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Title: The Reckoning
Author: Robert W. Chambers
Release Date: May 12, 2008 [EBook #25441]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Elsin Grey.]
_The_
RECKONING
BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
AUTHOR OF "CARDIGAN," "THE MAID-AT-ARMS," "THE KING IN YELLOW," ETC.
NEW YORK
A. WESSELS COMPANY
1907
Copyright, 1905, by
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
_Published September, 1905_
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
PREFACE
The author's intention is to treat, in a series of four or five
romances, that part of the war for independence which particularly
affected the great landed families of northern New York: the Johnsons,
represented by Sir William, Sir John, Guy Johnson, and Colonel Claus;
the notorious Butlers, father and son; the Schuylers, Van Rensselaers,
and others.
The first romance of the series, Cardigan, was followed by the second,
The Maid-at-Arms. The third in order is not completed. The fourth is the
present volume.
As Cardigan pretended to portray life on the baronial estate of Sir
William Johnson, the first uneasiness concerning the coming trouble, the
first discordant note struck in the harmonious councils of the Long
House, so, in The Maid-at-Arms, which followed in order, the author
attempted to paint a patroon family disturbed by the approaching rumble
of battle. That romance dealt with the first serious split in the
Iroquois Confederacy; it showed the Long House shattered though not
fallen; the demoralization and final flight of the great landed families
who remained loyal to the British Crown; and it struck the key-note to
the future attitude of the Iroquois toward the patriots of the
frontier--revenge for their losses at the battle of Oriskany--and ended
with the march of the militia and Continental troops on Saratoga.
The third romance, as yet incomplete and unpublished, deals with the
war-path and those who followed it, led by the landed gentry of Tryon
County, and ends with the first solid blow delivered at the Long House,
and the terrible punishment of the Great Confederacy.
The present romance, the fourth in chronological order, picks up the
thread at that point.
The author is not conscious of having taken any liberties with history
in preparing a framework of facts for a mantle of romance.
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
NEW YORK, _May 26, 1904_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE SPY 1
II.--THE HOUSEHOLD 24
III.--THE COQ D'OR 44
IV.--SUNSET AND DARK 67
V.--THE ARTILLERY BALL 97
VI.--A NIGHT AND A MORNING 127
VII.--THE BLUE FOX 164
VIII.--DESTINY 188
IX.--INTO THE NORTH 212
X.--SERMONS IN STONES 239
XI.--THE TEST 266
XII.--THENDARA 289
XIII.--THENDARA NO MORE 313
XIV.--THE BATTLE OF JOHNSTOWN 336
XV.--BUTLER'S FORD 366
TO MY FRIEND
J. HAMBLEN SEARS
WHOSE UNSELFISH FRIENDSHIP AND SOUND ADVICE
I ACKNOWLEDGE IN THIS
DEDICATION
I
_His muscle to the ax and plow,
His calm eye to the rifle sight,
Or at his country's beck and bow,
Setting the fiery cross alight,
Or, in the city's pageantry,
Serving the Cause in secrecy,--
Behold him now, haranguing kings
While through the shallow court there rings
The light laugh of the courtezan;
This the New Yorker, this the Man!_
II
_Standing upon his blackened land,
He saw the flames mount up to God,
He saw the death tracks in the sand,
And the dead children on the sod,
He saw the half-charred door, unbarred,
The dying hound he left on guard,
And that still thing he once had wed
Sprawled on the threshold dripping red:
Dry-eyed he primed his rifle pan;
This the New Yorker, this the Man!_
III
He plowed the graveyard of his dead
And sowed the grain to feed a host;
In silent lands untenanted
Save by the Sachems' painted ghost
He set the ensign of the sun;
A thousand axes rang as one
In the black forest's falling roar,
And through the glade the plowshare tore
Like God's own blade in Freedom's van;
This the New Yorker, and the Man!
R. W. C.
PROLOGUE
ECHOES OF YESTERDAY
His Excellency's system of intelligence in the City of New York I never
pretended to comprehend. That I was one of many agents I could have no
doubt; yet as long as I remained there I never knew but three or four
established spies with residence in town. Although I had no illusions
concerning Mr. Gaine and his "Gazette," at intervals I violently
suspected Mr. Rivington of friendliness to us, and this in spite of his
Tory newspaper and the fierce broadsides he fired at rebels and
rebellion. But I must confess that in my long and amiable acquaintance
with the gentleman he never, by word or hint or inference, so much as
by the quiver of an eyelash, corroborated my suspicion, and to this day
I do not know whether or not Mr. Rivington furnished secret information
to his Excellency while publicly in print he raged and sneered.
Itinerant spies were always in the city in spite of the deadly watch
kept up by regular and partizan, and sometimes they bore messages for
me, the words "Pro Gloria" establishing their credentials as well as
mine. They entered the city in all guises and under all pretexts, some
as refugees, some as traitors, some wearing the uniform of Tory
partizan corps, others attired as tradesmen, farmers, fishermen, and
often bearing passes, too, though where they contrived to find passes I
never understood.
It was a time of sullenness and quick suspicion; few were free from
doubt, but of those few I made one--until that day when my enemy
arrived--but of that in its place, for now I mean to say a word about
this city that I love--that we all love, understanding how alone she
stood in seven years' chains, yet dauntless, dangerous, and defiant.
For upon New York fell the brunt of British wrath, and the judgment of
God fell, too, passing twice in fire that laid one-quarter of the town
in cinders. Nor was that enough, for His lightning smote the
powder-ship, the _Morning Star_, where she swung at her moorings off
from Burling Slip, and the very sky seemed falling in the thunder that
shook the shoreward houses into ruins.
I think that, take it all in all, New York met and withstood every
separate horror that war can bring, save actual assault and sack.
Greater hardships fell to the lot of no other city in America, for we
lost more than a half of our population, more than a fourth of the city
by the two great fires. Want, with the rich, meant famine for the poor
and sad privation for the well-to-do; smallpox and typhus swept us;
commerce by water died, and slowly our loneliness became a maddening
isolation, when his Excellency flung out his blue dragoons to the very
edges of the river there at Harlem Bridge.
I often think it strange that New York town remained so loyal to the
cause, for loyalty to the king was inherent among the better classes.
Many had vast estates, farms, acres on acres of game parks, and lived
like the landed gentry of old England. Yet, save for the DeLanceys, the
Crugers, their kinsmen, the Fannings, kin to the Tryons, Frederick
Rhinelander, the Waltons, and others too tedious to mention, the
gentlemen who had the most to lose through friendliness to the cause of
liberty, chose to espouse that cause.
As for the British residents there, they remained in blameless loyalty
to their King, and I, for one, have never said one word to cast a doubt
upon the purity of their sentiments.
But with all this, knowing what must come, no other city in America so
gaily set forth upon the road to ruin as did patriotic New York. And
from that dreadful hour when, through the cannon smoke on Brooklyn
Heights, she beheld the ghastly face of ruin leering at her across the
foggy water--from that heart-breaking hour when the British drums
rolled from the east, and the tall war-ships covered themselves with
smoke, and the last flag flying was hacked from the halyards, and the
tramp of the grenadiers awoke the silence of Broadway, she never
faltered in her allegiance, never doubted, never failed throughout
those seven years the while she lay beneath the British heel, a
rattlesnake, stunned only, but deadly still while the last spark of
life remained.
Were I to tell a tithe of all I know of what took place during the
great siege, the incidents might shame the wildest fancies of
romance--how intrigue swayed with intrigue there, struggling hilt to
hilt; how plot and plot were thwarted by the counterplot; how all trust
in man was destroyed in that dark year that Arnold died, and a fiend
took his fair shape to scandalize two hemispheres!
Yet I am living witness of those years. I heard and saw much that I
shall not now revive, as where the victims of a pest lie buried it is
not wise to dig, lest the unseen be loosened once again. Yet something
it may be well to record of that time--the curtain lifted for a
glimpse, then dropped in silence--to teach our children that the men
who stood against their King stood with hope of no reward save liberty,
but faced the tempest that they had unchained with souls self-shriven
and each heart washed free of selfishness.
So if I speak of prisons where our thousands died--hind and gentleman
piled thick as shad in the fly market--sick and well and wounded all
together--it shall not be at length, only a scene or two that sticks in
memory.
Once, in the suffocating heat of mid-July, I saw a prison where every
narrow window was filled with human heads, face above face, seeking a
portion of the external air. And from that day, for many, many weeks
the dead-carts took the corpses to the outer ditches, passing steadily
from dawn to midnight.
All day, all night, they died around us in ship and prison, some from
suffocation, some from starvation, others delivered by prison fevers
which rotted them so slowly that I think even death shrank back
reluctant to touch them with his icy finger.
So piteous their plight, these crowded thousands, crushed in putrid
masses, clinging to the filthy prison bars, that they aroused
compassion in that strange and ancient guild that once had claimed the
Magdalen in its sad sisterhood, and these aided them with food, year
after year, until deliverance.
They had no other food, no water except from polluted drains, no fire
in winter, no barriers to the blackest cold that ever seared the city
from the times that man remembers. I say they had no other food and no
fire to cook the offal flung to them. That is not all true, because we
did our best, being permitted to furnish what we had--we and the
strange sisterhood--yet they were thousands upon thousands, and we were
few.
It is best that I say no more, for that proud England's sake from whose
loins we sprang--it is best that I speak not of Captain Cunningham the
Provost, nor of his deputy, O'Keefe, nor of Sproat and Loring. There
was butchers' work in my own North, and I shall not shrink from the
telling; there was massacre, and scalps taken from children too small
to lisp their prayers for mercy; that was devils' work, and may be
told. But Cunningham and those who served him were alone in their awful
trade; cruelty unspeakable and frenzied vice are terms which fall
impotent to measure the ghastly depths of an infamy in which they
crawled and squirmed, battening like maggots on hell's own pollution.
Long since, I think, we have clasped hands with England over Cherry
Valley and Wyoming, forgiving her the loosened fury of her red allies
and her Butlers and McDonalds. The scar remains, but is remembered only
as a glory.
How shall we take old England's wrinkled hand, stretched out above the
spots that mark the prisons of New York?--above the twelve thousand
unnamed graves of those who died for lack of air and water aboard the
_Jersey_? God knows; and yet all things are possible with Him--even this
miracle which I shall never live to see.
Without malice, without prejudice, judging only as one whose judgment
errs, I leave this darkened path for a free road in the open, and so
shall strive to tell as simply and sincerely as I may what only befell
myself and those with whom I had been long associated. And if the
pleasures that I now recall seem tinged with bitter, and if the gaiety
was but a phase of that greater prison fever that burnt us all in the
beleaguered city, still there was much to live for in those times
through which I, among many, passed; and by God's mercy, not my own
endeavor, passed safely, soul and body.
THE RECKONING
CHAPTER I
THE SPY
Having finished my duties in connection with Sir Peter's private estate
and his voluminous correspondence--and the door of my chamber being
doubly locked and bolted--I made free to attend to certain secret
correspondence of my own, which for four years now had continued,
without discovery, between the Military Intelligence Department of the
Continental army and myself through the medium of one John Ennis, the
tobacconist at the Sign of the Silver Box in Hanover Square.
Made confident by long immunity from the slightest shadow of suspicion,
apprehension of danger seldom troubled my sense of security. It did
sometimes, as when the awful treason at West Point became known to me;
and for weeks as I lay abed I thought to hear in every footfall on
Broadway the measured tread of a patrol come to take me. Yet the
traitor continued in New York without sinister consequence to me; and,
though my nights were none the pleasanter during that sad week which
ended in the execution of the British adjutant-general, no harm came to
me. Habit is the great sedative; at times, penning my spy's journal, I
smiled to remember how it was with me when first I came to New York in
1777, four years since, a country lad of nineteen, fresh from the
frontier, where all my life had been spent among the Oneidas and the
few neighbors nearest Broadalbin Bush--a raw youth, frightened but
resolved; and how I lived through those first months of mental terror,
now appalled by the fate of our Captain Nathan Hale, now burning with a
high purpose and buoyed up by pride that his Excellency should have
found in me a fit instrument for his designs.
I have never known whether or not I am what men call brave, for I
understand fear and I turn cold at thought of death. Often I have sat
alone in the house watching the sober folk along Broadway and Wall
Street, knowing all the while that these same good people might
to-morrow all go flocking to Catiemuts Hill near the Fresh Water, or to
that open space in the "Fields" between the jail and the Almshouse, to
see me on the gallows. If such thoughts do not assail the brave--if
restless nights, wakeful dawns, dull days are not their portion--I must
own that all these were mine, not often, perhaps, but too frequent to
flatter self-esteem. And, fight them as I might, it was useless; for
such moments came without warning--often when I had been merry with
friends, at times when, lulled by long-continued security, I had nigh
forgotten through eventless months that there was a war and that I had
become a New Yorker only because of war.
It was harder now, in one sense; four years as secretary to my kinsman,
Sir Peter Coleville, had admitted me to those social intimacies so
necessary to my secret office; and, alas! friendships had been made and
ties formed not only in the line of duty, but from impulse and out of
pure affection.
I had never found it was required of me to pose as a rabid loyalist,
and so did not, being known as disinterested and indifferent, and
perhaps for that reason not suspected. My friends were from necessity
among the best among the loyalists--from choice, too, for I liked them
for their own sakes, and it was against their cause I worked, not
against them.
It went hard with me to use them as I did--I so loathing perfidy in
others; yet if it be perfidy to continue in duty as I understood duty,
then I practised it, and at times could scarce tolerate myself, which
was a weakness, because in my own heart I knew that his Excellency could
set no man a task unworthy of his manhood. Yet it were pleasanter had my
duties thrown me with the army, or with Colonel Willett in my native
north, whence, at his request, I had come to live a life of physical
sloth and mental intrigue under the British cannon of New York--here in
the household of Sir Peter Coleville, his secretary, his friend, his
welcomed guest, the intimate of his family, his friends!--_that_ was the
hardest of all; and though for months at a time I managed to forget it,
the recurring thought of what I _was_, and what they believed me to be,
stabbed me at intervals so I could scarce endure it.
Nothing, not even the belief that God was with us, I fear, could have
held me there when the stress of such emotion left me staring at the
darkness in my restless bed--only blind faith in his Excellency that he
would do no man this shame, if shame it was--that he knew as well as I
that the land's salvation was not to be secured through the barter of
men's honor and the death of souls.
* * * * *
The door being secured, as I say, and the heat of that July day abating
nothing, though the sun hung low over Staten Island, I opened my
windows, removed coat and waistcoat, and, drawing a table to the
window, prepared to write up that portion of my daily journal neglected
lately, and which, when convenient opportunity offered, was to find its
way into the hands of Colonel Marinus Willett in Albany. Before I wrote
I turned back a leaf or two so that I might correct my report in the
light of later events; and I read rapidly:
_July 12, 1781._--Nothing remarkable. Very warm weather, and a bad
odor from the markets. There is some talk in the city of rebuilding
the burned district. Two new cannon have been mounted in the
southwest bastion of the fort (George). I shall report caliber and
particulars later.
_July 13th._--This day Sir Peter left to look over the lands in
Westchester which he is, I believe, prepared to purchase from Mr.
Rutgers. The soldiers are very idle; a dozen of 'em caught drawing a
seine in the Collect, and sent to the guard-house--a dirty trick for
anybody but Hessians, who are accustomed to fish in that manner.
The cannon in the southwest bastion are twelve-pounders and
old--trunnions rusted, carriages rotten. It seems they are trophies
taken from the Carolina militia.
_July 14th._--A ship arrived in the lower bay. Details later. In
Nassau Street, about noon, a tall fellow, clothed like a drover,
muttered a word or two as I passed, and I had gone on ere it struck
me that he had meant his words for my ear. To find him I turned
leisurely, retracing my steps as though I had forgotten something,
and as I brushed him again, he muttered, "Thendara; tell me where it
is."
At that moment Captain Enderley of the Fifty-fourth Foot greeted me,
linking his arm in mine, and I had no excuse to avoid him. More of
this to-night, when, if the message was truly for me, I shall
doubtless be watched and followed when I leave the house for a
stroll.
_July 15th._--Last night there was no chance, Enderley and Captain
O'Neil coming to take me to the theater, where the Thirty-eighth
Regiment gave a frolic and a play--the latter most indifferent, save
for Mrs. Barry's acting. I saw my drover in John Street, too, but
could not speak to him.
This morning, however, I met the drover, and he was drunk, or made
most marvelous pretense--a great six-foot, blue-eyed lout in smock
and boots, reeking of Bull's Head gin, his drover's whip a-trail in
the dust, and he a-swaggering down Nassau Street, gawking at the
shop-windows and whistling Roslyn Castle with prodigious gusto.
I made it convenient to pause before Berry and Roger's show of
jewels, and he stopped, too, swaying there gravely, balanced now on
hobnail heel, now on toe. Presently he ceased his whistling of
Roslyn Castle, and in a low but perfectly distinct voice he said,
"Where is the town of Thendara, Mr. Renault?" Without looking at
him or even turning my head, I answered, "Why do you ask me?"
He stared stupidly at the show-window. "Pro patria et gloria," he
replied under his breath; "why do you serve the land?"
"Pro gloria," I muttered. "Give your message; hasten."
He scratched his curly head, staring at the gewgaws. "It is this,"
he said coolly; "find out if there be a lost town in the north
called Thendara, or if the name be used to mask the name of Fort
Niagara. When you have learned all that is possible, walk some
evening up Broadway and out along Great George Street. We will
follow."
"Who else besides yourself?"
"A brother drover--of men," he said slyly; "a little wrinkled
fellow, withered to the bone, wide-eared, mild-eyed. He is my
running mate, sir, and we run sometimes, now this way, now that,
but always at your service, Mr. Renault."
"Are you drunk, or is it a pretense?" I demanded.
"Not _too_ drunk," he replied, with elaborate emphasis. "But once
this matter of Thendara is settled I hope to be so drunk that no
friend of mine need be ashamed of me. Good day, sir. God save our
country!"
"Have a care," I motioned, turning away. And so I left him to enter
the shop and purchase a trinket, thinking it prudent in case any
passer-by had observed how long I lingered.
_July 16th._--Sir Peter not yet returned from Mr. Rutgers. The
name "Thendara" ringing in my ears like a dull bell all night, and
I awake, lying there a-thinking. Somewhere, in some long-forgotten
year, I had heard a whispering echo of that name--or so it seemed
to me--and, musing, I thought to savor a breeze from the pines, and
hear water flowing, unseen, far in the forest silence.
Thendara! Thendara!
The name is not Iroquois--yet it may be, too--a soft, gracious
trisyllable stolen from the Lenape. Lord! how the name intrigues
me, sweetly sonorous, throbbing in my ears--Thendara, Thendara--and
always I hear the pine breeze high blowing and the flowing
undertone of waters.
_July 17th._--Nothing extraordinary. The Hon. Elsin Grey arrived
from Halifax by the Swan packet to visit Sir Peter's family, she
being cousin twice removed to Lady Coleville. I have not seen her;
she keeps her chamber with the migraine. As she comes from her
kinsman, General Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Canada, she
may be useful, being lately untethered from the convent and no more
than seventeen or eighteen, and vain, no doubt, of her beauty, and
so, I conclude, prone to babble if flattered.
Here my journal ended; I dipped my quill into the inkhorn and wrote
slowly:
_July 18th._--Nothing remarkable. The Hon. Elsin Grey still keeps
her chamber. The heat in New York is very great. I am, without
suspicion, sending money through Ennis to our prisoners aboard the
ships in the Wallabout, and next week shall have more for the
unfortunates in the Provost, the prisons, jails, and the
sugar-house--my salary being due on the 20th inst. I have ever in
mind a plan for a general jail delivery the instant his Excellency
assaults by land and sea, but at present it is utterly hopeless, Mr.
Cunningham executing the laws with terrible rigor, and double guards
patrolling the common. As for those wretched patriots aboard the
"_Hell_" and on those hulks--the _Falconer_, _Good Hope_, and
_Scorpion_--which lie southeast of the _Jersey_, there can be no
delivery save through compassion of that Dark Jailer who one day
shall free us all.
I dropped my pen, listening intently. Close to my door the garret
stairs creaked, ever so lightly; and I bent forward across the table,
gathering my papers, on which the ink lay still wet.
Listening, I heard nothing more. Perhaps the great heat was warping the
new stairway, which led past my door, up through the attic, and out to
the railed cupola upon the roof.
I glanced at my journal; there was nothing more to add, and so, sanding
the sheets, I laid them back behind the swinging panel which I myself
had fashioned so cunningly that none might suspect a cupboard in the
simple wainscot. Then to wash hands and face in fresh water, and put on
my coat without the waistcoat, prepared to take the air on the cupola,
where it should soon blow cool from the bay.
Slipping lock and bolt, I paused, hand on the knob, to glance back
around the room--a habit formed of caution. Then, satisfied, I opened
the door and left it standing wide so that the room might air. As I
ascended the attic stairs a little fresh puff of wind cooled me.
Doubtless a servant had opened the flaps to the cupola, for they were
laid back; and as I mounted, I could see a square of blue sky overhead.
I had taken my pipe, and paused on the stairs to light it; then,
pouching flint and tinder-box, I emerged upon the roof, to find myself
face to face with a young girl I had never before seen--the Hon. Miss
Grey, no doubt--and very dainty in her powder and one coquette patch
that emphasized the slow color tinting a skin of snow.
My bow, I think, covered my vexation--I being all unpowdered and
wearing no waistcoat over an unfrilled shirt, for I do love fine
clothes when circumstances require; but the lady was none the less
punctilious, and as I made to toss my pipe into the street below, she
forbade me with perfect courtesy and a smile that only accented her
youthful self-possession.
"Mr. Renault need neither retire nor sacrifice his pleasure," she said.
"I have missed Sir Frederick's pipe-smoke dreadfully--so much, indeed,
that I had even thought to try Sir Peter's snuff to soothe me."
"Shall I fetch it, madam?" I asked instantly; but she raised a small
hand in laughing horror.
"Snuff and picquet I am preparing for--a youth of folly--an old age of
snuff and cards, you know. At present folly suffices, thank you."
And as I stood smiling before her, she said: "Pray you be seated, sir,
if you so desire. There should be sufficient air for two in this
half-charred furnace which you call New York. Tell me, Mr. Renault, are
the winters here also extreme in cold?"
"Sometimes," I said. "Last winter the bay was frozen to Staten Island
so that the artillery crossed on the ice from the city."
She turned her head, looking out over the water, which was now all a
golden sparkle under the westering sun. Then her eyes dropped to the
burned district--that waste of blackened ruins stretching south along
Broadway to Beaver Street and west to Greenwich Street.
"Is that the work of rebels?" she asked, frowning.
"No, madam; it was an accident."
"Why do the New Yorkers not rebuild?"
"I think it is because General Washington interrupts local
improvements," I said, laughing.
She looked around at me, pretty brows raised in quaint displeasure.
"Does the insolence of a rebel really amuse you, Mr. Renault?"
I was taken aback. Even among the British officers here in the city it
had become the fashion to speak respectfully of the enemy, and above
all of his Excellency.
"Why should it not amuse me?" I asked lightly.
She had moved her head again, and appeared to be absorbed in the view.
Presently she said, still looking out over the city: "That was a noble
church once, that blackened arch across the way."
"That is Trinity--all that is left of it," I said. "St. Paul's is still
standing--you may see it there to the north, just west of Ann Street
and below Vesey."
She turned, leaning on the railing, following with curious eyes the
direction of my outstretched arm.
"Please tell me more about this furnace you call a city, Mr. Renault,"
she said, with a pretty inflection of voice that flattered; and so I
went over beside her, and, leaning there on the cupola rail together,
we explored the damaged city from our bird's perch above it--the city
that I had come to care for strangely, nay, to love almost as I loved
my Mohawk hills. For it is that way with New York, the one city that we
may love without disloyalty to our birthplace, a city which is home in
a larger sense, and, in a sense, almost as dear to men as the
birth-spot which all cherish. I know not why, but this is so; no
American is long strange here; for it is the great hearth of the
mother-land where the nation gathers as a family, each conscious of a
share in the heritage established for all by all.
And so, together, this fair young English girl and I traced out the
wards numbered from the cardinal points of the compass, and I bounded
for her the Out-Ward, too, and the Dock-Ward. There was no haze, only a
living golden light, clear as topaz, and we could see plainly the
sentinels pacing before the Bridewell--that long two-storied prison,
built of gloomy stone; and next to it the Almshouse of gray stone, and
next to that the massive rough stone prison, three stories high, where
in a cupola an iron bell hung, black against the sky.
"You will hear it, some day, tolling for an execution," I said.
"Do they hang rebels there?" she asked, looking up at me so
wonderingly, so innocently that I stood silent instead of answering,
surprised at such beauty in a young girl's eyes.
"Where is King's College?" she asked. I showed her the building bounded
by Murray, Chapel, Barckley and Church streets, and then I pointed out
the upper barracks behind the jail, and the little lake beyond divided
by a neck of land on which stood the powder-house.
Far across the West Ward I could see the windows of Mr. Lispenard's
mansion shining in the setting sun, and the road to Greenwich winding
along the river.
She tired of my instruction after a while, and her eyes wandered to the
bay. A few ships lay off Paulus Hook; the Jersey shore seemed very
near, although full two miles distant, and the islands, too, seemed
close in-shore where the white wings of gulls flashed distantly.
A jack flew from the Battery, another above the fort, standing out
straight in the freshening breeze from the bay. Far away across the East
River I saw the accursed _Jersey_ swinging, her black, filthy bulwarks
gilded by the sun; and below, her devil's brood of hulks at anchor, all
with the wash hung out on deck a-drying in the wind.
"What are they?" she asked, surprising something else than the fixed
smile of deference in my face.
"Prison ships, madam. Yonder the rebels die all night, all day, week
after week, year after year. That black hulk you see yonder--the one to
the east--stripped clean, with nothing save a derrick for bow-sprit and
a signal-pole for mast, is the _Jersey_, called by another name,
sometimes----"
"What name?"
"Some call her '_The Hell_,'" I answered. And, after a pause: "It must
be hot aboard, with every porthole nailed."
"What can rebels expect?" she asked calmly.
"Exactly! There are some thousand and more aboard the _Jersey_. When the
wind sets from the south, on still mornings, I have heard a strange
moaning--a low, steady, monotonous plaint, borne inland over the city.
But, as you say, what can rebels expect, madam?"
"What is that moaning sound you say that one may hear?" she demanded.
"Oh, the rebels, dying from suffocation--clamoring for food,
perhaps--perhaps for water! It is hard on the guards who have to go
down every morning into that reeking, stifling hold and drag out the
dead rebels festering there----"
"But that is horrible!" she broke out, blue eyes wide with
astonishment--then, suddenly silent, she gazed at me full in the face.
"It is incredible," she said quietly; "it is another rebel tale. Tell
me, am I not right?"
I did not answer; I was thinking how I might use her, and the thought
was not agreeable. She was so lovely in her fresh young womanhood, so
impulsive and yet so self-possessed, so utterly ignorant of what was
passing in this war-racked land of mine, that I hesitated to go
gleaning here for straws of information.
"In the north," she said, resting her cheek on one slender wrist, "we
hear much of rebel complaint, but make nothing of it, knowing well that
if cruelty exists its home is not among those sturdy men who are
fighting for their King."
"You speak warmly," I said, smiling.
"Yes--warmly. We have heard Sir John Johnson slandered because he uses
the Iroquois. But do not the rebels use them, too? My kinsman, General
Haldimand, says that not only do the rebels employ the Oneidas, but
that their motley congress enlists any Indian who will take their paper
dollars."
"That is true," I said.
"Then why should we not employ Brant and his Indians?" she asked
innocently. "And why do the rebels cry out every time Butler's Rangers
take the field? We in Canada know Captain Walter Butler and his father,
Colonel John Butler. Why, Mr. Renault, there is no more perfectly
accomplished officer and gentleman than Walter Butler. I know him; I
have danced with him at Quebec and at Niagara. How can even a rebel so
slander him with these monstrous tales of massacre and torture and
scalps taken from women and children at Cherry Valley?" She raised her
flushed face to mine and looked at me earnestly.
"Why even our own British officers have been disturbed by these
slanders," she said, "and I think Sir Henry Clinton half believes that
our Royal Greens and Rangers are merciless marauders, and that Walter
Butler is a demon incarnate."
"I admit," said I, "that we here in New York have doubted the mercy of
the Butlers and Sir John Johnson."
"Then let me paint these gentlemen for you," she said quickly.
"But they say these gentlemen are capable of painting themselves," I
observed, tempted to excite her by the hint that the Rangers smeared
their faces like painted Iroquois at their hellish work.
"Oh, how shameful!" she cried, with a little gesture of horror. "What
do you think us, there in Canada? Because our officers must needs hold
a wilderness for the King, do you of New York believe us savages?"
The generous animation, the quick color, charmed me. She was no longer
English, she was Canadienne--jealous of Canadian reputation, quick to
resent, sensitive, proud--heart and soul believing in the honor of her
own people of the north.
"Let me picture for you these gentlemen whom the rebels cry out upon,"
she said. "Sir John Johnson is a mild, slow man, somewhat sluggish and
overheavy, moderate in speech, almost cold, perhaps, yet a perfectly
gallant officer."
"His father was a wise and honest gentleman before him," I said
sincerely. "Is his son, Sir John, like him?"
She nodded, and went on to deal with old John Butler--nor did I stay
her to confess that these Johnsons and Butlers were no strangers to me,
whose blackened Broadalbin home lay a charred ruin to attest the love
that old John Butler bore my family name.
And so I stood, smiling and silent, while she spoke of Walter Butler,
describing him vividly, even to his amber black eyes and his pale face,
and the poetic melancholy with which he clothed the hidden blood-lust
that smoldered under his smooth pale skin. But there you have
it--young, proud, and melancholy--and he had danced with her at
Niagara, too, and--if I knew him--he had not spared her hints of that
impetuous flame that burned for all pure women deep in the blackened
pit of his own damned soul.
"Did you know his wife?" I asked, smiling.
"Walter Butler's--wife!" she gasped, turning on me, white as death.
There was a silence; she drew a long, deep breath; suddenly, the
gayest, sweetest little laugh followed, but it was slowly that the
color returned to lip and cheek.
"Is he not wedded?" I asked carelessly--the damned villain--at his
Mohawk Valley tricks again!--and again she laughed, which was, no
doubt, my wordless answer.
"Does he dance well, this melancholy Ranger?" I asked, smiling to see
her laugh.
"Divinely, sir. I think no gentleman in New York can move a minuet with
Walter Butler's grace. Oh, you New Yorkers! You think we are
nothing--fit, perhaps, for a May-pole frolic with the rustic gentry! Do
not deny it, Mr. Renault. Have we not heard you on the subject? Do not
your officers from Philadelphia and New York come mincing and tiptoeing
through Halifax and Quebec, all smiling and staring about, quizzing
glasses raised? And--'Very pretty! monstrous charming! spike me, but
the ladies powder here!' And, 'Is this green grass? Damme, where's the
snow--and the polar bears, you know?'"
I laughed as she paused, breathlessly scornful, flushed with charming
indignation.
"And is not Canada all snow?" I asked, to tease her.
"Snow! It is sweet and green and buried in flowers!" she cried.
"In winter, madam?"
"Oh! You mean to plague me, which is impertinent, because I do not know
you well enough--I have not known you above half an hour. I shall tell
Lady Coleville."
"So shall I--how you abuse us all here in New York----"
"I did not. You are teasing me again, Mr. Renault."
Defiant, smiling, her resentment was, after all, only partly real.
"We are becoming friends much too quickly to suit me," she said
deliberately.
"But not half quickly enough to suit me," I said.
"Do you fancy that I take that silly speech as compliment, Mr.
Renault?"
"Ah, no, madam! On such brief acquaintance I dare not presume to offer
you the compliments that burn for utterance!"
"But you _do_ presume to plague me--on such brief acquaintance!" she
observed.
"I am punished," I said contritely.
"No, you are not! You are not punished at all, because I don't know how
to, and--I am not sure I wish to punish you, Mr. Renault."
"Madam?"
"If you look at me so meekly I shall laugh. Besides, it is
hypocritical. There is nothing meek about you!" I bowed more meekly
than ever.
"Mr. Renault?"
"Madam?"
She picked up her plumed fan impatiently and snapped it open.
"If you don't stop being meek and answering 'Madam' I shall presently
go distracted. Call me something else--anything--just to see how we
like it. Tell me, do you know my first name?"
"Elsin," I said softly, and to my astonishment a faint, burning
sensation stung my cheeks, growing warmer and warmer. I think she was
astonished, too, for few men at twenty-three could color up in those
days; and there was I, a hardened New Yorker of four years' adoption,
turning pink like a great gaby at a country fair when his sweetheart
meets him at the ginger bower!
To cover my chagrin I nodded coolly, repeating her name with a critical
air--"Elsin," I mused, outwardly foppish, inwardly amazed and
mad--"Elsin--um! ah!--very pretty--very unusual," I added, with a
patronizing nod.
She did not resent it; when at last I made bold to meet her gaze it was
pensive and serene, yet I felt somehow that her innocent blue eyes had
taken my measure as a man--and not to my advantage.
"Your name is not a usual one," she said. "When I first heard it from
Sir Peter I laughed."
"Why?" I said coldly.
"Why? Oh, I don't know, Mr. Renault! It sounded so very young--Carus
Renault--it sounds so young and guileless----"
Speechless with indignation, I caught a glimmer under the lowered lids
that mocked me, and I saw her mouth quiver with the laugh fluttering
for freedom.
She looked up, all malice, and the pent laughter rippled.
"Very well," I said, giving in, "I shall take no pity on you in
future."
"My dear Mr. Renault, do you think I require your pity?"
"Not now," I said, chagrined. "But one day you may cry out for
mercy----"
"Which you will doubtless accord, being a gallant gentleman and no
Mohawk."
"Oh, I can be a barbarian, too, for I am, by adoption, an Oneida of the
Wolf Clan, and entitled to a seat in Council."
"I see," she said, "you wear your hair à l'Iroquois."
I reddened again; I could not help it, knowing my hair was guiltless of
powder and all awry.
"If I had supposed you were here, do you imagine I should have
presented myself unpowdered and without a waistcoat?" I said,
exasperated.
Her laughter made it no easier, though I strove to retrieve myself and
return to the light badinage she had routed me from. Lord, what a tease
was in this child, with her deep blue eyes and her Dresden porcelain
skin of snow and roses!
"Now," she said, recovering her gravity, "you may return to your
letter-writing, Mr. Renault. I have done with you for the moment."
At that I was sobered in a trice.
"What letter-writing?" I made out to answer calmly.
"Were you not hard at work penning a missive to some happy soul who
enjoys your confidence?"
"Why do you believe I was?" I asked.
She tossed her head airily. "Oh! for that matter, I could even tell you
what you wrote: 'Nothing remarkable; the Hon. Elsin Grey still keeps
her chamber'--did you not write that?"
She paused, the smile fading from her face. Perhaps she thought she had
gone too far, perhaps something in my expression startled her.
"I beg your pardon," she said quickly; "have I hurt you, Mr. Renault?"
"How did you know I wrote that?" I asked in a voice I hoped was steady.
"Why, it is there on your shirt, Mr. Renault, imprinted backward from
the wet ink. I have amused myself by studying it out letter by letter.
Please forgive me--it was dreadfully indiscreet--but I only meant to
torment you."
I looked down, taking my fine lawn shirt in both hands. There was the
impression--my own writing, backward, but distinct. I remembered when I
had done it, when I had gathered my ink-wet papers under my arms and
leaned forward to listen to the creaking of the attic stairway. Suppose
it had been Sir Peter! Suppose the imprint had been something that
could have admitted of but one interpretation? I turned cold at the
thought.
She was watching me all the while, a trifle uneasy at my silence, but
my smile and manner reassured her, and my gaiety she met instantly.
"I am overwhelmed," I said, "and can offer no excuse for this frowsy
dress. If you had any idea how mortified I am you would have mercy on
me."
"My hair not being dressed à l'Iroquois, I consent to show you mercy,"
she said. "But you came monstrous near frightening me, too. Do you know
you turned white, Mr. Renault? Lud! the vanity of men, to pale at a
jest touching their status in fopdom as proper macaroni!"
"I do love to appear well," I said resentfully.
"Now do you expect me to assure you that you _do_ appear well? that even
the dress of a ragged forest-runner would detract nothing from your
person? Ah, I shall say nothing of the sort, Mr. Renault! Doubtless
there are women a-plenty in New York to flatter you."
"No," I said; "they prefer scarlet coats and spurs, as you will, too."
"No doubt," she said, turning her head to the sunset.
There was enough wind to flutter the ribbons on her shoulders and bare
neck, and to stir the tendrils of her powdered hair, a light breeze
blowing steadily from the bay as the sun went down into the crimson
flood. Bang! A cloud of white smoke hung over Pearl Street where the
evening gun had spoken; the flag on the fort fluttered down, the flag on
the battery followed. Out on the darkening river a lanthorn glimmered
from the deck of the _Jersey_; a light sparkled on Paulus Hook.
"Hark! hear the drums!" she murmured. Far down Broadway the British
drums sounded, nearer, nearer, now loud along Dock Street, now lost in
Queen, then swinging west by north they came up Broad, into Wall; and I
could hear the fifes shrilling out, "The World turned Upside-down," and
the measured tread of the patrol, marching to the Upper Barracks and
the Prison.
The drummers wheeled into Broadway beneath our windows; leaning over I
saw them pass, and I was aware of something else, too--a great
strapping figure in a drover's smock, watching the British drums from
the side path across the way--my friend of Nassau Street--and clinging
to his arm, a little withered man, wrinkled, mild-eyed, clad also like
a drover, and snapping his bull-whip to accent the rhythm of the
rolling drums.
"I think I shall go down," said a soft voice beside me; "pray do not
move, Mr. Renault, you are so picturesque in silhouette against the
sunset--and I hear that silhouettes are so fashionable in New York
fopdom."
I bowed; she held out her hand--just a trifle, as she passed me, the
gesture of a coquette or of perfect innocence--and I touched it lightly
with finger-tip and lip.
"Until supper," she said--"and, Mr. Renault, do you suppose we shall
have bread for supper?"
"Why not?" I asked, all unsuspicious.
"Because I fancied flour might be scarce in New York"--she glanced at
my unpowdered head, then fled, her blue eyes full of laughter.
It is true that all hair powder is made of flour, but I did not use it
like a Hessian. And I looked after her with an uncertain smile and with
a respect born of experience and grave uncertainty.
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSEHOLD
About dusk Sir Peter arrived from lower Westchester while I was
dressing. Warned by the rattle of wheels from the coach-house at the
foot of the garden, and peering through the curtains, I saw the lamps
shining and heard the trample of our horses on the stable floor; and
presently, as I expected, Sir Peter came a-knocking at my door, and my
servant left the dressing of my hair to admit the master of the house.
He came in, his handsome face radiant--a tall, graceful man of forty,
clothed with that elegant carelessness which we call perfection, so
strikingly unobtrusive was his dress, so faultless and unstudied his
bearing.
There was no dust upon him, though he had driven miles; his clean skin
was cool and pleasantly tinted with the sun of summer, spotless his
lace at cuff and throat, and the buckles flashed at stock and knee and
shoe as he passed through the candle-light to lay a familiar hand upon
my shoulder.
"What's new, Carus?" he asked, and his voice had ever that pleasant
undertone of laughter which endears. "You villain, have you been making
love to Elsin Grey, that she should come babbling of Mr. Renault, Mr.
Renault, Mr. Renault ere I had set foot in my own hallway? It was
indecent, I tell you--not a word for me, civil or otherwise, not a
question how I had 'scaped the Skinners at Kingsbridge--only a flutter
of ribbons and a pair of pretty hands to kiss, and 'Oh, Cousin
Coleville! Is Mr. Renault kin to me, too?--for I so take it, having
freely bantered him to advantage at first acquaintance. Was I bold,
cousin?--but if you only knew how he tempted me--and he _is_ kin to you,
is he not?--and you are Cousin Betty's husband.' 'God-a-mercy!' said I,
'what's all this about Mr. Renault?--a rogue and a villain I shame to
claim as kin, a swaggering, diceing, cock-fighting ruffler, a-raking it
from the Out-Ward to Jew Street! Madam, do you dare admit to me that you
have found aught to attract you in the company of this monument of
foppery known as Carus Renault?'"
"Did you truly say that, Sir Peter?" I asked, wincing while my ears
grew hot.
"Say it? I did not say it, I bellowed it!" He shrugged his shoulders
and took snuff with an air. "The minx finds you agreeable," he
observed; "why?--God knows!"
"I had not thought so," I said, in modest deprecation, yet warming at
his words.
"Oh--had not thought so!" he mimicked, mincing over to the
dressing-table and surveying the array of perfumes and pomades and
curling irons. "Carus, you shameless rake, you've robbed all Queen
Street! Essence, pomade-de-grasse, almond paste, bergamot, orange,
French powder! By Heaven, man, do you mean to take the lady by storm or
set up a rival shop to Smith's 'Sign of the Rose'? Here, have your man
leave those two puffs above the ears; curl them loosely--that's it! Now
tie that queue-ribbon soberly; leave the flamboyant papillon style to
those damned Lafayettes and Rochambeaux! Now dust your master, Dennis,
and fetch a muslinet waistcoat--the silver tambour one. Gad, Carus, I'd
make a monstrous fine success at decorating fops for a guinea a
head--eh?"
He inspected me through his quizzing glass, nodded, backed away in
feigned rapture, and presently sat down by the window, stretching his
well-shaped legs.
"Damme," he said, "I meant to ask what's new, but you chatter on so
that I have no chance for a word edgeways. Now, what the devil is new
with you?"
"Nothing remarkable," I said, laughing. "Did you come to terms with Mr.
Rutgers for his meadows?"
"No," he replied irritably, "and I care nothing for his damned swamps
full of briers and mud and woodcock."
"It is just as well," I said. "You can not afford more land at
present."
"That's true," he admitted cheerfully; "I'm spending too much. Gad,
Carus, the Fifty-fourth took it out of us at that thousand-guinea main!
Which reminds me to say that our birds at Flatbush are in prime
condition and I've matched them."
I looked up at him doubtfully. Our birds had brought him nothing but
trouble so far.
"Let it pass," he said, noticing my silent disapproval; "we'll talk to
Horrock in the morning. Which reminds me that I have no money." He
laughed, drew a paper from his coat, and unfolding it, read aloud:
"1 pipe Madeira @ £90 per pipe--£90
1 pipe Port @ £46 per pipe--£46
20 gallons Fayal @ 5s. per gal.--
20 gallons Lisbon @ 5s. per gal.--
10 gallons Windward I. rum @ 4s. per gal."
He yawned and tossed the paper on my dresser, saying, "Pay it, Carus.
If our birds win the main we'll put the Forty-fifth under the table,
and I'll pay a few debts."
Standing there he stretched to his full graceful height, yawning once
or twice. "I'll go bathe, and dress for supper," he said; "that should
freshen me. Shall we rake it to-night?"
"I'm for cards," I said carelessly.
"_With_ Elsin Grey or _without_ Elsin Grey?" he inquired in affected
earnestness.
"If you had witnessed her treatment of me," I retorted, "you'd never
mistake it for friendly interest. We'll rake it, if you like. There's
another frolic at the John Street Theater. The Engineers play 'The
Conscious Lovers,' and Rosamund Barry sings 'Vain is Beauty's Gaudy
Flower.'"
But he said he had no mind for the Theater Royal that night, and
presently left me to Dennis and the mirror.
In the mirror I saw a boyish youth of twenty-three, dark-eyed, somewhat
lean of feature, and tinted with that olive smoothness of skin
inherited from the Renaults through my great-grandfather--a face which
in repose was a trifle worn, not handsome, but clearly cut, though not
otherwise remarkable. It was, I believed, neither an evil nor a sullen
brooding face, nor yet a face in which virtue molds each pleasing
feature so that its goodness is patent to the world.
Dennis having ended his ministrations, I pinned a brilliant at my
throat--a gift from Lady Coleville--and shook over it the cobweb lace
so it should sparkle like a star through a thin cloud. Then passing my
small sword through the embroidered slashing of my coat, and choosing a
handkerchief discreetly perfumed, I regarded myself at ease, thinking
of Elsin Grey.
In the light of later customs and fashions I fear that I was something
of a fop, though I carried neither spy-glass nor the two watches sacred
to all fops. But if I loved dress, so did his Excellency, and John
Hancock, not to name a thousand better men than I; and while I confess
that I did and do dearly love to cut a respectable figure, frippery for
its own sake was not among my vices; but I hold him a hind who, if he
can afford it, dresses not to please others and do justice to the
figure that a generous Creator has so patiently fashioned. "To please
others!" sang my French blood within me; "to please myself!" echoed my
English blood--and so, betwixt the sanguine tides, I was minded to
please in one way or another, nor thought it a desire unworthy. One
thing did distress me: what with sending all my salary to the prisons,
I had no money left to bet as gentlemen bet, nor to back a well-heeled
bird, nor to color my fancy for a horse. As for a mistress, or for
those fugitive affairs of the heart which English fashion
countenanced--nay, on which fashion insisted--I had no part in them,
and brooked much banter from the gay world in consequence. It was not
merely lack of money, nor yet a certain fastidiousness implanted, nor
yet the inherent shrinking of my English blood from pleasure forbidden,
for my Renault blood was hot enough, God wot! It was, I think, all of
these reasons that kept me untainted, and another, the vague idea of a
woman, somewhere in the world, who should be worth an unsullied
love--worth far more than the best I might bring to her one day. And so
my pride refused to place me in debt to a woman whom I had never known.
As for money, I had my salary when it was convenient for Sir Peter; I
had a small income of my own, long pledged to Colonel Willett's secret
uses. It was understood that Sir Peter should find me in apparel; I had
credit at Sir Peter's tailor, and at his hatter's and bootmaker's, too.
Twice a year my father sent me from Paris a sum which was engaged to
maintain a bed or two in the Albany hospital for our soldiers. I make no
merit of it, for others gave more. So, it is plain to see I had no money
for those fashionable vices in the midst of which I lived, and if I lost
five shillings at whist I felt that I had robbed some wretched creature
on the _Jersey_, or dashed the cup from some poor devil's lips who lay
a-gasping in the city prison.
My finery, then, was part and parcel of my salary--my salary in guineas
already allotted; so it came about that I moved in a loose and cynical
society, untainted only through force of circumstance and a pride that
accepts nothing which it may not return at interest.
* * * * *
When I descended to the dining-room I found all seated, and so asked
pardon of Lady Coleville, who was gay and amiable as usual, and, "for a
penance," as she said, made me sit beside her. That was no penance, for
she was a beauty and a wit, her dainty head swimming with harmless
mischief; and besides knowing me as she did, she was monstrous amusing
in a daring yet delicate fashion, which she might not use with any
other save her husband.
That, as I say, was therefore no penance, but my punishment was to see
Elsin Grey far across the table on Sir Peter's right, and to find in my
other neighbor a lady whose sole delight in me was to alternately shock
me with broad pleasantries and torment me with my innocence.
[Illustration: My punishment was to see Elsin Grey far across the
table.]
Rosamund Barry was her name, Captain Barry's widow--he who fell at
Breeds Hill in '76--the face of a Madonna, and the wicked wit of a lady
whose name she bore, _sans La du_.
"Carus," she said, leaning too near me and waving her satin painted
fan, "is it true you have deserted me for a fairer conquest?"
"The rumor nails itself to the pillory," I said; "who is fairer than
you, Rosamund?"
"You beg the question," she said severely, the while her dark eyes
danced a devil's shadow dance; "if you dare go tiptoeing around the
skirts of the Hon. Miss Grey, I'll tell her all--_all_, mind you!"
"Don't do that," I said, "unless you mean to leave New York."
"All about _you_, silly!" she said, flushing in spite of her placid
smile.
"Oh," I said, with an air of great relief, "I was sure you could not
contemplate confession!"
She laid her pretty head on one side. "I wonder," she mused, eying me
deliberately--"I wonder what this new insolence of yours might
indicate. Is it rebellion? Has the worm turned?"
"The worm has turned--into a frivolous butterfly," I said gaily.
"I don't believe it," she said. "Let me see if I can make you blush,
Carus!" And she leaned nearer, whispering behind her fan.
"Let me match that!" I said coolly. "Lend me your fan, Rosamund----"
"Carus!" exclaimed Lady Coleville, "stop it! Mercy on us, such
shameless billing and cooing! Captain O'Neil, call him out!"
"Faith," said O'Neil, "to call is wan thing, and the chune Mrs. Barry
sings is another. Take shame, Carus Renault, ye blatherin', bould
inthriguer! L'ave innocence to yer betthers!"
"To me, for example," observed Captain Harkness complacently. "Mrs.
Barry knows that raking fellow, Carus, and she knows you, too, you wild
Irishman----"
"If you only keep this up long enough, gentlemen," I said, striving to
smile, "you'll end by doing what I've so far avoided."
"Ruining his reputation in Miss Grey's eyes," explained Lady Coleville
pleasantly.
Elsin Grey looked calmly across at me, saying to Sir Peter, "He _is_ too
young to do such things, isn't he?"
That set them into fits of laughter, Sir Peter begging me to pause in
my mad career and consider the chief end of man, and Tully O'Neil
generously promising moral advice and the spiritual support of Rosamund
Barry, which immediately diverted attention from me to a lightning duel
of words between Rosamund and O'Neil--parry and thrust, innuendo and
eloquent silence, until Lady Coleville in pantomime knocked up the
crossed blades of wit, and Sir Peter vowed that this was no place for
an innocent married man.
When Lady Coleville rose we drew our swords and arched a way for her,
and she picked up her silken petticoat and ran under, laughing, one
hand pressed to her ears to shut out the cheers.
There were long black Spanish cigars, horribly strong, served with
spirits after the ladies had left. O'Neil and Harkness used them; Sir
Peter and I accepted the long cool pipes, and we settled for a
comfortable smoke.
Sir Peter spoke of the coming cock-fight with characteristic
optimism--not shared by Harkness, and but partially approved by O'Neil.
Details were solemnly discussed, questions of proper heeling, of silver
and steel gaffs, of comb and wattle cutting, of the texture of feather
and hackle, and of the "walks" at Flatbush and Horrock's method of
feeding in the dark.
Tiring of the subject, Harkness, spoke of the political outlook and
took a gloomy view, paying his Excellency a compliment by referring to
him as "no fox, but a full-grown wolf, with an appetite for a continent
and perhaps for a hemisphere."
"Pooh!" said Sir Peter, lazily sucking at his pipe, "Sir Henry has him
holed. We'll dig him out before snow flies."
"What folly, Sir Peter!" remonstrated Harkness, leaning forward so that
the candle-light blazed on his gold and scarlet coat. "Look back five
years, Sir Peter, then survey the damnable situation now! Do you
realize that to-day England governs but one city in America?"
"Wait," observed Sir Peter serenely, expelling a cloud of smoke so that
it wreathed his handsome head in a triple halo.
"Wait? Faith, if there's anything else to do but wait I'll take that
job!" exclaimed O'Neil ruefully.
"Why don't you take it, then?" retorted Sir Peter. "It's no secret, I
fancy--that plan of Walter Butler's--is it?" he added, seeing that we
knew nothing of any plan.
"Sir Henry makes no secret of it," he continued; "it's talked over and
disparaged openly at mess and at headquarters. I can see no
indiscretion in mentioning it here."
It was at such moments that I felt a loathing for myself, and such
strong self-disgust must surely have prevailed in the end to make me
false to duty if, as I have said, I had not an absolute faith that his
Excellency required no man to tarnish his honor for the motherland's
salvation.
"What's afoot?" inquired Harkness curiously.
"Why, you remember how the rebel General Sullivan went through the Six
Nations, devastating the Iroquois country, laying waste, burning,
destroying their orchards and crops--which, after all, accomplished the
complete destruction of our own granary in the North?"
"'Twas a dhirty thrick!" muttered O'Neil. "Sure, 'tis the poor naked
haythen will pay that score wan day, or I'm a Hessian!"
"They'll pay it soon if Walter Butler has his way," said Sir Peter.
"Sir John Johnson and the Butlers and Colonel Ross are gathering in the
North. Haldimand's plan is to strike at the rebels' food supply--the
cultivated region from Johnstown south and west--do what Sullivan did,
lay waste the rebel grain belt, burn fodder, destroy all orchards--God!
it will go hard with the frontier again." He swung around to Harkness:
"It's horrible to me, Captain--and Walter Butler not yet washed clean
of the blood of Cherry Valley. I tell you, loyal as I am, humble
subject of my King, whom I reverence, I affirm that this blackened,
blood-soaked frontier is a barrier to England which she can never,
never overcome, and though we win out to-day, and though we hang the
rebels thick as pears in Lispenard's orchards, that barrier will
remain, year by year fencing us in, crowding us back to the ocean, to
our ships, back to the land from whence we English came. And for all
time will the memory of these horrors set America's face against us--if
not for all time, yet our children's children and their children shall
not outlive the tradition burned into the heart of this quivering land
we hold to-day, half shackled, still struggling, already rising to its
bleeding knees."
"Gad!" breathed O'Neil, "'tis threason ye come singin' to the chune o'
Yankee Doodle-doo, Sir Peter."
"It's sense," said Sir Peter, already smiling at his own heat.
"So Ross and the Butlers are to strike at the rebel granaries?"
repeated Harkness, musing.
"Yes; they're gathering on the eastern lakes and at Niagara--Butler's
Rangers, Johnson's Greens, Brant's Iroquois, some Jägers, a few
regulars, and the usual partizan band of painted whites who disgrace us
all, by Heaven! But there," added Sir Peter, smiling, "I've done with
the vapors. I bear no arms, and it is unfit that I should judge those
who do. Only," and his voice rang a little, "I understand battles, not
butchery. Gentlemen, to the British Army! the regulars, God bless 'em!
Bumpers, gentlemen!"
I heard O'Neil muttering, as he smacked his lips after the toast, "And
to hell with the Hessians! Bad cess to the Dootch scuts!"
"Did you say the rendezvous is at Niagara?" inquired Harkness.
"I've heard so. I've heard, too, of some other spot--an Indian
name--Thend--Thend--plague take it! Ah, I have it--Thendara. You know
it, Carus?" he asked, turning so suddenly on me that my guilty heart
ceased beating for a second.
"I have heard of it," I said, finding a voice scarce like my own.
"Where is it, Sir Peter?"
"Why, here in New York there has ever been a fable about a lost town in
the wilderness called Thendara. I never knew it to be true; but now
they say that Walter Butler has assigned Thendara as his gathering
place, or so it is reported in a letter to Sir Henry, which Sir Henry
read to me. Have _you_ no knowledge of it, Carus?"
"None at all. I remember hearing the name in childhood. Perhaps better
woodsmen than I know where this Thendara lies, but I do not."
"It must lie somewhere betwixt us and Canada," said Harkness vaguely.
"Does not Sir Henry know?"
"He said he did not," replied Sir Peter, "and he sent out a scout for
information. No information has arrived. Is it an Iroquois word,
Carus?"
"I think it is of Lenape origin," I said--"perhaps modified by the
Mohawk tongue. I know it is not pure Oneida."
Harkness glanced at me curiously. "You'd make a rare scout," he said,
"with your knowledge of the barbarians."
"The wonder is," observed Sir Peter, "that he is not a scout on the
other side. If my home had been burned by the McDonalds and the
Butlers, I'm damned if I should forget which side did it!"
"If I took service with the rebels," said I, "it would not be because
of personal loss. Nor would that same private misfortune deter me from
serving King George. The men who burned my home represent no great
cause. When I have leisure I can satisfy personal quarrels."
"Lord!" laughed Sir Peter, "to hear you bewail your lack of leisure one
might think you are now occupied with one cause or t'other. Pray, my
dear Carus, when do you expect to find time to call out these enemies
of yours?"
"You wouldn't have me deprive the King of Walter Butler's services,
would you?" I asked so gravely that everybody laughed, and we rose in
good humor to join the ladies in the drawing-rooms.
Sir Peter's house on Wall Street had been English built, yet bore
certain traces of the old Dutch influence, for it had a stoop leading
to the front door, and the roof was Dutch, save for the cupola; a fine
wide house, the façade a little scorched from the conflagration of '78
which had ruined Trinity Church and the Lutheran, and many fine
buildings and homes.
The house was divided by a wide hallway, on either side of which were
drawing-rooms, and in the rear of these was a dining-room giving on a
conservatory which overlooked the gardens. The ground floor served as a
servant's hall, with a door at the area and another in the rear leading
out through the garden-drive to the stables.
The floor above the drawing-rooms had been divided into two suites, one
in gold leather and blue for Sir Peter and his lady, the other in
crimson damask for guests. The third floor, mine, was similarly
divided, I occupying the Wall Street side, with windows on that
fashionable street and also on Broadway.
Thus it happened that, instead of entering the south drawing-room where
I saw the ladies at the card-table playing Pharaoh, I turned to the
right and crossed the north, or "state drawing-room," and parted the
curtains, looking across Broadway to see if I might spy my friend the
drover and his withered little mate. No doubt prudence and a dislike
for the patrol kept them off Broadway at that hour, for I could not see
them, although a few street lamps were lit and I could make out
wayfarers as far north as Crown Street.
Standing there in the dimly lighted room, my nose between the parted
curtains, I heard my name pronounced very gently behind me, and,
turning, beheld Miss Grey, half lying on a sofa in a distant corner. I
had not seen her when I entered, my back being turned to the east, and
I said so, asking pardon for an unintentional rudeness--which she
pardoned with a smile, slowly waving her scented fan.
"I am a little tired," she said; "the voyage from Halifax was rough,
and I have small love for the sea, so, Lady Coleville permitting, I
came in here to rest from the voices and the glare of too bright
candle-light. Pray you be seated, Mr. Renault--if it does not displease
you. What were you looking for from the window yonder?"
"Treason," I said gaily. "But the patrol should be able to see to that.
May I sit here a moment?"
"Willingly; I like men."
Innocence or coquetry, I was clean checked. Her white eyelids languidly
closing over the pure eyes of a child gave me no clue.
"All men?" I inquired.
"How silly! No, very few men. But that is because I only know a few."
"And may I dare to hope that--" I began in stilted gallantry, cut short
by her opening eyes and smile. "Of course I like you, Mr. Renault. Can
you not see that? It's a pity if you can not, as all the others tease
me so about you. Do you like me?"
"Very, _very_ much," I replied, conscious of that accursed color burning
my face again; conscious, too, that she noted it with calm curiosity.
"Very, _very_ much," she repeated, musing. "Is that why you blush so
often, Mr. Renault--because you like me very, _very_ much?"
Exasperated, I strove to smile. I couldn't; and dignity would not serve
me, either.
"If I loved you," said I, "I might change color when you spoke.
Therefore my malady must arise from other causes--say from Sir Peter's
wine, for instance."
"I knew a man who fell in love with me," she said. "You may do so yet."
"Do you think it likely?" I asked, scarcely knowing how to meet this
cool attack.
"I think it possible--don't you?" she asked.
I considered, or made pretense to. My heart had begun to beat too fast;
and as for her, I could no more fathom her than the sea, yet her babble
was shallow enough to strand wiser men than I upon its sparkling
shoals.
"I do like men," she said thoughtfully, "but not all men, as I said I
did. Now at supper I looked about me and I found only you attractive,
save Sir Peter, and he counts nothing in a game of hearts."
"When you come to mingle with New York society you will, no doubt, find
others far more attractive," I said stupidly.
"No doubt. Still, in the interim"--she looked straight at me from under
her delicate level brows--"in the meanwhile, will you not amuse me?"
"How, madam?"
"I shall not tell you if you call me 'madam.'"
"Will the Hon. Elsin Grey inform me how I may amuse her ladyship?"
"Nor that, either."
I hesitated, then leaned nearer: "How may I amuse you, Elsin?"
"Why, by courting me, silly!" she said, laughing, and spreading her
silken fan. "How else is a woman amused?"
Her smooth hand lay across the velvet arm of the sofa; I took it and
raised it to my lips, and she smiled approval, then drew a languid
little sigh, fanned, and vowed I was the boldest man she had ever
known.
I told her how exquisite her beauty was, I protested at her coldness, I
dedicated myself to her service, vowing eternal constancy; and
presently my elaborate expressions rang truer and grew more simple, and
she withdrew her hand with a laugh, looking at me out of those
beautiful eyes which now were touched with curiosity.
"For a jester, Carus, you are too earnest," she said.
"Does pretense frighten you?"
She regarded me, silent, smiling, her fan at her lips.
"You are playing with fire," she said.
"Tell me, heart of flint, am I the steel to strike a spark from?" I
asked, laughing.
"I do not know yet of what metal you are made, Carus," she said
thoughtfully, yet with that dim smile hovering ever upon her lips.
She dropped her fan and held up one finger. "Listen; let me read you.
Here is my measure of such a man as you: First of all, generous!--look
at your mouth, which God first fashions, then leaves for us to make or
mar. Second, your eyes--sincere! for though you blush like a maiden,
Carus, your eyes are steady to the eyes that punish. Third, dogged!
spite of the fierce impatience that sets your chiseled nose a-quiver at
the nostrils. There! Am I not a very gipsy for a fortune? Read me,
now."
After a long silence I said, "I can not."
"Truly?"
"Truly. I can not read you, Elsin."
She opened her palm and held her fingers, one by one, frowning in an
effort to be just: "First, I am a fool; second, I am a fool; third, I
am a fool; fourth----"
I caught her hand, and she looked at me with a charming laugh.
"I _am_," she insisted, her hand resting in mine.
"Why?"
"Why, because I--I am in love with Walter Butler--and--and I never
liked a man as well as I like you!"
I was astounded. She sighed, slowly shaking her head. "That is it, you
see. Love is very different from having a good time. He is so proud, so
sad, so buried in noble melancholy, so darkly handsome, and all afire
with passion--which advances him not a whit with me nor commends him to
my mercy--only when he stands before me, his dark golden eyes lost in
delicious melancholy; then, _then_, Carus, I know that it must be love I
feel; but it is not a very cheerful sentiment." She sighed again,
picking up her fan with one hand--I held the other.
"Now, with you--and I have scarce known you a dozen hours--it is so
charming, so pleasant and cheerful--and I like you so much, Carus!--oh,
the sentiment I entertain for you is far pleasanter than love. Have you
ever been in love?"
