The Little Red Foot

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER II

  TWO PEERS SANS PEERAGE

  Sir John had arrived and I caught sight of his heavy, expressionlessface, which seemed more colourless than ever in the candle light.

  Consternation reigned in the Hall,--a vast tumult of whispering andguarded gabble among servants, checked by sobs,--and I saw officers comeand go, and the tall forms of Mohawks still as pines on a summer night.

  The entire household was there--all excepting only Michael Cardigan andFelicity Warren.

  The two score farm slaves were there huddled along the wall in duskyclusters, and their great, dark eyes wet with tears.

  I saw Sir William's lawyer, Lafferty, come in with Flood, the Baronet'sBouw-Meester.[1]

  [Footnote 1: Farm overseer.]

  His blacksmith, his tailor, and his armourer were there; also hisgardener; the German, Frank, his butler; Pontioch, his personal waiter;and those two uncanny and stunted servants, the Bartholomews, with theirdead white faces and dwarfish dignity.

  Also I saw poor Billy, Sir William's fiddler, gulping down the blubbers;and there was his personal physician, Doctor Daly, very grave; and theservile Wall, schoolmaster to Lady Molly's brood; and I saw Nicholas,his valet, and black Flora, his cook, both sobbing into the samebandanna.

  The dark Lady Johnson was there, very quiet in her grief, slow-moving,still beautiful, having by the hands the two youngest girls and boy,while near her clustered the older children, fat Peter and Betsy andpretty Lana.

  A great multitude of candles burned throughout the hall; Sir William'ssilver and mahogany sparkled everywhere; and so did the naked claymoresof the Highlanders on guard where the dead man lay in his own chamber,done, at last, with all perplexity and grief.

  * * * * *

  In the morning came the quality in scores--all the landed gentry ofTryon County, Tory and Whig alike, to show their reverence:--old ColonelJohn Butler from his seat at Butlersbury near Caughnawaga, and his dark,graceful son Walter,--he of the melancholy golden eyes--an attorney thenand sick of a wound which, some said, had been taken in a duel withMichael Cardigan near Fort Pitt.

  Colonel Claus was there, too, son-in-law to Sir William, and batteredmuch by frontier battles: and Guy Johnson, a cousin, and a son-in-law,too, had come from his fine seat at Guy Park to look upon a face astranquil in death as a sleeping child's.

  The McDonald, of damned memory, was there in his tartan and kilts andbonnet; and the Albany Patroon, very modest; and God knows how manyothers from far and near, all arrived to honour a man who had died verytired in the service of our Lord, who knows and pardons all.

  The pretty lady of Sir John, who was Polly Watts of New York, came to mewhere I stood in the noon breeze near the lilacs; and I kissed her hand,and, straightening myself, retained it, looking into her woeful face ofa child, all marred with tears.

  "I had not thought to be mistress of the Hall for many years," said she,her lips a-tremble. "But yesterday, at this hour, he was living: and,today, in this hour, the heavy importunities of strange new duties arealready crushing me.... I count on you, Jack."

  I made no answer.

  "May we not count on you?" she said. "Sir John and I expect it."

  As I stood silent there in the breezy sunshine by the porch, there cameacross the grass Billy Alexander, who is Lord Stirling, a man much olderthan I, but who seemed young enough; and made his reverence to LadyJohnson, kissing the hand which I very gently released.

  "Oh, Billy," says she, the tears starting again, "why should death takehim at such a time, when God's wrath darkens all the world?"

  "God's convenience is not always ours," he replied, looking at mesideways, with a certain curiosity which I understood if Lady Johnsondid not.

  She turned and gazed out across the sunny grass where, beyond the hedgefence, the primeval forest loomed like a dark cloud along the sky, faras the eye could see.

  "Well," says she, half to herself, "the storm is bound to break, now.And we women of County Tryon may need your swords, gentlemen, beforesnow flies."

  Lord Stirling stole another look at me. He knew as well as I how looselyin their scabbards lay our two swords. He knew, also, as well as I, inwhich cause would flash the swords of the landed gentry of County Tryon.And he knew, too, that his blade as well as mine must, one day, beunsheathed against them and against the stupid King they served.

  Something of this Lady Johnson had long since suspected, I think; butBilly Alexander, for all his years, was a childhood friend; and I, too,a friend, although more recent.

  She looked at my Lord Stirling with that troubled sweetness I have seenso often in her face, alas! and she said in a low voice:

  "It would be unthinkable that Lord Stirling's sword could lay a-rustingwhen the Boston rabble break clear out o' bounds."

  She turned to me, touched my arm confidingly, child that she seemed andwas, God help her.

