Then the thought of my own helplessness went through me like a spear, and I groaned, — not meaning to, — and turned over on my pillow.... And presently felt her hand lightly on my shoulder.
“Is it pain?” she asked softly.
“No, only the weariness of life,” I muttered.
She was silent, but presently her hand smoothed back my hair, and passed in a sort of gentle rhythm across my forehead and my hair.
“If I lie here long enough,” said I bitterly, “I may have to beg a crust of you. So get you to your sewing and see that you earn enough against a beggared cripple’s need.”
“You mock me,” she said in a low voice.
“Why, no,” said I. “If I am to remain crippled my funds will dwindle and go, and one day I shall sit in the sun like any poor old soldier, with palm lifted for alms — —”
“I beg — I beg you — —” she stammered; and her hand closed on my lips as though to stifle the perverse humour.
“Would you offer me charity if I remain crippled?” I managed to say.
“Hush. You sadden me.”
“Would you aid me?” I insisted.
She drew a long, deep breath but made no answer.
“Tell me,” I repeated, taking her by the hand, “would you aid me, Penelope Grant?”
“Why do you ask?” she protested. “You know I would.”
“And yet,” said I, “although I am in funds, you refuse aid and choose rather to play the tailoress! Is that fair?”
“But — I am nothing to you — —”
“Are you not? And am I then more to you than are you to me, that you would aid me in necessity?”
She drew her hand from mine and went back to her chair.
“That is my fate,” said she, smiling at me. “I was born to give, not to receive. I can not take; I can not refuse to give.”
“Yes,” said I, “you even gave me your lips once.”
She blushed vividly, her eyes hard on her sewing.
“I shall not do the like again,” said she, all rosy to the roots of her gold hair.
“And why, pray?”
“Because I know better now.”
After a silence I turned me on my pillow and sighed heavily.
“John?” she inquired in gentle anxiety, “are you in great pain?”
I groaned.
She came to me again and laid her cool, soft hand on my head; and I caught it in both of mine and drew her down to me.
“I am a cripple and a beggar for your kindness, Penelope,” I said. “I ask alms of you. Will you kiss me?”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “you have deceived me! Let me go! Loose me instantly!”
“Will you kiss me out of that charity which you say you practice?”
“That is not charity! — —”
“What is begged for is charity. And you say you are made to give.”
“But you taught me otherwise! And now you undo your own schooling! — —”
“But I owe it you — this kiss!”
“How do you owe it me?”
“You kissed me in the snow, and left me in your debt.”
“Oh, goodness! That frolic! Have you not long ago forgotten our winter madness — —”
“Like you,” said I, “I must pay my just debts and owe nobody.” And I drew her nearer, all flushed with protest, firm to escape, yet gentle in her supple, pretty way lest she hurt me.
I laughed, and saw my gaiety reflected in her eyes an instant.
Then, of a sudden, she put one arm around my neck and rested her lips on mine. And so I kissed her, and she suffered it, resting so against me with lowered eyes.
The flower-sweetness of her mouth bewildered me, and I was confused by it and by the stifled tumult of my heart, so that I scarce had sense enough to detain her when she drew away.
She sat at my side, the faint smile still stamped on her lips, but her brown eyes seemed a little frightened, and her breast rose and fell like a scared bird’s under the snowy kerchief.
“Well — and well,” says she in her pretty, breathless way— “I am overpaid, I think, and you are now acquitted of your debt. And so — and so our folly ends ... and now is finally ended.”
She took her sewing. A golden light was in the room; and she seemed to me the loveliest thing I had ever looked upon. I realized it. I knew she was loveliest of all. And the swift knowledge seemed to choke me.
After a little while she stole a look at me, met my eyes, laughed guiltily.
“You!” said she, “a schoolmaster! You teach me one thing and would have me practice another. What confidence can I entertain for such wisdom as is yours, John Drogue?”
“Rules,” said I, “are made to be proven by their more interesting exceptions. However, in future you are to endure no kiss and no caress — unless from me.”
“Oh. Is that the new lesson I am to learn and understand?”
“That is the lesson. Will you remember it when I am gone?”
“Gone?”
“Yes. When I am gone away on duty. Will you remember, Penelope?”
“I am like to,” she said under her breath, and sewing rapidly.
She stitched on in silence for a while; but now the light was dimming and she moved nearer the window, which was close by my bed head.
After a while her hands dropped in her lap; she looked out into the twilight. I took her tired little hand in mine, but she did not turn her head.
“I have,” said I, “two thousand pounds sterling at my solicitor’s in Albany. I wish you to have it if any accident happens to me.... And my glebe in Fonda’s Bush.... I shall so write it in my will.”
She shook her head slightly, still gazing from the window.
“Will you accept?” I asked.
“What good would it do me? If I accept it I should only divide it among the needy — in memory of — of my dear boy friend — Jack Drogue — —”
She rose hastily and walked to the door, then very slowly retraced her steps to my bedside.
“You are so kind to me,” she murmured, touching my forehead.
“You are so different to other men, — so truly gallant in your boy’s soul. There is no evil in you, — no ruthlessness. Oh, I know — I know — more than I seem to know — of men.... And their importunities.... And of their wilful selfishness.”
