University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
GILBERT ON THE ROAD TO CHESTER.

Being now fully prepared to undertake his journey to
Chester, Gilbert remembered his promise to Alfred Barton.
As the subject had not again been mentioned between
them, — probably owing to the excitement produced by
Sandy Flash's visit to Kennett Square, and its consequences,
— he felt bound to inform Barton of his speedy
departure, and to renew his offer of service.

He found the latter in the field, assisting Giles, who was
hauling home the sheaves of corn-fodder in a harvest-wagon.
The first meeting of the two men did not seem
to be quite agreeable to either. Gilbert's suspicions had
been aroused, although he could give them no definite
form, and Barton shrank from any reference to what had
now become a very sore topic.

“Giles,” said the latter, after a moment of evident embarrassment,
“I guess you may drive home with that load,
and pitch it off; I 'll wait for you here.”

When the rustling wain had reached a convenient distance,
Gilbert began, —

“I only wanted to say that I 'm going to Chester to-morrow.”

“Oh, yes!” Barton exclaimed, “about that money? I
suppose you want all o' yours?”

“It 's as I expected. But you said you could borrow
elsewhere, and send it by me.”

“The fact is,” said Barton, “that I 've both borrowed
and sent. I 'm obliged to you, all the same, Gilbert; the

will 's as good as the deed, you know; but I got the money
from — well, from a friend, who was about going down on
his own business, and so that stone killed both my birds.
I ought to ha' sent you word, by rights.”

“Is your friend,” Gilbert asked, “a safe and trusty
man?”

“Safe enough, I guess — a little wild, at times, maybe;
but he 's not such a fool as to lose what he 'd never have
a chance of getting again.”

“Then,” said Gilbert, “it 's hardly likely that he 's the
same friend you took such a fancy to, at the Hammer-and-Trowel,
last spring?”

Alfred Barton started as if he had been shot, and a deep
color spread over his face. His lower jaw slackened and
his eyes moved uneasily from side to side.

“Who — who do you mean?” he stammered.

The more evident his embarrassment became, the more
Gilbert was confirmed in his suspicion that there was some
secret understanding between the two men. The thing
seemed incredible, but the same point, he remembered,
had occurred to Martha Deane's mind, when she so readily
explained the other circumstances.

“Barton,” he said, sternly, “you know very well whom
I mean. What became of your friend Fortune? Did n't
you see him at the tavern, last Monday morning?”

“Y-yes — oh, yes! I know who he is now, the damned
scoundrel! I 'd give a hundred dollars to see him dance
upon nothing!”

He clenched his fists, and uttered a number of other
oaths, which need not be repeated. His rage seemed so
real that Gilbert was again staggered. Looking at the
heavy, vulgar face before him, — the small, restless eyes,
the large sensuous mouth, the forehead whose very extent,
in contradiction to ordinary laws, expressed imbecility rather
than intellect, it was impossible to associate great cunning
and shrewdness with such a physiognomy. Every line, at

that moment, expressed pain and exasperation. But Gilbert
felt bound to go a step further.

“Barton,” he said, “did n't you know who Fortune was,
on that day?”

“N-no — no! On that day — NO! Blast me if I did!”

“Not before you left him?”

“Well, I 'll admit that a suspicion of it came to me at
the very last moment — too late to be of any use. But
come, damme! that 's all over, and what 's the good o'
talking? You tried your best to catch the fellow, too, but
he was too much for you! 'T is n't such an easy job, eh?”

This sort of swagger was Alfred Barton's only refuge,
when he was driven into a corner. Though some color
still lingered in his face, he spread his shoulders with a
bold, almost defiant air, and met Gilbert's eye with a
steady gaze. The latter was not prepared to carry his
examination further, although he was still far from being
satisfied.

“Come, come, Gilbert!” Barton presently resumed, “I
mean no offence. You showed yourself to be true blue,
and you led the hunt as well as any man could ha' done;
but the very thought o' the fellow makes me mad, and I 'll
know no peace till he 's strung up. If I was your age,
now! A man seems to lose his spirit as he gets on in
years, and I 'm only sorry you were n't made captain at
the start, instead o' me. You shall be, from this time on;
I won't take it again!”

“One thing I 'll promise you,” said Gilbert, with a meaning
look, “that I won't let him walk into the bar-room of
the Unicorn, without hindrance.”

“I 'll bet you won't!” Barton exclaimed. “All I 'm
afraid of is, that he won't try it again.”

“We 'll see; this highway-robbery must have an end. I
must now be going. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye, Gilbert; take care o' yourself!” said Barton,
in a very good humor, now that the uncomfortable interview

was over. “And, I say,” he added, “remember that
I stand ready to do you a good turn, whenever I can!”

