Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  He said gravely: “Sir William is dead. May God rest his soul. But this is the situation that confronts us here this day on the frontier: We appealed to the landed gentry of Tryon. They sneered at us, and spoke of us as rebels, and have used us very scornfully — all excepting yourself, John!

  “They forced Alec White on us as Sheriff, and he broke up our meetings. They strove by colour of law and by illegal force to stamp out in Tryon County the last spark of liberty, of manhood among us. God knows what we have endured these last few years from the landed gentry of Tryon! — what we have put up with and stomached since the first shot was fired at Lexington!

  “And what has become of our natural protectors and leaders! Where is the landed gentry of County Tryon at this very hour? Except you, John Drogue, where are our gentlemen of the Northland?”

  “Gone,” said I soberly.

  “Gone to Canada with the murderous Indians they were supposed to hold neutral! Guy Park stands empty and locked. It is an accursed place! Guy Johnson is fled with every Tory desperado and every Indian he could muster! May God damn him!

  “Old John Butler followed; and is brigading malcontents in Canada. Butlersbury stands deserted. May every devil in hell haunt that house! Young Walter Butler is gone with many of our old neighbors of Tryon; and at Niagara he is forming a merciless legion to return and cut our throats.

  “And Colonel Claus is gone, and McDonald, the bloody thief! — with his kilted lunatics and all his Scotch banditti — —”

  “But Sir John remains,” said I quietly.

  “Jack! Are you truly so blinded by your caste! Did not you yourself answer the militia call last winter and march with our good General to disarm Sir John’s popish Highlanders! And even then they lied — and Sir John lied — for they hid their broad-swords and pikes! and delivered them not when they paraded to ground their muskets!”

  “Sir John has given his parole,” I repeated stubbornly.

  “Sir John breaks it every hour of the day!” cried Nick. “And he will break it again when we march to take him. Do you think he won’t learn of our coming? Do you suppose he will stay at the Hall, which he has pledged his honour to do?”

  “His lady is still there.”

  “With his lady I have no quarrel,” rejoined Nick. “I know her to be a very young, very wilful, very bitter, and very unhappy Tory; and she treats us plain folk like dirt under her satin shoon. But for that I care nothing. I pity her because she is the wife of that cold, sleek beast, Sir John. I pity her because she is gently bred and frail and lonely and stuffed with childish pride o’ race. I pity her lot there in the great Hall, with her girl companions and her servants and her slaves. And I pity her because everybody in County Tryon, excepting only herself, knows that Sir John cares nothing for her, and that Claire Putnam of Tribes Hill is Sir John’s doxy! — and be damned to him! And you think such a man will not break his word?

  “He broke his vows to wife and mistress alike. Why should he keep his vows to men?” He slid to the ground as he spoke, and I followed, for our three drummers had formed rank and were drawing their sticks from their cross-belts. Our fifers, also, lined up behind them; and Nick and his young brother, John, took places with them.

  “Fall in! Fall in!” cried Joe Scott, our captain; and everybody ran with their packs and rifles to form in double ranks of sixteen files front while the drums rolled like spring thunder, filling the woods with their hollow sound, and the fifes shrilled like the swish of rain through trees.

  Standing at ease between Dries Bowman and Baltus Weed, I answered to the roll call. Some among us lighted pipes and leaned on our long rifles, chatting with neighbors; others tightened belts and straps, buttoned spatter-dashes, or placed a sprig of hemlock above the black and white cockades on their felt hats.

  Balty Weed, who lived east of me, a thin fellow with red rims to his eyes and dry, sparse hair tied in a queue with a knot of buckskin, asked me in his stealthy way what I thought about our present business, and if our Provincial Congress had not, perhaps, unjustly misjudged Sir John.

  I replied cautiously. I had never trusted Balty because he frequented taverns where few friends to liberty cared to assemble; and he was far too thick with Philip and John Helmer and with Charlie Cady to suit my taste.