I sat up straight. “Has any man made you unhappy?” I demanded in angry surprise.
She seated herself and looked at me gravely.
“Do you know,” she said, “men have courted me always — even when I was scarce more than a child? And mine is a friendly heart, Mr. Drogue. I have a half shy desire to please. I am loath to inflict pain. But always my kindness seems like to cost me more than I choose to pay.”
“Pay to whom?”
“To any man.... For example, I would not elope with Stephen Watts when he begged me at Caughnawaga. And Walter Butler addressed me also — in secret — being a friend of the Fondas and so free of the house.... And was ever stealthily importuning me to a stolen rendezvous which I had sense enough to refuse, knowing him to be both married and a rake, and cruel to women.
“Oh, I tell you that they all courted me, — not kindly, — for ever there seemed to me in their ardent gaze and discreet whisperings something vaguely sinister. Not that it frightened me, nor did I take alarm, being too ignorant — —”
She folded her hands and looked down at them.
“I like men.... I cared most for Stephen Watts.... Then one day I had a great fright.... Shall I tell it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, Sir John’s gallantries neither pleased nor flattered me from the first. But he was very cautious what he said and did in Douw Fonda’s house, and never spoke to me save coldly when others were present, or when he was alone with us and Mr. Fonda was awake and not dozing in his great chair.... Well, there came a day when Mr. Fonda went to the house of Captain Fonda, and I was alone in the house....
“And Sir John
came.... Shall I tell it?”
“Tell it, Penelope.”
“I’ve had it long in my mind. I wished to ask you if it lessened me in your esteem.... For Sir John was drunk, and, finding me alone, he conducted roughly — and followed me and locked us in my chamber.... I was horribly afraid.... I had never struck any living being before. But I beat his red face with my hands until he became confused and stupid — and there was blood on him and on me.... And my kerchief was torn off and my hair all tangled.... I beat him till he dropped my door key, and so unlocked my door and returned again to him, silent and flaming, and drove him with blows out o’ my chamber and out of the house — all over blood as he was, and stupid and drunk.... His negro man got him on his horse and rode off, holding him on.
“And none knew — none know, save Sir John and you and I.”
After a silence I said in a controlled voice: “If Sir John comes this way I shall hope not to miss him.... I shall pray God not to miss this — gentleman.”
“Do you think meanly of me that he used me so?”
I did not answer.
“I have told you all,” she said timidly. “I am still honest. If I were not I would not have let you touch my lips.”
“Why not?”
“For both our sakes.... I would not do you any evil.”
I said impatiently: “No need to tell me you never had a lover. I never believed it of you from the day I saw you first. And, God willing, I mean to stop a mouth or two in Tryon, war or no war — —”
“John Drogue!” she exclaimed in consternation— “you shall seek no quarrel on my account! Swear to me!”
But I made no reply. Whatever the quarrel, I knew now it was to be on my own account; for whether or no I was falling in love with this girl, Penelope Grant, I realized at all events that I would suffer no other man to interfere, however he conducted, and should hold any man to stern account who would make of this girl a toy and plaything.
And so, all hotly resolved on that point; sore, also, at the knowledge of Sir John’s baseness which seemed to touch my proper honour; and swifter, too, with tenderness in my heart to reassure her, I did exactly that for which I was now prepared to cut the throats of various other gentlemen — I drew her into my arms and held her close, body and lips imprisoned.
She sought her chair and sat there silent and subdued until a maid-servant brought lights and my supper.
In the candle light she ventured to look at me and laugh.
“Such schooling” says she. “I never knew before that there was such a personage as a sweetheart pro tem! But you seem to know the rôle by heart, Mr. Drogue. And so, no doubt, feel warranted to instruct others. But this is the end of it, my friend. For one day you shall have to confess you to your wife! And I think my future Lady Northesk is like to have a pretty temper and will give you a mauvais quart d’heur when she hears of this May day’s folly in a Johnstown public house!”
CHAPTER XXVI
ORDERS
In June I was out o’ bed and managed to set foot on ground for the first time since early spring. By the end of the month I had my strength in a measure and was able to hobble about town. Pernicious rheumatism is no light matter, for with the agony, — and weakness afterward, — a dull despair settles upon the victim; and it was mind, not body, that caused me the deeper distress, I think.
Life seemed useless; effort hopeless. Dark apprehensions obsessed me; I despaired of my country, of my people, of myself. And this all was part of my malady, but I did not know it.
All through June and July an oppressive summer heat brooded over Tryon. Save for thunder storms of unusual violence, the heat remained unbroken day and night. In the hot and blinding blue of heaven, a fierce sun blazed; at night the very moon looked sickly with the heat.
Never had I heard so many various voices of the night, nor so noisy a tumult after dark, where the hylas trilled an almost deafening chorus and the big frogs’ stringy croaking never ceased, and a myriad confusion of insects chirred and creaked and hummed in the suffocating dark.
At dawn the birds’ outburst was like the loud outrush of a torrent filling the waking world; at twilight scores of unseen whippoorwills put on their shoes and shouted in whistling whisper voices to one another across the wastes of night like the False Faces gathering at a secret tryst.
