Cruel As the Grave 33 – Southworth · Library Across
Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 33A Fatal Crisis
18
Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 33
A Fatal Crisis
SouthworthEnglish
Each at the life
Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intended.--MILTON.
"Hold! on your lives!" exclaimed Lyon Berners, rushing between the opponents, and with swift hands striking up the pistol of Robert Munson, and turning aside the musket of Farmer Nye. "Would you shed each other's blood so recklessly? Here is some mistake. Farmer, whom did you take us for?"
"Who did I take you for, is it? For that cornsarned band of robbers as have been mislesting the country for miles round this month past."
"Robbers?"
"Yes, robbers! as has been tarryfying the whole country side ever since Hollow Eve!"
"I never heard of them."
"May be you didn't, but I took you for them all the same."
"And aimed your musket at that lady! And might have shot her dead, had not this brave man thrown himself before her, with a loaded pistol in his hand, levelled at your heart."
"How did I know it was a lady? How could I see in this dim light? I took her for one of you, and I took you all for robbers," said the farmer, sulkily.
"Well, you see who we are now?"
"Yes; I see as you are my new lodgers. Though why you should be out here at the stables after your beasts at this hour of the night, and wake me up with a row; or should take my darter's side-saddle, and kill my watch-dog, blame you, I don't see!" growled the farmer.
"Come, walk aside with me for a few minutes, and I will show you why," said Mr. Berners, soothingly laying his hand on the farmer's shoulder.
"Hands off, if you please! No! I don't think as I will walk aside with you. You might do me a mischief."
"Bosh! you are armed, and I am unarmed. How can I harm you? Come, and I will tell you something to your advantage," coaxed Mr. Berners.
Partly urged by curiosity and partly by interest, Farmer Nye reluctantly consented to follow where Mr. Berners led him. When they had passed out of hearing of the negroes Mr. Berners stopped, and turned to his host, and said:
"You know who we are?"
"I know you are my new lodgers--that's all I know about you."
"Yet you must have observed something out of the common about our party?"
"Yes; I took notice as you and your wife must have been dreadful 'fraid of being robbed and murdered on your journey, when you kept two men to travel with you, and guard you all day long, and sleep outside of your doors like watch-dogs all night long. Which me and my darter made it out between us as you must have lots of money with you to make you so cautious. And which, if we had known you was going to be so mistrustful of us, we'd have seen you farther before we'd have took you in."
"And so that is the way in which you accounted for matters and things that you couldn't understand?"
"To be sure it was; and very natural too."
"Shall I tell him the whole truth?" inquired Lyon Berners of himself. "I will sound him first," he concluded. Then speaking up, he said:
"Well, you cannot blame people for being cautious, after that horrible murder at Black Hall."
"That's so too," admitted the farmer.
"And yet," added Mr. Berners, "they do say that it was no robber that did that murder, but the lady of the house who did it."
"The lady of the house!" indignantly echoed the farmer, to Lyon's great astonishment. "Don't you go to say that; for if you do, devil burn me if I don't knock you down with the butt end of my gun!"
"I do not say it. I only tell you what other people say."
"They lie! the hounds! And I wish I could meet any of them venomous backbiters face to face. Satan fly away with me if I wouldn't tear their false tongues out of their throats, and throw them to the dogs! You don't mean to say you believe she did it?" fiercely demanded Sybil's rough champion.
"No; Heaven knows I do not! I believe her to be as guiltless as an angel."
"I'm glad to hear you say that! I don't want to pitch into an unarmed man, but I should a' been strongly tempted to 'a done it if you'd said anything else."
"You know this injured lady, then?"
"Yes; I have knowed her ever since she was a little gal. Not as ever I met her face to face in my life, but I know her as every poor man and poor child and poor brute in the whole country knows her: as the kindest, gentlest, tenderest-hearted lady in the whole world--she who has been known to take the fur cloak off her own back, and lay it over the form of a sick beggar, while she went home in the cold to send her warm blankets. Yes, and known to have done scores of deeds as good and self-sacrificing as that. She do the thing they accuse her of! Why, sir, she no more did it than I, or you, or your own sweet wife did it! And Satan burn me! when I hear of any man accusing her of it, if I don't feel just like knocking his dull brains out, and taking the consequences--that I do!" swore the farmer.
"I will trust him," said Lyon Berners to himself.
--"And to think that men who call themselves law officers, not to say Christians, should hunt that lovely lady through the country as if she was some wild beast or highway robber! I wish one of them hunters was to come my way. I'm blowed to flinders if I wouldn't set my whole pack of dogs on 'em till they would be torn to pieces. I'd give 'em hunting! But excuse me, Mr.--Mr.--What's-your-name; I've gone away from the pint, which I always do fly off at a tangent and lose my bearings whenever I hear that lady accused. Now, sir, what had you to tell me to my advantage?" inquired the farmer, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his heated face.
