Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Also, in pantomime and whispers, I rehearsed the part I meant to play before the Cayugas, making the speeches that Sir William had made to Quider, as nearly as I could remember, and delivering each belt in dumb show and with all the dignity I could command, till I came to the last, which, by mistake, I spoke of as a red instead of black belt.

  “Wait,” interrupted Sir William, who had become deeply interested; “what is ‘black’ in the Mohawk tongue?”

  “Kahonji,” I replied, promptly.

  “And in Onondaga?”

  “Osuntah, sir.”

  “And in Cayuga?”

  I hesitated, then blushed, for I did not know.

  “Sweandaea,” said Sir William, gravely; “how are you to bear my peace-belts if you know not the red of war from the black of good intent?”

  “I should have said ‘Hot-Kwah-Weyo’ — good-red, not war-red,” I replied, so naïvely that Sir William laughed outright.

  “With such resourceful impudence,” he said, “you cannot be misunderstood among the Six Nations. It eases my mind to find you quick and ingenious in a tight place, lad. But, Michael, have a care to use no Delaware words, for that would render my Cayugas suspicious.”

  I promised eagerly, and we sat down together to go over the trail, mile by mile, computing the circles I should be 123 obliged to take to avoid the carrying-places where spies were most to be feared.

  “Dunmore rides South in a week,” said Sir William. “But he will not wait till he reaches Virginia before he sends out his emissaries to urge Cresap on. You must beat them, lad, and go afoot at that.”

  “I can go the faster,” said I. “Horses are useless in the Pennsylvania bush until you reach Crown Gap. I take it that Lord Dunmore’s men, being Virginians, will go mounted, and that gives me double time to reach Cresap.”

  And so we sat there together on the bed, planning, suggesting precautions, counting the dangers and mischances only to discount them with confidence in my knowledge of woodcraft, and the night wore on till my candle sank into a lake of wax, trailing a long, flaring flame.

  “There is one thing I have thought of,” said I, soberly. “It is this: if I am going out as an enemy to the King, I cannot for shame aid me by wearing the King’s uniform. Therefore, with your approval, sir, I will go in my buckskins, unless you believe that, by this journey of mine, I will benefit our King.”

  “Then,” said Sir William, slowly, “you must go in your buckskins, lad.”

  The moment had come; I was face to face with it now.

  “Am — am I to resign my commission in the Border Horse, sir?” I faltered. The prospect of the sacrifice choked my speech, and my heart swelled with a grief that sent the water to my eyes in spite of me.

  Sir William considered me in silence, then broke out: “No, no! Not yet. Who knows but what this war may never break over us! No, no, my boy! Your errand is an errand of justice and mercy. I send you as my own messenger. It is my duty to protect my Cayugas, and it is yours to obey me. You may, for the present at least, retain your commission and your sword with honour. It is Dunmore and Butler we are fighting now, not our King.”

  “I shall go in my buckskins, anyhow,” I said, cheerfully, and thankful that the evil moment had been put off — that evil moment which I now understood was surely coming for us both. He knew it, too; his face was loose and seamed and 124 gray and haggard; the light of the candle’s smoky wick, swimming in wax, threw ghastly shadows over brow and cheeks.

  As we sat there, my hand in his, staring at the phantoms of that ominous future, I heard Silver Heels come running up the stairs and stop at my door, calling out to Sir William.

  When I opened the door she drew back scornfully, but, catching a glimpse of Sir William within, she marched past me and perched herself on Sir William’s knees, both arms around his neck.

  What she whispered to him I could not hear, but he promptly shook his head in refusal, and presently it came out that she was teasing to be allowed to go with a certain fat dame, Lady Shelton, and make a month’s stay with her at Pittsburg.

  “I do so long to go,” pleaded Silver Heels. “I have never been anywhere, you know. And we are to have such rare pleasures at the June running races, and there will be horses from Virginia and Maryland and New York, and we are to have dancing every evening and a dinner given for me! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I want to go so much! I truly do, sir, and I should be so happy and so thankful to you—”

  “In Heaven’s name, stop your chatter, Felicity!” cried Sir William, striving to undo her arms from his neck, but she only kissed him and clung so tightly and reproachfully that he gave up in sheer fatigue.

