Betty Peach, a tale of colonial days

Chapter I

On a strip of white sand, under the sea-wall, which, located and partially constructed by nature, whose handiwork appeared in huge bulwarks of rock-piles, had been brought to completion by the rude skill of man, a rowboat was beached.

Half leaning, half sitting upon it, was a young man of stalwart build, who seemed the very embodiment of robust health and vigor ; and near him was a girl, apparently much younger than himself, who stood with uncovered head, swinging her hat by its pink ribbons. They were talking together, and the man’s attitude and ex-

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pression bespoke great earnestness, and as though the subject of their conversation was, to him, a matter of vast moment.

She was a dimpled, rounded little body, not taller than the average girl of fourteen, although the family Bible on her Grandfather’s table bore witness to the fact that on a certain May day, seventeen years before, was born Bethia Peach.

The young man was saying to her, in a tone full of entreaty, “Won’t ye tell me why ye sent me back the coral pin I brought last trip, Betty ? Just as I sailed, too, an’ so could say nothing.”

She stirred the sand and pebbles with the tip of her small, steel-buckled shoe, but was demurely silent ; and the thought shot through Dan Marr’s brain of how distractingly pretty she was, as she stood there with all those big loose rings of dark hair over her low sweet brow, and the curling lashes of her downcast eyes looking blacker by contrast, as they seemed resting on her peachy cheeks.

“ Betty ! ” he exclaimed, almost sternly ; and he stretched out his strong brown hand, as if to emphasize, by a touch on one of the round, white arms the pink sleeves left partly bared, the authority now sounding in his tone.

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But the girl stepped back a pace, eluding his grasp, and her big soft eyes flashed a little as she raised them to his.

“ Give me the basket o’ eggs from the boat, will ye please, an’ let me go,” was all she said ; then adding, “ Grand’ther will be wondering where I am.”

“ I don’t believe ye’d act so, my girl, an’ ye know how cruel ye seem, an’ how ye make my heart ache,” he sighed heavily as he spoke but made no movement to reach the basket.

“ I am sure I cannot help what I may seem. An’ ye’d let old Bijah row me home, ye’d have had no heart ache to talk ’bout,” and there was something suggestive of a pout in the tone of her voice, as also in the expression of the red lips through which it issued.

“ Wouldn’t I ? Much ye know ’bout it. Why I’ve had nothing but heart achings e’er since Billy brought me the package from ye. An’ I thought ( more fool I, for it ) ’twas some last parting word, such as I was hungering for, such as I’d have sent, an’ I could, to ye. An’ after we’d got under way, I went to my cabin to see what ye’d sent me, there lay the coral pin I’d given ye just the day before, down in Echo Cove. An’ I’d

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thought ye loved me, that day.” His voice broke mournfully, and he stared off into the distance with moody eyes.

“ I never told ye such a thing ! ” she exclaimed, her color deepening.

The young man’s dark gray eyes came back from their abstraction, and rested upon her sweet face, and a world of tenderness softened them as he said, in a tone which his deep, strong voice made as a caress, “No, ye didn’t tell me, Betty, but ye let me kiss ye that afternoon. ”

“ Aren’t ye fine, to throw it at me now ? ” she interrupted, her voice sounding as though tears were not far away. But he went on, “ An’ then, that night at Polly Holcombe’s dance, ye’d scarcely speak to me. Ye seemed to be happier with that cursed English scoundrel.”

“Captain Rathborn’s a gentleman, an’ no scoundrel. Perhaps an’ he were asked his opinion, he might say the coat fitted some other folk best.”

Dan set his teeth and scowled murderously, as, leaning forward, he said, “ An’ ye mean by that he’s watching for chance to bring the officers o’ the Crown down from Boston after us, for smuggling, your Grandfather’d have the better chance, I

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trow, o’ letting Captain put the name ‘ scoundrel’ across his door.”

Betty chanced to glance over her shoulder while Dan was speaking, and she saw the old adage verified, for there of a surety was her Grandfather not very far away, and it was evident from his manner that his keen old eyes had observed them.

