Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Little savage,” she said, gently, “mock at my people no more. I should chide you for misusing Peter, but — I will say nothing. You make my heart heavy sometimes.”

  “I do honour and love you, Aunt Molly!” I said; “it was not that I mocked at Peter, but his breeches were so tight that I wondered if Vix could bite him. I shall now go to the garden and allow Peter to kick my shins. Anyway, I gave him all my quills and a plummet and a screw.”

  She laughed silently, bidding me renounce my intention regarding Peter, and so dismissed me, with her finger on her lips conjuring silence.

  So I pursued my interrupted way to the garden where the robins carolled in every young fruit-tree, and the blue shadows wove patterns on the grass.

  Peter and Esk were on the ground playing at marbles, with Silver Heels to judge between them.

  Esk, perceiving me, cried out: “Knuckle down at taws, Micky! Come on! Alleys up and fen dubs!”

  “Fen dubs your granny!” I replied, scornfully, clean forgetting my new dignity. “Dubs all, and bull’s-eyes up is what I play, unless you want to put in agates?” I added, covetously.

  Esk shook his head in alarm, muttering that his agates were for shooters; but fat Peter, sprawling belly down at the ring, offered to put up an agate against four bull’s-eyes, two agates, and twelve miggs, and play dubs and span in a round fat.

  The proposition was impudent, unfair, and thoroughly Indian. I was about to spurn it when Silver Heels chirped up, “Micky doesn’t dare.”

  “Put up your agate, Peter,” said I, coolly, ignoring Silver Heels; and I fished the required marbles from my pocket and placed them in the ring.

  “My shot,” announced Peter, hurriedly, crowding down on the line, another outrage which, considering the presence of Silver Heels, I passed unnoticed.

  Peter shot and clipped a migg out of the ring. He shot again and grazed an agate, shouting “Dubs!” to the derision of us all.

  Then I squatted down and sent two bull’s-eyes flying, but, forestalled by Peter’s hysterical “Fen dubs!” was obliged to replace one. However, I shot again and it was dubs all, and I pocketed both of my agates and Peter’s also.

  This brought on a wrangle, which Silver Heels settled in my favour. Then I sat down and, with deadly accuracy, “spun,” from which comfortable position, and without spanning, I skinned the ring, leaving Peter grief-stricken, with one migg in his grimy fist.

  “You may have them,” said I, condescendingly, dropping my spoils into Silver Heels’s lap.

  She coloured with surprise and pleasure, scarcely finding tongue to say, “Thank you, Micky.”

  Peter, being half Indian, demanded more play. But I was satiated and, already remembering my dignity, regretted the lapse into children’s pastimes. I quieted Peter by giving him the remainder of my marbles, explaining that I had renounced such games for manlier sport, which statement, coupled with my lavish generosity, impressed Peter and Esk, if it had not effect upon Silver Heels.

  I sat down on the stone bench near the bee-hives and drew from my pocket the jack-knife given me by Silver Heels as a bribe to silence.

  “Come over here, Silver Heels,” I said, with patronizing kindness.

  “What for?” she demanded.

  “Oh, don’t come then,” I retorted, whereat she rose from the grass with her skirt full of marbles and came over to the stone bench.

  After a moment she seated herself, eying the knife askance. I had opened the blade. Lord, how I hated to give it back!

  “Take it,” said I, closing the blade, but not offering it to her.

  “Truly?” she stammered, not reaching out her hand, for fear I should draw it away again to plague her.

  I dropped the knife into her lap among the marbles, thrilling at the spectacle of my own generosity.

  She seized it, repeating:

  “King, King, double King!

  Can’t take back a given thing!”

  “You needn’t say ‘King, King, double King,’” said I, offended; “for I was not going to take it back, silly!”

  “Truly, Michael?” she asked, looking up at me. Then she added, sweetly, “I am sorry I bit you.”

  “Ho!” said I, “do you think you hurt me?”

  She said nothing, playing with the marbles in her lap.

  I sat and watched the bees fly to and fro like bullets; in the quiet even the hills, cloaked in purple mantles, smoked with the steam of hidden snow-drifts still lingering in ravines where arbutus scents the forest twilight.

