  W To these entertainments were bidden all the Boston townsfolk who were loyal to the British crown. Amongst such, none were more prominent or made more welcome than Mr. Jeffrey Merridew and his pretty young niece, Sibyl. Mr. Merridew was a stanch royalist, though he was by no means a violent hater of the rebels. Many of them were his old friends and neighbors; and his only brother, Dr. Ephraim Merridew,—Sibyl's father,—was a rebel at heart, though in far-away Barbadoes, where he was at that time engaged in business, he could not serve the rebel cause in person, as he would gladly have done. But he left behind him a son who, in full sympathy with his father's views, ranged himself boldly on the rebel side, as part and parcel of the American army. A rebel relative in Barbadoes was not a matter to trouble oneself about greatly, but a rebel relative on the spot, so to speak,—for young Ephraim was only four miles away at the Cambridge rallying-ground,—was a different thing; and, amiable and easy-going as Mr. Jeffrey Merridew was disposed to be, his nephew's close proximity could not, under the peculiar circumstances, but be embarrassing and disturbing on occasions; for the young man, besides being his nephew, was Sibyl's brother, and Sibyl, as a member of a royalist's family,—for her father on his departure for Barbadoes had left his motherless girl in her uncle's charge,—could not, of course, be allowed free intercourse with one who had placed himself in an attitude of active hostility to the royal cause. When Sibyl was apprised of this dictum, she at once made passionate protest against it. "What harm do the King's soldiers think poor Eph can do them by now and then paying a visit to his sister?" she asked her uncle scornfully. "Harm? You are very young, Sibyl, and don't understand these things. Your brother has chosen very foolishly to join the rebel forces, and so has made himself one of our acknowledged enemies; and I never heard of declared enemies in time of war walking in and out of each other's houses like tame cats," answered Mr. Merridew, sarcastically. "But Eph, such a boy as Eph, only nineteen, only two years older than I! What harm could he do now, more than he has ever done, by coming to his uncle's house as a visitor?" still persisted Sibyl, rather foolishly. "What harm!" exclaimed Mr. Merridew, impatiently. "What a child you are, Sibyl! Why, his coming here would compromise me fatally with the royal government. I should be suspected of disloyalty, and do you think that he, your brother, could be in any such communication with us and fail to see and hear many things that might bring us disaster if reported to his officers?" "You think Eph would be so mean as to tell tales?" exclaimed Sibyl, in high indignation. "Tell tales!" repeated Mr. Merridew, flinging back his head with irrepressible laughter at Sibyl's ignorance. Why, my dear, the reporting of important facts, however gained in times of war, is part of war tactics; it is not called 'telling tales.'" "And would you—would you, if you were in Ephraim's camp as a visitor,—would you—" "Tell tales?" laughed Mr. Merridew. "Indeed I would, if I heard anything worth telling,—anything that I thought would save the cause I believed to be a righteous cause." Then, more seriously: "Why, Sibyl, it would be my duty to do it." "Oh! oh!" cried Sibyl, "it is odious, odious, all this war business." "Yes, I grant you that; but who is to blame for bringing this odious business upon us? Who but these foolish malcontents, these rebels, like—" "Like my father and my brother," broke in Sibyl, hotly, as Mr. Merridew hesitated. "Yes, like your father and your brother, I am sorry to say," concluded her uncle, gravely. "No, no, no!" cried Sibyl, excitedly. "It is not they who are to blame. They are good and brave and wise. They only want justice and fair play. It is the King's folk who are to blame,—the King's folk who want to oppress the people with unjust taxes, that they may live in greater grandeur." Mr. Merridew stared in silent astonishment at this unexpected outburst. Then, in a severer tone than his niece had ever heard from his lips, he said,— "So this is the treasonable talk you have heard from your brother; these are the teachings that he has been instilling into you? Ah, it is none too soon that you are cut off from the influence of that headstrong boy." "But it was my father who instilled these teachings into my brother. They are his principles, and they are my principles too!" "Your principles!" and Mr. Merridew, his sense of humor immensely tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy, to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, we'll see if we can't crowd all such stuff out with livelier things when we have those fine doings at the Province House Sir William is talking of. Her principles! The little parrot!" and he laughed again. CHAPTER II."And you're to dance the last dance with me, remember, Miss Merridew." "Indeed, Sir Harry, I will not promise you that." "You will not promise? But you have promised." "Have promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant beauty. But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little provincial,—not he; and so, lifting up his head with an air of hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,— "I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her to-night." Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,— "But I never reflect." "So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance upon this"—and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if they are to be had in the town!" Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers—Sir Harry's roses—to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said, with a gleam of fun in her eyes,— "If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for him to recall his friends and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about with her, to charge her mind unaided." "An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration of her ready wit,—"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he held out his hand to her. A very pretty pair "A very pretty pair," said more than one of the assembled company, as the two took their places in the beautifully decorated ball-room; and as the dance progressed, Mr. Jeffrey Merridew, watching his niece from his post of observation, said to himself with, a congratulatory smile,— "Where now are Miss Sibyl's fine rebel principles? I scarcely think they would stand a test." Almost at that very moment Sir Harry, boy as he was, spite of his one-and-twenty years, was giving vent to a little boastful talk about "our army" and "those undisciplined rebels who would never stand the test against a full regiment of regulars." "Why," Sir Harry declared at length, led on by Sibyl's air of great interest, "we have positive information that their troops at Cambridge have neither arms nor ammunition to carry on a defence, and they are in a sorry condition every way; it is impossible for them to resist us successfully. We shall literally sweep them off the face of the earth if they attempt it." "And you—the King's troops?" inquired Sibyl. "We—well, we have been a little straitened ourselves for the munitions of war," replied the young aide-de-camp, "but by to-morrow night a vessel will arrive for us that will relieve all such necessities. Ah," with a gay smile, "what would not these rebels give to get possession of this information, and put their cruisers on the alert to capture such a prize!" "But there is no possibility of this?" "Not the slightest. But you are pale,—don't be alarmed; there is no danger. The rebels have no suspicion of the expected arrival, we are certain." "But if they had?" "Well, that might alter the case. Their seamen know their business better than their landsmen." All this in the pauses of the dance. When they started up again, the music had accelerated its time, and down the great hall they led the way at a fine pace; but in swinging about to return, Sir Harry felt his companion falter. "What is it?" he asked anxiously. "My slipper," she replied with a vexed laugh; and, stooping as she spoke, she whisked off a little satin shoe, the high hollow metal heel of which had suddenly given way. Certainly no more dancing that night. For that matter, though, it was near the end of the ball. But could not he do something? Sir Harry asked. He had tinkered gunscrews; why not a slipper? No, no; nothing could be done then and there. A new heel must be hammered and fitted on. But then and there Sibyl had a sudden inspiration. Something could be done. She was to go to Madame Boutineau's rout the next evening. She needed these very slippers for that occasion. Would Sir Harry—on his way to his quarters that night—would he think it beneath his dignity to leave the slippers at Anthony Styles the shoemaker's? It was just there by the tavern at the sign of the gilded boot. He had only to drop the shoe, with a message she would write to go with it, into the tunnel-box by the door, and Anthony would find it by daylight and set to work upon it at once, that she might not be disappointed, for it was a longish job, she knew. Beneath his dignity! Sir Harry laughed. He was only too glad to do her bidding. And would he then give her a bit of paper and pencil and take her to the cloak-room for a moment? Alone in the cloak-room, Sibyl wrote her message to Anthony Styles. Folding the paper in the slipper, and wrapping the whole in her pocket-handkerchief, she fastened the parcel securely with the silken cord that had held her fan. "And may I have the last dance to-morrow night?" asked Sir Harry, smilingly, as he took leave of her a few minutes later. "Perhaps, if I may depend upon you—and Anthony Styles," she answered. Her eyes sparkled like dark jewels as she spoke; her cheeks burned like red twin roses. CHAPTER III.