“Thank you!” responded Gilbert, as he turned Roger's
head; but he said to himself, — “when all other friends
fail, I may come to you, not sooner.”

The next morning showed signs that the Indian Summer
had reached its close. All night long the wind had
moaned and lamented in the chimneys, and the sense of
dread in the outer atmosphere crept into the house and
weighed upon the slumbering inmates. There was a
sound in the forest as of sobbing Dryads, waiting for the
swift death and the frosty tomb. The blue haze of dreams
which had overspread the land changed into an ashy, livid
mist, dragging low, and clinging to the features of the
landscape like a shroud to the limbs of a corpse.

The time, indeed, had come for a change. It was the
end of November; and after a summer and autumn beautiful
almost beyond parallel, a sudden and severe winter
was generally anticipated. In this way, even the most
ignorant field-hand recognized the eternal balance of
Nature.

Mary Potter, although the day had arrived for which
she had so long and fervently prayed, could not shake off
the depressing influence of the weather. After breakfast,
when Gilbert began to make preparations for the journey,
she found herself so agitated that it was with difficulty she
could give him the usual assistance. The money, which
was mostly in silver coin, had been sewed into tight rolls,
and was now to be carefully packed in the saddle-bags;
the priming of the pistols was to be renewed, and the old,
shrivelled covers of the holsters so greased, hammered out,
and padded that they would keep the weapons dry in case
of rain. Although Gilbert would reach Chester that evening,
— the distance being not more than twenty-four miles,
— the preparations, principally on account of his errand,
were conducted with a grave and solemn sense of their
importance.

When, finally, everything was in readiness, — the saddle-bags
so packed that the precious rolls could not rub
or jingle; the dinner of sliced bread and pork placed over
them, in a folded napkin; the pistols, intended more for
show than use, thrust into the antiquated holsters; and
all these deposited and secured on Roger's back, — Gilbert
took his mother's hand, and said, —

“Good-bye, mother! Don't worry, now, if I should n't
get back until late to-morrow evening; I can't tell exactly
how long the business will take.”

He had never looked more strong and cheerful. The
tears came to Mary Potter's eyes, but she held them back
by a powerful effort. All she could say — and her voice
trembled in spite of herself — was, —

“Good-bye, my boy! Remember that I 've worked, and
thought, and prayed, for you alone, — and that I 'd do
more — I 'd do all, if I only could!”

His look said “I do not forget!” He sat already in the
saddle, and was straightening the folds of his heavy cloak,
so that it might protect his knees. The wind had arisen,
and the damp mist was driving down the glen, mixed with
scattered drops of a coming rain-storm. As he rode slowly
away, Mary Potter lifted her eyes to the dense gray of the
sky, darkening from moment to moment, listened to the
murmur of the wind over the wooded hills opposite, and
clasped her hands with the appealing gesture which had
now become habitual to her.

“Two days more!” she sighed, as she entered the house,
— “two days more of fear and prayer! Lord forgive me
that I am so weak of faith — that I make myself trouble
where I ought to be humble and thankful!”

Gilbert rode slowly, because he feared the contents of his
saddle-bags would be disturbed by much jolting. Proof
against wind and weather, he was not troubled by the atmospheric
signs, but rather experienced a healthy glow and
exhilaration of the blood as the mist grew thicker and beat

upon his face like the blown spray of a waterfall. By the
time he had reached the Carson farm, the sky contracted to
a low, dark arch of solid wet, in which there was no positive
outline of cloud, and a dull, universal roar, shorn of all
windy sharpness, hummed over the land.

From the hill behind the farm-house, whence he could
overlook the bottom-lands of Redley Creek, and easily
descry, on a clear day, the yellow front of Dr. Deane's
house in Kennett Square, he now beheld a dim twilight
chaos, wherein more and more of the distance was blotted
out. Yet still some spell held up the suspended rain, and
the drops that fell seemed to be only the leakage of the
airy cisterns before they burst. The fields on either hand
were deserted. The cattle huddled behind the stacks or
crouched disconsolately in fence-corners. Here and there
a farmer made haste to cut and split a supply of wood for
his kitchen-fire, or mended the rude roof on which his pigs
depended for shelter; but all these signs showed how soon
he intended to be snugly housed, to bide out the storm.

It was a day of no uncertain promise. Gilbert confessed
to himself, before he reached the Philadelphia road, that
he would rather have chosen another day for the journey;
yet the thought of returning was farthest from his mind.
Even when the rain, having created its little pools and
sluices in every hollow of the ground, took courage, and
multiplied its careering drops, and when the wet gusts
tore open his cloak and tugged at his dripping hat, he
cheerily shook the moisture from his cheeks and eyelashes,
patted Roger's streaming neck, and whistled a bar or two
of an old carol.

