Heralds of Empire | Page 6

she would not take it. Then
Hortense came dancing down the hall.
"Am I not grown tall?" she asked, mischievously shaking her curls.
"No," said I, looking down to her feet cased in those high slippers

French ladies then wore, "'tis your heels!"
And we all laughed. Catching sight of the squirrel, Hortense snatched it
up with caresses against her neck, and the French governess sputtered
out something of which I knew only the word "beau."
"Jack is no beau, mademoiselle," said I loftily. "Pah! He's a wharf lad."
I had thought Hortense would die in fits.
"Mademoiselle means the squirrel, Ramsay," she said, choking, her
handkerchief to her lips. "Tell Jack thanks, with my love," she called,
floating back up the stairs.
And the governess set to laughing in the pleasant French way that
shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense
could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become
too big to prank on the commons.
"Faith, mademoiselle," said I ruefully, "an she mayn't play war on the
commons, what may she play?"
"Beau!" teases mademoiselle, perking her lips saucily; and she shut the
door in my face.
It seemed a silly answer enough, but it put a notion in a lad's head. I
would try it on Rebecca.
When I re-entered the window, the dominie still slept. Rebecca, the
demure monkey, bent over her lesson book as innocently as though
there were no turnstiles.
"Rebecca," I whispered, leaning across the bench, "you are big enough
to have a--what? Guess."
"Go away, Ramsay Stanhope!" snapped Rebecca, grown mighty good
of a sudden, with glance fast on her white stomacher.
"O-ho! Crosspatch," thought I; and from no other motive than

transgressing the forbidden, I reached across to distract the attentive
goodness of the prim little baggage; but--an iron grip lifted me bodily
from the bench.
It was Eli Kirke, wry-faced, tight-lipped. He had seen all! This was the
secret of Mistress Rebecca's new-found diligence. No syllable was
uttered, but it was the awfullest silence that ever a lad heard. I was
lifted rather than led upstairs and left a prisoner in locked room with
naught to do but gnaw my conscience and gaze at the woods skirting
the crests of the inland hills.
Those rats in the attic grew noisier, and presently sounds a mighty
hallooing outside, with a blowing of hunting-horns and baying of
hounds. What ado was this in Boston, where men were only hunters of
souls and chasers of devils? The rats fell to sudden quiet, and from the
yells of the rabble crowd I could make out only "King-killers!
King-killers!" These were no Puritans shouting, but the blackguard
sailors and hirelings of the English squadron set loose to hunt down the
refugees. The shouting became a roar. Then in burst Eli Kirke's front
door. The house was suddenly filled with swearings enough to cram his
blasphemy box to the brim. There was a trampling of feet on the stairs,
followed by the crashing of overturned furniture, and the rabble had
rushed up with neither let nor hindrance and were searching every
room.
Who had turned informer on my uncle? Was I not the only royalist in
the house? Would suspicion fall on me? But questions were put to
flight by a thunderous rapping on the door. It gave as it had been
cardboard, and in tumbled a dozen ruffians with gold-lace doublets,
cockades and clanking swords.
Behind peered Eli Kirke, pale with fear, his eyes asking mine if I knew.
True as eyes can speak, mine told him that I knew as well as he.
"Body o' me! What-a-deuce? Only a little fighting sparrow of a
royalist!" cried a swaggering colt of a fellow in officer's uniform.
"No one here, lad?" demanded a second.

And I saw Eli Kirke close his eyes as in prayer.
"Sir," said I, drawing myself up on my heels, "I don't understand you.
I--am here."
They bellowed a laugh and were tumbling over one another in their
haste up the attic stairs. Then my blood went cold with fear, for the
memory of that poor old man going to the shambles of London flashed
back.
A window lifted and fell in the attic gable. With a rush I had slammed
the door and was craning out full length from the window-sill. Against
the lattice timber-work of the plastered wall below the attic window
clung a figure in Geneva cloak, with portmanteau under arm. It was the
man who had supped so late with Eli Kirke.
"Sir," I whispered, fearing to startle him from perilous footing, "let me
hold your portmanteau. Jump to the slant roof below."
For a second his face went ashy, but he tossed me the bag, gained the
shed roof at a