  The robins had already begun their rippling curfew call; crickets creaked from the planked walk. Behind me the voices of Peter and Esk rose in childish dispute or excited warning to “Knuckle down hard!” Already the delicate spring twilight stained the east with primrose and tints of green. A calm star rose in the south.

  Presently Silver Heels pinched me, and I felt around to pinch back.

  “Hush,” she whispered, jogging my elbow a little, “there is a strange Indian between us and the block-house. He has a gun, but no blanket!”

  For a moment a cold, tight feeling stopped my breath, not 31 because a strange Indian stood between me and the block-house, but because of that instinct which stirs the fur on wild things when taken unawares, even by friends.

  My roughened skin had not smoothed again before I was on my feet and advancing.

  Instantly, too, I perceived that the Indian was a stranger to our country. Although an Iroquois, and possibly of the Cayuga tribe, yet he differed from our own Cayugas. He was stark naked save for the breech-clout. But his moccasins were foreign, so also was the pouch which swung like a Highlander’s sporran from his braided clout-string, for it was made of the scarlet feathers of a bird which never flew in our country, and no osprey ever furnished the fine snow-white fringe which hung from it, falling half-way between knee and ankle.

  Observing him at closer range, I saw he was in a plight: his flesh dusty and striped with dry blood where thorns had brushed him; his eyes burning with privation, and sunk deep behind the cheek-bones.

  As I halted, he dropped the rifle into the hollow of his left arm and raised his right hand, palm towards me.

  I raised my right hand, but remained motionless, bidding him lay his rifle at his feet.

  He replied in the Cayuga language, yet with a foreign intonation, that the dew was heavy and would dampen the priming of his rifle; that he had no blanket on which to lay his arms, and further, that the sentinels at the block-houses were watching him with loaded muskets.

  This was true. However, I permitted him to advance no closer until I hailed a soldier, who came clumping out of the stables, and who instantly cocked and primed his musket.

  Then I asked the strange Cayuga what he wanted.

  “Peace,” he said, again raising his hand, palm out; and again I raised my hand, saying, “Peace!”

  From the scarlet pouch he drew a little stick, six inches long, and painted red.

  “Look out,” said I to the soldier, “that is a war-stick! If he shifts his rifle, aim at his heart.”

  But the runner had now brought to light from his pouch other sticks, some blood-red, some black ringed with white. 32 These he gravely sorted, dropping the red ones back into his pouch, and naïvely displaying the black and white rods in a bunch.

  “War-ragh-i-ya-gey!” he said, gently, adding, “I bear belts!”

  It was the title given by our Mohawks to Sir William, and signified, “One who unites two peoples together.”

  “You wish to see Chief Warragh,” I repeated, “and you come with your pouch full of little red sticks?”

  He darted a keen glance at me, then, with a dignified gesture, laid his rifle down in the dew.

  A little ashamed, I turned and dismissed the soldier, then advanced and gave the silent runner my hand, telling him that although his moccasins and pouch were strange, nevertheless the kin of the Cayugas were welcome to Johnson Hall. I pointed at his rifle, bidding him resume it. He raised it in silence.r />
  “He is a belt-bearer,” I thought to myself; “but his message is not of peace.”

  I said, pleasantly:

  “By the belts you bear, follow me!”

  The dull fire that fever kindles flickered behind his shadowy eyes. I spoke to him kindly and conducted him to the north block-house.

  “Bearer of belts,” said I, passing the sentry, and so through the guard-room, with the soldiers all rising at attention, and into Sir William’s Indian guest-room.

  My Cayuga must have seen that he was fast in a trap, yet neither by word nor glance did he appear to observe it.

  The sun had set. A chill from the west sent the shivers creeping up my legs as I called a soldier and bade him kindle a fire for us. Then on my own responsibility I went into the store-room and rummaged about until I discovered a thick red blanket. I knew I was taking what was not mine; I knew also I was transgressing Sir William’s orders. Yet some instinct told me to act on my own discretion, and that Sir William would have done the same had he been here.

  A noise at the guard door brought me running out of the store-room to find my Cayuga making to force his way out, and the soldiers shoving him into the guest-room again.

