Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

“None. And but a meagre one at Johnstown. It seems we need troops everywhere and have none to send anywhere. They’ve even taken your scout and your Oneidas.”

  “What!” I exclaimed.

  “They left a week ago, John, to work on the new fort which is being fashioned out of old Fort Stanwix. So Dayton sends your scout thither to play with pick and mattock, and your Oneidas to prowl along Wood Creek and guard the batteaux.”

  “You tell me that the Sacandaga is left destitute of garrison or scouts!” I asked angrily. “And Tryon crawling alive with Tories! — and the Cadys and Helmers and Bowmans and Reeds and Butlers and Hares and Stephen Watts stirring the disloyal to violence in every settlement betwixt Schenectady and Ballston!”

  “I tell you we are too few for all our need, John, — too few to watch all places threatened. Schuyler has but one regiment of Continentals now. Gates commands at Crown Point and draws to him all available men. His Excellency is pressed for men in the South, too. Albany is almost defenceless, Schenectady practically unguarded, and only a handful of our people guard Johnstown.”

  “Where are the militia?” I demanded.

  “Farming — save when the district call sends a regiment on guard or to work on the forts. But Herkimer has them in hand against a crisis, and I have no doubt that those Palatines will turn out to a man if Sir John comes hither with his murderous hordes.”

  I sat in silence, picking the bones of my pigeon. Nick said:

  “Colonel Dayton came in here and looked at you. And when he left he said to me that you had proven a valuable scout; and that, if you survived, he desired you to remain here at the Summer House with me and with your Saguenay.”

  “For what purpose?” I demanded, sullenly.

  “On observation.”

  “A scout of three! To cover the Sacandaga! Do they think we have wings? Or are a company of tree-cats with nine lives apiece?”

  “Well,” said Nick, scratching his ear in perplexity, “I know not what our colonels and our generals are thinking; but the soldiers are gone, and our doctor has now departed, so if Dayton leaves us four people alone here in the Summer House it must be because there is nothing for the present to apprehend, either from Sir John or from any Indian or Tory marauders.”

  “Four people?” I repeated. “I thought you said we were but three here.”

  “Why,” said he, “I mean that we are three men — three rifles!”

  “Is there a servant woman, also?”

  He looked at me oddly.

  “The Caughnawaga girl came back.”

  “What!”

  “The Scottish girl, Penelope.”

  “Came back! When?”

  “Oh, that was long ago — after the flag left.... It seems she had meant to travel only to Mayfield with them.... She had not said so to anybody. But in the dark o’ dawn she rides in on your mare, Kaya, having travelled all night long.”

  “‘Why,’ says I, ‘what do you here on John Drogue’s horse in the dark o’ dawn?’

  “‘If there’s danger,’ says she calmly, ‘this sick man should have a horse to carry him to Mayfield fort.’

  “Which was true enough; and I said so, and stabled your mare where Lady Johnson’s horses had left a warm and empty manger.”

  “Well,” said I harshly, as he remained silent.

  “Lord, Jack, that is all I know. She has cooked for you since, and has kept this house in order, washed dishes, fed the chickens and ducks and pig, groomed your horse, hoed the garden, sewed bandages, picked lint, knitted stockings and soldiers’ vests — —”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “I asked her that, John. And she answered that there was nobody here to care for a sick man’s comfort, and that Dr. Thatcher had told her you would die if they moved you to Johnstown hospital.

  “I thought she’d become frightened and leave when the Continentals marched out; they all came — the officers — where she sat a-knitting by the apple-tree; but she only laughed at their importunities, made light of any dangers to be apprehended, and refused a seat on their camp wagon. And it pleased me, John, to see how doleful and crestfallen were some among those same young blue-and-buffs when they were obliged to ride away that morning and leave here there a-sewing up your shirt where Balty’s bullet had rent it.”

  A slight thrill shot me through. But it died cold. And I thought of Steve Watts, and of her in his embrace under the lilacs.

