“Have I changed?” he asked.
“Yes — you are gray! gray! — and smaller; and you stoop when you sit.”
After a moment he said: “These are times to age all men. Have you yourself not aged in these five months? You went away a fresh-faced lad, scarce weaned from your alley-taws and the chalky ring! You return a man, singed already by the first breath of a fire which will scorch this land to the bedded rock!”
Presently I asked, “Is war certain?”
He nodded, looking at the floor.
“And — and the Six Nations?” I asked again.
“On our side surely,” he said, in a low voice.
“On our side?” I repeated.
He looked at me suddenly, stern mouth tightly shut. A cold light touched his gray eyes and seemed to harden every feature.
“When I say ‘our side’ I assume you to be loyal, Mr. Cardigan,” he said, curtly.
The change in his shrewd, kindly face amazed me. Was it possible for old friends to turn so quickly? Was this coming strife to poison the world with its impending passions?
“If you have become tainted with rebel heresy since you left us, thank God you have returned in time to purge your mind,” he said, sternly. “Sir William has gone — Heaven rest his brave soul! — but Sir John is alive to take no uncertain stand in the face of this wicked rebellion which all true loyal hearts must face.”
I looked at him serenely. Who but I should know what Sir William had thought about the coming strife. Those sacred confidences of the past had cleared my mind, and made it up long since. Had I not, in Sir William’s service, braved death for the sake of these same rebels? I understood my mission better now. I had gone in the cause of humanity — a cause which was not embraced by the loyal subjects of our King. I had failed, but failure had brought wisdom. Never could I set my back against the firm rock of loyalty to fight for a name that now meant nothing to me. I had quenched my thirst at bitter waters; I had learned that men could beggar themselves for principle and die for a tuppenny tax with pockets full.
“Lad,” said the doctor, kindly, “the two rough woodsmen who brought you home did what their rude skill permitted 327 to save your life. They washed your wounds and bound them with balsam and linen; they bore you faithfully for miles and miles through the valley of death itself. But, lad, they could not have saved you had not something intervened between you and that keen blade which searched your life to slay it!”
He rose and took something from the chest of drawers in the corner. It was a British flag, all torn and hacked and covered with black stains.
“It was found rolled up beneath your hunting-shirt,” he said, solemnly. “Look on it, lad! For this torn flag, which your father died defending, held back that deadly knife, shielding the vital spark beneath its folds. A hair’s-breadth more and you had died at the first stab. The flag was your strength and shield: let it become your salvation! It was your father’s flag: exalt it!”
He spread the flag reverently upon the bed. I touched its folds, stiff with my own blood. It was the flag of Cresap’s fort which I had taken, seeing it abandoned by all.
“I shall always honour it,” I said, half unconsciously.
“And the men who bear it!” he added.
“That is very different,” I said, wearily, and turned my head on the pillow.
When I looked again he was folding the flag and placing it in the chest of drawers, smiling quietly to himself. Doubtless he thought me loyal to the King whose armies bore the flag my father died for. But I was too tired to argue further.
“There is one man I would like to see,” I said, “and that is Mr. Duncan. Will you send to the guard-house and beg him to come to me, doctor?”
“Ay, that I will, lad,” he said, cheerily, picking up his hat and case of drugs. “And, by-the-way, your regiment of Border Horse will be here in a month. You will doubtless be content to see the gallant troopers in whose ranks you will one day serve, please God.”
“Perhaps,” I said, closing my eyes.
I must have fallen into a light sleep, for when I unclosed my eyes I saw Mr. Duncan beside me, looking down into my face. I smiled and raised one hand, and he took it gently in both of his strong, sun-browned hands.
“Well, well, well,” he muttered, smiling, while the tears stood in his pleasant eyes; “here is our soldier home again — that same soldier whom I last saw in the guard-house, having his poll clipped by honest Wraxall, à la coureur-de-bois — eh?”
