Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Now, wary of ambuscade, we moved on, rifles primed and cocked, traversing a wet path bowered by willow and alder, until we reached a cornfield, fenced with split rails. The path skirted this, continuing under a line of huge trees, then ascended a stony little hill, on which a shadowy house stood.

  “Beacraft’s,” whispered Murphy.

  Sir George suggested that we surround the house and watch it till dawn; so Mount circled the little hill and took station in the north, Sir George moved eastward, Murphy crept to the west, and I sat down under the last tree in the lane, cocked rifle on my knees, pan sheltered under my round cap of doeskin.

  Sunrise was to be our signal to move forward. The hours dragged; the stars grew no paler; no sign of life appeared in the ghostly house save when the west wind brought to me a faint scent of smoke, invisible as yet above the single chimney.

  But after a long while I knew that dawn was on the way towards the western hills, for a bird twittered restlessly in the tree above me, and I began to feel, rather than hear, a multitude of feathered stirrings all about me in the darkness.

  Would dawn never come? The stars seemed brighter than ever — no, one on the eastern horizon twinkled paler; the blue-black sky had faded; another star paled; others lost their diamond lustre; a silvery pallor spread throughout the east, while the increasing chorus of the birds grew in my ears.

  Then a cock-crow rang out, close by, and the bird o’ dawn’s clear fanfare roused the feathered world to a rushing outpour of song.

  All the east was yellow now; a rose-light quivered behind the forest like the shimmer of a hidden fire; then a blinding shaft of light fell across the world.

  Springing to my feet, I shouldered my rifle and started across the pasture, ankle deep in glittering dew; and as I advanced Sir George appeared, breasting the hill from the east; Murphy’s big bulk loomed in the west; and, as we met before the door of the house, Jack Mount sauntered around the corner, chewing a grass-stem, his long, brown rifle cradled in his arm.

  “Rap on the door, Mount,” I said. Mount gave a round double rap, chewed his grass-stem, considered, then rapped again, humming to himself in an under-tone:

  “Is the old fox in?

  Is the old fox out?

  Is the old fox gone to Glo-ry?

  Oh, he’s just come in,

  But he’s just gone out,

  And I hope you like my sto-ry!

  Tink-a-diddle-diddle-diddle,

  Tink-a-diddle-diddle-dum—”

  “Rap louder,” I said.

  Mount obeyed, chewed reflectively, and scratched his ear.

  “Is the Tory in?

  Is the Tory out?

  Is the Tory gone to Glo-ry?

  Oh, he’s just come in.

  But he’s just gone out—”

  “Knock louder,” I repeated.

  Murphy said he could drive the door in with his gun-butt; I shook my head.

  “Somebody’s coming,” observed Mount —

  “Tink-a-diddle-diddle—”

  The door opened and a lean, dark-faced man appeared, dressed in his smalls and shirt. He favored us with a sour look, which deepened to a scowl when he recognized Mount, who saluted him cheerfully.

  “Hello, Beacraft, old cock! How’s the mad world usin’ you these palmy, balmy days?”

  “Pretty well,” said Beacraft, sullenly.

  “That’s right, that’s right,” cried Mount. “My friends and I thought we’d just drop around. Ain’t you glad, Beacraft, old buck?”

  “Not very,” said Beacraft.

  “Not very!” echoed Mount, in apparent dismay and sorrow. “Ain’t you enj’yin’ good health, Beacraft?”

  “I’m well, but I’m busy,” said the man, slowly.

  “So are we, so are we,” cried Mount, with a brisk laugh. “Come in, friends; you must know my old acquaintance Beacraft better; a King’s man, gentlemen, so we can all feel at home now!”

  For a moment Beacraft looked as though he meant to shut the door in our faces, but Mount’s huge bulk was in the way, and we all followed his lead, entering a large, unplastered room, part kitchen, part bedroom.

  “A King’s man,” repeated Mount, cordially, rubbing his hands at the smouldering fire and looking around in apparent satisfaction. “A King’s man; what the nasty rebels call a ‘Tory,’ gentlemen. My! Ain’t this nice to be all together so friendly and cosey with my old friend Beacraft? Who’s visitin’ ye, Beacraft? Anybody sleepin’ up-stairs, old friend?”