“ There goes Grand’ther now ! ” she exclaimed, in a tone of alarm, and she advanced toward the boat as though to take her basket.

“ Yes,” said Dan, in a tone almost of contempt, and making no move toward giving her the basket. “ There he goes, an’ he be for all the world like a frightened jack-snipe, with his long nose, an’ his coat tails flying, looking back at us.”

“Looking?” she repeated nervously, keeping her eyes fixed on her lover’s face, while her back was turned toward her relative ; and her agitation was such that she failed to take notice of Dan’s sarcastic comparison.

u Yes, he be looking ; an’ why should ye be so troubled o’er it?” The young man was now standing erect, and, as he spoke, he came up closely to the girl.

“ He has forbidden me to speak with ye alone.”

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She dropped her eyes, and began nervously to stir the sand again with her shoe tip.

u He has ? An’ why ? ” Dan demanded, almost angrily.

“ I don’t know,” the girl replied, with still greater agitation.

“ Well, I know ! ” the young man exclaimed, hotly. “ I know ! ” he repeated. “ He wants ye to marry that d — d Englishman ! ”

“ Dan ! How dare ye? ” Betty’s voice was full of indignation, and she drew herself up to the extreme limit of her small stature.

“ Yes, he does,” Dan said, with dogged insistence. “ I tell ye I’ve heard the talk more than once since I came back.”

u What talk ? ” the girl demanded, angrily. “ Who dares to talk o’ me in that way ? ”

“ ’Twas at the Pine Tree,” Dan replied, a little more calmly, and seemingly pleased at her display of indignation. “ I heard it the first night I was ashore, o’ how much Captain Rathborn came down to the town now, an’ how thick he an’ your Grandfather seemed to be. An’ they all said ’twas plain to see ’twas ye he was after, an’ that ye’re Grandfather had said he would give ye to him some day.”

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II

“ Just as if I were a piece o’ land or a cow ! ” Betty cried, her white, round chin tip-tilted with indignation, as she raised her little head still higher, and stamped her foot angrily. Dan, meanwhile, was gazing at her as though he found, in her flashing eyes and flushed cheeks, new food for his admiration. But she recalled him to his senses by adding, with a touch of scorn in her voice, “An’ weren’t ye a good friend, ye’re first night ashore, to go to a tavern an’ sit talking o’ me in such fashion, with a parcel o’ brawlers an’ empty-pates ? ”

“ I did no such thing, Betty, an’ ye know well I wouldn’t,” he replied, earnestly. “ I had met Goody Fletcher crying that her uncle had been since early evening at the Pine Tree, an’ I went to get him home. Ye know he will drink too much. There was never more reckless fool, when carrying too much grog, than old Dick Hadley, to say naught o’ the way he spends money not his own at such times, an’ so gets poor Goody into trouble with her husband, for countenancing him ’bout the place.”

Betty’s eyes, looking straight into his own pleading ones, had grown somewhat softer, as had also the tone of her voice, as she asked, “ An’ where beside have ye heard such talk ? ”

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“Nancy Harris told me that the Captain brought ye fine scarlet cloth from Boston for a new cloak last winter,” the young man answered. u An’ she said he’d been to Meeting-house with, ye more than once.”

At sound of the other girl’s name, Betty’s red mouth grew narrow, and her eyes were now sparkling with anger again.

“ Since Mistress Harris knows so much,” she exclaimed, “it is great pity ye had not consulted her ’bout the coral pin. Try ye an’ see an she cannot cure ye’re ‘ heart aches’.”

This suggestion so angered Dan that he gave utterance to expletives in which he referred to Miss Nancy in language more forcible than polite ; at which the girl, seeming rather to enjoy his discomfiture, added, in the same taunting tone, “ Aye, say ye so o’ her now? So more likely, when next ye see her, ye may say to her o’ me. Ye seemed to find no one else worth talking to or dancing with the night at Polly Holcombe’s, which ye’ve just been mentioning.”

