Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “You little beast!” she said, fiercely; “is it courteous to pit your guests like game-cocks for your pleasure?”

  “You did it yourself!” retorted Ruyven, indignantly— “and entered the pit yourself.”

  “For a jest, silly! There were no bets. Now frown and vapor and wag your finger — do! What do you lack? I will wrestle you if you wait until I don my buckskins. No? A foot-race? — and I’ll bet you your ten shillings on myself! Ten to five — to three — to one! No? Then hush your silly head!”

  “Because,” said Ruyven, sullenly, coming up to me, “she can outrun me with her long legs, she gives herself the devil’s own airs and graces. There’s no living with her, I tell you. I wish I could go to the war.”

  “You’ll have to go when father declares himself,” observed Dorothy, quietly polishing her hatchet on its leather sheath.

  “But he won’t declare for King or Congress,” retorted the boy.

  “Wait till they start to plague us,” murmured Dorothy. “Some fine July day cows will be missed, or a barn burned, or a shepherd found scalped. Then you’ll see which way the coin spins!”

  “Which way will it spin?” demanded Ruyven, incredulous yet eager.

  “Ask that squirrel yonder,” she said, briefly.

  “Thanks; I’ve asked enough of chatterers,” he snapped out, and came to the tree where we were sitting in the shadow on the cool, thick carpet of the grass — such grass as I had never seen in that fair Southland which I loved.

  The younger children gathered shyly about me, their active tongues suddenly silent, as though, all at once, they had taken a sudden alarm to find me there.

  The reaction of fatigue was settling over me — for my journey had been a long one that day — and I leaned my back against the tree and yawned, raising my hand to hide it.

  “I wonder,” I said, “whether anybody here knows if my boxes and servant have arrived from Philadelphia.”

  “Your boxes are in the hallway by your bed-chamber,” said Dorothy. “Your servant went to Johnstown for news of you — let me see — I think it was Saturday—”

  “Friday,” said Ruyven, looking up from the willow wand which he was peeling.

  “He never came back,” observed Dorothy. “Some believe he ran away to Albany, some think the Boston people caught him and impressed him to work on the fort at Stanwix.”

  I felt my face growing hot.

  “I should like to know,” said I, “who has dared to interfere with my servant.”

  “So should I,” said Ruyven, stoutly. “I’d knock his head off.” The others stared. Dorothy, picking a meadow-flower to pieces, smiled quietly, but did not look up.

  “What do you think has happened to my black?” I asked, watching her.

  “I think Walter Butler’s men caught him and packed him off to Fort Niagara,” she said.

  “Why do you believe that?” I asked, angrily.

  “Because Mr. Butler came here looking for boat-men; and I know he tried to bribe Cato to go. Cato told me.” She turned sharply to the others. “But mind you say nothing to Sir Lupus of this until I choose to tell him!”

  “Have you proof that Mr. Butler was concerned in the disappearance of my servant?” I asked, with an unpleasant softness in my voice.

  “No proof,” replied Dorothy, also very softly.

  “Then I may not even question him,” I said.

  “No, you can do nothing — now.”

  I thought a moment, frowning, then glanced up to find them all intently watching me.

  “I should like,” said I, “to have a tub of clean water and fresh clothing, and to sleep for an hour ere I dress to dine with Sir Lupus. But, first, I should like to see my mare, that she is well bedded and—”

  “I’ll see to her,” said Dorothy, springing to her feet. “Ruyven, do you tell Cato to wait on Captain Ormond.” And to Harry and Cecile: “Bowl on the lawn if you mean to bowl, and not in the hallway, while our cousin is sleeping.” And to Benny: “If you tumble or fall into any foolishness, see that you squall no louder than a kitten mewing. Our cousin means to sleep for a whole hour.”

  As I rose, nodding to them gravely, all their shy deference seemed to return; they were no longer a careless, chattering band, crowding at my elbows to pluck my sleeves with, “Oh, Cousin Ormond” this, and “Listen, cousin,” that; but they stood in a covey, close together, a trifle awed at my height, I suppose; and Ruyven and Dorothy conducted me with a new ceremony, each to outvie the other in politeness of language and deportment, calling to my notice details of the scenery in stilted phrases which nigh convulsed me, so that I could scarce control the set gravity of my features.

  At the house door they parted company with me, all save Ruyven and Dorothy. The one marched off to summon Cato; the other stood silent, her head a little on one side, contemplating a spot of sunlight on the dusty floor.