  Beacraft looked around at us, and his eyes rested on Sir George.

  “Who be you?” he asked.

  “This is my friend, Mr. Covert,” said Mount, fairly sweating cordiality from every pore— “my dear old friend, Mr. Covert—”

  “Oh,” said Beacraft, “I thought he was Sir George Covert.... And yonder stands your dear old friend Timothy Murphy, I suppose?”

  “Exactly,” smiled Mount, rubbing his palms in appreciation.

  The man gave me an evil look.

  “I don’t know you,” he said, “but I could guess your business.” And to Mount: “What do you want?”

  “We want to know,” said I, “whether Captain Walter Butler is lodging here?”

  “He was,” said Beacraft, grimly; “he left yesterday.”

  “And I hope you like my sto-ry!”

  hummed Mount, strolling about the room, peeping into closets and cupboards, poking under the bed with his rifle, and finally coming to a halt at the foot of the stairs with his head on one side, like a jay-bird immersed in thought.

  Murphy, who had quietly entered the cellar, returned empty-handed, and, at a signal from me, stepped outside and seated himself on a chopping-block in the yard, from whence he commanded a view of the house and vicinity.

  “Now, Mr. Beacraft,” I said, “whoever lodges above must come down; and it would be pleasanter for everybody if you carried the invitation.”

  “Do you propose to violate the privacy of my house?” he asked.

  “I certainly do.”

  “Where is your warrant of authority?” he inquired, fixing his penetrating eyes on mine.

  “I have my authority from the General commanding this department. My instructions are verbal — my warrant is military necessity. I fear that this explanation must satisfy you.”

  “It does not,” he said, doggedly.

  “That is unfortunate,” I observed. “I will give you one more chance to answer my question. What person or persons are on the floor above?”

  “Captain Butler was there; he departed yesterday with his mother and sister,” replied Beacraft, maliciously.

  “Is that all?”

  “Miss Brant is there,” he muttered.

  I glanced at Sir George, who had risen to pace the floor, throwing back his military cloak. At sight of his uniform Beacraft’s small eyes seemed to dart fire.

  “What were you doing when we knocked?” I inquired.

  “Cooking,” he replied, tersely.

  “Then cook breakfast for us all — and Miss Brant,” I said. “Mount, help Mr. Beacraft with the corn-bread and boil those eggs. Sir George, I want Murphy to stay outside, so if you would spread the cloth—”

  “Of course,” he said, nervously; and I started up the flimsy wooden stairway, which shook as I mounted. Beacraft’s malignant eyes followed me for a moment, then he thrust his hands into his pockets and glowered at Mount, who, whistling cheerfully, squatted before the fireplace, blowing the embers with a pair of home-made bellows.

  On the floor above, four doors faced the narrow passage-way. I knocked at one. A gentle, sleepy voice answered:

  “Very well.”

  Then, in turn, I entered each of the remaining rooms and searched. In the first room there was nothing but a bed and a bit of mirror framed in pine; in the second, another bed and a clothes-press which contained an empty cider-jug and a tattered almanac; in the third room a mattress lay on the floor, and beside it two ink-horns, several quills, and a sheet of blue p
aper, such as comes wrapped around a sugar-loaf. The sheet of paper was pinned to the floor with pine splinters, as though a draughtsman had prepared it for drawing some plan, but there were no lines on it, and I was about to leave it when a peculiar odor in the close air of the room brought me back to re-examine it on both sides.

  There was no mark on the blue surface. I picked up an ink-horn, sniffed it, and spilled a drop of the fluid on my finger. The fluid left no stain, but the odor I had noticed certainly came from it. I folded the paper and placed it in my beaded pouch, then descended the stairs, to find Mount stirring the corn-bread and Sir George laying a cloth over the kitchen table, while Beacraft sat moodily by the window, watching everybody askance. The fire needed mending and I used the bellows. And, as I knelt there on the hearth, I saw a milky white stain slowly spread over the finger which I had dipped into the ink-horn. I walked to the door and stood in the cool morning air. Slowly the white stain disappeared.

  “Mount,” I said, sharply, “you and Murphy and Beacraft will eat your breakfast at once — and be quick about it.” And I motioned Murphy into the house and sat down on an old plough to wait.