  "A Stormont," she said, "should never entertain any doubts. And so Icount on you, Lord Stormont, as I count upon my Lord Stirling----"

  "I am not Lord Stormont," said I, striving to force a smile at the oldand tiresome contention. "Lord Stormont is the King's Ambassador inParis--if it please you to recollect----"

  "You are as surely Viscount Stormont as is Billy Alexander, here, LordStirling--and as I am Lady Johnson," she said earnestly. "What do youcare if your titles be disputed by a doddering committee on privilegesin the House of Lords? What difference does it make if usurpers wearyour honours as long as you know these same stolen titles are your own?"

  "A pair o' peers _sans_ peerage," quoth Billy Alexander, with thatboyish grin I loved to see.

  "I care nothing," said I, still smiling, "but Billy Alexanderdoes--pardon!--my Lord Stirling, I should say."

  Said he: "Sure I am Lord Stirling and no one else; and shall wear mytitle however they dispute it who deny me my proper seat in their rottenHouse of Lords!"

  "I think you are very surely the true Lord Stirling," said I, "but I, onthe other hand, most certainly am not a Stormont Murray. My name is JohnDrogue; and if I be truly also Viscount Stormont, it troubles me not atall, for my ambition is to be only American and to let the Stormontsglitter as they please and where."

  Lady Johnson came close to me and laid both hands upon my shoulders.

  "Jack," she pleaded, "be true to us. Be true to your gentle blood. Betrue to your proper caste. God knows the King will have a very instantneed of his gentlemen in America before we three see another summer herein County Tryon."

  I made no reply. What could I say to her? And, indeed, the matter of theStormont Viscounty was distasteful, stale, and wearisome to me, and Icared absolutely nothing about it, though the landed gentry of Tryonwere ever at pains to place me where I belonged,--if some wereright,--and where I did not belong if others were righter still.

  For Lady Johnson, like many of her caste, believed that the secondViscount Stormont died without issue,--which was true,--and that thethird Viscount had a son,--which is debatable.

  At any rate, David Murray became the fourth Viscount, and the claims ofmy remote ancestor went a-glimmering for so many years that, in 1705, weresumed our family name of the Northesks, which is Drogue; and in thisnatural manner it became my proper name. God knows I found it goodenough to eat and sleep with, so that my Lord Stormont's capers in Parisnever disturbed my dreams. Thank Heaven for that, too; and it was a sadday for my Lord Stormont when he tried to bully Benjamin Franklin; forthe whole world is not yet done a-laughing at him.

  No, I have no desire to claim a Viscounty which our witty Franklin hasmade ridiculous with a single shaft of satire from his bristlingrepertoire.

  Thinking now of this, and reddening a little at the thought,--for noStormont even of remotest kinship to the family can truly relish Mr.Franklin's sauce, though it dressed an undoubted goose,--I become farmore than reconciled to the decision rendered in the House of Lords.

  * * * * *

  Two people wh
o had come from the house, and who were advancing slowlytoward us across the clipped grass, now engaged our full attention.

  The one we perceived to be Sir John Johnson himself; the other hislady's school friend and intimate companion, Claudia Swift, the toast ofthe British Army and of all respectable young Tories; and the"Sacharissa" of those verses made by the new and lively AdjutantGeneral, Major Andre, who was then a captain.

  For, though very young, our lovely Sacharissa had murdered many agallant's peace of mind, leaving a trail of hearts bled white from NewYork to Boston, and from that afflicted city to Albany; where, it waswhispered, her bright and merciless eyes had made the sad young Patroonmuch sadder, and his offered manor a more melancholy abode than usual.

  She gave us, now, her dimpled hand to kiss. And, to Lady Johnson: "Mydear," she said very tenderly, "how pale you seem! God sends usaffliction as a precious gift and we must accept it with meekness,"letting her eyes rest absently the while on Lord Stirling, and then onme.

  Our Sacharissa might babble of meekness if she chose, but that virtuewas not lodged within her, God knows,--nor many other virtues either.

  Billy Alexander, old enough to be her parent, nevertheless had been hervictim; and I also. It was our opinion that we had recovered. But, to behonest with myself, I could not avoid admitting that I had been verydesperate sick o' love, and that even yet, at times----But no matter:others, stricken as deep as I, know well that Claudia Swift was not amaid that any man might easily forget, or, indeed, dismiss at will fromhis mind as long as she remained in his vicinity.

  "Are you well, Billy, since we last met?" she asked Lord Stirling inthat sweet, hesitating way of hers. And to me: "You have grown thin,Jack. Have you been in health?"

  I said that I had been monstrous busy with my new glebe in the Sacandagapatent, and had swung an axe there with the best o' them until anexpress from Sir William summoned me to return to aid him with theIroquois at the council-fire. At which explaining of my silence the jadesmiled.