I motioned feebly for him to find a chair beside my bed, and he sat down, still holding my hand in his.
“Now,” I said, “explain to me all that has happened. The doctor tells me what I ask, but I have had little inclination to hear much. I like you, Mr. Duncan. Tell me everything.”
“You mean — about Sir William?” he asked, gently.
“Yes — but that last of all,” I muttered, choking.
After a silence he straightened up, unhooked his sword, and laid it against the wall. Then, settling comfortably back in his chair, he clasped his hands over his white gaiters and looked at me.
“You must know,” he said, “that Colonel Guy Johnson is now superintendent of Indian affairs in North America for his Majesty. He has appointed as deputies Colonel Claus and Colonel John Butler—”
“Who?” I exclaimed.
“Colonel Butler,” repeated Mr. Duncan; “you remember him, don’t you?”
“Yes, I remember him,” I replied; “where is he?”
“He and Joseph Brant are organizing the loyalists and Indians north of us,” said Mr. Duncan, innocently. “This border war in Virginia has set the Six Nations afire. Many of our Mohawks have slipped away to join Logan and Sowanowane against this fellow Cresap who murdered Logan’s children; the others are restless and sullen. There was but one man in the world who could have controlled them—”
He paused.
“I know it,” said I. “You mean Sir William.”
“Ay, Mr. Cardigan, I mean Sir William. Well, well, there is no help now. It is Sir John Johnson’s policy to win over the savages to our side; but I often think Sir William knew best how to manage them. It will be dreadful, dreadful! I for one wish no such allies as are gathering north of us under Joseph Brant and Colonel Butler.”
“Why do you not say as much to Sir John?” I asked.
“I? What weight would my opinion carry? I have said often to those who ask me that I would give all I possess to see the savages remain neutral in this coming strife.”
“Do you also believe it is coming?”
“Surely, surely,” he said, lifting his hand solemnly. “Mr. Cardigan, you have been away, and have also been too ill to know what passes at our very doors. You are ignorant of the passion which has divided every town, village, and hamlet in Tryon County — ay, the passion which has turned neighbours to bitterest foes — the passion which has turned kinship to hatred — which sets brother against brother, son against father!
“Our village of Johnstown yonder seethes and simmers with Tory against Whig, loyalist against rebel. Houses are barricaded; arms stored, stolen, and smuggled; seditious words uttered, traitorous songs sung, insults flung in the faces of the King’s soldiers. We of the Royal Americans receive the grossest epithets; curses and threats are flung in our teeth; sentries on guard are mocked and reviled; officers jeered at in tavern and street.
“I do not believe such fierceness would betray itself if the question here were but the old Boston grievance — the ancient protest against taxing people without the people’s consent. No, it is not the wrangle between Parliament and colonies that has brought the devil’s own confusion into Tryon County; it is the terrible possibility that one or the other side may let loose the savages. We of Tryon County know what that means. Small wonder then, I say, that the rebels curse us for swine and dogs and devils incarnate because we are slowly gaining the good-will of the Six Nations.”
He wiped his face with a laced hanker and pressed his
temples, frowning.
“Yet,” he said, “the rebels, too, would doubtless use the savages against us if they could win them over. Sir John says so. That is why he sent Thayendanegea and Colonel Butler to recruit in the north. They say that Captain Walter Butler is with Cresap. I don’t know; I have not seen him in months.”
“I know,” said I, quietly.
“Doubtless you met him then at Cresap’s camp?”
“Doubtless.”
Mr. Duncan waited a moment, then laughed.
“You were ever a man to keep your own counsel,” he said.
“What have you heard from Cresap’s men?” I asked.
“Nothing save that the war is a fierce one. An express came in yesterday with news that the Cayugas had been terribly whipped by the backwoodsmen under Andy Lewis, somewhere near the Great Kanawha. The express rider got it from some of Cresap’s men, but it may not be true.”
After a silence I asked him what month of the year it now was. I had noticed yellow leaves outside.