  Through the open door I could see the two big riflemen plying spoon and knife, while Beacraft picked furtively at his johnny-cake, eyes travelling restlessly from Mount to Murphy, from Sir George to the wooden stairway.

  My riflemen ate like hounds after a chase, tipping their porridge-dishes to scrape them clean, then bolted eggs and smoking corn-bread in a trice, and rose, taking Beacraft with them to the doorway.

  “Fill your pipes, lads,” I said. “Sit out in the sun yonder. Mr. Beacraft may have some excellent stories to tell you.”

  “I must do my work,” said Beacraft, angrily, but Mount and Murphy each took an arm and led the unwilling man across the strip of potato-hills to a grassy knoll under a big oak, from whence a view of the house and clearing could be obtained. When I entered the house again, Sir George was busy removing soiled plates and arranging covers for three; and I sat down close to the fire, drawing the square of blue paper from my pouch and spreading it to the blaze. When it was piping hot I laid it upon my knees and examined the design. What I had before me was a well-drawn map of the Kingsland district, made in white outline, showing trails and distances between farms. And, out of fifty farms marked, forty-three bore the word “Rebel,” and were ornamented by little red hatchets.

  Also, to every house was affixed the number, sex, and age of its inhabitants, even down to the three-months babe in the cradle, the number of cattle, the amount of grain in the barns.

  Further, the Kingsland district of the county was divided into three sections, the first marked “McCraw’s Operations,” the second “Butler and Indians,” the third “St. Leger’s Indians and Royal Greens.” The paper was signed by Uriah Beacraft.

  After a few moments I folded this carefully prepared plan for deliberate and wholesale murder and placed it in my wallet.

  Sir George looked up at me with a question in his eyes. I nodded, saying: “We have enough to arrest Beacraft. If you cannot persuade Magdalen Brant, we must arrest her, too. You had best use all your art, Sir George.”

  “I will do what I can,” he said, gravely.

  A moment later a light step sounded on the stairs; we both sprang to our feet and removed our hats. Magdalen Brant appeared, fresh and sweet as a rose-peony on a dewy morning.

  “Sir George!” she exclaimed, in flushed dismay— “and you, too, Mr. Ormond!”

  Sir George bowed, laughingly, saying that our journey had brought us so near her that we could not neglect to pay our respects.

  “Where is Mr. Beacraft?” she said, bewildered, and at the same moment caught sight of him through the open doorway, seated under the oak-tree, apparently in delightful confab with Murphy and Mount.

  “I do not quite understand,” she said, gazing steadily at Sir George. “We are King’s people here. And you—”

  She looked at his blue-and-buff uniform, shaking her head, then glanced at me in my fringed buckskins.

  “I trust this war cannot erase the pleasant memories of other days, Miss Brant,” said Sir George, easily. “May we not have one more hour together before the storm breaks?”

  “What storm, Sir George?” she asked, coloring up.

  “The British invasion,” I said. “We have chosen our colors; your kinsmen have chosen theirs. It is a political, not a personal difference, Miss Brant, and we may honorably clasp hands until our hands are needed for our hilts.”

  Sir George, graceful and debonair, conducted her to her place at the rough table; I served the hasty-pudding, making a jest of the situation. And presently we were eating there in the sunshine of the open doorway, chatting over the dinner at Varicks’, each outvying the others to make the best of an unhappy and delicate situation.

  Sir George spoke of the days in Albany spent with his aunt, and she responded in sensitive reserve, which presently softened under his gentle courtesy, leaving her beautiful, dark eyes a trifle dim and her scarlet mouth quivering,

  “It is like another life,” she said. “It was too lovely to last. Ah, those dear people in Albany, and their great kindness to me! And now I shall never see them again.”

  “Why not?” asked Sir George. “My aunt Livingston would welcome you.”

  “I cannot abandon my own kin, Sir George,” she said, raising her distressed eyes to his.

  “There are moments when it is best to sever such ties,” I observed.

  “Perhaps,” she said, quickly; “but this is not the moment, Mr. Ormond. My kinsmen are exiled fugitives, deprived of their own lands by those who have risen in rebellion against our King. How can I, whom they loved in their prosperity, leave them in their adversity?”

