 | CHAPTER XXIV.
DEB. SMITH TAKES A RESOLUTION. The story of Kennett |  |
24. CHAPTER XXIV.
DEB. SMITH TAKES A RESOLUTION.
It was a raw, overcast evening in the early part of January.
Away to the west there was a brownish glimmer in
the dark-gray sky, denoting sunset, and from that point
there came barely sufficient light to disclose the prominent
features of a wild, dreary, uneven landscape.
The foreground was a rugged clearing in the forest, just
where the crest of a high hill began to slope rapidly down
to the Brandywine. The dark meadows, dotted with irregular
lakes of ice, and long, dirty drifts of unmelted
snow, but not the stream itself, could be seen. Across the
narrow valley rose a cape, or foreland, of the hills beyond,
timbered nearly to the top, and falling, on either side, into
deep lateral glens, — those warm nooks which the first
settlers loved to choose, both from their snug aspect of
shelter, and from the cold, sparkling springs of water which
every one of them held in its lap. Back of the summits
of all the hills stretched a rich, rolling upland, cleared and
mapped into spacious fields, but showing everywhere an
edge of dark, wintry woods against the darkening sky.
In the midst of this clearing stood a rough cabin, or
rather half-cabin, of logs; for the back of it was formed
by a ledge of slaty rocks, some ten or twelve feet in height,
which here cropped out of the hill-side. The raw clay
with which the crevices between the logs had been stopped,
had fallen out in many places; the roof of long strips of
peeled bark was shrivelled by wind and sun, and held in
its place by stones and heavy branches of trees, and a
suggested a chimney. There was no inclosed patch
of vegetable-ground near, no stable, improvised of corn-shocks,
for the shelter of cow or pig, and the habitation
seemed not only to be untenanted, but to have been forsaken
years before.
Yet a thin, cautious thread of smoke stole above the
rocks, and just as the starless dusk began to deepen into
night, a step was heard, slowly climbing upward through
the rustling leaves and snapping sticks of the forest. A
woman's figure, wearily scaling the hill under a load which
almost concealed the upper part of her body, for it consisted
of a huge wallet, a rattling collection of articles tied
in a blanket, and two or three bundles slung over her
shoulders with a rope. When at last, panting from the
strain, she stood beside the cabin, she shook herself, and
the articles, with the exception of the wallet, tumbled to the
ground. The latter she set down carefully, thrust her arm
into one of the ends and drew forth a heavy jug, which she
raised to her mouth. The wind was rising, but its voice
among the trees was dull and muffled; now and then a
flake of snow dropped out of the gloom, as if some cowardly,
insulting creature of the air were spitting at the
world under cover of the night.
“It 's likely to be a good night,” the woman muttered,
“and he 'll be on the way by this time. I must put things
to rights.”
She entered the cabin by a narrow door in the southern
end. Her first care was to rekindle the smouldering fire
from a store of boughs and dry brushwood piled in one
corner. When a little flame leaped up from the ashes, it
revealed an interior bare and dismal enough, yet very
cheery in contrast with the threatening weather outside.
The walls were naked logs and rock, the floor of irregular
flat stones, and no furniture remained except some part
of a cupboard or dresser, near the chimney. Two or three
sign of a bed was a mass of dry leaves, upon which a
blanket had been thrown, in a hollow under the overhanging
base of the rock.
Untying the blanket, the woman drew forth three or
four rude cooking utensils, some dried beef and smoked
sausages, and two huge round loaves of bread, and arranged
them upon the one or two remaining shelves of
the dresser. Then she seated herself in front of the fire,
staring into the crackling blaze, which she mechanically
fed from time to time, muttering brokenly to herself in
the manner of one accustomed to be much alone.
“It was a mean thing, after what I 'd said, — my word
used to be wuth somethin', but times seems to ha' changed.
If they have, why should n't I change with 'em, as well 's
anybody else? Well, why need it matter? I 've got a
bad name.... No, that 'll never do! Stick to what
you 're about, or you 'll be wuthlesser, even, than they says
you are!”
She shook her hard fist, and took another pull at the
jug.
“It 's well I laid in a good lot o' that,” she said. “No
better company for a lonesome night, and it 'll stop his
cussin', I reckon, anyhow. Eh? What 's that?”
From the wood came a short, quick yelp, as from some
stray dog. She rose, slipped out the door, and peered into
the darkness, which was full of gathering snow. After
listening a moment, she gave a low whistle. It was not
answered, but a stealthy step presently approached, and a
form, dividing itself from the gloom, stood at her side.
“All right, Deb.?”