"I will tell him all," said Lyon Berners to himself; and then he spoke up:
"First, good friend, let me assure you that you have not wandered a hair's breadth from the point at issue between us."
"Oh yes, I have; for I have been raving about Mrs. Berners; but I couldn't help it."
"Mrs. Berners is the lady who is with me," said Mr. Berners.
Farmer Nye jumped three feet from the ground and came down again like a man that was shot, and then stood with open mouth and eyes staring at the speaker.
"I am her husband, and the men who are guarding us are the officers who have her in custody."
"WHAT? Say that again!" uttered the farmer, panting for breath.
Mr. Berners repeated all that he had said, adding:
"I had got her away from this neighborhood, and on shipboard. And she was rejoicing in her supposed safety and freedom, for the ship was within a half hour of sailing, when these officers came on board with a warrant and arrested her."
"THEY DID! Wait till I get my niggers together. The boys will want no better fun than to tar and feather them devils, and set them afire and turn 'em loose. And blame me if I don't give the best feather-bed in my house to the service. Come along," exclaimed the farmer, starting off to commence the work.
"Stop!" said Lyon Berners, laying his hand soothingly upon the shoulder of the excited man. "Above all, you wish to serve my unhappy wife, do you not!"
"Yes! with my 'life, and fortune, and sacred honor' as the Declaration of Independence says."
"Then you can not serve her by any violence done to the officers, who are only doing their duty."
"Doing their duty! Duty! That's a matter of opinion! I consider I should be doing of my duty if I was to order my niggers to take 'em out and tar and feather 'em. Yes, and set 'em afire afterwards--burn 'em!"
"Yes; but that would be doing a great injustice to them, and also a great injury to Mrs. Berners. If you really wish to serve my dear wife, you can do so by helping her to escape."
"I'll help her to escape, with all my heart and soul! And with all my heart and soul I'll shoot down anybody that dares to start from here in pursuit of her!" emphatically declared the farmer.
"That is not necessary. You can cover our retreat by more peaceable means. And now I must advise you that both these officers have used us with the greatest kindness and consideration, concealing our identity and shielding us from the curiosity and intrusion of strangers, whenever they could do so, as is proved by your own experience, for you had no suspicion as to who we might be."
"No, that I hadn't! And a good thing I hadn't too! for if I'd a known that lady had a been kept a prisoner here in my house, I'd a pitched her jailers neck and heels out o' the windows, and then set the dogs on 'em!"
"But that would have been very unjust to them, and injurious to the lady you wish to befriend. And especially it would have been the very greatest injustice to the younger officer, who has been our partisan from the first."
"Eh! what? One of them jailers your partisan?"
"Yes; let me explain," said Mr. Berners. And he commenced and detailed all the circumstances of their acquaintance and relations with Robert Munson.
"And so, out of gratitude for the kindness this lady showed him in his childhood, he got himself put on this service o' purpose to watch his opportunity of reskying her."
"Just so."
"Well, he's an honest fellow, that he is!" said the farmer, approvingly.
"Now, Mr. Nye, all you have to do, if you wish to help us, is just to let us go free. When we are gone, keep the house quiet, and let the elder officer sleep as long as possible, for the longer he sleeps the farther we shall get away from pursuit."
"I'll lock him up and keep him prisoner for a month, if necessary."
"But it is not necessary. A day's start is all that we shall need, and that, I think, you can secure to us, by simply letting the man sleep as long as he will. And furthermore, I may ask you to be cautious and not to betray our friend Robert Munson's agency in our escape."
"I'll protect Robert Munson with my life."
"A thousand thanks! And now, as we understand each other, let us go on to my wife, who is anxiously waiting the issue of this interview," said Lyon Berners, turning and leading the way towards the stables.
"Now, squire, you may rely upon me, and rest easy in your mind. You sha'n't be followed in less than twenty-four hours," said the farmer, as they went along.
"Again I thank you from my heart. And now I have something else to say to you," began Lyon Berners
Then he paused, as finding a real difficulty in saying what he wished; for the truth is, that when Mr. Berners had called Mr. Nye aside for a private interview, he had intended to offer him a heavy bribe to connive at the escape of Sybil.
Now, however, he found the farmer not exactly the sort of man to affront with the proffer of a bribe, or even scarcely of a reward; and yet he was a poor man who evidently needed money, and would probably always need it; for Farmer Nye, as has been shown in his championship of Sybil, was a man of impetuous emotions, hasty judgments, and reckless actions, and was always sure to be in troubles, social, domestic, and pecuniary.