  “Oh, go, then! Go, you little witch! And mind you take Betty with you! And mind that Aunt Mary provides for you ere you go!”

  Silver Heels embraced him rapturously with a little shout of delight, and sped away to the nursery without a glance at me. What did I care? I had begun to dislike her cordially; I could afford to, now that she in her turn disliked Mr. Bevan.

  I had also the savage satisfaction of remembering that she was free of Walter Butler forever, and I observed her departure grimly. As for Sir William’s new desire to see us wedded, I had not at all made up my mind. Besides, Silver Heels despised me, and I would not endure that.

  Presently Sir William rose and walked out into the hallway, saying, with affected carelessness: “Then you will start before dawn, Michael?”

  “Yes, sir,” said I, cheerfully.

  “I shall be in the library when you go. Stop there a moment.”

  His voice was quivering, but he did not flinch, and I heard him descending the stairs towards the nursery where Mistress Molly was saying: “What is all this about Felicity’s journeying to Pittsburg, Sir William? Why, the child has no clothes that befit her rank and station, dear, and the expense—”

  “Tush! Who cares for the expense? If she’s going she’s got enough to start with, and I’ll send to New York, my dear. Of course I know our little maid must outshine the rest o’ them, Molly. Make a list for York, and I’ll send it by Billy Tryon.”

  Their voices were shut out with the nursery door closing, and I stole back through the dark entry into my room and lighted another candle.

  In the feverish delight of preparation, I gave little thought to Silver Heels. Excitement at the nearness of my departure proved a lively antidote for sorrow — nay, the fever of anticipation burnt out regret and seared with its caustic the frail unopened bud of romance.

  Silver Heels? Silver Heels? What did I care now? Let her live to regret it all — after I had gone! Let her live to marvel at my mysterious disappearance, and vainly seek to solve it until I returned, loaded with glory and importance. Then I might see her at Fort Pitt. But what did I care? She couldn’t marry Walter Butler; the dragoon Bevan belonged to Mrs. Hamilton; and now she was going to Pittsburg to see the races and be rid of both Butler and Bevan. So all was right everywhere; let the world spin on! As for me, I was off for glory and the green delight of the woodlands that I loved.

  I made up my pack on the bed: a blanket, four pairs of Mohawk moccasins, a change of flannels, a spare shirt, and three pairs of knitted socks. Down in the store-room I found corn-meal, salt, and pork, and tied each in its sack. Powder and ball were to be had in the guard-house, so I ran across the grass and into the block-house where Wraxall, our sottish Johnstown barber, stood shaving Mr. Duncan.

  “Better join me in a midnight shave!” he called out, as I 126 darted past and unhooked the keys of the magazine from the brass nail over the fireplace.

  When I returned with the powder and bullets I weighed them in the guard-house scales and gave Mr. Duncan a written receipt for them.

  “Come! come! Mr. Cardigan,” he said, “would you kill deer in May? What the deuce do you want of all this powder? Nobody has dug up any war-hatchets that I know of.”

  Wraxall, who was strapping his razor, looked at me curiously. I ignored Mr. Duncan’s banter and plumped myself into the chai
r where he had been sitting.

  “A close shave for Mr. Cardigan!” said Mr. Duncan, holding his dripping face over the barber’s basin. “Unless,” he added, politely, “the gentleman desires you to leave his mustachios à la Française.”

  My face being as smooth as a girl’s, the barber sneered, but I bade him lather me deep and have a care to follow grain. I cared not a whit for Mr. Duncan’s mirth, I was too happy, and when Wraxall had scraped me well, I ordered him to shear off my hair.

  “Piteous Heaven!” exclaimed Mr. Duncan. “Nay, barber! — spare that queue!”

  “Off it drops!” said I, briskly. “Now get the hair-powder out, and trim my hair to a crop, Wraxall! Whew! man, don’t breathe on me, you malt-worm! I don’t want to get drunk, I want a cropped head!”

  “Shaved for a wig, sir?” demanded Wraxall, sulkily, fiddling with his shears.

  “No, no,” I replied, hastily, while Mr. Duncan roared with laughter; “I don’t desire a shaved pate, my friend. Cut it à la coureur-de-bois!”