“Ye know well I danced with her because I couldn’t get ye,” the young man exclaimed, hotly.

“ I found ye laughing an’ dancing with her an I came,” she retorted, with equal asperity.

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“ ’Twas she asked me,” he began, and then stopped short, and looked foolish, as if regretting having been betrayed into such an ungallant speech. The girl seemed not to be of his mind, however, or, if she was, did not show it, as she went on, rather eagerly, u I was late, an’ ye know I had to be late, Dan ; that I had to wait ’til Grand’ther had gone to his meeting. He will never favor my going to a dance.”

“ An’ did ye send the coral pin back next day because o’ thinking I cared for Nancy?” He spoke with feverish eagerness, as he possessed himself of her little hand, and held it close in both his own.

The girl stood with drooped lids, no longer swinging her broad white hat ; and she made no reply.

“Betty,” he whispered, and there was something in his tone and manner which she had never seen before, “ Don’t ye know ye have all the love my heart can hold, that there be no sounding the depth o’ it for ye, my own sweet little maid ? ”

She looked up at him now, and the dark eyes were brimming.

“ Betty, Betty, Sweetheart,” he murmured ten-

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derly, bending over her. But as if fearful of what might follow, she snatched her hand away, and started back exclaiming, “No, no, say no more ! Not here, not now ! ”

“ Will ye come up to old fort on the hill to-morrow night at eight? ” he asked, and an expression of hope and happiness lighted up his honest face.

Betty hesitated. “ Say ye will,” the young man pleaded. “ Betty, my own sweet little maid, say ye will. I have so much to tell ; I have to tell ye I am no longer mate o’ the ‘ Jason.’ I’ve bought a little craft o’ my own, an’ so I’ve done with smuggling, I tell ye.”

At this, a bright smile broke over her face, showing her white, little teeth between the scarlet of her lips, and making a roguish dimple in each soft round cheek.

“Oh, Dan, I am glad,” she said looking up into his face.

“ Are ye? ” he said, smiling down at her. “ I hoped ye’d be. Ye see I could not believe ye’d done with me, though ye did send back the coral pin. An’ I wanted to be my own master for ye’re sake, Betty ; an’ a master who runs foul o’ the King’s law, be sure, in the end, to run foul o’

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something worse. An’ ye’ll have my neck for ye own, I won’t risk a rope collar getting twisted ’bout it.”

While he was speaking, Betty’s eyes had been dwelling upon the young man’s brown neck with a tender light stealing into them.

“ Yes, I’ll come,” she said, softly, and glancing about as though fearful of unseen ears hearing too much.

“ My own sweetheart ! ” he murmured, devouring her with his eyes, but not offering to touch her hand again, though he had drawn still closer to her. “ An’ may I bring a string o’ gold beads I got for ye in Genoa? ” he asked, anxiously.

“ For me, a string of gold beads for me? ” she exclaimed, her eyes, in spite of her, alight with pleasure.

“Yes, an’ I want ye to put them ’bout that sweet white throat, an’ say, ‘ this be the line that leads straight to Dan Marr’s heart,’ an’ the other end be made so taut only God Himself can break it. An’ whether I be at your side, or in China, all my dear little maid has to^do, whenever she wants anything in my power to do or give, be it my life, or a ship’s biscuit, or aught that may lie between the two, she’s but to speak.”

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“ Dan, do ye love me so much ? ” she asked, and her eyes filled again, and her voice was tremulous.

“ So much, little maid. It will take ye all ye life ( an’ God grant it be a long one, with me), all o’ it ’twould take, for ye to find out how much. Perhaps not e’en then would ye know, not ’til we get o’er there.”

A new light seemed to grow on Dan’s handsome face as he spoke, as though from the reflection of the spirit within ; and his eyes looked off, over Betty’s small dark head, to the sunset, where, amid the molten golden sea, there lay islands of tinted clouds, looking dreamy and calm as the beaches of the far-away Fortunate Isles.