"I am, Elsin--almost."
"Almost? Mercy on us! What will the lady say to 'almost'?"
"God knows," I said, smiling.
"Good!" she said approvingly; "leave her in God's care, and practise on
me to perfect your courtship. I like it, really I do. It is strange,
too," she mused, with a tender smile of reminiscence, "for I have never
let Captain Butler so much as touch my hand. But discretion, you see,
is love; isn't it? So if I am so indiscreet with you, what harm is
there?"
"Are you unhappy away from him?" I asked.
"No, only when with him. He seems to wring my heart--I don't know why,
but, oh, I do so pity him!"
"Are you--plighted?"
"Oh, dear me, yes--but secretly. Ah, I should not have told you
that!--but there you are, Carus; and I do believe that I could tell you
everything I know if our acquaintance endures but twelve more hours. And
_that_," she added, considering me calmly, "is rather strange, I think.
Don't you?"
Ere I could reply came Sir Peter, talking loudly, protesting that it
was a monstrous shame for me to steal away their guest, that I was a
villain and all knew it, he himself best of all; and without more ado
he tucked her arm under his and marched triumphantly away, leaving me
there alone in the deserted room.
But as Elsin gained the door she turned, looking back, and, laying her
hand upon her lips, threw me a kiss behind Sir Peter's shoulders.
CHAPTER III
THE COQ D'OR
The days that followed were brilliant links in a fierce sequence of
gaiety; and this though the weather was so hot that the very candles in
their sconces drooped, dripping their melted wax on egrette and lace,
scarlet coat and scarf. A sort of midsummer madness attacked the city;
we danced in the hot moonlit nights, we drove at noontide, with the sun
flaring in a sky of sapphire, we boated on the Bronx, we galloped out
to the lines, escorted by a troop of horse, to see the Continental
outposts beyond Tarrytown--so bold they had become, and no "skinners,"
either, but scouts of Heath, blue dragons if our glasses lied not, well
horsed, newly saddled, holsters of bearskin, musket on thigh, and the
July sun a-flashing on crested helmet and crossed sling-buckles. And
how my heart drummed and the red blood leaped in me to beat in neck and
temple, at sight of my own comrades! And how I envied them, free to
ride erect and proud in the light of day, harnessed for battle, flying
no false colors for concealment--all fair and clean and aboveboard! And
I a spy!
We were gay, I say, and the town had gone mid-summer mad of its own
fancy--a fevered, convulsive reaction from a strain too long endured;
and while the outlook for the King was no whit better here, and much
worse in the South, yet, as it was not yet desperate, the garrison, the
commander, and the Governor made a virtue of necessity, and, rousing
from the pent inertia of the dreadful winter and shaking off the
lethargy of spring, paced their cage with a restlessness that quickened
to a mania for some relief in the mad distraction of folly and
frivolity.
And first, Sir Peter gave a ball at our house in honor of Elsin Grey,
and we danced in the state drawing-room, and in the hallway, and in the
south drawing-room, and Sir Henry walked a minuet with the Hon. Elsin
Grey, and I had her to wine and later in a Westchester reel. Too much
punch was drunk, iced, which is a deadly thing, and worse still when
the foundation is laid in oranged tea! Too many officers, too many
women, and all so hot, so suffocating, that the red ran from lip and
cheek, streaking the face-powder, and the bare enameled shoulders of
the women were frosted with perspiration like dew on wet roses.
That was the first frolic given in her honor, followed by that wild
dance at the Governor's, where the thickets of clustered candles
drooped like lilies afire, and great islands of ice melted in the
punch-bowls ere they had been emptied a third. And yet the summer
madness continued; by day we drove in couples, in Italian chaises, or
made cherry-parties to Long Island, or sailed the bay to the Narrows,
or played rustic and fished in the bay; at night we danced, danced,
danced, and I saw little of Elsin Grey save through a blaze of
candle-light to move a minuet with her, to press her hand in a reel, or
to conduct her to some garden pavilion where servants waited with ices
amid a thirsty, breathless, jostling throng.
The heat abated nothing; so terrible was it in the city that spite of
the shade afforded by elm, lime, and honey-locust, men and horses were
stricken on the streets, and the Tea Water ran low, and the Collect,
where it flows out into a stream, dried up, and Mr. Rutger's swamps
stank. Also, as was noted by men like me, who, country-bred, concern
themselves with trifles, the wild birds which haunted the trees in
street and lane sang no more, and I saw at times Lord Baltimore's
orioles and hedge-birds, beaks open, eyes partly closed, panting from
the sun, so fierce it beat upon us in New York that summertide.
As for the main Sir Peter had meant to fight with his Flatbush birds,
we tried a shake-bag, stags, which, though fairly matched and handled
by past masters, billed and pecked and panted without a blow from wing
or spur, till we understood that the heat had stunned them, and so gave
up to wait for cooler sport.
We waited, but not in idleness; the cage-fever drove us afield, and the
De Lanceys had us to the house for bowls and cricket, which the ladies
joined, spoiling it somewhat for my taste; and we played golf at Mr.
Lispenard's, which presently lost all charm for me, as Elsin Grey
remained at the pavilion and touched no club, neither wood nor iron,
save to beat the devil's tattoo upon the grass and smile into the bold
eyes of Captain O'Neil.
At Rivington's we found tennis, too, and good rackets, and I played one
whole morning with Elsin Grey, nor wearied of her delight that she beat
me easily; though why I permitted it and why her victory gave me
pleasure is more than I can comprehend, I always desiring to appear
well in trials of skill at which it is a shame for gentlemen not to
excel, and not ungallant to do one's best with ladies to oppose.
Every Tuesday, at Bayard's Hill near the pump, a bull was baited; but
that bloody sport, and the matching of dogs, was never to my taste,
although respectable gentlemen of fashion attended.
However, there was racing at many places--at Newmarket on Salisbury
plain, and at Jamaica; also Mr. Lispenard had a fine course at
Greenwich village, near the country house of Admiral Warren, and Mr. De
Lancey another between First and Second streets, near the Bowery Lane;
but mostly we drove to Mr. Rutger's to see the running horses; and I
was ashamed not to bet when Elsin Grey provoked me with her bantering
challenge to a wager, laying bets under my nose; but I could not risk
money and remember how every penny saved meant to some prisoner aboard
the _Jersey_ more than a drop of water to a soul in torment.
And how it hurt me--I who love to please, and who adore in others that
high disregard of expense that I dared now never disregard! And to
appear poor-spirited in her eyes, too! and to see the others stare at
times, and to be aware of quiet glances exchanged, and of meaning eyes!
It was late in July that the cooling change came--a delicious breath
from the Narrows blowing steady as a trade; and the change having been
predicted a week since by Venus, a negro wench of Lady Coleville's, Sir
Peter had wisely taken precaution to send word to Horrock in Flatbush;
and now the main was to be fought at the cockpit in Great George
Street, at the Frenchman's "Coq d'Or," a tavern maintained most
jealously by the garrison's officers, and most exclusive though scarce
decent in a moral sense, it being notorious for certain affairs in
which even the formality of Gretna Green was dispensed with.
Many a daintily cloaked figure stole, masked, to the rendezvous in the
garden under the cherry-trees, and many a duel was fought in the
pleasant meadows to the south which we called Vauxhall; and there I
have seen silent men waiting at dawn, playing with the coffee they
scarce could swallow, while their seconds paced the path beyond the
stile, whistling reflectively, switching the wild roses, with a
watchful eye for the coming party.
But now, concerning that cocking-main at the Coq d'Or, and how it came
about. The day was to be a merry one, Lady Coleville and Elsin Grey
sleeping until afternoon from the dissipation of the dance at the
Assembly, which lasted until the breakfast hour; Sir Peter, Captains
Harkness and O'Neil, and I to see the main in the morning, lunch at the
tavern, and return to rest until time to dress for the great ball and
supper given by the officers of the artillery at Fort George.
The day, the 28th of July, broke cloudless and sweetly cool. Dressing,
I saw the jack flying straight in the sea-wind and a schooner in the
North River heeled over and scudding south, with a white necklace of
foam trailing from her sprit back along half her water-line.
Sir Peter, in riding-boots and coat, came in high spirits to drink a
morning cup with me, saying his birds had arrived and Horrock had gone
forward with them, and that we must bolt breakfast and mount, for the
Fifty-fourth's officers were early risers, and we should not detain
them. And so he chattered on, joyously, pacing my chamber while Dennis
buckled my spurs.
At breakfast we bolted what was set before us, with many a glance
through the windows where, in the garden drive, our horses stood
saddled in the shade of an elm, a black at each bit, and the whole
stable-force out, all a-grinning to wish the master luck of his
Flatbush birds and the main to boot.
"Carus," said Sir Peter, fork poised, glass in hand, "it's a thousand
on the main, a hundred on each battle, and I must win. You know that!"
I knew it only too well and said so, speaking cheerfully yet seriously
of his affairs, which had become so complicated since the closer
blockade of the city. But he was ever gaily impatient of details and of
pounds and pence. Accounts he utterly refused to audit, leaving it to
me to pay his debts, patch up gaps left by depreciated securities, and
find a fortune to maintain him and his wife in the style which, God
knows, befitted him, but which he could no longer properly afford. And
when it came to providing money to fling from race-track to cockpit,
and from coffee-house to card-room, I told him plainly he had none,
which made him laugh and swear and vow I was treating him most
shabbily. And it was no use; he would have his pin-money, and I must
sell or pledge or borrow, at an interest most villainous, from the
thrifty folk in Duke Street.
So now, when I offered to discuss the danger of extravagance, he swore
he would not have a day's pleasure ruined by a sermon, and presently we
rose and went into the garden to mount, and I saw Sir Peter
distributing silver among the servants, so that all could share the
pleasure and lay wagers among their kind for the honor of the Flatbush
birds and the master who bred them.
"Come, Carus," he sang out from his saddle, and I followed him at a
gallop out into Broadway and up the street, keeping under the shade of
the trees to save our horses, though the air was cool and we had not
far to go.
Presently he drew bridle, and we walked our horses past Partition
Street, past Barckley, and the common, where I glanced askance at the
ominous row of the three dread buildings, the Bridewell, the Almshouse,
the Prison, with the Provost's gallows standing always ready between;
and it brought sullen thoughts to me which four years of patience could
not crush; nor had all these years of inaction dulled the fierce spark
that flashed to fire within me when I looked up at the barred windows
and at the sentinels, and thought of mine own people rotting there, and
of Mr. Cunningham, the Provost, whom hell should one day be the worse
for.
"Is aught amiss, Carus?" asked Sir Peter, catching my eye.
"Yes, the cruelty practised yonder!" I blurted out. Never before had I
said as much to any man.
"You mean the debtors--or those above in the chain-room?" he asked,
surprised.
"I was not speaking of the Bridewell, but of the Prison," I said.
"What cruelty, Carus? You mean the rigor Cunningham uses?"
"Rigor!" I said, laughing, and my laugh was unpleasant.
He looked at me narrowly. We rode past Warren Street and the Upper
Barracks in silence, saluting an officer here and there with
preoccupied punctiliousness. Already I was repenting of my hardiness in
mixing openly with politics or war--matters I had ever avoided or let
pass with gay indifference.
"Carus," he said, patting his horse's mane, "you will lay a bet for the
honor of the family this time--will you not?"
"I have no money," I replied, surprised; for never before had he
offered to suggest an interference into my own affairs--never by word
or look.
"No money!" he repeated, laughing. "Gad, you rake, what do you do with
it all?" And as I continued silent, he said more gravely, "May I speak
plainly to a kinsman and dear friend?"
"Always," I said uneasily.
"Then, without offense, Carus, I think that, were I you, I should bet a
little--now and again--fling the guineas for a change--now and then--if
I were you, Carus."
"If you were I you would not," I said, reddening to the temples.
"I think I should, nevertheless," he persisted, smiling. "Carus, you
know that if you need money to bet with----"
"I'll tell you what I need, Sir Peter," said I, looking him in the eye.
"I need your faith in me that I am not by choice a niggard."
"God forbid!" he cried.
"Yet I pass among many for that," I said hotly. "I know it, I suffer.
Yet I can not burn a penny; it belongs to others, that's all."
"A debt!" he murmured.
"Call it as you will. The money you overpay me for my poor services is
not even my own to enjoy."
Sir Peter dropped his bridle and slapped his gloved hands together with
a noise that made his horse jump. "I knew it," he cried, "I knew it,
and so I told Elsin when she came to me, troubled, because in you this
one flaw appeared; yet though she questioned me, in the same breath she
vowed the marble perfect, and asked me if you had parents or kin
dependent. She is a rare maid, my pretty kinswoman--" He hesitated,
glancing cornerwise at me.
"Do you know Walter Butler well?" I asked carelessly.
"No, only a little. Why, Carus?"
"Is he married?"
"I never heard it. He is scarcely known to me save through Sir John
Johnson, and that his zeal led him to what some call a private
reprisal."
"Yes, he burned our house, or his Indians did, making pretense that
they did not know who lived there, but thought the whole Bush a rebel
hotbed. It is true the house was new, built while Sir John lay brooding
there in Canada over his broken parole. Perhaps Walter Butler did not
know the house was ours."
"You are very generous, Carus," said Sir Peter gravely.
"No, not very. You see, my father and my mother were in France, and I
here, and Butler's raiders only murdered one old man--a servant, all
alone there, a man too old and deaf to understand their questions. I
know who slew that ancient body-servant to my father, who often held me
on his knees. No, Sir Peter, I am not generous, as you say. But there
are matters which must await the precedence of great events ere their
turn comes in the mills which grind so slow, so sure, and so exceeding
fine."
Sir Peter looked at me in silence, and in silence we rode on until we
came to the tavern called the Coq d'Or.
They were there, the early risers of the Fifty-fourth--a jolly, noisy
crowd, all scarlet and gold; and they set up a cheer, which was half
welcome, half defiance, when we rode into the tavern yard and
dismounted, bowing right and left; and the landlord came to receive us,
and servants followed with champagne-cup, iced; and there was old
Horrock, too, hat in hand, to attend Sir Peter, with a shake of his
wise old head and a smile on his furrowed face--Horrock, the prince of
handlers, with his chicken-men, and his scales, and his Flatbush birds
a-crowing defiance to the duck-wings, spangles, pyles, and Lord knows
what, that his Majesty's Fifty-fourth Regiment of Foot had backed to
win with every penny and farthing they could scrape to lay against us.
I heard old Horrock whisper to Sir Peter, who was reading over the
match-list, "They're the best we can do, sir; combs low-cut, wings
rounded, hackle and saddle trimmed to a T, and the vanes perfect." He
laughed: "What more can I do, sir? They had aniseed in their bread on
the third day, and on the weighing-day sheep-heart, and not two teacups
of water in the seven. They came from the walks in prime condition, and
tartar and jalap did the rest. They sparred free in the boots and took
to the warm ale and sweet-wort, and the rooms were dark except at
feeding. What more can I do, sir, except heel them to a
hair's-breadth?"
"You have no peer, Horrock, and you know it," said Sir Peter, kindly,
and the old man's furrowed face shone as he trotted off to the
covert-room.
Meanwhile I had been hailed by a dozen friends of a dozen different
regiments, good fellows all: Major Jamison of the Partisans; Ensign
Halvar, young Caryl of the Fortieth Foot; Helsing of the Artillery, and
apparently every available commissioned officer of the Fifty-fourth,
including Colonel Eyre, a gentleman with a scientific taste for the pit
that gained him the title of "The Game 'Un" from saucy subalterns,
needless to say without his knowledge.
"A good bird, well handled, freely backed--what more can a gentleman
ask?" said Major Neville, waddling beside Sir Peter as we filed into
the tavern. "My wife calls it a shameful sport, but the cockpit is a
fashionable passion, damme! and a man out o' fashion is worse than an
addled cluck-egg! Eh, Renault? Good gad, sir! Do not cocks fight
unurged, and are not their battles with nature's spurs more cruel than
when matched by man and heeled with steel or even silver, which
mercifully ends the combat in short order? And so I tell my wife, Sir
Peter, but she calls me brute," he panted plaintively.
"Pooh!" said Sir Peter, laughing, "I can always find a reason for any
transgression in the list from theft to murder, and justify each crime
by logic--if I put my mind to do so. But my mind is not partial to
logic. I fight game-fowl and like it, be the fashion and the ethics
what they may."
He was unjust to himself as usual; to him there was no difference
between the death of a pheasant afield and the taking off of a good
bird in the pit.
Seated around the pit, there was some delay in showing, and Dr. Carmody
of the brigade staff gave me, unsolicited, his mature opinions upon
game-fowl:
"Show me a bird of bold carriage, comb bright red and upright, eye full
and bright, beak strong and in good socket, breast full, body broad at
shoulder and tapering to tail, thigh short, round, and hard as a nail,
leg stout, flat-footed, and spur low--a bird with bright, hard
feathers, strong in a quill, warm and firm to the hand--and I care not
what breed he be, spangle or black-red, I'll lay my last farthing with
you, Mr. Renault, if it shall please you."
"And what am I to back?" said I, laughing--"a full plume, a long, soft
hackle, a squirrel-tail, a long-thighed, in-kneed, weak-beaked,
coarse-headed henning-fowl selected by you?"
The little doctor roared with laughter; the buzz and hum of
conversation increased around us--bits of banter, jests tossed from
friend to friend.
"Who dubs your birds for you. Sir Peter?" cried Helsing--"the Bridewell
barber?"
"Ten guineas to eight with you on the first battle," retorted Sir
Peter, courteously; and, "Done with you, sir!" said Helsing, noting the
bet, while Sir Peter booked his memorandum and turned to meet a perfect
shower of offers, all of which he accepted smilingly. And I--oh, I was
sick to sit there without a penny laid to show my loyalty to Sir Peter.
But it must be so, and I bit my lip and strove to smile and parry with
a jest the well-meant offers which now and then came flying my way. But
O'Neil and Harkness backed the Flatbush birds right loyally, cautioned
by Sir Peter, who begged that they wait; but they would not--and one
was Irish--so nothing would do but a bold front and an officer snapped
with, "Done, sir!"
The judges and the referee had been chosen, the color-writers selected,
and Sir Peter had won the draw, choosing, of course, to weigh first,
the main being governed by rules devised by the garrison regiments,
partly Virginian, partly New York custom. Matches had been made in
camera, the first within the half-ounce, and allowing a stag four
ounces; round heels were to be used; all cutters, twists, and slashers
barred; the metal was steel, not silver.
And now the pitters had taken station, Horrock and a wall-eyed Bat-man
of the Train, and the birds had billed three times and had been fairly
delivered on the score--a black brass-back of ours against a black-red
of the Fifty-fourth. Scarcely a second did they eye one another when
crack! slap! they were at it, wing and gaffle. Suddenly the black-red
closed and held, struck like lightning five or six times, and it was
all over with Sir Peter's Flatbush brass-back, done for in a single
heat.
"Fast work," observed Sir Peter calmly, taking snuff, with a pleasant
nod to the enemy.
Then odds on the main flew like lightning, all taken by Sir Peter and
O'Neil and a few others of ours, and I biting my lip and fixing my eyes
on the roof. Had I not dreaded to hurt Sir Peter I should never, never
have come.
We again showed a brass-back and let him run in the pit before cutting
a feather, whereupon Sir Peter rashly laid ten to five and few takers,
too, for the Fifty-fourth showed a pyle of five-pounds-three--a
shuffler which few fancied. But Lord! the shuffler drummed our
brass-back to the tune of Sir Daniel O'Day, and though two ounces
light, took just eight minutes to crow for victory.
Again we showed, this time a duck-wing, and the Fifty-fourth a blue
hackle, heavily backed, who proved a wheeler, but it took twenty
minutes for him to lay the duck-wing upon the carpet; and we stood
three to the bad, but game, though the odds on the main were heavily
against us. Our fourth, a blinker, blundered to victory; our fifth hung
himself twice to the canvas and finally to the heels of a bewildered
spangle; our sixth, a stag, and a wheeling lunatic at that, gave to the
Fifty-fourth a bad quarter of an hour, and then, when at the last
moment our victory seemed certain, was sent flying to eternity in one
last feathered whirlwind, leaving us four to split and four to go, with
hopeless odds against us, and Sir Peter calmly booking side-bets on
anything that anybody offered.
When the call came we all rose, leaving the pit by the side-entrance,
which gave on the cherry garden, where tables were spread for luncheon
and pipes fetched for all who cared not to scorch their lips with
Spanish cigars.
Sir Peter, hard hit, moved about in great good humor, a seed-cake in
one hand, a mug of beer in t'other; and who could suppose he stood to
lose the thousand guineas he had such need of--and more besides!--so
much more that it turned me cold to think of Duke Street, and how on
earth I was to find funds for the bare living, luxuries aside.
As for O'Neil, the crazy, warm-hearted Irishman went about blustering
for odds--pure, generous bravado!--and the Fifty-fourth, to their
credit, let him go unharmed, and Harkness, too. As for me, I was very
quiet, holding my peace and my opinions to myself, which was proper, as
I had laid not one penny on a feather that day.
Sir Peter, seeing me sitting alone under a cherry-tree, came strolling
over, followed by Horrock.
"Well, Carus," he said, smiling blandly, "more dealing with Duke
Street, eh? Pooh! There's balm in Gilead and a few shillings left still
in the Dock-Ward!" He laughed, but I said nothing. "Speak out, man!" he
said gaily; "what do you read by the pricking of your thumbs?"
"Ask Horrock," I said bluntly. He turned to the grim-visaged retainer,
laying his hand familiarly on the old man's shoulder.
"Horrock begs me to ride for an even break," he said; "don't you, O
paragon among pitters?"
"Yes, sir, I do. Ask Mr. Renault what Sir William Johnson's Huron Reds
did to the Patroon's Tartars in every main fought 'twixt Johnstown and
Albany in '72 and '73."
I looked up, astounded. "Have you four Hurons to show?" I asked Sir
Peter, incredulously.
"I have," he said.
A desperate hope glimmered in my mind--nay, not merely a hope but a
fair certainty that ruin could be held at arm's length for a while. So
possessed was I by absolute faith in Sir William Johnson's strain,
called Hurons, that I listened approvingly to Sir Peter's plans for a
dashing recoup. After all, it was now or never; the gamblers' fever
seized me, too, in a vise-like grip. Why should I not win a thousand
guineas for my prisoners, risking but a few hundred on such a hazard!
"You will be there, of course," he said. And after a long silence, I
answered:
"No, I shall walk in the garden until you finish. The main should be
ended at five."
"As you choose, Carus," he answered pleasantly, glancing at his watch.
Then turning, he cried: "Time, gentlemen--and four to ten we split the
main!"
"Done with you, Sir Peter!" came the answering shout as from a single
throat; and Sir Peter, smiling to himself, booked briefly and sauntered
toward the tavern door, old Horrock trotting faithfully at heel.
I had risen and was nervously pacing the grass under the cherry-trees,
miserable, full of bitterness, depressed, already bitterly regretting
the chance lost, arguing that it was a certainty and no hazard. Yet,
deep in my heart, I knew no gentleman can bet on certainty, and where
there is no certainty there is risk. That risk I had not taken; the
prisoners were to gain or suffer nothing. Thinking of these matters I
started to stroll through the cherry grove, and as I stepped from the
shade out upon the sunny lawn the shadow of an advancing figure warned
me, and I looked up to behold a young officer, in a black and green
uniform, crossing my path, his head turned in my direction, his dark,
luminous gaze fastened curiously upon me.
Dazzled somewhat by the sun in my eyes, I peered at him as he passed,
noting the strange cut of his regimentals, the silver buttons stamped
with a motto in relief, the curious sword-knot of twisted buck-thong
heavily embroidered in silver and scarlet wampum. Wampum? And what was
that devil's device flashing on button and shoulder-knot?
"Butler's Rangers!"
Slowly I turned to stare; he halted, looking back at me, a slim,
graceful figure in forest-green, his own black hair gathered in a club,
his dark amber eyes fixed on mine with that veiled yet detached glare I
had not forgotten.
"Captain Butler," I said mechanically.
Hats in hand, heels together, we bowed low in the sunshine--so low that
our hands on our hilts alone retained the blades in their scabbards,
while our hats swept the short grass on the lawn; then, leisurely
erect, once more we stood face to face, a yard of sod betwixt us, the
sunshine etching our blue shadows motionless.
"Mr. Renault," he said, in that colorless voice he used at times, "I
had thought to know you, but you are six years older. Time's
alchemy"--he hesitated, then with a perfect bow--"refines even the
noblest metal. I trust your health and fortune are all that you could
desire. Is madam, your mother, well, and your honorable father?"
"I thank you, Captain Butler."
He looked at me a moment, then with a melancholy smile and a gesture
wholly graceful: "It is poor reparation to say that I regret the error
of my Cayugas which committed your house to the flames."
"The fortune of war, Captain Butler. I trust your home at Butlersbury
still survives intact."
A dull color crept into his pallid cheeks.
"The house at Butlersbury stands," he said, "as do Johnson Hall, Guy
Park, and old Fort Johnson. We hope erelong to open them again to our
friends, Mr. Renault."
"I have understood so," I said politely. "When do you march from
Thendara?"
Again the dark color came into his face. "Sir Frederick Haldimand is a
babbler!" he said, between tightening lips. "Never a secret, never a
plan, but he must bawl it aloud to all who care to listen, or sound it
as he gads about from camp to city--aye, and chatters it to the forest
trees for lack of audience, I suppose. All New York is humming with it,
is it not, Mr. Renault?"
"And if it is, what harm?" I said pleasantly. "Who ever heard of
Thendara, save as a legend of a lost town somewhere in the wilderness?
Who in New York knows where Thendara lies?"
He looked at me with unwinking eyes--the empty stare of a bird of prey.
"_You_ know, for one," he said; and his eyes suddenly became piercing.
I smiled at him without comprehension, and he took the very vagueness
of my smile for acquiescence.
Like the luminous shadow of summer lightning the flame flickered in his
eyes, and went out, leaving them darkly drowned in melancholy. He
stepped nearer.
"Let us sit under the trees for a moment--if I am not detaining you,
Mr. Renault," he said in a low, pleasant voice. I bowed. We turned,
walking shoulder to shoulder toward the shade of the cherry-trees, now
in full foliage and heavily fruited. With perfect courtesy he halted,
inclining his head, a gesture for me to pass before him. We seated
ourselves at a rustic table beneath the trees; and I remember the ripe
cherries which had dropped upon it from the clusters overhead, and how,
as we talked, I picked them up, tasting them one by one.
"I am here," he began abruptly, "of my own idea. No one, not even Sir
Henry, is aware that I am in New York. I came from Halifax by the
_Gannet_, schooner, landing at Coenties Slip among the fishing-smack in
time for breakfast; then to Sir Peter Coleville's, learning he was
here--cock-fighting!" A trace of a sneer edged his finely cut nostrils.
"If you desire concealment, is it wise to wear that uniform?" I asked.
"I am known on the fighting-line, not in this peaceful garrison of New
York," he said haughtily. "We of the landed gentry of Tryon County make
as little of New York as New York makes of us!" A deeper sneer twitched
his upper lip. "Had I my way, this port should be burned from river to
river, fort, shipping, dock--all, even to the farms outlying on the
hills--and the enervated garrison marched out to take the field!" He
made a violent gesture toward the north. "I should fling every man and
gun pell-mell on that rebels' rat-nest called West Point, and uproot
and tear it from the mountain flank! I should sweep the Hudson with
fire; I should hurl these rotting regiments into Albany and leave it a
smoking ember, and I should tread the embers into the red-wet earth!
That is the way to make war! But this--" He stared south across the
meadows where in the distance the sunlit city lay, windows a-glitter,
spires swimming in the blue, and on the bay white sails glimmering off
shores of living green.
"Mr. Renault," he said, "I am here to submit this plan to Sir Henry
Clinton. Lord Cornwallis advocated the abandonment of New York last
May. I am here to urge it. If Sir Henry will approve, then the war ends
before the snow flies; if he will not, I still shall act my part, and
lay the north in ashes so that not one ear of corn may be garnered for
the rebel army, not one grain of wheat be milled, not a truss of hay
remain betwixt Johnstown and Saratoga! Nothing in the north but
blackened desolation and the silence of annihilation. That is how I
make war."
"That is your reputation," I said calmly.
His smile was ghastly--a laugh without sound, that touched neither eyes
nor mouth.
At that moment I heard cries and laughter and a great babel of voices
from the tavern. He rose instantly, I also; the stable-lads were
bringing up the horses; the tavern door was flung wide, and out of it
poured the cockers, a turbulent river of scarlet and gold, the noisy
voices and laughter increasing to tumult as the officers mounted with
jingle of spur and scabbard, draining the stirrup-cup and hastening to
their duties.
"By gad, sir!" cried Jamison, turning in his saddle as he passed me,
"those Hurons did the trick for Sir Peter. He's split the main, so help
me! and stands to win a fortune."
And Dr. Carmody, galloping past, waved his hand with a hopeless laugh.
"We're cleaned out! cleaned out!" he cried; "that main has beggared the
brigade staff. Damme, he's beggared the entire garrison!"
Others rode by, gaily uproarious in defeat, clean, gallant sportsmen
all, saluting misfortune as cheerily and as recklessly as they might
have greeted victory.
"Have at thee, buck!" shouted young Caryl, waving his hand as he passed
me. "We'll try it again, you villain, if there's life left in our
fasting mess!"
And Helsing, passing at a canter, grinned and beat his gold-laced
breast in mock despair, shouting back to me: "I'm for Duke Street and
Mendoza! Dine well, Carus, you who can afford to sup on chicken!"
Then came Sir Peter, cool, debonair, surrounded by a crowd afoot,
Horrock at heel, his old eyes dim with joy, his grim mouth set; and
after him two lads leading our horses, and O'Neil and Harkness mounted,
curbing the triumph that glittered in their eyes.
"Yonder comes Sir Peter," I said to Walter Butler. "Shall I have the
honor of making you known to one another?"
"He has forgotten me, I think," said Butler slowly, as Sir Peter raised
his hat in triumphant greeting to me and then included Butler in a
graver salute.
"You have heard the news, Carus?" he asked gaily.
"I give you joy," I said. Then, with colorless ceremony, I made them
known to one another, and with greater ceremony they exchanged salutes
and compliments--a pair matched in flawless breeding and the usages of
perfect courtesy.
"I bear a letter," said Walter Butler, "and have this morning done
myself the honor of waiting upon Lady Coleville and the 'Hon. Elsin
Grey.'"
And as Sir Peter acknowledged the courtesy, I looked suddenly at Walter
Butler, remembering what Elsin Grey had told me.
"The letter is from General Sir Frederick Haldimand," he said
pleasantly, "and I fear it bears you news not too agreeable. The Hon.
Miss Grey is summoned home, Sir Peter--pending a new campaign."
"Home!" exclaimed Sir Peter, surprised. "Why, I thought--I had hoped we
were to have her with us until winter. Gad! It is as you say, not too
agreeable news, Captain Butler. Why, she has been the life of the town,
sir; she has waked us and set us all a-dancing like yokels at a
May-pole or a ring-around-a-rosy! Split me! Captain Butler, but Lady
Coleville will be sorry to learn this news--and I, too, sir, and every
man in New York town."
He looked at me in genuine distress. My face was perfectly
expressionless.
"This should hit you hard, Carus," he said meaningly. Then, without
seeing, I felt Walter Butler's head slowly turning, and was aware of
his eyes on me.
"Come, gentlemen," said Sir Peter, "the horses are here. Is not that
fine chestnut your mount, Captain Butler? You will ride with us, will
you not? Where is your baggage? At Flocks? I shall send for it--no,
sir, I take no excuse. While you are in New York you shall be my guest,
Captain Butler."
And so, Sir Peter naming Butler to O'Neil and Harkness, and salutes
being decently exchanged, we mounted and cantered off along Great
George Street, Horrock on his hunter bringing up the rear.
And at every stride of my horse a new misgiving, a deeper distrust of
this man Butler stirred in my troubled heart.
CHAPTER IV
SUNSET AND DARK
It was six o'clock in the early evening, the sun still shining, and in
the air a sea-balm most delicious. Sir Peter and Captain Butler had
gone to see Sir Henry, Butler desiring to be presented by so grand a
personage as Sir Peter, I think, through mere vanity; for his own rank
and title and his pressing mission should have been sufficient
credentials. Sir Henry Clinton was not too difficult of approach.
Meanwhile I, finding neither Lady Coleville nor the Hon. Elsin Grey at
home, had retired to my chambers to write to Colonel Willett concerning
Butler's violent designs on the frontier. When I finished I made a
sealed packet of all papers accumulated, and, seizing hat, snuff-box,
and walking-stick, went out into Wall Street, through the dismal
arcades of the City Hall, and down to Hanover Square. Opposite Mr.
Goelet's Sign of the Golden Key, and next door to Mr. Minshall's
fashionable Looking-Glass Store, was the Silver Box, the shop of Ennis
the Tobacconist, a Boston man in our pay; and it was here that for four
years I was accustomed to bring the dangerous despatches that should go
north to his Excellency or to Colonel Willett, passed along from
partizan to partizan and from agent to agent, though who these secret
helpers along the route might be I never knew, only that Ennis charged
himself with what despatches I brought, and a week or more later they
were at Dobbs Ferry, West Point, or in Albany. John Ennis was there
when I entered; he bowed his dour and angular New England bow, served a
customer with snuff, bowed him to the door, then returned grinning to
me, rubbing his long, lean, dangerous hands upon his apron--hands to
throttle a Tryon County wolf!
"Butler's in town," he said harshly, through his beak of a nose. "I
guess there's blood to be smelled somewhere in the north when the
dog-wolf's abroad at sunup. He came by sloop this morning," he added,
taking the packet from my hands and laying it upon a table in plain
sight--the best way to conceal anything.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"A Bull's-Head drover whistled it an hour since," he said carelessly.
"That same drover and his mate desire to see you, Mr. Renault. Could
you, by chance, take the air at dusk--say on Great George Street--until
you hear a whippoorwill?"
I nodded.
"You will not fail, then, sir? This drover and his fellow go north
to-night, bearing the cross o' fire."
"I shall not fail them," I said, drawing a triple roll of guineas from
my pocket. "This money goes to the prison-ships; they are worse off
there than under Cunningham. See to it, Ennis. I shall bring more
to-morrow."
He winked; then with grimace and circumstance and many a stiff-backed
bow conducted me to the door, where I stood a moment, snuff-box in
hand, as though testing some new and most delicious brand just
purchased from the Silver Box.
There were many respectable folk abroad in Hanover Square, thronging
the foot-paths, crowding along the gay shop-windows, officers lagging
by the jeweler's show, sober gentlemen clustering about the
book-stalls, ladies returning from their shopping or the
hair-dresser's, young bucks, arm in arm, swaggering in and out of
coffee-house and tavern.
As I stood there, making pretense to take snuff, I noticed a
sedan-chair standing before Mrs. Ballin's millinery-shop, and seeing
that the bearers were Lady Coleville's men, I crossed the street.
As I came up they touched their hats, and at the same moment the
shop-door opened and out tripped, not Lady Coleville at all, but the
Hon. Elsin Grey in the freshest of flowered gowns, wearing a piquant
chip hat à la Gunning, with pink ribbons tied under her dainty chin.
"You!" she cried. "Of all men, to be caught a-raking in Hanover Square
like some mincing macaroni, peeping into strange sedan-chairs!"
"I knew it was Lady Coleville's chair," I said, laughing, yet a little
vexed, too.
"It isn't; it's Mrs. Barry's," she said. "Our chairs are all at the
varnishers. Now what excuse can you trump up?"
"The bearers are Lady Coleville's," I said. "Don't be disagreeable. I
came to walk with you."
"Expecting to meet Rosamund Barry! Thank you, Carus. And I may add that
I have seen little of you since Friday; not that I had noticed your
absence, but meeting you on your favorite promenade reminded me how
recreant are men. Heigho! and alas! You may hand me to my chair before
you leave me to go ogling Broad Street for your Sacharissa."
I conducted her to the curb in silence, tucking her perfumed skirts in
as she seated herself. The bearers resumed the bars, and I, hat under
one arm and stick at a fashionable angle, strolled along beside the
chair as it proceeded up Wall Street. It was but a step to Broadway. I
opened the chair door and aided her to descend, then dismissed the
bearers and walked slowly with her toward the stoop.
"This silence is truly soothing," she observed, nose in the air, "but
one can not expect everything, Mr. Renault."
"What is it that you lack?" I asked.
"A man to talk to," she said disdainfully. "For goodness sake, Carus,
change that sulky face for a brighter mask and find a civil word for
me. I do not aspire to a compliment, but, for mercy's sake, say
something!"
"Will you walk with me a little way?" I inquired stiffly.
"Walk with you? Oh, what pleasure! Where? On Broadway? On Crown Street?
On Queen Street? Or do you prefer Front Street and Old Slip? I wish to
be perfectly agreeable, Carus, and I'll do anything to please you, even
to running away with you in an Italian chaise!"
"I may ask you to do that, too," I said.
"Ask me, then! Mercy on the man! was there ever so willing a maid? Give
me a moment to fetch a sun-mask and I'm off with you to any revel you
please--short of the Coq d'Or," she added, with a daring laugh--"and I
might be persuaded to that--as far as the cherry-trees--with _you_,
Carus, and let my reputation go hang!"
We had walked on into Broadway and along the foot-path under the
lime-trees where the robins were singing that quaint evening melody I
love, and the pleasant scent of grass and salt breeze mingled in
exquisite freshness.
"I had a dish of tea with some very agreeable people in Queen Street,"
she remarked. "Lady Coleville is there still. I took Mrs. Barry's chair
to buy me a hat--and how does it become me?" she ended, tipping her
head on one side for my inspection.
"It is modish," I replied indifferently.
"Certainly it is modish," she said dryly--"a Gunning hat, and cost a
penny, too. Oh, Carus, when I think what that husband of mine must pay
to maintain me----"
"What husband?" I said, startled.
"Why, _any_ husband!" She made a vague gesture. "Did I say that I had
picked him out yet, silly? But there must be one some day, I suppose."
We had strolled as far as St. Paul's and had now returned as far as
Trinity. The graves along the north transept of the ruined church were
green and starred with wild flowers, and we turned into the churchyard,
walking very slowly side by side.
"Elsin," I began.
"Ah! the gentleman has found his tongue," she exclaimed softly. "Speak,
Sir Frippon; thy Sacharissa listens."
"I have only this to ask. Dance with me once to-night, will you?--nay,
twice, Elsin?"
She seated herself upon a green mound and looked up at me from under
her chip hat. "I have not at all made up my mind," she said. "Captain
Butler is to be there. He may claim every dance that Sir Henry does not
claim."
"Have you seen him?" I asked sullenly.
"Mercy, yes! He came at noon while you and Sir Peter were gambling away
your guineas at the Coq d'Or."
"He waited upon _you_?"
"He waited on Lady Coleville. I was there."
"Were you not surprised to see him in New York?"
"Not very"--she considered me with a far-away smile--"not very greatly
nor very--agreeably surprised. I have told you his sentiments regarding
me."
"I can not understand," I said, "what you see in him to fascinate you."
"Nor I," she replied so angrily that she startled me. "I thought to-day
when I met him, Oh, dear! Now I'm to be harrowed with melancholy and
passion, when I was having such an agreeable time! But, Carus, even
while I pouted I felt the subtle charm of that very sadness, the
strange, compelling influence of those melancholy eyes." She sighed and
plucked a late violet, drawing the stem slowly between her white teeth
and staring at the ruined church.
After a while I said: "Do you regret that you are so soon to leave us?"
"Regret it?" She looked at me thoughtfully. "Carus," she said, "you are
wonderfully attractive to me. I wish you had acquired that air of
gentle melancholy--that poet's pallor which becomes a noble
sadness--and I might love you, if you asked me."
"I'm sad enough at your going," I said lightly.
"Truly, are you sorry? And when I am gone will you forget la belle
Canadienne? Ah, monsieur, l'amitié est une chose si rare, que,
n'eut-elle duré qu'un jour, on doit en respecter jusqu'au souvenir."
"It is not I who shall forget to respect it, madam, jusqu'au souvenir."
"Nor I, mon ami. Had I not known that love is at best a painful
pleasure I might have mistaken my happiness with you for something very
like it."
"You babble of love," I blurted out, "and you know nothing of it! What
foolish whim possesses you to think that fascination Walter Butler has
for you is love?"
"What is it, then?" she asked, with a little shudder.
"How do I know? He has the devil's own tenacity, bold black eyes and a
well-cut head, and a certain grace of limb and bearing nowise
remarkable. But"--I waved my hand helplessly--"how can a sane man
understand a woman's preference?--nay, Elsin, I do not even pretend to
understand _you_. All I know is that our friendship began in an instant,
opened to full sweetness like a flower overnight, and, like a flower, is
nearly ended now--nearly ended."
"Not ended; I shall remember."
"Well, and if we both remember--to what purpose?"
"To what purpose is friendship, Carus, if not to remember when alone?"
I listened, head bent. Then, pursuing my own thoughts aloud: "It is not
wise for a maid to plight her troth in secret, I care not for what
reasons. I know something of men; it is a thing no honest man should
ask of any woman. Why do you fear to tell Sir Frederick Haldimand?"
"Captain Butler begged me not to."
"Why?" I asked sharply.
"He is poor. You must surely know what the rebels have done--how their
commissioners of sequestration seized land and house from the Tryon
County loyalists. Captain Butler desires me to say nothing until,
through his own efforts and by his sword, he has won back his own in
the north. And I consented. Meanwhile," she added airily, "he has a
glove of mine to kiss, I refusing him my hand to weep upon. And so we
wait for one another, and pin our faith upon his sword."
"To wait for him--to plight your troth and wait for him until he and
Sir John Johnson have come into their own again?"
"Yes, Carus."
"And then you mean to wed him?"
She was silent. The color ebbed in her cheeks.
I stood looking at her through the evening light. Behind her, gilded by
the level rays of the sinking sun, a new headstone stood, and on it I
read:
IN MEMORY OF
Michael Cresap, First Cap't
Of the Rifle Battalions,
And Son to Col. Thomas
Cresap, Who Departed this
Life, Oct. 18, A.D. 1775.
Cresap, the generous young captain, whose dusty column of Maryland
riflemen I myself had seen when but a lad, pouring through Broadalbin
Bush on the way to Boston siege! This was his grave; and a Tory maid in
flowered petticoat and chip hat was seated on the mound a-prattling of
rebels!
"When do you leave us?" I asked grimly.
"Captain Butler has gone to see Sir Henry to ask for a packet. We sail
as soon as may be."
"Does _he_ go with you?" I demanded, startled.
"Why, yes--I and my two maids, and Captain Butler. Sir Frederick
Haldimand knows."
"Yes, but he does not know that Captain Butler has presumed--has dared
to press a clandestine suit with you!" I retorted angrily. "It does not
please me that you go under such doubtful escort, Elsin."
"And pray, who are you to please, sir?" she asked in quick displeasure.
"You speak of presumption in others, Mr. Renault, and, unsolicited, you
offer an affront to me and to a gentleman who is not here to answer."
"I wish he were," I said between my teeth.
Her fair face hardened.
"Wishes are very safe, sir," she said in a low voice.
At that, suddenly, such a blind anger flooded me that the setting sun
swam in my eyes and the blood dinned in ears and brain as though to
burst them. At such moments, which are rare with me, I fall silent; and
so I stood, while the strange rage shook me, and passed, leaving me
cold and very quiet.
"I think we had best go," I said.
She held out her hand. I aided her to rise; and she kept my hand in
hers, laying the other over it, and looked up into my eyes.
"Forgive me, Carus," she whispered. "No man can be more gallant and
more sweet than you."
"Forgive me, Elsin. No maid so generous and just as you."
And that was all, for we crossed the street, and I mounted the stoop of
our house with her, and bowed her in when the great door opened.
"Are you not coming in?" she asked, lingering in the doorway.
"No. I shall take the air."
"But we sup in a few moments."
"I may sup at the Coq d'Or," I said. Still she stood there, the wind
blowing through the doorway fluttering the pink bows tied under her
chin--a sweet, wistful face turned up to mine, and the early
candle-light from the hall sconces painting one rounded cheek with
golden lusters.
"Have you freely forgiven me, Carus?"
"Yes, freely. You know it."
"And you will be at the Fort? I shall give you that dance you ask
to-night, shall I not?"
"If you will."
There was a silence; she stretched out one hand. Then the door was
closed and I descended the steps once more, setting my hat on my head
and tucking my walking-stick under one arm, prepared to meet my drover
friend, who, Ennis said, desired to speak with me.
But I had no need to walk out along Great George Street to find my
bird; for, as I left Wall Street and swung the corner into Broadway,
the husky, impatient whisper of a whippoorwill broke out from the dusk
among the ruins of Trinity, and I started and turned, crossing the
street. Wild birds there were a-plenty in the city, yet the
whippoorwill so seldom came into the streets that the note alone would
have attracted me had Ennis not warned me of the signal.
And so I strolled once more into the churchyard and among the felled
trees which the soldiers had cut down for fire-wood, as they were
scorched past hope of future growth; and presently, prowling through
the dusk among the graves by Lambert Street, I came upon my drover,
seated upon a mound, smoking his clay as innocent as any tavern slug in
the sun.
"Good even, friend," he said, looking up. "I thought I heard a
whippoorwill but now, and being country bred, stole in to listen. Did
you hear it, sir?"
"I thought I did," said I, amused. "I thought it sang, Pro Gloria in
Excelsis----"
"Hush!" whispered the drover, smiling; "sit here beside me and we'll
listen. Perhaps the bird may sing that anthem once again."
I seated myself on the green mound, and the next moment sprang to my
feet as a shape before me seemed to rise out of the very ground; then,
hearing my drover laugh, I resumed my place as the short figure came
toward us.
"Another drover," said my companion, "and a famous one, Mr. Renault,
for he drove certain wild cattle at a headlong gallop from the pastures
at Saratoga--he and I and another drover they call Dan'l Morgan. We
have been strolling here among these graves, a-prying for old
friends--brother drovers. We found one drover's grave--a lad called
Cresap--hard by the arch there to the north."
"Did you know him?" I asked.
"Yes, lad. I was a herder of his at Dunmore's slaughter-house. I saw
him jailed at Fortress Pitt; I saw him freed, too. And one fine day in
'76, a-lolling at my ease in the north, what should I hear but a jolly
conch-horn blowing in the forest, and out of it rolled a torrent of men
in buckskin, Cresap leading, bound for that famous cattle-drive at
Boston town. So I, being by chance in buckskin, and by merest chance
bearing a rifle, fell in and joined the merry ranks--I and my young
friend Cardigan, who is now with certain mounted drovers called, I
think, Colonel Washington's Dragoons, harrying those Carolina cattle
owned by Tarleton."
He glanced up at his comrade, who stood silently beside him in the
darkness.
"He, too, was there, Mr. Renault--my fellow drover here, at your
service. Weasel, remove thy hat and make a bow to Mr. Renault--our
brother drover."
The little withered man uncovered with a grace astonishing. So perfect
was his bearing and his bow that I rose instinctively to meet it, and
match his courtesy with the best I could.
"When like meets like 'tis a duel of good manners," said the big drover
quietly. "Mr. Renault, you salute a man as gently bred as any man who
wears a gilt edge to his hat in County Tryon. I call him the Weasel
with all the reverence with which I say 'your lordship.'"
The Weasel and I exchanged another bow, and I vow he outmatched me,
too, in composure, dignity, and grace, and I wondered who he might be.
"Tempus," observed the giant drover, "fugits like the devil in this
dawdling world o' sin, as the poet has it--eh, Weasel? So, not even
taking time to ask your pardon for my Latin, sir, I catch Time by the
scalplock and add a nick to my gun-stock. Lord, sir! That's no language
for a peaceful, cattle-driving yokel, is it now? Ah, Mr. Renault, I see
you suspect us, and we have only to thank God you're not a lobster-back
to bawl for the sergeant and his lanthorn."
"Who are you?" I asked, smiling.
"Did you ever hear of a vile highwayman called Jack Mount?" he asked,
pretending horror.
"Yes," I said.
"You wouldn't shake hands with him, would you?"
"Let's try it," I replied seriously, holding out my hand.
He took it with a chuckle, his boyish face wreathed in smiles. "A purse
from a magistrate here and there," he muttered--"a Tory magistrate,
overfat and proud--what harm, sir? And I never could abide fat
magistrates, Mr. Renault," he confided in a whisper. "It is strange;
you will scarce credit me, sir, when I tell you that when I'm near a
magistrate, and particularly when he's fat, and the moon's low over the
hills, why, my pistols leap from my belt of their own accord, and I
must snatch them with both hands lest they go flying off like rockets
and explode to do a harm to that same portly magistrate."
"He does not mean all that," said the Weasel, laying his wrinkled hand
affectionately on Mount's great arm. "He has served nobly, sir, with
Cresap and with Morgan."
"But when I'm alone," sighed Mount, "I'm in very bad company, and
mischief follows, sure as a headache follows a tavern revel. I do not
mean to stop these magistrates, Mr. Renault, only they _will_ wander on
the highway, under my very pistols, provoking 'em to fly out!" He looked
at me and furtively licked the stem of his clay pipe.
"So you leave for the north to-night?" I asked, amused.
"Yes, sir. There's a certain Walter Butler in this town, arrived like a
hen-hawk from the clouds, and peep! peep! we downy chicks must scurry
to the forest, lad, or there'll be a fine show on the gallows yonder
and two good rifles idle in the hills of Tryon."
"You know Walter Butler?"
"Know him? Yes, sir. I had him at my mercy once--over my rifle-sights!
Ah, well--he rode away--and had it not been young Cardigan who stayed
my trigger-finger--But let that pass, too. What is he here for?"
"To ask Sir Henry Clinton's sanction of a plan to burn New York and
fling the army on West Point, while he and Sir John Johnson and Colonel
Ross strike the grain country in the north and lay it and the frontier
in ashes."
There was a silence, then a quiet laugh from Mount.
"West Point is safe, I think," he murmured.
"But Tryon?" urged the Weasel; "how will it go with Tryon County,
Jack?"
Another silence.
"We'd best be getting back to Willett," said Mount quietly. "As for me,
my errand is done, and the strange, fishy smells of New York town
stifle me. I'm stale and timid, and I like not the shape of the gallows
yonder. My health requires the half-light of the woods, Mr. Renault,
and the friendly shadows which lie at hand like rat-holes in a granary.
I've drunk all the ale at the Bull's-Head--weak stuff it was--and
they've sent for more, but I can't wait. So we're off to the north
to-night, friend, and we'll presently rinse our throats of this salt
wind, which truly inspires a noble thirst, yet tells nothing to a nose
made to sniff the inland breezes."
He held out his hand, saying, "So you can learn no news of this place
called Thendara?"
"I may learn yet. Walter Butler said to-day that I knew it. Yet I can
not recall anything save the name. Is it Delaware? And yet I know it
must be Iroquois, too."
"It might be Cayuga, for all I know," he said. "I never learned their
cursed jargon and never mean to. My business is to stop their
forest-loping--and I do when I can." He spoke bitterly, like that
certain class of forest-runners who never spare an Indian, never
understand that anything but evil can come of any blood but white. With
them argument is lost, so I said nothing.
"Have you anything for Colonel Willett?" he asked, after a pause.
"Tell him that I sent despatches this very day. Tell him of Butler's
visit here, and of his present plans. If I can learn where this
Thendara lies I will write him at once. That is all, I think."
I shook their hands, one by one.
"Have a care, sir," warned the Weasel as we parted. "This Walter Butler
is a great villain, and, like all knaves, suspicious. If he once should
harbor misgivings concerning you, he would never leave your trail until
he had you at his mercy. We know him, Jack and I. And I say, God keep
you from that man's enmity or suspicion. Good-by, Mr. Renault."
I retained his hand, gazing earnestly into his faded, kindly eyes.
"Do you know aught reflecting on his honor?" I asked.
"I know of Cherry Valley," he replied simply.
"Yes; but I mean his dealings with men in time of peace. Is he
upright?"
"He is so considered, though they would have hanged him for a spy in
Albany in '78-'79, had not young Lafayette taken pity on him and had
him removed from jail to a private house, he pleading illness. Once
uncaged, he gnawed through, and was off to the Canadas in no time,
swearing to repay tenfold every moment's misery he spent in jail. He
did repay--at Cherry Valley. Think, sir, what bloody ghosts must haunt
his couch at night--unless he be all demon and not human at all, as
some aver. Yet he has a wife, they say----"
"What!"
"He has a wife," repeated Mount--"or a mistress. It's all one to him."
"Where?" I asked quietly.
"She was at Guy Park, the Oneidas told me; and when Sullivan moved on
Catharinestown she fled with all that Tory rabble, they say, to
Butlersbury, and from thence to the north--God knows where! I saw her
once; she is French, I think--and very young--a beauty, sir, with hair
like midnight, and two black stars for eyes. I have seen an Oneida girl
with such eyes." He shrugged his shoulders. "Walter Butler makes little
of women--like Sir John Johnson," he added in disgust.
I was silent.
"We go north by Valentine's and North Castle, the Albany road being
unhealthy traveling at night," said Mount, with a grin; "and I think,
Cade, we'd best pull foot. I trust, Mr. Renault, that you may not hear
of our being taken and hung to disgrace any friends of ours. Come,
Cade, old friend, our fair accomplice, the moon, is hid, so lift thy
little legs and trot! Au large!"
They pulled off their hats with a gay flourish, turned, and plunged
shoulder-deep into the weeds.
And so they left me, creeping away through the low foliage into
Greenwich Street, while I, rousing myself, turned my steps toward home.
I had no desire to sup; my appetite's edge had been turned by what I
heard concerning Walter Butler. Passing slowly through the graveyard
and skirting the burned church, I entered Broadway, where here and
there a street-lamp was burning. Few people strolled under the
lime-trees; cats prowled and courted and fought in the gutters,
scattering in silent, shadowy flight before me as I crossed the street
to the great house; and so buried in meditation was I that I presently
found myself in my own room, and could not remember how I passed the
door or mounted the long stairway to my chambers.
Dennis came to do my hair, but I drove him out with boots in a sudden,
petty fury new to my nature. Indeed, lying there in my stuffed
armchair, I scarcely knew myself, so strangely sad and sullen ran my
thoughts--not thoughts, either, for at first I followed no definite
train, but a certain irritable despondency clothed me, and trifles
enraged me, leaving me bitter and sick at heart, bearing a weight of
apprehension concerning nothing at all.
Oh, for a week of liberty from this pit of intrigue! Oh, for a day's
freedom to ride like those blue dragoons of Heath I had seen along the
Hudson! Oh, to be free to dog-trot back to the north with those two
gallant scamps of Morgan, and wear a hunting-shirt once more, and lay
the long brown rifle level in this new quarrel coming soon between
these Butlers and these Johnsons and our yeomanry of County Tryon!
"By God!" I muttered, "I care not if they take me, for I'm sick of
spying and lying, so let them hoist me out upon that leafless tree
where better men have swung, and have done with the wretched business
once for all!" Which I meant not, and was silly to fume, and thankless,
too, to anger the Almighty with ingratitude for His long and most
miraculous protection. But I was in a foul humor with the world and
myself, and I knew not what ailed me, either. True, the insolence of
that libertine, Walter Butler, affronted me, and it gave me a sour
pleasure to think how I should quiet his swagger with one plain word
aside.
Following this lead, I fell to thinking in earnest. What would it
mean--a quarrel? Dare he deny the charge? No; I should command, and he
obey, and I'd send him slinking north by the same accursed schooner
that brought him; and Elsin Grey should go when she pleased, escorted
by a proper retinue. But I'd make no noise about it--not a word to set
tongues wagging and eyes peeping--for Elsin's sake. Lord! the silly
maid, to steer so near the breakers and destruction!
And what then? Well, I should never see her again, once she was safe
among her kin in the Canadas. And she was doubtless the fairest woman I
had ever looked upon--but light--not in an evil sense, God wot! but
prone to impulse and caprice--a kitten, soft as silk, now staring at
the world out of two limpid eyes, now frisking after breeze-blown
rose-leaves. A man may admire such a child, nay, learn to love her
dearly, in a way most innocent. But love! She did not know its meaning,
and how could she inspire it in a man of the world. No, I did not love
her--could not love a maid, unripe and passionless, and overpert at
times, flouting a man like me with her airs and vapors and her insolent
lids and lashes. Lord! but she carried it high-handed with me at times,
plaguing me, teasing, pouting when my attention wandered midway in the
pretty babble with which she condescended to entertain me. And with all
that--and after all is said--there was something in me that warmed to
her--perhaps the shadow of kinship--perhaps because of her utter
ignorance of all she prated of so wisely. Her very crudity touched the
chord of chivalry which is in all men, strung tight or loose, answering
to a touch or a blow, but always answering in some faint degree, I
think. Yet, if this is so, how could Walter Butler find it in his heart
to trouble her?
That he meant her real evil I did not credit, she being what she was.
Doubtless he hoped to find some means of ridding him of a wife no
longer loved; there were laws complacent for that sort of work. Yet,
grant him free, how could he find it in his heart to cherish passion
for a child? He was no boy--this pallid rake of thirty-five--this
melancholy squire of dames who, ere he was twenty, had left a trail in
Albany and Tryon none too savory, if wide report be credited--he and
Sir John Johnson!--as pretty a brace of libertines as one might find
even in that rotten town of London.
Well, I would send him on his business without noise or scandal, and
I'd hold a séance, too, with Mistress Elsin, wherein a curtain-lecture
should be read, kindly, gravely, but with firmness fitting!
I lay back, stretching out my legs luxuriously, pleasantly
contemplating the stern yet kindly rôle I was to play: first send him
skulking, next enact the solemn father to this foolish maid. Then,
admonishing and smiling forgiveness in one breath, retire as gravely as
I entered--a highly interesting figure, magnanimous and moral----
A rapping at my chamber-door aroused me disagreeably from this
flattering rhapsody.
"Enter!" I said ungraciously, and lay back, frowning to see there in
the flesh the man whose punishment I had been complacently selecting.
"Mr. Renault," he said, "am I overbold in this intrusion on your
privacy? Pray, sir, command me, for my business must await your
pleasure."
I bowed, rising, and pointing to a chair. "It is business, then, not
pleasure, as I take it, Captain Butler, that permits me to receive
you?"
"The business and the pleasure both are mine, Mr. Renault," he said,
which was stilted enough to be civil. "The business, sir, is this: Sir
Henry Clinton received me like a gentleman, but as soon as Sir Peter
had retired he listened to me as though I were demented when I exposed
my plan to burn New York and take the field. I say he used me with
scant civility, and bowed me out, like the gross boor he is!"
"He is commander-in-chief, Mr. Butler."
"What do I care!" burst out Butler, his dark eyes a golden blaze. "Am I
not an Ormond-Butler? Why should a Clinton affront an Ormond-Butler? By
Heaven! I must swallow his airs and his stares and his shrugs because
he is my superior; but I may one day rise in military rank as high as
he--and I shall do so, mark me well, Mr. Renault!--and when I am near
enough in the tinseled hierarchy to reach him at thirty paces I shall
use the privilege, by God!"
"There are," said I blandly, "many subalterns on his staff who might
serve your present purpose, Captain Butler."
"No, no," he said impatiently, his dark eyes wandering about the
chamber, "I have too much at stake to call out fledglings for a sop to
injured pride. No, Mr. Renault, I shall first take vengeance for a
deeper wrong--and the north lies like an unreaped harvest for the
sickle that Death and I shall set a-swinging there."
I bent my head, meditating; then looking up:
"You say I know where this Thendara lies?"
"Yes," he answered sullenly. "You know as well as I do _what is written_
in the Book of Rites."
At first his words rang meaningless, then far in my memory a voice
called faintly, and a pale ray of light grew through the darkened
chambers of my brain. And now I knew, now I remembered, now I
understood where that lost town must lie--the town of Thendara, lost
ever and forever, only to be forever found again as long as the dark
Confederacy should endure.
Awed, I sat in silence; and he turned his gloomy eyes now on me, now on
the darkened window, gnawing his lip in savage retrospection.
Instantly I was aware that he doubted me, and why. I looked up at him,
astounded; he lifted his brooding head and I made a rapid sign, saying
in the Mohawk tongue: "Karon-ta-Ke?--at the Tree?"
"Karon-ta-Kowa-Kon--at the great tree. Sat-Kah-tos--thou seest. There
lies the lost town of Thendara. And, save for the council, where you
and I have a Wolf's clan-right, no living soul could know what that
word Thendara means. God help the Oneida who betrays!"
"Since when and by what nation have _you_ been raised up to sit in the
council of condolence?" I asked haughtily; for, strange as it may appear
to those who know not what it means to wear the Oneida clan-mark of
nobility, I, clean-blooded and white-skinned, was as fiercely proud of
this Iroquois honor as any peer of England newly invested with the
garter. And it was strange, too, for I was but a lad when chosen for the
mystic rite; but never except once--the day before I left the north to
serve his Excellency's purpose in New York--had I been present when that
most solemn rite was held, and the long roll of dead heroes called in
honor of the Great League's founder, Hiawatha.
And so, though I am pure white in blood and bone and every instinct,
and having nigh forgotten that I wore the Wolf--and, too, the Long
House being divided and I siding with the Oneidas, and so at civil war
with the shattered league that served King George--yet I turned on
Walter Butler as a Mohawk might turn upon a Delaware, scornfully
questioning his credentials, demanding his right to speak as one who
had heard the roll-call of those Immortals who founded the "Great
Peace" three hundred years ago.
"The Delawares named me, and the council took me," he said with perfect
calmness. "The Delaware nation mourned their dead; and now I sit for
the Wolf Clan--my elder brother, Renault."
"A Delaware clan is not named in the Rite," I said coldly--"nor is
there kinship between us because you are adopted by the Delawares. I am
aware that clanship knows no nations; and I, an Oneida Wolf, am brother
to a Cayuga Wolf; but I am not brother to you."
"And why not to the twin clan of my adopted nation?" he asked angrily.
"Yours is a cleft ensign and a double clan," I sneered; "which are you,
Gray Wolf or Yellow Wolf?"