If the whole Northland languished, drooping and drowsy in the heat, the very air, too, seemed heavy with the foreboding gloom of dreadful rumours.
Every day came ominous tidings from North, from West, from South of great forces uniting to march hither and crush us. And the terrible imminence of catastrophe, far from arousing and nerving us for the desperate event, seemed rather to confuse and daze our people, and finally to stupefy all, as though the horror of the immense and hellish menace were beyond human comprehension.
Men laboured on the meagre defences of the county as though weighted by a nightmare — as though drowsing awake and not believing in their ghostly dream.
And all preparation went slow — fearfully slow — and it was like dragging a mass of chained men, whose minds had been drugged, to drive the militia to the drill ground or force the labourers to the unfinished parapets of our few and scattered forts.
Men still talked of the Sacandaga Block House as though there were such a refuge; but there was none unless they meant the ruins at Fish House or the unburned sheep-fold at Summer House Point, or the Mayfield defenses.
There remained only one fort of consequence south of the Lakes — Fort Stanwix, now called Schuyler, and that was far from finished, far from properly armed, garrisoned, and provisioned.
Whatever else of defense Tryon County possessed were merest makeshifts — stone farmhouses fortified by ditch, stockade, and bastions; block-houses of wood; nothing more.
Fragments of our two regular regiments were ever shifting garrison — a company here, a battalion there. A few rangers kept the field; a regiment of Herkimer’s militia, from time to time, took its turn at duty; a scout or two of irregulars and Oneida Indians haunted the trail toward Buck Island — which some call Deer Island, and others speak of as Carleton Island, and others still name it Ile-aux-Chevreuil, which is a mistake.
But any name for the damned spot was good enough for me, who had been there in years past, and knew how strong it could be made to defy us and to send out armed hordes to harass us on the Mohawk.
And at that instant, under Colonel Barry St. Leger, the Western flying force of the enemy was being marshalled at Buck Island.
Our scouts brought an account of the forces already there — detachments of the 8th British regulars, the 34th regulars, the regiment of Sir John, called the Royal New Yorkers by some, by others the Greens — (though our scouts told us that their new uniforms were to be scarlet) — the Corps of Chasseurs, a regiment of green-coats known as Butler’s Rangers, a detachment of Royal Artillery, another of Highlanders, and, most sinister of all, Brant’s Iroquois under Thayendanegea himself and a number of young officers of the Indian Department, with Colonel Claus to advise them.
This was the flying force that threatened us from the West, directed by Burgoyne.
From the South we were menaced by the splendid and powerful British army which held New York City, Long Island, and the lower Hudson, and stood ready and equipped to march on a straight road right into Albany, cleaning up the Hudson, shore and stream, on their way hither.
But our most terrible danger threatened us from the North, where General Burgoyne, with a superb army and a half thousand Iroquois savages, had been smashing his way toward us through the forests, seizing the lakes and the vessels and forts defending them, outmanœuvring our General St. Clair; driving him from our fortress of Ticonderoga with loss of all stores and baggage; driving Francis out of Skenesborough and Fort Anne, and destroying both posts; chasing St. Clair out of Castleton and Hubbardton, destroying two-thirds of Warner’s army; driving Schuyler’s undisciplined militia from Fort Edward, toward Saratoga.
Every
day brought rumours or positive news of disasters in our immediate neighbourhood. We knew that St. Leger, Sir John, Walter Butler, and Brant had left Buck Island and that Burgoyne was directing the campaign planned for the most hated army that ever invaded the Northland. And we learned the horrid details of these movements from Thomas Spencer, the Oneida who had just come in from that region, and whose certain account of how matters were swiftly coming to a crisis at last seemed to galvanize our people into action.
I was now, in August, well enough to take the field with a scout, and I applied for active duty and was promised it; but no orders came, and I haunted the Johnstown Fort impatiently, certain that every man who rode express and who went galloping through the town must bring my marching orders.
Precious days succeeded one another; I fretted, fumed, sickened with anxiety, deemed myself forgotten or perhaps disdained.
Then I had a shock when General Herkimer, ignoring me, sent for my Saguenay, but for what purpose I knew not, only that old Block’s loud-voiced son-in-law, Colonel Cox, desired a Montagnais tracker.
The Yellow Leaf came to me with the courier, one Barent Westerfelt, who had brought presents from Colonel Cox; and I had no discretion in the matter, nor would have exercised any if I had.
“Brother,” said I, taking him by both hands, “go freely with this messenger from General Herkimer; because if you were not sorely needed our brother Corlear had not ordered an express to find and fetch you.”
He replied that he made nothing of the presents sent him, but desired to remain with me. I patiently pointed out to him that I was merely a subaltern in the State Rangers and unattached, and that I must await my turn of duty like a good soldier, nor feel aggrieved if fortune called others first.
Still he seemed reluctant, and would not go, and scowled at the express rider and his sack of gew-gaws.
“Brother,” said I, “would you shame me who, as you say, found you a wild beast and have taught you that you are a real man?”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 999