Chapter II

Less than half an hour after, Betty, sittings alone up in her dormer-windowed chamber, looked out upon the gloaming with a light upon her wistful little face that Dan’s fond eyes had never seen there. She was pondering deeply all that had been said, and once she laughed softly ; and then, as though ashamed of her own happiness v she covered her face with her hands.

Outside, low down among the branches of the gnarled apple trees, there still came a yellow glimmer, and up in the southeast was set the sharply defined crescent of the harvest moon.

By and by there came a gentle tap at her closed door, and the voice of old Cata, saying,. “ Does ye wish ter set de table dis night, fer tea, chile?”

u No ! ” she replied, sharply, scarcely conscious of what she was saying until the sound of her own voice startled her. Then, her kind heart smiting her, as she reminded herself of the old i8

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cook’s day’s work, which had been harder than usual, she sprang to her feet, and sped down the winding stairs so quickly that she was with the negress before she had reached the floor below.

“ Never mind, Precious, I kin do it,” said old Cata, feebly remonstrative, as she perceived her young mistress’ intent.

“ That ye shall not ; go to the kitchen ! ” said Betty, imperiously ; and she proceeded herself to lay the dainty linen, woven so long ago by her dead mother’s girlish fingers.

The dim light of candles burning in the two brass candlesticks, burnished until they shone like gold, revealed the other occupant of the room, a misshapen, humpbacked lad, sitting upon the settee by the stone hearth, directly under the light of one of the candles, and with a worn book open on his knees.

The room was a long, low one, with oak panelings. Two high, red-curtained windows looked seaward, their deep, broad, oaken sills so wide and low as to serve for comfortable seats. The vines growing thickly outside, tapped occasionally upon the small, diamond shaped panes, for the air was grown chill, and the wind from the sea was rising.

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Pausing a moment as she bustled to and fro between the table and the mahogany sideboard, upon whose top shone glass and china, and as well from the now opened doors, Betty said, “Ye should not try to read any more to-night, Billy.”

“ I am not reading.” The boy’s voice had an abstracted undertone which caught the girl’s attention, and she asked, as she came and stood by him, “ What be ye thinking o’, then ?

He looked up at her, glanced at the open door, and then, lowering his tone, he said, “ Betty, did ye know Dan Marr was ashore? ”

She blushed and moved away again, as she replied in equally low tones, “ Yes, I saw him.”

“ Come here, Betty,” the boy now said with much earnestness, “ I want to tell ye somewhat. An hour back, I was up in the seat in the old chestnut tree at the foot o’ the garden. Peter Trower an’ Adam Powers came along the road, an’ stood by our wall, talking. They did not see me ; an’ I heard Adam say that Dan had bought a craft o’ his own, an’ he was going to turn traitor ; an’ he was to be done away with, afore he got chance to inform.”

Betty’s eyes grew terrified, and her color paled,

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as she gripped the boy’s shoulder with a strength of which her small fingers seemed incapable.

“ Oh, Bett, don’t pinch me so ; ye hurt ! ” he exclaimed, moving restlessly. She released him, and whispered, “ Go on, go on, tell me all they said, Billy.”

“ I will ; but don’t ye pinch me so again. That was all they said ’bout Dan ; only Peter swore, I tell ye, an’ I looked down through the leaves an’ his face looked like murder. Then Adam went on to tell how he’d been up to Pine Tree with Grand’ther an’ Captain Rathborn, an’ they had told him.”

“ Captain Rathborn ? Betty interrupted interrogatively.

“ Yes,” Billy replied. “ The Captain’s here ; I saw them taking the horses out his coach this afternoon, when I was up in the Inn yard.”

“ Well, go on,” the girl said, with a show of impatience. “ What else did ye hear ? ”

“ Not much else, for then they went off together down road. Oh, Betty ! There’s Grand’ther now ! ” He ended abruptly, and in a somewhat terrified whisper, as a heavy footfall sounded on the stone step outside, and beat a liasty retreat kitchenward, while Betty resumed lier bustling.

