“With whom have you been talking, sir?” he sneered, removing his pipe from his yellow teeth.
“With one of your tenants yesterday, a certain Christian Schell, lately returned with Stoner’s scout.”
“And what did Stoner’s men see in the northwest?” he demanded, contemptuously.
“They saw half a thousand Mohawks with eyes painted in black circles and white, Sir Lupus.”
“For the planting-dance!” he muttered.
“No, Sir Lupus. The castles are empty, the villages deserted. There is not one Mohawk left on their ancient lands, there is not one seed planted, not one foot of soil cultivated, not one apple-bough grafted, not one fish-line set!
“And you tell me the Mohawks are painted for the planting-dance, in black and white? With every hatchet shining like silver, and every knife ground to a razor-edge, and every rifle polished, and every flint new?”
“Who saw such things?” he asked, hoarsely.
“Christian Schell, of Stoner’s scout.”
“Now God curse them if they lift an arm to harm a Tryon County man!” he burst out. “I’ll not believe it of the British gentlemen who differ with us over taxing tea! No, dammy if I’ll credit such a monstrous thing as this alliance!”
“Yet, a few nights since, sir, you heard Walter Butler and Sir John threaten to use the Mohawks.”
“And did not heed them!” he said, angrily. “It is all talk, all threats, and empty warning. I tell you they dare not for their names’ sakes employ the savages against their own kind — against friends who think not as they think — against old neighbors, ay, their own kin!
“Nor dare we. Look at Schuyler — a gentleman, if ever there was one on this rotten earth — standing, belts in hand, before the sachems of the confederacy, not soliciting Cayuga support, not begging Seneca aid, not proposing a foul alliance with the Onondagas; but demanding right manfully that the confederacy remain neutral; nay, more, he repulsed offers of warriors from the Oneidas to scout for him, knowing what that sweet word ‘scout’ implied — God bless him I ... I have no love for Schuyler.... He lately called me ‘malt-worm,’ and, if I’m not at fault, he added, ‘skin-flint Dutchman,’ or some such tribute to my thrift. But he has conducted like a man of honor in this Iroquois matter, and I care not who hears me say it!”
He settled himself in his chair, mumbling in a rumbling voice, and all I could make out was here and there a curse or two distributed impartially ‘twixt Tory and rebel and other asses now untethered in the world.
“Well, sir,” I said, “from all I can gather, Burgoyne is marching southward through the lakes, and Clinton is gathering an army in New York to march north and meet Burgoyne, and now comes this Barry St. Leger on the flank, aiming to join the others at Albany after taking Stanwix and Johnstown on the march — three spears to pierce a common centre, three torches to fire three valleys, and you neutral Tryon men in the centre, calm, undismayed, smoking your pipes and singing songs of peace and good-will for all on earth.”
“And why not, sir!” he snapped.
“Did you ever hear of Juggernaut?”
“I’ve heard the name — a Frenchman, was he not? I think he burned Schenectady.”
“No, sir; he is a heathen god.”
“And what the devil, sir, has Tryon County to do with heathen gods!” he bawled.
“You shall see — when the wheels pass,” I said, gloomily.
He folded his fat hands over his stomach and smoked in obstinate silence. I, too, was silent; again a faint disgust for this man seized me. How noble and unselfish now appeared the conduct of those poor tenants of his who had abandoned their little farms to answer Schuyler’s call! — trudging northward with wives and babes, trusting to God for bread to fall like manna in this wilderness to save the frail lives of their loved ones, while they faced the trained troops of Great Britain, and perhaps the Iroquois.
And here he sat, the patroon, sucking his pipe, nursing his stomach; too cautious, too thrifty to stand like a man, even for the honor of his own roof-tree! Lord! how mean, how sordid did he look to me, sulking there, his mottled double-chin crowded out upon his stock, his bow-legs wide to cradle the huge belly, his small eyes obstinately a-squint and partly shut, which lent a gross shrewdness to the expanse of fat, almost baleful, like the eye of a squid in its shapeless, jellied body!
“What are your plans?” he said, abruptly.