There were pleasant hopes enough to occupy his mind,
without dwelling on these slight external annoyances. He
still tried to believe that his mother's release would be
hastened by the independence which lay folded in his
saddle-bags, and the thud of the wet leather against
Roger's hide was a sound to cheer away any momentary

foreboding. Then, Martha — dear, noble girl! She was
his; it was but to wait, and waiting must be easy when
the end was certain. He felt, moreover, that in spite of
his unexplained disgrace, he had grown in the respect of
his neighbors; that his persevering integrity was beginning
to bring its reward, and he thanked God very gratefully
that he had been saved from adding to his name any stain
of his own making.

In an hour or more the force of the wind somewhat
abated, but the sky seemed to dissolve into a massy flood.
The rain rushed down, not in drops, but in sheets, and in
spite of his cloak, he was wet to the skin. For half an
hour he was obliged to halt in the wood between Old
Kennett and Chadd's Ford, and here he made the discovery
that with all his care the holsters were nearly
full of water. Brown streams careered down the long,
meadowy hollow on his left, wherein many Hessian soldiers
lay buried. There was money buried with them, the
people believed, but no one cared to dig among the dead
at midnight, and many a wild tale of frighted treasure-seekers
recurred to his mind.

At the bottom of the long hill flowed the Brandywine,
now rolling swift and turbid, level with its banks. Roger
bravely breasted the flood, and after a little struggle,
reached the opposite side. Then across the battle-meadow,
in the teeth of the storm, along the foot of the
low hill, around the brow of which the entrenchments of
the American army made a clayey streak, until the ill-fated
field, sown with grape-shot and bullets which the
farmers turned up every spring with their furrows, lay
behind him. The story of the day was familiar to him,
from the narratives of scores of eye-witnesses, and he
thought to himself, as he rode onward, wet, lashed by the
furious rain, yet still of good cheer, — “Though the fight
was lost, the cause was won.”

After leaving the lovely lateral valley which stretches

eastward for two miles, at right angles to the course of the
Brandywine, he entered a rougher and wilder region, more
thickly wooded and deeply indented with abrupt glens.
Thus far he had not met with a living soul. Chester was
now not more than eight or ten miles distant, and, as
nearly as he could guess, it was about two o'clock in the
afternoon. With the best luck, he could barely reach his
destination by nightfall, for the rain showed no signs of
abating, and there were still several streams to be crossed.

His blood leaped no more so nimbly along his veins; the
continued exposure had at last chilled and benumbed him.
Letting the reins fall upon Roger's neck, he folded himself
closely in his wet cloak, and bore the weather with a grim,
patient endurance. The road dropped into a rough glen,
crossed a stony brook, and then wound along the side of a
thickly wooded hill. On his right the bank had been cut
away like a wall; on the left a steep slope of tangled
thicket descended to the stream.

One moment, Gilbert knew that he was riding along
this road, Roger pressing close to the bank for shelter
from the wind and rain; the next, there was a swift and
tremendous grip on his collar, Roger slid from under him,
and he was hurled backwards, with great force, upon the
ground. Yet even in the act of falling, he seemed to be
conscious that a figure sprang down upon the road from
the bank above.

It was some seconds before the shock, which sent a
crash through his brain and a thousand fiery sparkles into
his eyes, passed away. Then a voice, keen, sharp, and
determined, which it seemed that he knew, exclaimed, —

“Damn the beast! I 'll have to shoot him.”

Lifting his head with some difficulty, for he felt weak
and giddy, and propping himself on his arm, he saw Sandy
Flash in the road, three or four paces off, fronting Roger,
who had whirled around, and with levelled ears and fiery
eyes, seemed to be meditating an attack.

The robber wore a short overcoat, made entirely of
musk-rat skins, which completely protected the arms in
his belt. He had a large hunting-knife in his left hand,
and appeared to be feeling with his right for the stock of
a pistol. It seemed to Gilbert that nothing but the singular
force of his eye held back the horse from rushing
upon him.

“Keep as you are, young man!” he cried, without
turning his head, “or a bullet goes into your horse's brain.
I know the beast, and don't want to see him slaughtered.
If you don't, order him to be quiet!”