  “Fall back!” I cried, my wits working like shuttles; and quickly added in the Cayuga tongue: “Cayugas are free people; free to stay, free to go. Open the door for my brother who fears his brother’s fireside!”

  There was a silence; the soldiers stood back respectfully; a sergeant opened the outer door. But the Indian, turning his hot eyes on me, swung on his heel and re-entered the guest-room, drawing the flint from his rifle as he walked.

  I followed and laid the thick red blanket on his dusty shoulders.

  “Sergeant,” I called, “send McCloud for meat and drink, and notify Sir William as soon as he arrives that his brothers of the Cayuga would speak to him with belts!”

  I was not sure of the etiquette required of me after this, not knowing whether to leave the Cayuga alone or bear him company. Tribes differ, so do nations in their observance of these forms. One thing more puzzled me: here was a belt-bearer with messages from some distant and strange branch of the Cayuga tribe, yet the etiquette of their allies, our Mohawks, decreed that belts should be delivered by sachems or chiefs, well escorted, and through the smoke of council fires never theoretically extinguished between allies and kindred people.

  One thing I of course knew: that a guest, once admitted, should never be questioned until he had eaten and slept.

  But whether or not I was committing a breach of etiquette by squatting there by the fire with my Cayuga, I did not know.

  However, considering the circumstances, I called out for a soldier to bring two pipes and tobacco; and when they were fetched to me, I filled one and passed it to the Cayuga, then filled the other, picked a splinter from the fire, lighted mine, and passed the blazing splinter to my guest.

  If his ideas on etiquette were disturbed, he did not show it. He puffed at his pipe and drew his blanket close about his naked body, staring into the fire with the grave, absent air of a cat on a wintry night.

  Now, stealing a glance at his scalp-lock, I saw by the fire-light the stumps of two quills, with a few feather-fronds still clinging to them, fastened in the knot on his crown. 34 The next covert glance told me that they were the ragged stubs of the white-headed eagle’s feathers, and that my guest was a chief. This set me in a quandary. What was a strange Cayuga chief doing here without escort, without blanket, yet bearing belts? Etiquette absolutely forbade a single question. Was I, in my inexperience, treating him properly? Would my ignorance of what was due him bring trouble and difficulty to Sir William when he returned?

  Suddenly resolved to clear Sir William of any suspicion of awkwardness, and at the risk of my being considered garrulous, I rose and said:

  “My brother is a man and a chief; he will understand that in the absence of my honoured kinsman, Sir William Johnson, and in the absence of officers in authority, the hospitality of Johnson Hall falls upon me.

  “Ignorant of my brother’s customs, I bid him welcome, because he is naked, tired, and hungry. I kindle his fire; I bring him pipe and food; and now I bid him sleep in peace behind doors that open at his will.”

  Then the Cayuga rose to his full noble height, bending his burning eyes on mine. There was a silence; and so, angry or grateful, I knew not which, he resumed his seat by the fire, and I went out through the guard-room into the still, starry night.

  But I did not tarry to sniff at the stars nor search the dewy herbage for those pale blossoms which open only on such a night, hiding elf-pearls in their fairy petals. Straightway I sought Mistress Molly in the nursery, and told her what I had done. She listened gravely and without comment or word of blame or praise, which was like all Indians. But she questioned me, and I described the strange belt-bearer from his scalp-lock to the sole of his moccasin.

  “Cayuga,” she said, softly; “what make was his rifle?”

  “Not English, not French,” I said. “The barrel near the breech bore figures like those on Sir William’s duelling pistols.”

  “Spanish,” she said, dreamily. “In his language did he pronounce agh like ahh?”

  “Yes, Aunt Molly.”

  She remained silent a moment, thoughtful eyes on mine. 35 Then she smiled and dismissed me, but I begged her to tell me from whence my Cayuga came.

  “I will tell you this,” she said. “He comes from very, very far away, and he follows some customs of the Tuscaroras, which they in turn borrow from a tribe which lives so far away that I should go to sleep in counting the miles for you.”

  With that she shut the nursery door, and I, no wiser than before, and understanding that Mistress Molly did not mean I should be wiser, sat down on the stairs to think and to wait for Sir William.