  “Do you expect to take the King’s highway with Jack Mount?” asked Mr. Duncan. But I refused to be drawn out, and finally he went away with his curiosity on tenter-hooks and none the wiser.

  When Wraxall had shorn me and removed the powder from my hair, I gathered up my ammunition and provisions and hastened back to the house. The place was dark save for a light in the library. I felt my way up the stairs and into my chamber, where I first filled bullet-pouch and powder-horn, 127 then rolled the spare ammunition and provisions into my pack and buckled the load tightly.

  Now, rapidly undressing, I donned a new hunting-shirt and leggings, first making sure that the fringe had not been weakened by mice, to leave me without cords should I need them. Over my shoulders I slung powder-horn and bullet-pouch, slipped hatchet and hunting-knife into the clout pockets, and then took my rifle from the corner and unwrapped the deer-hide case.

  Thrice I tested the flint, pouring a little powder into the pan, and thrice the pan flashed, and the ball of vapour shot up to the ceiling. So all was ready. I lingered only to buckle my money-belt under my shirt, pouch a dozen new flints and a case of wadding, then hoisted my pack to my shoulders, strapped it on the hips, blew out the candle, and stole into the hallway, trailing my rifle.

  Passing the door of Silver Heels’s chamber, my heart suddenly grew tender and I hesitated. But the memory of her many misdeeds hardened it immediately, and I went on, tasting contentedly of a perverse resentment which smacked pleasantly of martyrdom. All asses, they say, are born to martyrdom.

  I crept past the nursery without accident, but barked my shins on the stocks in the hallway. Yet Mistress Molly did not awake — or was it that she knew what errand I was bound on? Perhaps. Still, to this day I do not know whether or not Sir William had confided in her. God rest her! I never saw her again.

  I went softly through the lower hall, through the card-room, and tapped at the library door. It was opened without a sound.

  We gazed silently at each other for a long time. I, for one, could not trust myself to speak. All the joy and exhilaration of adventure had suddenly left me; I felt the straps of my pack straining my shoulders, but the burden on my back was not as heavy as my heart’s full load.

  He seemed so old, so tired, so gray; his eyes had acquired that peering look which one notices in faces scored by care. What a blight had come upon him in these few weeks! Where was that ruddy glow, that full swell of muscle as he moved, 128 that clear-eyed, full-fronted presence that I knew so well! How old his hands appeared under the cuff’s limp lace; how old his loose face, all in ashy seams; how old his slow eyes — how old, old, old!

  He rose as though his back, instead of mine, bore the burden, and together, without a word, we passed through the dark house and out to the porch. Dawn silvered the east, but the moon in its first quarter lay afloat in the western clouds, and a few stars looked down through a sky caked with frosted fleece.

  He embraced me in silence, holding me a long time to his breast, yet never a word was said, and never a sound fell on the night air save my desperate gulps to crush back the sob that strained in my throat.

  Presently I was conscious that I had left him, and was running fast through the darkness, blind as a bat for the tears, breathless, too, for, as I halted and turned to look back, far away against the dawn I saw our house as a black mass, with a single candle twinkling in the basement. So I knew Sir William still kept his vigil in the library.

  The streets of Johnstown were dark, save for the rare lanthorns of the watchmen, but there seemed to be many people abroad, most of them noisy and quarrelsome. To tell the truth, I had never before seen so much swaggering and drunkenness in Johnstown, and I marvelled at it as I hastened on. Once, as I passed a tavern, two men, journeying in opposite directions, hailed each other with a new phrase: “Greeting, friend! God save our country!” At which a drunken soldier from the tavern bawled out: “God save our country — eh? That’s the Boston rebels’ password! God save the King and damn the country! — you yellow-bellied Whigs!”

  A small crowd gathered, but I hastened on; yet behind me I heard oaths and blows and cries of: “Lobster! Tory! Kill the red-coat!” And everywhere along the street windows were raised and men looked out, some shouting: “Rebel!” “Traitor!” or “Bloody-back!” “Tea-sot — toss-pot!” and some called for the watch.