"Yellow," he said, struggling to keep his temper; "and if we Delawares
of the Wolf-Clan are not named in the Book of Rites, nevertheless we
sit as ensigns among the noble, and on the same side of the
council-lodge as your proud Oneidas. We have three in the council as
well as you, Mr. Renault. If you were a Mohawk I should hold my peace,
but a Delaware may answer an Oneida. And so I answer you, sir."
How strange it seems now--we two white men, gentlemen of quality,
completely oblivious to blood, birth, tradition, breeding--our primal
allegiance, our very individualities sunk in the mystical freemasonry
of a savage tie which bound us to the two nations we assumed to speak
for, Oneida and Delaware--two nations of the great Confederacy of the
Iroquois that had adopted us, investing us with that clan nobility of
which we bore the ensign.
And we were in deadly earnest, too, standing proudly, fiercely, for our
prerogatives; he already doubly suspicious of me because the Oneida
nation which had adopted me stood for the rebel cause, yet, in his
mealy-mouthed way, assuming that by virtue of Wolf clanship, as well as
by that sentiment he supposed was loyalty to the King, I would do
nothing to disrupt the council which I now knew must decide upon the
annihilation of the Oneida nation, as well as upon the raid he
contemplated.
"Do you imagine that I shall sit with head averted while four nations
and your Delawares combine to plan the murder of my Oneidas?" I
demanded passionately. "When the council sits at Thendara I shall send
a belt to every clan in the Oneida nation, and I care not who knows
it!"
He rose, pale and menacing. "Mr. Renault," he said, "do you understand
that a word from you would be a treason to the King? You can be a
clansman of the Wolf and at the same time be loyal to the King and to
the Iroquois Confederacy; but you can not send a single string of
wampum to the Oneidas and be either loyal to the Six Nations or to your
King. The Oneidas are marked for punishment; the frontier is
doomed--doomed, even though this frittering commander in New York will
neither aid me nor his King. A word of warning to the Oneidas is a
warning to the rebels. And that, sir, I can not contemplate, and you
must shrink from."
"Do you deceive yourself that I shall stand silent and see the Oneida
nation ruined?" I asked between my teeth.
"Are you Oneida, or are you a British subject of King George? Are you
an Iroquois renegade of the renegade Oneida nation, or are you first of
all an Iroquois of the Wolf-Clan? As a white man, you are the King's
subject; as an Iroquois, you are still his subject. As an Oneida only,
you must be as black a rebel as George Washington himself. That is the
limpid logic of the matter, Mr. Renault. A belt to the Oneidas, and you
become traitor to the Confederacy and a traitor to your King. And that,
I say, you can not contemplate!"
I fairly ground my teeth, subduing the rage and contempt that shook me.
"Since when, Captain Butler," I sneered, "have the Oneidas learned to
swallow Delaware threats? By God, sir, the oldest man among the council
can not remember when a Delaware dared speak without permission of an
Iroquois! As an Iroquois and an Oneida, I bid the Delawares to speak
only when addressed. But as a white man, I answer you that I require no
instruction concerning my conduct, and shall merely thank you for your
good intentions and your kind advice, which is the more generous
because unsolicited and wholly undesired!"
Again that menacing glare came into his eyes as he stood staring at me.
But I cared not; he was not my guest, and he had outraged no roof of
mine that the law of hospitality must close my mouth lest I betray the
salt he had eaten within my walls.
"I am thinking," he said slowly, "that we did well to burn a certain
house in Tryon Bush."
"Think as you please, Captain Butler," I said, bowing. "The door swings
open yonder for your convenience."
He surveyed me scornfully. "I trust," he said pleasantly, "to resume
this discussion at a time more opportune."
"That also shall be at your convenience," I said. Suddenly such a
loathing for the man came over me that I could scarce return his salute
and maintain that courteous calm which challenged men must wear at such
a moment.
He went away; and I, pacing my chamber lightly, whistled for Dennis,
and when he came bade him curl and frizz and powder and perfume me as
he had never done before. So to my bath, and then to court the razor,
lathered cheek and chin, nose in the air, counting the posies on the
wall, as I always did while Dennis shaved me of the beard I fondly
feared might one day suddenly appear.
And all the while, singing in my ears, I heard the meaning phrase he
used at parting. Challenged? Not quite, but threatened with a
challenge. The cards were mine to play--a pretty hand, with here and
there a trump. Could I meet him and serve my country best? Aye, if I
killed him. And, strangely, I never thought that he might kill me; I
only weighed the chances. If I killed him he could not blab and danger
me with hints of meddling or of rank disloyalty; but if I only maimed
him he would never rest until suspicious eyes must make my mission
useless. Suddenly I was aware that I had been a fool to anger him, if I
wished to stay here in New York; nay, it was patent that unless I
killed him he must one day work a mischief to our cause through me. A
sneaking and unworthy happiness crept slowly over me, knowing that once
my mission terminated here I was free to hoist true colors, free to
bear arms, free to maintain openly the cause I had labored for so long
in secret. No more mole's work a-burrowing into darkness for a scrap to
stay my starving country's maw; no more slinking, listening, playing
the stupid indifferent!
And all the while my conscience was at work, urging me to repair the
damage my forgetful passion had wrought, urging me to heal the breach
with Butler, using what skill I might command, so that I could stay
here where his Excellency had set me, plying my abhorred trade in
useful, unendurable obscurity.
It was a battle now 'twixt pride and conscience, 'twixt fierce desire
and a loathed duty--doubly detested since I had spied a way to freedom
and had half tasted a whiff of good free air, untainted by deception.
"O Lord!" I groaned within myself, "will no one set me free of this pit
of intrigue and corruption in which I'm doomed to lurk? Must I, in
loyalty to his Excellency, repair this fault--go patch up all with
Butler, and deceive him so that his hawk's eyes and forked tongue may
not set folk a-watching this house sidewise?"
But while Dennis's irons were in my hair I thought: "Nevertheless, I
must send a belt to our allies, the Oneidas; and then I dare not stay!
Oh, joy!"
But the joy was soon dashed. My belt must go first to Colonel Willett,
and then to his Excellency, and it might be that he would judge it best
to let the Oneidas fight their own battles and so decline to send my
belt.
By the time I had arrived so far in my mental argument Dennis had
curled, powdered, and tied my hair in the most fashionable manner,
using a black flamboyant ribbon for the clubbed queue, a pearl-gray
powder à la Rochambeau; but I was not foolish enough to permit him to
pass a diamond pin into my hair, for I had once seen that fashion
affected by Murray, Earl of Dunmore, that Royal Governor of Virginia
who had laid Norfolk in ashes out of pure vindictiveness.
My costume I shall describe, not, I hope, from any unworthy vanity, but
because I love beautiful things. Therefore, for the pleasure of others
who also admire, and prompted alone by a desire to gratify, I neither
seek nor require excuses for recalling what I wore that night at the
Artillery ball. The lace at the stock was tied full and fastened with
brilliants; the coat of ivory silk, heavily embroidered with golden
filigree, fell over a waistcoat of clouded ivory and gold mesh,
fashionably short, and made by Thorne. My breeches were like the coat,
ivory silk, buckled with gold; the stockings were white silk, a bunch
of ribbon caught by the jeweled buckles at either knee; and upon my
double-channeled pumps, stitched by Bass, buckles of plain dull gold.
There was blond lace at throat and cuff. I confess that, although I did
not wear two watches, a great bunch of seals dangled from the fob; and
the small three-cornered French hat I tucked beneath my arm was laced
like a Nivernois, and dressed and cocked by the most fashionable hatter
in Hanover Square.
The mirror before which I stood was but half long enough, so I bade
Dennis place it upon the floor, whence it should reflect my legs and
gilded court-sword. Pleased, I obtained several agreeable views of my
costume, Dennis holding two mirrors for me while I pondered, hesitating
where to place the single patch of black.
"Am I fine, Dennis?" I asked.
"Now God be good to the ladies, sir!" he said, so seriously that I
laughed like a boy, whisked out my sword, and made a pass at my
mirrored throat.
"At all events," I thought, "I'll be handsomely clothed if there's a
scratch-quarrel with Walter Butler--which God avert!" Then for the
first time it occurred to me that it might not be Walter Butler, but I
myself, lying stretched on the lawn behind the Coq d'Or, and I was
comforted to know that, however low misfortune might lay me, I should
be clothed suitably and as befitted a Renault.
CHAPTER V
THE ARTILLERY BALL
When I descended from my chamber to the south drawing-room I found
there a respectable company of gentlemen assembled, awaiting the ladies
who had not yet appeared. First I greeted Sir Henry Clinton, who had at
that moment entered, followed by his staff and by two glittering
officers of his Seventh Light Dragoons. He appeared pale and worn, his
eyes somewhat inflamed from overstudy by candle-light, but he spoke to
me pleasantly, as did Oliver De Lancey, the Adjutant-General, who had
succeeded poor young André--an agreeable and accomplished gentleman,
and very smart in his brilliant uniform of scarlet loaded with stiff
gold.
O'Neil, in his gay dress of the Seventeenth Dragoons, and Harkness,
wearing similar regimentals, were overflushed and frolicksome, no doubt
having already begun their celebration for the victory of the Flatbush
birds, which they had backed so fortunately at the Coq d'Or. Sir Peter,
too, was in mischievous good spirits, examining my very splendid
costume as though he had not chosen it for me at his own tailor's.
"Gad, Carus!" he exclaimed, "has his Majesty appointed a viceroy in
North America--or is it the return of that Solomon whose subjects rule
the Dock Ward still?"
O'Neil and Harkness, too, were merry, making pretense that my glitter
set them blinking; but the grave, gray visage of Sir Henry, and his
restless pacing of the polished floor, gave us all pause; and
presently, as by common accord, voices around him dropped to lower
tones, and we spoke together under breath, watching askance the
commander-in-chief, who now stood, head on his jeweled breast, hands
clasped loosely behind his back.
"Sir Peter," he said, looking up with a forced laugh, "I have
irritating news. The rebel dragoons are foraging within six miles of
our lines at Kingsbridge."
For a month we here in New York had become habituated to alarms. We had
been warned to expect the French fleet; we had known that his
Excellency was at Dobbs Ferry, with quarters at Valentine's; we had
seen, day by day, the northern lines strengthened, new guns mounted on
the forts and batteries, new regiments arrive, constant alarms for the
militia, and the city companies under arms, marching up Murray Hill,
only, like that celebrated army of a certain King of France, to march
down again with great racket of drums and overfierce officers noisily
shouting commands. But even I had not understood how near to us the
siege had drawn, closing in steadily, inch by inch, from the green
Westchester hills.
A little thrill shot through me as I noted the newer, deeper lines
etched in Sir Henry's pallid face, and the grave silence of De Lancey,
as he stood by the window, arms folded, eying his superior under
knitted brows.
"Why not march out, bands playing?" suggested Sir Peter gaily.
"By God, we may do that yet to the tune they choose for us!" blurted
out Sir Henry.
"I meant an assault," said Sir Peter, the smile fading from his
handsome face.
"I know what you meant," returned Sir Henry wearily. "But that is what
they wish. I haven't the men, gentlemen."
There was a silence. He stood there, swaying slowly to and fro on his
polished heels, buried in reflection; but I, who stood a little to one
side, could see his fingers clasped loosely behind his back, nervously
working and picking at one another.
"What do they expect?" he said suddenly, lifting his head but looking
at no one--"what do they expect of me in England? I have not twelve
thousand effectives, and of these not nine thousand fit for duty. _They_
have eleven thousand, counting the French, not a dozen miles north of
us. Suppose I attack? Suppose I beat them? They have but a mile to fall
back, and they are stronger posted than before. I can not pass the
Harlem with any chance of remaining, unless I leave here in New York a
garrison of at least six thousand regulars. This gives me but three
thousand regulars for a sortie." He moved his head slowly, his eyes
traveled from one to another with that heavy, dazed expression which saw
nothing.
"Thirty thousand men could not now force Fordham Heights--and but a
single bridge left across the Harlem. To boat it means to be beaten in
detail. I tell you, gentlemen, that the only chance I might have in an
attempt upon any part of Washington's army must be if he advances. In
formal council, Generals Kniphausen, Birch, and Robertson sustain me;
and, believing I am right, I am prepared to suffer injustice and
calumny in silence from my detractors here in New York and at home."
His heavy eyes hardened; a flash lighted them, and he turned to Sir
Peter, adding:
"I have listened to a very strange proposition from the gentleman you
presented to me, Sir Peter. His ideas of civilized warfare and mine do
not run in like channels."
"So I should imagine," replied Sir Peter dryly. "But he is my guest,
and at his pressing solicitation I went with him to wait upon you."
Sir Henry smiled, for Sir Peter had spoken very distinctly, though
without heat.
"My dear friend," said the general gently, "are you to blame for the
violent views of this gentleman who so--ah--_distinguished_ himself at
Cherry Valley?"
A sour grimace stamped the visage of every officer present; the name of
Cherry Valley was not pleasant to New York ears.
At that moment Walter Butler entered, halted on the threshold, glancing
haughtily around him, advanced amid absolute silence, made his bow to
Sir Peter, turned and rendered a perfect salute to Sir Henry, then, as
Sir Peter quietly named him to every man present, greeted each with
ceremony and a graceful reserve that could not but stamp him as a
gentleman of quality and breeding.
To me, above all, was his attitude faultless; and I, relinquishing to a
tyrant conscience all hopes of profiting by my blunder in angering him,
and giving up all hopes of a duel and consequently of freedom from my
hateful business in New York, swallowed pride and repulsion at a single
gulp, and crossed the room to where he stood alone, quite at his ease
amid the conversation which excluded him.
"Mr. Butler," I said, "I spoke hastily and thoughtlessly an hour since.
I come to say so."
He bowed instantly, regarding me with curious eyes.
"I know not how to make further amends," I began, but he waved his hand
with peculiar grace, a melancholy smile on his pale visage.
"I only trust, Mr. Renault, that you may one day understand me better.
No amends are necessary. I assure you that I shall endeavor to so
conduct that in future neither you nor any man may misapprehend my
motives." He glanced coolly across at Sir Henry, then very pleasantly
spoke of the coming rout at the Fort, expressing pleasure in gaiety and
dancing.
"I love music, too," he said thoughtfully, "but have heard little for a
year save the bellow of conch-horns from the rebel riflemen of Morgan's
corps."
Mr. De Lancey had come up, moved by the inbred courtesy which
distinguished not Sir Henry, who ostentatiously held Sir Peter in
forced consultation, his shoulder turned to Walter Butler. And, of the
twain, Mr. Butler cut the better figure, and spite of his true
character, I was secretly gratified to see how our Tryon County gentry
suffered nothing in comparison of savoir faire with the best that
England sent us. Courtesy to an enemy--that is a creed no gentleman can
renounce save with his title. I speak not of disputes in hot blood, but
of a chance meeting upon neutral ground; and Sir Henry was no credit to
his title and his country in his treatment there of Walter Butler.
One by one all spoke to Mr. Butler; laughter among us broke out as wine
was served and compliments exchanged.
"The hardest lesson man is born to is that lesson which teaches him to
await the dressing of his lady," said De Lancey.
"Aye, and await it, too, without impatience!" said Captain Harkness.
"And in perfect good-humor," echoed De Lancey gravely. O'Neil sat down
at the piano and played "The World Turned Upside-Down," all drifting
into the singing, voice after voice; and the beauty of Walter Butler's
voice struck all, so that presently, one by one, we fell silent, and he
alone carried the quaint old melody to its end.
"I have a guitar hereabouts," blurted out Sir Peter, motioning a
servant.
The instrument was brought, and Walter Butler received it without false
modesty or wearying protestation, and, touching it dreamily, he sang:
"Ninon! Ninon! Que fais-tu de la vie?
L'heure s'enfuit, le jour succède au jour,
Rose, ce soir--demain flétrie
Comment vis-tu, toi qui n'as pas d'amour?
* * *
Ouvrez-vous, jeunes fleurs
Si la mort vous enlève,
La vie est un sommeil, l'amour en est le rêve!"
Sad and sweet the song faded, lingering like perfume, as the deep
concord of the strings died out. All were moved. We pressed him to sing
more, and he sang what we desired in perfect taste and with a
simplicity that fascinated all.
I, too, stood motionless under the spell, yet struggling to think of
what I had heard of the nearness of his Excellency to New York, and how
I might get word to him at once concerning the Oneidas' danger and the
proposed attempt upon the frontier granaries. The ladies had as yet
given no sign of readiness; all present, even Sir Henry, stood within a
circle around Walter Butler. So I stepped quietly into the hallway and
hastened up the stairs to my chamber, which I locked first, then seized
paper and quill and fell to scribbling:
"TO HIS EXCELLENCY, GEN'L WASHINGTON:
"_Sir_--I regret to report that, through thoughtlessness and
inadvertence, I have made a personal enemy of Captain Walter Butler
of the Rangers, who is now here on a mission to enlist the aid of
Sir Henry Clinton in a new attempt on the frontier. His purpose in
this enterprise is to ruin our granaries, punish the Oneidas
friendly to us, and, if aided from below, seize Albany, or at least
Johnstown, Caughnawaga, and Schenectady. Sir John Johnson, Major
Ross, and Captain Butler are preparing to gather at Niagara Fort.
They expect to place a strong, swift force in the field--Rangers,
Greens, Hessians, Regulars, and partizans, not counting Brant's
Iroquois of the Seneca, Cayuga, and Mohawk nations.
"The trysting-place is named as Thendara. Only an Iroquois, adopted
or native, can understand how Thendara is to be found. It is a town
that has no existence--a fabled town that has existed and will
exist again, but does not now exist. It is a mystic term used in
council, and understood only by those clan ensigns present at the
Rite of Condolence. At a federal council of the Five Nations, at a
certain instant in the ceremonies, that spot which for a week shall
be chosen to represent the legendary and lost town of Thendara, is
designated to the clan attestants.
"Now, sir, as our allies the Oneidas dare not answer to a belt
summons for federal council, there is no one who can discover for
you the location of the trysting-spot, Thendara. I, however, am an
Oneida councilor, having conformed to the law of descent by
adoption; and having been raised up to ensign by the Wolf-Clan of
the Oneida Nation, beg leave to place my poor services at your
Excellency's disposal. There may be a chance that I return alive;
and you, sir, are to judge whether any attempt of mine to answer
the Iroquois belt, which surely I shall receive, is worth your
honorable consideration. In the meanwhile I am sending copies of
this letter to Colonel Willett and to Gen'l Schuyler."
I hastily signed, seized more writing-paper, and fell to copying
furiously. And at length it was accomplished, and I wrapped up the
letters in a box of snuff, tied and sealed the packet, and called
Dennis.
"Take this snuff back to Ennis, in Hanover Square," I said peevishly,
"and inform him that Mr. Renault desires a better quality."
My servant took the box and hastened away. I stood an instant,
listening. Walter Butler was still singing. I cast my eyes about,
picked up a half-written sheet I had discarded for fault of blots,
crumpled it, and reached for a candle to burn it. But at that instant I
heard the voices of the ladies on the landing below, so quickly opening
my wainscot niche I thrust the dangerous paper within, closed the
panel, and hastened away down-stairs to avoid comment for my absence.
In the merry company now assembled below I could scarcely have been
missed, I think, for the Italian chaises had but just that moment
appeared to bear us away to the Fort, and the gentlemen were clustered
about Lady Coleville, who, encircled by a laughing bevy of pretty
women, was designating chaise-partners, reading from a list she held in
her jeweled hands. Those already allotted to one another had moved
apart, standing two and two, and as I entered the room I saw Walter
Butler give his arm to Rosamund Barry at Lady Coleville's command, a
fixed smile hiding his disappointment, which turned to a white grimace
as Lady Coleville ended with: "Carus, I entrust to your escort the Hon.
Elsin Grey, and if you dare to run off with her there are some twenty
court-swords ready here to ask the reason why. Sir Henry, will you take
me as your penance?"
"Now, gentlemen," cried Sir Peter gaily, "the chaises are here; and
please to remember that there is no Kissing-Bridge between Wall Street
and the Battery."
Elsin Grey turned to me, laying her soft white hand on mine.
"Did you hear Mr. Butler sing?" she whispered. "Is it not divine enough
to steal one's heart away?"
"He sings well," I said, gazing in wonder at her ball-gown--pale
turquoise silk, with a stomacher of solid brilliants and petticoat of
blue and silver. "Elsin, I think I never saw so beautiful a maid in all
my life, nor a beautiful gown so nobly borne."
"Do you really think so?" she asked, delighted at my bluntness. "And
you, too, Carus--why, you are like a radiant one from the sky! I have
ever thought you handsome, but not as flawless as you now reveal
yourself. Lord! we should cut a swathe to-night, you and I, sir,
blinding all eyes in our proper glitter. I could dance all night, and
all day too! I never felt so light, so gay, so eager, so reckless. I'm
quivering with delight, Carus, from throat to knee; and, for the rest,
my head is humming with the devil's tattoo and my feet keeping time."
She raised the hem of her petticoat a hand's breadth, and tapped the
floor with one little foot--a trifle only. "That ballet figure that we
did at Sir Henry's--do you remember?--and the heat of the ballroom, and
the French red running from the women's cheeks? To-night is perfect,
cool and fragrant. I shall dance until I die, and go up to heaven in
one high, maddened whirl--zip!--like a burning soul!"
We were descending the stoop now. Our chaise stood ready. I placed her
and followed, and away we rolled down Broadway.
"Am I to have two dances?" I asked.
"Two? Why, you blessed man, you may have twenty!"
She turned to me, eyes sparkling, fan half spread, a picture of
exquisite youth and beauty. Her jewels flashed in the chaise-lamps, her
neck and shoulders glowed clear and softly fair.
"Is that French red on lip and cheek?" I asked, to tease her.
"If there were a certain sort of bridge betwixt Wall Street and the
Fort you might find out without asking," she said, looking me daringly
in the eyes. "Lacking that same bridge, you have another bridge and
another problem, Mr. Renault."
"For lack of a Kissing-Bridge I must solve the _pons asinorum_, I see,"
said I, imprisoning her hands. There was a delicate hint of a struggle,
a little cry, and I had kissed her. Breathless she looked at me; the
smile grew fixed on her red lips.
"Your experience in such trifles is a blessing to the untaught," she
said. "You have not crumpled a ribbon. Truly, Carus, only long and
intense devotion to the art could turn you out a perfect master."
"My compliments to you, Elsin; I take no credit that your gown is
smooth and the lace unruffled."
"Thank you; but if you mean that I, too, am practised in the art, you
are wrong."
The fixed smile trembled a little, but her eyes were wide and bright.
"Would you laugh, Carus, if I said it: what you did to me--is the
first--the very first in all my life?"
"Oh, no," I said gravely, "I should not laugh if you commanded
otherwise."
She looked at me in silence, the light from the chaise-lamps playing
over her flushed face. Presently she turned and surveyed the darkness
where, row on row, ruins of burned houses stood, the stars shining down
through roofless walls.
Into my head came ringing the song that Walter Butler sang:
"Ninon! Ninon! thy sweet life flies!
Wasted in hours day follows day.
The rose to-night to-morrow dies:
Wilt thou disdain to love alway?
How canst thou live unconscious of Love's fire,
Immune to passion, guiltless of desire?"
Now all around us lamplight glimmered as we entered Bowling Green,
where coach and chaise and sedan-chair were jumbled in a confusion
increased by the crack of whips, the trample of impatient horses, and
the cries of grooms and chairmen. In the lamp's increasing glare I made
out a double line of soldiers, through which those invited to the Fort
were passing; and as our chaise stopped and I aided Elsin to descend,
the fresh sea-wind from the Battery struck us full, blowing her lace
scarf across my face.
Through lines of servants and soldiers we passed, her hand nestling
closely to my arm, past the new series of outworks and barricades,
where bronze field-pieces stood shining in the moonlight, then over a
dry moat by a flimsy bridge, and entered the sally-port, thronged with
officers, all laughing and chatting, alert to watch the guests
arriving, and a little bold, too, with their stares and their
quizzing-glasses. There is, at times, something almost German in the
British lack of delicacy, which is, so far, rare with us here, though I
doubt not the French will taint a few among us. But insolence in stare
and smirk is not among our listed sins, though, doubtless, otherwise
the list is full as long as that of any nation, and longer, too, for
all I know.
Conducting Elsin Grey, I grew impatient at the staring, and made way
for her without ceremony, which caused a mutter here and there.
In the great loft-room of the Barracks, held by the naval companies,
the ball was to be given. I relinquished my pretty charge to Lady
Coleville at the door of the retiring-room, and strolled off to join
Sir Peter and the others, gathering in knots throughout the cloak-room,
where two sailors, cutlasses bared, stood guard.
"Well, Carus," he said, smilingly approaching me, "did you heed those
chaste instructions I gave concerning the phantom Kissing-Bridge?"
"I did not run away with her," I said, looking about me. "Where is
Walter Butler?"
"He returned to the house in a chaise for something forgotten--or so he
said. I did not understand him clearly, and he was in great haste."
"He went back to _our_ house?" I asked uneasily.
"Yes--a matter of a moment, so he said. He returns to move the opening
dance with Rosamund."
Curiously apprehensive, I stood there listening to the chatter around
me. Sir Peter drummed with his fingers on his sword-hilt, and nodded
joyously to every passer-by.
"You have found Walter Butler more agreeable, I trust, than our friend
Sir Henry found him," he said, turning his amused eyes on me.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Perhaps? Damme, Carus, that is none too cordial! What is it in the man
that keeps men aloof? Eh? He's a gentleman, a graceful, dark, romantic
fellow, in his forest-green regimentals and his black hair worn
unpowdered. And did you ever hear such a voice?"
"No, I never did," I replied sulkily.
"Delicious," said Sir Peter--"a voice prettily cultivated, and sweet
enough to lull suspicion in a saint." He laughed: "Rosamund made great
eyes at him, the vixen, but I fancy he's too cold to catch fire from a
coquette. Did you learn if he is married?"
"Not from him, sir."
"From whom?"
I was silent.
"From whom?" he asked curiously.
"Why, I had it from one or two acquaintances, who say they knew his
wife when she fled with other refugees from Guy Park," I answered.
Sir Peter shrugged his handsome shoulders, dusted his nose with a whisk
of his lace handkerchief, and looked impatiently for a sign of his wife
and the party of ladies attending her.
"Carus," he said under his breath, "you should enter the lists, you
rogue."
"What lists?" I answered carelessly.
"Lord! he asks me what lists!" mimicked Sir Peter. "Why don't you court
her? The match is suitable and desirable. You ninny, do you suppose it
was by accident that Elsin Grey became our guest? Why, lad, we're set
on it--and, damme! but I'm as crafty a matchmaker as my wife, planning
the pretty game together in the secret of our chambers after you and
Elsin are long abed, and--Lord! I came close to saying 'snoring'--for
which you should have called me out, sir, if you are champion of Elsin
Grey."
"But, Sir Peter," I said smiling, "I do not love the lady."
"A boorish speech!" he snapped. "Take shame, Carus, you Tryon County
bumpkin!"
"I mean," said I, reddening, "and should have said, that the lady does
not love me."
"That's better." He laughed, and added, "Pay your court, sir. You are
fashioned for it."
"But I do not care to," I said.
"O Lord!" muttered Sir Peter, looking at the great beams above us, "my
match-making is come to naught, after all, and my wife will be furious
with you--furious, I say. And here she comes, too," he said,
brightening, as he ever did, at sight of his lovely wife, who had
remained his sweetheart, too; and this I am free to say, that, spite of
the looseness of the times and of society, never, as long as I knew
him, did Sir Peter forget in thought or deed those vows he took when
wedded. Sportsman he was, and rake and gambler, as were we all; and I
have seen him often overflushed with wine, but never heard from his
lips a blasphemy or foul jest, never a word unworthy of clean lips and
the clean heart he carried with him to his grave.
As Lady Coleville emerged from the ladies' cloakroom, attended by her
pretty bevy, Sir Peter, followed by his guests, awaited her in the
great corridor, where she took his arm, looking up into his handsome
face with that indefinable smile I knew so well--a smile of delicate
pride, partly tender, partly humorous, tinctured with faintest
coquetry.
"Sweetheart," he said, "that villain, Carus, will have none of our
match-making, and I hope Rosamund twists him into a triple
lover's-knot, to teach him lessons he might learn more innocently."
Lady Coleville flushed up and looked around at me. "Why, Carus," she
said softly, "I thought you a man of sense and discretion."
"But I--but she does not favor me, madam," I protested in a low voice.
"It is your fault, then, and your misfortune," she said. "Do you not
know that she leaves us to-morrow? Sir Henry has placed a packet at our
service. Can you not be persuaded--for my sake? It is our fond wish,
Carus. How can a man be insensible to such wholesome loveliness as
hers?"
"But--but she is a child--she has no heart! She is but a child yet--all
caprice, innocence, and artless babble--and she loves not me,
madam----"
"_You_ love not _her_! Shame, sir! Open those brown blind eyes of yours,
that look so wise and are so shallow if such sweetness as hers troubles
not their depths! Oh, Carus, Carus, you make me too unhappy!"
"Idiot!" added Sir Peter, pinching my arm. "Bring her to us, now, for
we enter. She is yonder, you slow-wit! nose to nose with O'Neil.
Hasten!"
But Elsin's patch-box had been mislaid, and while we searched for it I
saw the marines march up, form in double rank, and heard the clear
voice of their sergeant announcing:
"Sir Peter and Lady Coleville!
"Captain Tully O'Neil and the Misses O'Neil!
"Adjutant-General De Lancey and Miss Beekman!
"Sir Henry Clinton!
"Captains Harkness, Rutherford, Hallowell, and McIvor!
"Major-General----"
"Elsin," I said, "you should have been announced with Sir Peter and
Lady Coleville!"
She had found her patch-box and her fan at length, and we marched in,
the sergeant's loud announcement ringing through the quickly filling
room:
"Mr. Carus Renault and the Honorable Elsin Grey!"
"What _will_ folk say to hear our banns shouted aloud in the teeth of
all New York?" she whispered mischievously. "Mercy on me! if you turn as
red as a Bushwick pippin they will declare we are affianced!"
"I shall confirm it if you consent!" I said, furious to burn at a jest
from her under a thousand eyes.
"Ask me again," she murmured; "we make our reverences here."
She took her silk and silver petticoat between thumb and forefinger of
each hand and slowly sank, making the lowest, stateliest curtsy that I
ever bowed beside; and I heard a low, running murmur sweep the bright,
jeweled ranks around us as we recovered and passed on, ceding our place
to others next behind.
The artillerymen had made the great loft gay with bunting. Jacks and
signal-flags hung from the high beams overhead, clothing the bare
timbers with thickets of gayest foliage; banners and bright scarfs,
caught up with trophies, hung festooned along the unpainted walls. They
had made a balcony with stairs where the band was perched, the music of
the artillery augmented by strings--a harp, half a dozen fiddles,
cellos, bassoons, and hautboys, and there were flutes, too, and
trumpets lent by the cavalry, and sufficient drums to make that fine,
deep, thunderous undertone, which I love to hear, and which heats my
cheeks with pleasure.
Beyond the spar-loft the sail-loft had been set aside and fashioned
most elegantly for refreshment. An immense table crossed it, behind
which servants stood, and behind the servants the wall had been lined
with shelves covered with cakes, oranges, apples, early peaches, melons
and nectarines, and late strawberries, also wines of every sort,
pastry, jellies, whip-syllabub, rocky and floating island, blanc-mange,
brandied preserves--and Heaven knows what! But Elsin Grey whispered me
that Pryor the confectioner had orders for coriander and cinnamon
comfits by the bushel, and orange, lemon, chocolate, and burned almonds
by the peck.
"Do look at Lady Coleville," whispered Elsin, gently touching my
sleeve; "is she not sweet as a bride with Sir Peter? And oh, that gown!
with the lilac ribbons and flounce of five rows of lace. Carus, she has
forty diamond buttons upon her petticoat, and her stomacher is all
amethysts!"
"I wonder where Walter Butler is?" I said restlessly.
"Do you wish to be rid of me?" she asked.
"God forbid! I only marvel that he is not here--he seemed so eager for
the frolic----"
My voice was drowned in the roll of martial music; we took the places
assigned us, and the slow march began, ending in the Governor's set,
which was danced by eight couples--a curious dance, newly fashionable,
and called "En Ballet." This we danced in a very interesting fashion,
sometimes two and two, sometimes three and two, or four couple and four
couple, and then all together, which vastly entertained the spectators.
In the final mêlée I had lost my lady to Mr. De Lancey, who now carried
her off, leaving me with a willowy maid, whose partner came to claim
her soon.
The ball now being opened, I moved a minuet with Lady Coleville, she
adjuring me at every step and turn to let no precious moment slip to
court Elsin; and I, bland but troubled, and astonished to learn how
deep an interest she took in my undoing--I with worry enough before me,
not inclusive of a courtship that I found superfluous and unimportant.
When she was rid of me, making no concealment of her disappointment and
impatience, I looked for Elsin, but found Rosamund Barry, and led her
out in one of those animated figures we had learned at home from the
Frenchman, Grasset--dances that suited her, the rose coquette!--gay
dances, where the petticoat reveals a pretty limb discreetly; where
fans play, opening and closing like the painted wings of butterflies
alarmed; where fingers touch, fall away, interlace and unlace; where a
light waist-clasp and a vis-à-vis leaves a moment for a whisper and its
answer, promise, assent, or low refusal as partners part, dropping away
in low, slow reverence, which ends the frivolous figure with regretful
decorum.
Askance I had seen Elsin and O'Neil, a graceful pair of figures in the
frolic, and now I sought her, leaving Rosamund to Sir Henry, but that
villain O'Neil had her to wine, and amid all that thirsty throng and
noise of laughter I missed her in the tumult, and then lost her for two
hours. I must admit those two hours sped with the gay partners that
fortune sent me--and one there was whose fingers were shyly eloquent, a
black-eyed beauty from Westchester, with a fresh savor of free winds
and grassy hillsides clinging to her, and a certain lovely awkwardness
which claims an arm to steady very often. Lord! I had her twice to ices
and to wine, and we laughed and laughed at nothing, and might have been
merrier, but her mother seized her with scant ceremony, and a strange
young gentleman breathed hard and glared at me as I recovered dignity,
which made me mad enough to follow him half across the hall ere I
reflected that my business here permitted me no quarrel of my own
seeking.
Robbed of my Westchester shepherdess, swallowing my disgust, I
sauntered forward, finding Elsin Grey with Lady Coleville, seated
together by the wall. What they had been whispering there together I
knew not, but I pushed through the attendant circle of beaus and
gallants who were waiting there their turns, and presented myself
before them.
"I am danced to rags and ribbons, Carus," said Elsin Grey--"and no
thanks to you for the pleasure, you who begged me for a dance or two;
and I offered twenty, silly that I was to so invite affront!"
She was smiling when she spoke, but Lady Coleville's white teeth were
in her fan's edge, and she looked at me with eyes made bright through
disappointment.
"You are conducting like a silly boy," she said, "with those hoydens
from Westchester, and every little baggage that dimples at your stare.
Lord! Carus, I thought you grown to manhood!"
"Is there a harm in dancing at a ball, madam?" I asked, laughing.
"Fie! You are deceitful, too. Elsin, be chary of your favors. Dance
with any man but him. He'll be wearing two watches to-morrow, and his
hair piled up like a floating island!"
She smiled, but her eyes were not overgay. And presently she turned on
Elsin with a grave shake of her head:
"You disappoint me, both of you," she said. "Elsin, I never dreamed
that _you_----"
Their fans flew up, their heads dipped, then Elsin rose and asked
indulgence, taking my arm, one hand lying in Lady Coleville's hand.
"Do you and Sir Peter talk over it together," she said, with a
lingering wistfulness in her voice. "I shall dance with Carus, whether
he will or no, and then we'll walk and talk. You may tell Sir Peter, if
you so desire."
"_All?_" asked Lady Coleville, retaining Elsin's hand.
"All, madam, for it concerns all."
Sir Henry Clinton came to wait on Lady Coleville, and so we left them,
slowly moving out through the brilliant sea of silks and laces, her arm
resting close in mine, her fair head bent in silent meditation.
Around us swelled the incessant tumult of the ball, music and the
blended harmony of many voices, rustle and whisper of skirt and silk,
and the swish! swish! of feet across the vast waxed floor.
"Shall we dance?" I asked pleasantly.
She looked up, then out across the ocean of glitter and restless color.
"Now I am in two minds," she said--"to dance until there's no breath
left and but a wisp of rags to cover me, or to sip a syllabub with you
and rest, or go gaze at the heavens the while you court me----"
"That's three minds already," I said, laughing.
"Well, sir, which are you for?"
"And you, Elsin?"
"No, sir, you shall choose."
"Then, if it lies with me, I choose the stars and courtship," I said
politely.
"I wonder," she said, "why you choose it--with a maid so pliable. Is
not half the sport in the odds against you--the pretty combat for
supremacy, the resisting fingers, and the defense, face covered? Is not
the sport to overcome all these, nor halt short of the reluctant lips,
still fluttering in voiceless protest?"
"Where did you hear all that?" I asked, piqued yet laughing.
"Rosamund Barry read me my first lesson--and, after all, though warned,
I let you have your way with me there in the chaise. Oh, I am an apt
pupil, Carus, with Captain Butler in full control of my mind and you of
my body."
"Have you seen him yet?" I asked.
"No; he has not appeared to claim his dance. A gallant pair of
courtiers I have found in you and him----"
"Couple our names no more!" I said so hotly that she stopped, looking
at me in astonishment.
"Have you quarreled?" she asked.
I did not answer. We had descended the barrack-stairs and were entering
the parade. Dark figures in pairs moved vaguely in the light of the
battle-lanthorns set. We met O'Neil and Rosamund, who stood star-gazing
on the grass, and later Sir Henry, pacing the sod alone, who, when he
saw me, motioned me to stop, and drew a paper from his breast.
"Sir Peter and Lady Coleville's pass for Westchester, which he desired
and I forgot. Will you be good enough to hand it to him, Mr. Renault?
There is a council called to-night--it is close to two o'clock, and I
must go."
He took a courtly leave of us, then wandered away, head bent, pacing
the parade as though he kept account of each slow step.
"Yonder comes Knyphausen, too, and Birch," I said, as the German
General emerged from the casemates, followed by Birch and a raft of
officers, spurs clanking.
We stood watching the Hessians as they passed in the lamp's rays,
officers smooth-shaven and powdered, wearing blue and yellow, and their
long boots; soldiers with black queues in eelskin, tiny mustaches
turned up at the waxed ends, and long black, buttoned spatter-dashes
strapped at instep and thigh.
"Let us ascend to the parapets," she said, looking up at the huge, dark
silhouette above where the southeast bastion jutted seaward.
A sentry brought his piece to support as we went by him, ascending the
inclined artillery road, whence we presently came out upon the
ramparts, with the vast sweep of star-set firmament above, and below us
the city's twinkling lights on one side, and upon the other two great
rivers at their trysting with the midnight ocean.
There were no lights at sea, none on the Hudson, and on the East River
only the sad signal-spark smoldering above the _Jersey_.
Elsin had found a seat low on a gun-carriage, and, moving a little,
made place for me.
"Look at that darkness," she said--"that infinite void under which an
ocean wallows. It is like hell, I think. Do you understand how I fear
the ocean?"
"Do you fear it, child?"
"Aye," she said, musing; "it took father and mother and brother. You
knew that?"
"Lady Coleville says there is always hope that they may be alive--cast
on that far continent----"
"So the attorneys say--because there is a legal limit--and I am the
Honorable Elsin Grey. Ah, Carus, _I_ know that the sea has them fast.
No port shall that tall ship enter save the last of all--the Port of
Missing Ships. Heigho! Sir Frederick is kind--in his own fashion.... I
would I had a mother.... There is a loneliness that I feel ... at
times...."
A vague gesture, and she lifted her head, with a tremor of her
shoulders, as though shaking off care as a young girl drops a scarf of
lace to her waist.
Presently she turned quietly to me:
"I have told Lady Coleville," she said.
"Told her what, child?"
"Of my promise to Captain Butler. I have not yet told everything--even
to you."
Roused from my calm sympathy I swung around, alert, tingling with
interest and curiosity.
"I gave her leave to inform Sir Peter," she added. "They were too
unhappy about you and me, Carus. Now they will understand there is no
chance."
And when Sir Peter had asked me if Walter Butler was married, I had
admitted it. Here was the matter already at a head, or close to it.
Sudden uneasiness came upon me, as I began to understand how closely
the affront touched Sir Peter. What would he do?
"What is it called, and by what name, Carus, when a man whose touch one
can not suffer so dominates one's thoughts--as he does mine?"
"It is not love," I said gloomily.
"He swears it is. Do you believe there may lie something compelling in
his eyes that charm and sadden--almost terrify, holding one pitiful
yet reluctant?"
"I do not know. I do not understand the logic of women's minds, nor how
they reason, nor why they love. I have seen delicacy mate with
coarseness, wit with stupidity, humanity with brutality, religion with
the skeptic, aye, goodness with evil. I, too, ask why? The answer ever
is the same--because of love!"
"Because of it, is reason; is it not?"
"So women say."
"And men?"
"Aye, they say the same; but with men it is another sentiment, I think,
though love is what we call it."
"Why do men love, Carus?"
"Why?" I laughed. "Men love--men love because they find it pleasant, I
suppose--for variety, for family reasons."
"For nothing else?"
"For a balm to that mad passion driving them."
"And--nothing nobler?"
"There is a noble love, part chivalry, part desire, inspired by mind
and body in sweetest unison."
"A mind that seeks its fellow?" she asked softly.
"No, a mind that seeks its complement, as the body seeks. This union, I
think, is really love. But I speak with no experience, Elsin. This only
I know, that you are too young, too innocent to comprehend, and that
the sentiment awakened in you by what you think is love, is not love.
Child, forgive me what I say, but it rings false as the vows of that
young man who importunes you."
"Is it worthy of you, Carus, to stab him so behind his back?"
I leaned forward, my head in my hands.
"Elsin, I have endured these four years, now, a thousand little stings
which I could not resent. Forgetting this, at moments I blurt out a
truth which, were matters otherwise with me, I might back with--what is
looked for when a man repeats what may affront his listener. It is, in
a way, unworthy, as you say, that I speak lightly to you of a man I can
not meet with honor to myself. Yet, Elsin, were my duty first to
you--first even to myself--this had been settled now--this matter
touching you and Walter Butler--and also my ancient score with him,
which is as yet unreckoned."
"What keeps you, then?" she said, and her voice rang a little.
I looked at her; she sat there, proud head erect, searching me with
scornful eyes.
"A small vow I made," said I carelessly.
"And when are you released, sir?"
"Soon, I hope."
"Then, Mr. Renault," she said disdainfully, "I pray you swallow your
dislike of Captain Butler until such time as you may explain your
enmity to him."
The lash stung. I sat dazed, then wearied, while the tingling passed.
Even the silence tired me, and when I could command my voice I said:
"Shall we descend, madam? There is a chill in the sea-air."
"I do not feel it," she answered, her voice not like her own.
"Do you desire to stay here?"
"No," she said, springing up. "This silence of the stars wearies me."
She passed before me across the parapet and down the inclined way, I at
her heels; and so into the dark parade, where I caught up with her.
"Have I angered you without hope of pardon?" I asked.
"You have spoiled it all for me----"
She bit her lip, suddenly silent. Sir Peter Coleville stood before us.
"Lady Coleville awaits you," he said very quietly, too quietly by far.
"Carus, take her to my wife. Our coach is waiting."
We stared at him in apprehension. His face was serene, but colorless
and hard as steel, as he turned and strode away; and we followed
without a word, drawing closer together as we moved through a covered
passage-way and out along Pearl Street, where Sir Peter's coach stood,
lamps shining, footman at the door.
Lady Coleville was inside. I placed Elsin Grey, and, at a motion from
Sir Peter, closed the door.
"Home," he said quietly. The footman leaped to the box, the whip
snapped, and away rolled the coach, leaving Sir Peter and myself
standing there in Pearl Street.
"Your servant Dennis sought me out," he said, "with word that Walter
Butler had been busy sounding the panels in your room."
Speech froze on my lips.
"Further," continued Sir Peter calmly, "Lady Coleville has shared with
me the confidence of Elsin Grey concerning her troth, clandestinely
plighted to this gentleman whom you have told me is a married man."
I could not utter a sound. Moment after moment passed in silence. The
half-hour struck, then three-quarters. At last from the watch-tower on
the Fort the hour sounded.
There was a rattle of wheels behind us; a coach clattered out of Beaver
Street, swung around the railing of the Bowling Green, and drew up
along the foot-path beside us; and Dr. Carmody leaped out, shaking
hands with us both.
"I found him at Fraunce's Tavern, Sir Peter, bag and baggage. He
appeared to be greatly taken aback when I delivered your cartel,
protesting that something was wrong, that there could be no quarrel
between you and him; but when I hinted at his villainy, he went white
as ashes and stood there swaying like a stunned man. Gad! that hint
about his wife took every ounce of blood from his face, Sir Peter."
"Has he a friend to care for him?" asked Sir Peter coldly.
"Jessop of the Sappers volunteered. I found him in the tap-room. They
should be on their way by this time, Sir Peter."
"That will do. Carus will act for me," said Sir Peter in a dull voice.
He entered the coach; I followed, and Dr. Carmody followed me and
closed the door. A heavy leather case lay beside me on the seat. I
rested my throbbing head on both hands, sitting swaying there in
silence as the coach dashed through Bowling Green again and sped
clattering on its way up-town.
CHAPTER VI
A NIGHT AND A MORNING
As our coach passed Crown Street I could no longer doubt whither we
were bound. The shock of certainty aroused me from the stunned lethargy
which had chained me to silence. At the same moment Sir Peter thrust
his head from the window and called to his coachman:
"Drive home first!" And to me, resuming his seat: "We had nigh
forgotten the case of pistols, Carus."
The horses swung west into Maiden Lane, then south through Nassau
Street, across Crown, Little Queen, and King Streets, swerving to the
right around the City Hall, then sharp west again, stopping at our own
gate with a clatter and clash of harness.
Sir Peter leaped out lightly, and I followed, leaving Dr. Carmody, with
his surgical case, to await our return.
Under the door-lanthorn Sir Peter turned, and in a low voice asked me
if I could remember where the pistol-case was laid.
My mind was now clear and alert, my wits already busily at work. To
prevent Sir Peter's facing Walter Butler; to avoid Cunningham's
gallows; could the first be accomplished without failure in the second?
Arrest might await me at any instant now, here in our own house, there
at the Coq d'Or, or even on the very field of honor itself.
"Where did you leave the pistol-case that day you practised in the
garden?" I asked coolly.
"'Twas you took it, Carus," he said. "Were you not showing the pistols
to Elsin Grey?"
I dropped my head, pretending to think. He waited a moment, then drew
out his latch-key and opened the door very softly. A single
sconce-candle flared in the hall; he lifted it from the gilded socket
and passed into the state drawing-room, holding the light above his
head, and searching over table and cabinet for the inlaid case.
Standing there in the hall I looked up the dark and shadowy stairway.
There was no light, no sound. In the drawing-room I heard Sir Peter
moving about, opening locked cupboards, lacquered drawers, and crystal
doors, the shifting light of his candle playing over wall and ceiling.
Why he had not already found the case where I had placed it on the
gilded French table I could not understand, and I stole to the door and
looked in. The French table stood empty save for a vase of shadowy
flowers; Sir Peter was on his knees, candle in hand, searching the
endless lines of book-shelves in the library. A strange suspicion stole
into my heart which set it drumming on my ribs. Had Elsin Grey removed
the pistols? Had she wit enough to understand the matters threatening?
I looked up at the stairs again, then mounted them noiselessly, and
traversed the carpeted passage to her door. There was a faint light
glimmering under the sill. I laid my face against the panels and
whispered, "Elsin!"
"Who is there?" A movement from within, a creak from the bed, a rustle
of a garment, then silence. Listening there, ear to her door, I heard
distinctly the steady breathing of some one also listening on the other
side.
"Elsin!"
"Is it you, Carus?"
She opened the door wide and stood there, candle in one hand, rubbing
her eyes with the other, lace night-cap and flowing, beribboned robe
stirring in the draft of air from the dark hallway. But under the
loosened neck-cloth I caught a gleam of a metal button, and instantly I
was aware of a pretense somewhere, for beneath the flowing polonaise of
chintz, or Levete, which is a kind of gown and petticoat tied on the
left hip with a sash of lace, she was fully dressed, aye, and shod for
the street.
Instinctively I glanced at the bed, made a quick step past her, and
drew the damask curtain. The bed had not been slept in.
"What are you thinking of, Carus?" she said hotly, springing to the
curtain. There was a sharp sound of cloth tearing; she stumbled, caught
my arm, and straightened up, red as fire, for the hem of her Levete was
laid open to the knee, and displayed a foot-mantle, under which a tiny
golden spur flashed on a lacquered boot-heel.
"What does this mean?" I said sternly. "Whither do you ride at such an
hour?"
She was speechless.
"Elsin! Elsin! If you had wit enough to hide Sir Peter's pistols,
render them to me now. Delay may mean my ruin."
She stood at bay, eying me, uncertain but defiant.
"Where are they?" I urged impatiently.
"He shall not fight that man!" she muttered. "If I am the cause of this
quarrel I shall end it, too. What if he were killed by Walter Butler?"
"The pistols are beneath your mattress!" I said suddenly. "I must have
them."
Quick as thought she placed herself between me and the bed, blue eyes
sparkling, arms wide.
"Will you go?" she whispered fiercely. "How dare you intrude here!"
Taken aback by the sudden fury that flashed out in my very face, I gave
ground.
"You little wildcat," I said, amazed, "give me the pistols! I know how
to act. Give them, I say! Do you think me a poltroon to allow Sir Peter
to face this rascal's fire?"
She straightened with a sudden quiver.
"You! The pistols were for _you!_"
"For me and Walter Butler," I said coolly. "Give them, Elsin. What has
been done this night has set me free of my vow. Can you not understand?
I tell you he stands in my light, throwing the shadow of the gallows
over me! May a man not win back to life but a chit of a maid must
snatch his chance away? Give them, or I swing at dawn upon the common!"
A flush of horror swept her cheeks, leaving her staring. Her wide-flung
arms dropped nervelessly and hung beside her.
"Is it _true_," she faltered--"what he came here to tell us on his way
to that vile tavern? I gave him the lie, Carus. I gave him the lie there
in the hall below." She choked, laying her white hand on her throat.
"Speak!" she said harshly; "do you fear to face this dreadful charge he
flung in my teeth? I"--she almost sobbed--"I told him that he lied."
"He did not lie. I am a spy these four years here," I said wearily.
"Will you give me those pistols now?--or I take them by force!"
"Carus," called Sir Peter from the hall, "if Lady Coleville has my
pistols, she must render them to you on the instant."
His passionless voice rang through the still, dark house.
"She has gone to the Coq d'Or," muttered Elsin Grey, motionless before
me.
"To stop this duel?"
"To stop it. Oh, my God!"
There was a silence, broken by a quick tread on the stairs. The next
moment Sir Peter appeared, staring at us there, candle flaring in his
hand, his fingers striped with running wax.
"What does this mean?" he asked, confused. "Where is Lady Coleville?"
"She has gone to the Coq d'Or," I said. "Your pistols are hidden, sir."
He paled, gazing at Elsin Grey.
"She guessed that I meant to--to exchange a shot with Captain Butler?"
he stammered.
"It appears," said I, "that Mr. Butler, with that delicacy for which he
is notorious, stopped here on his way to the tavern. You may imagine
Lady Coleville could not let this matter proceed."
He gazed miserably at Elsin, passing his hand over his haggard face.
Then, slowly turning to me: "My honor is engaged, Carus. What is best
now? I am in your hands."
I laid my arm in his, quietly turning him and urging him to the stairs.
"Leave it to me," I whispered, taking the candle he held. "Go to the
coach and wait there. I will be with you in a moment."
The door of Elsin's chamber closed behind us. He descended the black
stairway, feeling his way by touch along the slim rail of the
banisters, and I waited there, lighting him from above until the front
doors clashed behind him. Then I turned back to the closed door of
Elsin's chamber and knocked loudly.
She flung it wide again, standing this time fully dressed, a gilt-edged
tricorn on her head, and in her hands riding-whip and gloves.
"I know what need be done," she said haughtily. "Through this meshed
tangle of treachery and dishonor there leads but one clean path. That I
shall tread, Mr. Renault!"
"Let the words go," I said between tightening lips, "but give me that
pair of pistols, now!"
"For Sir Peter's use?"
"No, for mine."
"I shall not!"
"Oh, you would rather see me hanged, like Captain Hale?"
She whitened where she stood, tugging at her gloves, teeth set in her
lower lip.
"You shall neither fight nor hang," she said, her blue eyes fixed on
space, busy with her gloves the while--so busy that her whip dropped,
and I picked it up.
There was a black loup-mask hanging from her girdle. When her gloves
were fitted to suit her she jerked the mask from the string and set it
over her eyes.
"My whip?" she asked curtly.
I gave it.
"Now," she said, "your pistol-case lies hid beneath my bed-covers. Take
it, Mr. Renault, but it shall serve a purpose that neither you nor
Walter Butler dream of!"
I stared at her without a word. She opened the beaded purse at her
girdle, took from it a heaping handful of golden guineas, and dropped
them on her dresser, where they fell with a pleasant sound, rolling
together in a shining heap. Then, looking through her mask at me, she
fumbled at her throat, caught a thin golden chain, snapped it in two,
and drew a tiny ivory miniature from her breast; and still looking
straight into my eyes she dropped it face upward on the polished floor.
It bore the likeness of Walter Butler. She set her spurred heel upon it
and crushed it, grinding the fragments into splinters. Then she walked
by me, slowly, her eyes still on mine, the hem of her foot-mantle
slightly lifted; and so, turning her head to watch me, she passed the
door, closed it behind her, and was gone.
What the strange maid meant to do I did not know, but I knew what lay
before me now. First I flung aside the curtains of her bed, tore the
fine linen from it, burrowing in downy depths, under pillow, quilt, and
valance, until my hands encountered something hard; and I dragged out
the pistol-case and snapped it open. The silver-chased weapons lay
there in perfect order; under the drawer that held them was another
drawer containing finest priming-powder, shaped wads, ball, and a case
of flints.
So all was ready and in order. I closed the case and hurried up the
stairway to my room, candle in hand. Ha! The wainscot cupboard I had so
cunningly devised was swinging wide. In it had been concealed that
blotted sheet rejected from the copy of my letter to his
Excellency--nothing more; yet that alone was quite enough to hang me,
and I knew it as I stood there, my candle lighting an empty cupboard.
Suddenly terror laid an icy hand upon me. I shook to my knees,
listening. Why had he not denounced me, then? And in the same instant
the answer came: _He_ was to profit by my disgrace; _he_ was to be
aggrandized by my downfall. The drama he had prepared was to be set in
scenery of his own choosing. His savant fingers grasped the tiller,
steering me inexorably to my destruction.
Yet, as I stood there, teeth set, tearing my finery from me, flinging
coat one way, waistcoat another, and dressing me with blind haste in
riding-clothes and boots, I felt that just a single chance was left to
me with honor; and I seized the passes that Sir Henry had handed me for
Sir Peter and his lady, and stuffed them into my breast-pocket.
Gloved, booted, spurred, I caught up the case of pistols, ran down the
stairs, flung open the door, and slammed it behind me.
Sir Peter stood waiting by the coach; and when he saw me with his
pistol-case he said: "Well done, Carus! I had no mind to go hammering
at a friend's door to beg a brace of pistols at such an hour."
I placed the case after he had entered the coach. Dr. Carmody made room
for me, but I shook my head.
"I ride," I said. "Wait but an instant more."
"Why do you ride?" asked Sir Peter, surprised.
"You will understand later," I said gaily. "Be patient, gentlemen;" and
I ran for the stables. Sleepy hostlers in smalls and bare feet tumbled
out in the glare of the coach-house lanthorn at my shout.
"The roan," I said briefly. "Saddle for your lives!"
The stars were no paler in the heavens as I stood there on the grass,
waiting, yet dawn must be very near now; and, indeed, the birds' chorus
broke out as I set foot to stirrup, though still all was dark around
me.
"Now, gentlemen," I said, spurring up to the carriage-door. I nodded to
the coachman, and we were off at last, I composed and keenly alert,
cantering at Sir Peter's coach-wheels, perfectly aware that I was
riding for my liberty at last, or for a fall that meant the end of all
for me.
There was a chaise standing full in the light of the tavern windows
when we clattered up--a horse at the horse-block, too, and more horses
tied to the hitching-ring at the side-door.
At the sound of our wheels Mr. Jessop appeared, hastening from the
cherry grove, and we exchanged salutes very gravely, I asking pardon
for the delay, he protesting at apology; saying that an encounter by
starlight was, after all, irregular, and that his principal desired to
wait for dawn if it did not inconvenience us too much.
Then, hat in hand, he asked Sir Peter's indulgence for a private
conference with me, and led me away by the arm into a sweet-smelling
lane, all thick with honeysuckle and candleberry shrub.
"Carus," he said, "this is painfully irregular. We are proceeding as
passion dictates, not according to code. Mr. Butler has no choice but
to accept, yet he is innocent of wrong intent, and has so informed me."
"Does he deny his marriage?" I asked.
"Yes, sir, most solemnly. The lady was his mistress, since discarded.
He is quite guiltless of this affront to Sir Peter Coleville, and
desires nothing better than to say so."
"That concerns us all," I said seriously. "I am acting for Sir Peter,
and I assume the responsibility without consulting him. Where is Mr.
Butler?"
"In the tap-room parlor."
"Say to him that Sir Peter will receive him in the coffee-room," I said
quietly.
Jessop impulsively laid his honest hand upon my shoulder as we turned
toward the tavern.
"Thank you, Carus," he said. "I am happy that I have to deal with you
instead of some fire-eating, suspicious bullhead sniffing for secret
mischief where none lies hid."
"I hear that Lady Coleville is come to stop the duel at any cost," I
observed, halting at the door. "May we not hope to avoid a distressing
scene, Jessop?"
"We must," he answered, as I left him in the hallway and entered the
coffee-room where Sir Peter waited, seated alone, his feet to the empty
fireplace.
"Where is Lady Coleville?" he asked, as I stepped up. "She must not
remain here, Carus."
"You are not to fight," I said, smiling.
"Not to fight!" he repeated, slowly rising, eyes ablaze.
"Pray trust me with your honor," I replied impatiently, opening the
door to a servant's knock. And to the wide-eyed fellow I said: "Go and
say to Lady Coleville that Sir Peter is not to fight. Say to her----"
I stopped short. Lady Coleville appeared in an open doorway across the
hall, her gaze passing my shoulder straight to Sir Peter, who stood
facing her behind me.
"What pleasantry is this?" she asked, advancing, a pale smile stamped
on her lovely face.
I made way. She stepped before me, walking straight to Sir Peter. I
followed, closing the door behind me.
"Have I ever, ever in all these years, counseled you to dishonor?" she
asked. "Then listen now. There is no honor in this thing you seek to
do, but in it there lies a dreadful wrong to me."
"He offered insult to our kin--our guest. I can not choose but ask the
only reparation he can give," said Sir Peter steadily.
"And leave me to the chance of widowhood?"
Sir Peter whitened to a deathly hue; his distressed eyes traveled from
her to me; he made to speak, but no sound came.
"This is all useless," I said quietly, as a knock came at the door. I
stepped back and opened it to Walter Butler.
When he saw me his dark eyes lit up with that yellow glare I knew
already. Then he turned, bowing to Lady Coleville and to Sir Peter,
who, pale and astounded, stared at the man as though the fiend himself
stood there before him.
"Sir Peter," began his enemy, "I have thought----"
But I cut him short with a contemptuous laugh.
"Sir Peter," I said, "Mr. Butler is here to say that he is not wedded
to his Tryon County mistress--that is all; and as he therefore has not
offended you, there is no reason for you to challenge him. Now, sir, I
pray you take Lady Coleville and return. Go, in God's name, Sir Peter,
for time spurs me, and I have business here to keep me!"
"Let Sir Peter remain," said Butler coldly. "My quarrel is not with
him, nor his with me."
"No," said I gaily, "it is with me, I think."
"Carus," cried Lady Coleville, "I forbid you! What senseless thing is
this you seek?"
"Pray calm yourself, madam," said Mr. Butler; "he stands in more danger
of the gallows than of me."
Sir Peter pushed forward. I caught his arm, forcing him aside, but he
struggled, saying: "Did you not hear the man? Let me go, Carus; do you
think such an insult to you can pass me like a puff of sea-wind?"
"It strikes me first," I said. "It is to me that Mr. Butler answers."
"No, gentlemen, to _me!_" said a low voice behind us--the voice of Elsin
Grey.
Amazed, we turned, passion still marring our white faces. Calm,
bright-eyed, a smile that I had never seen imprinted on her closed
lips, she walked to the table, unlocked the case of pistols, lifted
them, and laid them there in the yellow lamplight.
"Elsin! Elsin!" stammered Lady Coleville; "have you, too, gone mad?"
"This is _my_ quarrel," she said, turning on me so fiercely that I
stepped back. "If any shot is fired in deference to me, _I_ fire it;
if any bullet is sped to defend my honor, _I_ speed it, gentlemen.
Why"--and she turned like a flash upon Sir Peter--"why do you assume to
interfere in this? Is not an honest man's duty to his own wife first?
Small honor you do yourself or her!--scant love must you bear her to
risk your life to chance in a quarrel that concerns not you!"
Astounded and dumb, we stood there as though rooted to the floor.
She looked at Butler and laughed; picked up a pistol, loaded it with
incredible deftness, laid it on the table, and began loading the other.
"Elsin! Elsin!" cried Lady Coleville, catching her by the waist, "what
is this wild freak of yours? Have you all gone mad to-night?"
"You shake my hand and spill the powder," said the Hon. Miss Grey,
smiling.
"Elsin," murmured Walter Butler, "has this fellow Renault poisoned you
against me?"
"Why, no, sir. You are married to a wife and dare to court me! There
lies the poison, Mr. Butler!"
"Hush, Elsin!" murmured Lady Coleville. "It was a mistake, dear. Mr.
Butler is not married to the--the lady--to anybody. He swears it!"
"Not wedded?" She stared, then turned scarlet to her hair. And Walter
Butler, I think, mistook the cause and meaning of that crimson shame,
for he smiled, and drawing a paper from his coat, spread it to Sir
Peter's eyes.