“October,” he said, pityingly; “did you not know it?”
I tried to realize the space of time which had been wiped out from my memory.
“When did Sir William — die?” I muttered, painfully.
Mr. Duncan looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“On Monday, the 11th of July.”
“Tell me — all,” I motioned, with quivering lips.
“It is history,” he said, simply. “I will tell you what I heard and what I witnessed.
“On the 1st of July we received news of the murder of Bald Eagle, a friendly Delaware chief. Rumour had it that one of my Lord Dunmore’s agents had slain the old man, but that, of course, is preposterous. It is hard to sift truth out of rumours. Why, the wildest statements were openly made in some taverns that young Walter Butler had murdered the old man. What reason could Walter Butler have to slay a friendly chief in Pennsylvania?”
“Go on,” I said, grimly.
“Well, then, this murder was committed while the poor old man was sitting in his canoe on one of the streams near Fort Pitt. After tearing the scalp from the old man the murderer set him afloat in his canoe. The ghastly progress of the dead was seen by Indians and whites, and the news, following the report of the outrage on Logan by that creature Daniel Greathouse, roused the Six Nations to fury.
“You know that even after the Logan outrage Sir William had held back the warriors of the Long House; but this fresh crime drove them frantic. They might still have held off had not Bald Eagle been scalped, but you know, Mr. Cardigan, 331 that the Six Nations always regard the scalping of a murdered person as a national act, not an individual one, and always accept it as a declaration of war.”
“I know,” I said.
“The sachems of the Long House,” continued Mr. Duncan, “immediately notified Sir William that they desired to see him without delay. When you think, Mr. Cardigan, that the murders of Logan’s children and of Bald Eagle touched every clan tie in the Six Nations, nothing could prove more clearly the marvellous influence of Sir William over the savages than the fact that their first impulse was not to seize hatchet and knife and begin an indiscriminate butchery of our people, but to solicit a conference with Sir William, so that they might state their wrongs calmly and ask his advice. Lord! Lord! A great man died in last July; and who can take his place?”
Again he wiped his brow and clasped his gaitered knees with his hands.
“In two days,” he resumed, “two hundred Onondagas came here, with intelligence that four hundred more were on their way. Then they came in hordes — Mohawks, Senecas, Cayugas, and Oneidas. From morning till night Sir William was engaged in talking with them, persuading and promising and exerting himself tirelessly to hold the gathering tempest in check.
“He was even then far from well; his old trouble had returned; he could scarcely drag himself up here to this room when night came. Yet he said to me, after an exhausting conference with the Oneidas, ‘Mr. Duncan, I have daily to combat with thousands of white men who, by their avarice, cruelty, or indiscretions, are constantly counteracting all my judicious measures with the Indians. It is not the Indians I blame. I shall persevere: the occasion requires it; and I shall never be without hope till I find myself without that influence which has never yet forsaken me.’
“‘That influence is built up on your personal honour,’ I said; ‘it can never forsake you.’
“He smiled — you know his rare smile, Mr. Cardigan—”
Mr. Duncan almost broke down; my eyes were dry and throbbing.
“On the 7th of July,” he resumed, “we had a thousand Indians assembled here at the Hall. The sachems and chiefs were earnestly pleading for the congress. Sir William was sick abed and suffering pitifully, but he rose and refused to listen to Doctor Pierson, saying that the congress should never be delayed by anything but his own death.
“The weather was frightfully hot; nearly the whole of the first day was occupied by the speech of Senhowane, a Seneca chief, who made out a bitter case against the white people of Cresap’s command. A Cayuga war-chief followed the Seneca, speaking until the moon rose.
“The next day was the Sabbath. Sir William lay abed all day, unable to see for the frightful pains in his head. Yet the next day, at half-past nine in the morning, Sir William was at the fire, belts in hand.
