Part 9

“The old family skeleton is in its right place,” he thought, as he locked the door. Then he went to his chamber window and looked out into the night. All was still save for the wind sighing through the pine-trees back of the house. He must enter the Deacon’s home on the next night and restore the skeleton. How was it to be done?

The door into the Deacon’s back kitchen was fastened with a bolt. Hannah, the maid of all work, went to prayer-meeting in the afternoon and the kitchen was easy of access. Could he not in her absence unscrew the washer and file off the screws, so that it would be easy to open the door by lifting the latch and shoving hard?

In a few minutes he could creep into the dining-room, place the silver upon the buffet, and retire, as innocent a house-breaker as ever lived. It was an adventure not without risk, but it was a duty he owed his family, he thought, to make this restitution, and then too, he had promised his uncle that he would do it.

Now that he had the silver actually in hand, the risk seemed to him to be great. How could he account for having possession of it should it be found upon him? And, oh, awful thought! what if he should be caught with it after he had broken into the house!

He undressed slowly as he pondered this problem, and he went to bed to dream that the tankards were upon his heart, slowly growing in weight until they bade fair to crush out his life. He awoke with a start from this nightmare to greet a new dawn of a day which he wished would be forty-eight hours long. How quickly the sun seemed to him to speed over the heavens, to bring all too soon the darkness under which he and other thieves must work!

In the afternoon he saw Hannah Lang, the maid of all work, leave the Deacon’s kitchen, decorously attired for the Thursday prayer-meeting. She would be absent an hour. As she passed from his vision, he took out a file and screw-driver from his pocket. The kitchen door was shut, but not locked, and the coast was clear. It did not take long to remove the screws, take out their fangs, if I may be allowed the expression, and replace them, so that the washer hung by a thread or two.

A breach was ready in the enemy’s wall when he chose to enter by it. There was nothing for him to do, except to wait until dark. So far, all had gone well, and well begun was half done. His reflections were interrupted by his aunt’s voice.

“Your father is sleeping,” she said in the whisper adopted by women in houses where some one is ill. “Sleeping like a child. Dear me! what an anxious time I have had. Poor John, he never could take any care of himself. At his age too,--why he is ten years older than my father was when he died and every one called him ‘Old Squire Woodbury.’ Perhaps they call me an old woman too.”

“I never heard any one say anything so impolite,” said James.

“I am old, my dear boy, and that is a fault that time does not cure. Life slips away. Yes, I am an old woman, James. You know that I was in Boston making a visit, a young girl of seventeen, when the city was seized by General Washington’s army. I was staying with old Aunt Barrett. She went with the other Tories to Halifax when the British evacuated the town. I was caught by the siege and stayed with her till she went on board the king’s ship, and then Brother John, who was in one of the regiments outside, took care of me when the Americans took the town.”

“Then you remember the battle of Bunker Hill, Aunt Elizabeth?”

“Remember it, James; it is a day I never shall forget in this world.”

The days of the siege in Boston had been the happiest of her life. A patriot maid she was, in the midst of the enemies of her country, but love laughs at political opinions as well as at locksmiths. In the merry-makings and theatricals with which the British garrison whiled away the long winter, Aunt Elizabeth’s love-story began, and it ended on the 17th of June. Lieutenant Pennington was leading his men up Breed’s Hill as carelessly as if he were walking down Bond Street, twirling the tassel of his sword as he marched. The raw American Militia were despised by the trained soldiers. He fell at the first volley, and love was done for Elizabeth Woodbury. The poor old maid’s withered face lighted up at the memory of those halcyon days. The tragic ending made the romance the dearer and more sacred to her. She quietly left the room; and if her secret were told, who knows but that the miniature was taken from its resting-place, amid the faded finery of her girlhood?

X

James had been forbidden the Fairbanks’ house by the Deacon ever since the night of his uncle’s escape. Captain Woodbury saw the Deacon only when he went to pay the interest upon the mortgage on his house. The money was passed and a receipt given in return for it. Neither spoke to the other.

The Deacon had published far and wide through the town the news of Cheever’s return, and he had not forgotten to mention the crowning misdeed of the reprobate’s Oldbury career,--the theft of the plate. He was loud in his abuse of James for aiding in the escape, and it was his wont to declare that the boy was a chip off the old block.

The towns-people had pretty well forgotten the black sheep; but now his tombstone became the Mecca of mischievous pilgrims; and its blue slate was often marred by derisive scrawls.

The Captain refused to remove the stone, and had it carefully restored whenever the mischief-makers marred it.