And there, in the midst of all this pretty disorder of satin and lace and flowers, sits Sibyl, far into the night, or rather morning, turning over and over in her mind something that effectually banishes sleep. By and by, as she turns it over for the twentieth time, she says aloud to herself: "To think that it should be given to me to do,—made my duty! Uncle Jeffrey taught me that, as he has taught me many things these past months,—to keep my own counsel, for one thing. "Ah, Uncle Jeffrey, you have fancied me all these months naught but a vain little puppet who could be led to forget anything in a round of routs and balls. Well, I like the routs and balls dearly, dearly, but I like something else better. I like what my father has taught us, what my dear Eph is going to fight for, and perhaps die for, far, far better. Yet I felt like a cheat to-night as I led Sir Harry on to tell me what he did,—Sir Harry, who thinks me, as all the rest do, a stanch little Tory, for I have kept my counsel indeed, and no one suspects. But oh, it is odious, it is odious, this war business; yet I have been taught how to do my duty, and I have done it. Yes, I have done my duty, for 'the reporting of important facts, however gained, in times of war, is part of war tactics.' Yes, these are your words, Uncle Jeffrey, and oh, how they flashed up to me to-night when Sir Harry told me of the British vessel, and how they fairly rung in my ears like an order, when it suddenly came to me how I could get this important fact that I had gained sent to the right quarter by means of good Anthony Styles and that parcel-box of his, through which so many messages have gone safely. "Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh, if I didn't shiver so, when I think of it! Sir Harry, Sir Harry of all persons, dropping that message into Anthony Styles's hands,—Anthony Styles, the stanch rebel whom they think a stanch Tory! Oh, I could laugh, I could laugh! And now if everything goes well,—if everything goes well, my dear rebels will not be swept off the earth by British arms quite yet! Sibyl's reflections "But, hark! that is the clock; it is striking one, and I out of bed and gabbling to myself in this foolish way of mine, 'like a play-acting woman,' as Uncle Jeffrey would say of me. But I will not stay up a minute longer. So good-night, good-night, my dear rebels, g—ood-night!" The clock was striking four the next afternoon when a weather-beaten man, who had a look as if he had once been a seaman, knocked at the side door of Mr. Jeffrey Merridew's mansion and asked to see young Mistress Merridew. "It's Shoemaker Styles," the maid informed Sibyl, "and he says you must come down and try on the slipper he has brought; he's not sure about the heel. He's in the hall-room, mem." It was with a wildly beating heart that Sibyl, obeying this summons, ran down to the little hall-room where Anthony Styles awaited her. He stood with the slipper in his hand as she entered the room; and before he could close the door behind her, he called out in a frank, loud voice: "I thought you had better try on the shoe, miss; I wasn't sure of the heel." The moment the door was closed, however, he came forward eagerly, and in a low tone said: "It's all right, little mistress. I heard the click of the tunnel-box last night, for I hadn't turned in, and afore many minutes I was up and off in my boat with the message in my head; I burnt the paper! There was a stiff breeze, and I reached the cutter in the quickest time I ever made, and got back afore daylight with nobody the wiser. Shoemaker Styles understands his old sailor business better than shoemaking," with a grim laugh, "and no Tory knows these waters as I do." "And it's all right, and the end will be all right?" faltered Sibyl, anxiously. "All right! You'll know for yourself by nightfall, perhaps; and now God bless you, little mistress. You've done a great service; and if ever Anthony Styles can sarve you, he'll do it with a whole heart,—God bless you, God bless you!" and with these words Shoemaker Styles hurried off, leaving Sibyl with the slipper still in her hand, and both of them quite oblivious of that important trying-on process. The day after the ball was a busy one for Sir Harry Willing, and it was not until late in the afternoon that he felt himself at liberty to take his accustomed saunter about town. As he came in sight of the gilded boot, he smilingly thought: "I wonder if Shoemaker Styles has done his duty by the little slipper; if he has, I shall dance with my lady Sibyl at Madame Boutineau's this evening." But Sir Harry did not dance at Madame Boutineau's that evening, for when at nightfall he returned to his quarters, he was met by the disastrous tidings that the long-looked for, eagerly expected British brig, loaded with supplies for the King's army, had been captured off Lechmere's Point by the Yankee rebels. It was not many months after this capture that the British evacuated Boston. When Sir Harry Willing took leave of Sibyl Merridew, he pleaded for some token of remembrance. "You will not promise yourself to me," he said in reproachful accents, "but give me some token of yourself, some gage of amity at least." "But what—what can I give you, Sir Harry?" asked Sibyl, not a little touched and troubled. "Give me the little slipper you wore that night we danced together at the Province House." "That—that slipper?" and Sibyl blushed and paled. "Yes—ah, you will, you will." A moment's hesitation; then with a strange smile, half grave, half gay, Sibyl answered, "I will." |
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