"I spoke of the gallows, Sir Peter, and you felt yourself once more
affronted. Yet, if you will glance at this----"
"What is it?" asked Sir Peter, looking him in the eye.
"Treason, Sir Peter--a letter--part of one--to the rebel Washington,
written by a spy!"
"A lie! _I_ wrote it!" said the Hon. Miss Grey.
Walter Butler turned to her, amazed, doubting his ears.
"A jest," she continued carelessly, "to amuse Mr. Renault."
"Amuse _him_! It is in his own hand!" stammered Butler.
"Apparently. But I wrote it, imitating his hand to plague him. It is
indifferently done," she added, with a shrug. "I hid it in the cupboard
he uses for his love-letters. How came it in your fingers, Mr. Butler?"
In blank astonishment he stood there, the letter half extended, his
eyes almost starting from his face. Slowly she moved forward,
confronting him, insolent eyes meeting his; and, ere he could guess
what she purposed, she had snatched the blotted fragment from him and
crushed it in her hand, always eying him until he crimsoned in the
focus of her white contempt.
"Go!" she said. Her low voice was passionless.
He turned his burning eyes from her to Lady Coleville, to Sir Peter,
then bent his gaze on me. What he divined in my face I know not, but
the flame leaped in his eyes, and that ghastly smile stretched the
muscles of his visage.
"My zeal, it seems, has placed me at a sorry disadvantage," he said.
"Error piled on error growing from a most unhappy misconstruction of my
purposes has changed faith to suspicion, amity to coldness. I know not
what to say to clear myself--" He turned his melancholy face to Elsin;
all anger had faded from it, and only deepest sadness shadowed the pale
brow. "I ventured to believe, in days gone by, that my devotion was not
utterly displeasing--that perhaps the excesses of a stormy and
impetuous youth might be condoned in the humble devotion of an honest
passion----"
The silence was intense. He turned dramatically to Sir Peter, his
well-shaped hand opening in graceful salute as he bowed.
"I ask you, sir, to lend a gentle judgment till I clear myself. And of
your lady, I humbly beg that mercy also." Again he bowed profoundly,
hand on hilt, a perfect figure of faultless courtesy, graceful,
composed, proudly enduring, proudly subduing pride.
Then he slowly raised his dark head and looked at me. "Mr. Renault," he
said, "it is my misfortune that our paths have crossed three times. I
trust they cross no more, but may run hereafter in pleasant parallel. I
was hasty, I was wrong to judge you by what you said concerning the
Oneidas. I am impatient, over-sensitive, quick to fire at what I deem
an insult to my King. I serve him as my hot blood dictates--and,
burning with resentment that you should dare imperil my design, I
searched your chamber to destroy the letter you had threatened warning
the Oneidas of their coming punishment. How can you blame me if I took
this lady's playful jest for something else?"
"I do not blame you, Captain Butler," I said disdainfully.
"Then may we not resume an intercourse as entertaining as it was full
of profit to myself?"
"Time heals--but Time must not be spurred too hard," I answered,
watching him.
His stealthy eyes dropped as he inclined his head in acquiescence.
Then Sir Peter spoke, frankly, impetuously, his good heart dictating
ever to his reason; and what he said was amiable and kind, standing
there, his sweet lady's arm resting on his own. And she, too, spoke
graciously but gravely, with a gentle admonition trailing at the end.
But when he turned to Elsin Grey, she softened nothing, and her gesture
committed him to silence while she spoke: "End now what you have said
so well, nor add one word to that delicate pyramid of eloquence which
you have raised so high to your own honor, Captain Butler. I am
slow-witted and must ask advice from that physician, Time, whom Mr.
Renault, too, has called in council."
"Am I, then, banished?" he asked below his breath.
"Ask yourself, Mr. Butler. And if you find no reply, then I shall
answer you."
All eyes were on her. What magic metamorphosis had made this woman from
a child in a single night! Where had vanished that vague roundness of
cheek and chin in this drawn beauty of maturity? that untroubled eye,
that indecision of caprice, that charming restlessness, that childish
confidence in others, accepting as a creed what grave lips uttered as a
guidance to the lesser years that rested lightly on her?
And Walter Butler, too, had noted some of this, perplexed at the
reserve, the calm self-confidence, the unimagined strength and cold
composure which he had once swayed by his passion, as a fair and
clean-stemmed sapling tosses in tempests that uproot maturer growth.
His furtive, unconvinced eyes sought the floor as he took his leave
with every ceremony due himself and us. Dawn already whitened the east.
He mounted by the tavern window, and I saw him against the pallid sky
in silhouette, riding slowly toward the city, Jessop beside him, and
their horses' manes whipping the rising sea-wind from the west.
"What a nightmare this has been!" whispered Lady Coleville, her
husband's hands imprisoned in her own. And to Elsin: "Child! what
scenes have we dragged you through! Heaven forgive us!--for you have
learned a sorry wisdom here concerning men!"
"I have learned," she said steadily, "more than you think, madam. Will
you forgive me if I ask a word alone with Mr. Renault?"
"Not here, child. Look! Day comes creeping on us yonder in the hills.
Come home before you have your talk with Carus. You may ride with him
if you desire, but follow us."
Sir Peter turned to gather up his pistols; but Elsin laid her hand on
them, saying that I would care for everything.
"Sure, she means to have her way with us as well as with Walter
Butler," he said humorously. "Come, sweetheart, leave them to this new
wisdom Elsin found along the road somewhere between the Coq d'Or and
Wall Street. They may be wiser than they seem; they could not well be
less wise than they are."
The set smile on Elsin's lips changed nothing as Sir Peter led his
lady, all reluctant, from the coffee-room, where the sunken candles
flickered in the pallid light of morning.
From the front windows we saw the coach drive up, and Lady Coleville,
looking back in protest, enter; and after her Sir Peter, and Dr.
Carmody with his cases.
"Come to the door and make as though we meant to mount and follow," she
said quietly. "Here, take these pistols. Raise the pan and lower the
hammers. They are loaded. Thrust them somewhere--beneath your coat. Now
follow me."
I obeyed in silence. As we came out of the tavern-door Lady Coleville
nodded, and her coach moved off, passing our horses, which the hostlers
were bringing round.
I put Elsin up, then swung astride my roan, following her out into the
road--a rod or two only ere she wheeled into the honeysuckle lane,
reining in so that I came abreast of her.
"Now ride!" she said in an unsteady voice. "I know the man you have to
deal with. There is no mercy in him, I tell you, and no safety now for
you until you make the rebel lines."
"I know it," I said; "but what of you?"
"What of me?" She laughed a bitter laugh, striking her horse so that he
bounded forward down the sandy lane, I abreast of her, stride for
stride. "What of me? Why, I lied to him, that is all, Mr. Renault. _And
he knew it!_"
"Is that all?" I asked.
"No, not all. _He_ told the truth to you and to Sir Peter. And _I_ knew
it."
"In what did he tell the truth?"
"In what he said about--his mistress." Her face crimsoned, but she held
her head steady and high, nor faltered at the word.
"How is it that you know?"
"How does a woman know? Tell me and I'll confess it. I know because a
woman knows such things. Let it rest there--a matter scarcely fitted
for discussion between a maid and a man--though I am being soundly
schooled, God wot, in every branch of infamy."
"Then turn here," I said, reining in, "and ride no more with what men
call a spy."
But she galloped on, head set, flushed and expressionless, and I
spurred to overtake her.
"Turn back!" I said hoarsely. "It may go hard with you if I am taken at
the lines!"
"Those passes that Sir Henry gave you--you have them?"
"Yes."
"For Sir Peter and his lady?"
"So they are made out."
"Do they know you at Kingsbridge?"
"Yes. The Fifty-fourth guard it."
"Then how can you hope to pass?"
"I shall pass one way or another," I said between my teeth.
She drew from her breast a crumpled paper, unfolded it, and passed it
to me, galloping beside me all the while. I scanned it carefully; it
was a pass signed by Sir Henry Clinton, permitting her and me to pass
the lines, and dated that very night.
"How in Heaven's name did you secure this paper in the last nick of
time?" I cried, astounded.
"I knew you needed it--from what you said there in my chamber. Do you
remember that Sir Henry left the Fort for a council? It is not far to
Queen Street; and when I left you I mounted and galloped thither."
"But--but what excuse----"
"Ask me not, Carus," she said impatiently, while a new color flowed
through cheek and temple. "Sir Henry first denied me, then he began to
laugh; and I--I galloped here with the ink all wet upon the pass.
Whither leads this lane?"
"To the Kingsbridge road."
"Would they stop and search us if dissatisfied?"
"I think not."
"Well, I shall take no risk," she said, snatching the blotted paper
from her bosom--the paper she had taken from Walter Butler, and which
was written in my hand. "Hide it under a stone in the hedgerow, and
place the passes that you had for Sir Peter with it," she said, drawing
bridle and looking back.
I dismounted, turned up a great stone, thrust the papers under, then
dropped it to its immemorial bed once more.
"Quick!" she whispered. "I heard a horse's iron-shod foot striking a
pebble."
"Behind us?"
"Yes. Now gallop!"
Our horses plunged on again, fretting at the curb. She rode a mare as
black as a crow save for three silvery fetlocks, and my roan's stride
distressed her nothing. Into the Kingsbridge road we plunged in the
white river-mist that walled the hedges from our view, and there, as we
galloped through the sand, far behind us I thought to hear a sound like
metal clipping stone.
"You shall come no farther," I said. "You can not be found in company
with me. Turn south, and strike the Greenwich road."
"Too late," she said calmly. "You forget I compromised myself with that
same pass you carry."
"Why in God's name did you include yourself in it?" I asked.
"Because the pass was denied me until I asked it for us both."
"You mean----"
"I mean that I lied again to Sir Henry Clinton, Mr. Renault. Spare me
now."
Amazed, comprehending nothing, I fell silent for a space, then turned
to scan her face, but read nothing in its immobility.
"Why did you do all this for me, a spy?" I asked.
"For that reason," she answered sharply--"lest the disgrace bespatter
my kinsman, Sir Peter, and his sweet lady."
"But--what will be said when you return alone and I am gone?"
"Nothing, for I do not return."
"You--you----"
"I ask you to spare me. Once the lines are passed there is no danger
that disgrace shall fall on any one--not even on you and me."
"But how--what will folk say----"
"They'll say we fled together to be wedded!" she cried, exasperated.
"If you will force me, learn then that I made excuse and got my pass
for that! I told Sir Henry that I loved you and that I was plighted to
Walter Butler. And Sir Henry, hating Mr. Butler, laughed until he could
not see for the tears, and scratched me off my pass for Gretna Green,
with his choicest blessing on the lie I offered in return! There, sir,
is what I have done. I said I loved you, and I lied. I shall go with
you, then ask a flag of the rebels to pass me on to Canada. And so you
see, Mr. Renault, that no disgrace can fall on me or mine through any
infamy, however black, that others must account for!"
And she drew her sun-mask from her belt and put it on.
Her wit, her most amazing resource, her anger, so amazed me that I rode
on, dazed, swaying in the stride of the tireless gallop. Then in a
flash, alert once more, I saw ahead the mist rising from the Harlem,
the mill on the left, with its empty windows and the two poplar-trees
beside it, the stone piers and wooden railing of the bridge, the
sentinels on guard, already faced our way, watching our swift approach.
As we drew bridle in a whirlwind of sand the guard came tumbling out at
the post's loud bawling, and the officer of the guard followed,
sauntering up to our hard-breathing horses and peering up into our
faces.
"Enderly!" I exclaimed.
"Well, what the devil, Carus--" he began, then bit his words in two and
bowed to the masked lady, perplexed eyes traveling from her to me and
back again. When I held out the pass for his inspection, he took it,
scrutinizing it gravely, nodded, and strolled back to the mill.
"Hurry, Enderly!" I called after him.
He struck a smarter gait, but to me it seemed a year ere he reappeared
with a pass viséed, and handed it to me.
"Have a care," he said; "the country beyond swarms with cowboys and
skinners, and the rebel horse ride everywhere unchecked. They've an
outpost at Valentine's, and riflemen along the Bronx----"
At that instant a far sound came to my ears, distant still on the road
behind us. It was the galloping of horses. Elsin Grey leaped from her
saddle, lifting her mask and smiling sweetly down at Captain Enderly.
"It's a sharp run to Gretna Green," she said. "If you can detain the
gentleman who follows us we will not forget the service, Captain
Enderly!"
"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, his perplexed face clearing into grinning
comprehension. And to the sentries: "Fall back there, lads! Free way
for'ard!" he cried. "Now, Carus! Madam, your most obedient!"
The steady thud of galloping horses sounded nearer behind us. I turned,
expecting to see the horsemen, but they were still screened by the
hill.
"Luck to you!" muttered Enderly, as we swung into a canter, our horses'
hoofs drumming thunder on the quivering planks that jumped beneath us
as we spurred to a gallop. Ah! They were shouting now, behind us! They,
too, had heard the echoing tattoo we beat across the bridge.
"Pray God that young man holds them!" she whispered, pale face turned.
"There they are! They spy us now! They are riding at the bridge! Mercy
on us! the soldiers have a horse by the bit, forcing him back. They
have stopped Mr. Butler. _Now_, Carus!"
Into the sand once more we plunged, riding at a sheer run through the
semidarkness of the forest that closed in everywhere; on, on, the wind
whistling in our teeth, her hair blowing, and her gilt-laced hat flying
from the silken cord that held it to her shoulder. How grandly her
black mare bore her--the slight, pale-faced figure sitting the saddle
with such perfect grace and poise!
The road swung to the east, ascending in long spirals. Then through the
trees I caught the glimmer of water--the Bronx River--and beyond I saw
a stubble-field all rosy in the first rays of the rising sun.
The ascent was steeper now. Our horses slackened to a canter, to a
trot, then to a walk as the road rose upward, set with boulders and
loose stones.
I had just turned to caution my companion, and was pointing ahead to a
deep washout which left but a narrow path between two jutting boulders,
when, without the slightest sound, from the shadow of these same rocks
sprang two men, long brown rifles leveled. And in silence we drew
bridle at the voiceless order from the muzzles of those twin barrels
bearing upon us without a tremor.
[Illustration: From the shadow ... sprang two men, long brown rifles
leveled.]
An instant of suspense; the rifle of the shorter fellow swept from
Elsin Grey to me; and I, menaced by both weapons, sat on my heavily
breathing horse, whose wise head and questioning ears reconnoitered
these strange people who checked us at the rocky summit of the hill.
For they were strange, silent folk, clothed in doeskin from neck to
ankle, and alike as two peas in their caped hunting-shirts, belted in
with scarlet wampum, and the fringe falling in soft cascades from
shoulder to cuff, from hip to ankle, following the laced seams.
My roan had become nervous, shaking his head and backing, and Elsin's
restive mare began sidling across their line of fire.
"Rein in, madam!" came a warning voice--"and you, sir! Stand fast
there! Now, young man, from which party do you come?"
"From the lower," I answered cheerfully, "and happy to be clear of
them."
"And with which party do you foregather, my gay cock o' the woods?"
"With the upper party, friend."
"Friend!" sneered the taller fellow, lowering his rifle and casting it
into the hollow of his left arm. "It strikes me that you are somewhat
sudden with your affections--" He came sauntering forward, a giant in
his soft, clinging buckskins, talking all the while in an irritable
voice: "Friend? Maybe, and maybe not," he grumbled; "all eggs don't
hatch into dickey-birds, nor do all rattlers beat the long roll." He
laid a sudden hand on my bridle, looking up at me with swaggering
impudence, which instantly changed into amazed recognition.
"Gad-a-mercy!" he cried, delighted; "is it you, Mr. Renault?"
"It surely is," I said, drawing a long breath of relief to find in
these same forest-runners my two drovers, Mount and the little Weasel.
"How far is it to the lines, friend Mount?"
"Not far, not very far, Mr. Renault," he said. "There should be a post
of Jersey militia this side o' Valentine's, and we're like to see a
brace of Sheldon's dragoons at any moment. Lord, sir, but I'm contented
to see you, for I was loath to leave you in York, and Walter Butler
there untethered, ranging the streets, free as a panther on a sunset
cliff!"
The Weasel, rifle at a peaceful trail, came trotting up beside his
giant comrade, standing on tiptoe to link arms with him, his solemn
owl-like eyes roaming from Elsin Grey to me.
I named them to Elsin. She regarded them listlessly from her saddle,
and they removed their round skull-caps of silver moleskin and bowed to
her.
"I never thought to be so willing to meet rebel riflemen," she said,
patting her horse's mane and glancing at me.
"Lord, Cade!" whispered Mount to his companion, "he's stolen a Tory
maid from under their very noses! Make thy finest bow, man, for the
credit o' Morgan's Men!"
And again the strange pair bowed low, caps in hand, the Weasel with
quiet, quaint dignity, Mount with his elaborate rustic swagger, and a
flourish peculiar to the forest-runner, gay, reckless, yet withal
respectful.
A faint smile touched her eyes as she inclined her proud little head.
Mount looked up at me. I nodded; and the two riflemen wheeled in their
tracks and trotted forward, Mount leading, and his solemn little
comrade following at heel, close as a hound. When they had disappeared
over the hill's rocky summit our horses moved forward at a walk,
breasting the crest, then slowly descended the northern slope, picking
their way among the loosened slate and pebbles.
And now for the first time came to me a delicious thrill of exaltation
in my new-found liberty. Free at last of that prison city. Free at last
to look all men between the eyes. Free to bear arms, and use them, too,
under a flag I had not seen in four long years save as they brought in
our captured colors--a ragged, blood-blackened rag or two to match
those silken standards lost at Bennington and Saratoga.
I looked up into the cloudless sky, I looked around me. I saw the tall
trees tinted by the sun, I felt a free wind blowing from that wild
north I loved so well.
I drew my lungs full. I opened wide my arms, easing each cramped
muscle. I stretched my legs to the stirrup's length in sweetest
content.
Down through a fragrant birch-grown road, smelling of fern and
wintergreen and sassafras, we moved, the cool tinkle of moss-choked
watercourses ever in our ears, mingling with melodies of woodland
birds--shy, freedom-loving birds that came not with the robins to the
city. Ah, I knew these birds, being country-bred--knew them one and
all--the gray hermit, holy chorister of hymn divine, the white-throat,
sweetly repeating his allegiance to his motherland of Canada, the great
scarlet-tufted cock that drums on the bark in stillest depths, the
lonely little creeping-birds that whimper up and down the trunks of
forest trees, and the black-capped chickadee that fears not man, but
cities--all these I listened to, and knew and loved as guerdons of that
freedom which I had so long craved, and craved in vain.
And now I had it; it was mine! I tasted it, I embraced it with wide
arms, I breathed it. And far away I heard the woodland hermits singing
of freedom, and of the sweetness of it, and of the mercies of the Most
High.
Thrilled with happiness, I glanced at Elsin Grey where she rode a pace
or so ahead of me, her fair head bent, her face composed but colorless
as the lace drooping from her stock. The fatigue of a sleepless night
was telling on her, though as yet the reaction of the strain had not
affected me one whit.
She raised her head as I forced my horse forward to her side. "What is
it, Mr. Renault?" she asked coldly.
"I'm sorry you are fatigued, Elsin----"
"I am not fatigued."
"What! after all you have done for me----"
"I have done nothing for _you_, Mr. Renault."
"Nothing?--when I owe you everything that----"
"You owe me nothing that I care to accept."
"My thanks----"
"I tell you you owe me nothing. Let it rest so!"
Her unfriendly eyes warned me to silence, but I said bluntly:
"That Mr. Cunningham is not this moment fiddling with my neck, I owe to
you. I offer my thanks, and I remain at your service. That is all."
"Do you think," she answered quietly, "that a rebel hanged could
interest me unless that hanging smirched my kin?"
"Elsin! Elsin!" I said, "is there not bitterness enough in the world
but you and I must turn our friendship into hate?"
"What do you care whether it turn to hate or--love?" She laughed, but
there was no mirth in her eyes. "You are free; you have done your duty;
your brother rebels will reward you. What further have I to do with
you, Mr. Renault? You have used me, you have used my kin, my friends.
Not that I blame you--nay, Mr. Renault, I admire, I applaud, I
understand more than you think. I even count him brave who can go out
as you have done, scornful of life, pitiless of friendships formed,
reckless of pleasure, of what men call their code of honor; indifferent
to the shameful death that hovers like a shadow, and the scorn of all,
even of friends--for a spy has no friends, if discovered. All this,
sir, I comprehend, spite of my few years which once--when we were
friends--you in your older wisdom found amusing." She turned sharply
away, brushing her eyelashes with gloved fingers.
Presently she looked straight ahead again, a set smile on her tight
lips.
"The puppets in New York danced to the tune you whistled," she said,
"and because you danced, too, they never understood that you were
master of the show. Oh, we all enjoyed the dance, sir--I, too, serving
your designs as all served. Now you have done with us, and it remains
for us to make our exits as gracefully as may be."
She made a little salute with her riding-whip--gracious, quite free of
mockery.
"The fortune of war, Mr. Renault," she said. "Salute to the conqueror!"
"Only a gallant enemy admits as much," I answered, flushing.
"Mr. Renault, am I your enemy?"
"Elsin, I fear you are."
"Why? Because you waked me from my dream?"
"What dream? That nightmare tenanted by Walter Butler that haunted you?
Is it not fortunate that you awoke in time, even if you had loved him?
But you never did!"
"No, I never loved him. But that was not the dream you waked me from."
"More than that, child, you do not know what love means. How should you
know? Why, even I do not know, and I am twenty-three."
"Once," she said, smiling, "I told you that there is no happiness in
love. It is the truth, Mr. Renault; there is no joy in it. That much I
know of love. Now, sir, as you admit you know nothing of it, you can
not contradict me, can you?"
She smiled gaily, leaning forward in her saddle, stroking her horse's
mane.
"No, I am not your enemy," she continued. "There is enough of war in
the world, is there not, Mr. Renault? And I shall soon be on my way to
Canada. Were I your enemy, how impotent am I to compass your
destruction--impotent as a love-sick maid who chooses as her gallant a
gentleman most agreeable, gently bred, faultless in conduct and
address, upon whose highly polished presence she gazes, seeking depth,
and finds but her own silly face mirrored on the surface."
She turned from me and raised her head, gazing up through interlacing
branches into the blue above.
"Ah, we must be friends, Carus," she said wearily; "we have cost each
other too dear."
"I have cost you dear enough," I muttered.
"Not too dear for all you have taught me."
"What have I taught you?"
"To know a dream from the reality," she said listlessly.
"Better you should learn from me than from Walter Butler," I said
bluntly.
"From him! Why, he taught me nothing. I fell in love again--really in
love--for an hour or two--spite of the lesson he could not teach me. I
tell you he taught me nothing--not even to distrust the vows of men. If
it was a wrong he dared to meditate, it touches not me, Carus--touches
me no more than his dishonoring hand, which he never dared to lay upon
me."
"What do you mean?" I asked, troubled. "Have you taken a brief fancy to
another? Do you imagine that you are in love again? What is it that you
mean, Elsin?"
"Mean? God knows. I am tired to the soul, Carus. I have no pride
left--not a shred--nothing of resentment. I fancy I love--yes--and the
mad fancy drags me on, trailing pride, shame, and becoming modesty
after me in the dust." She laughed, flinging her arm out in an
impatient gesture: "What is this war to me, Carus, save as it concerns
him? In Canada we wag our heads and talk of rebels; here we speak of
red-coats and patriots; and it's all one to me, Carus, so that no
dishonor touches the man I love or my own Canada. Your country here is
nothing to me except for the sake of this one man."
She turned toward me from her saddle.
"You may be right, you rebels," she said. "If aught threatened Canada,
no loyalty to a King whom I have never seen could stir me to forsake my
own people. That is why I am so bitter, I think; not because Sir
Frederick Haldimand is kin to me, but because your people dared to
storm Quebec."
"Those who marched thither march no more," I said gravely.
"Then let it be peace betwixt us. My enmity stops at the grave--and
they march no more, as you say."
"Do you give me your friendship again, Elsin?"
She raised her eyes and looked at me steadily.
"It was yours before you asked me, Carus. It has always been yours. It
has never faltered for one moment even when I said the things that a
hurt pride forced from me." She shook her head slowly, reining in. I,
too, drew bridle.
"The happiest moment of my life was when I knew that I had been the
instrument to unlock for you the door of safety," she said, and
stripped the glove from her white fingers. "Kiss my hand and thank me,
Carus. It is all I ask of friendship."
Her hand lay at my lips, pressed gently for an instant, then fell to
her side.
"Dear, dear Elsin!" I cried, catching her hand in both of mine again,
crushing it to my lips.
"Don't, Carus," she said tremulously. "If you--if you do that--you
might--you might conceive a--a regard for me."
"Lord, child!" I exclaimed, "you but this moment confessed your fancy
for a man of whose very name and quality I stand in ignorance!"
She drew her hand away, laughing, a tenderness in her eyes I never had
surprised there before.
"Silly," she said, "you know how inconstant I can be; you must never
again caress me as you did--that first evening--do you remember? If we
do that--if I suffer you to kiss me, maybe we both might find ourselves
at love's mercy."
"You mean we might really be in love?" I asked curiously.
"I do not know. Do you think so?"
I laughed gaily, bending to search her eyes.
"What is love, Elsin? Truly, I do not know, having never loved, as you
mean. Sir Peter wishes it; and here we are, with all the credit of
Gretna Green but none of the happiness. Elsin, listen to me. Let us
strive to fall in love; shall we? And the devil take your new gallant!"
"If you desire it----"
"Why not? It would please all, would it not?"
"But, Carus, we must first please one another----"
"Let us try, Elsin. I have dreamed of a woman--not like you, but
statelier, more mature, and of more experience, but I never saw such a
woman; and truly I never before saw so promising a maid as you. Surely
we might teach one another to love--if you are not too young----"
"I do not think I am," she said faintly.
"Then let us try. Who knows but you may grow into that ideal I cherish?
I shall attend you constantly, pay court to you, take counsel with you,
defer to you in all things----"
"But I shall be gone northward with the flag, Carus."
"A flag may not start for a week."
"But when it does?"
"By that time," said I, "we will be convinced in one fashion or
another."
"Maybe one of us will take fire slowly."
"Let us try it, anyhow," I insisted.
She bent her head, riding in silence for a while.
"Sweetheart," I said, "are you hungry?"
"Oh!" she cried, crimson-cheeked, "have you begun already? And am I--am
I to say that, too?"
"Not unless you--you want to."
"I dare not, Carus."
"It is not hard," I said; "it slipped from my lips, following my
thoughts. Truly, Elsin, I love you dearly--see how easily I say it! I
love you in one kind of way already. One of these days, before we know
what we're doing, we'll be married, and Sir Peter will be the happiest
man in New York."
"Sir Peter! Sir Peter!" she repeated impatiently; a frown gathered on
her brow. She swung toward me, leaning from her saddle, face
outstretched.
"Carus," she said, "kiss me! Now do it again, on the lips. Now again!
There! Now that you do it of your own accord you are advanced so far.
Oh, this is dreadful, dreadful! We have but a week, and we are that
backward in love that I must command you to kiss me! Where shall we be
this day week--how far advanced, if you think only of courting me to
please Sir Peter?"
"Elsin," I said, after a moment's deliberation, "I'm ready to kiss you
again."
"For Sir Peter's sake?"
"Partly."
"No, sir!" she said, turning her head; "that advances us nothing."
After a silence I said again:
"Elsin!"
"Yes, Carus."
"I'm ready."
"For Sir Peter's sake?"
"No, for my own."
"Ah," she said gaily, turning a bright face to me, "we are advancing!
Now, it is best that I refuse you--unless you force me and take what
you desire. I accord no more--nothing more from this moment--until I
give myself! and I give not that, either, until you take it!" she
added, and cast her horse forward at a gallop, I after her, leaning
wide from my saddle, until our horses closed in, bounding on in perfect
stride together. Now was my chance.
"Carus! I beg of you--" Her voice was stifled, for I had put my arm
around her neck and pressed her half-opened lips to mine. "You advance
too quickly!" she said, flushed and furious. "Do you think to win a
maid by mauling whether she will or no? I took no pleasure in that
kiss, and it is a shame when both are not made happy. Besides, you hurt
me with your roughness. I pray you keep your distance!"
I did so, perplexed, and a trifle sulky, and for a while we jogged on
in silence.
Suddenly she reined in, turning her face over her shoulder.
"Look, Carus," she whispered, "there are horsemen coming!"
A moment later a Continental dragoon trotted into sight around the
curve of the road, then another and another.
We were within the lines at last.
CHAPTER VII
THE BLUE FOX
Elsin had slept all the bright morning through in her little room at
the Blue Fox Tavern, whither Colonel Sheldon's horsemen had conducted
us. My room adjoined hers, the window looking out upon the Bronx where
it flowed, shallow and sunny, down from the wooded slopes of North
Castle and Chatterton's Hill. But I heeded neither the sparkling water
nor the trees swaying in the summer wind, nor the busy little hamlet
across the mill-dam, nor Abe Case, the landlord, with his good
intentions, pressed too cordially, though he meant nothing except
kindness.
"Listen to me," I said, boots in hand, and laying down the law; "we
require neither food nor drink nor service nor the bridal-chambers
which you insist upon. The lady will sleep where she is, I here; and if
you dare awaken me before noonday I shall certainly discharge these
boots in your direction!"
Whereupon he seemed to understand and bowed himself out; and I, lying
there on the great curtained bed, watched the sunlight stealing through
the flowered canopy until the red roses fell to swaying in an unfelt
wind, and I, dreaming, wandered in a garden with that lady I sometimes
saw in visions. And, Lord! how happy we were there together, only at
moments I felt abashed and sorry, for I thought I saw Elsin lying on
the grass, so still, so limp, that I knew she must be dead, and I heard
men whispering that she had died o' love, and that I and my lady were
to dig the grave at moonrise.
A fitful slumber followed, threaded by dreams that vaguely troubled
me--visions of horsemen riding, and of painted faces and dark heads
shaved for war. Again into my dream a voice broke, repeating,
"Thendara! Thendara!" until it grew to a dull and deadened sound, like
the hollow thud of Wyandotte witch-drums.
I slept, yet every loosened nerve responded to the relaxing tension of
excitement. Twice I dreamed that some one roused me, and that I was
dressing in mad haste, only to sink once more into a sleep which
glimmered ever with visions passing, passing in processional, until at
noon I awoke of my own accord, and was bathed and partly dressed ere
the landlord came politely scratching at my door to know my pleasure.
"A staff-officer from his Excellency, Mr. Renault," he said, as I bade
him enter, tying my stock the while.
"Very well," I said; "show him up. And, landlord, when the lady awakes,
you may serve us privately."
He bowed himself out, and presently I heard spurs and a sword jingling
on the stairs, and turned to receive his Excellency's staff-officer--a
very elegant and polite young man in a blue uniform, faced with buff,
and white-topped boots.
"Mr. Renault?" he asked, raising his voice and eyebrows a trifle; and I
think I never saw such a careless, laughing, well-bred countenance in
which were set two eyes as shrewdly wise as the eyes of this young man.
"I am Mr. Renault," I said amiably, smiling at the mirth which twitched
the gravity he struggled to assume.
"Colonel Hamilton of his Excellency's family," he said, making as
elegant a bow as I ever had the honor to attempt to match.
We were very ceremonious, bowing repeatedly as we seated ourselves, he
lifting his sword and laying it across his knees. And I admired his
hat, which was new and smartly laced, and cocked in the most
fashionable manner--which small details carry some weight with me, I
distrusting men whose dress is slovenly from indifference and not from
penury. His Excellency was ever faultless in attire; and I remember
that he wrote in general orders on New Year's day in '76: "If a soldier
can not be induced to take pride in his person, he will soon become a
sloven and indifferent to everything."
"Mr. Renault," began Colonel Hamilton, "his Excellency has your
letters. He regrets that a certain sphere of usefulness is now closed
to you through your own rashness."
I reddened, bowing.
"It appears, however," continued Colonel Hamilton placidly, "that your
estimate of yourself is too humble. His Excellency thanks you, applauds
your modesty and faithfulness in the most trying service a gentleman
can render to his country, and desires me to express the same----"
He rose and bowed. I was on my feet, confused, amazed, tingling with
pleasure.
"His Excellency said--_that!_" I repeated incredulously.
"Indeed he did, Mr. Renault, and he regrets that--ahem--under the
circumstances--it is not advisable to publicly acknowledge your four
years' service--not even privately, Mr. Renault--you understand that
such services as yours must be, in a great measure, their own reward.
Yet I know that his Excellency hesitated a long while to send me with
this verbal message, so keenly did he desire to receive you, so
grateful is he for the service rendered."
I was quite giddy with delight now. Never, never had I imagined that
the Commander-in-Chief could single me out for such generous
praise--me, a man who had lent himself to a work abhorrent--a work
taken up only because there was none better fitted to accomplish a
thing that all shrank from.
Seated once more, I looked up to see Colonel Hamilton regarding me with
decorous amusement.
"It may interest you, Mr. Renault, to know what certain British agents
reported to Sir Henry Clinton concerning you."
"What did they say?" I asked curiously.
"They said, 'Mr. Renault is a rich young man who thinks more of his
clothes than he does of politics, and is safer than a guinea
wig-stand!'"
His face was perfectly grave, but the astonished chagrin on my
countenance set his keen eyes glimmering, and in a moment more we both
went off into fits of laughter.
"Lord, sir!" he exclaimed, dusting his eyes with a lace handkerchief,
"what a man we lost when you lost your head! Why on earth did you
affront Walter Butler?"
I leaned forward, emphasizing every point with a noiseless slap on my
knee, and recounted minutely and as frankly as I could every step which
led to the first rupture between Walter Butler and myself. He followed
my story, intelligent eyes fixed on me, never losing an accent, a shade
of expression, as I narrated our quarrel concerning the matter of the
Oneidas, and how I had forgotten myself and had turned on him as an
Iroquois on a Delaware, a master on an insolent slave.
"From that instant he must have suspected me," I said, leaning back in
my chair. "And now, Colonel Hamilton, my story is ended, and my
usefulness, too, I fear, unless his Excellency will find for me some
place--perhaps a humble commission--say in the dragoons of Major
Talmadge----"
"You travel too modestly," said Hamilton, laughing. "Why, Mr. Renault,
any bullet-headed, reckless fellow who has done as much as you have
done may ask for a commission and have it, too. Look at me! I never did
anything, yet they found me good enough for a gun captain, and they
gave me a pair o' cannon, too. But, sir, there are other places with
few to fill them--far too few, I assure you. Why, what a shame to set
you with a noisy, galloping herd of helmets, chasing skinners and
cowboys with a brace of gad-a-mercy pistols in your belt!--what a
shame, I say, when in you there lie talents we seek in vain for among
the thousand and one numskulls who can drill a battalion or maneuver a
brigade!"
"What talents?" I asked, astonished.
"Lord! he doesn't even suspect them!" cried Hamilton gaily. "I wish you
might meet a few of our talented brigadiers and colonels; _they_ have no
doubts concerning their several abilities!" Then, suddenly serious:
"Listen, sir. You know the north; you were bred and born to a knowledge
of the Iroquois, their language, character, habits, their intimate
social conditions, nay, you are even acquainted with what no other
living white man comprehends--their secret rites, their clan and family
laws and ties, their racial instincts, their most sacred rituals! You
are a sachem! Sir William Johnson was one, but he is dead. Who else
living, besides yourself, can speak to the Iroquois with clan
authority?"
"I do not know," I said, troubled. "Walter Butler may know something of
the Book of Rites, because he was raised up in place of some dead
Delaware dog!--" I clinched my hand, and stood silent in angry
meditation. Lifting my eyes I saw Hamilton watching me, amazed,
interested, delighted.
"I ask your indulgence," I said, embarrassed, "but when I think of the
insolence of that fellow--and that he dared call me brother and claim
clan kindred with a Wolf--the yellow Delaware mongrel!--" I laughed,
glancing shamefacedly at Colonel Hamilton.
"In another moment," I said, "you will doubt there is white blood in
me. It is strange how faithfully I cling to that dusky foster-mother,
the nation that adopted me. I was but a lad, Colonel Hamilton, and what
the Oneidas saw in me, or believed they saw, I never have accurately
learned--I do not really know to this day!--but when a war-chief died
they came to my father, asking that he permit them to adopt me and
raise me up. The ceremony took place. I, of course, never lived with
them--never even left my own roof--but I was adopted into the Wolf
Clan, the noble clan of the Iroquois. And--I have never forgotten
it--nor them. What touches an Oneida touches me!"
He nodded gravely, watching me with bright eyes.
"To-day the Long House is not the Five Nations," I continued. "The
Tuscaroras are the Sixth Nation; the Delawares now have come in, and
have been accepted as the Seventh Nation. But, as you know, the Long
House is split. The Onondagas are sullenly neutral--or say they
are--the Mohawks, Cayugas, Senecas, are openly leagued against us; the
Oneidas alone are with us--what is left of them after the terrible
punishment they received from the Mohawks and Senecas."
"And now you say that the Iroquois have determined to punish the
Oneidas again?"
"Yes, sir, to annihilate them for espousing our cause. And," I added
contemptuously, "Walter Butler dared believe that I would sit idle and
never lift a warning finger. True, I am first of all a Wolf--but next
am I an Oneida. And, as I may not sit in national council with my clan
to raise my voice against this punishment, and, as the Long House is
rent asunder forever, why, sir, I am an Oneida first of all--after my
allegiance to my own country--and I shall so conduct that Walter Butler
and the Delaware dogs of a cleft and yellow clan will remember that
when an Oneida speaks, they remain silent, they obey!"
I began to pace the chamber, arms folded, busy with my thoughts.
Hamilton sat buried in meditation for a space. Finally he arose,
extending his hand with that winning frankness so endearing to all. I
asked him to dine with us, but he excused himself, pleading affairs of
moment.
"Listen, Mr. Renault. I understand that his Excellency has certain
designs upon your amiability, and he most earnestly desires you to
remain here at the Blue Fox until such time as he summons you or sends
you orders. You are an officer of Tryon County militia, are you not?"
"Only ensign in the Rangers, but I never have even seen their colors,
much less carried them."
"You know Colonel Willett?"
"I have that very great honor," I said warmly.
"It _is_ an honor to know such a man. Excepting Schuyler, I think he is
the bravest, noblest gentleman in County Tryon." He walked toward the
door, head bowed in reflection, turned, offered his hand again with a
charming freedom, and bowed himself out.
Pride and deepest gratitude possessed my heart that his Excellency
should have found me worthy of his august commendation. In my young
head rang the words of Colonel Hamilton. I stood in the center of the
sunny room, repeating to myself the wonderful message, over and over,
until it seemed my happiness was too great to bear alone; and I leaned
close to the dividing door, calling "Elsin! Elsin! Are you awake?"
A sleepy voice bade me enter, and I opened the door and stood at the
sill, while the brightly flowered curtains of her bed rustled and
twitched. Presently she thrust a sleepy head forth, framed in chintz
roses--the flushed face of a child, drowsy eyes winking at the
sunbeams, powdered hair twisted up in a heavy knot.
"Goodness me," she murmured, "I am so hungry--so sleepy--" She yawned
shamelessly, blinked with her blue eyes, looked at me, and smiled.
"What o'clock is it, Carus?" she began; then a sudden consternation
sobered her, and she cried, "Oh, I forgot where we are! Mercy! To think
that I should wake to find myself a runaway! Carus, Carus, what in the
world is to become of me now? Where are we, Carus?"
"At the Blue Fox, near North Castle," I said gaily. "Why, Elsin--why,
child, what on earth is the matter?"--for the tears had rushed to her
eyes, and her woful little face quivered. A single tear fell, then the
wet lashes closed.
"O Carus! Carus!" she said, "what will become of me? You did it--you
made me do it! I've run away with you--why did you make me do it? Oh,
why, why?"
Dumb, miserable, I could only look at her, finding no word of
comfort--amazed, too, that the feverish spirit, the courage, the
amazing energy of the night before had exhaled, distilling now in the
tears which dazed me.
"I don't know why I came here with you," she whimpered, eyes closed on
her wet cheeks--"I must have been mad to do so. What will they
say?--what will Rosamund say? Why don't you speak to me, Carus? Why
don't you tell me what to do?"
And this from that high-strung, nerveless maid who had matured to
womanhood in the crisis of the night before--seizing command of a
menacing situation through sheer effrontery and wit, compelling fate
itself to swerve aside as she led our galloping horses through the
slowly closing gates of peril.
Her head drooped and lay on the edge of the bed pillowed by the
flowered curtains; she rubbed the tears from her eyes with white
fingers, drawing a deep, unsteady breath or two.
I had found my voice at last, assuring her that all was well, that she
should have a flag when she desired it, that here nobody knew who she
was, and that when she was dressed I was ready to discuss the situation
and do whatever was most advisable.
"If there's a scandal," she said dolefully, "I suppose I must ask a
flag at once."
"That would be best," I admitted.
"But there's no scandal yet," she protested.
"Not a breath!" I cried cheerfully. "You see, we have the situation in
our own hands. Where is that wit, where is that gay courage you wore
like magic armor through the real perils of yesterday?"
"Gone," she said, looking up at me. "I don't know where it is--I--I was
not myself yesterday. I was frightened--terror spurred me to things I
never dreamed of when I thought of you hanging there on the Common----"
"You blessed child!" I cried, dropping on one knee beside her.
She laid her hand on my head, looking at me for a long while in
silence.
"I can not help it," she said. "I really care nothing for what folk
say. All this that we have done--and my indiscretion--nay, that we have
run away and I am here with you--all this alarms me not at all.
Indeed," she added earnestly, "I do truly find you so agreeable that I
should have fretted had you gone away alone. Now I am honest with
myself and you, Carus--this matter has sobered me into gravest
reflection. I have the greatest curiosity concerning you--I had from
the very first--spite of all that childish silliness we committed. I
don't know what it is about you that I can not let you go until I learn
more of you. Perhaps I shall--we have a week here before a flag goes
north, have we not?" she asked naïvely.
"The flag goes at your pleasure, Elsin."
"Then it is my pleasure that we remain a while--and see--and see--" she
murmured, musing eyes fixed on the sunny window. "I would we could fall
in love, Carus!"
"We are pledged to try," I said gaily.
"Aye, we must try. Lord-a-mercy on me, for my small head is filled with
silliness, and my heart beats only for the vain pleasure of the moment.
A hundred times since I have known you, Carus, I would have sworn I
loved you--then something that you say or do repels me--or something,
perhaps, of my own inconstancy--and only that intense curiosity
concerning you remains. That is not love, is it?"
"I think not."
"Yet look how I set my teeth and drove blindly full tilt at Destiny
when I thought you stood in peril! Do women do such things for
friendship's sake?"
"Men do--I don't know. You are a faultless friend, at any rate. And on
that friendship we must build."
"With your indifference and my vanity and inconstancy? God send it be
no castle of cards, Carus! Tell me, have you, too, a stinging curiosity
concerning me? Do you desire to fathom my shallow spirit, to learn what
every passing smile might indicate, to understand me when I am silent,
to comprehend me when I converse with others?"
"I--I have thought of these things, Elsin. Never having understood
you--judging hastily, too--and being so intimately busy with the--the
matters you know of--I never pursued my studies far--deeming you
betrothed and--and----"
"A coquette?"
"A child, Elsin, heart-free and capricious, contradictory, imperious,
and--and overyoung----"
"O Carus!"
"I meant no reproach," I said hastily. "A nectarine requires time, even
though the sunlight paints it so prettily in all its unripe, flawless
symmetry. And I have--I have lived all my life in sober company. My
father was old, my mother placid and saddened by the loss of all her
children save myself. I had few companions--none of my own age except
when we went to Albany, where I learned to bear myself in company. At
Johnson Hall, at Varick's, at Butlersbury, I was but a shy lad, warned
by my parents to formality, for they approved little of the gaiety that
I would gladly have joined in. And so I know nothing of women--nor did
I learn much in New York, where the surface of life is so prettily
polished that it mirrors, as you say, only one's own inquiring eyes."
I seated myself cross-legged on the floor, looking up at the sweet face
on the bed's edge framed by the chintz.
"Did you never conceive an affection?" she asked, watching me.
"Why, yes--for a day or two. I think women tire of me."
"No, you tire of them."
"Only when----"
"When what?"
"Nothing," I said quietly.
"Do you mean when they fall in love with you?" she asked.
"They don't. Some have plagued me to delight in my confusion."
"Like Rosamund Barry?"
I was silent.
"She," observed Elsin musingly, "was mad about you. No, you need not
laugh or shrug impatiently--_I_ know, Carus; she was mad to have you
love her! Do you think I have neither eyes nor ears? But you treated her
no whit better than you treated me. That I am certain of--did you?"
"What do you mean?"
"_Did_ you?"
"Did I do what?"
"Treat Rosamund Barry kinder than you did me?"
"In what way?"
"Did you kiss her?"
"Never!"
"Would you say 'Never!' if you had?"
"No, I should say nothing."
"I knew it!" she cried, laughing. "I was certain of it. But, mercy on
us, there were scores more women in New York--and I mean to ask you
about each one, Carus, each separate one--some time--but, oh, I am so
hungry now!"
I sprang to my feet, and walking into my chamber closed the door.
"Talk to me through the keyhole!" she called. "I shall tie my hair in a
club, and bathe me and clothe me very quickly. Are you there, Carus? Do
you hear what I say?"
So I leaned against the door and chatted on about Colonel Hamilton,
until I ventured to hint at some small word of praise for me from his
Excellency. With that she was at the door, all eagerness: "Oh, Carus! I
knew you were brave and true! Did his Excellency say so? And well he
might, too!--with you, a gentleman, facing the vilest of deaths there
in New York, year after year. I am so glad, so proud of you, Carus, so
happy! What have they made you--a major-general?"
"Oh, not yet," I said, laughing.
"And why not?" she exclaimed hotly.
"Elsin, if you don't dress quickly I'll sit at breakfast without you!"
I warned her.
"Oh, I will, I will; I'm lacing--something--this very instant! Carus,
when I bid you, you may come in and tie my shoulder-points. Wait a
moment, silly! Just one more second. Now!"
As I entered she came up to me, turning her shoulder, and I threaded
the points clumsily enough, I suppose, but she thanked me very sweetly,
turned to the mirror, patted the queue-ribbon to a flamboyant allure,
and, catching my hand in hers, pointed at the glass which reflected us
both.
"Look at us!" she exclaimed, "look at the two runaways! Goodness, I
should never have believed it, Carus!"
We stood a moment, hand clasping hand, curiously regarding the mirrored
faces that smiled back so strangely at us. Then, somewhat subdued and
thoughtful, we walked out through my chamber into a sunny little
breakfast-room where landlord and servant received us a trifle too
solemnly, and placed us at the cloth.
"Their owlish eyes mean Gretna Green," whispered Elsin, leaning close
to me; "but what do we care, Carus? And they think us married in New
York. Now, sir, if you ever wished to see how a hungry maid can eat
Tapaan soupaan, you shall see now!"
The Tapaan hasty-pudding was set before us, and in a twinkling we were
busy as bees in clover. Pompions and clingstone peaches went the way of
the soupaan; a dish of troutlings followed, and out of the corner of my
eye I saw other dainties coming and rejoiced. Lord, what a pair of
appetites were there! I think the Blue Fox must have licked his painted
chops on the swinging sign under the window to see how we did full
justice to the fare, slighting nothing set before us. And while the
servants were running hither and thither with dishes and glasses I
questioned the landlord, who was evidently prodigiously impressed with
Colonel Hamilton's visit; and I gathered from mine host that, excepting
for ourselves, all the other guests were officers of various degrees,
and that, thanks to the nearness of the army and the consequent
scarcity of skinners, business was brisk and profitable, for which he
thanked God and his Excellency.
Elsin, resting one elbow on the table, listened and looked out into the
village street where farmers and soldiers were passing, some arm in
arm, gravely smoking their clay pipes and discussing matters in the
sunshine, others entering or leaving the few shops where every sort of
ware was exposed for sale, still others gathered on the bridge, some
fishing in the Bronx, some looking on or reading fresh newspapers from
New England or Philadelphia, or a stale and tattered Gazette which had
found its way out of New York.
At a nod from me the landlord signaled the servants and withdrew,
leaving us there alone together with a bottle of claret on the table
and a dish of cakes and raisins.
"So these good folk are rebels," mused Elsin, gazing at the people in
the street below. "They seem much like other people, Carus."
"They are," I said, laughing.
"Well," she said, "they told me otherwise in New York. But I can see no
very great ferocity in your soldiers' countenances. Nor do they dress
in rags. Mr. De Lancey told me that the Continentals scarce mustered a
pair of breeches to a brigade."
"It has been almost as bad as that," I said gravely. "These troops are
no doubt clothed in uniforms sent from France, but I fear there are
rags and to spare in the south, where Greene and Lafayette are harrying
Cornwallis--God help them!"
"Amen," she said softly, looking at me.
Touched as I had never been by her, I held out my hand; she laid hers
in mine gravely.
"So that they keep clear of Canada, I say God speed men who stand for
their own homes, Carus! But," she added innocently, "I could not be
indifferent to a cause which you serve. Come over here to the
window--draw your chair where you can see. Look at that officer, how
gallant he is in his white uniform faced with green!"
"That is a French officer," I said. "Those three soldiers passing
yonder who wear white facing on their blue coats, and black
spatterdashes from ankle to thigh, are infantry of the New England
line. The soldiers smoking under the tree are New York and New Jersey
men; they wear buff copper-clouts, and their uniform is buff and blue.
Maryland troops wear red facings; the Georgia line are faced with blue,
edged around by white. There goes an artilleryman; he's all blue and
scarlet, with yellow on his hat; and here stroll a dozen dragoons in
helmet and jack-boots and blue jackets laced, lined, and faced with
white. Ah, Elsin, these same men have limped barefoot, half-naked,
through snow and sun because his Excellency led them."
"It is strange," she said, "how you turn grave and how a hush comes, a
little pause of reverence, whenever you name--his Excellency. Do all so
stand in awe of him?"
"None names him lightly, Elsin."
"Have you ever seen him?"
"Never, child."
"And yet you approach even his name in hushed respect."
"Yes, even his name. I should like to see him," I continued wistfully,
"to hear him speak once, to meet his calm eye. But I never shall. My
service is of such a nature that it is inexpedient for him to receive
me openly. So I never shall see him--save, perhaps, when the long war
ends--God knows----"
She dropped her hand on mine and leaned lightly back against my
shoulder.
"You must not fret," she murmured. "Remember that staff-officer said he
praised you."
"I do, I do remember!" I repeated gratefully. "It was a reward I never
dared expect--never dreamed of. His Excellency has been kind to me,
indeed."
It was now past four o'clock in the afternoon, and Elsin, who had noted
the wares in the shop-windows, desired to price the few simple goods
offered for sale; so we went out into the dusty village street to see
what was to be seen, but the few shops we entered were full of soldiers
and not overclean, and the wares offered for sale were not attractive.
I remember she bought points and some stuff for stocks, and needles and
a reel of thread, and when she offered a gold piece everybody looked at
us, and the shopkeeper called her "My lady" and me "My lord," and gave
us in change for the gold piece a great handful of paper money.
We emerged from the shop amazed, and doubtful of the paper stuff, and
walked up the street and out into the country, pausing under a great
maple-tree to sort this new Continental currency, of which we had
enough to stuff a pillow.
Scrip by scrip I examined the legal tender of my country, Elsin, her
chin on my shoulder, scrutinizing the printed slips of yellow, brown,
and red in growing wonder. One slip bore three arrows on it, under
which was printed:
Fifty Dollars.
Printed by H. A. L. L. and S. E. L.
1778.
Upon the other side was a pyramid in a double circle, surmounted by the
legend:
PERENNIS.
And it was further decorated with the following:
"No. 16780 Fifty Dollars. This Bill entitles the Bearer to receive
Fifty Spanish milled dollars or the value thereof in Gold or
Silver, according to the Resolution passed by Congress at
Philadelphia, September 26th, 1788.
"J. WATKINS; I. K."
And we had several dozen of these of equal or less denomination.
"Goodness," exclaimed Elsin, "was my guinea worth all these dollars?
And do you suppose that we could buy anything with these paper bills?"
"Certainly," I said, loyal to my country's currency; "they're just as
good as silver shillings--if you only have enough of them."
"But what use will they be to me in Canada?"
That was true enough. I immediately pocketed the mass of paper and
tendered her a guinea in exchange, but she refused it, and we had a
pretty quarrel there under the maple-tree.
"Carus," she said at last, "let us keep them, anyhow, and never, never
spend them. Some day we may care to remember this July afternoon, and
how you and I went a-shopping as sober as a wedded pair in Hanover
Square."
There was a certain note of seriousness in her voice that sobered me,
too. I drew her arm through mine, and we strolled out into the sunshine
and northward along the little river, where in shallow brown pools
scores of minnows stemmed the current, and we saw the slim trout lying
in schools under the bush's shadows, and the great silver and blue
kingfishers winging up and down like flashes of azure fire.
A mile out a sentinel stopped us, inquiring our business, and as we had
none we turned back, for it mattered little to us where we sauntered.
Farmers were cutting hay in the river-meadows, under the direction of a
mounted sergeant of dragoons; herds of cattle and sheep grazed among
the hills, shepherded by soldiers. Every now and again dragoons rode
past us, convoying endless lines of wagons piled up with barrels,
crates, sacks of meal, and sometimes with bolts of coarse cloth.
To escape the dust raised by so many hoofs and wheels we took to the
fields and found a shady place on a hill which overlooked the country.
Then for the first time I realized the nearness of the army, for
everywhere in the distance white tents gleamed against the green, and
bright flags were flying from hillocks, and on a level plain that
stretched away toward the Hudson I saw long dark lines moving, or
halted motionless, with the glimmer of steel playing through the
sunshine; and I, for the first time, beheld a brigade of our army at
exercise.
We were too far away to see, yet it was a sight to stir one who had
endured that prison city so long, never seeing a Continental soldier
except as a prisoner marched through the streets to the jails or the
hulks in the river. But there they were--those men of White Plains, of
Princeton, of Camden, and of the Wilderness--the men of Long Island,
and Germantown, and Stony Point!--there they were, wheeling by the
right flank, wheeling by the left, marching and countermarching,
drilling away, busy as bees in the July sun.
"Ah, Elsin," I said, "when they storm New York the man who misses that
splendid climax will miss the best of his life--and never forget that
he has missed it as long as he lives to mask his vain regret!"
"Why is it that you are not content?" she asked. "For four years you
have moved in the shadow of destruction."
"But I have never fought in battle," I said; "never fired a single shot
in earnest, never heard the field-horn of the light infantry nor the
cavalry-trumpet above the fusillade, never heard the officers shouting,
the mad gallop of artillery, the yelling onset--why, I know nothing of
the pleasures of strife, only the smooth deceit and bland hypocrisy,
only the eavesdropping and the ignoble pretense! At times I can
scarcely breathe in my desire to wash my honor in the rifle flames--to
be hurled pell-mell among the heaving, straining mêlée, thrusting,
stabbing, cutting my fill, till I can no longer hear or see. Four
years, Elsin! think of it--think of being chained in the midst of this
magnificent activity for four years! And now, when I beg a billet among
the dragoons, they tell me I am fashioned for diplomacy, not for war,
and hint of my usefulness on the frontier!"
"What frontier?" she asked quickly.
"Tryon County, I suppose."
"Where that dreadful work never ceases?"
"Hatchet and scalping-knife are ever busy there," I said grimly. "Who
knows? I may yet have my fill and to spare!"
She sat silent for so long that I presently turned from the distant
martial spectacle to look at her inquiringly. She smiled, drawing a
long breath, and shaking her head.
"I never seem to understand you, Carus," she said. "You have done your
part, yet it appears already you are planning to go hunting about for
some obliging savage to knock you in the head with a death-maul."
"But the war is not ended, Elsin."
"No, nor like to be until it compasses your death. Then, indeed, will
it be ended for me, and the world with it!"
"Why, Elsin!" I laughed, "this is a new note in your voice."
"Is it? Perhaps it is. I told you, Carus, that there is no happiness in
love. And, just now, I love you. It is strange, is it not?--when aught
threatens you, straightway I begin to sadden and presently fall in love
with you; but when there's no danger anywhere, and I have nothing to
sadden me, why, I'm not at all sure that I love you enough to pass the
balance of the day in your companionship--only that when you are away I
desire to know where you are and what you do, and with whom you walk
and talk and laugh. Deary me! deary me! I know not what I want, Carus.
Let us go to the Blue Fox and drink a dish of tea."
We walked back to the inn through the sweetest evening air that I had
breathed in many a day, Elsin stopping now and then to add a blossom to
the great armful of wild flowers that she had gathered, I lingering,
happy in my freedom as a lad loosed from school, now pausing to skip
flat stones across the Bronx, now creeping up to the bank to surprise
the trout and see them scatter like winged shadows over the golden
gravel, now whistling to imitate that rosy-throated bird who sits so
high in his black-and-white livery and sings into happiness all who
hear him.
The sun was low over the Jersey highlands; swarms of swallows rose,
soared, darted, and dipped in the evening sky. I heard the far
camp-bugles playing softly, the dulled roll of drums among the eastern
hills; then, as the red sun went out behind the wooded heights, bang!
the evening gun's soft thunder shook the silence. And our day was
ended.
CHAPTER VIII
DESTINY
On Sunday, having risen early--though not so early as the post relief,
whose day begins as soon as a sentry can see clearly for a thousand
yards--I dressed me by the rosy light of the rising sun, and, before I
breakfasted, wrote a long letter to my parents, who, as I have said,
were now residing near Paris, where my great-grandfather's estate lay.
When I had finished my letter, sanded and sealed it, I went out to
leave it with the packages of post matter collected from the French
regiments across the Hudson, and destined for France by an early
packet, which was to sail as soon as the long-expected French fleet
arrived from the West Indies.
I delivered my letter to the staff-officer detailed for that duty, and
then, hearing military music, went back to the Blue Fox in time to see
a funeral of an officer slowly passing eastward, gun-carriage, horses,
men, in strange silhouette against the level and dazzling white disk of
the rising sun. Truly, the slow cortège seemed moving straight into the
flaming gates of heaven, the while their solemn music throbbed and
throbbed with the double drum-beat at the finish of each line. The tune
was called "Funeral Thoughts." They changed to "Roslyn Castle" as they
crossed the bridge; yet an hour had scarce passed when I heard their
volley-firing not very far away, and back they came, the Fife-Major
leading, drums, fifes, and light-infantry horns gaily sounding "The
Pioneer," and the men swinging back briskly to fall in with the Church
details, now marching in from every direction to the admonitory timing
of a single drum-beat.
The music had awakened Elsin, and presently she came a-tapping at my
door, barefoot, her cardinal tightly wrapped around her, hair tumbled,
drowsily rubbing her heavy lids.
"Good morning, Carus," she said sleepily. "I should dearly like to hear
a good, strong sermon on damnation to-day--being sensible of my present
state of sin, and of yours. Do they preach hell-fire in Rebeldom?"
"The landlord says that Hazen's mixed brigade and other troops go to
service in the hay-field above the bridge," I answered, laughing.
"Shall we ride thither?"
She nodded, yawning, then pulling her foot-mantle closer about her
shoulders, pattered back into her chamber, and I went below and ordered
our horses saddled, and breakfast to be served us as soon as might be.
And so it happened that, ere the robins had done caroling their morning
songs, and the far, sweet anthems of the hermit-birds still rang in
dewy woodlands, Elsin and I dismounted in Granger's hay-field just as
the troops marched up in a long, dense column, the massed music of many
regiments ahead, but only a single drum timing the steady tread.
All was done in perfect decorum and order. A hay-wagon was the pulpit;
around it the drummers piled their drums, tier rising on tier; the
ensigns draped the national colors over the humble platform, setting
regimental and state standards at the corners; and I noted there some
curious flags, one borne by a Massachusetts battalion, white, with a
green tree on it; another, a yellow naval flag with a coiled
rattlesnake; another, carried by a company of riflemen, on which was
this design:
1776.
XI VIRGINIA REG'T,
and I knew that I was looking upon the famous regimental standard of
Morgan's Rifles.
Without confusion, with only a low-spoken command here and there,
battalion after battalion marched up, stacked arms, forming three sides
of a hollow square, the pulpit, with its flags and tiers of drums,
making the fourth side. The men stood at ease, hands loosely clasped
and hanging in front of them. The brigade chaplain quietly crossed the
square to his rude pulpit, mounted it, and, as he bowed his head in
prayer, every cocked hat came off, every head was lowered.
Country-folk, yokels, farmers, had gathered from all directions;
invalids from the camp hospitals were there, too, faces clay-color,
heads and limbs heavily bandaged. One of these, a sergeant of the New
York line, who wore a crimson heart sewed on his breast, was led to his
place between two comrades, he having both eyes shot out; and the
chaplain looked at him hard for a moment, then gave out the hymn,
leading the singing in a deep, full voice:
"Through darkest night
I know that Thou canst see.
Night blinds my sight,
Yet my small voice shall praise Thee constantly.
Under Thy wing,
Whose shadow blinds mine eyes,
Fearless I sing
Thy sweetness and Thy mercy to the skies!"
The swelling voices of the soldiers died away. Standing there between
our horses, Elsin's young voice still echoing in my ears, I looked up
at the placid face of the preacher, saw his quiet glance sweep the
congregation, saw something glimmer in his eyes, and his lips tighten
as he laid open his Bible, and, extending his right arm, turn to the
south, menacing the distant city with his awful text:
"The horseman lifteth up the bright sword and the glittering spear!
"Woe to the bloody city! The chariots shall rage in the streets, they
shall jostle one against another in the _broad ways_! They shall seem
like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. They shall make haste
to the wall; the defense shall be prepared.
"For that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day
of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.
"A day of the trumpet and alarm against _fenced cities_, and against
high towers.
"For the horseman lifteth up the bright sword.... Woe to the bloody
city!"
Out over the sunlit fields rang the words of Zephaniah and of Nahum. I
saw the motionless ranks suddenly straighten; a thousand sunburned
faces were upturned, a thousand pairs of eyes fastened themselves upon
the steady eyes of the preacher.