  We, in the little hamlet of Fonda’s Bush, were scarce thirty families, all counted; and yet, even here in this trackless wilderness, out of which each man had hewed for himself a patch of garden and a stump pasture along the little river Kennyetto, the bitter quarrel had long smouldered betwixt Tory and Patriot — King’s man and so-called Rebel.

  And this was the Mohawk country. And the Mohawks stood for the King of England.

  The road, I say, ended here; but there was a Mohawk path through twenty odd miles of untouched forest to those healing springs called Saratoga.

  Except for this path and a deep worn war-trail north to the Sacandaga, which was the Iroquois road to Canada, and except for the wood road to Sir William’s Mayfield and Fish House settlements, we of Fonda’s Bush were utterly cut off. Also, save for the new Block House at Mayfield, we were unprotected in a vast wilderness which embodied the very centre of the Mohawk country.

  True, north of us stood that little pleasure house built for his hour of leisure by Sir William, and called “The Summer House.”

  Painted white and green, it stood on a hard ridge jutting out into those dismal, drowned lands which we call the Great Vlaie. But it was not fortified.

  Also, to the north, lay the Fish House, a hunting lodge of Sir William. But these places were no protection for us. On the other hand, they seemed a menace; for Tories, it had been rumoured, were ever skulking along the Vlaie and the Sacandaga; and for aught we knew, these buildings were already designed to be made into block-houses and to be garrisoned by our enemies as soon as the first rifle-shot cracked out in the cause of liberty.

  Our company of the Mohawk Regiment numbered thirty-six rifles — all that now remained of the old company, three-fourths of which had already deserted to the Canadas with Butler. All our officers had fled; Joe Scott of Maxon, formerly a sergeant, now commanded us; Benjamin de Luysnes was our lieutenant; Dries Bowman and Phil Helmer our sergeants — both already suspected.

  Well, we got away from Stoner’s, marching in double file, and only the little creatures of the forest to hear our drums and fifes.

  But the old discipline which had obtained in all our Tryon regiments when Sir William was our Major General and the landed gentry our officers seemed gone; a dull sense of bewilderment reigned, confusing many among us, as when leaderless men begin to realize how they had depended upon a sturdy staff now broken forever.

  We marched with neither advanced guard nor flankers for the first half mile; then Joe Scott halted us and made Nick Stoner put away his beloved fife and sent him out on our right flank where the forest was heavy.

  Me he selected to scout forward on the left — a dirty job where alders and willows grew thick above the bogs.

  But why in God’s name our music played to advertise our coming I can not guess, for our men needed no heartening, having courage and resolution, only the lack of officers causing them any anxiety at all.

  On the left flank of the little column I kept very easily in touch because of this same silly drumming and fifing. And I was glad when we came to high ground and breasted the hills which lead to that higher plateau, over which runs the road to Johnstown.

  Plodding along in the bush, keeping a keen watch for any enemy who might come in paint or in scarlet coat, and the far rhythm of our drums thumping dully in my ears, I wondered whether other companies of my regiment were marching on Johnstown, and if other Tryon regiments — or what was left of them — were also afoot that day.

  Was this, then, the beginning of the war in the Northland? And, when we made a prisoner of Sir John, would all the dusky forests glow with scarlet war-paint and scarlet coats?

  Today birds sang. Tomorrow the terrific panther-slogan of
the Iroquois might break out into hell’s own uproar among these purple hills.

  Was this truly the beginning? Would these still, leafy trails where the crested partridge strutted witness bloody combats between old neighbors — all the horrors of a fratricidal war?

  Would the painted men of the woods hold their hands while Tory and patriot fought it out? Or was this utter and supreme horror to be added to this unnatural conflict?

  Reflecting very seriously upon these matters, I trotted forward, rifle a-trail, and saw nothing living in the woods save a big hare or two in the alders, and the wild brown poultry of the woods, that ran to cover or rose into thunderous flight among the thickets.

  About four o’clock came to me Godfrey Shew, of Fish House, a private soldier like myself, with news of a halt on the Johnstown road, and orders that I eat a snack and rest in my tracks.