I told him that, through Sir George, I had placed my poor services at the State’s disposal.
“You mean the rebel State’s disposal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you are ready to enlist?”
“Quite ready, Sir Lupus.”
“Only awaiting summons from Clinton and Schuyler?” he sneered.
“That is all, sir.”
“And what about your properties in Florida?”
“I can do nothing there. If they confiscate them in my absence, they might do worse were I to go back and defy them. I believe my life is worth something to our cause, and it would be only to waste it foolishly if I returned to fight for a few indigo-vats and canefields.”
“While you can remain here and fight for other people’s hen-coops, eh?”
“No, sir; only to take up the common quarrel and stand for that liberty which we inherited from those who now seek to dispossess us.”
“Quite an orator!” he observed, grimly. “The Ormonds were formerly more ready with their swords than with their tongues.”
“I trust I shall not fail to sustain their traditions,” I said, controlling my anger with a desperate effort.
He burst out into a hollow laugh.
“There you go, red as a turkey-cock and madder than a singed tree-cat! George, can’t you let me plague you in comfort! Dammy, it’s undutiful! For pity’s sake! let me sneer — let me gibe and jeer if it eases me.”
I glared at him, half inclined to laugh.
“Curse it!” he said, wrathfully, “I’m serious. You don’t know how serious I am. It’s no laughing matter, George. I must do something to ease me!” He burst out into a roar, swearing in volleys.
“D’ ye think I wish to appear contemptible?” he shouted. “D’ ye think I like to sit here like an old wife, scolding in one breath and preaching thrift in the next? A weak-kneed, chicken-livered, white-bellied old bullfrog that squeaks and jumps, plunk! into the puddle when a footstep falls in the grass! Am I not a patroon? Am I not Dutch? Granted I’m fat and slow and a glutton, and lazy as a wolverine. I can fight like one, too! Don’t make any mistake there, George!”
His broad face flushed crimson, his little, green eyes snapped fire.
“D’ ye think I don’t love a fight as well as my neighbor? D’ ye think I’ve a stomach for insults and flouts and winks and nudges? Have I a liver to sit doing sums on my thumbs when these impudent British are kicking my people out of their own doors? Am I of a kidney to smile and bow, and swallow and digest the orders of Tory swashbucklers, who lay down a rule of conduct for men who should be framing rules of common decency for them? D’ ye think I’m a snail or a potato or an empty pair o’ breeches? Damnation!”
Rage convulsed him. He recovered his self-command slowly, smashing his pipe in the interval; and I, astonished beyond measure, waited for the explanation which he appeared to be disposed to give.
“If I’m what I am,” he said, hoarsely, “an old jack-ass he-hawing ‘Peace! peace! thrift! thrift!’ it is because I must and not because the music pleases me.... And I had not meant to tell you why — for none other suspects it — but my personal honor is at stake. I am in debt to a friend, George, and unless I am left in peace here to collect my tithes and till my fields and run my mills and ship my pearl-ashes, I can never hope to pay a debt of honor incurred — and which I mean to pay, if I live, so help me God!
“Lad, if this house, these farms, these acres were my own, do you think I’d hesitate to polish up that old sword yonder that my father carried when Schenectady went up
in flames?... Know me better, George!... Know that this condemnation to inaction is the bitterest trial I have ever known. How easy it would be for me to throw my own property into one balance, my sword into the other, and say, ‘Defend the one with the other or be robbed!’ But I can’t throw another man’s lands into the balance. I can’t raise the war-yelp and go careering about after glory when I owe every shilling I possess and thousands more to an honorable and generous gentleman who refused all security for the loan save my own word of honor.
“And now, simple, brave, high-minded as he is, he offers to return me my word of honor, free me from his debt, and leave me unshackled to conduct in this coming war as I see fit.
“But that is more than he can do, George. My word once pledged can only be redeemed by what it stood for, and he is powerless to give it back.
“That is all, sir.... Pray think more kindly of an old fool in future, when you plume yourself upon your liberty to draw sword in the most just cause this world has ever known.”
“It is I who am the fool, Sir Lupus,” I said, in a low voice.