  “You speak of Guy Johnson and Sir John?” I asked.

  “Yes; and of those brave people whose blood flows in my veins,” she said, quietly. “Where is the Mohawk nation now, Sir George? This is their country, secured to them by solemn oath and covenant, inviolate for all time. Their belts lie with the King of England; his belts lie still with my people, the Mohawks. Where are they?”

  “Fled to Oswego with Sir John,” I said.

  “And homeless!” she added, in a low, tense voice— “homeless, without clothing, without food, save what Guy Johnson gives them; their women and children utterly helpless, the graves of their fathers abandoned, their fireplace at Onondaga cold, and the brands scattered for the first time in a thousand years I This have you Boston people done — done already, without striking a blow.”

  She turned her head proudly and looked straight at Sir George.

  “Is it not the truth?” she asked.

  “Only in part,” he said, gently. Then, with infinite pains and delicacy, he told her of our government’s desire that the Iroquois should not engage in the struggle; that if they had consented to neutrality they might have remained in possession of their lands and all their ancient rights, guaranteed by our Congress.

  He pointed out the fatal consequences of Guy Johnson’s councils, the effect of Butler’s lying promises, the dreadful results of such a struggle between Indians, maddened by the loss of their own homes, and settlers desperately clinging to theirs.

  “It is not the Mohawks I blame,” he said, “it is those to whom opportunity has given wider education and knowledge — the Tories, who are attempting to use the Six Nations for their own selfish and terrible ends!... If in your veins run a few drops of Mohawk blood, my child, English blood runs there, too. Be true to your bright Mohawk blood; be true to the generous English blood. It were cowardly to deny either — shameful to betray the one for the other.”

  She gazed at him, fascinated; his voice swayed her, his handsome, grave face held her. Whether it was reason or emotion, mind or heart, I know not, but her whole sensitive being seemed to respond to his voice; and as he played upon this lovely human instrument, varying his deep theme, she responded in every nerve, every breath. Reason, hope, sorrow, tenderness, pass
ion — all these I read in her deep, velvet eyes, and in the mute language of her lips, and in the timing pulse-beat under the lace on her breast.

  I rose and walked to the door. She did not heed my going, nor did Sir George.

  Under the oak-tree I found Murphy and Mount, smoking their pipes and watching Beacraft, who lay with his rough head pillowed on his arms, feigning slumber.

  “Why did you mark so many houses with the red hatchet?” I asked, pleasantly.

  He did not move a muscle, but over his face a deep color spread to the neck and hair.

  “Murphy,” I said, “take that prisoner to General Schuyler!”

  Beacraft sprang up, glaring at me out of bloodshot eyes.

  “Shoot him if he breaks away,” I added.

  From his convulsed and distorted lips a torrent of profanity burst as Murphy laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and faced him eastward. I drew the blue paper from my wallet, whispered to Murphy, and handed it to him. He shoved it inside the breast of his hunting-shirt, cocked his rifle, and tapped Beacraft on the arm.

  So they marched away across the sunlit pasture, where blackbirds walked among the cattle, and the dew sparkled in tinted drops of fire.

  In all my horror of the man I pitied him, for I knew he was going to his death, there through the fresh, sweet morning, under the blue heavens. Once I saw him look up, as though to take a last long look at a free sky, and my heart ached heavily. Yet he had plotted death in its most dreadful shapes for others who loved life as well as he — death to neighbors, death to strangers — whole families, whom he had perhaps never even seen — to mothers, to fathers, old, young, babes in the cradle, babes at the breast; and he had set down the total of one hundred and twenty-nine scalps at twenty dollars each, over his own signature.

  Schuyler had said to me that it was not the black-eyed Indians the people of Tryon County dreaded, but the blue-eyed savages. And I had scarcely understood at that time how the ferocity of demons could lie dormant in white breasts.

  Standing there with Mount under the oak, I saw Sir George and Magdalen Brant leave the house and stroll down the path towards the stream. Sir George was still speaking in his quiet, earnest manner; her eyes were fixed on him so that she scarce heeded her steps, and twice long sprays of sweetbrier caught her gown, and Sir George freed her. But her eyes never wandered from him; and I myself thought he never looked so handsome and courtly as he did now, in his officer’s uniform and black cockade.