He hoped by this passive resistance to combat the reports that Cheever was not dead--but the towns-people believed in the return of the escaped burglar, and tongues wagged hourly over the stories of the minister’s son. The many good deeds of the father, his forty years of Christian ministry, had been forgotten long ago, except by a few survivors of his congregation, but the evil-doings of the son were now green in the memories of all.

He had as completely verified the New England prophecies that a minister’s son will turn out badly as did the second Increase Mather, who nearly broke his excellent father’s heart.

James’ part in the escape had connected him in the public mind with the robber uncle, and when he went away to Cambridge, heads were wagged at church and prayer-meeting over the danger which the Captain ran in letting his son go out of his control. Young Devereux’s accounts of his room-mate’s idle life had not benefited the boy’s reputation; and now he was considered by all in town to be a very bad young man. His nine months at college had been spent harmlessly, if idly, but the Oldbury people looked upon him as a kind of a Sardanapalus. It was known that his father intended him for the ministry, and it seemed to the straight-laced almost a blasphemy to connect James Cheever with the Congregational Church.

James was unaware of his bad reputation, and of the malicious tongues which were every day adding to it; for he had not been in Oldbury since he had first left the town to go to college and he had not seen Alice and her mother during this period. He felt little like meeting them, while their ancestral silver was concealed in his chamber; for the innocent possession of the plate made him feel guilty. From the repository of the stolen goods, he watched the Deacon’s home through the afternoon, and he was finally rewarded by seeing Alice trip down the front path to High Street. A year had made her a young woman. There is a great difference between sixteen and seventeen. James fancied that she shot a demure glance at his window, for she certainly knew he had come back from college.

James had written to her after his departure to college, and she had answered telling him of her grandfather’s order that she should have nothing to do with him, and had expressed her regrets. Then came the stories of his wild life at the college, stories which she did not believe; but which every one in the town seemed to credit.

The Deacon, who was intimate with Dr. Devereux, the good boy’s father, had the stories fresh and fresh every week; and duly, in his morning prayers, he requested that the youth of Oldbury should be kept clear from the contamination involved in association with this black sheep. He was not so urgent in his prayers that the wicked should be brought back to repentance; for that would interfere with his idea of the fitness of things, and after all, terrible examples were as necessary for the young strugglers over the straight path as were sign-posts to travellers.

Each one of James’ sins was incorporated into the family devotions, catalogued like obstructions to navigation, and marked to be avoided. Slothfulness, drunkenness, gambling, were the least of these.

But still the young sinner was right when he imagined that the girl looked up at his window as she walked down the path, and she was rewarded by a glimpse of his face. His heart gave a great bound and he started to run down the stairs to join her. But he stopped himself. It would be better to wait until the silver had been returned. Then for the first time it occurred to him that its return might be associated in the Deacon’s mind with his coming back to the town. That would be awkward, but what if it was? He had promised his uncle, and he might as well carry out the promise now. He could not leave the silver in his room and return to Cambridge. He was in for the adventure and must see it through.

And so he seated himself by the window and watched until Alice returned from her walk. She did not look up at the window this time. Was she provoked because he had not joined her? How could she be, when she had written him that she could not see him? Still, he would have followed her, if it had not been for the silver in the closet. But Alice, of course, knew nothing of that; and like any true woman, she had not expected her sweetheart to be so little adventurous. She was forbidden to meet him, but he was not forbidden to meet her, and if he sought her company, how could she run away from him as if he were a pestilence? His conduct, she thought, was worse than any of the gossips had made it out. He was inconstant and cowardly, and he ought to have known that it was her pen only that wrote the letter to him--not her heart. “Boys are so stupid,” she thought, as she opened the front door. “If I were a man and a girl had a thousand grandfathers, and each one of them forbade my seeing her, I should not mind.”

Ah, Uncle Tom, your fatal booty did not finish its evil work when it forced you from your father’s home and from the only woman who ever loved you.

The sun coursed over the heavens; the shadows began to fall. James ate his supper with his aunt in silence, and again sought his chamber. Indeed, he dreaded lest, during his absence from it, some one should find the silver.

He watched the light in the Deacon’s sitting-room, and it seemed an age before it went out and the bedroom lights were lighted and darkened in their turn. The church bells tolled the hours, at the infinite spaces of time apart at which they reverberate to a man tossing in a sleepless bed.

He had chosen midnight as the best hour for house-breaking, and finally the cracked bell of the meeting-house, where his grandfather had preached all his life, reluctantly struck out the hour. At the last stroke, he put on a broad-brimmed hat, wound a tippet several times around the lower part of his face, so that he could not be recognized,--and took up his heavy carpet-bag.