XI
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
I remember it was the last day of May before I saw my cousin Dorothy again.
Late that afternoon I had taken a fishing-rod and a book, The Poems of Pansard, and had set out for the grist-mill on the stream below the log-bridge; but did not go by road, as the dust was deep, so instead crossed the meadow and entered the cool thicket, making a shorter route to the stream.
Through the woodland, as I passed, I saw violets in hollows and blue innocence starring moist glades with its heavenly color, and in the drier woods those slender-stemmed blue bell-flowers which some call the Venus’s looking-glass.
In my saddened and rebellious heart a more innocent passion stirred and awoke — the tender pleasure I have always found in seeking out those shy people of the forest, the wild blossoms — a harmless pleasure, for it is ever my habit to leave them undisturbed upon their stalks.
Deeper in the forest pink moccasin-flowers bloomed among rocks, and the air was tinctured with a honeyed smell from the spiked orchis cradled in its sheltering leaf under the hemlock shade.
Once, as I crossed a marshy place, about me floated a violet perfume, and I was at a loss to find its source until I espied a single purple blossom of the Arethusa bedded in sturdy thickets of rose-azalea, faintly spicy, and all humming with the wings of plundering bees.
Underfoot my shoes brushed through spikenard, and fell silently on carpets of moss-pinks, and once I saw a matted bed of late Mayflower, and the forest dusk grew sweeter and sweeter, saturating all the woodland, until each breath I drew seemed to intoxicate.
Spring languor was in earth and sky, and in my bones, too; yet, through this Northern forest ever and anon came faint reminders of receding snows, melting beyond the Canadas — delicate zephyrs, tinctured with the far scent of frost, flavoring the sun’s balm at moments with a sharper essence.
Now traversing a ferny space edged in with sweetbrier, a breeze accompanied me, caressing neck and hair, stirring a sudden warmth upon my cheek like a breathless maid close beside me, whispering.
Then through the rustle of leafy depths I heard the stream’s laughter, very far away, and I turned to the left across the moss, walking more swiftly till I came to the log-bridge where the road crosses. Below me leaped the stream, deep in its ravine of slate, roaring over the dam above the rocky gorge only to flow out again between the ledge and the stone foundations of the grist-mill opposite. Down into the ravine and under the dam I climbed, using the mossy steps that nature had cut in the slate, and found a rock to sit on where the spray from the dam could not drench me. And here I baited my hook and cast out, so that the swirling water might carry my lure under the mill’s foundations, where Ruyven said big, dusky trout most often lurked.
But I am no fisherman, and it gives me no pleasure to drag a finny creature from its element and see its poor mouth gasp and its eyes glaze and the fiery dots on its quivering sides grow dimmer. So when a sly trout snatched off my bait I was in no mood to cover my hook again, but set the rod on the rocks and let the bright current waft my line as it would, harmless now as the dusty alder leaves dimpling yonder ripple. So I opened my book, idly attentive, reading The Poems of Pansard, while dappled shadows of clustered maple leaves moved on the page, and droning bees set old Pansard’s lines to music.
“Like two sweet skylarks springing skyward, singing,
Piercing the empyrean of blinding light,
So shall our souls take flight, serenely winging,
Soaring on azure heights to God’s delight;
While from below through sombre deeps come stealing
The floating notes of earthward church-bells pealing.”
My thoughts wandered and the yellow page faded to a glimmer amid pale spots of sunshine waning when some slow cloud drifted across the sun. Again my eyes returned to the printed page, and again thought parted from its moorings, a derelict upon the tide of memory. Far in the forest I heard the white-throat’s call with the endless, sad refrain, “Weep-wee-p! Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy!” Though some vow that the little bird sings plainly, “Sweet-sw-eet! Canada, Canada, Canada!”
Then for a while I closed my eyes until, slowly, that awakening sense that somebody was looking at me came over me, and I raised my head.
Dorothy stood on the log-bridge above the dam, elbows on the rail, gazing pensively at me.
“Well, of all idle men!” she said, steadying her voice perceptibly. “Shall I come down?”