“Right as I can make it. I 've got meat and drink, and
I come straight from the Turk's Head, and Jim says the
Sheriff 's gone back to Chester, and there 's been nobody
out these three days. Come in and take bite and sup, and
then tell me everything.”
They entered the cabin. The door was carefully barred,
and then Sandy Flash, throwing off a heavy overcoat, such
as the drovers were accustomed to wear, sat down by the
fire. His face was redder than its wont, from cold and
exposure, and all its keen, fierce lines were sharp and
hard. As he warmed his feet and hands at the blaze, and
watched Deb. Smith while she set the meat upon the coals,
and cut the bread with a heavy hunting-knife, the wary,
defiant look of a hunted animal gradually relaxed, and he
said, —
“Faith, Deb., this is better than hidin' in the frost. I
believe I 'd ha' froze last night, if I had n't got down beside
an ox for a couple o' hours. It 's a dog's life they 've led
me, and I 've had just about enough of it.”
“Then why not give it up, Sandy, for good and all?
I 'll go out with you to the Backwoods, after — after things
is settled.”
“And let 'em brag they frightened me away!” he exclaimed,
with an oath. “Not by a long shot, Deb. I owe
'em a score for this last chase — I 'll make the rich men
o' Chester County shake in their shoes, and the officers o'
the law, and the Volunteers, damme! before I 've done
with 'em. When I go away for good, I 'll leave somethin'
behind me for them to remember me by!”
“Well, never mind; eat a bit — the meat 's ready, and
see here, Sandy! I carried this all the way.”
He seized the jug and took a long draught. “You 're
a good 'un, Deb.,” he said. “A man is n't half a man
when his belly 's cold and empty.”
He fell to, and ate long and ravenously. Warmed at
last, both by fire and fare, and still more by his frequent
potations, he commenced the story of his disguises and
escapes, laughing at times with boisterous self-admiration,
swearing brutally and bitterly at others, over the relentless
energy with which he had been pursued. Deb. Smith
listened with eager interest, slapping him upon the back
man, but which Sandy Flash cheerfully accepted as
a caress.
“You see,” he said at the close, “after I sneaked between
Potter's troop and the Sheriff's, and got down
into the lower corner o' the county, I managed to jump
aboard a grain-sloop bound for Newport, but they were
froze in at the mouth o' Christeen; so I went ashore,
dodged around Wilmington, (where I 'm rather too well
known,) and come up Whitely Creek as a drover from
Mar'land. But from Grove up to here, I 've had to look
out mighty sharp, takin' nigh onto two days for what I
could go straight through in half a day.”
“Well, I guess you 're safe here, Sandy,” she said;
“they 'll never think o' lookin' for you twice't in the same
place. Why did n't you send word for me before? You 've
kep' me a mortal long time a-waitin', and down on the
Woodrow farm would ha' done as well as here.”
“It 's a little too near that Potter. He 'd smell me out
as quick as if I was a skunk to windward of him. Besides,
it 's time I was pitchin' on a few new holes; we must talk
it over together, Deb.”
He lifted the jug again to his mouth. Deb. Smith, although
she had kept nearly even pace with him, was not
so sensible to the potency of the liquor, and was watching
for the proper degree of mellowness, in order to broach
the subject over which she had been secretly brooding
since his arrival.
“First of all, Sandy,” she now said, “I want to talk to
you about Gilbert Potter. The man 's my friend, and I
thought you cared enough about me to let my friends
alone.”
“So I do, Deb., when they let me alone. I had a right
to shoot the fellow, but I let him off easy, as much for your
sake as because he was carryin' another man's money.”
“That 's not true!” she cried. “It was his own money,
his debts; and I can say it because I helped him earn it,
mowin' and reapin' beside him in the harvest-field, thrashin'
beside him in the barn, eatin' at his table, and sleepin'
under his roof. I gev him my word he was safe from you,
but you 've made me out a liar, with no more thought o'
me than if I 'd been a stranger or an enemy!”
“Come, Deb., don't get into your tantrums. Potter may
be a decent fellow, as men go, for anything I know, but
you 're not beholden to him because he treated you like a
Christian as you are. You seem to forgit that he tried to
take my life, — that he 's hardly yet giv' up huntin' me
like a wild beast! Damn him, if the money was his, which
I don't believe, it would n't square accounts between us.
You think more o' his money than o' my life, you huzzy!”
“No I don't, Sandy!” she protested, “no I don't. You
know me better 'n that. What am I here for, to-night?
Have I never helped you, and hid you, and tramped the
country for you back and forth, by day and by night, —
and for what? Not for money, but because I 'm your
wife, whether or not priest or 'squire has said it. I thought
you cared for me, I did, indeed; I thought you might do
one thing to please me!”