So Mr. Berners, while wishing to reward his services, felt a difficulty as to the manner of doing so.
At length, however, he continued:
"Mr. Nye, I said at the beginning of our talk, that I could tell you something to your advantage."
"Well, and, bless my soul alive, haven't you done it? I wonder if I could hear of anything more to my advantage than the chance of helping to resky that lady as I have felt for so much?" warmly inquired the farmer.
"You have a generous and noble nature to look upon it in that light."
"No, I haven't; but I'm a man, I reckon, and not a beast nor a devil, and that's all about it."
"Well, farmer, I confess that when I first spoke to you, I thought of offering you a heavy bribe to allow us to go free, and that was what I meant when I said I had something to propose to your advantage."
"Then I'm glad you didn't do it--that's all."
"I am glad too, for now I know your magnanimous heart would have led you to serve us without reward, and even at great loss."
"Yes, that it would," naively assented the farmer.
"And even so we accept and shall ever be grateful for your services," added Lyon Berners, gravely. And all the while he was slily examining the contents of his pocketbook. At length he drew a five hundred dollar note from the compartment in which he knew he kept notes of that denomination, and he slipped it into a blank envelope, and held it ready in his hand.
In another moment they were at the stable door, before which Sybil stood, leaning on the bowed neck of her own horse, while Robert Munson held the other horse.
Before Lyon Berners could speak, Farmer Nye impetuously pushed past him, and rushed up to Sybil, pulled off his hat and put out his hand, exclaiming:
"Give me your hand, lady. I beg your pardon ten thousand times over for all I said and did to affront you, not knowing who you was. But now, lady, here is a man who don't believe you to be innocent, because he knows that you are so, and who will fight for you as long as he has got a whole bone left in his body, and shed his blood for you as long as he has got a drop left in his veins."
Overcome by this ardent testimonial to her innocence, Sybil burst into tears, and took the rough hand that had been held out to her, and wept over it, and pressed it warmly to her lips, and then to her heart.
"Yes, that I will. I'll die before a hair of your head shall be hurt," exclaimed the farmer, utterly overwhelmed and blubbering.
Meanwhile Lyon Berners was explaining to Robert Munson that they had found a friend and helper in Farmer Nye; but advising Munson to try to infuse enough of discretion into the impetuous mind of Nye to modify his reckless actions.
"And now, dear boy," added Mr. Berners, "I will not speak to you of reward for this great service; but this I will say, that henceforth you shall be to me as a younger brother, and I shall take charge of your future fortunes even as though you were the son of my mother."
"You are too generous, sir; and indeed I want no recompense whatever," answered Robert Munson, sincerely.
Then Mr. Berners went over to his wife and lifted her into her saddle; and when he had settled her comfortably in her seat, he mounted his own horse, and once more called Robert Munson to him.
"Good-bye, and God bless you, Robert," he said, warmly shaking hands with the young man.
"And you too, sir! and you too, sir!" feelingly responded Munson.
And then Sybil called him.
"Good-bye, dear Bob. I will remember you and love you as long as I live for this," she said.
"And so will I you, ma'am," he answered, and turned away to hide his tears.
Lastly Lyon Berners rode up to where Farmer Nye stood apart.
"Farewell, Farmer Nye! And may you indeed fare as well as your great heart deserves all your life," said Lyon.
"The same to you and your dear wife, sir, with all my soul in the prayer!" responded the farmer.
"And here, Mr. Nye, is a testimonial--I mean a memorandum--that is to say, something I wish you to take for my sake."
"A keepsake, sir?"
"If you choose to consider it so, yes."
"What might it be sir?" inquired the farmer, receiving from Mr. Berners the small envelope containing the large note.
"It might be a lock of my wife's hair, or it might be my miniature; but whatever it is, hold it tight, and do not look at it until you get back to the house."
"All right, sir; but you have raised my curiosity," replied the farmer, as he carefully deposited his unsuspected little fortune into the pocket of his waistcoat.
"Now direct me as to how I shall find the best and most private road westward," said Lyon, gathering the reins in his hands.
"You are facing east now. Ride straight on for about a hundred yards, till you come to the cross-roads, then take the road to your left, and follow it for about an eighth of a mile until you come to another road still on your left; take that and follow it as far as you please, for it leads straight west."
"Thank you again and again! We shall do very well now. Good-bye, all; and God bless you forever!" exclaimed Lyon Berners, waiving his hat in adieus to the friends he was leaving behind.
Then, the husband and wife rode forth in the night together.
Before we follow them, we will see how it fared with the faithful friends who had risked so much in their service.