  “About young Walter Butler,” she began, absently; “be not too short and sharp with him, cousin.”

  “I hope I shall have no reason to be too blunt with my own kin,” I said.

  “You may have reason—” She hesitated, then, with a pretty confidence in her eyes, “For my sake please to pass provocation unnoticed. None will doubt your courage if you overlook and refuse to be affronted.”

  “I cannot pass an affront,” I said, bluntly. “What do you mean? Who is this quarrelsome Mr. Butler?”

  “An Ormond-Butler,” she said, earnestly; “but — but he has had trouble — a terrible disappointment in love, they say. He is morose at times — a sullen, suspicious man, one of those who are ever seeking for offence where none is dreamed of; a man quick to give umbrage, quicker to resent a fancied slight — a remorseless eye that fixes you with the passionless menace of a hawk’s eye, dreamily marking you for a victim. He is cruel to his servants, cruel to his animals, terrible in his hatred of these Boston people. Nobody knows why they ridiculed him; but they did. That adds to the fuel which feeds the flame in him — that and the brooding on his own grievances—”

  She moved nearer to me and laid her hand on my sleeve. “Cousin, the man is mad; I ask you to remember that in a moment of just provocation. It would grieve me if he were your enemy — I should not sleep for thinking.”

  “Dorothy,” I said, smiling, “I use some weapons better than I do the war-axe. Are you afraid for me?”

  She looked at me seriously. “In that little world which I know there is much that terrifies men, yet I can say, without boasting, there is not, in my world, one living creature or one witch or spirit that I dread — no, not even Catrine Montour!”

  “And who is Catrine Montour?” I asked, amused at her earnestness.

  Ere she could reply, Ruyven called from the stairs that Cato had my tub of water all prepared, and she walked away, nodding a brief adieu, pausing at the door to give me one sweet, swift smile of friendly interest.

  IV

  SIR LUPUS

  I had bathed and slept, and waked once more to the deep, resonant notes of a conch-shell blowing; and I still lay abed, blinking at the sunset through the soiled panes of my western window, when Cato scraped at the door to enter, bearing my sea-boxes one by one.

  Reaching behind me, I drew the keys from under my pillow and tossed them to the solemn black, lying still once more to watch him unlock my boxes and lay out my clothes and linen to the air.

  “Company to sup, suh; gemmen from de No’th an’ Guy Pahk, suh,” he hinted, rolling his eyes at me and holding up my best wristbands, made of my mother’s lace.

  “I shall dress soberly, Cato,” said I, yawning. “Give me a narrow queue-ribbon, too.”

  The old man mumbled and muttered, fussing about among the boxes until he found a full suit of silver-gray, silken stockings, and hound’s-tongue shoes to match.

  “Dishyere clothes sho’ is sober,” he reflected aloud. “One li’l gole vine a-crawlin’ on de cuffs, nuvver li’l gole vine a-creepin’ up de wes’coat, gole buckles on de houn’-tongue — Wha
r de hat? Hat done loose hisse’f! Here de hat! Gole lace on de hat — Cap’in Ormond sho’ is quality gemm’n. Ef he ain’t, how come dishyere gole lace on de hat?”

  “Come, Cato,” I remonstrated, “am I dressing for a ball at Augustine, that you stand there pulling my finery about to choose and pick? I tell you to give me a sober suit!” I snatched a flowered robe from the bed’s foot-board, pulled it about me, and stepped to the floor.

  Cato brought a chair and bowl, and, when I had washed once more I seated myself while the old man shook out my hair, dusted it to its natural brown, then fell to combing and brushing. My hair, with its obstinate inclination to curl, needed neither iron nor pomade; so, silvering it with my best French powder, he tied the short queue with a black ribbon and dusted my shoulders, critically considering me the while.

  “A plain shirt,” I said, briefly.

  He brought a frilled one.

  “I want a plain shirt,” I insisted.

  “Dishyere sho’t am des de plaines’ an’ de—”

  “You villain, don’t I know what I want?”

  “No, suh!”

  And, upon my honor, I could not get that black mule to find me the shirt that I wished to wear. More than that, he utterly refused to permit me to dress in a certain suit of mouse-color without lace, but actually bundled me into the silver-gray, talking volubly all the while; and I, half laughing and wholly vexed, almost minded to go burrowing myself among my boxes and risk peppering silk and velvet with hair-powder.