There was a quivering motion in the muscles of her
hard face; her lips were drawn convulsively, with an expression
which denoted weeping, although no tears came
to her eyes.
“Don't be a fool!” Sandy exclaimed. “S'pose you
have served me, is n't it somethin' to have a man to serve?
What other husband is there for you in the world, than
me, — the only man that is n't afeard o' your fist? You 've
done your duty by me, I 'll allow, and so have I done mine
by you!”
“Then,” she begged, “do this one thing over and above
your duty. Do it, Sandy, as a bit o' kindness to me, and
put upon me what work you please, till I 've made it up
in the world as shows a sort o' respect for you — that gives
you his hand honestly, like a gentleman, and your full
Chris'en name. It does good when a body 's been banged
about as I 've been, and more used to curses than kind
words, and not a friend to look after me if I was layin' at
Death's door — and I don't say you would n't come, Sandy,
but you can't. And there 's no denyin' that he had the
law on his side, and is n't more an enemy than any other
man. Maybe he 'd even be a friend in need, as far as he
dared, if you 'd only do it” —
“Do what? What in the Devil's name is the woman
drivin' at?” yelled Sandy Flash.
“Give back the money; it 's his'n, not Barton's, — I
know it. Tell me where it is, and I 'll manage the whole
thing for you. It 's got to be paid in a month or two, folks
says, and they 'll come on him for it, maybe take and sell
his farm — sell th' only house, Sandy, where I git my
rights, th' only house where I git a bit o' peace an' comfort!
You would n't be that hard on me?”
The highwayman took another deep drink and rose to
his feet. His face was stern and threatening. “I 've
had enough o' this foolery,” he said. “Once and for all,
Deb., don't you poke your nose into my affairs! Give
back the money? Tell you where it is? Pay him for
huntin' me down? I could take you by the hair and
knock your head ag'in the wall, for them words!”
She arose also and confronted him. The convulsive
twitching of her mouth ceased, and her face became as
hard and defiant as his. “Sandy Flash, mark my words!”
she exclaimed. “You 're a-goin' the wrong way, when
you stop takin' only from the Collectors and the proud
rich men, and sparin' the poor. Instead o' doin' good to
balance the bad, it 'll soon be all bad, and you no better 'n
a common thief! You need n't show your teeth; it 's
true, and I say it square to y'r face!”
She saw the cruel intensity of his anger, but did not
flinch. They had had many previous quarrels, in which
neither could claim any very great advantage over the
other; but the highwayman was now in an impatient and
exasperated mood, and she dared more than she suspected
in defying him.
“You —!” (the epithet he used cannot be written,)
“will you stop your jaw, or shall I stop it for you? I 'm
your master, and I give you your orders, and the first
order is, Not another word, now and never, about Potter
or his money!”
He had never before outraged her by such a word, never
before so brutally asserted his claim to her obedience. All
the hot, indignant force of her fierce, coarse nature rose in
resistance. She was thoroughly aroused and fearless.
The moment had come, she felt, when the independence
which had been her compensation amid all the hardships
and wrongs of her life, was threatened, — when she must
either preserve it by a desperate effort, or be trampled
under foot by this man, whom she both loved and feared,
and in that moment, hated.
“I 'll not hold my jaw!” she cried, with flashing eyes.
“Not even at your biddin', Sandy Flash! I 'll not rest till
I have the money out o' you; there 's no law ag'inst stealin'
from a thief!”
The answer was a swift, tremendous blow of the highwayman's
fist, delivered between her eyes. She fell, and
lay for a moment stunned, the blood streaming from her
face. Then with a rapid movement, she seized the hunting-knife
which lay beside the fire, and sprang to her feet.
The knife was raised in her right hand, and her impulse
was to plunge it into his heart. But she could not avoid
his eyes; they caught and held her own, as if by some
diabolical fascination. He stood motionless, apparently
awaiting the blow. Nothing in his face or attitude expressed
fear; only all the power of the man seemed to
impulse once arrested, he knew, it would not return. The
eyes of each were fixed on the other's, and several minutes
of awful silence thus passed.
Finally, Deb. Smith slightly shuddered, as if with cold,
her hand slowly fell, and without a word she turned away
to wash her bloody face.
Sandy Flash grinned, took another drink of whiskey,
resumed his seat before the fire, and then proceeded to fill
his pipe. He lit and smoked it to the end, without turning
his head, or seeming to pay the least attention to her movements.
She, meanwhile, had stopped the flow of blood
from her face, bound a rag around her forehead, and lighted
her own pipe, without speaking. The highwayman first
broke the silence.