  If she now remained here it was for no reason concerning me. It was because she thought her lover might return some night and take her in his arms again. That was the reason.

  And with this miserable conclusion, a more dreadful doubt seized me. What of the loyalty of a girl whose lover is a King’s man?

  I remembered how, in the blossoming orchard, she had whispered to me that she was a friend to liberty.

  Was that to be believed of a maid whose lover came into our camp a spy?

  I lay back on my pillow and closed my eyes. What was this girl to me that I should care one way or the other?

  Nick took my platter and went away, leaving me to sleep as I seemed to desire it.

  But I had no desire to sleep. And as I lay there, I became sensible that my entire and battered body was almost imperceptibly a-tremble.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE DEMON

  I think that summer was the strangest ever I have lived, — the most unreal days of life, — so still, so golden, so strangely calm the solitude that ringed me where I was slowly healing of my hurt.

  Each dawn was heralded by gold fire, each evening by a rosy conflagration in the west. It rained only at night; and all that crystal clear mid-summer scarcely a shred of fleece dappled the empyrean.

  Those winds which blow so frequently in our Northland seemed to have become zephyrs, too; and there was but a reedy breeze along the Vlaie Water, and scarce a ripple to rock the lily pads in shallow reach and cove.

  It was strange. And, only for the loveliness of night and day, there might have seemed in this hushed tranquillity around me a sort of hidden menace.

  For all around about was war, where Tryon County lay so peacefully in the sunshine, ringed within the outer tumult, and walled on all sides by battle smoke.

  Above us our fever-stricken Northern army, driven from Crown Point, now lay and sickened at Ticonderoga, where General Gates did now command our people, while poor Arnold, turned ship’s carpenter, laboured to match Guy Carleton’s flotilla which the British were dragging piecemeal over Chambly Rapids to blow us out o’ the lake.

  From south of us came news of the Long Island disaster where His Excellency, driven from Brooklyn and New York, now lay along the Harlem Heights.

  And it was a sorry business; for Billy Alexander, who is Lord Stirling, was taken a prisoner; and Sullivan also was taken; and their two brigades were practically destroyed.

  But worse happened at New York City, where the New York militia ran and two New England brigades, seized with panic, fled in a shameful manner. And so out o’ town our people pulled foot, riotous and disorderly in retreat, and losing all our heavy guns, nearly all our stores, and more than three hundred prisoners.

  This was the news I had of the Long Island battle, where I lay in convalescence at Summer House that strange, still summer in the North.

  And I thought very bitterly of what advantage was it that we had but just rung bells and fired off our cannon to salute our new Declaration of Independence, and had upset the prancing leaden King from his pedestal on the Bowling Green, if our militia ran like rabbits at sight of the red-coats, and general officers like Lord Stirling were mouse-trapped in their first battle.

  Alas for poor New York, where fire and explosion had laid a third of the city in ruins; where the drums of the red-coats now rolled brazenly along the Broadway; where Delancy’s horsemen scoured the island for friends to liberty; where that great wretch, Loring, lorded it like an unclean devil of the pit.

  God! to think on it when all had gone so well; and Boston cle
an o’ red-coats, and Canada all but in our grasp; and old Charleston shaking with her dauntless cannonade, and our people’s volleys pouring into Dunmore’s hirelings through the levelled cinders of Norfolk town!

  What was the matter with us that these Southern gentlemen stood the British fire while, if we faced it, we crumpled and gave ground; or, if we shunned it, we ran disgracefully? Save only at Boston had we driven the red-coats on land. The British flame had scorched us on Long Island, singed us in New York, blasted us at Falmouth and Quebec, and left our armies writhing in the ashes from Montreal to Norfolk.

  And yet how tranquil, how fair, how ominously calm lay our Valley Land in the sunshine, ringed here by our blue mountains where no slightest cloud brooded in an unstained sky!

  And more still, more strange even than the untroubled calm of Tryon, lay the Summer House in its sunlit, soundless, and green desolation.

