught up his words and proclaimed
them.

“Will Hirsett says he can see in the dark!” which
gave Tom Hutchins a chance to try his hand at one
out of the stock of figures of speech to which each
generation comes fresh: —

“Oh, yes! he's an owl.”

Meadows took a higher flight for himself: —

“I could see in pitch dark, — I always could.”

Another, a doughy-looking boy, having witnessed
the strength and dexterity with which Hutchins had
wielded a grown-up man's metaphor, in calling Hirsett

an owl, immediately handled one which he thought
as good, or better: —

“Meadows is a fowl. Look here, fellows! Meadows
is a fowl.”

If Meadows was quick at his lessons, he was also
quick in his temper, too; and so he took this latter
right up: —

“And Fatty Dover is something else which begins
with f and ends with l.”

Here Hutchins, who had all along been the chief
speaker, hastened to use another opportunity: —

“Take care, Meadows! If you ain't a fowl, don't get
afoul of him.”

But before the audience could fairly see this joke,
Remsen, Brade's champion, exclaimed in a low voice: —

“There she is, now! She's coming back!”

“The Black Watch!” said Hutchins; and the time
being propitious for the taking up and fastening of a
name, several voices adopted it.

“Well! Meadows and Hirsett are bright fellows to
see so fast, ain't they?” said Hutchins. “Now for
magic and mystery! Where's old Peters, with his
`shrivelry,' or whatever it is, he's always bragging
about? I should like to see him stick his nose into
any thing that's got any `adventure' in it, as he calls
it!”

The boys started from the fire, and hurried over to
that side on which the mysterious woman (dressed just
like a mysterious woman) and their own school-fellow,
with whom they supposed her darkly connected, were
approaching each other. They were away before Peters
had found utterance for the assertion that “they'd find
he wasn't a coward, when the time came.” Squads of

twos or threes got behind any thing (trees, or whatever
else) which offered a pretence of a screen. Some — as
Will Hirsett, Fatty Dover, and others — kept themselves
aloof from all entanglements, on the open ground.

“He ain't a bit afraid,” said a low voice.

“That's what you'd be, Fatty, if you were down
there,” said another, louder, which might be recognized
as Towne's.

“He don't care any thing about her, I bet,” said Will
Hirsett, still, however, keeping his face toward the
centre of all interest. By degrees all came forth of
their hiding-places, but it was to draw down nearer to
the West Road. It was strange how they had wrought
themselves up.

“Look here, fellows!” cried Tom Hutchins, “I don't
think this is very gentlemanly. I'm going off,” and
accordingly he and others left the ground.

Remsen had not, like the rest, gone into covert, but
had followed Brade, at a slower pace, down toward the
road.

The silent figure in the black dress went steadily onward;
and Brade and she, without ever showing any
consciousness of each other's neighborhood, or ever
turning toward each other, were drawing nearer to the
same spot.

“Hold on!” said the boys on the lookout, and Will
Hirsett as eagerly as any of the others. They even
advanced a few steps toward the two, over whom, to
the eyes of these fresh wearers of manhood, a mist of
glamour was thrown (how easily these things happen
to childhood!).

“I bet ye he's got to go,” said Will Hirsett, getting
a little behind two or three boys.

“Hold on! hold on, fellows!” said others. “Le's go
down!” said one or two, who were soon checked.

At length, while they looked, Brade stood still, just
as the dark figure went by (“Now! now!” said excited
voices). Remsen hastened to join him, when suddenly,
with a shout or cry, Brade started up the hill, eluding
all Remsen's efforts to stop him, and then Remsen, too,
followed him at full speed. The dark figure, as some
boys said, turned once; but the general impression
was that it moved on with the forward steadiness of
Fate.

But there was a commotion among the watching
boys; and Will Hirsett ran round the corner of the
laundry, from behind which he peeped out.

As the two boys came on, Brade slackened his pace,
and then stopped. Remsen, in his furious speed, was
carried on beyond him.

“What did she say? What did she do?” asked the
boys of Remsen; Will Hirsett's curiosity overcoming
his fear, and bringing him forward from his hiding-place
doubtless, with his eyes staring and mouth
yawning.

“Nothing,” answered Remsen, panting and out of
breath.

“No, no! but what did she say? what did she do?”
the boys persisted in asking.

“Why, I told you the exact truth,” answered the
besieged boy. “Now you want the exact falsehood,
do you?”

“Yes, yes! do tell us what she said,” they besought
him.

“Run for your lives!” said Remsen, in so peremptory
and threatening a voice that Will Hirsett and

Dover instinctively started to run, although, to be sure,
they soon checked themselves, under the laughs of their
companions, and put the best (metaphorical) face upon
it that they could. Will Hirsett said that he “was in
fun,” and Dover claimed that he “only just thought he'd
go away.”

The appetite of these boys was not satisfied with
what they had already got. Some of the smaller fellows
began again the inquiry: —

“Did she really say that, Remsen?” which, though a
rhythmical utterance (indeed, not a bad `trochaic
dimeter acatalectic' for young scholars, if we take accent
in English for quantity in Greek), had no effect
upon the obdurate ears to which it was addressed; for
Remsen was already running off; and now, calling Brade,
he, with his friend, left the company to themselves.

Towne was moving about, as if particularly important
and full of meaning: —

“I know something,” said he, mysteriously; and notwithstanding
Arthur Meadows's joke (which Arthur, at
least, enjoyed exceedingly), that “he was glad to hear
that; for he had always supposed that Towne didn't
know any thing,” Towne lost no time by attending to
him, but began bestirring himself, and calling out, —

“Wilkins! Wilkins! Say! look here, Willicks!” and,
having brought that worthy to himself, said loudly
enough for others to hear, “I've got a way to find
out!” and then, in a low voice, drawing Wilkins apart,
at the same time began detailing to him some plan, over
which he himself chuckled a good deal as he told it.

Then, aloud again, he asked his confidant “if that
wouldn't be splendid,” and received his assurance that
it was “first-rate.”

If nothing has yet been cleared up, possibly this plan
(still more possibly something else) is yet to give us all
more light.

Here, as we wish to keep the good opinion and good
will of all our readers, we advise those who have no
mind for thought, to skip over this next half page or so,
which is written for such as will read it, — if there are
any such.

As mysteries in human life are things which have
their whole being in human consciousness, and that is an
element more changeful and shifting, more full of tides
and currents, and waves and eddies, than is the ever-flowing
sea itself, so a mystery may, like a thing afloat
upon the water, be wafted into a sheltered cove, where
it falls and rises with the ebb and flow of tide, and is
left behind when the water has run out; or it may be
flung aloft into sight on the cresting top of a breaker,
and drawn back in the blind disorder of its recoil, and
carried off; or it may be cast up and abandoned on a
beach, a thing of no account, or a clean and harmless
thing, or a thing foul, offensive, and pestilential; or it
may, ere it be borne fairly within grasp of hand or ken
of eye, sink into the depths, and never more come up
to light of day.

This mystery of young Brade may be perhaps but a
harmless, pretty thing, — perhaps no mystery at all;
perhaps, if we may keep up our figure, not more a
mystery than a summer boat, riding in still water a little
way off shore and not adrift, but fastened, although the
moorings chance to be on the further side from us
unseen.

Perhaps, too, there is more in it than this.