CHAPTER IX

The household was astir early the next morning to set the travellers on their road with a warm meal and a parting word; and despite the absence of Aunt Penine, all the domestic machinery moved as smoothly as usual.

There could still be seen a few stars, not yet blotted out by the pearly haze, shot with palest blue, that the dawn was putting in front of them.

Over the sea hung a curtain-like gathering of fog, and the air was heavy with the odors from the wood and fern, brought forth by the damp.

Nicholson Broughton, having borrowed a saddle from his host, had decided to pursue the remainder of his journey on horseback; and he, with his two younger companions, was now about to set forth.

Mary stood near her father's horse, while he gave her some parting words of encouragement.

"Now bear in mind, Pigsney, all I have said, and never fail to keep a watchful eye and stout heart. All at the house will go well until my return; and do you abide here, safe and close, with our good friends.

Be sure to keep away from the town, and whether the Britishers come to the Neck or no, you will be safe."

She promised all this, and turned away as he rode off, waving a farewell to his host, who stood within the porch, with Aunt Lettice and little 'Bitha alongside him.

Hugh Knollys followed, with a gay good-by to all, while John Devereux, who had been talking with Dorothy, now vaulted into his saddle.

As he was about to start, Mary Broughton pa.s.sed along in her slow walk to the house. She turned, and their eyes met in a look that told of a mutual understanding. But she flushed a little, while he only smiled, doffing his hat as he rode slowly past her down the driveway.

Dorothy was waiting, close to her father, on the porch.

"Don't you wish you were a man, Mary," she said, as her friend came up the steps, "so that you could ride away to do battle for our rights, instead of being only a woman, to stop at home and wonder and worry over matters, while the baking and churning must be done day after day?"

Her father smiled at this, and pinched Dorothy's cheek; then a sadness came to his face as he looked at her.

"To be a woman does not always mean the doing of over-much baking or housework," said Mary, with a meaning smile, her cheeks fresher and her blue eyes brighter, like the flowers, from the pure morning air.

Joseph Devereux nodded an a.s.sent. "If you and Mary," he said to Dorothy, "were to ride to Boston this day, who would there be to do what you are entrusted with the doing on? Mark ye, my daughter," and he bent a grave look upon her bright face, "women, as well as men, have high and holy duties to perform,--aye, indeed, some of them even higher. Where would come the nerve and hope for the proper ambition o'

men's minds, were there no mothers and wives and--sweethearts, to make their lives worth the living, and their homes worth fighting for,--yes, and their country so much more worth saving from oppression. Nay, my baby, what would become o' your old father, if he had not a little maid to console him, when his only son must needs face risks and dangers?"

Dorothy did not answer, but her face softened, and her arm stole up about his neck.

"Dot," said Mary, presently, "do not forget the matter we talked of last evening,--that your father was to know."

"And pray, what is that?" the old gentleman asked briskly.

"Come into the library, father, with Mary and me, and we will tell you." And slipping her hand around his arm, she started to lead him in. Mary was about to follow, when he turned to her and held out his other arm. With an answering smile she placed her hand within it, and all three went inside.

Aunt Lettice had gone off to her own apartments, taking 'Bitha for her usual morning instructing, and so they were not likely to be disturbed.

As soon as her father was seated, Dorothy, standing by the window, burst forth with her accustomed vehemence.

"I want to tell you, father," she exclaimed, "that I am sure Aunt Penine is a loyalist!"

"Chut, chut!" he replied reprovingly. But he smiled, used as he was to the differences betwixt his daughter and her exacting relative.

"I have good reason for what I say," Dorothy insisted; "and Mary can tell you so, as well."

"Well, child, first tell me all about it, and do not begin by misnaming any one," her father said gently.

She told him in a few rapid words,--first, what had happened the evening before, and ending by a detailed account of finding the tea in the store-closet.

Her father was scowling ominously by the time the story was finished; and he sat in silence for a few moments, his head bent, as though considering what she had told him. Then he said: "I thank you, my child, for what you have told me. I must speak with Penine o' these matters, and that right away. Do you go, Dot, and tell her I wish to talk with her, and must do so as soon as she can see me in her room."

"Why not let Mary go?" Dorothy suggested. "Aunt Penine likes Mary, and she does not like me--nor I her." And she looked quite belligerent.

"I will be glad to go, if you say so," Mary offered, rising from her chair.

"Well, well," he said, "it matters little to me who goes; only I must see her at once. And thank you, Mary, child, if you will kindly tell her so."

As soon as Mary left the room, Dorothy came over to her father's chair and perched herself upon one of its oaken arms.

"And now there is another thing I wish to tell you," she said, "and I'd best do it now."

He put an arm about her and smiled up into her troubled face.

"Well, well," he said playfully, while he smoothed her curls, "what a wise little head it has grown to be all on a sudden! We shall be hearing soon that Mistress Dorothy Devereux has been invited by the great men o' the town--Lee and Orne and Gerry, and the rest o' them--to be present at their next meeting, and instruct them on matters they wot not on, despite their age and wisdom."

She would not smile at his badinage, but went on soberly to warn him of what she suspected between her Aunt Penine and their ostracized neighbor, Jameson,--telling him also of the unusual amount of coin being spent by the boy, Pashar, whom she had seen carrying notes for her aunt.

The smile left her father's face as he listened to this, and he shook his head gravely. And when she finished, he said, as though to himself, "'T is the enemies in one's own household that are ever the most dangerous." Then rising, he added, "Come with me, Dot, while I speak first to Tyntie."

The old Indian woman had been devoted to the interests of the family since forty years before, when Joseph Devereux found her--a beaten, half-starved child of ten--living with her drunken father in a wretched hut on the outskirts of the town, and brought her to his own house for his wife to rear and instruct. And because of her idolatrous love for her benefactor and his family, she had endured patiently the exacting tyranny of Aunt Penine, whom she detested.

Her tall, spare figure was now moving about her domain with a curious dignity inseparable from her Indian birth; but she paused in what she was doing the moment her master and his daughter appeared at the door, and remained facing them in respectful silence.

She was alone, the men having gone off to their duties about the farm, and the maids to the dairy, or to the housework above stairs.

"I desire to ask you, Tyntie," her master began, addressing her with the same grave courtesy he would have used in speaking to the best-born lady in the land, "if, since I forbade the making or using o' tea in my house, any has been brewed?"

"Yes, master," she answered without any hesitancy; and a sly look, as of revenge, crept into her black eyes.

"How dared ye do such a thing?" he demanded, his face severe with indignation.

"I never did it," was her laconic reply.

"Then who did? I command ye to make a clean breast o' the matter."

And he struck his stick peremptorily upon the floor, while Dorothy, awed by the unusual anger showing in his voice and bearing, drew a little away from him.

"It was Mistress Penine brewed the tea, for her own drinking." And Tyntie showed actual pleasure in being thus enabled to expose her oppressor.

"And how often hath this happened since I gave strict orders that none should be had or drunk in this house o' mine?"

"'Most every day; and sometimes more than once in the day."

"And how were you guarding your master's interests, to permit such secret goings on under his roof, without giving him warning?"