  When I mentioned the Sacandaga patent and the glebe I had had of SirWilliam on too generous terms--he making all arrangements with MajorJelles Fonda through Mr. Lafferty--Sir John, who had been standingsilent beside us, looked up at me in that cold and stealthy way of his.

  "Do you mean your parcel at Fonda's Bush?" he inquired.

  "Yes; I am clearing it."

  "Why?"

  "So that my land shall grow Indian corn, pardie!"

  "Why clear it _now_?" he persisted in his deadened voice.

  I could have answered very naturally that the land was of no value toanybody unless cleared of forest. But of course he knew this, too; so Idid not evade the slyer intent of his question.

  "I am clearing my land at Fonda's Bush," said I, "because, God willing,I mean to occupy it in proper person."

  "And when, sir, is it your design to do this thing?"

  "Do what, sir? Clear my glebe?"

  "Remove thither--in _proper person_, Mr. Drogue?"

  "As soon as may be, Sir John."

  At that Lady Johnson gave me a quick look and Claudia said: "What! Wouldyou bury yourself alive in that wilderness, Jack Drogue?"

  I smiled. "But I must hew out for myself a career in the world some day,Sacharissa. So why not begin now?"

  "Then in Heaven's name," she exclaimed impatiently, "go somewhere amongmen and not among the wild beasts of the forest! Why, a young man islike to perish of loneliness in such a spot; is he not, Sir John?"

  Sir John's inscrutable gaze remained fixed on me.

  "In such times as these," said he, "it is better that men like ourselvescontinue to live together.... To await events.... And master them....And afterward, each to his vocation and his own tastes.... It is mydesire that you remain at the Hall," he added, looking steadily at me.

  "I must decline, Sir John."

  "Why?"

  "I have already told you why."

  "If your present position is irksome to you," he said, "you have merelyto name a deputy and feel entirely at liberty to pursue your pleasure.Or--you are at least the Laird of Northesk if you are nothing greater.There is a commission in my Highlanders--if you desire it.... And yoursalary, of course, continues also."

  He looked hard at me: "Augmented by--half," he added in his slow, coldvoice. "And this, with your income, should properly maintain a young manof your age and quality."

  I had been Brent-Meester to Sir William, for lack of other employment;and had been glad to take the important office, loving as I do the openair. Also the addition of a salary to my slender means had beenacceptable. But it was one matter to serve Sir William as Brent-Meester,and another to serve Sir John in any capacity whatsoever. And as for theremainder of the family,--Guy Johnson and Colonel Claus--and theirintimates the Butlers, I had now had more than enough of them, havingendured these uncongenial people only because I had loved Sir William.Yet, for his father's sake, I now spoke to Sir John politely, using himmost kindly because I both liked and pitied his lady, too.

  Said I: "My desire is to become a Tryon County farmer, Sir John; and tothat end I happily became possessed of the parcel at Fonda's Bush. Forthat reason I am clearing it. And so I must beg of you to accept myresignation as Brent-Meester at the Hall, for I mean to start as soon asconvenient to occupy my glebe."

  There was a silence; Sacharissa gazed at me in pity, astonishment, andunfeigned horror; Lady Johnson gave me an odd, unhappy look; and BillyAlexander a meaning one, half grin.

  Then Sir John's slow and heavy voice invaded the momentary silence: "Asmy father's Brent-Meester, only an Indian or a Forest Runner knows thewilderness as do you. And we shall have great need of such forestknowledge as you possess, Mr. Drogue."

  I think we all understood the Baronet's meaning.

  I considered a moment, then replied very quietly that in time of stressno just cause would find me skulking to avoid duty.

  I think my manner and tone, as well as what I said, combined to stop SirJohn's mouth. For nobody could question such respectable sentimentsunless, indeed, a quarrel was meant.

  But Sir John Johnson, in his way, was as slow to mortal quarrel as was Iin mine. And whatever suspicion of me he might nurse in his secret mindhe now made no outward sign of it.

  Also, other people were coming across the grass to join us; andpresently grave greetings were exchanged in sober voices suitable to theoccasion when a considerable company of ladies and gentlemen aregathered at a house of mourning.

  Turning away, I noticed Mr. Duncan and the Highland officers at themagazine, all wearing their black badges of respect and a knot of crapeon the basket-hilts of their claymores; and young Walter Butler, stillstiff in his bandages, gazing up at the June sky out of melancholy eyes,like a damned man striving to see God.

  Sir John had now given his arm to his lady. His left hand rested on hissword-hilt--the same left hand he had offered to poor Claire Putnam--andto which the child still clung, they said.

  Claudia turned from Billy Alexander and came toward me. Her face wasserious, but I saw the devil looking out of her blue eyes.