  Many people began to rush hither and thither. A little peddler got under my feet and fell sprawling and squealing 129 till I picked him up and set him on his legs. He was a small Hebrew man, Saul Shemuel, who came a-peddling often to our servants; but in his terror he did not know me, and he fled madly into Rideup’s Tavern with a soldier after him, vowing he’d have one rebel scalp even though it were a Jewish one.

  I had no time to linger, yet behind me I heard a sharp fight begin at Rideup’s Tavern, which is another pot-house much frequented by Boston men. Presently as I climbed the hill I heard the drums at the guard-house beating the alarm, and I knew the fray would soon end with the patrol’s arrival from their barracks.

  But what had come over our staid towns-people and farmers and tenants that they should damn each other for rebels and Tories? It amazed me to see old neighbours shaking their fists out of windows and cursing one another with such extraordinary and unnecessary fury.

  Truly, if in our village this question of tuppence worth o’ tea drove men mad, what wonder Sir William and Governor Tryon should frown and shake their heads over a pinch o’ snuff?

  But I was to leave all this trouble behind me now. Already the misty wilderness loomed up in the south, vague as a ghostly vision in the moon’s beams. Ah, my woods! — my dear, dear woods! One plunge into that dim, sweet shadow and what cared I for King or rebel or any woman who ever lived?

  CHAPTER IX

  My first three weeks in the woods were weeks of heaven. Never had I seen the forest so beautiful, never had the soft velvet lights clothed the wilderness with such exquisite mystery. Along the stony beds of lost ravines I passed and saw the frosty bowlders lie like silver mounds in the dawn, glimmering through steaming waters. I passed at eventide when the sunset turned the cliffs to crumbling crags of gold, and I saw massed mountain peaks reflected in pools where the shadows of great fish moved like clouds.

  I ate and drank and slept in the dim wood stillness undisturbed; I waked when my guide, the sun, flamed through the forest, and I followed in his lead, resting when he hung circling in the noonday heavens, following again when he resumed the sky-trail towards the west, seeking my couch when he lay down below the world’s blue edge to fold him in the blanket of the night.

  Twice came the rain, delicately perfumed showers shaking down through a million leaves, leaving frail trails of vapour errant through the trees, and powdered jewels on every leaf.

  And I lived well on that swift trail where the gray grouse scuttled through the saplings, and in every mossy streamlet the cold, dusky troutlings fought for the knot of scarlet yarn on my short hand
-line. Once I saw bronzed turkeys, all huddled in a brood at twilight, craning and peering from their tree-perch; but let them go, as I had meat to spare. Once, too, at dawn, I heard a bull-moose lipping tree-buds, and lay still in my blanket while the huge beast wandered past, crack! crash! and slop! slop! through the creek, his hide all smeared with clay and a swarm of forest flies whirling over him. Lord, how rank he did smell, but for all that I was glad the wind set not the other way, for it is sometimes the toss of a coin what your bull-moose will do, run or fight 131 at sight; nor is it even doubtful in September, when the moose-cow wallows and bawls across the marshes for her antlered gallant on the ridge.

  I saw but one moose, for there are not many in our forests, though they say the Canadas do swarm with them, and also with elks and caribous.

  There were few birds to be seen except near rivers: a blue-gray meat-bird here and there whining in the hemlocks, a great owl huddled on a limb, and sometimes a troop of black-cheeked chickadees that came cheerfully to hand for a crumb of corn. Squirrels were everywhere — that is, everywhere except through the pine belts, and there I had to make out with the bitter flesh of those villain partridges which feed on spruce-tips. I’d as soon eat a hawk in winter or dine on slices of fried spruce-gum, for truly there is more nourishment in a moccasin than in these ignoble birds dressed up like toothsome partridges.

  I had not met a soul on the trail, nor had I found any fresh signs save once, and that was the print of a white man’s moccasin on the edge of a sandy strip near the head-waters of the Ohio, which is called the Alleghany, north of Fort Pitt.

  This foot-mark disturbed me, although it was three days old and pointing north. But that signified nothing, for the man who made it had come in a canoe, yet I could find no sign that a canoe had been beached there, nor, indeed, any further marks of moccasins, and I made moderate haste to get under cover, as I am timid about things I cannot account for.