For an hour he spoke to them, beginning with his Excellency's
ever-to-be-remembered admonition: "To the character of a patriot it
should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of
a Christian"; then continued upon that theme nearest the hearts of all,
the assault upon New York, which everybody now deemed imminent,
thrilling the congregation with hope, inspiring them with high
endeavor. I remember that he deprecated revenge, although the score was
heavy enough! I remember he preached dignity and composure in
adversity, mercy in victory, and at the word his voice rang with
prophecy, and the long ranks stirred as dry leaves stir in a sudden
wind.
When at last he asked the blessing, and the ranks had knelt in the
stubble, Elsin and I on our knees breathed the Amen, lifted our
sun-dazzled eyes, and rose together to mount and ride back through the
dust to the Blue Fox, where we were to confer concerning the
long-delayed letter which decency required us to write to Sir Peter and
Lady Coleville, and also take counsel in other matters touching the
future, which seemed as obscure as ever.
Since that first visit from Colonel Hamilton I had received orders from
headquarters to be ready to leave for the north at an hour's notice,
and that suitable quarters would be ready at West Point for my wife.
There were a dozen officers lodged at the tavern, but my acquaintance
with them advanced nothing beyond a civil greeting, for I cared not to
join them in the coffee-room, where sooner or later some question
concerning Elsin must annoy me. It was sufficient that they knew my
name and nothing more either of my business or myself or Elsin. No
doubt some quiet intimation from headquarters had spared us visits from
quartermasters and provost marshals, for nobody interfered with us,
and, when at the week's end I called for our reckoning--my habits of
method ever uppermost in my mind--the landlord refused to listen,
saying that our expenses were paid as long as we remained at the Blue
Fox, and that if we lacked for anything I was to write to Colonel
Hamilton.
This I had done, being sadly in need of fresh linen, and none to be had
in the shops opposite. Also I enclosed a list of apparel urgently
desired by Elsin, she having writ the copy, which was as long as I am
tall; but I sent it, nevertheless, and we expected to hear from Colonel
Hamilton before evening. For all we had was the clothing we wore on our
backs, and though for myself I asked nothing but linen, I should have
been glad of a change of outer garments, too.
We dined together at our little table by the window, decorously
discussing damnation, predestination, and other matters fitting that
sunny Sabbath noontide. And at moments, very, very far away, I heard
the faint sound of church-bells, perhaps near North Castle, perhaps at
Dobbs Ferry, so sweet, so peaceful, that it was hard to believe in
eternal punishment and in a God of wrath; hard, too, to realize that
war ruled half a continent, and that the very dogs of war, unchained,
prowled all around us, fangs bared, watching the sad city at the
river's ends.
When the servants had removed the cloth, and had fetched the materials
for writing which I had ordered, we drew our chairs up side by side,
and leaned upon the table to confer in regard to a situation which
could not, of course, continue much longer.
"The first thing to consider," said I, "is the flag to take you north."
And I looked curiously at Elsin.
"How can we decide that yet?" she asked, aggrieved. "I shall not
require a flag if we--fall in love."
"We've had a week to try," I argued, smiling.
"Yes, but we have not tried; we have been too happy to try. Still,
Carus, we promised one another to attempt it."
"Well, shall we attempt it at once?"
"Goodness, I'm too lazy, too contented, too happy, to worry over such
sad matters as love!"
"Well, then, I had better write to Hamilton asking a flag----"
"I tell you not to hasten!" she retorted pettishly. "Moonlight changes
one's ideas. My noonday sentiments never correspond to my evening state
of mind."
"But," I persisted, "if we only cherish certain sentiments when the
moon shines----"
"Starlight, too, silly! Besides, whenever I take time to think of your
late peril, I straightway experience a tender sentiment for you. I tell
you be not too hasty to ask a flag for me. Come, let us now consider
and be wise. Once in Canada all is ended, for Sir Frederick Haldimand
would sooner see me fall from Cape Eternity to the Saguenay than hear
of me in love with you. Therefore I say, let us remember, consider, and
await wisdom."
"But," I argued, "something must be settled before fresh orders from
headquarters send me north and you to West Point."
"Oh, I shall go north, too," she observed calmly.
"Into battle, for example?" I asked, amused.
"I shall certainly not let you go into battle all alone! You are a mere
child when it comes to taking precaution in danger."
"You mean you would actually gallop into battle to see I came to no
mischief?" I demanded, laughing.
"Aye, clip my hair and dress the trooper, jack-boots and all, if you
drive me to it!" she exclaimed, irritated. "You may as well know it,
Carus; you shall not go floundering about alone, and that's flat! See
what a mess of it you were like to make in New York!"
"Then," said I, still laughing, yet touched to the heart, "I shall
instruct you in the duties and amenities of wedded life, and we may as
well marry and be done with it. Once married, I, of course, shall do as
I please in the matter of battles----"
"No, you shall not! You shall consider me! Do you think to go roaming
about, nose in the air, and leaving me to sit quaking at home, crying
my eyes out over your foolishness? Do I not already know the terror of
it with you in New York there, and only ten minutes to save your neck
from Cunningham? Thank you, I am already instructed in the amenities of
wedded life--if they be like the pleasures of betrothal--though I cared
not a whit what happened to Walter Butler, it is true, yet fell sick o'
worry when you and Rosamund Barry went a-sailing--not that I feared
you'd drown, either. O Carus, Carus, you distract me, you worry me; you
tell me nothing, nothing, and I never knew what you were about there in
New York when you were not with me!--doubtless a-courting every
petticoat on Hanover Square, for all I know!"
"Well," said I, amazed and perplexed, "if you think, under the
circumstances, there is any prospect of our falling in love after
marriage, and so continuing, I will wed you--now----"
"No!" she interrupted angrily; "I shall not marry you, nor even betroth
myself. It may be that I can see you leave me and bid you a fair
journey, unmoved. I would to God I could! I feel that way now, and may
continue, if I do not fall a-pondering, and live over certain hours
with you that plague me at times into a very passion. But at moments
like this I weary of you, so that all you say and do displeases, and
I'm sick of the world and I know not what! O Carus, I am sick of
life--and I dare not tell you why!"
She rested her head on her hands, staring down at her blurred image,
reflected in the polished table-top.
"I have sometimes thought," she mused, "that the fault lay with
you--somewhat."
"With me!"
"That you could force me to love you, if you dared. The rest would not
matter, then. Misery me! I wish that we had never met! And yet I can
not let you go, because you do not know how to care for yourself. If
you will sail to France on the next packet, and remain with your
mother, I'll say nothing. I'll go with a flag I care not where--only to
know you are safe. Will you? O Carus, I would my life were done and all
ended!"
She was silent for a while, leaning on the table, tracing with her
finger the outline of her dull reflection in the shining surface.
Presently she looked up gaily, a smile breaking in her eyes.
"All that I said is false. I desire to live, Carus. I am not unhappy.
Pray you, begin your writing!"
I drew the paper to me, dipped a quill full of ink from the musty horn,
rested my elbow, pen lifted, and began, dating the letter from the Blue
Fox, and addressing it most respectfully to Sir Peter and Lady
Coleville.
First I spoke of the horses we had taken, and would have promised
payment by draft enclosed, but that Elsin, looking over my shoulder,
stayed my pen.
"Did you not see me leave a pile of guineas?" she demanded. "That was
to pay for our stable theft!"
"But not for the horse I took?"
"Certainly, for your horse, too."
"But you could not know that I was to ride saddle to the Coq d'Or!" I
insisted.
"No, but I saddled _two_ horses," she replied, delighted at my wonder,
"two horses, monsieur, one of which stood ready in the stalls of the Coq
d'Or! So when you came a-horseback, it was not necessary to use the
spare mount I had led there at a gallop. _Now_ do you see, Mr. Renault?
All this I did for you, inspired by--foresight, which you lack!"
"I see that you are as wise and witty as you are beautiful!" I
exclaimed warmly, and caught her fingers to kiss them, but she would
have none of my caress, urging me to write further, and make suitable
excuse for what had happened.
"It is not best to confess that we are still unwedded," I said,
perplexed.
"No. They suppose we are; let be as it is," she answered. "And you
shall not say that you were a spy, either, for that must only pain Sir
Peter and his lady. They will never believe Walter Butler, for they
think I fled with you because I could not endure him. And--perhaps I
did," she added; and that strange smile colored her eyes to deepest
azure.
"Then what remains to say?" I asked, regarding her thoughtfully.
"Say we are happy, Carus."
"Are you?"
"Truly I am, spite of all I complain of. Write it!"
I wrote that we were happy; and, as I traced the words, a curious
thrill set my pen shaking.
"And that we love--them."
I wrote it slowly, half-minded to write "one another" instead of
"them." Never had I been so near to love.
"And--and--let me see," she mused, finger on lip--"I think it not too
impudent to ask their blessing. It _may_ happen, you know, though
Destiny fight against it; and if it does, why there we have their
blessing all ready!"
I thought for a long while, then wrote, asking their blessing upon our
wedded union.
"_That_ word 'wedded,'" observed Elsin, "commits us. Scratch it out. I
have changed my mind. Destiny may accept the challenge, and smite me
where I sit."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean--nothing. Yet that word 'wedded' must not stand. It is an
affront to--to Destiny!"
"I fear nothing from Destiny--with you, Elsin."
"If you write that word, then, I tell you we must betroth ourselves
this instant!--and fight Fate to its knees. Dare you?"
"I am ready," said I coolly.
She looked at me sidewise in quick surprise, chin resting in her
clasped hands. Then she turned, facing me, dropping her elbows on the
polished table.
"You would wed me, Carus?" she said slowly.
"Yes."
"Because--because--you--love me?"
"Yes."
A curious tremor possessed my body; it was not as though I spoke;
something within me had stirred and awakened and was twitching at my
lips. I stared at her through eyes not my own--eyes that seemed to open
on her for the first time. And, as I stared, her face whitened, her
eyes closed, and she bowed her head to her hands.
"Keep pity for others," she said wearily; "keep your charity for some
happier maid who may accept it, Carus. I would if I dared. I have no
pride left. But I dare not. This is the end of all, I think. I shall
never ask alms of Love again."
Then a strange thing happened, quick as a thrust; and my very soul
leaped, quivering, smitten through and through with love of her. In the
overwhelming shock I stretched out my hand like a man dazed, touching
her fingers, and the thrill of it seemed to stun me.
Never, never could I endure to have her look at another as she looked
at me when our hands touched, but I could not utter a word; and I saw
her lip quiver, and the hopeless look deaden her eyes again.
I rose blindly to my feet, speechless, heart hammering at my throat,
and made to speak, but could not.
She, too, had risen, gazing steadily at me; and still I could not utter
a word, the blood surging through me and my senses swimming. Love! It
blinded me with its clamor; it frightened me with its rushing tide; it
dinned in my ears, it ran riot, sweeping every vein, choking speech,
while it surged on, wave on wave mounting in flame.
She stood there, pallidly uncertain, looking on the conflagration love
had wrought. Then something of its purport seemed to frighten her, and
she shrank away step by step, passing the portal of her chamber,
retreating, yet facing me still, fascinated eyes on mine.
I heard a voice unlike my own, saying: "I love you, Elsin. Why do you
repulse me?"
And as she answered nothing, I went to her and took her hand. But the
dismayed eyes only widened, the color faded from her parted lips.
"Can you not see," I whispered, "can you not see I love you?"
"You--_love_--me!"
I caught her in my arms. A bright blush stained neck and face, and she
threw back her head, avoiding my lips.
[Illustration: She threw back her head, avoiding my lips.]
"Elsin, I beg you--I beg you to love me! Can you not see what you have
done to me?--how I am awakened?"
"Wait," she pleaded, resisting me, "wait, Carus. I--I am afraid----"
"Of love, sweetheart?"
"Wait," she panted--"give me time--till morning--then if I change
not--if my heart stirs again so loudly when you hold me--thus--and--and
crush me so close to you--so close--and promise to love me----"
"Elsin, Elsin, I love you!"
"Wait--wait, Carus!--my darling. Oh, you must not--kiss me--until you
know--what I am----"
Her face burned against mine; her eyes closed. Through the throbbing
silence her head drooped, lower, lower, yielding her mouth to mine;
then, with a cry she turned in my arms, twisting to her knees, and
dropped her head forward on the bed. And, as I bent beside her, she
gasped: "No--no--wait, Carus! I know myself! I know myself! Take your
lips from my hands--do not touch me! My brain has gone blind, I tell
you! Leave me to think--if I can----"
"I will not leave you here in tears. Elsin, Elsin, look at me!"
"The tears help me--help us both," she sobbed. "I know what I know.
Leave me--lest the very sky fall to crush us in our madness----"
I bent beside her, a new, fierce tenderness choking me; and at my touch
she straightened up, tear-stained face lifted, and flung both arms
around my neck.
"I love you, Carus! I love you!" she stammered. "I care for that,
only--only for that! If it be for a week, if it be for a day, an hour,
an instant, it is what I was made for, it is what I was fashioned
for--to love you, Carus! There is nothing else--nothing else in all the
world! Love me, take me, do with me what you will! I yield all you ask,
all you beg, all you desire--all save wedlock!"
She swayed in my arms. A deadly pallor whitened her; then her knees
trembled and she gave way, sinking to the floor, her head buried in the
flowering curtains of the bed; and I to drop on my knees beside her,
seeking to lift her face while the sobs shook her slender body, and she
wept convulsively, head prostrate in her arms.
"I--I am wicked!" she wailed. "Oh, I have done that which has damned me
forever, Carus!--forever and ever. I can not wed you--I love you
so!--yet I can not wed you! What wild folly drove me to go with you?
What devil has dragged me here to tempt you--whom I love so truly? Oh,
God pity us both--God pity us!"
"Elsin," I said hoarsely, "you are mad to say it! Is there anything on
earth to bar us from wedlock?"
"Yes, Carus, yes!" she cried. "It is--it is too late!"
"Too late!" I repeated, stunned.
"Aye--for I am a wedded wife! Now you know! Oh, this is the end of
all!"
A while she lay there sobbing her heart out, I upright on my knees
beside her, staring at blank space, which reeled and reeled, so that
the room swam all awry, and I strove to steady it with fixed gaze, lest
the whole world come crashing upon us.
At last she spoke, lifting her tear-marred face from the floor to the
bed, forehead resting heavily in her hands:
"I ask your pardon--for the sin I have committed. Hear me out--that is
my penance; spurn me--that is my punishment!"
She pressed her wet eyes, shuddering. "Are you listening, Carus? The
night before I sailed from Canada--_he_ sought me----"
"Who?" My lips found the question, but no sound came.
"Walter Butler! O God! that I have done this thing!"
In the dreadful silence I heard her choking back the cry that strangled
her. And after a while she found her voice again: "I was a child--a
vain, silly thing of moods and romance, ignorant of men, innocent of
the world, flattered by the mystery with which he cloaked his passion,
awed, fascinated by this first melancholy lover who had wrung from me
through pity, through vanity, through a vague fear of him, perhaps, a
promise of secret betrothal."
She lifted her head and set her chin on one clinched hand, yet never
looked at me:
"Sir Frederick was abed; I all alone in the great arms-gallery, nose to
the diamond window-panes, and looking out at the moon--and waiting for
him. Suddenly I saw him there below.... Heaven is witness I meant no
harm nor dreamed of any. He was not alone. My heart and my affections
were stirred to warmth--I sailing from Canada and friends next day at
dawn--and I went down to the terrace and out among the trees where he
stood, his companion moving off among the trees. I had come only to bid
him the farewell I had promised, Carus--I never dreamed of what he
meant to do."
She cleared her hair from her brow.
"I--I swear to you, Carus, that never has Walter Butler so much as laid
the weight of his little finger on my person! Yet he swayed me
there--using that spell of melancholy, clothed in romance--and--I know
not how it was--or how I listened, or how consented--it is scarce more
than a dreadful dream--the trees in the moonlight, his voice so gentle,
so pitiful, trembling, beseeching--and he had brought a
clergyman"--again her hands covered her eyes--"and, ere I was aware of
it, frightened, stunned in the storm of his passion, he had his way with
me. The clergyman stood between us, saying words that bound me. I heard
them, I was mute, I shrank from the ring, yet suffered it--for even as
he ringed me he touched me not with his hand. Oh, if he had, I think the
spell had broken!"
Again her tears welled up, falling silently; and presently the strength
returned to her voice, and she went on:
"From the first moment that I saw you, Carus, I understood what love
might be. From the very first I closed my ears to the quick cry of
caution. I saw you meet coquetry unmoved, I knew the poison of my first
passion was in me, stealing through every vein; and every moment with
you was the more hopeless for me. I played a hundred rôles--you smiled
indifference on all. A mad desire to please you grew with your amused
impatience of me. Curiosity turned to jealousy. I longed for your
affection as I never longed for anything on earth--or heaven. I had
never had a lover to love before. O Carus, I had never loved, and love
crazed me! Day after day I wondered if I had been fashioned to inspire
love in such a man as you. I was bewildered by my passion and your
coldness; yet had I not been utterly mad I must have known the awful
end of such a flame once kindled. But could I inspire love? Could you
love me? That was all in the world I cared about--thinking nothing of
the end, knowing all hope was dead for me, and nothing in life unless
you loved me. O Carus, if I have inspired one brief moment of
tenderness in you, deal mercifully with the sin! Guilty as I am, false
as I am, I can not add a lie and say that I am sorry that you love me,
that for one blessed moment you said you loved me. Now it is ended. I
can not be your wife. I am too mean, too poor a thing for hate. Deal
with me gently, Carus, lest your wrath strike me dead here at the altar
of outraged Love!"
I rose to my feet, feeling blindly for support, and rested against the
great carved columns of the bed. A cold rage froze me, searching every
vein with icy numbness that left me like a senseless thing. That
passed; I roused, breathing quietly and deeply, and looked about,
furtive, lest the familiar world around had changed to ashes, too.
Presently my dull senses were aware of what was at my feet, kneeling
there, face buried in clasped hands, too soft, too small, too frail to
hold a man's whole destiny. And, as I bent to kiss them, I scarce dared
clasp them, scarce dared lift her to my arms, scarce dared meet the
frightened wonder in her eyes, and the full sweetness of them, and the
love breaking through their azure, as I think day must dawn in
paradise!
"Now, in the name of God," I breathed, "we two, always forever one,
through life, through death, here upon earth, and afterward! I wed you
now with heart and soul, and ring your body with my arms! I stand your
champion, I kneel your lover, Elsin, till that day breaks on a red
reckoning with him who did this sin! Then I shall wed you. Will you
take me?"
She placed her hands on my shoulders, gazing at me from her very soul.
"You need not wed me--so that you love me, Carus."
Arms enlacing one another, we walked the floor in silence, slowly
passing from her chamber into mine, and back again, heads erect,
challenging that Destiny whose shadowy visage we could now gaze on
unafraid.
The dusk of day was dissolving to a silvery night, through which the
white-throat's song floated in distant, long-drawn sweetness. The
little stream's whisper grew louder, too; and I heard the trees
stirring in slumber, and the breeze in the river-reeds.
There, at the open window, standing, she lifted her sweet face, looking
into mine.
"What will you do with me? I am yours."
"Wait for you."
"You need not wait, if it be your will."
"It is not my will that we ever part. Nor shall we, wedded or not. Yet
we must wait our wedded happiness."
"You need not, Carus."
"I know it and I wait."
"So then--so then you hold me innocent--you raise me back to the high
place I fell from, blinded by love----"
"You never fell from your high place, Elsin."
"But my unpardonable sin----"
"What sin? The evil lies with him."
"Yet, wedded, I sought you--I loved you--I love you now--I offer my
amends to you--myself to do with as it pleases you."
"Sweetheart, you could not stir from the high place where you reign
enthroned though I and Satan leagued to pull you down. I, not you, owe
the amends; I, not you, await your pleasure. Yours to command, mine to
obey. Now, tell me, love, where my honor lies?"
"Linked with mine, Carus."
"And yours?"
"In the high places, where I sit unsullied, waiting for you."
For a long while we stood there together at the window. Candle-light
faded from the dim casements of the shops; the patrol passed, muskets
glittering in the starlight, and the tavern lamp went out.
And when the last tap-room loiterer had slunk away to camp or cabin,
and when the echo of the patrol's tread had died out in the fragrant
darkness, came one to the door below, hammering the knocker; and I saw
his spurs and scabbard shining in the luster of the stars, and in my
heart a still voice repeated, "This is Destiny came a-knocking, armed
with Fate. This is the place and the hour!"
And it was so, for presently the landlord came to the door, calling me
softly. "I come," I answered, and turned to Elsin. "Shall I to-morrow
find you the same sweet maid I have loved from the first all
blindly?--the same dear tyrant, plaguing me, coaxing me, blaming,
praising, unreasoning, inconstant--the same brave, impulsive, loyal
friend that one day, God willing, shall become my wife?"
"Yes, Carus."
We kissed one another; hands tightened, lingered, and fell apart. And
so I went away down the dim stairs, strangely aware that Destiny was
waiting there for me. And it was, shaped like Colonel Hamilton, who
rose to meet me, offering the hand of Fate; and I took it and held it,
looking him straight between the eyes.
"I know why you have come," I said, smiling. "I am to journey north and
move heaven and earth to thwart this hell's menace flung at us by
Walter Butler. Ah, sir, I was certain of it--I knew it, Colonel
Hamilton. You make me very, very happy. Pray you, inform his Excellency
of my deep gratitude. He has chosen fire to fight fire, I think. Every
thought, every nerve in me is directed to the ruin of this man. Waking,
sleeping, in sickness, in health, in adversity, in prosperity, soul and
body and mind are bent on his undoing. I shall speak to the Oneidas
with clan authority; I shall speak to the Iroquois at Thendara; I shall
listen to the long roll of the dead; I shall read the record of ages
from the sacred belts. The eyes of the forest shall see for me; the
ears of the wilderness listen for me; every tree shall whisper for me,
every leaf spy for me; and the voices of a thousand streams shall guide
me, and the eight winds shall counsel me, and the stars stretch out
their beams for me, pointing the way, so that this man shall die and
his wickedness be ended forever."
I held out my hand and took the written order in silence, reading it at
a glance.
"It shall be done, Colonel Hamilton. When am I to leave?"
"Now. The schooner starts when you set foot aboard, Mr. Renault."
And, after a moment: "Madam goes with you?"
"To West Point."
"I trust that she finds some few comforts aboard the _Wind-Flower_. I
could not fill all the list, Mr. Renault; but a needle will do much, and
the French fabrics are pretty----"
He looked at me, smiling: "For you, sir, there are shirts and stockings
and a forest dress of deerskin."
"A rifle, too?"
"The best to be had, and approved by Jack Mount. Murphy himself has
sighted it. Have I done well?"
"Yes," said I grimly, and, opening the door of the kitchen, bade the
landlord have our horses saddled and brought around, and asked him to
send a servant to warn Elsin that we must leave within the quarter.
Presently I heard our horses at the block, stamping the sod, and a
moment later Elsin came, eager, radiant, sweetly receiving Colonel
Hamilton when I named him. He saluted her hand profoundly; then, as it
still rested lightly on his fingers, he turned to me, almost bluntly:
"Never, Mr. Renault, can we officers forgive you for denying us this
privilege. I have heard, sir, that Mrs. Renault was beautiful and
amiable; I never dreamed that such loveliness could be within our
lines. One day you shall make amends for this selfishness to every lady
and every officer on the Hudson."
At the word which named her as my wife her face crimsoned, but in her
eyes the heavenly sweetness dawned like a star, dazzling me.
"Colonel Hamilton," she said, "in quieter days--when this storm
passes--we hope to welcome you and those who care to wait upon a wife
whose life is but a quiet study for her husband's happiness. Those whom
he cares for I care for. We shall be glad to receive those he counts as
friends."
"May I be one, Renault?" he said impulsively, offering both hands.
"Yes," I said, returning his clasp.
We stood silent a moment, Elsin's gloved fingers resting on my sleeve;
then we moved to the door, and I lifted Elsin to the saddle and
mounted, Hamilton walking at my stirrup, and directing me in a low
voice how I must follow the road to the river, how find the wharf, what
word to give to the man I should find there waiting. And he cautioned
me to breathe no word of my errand; but when I asked him where my
reports to his Excellency were to be sent, he drew a sealed paper from
his coat and handed it to me, saying: "Open that on the first day of
September, and on your honor, not one hour before. Then you shall hear
of things undreamed of, and understand all that I may not tell you now.
Be cautious, be wise and deadly. We know you; our four years' trust in
you has proved your devotion. But his Excellency warns you against
rashness, for it was rashness that made you useless in New York. And I
now say to you most solemnly that I regard you as too unselfish, too
good a soldier, too honorable a gentleman to let aught of a personal
nature come between you and duty. And your duty is to hold the
Iroquois, warn the Oneidas, and so conduct that Butler and his demons
make no movement till you and Colonel Willett hold the checkmate in
your proper hands. Am I clear, Mr. Renault?"
"Perfectly," I said.
He stepped aside, raising his cocked-hat; we passed him at a canter
with precise salute, then spurred forward into the star-spangled night.
CHAPTER IX
INTO THE NORTH
Head winds, which began with a fresh breeze off King's Ferry and
culminated in a three days' hurricane, knocked us about the Tappan Zee,
driving us from point to cove; and for forty-eight hours I saw our
gunboats, under bare poles, tossing on the gray fury of the Hudson, and
a sloop of war, sprit on the rocks, buried under the sprouting spray
below Dobbs Ferry. Safer had we been in the open ocean off the Narrows,
where the great winds drive bellowing from the Indies to the Pole; but
these yelling gales that burst from the Highlands struck us like the
successive discharges of cannon, and the _Wind-Flower_ staggered and
heeled, reeling through the Tappan Zee as a great water-fowl, crippled
and stung to terror, drives blindly into the spindrift, while shot on
shot strikes, yet ends not the frantic struggle.
Once we were beaten back so far that, in the dark whirlwind of dawn, I
saw a fire-ball go whirring aloft and spatter the eastern horizon. Then,
through the shrilling of the tempest, a gun roared to starboard, and at
the flash a gun to port boomed, shaking our decks. We had beaten back
within range of the British lines, and the batteries on Cock Hill opened
on us, and a guard-ship to the west had joined in. Southeast a red glare
leaped, and died out as Fort Tryon fired a mortar, while the _Wind-Flower_,
bulwarks awash, heeled and heeled, staggering to the shelter of Tetard's
Hill. Southward we saw the beacons ablaze, marking the _chevaux de
frise_ below Fort Lee, and on the Jersey shore the patrol's torches
flashing along the fort road. But we had set a bit o' rag under Tetard's
Hill, and slowly we crept north again past Yonkers, struggling
desperately at Phillips, but making Boar's Hill and Dobbs Ferry by
mid-afternoon. And that night the wind shifted so suddenly that from
Tappan to Tarrytown was but a jack-snipe's twist, and we lay snug in
Haverstraw Bay, under the lee of the Heights of North Castle, scarce an
hour's canoe-paddle from the wharf where we had embarked four days
before.
And now delay followed delay, a gunboat holding us twenty-four hours at
Dobbs Ferry--why, I never knew--and, at the Chain, two days' delay were
required before they let us pass.
When at last we signaled West Point, at the close of one long, calm
August afternoon, through the flaming mountain sunset, the black
fortress beckoned us to anchor, nor had we any choice but to obey the
silent summons from those grim heights, looming like a thunder-cloud
against the cinders of the dying sun.
That night a barge put out, and an officer boarded us, subjecting us to
a most rigid scrutiny. Since the great treason a savage suspicion had
succeeded routine vigilance; the very guns among the rocks seemed
alive, alert, listening, black jaws parted to launch a thunderous
warning. A guard was placed on deck; we were not allowed to send a boat
ashore; not even permitted to communicate with the fishing-smack and
rowboats that hovered around us, curious as gulls around a floating
plank.
And all this time--from the very instant of departure, through three
days and a night of screaming winds and cataracts of water, through the
delays where we rode at anchor below the Chain and Dobbs Ferry, under a
vertical sun that started the pitch in every seam--Elsin Grey, radiant,
transfigured, drenched to the skin, faced storm and calm in an ecstasy
of reckless happiness.
Wild winds from the north, shouting among the mountains, winds of the
forests, that tore the cries of exultation from our lips and scattered
sound into space, winds of my own northland that poured through our
veins, cleansing us of sordid care and sad regret and doubt, these were
the sorcerers that changed us back to children while the dull roaring
of their incantations filled the world. We two alone on earth, and the
vast, veiled world spread round, outstretching to the limits of
eternity, all ours to conquer, ours for our pleasure, ours to reign in
till the moon cracked and the stars faded, and the sun went down
forever and a day, and all was chaos save for the blazing trail of
blessed souls, soaring to glory through the majesty of endless night.
In the sunlit calms, riding at our moorings, much we discussed eternity
and creation. Doctrines once terrible seemed now harmless and without
menace, dogmas dissolved into thinnest air, blown to the nothingness
from whence they came; for, strangely, all teachings and creeds and
laws of faith narrowed to the oldest of precepts; and, ponder and
question as we might, citing prophet and saint and holy men inspired,
all came to the same at last, expressed in that cardinal precept so
safe in its simplicity--the one law embodied in one word governing
heaven and commanding earth.
"Aye," said she, "but how interpret it? For a misstep means certain
damnation, Carus. Once when I spelled out 'Love' for you, I stumbled
and should have fallen had you not held me up."
"You held _me_ up, sweetheart! I was closer to the brink than you."
She looked thoughtfully at the fortress; the shore was so near that,
through the calm darkness, we could hear the sentinels calling from
post to post and the ripple of the Hudson at the base of the rocks.
But these conferences concerning the philosophy of ethics overweighted
two hearts as young as ours; and while our new love and the happiness
of it at times reacted in solemn argument and the naïve searching of
our souls, mostly a reckless delight in one another and in our freedom
dominated; and we lived for the moment only, chary and shy of stirring
slumbering embers that must one day die out or flash to a flame as
fierce as that blaze that bars the gates of heaven from lost souls.
Knowing the need of haste, and having in my pocket instructions which I
believed overweighed even the voiceless orders of the West Point
cannon, I argued with the officer of the guard on deck, day after day,
to let us go; but it was only after fifteen days' detention there at
anchor that I found out that it was an order from his Excellency
himself which held us there.
Then, one morning in early September, boats from the fortress put off
loaded with provisions for the _Wind-Flower_; the guard disembarked in
their barge, and an officer, in a cockle-shell, shouted: "Good luck to
you! The Mouse-trap's sprung, and the Mouse is squeaking!" And with that
he tossed a letter on deck. It was addressed to me:
"HEADQUARTERS, PHILADELPHIA,
"September 2d, '81.
"CARUS RENALT, ESQ'RE:
"_Sir_--On receipt of this order you will immediately proceed from
your anchorage off West Point to Albany, disembark, and travel by
way of Schenectady to Johnstown, and from there to Butlersbury,
where you will establish yourself in the manor-house, making it your
headquarters, unless force of circumstances prevent. Fifty Tryon
County Rangers, to be employed as one scout or several, are placed
under your authority; the militia, and such companies of Continental
troops as are now or may later be apportioned to Tryon County, will
continue under the orders of Colonel Marinus Willett. Your duties
you are already familiar with; your policy must emanate from your
own nature and deliberate judgment concerning the situation as it is
or as it threatens. Close and cordial cooperation with Colonel
Willett, and with the various civil and military authorities in
Tryon County, should eventually accomplish the object of your
mission, which is, first, to prevent surprise from all invasion;
second, to prevent a massacre of the Oneida Nation.
"Authority is herewith given you to open and read the sealed orders
delivered to you by myself on your departure."
The letter was signed by Colonel Hamilton. I stared at his signature, then
at the name of the city from whence the letter was dated--_Philadelphia_.
What in Heaven's name were "Headquarters" doing in Philadelphia? Was his
Excellency there? Was the army there? Impossible--the army which for
months had been preparing to storm New York?--impossible!
I thrust my hand into the breast-pocket of my coat, drew out the sealed
orders, tore them open, and read:
"Until further notice such reports as you are required to render to
his Excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, should be sent to
headquarters, near Yorktown, Virginia----"
Virginia! The army that I had seen at Dobbs Ferry, at White Plains, at
North Castle, was that army on its way to Virginia? What! hurl an
entire army a thousand miles southward? And had Sir Henry Clinton
permitted it?
In a sort of stupor I read and reread the astonishing words: "Virginia?
There was a British army in Virginia. Yorktown? Yes, that British army
was at Yorktown, practically at bay, with a youth of twenty-three--my
own age--harassing it--the young General Lafayette! Greene, too, was
there, his chivalry cutting up the light troops of General Lord
Cornwallis----"
"By Heaven!" I cried, springing to my feet, "his Excellency never meant
to storm New York! The French fleet has sailed for the Chesapeake!
Lafayette is there, Greene is there, Morgan, Sumter, Lee, Pickens, all
are there! His Excellency has gone to catch Cornwallis in a mouse-trap,
and Sir Henry is duped!"
Mad with excitement and delight, I looked up at the great fortress on
the river, and knew that it was safe in its magnificent isolation--safe
with its guns and ramparts and its four thousand men--knew that the key
to the Hudson was ours, and would remain ours, although the army, like
a gigantic dragon, had lifted its great wings and soared southward, so
silently that none, not even the British spies, had dreamed its
destination was other than the city of New York.
And, as I looked, the signals on the fortress changed; the guard-boats
hailed us, the harmless river-craft gave us right of way, and we spread
our white sails once more, drawing slowly northward, under the rocky
pulpits of the heights, past shore forests yet unbroken, edged with
acres of reeds and marshes, from which the water-fowl arose in clouds;
past pine-crowned capes and mountains, whose bases were bathed in the
great river; past lonely little islands, on, on, into the purple
mystery of the silent north.
Now there remained no high sky-bastion to halt us with voiceless signal
and dumb cannon, nothing beyond but Albany; and, beyond Albany, the
frontier; and beyond the frontier a hellish war of murder and the
torch, a ceaseless conflict of dreadful reprisals, sterile triumphs,
terrible vengeance, a saturnalia of private feuds, which spared neither
the infirm nor the infant--nay, the very watch-dog at the door received
no quarter in the holocaust.
Elsin had begged and begged that she should not be left there at West
Point, saying that Albany was safer, though I doubted the question of
safety weighed in her choice; but she pleaded so reasonably, so
sweetly, arms around my neck, and her lips whispering so that my cheek
felt their soft flutter, that I consented. There I was foolish, for no
sooner were we in sight of the Albany hills than arms and lips were
persuading again, guilelessly explaining how simple it would be for her
to live at Johnstown, while I, at Butlersbury, busied myself with my
own affairs.
And so we stood in earnest conference, while nearer and nearer loomed
the hills, with the Dutch town atop, brick houses, tiled roofs, steep
streets, becoming plainer and plainer to the eye.
There seemed to be an unusual amount of shipping at the Albany wharves
as we glided in, and a great number of wagons and people scurrying
about. In fact, I had never before observed such a bustle in Albany
streets, but thought nothing of it at the moment, for I had not seen
the town since war began. As the schooner dropped anchor at the wharf
we were still arguing; as, arm in arm, we followed our two horses and
our sea-chests which the men bore shoreward and up the steep hill to
the Half-Moon Tavern, we argued every step; at the tavern we argued,
she in her chamber, I in mine, the door open between; argued and
argued, finally rising in our earnestness and meeting on the common
threshold to continue a discussion in which tears, lips, and arms soon
supplanted logic and reason.
Had she remained at West Point, although that fortress could not have
been taken except by a regular siege, still she might have been
subjected to all the horrors of blockade and bombardment, for since his
Excellency had abandoned the Hudson with his army and was already
half-way to Virginia, nothing now stood between West Point and the
heavy British garrison of New York.
It was my knowledge of that more than her pleading that reconciled me
to leave her in Albany.
But I was soon to learn that she was by no means secure in the choice I
had made for her; for presently she retired to her own chamber and lay
down on her bed to rest for an hour or so before supper, in order to
recover from the fatigue and the constant motion of the long voyage;
and I went out into the town to inquire where Colonel Willett might be
found.
The sluggish Dutch burghers of Albany appeared to be active enough that
lovely September afternoon; hurrying hither and thither through the
streets, and not one among them sufficiently civil to stop and give me
an answer to my question concerning Colonel Willett. At first I could
make nothing of this amazing bustle and hurry; wagons, loaded with
household furniture, clattered through the streets or toiled up and down
the hills, discharging bedding, pots and pans, chairs, tables, the
family clock, and Heaven knows what, on to the wharves, where a great
many sloops and other craft were moored, the _Wind-Flower_ among them.
In the streets, too, wagons were standing before fine residences and
shops; servants and black slaves piled them high with all manner of
goods. I even saw a green parrot in a cage, perched atop of a pile of
corded bedding, and the bird cocked his head and called out
continually: "Gad-a-mercy! Gad-a-mercy! Gad-a-mercy!"
An invalid soldier of Colonel Livingston's regiment, his right arm
bandaged in splints, was standing across the street, apparently vastly
amused by the bird in the wagon; and I crossed over to him and asked
what all this exodus might signify.
"Why, the town is in a monstrous fright, friend," he drawled, cradling
his shattered arm and puffing away at his cob-pipe. "Since April, when
them red-devils of Brant's struck Cherry Valley for the second time,
and cleaned up some score and odd women and children, these here
thrifty Dutchmen in Albany have been ready to pack up and pull foot at
the first breath o' foul news."
"But," said I, "what news has alarmed them now?"
"Hey? Scairt 'em? Waal, rumors is thicker than spotted flies in the
sugar-bush. Some say the enemy are a-scalping at Torlock, some say
Little Falls. We heard last week that Schenectady was threatened. It
may be true, for there's a pest o' Tories loose in the outlying county,
and them there bloody Iroquois skulk around the farms and shoot little
children in their own dooryards."
"Do you believe there is any danger in Albany?" I asked incredulously.
He shrugged his shoulders, nursing his bandaged arm.
Then, troubled and apprehensive, I asked him where I might find Colonel
Willett, and he said that a scout was now out toward Johnstown, and
that Willett led it. This was all he knew, all the information I could
get from him. Returning along the dusty, steep streets to the Half-Moon
Tavern, I called in the stolid Dutch landlord, requesting information;
but he knew nothing at all except that a number of timid people were
packing up because an express had come in the night before with news
that a body of Tories and Indians had attacked Cobleskill, taken a Mr.
Warner, and murdered the entire family of a Captain Dietz--father,
mother, wife, four little children, and a Scotch servant-girl, Jessie
Dean.
Observing the horror with which I received the news he shook his head,
pulled at his long pipe for a few moments in thoughtful silence, and
said:
"What shall we do, sir? They kill us everywhere. Better die at home
than in the bush. I think a man's as safe here in Albany as in any
place, unless he quits all and leaves affairs to go to ruin to skulk in
one o' the valley forts. But they've even burned Stanwix now, and the
blockhouses are poor defense against Iroquois fire-arrows. If I had a
wife I'd take her to Johnstown Fort; it's built of stone, they say.
Besides, Marinus Willett is there. I wish to God he were here!"
We lingered in the empty tap-room for a while, talking in low voices of
the peril; and I was certainly amazed, so utterly unprepared was I to
find such a town as Albany in danger from the roaming scalping parties
infesting the frontier.
Still, had my own headquarters been in Albany, I should have considered
it the proper place for Elsin; but under these ominous, unlooked-for
conditions I dared not leave her here, even domiciled with some family
of my acquaintance, as I had intended. Indeed, I learned that the young
patroon himself had gone to Heldeberg to arm his tenantry, and I knew
that when Stephen Van Rensselaer took alarm it was not at the idle
whistling of a kill-deer plover.
As far as I could see there was now nothing for Elsin but to go forward
with me--strange irony of fate!--to Johnstown, perhaps to Butlersbury,
the late residence of that mortal enemy of mine, who had brought upon
her this dreadful trouble. How great a trouble it might prove to be I
dared not yet consider, for the faint hope was ever in me that this
unholy marriage might not stand the search of Tryon County's parish
records--that the poor creature he had cast off might not have been his
mistress after all, but his wife. Yes, I dared hope that he had lied,
remembering what Mount and the Weasel told me. At any rate, I had long
since determined to search what parish records might remain undestroyed
in a land where destruction had reigned for four terrible years. That,
and the chance that I might slay him if he appeared as he had
threatened, were the two fixed ideas that persisted. There was little
certainty, however, in either case, for, as I say, the records, if
extant, might only confirm his pledged word, and, on the other hand, I
was engaged by all laws of honor not to permit a private enmity to
swerve me from my public duty. Therefore, I could neither abandon all
else to hunt him down if he appeared as he promised to appear, nor take
time in record-searching, unless the documents were close at hand.
Perplexed, more than anxious, I went up-stairs and entered my chamber.
The door between our rooms still swung open, and, as I stepped forward
to close it, I saw Elsin there, asleep on her bed, fingers doubled up
in her rosy palms. So young, so pitifully alone she seemed, lying there
sleep-flushed, face upturned, that my eyes dimmed as I gazed. Bitter
doubts assailed me. I knew that I should have asked a flag and sent her
north to Sir Frederick Haldimand--even though it meant a final
separation for us--rather than risk the chances of my living through
the armed encounter, the intrigues, the violence which were so surely
approaching. I could do so still; it was not too late. Colonel Willett
would give me a flag!
Miserable, undecided, overwhelmed with self-reproach, I stood there
looking upon the unconscious sleeper. Sunlight faded from the patterned
wall; that violet tint, which lingers with us in the north after the
sun has set, deepened to a sadder color, then slowly thickened to
obscurity; and from the window I saw the new moon hanging through
tangled branches, dull as a silver-poplar leaf in November.
What if I die here on the frontier? The question persisted, repeating
itself again and again. And my thoughts ran on in somber disorder: If I
die--then we shall never know wedded happiness--never know the sweetest
of intimacies. Our lives, uncompleted, what meaning is there in such
lives? As for me, were my life to end all incomplete, why was I born?
To live on, year after year, escaping the perils all are heir to, and
then, when for the first instant life's true meaning is disclosed, to
die, sterile, blighting, desolating another life, too? And must we put
away offered happiness to wait on custom at our peril?--to sit cowed
before convention, juggling with death and passion?
Darkness around me, darkness in my soul, I stood staring at her where
she lay, arms bent back and small hands doubled up; and an overwhelming
rush of tenderness and apprehension drew me forward to bend above her,
hovering there, awed by the beauty of her--the pure lids, the lashes
resting on the cheeks, the red mouth so exquisitely tranquil, curled
like a scarlet petal of a flower fallen on snow.
Her love and mine! What cared we for laws that barred it?--what
mattered any law that dared attempt to link her destiny with that man
who might, perhaps, wear a title as her husband--and might not. Who
joined them? No God that I feared or worshiped. Then, why should I not
sunder a pact inspired by hell itself; and if the law of the land made
by men of the land permitted us no sanctuary in wedlock, then why did
we not seek that shelter in a happiness the law forbids, inspired by a
passion no law could forbid?
I had but to reach forward, to bend and touch her, and where was
Death's triumph if I fell at last? What vague and terrible justice
could rob us of these hours? Never, never had I loved her as I did
then. She breathed so quietly, lying there, that I could not see her
body stir; her stillness awed me, fascinated me; so still, so inert, so
marvelously motionless, that her very soul seemed asleep within her.
Should I awake her, this child whose calm, closed lids, whose soft
lashes and tinted skin, whose young soul and body were in my keeping
here under a strange roof, in a strange land?
Slowly, very slowly, a fear grew in me that took the shape of horror.
My reasoning was the reasoning of Walter Butler!--my argument his
damning creed! Dazed, shaken, I sank to my knees, overwhelmed by my own
perfidy; and she stirred in her slumber and stretched out one little
hand. All the chivalry, all the manhood in me responded to that appeal
in a passion of loyalty which swept my somber heart clean of
selfishness.
And there in the darkness I learned the lesson that she believed I had
taught to her--a lesson so easily forgotten when the heart's loud clamor
drowns all else, and every pulse throbs reckless response. And it was
cold reasoning and chill logic for cooling hot young blood--but it was
neither reason nor logic which prevailed, I think, but something--I know
not what--something inborn that conquered spite of myself, and a guilty
and rebellious heart that, after all, had only asked for love, at any
price--only love, but _all_ of it, its sweetness unbridled, its mystery
unfathomed--lest the body die, and the soul, unsatisfied, wing upward to
eternal ignorance.
As I crouched there beside her, in the darkness below the tall
hall-clock fell a-striking; and she moved, sighed, and sat
up--languid-eyed and pink from slumber.
"Carus," she murmured, "how long have I slept? How long have you been
here, my darling? Heigho! Why did you wake me? I was in paradise with
you but now. Where are you? I am minded to drowse, and go find you in
paradise again."
She pushed her hair aside and turned, resting her chin on one hand,
regarding me with sweet, sleepy, humorous eyes that glimmered like
amethysts in the moonlight.
"Were ever two lovers so happy?" she asked. "Is there anything on earth
that we lack?--possessing each other so completely. Tell me, Carus."
"Nothing," I said.
"Nothing," she echoed, leaning toward me and resting in my arms for a
moment, then laid her hands on my shoulders, and, raising herself to a
sitting posture, fell a-laughing to herself.
"While you were gone this afternoon," she said, "and I was lying here,
eyes wide open, seeming to feel the bed sway like the ship, I fell to
counting the ticking of the stair-clock below, and thinking how each
second was recording the eternity of my love for you. And as I lay
a-listening and thinking, came one by the window singing 'John O'Bail',
and I heard voices in the tap-room and the clatter of pewter flagons.
On a settle outside the tap-room window, full in the sun, sat the
songster and his companions, drinking new ale and singing 'John
O'Bail'--a song I never chanced to hear before, and I shall not soon
forget it for lack of schooling"--and she sang softly, sitting there,
clasping her knees, and swaying with the quaint rhythm:
"'Where do you wend your way, John O'Bail,
Where do you wend your way?'
'I follow the spotted trail
Till a maiden bids me stay,'
'Beware of the trail, John O'Bail,
Beware of the trail, I say!'
"Thus it runs, Carus, the legend of this John O'Bail, how he sought the
wilderness, shunning his kind, and traveled and trapped and slew the
deer, until one day at sunrise a maid of the People of the Morning
hailed him, bidding him stay:
"'Turn to the fire of dawn, John O'Bail,
Turn to the fire of dawn;
The doe that waits in the vale
Was a fawn in the year that's gone!'
And John O'Bail he heeds the hail
And follows her on and on.
"Oh, Carus, they sang it and sang it, hammering their pewters together,
and roaring the chorus, and that last dreadful verse:
"'Where is the soul of you, John O'Bail,
Where is the soul you slew?
There's Painted Death on the trail,
And the moccasins point to you.
Shame on the name of John O'Bail----'"
She hesitated, peering through the shadows at me: "Who _was_ John
O'Bail, Carus? What is the Painted Death, and who are the People of the
Morning?"
"John O'Bail was a wandering fellow who went a-gipsying into the
Delaware country. The Delawares call themselves 'People of the
Morning.' This John O'Bail had a son by an Indian girl--and that's what
they made the ballad about, because this son is that mongrel demon,
Cornplanter, and he's struck the frontier like a catamount gone raving
mad. He is the 'Painted Death.'"
"Oh," she said thoughtfully, "so that is why they curse the name of
John O'Bail."
After a moment she went on again: "Well, you'll never guess who it was
singing away down there! I crept to my windows and peeped out, and
there, Carus, were those two queer forest-running fellows who stopped
us on the hill that morning----"
"Jack Mount!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, dear, and the other--the little wrinkled fellow, who had such
strangely fine manners for a Coureur-de-Bois----"
"The Weasel!"
"Yes, Carus, but very drunk, and boisterous, and cutting most amazing
capers. They went off, finally, arm in arm, shuffling, reeling, and
anon breaking into a solemn sort of dance; and everybody gave them wide
berth on the street, and people paused to look after them, marking them
with sour visages and wagging heads--" She stopped short, finger on
lips, listening.
Far up the street I heard laughter, then a plaintive, sustained
howling, then more laughter, drawing nearer and nearer.
Elsin nodded in silence. I sprang up and descended the stairs. The
tap-room was lighted with candles, and the sober burghers who sat
within, savoring the early ale, scarce noted my entrance, so intent
were they listening to the approaching tumult.
The peculiar howling had recommenced. Stepping to the open door I
looked out, and beheld a half-dozen forest-runners, in all the glory of
deep-fringed buckskin and bright wampum, slowly hopping round and round
in a circle, the center of which was occupied by an angry town
watchman, lanthorn lighted, pike in hand. As they hopped, lifting their
moccasined feet as majestically as turkeys walking in a muddy road,
fetching a yelp at every step, I perceived in their grotesque
evolutions a parody upon a Wyandotte scalp-dance, the while they yapped
and yowled, chanting:
"Ha-wa-sa-say
Ha! Ha!
Ha-wa-sa-say!"
"Dance, watchman, dance!" shouted one of the rangers, whom I knew to be
Jack Mount, poking the enraged officer in the short ribs with the
muzzle of his rifle; and the watchman, with a snarl, picked up his feet
and began to tread a reluctant measure, calling out that he did not
desire to dance, and that they were great villains and rogues and
should pay for it yet.
I saw some shopkeepers putting up the shutters before their lighted
windows, while the townspeople stood about in groups, agape, to see
such doings in the public streets.
"Silence!" shouted Mount, raising his hand. "People of Albany, we have
shown you the famous Wyandotte dance; we will now exhibit a dancing
bear! Houp! Houp! Weasel, take thy tin cup and collect shillings! Ow!
Ow!" And he dropped his great paws so that they dangled at the wrist,
laid his head on one side, and began sidling around in a circle with
the grave, measured tread of a bear, while the Weasel, drinking-cup in
hand, industriously trotted in and out among the groups of scandalized
burghers, thrusting the tin receptacle at them, and talking all the
while: "Something for the bear, gentlemen--a trifle, if you please.
Everybody is permitted to contribute--you, sir, with your bones so
nicely wadded over with fat--a shilling from you. What? How dare you
refuse? Stop him, Tim!"
A huge ranger strode after the amazed burgher, blocking his way; the
thrifty had taken alarm, but the rangers herded them back with
persuasive playfulness, while the little Weasel made the rounds,
talking cheerfully all the time, and Mount, great fists dangling,
minced round and round, with a huge simper on his countenance, as
though shyly aware of his own grace.
"Tim Murphy should go into the shops," he called out. "There are a
dozen fat Dutchmen a-peeking through the shutters at me, and I dance
before no man for less than a shilling. Houp! Houp! How much is in thy
cup, Cade? Lord, what a thirst is mine! Yet I dance--villains, do you
mark me? Oh, Cade, yonder pretty maid who laughs and shows her teeth is
welcome to the show and naught to pay--unless she likes. Tim, I can
dance no more! Elerson, bring the watchman!"
The Weasel trotted up, rattling the coins so unwillingly contributed by
the economical; the runner addressed as Elerson tucked his arm
affectionately into the arm of the distracted watchman and strolled up,
followed by Tim Murphy, the most redoubtably notorious shot in North
America.
Laughing, disputing, shouting, they came surging toward the Half-Moon
Tavern, dragging the watchman, on whom they lavished many endearments.
The crowd parted with alacrity as Mount, thumbs in his armpits,
silver-moleskin cap pushed back on his clustering curls, swaggered
ahead, bowing right and left as though an applauding throng heralded
the progress of an emperor and his suite.
Here and there a woman laughed at the handsome, graceless fellows; here
and there a burgher managed to pull a grin, spite of the toll exacted.
"Now that our means permit us, we are going to drink your healths, good
people," said Mount affably, shaking the tin cup; "and the health of
that pretty maid who showed her teeth at me. Ladies of Albany, if you
but knew the wealth of harmless frolic caged in the heart that beats
beneath a humble rifle-frock! Eh, Tim? Off with thy coonskin, and sweep
the populace with thy courtly bow!"
Murphy lifted his coonskin cap, flourishing it till the ringed fur-tail
became a blur. Elerson, in a spasm of courtesy, removed the watchman's
tricorn as well as his own; the little Weasel backed off, bowing step
by step, until he backed past me into the tap-room, followed by the
buckskinned crew.
"Now, watchman, have at thee!" roared Mount, as the sloppy pewters were
brought.
And the watchman, resigned, pulled away at his mug, furtive eyes on the
landlord, who, with true delicacy, looked the other way. At that moment
Mount espied me and rose, pewter in hand, with a shout that brought all
to their feet.
"Death to the Iroquois!" he thundered, "and a health to Captain Renault
of the Rangers!"
Every eye was on me; the pewters were lifted, reversed, and emptied.
The next instant I was in the midst of a trampling, buckskinned mob;
they put me up on their shoulders and marched around the tap-room,
singing "Morgan's Men"; they set me on their table amid the pools of
spilled ale, and, joining hands, danced round and round, singing "The
New Yorker" and "John O'Bail," until more ale was fetched and a cup
handed up to me.
"Silence! The Captain speaks!" cried Mount.
"Captain?" said I, laughing. "I am no officer."
There was a mighty roar of laughter, amid which I caught cries of "He
doesn't know." "Where's the 'Gazette'?" "Show him the 'Gazette'!"
The stolid landlord picked up a newspaper from a table, spread it
deliberately, drew his horn spectacles from his pocket, wiped them,
adjusted them, and read aloud a notice of my commission from Governor
Clinton to be a senior captain in the Tryon County Rangers. Utterly
unprepared, dumb with astonishment, I stared at him through the
swelling din. Somebody thrust the paper at me. I read the item, mug in
one hand, paper in t'other.
"Death to the Iroquois!" they yelled. "Hurrah for Captain Renault!"
"Silence!" bawled Mount. "Listen to the Captain!"
"Rangers of Tryon," I said, hesitating, "this great honor which our
Governor has done me is incomprehensible to me. What experience have I
to lead such veterans?--men of Morgan's, men of Hand's, men of
Saratoga, of Oriska, of Stillwater?--I who have never laid rifle in
anger--I who have never seen a man die by violence?"
The hush was absolute.
"It must be," said I, "that such service as I have had the honor to
render has made me worthy, else this commission had been an affront to
the Rangers of Tryon County. And so, my brothers, that I may not shame
you, I ask two things: obedience to orders; respect for my rank; and if
you render not respect to my character, that will be my fault, not your
own."
I raised my pewter: "The sentiment I give you is: 'The Rangers! My
honor in their hands; theirs in mine!' Pewters aloft! Drink!"
Then the storm broke loose; they surged about the table, cheering,
shaking their rifles and pewters above their heads, crying out for me
to have no fear, that they would aid me, that they would be obedient
and good--a mob of uproarious, overgrown children, swayed by sentiment
entirely. And I even saw the watchman, maudlin already, dancing all by
himself in a corner, and waving pike and lanthorn in martial fervor.
"Lads," I said, raising my hand for silence, "there is ale here for the
asking, and nothing to pay. But we leave at daybreak for Butlersbury."
There was a dead silence.
"That is all," I said, smiling; and, laying my hand on the table,
leaped lightly to the floor.
"Are we to drink no more?" asked Jack Mount, coming up, with round blue
eyes widening.
"I did not say so. I said that we march at day-break. You veterans of
the pewter know best how much ale to carry with you to bed. All I
require are some dozen steady legs in the morning."
A roar of laughter broke out.
"You may trust us, Captain! Good night, Captain! A health to you, sir!
We will remember!"
Instead of returning to my chamber to secure a few hours' rest, I went
out into the dimly lighted street, and, striking a smart pace, arrived
in a few moments at the house of my old friend, Peter Van Schaick, now
Colonel in command of the garrison. The house was pitch-dark, and it
was only after repeated rapping that the racket of the big bronze
knocker aroused an ancient negro servant, who poked his woolly pate
from the barred side-lights and informed me, in a quavering voice, that
Colonel Van Schaick was not at home, refusing all further information
concerning him.
"Joshua! Joshua!" I said gently; "don't you know me?"
There was a silence, then a trembling: "Mars' Renault, suh, is dat
you?"
"It is I, Joshua, back again after four years. Tell me where I may find
your master?"
"Mars' Carus, suh, de Kunnel done gone to de Foht, suh--Foht Orange on
de hill."
The old slave used the ancient name of the fort, but I understood.
"Does anybody live here now except the Colonel, Joshua?"
"No, suh, nobody 'cep' de Kunnel--'scusin' me, Mars' Carus."
"Joshua," I said, under my breath, "you know all the gossip of the
country. Tell me, do you remember a young gentleman who used to come
here before the war--a handsome, dark-eyed gentleman--Lieutenant Walter
N. Butler?"
There was an interval of silence.
"Wuz de ossifer a-sparkin' de young misses at Gin'ral Schuyler's?"
"Yes, Joshua."
"A-co'tin' Miss Betty, suh?"
"Yes, yes. Colonel Hamilton married her. That is the man, Joshua. Tell
me, did you ever hear of Mr. Butler's marriage in Butlersbury?"
A longer silence, then: "No, suh. Hit wuz de talk ob de town dat Suh
John Johnsing done tuk Miss Polly Watts foh his lady-wife, an' all de
time po'l'l Miss Claire wuz a-settin' in Foht Johnsing, dess a-cryin'
her eyes out. But Mars' Butler he done tuk an' run off 'long o' dat
half-caste lady de ossifers call Carolyn Montour----"
"What!"
"Yaas, suh. Dat de way Mars' Butler done carry on, suh. He done
skedaddle 'long o' M'ss Carolyn. Hit wuz a Mohawk weddin', Mars'
Carus."
"He never married her?"
"Mars' Butler he ain' gwine ma'hy nobody ef he ain' 'bleeged, suh. He
dess lak all de young gentry, suh--'scusin' you'se'f, Mars' Carus."
I nodded in grim silence. After a moment I asked him to open the door
for me, but he shook his aged head, saying: "Ef a ossifer done tell you
what de Kunnel done tell me, what you gwine do, Mars' Carus, suh?"
"Obey," I said briefly. "You're a good servant, Joshua. When Colonel
Van Schaick returns, say to him that Captain Renault of the Rangers
marches to Butlersbury at sunup, and that if Colonel Van Schaick can
spare six bat-horses and an army transport-wagon, to be at the
Half-Moon at dawn, Captain Renault will be vastly obliged to him, and
will certainly render a strict accounting to the proper authorities."
Then I turned, descended the brick stoop, and walked slowly back to my
quarters, a prey to apprehension and bitter melancholy. For if it were
true that Walter Butler had done this thing, the law of the land was on
his side; and if the war ended with him still alive, the courts must
sustain him in this monstrous claim on Elsin Grey. Thought halted. Was
it possible that Walter Butler had dared invade the tiger-brood of
Catrine Montour to satisfy his unslaked lust?
Was it possible that he dared affront the she-demon of Catherinestown
by ignoring an alliance with her fiercely beautiful child?--an alliance
that Catrine Montour must have considered legal and binding, however
irregular it might appear to jurists.
I was astounded. Where passion led this libertine, nothing barred his
way--neither fear nor pity. And he had even dared to reckon with this
frightful hag, Catrine Montour--this devil's spawn of Frontenac--and
her tawny offspring.
I had seen the girl, Carolyn, at Guy Park--a splendid young animal, of
sixteen then, darkly beautiful, wild as a forest-cat. No wonder the
beast in him had bristled at view of her; no wonder the fierce passion
in her had leaped responsive to his forest courtship. By heaven, a
proper mating in the shaggy hills of Danascara! Yes, but when the male
beast emerges, yellow eyes fixed on the dead line that should bar him
from the haunts of men, then, _then_ it is time that a man shall arise
and stand against him--stand for honor and right and light, and drive
him back to the darkness of his lair again, or slay him at the sunlit
gates of that civilization he dared to challenge.
CHAPTER X
SERMONS IN STONES
By sunup we had left the city on the three hills, Elsin, Colonel Van
Schaick, and I, riding our horses at the head of the little column,
followed by an escort of Rangers. Behind the Rangers plodded the laden
bat-horses, behind them creaked an army transport-wagon, loaded with
provisions and ammunition, drawn by two more horses, and the rear was
covered by another squad of buckskinned riflemen, treading lightly in
double file.
Nobody had failed me. My reckless, ale-swilling Rangers had kept the
tryst with swollen eyes but steady legs; a string of bat-horses stood
at the door of the Half-Moon when Elsin and I descended; and a moment
later the army wagon came jolting and bumping down the hilly street,
followed by Colonel Van Schaick and a dozen dragoons.
When he saw me he did not recognize me, so broad and tall had I become
in these four years. Besides, I wore my forest-dress of heavily fringed
doeskin, and carried the rifle given me by Colonel Hamilton.
"Hallo, Peter!" I called out, laughing.
"_You!_ Can that be you, Carus!" he cried, spurring up to me where I sat
my horse, and seizing me by both caped shoulders. "Lord! Look at the
lad! Six feet, or I'm a Mohawk!--six feet in his moccasins, and his hair
sheered close and his cap o' one side, like any forest-swaggering
free-rifle! Carus! Carus! Damme, if I'll call you Captain! Didn't you
greet me but now with your impudent 'Hallo, Peter!'? Didn't you, you
undisciplined rogue? By gad, you've kept your promise for a
heart-breaker, you curly-headed, brown-eyed forest dandy!"
He gave me a hug and a hearty shake, so that the thrums tossed, and my
little round cap of doeskin flew from my head. I clutched it ere it
fell, and keeping it in my hand, presented him to Elsin.
"We are affianced, Peter," I said quietly. "Colonel Willett must play
guardian until this fright in Albany subsides."
"Oh, the luck o' that man Willett!" he exclaimed, beaming on Elsin, and
saluting the hand she stretched out. "Why do you not choose a man like
me, madam? Heaven knows, such a reward is all I ask of my country's
gratitude! And you are going to marry this fellow Carus? Is this what
sinners such as he may look for? Gad, madam, I'm done with decency, and
shall rig me in fringed shirt and go whipping through the woods, if
such maidens as you find that attractive!"
"I find you exceedingly attractive, Colonel Van Schaick," she said,
laughing--"so attractive that I ask your protection against this man
who desires to be rid of me at any cost."
Van Schaick swore that I was a villain, and offered to run off with her
at the drop of her 'kerchief, but when I spoke seriously of the danger
at Albany, he sobered quickly enough, and we rode to the head of the
little column, now ready to move.
"March," I said briefly; and we started.