  Where, through the long days, nothing moved on the waste of waters save where a sun-burnished reed twinkled. Where, under star-powdered skies, no wind stirred; and only the vague far cry of some wandering wild thing ever disturbed that vast and velvet silence.

  Long before she came near me to speak to me, and even before she had glanced at me from the west porch, whither she took her knitting in the afternoons, I had seen Penelope.

  From where I lay on my trundle in Sir William’s old gun-room I could see out across the hallway and through the door, where the west veranda ran.

  In the mornings either my Indian, Yellow-Leaf, or Nick Stoner mounted guard there, watching the green and watery wastes to the northward, while his comrade freshened my sheets and pillows and cleansed my room.

  In the afternoons one o’ them went a-fishing or prowling after meat for our larder, or, sometimes, Nick went a-horse to Mayfield on observation, or to Johnstown for news or a bag of flour. And t’other watched from the veranda roof, which was railed, and ran all around the house, so that a man might walk post there and face all points of the compass.

  As for Penelope, I soon learned her routine; for in the morning she was in the kitchen and about the house — save only she came not to my room — but swept and dusted the rest, and cooked in the cellar-kitchen.

  Sometimes I could see her in apron and pink print, drawing water from the orchard well, and her skirt tucked up against the dew.

  Sometimes I saw her early in the garden, where greens grew and beans and peas; or sometimes she hoed weeds where potatoes and early corn stood in rows along a small strip planted between orchard and posy-bed.

  And sometimes I could see her a-milking our three Jersey cows, or, with a sickle, cutting green fodder for my mare, Kaya, whose dainty hoofs I often heard stamping the barn floor.

  But after the dinner hour, and when the long, still afternoons lay listlessly betwixt mid-summer sun and the pale, cool dusk, she came from her chamber all freshened like a faint, sweet breeze in her rustling petticoat of sheer, sprigged stuff, to seat herself on the west veranda with her knitting.

  Day after day I lay on my trundle where I could see her. She never noticed me, though by turning her head she could have seen me where I lay.

  I do not now remember clearly what was my state of mind except that a dull bitterness reigned there.

  Which was, of course, against all common sense and decent reason.

  I had no claim upon this girl. I had kissed her — through no fault of hers, and by no warrant and no encouragement from her to so conduct in her regard.

  I had kissed her once. But other men had done that perhaps with no more warrant. And I, though convinced that the girl knew not how to parry such surprises, brooded sullenly upon mine own indiscretion with her; and pondered upon the possible behaviour of other men with her. And I silently damned their impudence, and her own imprudence which seemed to have taught her little in regard to men.

  But in my mind the chiefest and most sullen trouble lay in what I had seen under the lilacs that night in June.

  And when I closed my eyes I seemed to see her in Steve Watts’ arms, and the lad’s ardent embrace of her throat and hair, and the flushed passion marring his youthful face ——

  I often lay there, my eyes on her where I could see her through the door, knitting, and strove to remember how I had first heard her name spoken, and how at that last supper at the Hall her name was spoken and her beauty praised by such dissolute young gallants as Steve Watts and Lieutenant Hare; and how even Sir John had blurted out, in his cups, enough to betray an idle dalliance with this yellow-haired girl, and sufficient to affront his wife and his brother-in-law, and to disgust me.

  And Nick had said that men swarmed about her like forest-flies around a pan o’ syrup!

  And all this, too, before ever I had laid eyes upon this slim and silent girl who now sat out yonder within my sullen vision, knitting or winding her wool in silence.

  What, then, could be the sentiments of any honest man concerning her? What, when I considered these things, were my own sentiments in her regard?

  And though report seemed clear, and what I had witnessed plainer still, I seemed to be unable to come to any conclusion as to my true sentiments in this business, or why, indeed, it was any business of mine, and why I concerned myself at all.

  Men found her young and soft and inexperienced; and so stole from her the kiss that heaven sent them.