“As I was a-sayin',” he remarked, in his ordinary tone,
“we 've got to look out for new holes, where the scent
is n't so strong as about these. What do you think o' th'
Octorara?”
“Where?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse and
strange, but he took no notice of it, gazing steadily into
the fire as he puffed out a huge cloud of smoke.
“Well, pretty well down,” he said. “There 's a big bit
o' woodland, nigh onto two thousand acres, belongin' to
somebody in Baltimore that does n't look at it once't in ten
years, and my thinkin' is, it 'd be as safe as the Backwoods.
I must go to — it 's no difference where — to-morrow
mornin', but I 'll be back day after to-morrow night, and
you need n't stir from here till I come. You 've grub
enough for that long, eh?”
“It 'll do,” she muttered.
“Then, that 's enough. I must be off an hour before
day, and I 'm devilish fagged and sleepy, so here goes!”
With these words he rose, knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, and stretched himself on the bed of leaves. She continued
to smoke her pipe.
“Deb.,” he said, five minutes afterwards, “I 'm not sure
o' wakin'. You look out for me, — do you hear?”
“I hear,” she answered, in the same low, hoarse voice,
without turning her head. In a short time Sandy Flash's
deep breathing announced that he slept. Then she turned
and looked at him with a grim, singular smile, as the wavering
fire-light drew clear pictures of his face which the
darkness as constantly wiped out again. By-and-by she
noiselessly moved her seat nearer to the wall, leaned her
head against the rough logs, and seemed to sleep. But,
even if it were sleep, she was conscious of his least movement,
and started into alert wakefulness, if he turned, muttered
in dreams, or crooked a finger among the dead
leaves. From time to time she rose, stole out of the cabin
and looked at the sky. Thus the night passed away.
There was no sign of approaching dawn in the dull,
overcast, snowy air; but a blind, animal instinct of time
belonged to her nature, and about two hours before sunrise,
she set about preparing a meal. When all was ready,
she bent over Sandy Flash, seized him by the shoulder, and
shook his eyes open.
“Time!” was all she said.
He sprang up, hastily devoured the bread and meat,
and emptied the jug of its last remaining contents.
“Hark ye, Deb.,” he exclaimed, when he had finished,
“you may as well trudge over to the Turk's Head and fill
this while I 'm gone. We 'll need all of it, and more, to-morrow
night. Here 's a dollar, to pay for 't. Now I must
be on the tramp, but you may look for me to-morrow, an
hour after sun.”
He examined his pistols, stuck them in his belt, threw
his drover's cloak over his shoulders, and strode out of the
cabin. She waited until the sound of his footsteps had
died away in the cold, dreary gloom, and then threw herself
upon the pallet which he had vacated. This time she
slept soundly, until hours after the gray winter day had
come up the sky.
Her eyes were nearly closed by the swollen flesh, and
she laid handfuls of snow upon her face, to cool the inflamation.
At first, her movements were uncertain, expressing
a fierce conflict, a painful irresolution of feeling; she
picked up the hunting-knife, looked at it with a ghastly
smile, and then threw it from her. Suddenly, however,
her features changed, and every trace of her former hesitation
vanished. After hurriedly eating the fragments left
from Sandy's breakfast, she issued from the cabin and took
a straight and rapid course eastward, up and over the hill.
During the rest of that day and the greater part of the
next, the cabin was deserted.
It was almost sunset, and not more than an hour before
Sandy Flash's promised return, when Deb. Smith again
made her appearance. Her face was pale, (except for the
dark blotches around the eyes,) worn, and haggard; she
seemed to have grown ten years older in the interval.
Her first care was to rekindle the fire and place the replenished
jug in its accustomed place. Then she arranged
and rearranged the rude blocks which served for seats, the
few dishes and the articles of food on the shelf, and, when
all had been done, paced back and forth along the narrow
floor, as if pushed by some invisible, tormenting power.
Finally a whistle was heard, and in a minute afterwards
Sandy Flash entered the door. The bright blaze of the
hearth shone upon his bold, daring, triumphant face.
“That 's right, Deb.,” he said. “I 'm dry and hungry,
and here 's a rabbit you can skin and set to broil in no
time. Let 's look at you, old gal! The devil! — I did n't
mean to mark you like that. Well, bygones is bygones,
and better times is a-comin'.”
“Sandy!” she cried, with a sudden, appealing energy,
“Sandy — once't more! Won't you do for me what I want
o' you?”
His face darkened in an instant. “Deb.!” was all the
word he uttered, but she understood the tone.