The house was still, but his father might be awake in his sick-room. He crawled down-stairs stealthily. It seemed to him that he did not make a sound, and that he was a clever apprentice at the black art of burglary. The back door of the Deacon’s house opened readily as he leaned against it, but he was startled at the noise which the washer made as it fell upon the floor. He waited for some minutes to discover whether the noise of this accident had started any of the sleepers in the house, but there was not a sound to be heard--except the loud ticking of the kitchen clock. It was not a dark night, although it was moonless, and he could see well enough to pick his way through the kitchen through the entry to the dining-room. Over this same path had his uncle gone when he went to steal the silver.

The dining-room was soon gained. It was a solemn place at that hour of the night. The Deacon’s great arm-chair at the head of the table seemed a personification of the stern old man who occupied it three times every day. High-backed and grim it stood at the head of the dark dining-table, like a cheerless host presiding at funeral baked meats.

[Illustration: “JAMES TURNED AS HE HEARD THE NOISE.”]

After his first tremor at this whimsical resemblance, James proceeded to his work. He opened the carpet-bag, and was hurriedly placing the silver piece by piece upon the sideboard, when the door opened, and there stood the Deacon, a candle in one hand, a pistol in the other--a more grim-looking figure than the old man, in his long white night-gown and high night-cap, cannot be imagined. James turned as he heard the noise, and stood still for a moment in terror at the dreadful apparition.

The Deacon said never a word, but, raising his pistol, fired--and James, not knowing whether he was hit or not, hurled the heavy tankard which he held in his hand straight at the old man’s head.

The boy’s aim was truer than the man’s; for the bullet crashed harmlessly into the sideboard, while the tankard struck the Deacon upon the forehead and he fell heavily upon the floor, the pistol and candlestick dropping from his grasp as he fell.

There was the sound of hurrying feet in the chambers overhead, and James, not stopping to see what had happened, fled like a deer to the kitchen, out the door into the yard, and over the hill towards the Boston road.

As James rushed from the dining-room, Alice and her mother ran down the stair-way. By the time they reached the bottom, all was quiet in the dark room beyond.

They heard the rush of hurrying feet in the passageway leading to the kitchen. The two women stood clutching each other, not daring to enter the room. Then they heard an uneasy stir and a heavy groan from the dining-room. Mrs. Pickering, forgetting the darkness and the danger, ran into the room and her feet stumbled over her father’s prostrate form.

“Father! father! They have killed him--You have killed him, whoever you are!” she cried to the thief, whom she imagined to be hiding in the corner.

Alice hastened to her mother. “Where is he, mother?”

“Strike at light, child. They will not murder two women, the cowards.”

Alice ran back to the hall table where the bedroom candles were kept, and lighted one. The old man stirred again and tried to raise himself from the floor.

“He’s not dead, mother!” said Alice. “Was he shot?”

“I cannot tell; he has a cut on his forehead.” Alice caught sight of the pistol and picked it up. “We heard only one shot and grandfather’s pistol was fired. He must have been struck by the burglar--”

Her eye caught sight of the tankard, which had rolled under the table.

“By this tankard,” she exclaimed.

“Where did it come from? We have none like it, and see, the sideboard is covered with silver that doesn’t belong to us.”

Mrs. Pickering glanced quickly at the tankard and recognized it at once. She had her father’s head on her knee and was wiping the blood from his forehead.

“Get some water, Alice,” she said. “He’s not dead. He will come to in a minute.”

“But the burglars?” inquired Alice.

“They will not harm us. They are far away by this time.”

Alice brought the water and a napkin, and her mother bathed the contusion. The old man presently opened his eyes and called out: “Stop there, you thief--Is he dead? Did I kill him? What’s the matter, Mary? Why am I here? Oh, I remember the burglar. He stood there by the sideboard robbing the silver. I never expected to get a shot at him. It was he. I recognized him, your old lover, Mary, that wretched Tom Cheever. You start, eh! ’Twas he, girl, I swear; I shall follow him till he is in jail, in spite of his father, the minister. I don’t care for him, not I.”

He was quiet after this outbreak and seemed to grow unconscious again.

“Can we two women get him to his bed? Call to the maid, Alice.”

“She will never come, mother; she’s such a coward, and her head must be deep under the bedclothes.”

“Perhaps I can arouse him--put his great-coat around him, dear, and I will bathe his head--poor father! it was a cruel blow. Go up-stairs, Alice, and send the maid down.”