"I'll ride a little way with you," said the Colonel--"far enough to say
that when Joshua gave me your message on my return last night I sent my
orderly to find the wagon and animals and provision for three days'
march. You can make it in two if you like, or even in twenty-four
hours."
I thanked him and asked about the rumors which had so alarmed the
people in Albany; but he shook his head, saying he knew nothing except
that there were scalping parties out, and that he for one believed them
to be the advance of an invading force from Canada.
"You ask me where this sweet lady will be safest," he continued, "and I
answer that only God knows. Were I you, Carus, I should rather have her
near me; so if your duty takes you to Johnstown it may be best that she
remain with you until these rumors become definite. Then, it might be
well that she return to Albany and stay with friends like the
Schuylers, or the Van Rensselaers, or Colonel Hamilton's lady, if these
worthy folk deem it safe to remain."
"Have they gone?" I asked.
"They're preparing to go," he said gloomily. "Oh, Carus, when we had
Walter Butler safe in Albany jail in '78, why did we not hang him? He
was taken as a spy, tried, and properly condemned. I remember well how
he pretended illness, and how that tender-hearted young Marquis
Lafayette was touched by his plight, and begged that he be sent to
hospital in the comfortable house of some citizen. Ah, had we known
what that human tiger was meditating! Think of it, Carus! You knew him,
did you not, when he came a-courting Margaret Schuyler? Lord! who could
believe that Walter Butler would so soon be smeared with the blood of
women and children? Who could believe that this young man would so soon
be damned with the guilt of Cherry Valley?"
We rode on in silence. I dared not glance at Elsin; I found no pretext
to stop Van Schaick; and, still in perfect silence, we wheeled
northwest into the Schenectady road, where Peter took leave of us in
his own simple, hearty fashion, and wheeled about, galloping back up
the slope, followed by his jingling dragoons.
I turned to take my last look at the three hills and the quaint Dutch
city. Far away on the ramparts of the fort I saw our beloved flag
fluttering, a gay spot in the sunshine, with its azure, rose, and
silvery tints blending into the fresh colors of early morning. I saw,
too, the ruined fort across the river, where that British surgeon, Dr.
Stackpole, composed the immortal tune of "Yankee Doodle" to deride
us--that same tune to which my Lord Cornwallis was now dancing, while
we whistled it from West Point to Virginia.
As I sat my saddle there, gazing at the city I had thought so wonderful
when I was a lad fresh from Broadalbin Bush, I seemed once more to
wander with my comrades, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Steve Watts, and Jack
Johnson--now Sir John--a-fishing troutlings from the Norman's Kill,
that ripples through the lovely vale of Tawasentha. Once more I seemed
to see the patroon's great manor-house through the drooping foliage of
the park elms, and the stately mansion of our dear General Schuyler,
with its two tall chimneys, its dormers, roof-rail, and long avenue of
trees; and on the lawn I seemed to see pretty little Margaret, now
grown to womanhood and affianced to the patroon; and Betty Schuyler,
who scarce a year since wedded my handsome Colonel Hamilton--that same
lively Betty who so soon sent Walter Butler about his business, though
his veins were like to burst with pride o' the blood in them, that he
declared came straight from the Earls of Arran and the great Dukes of
Ormond and of Ossery.
"Of what are you thinking?" asked Elsin softly.
"Of my boyhood, dearest. Yonder is the first city I ever beheld. Shall
I tell you of it--and of that shy country lad who came hither to learn
something of deportment, so that he might venture to enter an assembly
and forget his hands and feet?"
"Were _you_ ever awkward, Carus?"
"Awkward as a hound-pup learning to walk."
"I shall never believe it," she declared, laughing; and we moved
forward on the Schenectady road, Murphy, Mount, Elerson, and the little
Weasel trotting faithfully at heel, and the brown column trailing away
in their dustless wake.
I had not yet forgotten the thrill of her quick embrace when, as we met
at the breakfast-table by candle-light, I had told her of my commission
and of our Governor's kindness. And just to see the flush of pride in
her face, I spoke of it again; and her sweet eyes' quick response was
the most wonderful to me of all the fortune that had fallen to my lot.
I turned proudly in my saddle, looking back upon the people now
entrusted to me--and as I looked, pride changed to apprehension, and a
quick prayer rose in my heart that I, a servant of my country, might
not prove unequal to the task set me.
Sobered, humbled, I rode on, asking in silence God's charity for my
ignorance, and His protection for her I loved, and for these human
souls entrusted to my care in the dark hours of the approaching trial.
North and northwest we traveled on a fair road, which ran through
pleasant farming lands, stretches of woods, meadows, and
stubble-fields. At first we saw men at work in the fields, not many,
but every now and again some slow Dutch yokel, with his sunburned face
turned from his labor to watch us pass. But the few farmhouses became
fewer, and these last were deserted. Finally no more houses appeared,
and stump-lots changed to tangled clearings, and these into second
growth, and these at last into the primeval forests, darkly
magnificent, through which our road, now but a lumber road, ran moist
and dark, springy and deep with the immemorial droppings of the trees.
Without command of mine, four lithe riflemen had trotted off ahead. I
now ordered four more to act on either flank, and called up part of the
rear-guard to string out in double file on either side of the animals
and wagon. The careless conversation in the ranks, the sudden laugh,
the clumsy skylarking all ceased. Tobacco-pipes were emptied and
pouched, flints and pans scrutinized, straps and bandoleers tightened,
moccasins relaced. The batmen examined ropes, wagon-wheels, and
harness, and I saw them furtively feeling for their hatchets to see
that everything was in place.
Thankful that I had a company of veterans and no mob of godless and
silly trappers, bawling contempt of everything Indian, I unconsciously
began to read the signs of the forest, relapsing easily into that
cautious custom which four years' disuse had nothing rusted.
And never had man so perfect a companion in such exquisite accord with
his every mood and thought as I had in Elsin Grey. Her sweet,
reasonable mind was quick to comprehend. When I fell silent, using my
ears with all the concentration of my other senses, she listened, too,
nor broke the spell by glance or word. Yet, soon as I spoke in low
tones, her soft replies were ready, and when my ever restless eyes
reverted, resting a moment on her, her eyes met mine with that perfect
confidence that pure souls give.
At noon we halted to rest the horses and eat, the pickets going out of
their own accord. And I did not think it fit to give orders where none
were required in this company of Irregulars, whose discipline matched
regiments more pretentious, and whose alignment was suited to the
conditions. Braddock and Bunker Hill were lessons I had learned to
regard as vastly more important than our good Baron's drill-book.
As I sat eating a bit of bread, cup of water in the other hand. Jack
Mount came swaggering up with that delightful mixture of respect and
familiarity which brings the hand to the cap but leaves a grin on the
face.
"Well, Jack?" I asked, smiling.
"Have you noticed any sign, sir?" he inquired. Secretly self-satisfied,
he was about to go on and inform me that he and Tim Murphy had noticed
a stone standing against a tree--for I saw them stop like pointers on a
hot grouse-scent just as we halted to dismount. I was unwilling to
forestall him or take away one jot of the satisfaction, so I said:
"What have you seen?"
Then he beamed all over and told me; and the Weasel and Tim Murphy came
up to corroborate him, all eagerly pointing out the stone to me where
it rested against the base of a black ash.
"Well," said I, smiling, "how do you interpret that sign?"
"Iroquois!" said the rangers promptly.
"Yes, but are they friendly or hostile?"
The question seemed to them absurd, but they answered very civilly that
it was a signal of some sort which could only be interpreted by
Indians, and that they had no doubt that it meant some sort of mischief
to us.
"Men," I said quietly, "you are wrong. That stone leaning upon a tree
is a friendly message to me from a body of our Oneida scouts."
They stared incredulously.
"I will prove it," said I. "Jack, go you to that stone. On the under
side you will find a number of white marks made with paint. I can not
tell you how many, but the number will indicate the number of Oneidas
who are scouting for us ahead."
Utterly unconvinced, yet politely obedient, the blond giant strode off
across the road, picked up the great stone as though it were a pompion,
turned it over, uttered an exclamation, and bore it back to us.
"You see," I said, "twenty Oneida scouts will join us about two o'clock
this afternoon if we travel at the same rate that we are traveling.
This white circle traced here represents the sun; the straight line the
meridian. Calculating roughly, I should set the time of meeting at two
o'clock. Now, Jack, take the stone to the stream yonder and scrub off
the paint with moss and gun-oil, then drop the stone into the water.
And you, Tim Murphy, go quietly among the men and caution them not to
fire on a friendly Oneida. That is all, lads. We march in a few
moments."
The effect upon the rangers was amusing; their kindly airs of
good-natured protection vanished; Mount gazed wildly at me; Tim Murphy,
perfectly convinced yet unable to utter a word, saluted and marched
off, while Elerson and the Weasel stood open-mouthed, fingering their
rifles until the men began to fall in silently, and I put up Elsin and
mounted my roan, motioning Murphy and Jack Mount to my stirrups.
"Small wonder I read such signs," I said. "I am an Oneida chief, an
ensign, and a sachem. Come freely to me when signs of the Iroquois
puzzle you. It would not have been very wise to open fire on our own
scouts."
It seemed strange to them--it seemed strange to me--that I should be
instructing the two most accomplished foresters in America. Yet it is
ever the old story; all else they could read that sky and earth, land
and water, tree and rock held imprinted for savant eyes, but they could
not read the simple signs and symbols by which the painted men of the
woods conversed with one another. Pride, contempt for the savage--these
two weaknesses stood in their way. And no doubt, now, they consoled
themselves with the thought that a dead Iroquois, friendly or
otherwise, was no very great calamity. This was a danger, but I did not
choose to make it worse by harping on it.
About two o'clock a ranger of the advanced guard came running back to
say that some two score Iroquois, stripped and painted for war, were
making signs of amity from the edge of the forest in front of us.
I heard Mount grunt and Murphy swearing softly under his breath as I
rode forward, with a nod to Elsin.
"Now you will see some friends of my boyhood," I said gaily, unlacing
the front of my hunting-shirt as I rode, and laying it open to the
wind.
"Carus!" she exclaimed, "what is that blue mark on your breast?"
"Only a wolf," I said, laughing. "Now you shall see how we Oneidas meet
and greet after many years! Look, Elsin! See that Indian standing there
with his gun laid on his blanket? The three rangers have taken to
cover. There they stand, watching that Oneida like three tree-cats."
As I cantered up and drew bridle Elerson called out that there were
twenty savages in the thicket ahead, and to be certain that I was not
mistaken.
The tall Oneida looked calmly up at me; his glittering eyes fell upon
my naked breast, and, as he looked, his dark face lighted, and he
stretched out both hands.
"Onehda!" he ejaculated.
I leaned from my saddle, holding his powerful hands in a close clasp.
"Little Otter! Is it you, my younger brother? Is it really you?" I
repeated again and again, while his brilliant eyes seemed to devour my
face, and his sinewy grip tightened spasmodically.
"What happiness, Onehda!" he said, in his softly sonorous Oneida
dialect. "What happiness for the young men--and the sachems--and the
women and children, too, Onehda. It is well that you return to us--to
the few of us who are left. Koue!"
And now the Oneidas were coming out of the willows, crowding up around
my horse, and I heard everywhere my name pronounced, and everywhere
outstretched hands sought mine, and painted faces were lifted to
mine--even the blackened visage of the war-party's executioner relaxing
into the merriest of smiles.
"Onehda," he said, "do you remember that feast when you were raised
up?"
"Does an Oneida and a Wolf forget?" I said, smiling.
An emphatic "No!" broke from the painted throng about me.
Elsin, sitting her saddle at a little distance, watched us wide-eyed.
"Brothers," I said quietly, "a new rose has budded in Tryon County. The
Oneidas will guard it for the honor of their nation, lest the northern
frost come stealing south to blight the blossom."
Two score dark eyes flashed on Elsin. She started; then a smile broke
out on her flushed face as a painted warrior stalked solemnly forward,
bent like a king, and lifted the hem of her foot-mantle to his lips.
One by one the Oneidas followed, performing the proud homage in
silence, then stepping back to stand with folded arms as the head of
the column appeared at the bend of the road.
I called Little Otter to me, questioning him; and he said that as far
as they had gone there were no signs of Mohawk or Cayuga, but that the
bush beyond should be traversed with caution. So I called in the
flanking rangers, replacing them with Oneidas, and, sending the balance
of the band forward on a trot, waited five minutes, then started on
with a solid phalanx of riflemen behind to guard the rear.
As we rode, Elsin and I talking in low tones, mile after mile slipped
away through the dim forest trail, and nothing to alarm us that I
noted, save once when I saw another stone set upon a stone; but I knew
my Oneidas had also seen and examined it, and it had not alarmed them
sufficiently to send a warrior back to me.
It was an Oneida symbol; but, of course, my scouts had not set it up.
Therefore it must have been placed there by an enemy, but for what
purpose except to arrest the attention of an Oneida and prepare him for
later signals, I could not yet determine. Mount had seen it, and spoken
of it, but I shook my head, bidding him keep his eyes sharpened for
further signs.
Signs came sooner than I expected. We passed stone after stone set on
end, all emphasizing the desire of somebody to arrest the attention of
an Oneida. Could it be I? A vague premonition had scarcely taken shape
in my mind when, at a turn in the road, I came upon three of my Oneida
scouts standing in the center of the road. The seven others must have
gone on, for I saw nothing of them. The next moment I caught sight of
something that instantly riveted and absorbed my attention.
From a huge pine towering ahead of us, and a little to the right, a
great square of bark had been carefully removed about four feet from
the ground. On this fresh white scar were painted three significant
symbols--the first a red oblong, about eighteen inches by four, on
which were designed two human figures, representing Indians, holding
hands. Below that, drawn in dark blue, were a pair of stag's antlers,
of five prongs; below the antlers--a long way below--was depicted in
black a perfectly recognizable outline of a timber-wolf.
I rode up to the tree and examined the work. The paint was still soft
and fresh on the raw wood. Flies swarmed about it. I looked at Little
Otter, making a sign, and his scarcely perceptible nod told me that I
had read the message aright.
The message was for me, personally and exclusively; and the red man who
had traced it there not an hour since was an Iroquois, either Canienga,
Onondaga, Cayuga, or Seneca--I know not which. Roughly, the translation
of the message was this: The Wolf meant me because about it were traced
the antlers, symbol of chieftainship, and below, on the ground, the
symbol of the Oneida Nation, a long, narrow stone, upright, embedded in
the moss. The red oblong smear represented a red-wampum belt; the
figures on it indicated that, although the belt was red, meaning war,
the clasped hands modified the menace, so that I read the entire sign
as follows:
"An Iroquois desires to see you in order to converse upon a subject
concerning wars and treaties."
"Turn over that stone, Little Otter," I said.
"I have already done so," he replied quietly.
"At what hour does this embassy desire to see me?"
He held up four fingers in silence.
"Is this Canienga work?"
"Mohawk!" he said bitterly.
The two terms were synonymous, yet mine was respectful, his a
contemptuous insult to the Canienga Nation. No Indian uses the term
Mohawk in speaking to or of a Mohawk unless they mean an insult.
Canienga is the proper term.
"Is it safe for me to linger here while all go forward?" I asked Little
Otter, lowering my voice so that none except he could hear me.
He smiled and pointed at the tree. The tree was enormous, a giant pine,
dwarfing the tallest tree within range of my vision from where I sat my
horse. I understood. The choice of this great tree for the inscription
was no accident; it now symbolized the sacred tree of the Six
Nations--the tree of heaven. Beneath it any Iroquois was as safe as
though he stood at the eternal council-fire at Onondaga in the presence
of the sachems of the Long House. But why had this unseen embassy
refused to trust himself to this sanctuary? Because of the rangers, to
whom no redskin is sacred.
"Jack Mount," I said, "take command and march your men forward half a
mile. Then halt and await me."
He obeyed without a word. Elsin hesitated, gave me one anxious,
backward glance, but my smile seemed to reassure her, and she walked
her black mare forward. Past me marched the little column. I watched it
drawing away northward, until a turn in the forest road hid the wagon
and the brown-clad rear-guard. Then I dismounted and sat down, my back
to the giant pine, my rifle across my knees, to wait for the red
ambassador whom I knew would come.
Minute after minute slipped away. So still it grew that the shy forest
creatures came back to this forest runway, made by dreaded man; and
because it is the work of a creature they dread and suspect, their
curiosity ever draws them to man-made roads. A cock-grouse first
stepped out of the thicket, crest erect, ruff spread; then a hare loped
by, halting to sniff in the herbage. I watched them for a long while,
listening intently. Suddenly the partridge wheeled, crest flattened,
and ran into the thicket, like a great rat; the hare sat erect, flanks
palpitating, then leaped twice, and was gone as shadows go.
I saw the roadside bushes stir, part, and, as I rose, an Indian leaped
lightly into the road and strode straight toward me. He was curiously
painted with green and orange, and he was stark naked, except that he
wore ankle-moccasins, clout, and a fringed pouch, like a quiver,
covered with scarlet beads in zigzag pattern.
He did not seem to notice that I was armed, for he carried his own
rifle most carelessly in the hollow of his left arm, and when he had
halted before me he coolly laid the weapon across his moccasins.
The dignified silence that always precedes a formal meeting of strange
Iroquois was broken at length by a low, guttural exclamation as his
narrow-slitted eyes fell upon the tattoo on my bared breast: "Salute,
Roy-a-neh!"
"Welcome, O Keeper of the Gate," I said calmly.
"Does my younger brother know to which gate-warden he speaks?" asked
the savage warily.
"When a Wolf barks, the Eastern Gate-Keepers of the Long House listen,"
I replied. "It was so in the beginning. What has my elder brother of
the Canienga to say to me?"
His cunning glance changed instantly to an absolutely expressionless
mask. My white skin no longer made any difference to him. We were now
two Iroquois.
"It is the truth," he said. "This is the message sent to my younger
brother, Onehda, chief ensign of the Wolf Clan of the Oneida nation. I
am a belt-bearer. Witness the truth of what I say to you--by this belt.
Now read the will of the Iroquois."
He drew from his beaded pouch a black and white belt of seven rows. I
took it, and, holding it in both hands, gazed attentively into his
face.
"The Three Wolves listen," I said briefly.
"Then listen, noble of the noble clan. The council-fire is covered at
Onondaga; but it shall burn again at Thendara. This was so from the
first, as all know. The council therefore summons their brother,
Onehda, as ensign of his clan. The will of the council is the will of
the confederacy. Hiro! I have spoken."
"Does a single coal from Onondaga still burn under the great tree, my
elder brother?" I asked cautiously.
"The great tree is at Onondaga," he answered sullenly; "the fire is
covered."
Which was as much as to say that there was no sanctuary guaranteed an
Oneida, even at a federal council.
"Tell them," I said deliberately, "that a belt requires a belt; and,
when the Wolves talk to the Oneidas, they at Thendara shall be
answered. I have spoken."
"Do the Three Wolves take counsel with the Six Bears and Turtles?" he
asked, with a crafty smile.
"The trapped wolf has no choice; his howls appeal to the wilderness
entire," I replied emphatically.
"But--a trapped wolf never howls, my younger brother; a lone wolf in a
pit is always silent."
I flushed, realizing that my metaphor had been at fault. Yet now there
was to be nothing between this red ambassador and me except the
subtlest and finest shades of metaphor.
"It is true that a trapped wolf never howls," I said; "because a pitted
wolf is as good as a dead wolf, and a dead wolf's tongue hangs out
sideways. But it is not so when the pack is trapped. Then the prisoners
may call upon the Wilderness for aid, lest a whole people suffer
extermination."
"Will my younger brother take counsel with Oneidas?" he asked
curiously.
"Surely as the rocks of Tryon point to the Dancers, naming the Oneida
nation since the Great Peace began, so surely, my elder brother, shall
Onehda talk to the three ensigns, brother to brother, clan to clan,
lest we be utterly destroyed and the Oneida nation perish from the
earth."
"My younger brother will not come to Thendara?" he inquired without
emotion.
"Does a chief answer as squirrels answer one to another?--as crow
replies to crow?" I asked sternly. "Go teach the Canienga how to listen
and how to wait!"
His glowing eyes, fastened on mine, were lowered to the symbol on my
breast, then his shaved head bent, and he folded his powerful arms.
"Onehda has spoken," he said respectfully. "Even a Delaware may claim
his day of grace. My ears are open, O my younger brother."
"Then bear this message to the council: I accept the belt; my answer
shall be the answer of the Oneida nation; and with my reply shall go
three strings. Depart in peace, Bearer of Belts!"
Lightly, gracefully as a tree-lynx, he stooped and seized his rifle,
wheeled, passed noiselessly across the road, turned, and buried himself
in the tufted bushes. For an instant the green tops swayed, then not a
ripple of the foliage, not a sound marked the swift course of the naked
belt-bearer through the uncharted sea of trees.
Mounting my roan, I wheeled him north at a slow walk, preoccupied,
morose, sadly absorbed in this new order of things where an Oneida now
must needs answer a Mohawk as an Iroquois should once have answered an
Erie or an Algonquin. Alas for the great League! alas for the mighty
dead! Hiawatha! Atotarho! Where were they? Where now was our own
Odasete; and Kanyadario, and the mighty wisdom of Dekanawidah? The end
of the Red League was already in sight; the Great Peace was broken; the
downfall of the Confederacy was at hand.
At that northern tryst at Thendara, the nine sachems allotted to the
Canienga, the fourteen sachems of the Onondaga, the eight Senecas, the
Cayuga ten must look in vain for nine Oneidas. And without them the
Great Peace breaks like a rotten arrow where the war-head drops and the
feathers fall from the unbound nock.
Strange, strange, that I, a white man of blood untainted, must answer
for this final tragic catastrophe! Without me, perhaps, the sachems of
the three clans might submit to the will of the League, for even the
surly Onondagas had now heeded the League-Call--yes, even the
Tuscaroras, too. And as for those Delaware dogs, they had come,
belly-dragging, cringing to the lash of the stricken Confederacy,
though now was their one chance in a hundred years to disobey and defy.
But the Lenape were ever women.
Strange, strange, that I, a white man of unmixed blood, should stand in
League-Council for the noblest clan of the Oneida nation!
That I had been adopted satisfied the hereditary law of chieftainship;
that I had been selected satisfied the elective law of the sachems.
Rank follows the female line; the son of a chief never succeeded to
rank. It is the matron--the chief woman of the family--who chooses a
dead chief's successor from the female line in descent; and thus Cloud
on the Sun chose me, her adopted; and, dying, heard the loud, imperious
challenge from the council-fire as the solemn rite ended with:
"_Now show me the man!_"
And so, knowing that the antlers were lifted and the quiver slung
across my thigh, she died contented, and I, a lad, stood a chief of the
Oneida nation. Never since time began, since the Caniengas adopted
Hiawatha, had a white councilor been chosen who had been accepted by
family, clan, and national council, and ratified by the federal senate,
excepting only Sir William Johnson and myself. That Algonquin word
"sachem," so seldom used, so difficult of pronunciation by the
Iroquois, was never employed to designate a councilor in council; there
they used the title, Roy-a-neh, and to that title had I answered the
belt of the Iroquois, in the name of Kayanehenh-Kowa, the Great Peace.
For what Magna Charta is to the Englishman, what the Constitution is to
us, is the Great Peace to an Iroquois; and their gratitude, their
intense reverence and love for its founder, Hiawatha, is like no
sentiment we have conceived even for the beloved name of Washington.
Now that the Revolution had split the Great Peace, which is the
Iroquois League, the larger portion of the nation had followed Brant to
Canada--all the Caniengas, the greater part of the Onondaga nation, all
the Cayugas, the one hundred and fifty of our own Oneidas. And though
the Senecas did not desert their western post as keepers of the
shattered gate in a house divided against itself, they acted with the
Mohawks; the Onondagas had brought their wampum from Onondaga, and a
new council-fire was kindled in Canada as rallying-place of a great
people in process of final disintegration.
It was sad to me who loved them, who knew them first as firm allies of
New York province, who understood them, their true character, their
history and tradition, their intimate social and family life.
And though I stood with those whom they struck heavily, and who in turn
struck them hip and thigh, I bear witness before God that they were not
by nature the fiends and demons our historians have painted, not by
instinct the violent and ferocious scourges that the painted Tories
made of these children of the forest, who for five hundred years had
formed a confederacy whose sole object was peace.
I speak not of the brutal and degraded _gens de prairie_--the
horse-riding savages of the West, whose primal instincts are to torture
the helpless and to violate women--a crime no Iroquois, no Huron, no
Algonquin, no Lenni-Lenape can be charged with. But I speak for the
_gens de bois_--the forest Indians of the East, and of those who
maintained the Great League, which was but a powerful tribunal imposing
peace upon half a continent.
Left alone to themselves, unharassed by men of my blood and color, they
are a kindly and affectionate people, full of sympathy for their
friends in distress, considerate of their women, tender to their
children, generous to strangers, anxious for peace, and profoundly
reverent where their League or its founders were concerned.
Centuries of warfare for self-preservation have made them efficient in
the arts of war. Ferocity, craft, and deception, practised on them by
French, Dutch, and English, have taught them to reply in kind. Yet
these somber, engrafted qualities which we have recorded as their
distinguishing traits, no more indicate their genuine character than
war-paint and shaven head display the customary costume they appear in
among their own people. The cruelties of war are not peculiar to any
one people; and God knows that in all the Iroquois confederacy no
savage could be found to match the British Provost, Cunningham, or
Major Bromfield--no atrocities could obscure the atrocities in the
prisons and prison-ships of New York, the deeds of the Butlers, of
Crysler, of Beacraft, and of Bettys.
For, among the Iroquois, I can remember only two who were the peers in
cruelty of Walter Butler and the Tory Beacraft, and these were the
Indian called Seth Henry, and the half-breed hag, Catrine Montour.
Pondering on these things, perplexed and greatly depressed, I presently
emerged from the forest-belt through which I had been riding, and found
our little column halted in the open country, within a few minutes'
march of the Schenectady highway.
The rangers looked up at me curiously as I passed, doubtless having an
inkling of what had been going on from questioning the Oneida scouts,
for Murphy broke out impulsively, "Sure, Captain, we was that onaisy,
alanna, that Elerson an' me matched apple-pipps f'r to inthrojuce wan
another to that powwow forninst the big pine."
"Had you appeared yonder while I was talking to that belt-bearer it
might have gone hard with me, Tim," I said gravely.
Riding on past the spot where Jack Mount stood, his brief authority
ended, I heard him grumbling about the rashness of officers and the
market value of a good scalp in Quebec; and I only said: "Scold as much
as you like, Jack, only obey." And so cantered forward to where Elsin
sat her black mare, watching my approach. Her steady eyes welcomed,
mine responded; in silence we wheeled our horses north once more,
riding stirrup to stirrup through the dust. On either side stretched
abandoned fields, growing up in weeds and thistles, for now we were
almost on the Mohawk River, the great highway of the border war down
which the tides of destruction and death had rolled for four terrible
years.
There was nothing to show for it save meadows abandoned to willow
scrub, fallow fields deep in milk-weed, goldenrod, and asters; and here
and there a charred rail or two of some gate or fence long since
destroyed.
Far away across the sand-flats we could see a ruined barn outlined
against the sunset sky, but no house remained standing to the westward
far as the eye could reach. However, as we entered the highway, which I
knew well, because now we were approaching a country familiar to me, I,
leading, caught sight of a few Dutch roofs to the east, and presently
came into plain view of the stockade and blockhouses of Schenectady,
above which rose the lovely St. George's church and the heavy walls and
four demi-bastions of the citadel which is called the Queen's Fort.
As we approached in full view of the ramparts there was a flash, a ball
of white smoke; and no doubt a sentry had fired his musket, such was
evidently their present state of alarm, for I saw the Stars and Stripes
run up on the citadel, and, far away, I heard the conch-horn blowing,
and the startled music of the light-infantry horns. Evidently the sight
of our Oneidas, spread far forward in a semicircle, aroused distrust. I
sent Murphy forward with a flag, then advanced very deliberately,
recalling the Oneidas by whistle-signal.
And, as we rode under the red rays of the westering sun, I pointed out
St. George's to Elsin and the Queen's Fort, and where were formerly the
town gates by which the French and Indians had entered on that dreadful
winter night when they burned Schenectady, leaving but four or five
houses, and the snowy streets all wet and crimsoned with the blood of
women and children.
"But that was many, many years ago, sweetheart," I added, already sorry
that I had spoken of such things. "It was in 1690 that Monsieur De
Mantet and his Frenchmen and Praying Indians did this."
"But people do such things now, Carus," she said, serious eyes raised
to mine.
"Oh, no----"
"They did at Wyoming, at Cherry Valley, at Minnisink. You told me so in
New York--before you ever dreamed that you and I would be here
together."
"Ah, Elsin, but things have changed now that Colonel Willett is in the
Valley. His Excellency has sent here the one man capable of holding the
frontier; and he will do it, dear, and there will be no more Cherry
Valleys, no more Minnisinks, no more Wyomings now."
"Why were they moving out of the houses in Albany, Carus?"
I did not reply.
Presently up the road I saw Murphy wave his white flag; and, a moment
later, the Orange Gate, which was built like a drawbridge, fell with a
muffled report, raising a cloud of dust. Over it, presently, our
horses' feet drummed hollow as we spurred forward.
"Pass, you Tryon County men!" shouted the sentinels; and the dusty
column entered. We were in Schenectady at last.
As we wheeled up the main street of the town, marching in close column
between double lines of anxious townsfolk, a staff-officer, wearing the
uniform of the New York line, came clattering down the street from the
Queen's Fort, and drew bridle in front of me with a sharp, precise
salute.
"Captain Renault?" he asked.
I nodded, returning his salute.
"Colonel Gansvoort's compliments, and you are directed to report to
Colonel Willett at Butlersbury without losing an hour."
"That means an all-night march," I said bluntly.
"Yes, sir." He lowered his voice: "The enemy are on the Sacandaga."
I stiffened in my stirrups. "Tell Colonel Gansvoort it shall be done,
sir." And I wheeled my horse, raising my rifle: "Attention!--to the
left--dress! Right about face! By sections of four--to the
right--wheel--March! ... Halt! Front--dress! Trail--arms! March!"
The veterans of Morgan, like trained troop-horses, had executed the
maneuvers before they realized what was happening. They were the first
formal orders I had given. I myself did not know how the orders might
be obeyed until all was over and we were marching out of the Orange
Gate once more, and swinging northward, wagons, bat-horses, and men in
splendid alignment, and the Oneidas trotting ahead like a pack of
foxhounds under master and whip. But I had to do with irregulars; I
understood that. Already astonished and inquiring glances shot upward
at me as I rode with Elsin; already I heard a low whispering among the
men. But I waited. Then, as we turned the hill, a cannon on the Queen's
Fort boomed good-by and Godspeed!--and our conch-horn sounded a long,
melancholy farewell.
It was then that I halted the column, facing them, rifle resting across
my saddle-bow.
"Men of New York," I said, "the enemy are on the Sacandaga."
Intense silence fell over the ranks.
"If there be one rifleman here who is too weary to enter Johnstown
before daylight, let him fall out."
Not a man stirred.
"Very well," I said, laughing; "if you Tryon County men are so keen for
battle, there's a dish o' glory to be served up, hot as sugar and
soupaan, among the Mayfield hills. Come on, Men of New York!"
And I think they must have wondered there in Schenectady at the fierce
cheering of Morgan's men as our column wheeled northwest once more,
into the coming night.
* * * * *
We entered Johnstown an hour before dawn, not a man limping, nor a
horse either, for that matter. An officer from Colonel Willett met us,
directing the men and the baggage to the fort which was formerly the
stone jail, the Oneidas to huts erected on the old camping-ground west
of Johnson Hall, and Elsin and me to quarters at Jimmy Burke's Tavern.
She was already half-asleep in her saddle, yet ever ready to rouse
herself for a new effort; and now she raised her drowsy head with a
confused smile as I lifted her from the horse to the porch of Burke's
celebrated frontier inn.
"Colonel Willett's compliments, and he will breakfast with you at ten,"
whispered the young officer. "Good night, sir."
"Good night," I nodded, and entered the tavern, bearing Elsin in my
arms, now fast asleep as a worn-out child.
CHAPTER XI
THE TEST
I was awakened by somebody shaking me. Bewildered, not recognizing my
landlord, but confusing him with the sinister visions that had haunted
my sleep, I grappled with him until, senses returning, I found myself
sitting bolt upright in a shaky trundle-bed, clutching Jimmy Burke by
the collar.
"Lave go me shirrt, sorr," he pleaded--"f'r the saints' sake, Misther
Renault! I've the wan shirrt to me back----"
"Confound you, Jimmy!" I yawned, dropping back on my pillow; "what do
you mean by choking me?"
"Chocken', is it, sorr!" exclaimed the indignant Irishman; "'tis me
shcalp ye're afther liftin' wid a whoop an' a yell, glory be! I'll
throuble ye, Captain Renault, f'r to projooce me wig, sorr!"
Clutched in my left hand I discovered the unfortunate landlord's wig,
and I lay there amused and astonished while he haughtily adjusted it
before the tiny triangle of glass nailed on the wall.
"Shame on you, Jimmy Burke, to wear a wig to cheat some honest Mohawk
out of his eight dollars!" I yawned, rubbing my eyes.
"Mohawks, is it? Now, God be good to the haythen whin James Burrke
takes the Currietown thrail----"
"You're exempt, you fat rascal!" I said, laughing; and the dumpy little
Irishman gave me a sly grin as he retied his stock and stood smoothing
down his rumpled wig before the glass.
"Och! divil a hair has he left on the wig o' me!" he grumbled. "Will ye
get up, sorr? 'Tis ten o'clock, lackin' some contrairy minutes, an' the
officers from the foort do be ragin' f'r lack o' soupaan----"
"Are they here?" I cried, leaping out of bed. "Why didn't you say so?
Where's my tub of water? Don't stand there grinning, I tell you. Say to
Colonel Willett I'll join him in a second."
The fat little landlord retreated crab-wise. I soused my clipped head
in the tub, took a spatter-bath like a wild duck in a hurry, clothed me
in my gay forest-dress, making no noise lest I wake Elsin, and ran down
the rough wooden stairs to the coffee-room, plump into a crowd of
strange officers, all blue and buff and gilt.
"Well, Carus!" came a cool, drawling voice from the company; and I saw
the tall, gaunt figure of Colonel Marinus Willett sauntering toward me,
his hawk's nose wrinkled into a whimsical smile.
"Colonel," I stammered, saluting, then sprang forward and grasped the
veteran's outstretched hand, asking his pardon for my tardiness.
"What a great big boy!" he commented, holding my hand in both of his,
and inspecting me from crown to heel. "Is this the lad I've heard
of--below--" His nose wrinkled again, and his grimly humorous mouth
twitched. "Carus, you've grown since I last saw you at the patroon's,
romping a reel with those rosy Dutch lassies from Vrooman's--eh? That's
well, my son; the best dancers were ever the best fighters! Look at Tim
Murphy! As for me, I never could learn to dance with you Valley
aristocrats. Carus, you should know my officers." And he mentioned
names with a kindly, informal precision characteristic of a gentleman
too great to follow conventions, too highly bred to ignore them. The
consequent compromise was, as I say, a delightfully formal informality
which reigned among his entourage, but never included himself, although
he apparently invited it. In this, I imagine, he resembled his
Excellency, and have heard others say so; but I do not know, for I
never saw his Excellency.
"Now, gentlemen," said Colonel Willett casually, as he seated himself
at the head of the table. And we sat down at the signal, I next to the
Colonel at his nod of invitation.
The fat little landlord, Burke, notorious for the speed with which he
fled from Sir John Johnson when that warrior-baronet raided Johnstown,
came bustling into the coffee-room like a fresh breeze from the Irish
coast, asking our pleasure in a brogue thick enough to season the
bubbling, steaming bowl of hasty-pudding he set before us a moment
later.
"Jimmy," said an officer, glancing up at him where he stood, thick legs
apart, hands clasped behind him, and jolly head laid on one side, "is
there any news of Sir John Johnson in these parts?"
"Faith," said Burke, with a toss of his head, "'tis little I bother
meself along wid the likes o' Sir John. Lave him poke his nose into the
Sacandagy an' dhrown there, bad cess to him! We've a thrick to match
his, an' wan f'r the pig!"
"I'm glad to know that, Jimmy," said another officer earnestly. "And if
that's the case. Captain Renault's Rangers might as well pack up and
move back to Albany."
"Sure, Captain dear," he said, turning to me, "'tis not f'r the likes
o' Jimmy Burke to say it, but there do be a fri'nd o' mine in the
Rangers, a blatherin', blarneyin', bog-runnin' lad they call Tim
Murphy. 'Tis f'r his sake I'd be glad to see the Rangers here--an'
ye'll not misjudge me, sorr, that Jimmy Burke is afeared o' Sir John
an' his red whippets!"
"Oh, no," I said gravely; "I'm quite ready to leave Johnstown to your
protection, Jimmy, and march my men back to-night--with Colonel
Willett's permission----"
"Sorra the day! Och, listen to him, Colonel dear!" exclaimed the
landlord, with an appealing glance at Willett. "Wud ye lave us now, wid
th' ould women an' childer huddled like catthle in the foort, an'
Walther Butler at Niagary an' Sir John on the Sacandagy! Sure, 'tis
foolin' ye arre, Captain dear--wid the foine ale I have below, an'
divil a customer--the town's that crazy wid fear o' Sir John! 'Tis not
f'r meself I shpake, sorr," he added airily, "but 'tis the jooty o' the
military f'r to projooce thraffic an' thrade an' the blessing of
prosperity at the p'int o' the bagnet, sorr."
"In that case," observed Willett, "you ought to stay, Carus. Burke
can't attend to his tavern and take time to chase Sir John back to the
lakes."
"Thrue f'r ye, sorr!" exclaimed Burke, with a twinkle in his gray eye.
"Where wud th' b'ys find a dhram, sorr, wid Jimmy Burke on a scout,
sorr, thrimmin' the Tories o' Mayfield, an' runnin' the Scotch loons
out o' Perth an' the Galways, glory be!"
He bustled out to fetch us a dish of pink clingstone peaches, grown in
the gardens planted by the great Sir William. Truly, Sir John had lost
much when he lost Johnson Hall; and now, like a restless ghost drawn
back to familiar places, he haunted the spot that his great father had
made to bloom like a rose in the wilderness. He was out there now, in
the sunshine and morning haze, somewhere, beyond the blue autumn mist
in the north--out there, disgraced, disinherited, shelterless, sullenly
brooding, and plotting murder with his motley mob of Cayugas and
painted renegades.
Colonel Willett rose and we all stood up, but he signaled those who had
not finished eating to resume their places, and laying a familiar hand
on my arm led me to the sunny bench outside the door where, at his nod,
I seated myself beside him. He drew a map from his breast-pocket and
studied in silence; I waited his pleasure.
The veteran seemed to have grown no older since I had last seen him
four years since--indeed, he had changed little as I remembered him
first, sipping his toddy at my father's house, and smiling his shrewd,
kindly, whimsical smile while I teased him to tell me of the French
war, and how he had captured Frontenac.
I was but seventeen years old when he headed that revolt in New York
City, and, single-handed, halted the British troops on Broad Street and
took away their baggage. I was nineteen when he led the sortie from
Stanwix. I had already taken my post in New York when he was serving
with his Excellency in the Jerseys and with Sullivan in the west.
Of all the officers who served on the frontier, Marinus Willett was the
only man who had ever held the enemy at check. Even Sullivan, returning
from his annihilation of Indian civilization, was followed by a cloud
of maddened savages and renegades that settled in his tracks,
enveloping the very frontier which, by his famous campaign, he had
properly expected to leave unharassed.
And now Marinus Willett was in command, with meager resources, indeed,
yet his personal presence on the Tryon frontier restored something of
confidence to those who still clung to the devastated region, sowing,
growing, garnering, and grinding the grain that the half-starved army
of the United States required to keep life within the gaunt rank and
file. West Point, Albany, Saratoga called for bread; and the men of
Tryon plowed and sowed and reaped, leaving their dead in every
furrow--swung their scythes under the Iroquois bullets, cut their
blood-wet hay in the face of ambush after ambush, stacked their
scorched corn and defended it from barn, shack, and window. With torch
and hatchet renegade and Iroquois decimated them; their houses kindled
into flame; their women and children, scalped and throats cut, were
hung over fences like dead game; twelve thousand farms lay tenantless;
by thousands the widows and orphans gathered at the blockhouses, naked,
bewildered, penniless. There remained in all Tryon County but eight
hundred militia capable of responding to a summons--eight hundred
desperate men to leave scythe and flail and grist-mill for their rifles
at the dread call to arms. Two dozen or more blockhouses, holding from
ten to half a hundred families each, were strung out between Stanwix
Fort and Schenectady; these, except for a few forts, formed the outer
line of the United States' bulwarks in the north; and this line Willett
was here to hold with the scattered handful of farmers and Rangers.
Yet, with these handfuls, before our arrival he had already cleaned out
Torlock; he had already charged through the flames of Currietown, and
routed the renegades at Sharon--leading the charge, cocked-hat in hand,
remarking to his Rangers that he could catch in his hat all the balls
that the renegades could fire. Bob McKean, the scout, fell that day;
nine men, bound to saplings, were found scalped; yet the handful under
Willett turned on Torlock and seized a hundred head of cattle for the
famishing garrison of Herkimer. Wawarsing, Cobleskill, and Little Falls
were ablaze; Willett's trail lay through their smoking cinders, his
hatchets hung in the renegades' rear, his bullets drove the raiders
headlong from Tekakwitha Spring to the Kennyetto, and his Oneidas clung
to the edges of invasion, watching, waiting, listening in the still
places for the first faint sound of that advance that meant the final
death-grapple. It was coming, surely coming: Sir John already harrying
the Sacandaga; Haldimand reported on the eastern lakes; Ross and the
Butlers expected from Niagara, and nothing now to prevent Clinton from
advancing up the Hudson from New York, skirting West Point, and giving
the entire north to the torch. This was what confronted Tryon County;
but the army needed grain, and we were there to glean what we might
between fitful storms, watching that solid, thunderous tempest
darkening the north from east to west, far as the eye could see.
Colonel Willett had lighted his clay pipe, and now, map spread across
his knees and mine, he leaned over, arms folded, smoking, and examining
the discolored and wrinkled paper.
"Where is Adriutha, Carus?" he drawled.
I pointed out the watercourse, traced in blue, showing him the ancient
site and the falls near by.
"And Carenay?"
Again I pointed.
"Oswaya?"
"Only tradition remains of that lost village," I said. "Even in the
Great Rite those who pronounce the name know nothing more than that it
once existed. It is so with Kayaderos and Danascara; nobody now knows
exactly where they were."
"And Thendara?"
"Thendara _was_, and _will be_, but is not. In the Great Rite of the
Iroquois that place where the first ceremony, which is called 'At the
wood's edge,' begins is called Thendara, to commemorate the ancient
place where first the Holder of Heaven talked face to face with the
League's founder, Hiawatha."
The hawk-faced veteran smoked and studied the map for a while; then he
removed the pipe from his mouth, and, in silence, traced with the
smoking stem a path. I watched him; he went back to the beginning and
traced the path again and yet again, never uttering a word; and
presently I began to comprehend him.
"Yes, sir," I said; "thus will the Long House strike the Oneidas--when
they strike."
"I have sent belts--as you suggested," observed Willett carelessly.
I was delighted, but made no comment; and presently he went on in his
drawling, easy manner: "I can account for Sir John, and I can hold him
on the Sacandaga; I can account for Haldimand only through the
cowardice or treachery of Vermont; but I can hold him, too, if he ever
dares to leave the lakes. For Sir Henry Clinton I do not care a damn;
like a headless chicken he tumbles about New York, seeing, hearing
nothing, and no mouth left to squawk with. His head is off; one of his
legs still kicks at Connecticut, t'other paddles aimlessly in the
Atlantic Ocean. But he's done for, Carus. Let his own blood cleanse him
for the plucking!"
The gaunt Colonel replaced his pipe between his teeth and gazed
meditatively into the north:
"But where's Walter Butler?" he mused.
"Is he not at Niagara, sir?" I asked.
Willett folded his map and shoved it into his breast-pocket. "That," he
said, "is what I want you to find out for me, Carus."
He wheeled around, facing me, his kindly face very serious:
"I have relieved you of your command, Carus, and have attached you to
my personal staff. There are officers a-plenty to take your Rangers
where I send them; but I know of only one man in Tryon County who can
do what is to be done at Thendara. Send on your belt to Sachems of the
Long House. Carus, you are a spy once more."
I had not expected it, now that the Oneidas had been warned. Chilled,
sickened at the thought of playing my loathsome rôle once more, bitter
disappointment left me speechless. I hung my head, feeling his keen
eyes upon me; I braced myself sullenly against the overwhelming rush of
repulsion surging up within me. My every nerve, every fiber quivered
for freedom to strike that blow denied me for four miserable years. Had
I not earned the right to face my enemies in the open? Had I not earned
the right to strike? Had I not waited--God! had I not waited?
Appalled, almost unmanned, I bowed my head still lower as the quick
tears of rage wet my lashes. They dried, unshed.
"Is there no chance for me?" I asked--"no chance for one honest blow?"
His kind eyes alone answered; and, like a school-boy, I sat there
rubbing my face, teeth clenched, to choke back the rebellious cry
swelling my hot throat.
"Give me an Oneida, then," I muttered. "I'll go."
"You are a good lad, Carus," he said gently. "I know how you feel."
I could not answer.
"You know," he said, "how many are called, how few chosen. You know
that in these times a man must sink self and stand ready for any
sacrifice, even the supreme and best."
He laid his hand on my shoulder: "Carus, I felt as you do now when his
Excellency asked me to leave the line and the five splendid New York
regiments just consolidated and given me to lead. But I obeyed; I gave
up legitimate ambition; I renounced hope of that advancement all
officers rightly desire; I left my New York regiments to come here to
take command of a few farmers and forest-runners. God and his
Excellency know best!"
I nodded, unable to speak.
"There is glory and preferment to be had in Virginia," he said; "there
are stars to be won at Yorktown, Carus. But those stars will never
glitter on this faded uniform of mine. So be it. Let us do our best,
lad. It's all one in the end."
I nodded.
"And so," he continued pleasantly, "I send you to Thendara. None knows
you for a partizan in this war. For four years you have been lost to
sight; and if any Iroquois has heard of your living in New York, he
must believe you to be a King's man. Your one danger is in answering
the Iroquois summons as an ensign of a nation marked for punishment.
How great that danger may be, you can judge better than I."
I thought for a while. The Canienga who had summoned me by belt could
not prove I was a partizan of the riflemen who escorted me. I might
have been absolutely non-partizan, traveling under escort of either
side that promised protection from those ghostly rovers who scalped
first and asked questions afterward.
The danger I ran as clan-ensign of a nation marked for punishment was
an unknown quantity to me. From the Canienga belt-bearer I had gathered
that there was no sanctuary for an Oneida envoy at Thendara; but what
protection an ensign of the Wolf Clan might expect, I could not be
certain of.
But there was one more danger. Suppose Walter Butler should appear to
sit in council as ensign of his mongrel clan?
"Colonel," I said, "there is one thing to be done, and, as there is
nobody else to accomplish this dog's work, I must perform it. I am
trying not to be selfish--not to envy those whose lines are fallen in
pleasant places--not to regret the happiness of battle which I have
never known--not to desire those chances for advancement and for glory
that--that all young men--crave----"
My voice broke, but I steadied it instantly.
"I had hoped one day to do a service which his Excellency could openly
acknowledge--a service which might, one day, permit him to receive me.
I have never seen him. I think, now, I never shall. But, as you say,
sir, ambitions like these are selfish, therefore they are petty and
unworthy. He does know best."
The Colonel nodded gravely, watching me, his unlighted pipe drooping in
his hand.
"There is one thing--before I go," I said. "My betrothed wife is with
me. May I leave her in your care, sir?"
"Yes, Carus."
"She is asleep in that room above--" I looked up at the closed
shutters, scarcely seeing them for the blinding rush of tears; yet
stared steadily till my eyes were dry and hot again, and my choked and
tense throat relaxed.
"I think," said the Colonel, "that she is safer in Johnstown Fort than
anywhere else just now. I promise you, Carus, to guard and cherish her
as though she were my own child. I may be called away--you understand
that!--but I mean to hold Johnstown Fort, and shall never be too far
from Johnstown to relieve it in event of siege. What can be done I will
do on my honor as a soldier. Are you content?"
"Yes."
He lowered his voice: "Is it best to see her before you start?"
I shook my head.
"Then pick your Oneida," he muttered. "Which one?"
"Little Otter. Send for him."
The Colonel leaned back on the bench and tapped at the outside of the
tavern window. An aide came clanking out, and presently hurried away
with a message to Little Otter to meet me at Butlersbury within the
hour, carrying parched corn and salt for three days' rations.
For a while we sat there, going over personal matters. Our sea-chests
were to be taken to the fort; my financial affairs I explained, telling
him where he might find my papers in case of accident to me. Then I
turned over to him my watch, what money I had of Elsin's, and my own.
"If I do not return," I said, "and if this frontier can not hold out,
send Miss Grey with a flag to New York. Sir Peter Coleville is kin to
her; and when he understands what danger menaces her he will defend her
to the last ditch o' the law. Do you understand, Colonel?"
"No, Carus, but I can obey."
"Then remember this: She must never be at the mercy of Walter Butler."
"Oh, I can remember that," he said drily.
For a few moments I sat brooding, head between my hands; then, of a
sudden impulse, I swung around and laid my heart bare to him--told him
everything in a breath--trembling, as a thousand new-born fears seized
me, chilling my blood.
"Good God!" I stammered, "it is not for myself I care now, Colonel! But
the thought of him--of her--together--I can not endure. I tell you, the
dread of this man has entered my very soul; there is terror at a hint
of him. Can I not stay, Colonel? Is there no way for me to stay? She is
so young, so alone----"
Hope died as I met his eye. I set my teeth and crushed speech into
silence.
"The welfare of a nation comes first," he said slowly.
"I know--I know--but----"
"All must sacrifice to that principle, Carus. Have not the men of New
York stood for it? Have not the men of Tryon given their all? I tell
you, the army shall eat, but the bread they munch is made from
blood-wet grain; and for every loaf they bake a life has been offered.
Where is the New Yorker who has not faced what you are facing? At the
crack of the ambushed rifle our people drop at the plow, and their
dying eyes look upon wife and children falling under knife and hatchet.
It must be so if the army is to eat and liberty live in this country we
dare call our own. And when the call sounds, we New Yorkers must go,
Carus. Our women know it, even our toddling children know it, God bless
them!--and they proudly take their chances--nay, they demand the
chances of a war that spares neither the aged nor the weak, neither
mother nor cradled babe, nor the hound at the door, nor the cattle, nor
any living thing in this red fury of destruction!"
He had risen, eyes glittering, face hardened into stone. "Go to your
betrothed and say good-by. You do not know her yet, I think."
"She is Canadienne," I said.
"She is what the man she loves is--if she honors him. His cause is
hers, his country hers, his God is her God!"
"Her heart is with neither side----"
"Her heart is with you! Shame to doubt her--if I read her eyes! Read
them, Carus!"
I wheeled, speechless; Elsin Grey stood before me, deadly pale.
After a moment she moved forward, laying her hand on my shoulder and
facing Colonel Willett with a smile. All color had fled from her face,
but neither lip nor voice quivered as she spoke:
"I think you do understand, sir. We Canadiennes yield nothing in
devotion to the women of New York. Where we love, we honor. What
matters it where the alarm sounds? We understand our lovers; we can
give them to the cause of freedom as well here in Tryon County as on
the plains of Abraham--can we not, my betrothed?" she said, looking
into my face; but her smile was heart-breaking.
"Child, child," said Willett, taking her free hand in both of his, "you
speak a silent language with your eyes that no man can fail to
understand."
"I failed," I said bitterly, as Willett kissed her hand, placed it in
mine, and, turning, entered the open door.
"And what blame, Carus?" she whispered. "What have I been to you but a
symbol of unbridled selfishness, asking all, giving nothing? How could
you know I loved you so dearly that I could stand aside to let you
pass? First I loved you selfishly, shamelessly; then I begged your
guilty love, offering mine in the passion of my ignorance and
bewilderment."
Her arm fell from my shoulder and nestled in mine, and we turned away
together under the brilliant autumn glory of the trees.
"That storm that tore me--ah, Carus--I had been wrecked without your
strong arm to bear me up!"
"It was you who bore me up, Elsin. How can I leave you now!"
"Why, Carus, our honor is involved."
"_Our_ honor!"
"Yes, dear, ours."
"You--you bid me go, Elsin?"
"If I bid you stay, what would avail except to prove me faithless to
you? How could I truly love you and counsel dishonor?"
White as a flower, the fixed smile never left her lips, nor did her
steady pace beside me falter, or knee tremble, or a finger quiver of
the little hand that lay within my own.
And then we fell silent, walking to and fro under the painted
maple-trees in Johnstown streets, seeing no one, heeding no one, until
the bell at the fort struck the hour. It meant the end.
We kissed each other once. I could not speak. My horse, led by Jack
Mount, appeared from the tavern stables; and we walked back to the inn
together.
Once more I took her in my arms; then she gently drew away and entered
the open door, hands outstretched as though blinded, feeling her
way--that was the last I saw of her, feeling her dark way alone into
the house.
Senses swimming, dumb, deafened by the raging, beating pulses hammering
in my brain, I reeled at a gallop into the sunny street, north, then
west, then north once more, tearing out into the Butlersbury road. A
gate halted me; I dismounted and dragged it open, then to horse again,
then another gate, then on again, hailed and halted by riflemen at the
cross-roads, which necessitated the summoning of my wits at last before
they would let me go.
Now riding through the grassy cart-road, my shoulders swept by the
fringing willows, I came at length to the Danascara, shining in the
sunlight, and followed its banks--the same banks from which so often in
happier days I had fished. At times I traveled the Tribes Hill road, at
times used shorter cuts, knowing every forest-trail as I did, and
presently entered the wood-road that leads from Caughnawaga church to
Johnstown. I was in Butlersbury; there was the slope, there the Tribes
Hill trail, there the stony road leading to that accursed house from
which the Butlers, father and son, some five years since, had gone
forth to eternal infamy.
And now, set in a circle of cleared land and ringed by the ancient
forests of the north, I saw the gray, weather-beaten walls of the
house. The lawns were overgrown; the great well-sweep shattered; the
locust-trees covered with grapevines--the cherry- and apple-trees to
the south broken and neglected. Weeds smothered the flower-gardens,
where here and there a dull-red poppy peered at me through withering
tangles; lilac and locust had already shed foliage too early blighted,
but the huge and forbidding maples were all aflame in their blood-red
autumn robes. Here the year had already begun to die; in the clear air
a faint whiff of decay came from the rotting heaps of leaves--decay,
ruin, and the taint of death; and, in the sad autumn stillness,
something ominous, something secret and sly--something of malice.
Seeing no sign of my Oneida, I walked my horse across the lawn and up
to the desolate row of windows. The shutters had been ripped off their
hinges; all within was bare and dark; dimly I made out the shadowy
walls of a hallway which divided the house into halves. By the light
which filtered through the soiled windows I examined room after room
from the outside, then, noiselessly, tried the door, but found it
bolted from within as well as locked from without. Either the Butlers
or the commissioners of sequestration must have crawled through a
window to do this. I prowled on, looking for the window they had used
as exit, examining the old house with a fascinated repugnance. The
clapboards were a foot wide, evidently fashioned with care and beaded
on the edges. The outside doors all opened outward; and I noted, with a
shudder of contempt, the "witch's half-moon," or lunette, in the bottom
of each door, which betrays the cowardly superstition of the man who
lived there. Such cat-holes are fashioned for haunted houses; the
specter is believed to crawl out through these openings, and then to be
kept out with a tarred rag stuffed into the hole--ghosts being unable
to endure tar. Faugh! If specters walk, the accursed house must be
alive with them--ghosts of the victims of old John Butler, wraiths
dripping red from Cherry Valley--children with throats cut; women with
bleeding heads and butchered bodies, stabbed through and through--and
perhaps the awful specter of Lieutenant Boyd, with eyes and nails
plucked out, and tongue cut off, bound to the stake and slowly roasting
to death, while Walter Butler watched the agony curiously, interested
and surprised to see a disemboweled man live so long!
Oh, yes, there might well be phantoms in this ghastly mansion; but they
had nothing to do with me; only the absent master of the house was any
concern of mine; and, finding at last the window I sought for, I shoved
it open and climbed to the sill, landing upon the floor inside, my
moccasined feet making no more sound than the padded toes of a
tree-cat.
Then to prowl and mouse, stepping cautiously, stooping warily to
examine dusty scraps lying on the bare boards--a dirty newspaper, an
old shoe with buckle missing, a broken pewter spoon--all the sordid
trifles that accent desolation. Once or twice I thought to make out
moccasin tracks in the dust, as though some furtive prowler had
anticipated me here, but the light filtering through the crusted panes
was meager and uncertain, and, after all, it mattered nothing to me.
The house was divided by a hallway; there were two rooms on either
side, all bare and empty save for scraps here and there, and in one
room the collapsed and dusty carcass of a rat. On the walls there was
nothing except a nail driven into the clay, which was crumbling between
the facing of whitewashed brick. From the heavy oaken timbers of the
wooden ceilings hung smutty banners of ancient cobwebs, stirring above
me as I moved. It was the very abomination of sinister desolation.
Some vague idea of finding something that might aid me--some scrap of
evidence I might chance on to kindle hope with--some neglected trifle
to damn him and proclaim this monstrous marriage void--it was this
instinct that led me into a house abhorred. Nothing I found, save, on
one foul window-pane, names, diamond-cut, scrawled again and again:
"Lyn," and "Cherry-Maid," repeated a score of times.
And long I lingered, pondering who had written it, and what it might
mean, and who was "Lyn." As for "Cherry-Maid," the name was used in the
False Faces rites; and at that terrific orgy held on the Kennyetto
before the battle of Oriskany, where the first split came in the walls
of the Long House, and where that hag-sorceress, Catrine Montour, had
failed to pledge the Oneidas to the war-post, the Cherry-Maid had taken
part. Indeed, some said that she was a daughter of the Huron witch; but
Jack Mount, who saw the rite, swore that the Cherry-Maid was but a
beautiful child, painted from brow to ankle----
Suddenly I thought of the hag's daughter as Carolyn. Carolyn? Lyn! By
heaven, the Cherry-Maid was Carolyn Montour, mistress of Walter Butler!
Here in bygone days she had scrawled her name--here her title. And
Walter Butler had been present at that frantic debauch where the False
Faces cringed to their prophetess, Magdalen Brant. Perhaps it was there
that this man had met his match in the lithe young animal whelped by
the Toad-Woman--this slim, lawless, depraved child, who had led the
False Faces in their gruesome rites and sacrifice!
I stared at the diamond scrawl; and before my eyes I seemed to see the
three fires burning, the clattering rows of wooden masks, the white
blankets of the sachems, the tawny, naked form of the Cherry-Maid,
seated between samphire and hazel, her pointed fingers on her hips, her
heavy hair veiling a laughing face, over which the infernal fire shadow
played.
Ah, it was well! Beast linked to beast--what need of priest in the
fierce mating of such creatures of the dusk? He was hers, and she his
by all laws of nature, and in the eternal fitness of things vast and
savage. They must live and breed in the half-light of forests; they
must perish as the sun follows the falling trees, creeping ever
inexorably westward.
Somberly brooding, I turned and descended into the cellar. There was
little light here, and I cared not to strike flint. Groping about I
touched with my foot remains of bottles of earthenware, then made my
way to the door again and began to ascend.
The stairway seemed steeper and more tortuous to me. As I climbed I
became uneasy at its length. Then, in a second, it flashed on me that I
had blundered upon a secret stairway[1] leading upward from the cellar.
At this same instant my head brushed the ceiling; I gave a gentle push,
and a trap-door lifted, admitting me to another flight of stairs, up
which I warily felt my way. This must end in another trap-door on the
second floor--I understood that--and began to reach upward, feeling
about blindly until my hands fell on a bolt. This I drew; it was not
rusty, and did not creak, and, as I slid it back, to my astonishment my
fingers grew wet and greasy. The bolt had been _recently oiled_!
[1] Evidences of this stairway still exist in the ancient house of
Walter Butler.
Now all alert as a gray wolf sniffing a strange trail that cuts his
own, I warily lifted the trap to a finger's breadth. The crack of light
dazzled me; gradually my blurred sight grew clearer; I saw a low,
oblong window under the eaves of the steep, pointed roof; and, through
it, the sunlight falling on the bare floor of a room all littered with
papers, torn letters, and tape-bound documents of every description.
Could these be the Butler papers? I had heard that all documents had
been seized by the commissioners after the father and son had fled. But
the honorable commissioners of sequestration had evidently never
suspected this stairway.
In spite of myself I started! _How_ had I, then, entered it? Somebody
must have mounted it before me, leaving the secret door open in the
cellar, and I, groping about, had chanced upon it. But whoever left it
open must have been acquainted with the house--an intimate here, if not
one of the family!
When had this unknown entered? Was any one here _now_? At the thought my
skin roughened as a dog bristles. Was I alone in this house?
Listening, motionless, nostrils dilated, every sense concentrated on
that narrow crack of light, I crouched there. Then, very gradually, I
raised the trap, higher, higher, laying it back against the upright of
white oak.
I was in a tiny room--a closet, lighted by a slit of a window.
Everywhere around me in the dust were small moccasin prints, pointing in
every direction. I could see no door in the wooden walls of the closet,
but I stepped out of the stair-well and leaned over, examining the
moccasin tracks, tracing them, until I found a spot where they led
straight up to the wall; and there were no returning tracks to be seen.
A chill crept over me; only a specter could pass through a solid wall.
The next moment I had bent, ear flattened to the wooden wainscot. _There
was something moving in the next room!_
CHAPTER XII
THENDARA
Motionless, intent, holding my breath, I listened at the paneled wall.
Through the wainscot I could hear the low rustling of paper; and I
seemed to sense some heavier movement within, though the solid floor
did not creak, nor a window quiver, nor a footfall sound.