“Never, never, Mr. Cardigan, had any one heard him speak with such eloquence. Sick unto death as he was, he stood there in the burning July sun, hour after hour, in the cause of peace. He spoke with all the fire and vivacity of youth; his words held the savages’ grave and strained attention until the end.”
Mr. Duncan paused, staring at space as though to fix that last scene in his mind forever.
“I was commanding the escort,” he said. “My men saluted as the Indians left the congress. When the last chief had disappeared, I saw that Sir William was in distress, and ran to him. He lurched forward into my arms. I held him a moment. He tried to speak, but all he could say was, ‘Tell Michael I am proud — of — him,’ and then fell back full weight. We got him to the Hall and laid him on the library couch. A gillie rode breakneck for Sir John, who was at the old fort nine miles away. Mistress Molly had gone to Schenectady; there remained no one of his own kin here.”
Mr. Duncan leaned forward, with his face in his hands.
“Sir John came too late,” he said; “Sir William died utterly alone.”
As I lay there I could hear the robins chirping outside, just as I had so often heard them from the school-room. Could this still be the same summer? Years and years 333 seemed to have slipped away in these brief months between May and October.
“Where is he buried?” I asked.
“In the vault under the stone church he built in the village. When you can walk — we will go.”
“I shall walk very soon now,” said I.
After a moment I asked who had succeeded Sir William.
“In title and estate Sir John succeeds him,” said Mr. Duncan, “but the King has conferred the intendancy of Indian affairs on Colonel Guy Johnson.”
“Is he as close a friend as ever of Colonel Butler and Joseph?”
“Quite. Joseph Brant is a special deputy, too.”
“Then God save our country,” I replied, calmly, and closed my eyes.
Lying there, thinking, I saw for a moment into that red horror called the future — which now, thank God, is already the past.
“When Sir John returns from Boston you will hear the will read,” said Mr. Duncan.
“When does he return?” I asked, opening my eyes.
“To-morrow, we hope.”
“Why did he go?”
“I do not know,” said Mr. Duncan, frankly.
“Why did he take Miss Warren?”
“I’m sure I do not know,” he answered.
“Will she return with him?”
“I cannot say — but I suppose she will,” replied Mr. Duncan, looking curiously at me.
“Ah!”
“Why?”
“Lord, lad, I don’t know!” he exclaimed, amused.
“Did Miss Warren see me while I was ill?”
“Ay, that she did,” he cried. “She never left you; they could not drag her away to eat enough to keep a bird alive. She hung over you, she followed the doctor, holding to his sleeve and asking questions till the good man nigh lost his senses. And all the time Sir John was fuming and impatient to be off to Boston, but Miss Warren would not go 334 until the doctor was able to promise on his sacred honour that you were not only out of danger, but that you would recover completely in mind and body.”
“And then?” I muttered.
“Why, then Sir John would no longer be denied, and she must needs journey with him to Boston. I know that she herself did not understand why she was going, except that some legal affairs required her presence.”
“And she left no word for me?”
“None with me. I heard her ask Sir John how soon you would be able to read if she wrote you, but Sir John shook his head without reply. Then she asked the doctor, and I think he told Miss Warren she might write in October if she remained in Boston as long as that. So, doubtless, the express is already galloping up the old post-road with your letter, Mr. Cardigan.”
Presently — for I was becoming very tired — I asked about the two forest-runners who had brought me hither, not mentioning their names for prudence sake.
“I don’t know where they are,” said Mr. Duncan, rising to buckle on his sword. “The little, mild-spoken man disappeared the day that Sir John and Miss Warren left for Boston. The other, the big, swaggering fellow, abandoned by his running-mate, seemed astonished, and hunted about the village for a week, swearing that there was foul play somewhere, and that his comrade would never willingly have deserted him. Then our magistrate, Squire Bullock, was stopped and robbed on the King’s highway — ay, and roundly cursed for a Tory thief — by this same graceless giant in buckskin who brought you here. They sought for him, but you know how those fellows travel. He may be in Quebec now, for aught I know — the impudent rascal.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 116