  He told me that a company of horse from Albany was out scouting along the Mohawk, and that a column of three thousand men under Colonel Dayton were marching on Johnstown and had passed Schenectady about noon.

  Other news he had none, excepting that our company was to remain where we had halted, in order to stop the road to Fonda’s Bush and Saratoga, in case Sir John should attempt to retire this way.

  “Well, Godfrey,” said I, “if Sir John truly turns out to be without shame and honour, and if he marches this way, there is like to be a lively time for us of the Bush, because Sir John has three hundred Highlanders to thirty odd of ourselves, and enough Borderers and Tory militia to double the count.”

  “We all know that,” said Shew calmly, “and are not afraid.”

  “Do you think our people mean to stand?”

  “Yes,” said he simply.

  A hot thrill of pride tingled my every vein. Suddenly I completely comprehended that these plain folk of Fonda’s Bush were my own people; that I was one of them; that, as they meant to stand for the ancient liberties of all Englishmen, now wickedly denied them, so I also meant to stand to the end.

  And now, at last, I comprehended that I was in actual revolt against that King and against that nobility and gentry who were deserting us when we had so desperate need of them in this coming battle for human freedom in a slave-cursed world.

  The cleavage had come at last; the Northland was clean split; the red livery of the King’s men had suddenly become a target for every honest rifle in Tryon.

  “Godfrey,” I said, “the last chance for truce is passing as you and I stand here, — the last chance for any reconciliation and brotherly understanding between us and our Tory neighbors.”

  “It is better that way,” he said, giving me a sombre look.

  I nodded, but all the horror of civil war lay heavy in my heart and I thought of my many friends in Tryon who would wear the scarlet coat tomorrow, and whom I now must try to murder with my proper hands, lest they do the like for me.

  Around us, where we were standing, a golden dusk reigned in the forest, into which, through the roof of green above, fell a long sunbeam, lighting the wooded aisle as a single candle on the altar gleams athwart the gloom of some still cathedral.

  At five o’clock Godfrey and I had not moved from that silent place where we stood on watch, leaning upon our rifles.

  Twice soldiers came to bid us keep close guard in these open woods which, being primeval, were clear of underbrush and deep with the brown carpet of dead leaves.

  At last, toward six o’clock, we heard our drums rolling in the distance — signal to scout forward. I ran out among the great trees and started on toward Johnstown, keeping Godfrey in view on my left hand.

  Very soon I came out of the forest on the edge of cleared land. Against the evening sky I saw the spires of Johnstown, stained crimson in the westering sun which was going down red as a cherry.

  But what held me in spell was the sight that met my eyes across the open meadows, where moving ranks of musket-barrels glanced redly in the last gleam of sunset and the naked swords and gorgets of mounted officers glittered.

  Godfrey Shew emerged from the edge of the forest on my left and stood knee deep in last year’s wild grass, one hand shading his eyes.

  “What troops are those?” I shouted to him. “They look like the Continental Line!”

  “It’s a reg’lar rig’ment,” he bawled, “but whose I know not!”

  The clanking of their armament came clearly to my ears; the timing tap of their drum sounded nearer still.

  “There can be no mistake,” I called out to Godfrey; “yonder marches a regiment of the New York line! We’re at war!”

  We moved out across the pasture. I examined my flint and priming, and, finding all tight and bright, waded forward waist high, through last year’s ghostly golden-rod, ready for a quick shot if necessary.

  The sun had gone down; a lilac-tinted dusk veiled the fields, through which the gay evening chirruping of the robins rang incessantly.

  “There go our people!” shouted Godfrey.

  I had already caught sight of the Fonda’s Bush Company filing between some cattle-bars to the left of us; and knew they must be making straight for Johnson Hall.

  We shouldered our pieces and ran through the dead weeds to intercept them; but there was no need for haste, because they halted presently in some disorder; and I saw Joe Scott walking to and fro along the files, gesticulating.