And now my eyes began traveling cautiously over the paneled wall,
against which I had laid my ear. No crack or seam indicated a hidden
door, yet I knew there must be one, and gently pressed the wainscot
with my shoulder. It gave, almost imperceptibly; I pressed again, and
the hidden door opened a hair's breadth, a finger's breadth, an inch,
widening, widening noiselessly; and I bent forward and peered into
another closet like the one I stood in, also lighted by a loop for
rifle-fire. As my head advanced, first a corner of the floor littered
with papers came into my range of vision, then an angle of the wall,
then a shadowy something which I could not at first make out--and I
opened the door a little wider--scarcely an inch--holding it there.
The shadowy something moved; it was a human foot; and the next instant
my eyes fell on a figure, partly in shade, partly in the light from the
loophole--an Indian, kneeling, absorbed in deciphering a document held
flat on the bare floor.
Astounded, almost incredulous, I glared at the vision. Gradually the
shock of the surprise subsided; details took shape under my wondering
eyes--the slim legs, doubled under, clothed with fringed and beaded
leggings to the hips, the gorgeously embroidered sporran, moccasins, and
clout, the smooth, naked back, gleaming like palest amber under curtains
of stiffly strung scarlet-and-gold traders' wampum--traders' wampum?
What did _that_ mean? And what did those heavy, double masses of hair
indicate--those soft, twisted ropes of glossy hair, braided half-way
with crimson silk shot with silver, then hanging a cloudy shock of black
to the belted waist?
Here was no Iroquois youth--no adolescent of the Long House attired for
any rite I ever heard of. The hip-leggings were of magnificent Algonquin
work; the quill-set, sinew-embroidered moccasins, too. That stringy,
iridescent veil of rose, scarlet, and gold wampum on the naked body was
_de fantasie_; the belt and knife-sheath pure Huron. As for the
gipsy-like arrangement of the hair, no Iroquois boy ever wore it that
way; it hinted of the _gens de prairie_. What on earth did it mean?
There was no paint on limb or body to guide me. Never had I seen such a
being so dressed for any rite or any practise in North America! Oh, if
Little Otter were only here! I stole a glance out of the loop, but saw
nothing save the pale sunshine on the weeds. If the Oneida had arrived,
he had surely already found my horse tied in the lilac thicket, and
surely he would follow me where the weeds showed him I had passed. He
might wait for a while; but if I emerged not from the house I knew he
would be after me, smelling along like a wolfhound until he had tracked
me to a standstill. Should I wait for him? I looked at the kneeling
figure. So absorbed was the strange young Indian in the document on the
floor that I strained my eyes to make out its script, but could not
decipher even the corner of the paper exposed to my view. Then it
occurred to me that it was a strange thing for an Indian to read. Scarce
one among the Iroquois, save Brant and the few who had been to Dr.
Wheelock's school, knew A from Zed, or could more than scrawl their
clan-mark to a birchen letter.
Suspicious lest, after all, I had to do with a blue-eyed Indian or
painted Tory, I examined the unconscious reader thoroughly. And, after
a little while, a strange apprehension settled into absolute conviction
as I looked. So certain was I that every gathered muscle relaxed; I
drew a deep, noiseless breath of relief, smiling to myself, and stepped
coolly forward, letting the secret door swing to behind me with a
deadened thud.
Like a startled tree-cat the figure sprang to its feet, whirling to
confront me. And I laughed again, for I was looking into the dark,
dilated eyes of a young girl.
"Have no fear," I began quietly; and the next instant the words were
driven into my throat, for she was on me in one bound, hunting-knife
glittering.
Round the walls we reeled, staggering, wrestling, clinched like
infuriated wolverines. I had her wrist in my grip, squeezing it, and
the bright, sparkling knife soon clattered to the boards, but she
suddenly set her crooked knee inside mine and tripped me headlong,
hurling us both sideways to the floor, where we rolled, desperately
locked, she twisting and reaching for the knife again and again, until
I kicked it behind me and staggered to my feet, dragging her with me in
all her fury. But her maddened strength, her sinuous twisting, her
courage, so astonished me that again and again she sent me reeling
almost to my knees, taxing my agility and my every muscle to keep her
from tripping me flat and recovering her knife. At length she began to
sway; her dark, defiant eyes narrowed to two flaming slits; her
distorted mouth weakened into sullen lines, through which I caught the
flash of locked teeth crushing back the broken, panting breath. I held
her like a vise; she could no longer move. And when at last she knew
it, her rigid features, convulsed with rage, relaxed into a blank,
smooth mask of living amber.
For a moment I held her, feeling her whole body falling loose-limbed
and limp--held her until her sobbing breath grew quieter and more
regular. Then I released her; she reeled, steadying herself against the
wall with one hand; and, stepping back, I sank one knee, and whipped
the knife from the floor.
That she now looked for death at my hands was perfectly evident, I
being dressed as a forest-runner who knows no sex when murder is afoot.
I saw the flushed face pale slightly; the lip curl contemptuously.
Proudly she lifted her head, haughtily faced me.
"Dog of bastard nation!" she panted; "look me between the eyes and
strike!"
"Little sister," I answered gravely, using the soft Oneida idiom, "let
there be peace between us."
A flash of wonder lit her dark eyes. And I said again, smiling: "O
Heart-divided-into-two-hearts, te-ha-eho-eh, you are like him whom we
name, after 'The Two Voices'--we of the Wolf. Therefore is there peace
and love 'twixt thee and me."
The wonder in her eyes deepened; her whole body quivered.
"Who are you with a white skin who speak like a crested sachem?" she
faltered.
"Tat-sheh-teh, little sister. I bear the quiver, but my war-arrows are
broken."
"Oneida!" she exclaimed softly, clasping her hands between her breasts.
I stepped closer, holding out my arms; slowly she laid her hands in
mine, looking fearlessly up into my face. I turned her palms upward and
placed the naked knife across them; she bent her head, then
straightened up, looking me full in the eyes.
Still smiling, I laid both my hands on the collar of my hunting-shirt,
baring throat and chest; and, as the full significance of the tiny
tattoo dawned upon her, she shivered.
"Tharon!" she stammered. "Thou! What have I done!" And, shuddering,
cast the knife at my feet as though it had been the snake that rattles.
"Little sister----"
"Oh, no! no! What have I done! What have I dared! I have raised my hand
against Him whom you have talked with face to face----"
"Only Tharon has done that," I said gently, "I but wear his sign.
Peace, Woman of the Morning. There is no injury where there is no
intent. We are not yet '_at the Forest's Edge_.'"
Slowly the color returned to lip and cheek, her fascinated eyes roamed
from my face to the tattooed wolf and mark of Tharon crossing it. And
after a little she smiled faintly at my smile, as I said:
"I have drawn the fangs of the Wolf; fear no more, Daughter of the
Sun."
"I--I fear no more," she breathed.
"Shall an ensign of the Oneida cherish wrath?" I asked. "He who bears a
quiver has forgotten. See, child; it is as it was from the beginning.
Hiro."
I calmly seated myself on the floor, knees gathered in my clasped
hands; and she settled down opposite me, awaiting in instinctive
silence my next words.
"Why does my sister wear the dress of an adolescent, mocking the False
Faces, when the three fires are not yet kindled?" I asked.
"I hold the fire-right," she said quickly. "Ask those who wear the mask
where cherries grow. O sachem, those cherries were ripe ere I was!"
I thought a moment, then fixed my eager eyes on her.
"Only the Cherry-Maid of Adriutha has that right," I said. My heart,
beating furiously, shook my voice, for I knew now who she was.
"I am Cherry-Maid to the three fires," she said; "in bud at Adriutha,
in blossom at Carenay, in fruit at Danascara."
"Your name?"
"Lyn Montour."
I almost leaped from the floor in my excitement; yet the engrafted
Oneida instinct of a sachem chained me motionless. "You are the wife of
Walter Butler," I said deliberately, in English.
A wave of crimson stained her face and shoulders. Suddenly she covered
her face with her hands.
"Little sister," I said gently, "is it not the truth? Does a
Quiver-bearer lie, O Blossom of Carenay?"
Her hands fell away; she raised her head, the tears shining on her
heavy lashes: "It is the truth."
"His wife?" I repeated slowly.
"His wife, O Bearer of Arrows! He took me at the False Faces' feast,
and the Iroquois saw. Yet the cherries were still green at Danascara.
Twice the Lenape covered their faces; twice 'The Two Voices' unveiled
his face. So it was done there on the Kennyetto." She leaned swiftly
toward me: "Twice he denied me at Niagara. Yet once, when our love was
new--when I still loved him--he acknowledged me here in this very
house, in the presence of a County Magistrate, Sir John Johnson. I am
his wife, I, Lyn Montour! I have never lied to woman or man, O my elder
brother!"
"And that is why you have come back?"
"Yes; to search--for something to help me--some record--God knows!--I
have searched and searched--" She stretched out her bare arms and gazed
hopelessly around the paper-littered floor.
"Will not Sir John uphold you with his testimony?" I asked.
"He? No! He also denies it. What can a woman expect of a man who has
broken parole?" she added, in contempt.
I leaned toward her, speaking slowly, and with deadly emphasis:
"Dare Walter Butler deny what the Iroquois Nation may attest?"
"He dare," she said, burning eyes on mine. "I am more Algonquin than
Huron, and more than nine-tenths white. What is it to the Iroquois that
this man puts me away? It was the Mohican and Lenape who veiled their
faces, not the Iroquois. What is it to white men that he took me and
has now put me away? What is it to them that he now takes another?"
"Another? Whom?" My lips scarcely formed the question.
"I do not know her name. When he returned from the horrors of Cherry
Valley Sir Frederick Haldimand refused to see him. Yet he managed to
make love to Sir Frederick's kinswoman--a child--as I was when he took
me----"
She closed her eyes. I saw the lashes all wet again, but her voice did
not tremble: "He is at Niagara with his Rangers--or was. And--when I
came to him he laughed at me, bidding me seek a new lover at the
fort----"
Her voice strangled. Twisting her fingers, she sat there, eyes closed,
dumb, miserable. At last she gasped out: "O Quiver-bearer, with a white
voice and a skin scarce whiter than my own, though your nation be
sundered from the Long House, though I be an outcast of clans and
nations, speak to me kindly, for my sadness is bitter, and the ghost of
my dead honor confronts me in every forest-trail!" She stretched out
her arms piteously:
"Teach me, brother; instruct me; heal my bruised heart of hate for this
young man who was my undoing--cleanse my fierce, desirous heart. I love
him no longer; I--I dare not hate him lest I slay him ere he rights my
wrongs. My sorrow is heavier than I can bear--and I am young, O
sachem--not yet eighteen--until the snow flies."
She laid her face in her hands once more; through her slim fingers the
bright tears fell slowly.
"Are you Christian, little sister?" I asked, wondering.
"I do not know. They say so. A brave Jesuit converted me ere I was
unstrapped from the cradle-board--ere I could lisp or toddle. God knows.
My own brother died in war-paint; my grandmother was French Margaret, my
mother--if she be my mother--is the Huron witch of Wyoming; some call
her Catrine, some Esther. Yet I was chaste--till _he_ took me--chaste as
an Iroquois maid. Thus has he wrought with me. Teach me to forgive him!"
And _this_ the child of Catrine Montour? This that bestial creature they
described to me as some slim, fierce temptress of the forests?
"Listen," I said gently; "if you are wedded by a magistrate, you are
his wife; yet if that magistrate falsely witnesses against you, you can
not prove it. I would give all I have to prove your marriage. Do you
understand?"
She looked at me, uncomprehending.
"The woman I love is the woman he now claims as wife," I said calmly.
Then, in that strange place, alone there together in the dim light, she
lying full length on the floor, her hands clasped on my knees, told me
all. And there, together, we took counsel how to bring this man to
judgment--not the Almighty's ultimate punishment, not even that stern
retribution which an outraged world might exact, but a merciful
penance--the public confession of the tie that bound him to this young
girl. For, among the Iroquois, an unchaste woman is so rare that when a
maiden commits the fault she is like a leper until death releases her
from her awful isolation.
Together, too, we searched the littered papers on the floor, piece by
piece, bit by bit, but all in vain. And while kneeling there I heard a
stealthy step behind me, and looked back over my shoulder, to see the
Oneida, Little Otter, peering in at us, eyeballs fairly starting from
his painted face. Lyn Montour eyed him silently, and without
expression, but I laughed to see how surely he had followed me as I had
expected; and motioned him away to await my coming.
It was, I should judge, nearly five o'clock when we descended by the
open stairway to the ground floor. I held the window wide; she placed
her hands on the sill and leaped lightly to the grass. I followed.
Presently the lilac thicket parted and the tall Oneida appeared,
leading my horse. One keen, cunning glance he gave at the girl, then,
impassive, stood bolt upright beside my horse. He was superb, stripped
naked to clout and moccasin, head shaved, body oiled and most
elaborately painted; and on his broad breast glimmered the Wolf lined
in sapphire-blue. When the long roll of the dead thundered through the
council-house, his name was the fourth to be called--Shononses. And
never was chief of the Oneida nation more worthy to lift the antlers
that no grave must ever cover while the Long House endures.
"Has my brother learned news of the gathering in the north?" I asked,
studying the painted symbols on his face and body.
"The council sits at dawn," he replied quietly.
"At dawn!" I exclaimed. "Why, we have no time, then----"
"There is time, brother. There is always time to die."
"To--die!" I looked at him, startled. Did he, then, expect no mercy at
the council? He raised his eyes to me, smiling. There was nothing of
fear, nothing of boastfulness, even, in attitude or glance. His dignity
appalled me, for I knew what it meant. And, suddenly, the full
significance of his paint flashed upon me.
"You think there is no chance for us?" I repeated.
"None, brother."
"And yet you go?"
"And you, brother?"
"I am ordered; I am pledged to take such chances. But you need not go,
Little Otter. See, I free you now. Leave me, brother. I desire it."
"Shononses will stay," he said impassively. "Let the Long House learn
how the Oneidas die."
I shuddered and looked again at his paint. It was inevitable; no
orders, no commands, no argument could now move him. He understood that
he was about to die, and he had prepared himself. All I could hope for
was that he had mistaken the temper of the council; that the insolence
of a revolted nation daring to present a sachem at the Federal-Council
might be overlooked--might be condoned, even applauded by those who
cherished in their dark hearts, locked, the splendid humanity of the
ancient traditions. But there was no knowing, no prophesying what
action a house divided might take, what attitude a people maddened by
dissensions, wrought to frenzy by fraternal conflict, might assume. God
knows the white man's strife was barbarous enough, brother murdering
brother beneath the natal roof. What, then, might be looked for from
the fierce, proud people whose Confederacy was steadily crumbling
beneath our touch; whose crops and forests and villages had gone
roaring up into flames as the vengeance of Sullivan, with his Rangers,
his Continentals, and his Oneidas, passed over their lands in fire!
"Where sits the council?" I asked soberly.
"At the Dead-Water."
It was an all-night journey by the Fish House-trails, for we dared not
strike the road, with Sir John's white demons outlying from the
confluence to Frenchman's creek.
I looked at my horse. Little Otter had strapped ammunition and
provisions to the saddle, leaving room for a rider. I turned to Lyn
Montour; she laid her hands on my shoulders, and I swung her up astride
the saddle.
"Now," I said briefly; and we filed away into the north, the Oneida
leading at a slow trot.
I shall never forget the gloom, the bitter misery of that dark trail
where specters ever stared at me as I journeyed, where ghosts arose in
every trail--pale wraiths of her I loved, calling me back to love
again. And "Lost, lost, lost!" wept the little brooks we crossed, all
sobbing, whispering her name.
What an end of all--to die now, leaving life's work unfinished, life's
desire unsatisfied--all that I loved unprotected and alone on earth.
What an end to it all--and I had done nothing for the cause, nothing
except the furtive, obscure work which others shrank from! And now,
skulking to certain death, was denied me even the poor solace of an
honored memory. Here in this shaggy desolation no ray of glory might
penetrate to gild my last hour with a hero's halo; contempt must be my
reward if I failed. I must die amid the scornful laughter of Iroquois
women, the shrill taunts of children, the jeers of renegade white men,
who pay a thief more honor at the cross-roads gallows than they pay a
convicted spy. Why, I might not even hope for the stern and dignified
justice that the Oneida awaited--an iron justice that respected the
victim it destroyed; for he came openly as a sachem of a disobedient
nation in revolt, daring to justify his nation and his clan. But I was
to act if not to speak a lie; I was to present myself as a sleek
non-partizan, symbolizing only a nobility of the great Wolf clan. And if
any man accused me as a spy, and if suspicion became conviction, the
horrors of my degradation would be inconceivable. Yet, plying once more
my abhorred trade, I could only obey, hope against hope, and strive to
play the man to the end, knowing what failure meant, knowing, too, what
my reward for success might be--a low-voiced "Thank you" in secret, a
grasp of the hands behind locked doors--a sum of money pressed on me
slyly--_that_ hurt most of all--to put it away with a smile, and keep my
temper. Good God! Does a Renault serve his country for money! Why,
_why_, can they not understand, and spare me that!--the wages of the
wretched trade!
Darkness had long since infolded us; we had slackened to a walk, moving
forward between impervious walls of blackness. And always on the
curtain of the inky shadow I saw Elsin's pallid face gazing upon me,
until the vision grew so real that I could have cried out in my
anguish, reeling forward, on, ever on, through a blackness thick as the
very shadows of the pit that hides lost souls!
At midnight we halted for an hour. The Oneida ate calmly; Lyn Montour
tasted the parched corn, and drank at an unseen spring that bubbled a
drear lament amid the rocks. Then we descended into the Drowned Lands,
feeling our spongy trail between osier, alder, and willow. Once, very
far away, I saw a light, pale as a star, low shining on the marsh. It
was the Fish House, and we were near our journey's end--perhaps the end
of all journeys, save that last swift trail upward among those thousand
stars!
It was near to dawn when we came out upon the marsh; and above, I heard
the whir and whimpering rush of wild ducks passing, the waking call of
birds, twittering all around us in the darkness; the low undertone of
the black water flowing to the Sacandaga.
Over the quaking marsh we passed, keeping the trodden trail, now
wading, now ankle-deep in cranberry, now up to our knees in moss, now
lost in the high marsh-grass, on, on, through birch hummocks, willows,
stunted hemlocks and tamaracks, then on firm ground once more, with the
oak-mast under foot, and the white dawn silvering the east, and my
horse breathing steam as he toiled on.
Suddenly I was aware of a dark figure moving through the marsh,
parallel, and close to me. The Oneida stopped, stared, then drew his
blanket around him and sat down at the foot of a great oak.
We had arrived at Thendara! Now, all around us in the dim glade, tall
forms moved--spectral shapes of shadowy substance that drifted hither
and thither, passing, repassing, melting into the gloom around, until I
could scarce tell them from the shreds of marsh fog that rose and
floated through the trees around us.
Slowly the heavens turned to palest gold, then to saffron. All about us
shadowy throngs arose to face the rising sun. A moment of intense
stillness, then a far, faint cry, "Koue!" And the glittering edge of
the sun appeared above the wooded heights. Blinding level rays fell on
the painted faces of the sachems of the Long House, advancing to the
forest's edge; the Oneida strode forward, head erect, and I, with a
sign to the girl at my side, followed.
As we walked through the long, dead grass, I, watching sidewise, noted
the absence of the Senecas. Was it for them the condolence? Suddenly it
struck me that to our side of the circle belonged the duty of the first
rites. Who would speak? Not the Oneidas, for there was none, except
Little Otter and myself. Who then? The Cayugas?
I shot a side glance among the slowly moving forms. Ah! that was it! A
Cayuga sachem led the march.
The circle was already forming. I saw the Senecas now; I saw all the
sachems seating themselves in a cleared space where a birch fire
smoldered, sweetening the keen morning air with its writhing, aromatic
smoke; I saw the Oneida cross proudly to his place on our side; and I
seated myself beside him, raising my eyes to the towering figure of
Tahtootahoo, the chief sachem and ensign of the great Bear Clan of the
Onondaga nation, who stood beside the Cayuga spokesman in whispered
conference.
To and fro strode the Cayuga, heavy head bent; to and fro, pacing the
circle like a stupefied panther. Once his luminous eyes gleamed on
mine, shifted blankly to the Oneida, and thence along the motionless
circle of painted faces. Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga were there, forming
half the circle; Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora welded it to a ring. I
glanced fearfully from ensign to ensign, but saw no Delaware present;
and my heart leaped with hope. Walter Butler had lied to me; the
Lenni-Lenape had never sat at this rite; his mongrel clan had no voice
here. He had lied.
The pipe had been lighted and was passing in grave silence. I received
it from a Tuscarora, used it, and handed it to the Oneida, watching the
chief sachem of the Senecas as he arose to deliver his brief address of
welcome. He spoke in the Seneca dialect, and so low that I could
understand him only with greatest difficulty, learning nothing except
that a Seneca Bear was to be raised up to replace a dead chief slain at
Sharon.
Then a very old sachem arose and made a sign which was the symbol of
travel. We touched hands and waited, understanding the form prescribed.
Alas, the mourning Senecas had no longer a town to invite us to; the
rite must be concluded where we sat; we must be content with the sky
for the roof which had fallen in on the Long House, the tall oaks for
the lodge-poles, the east and west for the doors broken down by the
invasion.
Solemnly the names of the score and three legendary towns were recited,
first those of the Wolf, next of the Tortoise, then of the Bear; and I
saw my Wolf-brethren of the four classes of the Mohawks and Cayugas
staring at me as I rose when they did and seated myself at the calling
of my towns. And, by heaven! I noted, too, that the Tuscaroras of the
Grey Wolf and the Yellow Wolf knew their places, and rose only after we
were seated. Except for the Onondaga Tortoise, a cleft clan awaits the
pleasure of its betters. Even a Delaware should know that much, but
Walter Butler was ever a liar, for it is not true that the Anowara or
Tortoise is the noble clan, nor yet the Ocquari. It is the Wolf, the
Oquacho Clan; and the chiefs of the Wolf come first of all!
Suddenly the sonorous voice of the Seneca broke the silence,
pronouncing the opening words of the most sacred rite of the Iroquois
people:
"_Now to-day I have been greatly startled by your voice coming
through the forest to this opening_----"
The deep, solemn tones of the ancient chant fell on the silence like the
notes of a sad bell. It was, then, to be a double rite. Which nation
among the younger brothers mourned a chief? I looked at the Oneida
beside me; his proud smile softened. Then I understood. Good God! They
were mourning him, _him_, as though he were already dead!
The Seneca's voice was sounding in my ears: "_Now, therefore, you who
are our friends of the Wolf Clan_----" I scarcely heard him. Presently
the "Salute" rolled forth from the council; they were intoning the
"Karenna."
I laid my hand on the Oneida's wrist; his pulse was calm, nor did it
quicken by a beat as the long roll of the dead was called:
"_Continue to listen,
Thou who wert ruler,
Hiawatha!
Continue to listen,
Thou who wert ruler:
That was the roll of you--
You who began it--
You who completed
The Great League!--
Continue to listen,
Thou who wert ruler:
That was the roll of you_----"
The deep cadence of the chanting grew to a thunderous sound; name after
name of the ancient dead was called, and the thrilling response
swelled, culminating in a hollow shout. Then a pause, and the solemn
tones of a single voice intoning the final words of gloom.
For ten full minutes there was not a sound except the faint snapping of
the smoking birch twigs. Then up rose the chief sachem of the Cayugas,
cast aside his blanket, faced the circle, dark, lean arm outstretched;
and from his lips flowed the beautiful opening words of the Younger
Nations:
"_Yo o-nen o-nen wen-ni-teh onen_----"
"_Now--now this day--now I come to your door where you mourn....
I will enter your door and come before the ashes and mourn with you
there. And these words will I speak to comfort you!_"
The music of the voice thrilled me:
"_To the warriors, to the women, and also to the children; and
also to the little ones creeping on the ground, and also to those
still tied to the cradle-board.... This we say, we three
brothers...._
"_Now another thing we will say, we younger brothers. You mourn.
I will clear the sky for you so that you shall not behold a cloud.
And also I give the sun to shine upon you, so that you can look
peacefully upon it when it goes down. You shall see it when it is
going. Yea, ye shall look peacefully upon it when it goes
down...._
"_Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. If any one
should fall, then the antlers shall be left on the grave...._
"_Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will gird the
belt on you with the quiver, and the next death will receive the
quiver whenever you shall know that there is death among us, when
the fire is made and the smoke is rising. This we say and do, we
three brothers._
"_Now I have finished. Now show me the man!_"
Slowly the Oneida rose from my side and crossed the circle. Every eye
was on him; he smiled as he halted, sweeping the throng with a tranquil
glance. Then, drawing his blanket about him he stepped from the
sanctuary of the council-ring out into the forest; and after him glided
a Mohawk warrior, with face painted black, in token of his terrific
office.
A dead silence fell upon the council.
The pulse was drumming in ears and throat when I arose; and, as the
Mohawk executioner slipped noiselessly past me, I seized him by the
clout-belt, and, summoning every atom of strength, hurled him headlong
at my feet, so that he lay stunned and like one dead.
A roar of astonishment greeted me; a score of voices cried out savagely
on my violation of the fire.
"It is you who violate it!" I answered, trembling with fury; "you who
dare pronounce the sentence of death without consulting the four
classes of the Oneida!"
A Mohawk sachem arose, casting his scarlet robes at his feet, and
pointed at me, hissing: "Where are the Oneida classes? I dare you to
tell us where the ensigns hide! Where are they? Speak!"
"Here!" I said, tearing my cape open. "Read that sign, O Canienga! I
answer for the four classes of my nation, and I say that Oneida shall
go free! Now let him who dare accuse me stand forth. It is a Wolf of
Tharon who has spoken!"
Absolute silence greeted me. I had risked all on the hazard.
The executioner had staggered to his feet again, and now stood outside
the circle leaning against a young oak-tree, half stunned, mechanically
rubbing the twigs and dead leaves from the sticky black paint that
masked his visage. I wheeled on him and bade him remain where he was
until the council's will was made known; then I walked into the circle;
and when they cried out that I had no franchise, I laughed at them,
challenging them to deny me my right to stand here for the entire
Oneida nation.
For there was nothing now to do but to carry the desperate enterprise
through or perish. I dared not stop to consider; to attempt to remember
precedents. I turned on the Mohawks haughtily, demanding that privilege
which even they could not refuse; I claimed clan-brotherhood from every
Wolf in the Long House; and when the council accorded it, I spoke:
"Now I say to you, O you wise men and sachems, that this Oneida shall
not die, because the four classes speak through my mouth! Who is there
to give me the lie? Why are your eight score Oneidas absent--the eight
score who still remain in the Long House? Surely, brothers, there are
sachems among them? Why are they not here? Do you fear they might not
agree to the punishment of the Oneida nation?"
I folded my arms and stared at the Mohawks.
"Clan ties are close, national ties closer, but strongest and closest of
all, the six iron links that form the Great League! Why do you punish
now? _How_ can you punish now? Is it well to break the oldest League law
to punish those who have broken the law of the League?"
A Mohawk sachem answered in a dozen stinging words that the League
itself was broken; but ere he could finish I stopped him with a
gesture.
Then, summoning all my powers, I burst out into a passionate protest,
denying that the Great League was broken, glorying in its endurance,
calling on every nation to uphold it. And instantly, although not a
muscle moved nor a word was uttered, I felt that I had the council with
me, that my passion was swaying them, that what I asserted they
believed. I laughed at the neutrality of the Tuscaroras, at the
half-hearted attitude of the Onondagas; I made light of the rebellion
of the greater portion of the Oneida nation.
"It is a passing fancy, a whim. The battle-breeze from this white man's
war has risen to a tempest, unroofing the Long House, scattering you
for the moment, creating a disorder, inciting a passion foreign to the
traditions of the Iroquois. I tell you to let the tempest pass and
blame no one, neither Tuscarora, Onondaga, nor Oneida. And when the
storm has died out, let the Six Nations gather again from their
hiding-places and build for the Long House a new roof, and raise new
lodge-poles, lest the sky fall down and the Confederacy lie in ashes
forever!"
I had ended. A profound hush followed, broken by a low word of
approval, then another, then another. Excited, scarcely knowing what I
had done, incredulous that I alone had actually stemmed the tide, and,
in a breath, overturned the entire plan of the Butlers and of the
demoralized Iroquois, I seated myself beside the Tuscaroras, breathing
heavily, alert for a sound that might indicate how my harangue had been
received.
Muttered expressions of approval, an emphatic word here and there, and
not an orator to dispute me!--why, this was victory--though, until the
clans had deliberated, I could not know the Federal verdict. But
gradually it dawned on me that I had at least stopped the murder of my
Oneida, and had lulled all suspicion concerning myself. With a thrill
of joy I heard the Seneca spokesman call for the youth to be raised in
place of the dead chief; with a long-drawn breath of relief I saw the
ancient belts brought, and listened to the reading of the archives from
them.
The council ended. One by one the sachems spoke to me kindly, then went
their way, some taking to canoes, others filing off through the forest,
until I found myself standing there alone before the smoldering fire,
the forest before me, the noon sun blazing overhead.
The Oneida, motionless now in the midst of those who had but an hour
before decreed his death, watched the plumed sachems pass him in
silence. Neither he nor they uttered a word; but when the last canoe
had glided off down the Dead Water toward the Sacandaga, and the last
tall form faded from view in thicket, marsh, and forest, Little Otter
turned and came quietly to me, laying my hands on his heart, and
looking me steadily in the eyes. Then together we returned, picking our
path through the marsh, until we came to Lyn Montour. As she rose to
meet us, a distant sound in the forest attracted the Oneida's
attention. I heard it, too; it was the gallop of horses, coming from
the north. No Iroquois rode a horse.
Nearer, nearer sounded the drumming thud of the hoofs. I could feel the
sodden marsh jarring now--hear the brush crackle and snap.
Suddenly a horseman galloped out of the forest's edge, drew bridle at
the clearing, bent and examined the covered fire, struck his forehead,
and stared around him.
The horseman was Walter Butler.
CHAPTER XIII
THENDARA NO MORE
Astounded at the apparition, yet instantly aware of his purpose, I
sprang forward to meet him. That he did not immediately know me in my
forest dress was plain enough, for he hastened my steps with an angry
and imperious gesture, flung himself from his saddle, laid down his
rifle, and strode to the heap of ashes that had once been the
council-fire of Thendara--now Thendara no more.
His face was still flushed with passion when I came up, my rifle
cradled in the hollow of my left arm; his distorted features worked
silently as he pointed at the whitening ashes. Suddenly he burst out
into a torrent of blasphemy.
"What in God's name does this mean?" he shouted. "Have the Iroquois
dared leave this fire before I've had my say?"
His rifle rested between him and me, barrel tilted across a rotting
log, butt in the wet marsh grass. I took a quick step forward and
dislodged the weapon, as though by accident, so that it lay where I
could set my foot upon it if necessary. Instantly he faced me, alert,
menacing; his dusky eyes lighted to a yellow glare; but when his gaze
met mine sheer astonishment held him dumb.
"Captain Butler," I said, controlling the fierce quiver in my voice,
"it is not this dead council-fire of Thendara that concerns a Yellow
Wolf-whelp."
"No," he said, drawing a long breath, "it is not this fire that
concerns us--" The voice died in his throat. Astonishment still
dominated; he stared and stared. Then a ghastly laugh stretched his
features--a soundless, terrible laugh.
"So you have come to Thendara after all!" he said. "In your fringes and
thrums and capes and bead-work I did not know you, Mr. Renault, nor did
I understand that Gretna Green is sometimes spelled Thendara!" He
pointed at the ashes; an evil laugh stretched his mouth again:
"Thendara _was_! Thendara _will be_! Thendara--Thendara no more! And
I am too late?"
The evil, silent laugh grew terrible: "Well, Mr. Renault, I had
business elsewhere; yet, had I known you had taken to forest-running, I
would have come to meet you at Thendara. However, I think there is
still time to arrange one or two small differences of opinion that have
arisen between you and me."
"There is still time," I said slowly.
He cast an involuntary glance at his rifle; made the slightest motion;
hesitated, looking hard at me. I shook my head.
"_Not_ that way?" he inquired blandly. "Well," with a cool shrug, "that
was _one_ way to arrange matters, Mr. Renault--and remember I offered
it! Remember that, Mr. Renault, when men speak of you as they speak of
Boyd!"
The monstrous insult of the menace left me outwardly unmoved; yet I
wondered he had dared, seeing how helpless he must be did I but raise
my rifle.
"Well, Mr. Renault," he sneered, "I was right, it seems, concerning
that scrap o' treason unearthed in your chambers. God! how you flouted
that beast, Sir Henry, and his fat-headed adjutant!"
He studied me coldly: "Do you mean to let me have my rifle?"
"No."
"Oh! you mean murder?"
"I am no executioner," I said contemptuously. "There are those a-plenty
who will paint black for a guinea--after a court martial. There are
those who _paint for war_, too, Mr. Butler."
I talked to gain time; and, curiously enough, he seemed to aid me,
being in nowise anxious to force my hand. Ah! I should have been
suspicious at that--I realized it soon enough--yet the Iroquois,
leaving Thendara for the rites at the Great Tree, were not yet out of
sound of a shout, or of a rifle-shot--though I meant to take him alive,
if that were possible. And all the while I watched his every careless
gesture, every movement, every flutter of his insolent eyelids, ready
to set foot upon his rifle and hold him to the spot. He no longer
appeared to occupy himself with the recovery of his rifle; he wore
neither pistol nor knife nor hatchet; indeed, in his belt I saw a roll
of paper, closely scribbled, and knew it to be a speech composed for
delivery at this fire, now burned out forever.
He placed his hands on his hips, pacing to and fro the distance between
the fire and the edge of the Dead Water, now looking thoughtfully up
into the blue sky, now lost in reverie. And every moment, I believed,
was a precious moment gained, separating him more and more hopelessly
from his favorite Senecas, whom he might even now summon by a shout.
Presently he halted, with an absent, upward glance, then his gaze
reverted to me; he drew out a handsome gold watch, examined it with
expressionless interest, and slowly returned it to the fob-pocket.
"Well, sir," he inquired, "do I take it that you desire to further
detain me here, or do you merely wish to steal my rifle?"
"I think, truly, that you no longer require your rifle, Mr. Butler," I
said quietly.
"A question--a matter of opinion, Mr. Renault." He waved his hand
gracefully. "Who are your red friends yonder?" pointing toward the two
distant forms at the edge of the willows.
"An Oneida and a quarter-breed."
"Oh--a squaw? By the head-gear I take the smaller one to be a Huron
squaw. Which reminds me, Mr. Renault," he added, with a dull stare,
"that the last time I had the pleasure of seeing your heels you were
headed for the nearest parson!"
That awful, soundless laugh distorted his mouth again:
"I could scarcely be expected to imagine," he added, "that it was as
far as this to Gretna Green. Is the Hon. Miss Grey with you here?"
"No, Mr. Butler, but your wife is with me."
"Oh!" he sneered; "so you have learned at last what she is?"
"You do not understand," I continued patiently. "I speak of your wife,
Mr. Butler. Shall I name her?"
He looked at me narrowly. Twice his lips parted as though to speak, but
no sound came.
"The woman yonder is Lyn Montour," I said in a low voice.
The yellow flare that lighted his black eyes appalled me.
"Listen to me," I went on. "That I do not slay you where you stand is
because _she_ is yonder, watching us. God help her, you shall do her
justice yet! You are my prisoner, Mr. Butler!" And I set my foot upon
his rifle.
He did not seem to hear me; his piercing gaze was concentrated on the
two distant figures standing beside the horse.
I waited, then spoke again; and, at the sound of my voice, he wheeled
on me with a snarl.
"You damned spy!" he stammered; "I'll stop your dirty business now, by
God!" and, leaping back, whipped a ranger's whistle to his lips, waking
the forest echoes with the piercing summons ere I had bounded on him
and had borne him down, shoulder-deep in moss and marsh-grass.
Struggling, half smothered by the deep and matted tangle, I heard the
startled shout of the Oneida; the distant crashing of many men running
in the underbrush; and, throttling him with both hands, I dragged him
to his feet and started toward the Oneida, pulling my prisoner with me.
But a yell from the wood's edge seemed to put fresh life into him; he
bit and scratched and struggled, and I labored in vain to choke him or
stun him. Then, in very desperation and fear of life, I strove to kill
him with my hands, but could not, and at last hurled him from me to
shoot him; but he had kicked the flint from my rifle, and, as I leveled
it, he dropped on the edge of the Dead Water and wriggled over, splash!
into the dark current, diving as my hatchet hit the waves. Then I heard
the loud explosion of rifles behind me; bullets tore through the scrub;
I turned to run for my life. And it was time.
"Ugh!" grunted the Oneida, as I came bursting headlong through the
willows. "Follow now!" He seized the horse by the bridle; the girl
mounted; then, leading the horse at a trot, we started due south
through the tossing bushes.
A man in a green uniform, knee-deep in the grass, fired at us from the
Stacking-Ridge as we passed, and the Oneida shook his rifle at him with
a shout of insult. For now at last the whole game was up, and my
mission as a spy in this country ended once and forever. No chance now
to hobnob with Johnson's Greens, no chance to approach St. Leger and
Haldimand. Butler was here, and there could be no more concealment.
Such an exhilaration of savage happiness seized me that I lost my head,
and begged the Oneida to stop and let me set a flint and give the Royal
Greens a shot or two; but the wily chief refused; and he was wise, for
I should have known that the Sacandaga must already be a swarming nest
of Johnson's foresters and painted savages.
The heat was terrific in the willows; sweat poured from the half-naked
Oneida as he ran, and my hunting-shirt hung soaked, flapping across my
thighs.
We had doubled on them now, going almost due west. Far across the Vlaie
I could see dark spots moving along the Dead Water, and here and there
a distant rifle glimmering as the sun struck it. Now and then a faint
shout was borne to our ears as we halted, dripping and panting in the
birches to reconnoiter some open swale ahead, or some cranberry-bog
crimsoning under the October sun.
We swam the marshy creek miles to the west, coming out presently into a
rutty wagon-trail, which I knew ran south to Mayfield; but we dared not
use it, so steered the dripping horse southeast, chancing rather to
cross Frenchman's Creek, four miles above Varicks, and so, by a circle
bearing east and south, reaching the Broadalbin trail, or some safe
road between Galway and Perth, or, if driven to it, making for Saratoga
as a last resort.
My face was burned deep red, and I was soaked from neck to heels, so
that my moccasins rubbed and chafed at every step. The girl had sat her
saddle while the horse swam, so that her legs only were wet. As for the
Oneida, his oiled and painted skin shed water like the plumage of a
duck. Lord knows, we left a trail broad and wet enough for even a
Hessian to follow; and for that reason dared not halt north of
Frenchman's Creek or short of Vanderveer's grist-mill.
As I plodded on, rifle atrail, I began to comprehend the full import of
what had occurred since the day before, when I, with soul full of
bitterness, had left Burke's Inn. Was it only a day ago? By Heaven, it
seemed a year since I had looked upon Elsin Grey! And what a change in
fortune had come upon us in these two score hours! Free to wed now--if
we dared accept the heart-broken testimony of this poor girl--if we
dared deny the perjured testimony of a dishonored magistrate, leagued
with his fellow libertine, who, thank God, had at length learned
something of the fury he used on others. Strange that in all this war I
had never laid a rifle level save at him; strange that I had never seen
blood shed in anger, through all these battle years, except the blood
that now dried, clotting on my cheek-bone, where his shoulder-buckle
had cut me in the struggle. His spurs, too, had caught in the skirt of
my hunting-shirt, tearing it to the fringed hem, and digging a furrow
across my instep; and the moccasin on that foot was stiff with blood.
Ah, if I might only have brought him off; if I might only have carried
this guilty man to Johnstown! Yet I should have known that Sir John's
men were likely to be within hail, fool that I was to take the
desperate chance when a little parley, a little edging toward him, a
sudden blow might have served. Yet I was glad in my heart that I had
not used craft; cat traits are not instinctive with me; craft, stealth,
a purring ambush--faugh! I was no coward to beat him down unawares. I
had openly declared him prisoner, and I was glad I had done so. Why, I
might have shot him as we talked, had I been of a breed to do
murder--had I been inhuman enough to slay him, unwarned, before the
very eyes of the woman he had wronged, and who still hoped for mercy
from him lest she pass her life a loathed and wretched outcast among
the people who had accepted her as an Iroquois.
Thinking of these things which so deeply concerned me, I plodded
forward with the others, hour after hour, halting once to drink and to
eat a little of our parched corn, then to the unspotted trail once
more, imperceptibly gaining the slope of that watershed, the streams of
which feed the Mayfield Creek, and ultimately the Hudson.
Varicks we skirted, not knowing but Sir John's scouts might be in
possession, the peppery, fat patroon having closed his house and taken
his flock to Albany; and so traveling the forest east by south, made
for the head waters of that limpid trout-stream I had so often fished,
spite of the posted warnings and the indignation of the fat patroon,
who hated me.
I think it was about four o'clock in the afternoon when, pressing
through brush and windfall, we came suddenly out into a sunny road.
Beside the road ran a stream clattering down-hill over its stony bed--a
clear, noisy stream, with swirling brown trout-pools and rapids,
rushing between ledges, foaming around boulders, a joyous, rolicking,
dashing, headlong stream, that seemed to cheer us with its gay clamor;
and I saw the Oneida's stern eyes soften as he bent his gaze upon it.
Poor little Lyn Montour slipped, with a sigh, from her saddle, while my
horse buried his dusty nose in the sparkling water, drawing deep, cold
draughts through his hot throat. And here by the familiar head waters
of Frenchman's Creek we rested in full sight of the grist-mill above
us, where the road curved west. The mill-wheel was turning; a man came
to the window overlooking the stream and stood gazing at us, and I
waved my hand at him reassuringly, recognizing old Vanderveer.
Beyond the mill I could see smoke rising from the chimneys of the
unseen settlement. Presently a small barefoot boy came out of the mill,
looked at us a moment, then turned and legged it up the road tight as
he could go. The Oneida, smoking his pipe, saw the lad's hasty flight,
and smiled slightly.
"Yes, Little Otter," I said, "they take us for some of Sir John's
people. You'll see them coming presently with their guns. Hark! There
goes a signal-shot now!"
The smacking crack of a rifle echoed among the hills; a conch-horn's
melancholy note sounded persistently.
"Let us go on to the Yellow Tavern," I said; and we rose and limped
forward, leading the horse, whose head hung wearily.
Before we reached the Oswaya mill some men in their shirt-sleeves shot
at us, then ran down through an orchard, calling on us to halt. One
carried a shovel, one a rifle, and the older man, whom I knew as a
former tenant of my father, bore an ancient firelock. When I called out
to him by name he seemed confused, demanding to know whether we were
Whigs or Tories; and when at length he recognized me he appeared to be
vastly relieved. It seemed that he, Wemple, and his two sons had been
burying apples, and that hearing the shot fired, had started for their
homes, where already the alarm had spread. Seeing us, and supposing we
had cut him off from the settlement, he had decided to fight his way
through to the mill.
"I'm mighty glad you ain't shot, Mr. Renault," he said in his thin,
high voice, scratching his chin, and staring hard at the Oneida.
"Seein' these here painted injuns sorter riled me up, an' I up an' let
ye have it. So did Willum here. Lord, sir, we've been expecting Sir
John for a month, so you must kindly excuse us, Mr. Renault!"
He shook his white head and looked up the road where a dozen armed men
were already gathered, watching us from behind the fences.
"Sir John is on the Sacandaga," I said. "Why don't you go to Johnstown,
Wemple? This is no place for your people."
He stood, rubbing his hard jaw reflectively.
"Waal, sir," he piped, "it's kind er hard to leave all you've got in
the world." He added, looking around at his fields: "I'd be a pauper if
I quit. Mebbe they won't come here, after all. Mebbe Sir John will go
down the Valley."
"Besides, we ain't got our pumpkins in nor the winter corn stacked,"
observed one of his sons sullenly.
We all turned and walked slowly up the road in the direction of the big
yellow tavern, old Wemple shaking his head, and talking all the while
in a thin, flat, high-pitched voice: "It seems kind'r hard that Sir
John can't quit his pesterin' an' leave folks alone. What call has he
to come back a-dodgin' 'round here year after year, a-butcherin' his
old neighbors, Mr. Renault? 'Pears to me he's gone crazy as a mad dog,
a-whirlin' round and round the same stump, buttin' and bitin' and
clawin' up the hull place. Sakes alive! ain't he got no human natur'?
Last Tuesday they come to Dan Norris's, five mile down the creek, an'
old man Norris he was in the barn makin' a ladder, an' Dan he was gone
for the cow. A painted Tory run into the kitchen an' hit the old woman
with his hatchet, an' she fetched a screech, an' her darter, 'Liza, she
screeched, too. Then a Injun he hit the darter, and he kep' a-kickin'
an' a-hittin', an' old man Norris he heard the rumpus out to the barn,
an' he run in, an' they pushed him out damn quick an' shot him in the
legs. A Tory clubbed him an' ripped his skelp off, the old man on his
knees, a-bellowin' piteous, till they knifed him all to slivers an'
kicked what was left o' him into the road. The darter she prayed an'
yelled, but 'twan't no use, for they cut her that bad with hatchets she
was dead when Dan came a-runnin'. 'God!' he says, an' goes at the
inimy, swingin' his milk-stool--but, Lord, sir, what can one man do? He
was that shot up it 'ud sicken you, Mr. Renault. An' then they was two
little boys a-lookin' on at it, too frightened to move; but when the
destructives was a-beatin' old Mrs. Norris to death they hid in the
fence-hedge. An' they both of 'em might agot clean off, only the
littlest one screamed when they tore the skelp off'n the old woman; an'
he run off, but a Tory he chased him an' ketched him by the fence, an'
he jest held the child's legs between his'n, an' bent him back an' cut
his throat, the boy a-squealin' something awful. Then the Tory skelped
him an' hung him acrost the fence. The only Norris what come out of it
was the lad who lay tight in the fence-scrub--Jimmy. He's up at my
house; you'll see him. He come here that night to tell us of them
goin's on. He acts kinder stupid, like he ain't got no wits, an' he
jests sets an' sets, starin' at nothin'--leastways at nothin' I kin
see----"
His high-pitched, garrulous chatter, and the horrid purport of it, were
to me indescribably ghastly. To hear such things told without tremor or
emphasis or other emotion than the sullen faces of his two strapping
sons--to hear these incredible horrors babbled by an old man whose fate
might be the same that very night, affected me with such an
overpowering sense of helplessness that I could find no word to
reassure either him or the men and boys who now came crowding around
us, asking anxiously if we had news from the Sacandaga or from the
north.
All I could do was to urge them to leave their homes and go to
Johnstown; but they shook their heads, some asserting that Johnstown
was full of Tories, awaiting the coming of Walter Butler to rise and
massacre everybody; others declaring that the Yellow Tavern, which had
been fortified, was safer than Albany itself. None would leave house or
land; and whether these people really believed that they could hold out
against a sudden onslaught, I never knew. They were the usual mixture
of races, some of low Dutch extraction, like the Vanderveers and
Wemples, some high Dutch, like the Kleins; and, around me, I saw,
recognized, and greeted people who in peaceful days had been settled in
these parts, and some among them had worked for my father--honest,
simple folk, like Patrick Farris, with his pretty Dutch wife and
tow-headed youngsters; and John Warren, once my father's head groom,
and Jacob Klock, kinsman of the well-known people of that name.
The Oneida, pressed and questioned on every side, replied in guarded
monosyllables; poor Lyn Montour, wrapped to the eyes in her blanket,
passed for an Iroquois youth, and was questioned mercilessly, until I
interposed and opened the tavern door for her and for Little Otter.
"I tell you, Wemple," I said, turning on the tavern porch to address
the people, "there is no safety here for you if Walter Butler or Sir
John arrive here in force. It will be hatchet and torch again--the same
story, due to the same strange Dutch obstinacy, or German apathy, or
Yankee foolhardiness. In the grain belt it is different; there the
farmers are obliged to expose themselves because our army needs bread.
But your corn and buckwheat and pumpkins and apples can be left for a
week or two until we see how this thing is going to end. Be sensible;
stack what you can, but don't wait to thresh or grind. Bury your
apples; let the cider go; harness up; gather your cattle and sheep;
pack up the clock and feather bed, and move to Johnstown with your
families. In a week or two you will know whether this country is to be
given to the torch again, or whether, by God's grace, Colonel Willett
is to send Walter Butler packing! I'll wait here a day for you. Think
it over.
"I have seen the Iroquois at the Sacandaga Vlaie. I saw Walter Butler
there, too; and the woods were alive with Johnson's Greens. The only
reason why they have not struck you here is, no doubt, because there
was more plunder and more killing to be had along the Sacandaga. But
when there remain no settlements there--when villages, towns, hamlets
are in ashes, like Currietown, like Minnesink, Cherry Valley, Wyoming,
Caughnawaga, then they'll turn their hatchets on these lone farms,
these straggling hamlets and cross-road taverns. I tell you, to-day
there is not a house unburned at Caughnawaga, except the church and
that villain Doxtader's house--not a chimney standing in the Mohawk
Valley, from Tribes Hill to the Nose. Ten miles of houses in ashes, ten
miles of fields a charred trail!
"Now, do as you please, but remember. For surely as I stand here the
militia call has already gone out, and this country must remain exposed
while we follow Butler and try to hunt him down."
The little throng of people, scarcely a dozen in all, received my
warning in silence. Glancing down the road, I saw one or two women
standing at their house doors, and children huddled at the gate, all
intently watching us.
"I want to send a message to Colonel Willett," I said, turning to the
Oneida. "Can you go? Now?"
The tireless fellow smiled.
"Give us what you have to eat," I said to Patrick Farris, whose round
and rosy little wife had already laid the board in the big room inside.
And presently we sat down to samp, apple-sauce, and bread, with a great
bowl of fresh milk to each cover.
The Oneida ate sparingly; the girl mechanically, dull eyes persistently
lowered. From the first moment that the Oneida had seen her he had
never addressed a single word to her, nor had he, after the first keen
glance, even looked at her. This, in the stress of circumstances, the
forced and hasty marches, the breathless trail, the tension of the
Thendara situation, was not extraordinary. But after excitement and
fatigue, and when together under the present conditions, two Iroquois
would certainly speak together.
Anxious, preoccupied as I was, I could not help but notice how
absolutely the Oneida ignored the girl; and I knew that he regarded her
as an Oneida invariably regards a woman no longer respected by the most
chaste of all people, the Iroquois nation.
That she understood and passionately resented this was perfectly plain
to me, though she neither spoke nor moved. There was nothing for me to
do or say. Already I had argued the matter with myself from every
standpoint, and eagerly as I sought for solace, for a ray of hope, I
could not but understand how vain it were to ask a cynical world to
believe that this young girl was Walter Butler's wife. No; with his
denial, with the averted faces of the sachems on the Kennyetto, as she
herself had admitted, with the denial of Sir John, what evidence could
be brought forward to justify me in wedding Elsin Grey? Another thing:
even if Sir John should admit that, acting in capacity of a magistrate
of Tryon County, he had witnessed the marriage of Walter Butler and Lyn
Montour, what civil powers had a deposed magistrate; a fugitive who had
broken parole and fled?
No, there was no legal tie here. I was not now free to wed; I
understood that as I sat there, staring out of the window into the red
west, kindling to flame behind the Mayfield hills.
The Oneida, rolling himself in his blanket, had stretched out on the
bare floor by the hearth; the girl, head buried in her hands, sat
brooding above the empty board. Farris fetched me ink and quill and the
only sheet of paper in the settlement; but it was sufficiently large to
tear in half; and I inked my rusty quill and wrote:
"Yellow Tavern,
Oswaya on Frenchman's Creek.
"COLONEL MARINUS WILLETT:
"_Sir_--I have the honor to report that the scout of two, under my
command, proceeded, agreeable to orders, as far as the Vlaie, called
Sacandaga Vlaie, arriving there at dawn and in time for the council
and rites of Thendara, which were held at the edge of the Dead Water
or Vlaie Creek.
"I flatter myself that the Long House has abandoned any idea of
punishing the Oneidas for the present--the council recognizing my
neutral right to speak for the Oneida nation. The Oneidas
dissenting, naturally there could be no national unanimity, which
is required at Thendara before the Long House embarks upon any
Federal policy.
"Whether or not this action of mine was wise, you, sir, must judge.
It may be that what I have done will only serve to consolidate the
enemy in the next enterprise they undertake.
"My usefulness as a spy in Sir John's camp must prove abortive, as
I encountered Captain Walter Butler at the Dead Water, who knows
me, and who is aware of my business in New York. Attempting to take
him, I made a bad matter of it, he escaping by diving. Some men in
green uniforms, whom I suppose were foresters from Sir John's
corps, firing on us, I deemed it prudent to take to my heels as far
as the settlement called Oswaya, which is on Frenchman's Creek,
some five miles above Varicks.
"The settlement is practically defenseless, and the people
hereabout expect trouble. If you believe it worth while to send
some Rangers here to complete the harvest, it should, I think, be
done at once. Patrick Farris, landlord at the Yellow Tavern,
estimates the buckwheat at five thousand bushels. There is also a
great store of good apples, considerable pitted corn, and much
still standing unstacked, and several acres of squashes and
pumpkins--all a temptation to the enemy.
"I can form no estimate of Sir John's force on the Sacandaga. This
letter goes to you by the Oneida runner, Little Otter, who deserves
kind treatment for his services. I send you also, under his escort,
an unfortunate young girl, of whom you have doubtless heard. She is
Lyn Montour, and is by right, if not by law, the wife of Captain
Walter Butler. He repudiates her; her own people disown her. I
think, perhaps, some charitable lady of the garrison may find a
home for her in Johnstown or in Albany. She is Christian by
instinct if not by profession.
"Awaiting your instructions here, I have the honor to remain, Your
humble and ob't servant,
"CARUS RENAULT,
"_Regt. Staff Capt_."
The sun had set. Farris brought a tallow dip. He also laid a fire in
the fireplace and lighted it, for the evening had turned from chill to
sheer dry cold, which usually meant a rain for the morrow in these
parts.
Shivering a little in my wet deerskins, I sanded, folded, directed, and
sealed the letter, laid it aside, and drew the other half-sheet toward
me. For a few moments I pondered, head supported on one hand, then
dipped quill in horn and wrote:
"_Beloved_--There is a poor young girl here who journeys to-night to
Johnstown under escort of my Oneida. Do what you can for her in
Johnstown. If you win her confidence, perhaps we both may help her.
Her lot is sad enough.
"Dearest, I am to acquaint you that I am no longer, by God's
charity, a spy. I now hope to take the field openly as soon as our
scouts can find out just exactly where Major Ross and Butler's
Rangers are.
"To my great astonishment, disgust, and mortification, I have
learned that Walter Butler is near here. He evidently rode forward,
preceding his command, in order to be present at an Iroquois fire.
He was too late to work anybody a mischief in that direction.
"It is now our duty to watch for his Rangers and forestall their
attack. For that purpose I expect Colonel Willett to send me a
strong scout or to recall me to Johnstown. My impatience to hold
you in my arms is tempered only by my hot desire to wash out the
taint of my former duties in the full, clean flood of open and
honorable battle.
"Time presses, and I must wake my Oneida. See that my horse is
cared for, dearest. Remember he bore me gallantly on that ride for
life and love.
"I dare not keep Colonel Willett's report waiting another minute.
Good night, my sweet Elsin. All things must come to us at last.
"CARUS."
I dried the letter by the heat of the blazing logs. The Indian stirred,
sat up in his blanket, and looked at me with the bright, clear eyes of
a hound.
"I am ready, brother," I said gently.
It was cold, clear starlight when Farris brought my horse around. I set
Lyn Montour in the saddle, and walked out into the road with her, my
hand resting on her horse's mane.
"Try not to be sad," I whispered, as she settled herself in the
stirrups like a slim young trooper, and slowly gathered bridle.
"I am no longer sad, Mr. Renault," she said tremulously. "I comprehend
that I have no longer any chance in the world."
"Not among your adopted people," I said, "but white people understand.
There is no reason, child, why you should not carry your head proudly.
You are guiltless, little sister."
"I am truly unconscious of any sin," she said simply.
"You have committed none. His the black shame of your betrayal! And now
that you know him for the foul beast he is, there can be no earthly
reason that you should suffer either in pride or conscience. You are
pitifully young; you have life before you--the life of a white woman,
with its chances, its desires, its aims, its right to happiness. Take
it! I bid you be happy, little sister; I bid you hope!"
She turned her face and looked at me; the ghost of a smile trembled on
her lips; then, inclining her head in the sweetest of salutes, she
wheeled her horse out into the tremulous starlight. And after her stole
the tall Oneida, rifle slanted across his naked shoulders, striding
silently at her stirrup as she rode. I had a momentary glimpse of their
shadowy shapes moving against the sky, then they were blotted out in
the gloom of the trees, leaving me in the road peering after them
through the darkness, until even the far stroke of the horse's feet
died out, and there was no sound in the black silence save the hushed
rushing of the stream hurrying through the shrouded hollow below.
Not a light glimmered in the settlement. The ungainly tavern, every
window sealed with solid shutters, sprawled at the cross-roads, a
strange, indistinct silhouette; the night-mist hung low over the fields
of half-charred stumps, and above the distant bed of the brook a band
of fog trailed, faintly luminous.
Never before had I so deeply felt the desolation of the northland. In a
wilderness there is nothing forbidding to me; its huge earth-bedded,
living pillars supporting the enormous canopy of green, its vastness,
its mystery, its calm silence, may awe yet nothing sadden. But a vague
foreboding enters when man enters. Where his corn grows amid the
cinders of primeval things, his wanton gashes on tree and land, his
beastly pollution of the wild, crystal waters, all the restlessness,
and barrenness, and filth, and sordid deformity he calls his
home--these sadden me unutterably.
I know, too, that Sir William Johnson felt as I do, loving the forest
for its own beautiful, noble sake; and the great Virginian, who cared
most for the majestic sylvan gardens planted by the Almighty, grieved
at destruction, and, even in the stress of anxiety, when his carpenters
and foresters were dealing pitilessly with the woods about West Point
in order to furnish timber for the redoubts and the floats for the
great chain, he thought to warn his engineers to beware of waste caused
by ignorance or wantonness.
Where rich and fertile soil is the reward for the desperate battle with
an iron forest, I can comprehend the clearing of a wilderness, and
admire the transformation into gentle hills clothed in green, meadows,
alder-bordered waters, acres of grain, and dainty young orchards; but
here, in this land, only the flats along the river-courses are worthy
of cultivation; the rest is sand and rock deeply covered with the
forest mast, and fertile only while that lasts. And the forest once
gone, land and water shrivel, unnourished, leaving a desert amid
charred stumps and the white phantoms of dead pines. I was ever averse
to the cutting of the forests here, except for selected crops of
ripened timber to be replaced by natural growth ere the next crop had
ripened; and Sir William Johnson, who was wise in such matters, set us
a wholesome example which our yeomen have not followed. And already
lands cleared fifty years since have run out to the sandy subsoil; yet
still the axes flash, still the great trees groan and fall, crashing
through and smashing their helpless fellows; and in God's own garden
waters shrink, and fire passes, and the deer flee away, and rain fails,
because man passes in his folly, and the path of the fool is
destruction.
Where Thendara was, green trees flourish to the glory of the Holder of
Heaven.
Where the forest whitens with men, the earth mourns in ashes for the
lost Thendara--Thendara! Thendara no more!
CHAPTER XIV
THE BATTLE OF JOHNSTOWN
Two weeks of maddening inactivity followed the arrival at the Yellow
Tavern of an express from Colonel Willett, carrying orders for me to
remain at Oswaya until further command, bury all apples, pit the corn,
and mill what buckwheat the settlers could spare as a deposit for the
army.
Not a word since that time had I heard from Johnstown, although it was
rumored in the settlement that the Rangers had taken the field in
scouts of five, covering the frontier to get into touch with the
long-expected forces that might come from Niagara under Ross and Walter
Butler, or from the east under St. Leger and Sir John, or even perhaps
under Haldimand.
Never had I known such hot impatience, such increasing anxiety; never
had I felt so bitterly that the last chance was vanishing for me to
strike an honest blow in a struggle wherein I, hitherto inert, had
figured so meanly, so ingloriously.
To turn farmer clodhopper now was heart-breaking. Yet all I could do
was to organize a sort of home guard there, detail a different yokel
every day to watch the road to Varicks, five miles below, by which the
enemy must arrive if they marched with artillery and wagons, as it was
rumored they would. At night I placed a sentinel by the mill to guard
against scalping parties, and another on the hill to watch the West and
South. Meager defenses, one might say, and even the tavern was
unstockaded, and protected only by loops and oaken shutters; but every
man and woman was demanded for the harvest; even the children staggered
off to the threshing-barns, laden with sheaves of red-stemmed
buckwheat, or rolled pumpkins and squashes to the wagons, or shook down
crimson apples for the men to cart away and bury.
The little Norris boy labored with the others--a thin, sallow child,
heavy-eyed and silent. He had recovered somewhat from the shock of the
tragedy he had witnessed, and strove to do what was asked of him, but
when spoken to, seemed confused and slow of comprehension; and the
tears were ever starting or smeared over his freckled face from cheek
to chin.
Being an officer, the poor, heavy-witted folk looked to me for the
counsel and wisdom my inexperience lacked. All I could do for them was
to arrange their retreat to the tavern at the first signal of danger,
and to urge that the women and children sleep there at night. My advice
was only partly followed. As the golden October days passed, with no
fresh alarm from the Sacandaga, their apathetic fatalism turned to a
timid confidence that their homes and lands might yet be spared.
Wemple sold his buckwheat on promise of pay in paper dollars, and we
milled it and barreled it, and made a deposit in Klein's sugar-bush.
Distant neighbors came a-horseback to the mill with news from
neighbors, still more distant, that Sir John had retreated northward
from the Sacandaga, toward Edward; that the Tories threatened Ballston;
that Indians had been seen near Galway; that the garrison at
Schenectady had been warned to take the field against St. Leger; that
on Champlain General Haldimand had gathered a great fleet, and his
maneuvers were a mystery to the scouts watching him. But no rumors were
carried to us concerning Ross and Butler, except that strange vessels
had been seen leaving Bucks Island.
The tension, the wearing anxiety, and harrowing chagrin that I had been
left here forgotten, waxed to a fever that drove me all day restlessly
from field to field, from house to barn, and back to the tavern, to sit
watching the road for sign of a messenger to set me free of this
dreary, hopeless place.