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Raising her eyes as the door was pushed open roughly, she saw the old man standing upon the threshold glowering at her. Forcing herself to meet his eyes calmly for a moment, she paused, as if waiting for him to speak. He said nothing, however, but stood glaring at her ; then coming in, he closed the door, and crossed to his own room, directly opposite. Pausing there a second, he said, in a harsh voice, and without looking around, u Lay a plate for a guest ; an’ see to it, Mistress, that ye make yourself agreeable to Captain Rathborn when he comes to-night.” And with this, the old man passed in, closing the door noisily after him.

With a face full of resolution and defiance, Betty arranged the extra seat ; but all the time her poor little heart was throbbing with its new anxiety, and her active little brain was in a whirl. From what Billy had said she was sure that some great danger was hanging over her lover, and that her Grandfather and the dashing English Captain were in some plot against him. It was also evident that the Captain was on good terms with the smugglers of whom this same Adam Powers was a leading spirit. And she recalled how, some two years previous, young Tom

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Hathaway, tired of the lawless business, had spoken of going to Boston, to seek the honest employment a relative in that city had offered ; and that three days, afterwards his body had been washed ashore — some of the old women had said, with bruised and battered features, and the marks of black fingers on his throat. This rumor had been quickly hushed, however, and the theory established that Tom had somehow fallen overboard ; the rocks being blamed for the marks of bruising.

And the girl now recalling how fiercely her Grandfather had bidden her hold her tongue, when she had repeated these rumors to him, remembered how she had always, in a vague way, associated the stern, heartless old man with this tragedy.

A little later, when they were at the table, Betty grew cold and shuddered as she sat opposite his dark, evil face and poured his tea. Captain Rathborn was a guest, but the girl had not the power to exert herself to reply, save in monosyllables, to his gay talk and fulsome compliments. Indeed her poor little heart sank with foreboding whenever she was forced to look into his blue eyes, bent upon her with an intentness not to be mistaken.

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Even Billy’s presence would have been a welcome help ; but the boy was having his evening meal in the kitchen, which he was ever welcome to do, for Squire Peach troubled himself little about the lad, so long as he kept himself out of the way. He was the orphaned child of the old man’s wilful daughter, whom he had cared for as for nothing else on earth, save money ; and he appeared to look upon the little cripple as the outward and visible sign of his own child’s ingratitude.

At length the meal was over ; and when the Captain and her Grandfather were shut in the old man’s private den, with their pipes and grog, Betty stole to the kitchen in search of Billy. But old Cata told her that the boy, after eating his supper, had gone out. Then the girl wrapped herself in a warm cloak, and drawing the hood of it over her head, went in search of him, although hoping all the time that he had gone to find Dan, and put him in possession of the facts he had ascertained. She well knew the idolatrous love Billy had always felt for the big sailor ever since the days when, a tiny mite, he used to climb up on his knee to listen to marvelous tales of sea adventure, of foreign folk, and far away lands.

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Betty searched the garden carefully, calling the boy’s name softly now and then, until she was assured he was not there. Then she went down to the shore, and, standing there under the stars, with the waves washing in on the sand with the quiet peace of the full tide, she gave the shrill whistle which he and she had always used for a signal. Then she listened ; but no sound came to her except the night wind, and the washing of the waves. Repeating the signal several times, and with a like result, she was satisfied at last that Billy was nowhere about the place.

This thought made her heart feel lighter, as she reasoned that he had gone to warn Dan of his danger.

She did not care to meet her Grandfather and Captain Rathborn again, and so, instead of returning to the house, she seated herself upon the rocks by the shore, and remained there musing over all she had heard and seen, her mind full of doubt and perplexity.

She sat here, cudgeling her poor little brain for a long time ; then, realizing that it must be getting late, she arose and walked slowly toward that which she was forced to call u home.” As

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she approached the door, she heard the sound of voices within the hall, and recognizing them as belonging to those whom she desired to avoid, she hastened to conceal herself in the thick growth of bushes surrounding the house.