  And then, as Godfrey and I came up with them, we witnessed the first shameful exhibition of disorder that for so many months disgraced the militia of New York — a stupidity partly cowardly, partly treacherous, which at one time so incensed His Excellency the Virginian that he said they were, as a body, more detrimental than helpful to the cause, and proposed to disband them.

  In the light of later events, I now realize that their apparent poltroonery arose not from individual cowardice. But these levies had no faith in their companies because every battalion was still full of Tories, nor had any regiment yet been purged.

  Also, they had no confidence in their officers, who, for the greater part, were as inexperienced as they themselves. And I think it was because of these things that the New York militia behaved so contemptibly after the battle of Long Island, and in Tryon County, until the terrific trial by fire at Oriskany had burnt the dross out of us and left only the nobler metal.

  Our Fonda’s Bush Company presented a most mortifying spectacle as Godfrey and I came up. Joe Scott stood facing the slovenly single rank which he had contrived to parade in the gathering dusk; and he was arguing with the men while they talked back loudly.

  There was a hubbub of voices, angry arguments, some laughter which sounded more sinister to me than the cursing.

  Then Charlie Cady and John Howell of Sacandaga left the ranks, refusing to listen to Scott, and withdrew a little distance, where they stood sullenly in their defiance.

  Elias Cady called out that he would not march to the Hall to take Sir John, and he, also, left the ranks.

  Then, and despite Joe Scott’s pleading, Phil Helmer and his sullen son, John, walked away and joined the Cadys, and called on Andrew Bowman to do the like.

  Dries wavered; but Baltus Weed and Eugene Grinnis left the company.

  Which so enraged me that I, also, forgot all discipline and duty, and shook my rifles at the mutineers.

  “You Tory dogs!” I said, “we’re well purged of you, and I for one thank God that we now know you for what you are!”

  Godfrey, a stark, fierce figure in his blackened buckskins, went out in front of our single rank and called to the malcontents:

  “Pull foot, you swine, or I’ll mark you!”

  And, “Pull foot!” shouted Nick Stoner, “and be damned to you! Why do you loiter! Do you wait for a volley in your guts!”

  At that, Balty Weed turned and ran toward the woods; but the others moved more slowly and sullenly, not exactly menacing us with their rifles, but carrying them conveniently across the hollow of their left arms.

  In the increasing darkness I heard somebody sob, and saw Joe Scott
standing with one hand across his eyes, as though to close from his sight such a scene of deep disgrace.

  Then I went to him. I was trembling and could scarce command my voice, but gave him a salute and stood at attention until he finally noticed me.

  “Well, John,” said he, “this is like to be the death of me.”

  “Sir; will you order the drums to beat a march?”

  “Do you think the men will march?”

  “Yes, sir — what remains of them.”

  He came slowly back, motioning what was left of the company to close up. I could not hear what he said, but the men began to count off, and their voices were resolute enough to hearten all.

  So presently Nick Stoner, who acted as fife-major, blew lustily into his fife, playing the marching tune, which is called “The Little Red Foot”; and the drums beat it; and we marched in column of fours to take Sir John at his ancestral Hall, if it chanced to be God’s will.

  CHAPTER IX

  STOLE AWAY

  Johnson Hall was a blaze of light with candles in every window, and great lanterns flaring from both stone forts which flanked the Hall, and along the new palisades which Sir John had built recently for his defense.

  All gates and doors stood wide open, and officers in Continental uniform and in the uniform of the Palatine Regiment, were passing in and out with a great clanking of swords and spurs.

  Everywhere companies of regular infantry from Colonel Dayton’s regiment of the New York Line were making camp, and I saw their baggage waggons drive up from the town below and go into park to the east of the Hall, where cattle were lying in the new grass.

  An officer of the Palatine Regiment carrying a torch came up to Joe Scott, where our little company stood at ease along the hedge fence.

  “What troops are these, sir?” he inquired, indicating us with a nervous gesture.

  And when he was informed:

  “Oho!” said he, “there should be material for rangers among your farmer-militia. Pick me two men for Colonel Dayton who live by rifle and trap and who know the wilderness from Albany to the Lakes.”