Thus, as I sat there on my cot, scenes of my life came jostling me like long-absent comrades, softening my mood until I fell to thinking of those honoured parents I had never seen save in the gray dreams which mazed my sleep. For the day that brought life to me had robbed my honoured mother of her life; and my father, Captain Cardigan, lying with Wolfe before Quebec, sent a runner to Sir William enjoining him to care for me should the chance of battle leave me orphaned.
So my father, with Wolfe's own song on his lips:
"Why, soldiers, why Should we be melancholy boys? Why, soldiers, why? Whose business 'tis to die--"
fell into Colonel Burton's arms at the head of Webb's regiment, and his dying eyes saw the grenadiers wipe out the disgrace of Montmorency with dripping bayonets. So he died, with a smile, bidding Webb's regiment God-speed, and sending word to the dying Wolfe that he would meet him a minute hence at Peter's gate in heaven.
Thus came I naturally by my hatred for the French, nor was there in all France sufficient wampum to wipe away the feud or cover the dear phantom that stood in my path as I passed through life my way.
Now, as I sat a-thinking by the window, below me the robins in all the trees had begun their wild-wood vespers--hymns of the true thrush, though not rounded with a thrush's elegance.
The tree-shadows, too, had grown in length, and the afternoon sun wore a deeper blazonry through the hill haze in the west.
Fain to taste of the freedom which was now mine, I went out and down the stairs, passing my lady Silver Heels strapped to a back-board and in a temper with her sampler.
"Oh, Micky," she said, "my bones ache, and Mistress Molly is with the baby, and the key is there on that brass nail."
"It would be wrong if I released you," said I, piously, meaning to do it, nevertheless.
"Oh, Micky," she said, with a kind of pitiful sweetness which at times she used to obtain advantages from me.
So I took the key and unlocked the stocks, giving her feet a pinch to let her know I was not truly as soft-hearted as she might deem me, nor too easily won by woman's beseeching.
And now, mark! No sooner was she free than she gave me a slap for the pinch and away she flew like a tree-lynx with the pack in cry.