  And Steve Watts, at least, was more wildly enamoured.... And, no doubt, that reckless flame had not left her entirely cold.... Else how could she have strolled away to meet him that same night when her lips must still have felt the touch of mine?... And how endured his passion there in the starlight?... And if she truly were a loyal friend to liberty, how in God’s name give secret tryst and countenance to a spy?

  One morning, when Nick had bathed me, I made him dress me in forest leather. Lord, but I was weak o’ the feet, and light in head as a blown egg-shell!

  Thus, dressed, I lay all morning on my trundle, and there, seated on the edge, was given my noon dinner.

  But I had no mind, now, to undress and rest. I desired to go to the veranda, and did fume and curse and bully poor Nick until he picked me up and carried me thither and did seat me within a large and cushioned Windsor chair.

  Then, madded, he went away to fish for a silver pike in our canoe, saying with much viciousness that I might shout my throat raw and perish there ere he would stir a foot to put me to bed again.

  So I watched him go down to the shore where the canoe lay, lift in rod and line and paddle, and take water in high dudgeon.

  “Even an ass knows when he’s sick!” he called out to me. But I laughed at him and saw his broad paddle stab the water, and the birchen craft shoot out among the reeds.

  Now it was in my thoughts to see how Mistress Penelope would choose to conduct, who had so long and so tranquilly ignored me.

  For here was I established upon the spot where she had been accustomed to sit through the long afternoons ... and think on Steve Watts, no doubt!...

  Comes Mistress Penelope in sprigged gown of lavender, and smelling fresh of the herb itself or of some faint freshness.

  I rested both hands upon the arms of my Windsor chair and so managed to stand erect.

  She turned rosy to her ear-tips at the sudden encounter, but her voice was self-possessed and in nowise altered when she greeted me.

  I offered my hand; she extended hers and I saluted it.

  Then she seated herself at leisure in her Windsor reading-chair, laid her basket of wool-skeins upon the polished book-rest, and calmly fell to knitting.

  “So, you are mending fast, sir,” says she; and her smooth little fingers travelling steadily with her shining needles, and her dark eyes intent on both.

  “Oh, for that,” said I, “I am well enough, and shall soon be strong to strap war-belt and sling pack and sack.... Are you in health, Mistress Pen?”

  She expressed thanks for the civil inquiry. And knitted on and on. And silence fell between us.

  If it was then that I firs
t began to fear I was in love with her, I do not surely remember now. For if such a doubt assailed me, then instantly my mind resented so unwelcome a notion. And not only was there no pleasure in the thought, but it stirred in me a kind of breathless anger which seemed to have long slumbered in its own ashes within me and now gave out a dull heat.

  “Have you news of Lady Johnson and of Mistress Swift?” I asked at last.

  She lifted her eyes in surprise.

  “No, sir. How should news come to us here?”

  “I thought there might be channels of communication.”

  “I know of none, sir. York is far, and the Canadas are farther still. No runners have come to Summer House.”

  “Still,” said I, “communication was possible when I got my hurt last June.”

  “Sir?”

  “Is that not true?”

  She looked at me in troubled silence.

  “Did not Lady Johnson’s brother come here in secret to give her news, and take as much away?”

  She did not answer.

  “Once,” said I, “although I had not asked, you told me that you were a friend to liberty.”

  “And am so,” said she.

  “And have a Tory lover.”

  At that her face flamed and her wool dropped into her lap. She did not look at me but sat with gaze ahead of her as though considering.

  At last: “Do you mean Captain Watts?” she asked.

  “Yes, I mean him.”

  “He is not my lover.”

  “I ask your pardon. The inference was as natural as my error.”

  “Sir?”

  “Appearances,” said I, “are proverbially deceitful. Instead of saying ‘your lover,’ I should, perhaps, have said ‘one of your lovers.’ And so again ask pardon.”

  “Are you my lover, sir?”

  “I?” said I, taken aback at the direct shot so unexpected.

  “Yes, you, my lord. Are you one of my lovers?”

  “I think not. Why do you ask me that which never could be a question that yes or no need answer?”

  “I thought perhaps you might deem yourself my lover.”

  “Why?”