  A moment later a man on horseback rode out of our stables at a gallop and clattered away down the hill. I listened for a moment, then thought of other things.

  CHAPTER III

  At late candle-light, Sir William still tarrying, I went to the north block-house, where Mr. Duncan, the lieutenant commanding the guard, received me with unusual courtesy, the reason of which I did not at the time suspect.

  “An express from Sir William has at this moment come in,” said he. “Sir William is aware that a belt-bearer from Virginia awaits him.”

  “How could Sir William, who is at Castle Cumberland, know that?” I began, then was silent, as it flashed into my mind that Mistress Molly had sent an express to Sir William as soon as I had told her about the strange Cayuga. That was the galloping horseman I had heard.

  Pondering and perplexed, I looked up to find Mr. Duncan smiling at me.

  “I understand,” said he, “that Sir William is pleased to approve your conduct touching the strange Cayuga.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, quickly, my heart warming with pleasure.

  “I know this,” said Mr. Duncan, laughing, “that Sir William has left something for you with me, a present, in fact, which I am to deliver to you on the morrow.”

  “What is it, Mr. Duncan?” I teased; but the laughing officer shook his head, retiring into the guard-room and pretending to be afraid of me.

  The soldiers, lounging around the settles, pipes between their teeth, looked on with respectful grins. Clearly, even they appeared to know what Sir William had sent to me from Castle Cumberland.

  As I stood in the guard-room, eager, yet partly vexed, away below in the village the bell in the new stone church began to ring.

  “What is that?” I asked, in surprise.

  The soldiers had all risen, taking their muskets from the racks, straightening belts and bandoleers. In the stir and banging of gun-stocks on the stone floor, my question perhaps was not heard by Mr. Duncan, for he stood silent, untwisting his sword knots and eying the line which the sergeant, who carried the halberd, was forming in the room.

  A drummer and a trumpeter took station, six paces to the right and front; th
e sergeant, at a carry, advanced and saluted with, “Parade is formed, sir.”

  “‘Tention!” sang out Mr. Duncan. “Support arms! Carry arms! Trail arms! File by the left flank! March!” And with drawn claymore on his shoulder he passed out into the starlight.

  I followed; and now, standing by the block-house gate, far away in the village I heard the rub-a-dub of a drum and a loud trumpet blowing.

  Nearer and nearer came the drum; the trumpet ceased. And now I could hear the tramp, tramp, tramp of infantry on the hill’s black crest.

  “Present arms!” cried Mr. Duncan, sharply.

  A dark mass which I had not supposed to be moving, suddenly loomed up close in front of us, taking the shape of a long column, which passed with the flicker of starlight on musket and belt, tramp, tramp, tramp to the ringing drum-beats.

  Then our drum rattled and trumpet sang prettily, while Mr. Duncan rendered the officer’s salute as a dark stand of colours passed, borne furled and high above the slanting muskets.

  Baggage wains began to creak by, great shapeless hulks rolling in on the black ocean of the night, with soldiers half asleep on top, and teamsters afoot, heads hanging drowsily and looped raw-hides trailing.

  The last yoke of oxen passed, dragging a brass cannon.

  “‘Tention!” said Mr. Duncan. “Support arms! Trail arms! ‘Bout face! By the right flank, wheel! March!”

  Back into the block-house filed the guard, the drummer bearing his drum flat on his hip, the trumpeter swinging his instrument to his shoulder-knots.

  Mr. Duncan sent his claymore ringing into the scabbard, 38 wrapped his plaid around his throat, and strolled off towards the new barracks, east of the Hall.

  “What troops were those, sir?” I asked, respectfully.

  “Three companies of Royal Americans from Albany,” said he. Then, noticing my puzzled face, he added, “There is to be a big council fire held here, Master Cardigan. Did you not know it?”

  “No,” said I, slowly, reluctant to admit that I had not shared Sir William’s confidence.

  “Look yonder,” said Mr. Duncan.

  Far out in the pale starlight, south and west of the Hall, I saw fires kindled, one by one, until the twinkle of their lights ran for a mile across the uplands. On a hill in the north a signal fire sent long streamers of flame straight up into the sky; other beacons flashed out in the darkness, some so distant that I could not be certain they were more than sparks of my imagination.