Gilbert, although he knew every trait of the noble
animal's nature better than those of many a human acquaintance,
was both surprised and touched at the instinct
with which he had recognized an enemy, and the fierce
courage with which he stood on the defensive. In that
moment of bewilderment, he thought only of Roger, whose
life hung by a thread, which his silence would instantly
snap. He might have seen — had there been time for
reflection — that nothing would have been gained, in any
case, by the animal's death; for, stunned and unarmed as
he was, he was no match for the powerful, wary highwayman.

Obeying the feeling which entirely possessed him, he
cried, — “Roger! Roger, old boy!”

The horse neighed a shrill, glad neigh of recognition,
and pricked up his ears. Sandy Flash stood motionless;
he had let go of his pistol, and concealed the knife in a
fold of his coat.

“Quiet, Roger, quiet!” Gilbert again commanded.

The animal understood the tone, if not the words. He
seemed completely reassured, and advanced a step or two
nearer. With the utmost swiftness and dexterity, combined
with an astonishing gentleness, — making no gesture
which might excite Roger's suspicion, — Sandy Flash thrust
his hand into the holsters, smiled mockingly, cut the straps

of the saddle-bags with a single movement of his keen-edged
knife, tested the weight of the bags, nodded, grinned,
and then, stepping aside, he allowed the horse to pass him.
But he watched every motion of the head and ears, as he
did so.

Roger, however, seemed to think only of his master.
Bending down his head, he snorted warmly into Gilbert's
pale face, and then swelled his sides with a deep breath
of satisfaction. Tears of shame, grief, and rage swam in
Gilbert's eyes. “Roger,” he said, “I 've lost everything
but you!”

He staggered to his feet and leaned against the bank.
The extent of his loss — the hopelessness of its recovery
— the impotence of his burning desire to avenge the outrage
— overwhelmed him. The highwayman still stood,
a few paces off, watching him with a grim curiosity.

With a desperate effort, Gilbert turned towards him.
“Sandy Flash,” he cried, “do you know what you are
doing?”

“I rather guess so,” — and the highwayman grinned.
“I 've done it before, but never quite so neatly as this
time.”

“I 've heard it said, to your credit,” Gilbert continued,
“that, though you rob the rich, you sometimes give to the
poor. This time you 've robbed a poor man.”

“I 've only borrowed a little from one able to spare a
good deal more than I 've got, — and the grudge I owe
him is n't paid off yet.”

“It is not so!” Gilbert cried. “Every cent has been
earned by my own and my mother's hard work. I was
taking it to Chester, to pay off a debt upon the farm; and
the loss and the disappointment will wellnigh break my
mother's heart. According to your views of things, you
owe me a grudge, but you are outside of the law, and I
did my duty as a lawful man by trying to shoot you!”

“And I, bein' outside o' the law, as you say, have let you

off mighty easy, young man!” exclaimed Sandy Flash, his
eyes shining angrily and his teeth glittering. “I took you
for a fellow o' pluck, not for one that 'd lie, even to the
robber they call me! What 's all this pitiful story about
Barton's money?”

“Barton's money!”

“Oh — ay! You did n't agree to take some o' his
money to Chester?” The mocking expression on the
highwayman's face was perfectly diabolical. He slung
the saddle-bags over his shoulders, and turned to leave.

Gilbert was so amazed that for a moment he knew not
what to say. Sandy Flash took three strides up the road,
and then sprang down into the thicket.

“It is not Barton's money!” Gilbert cried, with a last
desperate appeal, — “it is mine, mine and my mother's!”

A short, insulting laugh was the only answer.

“Sandy Flash!” he cried again, raising his voice almost
to a shout, as the crashing of the robber's steps through
the brushwood sounded farther and farther down the glen,
“Sandy Flash! You have plundered a widow's honest
earnings to-day, and a curse goes with such plunder!
Hark you! if never before, you are cursed from this hour
forth! I call upon God, in my mother's name, to mark
you!”

There was no sound in reply, except the dull, dreary
hum of the wind and the steady lashing of the rain. The
growing darkness of the sky told of approaching night,
and the wild glen, bleak enough before, was now a scene
of utter and hopeless desolation to Gilbert's eyes. He was
almost unmanned, not only by the cruel loss, but also by
the stinging sense of outrage which it had left behind. A
mixed feeling of wretched despondency and shame filled
his heart, as he leaned, chill, weary, and still weak from the
shock of his fall, upon Roger's neck.

The faithful animal turned his head from time to time,
as if to question his master's unusual demeanor. There

was a look of almost human sympathy in his large eyes;
he was hungry and restless, yet would not move until the
word of command had been given.

“Poor fellow!” said Gilbert, patting his cheek, “we 've
both fared ill to-day. But you must n't suffer any longer
for my sake.”

He then mounted and rode onward through the storm.