  Nature had given this maid most lovely proportions--that charmingslenderness which is plumply moulded--and she stood straight, andtall enough, too, to meet on a level the love-sick gaze of anystout young man she had bedevilled; and she wore a most bewitchingcountenance--short-nosed, red-lipped, a skin as white as a water-lily,and thick soft hair as black as night, which she wore unpowdered--thedangerous jade!

  "Jack," says she in honeyed tones, "are you truly designing to become ahermit?"

  "Oh, no," said I, smilingly, "only a farmer, Claudia."

  "Why?"

  "Because I am a poor man and must feed and clothe myself."

  "There is a commission from Sir John in the Scotch regiment----"

  "I'm Scotch enough without that," said I.

  "Jack?"

  "Yes, Madam?"

  "Are you a little angry with me?"

  "No," said I, feeling uncomfortable and concluding to beware
of her, forshe stood now close to me, and the scent of her warm breath troubled me.

  "Why are you angry with me, Jack?" she asked sorrowfully. And took onestep nearer.

  "I am not," said I.

  "Am--am I driving you into the wilderness?" she inquired.

  "That, also, is absurd," I replied impatiently. "No woman could everboast of driving me, though some may once have led me."

  "Oh, I feared that I had sapped, perhaps, your faith in women, John."

  I forced a laugh: "Why, Claudia? Because I lately--and vainly--wasenamoured of you?"

  "_Lately?_"

  "Yes. I did love you, once."

  "_Did_ love?" she breathed. "Do you not love me any more, Jack?"

  "I think not," said I, very cheerfully.

  "And why? Sure I used you kindly, Jack. Did I not so?"

  "You conducted as is the privilege of maid with man, Sacharissa," said Iuneasily. "And that is all I have to say."

  "How so did I conduct, Jack?"

  "Sweetly--to my undoing."

  "Try me again," she said, looking up at me, and the devil in her eyes.

  But already I was becoming sensible of the ever-living enchantment ofthis young thing, so wise in stratagems and spoils of Love, and I choseto leave my scalp hang drying at her lodge door beside the scanter polof Billy Alexander.

  For God knows this vixen-virgin spared neither young nor old, but shotthem through and through at sight with those heavenly darts from hertwin eyes.

  And no man, so far, could boast of obtaining from Mistress Swift theleast token or any serious guerdon that his quest might lead him by asingle step toward Hymen's altar, but only to that cruel arena where allher victims agonized under the mocking sweetness of her smile, and herpretty, down-turned and merciless thumbs--the little Vestal villain!

  "No, Claudia," quoth I, "you have taken my bow and spear, and shorn meof my thatch like any Mohawk. No; I go to Fonda's Bush----" I smiled,"--to heal, perhaps, my heart, as you say; but, anyhow, to consult mysoul, and armour it in a wilderness."

  "A hermit!" she exclaimed scornfully, "--and afeard of a maid armed onlywith two matched eyes, a nose, a mouth and thirty teeth!"

  "Afeard of a monster more frightful than that," said I, laughing.

  "Of what monster, John Drogue?"

  "Of that red monster that is surely, surely creeping northward tosurprise and rend us all," said I in a low voice. "And so I shall retireto question my secret soul, and arm it cap-a-pie as God directs."

  She was looking at me intently. After a silence she said:

  "I do love you; and Billy Alexander; and all gay and brave young menwhose unstained swords hedge the women of County Tryon from this samered monster that you mention." And watched me to see how I swallowedthis.

  I said warily: "Surely, Claudia, all women command our swords ... nomatter _which cause we espouse_."

  "Jack!"

  "I hear you, Claudia."

  But, "Oh, my God!" she breathed; and put her hands to her face. A momentshe stood so, then, eyes still covered by one hand, extended the otherto me. I kissed it lightly; then kissed it again.

  "Do you leave us, Jack?"

  I understood.

  "It is you who leave me, Claudia."

  She, too, understood. It was my first confession that all was not rightbetwixt my conscience and my King. For that was the only thing I wascertain about concerning her: she never betrayed a confidence, whateverelse she did. And so I made plain to her where my heart and honourlay--not with the King's men in this coming struggle--but with my ownpeople.

  I think she knew, too, that I had never before confessed as much to anyliving soul, for she took her other hand from her eyes and looked at meas though something had happened in which she took a sorrowful pride.

  Then I kissed her hand for the third time, and let it free. And, going:

  "God be with you," she said with a slight smile; "you are my dearfriend, John Drogue."

  At the Hall porch she turned, the mischief glimmering in her eyes:"--And so is Billy Alexander," quoth she.

  So she went into the darkened Hall.

  * * * * *

  It was many months before I saw our Sacharissa again--not until MajorAndre had made many another verse for many another inamorata, and hissoldier-actors had played more than one of his farces in besieged Bostonto the loud orchestra of His Excellency's rebel cannon.