And without waiting for a reply she walked around to the south end of the bridge and began to descend the ravine.
I offered assistance; she ignored it and picked her own way down the cleft to the stream-side.
“It seems a thousand years since I have seen you,” she said. “What have you been doing all this while? What are you doing now? Reading? Oh! fishing! And can you catch nothing, silly?... Give me that rod.... No, I don’t want it, after all; let the trout swim in peace.... How pale you have grown, cousin!”
“You also, Dorothy,” I said.
“Oh, I know that; there’s a glass in my room, thank you.... I thought I’d come down.... There is company at the house — some of Colonel Gansevoort’s officers, Third Regiment of the New York line, if you please, and two impudent young ensigns of the Half-moon Regiment, all on their way to Stanwix fort.”
She seated herself on the deep moss and balanced her back against a silver-birch tree.
“They’re at the house, all these men,” she said; “and what do you think? General Schuyler and his lady are to arrive this evening, and I’m to receive them, dressed in my best tucker!... and there may be others with them, though the General comes on a tour of inspection, being anxious lest disorder break out in this district if he is compelled to abandon Ticonderoga.... What do you think of that — George?”
My name fell so sweetly, so confidently, from her lips that I looked up in warm pleasure and found her grave eyes searching mine.
“Make it easier for me,” she said, in a low voice. “How can I talk to you if you do not answer me?”
“I — I mean to answer, Dorothy,” I stammered; “I am very thankful for your kindness to me.”
“Do you think it is hard to be kind to you?” she murmured. “What happiness if I only might be kind!” She hid her face in her hands and bowed her head. “Pay no heed to me,” she said; “I — I thought I could see you and control this rebel tongue of mine. And here am I with heart insurgent beating the long roll and every nerve a-quiver with sedition!”
“What are you saying?” I protested, miserably.
She dropped her hands from her face and gazed at me quite calmly.
“Saying? I was saying that these rocks are wet, and that I was silly to come down here in my Pompadour shoes and stockings, and I’m silly to stay here, and I’m going!”
And go she did, up over the moss and rock like a fawn, and I after her to the top
of the bank, where she seemed vastly surprised to see me.
“Now I pray you choose which way you mean to stroll,” she said, impatiently. “Here lie two paths, and I will take this straight and narrow one.”
She turned sharply and I with her, and for a long time we walked swiftly, side by side, exchanging neither word nor glance until at last she stopped short, seated herself on a mossy log, and touched her hot face with a crumpled bit of lace and cambric.
“I tell you what, Mr. Longshanks!” she said. “I shall go no farther with you unless you talk to me. Mercy on the lad with his seven-league boots! He has me breathless and both hat-strings flying and my shoe-points dragging to trip my heels! Sit down, sir, till I knot my ribbons under my ear; and I’ll thank you to tie my shoe-points! Not doubled in a sailor’s-knot, silly!... And, oh, cousin, I would I had a sun-mask!... Now you are laughing! Oh, I know you think me a country hoyden, careless of sunburn and dust! But I’m not. I love a smooth, white skin as well as any London beau who praises it in verses. And I shall have one for myself, too. You may see, to-night, if the Misses Carmichael come with Lady Schuyler, for we’ll have a dance, perhaps, and I mean to paint and patch and powder till you’d swear me a French marquise!... Cousin, this narrow forest pathway leads across the water back to the house. Shall we take it?... You will have to carry me over the stream, for I’ll not wet my shins for love of any man, mark that!”
She tied her pink hat-ribbons under her chin and stood up while I made ready; then I lifted her from the ground. Very gravely she dropped her arms around my neck as I stepped into the rushing current and waded out, the water curling almost to my knee-buckles. So we crossed the grist-mill stream in silence, eyes averted from each other’s faces; and in silence, too, we resumed the straight and narrow path, now deep with last year’s leaves, until we came to a hot, sandy bank covered with wild strawberries, overlooking the stream.
In a moment she was on her knees, filling her handkerchief with strawberries, and I sat down in the yellow sand, eyes following the stream where it sparkled deep under its leafy screen below.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 150