  But he dressed me as it suited him, patting my silk shoes into shape, smoothing coat-skirt and flowered vest-flap, shaking out the lace on stock and wrist with all the delicacy and cunning of a lady’s-maid.

  “Idiot!” said I, “am I tricked out to please you?”

  “You sho’ is, Cap’in Ormond, suh,” he said, the first faint approach to a grin that I had seen wrinkling his aged face. And with that he hung my small-sword, whisked the powder from my shoulders with a bit of cambric, chose a laced handkerchief for me, and, ere I could remonstrate, passed a tiny jewelled pin into my powdered hair, where it sparkled like a frost crystal.

  “I’m no macaroni!” I said, angrily; “take it away!”

  “Cap’in Ormond, suh, you sho’ is de fines’ young gemm’n in de province, suh,” he pleaded. “Dess regahd yo’se’f, suh, in dishyere lookum-glass. What I done tell you? Look foh yo’se’f, suh! Cap’in Butler gwine see how de quality gemm’n fixes up! Suh John Johnsing he gwine see! Dat ole Kunnel Butler he gwine see, too! Heah yo’ is, suh, dess a-bloomin’ lak de pink-an’-silver ghos’ flower wif de gole heart.”

  “Cato,” I asked, curiously, “why do you take pride in tricking out a stranger to dazzle your own people?”

  The old man stood silent a moment, then looked up with the mild eyes of an aged hound long privileged in honorable retirement.

  “Is you sho’ a Ormond, suh?”

  “Yes, Cato.”

  “Might you come f’om de Spanish grants, suh, long de Halifax?”

  “Yes, yes; but we are English now. How did you know I came from the Halifax?”

  “I knowed it, suh; I knowed h’it muss be dat-away!”

  “How do you know it, Cato?”

  “I spec’ you favor yo’ pap, suh, de ole Kunnel—”

  “My father!”

  “Mah ole marster, suh; I was raised ‘long Matanzas, suh. Spanish man done cotch me on de Tomoka an’ ship me to Quebec. Ole Suh William Johnsing, he done buy me; Suh John, he done sell me; Mars Varick, he buy me; an’ hyah ah is, suh — heart dess daid foh de Halifax san’s.”

  He bent his withered head and laid his face on my hands, but no tear fell.

  After a moment he straightened, snuffled, and smiled, opening his lips with a dry click.

  “H’it’s dat-a-way, suh. Ole Cato dess ‘bleged to fix up de young marster. Pride o’ fambly, suh. What might you be desirin’ now, Mars’ Ormond? One li’l drap o’ musk on yoh hanker? Lawd save us, but you sho’ is gallus dishyere day! Spec’ Miss Dorry gwine blink de vi’lets in her eyes. Yaas, suh. Miss Dorry am de only one, suh; de onliest Ormond in dishyere fambly. Seem mos’ lak she done throw back to our folk, suh. Miss Dorry ain’ no Varick; Miss Dorry all Ormond, suh, dess lak you an’ me! Yaas, suh, h’its dat-a-way; h’it sho’ is, Mars’ Ormond.”

  I drew a deep, quivering breath. Home seemed so far, and the old slave would never live to see it. I felt as though this steel-cold North held me, too, like a trap — never to unclose.

  “Cato,” I said, abruptly, “let us go home.”

  He understood; a gleam of purest joy flickered in his eyes, then died out, quenched in swelling tears.

  He wept awhile, standing there in the centre of the room, smearing the tears away with the flapping sleeves of his tarnished livery, while, like a committed panther, I paced the walls, to and fro, to and fro, heart aching for escape.

  The light in the west deepened above the forests; a long, glowing crack opened between two thunderous clouds, like a hint of hidden hell, firing the whole sky. And in the blaze the crows winged, two and two, like witches flying home to the infernal pit, now all ablaze and kindling coal on coal along the dark sky’s sombre brink.

  Then the red bars faded on my wall to pink, to ashes; a fleck of rosy cloud in mid-zenith glimmered and went out, and the round edges of the world were curtained with the night.

  Behind me, Cato struck flint and lighted two tall candles; outside the lawn, near the stockade, a stable-lad set a conch-horn to his lips, blowing a deep, melodious cattle-call, and far away I heard them coming — tin, ton! tin, ton! tinkle! — through the woods, slowly, slowly, till in the freshening dusk I smelled their milk and heard them lowing at the unseen pasture-bars.