“I shall go and arouse James Woodbury, mamma. He’s at home.”

“Yes, I know that he’s at home,” said Mrs. Pickering, shortly. “Call to him.”

“It will disturb his father,” said Alice, remembering for the first time her scanty costume. “I shall go and wake up Hannah.” Lighting another candle, she sped up to the maid’s room and tried the knob. The door was locked; there was not a sound heard from within.

“Hannah!” she called.

Still there was no sound.

“Hannah!” she called again, “there have been thieves in the house!”

“Lord a-massy me!” came in a feeble treble from within. The voice was muffled as if from under many blankets.

“They have half killed poor grandfather.”

“Land sakes alive!”

“But they have gone now, and you must come down and help us to get him back to bed, and go with me for the doctor.”

“I never could do such a thing and thieves in the house.”

“They are not in the house, Hannah, I tell you! You must come--I do not see how you can be such a coward.”

Alice went to her bedroom and put on her wrapper, and brought her mother’s down-stairs to her.

And soon Hannah came down the stairs, jumping at every shadow, and almost sick with terror. When she saw the Deacon lying upon the floor, with a bleeding wound upon his forehead, she gave a loud scream, and sank upon the stair-way in a swoon.

The Deacon happened at that minute to come to, and he immediately jumped to his feet; for, after all, his wounds, like Jack’s, gained in his tumble with Gill, were of the kind which could be mended with “vinegar and brown paper.” The concussion had deprived him of his senses for a few minutes, and he had now only a bruise and a headache. He looked for a while at the two women, then over to the sideboard.

“The silver! all the stolen silver returned! what does it mean?”

“You had better come up to bed; you will catch cold, father,” urged his daughter, pulling at his sleeve.

He broke away from her, and he saw the tankard which had broken his head.

“Uncle Dudley’s tankard! Why, Tom Cheever stole it--I fired at the burglar to-night--Yes, there is the bullet-hole in the sideboard, and all of the silver returned, every bit of it; the two tankards, the bowl, the forks and spoons. This is a great mystery, a special providence.”

“Come to bed, father,” urged Mrs. Pickering.

“I feel a draught from the passage,” he replied; “the thief must have entered and escaped by that way.” Taking up a candle, he went upon the trail through the open doors. “He made his entrance through the kitchen door,” he announced. “Hannah must have left it unlocked. No; he forced his entrance--I do not see how he could have done it without making a noise which would wake the dead.”

The Deacon pulled a dresser against the disabled door and returned to the dining-room. Hannah by this time had recovered from her swoon, and partially recovered from her terror. The difference between having a live protector in the house and the body of a murdered man, restored her to her senses.

“Now, all you women, go up to bed,” said the Deacon, when he had barricaded his castle. “There’s some way of explaining this night’s work, and I think that if anybody can see through a millstone when there’s a hole in it, I can.”

The women did as they were bid, and the Deacon packed the newly recovered treasures into a basket and brought it to his room and put it in the closet.

But the Deacon’s wounded head was aching so shrewdly that he was not in a benign frame of mind. The silver had come back, but the man who had brought it had done its owner evil.

“It must be some of that Cheever brood,” ejaculated the old man, as he blew out the candle and laid his aching head upon the pillow. “Nephew or uncle, I don’t know which--Satan’s brood, in either event. The boy is in town to see his sick father, so he had the opportunity.” And he lay through the watches of the night puzzling over the mystery and making plans for the righteous punishment of poor James.

XI

The Bell-in-Hand Tavern in Boston was never a cheerful place. It was on a dark, narrow alley and the sunlight never peeped into its dingy tap-room. But when the lamps were lighted at night, its customers, used to its twilight atmosphere, blinked in the unusual glare, and called for some liquids to brighten themselves up so that they might be in more harmony with the new state of things. There were very few of these melancholy loungers seated about the dingy bar on the evening of May 27, 1813; for the town was agog with the preparations for the fitting out of the frigate _Chesapeake_ to fight H. M. S. _Shannon_.

The British ship had been standing on and off outside the harbor mouth for some days, and it was known that Captain James Lawrence of the _Chesapeake_ meant to give him battle. The usual customers of the Bell-in-Hand were down at the wharves, grave with the responsibility so willingly adopted by self-constituted sidewalk committees of inspection; and only one applied for a mug of ale when the landlord had finished the illumination of his dingy hostelry.

“In a moment, Mr. Marks,” said the landlord. “The usual, I suppose?”

“No, I shall have some Medford to-night; I wish to drink good luck to the _Chesapeake_ in right Yankee liquor.”