Just then the door opened more widely and Captain Rathborn came out, her Grandfather standing behind him with a lighted candle in one hand, while the crooked, claw-like fingers of the other were held so as to shield the wavering flame.

The Captain was saying with a laugh, and in a louder tone than he perhaps would have used had he been drinking less freely, “ Remember, old Skinflint, what the immortal Shakespeare tells us, something to this effect : ’If ‘twere done, then ’tis well ’twere done quickly.’ And so say I, that the sooner it’s done the better for all of us. And that’s what I told Adam.”

The old man replied in low, cautious tones, “An’ I tell ye, Captain Rathborn, as I told Adam, to remember there’s to be no bloodshed ’bout it ; an’ so, I wash my hands o’ the whole affair.”

The Captain turned about and came up the step again, as he said in a voice full of anger,

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“ Wash your hands of it, do ye ? See here, ye’re not

softening towards that d d rapscallion, are

ye? Ye’re not going back on your promise to me about Betty, eh? By the Lord! Ye do, and I’ll have the King’s officers lay ye by the heels for the bloody old smuggler that ye are, and so quickly, too, that ye won’t know whether your name be Peach or Devil, — which last I’m often in two minds about.”

The old man’s evil eyes glittered, and there was a quivering of the long, bony fingers silhouetted against the flame, as he replied, in a voice choked with rage, “ Any softening I have for Dan Marr will never do him good ; an’ for the wench, ye are welcome to her.”

“ Spoken like a man and a gentleman, which ye are — not,” hiccoughed the other; and he turned away with a maudlin laugh, saying, “ Good night to ye, old Skinflint ; and ye can rely upon Bob Rathborn never showing ye up in your true light, so long as ye furnish his throat with such spirits, smuggled though it be, and his eyes with such sweet baggage as Mistress Betty.”

Trembling with anger, disgust and terror, poor little Betty scarcely breathed until her Grand-

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father closed and barred the door, and the Captain’s uncertain footfall had died away down the roadway. Then, waiting until she saw the light extinguished in the old man’s room, and so being assured of his having retired for the night, she stole softly around to the other side of the house, until she stood beneath the window of her own room. Here a stout apricot tree, growing vinelike, was to serve her, as it had many times before, for a ladder. Throwing her heavy cloak to the ground, she climbed into the tree and made her way noiselessly up through the branches, and so, by way of the window, into her chamber.

And now, not daring to make a light, she felt her way quietly across the hall to Billy’s room, the door of which stood wide open. By the pale light coming in at the foot of the bed, she saw the boy was there, and with a soft “ Hush-sh-h,” she closed the door and seated herself beside him.

“ Billy,” she whispered, “ Ye’re awake, aren’t ye?

u Yes,” the boy replied, and there was little sign of drowsiness in his tone.

“ Have ye seen Dan ? ” Betty asked, anxiously.

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“ Oh, Betty ? ” he exclaimed so impetuously that the girl uttered another “ Hush ! ” and pressed her little hand over his lips. At this, he sank his voice, and continued, “ I went to find him, but could not anywheres, though I went to every place I could think o’. At last I met Dick Hadley, an’ he told me Dan had been at the Pine Tree, when the nigger boy from Master Harris’ came an’ told him Nancy was waiting to speak to him o’ a cargo her father had told on afore he went up to Boston yester’een ; an’ so I went past Master Harris’ place to wait for Dan to come out. But I only saw the nigger boy, an’ he told me Dan had not been to the house.”

At the mention of Nancy’s name, Betty felt her heart harden for a second ; then she bravely put the jealous feeling aside, as she reminded herself of Dan’s danger. Again she seemed to see his face and hear his voice, as it had been that late afternoon, when, down on the shore, he had called her his u little maid ; ” so she asked calmly, “ Be that all, Billy ? ”