He took off his pistol-belt and laid it on the shelf. “Lay
there, pets!” he said; “I won't want you to-night. A
long tramp it was, and I 'm glad it 's over. Deb., I guess
I 've nigh tore off one o' my knee-buckles, comin' through
the woods.”
Placing his foot upon one of the logs, he bent down to
examine the buckle. Quick as lightning, Deb., who was
standing behind him, seized each of his arms, just above
the elbows, with her powerful hands, and drew them towards
each other upon his back. At the same time she
uttered a shrill, wild cry, — a scream so strange and unearthly
in its character that Sandy Flash's blood chilled to
hear it.
“Curse you, Deb., what are you doing? Are you clean
mad?” he ejaculated, struggling violently to free his arms.
“Which is strongest now?” she asked; “my arms, or
your'n? I 've got you, I 'll hold you, and I 'll only let go
when I please!”
He swore and struggled, but he was powerless in her
iron grip. In another minute the door of the cabin was
suddenly burst open, and two armed men sprang upon him.
More rapidly than the fact can be related, they snapped a
pair of heavy steel handcuffs upon his wrists, pinioned his
arms at his sides, and bound his knees together. Then,
and not till then, Deb. Smith relaxed her hold.
Sandy Flash made one tremendous muscular effort, to
test the strength of his bonds, and then stood motionless.
His white teeth flashed between his parted lips, and there
was a dull, hard glare in his eyes which told that though
struck dumb with astonishment and impotent rage, he was
still fearless, still unsubdued. Deb. Smith, behind him,
leaned against the wall, pale and painting.
“A good night's work!” remarked Chaffey, the constable,
as he possessed himself of the musket, pistol-belt, and
hunting-knife. “I guess this pitcher won't go to the well
any more.”
“We 'll see,” Sandy exclaimed, with a sneer. “You 've
got me, not through any pluck o' your'n, but through black,
underhanded treachery. You 'd better double chain and
handcuff me, or I may be too much for you yet!”
“I guess you 'll do,” said the constable, examining the
cords by the light of a lantern which his assistant had in
the mean time fetched from without. “I 'll even untie
your knees, for you 've to walk over the hill to the next
farm-house, where we 'll find a wagon to carry you to
Chester jail. I promise you more comfortable quarters
than these, by daylight.”
The constable then turned to Deb. Smith, who had
neither moved nor spoken.
“You need n't come with us without you want to,” he
said. “You can get your share of the money at any time;
but you must remember to be ready to appear and testify,
when Court meets.”
“Must I do that?” she gasped.
“Why, to be sure! It 's a reg'lar part of the trial, and
can't be left out, though there 's enough to hang the fellow
ten times over, without you.”
The two unbound Sandy Flash's knees and placed themselves
on each side of him, the constable holding a cocked
pistol in his right hand.
“March is the word, is it?” said the highwayman. “Well,
I 'm ready. Potter was right, after all; he said there 'd be
a curse on the money, and there is; but I never guessed the
curse 'd come upon me through you, Deb.!”
“Oh, Sandy!” she cried, starting forward, “you druv
me to it! The curse was o' your own makin' — and I gev
you a last chance to-night, but you throwed it from you!”
“Very well, Deb,” he answered, “if I 've got my curse,
don't think you 'll not have your'n! Go down to Chester
and git your blood-money, and see what 'll come of it, and
what 'll come to you!”
He turned towards her as he spoke, and the expression
her eyes. The next moment, the old cabin door
creaked open, fell back with a crash, and she was alone.
She stared around at the dreary walls. The sound of
their footsteps had died away, and only the winter nightwind
wailed through the crannies of the hut. Accustomed
as she was to solitary life and rudest shelter, and to the
companionship of her superstitious fancies, she had never
before felt such fearful loneliness, such overpowering dread.
She heaped sticks upon the fire, sat down before it, and
drank from the jug. Its mouth was still wet from his lips,
and it seemed that she was already drinking down the commencement
of the curse.
Her face worked, and hard, painful groans burst from
her lips. She threw herself upon the floor and grovelled
there, until the woman's relief which she had almost unlearned
forced its forgotten way, through cramps and agonies,
to her eyes. In the violent passion of her weeping
and moaning, God saw and pitied, that night, the struggles
of a dumb, ignorant, yet not wholly darkened nature.
Two hours afterwards she arose, sad, stern, and determined,
packed together the things she had brought with
her, quenched the fire (never again to be relighted) upon
the hearth, and took her way, through cold and darkness,
down the valley.
| CHAPTER XXIV.
DEB. SMITH TAKES A RESOLUTION. The story of Kennett | |