  I turned sharply; the candle-light dazzled me. As I passed Cato, the old man bowed till his coat-cuffs hung covering his dusky, wrinkled fingers.

  “When we go, we go together, Cato,” I said, huskily, and so passed on through the brightly lighted hallway and down the stairs.

  Candle-light glimmered on the dark pictures, the rusted circles of arms, the stags’ heads with their dusty eyes. A servant in yellow livery, lounging by the door, rose from the settle as I appeared and threw open the door on the left, announcing, “Cap’m Ormond!” in a slovenly fashion which merited a rebuke from somebody.

  The room into which the yokel ushered me appeared to be a library, low of ceiling, misty with sour pipe smoke, which curled and floated level, wavering as the door closed behind me.

  Through the fog, which nigh choked me with its staleness, I perceived a bulky gentleman seated at ease, sucking a long clay pipe, his bulging legs cocked up on a card-table, his little, inflamed eyes twinkling red in the candle-light.

  “YOU’RE MY COUSIN, GEORGE ORMOND, OR I’M THE FATTEST LIAR SOUTH OF MONTREAL!”.

  “Captain Ormond?” he cried. “Captain be damned; you’re my cousin, George Ormond, or I’m the fattest liar south of Montreal! Who the devil put ’em up to captaining you — eh? Was it that minx Dorothy? Dammy, I took it that the old Colonel had come to plague me from his grave — your father, sir! And a cursed fine fellow, if he was second cousin to a Varick, which he could not help, not he! — though I’ve heard him damn his luck to my very face, sir! Yes, sir, under my very nose!”

  He fell into a fit of fat coughing, and seized a glass of spirits-and-water which stood on the table near his feet. The draught allayed his spasm; he wiped his broad, purple face, chuckled, tossed off the last of the liquor with a smack, and held out a mottled, fat hand, bare of wrist-lace. “Here’s my heart with it, George!” he cried. “I’d stand up to greet you, but it takes ten minutes for me to find these feet o’ mine, so I’ll not keep you waiting. There’s a chair; fill it with that pretty body of yours; cock up your feet — here’s a pipe — here’s snuff — here’s the best rum north o’ Norfolk, which that ass Dunmore laid in ashes to spite those who kicked him out!”

  He squeezed my hand affectionately. “Pretty bird! Dammy
, but you’ll break a heart or two, you rogue! Oh, you are your father all over again; it’s that way with you Ormonds — all alike, and handsome as that young devil Lucifer; too proud to be proud o’ your dukes and admirals, and a thousand years of waiting on your King. As lads together your father used to take me by the ear and cuff me, crying, ‘Beast! beast! You eat and drink too much! An Ormond’s heart lies not in his belly!’ And I kicked back, fighting stoutly for the crust he dragged me from. Dammy, why not? There’s more Dutch Varick than Irish Ormond in me. Remember that, George, and we shall get on famously together, you and I. Forget it, and we quarrel. Hey! fill that tall Italian glass for a toast. I give you the family, George. May they keep tight hold on what is theirs through all this cursed war-folly. Here’s to the patroons, God bless ‘em!”

  Forced by courtesy to drink ere I had yet tasted meat, I did my part with the best grace I could muster, turning the beautiful glass downward, with a bow to my host.

  “The same trick o’ grace in neck and wrist,” he muttered, thickly, wiping his lips. “All Ormond, all Ormond, George, like that vixen o’ mine, Dorothy. Hey! It’s not too often that good blood throws back; the mongrel shows oftenest; but that big chit of a lass is no Varick; she’s Ormond to the bones of her. Ruyven’s a red-head; there’s red in the rest o’ them, and the slow Dutch blood. But Dorothy’s eyes are like those wild iris-blooms that purple all our meadows, and she has the Ormond hair — that thick, dull gold, which that French Ormond, of King Stephen’s time, was dowered with by his Saxon mother, Helen. Eh? You see, I read it in that book your father left us. If I’m no Ormond, I like to find out why, and I love to dispute the Ormond claim which Walter Butler makes — he with his dark face and hair, and those dusky, golden eyes of his, which turn so yellow when I plague him — the mad wild-cat that he is.”

  Another fit of choking closed his throat, and again he soaked it open with his chilled toddy, rattling the stick to stir it well ere he drained it at a single, gobbling gulp.