And on one bright, cold morning in late October, when to keep warm one
must seek the sunny lee of the tavern, I sat brooding, watching the
crimson maple-leaves falling from the forest in showers. Frost had
come, silvering the stiffened earth, and patches of it still lingered
in shady places. Oaks were brown, elms yellow; birches had shed their
leaves; and already the forest stretched bluish and misty, set with
flecks of scarlet maple and the darker patches of the pine.
On that early morning, just after sunrise, I sensed a hint of snow in
the wind that blew out of the purple north; and the premonition
sickened me, for it meant the campaign ended.
In an ugly and sullen mood I sat glowering at the blackened weeds cut
by the frost, when, hearing the sound of horses' feet on the hill, I
rose and stood on tiptoe to see who might be coming at such a pace.
People ran out to the rear to look; nearer and nearer came the dull,
battering gallop, then a rider rushed into view, leaning far forward,
waving his arm; and a far cry sounded: "Express, ho! News for Captain
Renault!"
An express! I sprang to the edge of the road as the horse thundered by;
and the red-faced rider, plastered with mud, twisted in his saddle and
hurled a packet at me, shouting: "Butler is in the Valley! Turn out!
Turn out!" sweeping past in a whirlwind of dust and flying stones.
As I caught up the packet from the grass Farris ran out and fired his
musket, then set the conch-horn to his mouth and sent a long-drawn,
melancholy warning booming through the forest.
"Close up those shutters!" I said, "and fill the water-casks!"
Men came running from barn and mill, shouting for the women and
children; men ran to the hill to look for signs of the enemy, to drive
in cattle, to close and latch the doors of their wretched dwellings, as
though bolt and bar could keep out the red fury now at last unloosened.
I saw a woman, to whose ragged skirts three children clung, toiling
across a stump-field, staggering under a flour-sack full of humble
household goods. One of the babies carried a gray kitten clasped to her
breast.
Pell-mell into the tavern they hurried, white-faced, panting, pushing
their terrified children into dark corners and under tables.
"Tell that woman to let her cow go!" I shouted, as a frightened heifer
dashed up the road, followed by its owner, jerked almost off her feet
by the tether-rope. Old Wemple seized the distracted woman by the
shoulder and dragged her back to the tavern, she weeping and turning
her head at every step.
In the midst of this howling hubbub I ripped open my despatches and
read:
"JOHNSTOWN,
October 25, 1781.
"CAPT. RENAULT:
"_Sir_--Pursuant to urgent orders this instant arrived by express
from Col. Willett at Fort Rensselaer, I have the honor to inform you
that Major Ross and Capt. Walter Butler have unexpectedly struck the
Valley at Warren's Bush with the following forces:
Eighth Regiment 25
Thirty-fourth Regiment 100
Eighty-fourth Highlanders Regiment 36
Sir John's Royal Greens Regiment 120
Yagers Regiment 12
Butler's Rangers 150
Indians 130
Renegades 40
With bat-horses, baggage-wagons, and camp-trains, including forces
amounting to a thousand rifles.
"What portion of the invading army this flying column may represent
is at present unknown to me.
"The militia call is out; expresses are riding the county to warn
every post, settlement, and blockhouse; Colonel Willett, with part
of the garrison at Fort Rensselaer, is marching on Fort Hunter to
join his forces with your Rangers, picking up the scouts on his
way, and expects to strike Butler at the ford below Tribes Hill.
"You will gather from this, sir, that Johnstown is gravely menaced,
and no garrison left except a few militia. Indeed, our situation
must shortly be deplorable if Colonel Willett does not deliver
battle at the ford.
"Therefore, if you can start at once and pick up a post of your
riflemen at Broadalbin Bush, it may help us to hold the jail here
until some aid arrives from Colonel Willett.
"The town is panic-stricken. All last night the people stood on the
lawn by Johnson Hall and watched the red glare in the sky where the
enemy were burning the Valley. Massacre, the torch, and hatchet
seem already at our thresholds. However, the event remains with
God. I shall hold the jail to the last.
"Your ob't serv't,
"ROWLEY, _Major Com'nd'g_."
For one dreadful moment every drop of blood seemed to leave my body. I
sank into a chair, staring into the sunshine, seeing nothing. Then the
pale face of Elsin Grey took shape before me, gazing at me sorrowfully;
and I sprang up, shuddering, and looking about me. What in God's name
was I to do? Go to her and leave these women and babies?--leave these
dull-witted men to defend themselves? Why not? Every nerve in me
tightened with terror at her danger, every heart-beat responded
passionately to the appeal. Yet how could I go, with these white-faced
women watching me in helpless confidence; with these frightened
children gathering around me, looking up into my face, reaching
trustfully for my clenched hands?
In an agony of indecision I turned to the door and gazed down the road,
an instant only, then leaped back and slammed the great oaken portal,
shooting the bars.
Destiny had decided; Fate had cut the knot!
"Every man to a loop!" I called out steadily. "Wemple, take your sons
to the east room; Klein, you and Farris and Klock take the west and
south; Warren, look out for the west. They may try to fire the wooden
water-leader. Mrs. Farris, see that the tubs of water are ready; and
you, Mrs. Warren, take the women and children to the cellar and be
ready to dip up buckets of water from the cistern."
Silence; a trample on the stairs as the men ran to their posts; not a
cry, not a whimper from the children.
I climbed the stairs, and lying at full length beside the loop, cocked
my rifle, and peered out. Almost instantly I saw a man dodge into
Klein's house too quickly for me to fire. Presently the interior of the
house reddened behind the windows; a thin haze of smoke appeared as by
magic, hanging like a curtain above the roof. Then, with a crackling
roar that came plainly to my ears, the barn behind the house was buried
in flame, seeming almost to blow up in one huge puff of bluish-white
smoke.
I heard Wemple's ancient firelock explode, followed by the crack of his
sons' rifles, and I saw an Indian running across the pasture.
Klein's house was now curtained with blackish smoke; Wemple's, too, had
begun to burn, the roof all tufted with clear little flames, that
seemed to give out no smoke in the sunshine. An Indian darted across
the door-yard, and leaped into the road, but at the stunning report of
Warren's rifle he stopped, dropping his gun, and slowly sank, face
downward, in the dust.
Then I heard the barking scalp-yelp break out, and a storm of bullets
struck the tavern, leaving along the forest's edge a low wall of brown
vapor, which lingered as though glued to the herbage; and through it,
red as candle-flames in fog, the spirting flicker of the rifles played,
and the old tavern rang with leaden hail. Suddenly the fusillade
ceased. Far away I heard a ranger's whistle calling, calling
persistently.
Wemple's barn was now burning fiercely; the mill, too, had caught fire,
and an ominous ruddy glare behind Warren's windows brightened and
brightened.
Behind me, and on either side of me, the frenzied farmers were firing,
maddened by the sight of the destruction, until I was obliged to run
among the men and shake them, warning them to spare their powder until
there was something besides the forest to shoot at. The interior of the
tavern was thick with powder-smoke. I heard people coughing all around
me.
And now, out of rifle-range, I caught my first good view of the
marauders passing along the red stubble-fields north of Warren's
barn--some hundred Indians and Tories, marching in columns of fours,
rifles atrail, south by east. To my astonishment, instead of facing,
they swung around us on a dog-trot, still out of range, pressing
steadily forward across the rising ground. Then suddenly I
comprehended. They cared nothing for Oswaya when there was prime
killing and plunder a-plenty to be had in the Valley. They were headed
for Johnstown, where the vultures were already gathering.
Old Wemple had run down-stairs and flung open the door to watch them. I
followed, rifle in hand, and we sped hotfoot across the stump-lot and
out upon the hill. Surely enough, there they were in the distance,
hastening away to the southward at a long, swinging lope, like a pack
of timber-wolves jogging to a kill.
"Hold the tavern to-night and then strike out for Saratoga with all
your people," I said hurriedly. "They're gone, and I mean to follow
them."
"Be ye goin', sir?" quavered the old man. He turned to gaze at the
blazing settlement below, tears running down his cheeks.
"Oh, Lord! Thy will be done--I guess," he said.
Farris, Warren, and Klock came up on the run. I pointed at the distant
forest, into which the column was disappearing.
"Keep the tavern to-night," I said hoarsely; "there may be a skulking
scalp-hunter or two prowling about until morning, but they'll be gone
by sunrise. Good-by, lads!"
One by one they extended their powder-blackened, labor-torn hands, then
turned away in silence toward the conflagration below, to face winter
in the wilderness without a roof.
Rifle at trail, teeth set, I descended the hill, dodging among the
blackened stumps, and entered the woods on a steady run. I had no need
of a path save for comfort in the going, for this region was perfectly
familiar to me from the Sacandaga to the Kennyetto, and from Mayfield
Creek to the Cayadutta--familiar as Broadway, from the Battery to
Vauxhall. No Indian knew it better, nor could journey by short cuts
faster than could I. For this was my own country, and I trusted it. The
distance was five good miles to the now-abandoned settlement of
Broadalbin, or Fonda's Bush, which some still call it, and my road lay
south, straight as the bee flies, after I had once crossed the trail of
the Oswaya raiders.
I crossed it where I expected to, in a soft and marshy glade,
unblackened by the frost, where blue flowers tufted the swale, and a
clear spring soaked the moss and trickled into a little stream which, I
remembered, was ever swarming with tiny troutlings. Here I found the
print of Cayuga and Mohawk moccasins and white man's boots a-plenty;
and, for one fierce instant, burned to pick up the raw trail, hanging
on their rear to drive one righteous bullet into them when chance gave
me an opportunity. But the impulse fled as it came. Sick at heart I
pressed forward once more, going at a steady wolf-trot; and so
silently, so noiselessly, that twice I routed deer from their hemlock
beds, and once came plump on a tree-cat that puffed up into fury and
backed off spitting and growling, eyes like green flames, and every
hair on end.
Tree after tree I passed, familiar to me in happier years--here an oak
from which, a hundred yards due west, one might find sulphur
water--there a pine, marking a clean mile from the Kennyetto at its
nearest curve, yonder a birch-bordered gulley, haunted of partridge and
woodcock--all these I noted, scarcely seeing them at all, and plodded
on and on until, far away through the trees, I heard the Kennyetto
roaring in its gorge, like the wind at Adriutha.
A stump-field, sadly overgrown with choke-cherry, sumach, and
rabbit-brier, warned me that I was within rifle-hail of the Rangers'
post at Broadalbin. I swung to the west, then south, then west again,
passing the ruins of the little settlement--a charred beam here, an
empty cellar there, yonder a broken well-sweep, until I came to the
ridge above the swamp, where I must turn east and ford the stream,
under the rifles of the post.
There stood the chimney of what had once been my father's house--the
new one, "burned by mistake," ere it had been completed.
I gave it one sullen glance; looked around me, saw but heaps of brick,
mortar, and ashes, where barns, smoke-houses, granaries, and stables
had stood. The cellar of my old home was almost choked with weeds;
slender young saplings had already sprouted among the foundation-stones.
Passing the orchard, I saw the trees under which I had played as a
child, now all shaggy and unpruned, tufted thick with suckers, and
ringed with heaps of small rotting apples, lying in the grass as they
had fallen. With a whirring, thunderous roar, a brood of crested grouse
rose from the orchard as I ran on, startling me, almost unnerving me.
The next moment I was at the shallow water's edge, shouting across at a
blockhouse of logs; and a Ranger rose up and waved his furry cap at me,
beckoning me to cross, and calling to me by name.
"Is that you, Dave Elerson?" I shouted.
"Yes, sir. Is there bad news?"
"Butler is in the Valley!" I answered, and waded into the cold, brown
current, ankle-deep in golden bottom-sands. Breathless, dripping thrums
trailing streams of water after me, I toiled up the bank and stood
panting, leaning against the log hut.
"Where is the post?" I breathed.
"Out, sir, since last night."
"Which way?" I groaned.
"Johnstown way, Mr. Renault. The Weasel, Tim Murphy, and Nick Stoner
was a-smellin' after moccasin-prints on the Mayfield trail. About sunup
they made smoke-signals at me that they was movin' Kingsboro way on a
raw trail."
He brought me his tin cup full of rum and water. I drank a small
portion of it, then rinsed throat and mouth, still standing.
"Butler and Ross, with a thousand rifles and baggage-wagons, are making
for the Tribes Hill ford," I said. "A hundred Cayugas, Mohawks, and
Tories burned Oswaya just after sunrise, and are this moment pushing on
to Johnstown. We've got to get there before them, Elerson."
"Yes, sir," he said simply, glancing at the flint in his rifle.
"Is there any chance of our picking up the scout?"
"If we don't, it's a dead scout for sure," he returned gravely. "Tim
Murphy wasn't lookin' for scalpin' parties from the north."
I handed him his cup, tightened belt and breast-straps, trailed rifle,
and struck the trail at a jog; and behind me trotted David Elerson,
famed in ballad and story, which he could not read--nor could Tim
Murphy, either, for that matter, whose learning lay in things
unwritten, and whose eloquence flashed from the steel lips of a rifle
that never spoke in vain.
Like ice-chilled wine the sweet, keen mountain air blew in our faces,
filtering throat and nostrils as we moved; the rain that the frost had
promised was still far away--perhaps not rain at all, but snow.
On we pressed, first breath gone, second breath steady; and only for
the sickening foreboding that almost unnerved me when I thought of
Elsin, I should not have suffered from the strain.
Somewhere to the west, hastening on parallel to our path, was strung
out that pack of raiding bloodhounds; farther south, perhaps at this
very instant entering Johnstown, moved the marauders from the north. A
groan burst from my dry lips.
Slowing to a walk we began to climb, shoulder to shoulder, ascending
the dry bed of a torrent fairly alive with partridges.
"Winter's comin' almighty fast; them birds is a-packin' and a-buddin'
already. Down to the Bush I see them peckin' the windfall apples in
your old orchard."
I scarcely heard him, but, as he calmly gossiped on, hour after hour, a
feeling of dull surprise grew in me that at such a time a man could
note and discuss such trifles. Ah, but he had no sweetheart there in
the threatened town, menaced by death in its most dreadful shape.
"Are the women in the jail?" I asked, my voice broken by spasmodic
breathing as we toiled onward.
"I guess they are, sir--leastways Jack Mount was detailed there to
handle the milishy." And, after a pause, gravely and gently: "Is your
lady there, sir?"
"Yes--God help her!"
He said nothing; there was nothing of comfort for any man to say. I
looked up at the sun.
"It's close to noontide, sir," said Elerson. "We'll make Johnstown
within the half-hour. Shall we swing round by the Hall and keep cover,
or chance it by the road to Jimmy Burke's?"
"What about the scout?" I asked miserably.
He shook his head, and over his solemn eyes a shadow passed.
"Mayhap," he muttered, "Tim Murphy's luck will hold, sir. He's been
fired at by a hundred of their best marksmen; he's been in every bloody
scrape, assault, ambush, retreat, 'twixt Edward and Cherry Valley, and
never a single bullet-scratch. We may find him in Johnstown yet."
He swerved to the right: "With your leave, Captain Renault, we'll
fringe the timber here. Look, sir! Yonder stands the Hall against the
sky!"
We were in Johnstown. There, across Sir William's tree-bordered
pastures and rolling stubble-fields, stood the baronial hall. Sunlight
sparkled on the windows. I saw the lilacs, the bare-limbed locusts, the
orchards, still brilliant with scarlet and yellow fruit, the long stone
wall and hedge fence, the lawns intensely green.
"It is deserted," I said in a low voice.
"Hark!" breathed Elerson, ear to the wind. After a moment I heard a
deadened report from the direction of the village, then another and
another; and, spite of the adverse breeze, a quavering, gentle,
sustained sound, scarce more than a vibration, that hung persistently
in the air.
"By God!" gasped Elerson, "it's the bell at the jail! The enemy are
here! Pull foot, sir! Our time has come!"
Down the slope we ran, headed straight for the village. Gunshots now
sounded distinctly from the direction of the Court-House; and around
us, throughout the whole country, guns popped at intervals, sometimes a
single distant report, then a quick succession of shots, like hunters
shooting partridges; but we heard as yet no volley-firing.
"Tories and scalpers harrying the outlying farms," breathed Elerson.
"Look sharp, sir! We're close to the village, and it's full o' Tories."
Right ahead of us stood a white house; and, as we crossed the hay-field
behind it, a man came to the back door, leveled a musket, and
deliberately shot at us. Instantly, and before he could spring back,
Elerson threw up his rifle and fired, knocking the man headlong through
the doorway.
"The impudent son of a slut!" he muttered to himself, coolly reloading.
"Count one more Tory in hell, Davy, lad!"
Priming, his restless eyes searched the road-hedge ahead, then, ready
once more, we broke into a trot, scrambled through the fence, and
started down the road, which had already become a village street. It
was fairly swarming with men running and dodging about.
The first thing I saw clearly was a dead woman lying across a
horse-block. Then I saw a constable named Hugh McMonts running down the
street, chased closely by two Indians and a soldier wearing a green
uniform. They caught him as we fired, and murdered him in a doorway
with hatchet and gun-stock, spattering everything with the poor
wretch's brains.
Our impulsive and useless shots had instantly drawn the fire of three
red-coated soldiers; and, as the big bullets whistled around us,
Elerson grasped my arm, pulled me back, and darted behind a barn.
Through a garden we ran, not stopping to load, through another
barnyard, scattering the chickens into frantic flight, then out along a
stony way, our ears ringing with the harsh din of the jail bell.
"There's the jail; run for it!" panted Elerson, as we came in sight of
the solid stone structure, rising behind its palisades on the high
ground.
I sprang across the road and up the slope, battering at the barricaded
palings with my rifle-stock, while Elerson ran around the defenses
bawling for admittance.
"Hurry, Elerson!" I cried, hammering madly for entrance; "here come the
enemy's baggage-wagons up the street!"
"Jack Mount! Jack Mount! Let us in, ye crazy loon!" shouted Elerson.
Somebody began to unbolt the heavy slab gate; it creaked and swung just
wide enough for a man to squeeze through. I shoved Elerson inside and
followed, pushing into a mob of scared militia and panic-stricken
citizens toward a huge buckskinned figure at a stockade loophole on the
left.
"Jack Mount!" I called, "where are the women? Are they safe?"
He looked around at me, nodded in a dazed and hesitating manner, then
wheeled quick as a flash, and fired through the slit in the logs.
I crawled up to the epaulment and peered down into the dusty street. It
was choked with the enemy's baggage-wagons, now thrown into terrible
confusion by the shot from Mount's rifle. Horses reared, backed,
swerved, swung around, and broke into a terrified gallop; teamsters
swore and lashed at their maddened animals, and some batmen, carrying a
dead or wounded teamster, flung their limp burden into a wagon, and,
seizing the horses' bits, urged them up the hill in a torrent of dust.
I fumbled for my ranger's whistle, set it to my lips, and blew the
"Cease firing!"
"Let them alone!" I shouted angrily at Mount. "Have you no better work
than to waste powder on a parcel of frightened clodhoppers? Send those
militiamen to their posts! Two to a loop, yonder! Lively, lads; and see
that you fire at nothing except Indians and soldiers. Jack, come up
here!"
The big rifleman mounted the ladder and leaped to the rifle-platform,
which quivered beneath his weight.
"I thought I'd best sting them once," he muttered. "Their main force
has circled the town westward toward the Hall. Lord, sir, it was a bad
surprise they gave us, for we understood that Willett held them at
Tribes Hill!"
I caught his arm in a grip of iron, striving to speak, shaking him to
silence.
"Where--where is Miss Grey?" I said hoarsely. "You say the women are
safe, do you not?"
"Mr. Renault--sir--" he stammered, "I have just arrived at the jail--I
have not seen your wife."
My hand fell from his arm; his appalled face whitened.
"Last night, sir," he muttered, "she was at the Hall, watching the
flames in the sky where Butler was burning the Valley. I saw her there
in a crowd of townsfolk, women, children--the whole town was on the
lawn there----"
He wiped his clammy face and moistened his lips; above us, in the
wooden tower, the clamor of the bell never ceased.
"She spoke to me, asking for news of you. I--I had no news of you to
tell her. Then an officer--Captain Little--fell a-bawling for the
Rangers to fall in, and Billy Laird, Jack Shew, Sammons, and me--we had
to go. So I fell in, sir; and the last I saw she was standing there and
looking at the reddening sky----"
Blindly, almost staggering, I pushed past him, stumbling down the
ladder, across the yard, and into the lower corridor of the jail. There
were women a-plenty there; some clung to my arm, imploring news; some
called out to me, asking for husband or son. I looked blankly into face
after face, all strangers; I mounted the stairs, pressing through the
trembling throng, searching every whitewashed corridor, every room;
then to the cellar, where the frightened children huddled, then out
again, breaking into a run, hastening from blockhouse to blockhouse,
the iron voice of the bell maddening me!
"Captain Renault! Captain Renault!" called out a militiaman, as I
turned from the log rampart.
The man came hastening toward me, firelock trailing, pack and sack
bouncing and flopping.
"My wife has news of your lady," he said, pointing to a slim, pale
young woman who stood in the doorway, a shawl over her wind-blown hair.
I turned as she advanced, looking me earnestly in the face.
"Your lady was in the fort late last night, sir," she began. A fit of
coughing choked her; overhead the dreadful clangor of the bell dinned
and dinned.
Dumb, stunned, I waited while she fumbled in her soiled apron, and at
last drew out a crumpled letter.
"I'll tell you what I know," she said weakly. "We had been to the Hall;
the sky was all afire. My little boy grew frightened, and she--your
sweet lady--she lifted him and carried him for me--I was that sick and
weak from fright, sir----"
A fit of coughing shook her. She handed me the letter, unable to
continue.
And there, brain reeling, ears stunned by the iron din of the bell
which had never ceased, I read her last words to me:
"Carus, my darling, I don't know where you are. Please God, you are
not at Oswaya, where they tell me the Indians have appeared above
Varicks. Dearest lad, your Oneida came with your letter. I could
not reply, for there were no expresses to go to you. Colonel
Willett had news of the enemy toward Fort Hunter, and marched the
next day. We hoped he might head them, but last night there was an
alarm, and we all went out into the street. People were hastening
to the Hall, and I went, too, being anxious, now that you are out
there alone somewhere in the darkness.
"Oh, Carus, the sky was all red and fiery behind Tribes Hill; and
women were crying and children sobbing all around me. I asked the
Ranger, Mount, if he had news of you, and he was gentle and kind,
and strove to comfort me, but he went away with his company on a
run, and I saw the militia assembling where the drummers stood
beating their drums in the torchlight.
"Somebody--a woman--said: 'It's hatchet and scalping again, and we
women will catch it now.'
"And then a child screamed, and its mother was too weak to carry
it, so I took it back for her to the jail.
"I sat in the jailer's room, thinking and thinking. Outside the
barred window I heard a woman telling how Butler's men had already
slain a whole family at Caughnawaga--an express having arrived with
news of horrors unspeakable.
"Dearest, it came to me like a flash of light what I must do--what
God meant me to do. Can you not understand, my darling? We are
utterly helpless here. I must go back to this man--to this man who
is riding hither with death on his right hand, and on his left
hand, death!
"Oh, Carus! Carus! my sin has found me out! It is written that man
should not put asunder those joined together. I have defied Him!
Yet He repays, mercifully, offering me my last chance.
"Sweetheart, I must take it. Can you not understand? This man is my
lawful husband; and as his wife, I dare resist him; I have the
right to demand that his Indians and soldiers spare the aged and
helpless. I must go to him, meet him, and confront him, and insist
that mercy be shown to these poor, terrified people. _And I must
pay the price!_
"Oh, Carus! Carus! I love you so! Pray for me. God keep you! I must
go ere it is too late. My horse is at Burke's. I leave this for
you. Dear, I am striving to mend a shattered life with sacrifice of
self--the sacrifice you taught me. I can not help loving you as I
do; but I can strive to be worthy of the man I love. This is the
only way!
"ELSIN GREY."
The woman had begun to speak again. I raised my eyes.
"Your sweet lady gave me the letter--I waited while she wrote it in the
warden's room--and she was crying, sir. God knows what she has written
you!--but she kissed me and my little one, and went out into the yard.
I have not seen her since, Mr. Renault."
Would the din of that hellish bell never cease its torture? Would sound
never again give my aching brain a moment's respite? The tumult, men's
sharp voices, the coughing of the sick woman, the dull, stupid blows of
sound were driving me mad! And now more noises broke out--the measured
crash of volleys; cheers from the militia on the parapet; an uproar
swelling all around me. I heard some one shout, "Willett has entered
the town!" and the next instant the smashing roll of drums broke out in
the street, echoing back from façade and palisade, and I heard the
fifes and hunting-horns playing "Soldiers' Joy!" and the long
double-shuffling of infantry on the run.
The icy current of desperation flowed back into every vein. My mind
cleared; I passed a steady hand over my eyes, looked around me, and,
drawing the ranger's whistle from my belt, set it to my lips.
The clear, mellow call dominated the tumult. A man in deerskin dropped
from the rifle-platform, another descended the ladder, others came
running from the log bastions, all flocking around me like brown deer
herding to the leader's call.
"Fall in!" I scarce knew my own voice.
The eager throng of riflemen fell away into a long rank, stringing out
across the jail yard.
"Shoulder arms! Right dress! Right face! Call off!"
The quick responses ran along the ranks: "Right! left! right!
left!----"
"Right double!" I called. Then, as order followed order, the left
platoon stepped forward, halted, and dressed.
"Take care to form column by platoons right, right front. To the
right--face! March!"
The gates were flung wide as we passed through, and, wheeling, swung
straight into the streets of Johnstown with a solid hurrah!
A battalion of Massachusetts infantry was passing St. John's Church,
filling William Street with the racket of their drums. White
cross-belts and rifles shining, the black-gaitered column plodded past,
mounted officers leading. Then a field-piece, harness and chains
clanking, came by, breasting the hill at a gallop, amid a tempest of
cheers from my riflemen. And now the Tryon County men were passing in
dusty ranks, and more riflemen came running up, falling in behind my
company.
"There's Tim Murphy!" cried Elerson joyously. "He has your horse,
Captain!"
Down the hill from Burke's Inn came Murphy on a run, leading my horse;
behind him sped the Weasel and a rifleman named Sammons, and Burke
himself, flourishing a rifle, all greeted lustily by the brown ranks
behind me, amid shouts of laughter as Jimmy Burke, in cap and
fluttering forest-dress, fell in with the others.
"Captain Renault, sorr--" I turned. Murphy touched his raccoon cap.
"Sorr, I hov f'r to repoort thot ye're sweet lady, sorr, is wid Butler
at Johnson Hall."
"Safe?" My lips scarcely moved.
"Safe so far, sorr. She rides wid their Major, Ross, an' the
shtaff-officers in gold an' green."
I sprang to the saddle, raised my rifle and shook it, A shrill, wolfish
yelling burst from the Rangers.
"Forward!" And "Forward! forward!" echoed the sergeants, as we swung
into a quick step.
The rifles on the hill by the Hall were speaking faster and faster now.
A white cloud hid the Hall and the trees, thickening and spreading as a
volley of musketry sent its smoke gushing into the bushes. Then, in the
dun-colored fog, a red flame darted out, splitting the air with a
deafening crash, and the thunder-clap of the cannon-shot shook the
earth under our hurrying feet.
We were close to the Hall now. Behind a hedge fence running east our
militia lay, firing very coolly into the wavering mists, through which
twinkled the ruddy rifle-flames of the enemy. The roar of the firing
was swelling, dominated by the tremendous concussions of the
field-piece. I saw officers riding like mounted phantoms through the
smoke; dead men in green, dead men in scarlet, and here and there a
dead Mohawk lay in the hedge. A wounded officer of Massachusetts
infantry passed us, borne away to the village by Schoharic militia.
As we started for the hedge on a double, suddenly, through the smoke,
the other side of the hedge swarmed with men. They were everywhere,
crashing through the thicket, climbing the fence, pouring forward with
shouts and hurrahs. Then the naked form of an Indian appeared; another,
another; the militia, disconcerted and surprised, struck at them with
their gunstocks, wavered, turned, and ran toward us.
I had already deployed my right into line; the panic-stricken militia
came heading on as we opened to let them through; then we closed up; a
sheet of flame poured out into the very faces of Butler's Rangers;
another, another!
Bolt upright in the stirrups, I lifted my smoking rifle: "Rangers!
Charge!"
Beneath my plunging horse a soldier in green went down screaming; an
Indian darted past, falling to death under a dozen clubbed rifles; then
a yelling mass of green-coated soldiers, forced and crushed back into
the hedge, turned at bay; and into this writhing throng leaped my
riflemen, hatchets flashing.
"Hold that hedge, Captain Renault!" came a calm voice near me, and I
saw Colonel Willett at my elbow, struggling with his frantic horse.
A mounted officer near him cried: "The rest of the militia on the right
are wavering, Colonel!"
"Then stop them, Captain Zielie!" said Willett, dragging his horse to a
stand. His voice was lost in the swelling roar of the fusillade where
my Rangers were holding the hedge. On the extreme right, through an
open field, I saw the militia scattering, darting about wildly. There
came a flash, a roar, and the scene was blotted out in a huge fountain
of flame and smoke.
"They've blown up the ammunition-wagon! Butler's men have taken our
cannon!" yelled a soldier, swinging his arms frantically. "Oh, my God!
the militia are running from the field!"
It was true. One of those dreadful and unaccountable panics had seized
the militia. Nothing could stop them. I saw Colonel Willett spur
forward, sword flashing; officers rode into the retreating lines,
begging and imploring them to stand. The pressure on my riflemen was
enormous, and I ordered them to fall back by squads in circles to the
fringe of woods. They obeyed very coolly and in perfect order, retiring
step by step, shot by shot.
Massachusetts infantry were holding the same woods; a few Tryon militia
rallied to us, and Colonel Gray took command. "For God's sake, Renault,
go and help Willett stop the militia!" he begged. "I'll hold this
corner till you can bring us aid!"
I peered about me through the smoke, gathered bridle, wheeled through
the bushes into the open field, and hurled my horse forward along the
line of retreat.
Never had I believed brave men could show such terror. Nobody heeded
me, nobody listened. At my voice they only ran the faster, I galloping
alongside, beseeching them, and looking for Willett.
Straight into the streets of Johnstown fled the militia, crowding the
town in mad and shameless panic, carrying with them their mounted
officers, as a torrent hurls chips into a whirlpool.
"Halt! In Heaven's name, what is the matter? Why, you had them on the
run, you men of Tryon, you Ulster men!" cried Colonel Willett.
A seething mass of fugitives was blocked at the old stone church. Into
them plunged the officers, cursing, threatening, imploring, I among
them, my horse almost swept from his legs in the rushing panic.
"Don't run, lads," I said; "don't put us all to this shame! Why, what
are you afraid of? I saw nothing to scare a child on the hill. And this
is my first battle. I thought war was something to scare a man. But
this is nothing. You wouldn't leave the Rangers there all alone, would
you? They're up there drilling holes in the Indians who came to murder
your wives and children. Come on, boys! You didn't mean it. We can't
let those yagers and Greens take a cannon as easily as that!"
They were listening to Willett, too; here and there a sergeant took up
the pleading. I found an exhausted drummer-boy sitting on the steps of
the church, and induced him to stand up and beat the assembly. Officer
after officer struggled through the mob, leading out handfuls of men;
lines formed; I snatched a flag from an ensign and displayed it; a
company, at shoulder arms, headed by a drummer, emerged from the chaos,
marching in fair alignment; another followed more steadily; line after
line fell in and paraded; the fifes began to squeal, and the shrill
quickstep set company after company in motion.
"It's all right, lads!" cried Willett cheerily, as he galloped forward.
"We are going back for that cannon we lost by mistake. Come on, you
Tryon County men! Don't let the Rangers laugh at you!"
Then the first cheer broke out; mounted officers rode up, baring their
swords, surrounding the Colonel. He gave me a calm and whimsical look,
almost a smile:
"Scared, Carus?"
"No, sir."
"D'ye hear that firing to the left? Well, that's Rowley's flanking
column of levies and the Massachusetts men. Hark! Listen to that rifle
music! Now we'll drive them! Now we've got them at last!"
I caught him by the sleeve, and bent forward from my saddle:
"Do you know that the woman I am to marry is with the enemy?" I
demanded hoarsely.
"No. Good God, Carus! Have they got her?"
His shocked face paled; he laid his hand on my shoulder, riding in
silence as I told him what I knew.
"By Heaven!" he said, striking his gloved hands together, "we'll get
her yet, Carus; I tell you, we'll get her safe and sound. Do you think
I mean to let these mad wolves slink off this time and skulk away
unpunished? Do you suppose I don't know that the time has come to purge
this frontier for good and all of Walter Butler? You need not worry,
Carus. It is true that God alone could have foreseen the strange panic
that started these militiamen on a run, as though they had never
smelled powder--as though they had not answered a hundred alarms from
Oriskany to Currietown. I could not foresee that, but, by God, we've
stopped it! And now I tell you we are going to deal Walter Butler a
blow that will end his murdering career forever! Look sharp!"
A racket of rifle-fire broke out ahead; two men dropped.
We were in the smoke now. Indians rose from every thicket and leaped
away in retreat; the column broke into a run, mounted officers trotting
forward, pistol and sword in hand.
"Why, there's our cannon, boys!" cried Colonel Lewis excitedly.
A roar greeted the black Colonel's words; the entire line sprang
forward; a file of Oneidas sped along our flanks, rifles a-trail.
Through the smoke I saw the Hall now, and in a field to the east of it
a cannon which some Highlanders and soldiers in green uniforms were
attempting to drag off.
At the view the yelling onset was loosed; the kilted troops and the
green-coated soldiers took to their legs, and I saw our militia
swarming around the field-piece, hugging it, patting it, embracing it,
while from the woods beyond my Rangers cheered and cheered. Ah! now the
militia were in it again; the hedge fence was carried with a rush, and
all around us in the red sunset light shouting militia, Royal Greens,
and naked, yelling Indians were locked in a death struggle, hatchet,
knife, and rifle-butt playing their silent and awful part.
An officer in a scarlet coat galloped at me full tilt, snapped his
pistol as he passed, wheeled, and attempted to ride me down at his
sword's point, but Colonel Willett pistoled him as I parried his thrust
with my rifle-barrel; and I saw his maddened horse bearing him away, he
swaying horridly in his saddle, falling sidewise, and striking the
ground, one spurred heel entangled in his stirrup.
Sickened, I turned away, and presently sounded the rally for my
Rangers. For full twenty minutes militia and riflemen poured sheets of
bullets into the Royal Greens from the hedge fence; their flank
doubled, wavered, and broke as the roaring fire of Rowley's men drew
nearer. Twilight fell; redder and redder leaped the rifle-flames
through the smoky dusk. Suddenly their whole line gave way, and we
broke through--riflemen, militia, Massachusetts men--broke through with
a terrific yell. And before us fled Indian and Tory, yager and
renegade, Greens, Rangers, Highlanders, officers galloping madly,
baggage-wagons smashed, horses down, camp trampled to tatters and
splinters as the vengeance of Tryon County passed in a tornado of fury
that cleansed the land forever of Walter Butler and his demons of the
North!
In that furious onslaught through the darkness and smoke, where
prisoners were being taken, Indians and Greens chased and shot down, a
steady flicker of rifle-fire marked the course of the disastrous rout,
and the frenzied vengeance following--an awful vengeance now, for, in
the blackness, a new and dreadful sound broke--the fiercely melancholy
scalp-yell of my Oneidas!
Galloping across a swampy field, where the dead and scalped lay in the
ooze, I shouted the Wolf Clan challenge; and a lone cry answered me,
coming nearer, nearer, until in the smoke-shot darkness I saw the
terrific painted shape of an Indian looming, saluting me with uplifted
and reeking hatchet.
"Brother! brother!" I groaned, "by the Wolf whose sign we wear, and by
the sign of Tharon, follow her who is to be my wife--follow by night,
by day, through the haunts of men, through the still places! Go
swiftly, O my brother the Otter--swiftly as hound on trail! I charge
you by that life you owe, by that clan tie which breaks not when
nations break, by the sign of Tharon, that floats among the stars
forever, find me this woman whom I am to wed! Your life for hers, O
brother! Go!"
CHAPTER XV
BUTLER'S FORD
For four breathless days the broad, raw trail of a thousand men in
headlong flight was the trampled path we traveled. Smashing straight
through the northern wilderness, our enemy with horses, wagons, batmen,
soldiers, Indians burst into the forest, tearing saplings, thickets,
underbrush aside in their mad northward rush for the safety of the
Canadas and the shelter denied them here. Threescore Oneida hatchets
glittered in their rear; four hundred rifles followed; for the Red
Beast was in flight at last, stricken, turning now and again to snarl
when the tireless, stern-faced trackers drew too near, then running on
again, growling, impotent. And the Red Beast must be done to death.
What fitter place to end him than here in the wild twilight of shaggy
depths, unlighted by the sun or moon?--here where the cold, brawling
streams smoked in the rank air; where black crags crouched, watching
the hunting--here in these awful deeps, shunned by the deer, unhaunted
by wolf and panther--depths fit only for the monstrous terror that came
out of them, and now, wounded, and cold heart pulsing terror, was
scrambling back again into the dense and dreadful twilight of eternal
shadow-land.
One by one their pack-laden horses fell out exhausted; and we found
them, heads hanging, quivering and panting beside the reeking trail;
one by one their gaunt cattle, mired in bog and swamp, entangled in
windfalls, greeted us, bellowing piteously as we passed. The forest
itself fought for us, reaching out to jerk wheels from axle, bringing
wagon and team down crashing. Their dead lay everywhere uncared for,
even unscalped and unrobbed in the bruised and trampled path of flight;
clothing, arms, provisions were scattered pell-mell on every side; and
now at length, hour after hour, as we headed them back from trail and
highway, and blocked them from their boats at Oneida Lake, driving,
forcing, scourging them straight into the black jaws of a hungry
wilderness, we began to pass their wounded--ghastly, bloody, ragged
things, scarce animate, save for the dying brilliancy of their hollowed
eyes.
On, on, hotfoot through the rain along the smoking trail; twilight by
day, depthless darkness by night, where we lay panting in starless
obscurity, listening to the giant winds of the wilderness--vast,
resistless, illimitable winds flowing steadily through the unseen and
naked crests of forests, colder and ever colder they blew, heralding
the trampling blasts of winter, charging us from the north.
On the fifth day it began to snow at dawn. Little ragged flakes
winnowed through the clusters of scarlet maple-leaves, sifted among the
black pines, coming faster and thicker, driving in slanting, whirling
flight across the trail. In an hour the moss was white; crimson sprays
of moose-bush bent, weighted with snow and scarlet berries; the
hurrying streams ran dark and somber in their channels between
dead-white banks; swamps turned blacker for the silvery setting; the
flakes grew larger, pelting in steady, thickening torrents from the
clouds as we came into a clearing called Jerseyfield, on the north side
of Canada Creek; and here at last we were met by a crackling roar from
a hundred rifles.
The Red Beast was at bay!
Up and down, through the dense snowy veil descending, the orange-tinted
rifle-flames flashed and sparkled and flickered; all around us a shower
of twigs and branches descended in a steady rain. Then our brown rifles
blazed their deadly answer. Splash! spatter! splash! their dead dropped
into the stream; and, following, dying and living took to the dark
water, thrashing across through snowy obscurity. I heard their horses
wallowing through the fords, iron hoofs frantically battering the
rocky, shelving banks for foothold; I heard them shriek when the Oneida
tigers leaped upon them; I heard their wounded battling and screaming
as they drowned in the swollen waters!
We lay and fired at their phantom lines, now attempting to retreat at a
dog-trot in single file; and as we knocked man after man from the
plodding rank the others leaped over their writhing, fallen comrades,
neither turning nor pausing in their dogged flight. The snow slackened,
falling more thinly to the west; and, as the dazzling curtain grew
transparent, a mass of men in green suddenly rose from the whitened
hemlock-scrub and fired at our riflemen arriving in column.
Then ensued a scene nigh indescribable. With one yelling bound, Ranger
and Oneida were on them, shooting, stabbing, dragging them down; and,
as they broke cover, their mounted officers, dashing out of the
thicket, wheeled northward into galloping flight; and among them at
last I saw my enemy, and knew him.
A dozen Oneidas were after him. His horse, spurred to a gallop, crashed
through the brush, and was in the water at a leap; and he turned in
midstream and shook his pistol at them insultingly.
By Heaven, he rode superbly as the swollen waters of the ford boiled to
his horse's straining shoulders, while the bullets clipped the gilded
cocked-hat from his head and struck his raised pistol from his hand.
"Head him!" shouted Elerson; "don't let that man get clear!" Indians
and Rangers raced madly along the bank of the creek, pacing the
fugitive as he galloped.
"Take him alive!" I cried, as Butler swung his horse with a crash
straight into the willow thickets on the north. We lost him to view as
I spoke; and I sounded the rally-whistle, and ran up the bank of the
creek, leading my horse at a trot behind me.
The snowfall had ceased; the sun glimmered, then blazed out in the
clearing, flooding the whitened ground with a dazzling radiance.
Running, stumbling, falling, struggling through brush and brake and
brier-choked marsh, I saw ahead of me three Oneida Indians swiftly
cross my path to the creek's edge and crouch, scanning the opposite
shore. Almost immediately the Rangers Murphy, Renard, and Elerson
emerged from the snowy bushes beside them; and at the same instant I
saw Walter Butler ride up on the opposite side of the creek, glance
backward, then calmly draw bridle in plain sight. He was fey; I knew
it. His doom was upon him. He flung himself from his horse close to the
ford where, set in the rock, a living spring of water mirrored the sun;
then he knelt down, drew his tin cup from his belt, bent over, and
looked into the placid silver pool. What he saw reflected there Christ
alone knows, for he sprang back, passed his hand across his eyes, and
reached out his cup blindly, plunging it deep into the water.
Never, never shall I forget that instant picture as it broke upon my
view; my deadly enemy kneeling by the spring, black hair disheveled,
the sunshine striking his tin cup as he raised it to his lips; the
three naked Oneidas, in their glistening scarlet paint, eagerly raising
their rifles, while the merciless weapons of Murphy and Elerson slowly
fell to the same level, focused on that kneeling figure across the dark
waters of the stream.
A second only, then, God knows why, I could not endure to witness a
justice so close allied with murder, and sprang forward, crying out:
"Cease fire! Take him alive!" But, with the words half-sped, flame
after flame parted from those leveled muzzles; and through the whirling
smoke I saw Walter Butler fall, roll over and over, his body and limbs
contracting with agony; then on all fours again, on his knees, only to
sink back in a sitting posture, his head resting on his hand, blood
pouring between his fingers.
Into the stream plunged an Oneida, rifle and knife aloft, glittering in
the sun. The wounded man saw him coming, and watched him as he leaped
up the bank; and while Walter Butler looked him full in the face the
savage trembled, crouching, gathering for a leap.
"Stop that murder!" I shouted, plunging into the ford as Butler, aching
head still lifted, turned a deathly face toward me. One eye had been
shot out, but the creature was still alive, and knew me--knew me, heard
me ask for the quarter he had not asked for; saw me coming to save him
from his destiny, and smiled as the Oneida sprang on him with a yell
and ripped the living scalp away before my sickened eyes.
"Finish him, in God's mercy!" bellowed the Ranger Sammons, running up.
The Oneida's hatchet, swinging like lightning, flashed once; and the
severed soul of Walter Butler was free of the battered, disfigured
thing that lay oozing crimson in the trampled snow.
Dead! And I heard the awful scalp-yell swelling from the throats of
those who had felt his heavy hand. Dead! And I heard cheers from those
whose loved ones had gone down to death to satiate his fury. And now
he, too, was on his way to face those pale accusers waiting there to
watch him pass--specters of murdered men, phantoms of women, white
shapes of little children--God! what a path to the tribunal behind
whose thunderous gloom hell's own lightning flared!
As I gazed down at him the roar of the fusillade died away in my ears.
I remembered him as I had seen him there at New York in our house, his
slim fingers wandering over the strings of the guitar, his dark eyes
drowned in melancholy. I remembered his voice, and the song he sang,
haunting us all with its lingering sadness--the hopeless words, the sad
air, redolent of dead flowers--doom, death, decay!
The thrashing and plunging of horses roused me. I looked around to see
Colonel Willett ride up, followed by two or three mounted officers in
blue and buff, pulling in their plunging horses. He looked down at the
dead, studying the crushed face, the uniform, the blood-drenched snow.
"Is that Butler?" he asked gravely.
"Yes," I said; and drew a corner of his cloak across the marred face.
Nobody uncovered, which was the most dreadful judgment those silent men
could pass.
"Scalped?" motioned Colonel Lewis significantly.
"He belongs to your party," observed Willett quietly. Then, looking
around as the rifle-fire to the left broke out again: "The pursuit has
ended, gentlemen. What punishment more awful could we leave them to
than these trackless solitudes? For I tell you that those few among
them who shall attain the Canadas need fear no threat of hell in the
life to come, for they shall have served their turn. Sound the recall!"
I laid my hand upon his saddle, looking up into his face:
"Pardon," I said, in a low voice; "_I_ must go on!"
"Carus! Carus!" he said softly, "have they not told you?"
"Told me?" I stared. "What? What--in the name of God?"
"She was taken when we struck their rear-guard at one o'clock this
afternoon! Was there no one to tell you, lad!"
"Unharmed?" I asked, steadying myself against his stirrup.
"Faint with fatigue, brier-torn, in rags--his vengeance, but--_nothing
worse_. That quarter-breed Montour attended her, supported her,
struggled on with her through all the horrors of this retreat. He had
herded the Valley prisoners together, guarded by Cayugas. The
executioner lies dead a mile below, his black face in the water. And
here _he_ lies!"
He swung his horse, head sternly averted. I flung myself into my
saddle.
"This way, lad. She lies in a camp-wagon at headquarters, asleep, I
think. Mount and your Oneida guard her. And the girl, Montour, lies
stretched beside her, watching her as a dog watches a cradled child."
The hunting-horns of the light infantry were sounding the recall as we
rode through the low brush of Jerseyfield, where the sunset sky was
aflame, painting the tall pines, staining the melting snow to palest
crimson.
From black, wet branches overhead the clotted flakes fell, showering us
as we came to the hemlock shelter where the camp-wagon stood. A fire
burned there; before it crowded a shadowy group of riflemen; and one
among them moved forward to meet me, touching his fur cap and pointing.
As I reached the rough shelter of fringing evergreen Mount and Little
Otter stepped out; and I saw the giant forest-runner wink the tears
away as he laid his huge finger across his lips.
"She sleeps as sweetly as a child," he whispered. "I told her you were
coming. Oh, sir, it will tear your heart out to see her small white
feet so bruised, and the soft, baby hands of her raw at the wrists,
where they tied her at night.... _Is_ he surely dead, sir, as they
say?"
"I saw him die, thank God!"
"That is safer for him, I think," said Mount simply. "Will you come
this way, sir? Otter, fetch a splinter o' fat pine for a light. Mind
the wheel there, Mr. Renault--this way on tiptoe!"
He took the splinter-light from the Oneida, fixed it in a split stick,
backed out, and turned away, followed by the Indian.
At first I could not see, and set the burning stick nearer. Then, as I
bent over the rough wagon, I saw her lying there very white and still,
her torn hands swathed with lint, her bandaged feet wrapped in furs.
And beside her, stretched full length, lay Lyn Montour, awake, dark
eyes fixed on mine.
She smiled as she caught my eye; then something in my face sobered her.
"He is dead?" she motioned with her lips. And my lips moved assent.
Gravely, scarcely stirring, she reached up and unbound her hair,
letting it down over her face. I understood, and, stepping to the fire,
returned with a charred ember. She held out first one hand, then the
other, and I marked the palms with the ashes, touched her forehead, her
breast, her feet. Thus, in the solemn presence of death itself, she
claimed at the tribunal of the Most High the justice denied on earth,
signing herself a widow with the ashes none but a wedded wife may dare
to wear.
Lower and lower burned the tiny torch, sank to a spark, and went out.
The black curtains of obscurity closed in; redder and redder spread the
glare from the camp-fire; crackling and roaring, the flames rose,
tufted with smoke, through which a million sparks whirled upward,
showering the void above. Dark shapes moved in the glow with a sparkle
of spur and sword as they turned; the infernal light fell on the naked
bodies of Oneidas, sitting like demons, eyes blinking at the flames.
And through the roar of the fire I heard their chanting undertone,
monotonous, interminable, saluting their dead:
"_Cover the White Throat at Carenay,
Lest evil fall at Danascara,
Lay the phantom away,
Men of Thendara,
Trails of Kayaderos
And Adriutha
Cover our loss!
Tree of Oswaya,
From Garoga
To Caroga
Cover the White Throat
For the sake of the Silver Boat afloat
In the Water of Light, O Tharon!
This for the pledge of Aroronon
Lest the Long House end
And the Tree bend
And our dead ascend in every trail
And the Great League fail.
Now by the brotherhood ye've sworn
Let the Oneida mourn._"
And I heard from the forest the deadened blows of mattock and spade,
and saw the glimmer of burial torches; and, through the steady chanting
of the Oneida, the solemn voice of the chaplain in prayer for dead and
living:
"Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. And establish Thou the
work of our hands upon us--yea, the work of our hands, establish Thou
it!"
* * * * *
It lacked an hour to dawn when the harsh, stringy drums rolled from the
forest and the smoky camp awoke; and I, keeping my vigil, there in the
shadow where she lay, listening and bending above her, was aware of a
bandaged hand touching me--a feverish arm about my neck, drawing my
head lower, closer, till, in the darkness, my face lay on hers, and our
tremulous lips united.
"Is all well, my beloved?"
"All is well."
"And we part no more?"
"No more."
Silence, then: "Why do they cheer so, Carus?"
"It is a lost soul they are speeding, child."
"His?"
"Yes."
She breathed feverishly, her little bandaged hands holding my face.
"Lift me a little, Carus; I can not move my legs. Did you know he
abandoned me to the Cayugas because I dared to ask his mercy for the
innocent? I think his reason was unseated when I came upon him there at
Johnson Hall--so much of blood and death lay on his soul. His own men
feared him; and, Carus, truly I do not think he knew me else he had
never struck me in that burst of rage, so that even the Cayugas
interposed--for his knife was in his hands." She sighed, nestling close
to me in the rustling straw, and closed her eyes as the torches flared
and the horses were backed along the pole.
In the ruddy light I saw Jack Mount approaching. He halted, touched his
cap, and smiled; then his blue eyes wandered to the straw where Lyn
Montour lay, sleeping the stunned sleep of exhaustion; and into his
face a tenderness came, softening his bold mouth and reckless visage.
"The Weasel drives, sir. Tim and Dave and I, we jog along to ease the
wheels--if it be your pleasure, sir. We go by the soft trail. A week
should see you and yours in Albany. The Massachusetts surgeon is here
to dress your sweet lady's hurts. Will you speak with him, Mr.
Renault?"
I bent and kissed the bandaged hands, the hot forehead under the
tangled hair, then whispering that all was well I went out into the
gray dawn where the surgeon stood unrolling lint.
"Those devils tied their prisoners mercilessly at night," he said, "and
the scars may show, Mr. Renault. But her flesh is wholesome, and the
torn feet will heal--are healing now. Your lady will be lame."
"For life?"
"Oh--perhaps the slightest limp--scarce to be noticed. And then again,
she is so sound, and her blood so pure--who knows? Even such tender
little feet as hers may bear her faultlessly once more. Patience, Mr.
Renault."
He parted the hanging blankets and went in, emerging after a little
while to beckon me.
"I have changed the dressing; the wounds are benign and healthy. She
has some fever. The shock is what I fear. Go to her; you may do more
than I could."
As the sun rose we started, the Weasel driving, I crouching at her
side, her torn hands in mine; and beside us, Lyn Montour, watching Jack
Mount as he strode along beside the wagon, a new angle to his cap, a
new swagger in his step, and deep in his frank blue eyes a strange
smile that touched the clean, curling corners of his lips.
"Look!" breathed Murphy, gliding along on the other side, "'tis the gay
day f'r Jack Mount whin Lyn Montour's black eyes are on him--the
backwoods dandy!"
I looked down at Elsin. The fever flushed her cheeks. Into her face
there crept a beauty almost unearthly.
"My darling, my darling!" I whispered fearfully, leaning close to her.
Her eyes met mine, smiling, but in their altered brilliancy I saw she
no longer knew me.
"Walter," she said, laughing, "your melancholy suits me--yet love is
another thing. Go ask of Carus what it is to love! He has my soul bound
hand and foot and locked in the wall there, where he keeps the letters
he writes. If they find those letters some man will hang. I think it
will be you, Walter, or perhaps Sir Peter. I'm love-sick--sick o'
love--for Carus mocks me! Is it easy to die, Walter? Tell me, for you
are dead. If only Carus loved me! He kissed me so easily that night--I
tempting him. So now that I am damned--what matter how he uses me? Yet
he never struck me, Walter, as you strike!"
Hour after hour, terrified, I listened to her babble, and that gay
little laugh, so like her own, that broke out as her fever grew, waxing
to its height.
It waned at midday, but by sundown she grew restless, and the surgeon,
Weldon, riding forward from the rear, took my place beside her, and I
mounted my horse which Elerson led, and rode ahead, a deadly fear in my
heart, and Black Care astride the crupper, a grisly shadow in the
wilderness, dogging me remorselessly under pallid stars.
And now hours, days, nights, sun, stars, moon, were all one to
me--things that I heeded not; nor did I feel aught of heat or cold, sun
or storm, nor know whether or not I slept or waked, so terrible grew
the fear upon me. Men came and went. I heard some say she was dying,
some that she would live if we could get her from the wilderness she
raved about; for her cry was ever to be freed of the darkness and the
silence, and that they were doing me to death in New York town, whither
she must go, for she alone could save me.
Tears seemed ever in my eyes, and I saw nothing clearly, only the black
and endless forests swimming in mists; the silent riflemen trudging on,
the little withered driver, in his ring-furred cap and caped shirt, too
big for him; the stolid horses plodding on and on. Medical officers
came from Willett--Weldon and Jermyn--and the surgeon's mate, McLane;
and they talked among themselves, glancing at her curiously, so that I
grew to hate them and their whispers. A fierce desire assailed me to
put an end to all this torture--to seize her, cradle her to my breast,
and gallop day and night to the open air--as though that, and the
fierce strength of my passion must hold back death!
Then, one day--God knows when--the sky widened behind the trees, and I
saw the blue flank of a hill unchoked by timber. Trees grew thinner as
we rode. A brush-field girdled by a fence was passed, then a meadow,
all golden in the sun. Right and left the forest sheered off and fell
away; field on field, hill on hill, the blessed open stretched to a
brimming river, silver and turquoise in the sunshine, and, beyond it,
crowning three hills, the haven!--the old Dutch city, high-roofed,
red-tiled, glimmering like a jewel in the November haze--Albany!
And now, as we breasted the ascent, far away we heard drums beating. A
white cloud shot from the fort, another, another, and after a long
while the dull booming of the guns came floating to us, mixed with the
noise of bells.
Elsin heard and sat up. I bent from my saddle, passing my arm around
her.
"Carus!" she cried, "where have you been through all this dreadful
night?"
"Sweetheart, do you know me?"
"Yes. How soft the sunlight falls! There is a city yonder. I hear
bells." She sank down, her eyes on mine.
"The bells of old Albany, dear. Elsin, Elsin, do you truly know me?"
She smiled, the ghost of the old gay smile, and her listless arms
moved.
Weldon, riding on the other side, nodded to me in quiet content:
"Now all she lacked she may have, Renault," he said, smiling. "All will
be well, thank God! Let her sleep!"
She heard him, watching me as I rode beside her.
"It was only you I lacked, Carus," she murmured dreamily; and, smiling,
fell into a deep, sweet sleep.
Then, as we rode into the first outlying farms, men and women came to
their gates, calling out to us in their Low Dutch jargon, and at first
I scarce heeded them as I rode, so stunned with joy was I to see her
sleeping there in the sunlight, and her white, cool skin and her mouth
soft and moist.
Gun on gun shook the air with swift concussion. The pleasant Dutch
bells swung aloft in mellow harmony. Suddenly, far behind where our
infantry moved in column, I heard cheer on cheer burst forth, and the
horns and fifes in joyous fanfare, echoed by the solid outbreak of the
drums.
"What are they cheering for, mother?" I asked an old Dutch dame who
waved her kerchief at us.
"For Willett and for George the Virginian, sir," she said, dimpling and
dropping me a courtesy.
"George the Virginian?" I asked, wondering. "Do you mean his
Excellency?"
And still she dimpled and nodded and bobbed her white starched cap, and
I made nothing of what she said until I heard men shouting, "Yorktown!"
and "The war ends! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted a mounted officer, spurring past us up the
hill; "Butler's dead, and Cornwallis is taken!"
"Taken?" I repeated incredulously.
The booming guns were my answer. High against the blue a jeweled ensign
fluttered, silver, azure and blood red, its staff and halyards wrapped
in writhing jets of snow-white smoke flying upward from the guns.
I rode toward it, cap in hand, head raised, awed in the presence of
God's own victory! The shouting streets echoed and reechoed as we
passed between packed ranks of townspeople; cheers, the pealing music
of the bells, the thunderous shock of the guns grew to a swimming,
dreamy sound, through which the flag fluttered on high, crowned with
the golden nimbus of the sun!
"Carus!"
"Ah, sweetheart, did they wake you? Sleep on; the war is over!" I
whispered, bending low above her. "Now indeed is all well with the
world, and fit once more for you to live in."
And, as we moved forward, I saw her blue eyes lifted dreamily, watching
the flag which she had served so well.
CHAPTER XVI
THE END
That brief and lovely season which in our Northland for a score of days
checks the white onset of the snow, and which we call the Indian
summer, bloomed in November when the last red leaf had fluttered to the
earth. A fairy summer, for the vast arches of the skies burned sapphire
and amethyst, and hill and woodland, innocent of verdure, were clothed
in tints of faintest rose and cloudy violet; and all the world put on a
magic livery, nor was there leaf nor stem nor swale nor tuft of moss
too poor to wear some royal hint of gold, deep-veined or crusted
lavishly, where the crested oaks spread, burnished by the sun.
Snowbird and goldfinch were with us--the latter veiling his splendid
tints in modest russet; and now, from the north, came to us silent
flocks of birds, all gray and rose, outriders of winter's crystal
cortège, still halting somewhere far in the silvery north, where the
white owls sit in the firs, and the world lies robed in ermine.
All through that mellow Indian summer my betrothed grew strong, and her
hurts had nearly healed. And I, writing my letters by the open window
in the drawing-room, had been promised that she might make her first
essay to leave her chamber that day--sit in the outer sunshine perhaps,
perhaps stand upright and take a step or two. And, at this first tryst
in the sunshine, she was to set our wedding day.
From my open window I could see the city on its three hills against the
azure magnificence of the sky, and the calm, wide river, still as a
golden pond, and the white sails of sloops, becalmed on glassy surfaces
reflecting the blue woods.
A little stream ran foaming down to the river, passing the house
through a lawn all starred with late-grown dandelions; and even yet the
trout were running up to the still sands of their breeding-nooks
above--great brilliant fish, spotted with flecks that glowed like
living sparks; and now I looked to see if I might spy them pass,
shooting the falls, gay in their bridal-dress of iridescent gems,
wishing them good speed to their shadowy woodland tryst.
Too deeply happy, too content to more than trifle with the letters I
must pen, I idled there, head on hand, listening for her I loved,
watching the fair world in the sunshine there. Sometimes, smiling, I
unfolded for the hundredth time and read again the generous letter from
Sir Peter and Lady Coleville--so kindly, so cordial, so honorable, all
patched with shreds of gossip of friend and foe, and how New York lay
stunned at the news of Yorktown. Never a word of the part that I had
played so long beneath their roof--only one grave, unselfish line,
saying that they had heard me praised for my bearing at Johnstown
battle, and that they had always known that I could conduct in no wise
unworthy of a soldier.
Too, they promised, if a flag was to be had, to come to Albany for our
wedding, saying we were wild and wilful, and needed chiding, promising
to read us lessons merited.
And there was a ponderous letter from Sir Frederick Haldimand in answer
to one I wrote telling him all--a strange mélange of rage at Butler's
perfidy and insolence, and utter disgust with me; though he said,
frankly enough, that he would rather see his kinswoman wedded to twenty
rebels than to one Butler. With which he slammed his pen to an
ungracious finish, ending with a complaint to heaven that the world had
used him so shabbily at such a time as this.
Which sobered Elsin when I read it, she being the tenderest of heart;
but I made her laugh ere the quick tears dried in her eyes, and she had
written him the loveliest of letters in reply, which was already on its
journey northward.
Writing to my father and mother of the happy news, I had not as yet
received their approbation, yet knew it would come, though Elsin was a
little anxious when I spoke so confidently.
Yet one more happiness was in store for me ere the greatest happiness
of all arrived; for that morning, from Virginia, a little packet came
to Elsin; and opening it together, we found a miniature of his
Excellency, set in a golden oval, on which we read, inscribed: "With
great esteem," and signed, "Geo. Washington."
So, was it wonderful that I, sitting there, should listen, smiling, for
some sound above to warn me of her coming?
Never had sunshine on the gilded meadows lain so softly, never so pure
and soft the aromatic air. And far afield I saw two figures moving,
close together, often pausing to look upon the beauty of the sky and
hills, then straying on like those who have found what they had sought
for long ago--Jack Mount and Lyn Montour.
And, as I leaned there in the casement, following them with smiling
eyes, a faint sound behind me made me turn, start to my feet with a
cry.
All alone she stood there, pale and lovely, blue eyes fixed on mine;
and, at my cry, she took a little step, and then another, flushing with
shy pride.
"Carus! Sweetheart! Do you see?"
And at first she protested prettily as I caught her in my arms, lifting
her in fear lest her knees give way, then smiled assent.
"Bear me, if you will," she breathed, her white arms tightening about
my neck; "carry me with all the burdens you have borne so long, my
strong, tall lover!--lest I dash my foot against a stone, and fall at
your feet to worship and adore! Here am I at last! Ah, what am I to say
to you? The day? Truly, do you desire to wed me still? Then listen;
bend your head, adored of men, and I will whisper to you what my heart
and soul desire."
THE END
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